The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast

The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 48 – How to Avoid Info Dumps

You've heard about them. You know they are bad.

But what, exactly, are info dumps, why are they such an issue, and how can you avoid them in your writing?

Autumn and Jesper discuss info dumps, why writers feel the pull to use them, and how to keep them away from your WIP in this week's episode!

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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).

Narrator (2s): You're listening to the amwritingfantasy podcast. In today's publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need in literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing join to best selling authors who have self-published more than 20 books between them. Now onto the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt.

Jesper (31s): Hello, I'm Jesper and I'm autumn. This is episode 48 of the amwritingfantasy podcast, and this episode is all about info dumps. So what is info dumps? Why do you need to avoid them and how do you avoid them? So yeah, that's, that's a lot of stuff to unpack. There it is. It's almost like, um, an info dumps so we'll have to watch that. I didn't even think about that. I don't know how else.

How else would I introduce a podcast episode if I cannot do an infant home? I don't know. I'll let you invent some sort of character and talk about it or something. Yeah, this'll be a fun one to a loop readers into.

Autumn (1m 11s): But Hey, I enjoy the irony of it. Yeah. So what's happening on your side? Autumn Oh, life is crazy. I have in the last month was crazy enough cause I started the month knowing I wanted a change and to get off the road at the beginning of October and not knowing where to go, what to do or where I'd be living or what I'd be doing when I lived there. And at the end of the month I have, I'm actually going to pick up a job again for a little while working in the environmental field, which is where my master's degree is.

So I'm super passionate about saving the planet and Gretta Thornburg is one of my heroines. So I'm really excited to be working again in conservation for a little while at least, and getting my feet wet. And I moved yesterday. Oh, at least as a listening of this, which is, um, you know, we're recording this earlier in November then compared to when we're releasing it. So at the beginning of November, I moved yesterday to Vermont, which as a state I've always wanted to live in.

And it's odd because our cars are registered in Vermont for when we are traveling, cause it's one of the few States where you don't have to live in the state and you can still register your vehicles there and you can do it online. And it's so easy. And I used to joke, people would walk up to us like, Oh, where are you from in Vermont? And I didn't feel explaining all of that to some stranger in a parking lot. I just say proud. Oh borough. And lo and behold, yesterday I moved to Prato bro. So that's sort of like foreshadowing isn't it? It's like karma.

That's what I thought. Okay. This is total foreshadowing. So I moved to this town and I'm really close to downtown and it's got a food co-op, it's got cafes, there is a brewery in walking distance to my house. And it is just fantastic. And also in the midst of all that craziness, um, we decided to sell our truck and camper. So that was a huge change. And by selling it, we had this great offer that we couldn't turn down. It meant I got rid of my reliable travel vehicle.

So I also had to find a car and buy it in two days. Happily. I actually fell in love with a car that was kind of hard to find and I Kevin up on it and went and test drove like a cross track and all these, you know, almost all the cars out right now look the same. They're like a hatchback on an SUV platform. They're identical. I don't care if it's a Nissan, Hyundai, Subaru, they all look the same to me. Ralph for, I test drove them all and they're kinda got lists.

If anyone doesn't know anything about me, I came from a Mustang family. I like sports cars. Okay. I admit it. I used to have a BMW 328 I and when you hit 70 the exhaust opened up to flow through and the suspension settled because of the air dynamics going over it. And you just felt this car's settle in just fly. Not that I ever did. I swear I was so, such a good driver. But yeah, so I do like my sports cars. I was trying to tell myself, I'm in my forties I don't need a sports car.

I just traveled slowly across the entire continent for a hundred thousand miles, you know, 150 200 miles a day. I don't need a sports car. Oh. But I found a WRX Subaru Impreza hatchback. So it's slightly practical. You can put stuff in it. And I'm in love with this car and this car is in love with me. And after finding it on the 31st of October, I bought it the next day. And it's not a new car, it's a 2012 but I love it.

I it's, it just feels like it was meant to be. Yeah. You know you have the excuse that because, because you just explained that, that you have always loved fast cars and stuff like that. So I'll give you that excuse. But you know what you say about men here in Denmark when you sort of get into your forties and you buy sports cars. Oh yeah. Midlife crisis. Yeah. I'll give you, I'll give you that excuse because you actually said that you loved it before that. And so I guess it doesn't apply to you. I think I had a purple mini Cooper, uh, S so sports Mini-Cooper and I think that was my midlife crisis car because it was a purple mini Cooper.

Come on. This is at least black and a little understated and it's a hatchback. I could have actually, my nephew is buying a brand new WRX and he has an a newer one than the one I just bought that it's a sedan. And I could have bought that from him from a really good price and it's in fantastic shape. But I would have forever thought of it as my nephew's WRX and I'd be like freaking out where this one, you know, it's got a few dings, scratches, and you know, it's, it'll be a perfect daily commuter and I'm really excited.

So, yeah, my life crazy. And

Jesper (5m 59s): it's got to settle down eventually, but it's been a crazy, crazy month in a very whirlwind of a week. So hopefully you've been a little bit more steady I think. Yeah. Well, yeah, I guess you could say more steady, but, uh, but of course we also on to, speaking of selling, uh, you know, we are also trying to sell our house, uh, because, uh, I don't remember if I talked about this on the podcast before, but our, our kids goes to school in another city. It's not that far off, but it's far enough that you can't bicycle or anything.

So you do need to drive there and the bus connections are poor in the sense that you need to take the bus to another city to then change to another bus to go to the city where the school is. So it, it takes like an hour commuting if you want to go and it's like 15 kilometers or something. So it's 50 kilometers. Yeah. It takes like 15 minutes in the car. Right. But you just spend an hour on the bus. So the buses out of the question and cycling is also too far for them. So we, now that the kids starting has started to get older, they also, you know, they want to play with their playmates and stuff.

And I understand, uh, but the, the problem is that every time they want to do that, we have to drive back and forth. So on those days, we ended up driving to deliver them to school in the morning, picking them up in the afternoon, or one of them may be, and then the other one will go and play with somebody then driving that guy home and then driving back to that city in the evening to pick up the other one that driving back again. So we've done in like four times in a day and it's, it's, it's really annoying. Yeah. You're at that age where they're more active, but they can't quite legally drives Yannick.

They can't get around themselves. Right. So I don't know, the, the, the older they've gotten, the more annoying it's getting. So we decided to sell the house and move to that city in step. Uh, but then somebody needs to buy this house and there's, at least, so far has not been much activity, but over the last seven days, the house was actually been shown twice to see that potential. Yeah. But it's so weird because then afterwards, of course the real estate agent always calls us and tell us how it went. And in both cases, the people who then came and saw a house then afterwards told the real estate and yeah, well this, this is a, the kids, one of them said that the kitchen was too small and the other one said that the living room was too small.

And I was like talking to my wife and I was like, I don't get it. You know, why are these people, you know, I'm not am, I don't for my Sega, you know, it's up to them if they want to buy a house on that. But I'm more thinking like you're spending your Sunday or Saturday or whatever, driving out to what's a ha or see a house that you might be interested in. But right there on the internet. When you decided to book the viewing, it says how big all the rooms are and there's pictures of everything.

So why are you spending your time going out looking at a house that y'all already know from the pictures? It's too small. I just don't get it. But ah, I dunno. And of course my wife have to do all the cleaning and we need to prepare everything every time before somebody comes. So, and you can see she gets pretty annoyed when they just show up and like, yeah, it's too small. Like yeah, you should have, no, you're not, not before you cave. Unlike me who I've rented this apartment sight unseen based on pictures and that the, the owners who have the lease are just super nice and informative and, and cut us some deals.

So yeah, there's me and then there's, you just need to find someone like me to buy your house. Super like, yeah, I guess so. I like the photo. Yeah, I'll be good. When can you come to Denmark? Done and you get by this house and then we'll buy another one. I will consider that. Okay. Yeah. And I guess apart from bed we could also mention that, um, we finished up the, you have finished up the content review of the plotting book. Oh yeah. It's going to be a great book. I cannot wait.

Yeah, exactly. So basically now we can get into creating the outline for the book, one of our new series, because that's going to be a download downloadable example within the plotting book. So once that is done well we basically write onto editing and publishing. Yes, of course. Driving ourselves crazy cause we have that outlined the book we want to write as well. Yeah. That's one thing at a time. We also have a few causes in the making and all that fun stuff. So one thing at a time.

Narrator (10m 28s): A week on the internet with the amwritingfantasy podcast.

Jesper (10m 35s): Yeah. So I don't know if you noticed this one, uh, but did you see MiFi posted a picture of herself in the amwritingfantasy Facebook group? Did you see that? I might've missed that with all of the moving and driving it. Yeah. Yeah, exactly what it was so cool because she was driving and listening to this podcast and then she posted a picture of herself and set that she was going to a weekend conference. And uh, I dunno, I just love pictures and messages from listeners. So at least I bus bar. Yeah. I think I actually did catch that one cause I remember commenting to my husband ad and that, that is just cool.

It is so neat to see people that, you know saying, Hey, I, I listened to you guys while I was going to a conference. So I did see that one. That was pretty nice. Yeah, I love that. And uh, so, so yeah, please send us more pictures or comments and stuff. We, we loved seeing that. It, it really, I mean if you try to look at it from the podcast producer's point of view here, I mean we were sitting back behind our microphones in isolation and recording some audio and then we also load in somewhere on the side of the world.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. We can't even see each other on the recording either. So it just, it's so awesome when we get a message. Some, you know, people lists from people listening and, and, and whether you like it or not, that's up to you. But you don't, it's not because a am number. I tried to say, you have to tell us that you like the podcast, but it's just cool to notice somebody listening. Right.

Autumn (11m 58s): That's my point. Very cool. Yeah, I mean, yeah, we see the download stats, but individuals are so much more fun to actually hear and talk to, so that's great. We'd love to hear from you. Yeah, I was laughing cause I, I remember, uh, again is eight, but I loved his comments on, um, the little Patrion post I had just done about killing off characters and this perspective. I never really thought about that. He said that, you know, he knew he was going to kill off one, so he had a hard time bonding with the character until he kind of put that aside and really started like, you know, feeling this character out.

I'm like, yeah, I guess that is the alternative as much. You're like really good at Georgia or Marten in just really going in depth of the character, knowing that you're going to ask them in the next chapters. I guess I'm not that hard court either, but it gave me something to think about, which I love. I love it when someone gives me a different perspective and I have to think, well that would be a drawback if I, if I know I'm going to kill someone off life changed my mind about how I develop them or make them just a little bit more annoying.

So maybe the readers don't feel quite as bad or am I going to make them even more awesome so that readers really feel bad, so bad.

Jesper (13m 15s): Yeah. Yeah. Actually I think, well not killing off characters as such, but we are talking a bit in the plotting book about, uh, you know, making sure that readers like the characters and have to do that. So that, that's quite interesting. But, uh, I also think, uh, based on what we just said, we, we basically just mentioned the two places where, where you can interact some more. So those, the amwritingfantasy Facebook group. So if you have not joined that one already, please do you, you know, just search for amwritingfantasy in the Facebook group section and uh, you will find us and uh, you can didn't just request to join and we will let you in or I guess maybe probably most likely our awesome moderator Luke will eat us to is because, um, he, he really helps a lot with managing the group.

So we are, we are very much appreciating that, uh, Lucas, so thanks for that. Uh, and the other place you can, uh, get a closer connection or I'll ask questions and all that stuff is on Patrion so there's a link in the show notes for that. And we actually just before recording this podcast episode, we just came off recording the monthly Q and a session. So if you're joining on the $5 tier level on Patrion, you can actually get access to a exclusive monthly Q and a session.

And you can also ask us questions and we will record some good answers for you

Narrator (14m 39s): and onto today's topic.

Autumn (14m 43s): Info dumping. Yeah, we have to not dump. Info we'll, I'll try to explain what it even is. Yeah, I

Jesper (14m 52s): know that a few different types of year. So for example, you could be talking about backstory and for dumping, uh, you could talk about wealth building, info dumping, and then there's also emotional infidelity thing

Autumn (15m 6s): and where do you put historic? There's often people who want that backstory set us the world building stuff for science. I guess it is, I was thinking about it a little bit differently, but I guess in a way it really is what came before. So that's part of world-building.

Jesper (15m 20s): Yeah, indeed. I mean, but maybe, maybe we should start out by defining what info dump in is and then also just say why is it an issue to do infidelity?

Autumn (15m 32s): Absolutely. I think that is important. I know for you know, I have to go ahead and Google like with the official definition is maybe you'll do that while I'm talking, but to me it's, it's when you're reading and you get to a part that it's not a plot of the novel, it's not action. It suddenly this, you know, it's not just a couple sentences, it's paragraph. Sometimes pages of information that really doesn't do anything to move the story forward. And that is my personal definition of info dumping.

And I'm not sure if it says something different online.

Jesper (16m 8s): Hmm. No, not really. There's just a lot of opinions. Uh, but, but I, I think, um, info dumping. So that's basically where you are. You're selling the reader some information. So this could be something, as I, as I just said, look, you know, character backstory, it could be something to do with the world as such, or some about how a certain kingdom works or a religion or magic system or whatever it may be. Am or it could be, ah, well my emotional stuff, like, uh, how the reader feels about something, but when it's done, as in not in the narrative of the story, but it's just you the writer telling to the reader that, okay, so this kingdom over here works like this and that, or it was actually the soda 200 years ago, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

You know, that sort of thing is info dumping. Where's there's nothing wrong with telling the reader that blah, blah, blah. Happened 200 years ago. If it's because one character is telling it to another character who doesn't know it, then it's absolutely fine and it's not an info dump but it's an infrared on if if it's just you getting it across to the reader because you need to maybe just tell it because you think it's important to the story and maybe it is important to just oil but then it is sort of the mechanism or the the way that you're delivering the information that defines if it's an info dump or not.

Cause that makes sense.

Autumn (17m 37s): That does. I think the telling is really the key thing. You are just giving the reader information without having it be an active part of the plot. The characters not going through it. It's not dialogue and even the dialogue, you have to be careful because if you have the characters saying and in dialogue, but again, it has really no impact on the story or it's just this tiny, you know, it's like almost reading a bedtime story where someone's relating information that you're just like, and they're saying it in a way that is not natural and they're just piling on like a monologue and a superhero's fill.

It doesn't work that way. You don't want a whole monologue of saying, well, you know, you have to remember you, even though you've known this since you were five years old, that this happened 200 years ago and that is why we're doing this now. No, that's still, that's still info dumping. I don't care if it's in dialogue, if the character should know it, they should come across as knowing it. Um, even if it's like, well, you remember or something. Yeah, it's very difficult. But definitely the telling, I think you hit the key aspect there that it's something that goes on for a long time, that it may or may not have something to do with the plot of the novel.

It had, could have some key part of it, but you're just telling it to the reader instead of showing it or having the characters somehow demonstrate it and show it. And that's a huge issue. And why, why, why do you think, why does it bother you? Yes, for sure.

Jesper (19m 2s): Uh, three things. I would say not one, but three things. Why am I not surprised you on the list already? I always have lists. I'm, I'm always, I love making lists and all that, you know, that especially to do lists. No. But okay. Three things. So one, um, info dumps simply stops the forward momentum of the story. So we, it sort of breaks the story and then you're getting this paragraph of 200 years ago in a kingdom far, far away.

And it's like, yeah, okay. But what happened to the fight that was just about to happen? So it just breaks the momentum and that's not good. The other thing is that it removes the Rida from sort of the story world, if we can call it that. So it pulls the reader out of the story and because as soon as you start reading info dumps on a page, you're not immersed in the story anymore. You sort of, as a reader, you're, you're pulling yourself out of it and then you're reading some, some facts stuff, yadda. Okay, I see. I see. Okay. And then you're getting back and trying to get back into the story in it.

And every time you pull the reader out of the story, that's not good. You want to keep them in merge so that they keep just flipping pages and one, see what's happening next. So that's why it's important not to deliver the information as an input on, but as part of the narrative of the story. And then thirdly,

Autumn (20m 22s): yeah, it's just boring. It's a good reason I had to fit. That's, I think that's one of my pet peeves is one that you lose the momentum and the T. V you know, that bond with the reader or the character cause I mean that's why I'm reading a stories. I like the character and usually it has nothing to do with the character or anything that's happening in all those emotions in grand things. It's just facts. And honestly, when I hit, um, if I, if I keep reading the story, you know, the first info John per two, I can probably get through it and I will honestly skipped pages.

I'll keep scanning through it and I don't read the crap anyway. But then if it starts happening too many times, that's it. I just, you know, that's when your to do list comes up and you're like, I really should be doing laundry. Why am I reading this right now? I'm not enjoying it anymore. Away he goes the book and off I end up doing other things, walking the dog because I remembered I didn't walk the dog today. So yeah, that's, it's a big issue. If you have too many of these things, readers will one skip it. So if they're not getting the information anyway and two, they might just be close in the novel and goodness knows of you, they closed the novel on something that wasn't exciting, they might not ever come back to it.

That's a big problem.

Jesper (21m 40s): Yeah, absolutely. And so the question is, okay, if we all agree that this is a problem, I think based on what we just talking about, probably most people can sort of recognize themselves as readers when they are subjected to info Thompson and recognize that it's not something we want to do. So I guess the question is why do we write info dumps if, if, if all of this is, is something that maybe we are more or less aware of. Uh, and, and personally I think it's because of movies because you know, if, uh, if for example, if we take the matrix, for example, yeah.

So in, in the matrix, the, when Morpheus is introducing new to the crew of the neighborhood, what is it called? Never can Nisa or something like that. The strip basically. So in that scene, in that scene there you have the camera panning over the crew and while the pan, the camera pans over the crew, more fuel system telling you about each of the crew neck crooner members, uh, and then basically also the viewer, meaning you watching it then. So you get to know each one.

But the thing is that it's not boring because we have the visual medium to support the introduction of each character. We can see what they look like, what they're doing and get the medium in. Movies are just different than books. But I think we are getting too much influenced by the movies and then we think that we're gonna we kind of have to replicate that in our books as well.

Autumn (23m 10s): I agree. And I also think often it's excitement on the part of the writer there just there's this cool world they developed or this, you know, interesting backstory. Like we were saying like 200 years ago in the time of the gods, blah blah blah. You've, it's almost like, you know, the setting up the prologue. But if it's not important in the story, if it's not inter woven into the whole fabric of the world, yeah, you don't need to show it.

It's, I, I like, I've often tell young writers, new writers that you have the space of the novel, 100,000 words to share your world. Don't try to fit it into the first chapter. You just want to kind of spread out those amazing things. Like today about this world, I just discovered those. There's a plant called purple, purple Berry. Um, there's a plant that actually produces these really cool purple berries. I didn't know that about this world. It took me until I was 45 to discover this ornamental plant.

That's amazing. That's what you want to do for your readers. You want to put the purple Berry, you know, way back there and hopefully just the middle of the novel that the discover this stuff as they go. So it's still new and exciting on page 345 as it was on page three. So that's to me what's important with info dumping is learning to spread out those descriptions and not being so excited to tell everyone about this really cool thing you, you created and wrote and developed in page two or three.

Because if you're that excited, you probably, you're too excited about your world. You need to back up and look at your characters and your novel and your story and make sure that those are really what's driving it forward and not just a showcase for the amazing world you developed, which it should be amazing, but that's not what you're telling the story. No, true, true.

Jesper (25m 3s): Um, actually, um, I have, um, I have an audio clip queued up here that we can listen to and you don't even know what it is. Autumn no, I dealt with this is kinda you, you hinted about this before we started recording and you're like, Oh, I'm not gonna tell you quite curious. I'll let you found and prepared for us. Yeah. Because I, I prepared a bit of an audio clip here, which I think serves as an excellent example of what I just said before on why I think it is that, uh, we authors sometimes get into wanting to do these input.

Dumps and, uh, this is an info dump. It's an info Don from a very, very famous fantasy story, but I promise you it's awesome and you're going to like it. Okay, let's go. Okay. So, um, I think autumn and myself will go on mute here so we don't accidentally cough. And then, uh, while, uh, while we do that, you dear listener, you just sort of sit back and relax and just enjoy these next few moments.

Lord of the Rings (26m 14s): The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feed it, I smell it.

It began with the forging of the great rings. Three were given to the Elves immortal, wisest and fairest of all beings. Seven to the dwarf Lords, great minors and craftsmen of the mountain halls and nine, nine rings were gifted to the race of men who above all else, desire power. For within these rings was bound the strength and will to govern each race, but they were all of them deceived for another ring was made in the land of model and the fires of Mt.

Dew, the dark Lord sold on forged in secret mastering to control all of this and into this ring he poured. His cruelty is malice and his will to dominate all life. One ring to rule them all, one by one, three lambs to the power of the ring. But there was some, who is this?

Did I lost Alliance of men marched against the armies of more doors and on the slopes of Mt. Dew they fought for the freedom of middle earth.

Victory wasn't here. The power of the ring could not be undone.

It was in this moment when all hope had faded at eco door, son of the King took up his father's saw song.

The enemy of the free peoples of middle earth was defeated.

Jesper (30m 11s): Oh, that stuff just gives me goosebumps is I would say for an info dump, it is spectacular. But that's because they're throwing in sound effects and if you're actually watching and visuals. So that makes it an exciting info dump and an important piece of history that goes with the Lord of the rings. Yeah, I mean it is so awesome and I, I think that this is exactly why, especially probably new writers want to do the same in the novel, that they want to replicate this stuff.

But as you just say, you know what, with this info dump here, you have of course the visuals when you're watching it. But even without the visual, just listening to it like this still gives me the goosebumps. But it has, you know, it has to great, great music. It has the awesome voice acting. So you know, all of that is, it's just not there on the page when, when, when you write it, I mean, you cannot replicate this stuff on the peso. As I said before, the medium of movies and the medium of books, it's just different and you cannot copy it.

No, I agree. Yeah, it's, you can't, it's totally different medium and yeah, it you, we cannot recreate, maybe if you're doing an audio book and you're throwing in the sound effects and you have it in amazing narrator, but it's probably just best to avoid it. And I have to admit, my mind started wandering towards the end because yeah, once I figured it out and then they get into the, all the girly stuff in there, it was like, okay come on, let's get to the point people. So you know, even, and then I actually found myself wondering, I'm like okay 3d the elves, seven till the dorms, nine to people, why people get nine and only helps only got three cause there's less ELLs.

So you know, my mind is already like just trying to unpack something with numbers instead of fully listening to the war effects. So that's the problem with info dumps that can happen, that can happen. But one of course I think we also need to be mindful when we are listening to it. We are listening to it as writers. So how mine works a bit different, we automatically start analyzing it. Worse. The reader won't do that. They will just enjoy it. That's true. That is true. I mean I've ever seen ever since I started writing watching movies has also been broken for me because I cannot watch a movie without starting analyzing at my, sometimes my wife gets so annoyed with it, she's like, okay, so who is the killer?

And I say, well it's this and that person and she's laughing, be screaming at the screen, you know, plotting

Autumn (32m 40s): this character and Stoli though was Oh yeah, you just don't get me started about really horrible script. Writing

Jesper (32m 49s): yeah, yeah. So of course I think in all honesty we need to be mindful that, that we don't use stories as, as as readers. I mean we of course read us ourselves but but you do get into the habit of analyzing stuff w which you won't do if you're just a normal sort of reader. If I could put it like that

Autumn (33m 7s): you trying to think about just, you know, we're creating this for a reader, not for a reader who's also a writer. Cause you can never determine if people, you, how many books they've read. This could be their first ever novel, probably not. But you want to at least kind of consider who your ideal reader is and there are a reader, not a writer. So hopefully the next sort of pulling apart everything on you.

Jesper (33m 29s): Yeah. So maybe in terms of getting into how we can avoid, avoid info dumping a, I also actually wanted to mention another movie. Have you watched the inception with Leonardo DiCaprio?

Autumn (33m 41s): I think I have, but I can't remember. So it's not coming straight to the top of my mind, but I know the title,

Jesper (33m 49s): right? Yeah, it's a really, really good movie. Um, but I think even though it's a movie, uh, and again, I, I just said it was not at the same medium as a perk. I think it's still a good example to, to share, uh, information with the reader. I mean, how it does it well, because the concept of inception is quite complex. It's, it's these characters who are moving around in not just one dream but like multiple layers of dreams and you so you could dream within the dream to get the print stuff.

It's pretty complex. Um, yet, you know, when the movie takes us beginning you, you could start out by explaining all that stuff and probably the view as well as, as a reader of a book, we'll sort of tune out in the Lego. Okay. But we don't get any long explanations in the beginning of this movie of how this shared dreaming actually works. Instead they just start out with tension. So there's one character is telling another one how it's important to train your mind to not be vulnerable to idea theft.

So it's just this very brief dialogue and, and then bam, we are right into the story and we know that somebody can steal your secret thoughts through. She had dreams somehow and that's it. And then we just take it from there. And I think that's a good example.

Autumn (35m 6s): I think that's a good one. And if, if people like, uh, shows sensate sorta does the same thing. It's these groups of people, seven to eight individuals that basically can share, um, sort of minds and memories and actually, you know, actual present. They can basically be there and talking to people. It's almost like having your, you know, your best friend with you. They can just literally be there and in the same room, but to go from a new washer who doesn't know that too, learning that it's sort of, the characters are sort of growing and learning this and how it all works.

And they do a beautiful job that by the time you get to the end where you know, they're basically fighting a battle and there's other sensei, it's, and it's amazing that they, you know, you've gone from not doing thinking it's a normal world and that you might be losing your mind because something weird, you're starting to hear voices in your head to having a powerful group who takes down the enemy because you're actually eight individuals. It's amazing. And they do a wonderful job. There was never an info dump in it at all.

So that's another good example. If someone wants to look at a series. Yeah. Uh, probably a rule of thumb might be that you know that you need much less inflammation in the beginning of a story than you actually think in order to keep the reader engaged because you might naturally start thinking, well, okay, I need to explain this and then I also need to explain that because otherwise it won't make much sense, but in all honesty, the Rita won't need need to half of what you think they need because they will also build the, they will build a lot of the context in their own mind as they start reading and then you can sort of see it in the bits that they need to know as the story runs along rather than giving them paragraph upon paragraph at the start because it's really not necessary.

Yeah, I think that's, those are really my two. I have two rules with really writing an information and one is that you should never have two sentences of description or it's something that's non-action. Even history, two sentences. Any more than that strung together, stop. Just stop. It should all be threaded in the description, the history. It should be mixed in with the dialogue. It should be mixed in with action. You know, they're in a Tavern, whatever it is, you described them pacing across the wooden floor or the other patrons. You have other things going on. You don't need to just simply tell the reader that it's a 200 year old Tavern and it has wooden floors, you know, make the character's experience it so that the reader feels it through the characters.

So it should all be about showing. And the other big one is that you just need to, Oh, you know what, it just popped totally out of my mind. That's so funny. Anyway, I, you know, that's what I call with all the moving and everything else going on. But I think the other one, curiosity, that is what I was going to say. The problem with info dumps is you're killing curiosity. In fact, you're really making people board and what you want, especially at the beginning of the novel is curiosity. You know, you have action happening and you're not really explaining why it's working.

You know, you have a demon busting through a door and someone throws something at it that makes it evaporate. They know what happened, but they don't know why, and maybe they're going to be curious as to why this object could do this too. This poltergeists thing. That's perfect. The last thing you want to do is explain why it worked and why it was blessed by so-and-so. And this happened 300 years ago and turn it into this and there's this piece of this st in barked. Oh my God, that's so boring. You just want it to work.

So those first chapters, especially the last thing you want to do as an info dump, what you want to do is actually really be careful with your information and just Dole it out. So slowly so that the reader is curious. They want to know what else they're going to learn, what else is going to happen, and why is this all happening in working that makes them excited. So that's why info dumps at the beginning especially, can just kill that curiosity. You explain it all in the first five pages and they're like, okay, story's done.

I don't need the next 95% of the novel. Oh, well,

Jesper (39m 23s): yup. So I think maybe to summarize where we could say, don't confuse the written media with movies. It is not the same thing. Do not try to replicate what they're doing this and uh, find ways to share information with the Rita that aren't telling them what they need to know, but it's instead shit through the plot moving forward and character speaking to one another. So next Monday, autumn and I will share with social media networks we love the most for hiders.

Narrator (39m 58s): If you like what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support the amwritingfantasy podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join autumn and Yesper on patrion.com/amwritingfantasy for as little as a dollar a month. You'll get awesome rewards and keep the amwritingfantasy podcast going. Stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 47 – Learn the Secrets to Showing Emotion in Characters (with author, editor and writing coach, C.S. Lakin)

Editor and writing coach C.S. Lakin joins the Am Writing Fantasy podcast.

She shares great insights as to how an author can master the emotional craft of fiction.

Readers want to feel with the character.

Readers read to not only be entertained, but also to have the characters and the story affect them. 

Episode 47 of the Am Writing Fantasy podcast is full of advice and useful writing tips.

Here's the links mentioned in the episode:

https://www.livewritethrive.com/ 

https://cslakin.teachable.com/p/emotional-mastery-for-fiction-writers/ 

Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday.

SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST!

Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review.

Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy.

For as little as a dollar a month, you’ll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going.

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).

Narrator (2s): You're listening to the amwritingfantasy podcast. In today's publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need in literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing join to best selling authors who have self-published more than 20 books between them. Now onto the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt.

Jesper (30s): Hello. I am Jesper. And this is episode 47 of the amwritingfantasy podcast. And today I'm joined by Susanne Lakin, who knows some of the secrets about showing emotion in characters in order to evoke emotions in the reader. And I know that you are a novelist, a copy editor, writing coats, and you also teach workshops on the writing craft. So welcome to the amwritingfantasy podcast.

Susanne (57s): Thank you for having me.

Jesper (60s): I did a bit of stalking on the internet and I saw that, I saw that you live in California near San Francisco, but maybe you can tell us just a bit more about yourself.

Susanne (1m 13s): Uh, sure. Yeah. I live South of San Francisco in California. Um, and I'm born and raised in California, but, uh, I've been writing pretty much my whole life. I was raised by a mother who was a top television screenwriter and then, um, my brother also went into that profession. So I am was around a lot of filming and reading scripts and movies and all that kind of stuff. So my early introduction, aside from reading books on my own was to read a lot of screenplays.

So I have a different type of attitude or approach toward fiction writing sometimes than others because I think very cinematically and I think in terms of camera shots and, um, just a very cinematic, uh, visualization of my scenes and I tried to teach that method through a lot of my books and my blog posts. Um, I think the emotion topic is one that's really important. It's not discussed much. There isn't much out there. When I started researching online about that, I wanted to put something together because I feel of all the things that are tied in with reading and writing is the idea that we have an emotional response to what we read.

And so all my life I've been reading and writing and loving books and wanting to figure out how I can move readers with my writing. So as far as, you know, that's kind of my whole upbringing in terms of my approach to writing and reading. Um, I also, I'm married, I have a couple of grown kids. Uh, I have a couple of grandkids actually and I have a dog who is old and needs a lot of attention, big that lab and I have a few cats. Um, I love to backpack and snowboard. I'm real outdoorsy kind of person.

Um, I also am the, uh, yeah, I was going to say I'm also the fiction coordinator for the prestigious San Francisco writer's conference, which is a top writers conference in America. So I put that whole thing together every year and that's super fun.

Jesper (3m 17s): Oh yeah. Cool. Yeah, it was funny you were talking about am at the out outdoorsy type of person and whatnot because autumn, my cohost TAC that she does a lot of, uh, of traveling around as well and seeing nature and all that. So, uh, that's something I'm sometimes quite envious when I see her pictures. You post on Facebook because I live in Denmark and he is just flat. We don't have any mountains. Only nice, nice nature like that. So yeah, it, there's some very beautiful areas around the, in the U S

Susanne (3m 47s): yeah, I would think that Denmark would have some beautiful places too. I haven't been there, but I would love to go. Uh, I don't get out of my cage very often. So, um, you know, maybe one day I'll get over there when, you know, one thing about writing fantasy too, since you know, this is what your podcast is about, I really think it's important for writers to get out in nature and to just sort of explore the world with wonder because all the fantasy writing fantasy and creating fantasy worlds requires so much imagination and an immersion of our senses that I think sometimes if we just locked up in an office space or bedroom or wherever we work all the time, it's really hard for us to get in touch with that wonder and the imagination, you know, that comes from exploring the world outside.

So that's just a thought that kind of popped into my head. But I know that for me, a lot of the inspiration for my fantasy books came from my time in nature, especially in the woods, like being alone in the woods, backpacking, um, grew up on fairy tales, which many of them were set in your part of the world in Europe. Uh, you know, where most of the fairy tales are about little cottages in the woods and there's like magic woods. And so because I'm a fairy tale writer, I really need to get into nature and feel that experience at the smells, the sounds, all of that.

Jesper (5m 7s): Yeah. Yeah. There's also something about just the fact that when you're out outside, you know, moving, moving around and of course some, some good scenery will help but, but just the, just uh, the fact that you're walking about and get some wind in your face and whatnot, that that actually helps them on creativity as well. In my, in my view, yes. Yeah, it does. Yeah. But, uh, so now I know that you run the live write thrive.com website where you also actually have a course on showing character emotions.

And that was really a topic that caught my eye and because basically we haven't really covered, you know, character emotions and how to show it and how to get evoke emotions in, in the readers well here on the podcast before. So I am really so glad that you agreed to come on for a conversation about this particular topic

Susanne (5m 58s): here. Yeah, I'm happy to talk about it. As I mentioned, um, a lot of times when I read a book, I have about 10 nonfiction books, writing craft books in my writer's Roger toolbox series on novel writing. Mostly I think all of them are about in all of novel writing except crank it out, which is just about writing in general. But usually I get the idea for a book or a course because I can't find enough information out there, you know, on the internet or out in the ether to, um, really be instructive and deep for writers emotion is as a really good example because if you search online for information on how to evoke emotions and characters had to show emotion how to get readers to feel emotion, there's almost nothing out there.

