The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 20 – New way of testing story ideas

What if there was a new way in which you could test our your story ideas before committing the time to write a full novel, or even trilogy, only to find out that readers aren't interested?

We've run some experiments over the past month and are here to discuss if this way of testing story ideas is a viable option for authors?

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Read the full transcript below. (Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion).

Autumn (0s):
So if you have a new idea for a complete new story, should you just go ahead and write it straight away or would it somehow be worth it to actually test if readers would be interested in the story idea or not? Well, that's what we are going to talk about in today's session and also if it is worth testing with readers, then how do you do that?

Autumn (39s):
if you are a Fantasy author, then you've come to the right place. My name is Autumn and I are together, we've published more than 20 novels. All our aim is to use are experienced with to help you with writing, marketing and selling your books to fans all over the world.

Jesper (56s):
Okay. Before we get into all of that, uh, let's just do a quick update on what we're working on as we've decided to do a show on these monthly joint sessions and a, as we talked about last month, where you been pretty busy on a few number, are a few different items, haven't we?

Autumn (1m 16s):
Yes, we have some big projects coming up and one of the, we hit a new milestone. So we're both really excited to be at this point with our top secret not so secret world building course that we have been working on for months now.

Jesper (1m 31s):
Yeah, yeah, yes. Yeah. Um, yeah, so well basically we, as we mentioned last time, we were sort of nailing down on our joint process, uh, for our product. So we have a book on our guidebook and how to play in a level and there was a workbook associated to net. And on top of that we have a book on story ideas, which has some of the well congruent with what we are talking about here today I guess.

Jesper (2m 4s):
But we had those three books, um, in a sort of, in the way because we were focusing on getting those done before we could actually put full effort into the world, but the cost. But, uh, now I'm very happy to say that we actually have the first draft of all three of those books done.

Autumn (2m 22s):
So we're really excited. We have some content editor and our editor and actually a couple of bucks covers, but we got one of them done. So we're really moving along with those and our focus is definitely going into the world building, which is perfect because it's really starting to come together and hopefully it will snowball to completion very quickly. Well, quickly as of this year 2019. Yeah. So

Jesper (2m 46s):
I was also doing this or that you couldn't see that, you know, for those on the podcast, I'm doing air quotes quickly because a big, well there is a still a lot, quite a lot of work with the world of course. Um, but now because of those first drafts of those books are being done, uh, a sort of only focusing around the world building course now. So we got to pick up a lot of peace. Um, but there's still months away before, before it's done.

Jesper (3m 15s):
Um, as we talked about before, we are building our own a future world in a, in conjunction with the development of the course. A a sort of example sessions are so that people could see how to apply what we are teaching, which makes a lot of sense. And on top of that that we also want to add a sample outline of our, the first book in our next series, which we have not done yet but the first applied for that we want to include as a download in the plotting books are the people also there and see how we are going about a the plotting and how are we applying what, what the book is teaching.

Jesper (3m 52s):
So that alone also hauls that book back because we need to finish the work in the first and then we've got to put the book and only then can we, you know, make that download available inside the program of when they could be released the book. So its probably gonna I guess we are gonna sort of have a ketchup effect later in 2019 whether you released the three books at one time and also have the cost on all of a sudden everything sort of well contribute factor that point I guess I'm going to say it sounds like we'd made this giant ball of yarn that's all knotted together in tide or a piece of Celtic knot work and everything is interlaced independent on each other.

Autumn (4m 28s):
So what is all released is going to be a big phenomenal and beautiful. But until that I feel like we're just pulling it individual strands that we don't see the whole pattern yet, but we're so close, we're getting there. I'm really excited. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Alright. And our books, that's actually a really good lead in to what we're talking about today of, you know, should you just go and write whatever book idea is in your head, is that the best way of writing books or is there a way of testing the market to see what readers are interested in?

Autumn (5m 2s):
And so that's a fun question and one we have both kind of ponder it in one of our pondering as we look at our current or are you serious that we are going to be Writing. Yeah, it's very interesting actually because it was something that was something autumn brought up actually a while back I think because initially we talked about it quite a long way back about but I'm sort of testing the waters with story ideas and trying to figure out if its, you know if there was a way to yeah, to test out whether or not a story idea is getting in the interest from readers are also, if it's sort of worth investing the time to write a full trilogy for example with a story idea before we're getting into it.