So it got me thinking about how I react to reading what, what moves me when I read a book and I spent, you know, quite a few weeks just exploring my own feelings in, in, um, thinking about the books that moved me, the scenes that move me, going back to chapters that I know would make me cry and try to analyze why I felt the way I felt or how the writer was able to accomplish that. It was like magic to me.

And I talk about that a lot of my course, which is called emotional mastery for fiction writers because the whole idea is we want to capture that technique, that skill. And Hemingway said it best when he said that when you read something that moves you emotionally steady how it was done, study how that writer did it, then you copy it and you do it yourself so that you can create the same effect in your readers. Now that sounds a lot easier said than done and it is. But in the same sense, it's really not that hard because if you can tap into what moves you emotionally, generally we all are affected in pretty much the same ways.

In other words, if something moves me in a big way, something I read, no doubt it's gonna move a lot of other people, it's not going to move everybody. Some people just aren't moved at all. They can read something that just everyone's sobbing away in a, in a room or we were even at a movie for instance, you know, you could go to a movie and there was like a really emotionally moving scene and everybody's, you know, teared up and there's always going to be a few people that go, eh, whatever. And there's just not moved at all. So you're not gonna please everybody. But the idea is that there are universal feelings, right?

There are universal emotions that we all share. There's universal responses that we share. Um, you know, growing up in the film industry, you know, there was always this unwritten rule, or maybe it was written, I don't know. I think people break it now, but in the good old days when there were morals and ethics to things, um, the role was you never hurt or killed a child or an animal in a movie or a TV show because people got really mad, right? You don't kill a child. You don't, you know, hurt a child. I mean, you might, you might imply that a child's being hurt and then the good guys go stop the guys from doing that.

But, um, you never, you know, show a child die or an animal die. Uh, and that rule is broken sometimes, but you get why, I mean, it's because it's so upsetting to people. And we all in general society in general, we react emotionally to certain things that we, um, you know, that we share those feelings. So that's part of the approach to become an emotional master in your fiction writing is if you mind your own feelings, you mind them, go deep into your own feelings and you analyze what moves you and how it moves you, then you can copy what the writer did.

A, in a basic sense, you know, not word for word, but see what the writer did and how it moved you and then you try to do that yourself. So in my core site, use about 40 different passages from different genres of different novels. And I go through these passages, we read them and analyze them, break them down. And one of the main teaching techniques that I always emphasize, regardless of what I'm teaching, is for writers to grab bestseller books and there's genre and tear them apart.

You know, get the highlighter pen out. If you don't want to use an ebook and highlight on your Kindle or whatever, I just say go to a used bookstore, find a whole bunch of old cheap paperbacks and get some highlighter pens out and Mark things up, Mark up the lines that move you, that move you emotionally like Mark up the lines that show emotion in the characters. So there's two types of elements we're talking about here. We're talking about showing, emotion and characters and then you know, evoking emotion and readers. So those are two completely different things.

And most of the time, the emotion that the character is showing is not the emotion. You want the reader to feel right. You might have a character that is showing, you know, despair because she's, you know, been thrown by the wayside. A child that's been left abandoned or something and that child is feeling despair. But you want your reader to be angry, or you might want your reader to be outraged or, uh, scared for that child. You know? And a lot of times emotions are very complex, so you don't want to just sit down and name an emotion go, Oh, I want my character to feel scared.

And so I'm going to say she's scared. Emotions are so complex that this is why it's so important to do what Hemingway said, which was to look at how the writer wrote a passage and then look at how you're feeling. A lot of times you can't name what you're feeling, you know? So our feelings are very difficult to pinpoint and to understand. And they're usually very layered. We might be angry on the surface, but underneath we're hurt or scared. Anger usually masks other emotions. So there's a lot to learn about the emotional landscape of ourselves and of our characters.

And, um, one other thing that I talk about at length extensively, um, in the course is that emotions can be shown lots of different ways and characters but there's effective ways and there's not so effective ways. So when we read passages where, where a character is doing all this body language, you know, their throat is clenched and tears are pouring out there gasping and they're moaning and their heart is pounding on their chest and their palms are sweaty. Yeah. I mean it goes on and on and on.

After while that stuff gets really tedious and it ends up being counter effective, you know, instead of making a reader feel emotion, they just, well, the emotion they feel is irritated but not the writer was hoping for. So the idea is that, um, you need to learn these tools and skills of how to show emotion and characters. There's, um, there's showing emotion by body language, right? Like I just mentioned, punching fish or whatever. And there's also am the emotion that your point of view character notices in other characters.

So there's a different emotional, um, pallet that's being put together here in a scene. So we don't just see the character, the point of view character emoting by their body language. But we also, they're also noticing what other characters are feeling and they're assuming what those emotions are too. So you have that kind of dynamic going on. Um, you can also tell emotions and it can be very effective. I have a module that's all about how you can effectively tell an emotion or name and emotion there's nothing wrong with a character saying I am scared, but it has to be in the right moment and it has to be fit the character.

Cause I'll tell you just honestly, you know, uh, there's a lot of people that aren't in touch with their emotions and you know, I don't mean to be sexist or anything, but you know, guys have like struggles a lot of times with naming their emotions. You know, they're not going to be, some guys I should say are not going to be quick to saying, gee, you know, I really am jealous and I'm not just jealous, but I'm kind of hurt right now. You know, they're not going to just come out and say that in a conversation. You know, maybe I have an example of a little passage I wrote with a friend that might come over to a guy saying, Hey, you're really jealous. I can tell, you know, and, and then he says, yeah, sure, I'm jealous.

You know, you'd be jealous too. You know? So I mean, that's more, that's feels more believable than having a typical person, male or female. Just sit there and go, gee, I am feeling really jealous right now. And I think I'm also feeling hurt, you know? I mean, for the most part, we don't sit and stop and psychoanalyze ourselves, especially in the middle of action. Right?

Jesper (14m 17s): Yeah, indeed. But, but there's also a huge difference between, I mean, w w what you just said that I, I fully agree with, but if the coater is seeing in as part of dialogue that I'm feeling hurt or I'm angry or whatever, that is perfectly fine. Um, but there was a huge difference between doing that as part of the dialogue versus you as the author telling the reader, now this guy's angry. You know, does that testing worked very well?

Susanne (14m 47s): Right. And, and the other thing that's important to tie in with what you just said is that when we're writing in deep point of view, writers don't realize that the entire scene is in that character's mind and voice. So when you're writing a scene and D point of view, all the narrative, every word, every line has to sound like the character. It's exactly the characters thoughts, whether you're in first person or third person. So you know, if a character is going, if you're going to say in the, in the, in the running text, um, Joan was angry.

That is really her thought at that moment. It has to feel like she's, you know, realizing that she's angry. Um, I don't know how better to put it, but there are exact, they are examples that I use to show how to do that well. Um, so in addition to showing, bodily emotion or physical tells to indicate emotion and the, and here's another thing that the character himself may not really be aware of the physical tells that he's displaying and what emotions that means. For instance, you can have a character in talking to somebody and he's, he, he's his clenched fists are clenched.

Okay. So we see that as the reader and he's aware of it because you're in his point of view. So you can't really show anything that he's doing in his body if he's not aware of it. Right? Like you can't say he didn't realize it, but as physical clench, you know, obviously he has to know his fists are clenched, but we don't, he might not know why his fists are clenched. You know, the, he might be clenching his fists, but the reader can get a sense of what's going on with him and make those assumptions of what kind of emotion is being shown. But if I just show my fist clenched, you don't have any idea what that impetus is.

You know what's behind that, right? Are you can kind of guess.

Jesper (16m 36s): Yeah, yeah, I agree. And there was also some, some part of denial and this you know, is especially the anchor element comes into mind. Again here you know that somebody, you know, maybe he has that clenched fist, uh, but, and then somebody will tell him that you are angry and then he will be like, I'm not angry. You know, that, that, that sort of denial element is, is also then I think that can work quite effectively as well.

Susanne (16m 59s): Yes. And so there's three basic ways that you can convey emotion in your characters and I mentioned two of them. One is the physical tells and then one is actually telling the emotion naming the emotion. But the best and most effective way to show emotion. And I reiterate this over and over and over with many, many passages. Samples is by using the characters spots, you can, you can write an entire scene that is so emotionally riveting and makes sure readers just anguished and you only show what their character is thinking.

And you never once show their heart pounding or tears coming to their eyes or sighing or moaning or groaning or anything else physical. The thoughts are the most powerful way that we can convey emotion. And they're the, they're the best way because they generate all those complex emotional feelings that we can't name. So when you have a character that's thinking about how they did something long ago and because of it, somebody was hurt, you know, maybe they forgot to pick up their kid from school or whatever, and then the child, you know, kidnapped, I mean, whatever.

Um, when you go through the thought process with the character, the reader starts feeling all these emotions because they're, they're visualizing what's being said. They're putting themselves in that character's shoes. And, um, it's the experience that creates the emotion. So if I'm reading about a character that's going through something and I'm hearing what they're thinking, I start going through that with them. And that's where the empathy, you know, connects where between reader and writer and character.

So, um, you can use all three and I give lots of examples of passages, you know, we highlight these different passages and you can see, and you can do this too, again, with those paperback books that you pick up from your friendly use bookstore just to, um, highlight in one color for instance, all the examples are tells of body language that are in the scene, you know, so anytime a character, you know, his throat gets tight or you know, they um, they sigh, you can highlight that and you can see how often that's being used by this particular writer.

Or maybe this is a bestselling writer in your Shaundra and you want to write the way they write. So this is how you can kind of get a feel for the distribution of these different lines and phrases and even words that can convey emotion. So you have that. Then you might have an instance where the character might name his emotion at the moment. Doesn't happen very often. It's very rare, but it is useful and it's good to know how to do it and win. But then when you look at the thoughts and you start highlighting in a different color, all the thoughts that evoke emotion in you as a reader, all the thoughts that imply the, an emotional feeling in the character, all of a sudden you start seeing this emotional landscape start coming to life.

And it's really fantastic. It's a great exercise to do. Just grab one of your favorite books and just start highlighting, especially the thoughts with the characters thinking that makes you feel something and makes and shows that they're feeling something. Um, even just a word or a phrase can do that. And um, I think a lot of times writers, especially beginning writers, don't understand the power of thoughts. They, they feel that they must, right? Uh, at least every other line has to be some sort of body language to imply emotion.

But you know, honestly, you don't need barely any of it. I like to throw in a few things here and there because I feel it's, it helps punch home an emotional feeling. But, um, you, you know, try as an exercise, just try writing a scene without using any of that, but using thoughts and seeing how much emotion you can convey from your character via that characters thoughts and also how much emotion you can, you know, affect into, in your reader or in yourself as you're writing. Um, it's a really eye opening exercise.

Jesper (20m 58s): Hmm. Do you have any thoughts around how much or how little you should try to, you know, use to three different ones or do you think it really does matter? It completely depends on how you want to write or, or am I hearing that you're saying you should be most focusing on conveying emotions with the thoughts and then maybe sprinkle in a bit of the other ones or how do you see that?

Susanne (21m 21s): Yeah. Yeah. I, I exactly, I think you should rely mostly on thoughts, but again, what you want to do is grab those best-selling novels that you love. I mean I have, my favorite fantasy writer is Patricia MacKillop and I just, she's just the most amazing writer in the world to me. And for years I've tried to copy how she writes, you know, my dream when I grow up is to be like her, right? So, um, I study her books, I tear them apart, I look at the language and the imagery and I think about how I feel emotionally as I react to her writing and her characters.

And so for me, when I was writing my seven but fantasy series, I would always go back to her books and just study them. And I would make lists and lists of like for phrases, not because I wanted to take her phrases and put them in my books, but I wanted to just study how she put those together so that I could copy the idea and get the same effect. It's just, it really is helpful to, you know, if you've got those writers that you love and you want to have your book stand up right next to their books to do this type of exercise.

Because maybe like for instance, if you're writing romance and maybe it's a fantasy romance, but romance will usually show a lot more body language for emotion and it will also be packed with a lot of thoughts that generate emotion, you know? And so, um, if you're writing a suspense thriller, you may go pages without any line at all that shows any emotion. You just might have a lot of action. Now the action also implies emotion. You know, if you know, if a person, you know, here's something behind a door, kicks in the door and runs over to somebody and grabs him by the throat and throttles them, you can guess that that person is feeling some sort of emotion.

You don't have to hear their thoughts. You don't have to know that their fists are clenched or that their anger is welling up in their gut or their heart is pounding heart in their chest. You can just watch the action and you can tell. So keep that in mind. That action is a great way to show emotion. And so a lot of times you can just show what's going on in a scene between characters and you don't have to even get into the thoughts. You don't have to get into the body. Physical tells, um, you know, that tell the character or the reader that there's a specific emotion that's being experienced.

So, you know, again, when you're reading through these books, when you're studying these bestsellers, look for those, look for those bits of action that some very specific emotion uh, you'll be amazed at what you find. Uh, it's at first, you know, sometimes readers say, well, I don't see anything. I'm not seeing any physical tells and I'm not really seeing an action. And then they start digging in deeper and they pull back and think, okay, what actually happened on this page? Um, if it's boring writing if you know, then you might not see anything that's really tapping into motion.

Because to me, if you don't, if you don't show characters feeling inner conflict, because it's really all about conflict, you know, when we feel emotion we're conflicted about something and if we can't get our readers to feel some sort of emotion, then obviously we're failing. There's something that's just not coming across that tends to happen when we have scenes that are very predictable, boring, ordinary on the nose type of scenes where the characters are sitting around eating. You might be in a fantasy book. Okay. So they're in the woods and they're sitting around by the campfire and they're talking about, you know, that they're going to cook tomatoes or whatever it was that, um, salmon, uh, and um, Mary they were doing, they were doing up on whether top or whatever.

Uh, yeah, I mean if that scene was just about, you know, here I have some cooked tomatoes and you know, it would be really boring. There wouldn't be any emotion. But instead we see Frodo freaking out. Like, Oh my goodness, what are you doing? You made a fire, don't do that. And all of a sudden the, the black writers come and there's a big, you know, attack and you know, that is packed full of emotion so that, you know, the, the action is, you know, it needs to be evoking that emotion or evoking that tension, creating tension between characters inner conflict, you know, inside a character, all of those different elements.

So, um, yeah, this is covering a lot of stuff, but yeah.

Jesper (25m 28s): Yeah. And dude, but I also think that there is an important point around that action part because it's not, it depends on depending on what happens in the particular scene, but if you are in the middle of some sort of action sequence, maybe the characters are fighting or whatever they are doing. I mean, I think there, it's also important as the writer, not to get too much into, uh, the, uh, OK. I should show emotions by thought because in the middle of the fight, the character will not start thinking about what, how they feel about it.

They will just do stuff. So, so, so there is also that element to be mindful about that. You don't start showing the character thinking about emotions in situations where that just is not natural to do,

Susanne (26m 14s): right? Yeah. There's usually like visceral, uh, brief thoughts that might pop in when somebody grabs you from behind or smacks you in the face. Like, ouch, that hurt. Yeah. I have a am I have a module on my course, which is, you can see it for free too. So if anybody's listening to this and they want to just go pop over to my online school and just watch a 38 minute free module, you can do that by just scrolling down and clicking on the preview. And I put this module up for free because it's one of the most important things that I teach that I never have heard anybody else teach about.

But it's, I find it really essential and it's very eyeopening for a lot of writers and it's basically what I call the action reaction cycle. Um, what that entails to me is that everything we do all day long is done in this cycle, right? Something happens or we do something and then there's a reaction. So you have an action than a reaction. But what follows the reaction is the processing of that reaction.

Okay. So, uh, I give the example of let's say there's, um, your character is in the kitchen and she hears a crash. Okay? So that's the action. Her immediate visceral reaction is, Oh no, what was that? Right. So there's always, there's two parts to reaction. When is the immediate visceral reaction, which, you know, you might get that in a high action scene with like fighting scene like we were just talking about where there's only time for the visceral, there's only time for that immediate quick action because quickly you have to make a decision and move on to another action.

So, um, so the character, here's the vase fall over, a crash goes, Oh no, what is that? That's the first initial reaction. And then she runs into the room and she sees the cat has knocked the vase over from the table onto her laptop and all the water is just pouring all over the laptop. Okay. So now there's an extended reaction, right? Characters like, Oh my gosh, my laptop. Oh, you stupid cat. You know, so maybe whatever they're thinking, but this reaction now is more extensive because she's taking in this situation and that's leading to emotion, right?

So she first she's shocked. Maybe you're a little bit startled by the sound. And then when she sees her, what really happened? Now she's feeling more emotions, uh, conflicted emotions. She's upset, she's angry, she's freaking out because her dissertation is on there and that she hasn't backed it up to the cloud. Right? So there's all these emotions going on. So you have action reaction. And then after the reaction you have the processing. So processing can take a second or it could take three weeks. It could take, you know, an hour.

It really depends on the situation. Um, for instance, like a detective can find a clue and then the whole next chapter can be processing. Okay, what does that clue mean? What, you know, now we understand that, you know, Joe is actually in the, in the bar and he wasn't at the hotel, you know, blah, blah, blah. And there's all this processing that goes with that. So after the processing comes a decision, what am I going to do now with what I just processed? In the case of our character who's laptop is wet, she's going to act really quickly after that reaction.

She's going to swoop down, grab her laptop, shake it out, grab a towel, wipe it off. All the while S swearing at her cat and her thoughts are going to be spinning like, Oh my gosh, my dissertation and if I have to write this again, I'm going to fail. Blah, blah, blah. So there's all these thoughts that are going on, which is part of the processing. Um, and then, um, of course then there's going to be a decision that comes after that. You know, part of the decision in response to the reaction was grabbing the laptop and wiping it off. Of course. So that's just a, again, a visceral decision, but there's usually going to be a more extended decision that happens.

Like, what do I do now? I've, you know, if I've lost my dissertation now what now I'm going to be processing this and having to make a decision. And that decision leads to new action. So it's sort of a five prong step. You have an action reaction process, decision, new action. And if you're writing a high action type scene, like a fight scene, you've got like, you know, some dwarves run into some elves in the forest and they start fighting each other. You and your main character is, you know, trying to, you know, push away all these, you know, horrible creatures and you know, kill a few in the runaway escape.

That action reaction decision thing is going to happen very, very quickly. Like in seconds after seconds after seconds, right? Your character isn't gonna like smash somebody with a sword and they'll sit down and think for five minutes, gee, I wonder what I should do next. Right? But there's other times when you have a low energy scene, right? Where your characters are sitting around talking or they're walking down the road and they are processing like, what are we going to do now? Where are we going to go? Well, if we go here, you know, it's gonna take five more days and we don't have time. This is going to happen. And you know, you need to have those low energy scenes where your characters are talking in their processing and their thinking, but that's going to lead to a decision.

Okay, so now what do we do? Let's go here. Okay, let's go do it. And you know, whatever happens will happen and then you're seeing it. So you can have scenes, um, uh, scene in itself could have this process many, many, many, many times or a scene could be all action and even end inaction. You know, you can have a fight scene and some guy just falls off the side of a cliff and that's how the CNNs or you can end with your character, your point of view, character reacting, uh, where the, his friend falls off the cliff and he goes, Oh man, dude, better you than me.

And just the scene ends right there. You know, um, we see this in a lot of suspense where the scene ends with a visceral reaction. You know, the character finds the dead body. Um, I mean, you might just end in action. Like the character just finds the dead body. And we don't see reaction. But for more emotional punch, you'll notice that really good writers will end a suspense scene with a tiny bit of reaction. You know, the character sees the dead body and gasps, you know, God.

Jesper (32m 29s): Yeah, exactly. Because you also playing on, I mean, as providers, we are thinking about this stuff. So, you know, as right as we thinking about how do humans actually react then, and you're breaking it down nicely in these different, uh, sort of thesis or whatever we want to call it. But, but for, for the reader who doesn't think about these things, they will just pick up on it maybe, you know, so subconsciously they'll know, okay, there's gonna be some sort of a further reaction to this because it leaves in a strange place.

So to beat the, the chapter cuts in a strange place, so, so they will be very inclined to read on just because they just know that there's going to be more, let's say, emotional impact for, from what just happened. Right. So, so that's sort of what you're, what you're playing at day, I think.

Susanne (33m 14s): Yeah. And also, as I mentioned, um, in that example that you know, like let's say there's an avalanche and this guy sees his friend, you know, go off the cliff and the avalanche is going on in the scene right there. If the next scene shows him barreling down the mountain in his car, we, the, the decision is implied, right? He made a decision, I'm going to get the heck out of here before I died next. Right? You don't have to have the characters sit there and go, gee, I better leave the mountain because maybe I'm in a fall in a hole too. You know, if the mountain is falling apart.

So, um, you might not show the processing and decision, but you'll show the effects or the results of the processing and the decision, right? So, um, that's, you know, what happens is if readers read a scene and one of those stages is missing, whether it's implicit or explicit, you are going to, they're gonna, they're gonna feel that something's off. And this is what happens with a lot of the manuscripts. I critique about 200 manuscripts a year.

So I see this a lot, especially with the beginning writers where they're gonna show a scene. You know, somebody runs in and says, George, your, your mother was just hit by a car outside. Um, and George goes, Oh no, what am I going to do? I mean, how am I gonna live? I don't have somebody to earn a living and buy me food. It's like, what? You know, it's like, that's not how you're gonna react. I mean, right. It's their Holy Hubble. So we want to have our characters to act believably. So you have to put yourself in your shoes, in their shoes.

If you had somebody run in and say, you know, Oh my gosh, your mom, your brother, or your mother or your best friend, or your kid was just hit by a car, what is your reaction going to be? Your immediate visceral reactions, just going to be this, this is what you're going to be like, slammed with the shock of it. And you might feel you're gonna feel some body emotion. You might like all of a sudden your, your breath might get caught in your chest or you might gasp, right? Um, you might get dizzy, whatever.

You might fall down. I mean, a lot if you just even say to somebody, it's a mean trick. But if you say to somebody, am, you better sit down, I have some bad news for you. They will physically feel ill, they will fall down or fall into a chair if you'd, if you're a good actor. Right? I mean, it would be, it would be mean to say that to somebody, but this is how we, this is how our bodies react in that fight or flight, adrenaline, releasing hormone reacting, you know, physiology that we have as bodies, as human bodies.

So, um, we have to remember that our characters need to have those types of bodies too. So if somebody is going to come running into the room and say, Hey, you know, your mom was just hit by a car, uh, and then they run back out. Your, your character has to, you know, immediately register some sort of shock, some visceral reaction. And then of course they're going to go run outside and, and their thoughts are going to start, you know, running through their head. What kind of thoughts will those be? You know, they're definitely not going to be planning like what I'm going to do next year if I don't have my mom earning a living and how am I going to get kicked out of my house?

I mean that might come three weeks later, but it's not going to come right now. So am

Jesper (36m 23s): yeah, I agree. And I think part of why that probably happens sometimes w in, in the writing is because the writer knows what story is supposed to be told here. So, so therefore you, you quickly jump to, okay, I need him to talk about how am I gonna live now? Because that's the sort of the next hurdle that he's going to be hit by an in this story here. So I need to start telling the reader that this is a huge issue, so therefore I'm jumping to that. But whereas I think that the main point is also to say that, you know, all those emotional faces that they have to go through.

And if you really put yourself into coach's shoes and they're like you just said, and then what would you feel like if it happened to you that that is also the story, you know, was that we need to be careful. We don't get to plot-driven here. And we remember to, to know that the emotions that the characters are feeling, that's what the readers will connect to and the character is to story.

Susanne (37m 22s): Yeah. I talk about too how to create beats because um, one of the main things that that happens with beginning writers is they can see the scene in their head, kind of like what you're talking about and they know what it's supposed to feel like and sound like. And so they'll do like rapid fire dialogue where they characters saying something in the next character saying something back and they're going back and forth and back and forth. But there's moments where certain things are being said that are unexpected or shocking or upsetting.

And if you don't stop and give a beat, like have the character pause and process again, this is part of that action reaction cycle. You know, I can just be talking casually with you, but if you say something to me right now that, uh, I, I didn't expect and that can affect me is important or can affect me emotionally. I'm in a need to take a beat. I'm going to have to stop and process that. And so the way that we do that in our writing is we, we have the character pause, we have the character stop and process and think, you know, a thought will come in, a reaction will come in a S.

there's lots of different techniques that you can use to slow down a scene. One of the techniques I like to use is to have a character notice little things and good writers do this very well. Little details. They might hear a clock ticking in the background or they might notice the bottom of their pants leg is frayed. Um, when we start noticing little things around us, it slows down time and it or stretches out time. However you want to think of it.

And it helps to create that beat, that moment to let the character react and respond to what was just said or done. But also you need to let the reader do that. And one of the, one of the basic ways we do that as writers is we do a scene break or we do it, we end a chapter, right? That's why I was saying that suspense authors often will end, uh, a scene of high action with a big action moment or a visceral reaction to that moment and end it really quickly.

And then there's an X, then there's a new chapter. And the purpose for that is that it gives the reader a chance to go, Oh, okay. Uh, and process that, I mean, oftentimes at the end of a chapter, if it's a great chapter, you know, we'll stop and not just start reading the next chapter. We'll kind of take a breath or get up and get a drink of water or something. Because we need, we need the moment to sink in. So as writers, we want to always write our scenes to build to a high moment. The high moments should come at the end, at the very last line or the last paragraph.

And that high moment should pack a punch, whether it's an emotional punch to reveal a clue or move the plot forward in some way. But you want to end with that emotional punch at the end of your chapter because then you're creating, you're creating a beat. You're creating a way for the reader to breathe, to process, to absorb what they just read, get them ready to move into the next scene. And again, you can do it with a scene break too. You don't always have to have a chapter in, but you can have multiple scenes in a chapter, but you want to aim for that with every senior, right?

You wanted to build to that high moment and then you want to stop it right there and give the reader a chance to react. And that's part of manipulating your readers so that they'll feel the emotions that you want them to feel. Okay.

Jesper (40m 43s): Yeah. That's why I think it's important. What you talked about a bit earlier as well with the, with the, uh, what should we call them, like campfire scene. So you know, that, uh, the Maslow scenes, those are important because if you're writing, let's say a 300 page fantasy novel and every single chapter is this height intense stuff all the time, I think most, most readers will get pretty tired before they at the end of those 300 pages. And they probably will not enjoy it that much. So you need some of the slow pacing in-between just to take, get also give the reader a bit of beading boom here and there.

I think that's important.

Susanne (41m 19s): Yeah, it's really good to alternate. And again, this is all part of that action reaction cycle because if you have a lot of action going on, at some point the characters need a process which just happened. And um, as I said in a mystery, you might have a whole chapter where they characters the detectives talking or whatever. And uh, but in a fantasy, you know, it might just be a page. It really just depends on your writing style. And it depends on your plot. Um, there's nothing wrong with having lots and lots and lots of great action in a fantasy novel or any novel, but they readers aren't going to get engaged with the characters unless you can really get into their thoughts and into their inner conflict, you know, just show what they're struggling with.

If our characters aren't struggling, you know, if they're not vulnerable, if they're not, you know, having, um, doubts if they're not, um, you know, finding the journey hard other than just, you know, I can't climb the mountain fast enough. Um, it's just not going to have enough meaning for the reader. You know, we want, we, we like to go on those heroes journeys and those heroes journeys are all about, uh, the internal journey, not so much the external journey.

Jesper (42m 26s): Yeah. Yeah. We, in previous episodes we've actually talked about the character arc as well and how it's incredibly important that, that both, there is like a, a meaning behind why the character is feeling the way that they are feeling. So it's not just because they were slapped in the face and now they're feeling angry or something, you know, that that needs to be some sort of underlying driver that that also links in with the character too, to how they're going to transform over the course of the story. And then you use all of these different elements, uh, to, to basically push them to watch that transformation.

Um, so, and I do think that that's important that, that you give with everything basically, that you have some sort of reason for why things are happening. Uh, and it's not just, uh, because you, I mean, of course you, in order to give all that suspense and that bad things needs to happen and it has to be difficult for the character, but it should not be random bad things just to show that the coaters struggling and they are feeling, you know, emotions so that you can, the reader can connect to that. But if the reader cannot see that there is some sort of purpose and we're going somewhere with all of this, then it becomes a bit like, yeah,

Susanne (43m 37s): right. I always call, I always liken it to a string of scenes. If you have a character that just has ups and downs and has a good day and a bad day and things just keep happening to them, but there's no overarching purpose, there's no plot goal that they're striving for, there's no passion toward a goal, then, um, it's just kind of meaningless. It just feels like the characters just wandering around. I write a lot about that in my other books too. Um, so yeah, it just, I just feel that I'm becoming an emotional or emotion master in your fiction. Writing is one of the most important skills that you can learn, but nobody teaches it and nobody really talks about it.

And so I hope that you know, by giving, and this course is six and a half hours of video, but I also have about 40 different assignments that I give out that you can download, which I think is really cool because what I'm hearing back from writers, I've got hundreds and hundreds of writers now that are taking this course or who have already taken it since I launched it September 1st I am I'm really excited to hear that they're enjoying doing these exercises. And part of these exercises as I mentioned, is getting these books and marking them up and studying passages and analyzing how good writers do this.

Cause honestly, the only way that you can become great at anything is to emulate great people in that field. But you know, if you're a painter, you know you people go to the lube and they set up their easels and they copy the masters. They try to paint exactly like them, not so they can copycat, but so they can learn the technique, they learn the skills, they can see what colors go well together and create what kind of effects. And we really need to do that with our writing. And I never heard anybody ever give me that advice for the decades that I was writing novels. Nobody ever said, go study these great novels and tear them apart.

See what kind of words they use. Sentence structure, paragraph structure. How long are the chapters, how much description do they use? What type of description? Um, when you study masterful writers, it's just amazing how incredible they write is that Toni Morrison said, easy reading is hard. Writing and that's so true. When we read a beautiful scene that just seems to just flow beautifully. Like everything is just perfect in it. That was not an easy scene to write.

And we all should know that if we've struggled writing great scenes, you know, I mean, there's there scenes that I've read that I wrote years ago and I'll go back to a book that I wrote and I'll read a scene out of my book and I'll just go, I can't believe I wrote that scene. It was like a fantastic scene. Where did that come from? You know, and, uh, and I'm just amazed that that somehow came out of me and I don't ever feel like I did it. I always feel like somebody else wrote that scene through me somehow. But I know it's because of all the studying that I did. And I think that's how painting works or playing music or whatever.

If you practice and practice and practice. My husband's a jazz sax player, so you know, every night like three hours hearing scales right in my bedroom because that's where are his studio is set up because we have a tiny house. So, uh, you know, we get that, but you have to, when you practice and practice year after year and you get really good at something and seeing with writing when you get really good at writing scenes and conveying characters and their emotions and describing them and bringing a scene to life, a lot of that can just start happening naturally. But at first it does take a lot of work.

It takes, um, it takes intention. Like you can't just, just write and just write a lot. It's just sort of like giving, you know, giving a kid a three year old kid, a big bag full of airplane parts and say, well, just keep putting them together and eventually you'll have a working airplane. You know, it doesn't work that way with writing writing practices. Great. It's great to write every day. It's great to journal, whatever. And I highly encourage that. But you also have to write very deliberately, and that involves the studying of great writing and doing like read Hemingway said, study how other writers did this.

And then you try to copy it so you can do it yourself and you can get the same results. Right? So just like anything else. And I, like I said, I rarely ever hear writing instructors tell writers to do this, but this is the number one thing I think writers should do. They should, as part of their discipline or their writing practice, they should beat, you know, reading widely and not just reading, but studying what they're reading. Um, I've heard people say, yeah, you should read a lot of books, great read books. It's fun to read books, but if you're not really paying attention, if you're just enjoying the book, which I like to do from time to time, just read a book for fun.

Um, that's a different thing. But for the most part, when I read a book, I just tear it apart. You know, what's working, what's not? Why is this boring? Why do I hate this scene? Um, it's good to know why you hate something. It's good to know why you don't like a scene. It's good to know why your board or why you don't care about a character. It's good to know why you halfway through the book, you just give up. What was the point? What was that tipping point for you that said, okay, forget it. I'm not going to waste any more time reading this book that teaches you a lot and you should learn from it so that you don't do those same mistakes in your writing.

Jesper (48m 33s): Yeah, I think that's, that's amazing. There. There's so much a GM Pactor good stuff in it. In this episode. He has a center, so thanks a lot for, for that. And, uh, I will also put a link in the show notes to the uh, live write thrive.com website where I think people can, there was like a one free session or something off the course. Is that right?

Susanne (48m 54s): Well that's my blog. Um, my online school is that CS lakin.teachable.com and that's my writing, that's my writing for life workshops online school. So I have my video courses on that. Um, so yeah, I'll send you the link and then if you put that down there that good. And um, yeah, so I have a, I have a handful of courses. I'm working on a new course right now on your cast of characters which are really excited about because I'm going to be interviewing a dozen or so bestselling authors starting this week. I'm doing video interviews with them to ask them how do they come up with their characters, how many characters, how did they decide which characters they want.

That's also another thing I've been trying to research online. I can't find any information on it. How do you know how to populate your story with how many characters and what are they, what are their roles? Uh, it's, so, it's a fascinating topic again when that I just feel writers should know and I'm, I'm excited to see what I'm going to learn in my exploration as I go through this. But yeah, so I hope, I hope people come check it out. And again, if you go to C us lakin.teachable.com and you click on the emotional mastery course, you can scroll down to the curriculum and you'll see the free preview.

So if you want to just watch the one module for free on the action reaction cycle, do that. You don't have to commit or enroll or anything like that. Uh, I feel like the course take it, uh, if you don't like the course after you pay for it, you get a full refund. So there's no commitment. It's like 30 day money back guarantee. So, um, but I, I do think that you'll learn a lot from it and, um, check out my other courses. I think I have free previews on all my other courses too. So if you see something else that you need to learn, like what your 10 key scenes are or your four foundational pillars are.

I have courses on those things too, um, based on my books. So, um, I hope you check them out. Yeah, thanks for having me here. I really appreciate being able to share all this information and I, I really love to help writers and I love to see writers improve in their writing so they write great books. That's what matters

Jesper (50m 50s): indeed. Yeah. And thank you so much for joining us. So I hope you got a lot out of this. Uh, DLS snow and there was a lot of good, good, good stuff in here. So I will see you next Monday. And then autumn, we'll be back a posting with me

Narrator (51m 5s): if you like what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support the amwritingfantasy podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join autumn and Yesper on patrion.com/amwritingfantasy for as little as a dollar a month. You'll get awesome rewards and keep the amwritingfantasy podcast going. Stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 46 – eBook Formatting Essentials

How seriously do you take formatting your ebook?

Tune in to why you should care (a lot) and some tips to make sure your ebook shines no matter what platform readers find you on.

Check out these links from the show (all non-affiliate): Vellum, D2D, Mac in the Cloud

Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday.

SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST!

Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review.

Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy.

For as little as a dollar a month, you’ll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going.

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).

Narrator (2s): You're listening to the amwritingfantasy podcast. In today's publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need in literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing join to best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them. Now onto the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt. Hello. I am, Jesper.

Autumn (32s): And I'm Autumn.

Jesper (34s): This is episode 46 of the amwritingfantasy podcast. And today we'll be talking about formatting of ebook. So what do you need to consider about

Autumn (44s): formatting? Can you do it yourself? And what about the reading experience? So that's some of the stuff that we're going to talk about. But how's your week been autumn? Before we get into all of that, it's been kind of a crazy week here in Maine and new England where I'm at. We had a huge nor'easter sweep through which it's a big storm that am swept all the way up the coast from Pennsylvania up into where I'm at in Maine, right on the coast. And it left a swath of areas without power, which was surprising.

And we get these a lot in the winter, but this one was just rain in a 60 mile per hour winds. It tore up trees. And so where I'm at here in Maine, we, we lost power for probably a full day in intranet as well of course. So that kind of, you know, it was a perfect day for reading a book, but that's about what you get. Uh, but there are still places here on the peninsula that are without power and I mean huge old Oak trees and Pines with big white Pines that you couldn't even put your arms around that are still across power lines.

It's just amazing. And it's, it's interesting cause my inlaws actually where we're staying at the moment have a generator. So for us, and we have cell phones and we're, you know, we're used to traveling. We're used to like, okay, just get in the camper, we have battery backups to actually three solar panels. Am we use our cell phones as hotspots. The towers were fine. So we're like, Oh, it's a normal day. And it wasn't until we got out of the house and we see all these restaurants and cafes and everything is packed to the gills were like, Oh, people don't have power.

It's really funny cause I mean we've lived, um, Adam and I have lived just weave, our old house was 100% off grid, so you'd have that all the time. We'd go to, I'd go to work and people were like, Oh man, we lost power to do lose power. I'm like, Nope, there's solar panels are still working great and never had a problem. And even that, we had a old house whenever we've had a few houses in our life and marriage. And one of them was a 200 year old Chestnut timber framed Cape Cod style house.

So it was very old and historic and it was, it looked like a little Norman Rockwell painting. And it was beautiful. And even though there we didn't have solar panels or a generator, we, whenever we lost power, we had this candelabra that actually had real candles. And so we would go and light the candles and we would, you know, we'd sit there and play cards or something with each other and it, people would drive by thinking we were fine and D had power and it just never fazed us. So it's never been a big deal for us. But it was am.

It is interesting when you see how many people, especially in today's day and age and when the internet goes out and you can't charge your cell phone, how many people were kind of freaking out by day two?

Jesper (3m 39s): Yeah, I don't know. I think I would be freaking out, but I would certainly be annoyed, you know, uh, uh, w w w every summer, or not every summer, but almost every summer when, when we go to Finland, uh, for, for us to stay at summer cottages, we usually rent one. And uh, in the earlier years, like years back then, because in Finland is, it's all fenders, also a huge country. So a lot of the times the summer cottages are like out in nowhere and it's very difficult to get power lines and everything out there.

So many times you do have cottages where maybe there is no like a,

Autumn (4m 15s): yeah.

Jesper (4m 15s): You know, proper toilet. Uh, sometimes the house is powered by solar cells as well, which works fine. But, but the first couple of years when we went there and sometimes we rented those types of cottages and I always like, after like four or five days, I almost had enough. It's like I need my running water. I need my path, I need a proper toilet, I need the internet. This is driving me crazy. So, so it'd be the later years. We've only only rent like the Luxe luxury kind of days where they have everything available.

Otherwise I'm not going yet.

Autumn (4m 46s): You wouldn't have appreciated our old house. I remember when we were telling my parents that were building this, I mean we, we literally build it ourselves. We use my old Jeep Wrangler as the generator. It was so far off grid, so T.H.E. Run the souls. We were using, uh, a car engine because we had nothing else up there. And so, but when you walked in, you flipped on a switch, you use the sink. We had that thing so set up that you would not know what was under the hood was solar power and a different am. It was a special pump that was off of an RV, so it was a low drawl and wattage and I feel like we really, we could make this a, like we could sell this to people, like how to do it.

We had it so well set up and I'm still kind of proud of that. But yeah, we had a lot of people would be like, what's it like? You know, do you not have this and not have that? I'm like, I go home and we watch movies. The stove, you know, eh, did have a propane fridge and a propane stove. But that is totally like, there's actually stores here in Maine because so many people have camps and cabins where there's propane lights, propane stove. It's just like normal up here. It's so easy and it's kind of cool. Yeah, I think a lot of it is also about getting used to, but of course you'd have to, the willingness to get

Jesper (5m 58s): use to Ingrid's. I don't. So that's my problem. So how, what have you been up to this week? That's why you also far away. So you hopefully you got to see a movie. Yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So like we, like we talked about in last week's episode, uh, the kids were away at my mother's place for most of the week because they were off school. So, uh, the wife and I went to the movies the other day and what's the new joker movie? And, uh, it is really, really critical.

Oh, that's awesome. The reviews are like mixed. So I wasn't sure if I wanted to go see it, but you say it's good. Yes, it is. It is so good. I'm not going to spoil anything here in case for those who have, haven't watched it, but I have to say a note because one of the things I was thinking about before going to move to the movies and watching this movie, what was some, was one of the topics that we as writers so often talk about and that's about how to, you know, give the villain justification for his or her actions. And I was really thinking about before watching this movie, how are they going to do that with the joker in the way that, because in my view, if they turn the joker into like a likable character all of a sudden, then I think that would be an issue because that's not what the joker is, right?

He is a bad, bad person. And, and I was really thinking, so how are they going to turn him into a likable or not turned in into likable, likable character rather. But at the same time, Megan, the enjoyable movie, because obviously like with books, if you read a book and the main characters like really annoying and you hate the person you usually don't like to read either. And that was, that was a bit my concern here. Um, but they, they did it so incredibly well and, and like, I mean, did joker, he is crazy, but they do a very, very, very good character arc from the start of the movie to the end of the movie where you just see him going more and more and more crazy and it makes sense in what happens.

And it's, it's like, it is nothing really to do with like, you know, the whole Batman universe or whatever. There's very, very little of that. D the whole point of the movie is, is the joker character and how he sort of becomes the joker in how he goes crazy and it is so well done. Well there you have to say what queen Phoenix, the, he deserves an Oscar for that performance. It is incredible acting. So convincing. So good. I mean he's a good actor anyway. One of my favorites. So yeah, I knew it very well.

Could pull it off. It would be him. So I guess from a writing perspective, if anyone's working on characters and wants to show a villainous growth, this is a good movie, I guess you're suggesting. Go see this one. Yeah, absolutely. And especially I like how they, how they build on his getting crazy. You know, how they build one brick at a time because it's not like some, you know, some, you know, well some movies where something happens and then all of a sudden, well then the character is completely different all of a sudden.

I mean, okay. Sometimes in a movie you can sort of accept that, okay, that thing happened and that was really traumatizing or whatever. And then the person changed me. Yeah, you can make that argument. But in this movie they just build it brick by brick and it is so cool.

Autumn (9m 10s): I really liked you. I was saying, I think you've convinced me I might have to try to find time in my schedule. I'm of a very busy week I think coming up that maybe I'll have to sneak out and see this one too.

Jesper (9m 22s): Yeah, you shoot, you shoot and then avoid all the crazy people that comes out as well. You know I have to say when when we watched this movie, right, so there is a, there is a twofer in the movement and am

Autumn (9m 35s): for some weird reason there was these people in the cinema that was laughing like hysterical when something happened to that dwarf and I'm not going to spoil anything but, but, but what happens is not a good thing. You know, it's a pretty crazy, insane scene. And they were like laughing hysterical because th there was destroy often to see. And I was like my wife and I was looking at each other like, what the fuck is, isn't this 2019? I mean, why is it funny to what's a twofer anymore? I mean maybe in the 90 eighties I understand, but Jesus, I'll keep that in mind.

Make it might need to take some like rotten fruit to throw at somebody if they act out of line. But people are just weird. I think we've already established that week on the internet with the amwritingfantasy podcast yeah, so I was actually the

Jesper (10m 28s): thinking am normally we try to pick out something that is being discussed in the Facebook group or on Patrion or something like that. But actually I was thinking today to maybe just do like a small cultural action to our listeners here. If that's cool. That sounds sure. Let's do it. Yeah, because I was thinking after watching digital movie here, um, I was thinking that maybe if people could go into to our Facebook group, uh, you know, if you, if, if you're not a member already, just search for amwritingfantasy among the groups on Facebook and then you'll find us.

But if you go in there and then let us know what you thought of the movie because I actually would like to hear other people's perspective on this and if they agree with me that it is really a beautiful way to construct the character arc or if you're having issues with it. And to be honest, I would really like to hear what people think about the last two minutes of the movies, but that might be a bit difficult to do without spoiling anything. But yeah, there is a bit there that I really would like to discuss with somebody. Maybe you will, I can discuss it once you watch the movie or

Autumn (11m 32s): that sounds good. Oh, I like that. So yes, that's a good call to action. So anyone who has seen it, I mean we, we should put like, you knows asterix at the top and say, spoiler alert in this conversation if you can see that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And uh, yeah, good idea. We'll start a thread and see what am who else has seen it and what they think because yeah, especially from the character arc point of view, how it progresses even though I haven't seen it. I like what you've said that you know, this is a good character art. Like to see what people have to say and yeah, if we warn them that there's some spoilers ahead, I think people will forgive us.

Jesper (12m 7s): Yeah, we could do that. So if you want to, you know, post something in the Facebook group to let me know what you think about the last two minutes. Just put that a spoiler ahead wanting at the top. They're like autumn suggesting and then let me know because I would really like to talk about those last two minutes there. And now for those who haven't watched it, I really curious to go in and watch the movie because they want to figure out what's what happens in those two minutes. So yeah, maybe I'll just set you up for that. Maybe that was on purpose.

And also by the way, where if while you were in the Facebook group, uh, at the point in time when you're listening to this, we are in the middle of November. Uh, of course, uh, autumn and I record these in advance, but so we instill in October right now, but we're talking to you in the future. So when you're listening it will be in the middle of November. And if you're doing NaNoWriMo, then maybe you could just go into the Facebook group as well and let us know how you're progressing in NaNoWriMo.

Autumn (13m 1s): Yeah, that's what I was actually saw that, uh, there's been so many posts recently, like, Hey, are you getting ready? Are you prepping? You know, when we're recording this, we're getting close to the end of October. And so everyone is coming together and talking about who's doing it, why are you in now? No ride Mo, you know, what do you get out of it, do you not? Do you know what was going on? So I love seeing all the people getting excited and prepping for it. And the other ones who were saying, no, this is why I can't do it, or this is why I don't, or this is what I do instead. So it's so exciting. But now you know, when you're listening to this, it'll be November and I'm sure everyone's going to be supporting everyone and doing world word count updates and celebrating as people reach their goals.

So yay, I can't wait to see that.

Jesper (13m 48s): So autumn, you should just get some weeks back that we should record an episode about formatting.

Autumn (13m 54s): So this is my legal soon here. I think formatting is so important, but I don't see many blog posts, many topics talking about formatting and why it's important. And I know, you know, it's just especially, I think when I first started out, you know, back then I was late, I like to call 2012 when I was first publishing. That was the wild West days of self-publishing because a lot of stuff could go. You could do get away with anything. In fact, Amazon's requirements, we're only a word doc doc file and they would do a crazy conversions and make it into an ebook for you.

And there were a lot of books out there that you'd be reading it and would have these weird like hanging line breaks. Something would just stop in the middle of a sentence and it'd be like two lines down. And I remember reading some of these and even if the story was good, you hit that and you're like, did I miss something? What's on why? Where is the rest of this sentence of this paragraph? Did I get deleted and throw you out of the story? And I think maybe because I came from that, that we, that it's just always been very important to have a very nice looking document.

Not just because it looks professional, but because as a reader and reading it, you don't want to get hung up going, what is this saying? Where's the rest of the story? Did they paste in somebody else's novel right here and I don't know about you. Yes. For have you had, have you read some books online and stuff that you're not just the formatting threw you off or even paperbacks? I mean, sometimes things get published and you're like, really? Did anyone check this page?

Jesper (15m 36s): Um, I might have to be honest, but, but I'm not sure I can, I cannot recall like a specific example. Uh, I think nowadays, usually most of the time the formatting is under control when you're buying eBooks and stuff. Like as though I might have come across something like that, but, but I do support your point of view in the way that am if you spend all that money on getting a good cover, you spent money on, on an editing and not ignore ignoring all the time you spend writing the novel in the first place. So it's like not taking care of formatting then you basically stumbling on the finish line.

Yeah.

Autumn (16m 13s): Right, exactly. It means so much. And there's, um, you know, while there's four matters that you can always hire a professional, but there's also a lot of do it yourself programs that make it pretty easy. I mean, Scribner will spit out a file, but to me, I don't actually like Scribner's file. I don't think it's that pretty or professional looking. But it is possible. And if you happen to be a Mac user pages actually will spit out an epoch file and Amazon now takes E pub files if you did not know that.

So you can upload directly to Amazon, a nice looking epoch file. So I think it's amazing what is available to make at least a clean looking ebook but it's also amazing how many people don't go and download it and check it before hitting publish. And I do think at least taking a few minutes of doing that as important.

Jesper (17m 5s): Yeah. Yeah, I agree. And I think it is also, I mean at this point in time we've gotten to a stage where it is so incredibly easy to get good formatting programs or I mean, uh, just like three, four years ago maybe, um, I was still using like a, a I P I put a file from Scrivener and then I was using this,

Autumn (17m 28s): should you sit? You'll do July. I've never used it, but I have seen it.

Jesper (17m 33s): Yeah, I was using CTO because then you could upload to Scribner file into CTO and CJ were allow you to like manipulate the hedos. Everything that's Scrivener did not do that well. And uh, and then I could go from there. But it was like there was like four steps to

Autumn (17m 51s): ebook whereas nowadays you just like click a button and vellum almost. Right. And then you're good to go. I guess that's what am. I mean I remember, I think my first one I did do, I was still on an Apple at the time, but everyone required a word doc and it was just like, well shoot. So I had to go pay for word or I think I was transferring it to my husband's Dell and the crazy manipulations I had to do to upload something. It's like no wonder it looks like crap. And sometimes it would change the formatting or the fonts and it was just a mess.

What to create anything. And nowadays I, when vellum first come at came out and I knew at that point I think I had published at least three or four books and I knew I was serious and I'm very much a do it yourself. For so I went ahead and bought vellum when it was brand new and fairly cheap. And so I've had it since the beginning and Oh my goodness. One of my favorite thing about it is that it creates a professional, really beautiful ebook end paperback now that's across platforms.

So I can take my vellum file and upload it to like drafted digital or Smashwords with the distributors or Kobo or anywhere. And I know it's going to look, it's going to have drop caps is going to have these cool centered chapters with little like ornaments or an image and it's going to look like that on every single re e-reader from a nook to an iPad. I love that. I love knowing that I'm producing something that's quality that the readers are going to be like, hopefully they're not even going to notice the formatting.

You spend all this time and effort on it and the real goal is that the readers don't even notice except for maybe saying, Oh, it's dry. It has a drop cap. It looks so beautiful. Or something like that. Yeah, I agree, but, but they will notice if it's not there. I think that's the difference. They will notice if it's crappy, but they will love notice when it looks good because then it just looks like everything else. But that's not a bad thing because you want to look like everything else. Right. Should that stand out in this way? No. I mean it's nice to have this little nuances like having, you know, you can have an image and now with vellum you can even have like the scene breaks that are within a chapter.

You can use am your own emblem or symbol, which is really cool. So like for my Celtic one, my one is a Fe novel. I have a little am Celtic knot work that I can use as my line break instead of like a, you know, regular slash and so it's nice having those little touches that can kind of, you know, keep the theme going in a story. But at the same time it doesn't have to be, it can just be, you know, a simple line and you know, it's there and it's clear. And again, the reader, hopefully it's, it reminds me of last week when we were talking about dialogue and using the word said, and Stephen King had said, you know, you said because it fades into the background.

Well, we both disagree. It's just too boring to only use said, but when it comes to formatting, you do want it to fade into the background. You want it to be. You know, the neat thing about these e-readers, uh, versus like a paperback is that you can set up your own colors and fonts, things that you kind of, or how you went to experience books. And I think that's fantastic. So there's this sort of methodology where you kind of want enough control for the reader to be like, I need a white screen or I want to cream screen, I'm using a Kindle Paperwhite and so it looks like a real page, you know, that's what I love about vellum and I'm not trying to sell vellum to anyone, but it has definitely been my favorite thing and it is, it's not as simple as a click, but it is a drag and drop and then make sure everything looks right.

So it's so, and actually Scrivener now we'll spit it out into vellum basically. So it is just, it's almost seamless and it is fantastic. Of course, you know, I always laugh at that idea that Scribner will spit out the fi file and develop. But the problem is unless your editor is using either Scribner or vellum am you still have to have the editor kind of sitting in there somewhere. So you've got to figure that one out.

Jesper (22m 1s): Yeah. And just to be clear, I mean we're not, we're not affiliates of Willem or anything, so we just mentioning it because it's a very good tool and I think I'll put a, I'll put a link to vellum in the show notes as well just in case anybody wants to check it out. But again, it's not an affiliate link or anything. So we just mentioning it because we really liked that tool and I especially liked the, because you helped me or them when I was a formatting my ebook on mapmaking because there was a lot of different images in that file of of different maps and I was really concerned initially about how is this going to scale on different e-readers because you know, my file of course has like a, a certain size of of the different maps I in in a set side size and my Scribner file.

So I was really concerned like how is this going to look across the different new readers. But then yeah, she just explained, well I'm just a auto fits it to the different, the ureter so that it's, it's amazing like that it looks

Autumn (22m 55s): good no matter where you put it. And you get these like you can do little different images or you know borders around it. It's just, it's easy. It looks pretty and there's times am it's almost, I used to format my paperbacks in word because I had control and I can have different fonts and different drop caps and I can make it look a little more fantasy where you know, the font options and vellum are not all, you know, there's like five or six different fonts and honestly they all look about a hundred percent the same to me. And I love fonts, which is kind of sad.

But it is true. There's not a huge unit. Can't really change things really badly. And I mean I probably went sometimes too far cause I would have my drop cap. So that big capital at the beginning of a chapter in a totally different font that maybe looked more fantasy or something. I thought the books were just gorgeous because if you're going to pay 1112 you know, plus dollars for a paperback, you should get a work of art. It should be beautiful and something you're going to cherish.

Because honestly, I mean, how many books do any of us have that are actually on our shelf? So if you're going to go that far, it should be just this wonderful, wonderful thing to celebrate books. And so I would go way out of town and once I switched to vellum paper back, I lost a few things that I used to do, but I have to admit, it is so easy. I know format once and I get an EPOP. I get my Moby Kindle file and I get my paper back. Boom, boom, boom.

That's why I did it. I had to give up some of my creative control. But yeah, no, they're also changing and growing and maybe eventually a little, let me add a few more fonts, but for now it's, it's not worth, um, being that creative because really at the end of the day I just want it to look good and carry across to all the readers wherever they pick it up that it is a beautiful file and plus it has to not be massive cause like we was talking about with yours and the photos, it's so easy if you're doing that in word to make that not knowing how things are going to size.

And there's some coding techniques where it's a flowable texts so it's not going to, you know, where the page break is going to be for the next chapter if you have one. But basically things don't get hung up on one page versus the next page. There's some really cool things that go into coding for e-readers if you, if you get into coding things. So you know, knowing all that's in there to create that in word is cumbersome. And if you have some hidden formatting things like a space or if you're using tabs.

Oh my goodness, don't I remember, I think the first time I wrote anything, I use tabs instead of an automatic indebt at a paragraph or that horrible, I can't even remember what Amazon might've done to it. It was just like, Nope, start over. Uh, those are things that it's really nice when you use a software program, it'll fix that for you. But I definitely, I learned very quickly to set up my typing document am correctly so that you hit enter and it gives you an indent and never, ever, ever touched tab while you're writing something.

Jesper (26m 23s): No. And I think at least at the point of disregarding, uh, Mac or vellum is only available for Mac.

Autumn (26m 30s): I think you're right, but

Jesper (26m 33s): there is, there should be a work around, uh, actually I'll try to find a link on how to do that work around and then put that into shore. Not as well, if anybody's interested. But what you could do is you can basically like a Mac

Autumn (26m 44s): in the cloud. So that means that you basically have a Mac machine, but it sits in the cloud. And then you can do use developed from there. And then even though you have a PC, you can, you can get the files out of vellum that way. But I'll see if I can find the link to how to get access to Mac in a cloud somewhere. I'm not, I'm not sure. I've never done it myself, but I'll try to find the link and put it in the show notes. But maybe we should also mention apart from vellum, um, if you go to draft two digital, I'll also put a link to that in the show notes, but if you go there, they actually offer free formatting for years.

So they're not going to charge you anything. And you do not have to publish with draft two digital either to use the formatting tool. Anybody can use it for absolutely free without any commitments or publishing anything with draft two digital. So those guys are just cool like that. Yeah. So that's another option. Yes. And it's a pretty powerful editor and formatted or format her as well. And it'll create something. I don't think it's quite as pretty as vellum but it probably all the breaks where you need it. Um, it talks, you know, they even step you through what you need for your front matter and your back matter.

So if you're just into publishing, maybe this is your first book and you suddenly you have to consider what do I put at the beginning, you know, where do I add Jeff to digital actually will step you through that and kind of give you some ideas of like, Hey, do you have this, do you have your links here? Do you have this about your bio? So they are really good guys that way and it is, you know, is a decent file and it'll carry across very well. And I also want to mention, I am not good with this one, but Calibri is a free formatting software that's available online.

And I do have that. Yeah, I use it to look at things and it actually converts file types very well. So for if you had for some reason something you wanted to convert an epoch back to a doc file, you can actually do that with Calibri. And that's why I have it because I can, I can change the format around. But yeah, you mess up in Calibri and you get, Oh, you get spaces. It's, yeah, I it blows up whenever I use it, but I do, I've, I know people who have used it and they create amazing books.

And I do think there's a way of using it for videos, which, um, is a nonfiction book. Like if you're doing like a web tutorial and you actually want the video embedded in your book, I'm not sure vellum does that yet, but I think you can do it with Calibri if you happen to be a coding wizard as much as I play with code and stuff like that, that is way beyond me. Yeah. But another nice trick that I could also mention is that if you get, I mean, of course you software, so we're talking about now like vellum or drafted digital that they'll like spit up the format files you need.

But, but just a very neat trick as well is if you have the Kindle previewer

Jesper (29m 43s): so that you can download that from Amazon. It's just like a free piece of software you can download. So not, not the Kindle for PC, but the Kindle previewer. If you download that and basically you can then use that preview or to open an IPAP file and then the preview will recognize that this is not my correct file format and then it'll automatically converted into a mobi. But that's pretty, uh, that's a pretty neat trick.

Autumn (30m 7s): That is a good one. And I do know, I think ebook funnel, if you have to be using ebook funnel, they will now do some conversions for you as well. I think they'll take an E pub and make it to a mobi. Um, it's a new announcement and I don't know if I read the whole thing, but I think that's something that they're doing. So if you're an author and you want to, I mean, why is this important? Because you can actually upload an epoch file to Amazon and they accepted and it's fine. And even I use Smashwords as my distributor and instead of doing a dot doc file like they require and having it go through the meat grinder and not feeling competent at all about what's going to come out the other end, I actually just upload my vellum E pub and they're fine with that as well now, which is exciting.

When they switched to that, I could have just hugged everyone at Smashwords because that was a dream come true for me that I never have to do the meat grinder again. It's fantastic, but the reason you might want these files if you are trying to send out to beta readers or arc readers and you need to get the file out before it's available for sale, you kind of need all of these files, so that's why we're like telling you how to go ahead and get them and create them for yourself. Not necessarily so that you uploading them, which is it's great to have them for uploading, but if you need to get them to readers so that they can read it for you and look at things and test out your formatting.

This is how you can do it.

Jesper (31m 31s): Yeah, I would say that, you know, even for uploading when you're publishing, I mean, I would really advise against uploading a word file. I mean, yes, it's possible, but it's going to be crap. And the formatting like we just talked about here, it's important that the reader gets a good experience. So in most cases nowadays, because of these, uh, both the free tools, uh, that we've been mentioning or vellum or whatever you want to do, um, it is not too complicated to do, but, but even if you do feel is too complicated paying somebody to do a conversion for you.

I mean, you can even ask autumn and we'll do it. I mean, it's, it's not, it's not that expensive to get somebody to do it because it's a such a fairly simple job nowadays that you can get somebody to do it fairly cheaply, I would say.

Autumn (32m 19s): I agree. I mean there's definitely, there's some higher end ones, but always be conscious to the fact that if you don't do it yourself or you hire someone, you know, make sure they keep the file or give you access to the file. Because if you, what are your readers finds a misspelling and you want it fixed, you don't want to have to pay for the formatting all over again. So that's why I think I like being in charge of it myself. I don't think it's just that I'm like a control freak, but whatever. I have to tell myself at the end of the day.

Right.

Jesper (32m 52s): That's true.

Autumn (32m 56s): But it is, I would say, yeah, just sort of final note formatting I think one of the things we really haven't talked about and was one of the first things with formatting that surprised me was so important and will actually decrease, um, Amazon's acceptance of your book is if you do not have that clickable table of contents in the beginning. So often if you're uploading a word file, unless you've gone through and done the bookmarks, even in pages, there's a whole bunch of processing and coding you have to do on yourself and it's not too difficult.

It just takes time and consistency and double-checking herself, but making that so you have an act of table of contents in the beginning that you click on chapter 11 and actually go to chapter 11 if you don't have that, Amazon will actually ping that against you. So make sure that is there. And if you're a new author and you don't know how to do that, it's part of your formatting get someone to do it for you or vellum or there's pages in word. There's a few ways of doing it and there's a wrong way of doing it as well, that it creates something that's not actually going to upload to Amazon.

So double check that. But that's one of the biggest things that you want to make sure you have because it's actually important to the places you're uploading. If they don't see that clickable table of contents, they're like, yeah, you don't know what you're doing and this is not going to work for us.

Jesper (34m 18s): Yup. Okay. So I hope you got a lot a lot out of that and learned a bit about formatting and some things to think about a, it's certainly one of the things you don't want to skimp on a at the end and, and stumble on that finish line that there was no reason to do so. And if you find all the techie stuff a bit complicated, you know, uh, yeah, you can, yeah. You can commission order to, to do it for work for you. For I'm am and for a very fair price. You, she will do that. But that's up to you. Whatever you want to do a, I'll put some, I'll put some links in the show notes as I've been mentioning here.

And uh, and then, uh, next Monday I'm aiming to have an interview lined up for you, but I'll see how that goes. And if for some reason that doesn't work out, autumn and I will be back.

Narrator (35m 7s): If you like what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support the amwritingfantasy podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join autumn and Yesper on patrion.com/amwritingfantasy for as little as a dollar a month. You'll get awesome rewards and keep the amwritingfantasy podcast going. Stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 45 – How to Write Strong Dialogue

Writing dialogue can be fun, but also challenging.

What do you need to be aware of?

How do you write strong and meaningful dialogue between characters in your novel?

In this episode 45 of the Am Writing Fantasy podcast, Autumn and Jesper will give you all the insights you need to become better at writing interesting dialogue.

Looking for more? Here are the links to the four blog posts mentioned in the podcast:

https://www.amwritingfantasy.com/who-said-that-dialogue-and-your-writing-post-1-dialogue-tags/

https://www.amwritingfantasy.com/dialogue-post-2-adverbs/

https://www.amwritingfantasy.com/dialogue-post-3-action-tags/

https://www.amwritingfantasy.com/dialogue-post-4-line-breaks/

And the Emotional Thesaurus.

It's an amazing companion book that any writer will enjoy: https://www.amazon.com/Emotion-Thesaurus-Writers-Character-Expression-ebook/dp/B07MTQ7W6Q/

Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday.

SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST!

Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review.

Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy.

For as little as a dollar a month, you’ll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going.

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).

Narrator (2s): You're listening to the amwritingfantasy podcast in today's publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need in literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing join to best selling authors who have self-published more than 20 books between them. Now onto the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt.

Jesper (31s): Hello. I am Jesper and I'm Autumn. This is episode 45 of the amwritingfantasy podcast and we are going to discuss ways in which you can write not only believable but also compelling and rich dialogue. Yay. Should be interesting. Yeah. Like, podcast is also a bit of a dialogue. So, guess that works. Yeah, we'll be talking about talking.

It almost sounds a bit weird. I'm sure we'll work it out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But dialogue is important, so I'm looking forward to get into that. But, um, but before we get that far, I have to say, I mean we are, we actually recording off schedule right now because normally we record these podcasts on Mondays and today it's a Wednesday because I had to shift things around because this week here in Denmark, the kids are off school isn't a holiday for you guys or it's a school holiday this week.

So, uh, so day off school from school and then, uh, Monday we uh, we tried to do like a family day and just to do some stuff together. So we went to the cinema and watched a movie together with the kids, which was nice. And then yesterday, uh, I after work, um, after I was done with my work day, I done drove and Mike our kids off and delivered them to my mother's place. But that's a across the country.

So I think by us standards, it's not that far. You're in Denmark is a two and a half hour drive each way, which is quite a lot in this country. I drove them there in the afternoon, then I have some dinner and then drove back. So I was back here home at midnight yesterday and then I was up this morning and I think I've been working for 11 hours today, so I can feel it a bit now.

Autumn (2m 33s): It's, as I said, if you get a little loopy or low energy towards the end, we'll know why. But yeah, driving two and a half hours, I think that's sorta like driving across most States. But it's gonna say a Texas, I think it's eight hours across. So you're, you're a smaller state is what they had to be like. Here yeah, I'll, I'll country he is not that big, but that's actually nice when you have to get around.

Jesper (2m 58s): Right. And you don't have to drive that far.

Autumn (3m 0s): Yeah, exactly. No, I think it, I think good, cozy community and even cozy States because yeah, it feels more like, you know, it community. You get to know places really intimately. So I think that's actually a huge benefit. Um, I can't tell you how many as we are driving the last three years am across the entire country. How many times we've met people, you know, from the Midwest who had never seen the ocean or maybe they'd only seen Lake superior, just people who'd never seen the mountains are never seen the desert. And you know, we're actually, I'm really odd, my husband and I, we have seen as much as we have of cross of the United States.

So kind of changes your perspective a little bit.

Jesper (3m 41s): Yeah, and I, I mean for sure here in this country, if you don't travel then uh, you know, outside the country to other countries, then you will never see a mountain. That's just impossible. It's true. I have something, we have something we call a mountain in a, it's, it's base, it's in Jutland in the middle of Jutland and I, th I, I'm going off memory here and I could be wrong, but it's like 250 meters high or something like that. So that's all my own.

Autumn (4m 7s): It's like a hell yeah. That's why every time I sent pictures of the mountains in the Rockies, you're like, wow, that's amazing.

Jesper (4m 17s): Yeah. Well I love mountain. So we went to Greece two years ago. There was mountains outside the windows and also when we went to New Zealand two years ago. I mean, I love that the nature stuff that it's so different from my own country. Here

Autumn (4m 31s): well you make me think when we finally get to meet up in person, we'll have to like make it somewhere in like the Rockies just so you can see some mountains.

Jesper (4m 39s): Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's cool. All right. Well a huge forest and stuff like that as holds it.

Autumn (4m 44s): Yeah. Yeah. I S yeah, there's so many spectacular places like that glacier NEC national part for anyone who's in Montana. Um, I think it's one of the prettiest national parks of the United States. It is just all inspiring. Astounding. And I have to admit, the first time I saw it was just in the fall, right after a light snow and all the mountain tops were white in the trees, still had some color and it was just like, wow. It was amazing. Amazing. So I cannot wait to some day, get back there hopefully soon.

But it's funny. So you're talking about your week and you know, there's a lot of the readers or listeners will not, but I've been actually helping out at a cafe. It's actually a friends downtown and it's only been open for like five or six months. And here recording this, this is only like mid October. So what's released, you know, much later. But we're just getting into the height of Halloween here in Maine. And uh, we just had this huge festival called pumpkin Fest. And so there's these massive, I think that winner was 1800 pounds am that was the largest pumpkin grown.

So they have these massive pumpkins and they put them all downtown and they decorate them. And there was like lanterns, fish. There's like a dragon. There's Audrey from the little shop of horrors or is hedgehogs? It's just so much fun. But the fun thing is, is I've never, I, you know, I love tea. I'm not a coffee drinker though. My husband is. Um, and then two, I'm a Baker, so they've been huge use of my baking skills, but to be thrown into a cafe setting and trying to learn this espresso machine and what a macchiato is, I couldn't even pronounce machiatto like go of core Tado and actually kind of starting to pick up with some of these drinks are, is really fun and it's humbling.