Jesper (5m 44s):
So we talked about it for quite a long way back and then it sort of went on ice for a while because we were doing other things I guess. But now it's, it's starting to become a bit relevant to have that conversation again then is, well especially me as well. I'm very interested because I know autumn have done a bit of testing with some way with this stuff a over the last, well in one sense I guess I'm, and when I started on writing my first a series, I did exactly what I guess like 90% of, of, of what those probably do is I write out what I wanted to write and then I just cross my fingers.

Jesper (6m 20s):
Hopefully the market will like these sorts of books. Uh, but yeah, the question is, is, is that really the best way of doing it? So that's what we are. We sort of explained this topic here. One we've talking to you at the same time. So, uh, so hopefully you will get a lot of this. So, but, or maybe you want to sort of explain a bit what you

Autumn (6m 39s):
sure. And I was gonna say this is, I'm in the middle still of doing this experiment because I did the same thing when I wrote my first trilogy. I had this idea, I just wrote it. And actually then I wrote a different series and I just wrote it and they've done well, but they could be doing better. I look at the market, I know that they could be doing better and my perspective has changed and I'm passionate about writing. This is definitely my passionate. What I want to do is adult, but I'm also much more interested in now as an entrepreneur. I understand the business of writing and I know when you're doing a business you test out products, do you know, do some market testing, make sure that people are actually going to like what your doing and of course there is a couple of ways of doing that and one is like you can see what it is really a popular right now like a game of Thrones and say, Hey, I'm going to write game of Thrones, my version, but by the time I got that done written and how many other people are writing game of Thrones type stories right now you're just going to get this tiny little sliver of the market.

Autumn (7m 35s):
But the other thing to do is to say true to yourself and what you want to write, which is great, but don't go and just write an entire series, don't build an entire series. The best thing to do is to test the market. And that can be done through a couple of means. One is short story, which I've been writing short stories and they're great because they also help with a world building. If your, if you're kind of pantsing your world or your character's on some short story is really our great, phenomenal way of getting a better feel for the world as you actually write it. Instead of writing a list of, you know, or even drawing a map, it gives you more of a perspective, very similar to how the novel will be.

Autumn (8m 13s):
But somewhere in between a short story and a novella. And that's what I am trying. I actually have two story ideas that I think are great, completely different ideas. Um, and I'm releasing two novellas in may and one in June and I'm going to see which one's readers per for before I go and write the entire series. On either of them because I'm at the point where I want to know I'm going to be writing something that not only I enjoy, I mean I just love Writing, but that reader's are really waiting for him going to be receptive to, because I do this for a living and I have to make money right now.

Autumn (8m 46s):
You have to pay the bills and eat. I, I'm not a vampire yet or a tree. I'd actually like to be a tree, but the truth that could, right. So like an end of it has to be an a, that would be a fantastic way to live. So that's what I have written. I did a plot out this series. I have a solid idea of what books one, two, and three would be, but I have only written the first novella and I'm going to give them out. Um, well that goes out. I'm going to be 99 cents and I might do them as a signup, as a free a bank lead in, um, that reader magnet.

Autumn (9m 20s):
But I'm going to give them, you know, a couple of months out there to see which one readers prefer on whichever is the one that I see the most interested in. That's the one I'm going to go ahead and write next and then I'm going to write all three books and release them. Boom, boom, boom. Like we've discussed before in these episodes. So that's a fantastic way of doing it. But I don't know. You can give your ideas. Yes. For us, I mean it, does that sound like a reasonable thing would? My biggest con that I have found, and you can still be a good one for you to think about is I have written two novellas to totally different worlds, two totally different characters.

Autumn (9m 57s):
I've had to take the time to develop characters, developed a world to develop magic systems. Everything we've talked about, everything we talk about in our world building course and I'm writing so far, 45,000 words in one 35,000 words in the other and I might not go any further. And so there is definitely a time constraint there. I mean, I could test out other ideas using the same world but different characters. But it's also not as easy as saying darn it, I'm writing three books and that's what's going to happen.

Jesper (10m 29s):
Yeah, that'd be good because I actually was uh, once a day to rewind it for a second that just to understand, so are you saying that you have like two completely different worlds have to compete your different stories and that, that, and then you write one story though in one of them and another show of throwing another? Is that what you're saying?