I think anyone who thinks that they are top of their game and something in life needs to go do something entirely new, a brand new enterprise at least once a year so that you can be a little bit humbled and realize you are, you got, you're not top of everything. You may be an awesome whatever you are. Calligrapher cross Stitcher, cross country skier, I don't know, whatever, you're so obvious. I hopefully a writers if you're listening to this, you may be so, so very good. But it is so humbling to throw yourself back into something entirely new, especially in a sink or swim situation with the housing.

You know all these people coming in from the parade and Oh, it was just a madhouse, but it was kind of fun. I actually managed to keep up with the 20 somethings on work was working with, so that's another humbling experience when they're talking about what they want to major in. You're like, Oh, Oh, Oh, back in the day. Yeah, I don't drink coffee. I then I hopped from what you just mentioned, I don't understand why this was the biggest surprise for me is one of my coworkers said, you've got to try a dirty chai.

I'm like, what the heck is a dirty chai? Because they knew I like T. so a dirty chai is a sh hot chai with a shot of espresso in it. And as far as I'm concerned, tea and coffee should never meet. I have sent back with water. Yeah, that's what I was thinking too. Yeah. I've sent back water that had been run through the coffee pot going, I do you know what? Coffee water. I want real water. I am such a tea snob. Totally. Just, yeah, I know. I admit that, but Oh my gosh. Dirty chai there.

Especially I do decaf because I cannot do espressos. Um, but it tastes like kind of like a rich warm pumpkin pie. You don't taste the coffee. It's just makes it deeper and richer. So anyone else out there who is crazy like me and things, coffee and tea should never meet, try a dirty chai or maybe don't because I have to admit now I'm slightly addicted and that's going to kill with me for a long after the cafe. It'll stick a no, just waiting, you know, before you know when all of it, then you will stop drinking coffee as well.

And then you're addicted to that. No, I only drink coffee on, I like coffee on and only decaf again on rainy days because to me coffee tastes like mud and there's just something about money, cold days. And I'm like, Oh, I gotta go for a cup of coffee. It kind of feels like that's the weather, but I have to admit a nice Earl grey as much better in a rainy day.

Jesper (9m 12s): Right, right. Oh yeah. That's a lot of stuff. I mean, yeah, I think we've both have had quite busy, busy times going on. Uh, actually over the past week as well. Not only this week but also last week am I've been preparing notes for our completely free costs that we are going to release probably, I don't know in 2020. So yeah, it's been really busy. But I thought that maybe I should just give a very, very quick like short overview of the modules that I'm currently making the notes for do you think that would be good?

I think that'd be awesome. I know you showed them to me and they, I just cannot wait for this course. It's going to be so awesome. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe I could just do a quick rundown of course for the listener, it's going to take a while before this is done, but, but maybe just as a short teaser or something here. But uh, so module one, we entitle why 2% of authors succeed and 98% don't. And, uh, in that module we are going to share a bit of, of the myth that people believe about self publishing and what it really takes to make it.

And that's followed by module two, which is the mindset that most authors don't understand. Um, and I guess that title pretty much says it. So apart from making you understand how, uh, how you should understand your future career as an author, we also share our top five tips you need to know in order to make it. And that is followed by module three, which is the author platform. Um, and I think our, the platform is like a term that is often thrown around, but uh, but here in this module three, at least, we're going to lay out exactly what it is, how to build it, and how to make it work for you.

Yeah. Fantastic. And module four is, uh, how do online retailers like Amazon actually work? So we're going to talk about the online landscape of bookselling retailers and explain which factors will actually affect your sales. And I think that one module fois is pretty tightly knitted together with module five which is Amazon explains, uh, Amazon explained is what we call it because basically whether we like it or not, Amazon is an incredibly important to all indie author authors and it's therefore really important to understand how the algorithm actually works and how to make your books appear in searches and a lot more so.

And yeah. Also I'm going to share how you can become an Amazon bestselling authors and then maybe your favorite topic, a autumn module six is book covers AA, I love buck covers. Yeah. And they also amazingly important. So we're going to go deep into the topic of book covers in module six and explain everything you need to know about that. And the same can be said about module seven on book descriptions. That's also important. Absolutely altered covid ad and modulate.

I have a feeling that this is one of those where some love it, some hate it. It's about advertising because I mean in, in here in 2019, nobody can make it without advertising. So there's an entire module dedicated to that topic. And then once we have retina or written our books, then we need to launch them. So much in line is gone a share approval, some proven strategies on how to make you book launch is successful. And then module 10 is the cornerstone you can't live without.

Can you guess what that is? And probably remember, Oh shoot, I do remember but now I can't think of no, you say this is a question that wasn't fair of me. It's email marketing, email list that I remember that when now it was just only fitting cause I only just sent out my newsletter yesterday. So all right. Indeed. Yeah. So we're going to share some, some facts about email marketing in, in that module 10 and then of course, and if you have not done so already, you need to get going and get your email list started to today.

Yes. So all of that we're going to give for free and giving all this away for free. This is sad. I know we have been crazy for us. It'd be great. We in the city and I think, I think we are, but I've always said that. So that's all right. Yeah, indeed. I mean, I, I've looked around a bit, um, of, of course we have a, well this is the way we have decided to structure it and what we have decided to do. But if we compare to slightly similar courses, uh, I guess we could call it, uh, I've looked around and they usually charge for about $500 for this type of information.

So, uh, yeah, I dunno, we are stupid or they're going to be mad at us. So yeah. But it's the old still early days and the am but I have my notes completed for half the cost by now. So we are making good progress. Yay. Oh, we go on the internet with the amwritingfantasy podcast. So maybe just a in prolonged nation. Can you say that a lot? Like, I dunno, it works, whatever.

But adding onto, uh, the, the CRE cost that I was just talking about, uh, we also, I shared it, uh, the cost modules on patron as well to our patron supporters and we will got to a lot of nice messages back. That was nice. Yeah, there aren't really excited about this course and I've been, I'm excited about the course, but it's always good. I mean, good to get feedback and find out it's really going

Autumn (14m 52s): to be valuable and really appreciate hearing that. So it makes us more excited to get it done.

Jesper (14m 58s): Yeah, exactly. And then of course at the point in time where you're listening to this podcast episode, those who supports us on Patrion and have already known about this costs, these costs modules that are just yet for several weeks because we do try to maintain a close relationship to the pupil on Patrion and apart from the awesome rewards that we offer in there, we are also, we also share dedicated posts about writing every week. So there's a lot of additional tips and advice that you can pick up on Patrion and we even had our monthly Q and a session recently.

So yeah, go check out patron by the link in the show notes and uh, there's a lot of help you can get there for as little as a dollar a month.

Autumn (15m 41s): Yes. It was really awesome to see the comments on the chorus and actually, because when we're listening to this, while we were recording, it is going to be different from when we launched, but as we're recording this, we only just released episode 42, which was the one where I really gave some personal tips and feedback on how uh, overwhelmed at how my summer was going and the comments of course, Pat the Patriot number has got that early, which was so I got to get that before I hit the general public on Monday. So it was nice to get those like, yes, thank you.

You know, it's so important. But then even once it hit, uh, the general public was a general release. The comments I've gotten back from so many authors and people who are saying, this is not just, you know, authors, but so much of today's life is dealing with being overwhelmed and too many tasks and not knowing how to sort them out. So one, I appreciate all the positive messages, um, with people thanking me for sharing that, but also just wanted to give another shout out to everyone else.

If you're feeling overwhelmed and just struggling, you're not alone. I, I've heard from so many people that if it's not something you're going through now, it's something you've gone through. So, yeah, you know, always reach out, talk to someone, take a deep breath. I used to joke when I was am at my day job and was a manager that if it wasn't life, death or world peace, I was not going to get work worked up. So, uh, you know, reach out to people, keep that in mind and realize that, you know, if no one's going to die, um, if you know you're not going to save someone's life with this news or you know, you're not going to solve all the problems in the world and all Wars were a mill e-stop uh, go, just take a breath.

It's going to be okay to take a few minutes off, a half an hour off a day off and get your head on straight, or at least get back to feeling a little bit like yourself. Don't, don't keep pressing yourself to you. The point of collapse. There's no, there's nothing to be gained in that.

Jesper (17m 40s): No, no. Yeah. I'm not good at that either, to be honest. So I'm listening to you advice here as well. You

Autumn (17m 45s): better, well, I heard you're going to the movies maybe with wife while your kids are away. So that's a very good thing. Executive dialogue yes. This is the, I guess this, this conversation can go in all kinds of directions. Dialogue is so important from a great way to share character stuff. They'll wait. Can't wait to break up the pros in your novel, uh, giving out information and hinting at things.

I mean, it's so exciting and so important. It's an amazingly useful tool if you can get it right. Yeah. Well that's the trick with, with all of the writing stuff really, really is. Yeah. But I think as well when we're talking about dialogue we can get all into, into how to, to write the good dialogue and all that. But, but even before we get that far, I think there is a mechanical point around dialogue to make us well mean. And what I mean by that is that apart from dialogue keeping the story interesting and, and you know, moving, moving quickly for the reader, all those white spaces that appears when you start adding dialogue and the shorter lines that appears on the page.

It did just a mechanics part of that. I don't know if you can call it mechanics, but you know, once you reach pages in a book where, okay, here's a lot of white space there, shorter liner so you can see the dialogue is going on. It just makes for great greater Rita experience. So, so there is that added benefit for for the for dialogue which has nothing to do with writing the dialogue but, but, but I think that's an important point to make as well. I do too. I mean it definitely breaks up the page visually. Just like if anyone writes blog posts and stuff, there's a lot of techniques to making sure you have white space around what you're writing or breaking it up with quotes and things.

Dialogue does the exact same thing. You have pages and pages of prose and plus by following dialogue correctly and having lots of line breaks and the shorter sentences you actually add to your page count. So you know, I know a lot of first time authors and they're like, how many pages is this going to be when it comes a novel and you know, add more dialogue you'll actually get a little bit longer extended page count. Then you might have, if you even despite your word count. So it's kind of fun that way. Right? Yeah, true. Although I would say I don't really care how long it's going to be.

I mean it's, it's as long as it takes to tell the story. Right. That is actually a very good comment and one that they've been debating on the amwritingfantasy Facebook group. I just noticed. So that was kind of very funny. Okay, cool. So I have, I've sort of prepared some notes. So a list of different things that I probably have like 10 different chapters, she or something, but I don't know where do we want to stop street? I'd just to wrap one. And then you, you, you take some of your points as well or how do you want to do it?

Yes. Why don't you, since you are the list maker, why don't we start with that? And I mentioned before we started that is your job. You're good at making lists. Um, I've written I think a series of four or five blog posts that are on the amwritingfantasy website. So I have those and am yes, it's going to be almost like a, it is going to be a little bit like a quiz show. You start with your list and I will chime in with the tips. I've done an ad too. Even the ones I added on the blog post.

Jesper (21m 10s): Okay. Okay. Uh, yeah, so there was no particular order to this at all. This is just a, it's going to go a bit here and a bit there. These are just the points that I noted. The another one to make a and. I think the first one I could start with is that all dialogue needs to have some sort of purpose. You know all the, if you compare to real life, when we start talking to people a lot of the times that you know, at least if it's not like somebody you know really well, you will start talking about plus and trees like a talking about the weather or some ice breaking stuff and all that you need to kill when it comes to dialogue between characters.

Even if they don't know each other, we don't want to read about what they think about the weather and all that stuff. That's really boring. So you need to build towards something called Creek concrete within that scene. With your dialogue so that there is no pointless dialogue that that's really important.

Autumn (22m 3s): I agree. And one of my least favorite pieces of advice on writing doll dialogue is to listen to people talking around you. That is horrible. Have you listened to people talking around you? They usually don't make any sense. They're using like O M G and lots of ums and we're, you know, you can't follow often with writing dialogue you actually need to add in some explanation and it's like jumping to the heart of a personal to person conversation between people who either know each other really well that, but you still need to explain something.

It's totally different from listening to someone if you're sitting at a cafe because there's a lot of pointless dialogue that goes on at cafes. You have to have a purpose and there's a lot of different purposes you could have. It could be sharing information, it could be character building, it could be something humorous there. But there is a purpose and you've got to get to the heart of it very quickly. You can't sit there and kind of beat about the Bush and you know, talk about, like you said, the weather.

What are we having for dinner? Why is he late? Unless of course the why he's late is really important because he just got eaten by an ogre. Okay. So

Jesper (23m 17s): yeah, that's better. Oh, dragon. Oh, try again. That, that actually am well puts me right on the path to the next point that I was, because when you, you know, listening to others or listening to real speeches is indeed, or I was also gonna say that it's a bad idea. First of all, that might be a lot of slang words and you don't want to have a lot of slang words in your writing because Rita's don't understand what's going on. It seems, it seems confusing. So you don't want that. And you also want to kill filler words or at least reduce them to the absolute minimum.

So when we're talking here on the podcast, uh, we have our, you know, speech am, what is it called? Like limit, not limitations, but we have our habits in how we are speaking. Correct. And, uh, either some people say a lot of, um, some people say like all the time or whatever it may be, but we need to kill all that stuff when we are writing. Dialogue and uh, you, you're not supposed to write realistic speeds with a, with a lot of those filler words, but you're more supposed to write interesting.

Dialogue I would say or interesting things that the characters are saying that leads to some sort of purpose.

Autumn (24m 27s): Exactly. I read a book once where they literally had someone instead of writing exclaimed in glee, which would've been fine. They actually use the dialogue and I was like, Oh, this is terrible gig views. Exclaimed in glee, don't use actual descriptions of wheeze or ohms or legs. And I know a lot of people want to add in like some kind of charac characteristic phrase. Well that's fine, but you still don't put it every single sentence. And if you're from the 80s and you remember the Valley girl phase where it was like, um, like this, like that, that's so cool.

He don't need to add that to your dialogue either. A, unless you happen to be writing a really obnoxious teenager and even then please keep it to a minimum just, you know, twice in a chapter. Just show it and that's about it.

Jesper (25m 18s): Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean you can, you can write the am here and there in a, in a revocation if there's a, if you're trying to make a point that the characters really unsure in the situation or something, then here and there it can be okay, but, but you really need to keep it short and you need to let dialogue flow naturally and then get to the point instead of all that blah, blah, blah stuff. So yeah, that's just a, that's just it. Exactly. Okay. The next one, next one. Let me see here.

So next one is that, of course it will. This is a bit of a well almost formatting type of way, but it's also a good idea to make sure that you give each speaker their own paragraphs so that it's easy to distinguish who's actually saying something. Because I don't, dunno in sometimes in books it's not really clear who is saying what and you go back and you reread the section two times to understand who set that. And that is really annoying. So you don't want to do that.

Autumn (26m 15s): No. It can throw the reader totally out of the story cause they're trying to figure out who's talking and who actually has the information. And that's horrible. And I mean this one is so important. I actually wrote an entire blog post on formatting and yeah, if you, every speaker should get their own, you know, paragraph and then a space. And so yeah, you might end up having, you know, three words and maybe a dialogue tiger, an action tag or maybe not depending on how many people are speaking. So you might have three words and then you're hitting the, you know, the paragraph return again for the next person speaking.

That's okay. That's like what we were talking at the top when we first started. It creates white space. It's a visual break. You do not need to make dialogue look as packed as an info dump, which shouldn't be in your novel anyway. You don't want it to look like this heavy prose. It should be this little, you know, almost like poetry, lots of spaces and white and different varying sentence lengths. That's kind of what makes it fun.

Jesper (27m 12s): Mmm. Yeah. And that, that varying sentence length is, it's a good point as well. Um, and especially also don't, don't make the really, really long monologues. Nobody wants to read that either. No. There should definitely even annoying in real life.

Autumn (27m 29s): Here that one is, is, so that is a real life example you can follow, but it's definitely, definitely back and forth. You want to have some play on words and again, that's what makes dialogue fun because its purpose, like I said, it can actually have multiple purposes. So one of them should definitely be, you know, ramping up tension maybe and getting some sparring going and for that you're going to have really short sentences.

Jesper (27m 53s): True, true. And I don't know, this next one, it might sound a bit weird when we're talking about dialogue or the, but it's still applicable and that is don't forget to use silence as well. You know, it can work really well when a character character suddenly just falls silence instead of, uh, arguing that that works really well. I have a character from my dystopian post-apocalyptic

Autumn (28m 17s): Siri is that he is a master. I wish I could master this. Oh my gosh. I tried to channel him all the time, but uh, he just, Jared, he can, he knows that people will just start talking to fill that silence and eventually they're going to reveal what it is he's waiting for them to reveal. He's so darn good. But yes, that is perfect to have one character who is basically controlling the sentence or maybe just he's not, they're not ready to say something. That's fantastic. They can just fall silent.

And I think that is fantastic advice.

Jesper (28m 51s): Yeah. And I think if, if you look at the, maybe the reason why a lot of the time we don't think about writing or writing silence. That sounds really weird. Maybe a lot of the times we don't think about it is because in real life it feels extremely awkward. Now I have am, I've been negotiating contracts and stuff like that with, with clients in my, in my, um, uh, day job thing for many, many, many times.

And one of the things that it is incredibly difficult to do, but one of the things that works wonderfully well is if you're negotiating something and you've sort of, you've made your points and then of course the other party will argue that the, they want something else. A lot of the times it works amazing to just to keep quiet because they can't, people cannot take it that there was just a silence. So they'll stop talking about something and sooner or later they will start giving you something because, uh, well, okay, maybe we can do like this and that and then, yeah, okay, maybe we could, you know, uh, of course you try when negotiate and of course you are trying to make a win win situation rather than a win lose situation.

But, but if they're really not botching anywhere, sometimes it works wonderfully well too. Just keep silent and let them do the talking because they to come up with such suggestion all of a sudden that didn't you have something to work from.

Autumn (30m 12s): I have this visualization of someone going into their like annual review now and their boss is telling them all this stuff and they just kind of sit there like, Oh huh.

Jesper (30m 22s): Yeah.

Autumn (30m 24s): I'm not sure if we're giving that kind of advice right now, but consider a silence the next time you're in a tough negotiation.

Jesper (30m 30s): Yeah. I'm, I'm going to give you like a $20 pay raise and then you just sit there silent looking at the boss. You are you happy with that? Still silence. See how that works. I love it. I have a 25. Is that make you happy? Yeah. Still silence. If anyone uses this technique, please let us know. Yeah, yeah. I would love to hear a story about that. Alright, so the next, next tip, uh, next tip is remember that in many cases actually coaches won't actually say precisely what they're thinking.

And this is also what we do in real life all the time. Um, but if, if you are making dialogue where the characters just laying out exactly how they feel about something and exactly what their plan is, it's, it feels extremely unrealistic

Autumn (31m 21s): and people don't talk like that. No writing either. Exactly. And so many people are not really that self aware. So you're character shouldn't be that self-aware. Maybe they're just like, something's bothering me or I don't think we should go that way. And they're not really articulating why or what their overall plans or overall hopes are. Maybe it should just be, you know, those kind of loose terms. Like hopefully we can make it through the past. If we leave early in the morning, that's better than saying we will get up in the morning and we're going to go to the past and we're going to get through and no, it sounds better if you at least make some possibilities and kind of couch it in those little terms of not quite sure though.

I have to admit, I sometimes also say when you're writing, you know, get rid of those questionable things. You know, people don't do things halfway, but when it comes to dialogue, that's okay. You can have some quasi, I'm not really sure of statements, but when you're doing action, you either do it or you don't do it. Don't do these. Almost get rid of all the almost, unless it's in dialogue then it's okay. Yeah, no, and sometimes as well, people say one thing, but they mean something else.

Um, so that's also something to consider. Absolutely. And it's also, you know, it's great to, if you're on the point of view, point of view, if someone is a very powerful character and a great manipulator, so you can know, you can have them thinking one thing or you know, you could have them really manipulating through their dialogue and that's really fun for the reader to start figuring out that, wait, no, they weren't. They were thinking something else and now they're doing this. Why are they doing this? Curiosity. Oh, that drives readers nuts and keeps them reading.

Jesper (33m 6s): Yeah. Yeah, indeed. Uh, so I have one more. Um, and then you, you can fill in if you have more after that. Um, if you probably have, but um, this one is a, it's one that can really drive me nuts sometimes. The Asar her speech to text.

Autumn (33m 25s): Ah, that's actually what I was going to bring up too. So I know there's this huge advice out there that said, always use said, and I've gotten into a lot of debate about this with other authors. So what do you think? Should you always use said

Jesper (33m 41s): no? Absolutely. I think, uh, I think it's on writing the, if you know the book from Stephen King, I think, I think it's him saying in that book that if you're writing, he said or she said it's almost invisible to the reader because our, I sort of just skims over it. We register if it says he or she, but otherwise we don't really notice it then. And I think there is some truth to that, if that's all you're doing. There was not much variance in your speech, tach and attacks and this should be

Autumn (34m 13s): for. Fantasy. Um, we have a little bit more allowance to use the adverts, the adjectives had in those descriptors, uh, than say if you're a writing, you know, well, okay, scientific something. But it's definitely, I think we're allowed to be a little more flavorful for the our words. And that's kind of fun. I think it's a lot more fun. So yeah, I, I agree the CEDS, you know, maybe 50% if of the actual dialogue tags, which again, you don't need to just use dialogue tags, but definitely like, you know, you don't have to use set 100% of the time.

It's just boring.

Jesper (34m 57s): It is. Absolutely. And. And I think the, the other thing, and this, this is, this is the part that that drives me nuts sometimes is when speech tax I used incorrectly by that one. I mean, is that if you're using the L Y at works, so you're saying, like he said angrily are, she's said sadly or something like that. It drives me absolutely bonkers. There's, I think there's this tendency to use those lly at work because that's how we, we, we think that it shows emotion but in fact it doesn't, we're back to the show don't tell, which I think we've mentioned a hundred times already, but it is just much, much more engaging if you're using the actions and steps, you know, you can describe how the facial expressions that are showing that he's angry or anything like that or maybe a, maybe a tear rolls down the cheek because they're sad or are they slam the door or whatever they do.

But, but that's sort of dialogue tech is a million times better than writing she sets. Sadly. It's like what the, and I was just about to say B

Autumn (36m 11s): I'll do it for you. No, I agree. I think on the blog post on adverbs, I wrote that, uh, you know, the first time the character, the reader here is that the character is angry is because of using anger. You know, shouted angrily, which I hopefully never would've had ever used sheltered angrily. But if that's the first time the reader sees that the character's angry is because you just told them in a dialogue time was an adverb, Oh, you're not doing this right? No, it's not supposed to work that way. You're supposed to be showing the emotion yet you could use shouted instead of said, that's a great one.

But yes, I am the cup against the floor, hit the wall gestures, you know, moving so quickly that they knock something over to show, you know, some kind of emotion. And those are often called action tag. So if you said, I don't know what you mean. And then said as he slammed, you know the cup onto the table, that is an action tag and you immediately relate that whoever is speaking is also doing the action.

So of course this would all be in just one paragraph. And then when you switch to the next speaker, you go to the next paragraph. But those are action tags versus the dialogue tags like shouted, swore, whispered, those are dialogue tags and they're, you know, and you can intersperse, use one or the other. Some people prefer to use one. I think a mix is great and again, if there's only two people speaking and they're alternating pretty regularly, you can go a couple of lines without using any tags. As long as you, you know, either throwing an action tag, you need to make sure the reader doesn't get too confused.

You don't go like six lines with no nothing but definitely like three or four sometimes that is visually fun and makes it go really quick when two people are having a very intense exchange to just skip the dialogue or action tags. As long as it's only two people. Once you throw on the third, you're going to have to make sure everyone knows who's talking.

Jesper (38m 12s): Yeah, I mean a, and of course it can be difficult to come up with new stuff or new ways to express am emotions and all that. And and we can also end up repeating a lot of the same stuff because that's just how we work when we don't think about it. But, uh, I actually wanted to mention, and I can put the link in the show notes to this, but there are some really, really awesome books that you can buy that it's going to help you a lot. And am these are there, it's like a series a but it's written by Angela Ackerman and Becca put Felicia, I think that's how you say it, but it's basically a, you can get like a writers guy, two character flaws, a writers guy too.

Character attributes. Uh, so these are called the negative trot, a treat thesaurus and the positive trait thesaurus and what you can do with these books is that basically just has tons of different uh, uh, like a trait. So I can look up anything like a, I can see, okay, ignorant for example. And then this, uh, I'm just doing it now, of course you can see it, but it'll have, it'll have like a, a whole list of like 40 different associated behaviors to being ignorant.

And then there'll be like 40 different things that you can then use as inspiration on how to show it when it in you know, when writing and how the character might react and how, how they might, you know, what they might do and so forth and so forth. So it's, it's, it's really amazing and it works extremely well, especially when you're in the editing phase and you're trying to make your dialogue tax better. Then use these books as inspiration and am and try to, you know, very your dialogue tax it, it really helps a lot these books.

So I will, I'll put a link

Autumn (40m 2s): to them into the, in the show notes. So if you're interested. Yeah. And are they the ones who also wrote the emotional thesaurus cause I know I've seen that one. Yes. Yes. Those are, they're fantastic inspiration for really enhancing your writing and being able to show emotions other than the heart pump, you know, chest, the heart beating in the chest and the brows. Scrunching there's so much more to emotional. Yes, there's a lot of other ones in there and you can pick some of those tweaks.

And give one specifically to a character that helps with your character building. And I think that's, you know, yeah, it's fantastic. And they're great books. Absolutely. Uh, okay. That's what I ended up my list. Autumn do you have more about dialogue I think I go into a little bit more in the blog post. Maybe we should, you know, link to them or at least tell folks, you know, check out the amwritingfantasy website and look up the dialogue tips there. Cause there's four or five blog posts that we've covered and they actually, part of it is like just taking the same set of words.

It's slowly adding to them so that you can see a dialogue developing into something that's different and more concrete. And that might give you some tips to, to get going. And there if you want more questions on action tags and dialogue tags and when you should or shouldn't use adverbs, that is all posted in there. So that'll help make it a little bit more clear. If you're visual in listening in and want to look at something, they're there. Well, of course we always want to make things easy. So we'll

Jesper (41m 34s): put a link to those articles or blog posts in the show notes as well. So there's a lot of good stuff you can link or you can click in the show notes this time around and check out yourself. So that was all about, uh, dialogue. And the next week we are gonna. We're going to have another amazing episode, so see you there.

Narrator (41m 59s): If you like what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support the amwritingfantasy podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join autumn and Yesper on patrion.com/amwritingfantasy for as little as a dollar a month. You'll get awesome rewards and keep the amwritingfantasy podcast going to stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 44 – Are Free Books Worth It? (Survey Results!)

What is the best way for readers to discover your book?

If you give it away, will readers ever actually read it?

If you've wondered those questions, you'll love today's episode as Jesper and Autumn not only debate the topic but share results tabulated from the answers of hundreds of readers!

Help us with the survey on how readers find books by sharing a link to the survey in your newsletter.

We'll share the final results in the Am Writing Fantasy Facebook group.

You can find the survey at https://forms.gle/4cnjZZNP1VtVmRhC6.

Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday.

SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST!

Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review.

Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy.

For as little as a dollar a month, you’ll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going.

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).

Narrator (2s): You're listening to the amwritingfantasy podcast in today's publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need a literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing join to best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them. Now onto the show with your hosts. Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt. Hello. I am, Jesper.

Autumn (32s): and I'm autumn,

Jesper (34s): this is episode 44 of the amwritingfantasy podcast and we are going to talk about something as exciting as free books today.

Autumn (44s): Yeah,

Jesper (47s): yeah, yeah. A lot of people do. But, but actually we're going to look a bit into that. And, uh, just for reference here, these are also called Permafree books, uh, because it's about books that you are setting up so that they are permanently free on all platforms. So that's what we're talking about today. Um, and we actually also covered this topic slightly on a previous episode already. Uh, but since then we've actually gone out and ask for Rita opinions on this topic.

Yeah. And it's better than just being us, us authors here among ourselves, speculating on what we thinking about offering free books. So, uh, yeah, that's what we're going to look into today and also discover if it's actually worth it anymore nowadays, but, but more on that later. How have you been since our last recording? Autumn

Autumn (1m 41s): that was definitely a little bit of a personal one. If anyone hasn't listened to it. Talking about feeling overwhelmed and yes, life hip cups. So thank you. I've actually been doing, you know, well there's still ups and downs and days like that, but I will say, you know, I've been talking about that. I've been struggling with my writing and of all things. I'm very busy at the moment cause am I do my newsletter to my readers on the first and the 15th of the month. That's just when I do them. And so I have this to do and not to do, I've been doing some book cover commissions and so I really don't have, like right now the writing hasn't been doing well.

So I'm like, of course I'm not going to write, I'm not even gonna. Look at it. I'm stuck in this scene. I hate the scene and I figured it out. And so I, I wrote myself two minutes on my phone and I hate writing notes on my phone, but I did two minutes of writing notes and it really came down to a phrase that I had already written. I just was stuck at. And by turning it into a negative, changing things slightly, I think I can finish up the scene that has had me stuck and move on. So I know I'm very excited.

I mean I literally, I'm doing like 500 words a day at the moment. I just, it's kind of a, I actually am not even doing that right now. It's hopefully when I get back to it later this week, it'll, it takes like half an hour. This is not a big deal. It's just to make me feel better and feel like I started my day right. Um, to keep writing cause I'm, Hey, I'm an author, but life's a little chaotic right now and overwhelmed and other things. But it feels good to keep it going. And I'm so excited that I think I figured this one out. I'm going to move forward to the next season that could trip me up.

But that's, that was a good week to have that. That idea. I knew as soon as I got too busy to work on it, it would finally come unstuck. And it did. Yeah. Well that's good news. Yeah. I mean progress is always good. I mean, even the small small steps counts as well. Right. And I think, I think that's a lot of like authors. We love that, that moment of, Oh, that epiphany that when things click into place that especially ones that you've been struggling with for what, two months, uh, when that finally clicks and you suddenly have, you realize why things pulled together and why they mean something, that's what really gets authors so excited that we're stumbling over our words and we're just kidding.

You were jumping up and down in our partners in our lives are going, are you okay? You're excited because you had a night. It's all right. But I love it. I love it. It gives you a whole new energy. And so I am definitely feeling a little bit more positive and like maybe my life might be a little less stuck because my writing I think is going to be unstuck very soon. Huh. Excellent. That's good news. So how is your week going? Yeah, well good.

Um, I know, I was actually thinking that, uh, it's been a while since I shared one of my referees story. Maybe I could share one today.

Jesper (4m 37s): Okay. Because I was refereeing this weekend and uh, the rain was just pouring down, but that's actually not what I wanted to, to share. But w but we got really soaked but, but that's not the point. But something, something happened, you know, this weekend that I've never tried before, it's due. So, uh, yeah, so the, the away team, they manage to turn up without any clothes for the players.

You know, where they have their normal clothes on of course. But they did not have, they hadn't brought any of the plain clothes at all. So let just showed up. Yeah. Well, so they had like a, not the coach, but they have like a team manager and he supposed to, he has one task and that is to bring the clothes. And that's the only thing he didn't do. So they, well, so there was a few of the players who had their own shorts and t-shirts. Some of them do that. They, they buy their own and then with the club branding on and all that, so they have the right stuff.

But, but the rest of the team, which was like seven or eight players did not have anything but the clothes that they were standing in. So like chips and stuff like that, you know, regular clothing. So they were just standing there and uh, then they, uh, they sent back a guy to pick up the clothes. Um, and of course I'm sure in, in us standards, the distances are not very far here, but, but here in Denmark they had to drive like 50 kilometers. I'm not sure what that is in miles, but in our standards, that's not a lot.

But yeah, probably. Yeah, but, but of course, if you have to start a medicine like 15 minutes, then it's pretty far back and forth to drive 30 miles or 60 miles. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. So he, he, the coach then asked me, you know, can we start this match later because, you know, we don't have any clothes. So I said, yeah, you know, for me that's not a problem. But, but you have to ask the home team coach if he's okay with it.

Um, so he, he went and asked to tone gene coats on and I went with him. And then the home team coach set, I'm sorry, but we can't because several of our players actually have a double mat, so they have to play another match right after this one. So we cannot wait to start. We need to get started. And uh, so, so they, uh, some of the players were still hadn't come out to the pitch and a I and then told me, you need to, you know, you need to get your players out here now because we need to start.

And by this time we were already like 15, 20 minutes late, um, because they had forgot their gear. So, so that was really wonderful. So now he, uh, he then suggested that the awake coach then suggested but, okay, but could we then perhaps wait until our guy comes with the clothing and then we'll just shorten the, the match, uh, you know, playful, less time than normal. And, uh, the, the home team coach them said, no, I don't want to do that. I want to play full time.

Oh, he's just being, he didn't turn to me. Well, yeah, I dunno, but, but he is in his right. You know, it's not his fault that they forgot their clothing. So, so this a way team coach, he then turned to me, you know, as the referee, because I'm the one who needs to get the match started. And, and he said, well, so what do we do? And basically told him yet, well, you have two options. Either you can forfeit, which means that you're automatically going to lose the Mets three to nothing.

Or you borrow some green pullover shirt from the home team. And then basically you have your players play in jeans and regularly on the shirts. Oh, it is. And he was like, what? And I said, well yeah, that's your options. Either you play or your forfeit, what do you want to do that's very black. And I then he said that, okay, well we've, yeah, yeah, exactly. And then he said, okay, well we drove all the way here so we want to play and as if that's fine, then we're going to start in two minutes. So get on your green pullover shirts that you borrow here.

And then we kept going. And of course, you know, they hadn't had any time to warm up or do any pre-match preparation. So they were completely unprepared and they were standing there like half this, half the team and teams. It's ridiculous. And the home team was just laughing at them and yeah, it was horrible. And uh, but you know what the irony of this whole situation was? What's that?

So because they were arrived so late and I was so unprepared that da way team then ended up losing five nil. Oh. So actually if they had forfeited, they would have lost three needle so they wouldn't have gotten a better result by not playing at all. I was hoping for a better moral to this story.

Autumn (9m 33s): I hear that you know, either, you know, the other team like gave them extra clothing or the home team gave them extra clothing or that somehow they actually ended up winning. But this is like Lou's Lou.

Jesper (9m 48s): Well, yeah, maybe it's not a positive story, but I guess the moral is that you need to come prepared for stuff. You can't just show up out of the blue and think everything will work out. Right. Yeah. You'll just be able to wing it and it's fine. I guess maybe that's not the best way to do the same thing, but writing. Right. I mean you can't just, no, exactly. Yeah. And same thing with writing, right. You, you can't, you can't just show up to at your computer and think everything would magically work out. You know, you have to put some thought into it.

Autumn (10m 16s): Absolutely. That's, that's so true. But unfortunate. But yes, it is definitely always, I'm not a pantser, you're not a pantser. We're definitely always better when we am have a little bit of a plot going, which is why we're writing a plan plotting book together, which I think we keep mentioning every episode, so, okay. We'll move on from that one.

Jesper (10m 37s): Amen. Oh, week on the internet with the amwritingfantasy podcast. So we have these, uh, small like topic teasers, or maybe I should call them talking points that we post every week in the amwritingfantasy group. And, uh, and, and maybe I should also mention that actually that every month we we do give away some very cool prices to those who engage the most, don't we? Autumn yes, we do. I think it's really exciting, this stuff that you can get

Autumn (11m 9s): everything from blurb reviews to a 3d books images. So yeah, it's kinda fun.

Jesper (11m 16s): Um, yeah. And we also offered to review five pages of writing, and I dunno, maybe it's actually time that I should give away another audio book of, uh, of my book of how to write a fantasy book description. What do you think? Maybe I should do that next month? Maybe we should, uh, yeah, we'll have to decide because I have to make up the image for what the price is going to be, so let me know. Right? Yeah, yeah. Maybe that's a good, uh, but actually what I wanted to say about those topic teasers or, or, or small snippets there that we post actually that I posted one this last week with the following text.

It just said, listen to music that reminds you of your character or scene to inspire your writing. And I was, and that was all he said, but I was actually quite surprised to see how many engaged with it. There was a lot of comments and posts then I really did not expect that on something as simple as that. So that was, uh, that was very, I was very pleased with that. So thank you everyone for all the posting there. That was awesome.

Autumn (12m 14s): That is, I, it's all a little bit of it. And it's funny how many people like, right, like writing to music or don't like writing to music. And I know occasionally that sometimes when I have a am, when I have, you know, a character I have problems getting in touch with. It really helps to listen to music that reminds me of this character. So I can definitely see the point occasionally and listening to music that inspires you to get into your scene and your character. But yeah, there's other times where it can totally not help too.

Yeah.

Jesper (12m 47s): Yeah. It's funny because I, I, well, I, on the flip side, I need a completely quiet environment. Otherwise I simply cannot concentrate on writing. But, but I don't know. Did you notice what Jason said that, that he was listening to all writing that really made me laugh.

Autumn (13m 0s): No, I don't think I saw what his answer was. He wrote BBC news. I think if I was listening that would inspire me unless I was doing a political thriller at the moment.

Jesper (13m 17s): Yeah. I just don't see how, I mean, if it works, then that's great for him, but I just don't understand how you can listen to news and then, right. I mean, that would be so distracting for me. Yeah. If, of course.

Autumn (13m 28s): Yeah, exactly. I was gonna say for me, unless it's a specific song that reminds me of a character and like I said, especially for the a few difficult characters I've done, otherwise I just do a YouTube Epic fantasy mix and put it on the background a drowned out what other noise. But if it's a perfectly quiet house, I'm good with a perfectly quiet house because I tend to zone out and not hear anything anyway. Right. But it's funny, I was actually looking at a different conversation in the Facebook group that really got me going. Yeah.

We, uh, I like it when other people post topics and ideas too because obviously, you know, that's really close to them. And Richie recently posted something odd, um, a blog post he had done where you've had a guest author come in and talk about mistakes male authors make when writing female characters. And I thought that was such a good topics. I, yeah, I had to read through the blog post and read through all the comments on it to see, and you know, the, the blog post is very authentic in saying, yeah, sometimes fee, you know, women writers when they're writing male characters are also making assumptions about what it's like to be male because obviously no one is putting on someone else's skin and living someone else's life.

But I did think it was some great tips on how to write a female character and some things to avoid because yeah, there's still some horrible, people don't treat female characters like Oh you know, a real character. And so it was really interesting to read through the post and see what some of the issues we're all the way down to a good solution is if you really are, have any doubts, make sure you have a female beta reader that you're going to actually listen to who can give you some female perspective about what you're doing to your women characters.

But it definitely, you know, both ways. You know, I'm a woman and I do write male characters and I know you have a written, some major female characters, so it's always nice to like, you know, double check your perspective and make sure you're doing right by all your characters and all your gender's, including the ones that are somewhere in between.

Jesper (15m 32s): Yeah. I guess maybe I, maybe I should have read that, uh, that blog posts before. Uh, well, of course it wasn't released back then, but, but actually at some point there's a slight, I don't know, maybe half a year or more ago, but I was, uh, I was interviewed on another podcast and, and the, the interviewer, the host asked me, uh, about me writing female characters and, and, and what, how, you know, what did I think about when I wrote the female character and how do I make sure that they are am

Autumn (16m 4s): realistic, I guess. And

Jesper (16m 7s): I guess I did not have a very good answer was because I was like, I was like, well, I don't understand. What do you mean? I mean, I just, if it's a male or female, the character has to be strong. They have to be capable because otherwise we just don't like the character. So it doesn't really matter if it's a male or female. And of course they have to have reasonable motives as to what they're doing and why they're doing the things that they're doing and all that good stuff. But at the end of the day, it's not really that different that that, I think that was my response back then and it was like, uh, but it sounds like this blog post is a lot better than what I came up,

Autumn (16m 45s): which is why I think it's the subtle, subtle differences that people might not realize when they're writing characters were like a few heads, some good examples where they started with a really strong female character, but then she got married and had kids and was no longer a warrior and only cared about having kids and that people were like, how could you do this to her? She was a strong independent female or, or using a character like I, the token female, you know, you and I are blog, you know, developing things. I'm always going like, we can't just have one woman, you know, this 50 50 or even if it's, you know, it should be something, Hey, I think it's really fun to have like a 75% female troop, you know, do something different.

Don't worry, don't stress, but definitely treat them is deliberately as you would any character. Hmm, good point.

Jesper (17m 35s): Yeah. So as I said in the beginning of of this episode, we have been debating for a while now whether the strategy of giving free books away actually works as a marketing tactic anymore. And uh, to get wiser I guess on that topic, we started the survey and we ask readers for their opinions on the matter and the point of this recording that we're doing right now, we've got 379 responses. That's pretty good. That is definitely not bad.

Autumn (18m 4s): Well, I'm hoping for more, but you know, that's getting pretty statistical at this point.

Jesper (18m 11s): Yeah, exactly. But I would really like to get to a thousand responses in total because then is, as you just said, is statistically relevant at that point. So I would like to, I guess put out a call to all our listeners year since all of you are also writers and am maybe autumn maybe we could ask people to help us out a bit. You know if I put a link to the survey in the show notes and maybe then if we ask our author listeners here to share that link with their readers, maybe in the newsletter or wherever, in order to basically get

Autumn (18m 46s): more responses. Don't you think that they would be willing to do that for us? I would hope so. I know I've put it in my nose letter and you put it in yours, but that'd be fantastic to get some other other readers out there to answer it so we can get it up to a thousand because I know we are going to calculate the results and have the answers and you said you're going to post it in the group in our amwritingfantasy Facebook group, so that would be, you know, you'll get the results if you'll help us out. You can find out as this is topic that we're about to discuss with our current slightly, not quite statistical enough average, but you know, you'll get those results and make a decision about how you want to run your books and if you should be doing PERMA free.

So please help us out. The link is in the show notes and if you have questions of course just reach out and let us know.

Jesper (19m 36s): Yeah, absolutely. And of course you find the a amwritingfantasy Facebook group. I just searching for amwritingfantasy in the group session of Facebook. And what I should also let you know is that this a link that we have in the show notes, it does not require your readers to sign up for anything or leave their email address or anything like that. I, I left it completely open so that is as easy as possible. And you know, people could just go and leave their response and leave again and that's all we asking. We're not gonna put them on an email list or anything like that. So uh, yeah, you can tell you that lowers the barrier of entry.

That's exactly

Autumn (20m 9s): double is take it yourself. We're not trying to swipe your reader list. We just wanted to have this question answered.

Jesper (20m 18s): Yeah, exactly. That's what we want. And um, basically what I have to do here today is now that I will share the results that we have so far with the 379 responses. And uh, I, I would think that is fairly accurate to be honest. Uh, I would be surprised if the remaining am amount of responses up to a thousand will completely change the results. But uh, yeah, just be aware that might change.

Autumn (20m 48s): Yeah. I can't wait to hear it because even I've been kept in the dark, so I don't have the stats in front of me. I can't wait to find out what some of the answers are. So yes, let's get on with it. So what are people answering and you know, are you seeing then a big enough trend that you, you're feeling pretty confident that these answers are pretty solid? Oh, good. I can't wait to hear that. Yes, absolutely. Yes, absolutely. But maybe before we get into the actual results it, it might be worth explaining. How do you actually make your book permanently free when Amazon doesn't allow you to put in a price of Shiro Dallas when you uploaded to KBP.

So maybe you could just cover that first autumn absolutely. This is something I've keep doing an undoing and trying to decide if I want to do again. So to make a book permanently free, the first thing you have to do is be wide. You can't just be on Amazon and it not just why to like it's free on my website you have to also have your book published on the big sites like Kobo, Barnes and noble, uh, Apple. Sorry, my brain just blanked. Apple books you need to have on the big platforms you book also uploaded.

And then those platforms, you do have the option of choosing free or if you go through a distributor like books to draft to digital or Smashwords, you also have options of uploading to free. So you have to basically push your book out to free everywhere. Again, those big publishers are the ones that are important. It doesn't matter if you have it free on what what pad? Amazon doesn't care what about Wattpad unless you happen to be in KDP select and have your book on what path they will find it. Trust me, don't do it but if once you have your book free elsewhere, what you need to do is you can do it two ways.

The smartest, easiest and most professional way is to email the KTP KTP help desk and say, I have this book you give your ASI en number is free on platforms on Smashwords Smashwords. Yes. You knew here on Barnes and Nobles at this link you must give them the actual link so they can click on the book and go and see it's free on Kobo, Barnes, noble, you know, give them multiple if you can and then say would you please price match? They will normally email you back saying it is up to their discretion to decide if they want to price match, but if they decide to do so that you will see it marked as free in a few days.

I can tell you that as the script they send you every single time and I don't think I've ever seen them not follow through and then make your book free. Now the other way is if for some reason you get a no response or if you are just really nervous for some reason about talking to the KDP help desk who are usually incredibly helpful and very polite and nice. Um, all you have to do is get you and all your friends. Social media works great for this reason and say, Hey, go and go to my book page on Amazon and there's a little button you know on the page usually helps.

If you Mark it out to people and say, click this. Say you found the book at a different price elsewhere and give them the links to where it is also free and just have, Oh, I've heard as few as 10 friends, I've heard as many as a hundred. I think the real number is somewhere around 20 to 30 people have to go and say, Hey, I saw this book free somewhere else. And Amazon will usually price match it that way very quickly as well. So you can do it both ways, but really it's easy unless you're really good at rounding up a whole bunch of friends, just email the KTP help desk.

But if that does fall through social media and tell people to please report your book as free on other websites and that'll work as well. Yup. And of course the strategy or the line of thinking behind making a book free is of course that am you lower the barrier of entry for, for new readers and and basically makes it like a no brainer for them to, uh, to give you a book, a chance. And then of course the idea is then all the strategies here that you're writing in a series, so you're giving one away for free.

And then the idea is that once they've read that, then they are hooked and like your story and then they go on to buy the other books in the series and am iron man is sexually to get to number 66 in the overall Kindle store with this strategy. Um, but the attentive listener will also remember that in a previous episode I talked about something I called Kindle stuffing, which was basically when readers download books free just because they are free and then they store them on their Kindle device and then they actually never read them.

And that was am the premise or line of thinking behind this survey that we did because I can certainly see on my books that um, that looks, it seems like there's a lot of Kindle stuffing going on because the number of readers who go through from book one to the rest of the series has seriously dwindled compared to in the past. Yes, I agree. It's called the thing that is just stuck. Yeah. It's called the read through rate. And there was a time where you give, like you do a big promo, you have your book for free and you know a thousand people download it and if you have a 10% to 20% read through rate picking it, you know they're picking up the next books in the series.

That's, you know, pretty successful and it makes the advertising worthwhile. But I agree recently it seems like the raid through rate is dropping like a rock and I'm starting to wonder to what the results of your survey going to be as if is this is Kindle stuffing really just taking the for and people aren't picking up or they are picking up free books but they're never getting to them because there's so many of them. Yeah, that's, that's the thing. So do you want me to, she has some results out. Oh please I wouldn't know the answers at least with the answers as we have them right now.

Yep. Okay. So I'm going to cover each of the questions I ask people

Jesper (26m 44s): and then I will give you the responses and I will also give you my reflection on it. And then of course you can sort of pitch in and give your reflection if you agree or disagree with me. All right, sounds good. Okay. So the first question I asked was, are you more likely to take a chance on a new author if the book is free? And basically 64% says that they don't mind paying for a book written by an author that they have never heard of before.

Wow. Interests. So 36% chose the other options where I stated that they will only purchase books written by authors they already know. So that's, you know, people are willing to take a chance. 67% are willing to take a chance on a new or 64 64 that is really excellent. And that's surprised that that's a lot more than I thought. Yeah. I would have thought it was a lot less too. Yeah. And then I went on, so I basically spit out the questions here.

So the one, the people who are within the 36%, uh, pocket here, then the people who said that they only want to purchase books from authors that they already know. I asked them a sub question that I did not ask the other ones. Um, and this sub question was basically saying that if they would purchase a book from an author that they don't know if it, the book had good reviews and otherwise sounds interesting, uh, and for their taste and so forth.

Right. And do you know what happened? They still won't get it. 66% now confirmed that they would change their mind. Oh my gosh. Did you see a lot? That is a lie. You didn't put it at a threshold, like a minimum number of reviews. You just said like an excellent star rating. I just said great reviews. That's what the question says. And of course I did on purpose with all these questions. I made them very black and white because I want to force people to take either one side or the other.

I don't want all those in the middle answers. So that's on purpose that I've done it like this way, but 66% confirmed that they would change their mind. So if 64%, that was the number we had before, you know, out of the total pool, they said that they were already prepared to pay for the book and other those who then said that they wouldn't, you can still convert 66% of those people if you have good reviews on the book. So basically if I add those two together, then you're looking at more than 80% confirming that they are willing to pay for a novel.

That's exciting. That it really is to see that that many people are willing to buy a new book even if they never heard of the author. But obviously you've got to have some stuff there. Great reviews or, I mean, do you have questions on pricing? No, not as such, but we'll come to that. But, um, now I'm, any questions to go here? Let's go. Um, yeah. So, uh, so I thought that was very interesting. Of course it does.

As you just said to autumn. Uh, it just proved that if you have social proof on your book, meaning good reviews and stuff like that, then it does make a difference. But let, let's move on here. Uh, then things got really interesting as well. When I then asked if you bought a book, is it the next book you're start reading? And of course here I'm alluding to these Kindle stuffing topic, right? Right. So if they bought the book, 42% says yes, this just the next book, they'll start reading while 58% then says no, they will attitude there to be ruthless.

Autumn (30m 34s): Okay. Which we know how the big, the Tubi redless so, okay, so that's almost almost 50, 50 that, you know, most would go ahead and read it next and the rest are gonna just add it to the pile even though they know they bought it.

Jesper (30m 48s): Right. But listen to this then, because this is where it gets interesting because the next question I asked him is basically the exact same question. But now I sent us the question on those who get a, who got a free book instead of buying it. So basically the question went like this, if you download a free book, is it the next book you start reading and you know, what happened? What happened? So, so now only 32% confirmed that they were started reading it.

So we just lost 10% compared to the 42 from before. I think this, to me, this makes sense because if you spent money on something, you are far more likely to also take action on it. That's true. Right. Wow. That's so this leaves, yeah. So just leave 68% of the readers saying that they would simply add the book to the TUPE red list if they, um, God did for free. And that is the list that we don't not want to be on as authors.

You know, we want them to pick up the book and start reading.

Autumn (31m 53s): Yeah. It's, yeah. That to be redless. I mean, I know mine. Um, yeah, it's, it's a sad, sad thing that books on my to be read list because I just, you're right, if I see something that really interests me, I'm going to go buy it and read it. And I don't really care about what else is left that I picked up randomly across the net. So that's interesting. That's really see that coming out that readers are gonna look at the books that they purchased and bought money for we're the ones they picked up for a free might end up to the back eddies of the to be red.

Jesper (32m 29s): Yeah. And of course the, the, the critical listener could then say, well 10% that's not a laugh a lot. And yeah, I don't know, maybe it's not. But to me 10% I mean if you're out a lot of free books the fact that 10% of them are more likely to not read it because it just goes onto the, to be reckless to me that that is significant. I think it might be, I mean I definitely seeing a trend, but I'm sure you still have more questions to go. I do.

I do. Because the next question here then as onto the one that we just had here, and the next question is how many unread books do you have on your e-reader? Maybe the Kindle, the phone, the nook, whatever. Oh, this is going to be a scary one. Yeah. So if I tell you the bracket options autumn that I gave people, then maybe you can guess on where you think that 60% of all the responses fill in one of these brackets. Sure. You can guess.

I'll give you the brackets first. Okay. I'll give this a try. So yeah. So the first bracket I gave them was that they have none or no on read books on their e-reader because they always finish the current rate before they pick up a new book. That was the first option. Second option is that they have less than five mm. And third option is that they have between five and 10 unread books on the e-reader. And this last option is that they have more than 10 books on debt e-reader.

Which one do you think? 60% confirmed. I'm going to guess the last option. More than 10 yes. Isn't that scary? It is scary. 60% of Rita's has more than 10 on read books on their Kindle. I, it's just doesn't surprise me. You can put a whole library on there and it's worse. Am Adam has shared all of his unread books with me if I go into his account because you can do that with friends and family and wow, that's just a lot of books.

Awesome. It's a lot of, I mean, and of course it says more than 10 so we could be a lot more as well for some of the responses, right? Yeah. And then, and now we really deep inside the Kindle stuffing territory here, right? Because you saw the people who go around and find pre books and then, Oh, that's a free one. I'll just download it to my Kindle and then move on. And you know, five, 10 minutes later they probably forgot everything about that book because it's just there and then they think I'll get back to it one day. But we all know that they won't know. And I think that's the worst thing about when you're looking at your to read list on your Kindle, unless you're basically left with the cover, you don't have the blurb in front of you, you don't have the reviews, you're just looking basically at the cover saying, Oh, which one do I read next?

And so yeah, unless it's something that you thought, Oh, that looked good and I actually bought it, it's easy to just skip. Like I don't remember that one. Or this is where your cover has really got to stand out so that people go, Oh, that one's neat. Otherwise they might not ever open it again. Yeah, exactly. And this is then where at least for me, that those 10% that we talked before, those 10%, that 10% drop from people who just put it onto the to be read list, uh, from downloading it for free rather than buying it.

That that's where, for me, those 10% becomes relevant. Because if we are saying that these are 60% of readers, that it has more than 1,000 books on their Kindle. But these are also readers who have bought books of course. But if you can drop that number by 10% by saying if they purchased the book, then they will not, they will start reading it in 10% of the cases. They will start reading it right away rather than just putting it on that wait list there or read list. Right. So, so to me, that's where those 10% does make a difference.

To me

Autumn (36m 19s): it does. I really think it does make a difference of, you know, how many people are going to look at it and read it next. But yeah, that's a tough one because, you know, it'll be interesting as we get more, more answers in to see if that 10% ends up growing or shrinking. I'm getting gas. It might grow a little bit more, but we'll have to see.

Jesper (36m 41s): Yeah, yeah. We'll have to see. Um, so I thought that was very interesting, but I also have, I have one more final question. The last people in the same way. So yeah. And this was actually because I wanted to, I don't know if you could call it dispel a myth or maybe just at least get a confirmation if the myth was actually true. Okay. So the myth goes like this, that free books are perceived by readers as being of less quality and therefore you should not make you a books free Oh, that's an interesting thought.

That's a myth. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, did, this is a topic that I hear, well I wouldn't say often, but I've heard it many times, at least on on internet forums, on Facebook groups and from authors, you know, debating between themselves whether or not making the book free actually sends a signal to the reader that this is something I just slapped together. That's why it's free and I don't want to judge you for it. You know, a lot of authors has been debating this stuff and well, I don't want to debate it.

I will rattle. I will just ask the readers, what do they think? I like that answer. So what did they say? It was a crystal crystal clear response. There is absolutely no doubt. And even if we're getting more responses, it's not gonna change anything. 100% convinced that this is a, this is the final answer. So we've got 86% of readers responded that in their view there are not any difference in quality between free books and non free.

Autumn (38m 15s): Woo. That actually makes me excited. Yes, we'll add the boom for you. That is exciting because I know when I talk to authors and you know, I always, when I teach and stuff like that, I've always saying this should be your best work. Your gift is the widest distribution. It's going to touch the most people. You wanted to be like, Oh, this is wonderful. It's so good that that message, you know, readers are willing to believe that a free book is, well, at least 86% of them think it's just as good as buying a book.

Or could it be that some of the bot books aren't that good? I'm not sure.

Jesper (38m 51s): Well, I think it's, it's shows more about the fact because the, the readers don't know about this debate that authors has between themselves about, well, if I put the book for free, then I'm signaling it. It's poor, poor quality, but it's not because of course I did everything I could to make it a professional and blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, the readers don't know about that conversation. They just pick up the free books and they read them. Yeah. And of course if they pick up a ton of free books and every time they read it, they're like, what is this crap? You know, then well, it will show clearly in the responses. You then most people would say the opposite.

They would say, yeah, every time I pick up a free book, it's, it's horrible. So I think this is just a myth that exists between authors and it's not real.

Autumn (39m 31s): I think that's exciting though. It's good to know that, you know, the quality of books out there is good because it's reinforcing, reinforced by the reader's saying, no, I pick up free books and they are good and I've had good experiences, so I'm excited. I think that's a really awesome result. And the whole thing is interesting that really if you want your book to be read sooner, it's better if they're buying it by these results so far.

Jesper (40m 0s): Yeah. That that's uh, yeah. If, if you, if we're trying to conclude a bit that that's certainly a conclusion, right? Uh, there's a higher likelihood that readers will read the book if they bought it rather than download it for free. I think if I look at the result like helicopter view, it's also pretty clear that readers have way too many unread books on their Kindles and there is, it's just a problem. It honestly, it's a problem. I could see that and, and yeah, I'm what I was about to say is to me the only way to get around this stuff, and this is just my personal opinion and everybody can, you know, have make up their own mind about what they think and, and whatnot in my personal opinion is like, yes, you can still get people to download the first book in your series for free.

I in full transparency, I still have my first book in my trilogy for free and I really don't plan to change that now. Um, so that, that's just for full transparency here. But if you give it away for free, yes, you can still get people to download it that not as many people downloaded as they used to do. Uh, but if it can still happen. But the thing is that when we then talk, cha-ching read through, which is basically, so as we said before, people reading books one and then going on to read the rest of the series.

Yeah. It, uh, there's really, it's really bad because people just have way too many books on the Kindle and they never get to it. So at least if you want a slightly bigger chance of people reading

Autumn (41m 34s): your book and then reading the rest of your series, I would say if I had to put out a new one now, I would not make free I don't know what you think. Autumn well, like we said, I still have my book one, my debut book one as a PERMA free and I mean, I'm over 200 reviews and a 4.4 star rating on it. So I'm thinking part of me is wants to put a price tag back on it and do some AMS ads and, and see how it goes.

But I haven't, you know, life's a little crazy and overwhelmed right now. So I think I might wait on that in a couple months. But I'm seriously considering maybe changing things up. I've always thought maybe a Permafree doesn't need to be permanently free maybe it should be switched to a different one. Maybe I should make the first book and my second Epic fantasy series. Make that one free just shake things up a little bit because it is interesting. That's all marketing is about is shaking things up and trying new things.

So I'm always one to figure this out. So yeah, I'm not quite 100% away from Permafree. I think occasionally giving out a free sample of free something. But I do think you're right. The read through rate is definitely lower. And you know, I think you're my, no, I'm working on my next two series and both of those, I am not using PERMA free so you've got to buy the book to play, so we'll have to see how it goes.

Jesper (43m 5s): Yeah. And of course another strategy that that you could consider is, is to put it for free once in awhile and then flip it back to priced and then laid on, flip it back to free again and, and basically then you can promote the fact that it's free. Now if you want to get into the series, right? I mean, but you're still going to hit the Kindle stuff in problem. He has an a and I, I just don't see any way around this because for way, way too many years now or I mean three, four, five years ago or more. This was a very, very good strategy and you could really get a lot of readers this way and, and uh, that was read through, but nowadays I think, yeah, the train has left the station and it's too, it's too late to get on board now.

So you should have bought your ticket. For

Autumn (43m 51s): I agree. Woo.

Jesper (43m 56s): All right, so next Monday we are going to talk about how to write good dialogue.

Narrator (44m 7s): If you like what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support the amwritingfantasy podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join autumn and Yesper on patrion.com/amwritingfantasy for as little as a dollar a month. You'll get awesome rewards and keep the amwritingfantasy podcast going. Stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 43 – Getting Your Book to Sell (with Stuart Thaman)

What do you do when your book isn't selling?

What changes can you make to make your book start selling? 

International bestselling author, Stuart Thaman, who works with traditional publishing companies to revive dead books that aren't selling. joins the Am Writing Fantasy podcast to share his insights.

In this episode, the how-to guide book, "How to write a fantasy book description" is mentioned.

You can find it here: https://www.jesperschmidt.com/books/how-to-write-a-fantasy-book-description/

You can find Stuart's helpful guides and articles here: http://www.stuartthamanbooks.com/marketing-series 

Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday.

SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST!

Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review.

Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy.

For as little as a dollar a month, you’ll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going.

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).

Jesper (1s): Hey there. Jesper just dropping in here up at the front of the episode. I have an excellent guest host on today, but I just wanted to drop in here quickly to let you know that we had a bit of audio quality issues, the internet on my guests and is not entirely stable and at one point about 18 and a half minute in it actually drops, which means that I cannot hear him and he keeps talking for a bit while I'm also talking on top of him to hoping, hoping that he's coming back online.

So you're going to get about one and a half minute where we accidentally talk over one another. So my apologies for that. And also when it comes to his internet connection, there is a bit static on his end and uh, unfortunately I've done everything I can to try to clean it out, but, but it's not possible to get it any better than it is now, but you can hear everything he says. So I've decided to release this episode anyway, so I hope you will get a lot out of it. And the much, much apologies for the audio quality here.

Thank you.

Narrator (1m 7s): You're listening to the amwritingfantasy podcast. In today's publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need a literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing join to best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them. Now onto the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt.

Jesper (1m 35s): Hello, I am Jesper and this is episode 43 of the amwritingfantasy podcast. And we are going to talk about reviving dead books. Meaning, how do you get books that doesn't sell to start selling again? And as you've noticed, the autumn is not with me today, but instead I actually have a guest host and that's Stuart Thaman whose books have reached international international bestseller status in the U S Australia and Canada. So welcome to the amwritingfantasy podcast, Stuart.

Stuart (2m 7s): Yeah, thanks for having me.

Jesper (2m 10s): And I, I actually understood, uh, from a bit of our email conversations that they just spent a bit of time in I was about to say my part of the world, well I think it was in Germany and I'm in Denmark, but it's close.

Stuart (2m 21s): Pretty close. Yeah. I was in central Germany, went to college and verts Berg, so been a decent amount of time in Europe. Oh, okay. What's bird what when Germany is, that is basically dead in the center of Germany. So it's a sort of a little bit to the East of Frankfurt. Probably the nearest a landmark, but not too far from you HC and yeah, honestly you can get anywhere from the center of the country, so it got to travel around a good amount as well. Oh, nice, nice, nice. So you were there for several years then. Yeah, for a good bit of time and really, really enjoyed it.

I love the food. I love the climate. Uh, it's just a wonderful place to live.

Jesper (2m 59s): Oh, cool. Very cool. But uh, but I think you're back in the U S now, right? Yup.

Stuart (3m 4s): So living in Kentucky, which is a in the Midwest of the United States. Yeah.

Jesper (3m 9s): Right. Okay. And actually before we get into the whole conversation about reviving dead books, which, ah, which I guess you've made a bit of a specialty out of, but before we get into that, I also noticed that you writing some lit RPG books and uh, I know that that's a, a Shaundra that has been a bit there. I don't know if we can call it hot, but, uh, I, I haven't understood that it's, it's something that, um, that is selling quite well in general, but, but it's also I think a bit of a special show to write.

So I was just wondering if you could, you know, just yeah, a bit of insights about what is lit RPG and how do you go about writing it because I think it's a bit different, isn't it?

Stuart (3m 50s): Yeah, it's a very niche, sort of a sub genre of fantasy and PSI Phi and, and really have any other genre you can sort of turn things into lit RPG. But, uh, it's been around for a while since ready. Player one came out quite some time ago, but really got big when the ready player one movie debuted a couple of years ago. And when that came out a lot of people started to get turned on the little RPG and a lot of people will call a game lit as well. And um, now the hardcore readers will, we'll put some designations between game lit and lit RPG, but typically, uh, the whole concept behind the sub genres, you have a fantasy, scifi horror world, whatever it might be, B.

But in that world there exists the sort of mechanics of an actual video games. So, um, in I've got three different lid RPG series now that have done pretty well. Uh, it's uh, definitely a hot selling Shondra at the moment. Am it's really, uh, a lot of fun to write. And being a lifelong gamer, it's sort of like writing the video game that I wish I could play. And that adds a whole new dimension to the entire writing process, which is a ton of fun, but really starting to get popular am in the past year or so, just sort of a genre that's blown up.

Jesper (5m 8s): Right? But am I right in understanding that you are actually writing out, that's for characters and stuff like that as well. Or

Stuart (5m 15s): so there'll be a stats for the characters. They'll have like strength, agility, uh, this sort of traditional stats that you would expect from a video game. They go on quests, they go on dungeon runs, they get magic gear every time they level up and you know, gain experience points they need to pick new talents and they're sort of building their, their build more or less than kind of gives you that feeling of reading someone playing a really fun video game.

Jesper (5m 41s): Right. So you're describing in the book itself what they're picking when delivering up and all that stuff. Yeah,

Stuart (5m 47s): exactly. In and why they're making that decision and, and uh, what they anticipate that decision might mean in the future. Like if I get this talent now, it should unlock these future talents. And, uh, you can really mentally envision the video game aspect of it quite well.

Jesper (6m 3s): Wow. That does different, yeah. And uh, and quite, it must also am I've never read a book like that, but it must be quite a different reading experience as well because I assume, I assume that's still a story in there, but, but a lot of it will then be broken up by these sort of well known story elements where you're just learning what skills they're picking for leveling up and stuff like that.

Stuart (6m 27s): Yeah, it's very interesting because this story in some other PGS can honestly be secondary to the progression of the game and the progression of the character through the game. Uh, just depends on which kind of lit RPG you're reading. But I got turned on to it just on a recommendation from someone they told me I should read dungeon Lord by a Hugo who ESKA and the read that and just really, really, really liked it and just thought like, this is the kind of fantasy like I could write this, this is a lot of fun. And, uh, wrote my first one and took a while to really get it good and, and to really perfect it.

But, uh, it's done really well. It's sold quite well and I'm really happy about that. So definitely a lot of fun to write. And uh, my, my first one only took me 20 days cover to cover to write it. So, um, very, very fast writing it because it was simply so much fun to do.

Jesper (7m 18s): But how, how long are, uh, is IPG novel in general? How many words is

Stuart (7m 23s): yeah, I mean typically the longer the better. So my very first one was right around 80,000 words. My, I've got two more that are coming out in November that are both over a hundred thousand words. So, um, the longer you can get them, the better. I'm just like normal, Epic fantasy people like to stay in that world as long as possible.

Jesper (7m 40s): All right. Okay. Very cool. I was just curious about that. I know it's a complete detour versus what we're going to talk about. What I was just curious. Yeah, very new

Stuart (7m 49s): stuff.

Jesper (7m 50s): Yeah. Okay. But maybe we should get on topic, uh, for the sake of the listener here as well. Um, so yeah, I previously in the past I talked to Dave Chesson who, who was, uh, who was also on this podcast a while back. Uh, he's the guy who does the publisher rocket software and uh, he mentioned Stuart that I should contact you because you have made a bit of a specialty to revive that books. Uh, and you're also doing it for traditional publishing companies as far as I understood.

But yeah, but where do we start this whole conversation about how to revive it? That book if the listener is in the situation where they have a book they published but it's just not selling.

Stuart (8m 32s): Yeah. The first thing to do is just identify the quality of the product itself, which could be pretty difficult. And it kind of requires you to step back with an unbiased eye and try not to look at the book as, Oh, this is, you know, my baby that I've worked on for so long and my projects that I've had, you know, sort of putting in my heart for so long that I really want to succeed. And the first step is just to look at the product as just a product that you're selling to consumers. Like anything else, if you ran a pizza shop or whatever, you would look at the quality of the product that you're selling and see where you can improve that.