Autumn (10m 49s):
I have written short stories in both of them, but um, to really do this market testing, I'm going to actually put them for a sale, not just for download and I'm putting them on Amazon. And so there are actually novellas, ah, the one that's 45,000 words or the other one is 35,000 words, but it's two different, there are two different stories. Totally. One is more urban Fantasy modern, this more set in this world. So that one was pretty easy to develop at the end of a lot of backstory to make it real. And the other one is dark Fantasy and totally different world.

Autumn (11m 19s):
Right? So that went with all of the regular world building you'd have to do. Right.

Jesper (11m 24s):
Because of my thinking would more be like, for example, let's, let's use our own future fiction. Here is an example for now. Uh, but we are building that entire world and Am we've got to write it in that world so it's not like, well then we'll just build a new world after that. But in a new world after that, until some things, you know that we are going to write it in that world. But so my thinking was more like, is that what you need to do with, in this case, I understand that you have two different worlds and all that, but I'm just trying to link it back to uh, to let's say a more efficient way.

Jesper (11m 57s):
So if you have only one world, and then I was just speculating that maybe what you could do would be to right. Two a day or two or three or whatever, how many you want to do with a different story or stories that is all said in that world, but maybe just focus on on sort of some different stories or maybe some different characters or something to see. Then which one sticks the most awkward, which one gets downloaded on that point, the most of it and you know, I was thinking,

Autumn (12m 29s):
I was thinking that would be my caveat is that if something does, if it's this whole world that I've developed doesn't work, that's something that I was thinking if I could try and just, you know, go to different parts of the history, try a different character and find thee, find the aspect that readers, they go, yes, this is what I want to know about and this is what I'm going to, and that once you see that spark, once you see readers really say, yes, I really want to read this. That's when you know you have something that you want to go ahead and write and obviously write as quickly as you can, but it's probably going to be a year from that novella to that trilogy being released.

Autumn (13m 4s):
But that's understandable if they're excited, you're also going to be building readers who are waiting for the rest of the story and that's, that's still very powerful. So you have even that many more people waiting for that release. As I said

Jesper (13m 17s):
in the beginning of this video, we're sort of figuring this one, I know that we've talked to basically you're just to get to a viewer seeing us sort of debating what to do ourselves here. So uh, so that, that sort of a bit behind the scenes as well because I was just thinking as well when you set that, if it's even possible to do, unless you have quite some audience already. I mean in our cases we have some email lists, we can email people, we can ask readers to which one do you prefer? And we can, you know, when we release a short story that we can email them where you can say okay now its ready and they we'll go in and buy it or download it but I'm just thinking gee to be actually be able to judge if one story is better than the other or a sort of entice is read on more than one of the other.

Jesper (14m 5s):
You need enough statistical relevance to be able to actually judge it. You know if if your grandma and your mother downloaded won and your brother or sister download with the other, you know is that it doesn't help it. I mean you leave, you need at least a thousand people reading each of them and to be able to say anything is relevant about whether or not it's, it's, I mean a hundred people is not even enough, which I categorize myself as as pretty savvy and in the apps stuff. But the way I think I would even, I would have a hard time, I think driving enough traffic to just 99 cents.

Jesper (14m 40s):
So a short story too actually to get people to convert to buy if they are just like they have no let's say knowledge of me or us or whatever already. I think it would be difficult.

Autumn (14m 54s):
I think it would be, I agree actually and I thought it that cause you could sit there and turn out a whole bunch of stories and never see any Real just like you know of any real catch because you just don't have the marketing. But this might be a good reason to try KDP select for a 90 day period because I knew get the free offers, tried to do some giveaways with a book funnel, give giveaway something where people sign up for your reader list so that you can then get them, they can have it for free by signing up and then you could say, Hey, and this other one for free.

Autumn (15m 24s):
You then tell me which one you like. Because I mean that's a great way to start building up new new readers as well. Because I've thought about this. My previous books are, I have one that's sort of post-apocalyptic, which kind of fits one of the stories, but the other one I went from Nobel bright Epic Fantasy to I think I'm just a dark phase in my life and everything is dark. It's dark. Fantasy is a very, uh, one of the questions I recently answered on Instagram is, would you survive in your world? I'm like, no, I would die in this world. My first world, the Epic fantasy world.