So not every book is really, you know, ready to be revived or anything like that. I'm definitely not, there are a lot of books out there where the quality, you know, maybe it's something you wrote 10 years ago and it's just not that great. You know, if you can recognize that, it'll save you a lot of time and money and frustration. I've got books that I now call dead books where I've buried those books because the quality just wasn't that good and I'm not going to waste money trying to revive it myself. But then I've got other books that I wrote a long time ago released that did not do as well as I wanted that I have gone back and revive and then um, know working for different publishing companies.

I've done exactly that. But the first step is really, especially if you have a big catalog, identify a good candidate. So you need something with good writing, unless you really want to drop another, a couple of hundred dollars or $1,000 into the editing costs as well. But you want to make sure you have something that's got a good enough backbone essentially to where you can improve it enough and revive it and it'll actually be worth it. Um, but figuring out which book that is in your catalog, it should really be step one.

So really the thing that the strongest writing that didn't sell that, that the non-selling factor was a surprise. That's, that's probably step one for sure.

Jesper (10m 28s): Right? Yeah. And that of course makes sense. But, but the thing or the question that popped up into my mind here, when you set that is like, but it's not, I don't think necessarily that every author can recognize that themselves. So, so, you know, of course, if you're doing it for a traditional author publisher and they give you some debt books that they could, you know, Stuart can you please revive these for us? Then you can approach this SD outside opinion that that takes a look at the book and say, okay, this is not up for that, you know, this is not good enough or whatever.

Maybe that sounds a bit harsh but, but you know what I mean. Uh, but if it's the author who, who's supposed to do it on his or her own books, um, do you think that's possible to do or do you need somebody from outside to take a look?

Stuart (11m 14s): It's definitely difficult and I, I think is, I have worked a little bit as a professional editor and proofreader as well and, uh, worked in acquisitions for a publisher for quite some time, reading through manuscripts in the slush pile and that kind of thing. So I think that gives me a little advantage and a little better perspective where no, I'm not attached to even my own writing as much as someone else might be. Yeah. I, I think that's a skill that people can develop if you look at something, especially if it's been awhile since you've actually sat down to write it, uh, you'll find oftentimes, at least in my experience, that even if I love the book and the moment I was writing it and I was really, really into it, thought it going to be fantastic.

Going back and rereading it, I can look and say like, Oh, this just, you know, it's just not my best work. I've advanced as an author. I'm better than this now and this just doesn't really do it for me. Um, and I think that's a skill that people can develop. Okay. Honestly, I think there's a lot of editors out there that should be able to take a manuscript from someone if you send it and you know, maybe they charge you a hundred bucks or whatever, but just ask the editor, you know, for their outright opinions. Yeah. Do you think this is good enough for me to publish?

You know, from the stuff you've seen that you've edited, um, you know, editors, a lot of times we'll follow how well their books do that they added, you know, look at it and say, Hey, if I were to try to revive this, do you think it's worthwhile? And, and just trying to get an honest answer that way.

Jesper (12m 42s): Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Uh, and, and I think what I've often said before is that, uh, you need to be careful because what happens a lot of the time is that of course with every single book that we write, the better we become. So you see you, you need to be careful also that you, you don't step into this never ending spiral of, you know, because you can always go back and we write some older books and make them better, but you need to really ask yourself, is it worth it? Because the amount of time that you're spending rewriting is, is quite, uh, you know, it's, it's quite an investment of time to do that versus if it's just a cover that is off, you know, that's a much easier fix to, to see.

So I was just wondering, because I was thinking that if I was going to approach it, rewriting was, unless I for sure knew, of course that this is just not good enough. Then it's, it's a given obviously that you need to do that. But I was just thinking from a time investment perspective, I think that we're rewriting part would probably be the last thing I would do. I would probably try out all the other elements first or, or what

Stuart (13m 48s): yeah. If, if it's a book where you can simply pick flyer, like this is a book that needs rewritten, my recommendation would be just shelf it. And if you have that time later in the future, go for it from 90% of us. We're not gonna have that much time. So just, you know, pick a different book to try to revive. Or oftentimes I've found it's, it's even easier just to write the next one and just sort of forget about it and know leave that book as dead. But, um, really the, the best, you know, reviving the dead books is if you can go through that back catalog, maybe you've got four or five or six books that really aren't selling and just pick out, you know, find the one that has the strongest writing, the one that is the best that, you know, maybe it needs a proofread, something like that.

But it doesn't need a whole lot of work to the actual manuscript in order to get it ready to go.

Jesper (14m 39s): Right. And of course, well maybe they won't be many reviews on a day fee if it, if it is really a debt book and has always been a debt book, but, but if you do have some reviews, I think that's also a place where you could go to, to get some hints if, if it really needs another editing pass and you know, if there's complaints about too many typos and whatnot.

Stuart (14m 58s): Yeah, exactly. I definitely agree with that. Yeah. Um, but I, I was also thinking in terms of

Jesper (15m 9s): the look inside part, you know, from the Amazon, but how much attention are you, are you placing on making sure that those first, uh, I think, if I'm remember correctly, I might be a bit off on this, but I think it's 10% of the book

Stuart (15m 23s): somewhere around there at least. Yeah. So

Jesper (15m 27s): present, I think you, you can see from the look inside or the free sample on Amazon, but how much attention are you putting on making sure that those 10% are really engaging?

Stuart (15m 36s): Yeah, it's definitely a part you need to hook the reader. So not every reader of course, is even going to look in on that feature or even know that feature exists. It's definitely a part, um, and that, that some people do pay attention to. And I think a lot of other authors, we'll start there if, you know, if you've written before and you're looking for new materials to read yourself, then it's an area where we're going to look, it's gotta be, of course, you know, professional formatting. And a lot of times, like when I worked for different presses, I'll go into their material.

I'll see, okay, these books were made and you know, 2010 or 2014 and the formatting just back then wasn't as good. And they've gotten a professional format or now or whoever, there's, whoever is doing their formatting is simply gotten better. And so we just need to update this, run the manuscript through the formatting again as though it were brand new and get it updated, get it out there in the professional quality that the other more modern books are used to receiving. And, and that can be definitely a big thing, but I think just from a, okay, really from a story perspective, if you don't hook somebody in the first, you know, 10, 15 pages, if you don't get them absolutely invested, then there's so much other competition out there that readers will leave.

And especially if you're trying to sell and Kindle unlimited, you have to be even more am sort of action heavy and really, uh, punching it up well upfront or you don't really have a chance cause somebody's pinhole unlimited. I mean, they didn't pay to download your book at all. If you don't get them committed and invested in the first 10 pages, they're just going to move on to the next book on their Kindle and you've lost them. So, uh, definitely very important from a story perspective to have a really, really strong active opening that introduces, you know, one or two characters, keeps the cast small, sets up the overarching conflict well and really attaches the reader to those characters right out of the gate.

Yeah, fully agree. Um,

Jesper (17m 36s): let, let's assume for now that that people sort of, they, they have the, they have the product itself, meaning meaning the book or the writing itself is, is up to par. So, so that, that stuff is good. They have a good to hook in the beginning. Uh, if, if

Stuart (17m 50s): we assume that that is okay, then what about covers then? Yeah, so the cover of course is a huge aspect of writing and you know, we all know the old phrases of not judging books by their covers. And yet we all do it every single time we buy a book. It's the first step of marketing. It's the first thing you see when you approach a book, whether it be online on a bookshelf, and it doesn't matter. The first thing we see are first impression is always that book cover.

And a lot of times what I've seen in some of the books that I have revived is that the cover just doesn't match the genre expectation. And if you're trying to sell a, a a really, you know, intense suspense thriller and your cover just doesn't speak to me as a thriller, it could be a beautiful gorgeous cover. But if it just doesn't meat the jhana expectations of a thriller, then it's not going to sell well no matter how good the cover is.

So a lot of it is just looking at the top 100 covers in your genre or pick, you know, 10 or so competing authors that your book is most similar to, and you know, you write thrillers, look up Stephen King and Dean Koontz and look up those coppers and see what they look like. Because even if you don't like that style, that's what the reader expect. And that's what the reader wants to see because the reader is going to be coming from Dean Coons or Stephen King and they're going to be looking for more thrillers to read.

And if they see, you know, a thriller that matches what they like, they're going to buy it versus seeing a thriller that could have a gorgeous professional, extremely good cover. But if the cover to them says, Oh, this is historical or horror or fantasy, this isn't a thriller like I like, then they're never going even to reach or blurb and they're not going to get any farther than glancing at your cover and ignoring it and you lose that reader forever. And that's an area where I see a lot of authors don't make sense.

They spot on is that cover just doesn't really, really important and you have to have a cover that really explains what the show is about action and shows that it's not really about, uh, at the point in time when it comes to covers, it is not good. Me being original, which a lot of us authors can easily try to become a try to, to achieve. We tried to be so original and we try to, to make it so unique that nobody has seen this before and we believe it's, it's to be excellent, but in fact, that is not the case.

Uh, and that's not what we're looking for because readers are looking for something similar to what they used to. And by giving them a cover that that shows them that this is the younger you are getting and it's on par with or similar to two other

Jesper (20m 48s): best selling books in that younger, then that is how you are going to am to be successful from a, from a coverage perspective. Okay. So, so if that was all about covers then am I'm wondering the other element that also goes into whether another book will sell is uh, the uh, uh, book descriptions. So, so how do you or how do one yeah, consider or evaluate if once book description is good enough.

Stuart (21m 20s): Yeah, I think in book descriptions and blurbs or a synopsis, it's a lot more difficult than with covers cause converse, you can compare to some of the top selling covers in your genre and get a good idea. But blurbs are so unique to the book that it makes it a lot more difficult. But with blurbs that very easy to change, especially on the electronic format, it's extremely easy to change. You can try out a different blurb every week until you get something that you really liked. But a big mistake at least that I see with lots and lots of blurbs is authors try to just sort of tell you the plot.

Here's what my book is about. That seems logical, but it very, very rarely works. And really the goal of any sort of book blurb or synopsis is not to tell the reader what the book is going to be about, but it is to tell the reader instead why they should look at the book and what they're going to be excited about. And really what that comes down to is Shondra expectations, which is similar to the cover. And you want to just give them atmosphere and you want them to think like, Oh, this is going to be a really cool, you know, intense mystery thriller, not, Oh, this is a book about a guy who was framed for a crime and goes on the run and moves to Argentina.

It should be a book, a description that gives them just the atmosphere and sort of builds up that expectation in their head and then leaves them wanting more. Because if they, if they get the plot from the, the book description, they don't need to read the book anymore. If they just get the atmosphere and the genre expectation, then they need to read the book in order to figure out what it's about. And I think that can be a, a, a really powerful selling tool. But again, since it's so easy to just change the blurb, essentially whenever you need to pick five or six that you like and you know, test them on a, a writing group and you know, on a sub Reddit or something like that, um, test them out in a Facebook group for authors.

See what people like, pick the two or three that get the most votes, try one for a week with your marketing plan. If it works, great. If not, switch to a different one. And you can really am guess and check with them blurbs pretty easy.

Jesper (23m 41s): Yeah, absolutely. And, and, uh, it's, it's sort of like thinking about the movie trailer. I mean, of course not all movies trailers does a good job at being a trail either. But yeah, it needs to just tease to stuff. You don't have to. Yeah, exactly. You don't have to tell bots. You just, you just tease it. Uh, and, and then, yeah, as you say, I mean, fortunately enough, eh, changing the blurb is quite easy. So, uh, you can just upload a new one and see how it performs. And of course, for you, dear listener, if you're struggling with that, don't forget that, uh, I actually have a guide book called how to write a fences.

You put description so you can pick that one up and, uh, follow a step by step guide if you need some assistance on, on blurps. But, uh, but I do think blurbs are incredibly important because if people find, if, if you sort of have the writing on the control and you have the cover under control, meaning that it's sugar specific, like you talked about before, Stuart then people will then click, but then when they click and get to the book page on, for example, Amazon, then the blurb is the one that needs to close the deal, right? Yup.

Definitely. Yeah. And if you don't have that sort of them, well, you're still gonna lose out at the problem. He, I guess in, in revising these books, reviving these books as a, that was what I was trying to say is that you have, so you have quite a lot of moving parts here, right? I mean, yeah, there's a lot of different elements that could be wrong that you need to evaluate. Yeah, there are a ton of variables and it can sometimes, especially when you're looking at your own work, it can be hard to pinpoint exactly what's wrong, but Amy and I think, uh, if people really take a diligent look, it's not as hard as it seems to figure out exactly where there's room to improve.

Right? Yeah. And then, and sometimes it's probably also about of, uh, if, if you are really stuck, you know, maybe get some author friends to take a look for you or something like that. There's tons of groups out there full of authors that don't mind giving advice to everybody else. So there's, the resources exist. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. But, but I was just thinking when I said that, I also thought of a caveat right away. I guess that's, that's the problem if you're trying to give advice and been thinking about caveats right away.

But, but the, the problem is also that sometimes the authors themselves are not the right people to justice stuff because we think as authors and, and it's difficult sometimes to put yourself in the mind of the reader because just like you said with the covers, uh, the readers are looking for, uh, something that signals to them that this is, I know what I'm getting and this is what I'm used to. They're not looking for, this is the most amazing original fats as you cover I've ever, ever seen. You know, that's not what they're looking for.

And we can get, well, I think sometimes by asking other authors, you can get into the same trap that they will tell you their author opinion. Um, and, but of course, sometimes you're going to get good advice from people who know what they're talking about. It's just a word of caution, I guess.

Stuart (26m 50s): I would agree. A lot of authors will make the same mistake as an author trying to revive their own work and then they look through it from the wrong perspective.

Jesper (26m 59s): Right. But okay, so if we have the writing we have to cover, we have the book description than, than what. What else?

Stuart (27m 7s): It really, once you've got all that your, you're pretty much ready to go. So, uh, you've, you've got everything more or less. All right. Seated correctly. Sometimes. I've actually, we've, we've changed titles on books as well, so we've had titles on that comes to mind that as probably the most successful book revival I've ever done. Um, and it, it was a really cool portal fantasy about a Japanese fighter pilot going back in time during world war II and going back to feudal Japan times and sort of becoming a sword and sorcery fantasy and that book had a cover that said historical fiction to me.

It had a title that was in Japanese and I didn't even understand it even though the book was in English and the writing, we just needed a proofread. But, uh, we changed that title to one that was very in keeping with am with sort of expectations and whatnot. The book's called samurai wind by Nigel sellers. But, uh, we, we revive that and got the new title on it, got a new cover on it and everything. And then really from there, the bulk of your work is finished and all you need to do is just find that audience and figure out where those people live.

And with a samurai themed portal fantasy with a little historical bend to it, honestly, that appeals to most fantasy readers already. That's something that a lot of fantasy readers are going to really enjoy. So all you need to do is, is, uh, then dive into your sort of traditional marketing approach. And for me that would be Facebook and Amazon ads testing key words, figuring out which keywords are getting your sales, and then am pumping really as much of your budget as you can afford into those valuable keywords until they stop working.

And then re-evaluating once those keywords fall off a little bit. But, um, once you get to the point where you've got, you know, the title, the cover, the blurb and the writing that is pretty much everything. You're, you're more or less they're ready to market it again and really rebrand the novel and get people interested in it.

Jesper (29m 12s): Yeah. Yeah, I would agree. Uh, and of course then once you are at that stage, then you have the same problem that everybody else has and that is to drive enough traffic there and, and when those bits and all that. But do you have any, any good advice when it comes to, to running some ads and getting, getting the traffic to that book that you now know it's good and you know what you're sell but you just need to get eyeballs, eyeballs on it. Do you have any advice on, on how to best go about that? Uh, the advertising part of this equation?

Stuart (29m 41s): Yeah, it's definitely marketing books is tricky. And sort of the uh, pitfall I guess of almost every author out there that I talked to am on my website on stuartthamanbooks.com I've got a whole series of free articles about marketing that go into, in a lot more detail than a, just a quick podcast. But essentially the biggest advice is if you're using pay to click or right, yeah. Pay per click ads. That's it. So if you're using those paper click ads, which I recommend you just want to sort of start with the shotgun blast and hit as much as you possibly can right out of the gate and it's going to be expensive to test and it's going to be a pretty steep learning curve.

You'll need to know what you're doing. Yeah. If you set up, you know, maybe three or 4,000 different keywords on Amazon, which am I use the publisher rocket as well, but, um, set up 4,000 keywords and run those for fast and keywords, which will be four different ads, but run them on, you know, three different ad copies and adjust your ad copy. You know, three different times, figure out which keywords are hitting. And the combination might be something that's surprising. It might be something that you don't expect and he might have, uh, you know, a key word with an ad copy that doesn't strike you as something that you would, you know, would work for you.

But again, the author's not the customer. So it's hard to think like a customer and we don't always understand the customers. Um, but really just sort of testing as much as physically possible for as long as you can to get enough data to be meaningful. Then figuring out from that data, okay, what about this makes sense and where am I actually going to make money? Um, you know, kill those keywords that are just sucking down budget with no returns. Kill those off real quick. Figure it out. The ones that, the keywords that are giving you the best bang for your buck and then put more and more into those keywords.

Or maybe try five or six different ad copies with each key word to see what works the best. And eventually, you know, might take you a month, but you'll pair it down to where you've got ads running that are going to be very profitable on either Facebook or Amazon, whatever it might be. B, you'll get ads that are, are churning out a high rate of return.

Jesper (31m 57s): Yeah. Do you uh, tend to be it high to, to, to get those, uh, basically to revive the books so to speak, in order to get to get the Amazon algorithm to pay attention to you? Do, do you tend to bid high to make sure you're winning those bits or, or do you just bit sorta Jewish sure. That you're going to get a return on investment if you win the bid. So how do you, how do, how do you go about that?

Stuart (32m 20s): It's setting is definitely difficult. I'm not gonna say I'm a master of that just yet. Honestly, in the beginning I like to set the bids higher just cause I'm, I'm kind of impatient when it comes to getting that data and figuring it out. So I'll last a lot of ads in the beginning that are going to cost a good bit of money and have pretty high bids just so I can get all that data and you know, run through my budget every single day to make sure I'm hitting it. And uh, once I get all that data, all tone it down.

And most of the time, once I have an ad that's fairly refined, I'll just send it to the Amazon recommended bid and they do like the dynamic bidding where they'll adjust it for you up to like 50% of what you put in. So I'll put maybe 50 cents in and so that'll let it adjust up to 75 cents if it needs to. And that seems to work pretty well. So you're not getting, you know, prime time bids, you're not winning those, but you're still at least, you know, winning enough bids to get a decent amount of impressions, a few thousand impressions or whatever it might be on each ad and, and that's really what you need.

But once you pare it down, I think that the bid matters maybe less and less. And it might be the case I've had a few times where reviving an old book, I've found that it wasn't any keyword that was even expensive that ends up being the winner. And it'll be something, you know, for sent keyword that nobody else is bidding on that I would've never thought in a thousand years of irrelevant. But it was something that publisher rocket pulled up in their list and I kept it in there and there it went.

And so it'll be a really cheap, a keyword, which is fantastic.

Jesper (34m 4s): Yeah, I know, I know Dave Chesson likes to share the example of, uh, of, uh, what was it? Book book book. I think that was the key word, who was using just three times the word book in a row, which makes absolutely no sense at all.

Stuart (34m 18s): Who types that in on am I don't know what they're hoping to find when they search book book book but people do apparently, and that you weren't as typically cheap so you can grab it.

Jesper (34m 30s): Yeah, yeah, indeed. Indeed. Okay. Well, I think that that is good in terms of revitalizing the book so, so you certainly need to drive the traffic there and, and all the usual stuff that we usually talk about is, is of course also relevant in the sense that, uh, if you make sure to write in series, then of course you can afford to spend a bit more on, on this, uh, book one in the series that is debt, uh, because hopefully people will now start reading through that and, and like it because you just made sure that the product itself is good and then they'll buy the other books and, and that will bring you back some revenue, meaning that you will cover some of your ads.

Exactly.

Stuart (35m 10s): Yeah.

Jesper (35m 12s): Okay. Uh, Stuart uh, is there anything else that is important to know about reviving that books, uh,

Stuart (35m 19s): that we haven't talked about? Covered just about everything? Um, I guess as a last bit of advice, I would say, uh, one of the biggest mistakes I see authors making is, is always with the cover. And just the concept is actually a line that I read I think like two or three days ago, just came up. Another author mentioned that your when you look at a cover, you should not be looking for some flawless work of art. You should consider your cover to just be your first marketing tool. And even if it's a cover that you personally don't like, if it fits in your genre, the offense, what readers want, use it.

It doesn't matter if you like it or not because the paycheck is what, what the authors in it for. So, uh, it doesn't have to be some, you know, flawless work of art. You can always make a special edition later that's going to be your flawless work of art, but you need to sell books first before we can afford that special edition.

Jesper (36m 13s): Yeah, absolutely. And you mentioned early on that, that you had some articles or blog posts or whatever that, uh, goes into some of this. So if you send me the links to that, the Stuart, then I'll add those links into the show notes. Can go and read it.

Stuart (36m 29s): Yup. Yeah. Just Stuart Thaman books is where you can find it all and we'll get those links up there.

Jesper (36m 34s): All right, perfect. Okay. Thanks so much for, for joining Stuart. Yeah, thank you. So next Monday autumn is back and we are going to talk about whether or not free books are worth it as a marketing strategy.

Narrator (36m 53s): If you like what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support the amwritingfantasy podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join autumn and Jesper on patrion.com/amwritingfantasy for as little as a dollar a month. You'll get awesome rewards and keep the amwritingfantasy podcast going. Stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 42 – How to Cope with Stress as a Writer

Autumn have been feeling quite overwhelmed and stressed out lately.

Unfortunately, she is far from alone in dealing with these feelings, yet its a topic that each writer often deals with in isolation. 

It's our hope, that by putting it out in the open - with this episode 42 of the Am Writing Fantasy podcast - that others will feel more empowered to talk about their feelings.

Hopefully, Autumn also managed to be inspirational in sharing her personal story. 

Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday.

SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST!

Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review.

Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy.

For as little as a dollar a month, you’ll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going.

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).

Narrator (2s): You're listening to the amwritingfantasy podcast in today's publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need in literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing join to best selling authors who have self-published more than 20 books between them. Now onto the show with your hosts, Autumn Bert and Jesper Schmidt. Hello? I am, Jesper.

Autumn (32s): And I'm autumn,

Jesper (35s): this is episode 42 of the amwritingfantasy podcast and we are going to talk about feeling overwhelmed today. And, uh, in many ways, uh, today's topic is, it's a bit personal, so I, I guess he upfront, I want to thank you autumn for the fact that you agreed to share some about, uh, you know, those feelings for the benefit of our podcast listeners. So I hope we were going to create a episode here that will really help people.

Autumn (1m 2s): Yes, we're going to definitely keep this one real folks. And I promise I will not be breaking down in tears though.

Jesper (1m 11s): No, hopefully not. We'll see how and, and Hey, I also have to say, I apologize if my voice sounds a bit raw today. I'm still recovering from a cold and the actual had a bit of fever over the weekend, so that was really annoying. Uh, and I am feeling better now, but I, I'm not quite there yet. So, uh, sorry about the bit here in voice today. It's really not the how try not to cough in your ear as well.

Autumn (1m 36s): Sounds good. But yeah, that's the funny thing doing the podcast. So I can't see you if, so for all I know, you know, you've got like your pajamas and your robot and a wash cloth over your forehead, so hopefully you're not that ill anymore.

Jesper (1m 50s): No, no, no, it's not that bad. Uh, it wasn't, uh, in bed either, you know, a sleeping all weekend or anything. But, uh, I was still, I was still moving around but I really wasn't, especially Saturday. I was really feeling bad, but

Autumn (2m 7s): it's getting better. That's good. That's an important thing, you know. And it's funny cause I, I just picked up Adam from a a leave no trace master educator canoe trip. So we had this wonderful training where you went to go canoeing in the Adirondacks and the fall weather. And while he was gone, I had the camper to myself for five days and I picked him up and he absolutely had a bat. Great time. It was fantastic. He met some fantastic people. Uh, he passed obviously. So now he's a master educator. Can train other people on how to leave no trace. But what was interesting is that of all the things, he has a lingering bad back.

So he's am ever since. I think it runs in the family because his mom has the same issue, so, Oh my goodness, yes. Talking about things that are slowly recovering, he is limping around very much and it's always one of those, it's a perception. I should, we kind of talked about perceptions and stuff before, but I've always thought it was you. You look at someone and you feel people look at him and he's six foot, two broad shoulder and it's very, you know, he looks like he would be a police officer. His family, way back to his great, great grandmother was a warden at a women's prison.

So I mean he's got that physique and they're like, Oh, you're so strong you can do anything. It's like, dude, his bag is so fragile. It's like I feel so bad for him. I haven't seen him in this much pain since am Oh geez. When we probably first met 19 years ago and, but it's recovering and I think it was just the way he was sitting in the canoe and paddling. I'm like, next time you wear a brace, next time you do this and, but he's on the meds and yeah, at least he got to go out.

Some of the pictures he took during the chorus or just, I almost wish I had gone with them, but Hey, I got some time on my own and I got to explore some really cute towns including Lake Placid where the Olympics were held. Winter Olympics were held twice, so I had some fun on my own. Yeah. I went to a, uh, coppery that the chef had changed, trained with Julia child. So, you know, it was a really difficult five days. Yeah. I'm usually us introverts. W we really hate being alone.

Oh. It's just absolutely horrible to not have to worry about what to cook for someone else or what time to eat, have to share my beer. It was really,

Jesper (4m 31s): but didn't, I can't remember. But didn't you tell me at some point that Adam is also, your husband is also a bit of an introvert? Yeah,

Autumn (4m 37s): he is. He um, he definitely needed some downtime. He's trying to do better with is extroverting stuff. Like we were just in town today and I was walking in and talking to people at shops, uh, filling out some stuff around town is like, I don't know how you can just walk in and start talking to people. Like, all right, let's give you some lessons on breaking the ice with someone you're meeting for the first time. So, but it has a, I could probably use some of those as well. Some of those lessons. I definitely, uh, I learned by doing, because I was a waitress for a year and I have also, um, I worked for the government.

I was going to people's houses and farms and trying to give insulin to do conservation programs with the federal government in the United States. Let me tell you, that's not always the easiest thing. And so you learn to talk to people. Really. I can talk to any why that's not a worry, but at some point even I need to turn off and go curl up with a book.

Jesper (5m 35s): Yeah, I would say that there's probably fair to say I could, I can, I can talk to anybody as well, but it, it doesn't come natural in the way that I have to actively think. The thought that, Oh, I guess I need to go and talk to that person, then I can easily do it. But, but it just not, it doesn't come natural to me. You know, my natural reaction is just to, you know, go my own way and do whatever for myself rather than going and talking to somebody. Right. So I need to, I need to be mindful about it and actively thinking about it all the time.

Otherwise I just don't do it.

Autumn (6m 7s): Yeah, I can understand that. I mean it's, I, I just was having this conversation with that. I'm actually, I remember in college I would be so used to being alone and doing my own thing and working on my own projects and I, it would probably be sunset and at that point it'd be like, I really haven't gotten anywhere today and I haven't talked to anyone and I'm kind of lonely. And so I would go for a walk, you know, it's like dinner time and I'm like, I think I, there's 15 minutes left in the cafeteria. I can go find someone to talk to and go have dinner.

And yeah, I was always am it took until sunset. So I can go about, you know, until the end of the day and evening I think is one of my social time is so if I could live in a community where the rest of the day you can work and mornings especially, don't talk to me until I have my team and I watched the sun come up and maybe our ride for an hour, then you can talk to me. But evenings I want to pull out the wine and sit by the fire and talk to the next 20 people in the room would be fantastic.

Jesper (7m 8s): Yeah. All right. I think evenings, uh, I quite like to just, uh, sit back and, you know, watch some Netflix, which, Oh, by the way, that reminds me. Did you ever watch the U S version of the office?

Autumn (7m 21s): I have not watched. I've watched maybe two episodes of it, honestly.

Jesper (7m 27s): Alright. Because I originally I watched the UK version, which was made years before the U S version. So it's, uh, it's Ricky Jarvis, who's a, who's a English comedian who created the office originally as a British TV series and it was absolutely awesome. And then, uh, later on the U S version that came out, he's also like, eh, I think executive producer or something. At least he has, he has his hands in it. Am

Autumn (7m 55s): okay.

Jesper (7m 55s): And then for many, many years, I resisted watching the U S version because I just felt like it can, it, it's just some sort of rip off and it cannot be as good as the original UK version. I just never watched it. And then maybe, I dunno, maybe four or five months ago, I can't remember, something like that, but some months ago, anyway, uh, I started watching it and I was like, Oh my God, this is excellent. And it's just so freaking funny. You have no idea. And it's, it's, and it has a lot of the same feel to it that the original UK version does.

So a lot of the subtle humor and the characters are just absolutely awesome. So, and then I was started watching it. I got really hooked and then I told my wife about, and she was like, no, I don't wanna watch the U S version. It's, it's, it's probably not better than you. It's exactly the same accident I had. And now we are like a, I dunno if she started a month ago or something watching it and now we a month later and she's watched more than me, so she took me now.

Autumn (8m 58s): But it's just, I don't know if you get the chance. What's it? It's amazing. I've heard that. She just never clicked with me, but maybe I'll give it another try. Honestly, we just picked up and started watching disenchantment, which is the same creator of the Simpsons, Matt groaning. So, um, he has a kind of fairy tales sort of animation cartoon. It's insane. Season two. And so we just watched the first episode of season two last night and okay.

You know, this Simpsons meets, um, the princess beanie, uh, being is the main character and her am Lucifer. Lucy is her demon. And it's really kind of fun to watch that. So that maybe when we're finished with am our current season two of disenchantment. All right, that may be it. Writing fantasy podcast

Jesper (9m 58s): so I was just inside the, uh, amwritingfantasy Facebook group here earlier today and uh, I sorta Kel posted, um, that's used currently writing her first battle scene in her book. And then she asked people how many battles scenes other people have in their novels. And I thought that was actually a quite an interesting question. Don't, don't you think autumn

Autumn (10m 20s): I was, I was actually, I had saw that one too. What was going to mention it as well. So I thought the same thing because I hadn't, you know, everyone thinks about the climax, but you know, how many, what other battles scenes do you have? Do you throw them in as hurdle? So I've been looking at some of the comments to see, you know, what other people say, you know, it, it's kind of all over the place. Some people say quite a few because it's military fantasy. Uh, there's one, you know, a couple of like just one, so, yeah.

Jesper (10m 49s): Yeah. But that's also why I picked it out to mention it here because I just wanted to pitch in here and basically say to Carol that at least from my perspective, you know, your novel needs as many battles scenes as is demanded by your story and no more, no less. I mean, I, I don't think you can say that a story has too many battles scenes or it has too few. It completely depends on what type of story it is that she's telling. At least that, that would be my point of view. But I don't know what you think.

Autumn (11m 16s): No, I agree. I mean, it's, I don't want to see too many of them. Like if I'm a reader and I'm reading a book, you know, if, if there's swords and mercenaries in magic, even magic's a good battle scene. I expect, um, you know, some minors scenes, especially as characters are learning their powers or learning how to use a sword. There should be some scuffles and things that you're learning along the way before you get to the big climax. But you know, if, if your climax is something different, a totally different based type of story, then you know, maybe there really weren't.

Maybe there'll be a lot more running. Maybe there's a lot more questing and searching, but again, usually something that attacks you in the woods. So I'd be surprised if there's only one. But I definitely, I actually, I hate to admit this, this is probably so horrible, but when I read Lord of the rings, I actually skipped skim through the battle scenes because they were just too detailed and too many character names. And I just, at one point I had two or three paragraphs into it, I realized I didn't care. So I just looked for the characters.

I knew skim to the end of it and said, ah, this is who won. And kept going.

Jesper (12m 28s): Yeah. But that's actually where I think the, the Lord of the rings movies did a good job because in the movies you assume into the characters and see what they are doing on the battlefield. And then it becomes interesting, whereas these like huge scenes where it's described that 1000 soldiers road runs into another thousand soldiers and they slay half of them and it's like, well that's not really that interested because I'm not invested in those soldiers. But if if you sort of assume into the character running in the midst of all these people and on all the chaos around and whatnot, then it becomes interesting all of a sudden.

Autumn (13m 2s): Yeah, I know we've both talked about that before. I mean, I, when I wrote my first, especially the trilogy Epic fantasy climactic battle seed, so I mean, you know, three books building to this scene and you know, there were I think ended up being nine chapters for the entire battle because it's huge. But I kept it to each of the characters, basically what their experience was through the battle and that kind of made it so much easier to tear apart when I was approaching the first time ever. Writing something this big and massive and it does, it means more for the readers and it, it's really a great way to write it as just a focus on what's going on with this character.

And then I always say like having big telltale events that basically are become the time clock of the battle that this happened, that happened. So that way, you know, the reader can sync everything up. It works, it works great. But yeah, I definitely think keeping it, you know, keeping it relatable to the characters in your plot and how you're building it to make sure it's, it's fitting what's going on in the, uh, in your story. You don't need to throw in, you know, 16 different battles. There's no magic recipe. But I, like I said, I think it would make sense if someone's going to be learning to use their powers, that you should see some displays of it, even if it's just practice before they get to the big, big scene where they have to be at least a good enough master to hopefully win.

Jesper (14m 27s): Yeah, that makes sense. Uh, I also picked out from the Facebook group that, uh, uh, James had some trouble coming up with a title for his novel or maybe, Oh, I should rather say he had three different titles and then he wanted people's opinion on which one people thought the best. And he actually, he got a, a lot of votes on that pole there. Uh, and there was also a clear winner among his three different options. So I think that's great. And I really like how the authors in the amwritingfantasy Facebook group helping each other out with stuff like this.

And, uh, I did not vote myself for one of the options, but instead I actually pointed him to watch our episode 37 of this podcast since we actually covered that topic at great length there on how to pick titles for you on novels, if any of our listeners, yeah, go ahead. I say that's just what I was going to say. It's like, did he not listen to our, our podcast I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. Maybe he was too busy or something, but, uh, but he did the, he did reply back and say he wants, he would go back and listen to it.

So, uh, so that was good. I mean, not every people have, are subscribing like me, you know, the, the different podcasts I listened to, I listened to every single episode, but that's not everybody. So, and maybe it's going to tie into our topic of being overwhelmed as well, but, uh, but what I was gonna say before is that if any of our listeners are interesting in joining a group of fantasy authors, you can just head on over to Facebook and then search for M writing fantasy among the groups there and then you will find us.

Yeah. Getting into today's topic, I think first of all, I must share in full transparency that I've never really felt overwhelmed myself. So, uh, please note that I'm not saying that to, to make those who do feel overwhelmed feel worse or to sort of raise myself above them. I, I'm only saying it so that our listeners are aware that my advice on this topic might not be as good as yours. Autumn that's not a problem. I think I am surprised. I can't imagine not feeling overwhelmed at some point with that.

How did PAX writing but you are so organized. It doesn't surprise me, I think you. But then again, I also know being an organized person, usually myself, that when the cookie crumbles and you're an organized person, Oh my goodness, it's disaster. It's like going into a kid's play pen where they had a tantrum and everything falls down. So I hope you never feel overwhelmed because I think when are, if you're the point person and the foundation of a lot of things in your life and when you crumble, it's bad.

So you stay where you're at and be a lot of crunch. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, there could be a lot of contract I've had, I've had employees, uh, who have suffered from both. I mean, some overwhelmed, but I, I've also had a few who actually went into full burnout. So I've seen what it looks like close by at close hand, you know, and it's, it's not good. Uh, so, but, but as far as understanding how it feels on one's own own body then, well, I can't really say much but, but I'll, I'll try and um, give some reflections here.

But uh, but I think, well you've been through a bit of a journey here recently autumn so maybe you want to set us up for this content a bit about what, what, what sort of in

Autumn (17m 50s): going on. Sure. Well, yes, if most people don't realize I've been a full time author, graphic artists and traveler around sort of the world, but mostly in North America because we have a small dog and we just don't want to abandon our furry child. We love her. Oh, you know, we ha we took him on because we love him, so we don't want to just drop them off and then go travel the rest of the world though. It's in us to do so. But we've been doing that for three years. Ever since I quit my job, a very good job.

Um, on my 42nd birthday, literally it was my last day in the office was my birthday. And so I gave my two week notice so that I can have a big birthday bash that involved the staff. I say goodbye to all my employees and walked out the door to, uh, kind of scary big world. And it's been a blast. We have traveled over a hundred thousand miles in the last three years in a variety of vehicles from a Jeep Rubicon sleeping in a ground tent to a land cruiser 80.

He was sleeping on a rooftop tent to now this four wheel camper that we have. And, but it's, it's coming I think to an end, but I'm not sure we're in a transition period. And when you're in a transition period, it's, I equate it to like, you're walking in this really Misty veil. If you don't even really know where you are, you're just, you're in this thick, dense mist and you're walking sometimes in circles, sometimes you're just kind of feeling your way and nothing has come clear yet where my next chapter is going to be a what we're going to do.

I mean, I know there's things in me, the things I miss. I'm a huge foodie. I love cooking and I really miss, you know, having a kitchen and having, you know, making food and all those kitschy thing. You know, I wouldn't have a bookshelf with my own books. I don't even have a whole set of all my own books. I have to go to my mom's house to see my books. I kind of want that. So there's a lot of desire is am and Adam feels the same way. My husband, he's an outdoor person and outdoor guide and it's kind of, you know, we've enjoyed our travel, but it's kinda hard to, uh, be that to other people, to work maybe in a job where he's guiding like kayak tours or hiking tours.

Unless you're in a place that didn't, you know you can do that. So there's a lot of this stuff that we kind of were excited to put on hold and toss it to the wind and go to Alaska and see some amazing, see the Northern lights outside of Yellowknife. It was a fantastic journey. And there's places I want to go back to so badly, but at the same time we've also seen just about everything. So we don't want to just keep going in circles were kind of ready for something new and it's created a bit of an impact.

Jesper (20m 52s): Yeah, that, that was sort of what I was going to ask about here is it. So do you think it was all the, the feeling of we maybe want to do something differently? Was it, was that, do you think that was the trigger for starting to feeling overwhelmed or was it something else?

Autumn (21m 11s): I think it was the realization that we thought everything was smooth sailing and it was going fine. And you know, we'd just gotten this camper. So we were excited to travel in something that's a little more comfortable than a rooftop tent in a land cruiser where I was doing most of my writing in the passenger seat or at a picnic tables. It's always fun to design a fantasy map. Um, Jim Reed, this is, you design a fantasy map for another author while sitting at a picnic table.

So we were excited, but there's a lot of tasks that weren't getting done. Driving every day takes its own toll. Um, there was a lot of times where it's like, I wanted to go and do something, but I really needed to sit and write. I mean, I'm an author. This is a real business. And just, I felt a lot of internal pressure, pressure from the expectations I had for myself, the expectations of wanting to meet the needs of my clients when maybe I should have just said, you know what, it's going to be another week or so.

Yeah, sorry. Speaking of the small furred devil, Hey. Yeah. But yeah, so you know, the expectations of people I work with and even wanting to, you know, I write with you and spend time with you that I w you know, we have our own things we're working on. We're working on courses and books and all these things going on, plus my own personal writing and uh, you know, just willing to draw. And I think it all just became too many expectations.

Jesper (22m 48s): Yeah. So it sounds like it may be, it was more like, uh, uh, built up over time rather than something's suddenly happening or whatever.

Autumn (22m 56s): Yeah. I think, um, I think that's usually, cause I am the rock in my relationship. I'm usually the one who can go through anything and get things done. And so when I get off the rails, it's kind of a huge hip cup in our lives that, Oh geez, you know, the bedrock just had an earthquake and now what do we do when your not feeling as motivated and excited and creative and just passionate about what you're doing when you show up and you're like, Oh, I gotta work on this today, don't I?

Yay. Yeah. So I think it was, uh, for me it's always a slow summer when I have a little breakdown and I always joke that, you know, I have one or two funky days every year, but this is, this has been going on for a month or more and it's, you know, it's getting better now because I'm actively managing it, but it's still going on. I mean, I'm still stuck in my current work in progress. I like get chapped. I've been at chapters five, six, somewhere in there for a month and a half and I can usually pound out, you know, maybe not 5,000 words a day, but two, 3000.

Like I said, writing is my job and I just, I write, I have a minimum minimum goal that I write, even if it's like I've got a ton of other things I'm working on, I try to at least write 500 words just to keep the story going. I have it all plotted out. I want to, I've, you know, my, my writer, author newsletters, I have my readers that they kind of know what's going on and they want to see what's coming up next in the story. I want to have a publication date that I've promised and I did. I pushed forward and I kept writing and the other day I finally just looked at it and said, I'm just not going to pretend like I'm happy with this.

And I won't say a deleted it, but I took it and I moved it to an outtake folder and I'm back to where I was a month ago staring at the screen going, Oh, I just need to make this scene. If I can just get this scene to click together, I know I can move forward. But it just hasn't clicked yet. No. But how did you recognize the fact that you were feeling overwhelmed if it was sort of building up over time and almost sneaking up on you? How did you recognize that this is, this is what I'm feeling?

I think it's just a matter of at some point being honest, like maybe sitting down, I don't know if I was sitting down with Adam, we, he, we, he and I talk a lot, obviously, uh, almost 20 years of marriage. Um, we've built houses together and fixed houses and lived in a camper together, um, for a hundred thousand miles. So we talk a lot. He's my best friend and I think just saying, Hey, this is, you know, nothing's working. I'm feeling stuck.

And I think for me it was really like when I, my writing is stuck, my art was stuck. Um, getting anything done was stuck and I'm, and he started saying, well, you know, it sounds like you're overwhelmed. You sometimes you need that outside perspective. And then I know I wrote you an email saying, I just am not getting done the things I want to get done that I've said that, you know, these are the important tasks. We've got a head for us and I just don't know what to do. And you always, always, you're like the best writing partner and business partner ever.

Yesware, you'll always come back and be like, no, you know, you need to take care of yourself. So I mean everyone, everyone I've talked to you that I said I'd need more time to work on something. It has been fantastic. No one's like, Oh really? I needed that yesterday. I think. Um, yeah I think a lot of the times is expectations. When we think well the what we're holding ourselves to, what we think should be going on in our lives and it's just not happening. And it's that association, that mistake that really messes things up and messes up.

You know, what we're doing with our lives and how things are going. And that's what gets us off track. And it's sometimes just, you know, talking to the people in our lives so that they know that, you know, it's not that big of a deal. You know, it can give you breathing room. And that's one of my biggest advices as if you're feeling stuck and you're feeling overwhelmed, that you just need to go and talk to the people in your lives. Talk to at least one person. Cause you will immediately start feeling at least a little better cause it's not all bottled up inside of you.

You need to at least say Hey either if you, even if you can't say I need help, you can just say, I just need to, you know, take a break. I need to go take a nap. I know that's one of my biggest signs is I usually like to get up in the morning and right. And the day that I was like, I had to rather stay in bed and screw what I'm working on and sleep for another hour, then go tackle this scene that I can't get through. Am I'd rather do anything than that.

I when I start avoiding my laptop, which is my nephew am who's a computer engineer by the way, jokes that I'm more attached to my laptop then anything else in my life, he's, he'll come up and be like, what I see you don't have your laptop on right now. Um, you know, he would literally tease me that, Oh my God, I cannot believe I'm witnessing you without this other object that I thought was permanently attached to you. So, uh, when I'm like going, no, I done with that right now.

I need to walk away from that right now that that is a sign that there's something big going on in life.

Jesper (28m 45s): Yeah. And I, and I think, at least from what I have seen with, uh, with employees and stuff like that, you know, it's first of all, I think it is really important to, to spot the warning signs when they are there because some people just don't see the warning signs and, or they don't listen to their body and that don't feel, feel it before it's too late and that that's, that's how you end up in the complete burnout. And that's sort of the worst thing that can happen. So I fully agree with what you said there before about speaking to people about how you're feeling and, and realigned some of expectations with other people because often as you said, I, I believe that if you are honest with people around you and saying, I'm, I'm just feeling overwhelmed and I need a bit of breathing space, at least if most people would understand that.

And, and S, you know, say don't worry about it. Notice and as soon as you get those confirmations, then at least you can sort of take that pressure off of your shoulders and say, okay, well other people understand and they're not expecting me to do something tomorrow and I have that breathing space. Then you can also start to allow yourself that breathing space. And I think that that's important. Um, but I also see from, uh, from past experiences with employees. I've also seen a few factors and you mentioned some of them already there, but a few factors that I've seen happening is if people, uh, struggling with setting boundaries, meaning that they know when to say no to some, some task or project or whatever.

Because I still, I simply don't have enough time for this, for example. Uh, but then the day they ended up saying yes because they want to please everybody. Then usually those are the ones where you can easily hit down that route of starting to feel more overwhelmed. And if you then don't recognize the science, then you end up in a burnout because you S you have a to do list that are miles long and there's just no Intuit and you're maybe working yourself too hard as well. Because then that's the other part that you mentioned about sleeping. Because I think, well, exercise can help us well, but above all, you need to get your sleep.

Um, and to get your sleep on a regular schedule if you can, meaning if as much as you can, going to bet the same time getting up in the morning at the same time every day. I, I'm, I'm pretty religious about that myself. Um, but, but it, it makes a huge difference if you get your sleep, if you don't get your sleep, especially when you have those really long to do list. And then you start saying, okay, I just need to work more hours, then I'll get it done right. And then you start working 16 hours a day or 18 hours a day or whatever. Maybe I'm exaggerating a bit there, but, but you get the point, you know that then you're on the, you're on the wrong path or start as soon as you start doing all that.

Autumn (31m 25s): Absolutely. And that's, it's definitely so easy to do. I mean, I know what it's like to be someone who tackles all these, all the big projects. I mean, usually it's just, you know, my meat and gravy and what I want to be working on. But you can't always be the person bearing all the weight and getting it all done. Everyone deserves a break. Everyone deserves a vacation. And I think when you finally realize that, you know, you do need to set boundaries, even if it's like, okay, it's an hour or two a night and guess what, you like five o'clock or something, uh, you know, the computer's going off and I'm going to spend some time with my husband.

Or especially since I do this full time. I mean, like I said, my nephew jokes that I'm on the laptop all the time, 12 to 18 hours a day. Well that's not doable. I mean we've been traveling around the United States and there's been times Adam's like, just just put it away or just come, we'll go do a walk. Don't, don't keep doing this. I don't, you don't want your memory of where we've been to be. You look at your laptop screen and I do think that's very important and so I know just overall of like what I could have done the last three years.

I feel like some things have slipped because we were, we were traveling and I was enjoying it, but it was also a of suddenly going, I think some of our transition time right now is like, well, you know, we need more time to focus on our businesses and our what we're doing to make them grow because the bit of time they're getting right now is not enough. But it is. I would say my number one thing is it after talking to people is to be kind to yourself. Everyone's got to have bad days.

It's fine. You just need to be gentler. Like even my niece was just saying this, Kayla to me as well, that it's, you just need to be kind to yourself. Yes. The writing's not going well. Well you know, I'm not meeting my word count goals. I'm behind on my schedule is that, you know, giving myself pressure like that is not going to make me feel better, is going to make me feel worse and I'm going to backslide into being in a dark place, which is not where I want to be. So I need to be kind to myself and just recognize it.

And to me it's, it's basically embracing the fact that I know this time is difficult as it is as difficult. You know, I'm walking in a mist and I have no idea what next month we'll even bring much less where I will be in two or three months. I just know something has to change. We haven't found it yet, but this transition time is fleeting. It will end. This is not forever. And there's sort of an acceptance of that and an embracing and just saying, Hey, this is only right now.

Yeah, I'm not writing well right now, but it will get better. I just need to keep, if not keep working like a for the scenes I just deleted or didn't lead. Like I said, I never delete anything. I move it to an outtake folder so that I can, if I changed my mind, I can go back and there are some good nug nuggets in there that I've already pulled out of it. But I know this one scene is just like, I feel like I am doing, doing novice author stuff like the throwing up minor obstacles. I have nothing to do with the plot just to make it, just to have something to write.

And so instead of doing that, I got rid of all those little minor obstacles and I'm back to the main scene and I literally basically started journaling to myself in my chapter. Obviously it will be deleted later, but it's like why is this scene happening? What needs to happen here? How does this gonna relate to something later? How does it fit in the plot? I got out my diagrams of plot, the seven steps of story structure and how that integrates with character arcs and made sure everything was lining up. And you know, I'm starting to see the importance of where this scene is and why it has to happen.

And so it does fit in. It just has felt so pointless and I want to get beyond it. I haven't gotten there yet, but I also know so I'm not writing the actual story, but I'm sitting there at least trying to figure out where the problem it is I'm having with it. And I know some of the problem is I realized I'm just not in love with this character. Honestly I feel like doing something I've told everyone not to do and switch to a different story that I'm more passionate about, even though I said is the next series I'm going to write and I don't think I'm the, I don't think I'm going to do that yet.

Realizing that the character is not working for me, I can look at it a little bit more and say why? You know, what? What do I need to do to make this character more interesting to me? Because if it's not interesting to me and I'm writing a flat character, then it's not going to be interesting to my readers. So you know, you start pulling apart these little threads and when your whole life is bound up in a big ball of threads, it helps to am to pull it apart, pull apart your creativity because if you get something working on one front, it'll often, you know, start moving on other fronts and I've definitely seen that.

I mean I know by seeing taking a back seat and trying to take a few days off and just look over everything I've got going on, I can see some disconnects where it's like I've done this and I've done this over here and I never put the funnel, the little connector together to tell the people that this is done and Hey, I also have this group that I should probably tell him they should get together and they should probably know about this. So it's definitely you start seeing those connections that you're not making because you've been so busy that you're just getting the minimum done just because you then can say it's done and you can move on to the next task.

And also speaking to us, go ahead.

Jesper (36m 57s): No, I just wanted to say when, when you said that that was the, that was the other thing I was also thinking about was that, uh, efficiency plays a big party and, and I'm, I'm, I'm all for if you shouldn't see it, you know, uh, it's a like a religion almost for me, but um, but what I meant by that is that when you are training yourself and you're working way too hard and you're trying to force things, that's also where you often end up in those situations whereby actually use half the time you're spending on something is, is nonproductive time.

And what I mean by that is, is that you end up, for example, as you just said, you start writing stuff and then it's like, what is this? It doesn't make any sense are, and then you, maybe you put it in a different folder or delete it or whatever people do that doesn't really matter, but it's still wasted hours of work. Right. Whereas, and I, I do realize that this is way easier said than done, but, but if, if, if you were able or one we're able to cut themselves a bit of Slack and try to get their sleep and, and uh, and those things that we talked about before, then you would also find that your productive hours I actually producing stuff that you can use so you're not spending twice as much many man hours doing the same thing then then you have to, right.

I mean you have to sleep thing is a really important thing. And also trying to cut yourself a bit of flack, as we said a few times now to sort of put that demand on yourself. Right? Yes. Sometimes working more hours and harder is actually not the solution.

Autumn (38m 33s): No, I definitely eating and I did, I didn't realize it was, I believe a Japanese technique, but it's one I've sort of came upon on my own and obviously of course no one's ever, no one's ever the first inventor of the wheel. Someone else came up with it before you, but it's, you can only have three tasks on your to do list at a time. Cause I definitely, yeah, I've definitely, I'm one of those people who have a million projects and I have all these things I want to do, but you can't really do all of them well.

And when you have that many weighing on you, you do feel the stress. So basically, yeah, you might have a list of all those tasks that need to be done, but then you have an active task lists and there's only three things on that. Those are the, these are the three things you're going to work on today or your three big projects, whatever they are. And nothing gets moved out of the other list until it's on the active. And how you talk about making boundaries and stuff. There's your boundary. You just kind of say, I'm sorry, these are my three tasks.

Nothing else is going to be a move to the other list into one of those is done and you ain't it. So it's definitely taught me to be like, these are the three things I'm working on. These are my three priorities. I am working on those. When one of those is finished or one of those, one of those is at a stage where I can move it aside, I will choose what something else to go and that is all I'm doing right now. And if you don't like it, find someone else because that is just how I have to live my life right now.

Jesper (40m 6s): Yeah. The, the, the variation. I've heard of that one that you did you just mention, this is basically almost on a more granular level in the way that, the way I've heard of this, that you put three things on your to do list, but they can only be things that you will get done today and nothing else. So basically it could be like, okay, I'm gonna write chapter number eight for example. Uh, that, that could be a thing. Right? But he cannot say finish novel number

Autumn (40m 34s): unless you're like 500 words away from the ed.

Jesper (40m 38s): Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Because otherwise it's like a maybe a month or two or three or four or five months long to do listing however long people take to write a novel. Right. But eh, but so it has to be something that you will complete today and all three things has to be something that is achievable today. So, um, you have to be realistic in your own goal setting and then when you go to, to bet at or, or once you're done with your work day or whenever it suits you, then you can make your list of three new things for tomorrow. But then you're feeling good about it because you know that you're making progress.

But you're also noting noting or knowing that you're taking off stuff on the to do list because I managed by three things today. So it is a way where if you are prone to feeling overwhelmed at that, that might be helpful.

Autumn (41m 21s): Definitely. And that's why I think when I, that's why I use a word count goal, especially right now. I mean to used to be like write half a chapter, which is fantastic when you have the time. But when life's busy or you just, you know, there's going to be other things you need to focus on that just saying, you know, I'm going to write 500 words. And like with Scrivener, we both use Scrivener just watching that word count and say, okay, I hit my 500 you know, if I've had a little bit more time or you know, if I can put a little bit more in. Great. But that's it. And I've also definitely come to the realization that, you know, even time management, like saying, um, I working on this till 10:00 AM or till 11:00 AM and then no matter where I am in this project, I've got to move on to something else today.

And so it's just literally starting to manage that a lot more actively. Where before it seems like things recently just kinda got away with any things were taking longer than they should have. So I'm just simply, you know, if it's going to take longer than it's going to have to get worked on tomorrow and making sure it happens that way. You know, taking a couple of days off every once in a while, taking the weekends off sometimes now or I decided weekends are more my time. So you know, I'll probably right, but I have some courses I signed up for and maybe just some fun stuff, the graphic design or Hey, getting away from my computer or maybe doing something else.

It really, we're not designed to work seven days a week, even if we're passionate about it. I've, I've met and talked to so many people that, you know, I see that they've kind of burned out in their own business and they want to, you can just hear it in their voice. They need a break and I don't want to see that happening to me or to us. So I've definitely learned that, you know, if you don't start taking breaks now, if you don't mix it up a little bit, that it's going to be, you know, you're going to face that down the line because you do get burned out with things and you've got to find a way keeping it new and fresh and challenging.

And usually that's by letting it go a little bit. Yeah, indeed. So, uh, I don't know, is that, it's that sort of a wrap around the topic of feeling overwhelmed, a autumn on or did you have some more stuff to share about your experience? I think that'll do it. I just going to say to people though, I mean, you're not alone and remember that whatever you're going through right now, it's temporary and that no one else knows what you're going through unless you tell them.

I always joked that I wish that if you had a cold sort of like you have over the weekend, yes. For that you turned a different color. I mean, if someone looked at you and your purple or share truth, they would know you're sick. But you know, especially our internal, our mental landscape, no one knows what's going on unless you speak up. So, you know, that's what like our Facebook group for this is, uh, you know, topping. I've talked to a couple authors about not being able to figure out this chapter. I've talked to friends and nieces and other people and anyone who's willing to listen to me talk about writing and it's, it's important.

It's important to be able to reach out to fellow writers who will. Everyone's going to know what you're going through, and if they have an experience themselves, they will relate and it's part of the human condition to, you want to kind of clam up when you're feeling vulnerable, but the best thing you can do is reach out to somebody and say, yeah, I just in a rough spot and you'll be surprised at how really wonderful most people are.

Narrator (44m 57s): So next Monday I hope I have an excellent interview lined up for you, but I'll see how it goes. So I'll keep it as a surprise for now if you like what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support the amwritingfantasy podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join Autumn and Jesper on patrion.com/amwritingfantasy for as little as a dollar a month.

You'll get awesome rewards and keep the amwritingfantasy podcast going. Stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 41 – Should you be using free ISBNs?

Have you noticed those free ISBNs that come with distributors or with Amazon's paperbacks?

Is there a catch to using them and you should run like a maverick demon on a rampage to purchase "safe" ISBNs directly ... or are they really OK to use and might be saving you up to $125 a book?!

Join Jesper and Autumn as they lay out what an ISBN is and does as well as what the deal actually is with those free ones!

Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday.

SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST!

Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review.

Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy.

For as little as a dollar a month, you’ll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going.

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).

Narrator (2s): You're listening to the amwritingfantasy podcast in today's publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need a literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing join to best selling authors who have self-published more than 20 books between them. Now onto the show with your hosts. Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt.

Jesper (30s): Hello. I am Jesper and I'm Autumn, this is episode 41 of the amwritingfantasy podcast and we are going to talk about ISDM ISBM numbers. I almost stumbled the same bed ESPN numbers and uh, whether you should buy you own ISBNs numbers or if you should use free once. So yeah, we'll get into explaining all the details about what ISB and numbers are and all that. But, uh, I think, can I first say that I actually had a very busy weekend here because my oldest son had his birthday this weekend.

He turned 11 Oh, vial. That's fun. Always almost a teen. It's coming up. Yeah. So, so that, that's the bat. But we had, we had the house full of guests, so that, that was great. Uh, w w we had great fun and it was nice. And uh, my brother and his fiance came already on Friday and then they stayed all weekend and then the other guests came on Saturday. Uh, and then, uh, yeah, some, some, some of them of course from left in the middle of the night and a Sunday morning, uh, my brother and his fiance had to, to go to, because they are picking up a dog, so they have to drive to pick up a dog.

So I had to get up early to make breakfast for them and all that. So I was really, really tired. Or there's something about a group of kids, especially 11 years old with all that energy that can really make you feel tired, I think. Yeah, absolutely. And then of course when you have to wait on your guests for for like two full days, you know, I don't know for me that, I mean, I, I actually think some people enjoy doing that and I do enjoy the company and all that, but, but waiting on people is sort of not maybe my favorite activity, but uh, of course you'd do it anyway.

Autumn (2m 28s): So, but it was very, it was very nice. Oh, that sounds really good. I houseful of family is definitely fun, but I'm like you where I, you know, my parents, we were just visiting with them and sometimes it's like, Oh, you're having a party in the basement. I just, that's a lot of their friends. All their friends are, you know, they're super nice to us and they often have their kids, you know, are mostly my age to sometimes the kids tag along and it's great, but it can be so overwhelming and you know, so much time of it, I'm like, I need to go to the woods so little while

Jesper (3m 6s): w that was also why when it came to Sunday, you know, we just decided to, I'm going to relax on the couch and basically do nothing. So actually we decided to, uh, to watch the first episode of a dark crystal eight of resistance with the kids. And I believe you told me that you watched it too, didn't you?

Autumn (3m 25s): Yes. I've only watched the first one. I'm giving it a try out. I think I have to watch a second one, but it's, what did you think of it? It's okay.

Jesper (3m 34s): No, but yeah, but I think, well, first of all night, my wife noticed that it was, it's in fact a prequel to the 1982 Jim Henson film, the dark crystal. So that was quite interesting to me. Uh, but I think I would say that if I wasn't watching it with the kids, I probably wouldn't watch it to be honest. I mean, I think it was OK and, but there was, there was quite some info dumping going on. Like, like you can almost tell that that's because they want to make sure that the younger audience understands what's happening and all that.

Whereas as an adult, what's in that? That's a bit like OK. Uh, you could probably do that a bit better. Um, so, but, but it's OK it's, it's, it's fine, but I don't think I would be watching it on my own to be honest.

Autumn (4m 20s): Yeah. That's where I, that's how we both felt after watching. The first one is am I want to get beyond the info dumping, which again, they're building the world that existed before the original movie. So there's a lot of information to share, but the puppets just didn't work for me in the lack of facial expressions that how far like CGI as com and what they could have done instead of the puppets. Not that I don't want to diss traditional because I love Brian Froud. He's one of my favorite artists. And he created those, all of those puppets and the styles and the costumes, but it just, I would have actually preferred it as CGI if they digitized all the puppets and then created expressions and things.

The voices and actions alone just didn't do it for me. But I want to watch one more. So I get past all the info dolphin thing and see if I get swept up in the story. Cause I know a lot of other authors and a lot of people I've talked to really have but it's not there for me yet. So I might watch one more. And otherwise, you know, I'm back at Lucifer the first.

Jesper (5m 27s): I still hate it. It gets better, I swear. But, uh, but I actually, to be honest, I, I, I think it's quite cool that it's puppets, uh, because it's, it's different compared to what you're used to seeing in puppets nowadays is it's pretty where it is. So I thought that that's actually cool. I mean, I get, I get your point in Iowa. I can certainly agree that the fact that you can't see face mimics is it's a bit, let's say weird because we're not used to that. But I still think it's quite cool.

Autumn (5m 59s): Yeah. I'll have to, like I said, I want to give it another try or two and see if I can get into it. But the first one didn't catch my interest so we'll see. Yeah. So this week I've actually been doing a lot of reflecting because the 19th would have been my brothers, I can't believe its 51st birthday. So he was four and a half years older than me. He actually passed away in 2000 oddly enough, the day I met my husband, of course he was just a guy I met. Um, so that's, I've been thinking about that a lot.

Sometimes I don't think about his birthday until like afterwards, but this year I just was visiting my mom and it's been in my mind and I've just been reflecting about how much not only did he miss because he actually choose, chose to take his own life. But how much that event changed me besides the fact I obviously met my husband, um, that same day as well. But I believe it or not, cause you've only known me, you know the class, Oh gosh, I don't know what four or five, six years. Yesper but we am you've probably known me as you a risk taker.

You've known me. I quit my job, my full time job. What do the two week notice to go travel the world. And you know, I've done some crazy things, but I was always the steady rock who never took risks in high school is very quiet and antisocial. And I realize how much, when you realize that life is short. Like my brother was only 30 when he passed away. I was 25. And how much, um, just realizing that, you know, life changes, there's so much out there.

What are you afraid of? Trying something scary for, you know, switching, leaving my last job where I wasn't happy to go explore and travel across the United States. I mean, what's going to happen? I might fail. I might have a blast. I might do both. I just realized that it really did change me into a much more of a risk taker, which is oddly what my brother was. So I think we actually would have gotten along. We fought like cats and dogs as kids, as teenagers. So I honestly think we would've gotten along so much better.

But it also, you know, I've talked to before that, you know, August has been a really kind of crazy, it was a crazy month. It's still kind of this 2019 I've said it a hundred times. I cannot wait to this year ends. But I also think that every time that, you know, things get bad, I still can't imagine making that choice. And I think about all the things my brother missed. Uh, his youngest daughter is, you know, we're, or her associates degree. His oldest son has graduated college and has an awesome job as a computer engineer.

Um, is young middle son. The youngest son actually is, uh, in the air force and re-upping to another role. You know, another four or five, six years at with them is just an is. His other daughter, his oldest daughter, actually has a daughter and it's just like, wow, I live changes no matter what. When you have a bad day and you're frustrated and everything else that's going on, I just still can't imagine making that choice and not sticking out to see what's going to happen next.

So it's, yeah, it's been such a reflective week for me. I guess I'm sitting alone in the Adirondacks because my husband's away at a training and this is obviously I need his distraction because my mind is on very deep thoughts.

Jesper (9m 28s): Yeah, I can, I can hear that. Do you think it was because you were at your parents' place? Was that why you started thinking about it? Oh, what, what do you think you all of a sudden starting have started to have these reflections?

Autumn (9m 40s): Probably, I think it was there. We were talking about my mom seemed a little sad and with my nephew who lives with them and, uh, we were trying to figure out why and it just dawned on me, I'm like, it's September, it's my brother's birthday coming up. And she always gets sad this time of year and everyone's just kind of paused. And so I think, yeah, that's what was kind of, when I figured that out. Um, like I said, I usually think of it after the fact because life is so busy. But this year I've got some quiet time. And like I said, it's been a hard year, but, so it's just on my mind, I think.

Yeah.

Jesper (10m 14s): Yeah. It's, it's interesting. I mean, I know it doesn't work like this, but I wish I could tell people thinking about, you know, taking their own life to, um, to think ahead. You know, it, it's, especially if you're, I mean, if you're, if you're rather young and, and here I'm also talking about people maybe 50 or whatever, right? I mean, you have so many years to go and it's just, and who knows what's going to happen in 10 years. Maybe something awesome will happen and you will be so sad that you, you know, ended it before it happened or whatever.

You know, it's, it's hard to know, but I know it doesn't work like this because my wife works on a suicide hotline as well, so she talks to these people on the phone, so I know it's not like you can just tell them, yeah, yeah, yeah. You should be feeling better because later on it will be better. You know? It doesn't work like that, but I just wish it would.

Autumn (11m 7s): I agree. I, I fell at the time, I mean, I was 25 he was 30 that he thought everything was over at 30 and when I hit 30 it was really kind of like band. I feel like a kid and I don't know what's going on. I can't imagine how my brother felt like everything was over at 30 and now I'm 45 and you know, sometimes I feel it in my bones, but I still mentally am like 20 something and I know talking to my parents, like you telling me don't get old. And of course they're in their seventies and I know mentally they think they're in their thirties and twenties I don't think, you know, our minds stay at this act of healthy level and our bodies are the ones that let us down.

I just can't imagine feeling like mentally it's, I'm done. I just can't get there. I'll just work, create a new world and write another book and get lost in it. I think that's my answer to everything.

Jesper (11m 54s): Yeah, that's true. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know how we're going to get on from it. This was like, this is like a topic once you wouldn't start a podcast because now we can't get anywhere else. Well I, Oh my God. Well I understand why you might be thinking about those things. That's certainly not a, it's not easy. Oh week on the internet with the amwritingfantasy. Podcast okay, well autumn we have to try to move on to something else. Move on.

Actually

Autumn (12m 26s): I think I said I, it's actually in its own way empowering to me because I have a, I have a low bar that is so low that you know, I can't reach it so I know things are going to get better no matter what happens.

Jesper (12m 40s): Perfect. At least a on on a more happy note if we can go there. We had so many comments coming in on Patrion from both Sade and Irish and uh, guys please keep it going. It, it's awesome to read your notes and comments on, on some of, well you actually just, I think both of you actually started your own a threat and just to share some info, um, and you also basic commenting on podcast episodes and whatnot, so that's great. And uh, please keep that going and well for the rest of you, if you want to check, check out Patrion then there's a link in the show notes.

So we'd go over there and, and check it out. We do give you a ton of rewards if you, if you join us there.

Autumn (13m 23s): Absolutely. And yeah, it's been so much fun with all the commenting. So it's been it, it makes it really engaging and that's kind of fun. And I actually wanted to bring up um, another place that I find engaging you. You know this. Yes. For that. I'm not the biggest fan of Facebook. I might have said that to you before.

Jesper (13m 43s): Well it might have come up just like once or twice maybe. Okay.

Autumn (13m 48s): And I think it's like every email and we have to do something on Facebook. But you know, it's where so much connection is going well. It's so funny cause another author that I really admire admire Angela Ford. She's part of a group and she's probably a designer and really good with computers and she and her friend created a new app called indie author lifestyle. And it's a new forum, really, really fun for actually for authors. And so I've been on there.