Autumn (15m 55s):
Oh yeah, I'd be fine. So fun. This one down dead and five days easy. So it's a much darker world. And so will my old audience like it, I'm not sure. So I'm thinking I might need to do some new audience building anyway, so I have thought of that. Or it's like, Hey, sign up, get it for free. I go, Hey, here's the other one for free. Hey, which one do you like? And so there is going to be a lot more talking to people, chasing people, saying, Hey, you know, a little bit of a hustle, but I want to know what people like and hopefully I can get them to interact with me.

Autumn (16m 30s):
I'm actually doing some interactive polls and some contests and stuff like that to get people kind of more excited and more involved in the story and knowing, learning about it very quickly, learning about the world very quickly. And then I can even just see what people, how people are, are they doing the direct poles or are they answering questions and finding out what are the eight Fantasy races they are on the swine are, if they're like Flay are dark Faye and the other one, see how often they're actually following through with some of the other things. And I can take all of that data to see where people are interested.

Autumn (17m 3s):
Hopefully. Hopefully I'll look, you know, in a year would I have the books are written in C for selling.

Jesper (17m 9s):
Yeah. Well, and at the end of the day that the question is fundamentally here is, uh, is it worth to do some market analysis beforehand before you stopped doing all of the, you know, writing a full trilogy, you are releasing it only to figure out that, well nobody's really interested in it in this particular world of the story, you know. But on the other hand, is that worth because well as I said before, I think if you have a good building audience already you can, you can probably get to the stage whereby you can make a conclusion without let's say too much hard work.

Jesper (17m 46s):
But if you don't have that, I think you want for quite some hustling to get to the States where you actually have the input that you need to make a proper a concussion on whether or not people like one story versus the other. A. So for me, I think unless you have the built in audience, I we're, I would say is if you are willing to spend a lot of time and effort on it, then it's great. But it's is it gone the long run a long term situation, is it gonna save your time or just going to spend a lot of time figuring out which one you have to write any way.

Jesper (18m 22s):
So you know, if you see what I mean, if if you write fairly quickly, you know, if you don't take one to two years to write another, sadly, let's say it takes you four months to write a novel. Yeah, you know, 12 months you're going to have the full trilogy done. If you don't have any building audience and you have to run out and you have to collect all the data to figure out which one to ride. And first year I need to write the short story is then you need to do all of the market research. I would think you're probably looking at seven, eight month right there.

Jesper (18m 53s):
And then you could have done the full trilogy in for a month extra and then that started.

Autumn (18m 59s):
Yeah. And that is definitely the catcher that I also think of it from a reader's perspective cause I've done this as I've met other authors and you go to their Amazon page and you see all these like maybe books one or two out of five that are out there. But then there's books one and two and three or a book one in this other trilogy in book two of the gist, all of these half-finished trilogies. And I know as a reader I'm like just finished something. And so you may see an author publish a book, a book one, and they, you know, I, you list out the names that the rest of the books, you know, is that really what you want to see as a reader?

Autumn (19m 34s):
Go or have other readers come to you and say that you have all these book ones and no books to three and four. I don't think that's really what you want to see either. So it is, and I play with that and I have to admit, I probably, I like both of these stories enough. I can see me Writing the whole series in both of them. So it's worth it. So which one do I write next versus which one is going to go into a hopper and I was never going to see the light of day. I don't feel that way about it. But that is the true platform that you know is being billed as a, this is a Writing as a business and this is how you do your research and this is how you know what to write in next and you're going to have ideas that literally get canned and never written.

Autumn (20m 15s):
And that's just so sad to me as a writer or you know, even though I'm kind of straddling the line of, well this is the way you're supposed to do it. And then there's me going, but I just want to write it. I just want to see which one to write next. And I have a feeling you already know which one I'm going to write next. So, why am I doing this other than, you know, I could be in a build up some readers while I'm just to have the novellas out and it will help me though. Give me maybe confidence on which one's going to do better. And I have to admit though, you and I are together have done some market research and that totally a little bit of what I was planning on Writing because by doing the market research I refined and tone down, um, some elements that I would have normally have kept.

Autumn (21m 0s):
So I do think market research has a place and it you should be aware of like what is the top 50 bestselling books and fantasy are your genre right now and allow that to, you know, temper. The idea is that are going in your head because if you really wanna write a best seller, if you really are going to do this for the money, you do have to do some research somehow. If you are a fast writer and you could whip out, you know, if my mother my game and really concentrating, I could easily do an novella in a month that is nothing.

Autumn (21m 30s):
So if I could write two or three novellas, get a feel for the audience, um, with, cause I do have a, you know, a pretty good audience already built up. Say, Hey, which one of these do you like? And then go for that series and get it done in a year and have a very solid platform all the while. I think that's a really good business idea

Jesper (21m 51s):
in principle. I agree. I, for me, I think you need to have the built in the audience otherwise, to be honest, I would, if somebody came and asked me for advice and they did not have a built in audience, I would probably tell them, no, don't do it. Don't do that. Because you've got to spend so much time and effort on it. And honestly, I don't think, well, unless you're willing to release, put the phone. I mean I got to get to go to a proper conclusion. A chances are probably you, your jump to a conclusion the way before you should go and then you are going to end up in the same place.

Jesper (22m 23s):
You wouldn't have ended up anyway. But what I think I would say though is because you mentioned how we've done some market research and whatnot, which was actually part of some of the modules in the world that are in cost. So I would say if you know what you're doing with your wealth building, meaning that that you're also building a world that you know has elements in it that that reader's generally like. Then that is the first step and then the second step, a mountain shamelessly plugging some of the stuff we're doing.

Jesper (22m 53s):
But the second step step is to it. If you know what you're doing with your planning and you can develop the characters based on some, what should I call it, like like generic elements that is also known to invoke reader interests. If you don't have those things working together, I would almost go as far as to say that this story idea is as long as there's not meet on the bone, all of that story idea that they can carry it truly it in for example, but let's assume that that is the case then I would say it probably doesn't really matter if it's the one story of the other one you your writing because if there was a building is based on some market analysis and the plotting is based on what we know readers generally like with characters and plot lines and character arcs and those sorts of things.

Jesper (23m 45s):
You should be safe to be honest. I think.

Autumn (23m 48s):
I think so too though. I think. Let's ask anyone watching or listening that you know, do you want an update as I carry out my experiment that's coming up a, if you do put it in the comments and we will schedule one of our one on one sessions or at least a little update later on. It's like, you know, how my little experiment runs and if I do see some feedback and then if it carries out in a year when I launch the series, if I really do see that maybe my sales have increased and I feel it comes from what does it come from, does it come for the fact that I asked readers which ones they prefer and what with that or because you know, I've been advertising it for a year with a novella.

Autumn (24m 28s):
I don't know. We'll find out. I'm taking notes. Right.

Jesper (24m 32s):
Yeah. But I think that is an excellent idea actually to uh, you know, let us know who you are if you're interested in, in, in, in a later update on how this experiment is going to go. Because right now I would say I am probably on the, on the, let's say I'm just probably sitting with a concussion that is not worth it. Um, to be honest, based on what we talked about and, and, and before entering this, a conversation, actually I haven't made up my mind. So it just happened by, we were talking to you, but based on what we talked about, but I think I've sort of re recent my mind to have to watch that.

Jesper (25m 6s):
I don't think it's worth, but maybe you see it differently or maybe maybe you just, you know, just curious to learn how this tested all of them is doing is growing. And of course maybe a one of them will surprise me and actually tell me that I wasn't idiot and actually we should be doing what she's doing because it makes so much sense. And then of course I will be happy to come on air again and see how it was an idiot. But until then I think it's not worth it.

Autumn (25m 34s):
I will definitely a wrap up by saying it has been a lot of work and the stories have become both very near and dear to my heart, so I couldn't, I could not write one at this point. So I'm going to basically I have the next two years of serious plan. I'm just trying to decide which one to write first and being ironic sometimes as I am. And it'll probably be, the readers will tell me what it would be like that I want it to write this one next and I'll probably do it. I think if I here any flag from my re my readers, it will be because I didn't continue in my elemental fantasy world that was Noah Bright and went to this dark, dark place.

Autumn (26m 8s):
And I'm probably gonna get an email saying, are you okay? I'm like, hang in there and trust me, he's a really good series. Probably bad shit happens but shouldn't have said that to really bad stuff happened but really is a good suit. Just trust me. It's amazing, amazing storyline on both sides. Both the dark. I don't know why I'm just, they're in my life. Everything was fine, I promise.

Jesper (26m 31s):
Awesome. On that note, uh, let us know in the comments section or in the, in the show notes or if you're listening on to the podcast, if you would like an update later on on this one, a day on this topic and we will make sure to a, to come back to it later on. Uh, but, uh, on that note, I think, uh, all those left to say is a, see your next Monday night.