And it's funny cause the intro question I thought was really funny that she, you know, you join and you get a question right away to get you to thinking it's what's your, what's your biggest struggle when it comes to self publishing? And it's been really fun reading all the comments about, you know, some of it's just working on getting editing done on a tight budget, marketing and sales motivation, motivating myself to edit and, you know, tuning out distractions. So actually I've been having a am way more fun. I know I really need to give back into our own Facebook group because the comments there are awesome, but if there happens to be anyone else out there like me who kind of feels your skin crawl just the little bit when you get on Facebook, Hey, check out indie author lifestyle because it's been, you know, in just a few days that I've been part of it, it's been a huge vibrant community and very chatty, very easy to get into.

Um, unlike Facebook and it's not stealing all my data. Yay. Yeah.

Jesper (15m 21s): Well, yeah, that, and it's a good question that they're asking there because you can get a myriad of different answers to that question because everybody will, well, of course a lot we'll share, but, but there's going to be a very, very many variations on what people struggling with. Oh yeah, that's a good starting question. But actually I have to say that am in the amwritingfantasy Facebook group just today alone, I approved 11 new joiners. So that's, so that's awesome. And the last few days, um, there's been a lot of people joining so that, that's really great.

And I can see a lot of comments going on, a lot of threats getting started and people asking questions and other people's replying. So it is, it is in fact quite a good community that that's going on there. Even for those who doesn't like it.

Autumn (16m 9s): I enjoy it whenever I get on there. And I love seeing am some of the comments I know recently even, I think it was Zane, somebody's Irish, one of them was mentioning even how great the amwritingfantasy Facebook group is. So I have to admit, it is also it's own vibrant community. So I, yeah, I need to get back in there too, especially when you're approving 11. And I haven't even been in there yet today. So, oops. Yeah.

Jesper (16m 32s): Yeah. Well we are several people doing this so that it works out. But it's good because it feels to me like, um, and, and maybe, maybe I'm going to regret saying this at some point, if it turns out that I'm not right, but, but maybe we've sorted past a critical mass of people now because it feels like there is a lot more activity than they used to be just like a year ago. Um, so, so there's quite a lot of people in there. I think we are getting close to 1000, 300 people in the group, so that's pretty good.

Um, and of course, if, if you listening, uh, interested in joining a group of fantasy authors, just sharing stuff about writing or marketing or whatever it may be, basically more or less, you can post everything in there and people will jump on it and reply and give you their thoughts. So you can just search for amwritingfantasy in the group section of Facebook and then you will find us and uh, just put in your request to join and we will approve you quite easily.

Autumn (17m 40s): ISB numbers. Oh, that's right. Sounds complicated. OK Oh, it is in so many ways. At least it feels like a little bit. It's am to me, almost a throwback to the real traditional publishing days. And so there's a lot of kind of misunderstandings in the indie publishing world about what an ISB and number is and do you need it and why are they so, gosh, darn expensive. I mean, talk about one of your biggest hurdles to self-publishing.

I'm surprised somebody hasn't actually written down having to buy ISBNs numbers.

Jesper (18m 17s): Oh yeah, yeah. True. But maybe if I just set us off a bit here with the STR has a short definition thing just so that everybody's on the same page and then I think you can lead us into it because I know that you have researched this a lot more than I have, but as usual, I have opinions about everything so I can still see opinions. But, uh, but maybe just so to put us, everybody on the same page here so everybody knows what we're talking about. So I S P N stands for international standard book number and basically the ISBM number is a way to identify books, I guess you could say.

And an I SBN is assigned to eat separate edition and variation of a publication. So this could for example, be a paper back and then if you have a hardcover edition of the same book, then for example, they will, those two will have the different ISP and numbers and getting ESPN numbers assigned, uh, that is handled by each country separately. So essentially what that means is that each country has their own ISP and eight inches that is responsible for assigning ISB and numbers for that country or territory.

So it's doesn't matter what you know, language your publication is in. So for example, if I want to get a ISPN number here in Denmark, even though I'm writing English, I still have to buy it from the Danish agency. So I think that's the definition is out of the way. And hopefully that puts us on the same page about what we're talking about here.

Autumn (19m 52s): Yes, that's a really good introduction. I mean, I remember the first time I heard about ISB and numbers. I mean I had volunteered and worked the library in my high school and really hung out at the library a lot in college. And I thought I knew everything like the Dewey decimal system and you know, but then I had picked up a book in England that a friend desperately wanted, but of course there's an English copy and blah blah blah. And finally we figured out we just needed a search by the ISBM number and then she could find it and order it. And of course, you know, that was the dark days of like 1996 so the internet was not quite as good as it is now.

And Amazon book search didn't exist back then. But that's when I realized that ISB numbers, those little numbers in the front of a book actually means something. And there's some really complicated parts. I mean they actually kind of tell you a lot of information about all written in like you know, about what it actually means. And I thought that was kind of interesting. So they're actually, they're at these day there. Is is an ISP and search though that makes it really easy to go and look for things.

So if you have an ISP and number, you can just go ahead and put it into a search and find your book. But some of those, uh, I know there's a lot of misinformation out there about what the ISBM number says and it's am. So, you know, some people say if you get a free one, because that's really the topic today, is do you actually need to go buy an ISP N number or can you use, um, Amazon? You know, when you do eBooks on Amazon, you can, you don't need one. You use an a S I N number, which is an Amazon number and it's just good for the Amazon what stores?

And then if you go through KTP to print a paper back or like I published, I do a lot of stuff on Smashwords but I know drafted digital as well. These other places will create, you know, give you a free is number. And so why wouldn't you use it the free one versus going and buying one. You know, why is there a difference? I know there's people on both sides of this fence. That's what I, that's what I'm wondering too. So I'm looking forward for you to tell me why I should buy one.

Oh, I'll see if I can change your mind. It will be hard because I'm actually playing the devil's advocate cause I've actually always used the free one too. But as you know, I've learned to am question everything. I used to just do what I was told and then big events happened in my life and now I don't believe a word anyone says into like, Oh and look it up myself. I must be that. That's a healthy attitude to be Isaac. So I mean, thank goodness I can do this. As a teenager, my parents would have gone gray so fast.

It's such a good kid. But so I'm gonna you know it's going to be interesting because there are some information in there and like I said there's some misinformation but I do use a free one too. And I know you do as well cause we've talked about this a lot. So there's a couple of neat things. So there's some stuff in there that tells you what language the book is published in and you can also find out what country it's for. There's some things that represent the title of the book. So that becomes a special unit of numbers as well.

There's a check digit, which is kinda like your credit card. There's always a check digit digit that they all kind of add up to or work to this one number or they know it's a fake and there's something in there that tells you who the publisher is. So that's sort of the only sticking point I can see between, or at least in this example are there are other sticking points. But the example of why you would or would not buy an ESPN. So if I use a free one from Amazon for my paperback book, it's going to say Amazon's the publisher.

If I'm a publisher or I wanted to say that I published my book, if I buy one, it will say that. So written there and almost like a meta tag for a website. It says who is the owner of the book or at least that copy of the book. So there is that. I don't know what you think about, you know, how important do you think it is to be able to say that you yes, Russ Schmidt created and made this book and all the way down to owning this little digital number or do you care that it says, you know, Amazon or Kobo or one of these other places is the digital publisher of your book?

No. Well I'll see if you can change my mind, but, but my point of view is basically that I could not care less and, and basically here's why. What I care about is selling books and I don't know of anybody being readers who goes on to, for example, Amazon and stopped typing in a puppet those names to figure out, I mean disregarded. This is self publishing, so just say you have published your book with random house for example.

I don't know of anybody who goes on to Amazon just says, I wonder which book I wanted to rent a random house book. I mean nobody does that so well, yeah, in this case then, because I always use the free a Amazon ISPN numbers. Then of course it will say that Amazon is the publisher, but I don't see that it makes any different whatsoever in terms of selling books or acquiring readers. I simply don't see it. I see. I don't disagree with you.

That's what's so hard about this conversation is I read the same thing and you know I double checked before I, I looked at the price tag of a single ISP in at $125. I mean, obviously if you're going to do this, there are ways of buying them in bulk of 10 or a hundred and considering you need one for every single different edition. So if you have an audio book, an ebook, and sometimes it's even by retailer, so you know you can have different numbers. So yeah, you, you, if you're going to publish, if you're going to need one, you're probably gonna need at least three or four for the exact same book, but in different formats.

So, and you have to realize sometimes that can be mobi file for Kindle versus an epoch bile. Some places are really specific. So that's the only other reason I've heard people complain about, you know, having these ISBNs, if you don't own it, if you own it, you can say when you submit your book to a place saying, this is the pub file, it goes with this ISBM or this is the ebook file. It goes with this ISP. And so you only have one for your ebook, one for your paperback, and one for your audio book where if you're doing sort of like what I'm doing, I'm going through a distributor.

So I have my Amazon one, the Amazon paper back one, and then I go through Smashwords and they give me an ISB and for all of those, but it's actually the exact same book, ebook file as the one that's an Amazon

Jesper (26m 44s): that has a different ISP, a number. So suddenly it's like I'm having, you know where like goodness, I didn't have to pay for these. I might have five, six, seven, eight different ISBNs numbers that point back to the exact same book. So some people say that looks so unprofessional. I think this might be the companies that are selling ISPN numbers, but I'm not sure. No, but that's also what I'm wondering because unprofessional in what way? I mean I can understand if you look, if you are a traditional publishing house and then you are using you, your is, well I'm going a bit of on assumptions here, but I am assuming that these, that they are using the ISB and numbers to track their global sales and all that stuff and they can probably split it out on territory depending on the country.

Um, indicator inside the ISPN numbers and whatnot. So they can use it to, to, to check their sales. And if I'm not mistaking as well, if you, for example, if you're talking about counting paperback sales or hopper, how cover sales towards something like the New York best times seller list or whatever it's called. What is it called out? Yeah, the USA today bestseller. That was for the New York times. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. If you, if you need to count your paperback and hardcover sales to, what's that?

I think you have to have a dedicated ISPN number. So everything that is just an Amazon ISPN number, I don't think that gets counted. So, so that's another thing. But I'm going a bit of memory here, but that's how I remember that it works. That does make sense. And I could see that being a key point. I would love to, I know a couple of people who put together some paperbacks are not paper bags, but bundles to make a run for the New York times bestseller list. And if I thought about it, I should send them an email and say, Hey gee, wouldn't you do this?

Do you just do the Amazon ASI en or do you actually go and buy an ISB N so that, you know, New York times can track it. That might be a good question to ask someone and come circle back or a little rounds of this one of these days. Yeah, to be honest, I, I don't like those bestseller lists because you can gain them. Uh, and, and then there was also, there's also some, you know, booksellers that gets counted or some bookstores that gets counted in terms of sales. And then there's others that don't.

So I have heard stories of authors figuring out which spoke, um, you know, bookstores actually have the sales counter to what the bestseller list and then get them to buy a ton of books with the agreement that you're going to buy them back afterwards. Oh my goodness. So they buy a ton of books. It gets counted. I think. Uh, I think that was how it worked. But anyway, somebody can prove me wrong here. You find this not understanding something, but how I remember it working was that, that you, you could sort of make some deals with those books.

Sale sales companies are bookstores and then basically got a lot of sales counted towards the best seller list. And yeah, there, there is articles on the internet, by the way, if you're interested, uh, the listener try to, uh, try to search for a gaming New York times bestseller list and then you'll find some stuff. But there it is possible to game the system. I don't really, that's why I like something like the am, the Amazon bestseller list I like a lot more because it is just based on sales.

It's just based on what people buy and there, there is nothing else to it. You cannot game it. You cannot get around it. If you don't sell any books, you're not on the list. It's that easy. Whereas for example, when we're talking about, um, ISPN numbers, for example, if you don't have the, uh, if the ISPN number yourself and it doesn't get counted, you could be selling like $1 million worth of books and never hit the list, right? So to me, then there's something wrong with the best seller list if, if, if it only counts a portion of the market

Autumn (30m 45s): and not to be jaded being in the United States of America, but everything's for sale here. So of course you can game the system to get to the New York times best seller list and the USA today, I mean, I've seen people, you know, usually the buy in for a bundle that's going to make a run at it as about a thousand dollars. So for $1,000 you can get together as one of these author groups that usually has about 20 authors. They put all that money into marketing and whatever else they have to do and boom, you get to put USA today or New York times bestseller after your name, once you hit the list.

And you know, that's great. But I have to say every single bit of research I've done and looked at, all of readers don't care. They care. If you have a good book, I mean, yeah, great. You can put USA today or you could put Amazon bestseller, that's all fantastic. You can put that after your name. But did you write a good book? That's usually what readers are looking at before they pick up your book. So I try not to take it, you know, it's whether or not you have a PhD after your name. It makes the author feel better.

Maybe it gives you that confidence boost that is worth $1,000 to go for but um, I haven't bought into one of those, so we'll see. I guess maybe I'm jaded that way. But another thing that I've heard about ISBNs, and this one's, I think I've already worked my way around to not believing it, but you have to tell me what you think of the sort of face value as a, supposedly libraries are becoming more important to the distribution of eBooks and overdrive is the largest supplier to schools and libraries in the world.

And they circulate more than 105 million eBooks in just 2014 but they also supply to retail stores and everything else. And what's required for overdrive is an ESPN. So, you know, you need to have an ISB and to be part of overdrive, but do you think having a free ISB is somehow holding

Jesper (32m 40s): you back from being recognized in libraries? Well, let's back a big, uh, I think we need to be really careful with, you know, 2014 numbers because 2019 markets, I'm massively different than 2014 ones. Um, and if we're looking at something like it, I mean, if you want your paperback or hardcover in, in the library, then I think it still holds true that you need the ISPN number.

Uh, you, for example, I'm and, and I know you do that too. Autumn I mean we have a print on demand via Amazon, right? Those folks just not get into the library. Um, but when you are distributing white and especially with eBooks, which is still growing in terms of from a library perspective, um, if you are publishing via draft two digital and use those as your distributor, they actually have several different am, I don't know if you call them funnels or whatever, but they have several different agreements, let's put it like that with libraries.

So it's quite easy to be honest. When you're, when you're done publish your ebook, draft two digital, you just sort of put a ticket in those boxes to say, yeah, I want to also distribute to these places and those ones, we'll put your book available at least to the library. But I have to say as well that this doesn't mean that you'll start seeing a ton of people boring your books because it's the same environment as us as it is on Amazon. There's a lot of books available and it's not like people in the library, all of a sudden your book, we'll just start a peeing in front of them and you will earn a ton of money from people.

Boring. It's not happening in way. At the end of the day, we're back to what we have said so many times before the money is in the email list and that's what you need to build. All this extra stuff is nice fluffy stuff to get your ebook into the library. But unless you are actively pushing for it, maybe telling people that, Oh by the way, do you know you can get my book at your library if you just go and search for the book or if you go and ask for it and whatnot, if you, if you don't actively drive it that way yourself, it's not gonna make any difference.

It's just going to be like selling books on Amazon. I mean, you can upload it to Amazon, but it doesn't sell on its own. That's very true. And you're right. Even smash for it. So that's why I kind of saw through that one one the date on the uh, facts for it. But also Smashwords does distribute to overdrive in, it has some deals with libraries. So I think am when I set up a lot of my distribution with Smashwords, I actually put on my books to libraries even cheaper, which I didn't realize. Most book publishers actually send out the libraries for like 60 or $70.

You know, the big publishing houses, that's how much they're making it. 60 or $70 for a certain period for book to be licensed

Autumn (35m 38s): to libraries. I'm like, man, I think I did 99 cents. So obviously, but again, it's also to get your name out there and there are, I've been reading about some tactics if you want to have your book distributed more than libraries, like you know how to send letters or you know, I travel around and I use a lot of libraries. Thank you for free internet. I love the library's United States and Canada. I'm like, Canton, no one's actually let you have drinks in them. Oh my gosh. I was like, he's in in the United States to actually carry a drink until a library. I love Canada.

But all you have to do is like you go up there and tell them, Hey, I'm an author in my books are available and they're really well rated. And Hey, if you go here, you can get a free, you know, it's only 90 cents or you can get a free one for the library. Just let me know and I'll happily give you a digital copy and you can, you know, work in or out. If you, if you're an author and you have a local library and you have not stopped in to tell them you're an author and you're a local author and give them an ebook please just go do it. You'll be so excited. It feels good to at least, you know, have something at the local library.

Jesper (36m 42s): Yeah. And uh, there is something to it that, uh, you should be pricing your library Burroughs higher than your sales on, on, for example. Amazon but, but again, once you, if you use something a distributor like draft two digital, and when you are setting your prices, it will actually give you some guy, you use some guidance in the module when you're setting prices and it'll tell you on average how much higher is the price for a book like this in the library and stuff like that. So you, you're not going in blind and you will get some support and help there in, in, in pricing it correctly.

But, but yeah, uh, library borrows does weren't higher pricing than, than sales on Amazon.

Autumn (37m 21s): Yes. It's, I know that now I'll have to look it back. What? I didn't smash words, but I'm not that worried that I'm somehow having the library's drain my, my sales, it's not a huge writing thing. And one of the things I have to admit that I really hadn't thought about with ISB and numbers, so they throw this around and they're, like I said, they're quite expensive. I mean, it's $125 for one. It's, I think around $200 for 10 and then is it 300 or something for more than a hundred it's something, it's probably a little more than that, but the price has changed a little bit.

But there's definitely some things, you know, you want to buy them in bulk if you did decide to buy them. But don't forget if you buy an ISBM number, you now need your own barcode because if you're doing a print book, you need to have your own ISBM number and it's all kind of labeled in there together. So that's another expense. So of course, if you go and buy a barcode plus an ISB, a number, there's bundles for that, or one bar code and 10 ISBM numbers, you know, now it's only $320 for 10 ISBNs and a whole barcode, which I don't know if that's gonna work for all 10 days be ends.

So you see where the system really becoming really, I mean, I thought editing was bad, but you throw in ISP in numbers and suddenly it's getting kind of expensive.

Jesper (38m 44s): Yeah. And then w I don't know, the more we talk about it, the more I just feel like I'm getting went. Maybe it's confirmation bias. I don't know. But I feel like I'm just getting more and more

Autumn (38m 55s): points in. What do you, how do you say that points into check board or whatever. I don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you've taken off your boxes that yeah, you've made the right decision to go for a free one, huh? Yeah, because I, I just don't see the point of it.

Jesper (39m 9s): I, I, as I said, I understand it if you're a big publishing house, but none of us are, right? I mean

Autumn (39m 15s): we are like nimble and fast and flexible in the office, so we don't need that. All that stuff. I think so too. And I think after I finished like reading dozens of articles about ISB and numbers and why you should have a free one or why you should go and buy them. And it's funny, most of the articles I read were really pushing you to go and buy ISBNs numbers. Every argument kinda came down to like, well, it left me with this feeling. I'm like, yeah, I understand. Maybe that's some people still have this perception that you're less, less formal, less, you know really well put together less quality somehow if you are using a free ISBM number, but it's a lingering sense that is fading quickly.

Just like how everyone used to say, Oh, in books, they're not as good as traditionally published books. No one, I haven't heard anyone say that for years, so that's awesome. I think indie authors are finally shown and proven that we can write awesome book that publishers only wished they were smart enough to have gotten a chance to publish. But the same is true with ESPN numbers. This is something leftover from the brick and mortar days when publishing houses owned. Basically we're the gatekeepers to being able to publish.

Now they're being used differently. You use, I'm still to find books, but I mean now to have to have a different one for every single format. I mean, goodness, I couldn't have just added a different code at the end that a or a B or a numbered number that would say, Hey, this is the audio version, this is the ebook version, this is the paperback version of the same book. It's kind of just clunky and archaic and you know what? It's gonna change or basically be left behind because that's just the way things are going these days. And I agree with you, I just don't care.

Eventually they're going to have to catch up with how awesome indie publishing is

Jesper (41m 7s): I guess we just found our conclusion dare. So, uh, yeah, it's probably not worth buying any ISPN numbers. Next week we are gonna talk about feeling over whelmed. So, uh, just to you there,

Narrator (41m 19s): if you like what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support the amwritingfantasy podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join autumn and Yesper on patrion.com/amwritingfantasy for as little as a dollar a month. You'll get awesome rewards and keep the amwritingfantasy podcast going. Stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 40 – Character Arcs

The character arc represents the change the character will undergo as the story progress. 

Stories are all about growth.

If the character doesn’t change then there is no story. 

But how do you create a character arc and what different kinds are there?

Join Autumn and Jesper as they share how to create an authentic and believable character arc.

And here's the link to the really cool (funny) map, Autumn was talking about: https://www.instagram.com/p/B2MttwuA-kW/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday.

SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST!

Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review.

Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy.

For as little as a dollar a month, you’ll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going.

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).

Narrator (2s): You're listening to the amwritingfantasy podcast in today's publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need a literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing join to best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them. Now onto the show with your hosts. Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt.

Jesper (31s): Hello, I'm Jesper and I'm Autumn, this is episode 40 of the amwritingfantasy podcast and we are going to talk about character arcs today.

Autumn (44s): So yeah, I think that that's going to be an interesting conversation because character it's a pretty important they are. And well, you know, as we just were recently talking to each other and I said characters are easier to understand the most people. So I think we're going to nail this one pretty good.

Jesper (1m 2s): Yeah. And the thing would characters is that, uh, we have, we have control of what they say and what they do, right? So it's much easier than real life. People

Autumn (1m 10s): insert evil laugh here. So yes, I think this'll be really good. And it's, it's important to understand your character. So this'll be a lot of fun. I love adding depths and finding new ways to bring out different aspects of character. So we'll try not to get carried away with this one.

Jesper (1m 25s): Yeah. Who knows where we're going to end up actually, you know, speaking of, of real life people, uh, I was, uh, I was in Sweden this last week and, uh, I just, I don't understand people. I am, I think the longer I live, the more I figured out that I don't understand. So I was am, I was in the airport in Stockholm or queuing for to enter the plane to fly back home to, to Copenhagen. And then, uh, they, I don't know how they do it in the U S but at least here, you know, if you have priority seats then you're always, you're called on first.

Um, and then they, of course, they scan your boarding pass and whatnot to make sure that the UI actually a priority customer. And, uh, luckily enough, I am one of those all the time. Yeah. I fly so much that I'm a priority customer. So, so the thing is that, and this is what I don't get right, so we, I'm queuing at that airport and I need to uh, uh, bought the plane and they call priority customers. So we'd go up and we stand in the queue and of course scan the boarding costs.

Uh, and then you enter the plane, right. But there was, again, this, this is not because it's not just happened once, it happens all the time, but this time there was five people in that queue who were not priority customers who tried to skip in and get on board. And it's like, and every time it happens, I'm like, why do people do this? I don't understand. Please they can see that the boarding is getting scammed. They know that they're going to get caught and they're still standing there in the queue trying to get in.

And

Autumn (3m 5s): I just, I don't get it just to go and sit down. I always laugh because a, we take ferries quite a lot and the best sign ever saw was at the front of a ferry that said, do not turn on your car engine. So far. No car has reached the dock before the ferry. Like yes, they're not going to make the plane go in faster by boarding faster is not going to happen. You're not going to beat the actual airplane. No. But but it's just, I mean I did the,

Jesper (3m 32s): the thing about wanting to get on board and and I mean that's one of the things honestly I do like with B about being a priority customer because you sort of get on board and you get to sit down off of standing in the queue and there is space in the overhead compartments for your luggage because there's nobody else on the plane at that point. So that part I do like, so I, I, I saw them understand why people want to get on board, but since the boarding cards are scanned and you know you're going to get caught, that's where my logic sort of just didn't add up anymore.

I just don't understand. So you're trying to skip line on something. You know you're gonna get caught. So what the heck is the point?

Autumn (4m 9s): Maybe they just like to get yelled at. I don't have any better insight than that. I can't say understand people all the time. Sometimes I don't understand myself. I mean, heck, we haven't been on video chat here today and we're not on video right now, so you guys can't see. But I actually have some pretty radical, awesome purple streaks in my hair. So if you wanted to ask why I decided to add purple to my hair, I don't know. I felt like it. So I, people are a little strange.

However, there is one thing I do understand and we do this, you know, with our course, with our students and my niece and I just teamed up to be accountability partners. So she's working associate's degree. Yeah, my niece Kayla, if you're listening, big shout out. She's one of my, my fans, my biggest fan in my family. So I think that's so wicked cool. I love talking to her. How old is your niece? She is. Oh God, you're going to ask me this.

Actually I think she just turned 22 so sorry if I missed that. But yes, issues just you know, just in college she's having a good old time and she loves fantasy and fantasy books so we get to talk about writing and books and all these things that she gets into, which is fantastic. But she had some stuff she wanted to work on and I also said in the last couple episodes I was on a writing break and I'm getting back into it and it's kind of going slow. And so we got talking and she's like, well I'm trying to do some mindfulness and some yoga and I want to get back and she does some fantasy art. And I'm like, well I'm trying to get back into my fantasy art and I'm really getting bad at my writing.

She's like, that's it. We are mailing emailing each other. So she emails me on Wednesday and I email her on Saturday and we have to reply back obviously when the other one emails and say how we've been doing and it's working, it is working. That is the awesome thing. I've, I can't say I've written chapters, but I am getting through a scene that is very sticky, but that's a whole different conversation of what do you do when you plan something and plot something and then a scene decides to take over and take what you know is way too long. It should have ended a chapter ago, but the scene keeps the characters keep drawing out this one thing.

And logically I know when I get to editing I can just cut it down. And right now this is just the way the process is going and I just need to keep writing, but I'm just annoyed and I want to get past the scene. But anyway, my niece Kayla is helping me and making sure I am writing and I've done a new book cover or getting it, she's doing good on her yoga and meditation and we're doing good.

Jesper (6m 39s): Oh, that's perfect. So just unpacking that a bit. So what are you emailing to each other, what your goals are for the next week? I just giving each other a status update or what are you doing?

Autumn (6m 49s): Uh, mostly status updates cause we know we have our goals that we know we both want to either, you know, at least be working on it and writing um, or at least doing the yoga. So I just say, Hey, this is what I've been doing and check in. Have you been doing this? And she'll say, yeah, you know, yes or no. I haven't quite done that as much as I wanted to. So right now we don't have any specific like word count goals or anything, but uh, we're at least trying to make sure we're getting it in. And for me she knows I won't try and to write every day. So it's just like if I say I skipped the day, I'm still saying I skipped it.

I try to make sure at least get a sentence and then I can say I wrote. Right.

Jesper (7m 24s): Yeah, true. Yeah. I mean, I have heard it before about am accountability partners and of course that's also something that, that you and I tried to do autumn with the, with the courses to an audit, the students that we get for four hour online writing cost to, to serve a bit as accountability partners and try to answers people's questions every month, uh, if, if they have questions or if they want on the fly stuff, then be there in the mastermind Facebook group for, for the students.

So I do think it's important because, and we've probably talked about this many times before, but being an author is such a lonely profession, so it's good to have somebody who is sort of, yeah. Your wing man there.

Autumn (8m 8s): Absolutely. And I'm loving it and it's a good excuse to get to email my niece every twice a week. So that's kind of fun too. They see what's going on. I get to relive my, you know, college days through her. It's, it's, it's kind of, yeah. Kind of

Jesper (8m 20s): weird when, when the young ones, I was about to say gross up, but it's kind of weird, you know? Uh, it's, it's different conversations. You are, I also went for like a, a probably I think two weeks ago. Uh, my oldest son, he felt like he needed some time alone, him and me. So we, uh, we just went to a beach for a walk. And, uh, it's, it's funny when they get older because he really enjoys that, you know, just, just for a walk, just to go and talk for an hour and that's all he wanted to do and that, that was great.

I mean, you know, when they're younger that they're to, well, that's going to bore them to death. Right. But it's funny how things change. Yeah, it is. That's, that's always when, uh, I mean, I never had kids, but for like my nieces and nephews, it's when they get old enough to talk back and you can feed them ideas to give, to drive their parents nuts. What she, that was my favorite. I think we might be an ocean apart here. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I think on, on, on my side here, uh, it's, it's also been really busy lately.

Uh, I'm desperately trying to, uh, to get the am some modules recorded for our future costs on fantasy world building. Yeah, well, I'm making progress, but I have a goal to finish my recordings within the next two weeks. And quite honestly, I don't know if my accountability partner, if I had one, would think that that would be possible, but, uh, but let's see if I can make it. It's just been, it's been a bit too busy lately because, uh, we've also had our online writing costs open for the first time in six months.

And of course when you deal listener listening to this podcast episode for the cost will be closed again, but you could still go to a all submit fantasy riders, guide.com/main. If you want to sign up for the wait list, that's still possible. Uh, and then you will be the first one to know next time around. But, uh, it's just, yeah, it's just been one of these a couple of weeks where it's been incredibly busy. So, uh, yeah, that's it. With the yam writing. Fantasy podcast Oh, and I think first of all, I want to give a huge shout out to sate who joined us on Patrion.

So that was awesome and we really appreciate it. Yeah, it's great to have a new one join us. And he was already a, he'd found us through the podcast as well. So that is just, you know, it makes me feel good to give back a teller shout out to him. Yeah, absolutely. And then, you know, uh, all the support we can get from, uh, from, from people will, will basically keep, uh, or help keep the lights on. For 40. Amwritingfantasy podcast so, yeah, I mean, I, I think I speak for both autumn and myself when I say that we really enjoy making it, you know, this new podcast format compared to the older YouTube videos.

Uh, but that said, I also want to point out the obvious I guess, but it is still quite a lot of work to do this. So, you know, even a dollar in support does make a difference. So, uh, anyway, thanks again. Safe for, for, for these, uh, for, for your support. And we hope that you will enjoy the rewards that you are getting out of a patron. Actually, I can let you know by the way, a side when you're listening to this that I did post your amwritingfantasy bookmark already. Uh, and uh, yeah, I mean, I don't know, maybe by the time you hear this episode because we're always recording a bit in advance, you might already have received it.

Autumn (11m 55s): Yeah. So check out Patrion and uh, there was a link in the show notes and then you can learn about all those rewards that we are offering to those who support us. And I guess autumn that there was quite a lot of rewards actually. Even, even if you're only supporting with $1. Yeah. We like to give back because I think it's not even, yeah, the dollar helps keep the lights on, but it's sort of like getting comments and stuff. It's a, it makes you know that this is important to people and that is a huge motivator for us to keep going. As much as you know, getting a little bit of money to actually pay the licensing fees and you know, the website, not all those little things that kind of go along with running an online business.

So thank you for every all of our Patreon supporters. It's always fantastic to have them here. And you know, I just, we were talking about comments and you'd mentioned before about you know, other authors and it's a, you know, a network. And that was the biggest thing. I know I've been talking to a couple authors and I've seen a lot of posts. I hang out a lot on Instagram. I admit, and I have seen so many authors this last week commenting that they had such a rough August, that they've been taking a break even from social media or from writing or from something in their life.

Because for some reason it wasn't just me. It was a really rough August for a lot of people. So you know, a big shout out to a lot of authors that, Hey, just remember you're not alone. It's nice to know that I did wasn't the only person in the world having a rough OBGYN August. I'd rather, you know, I wish we all had a fantastic, I can't wait until we're all shouting about how wonderful of an October we're having. I just think that's an important to thing. And actually if you do happen to go to Instagram, if you're an Instagrammer and you go to my profile, which is just autumn Bert, it's really, really hard to find.

Uh, I actually just short shared this really cool mental map that had some really neat aspects. Yes. For I should share this with you because you will love it. It is a mental map that is drawn in the image of a fantasy map. It has things that I spend too much time online, falls the dormant volcano of blind ambition, the mountain range of impotent rage. So, Oh, I'm already loving it. I want to see that. I will have to send it to you. It is super awesome.

I told everyone that I am currently living in the Glade of hopeful aspirations while drinking from the river of pleasure in this of small things. So that is where I am currently living. Um, and I'm ignoring that outside thing that people call reality. It just sucks. Just I'm happy in my Glade about hopeful aspirations and just leave me here for the rest of the fall. Yeah. But you know, what do you think it would be possible to, to, to have a link to it, to some somewhere because then I could put it into shownotes and then the listeners could see it as well.

Yeah, I think I can share just the post with you and that way they can go straight to it. And if not, I'll do a screenshot. So I will give you need an Instagram account to be able to view it. That's the one thing I love about Instagram. It's not like Facebook, you don't get kicked out just because you don't have an out. Anyone can see it. So I will make sure I get that over to you because it is kind of awesome and it's a good reminder you're one not alone because so many other people feel, uh, you know, that they're living in the Crip, Crip, crippling insecurity.

Vil um, you know, it's a whole community. Come join us. Yeah, yeah, no, that sounds awesome. And I guess I just sort of, uh, out of myself on, on how little I know about instrument to ask about that. That's okay. You're much more, uh, I used to be so much more active on Twitter and that is definitely where you are. You've got your forte on Twitter and I've kind of backed up and sometimes I go there and I'm like, you can do what now.

So fair is fair. Yeah. Yeah. I do post a lot on Twitter for sure. That's, that's, that's a given. I like that. A community, they're quite honestly, Oh character arcs yeah, it's awesome. I really liked couches, Zach but but maybe before we get into all of this, maybe we need to define what we're talking about.

Right. So character arcs that is a very good point. Just because you know, I, I used to be one of my pet peeves. You'd hear something bad around like show, don't tell, what the hell does that mean? What does a character arc? So this is not just the plot of your novel, it's not your plot. It is the character's journey, the progression of character takes. And one of my favorite things is there's a huge misperception that character's always progress because there's actually, there's actually a whole bunch of different types of character arcs but as far as, I've kind of boiled it down to three.

So there's a fail arc where a character instead of succeeding actually becomes maybe a villain or dies or you know, Ned am in game of Thrones is through book one is a wonderful example of a fail Ark. He dies, he does not succeed. There's also an Epic fantasy, the heroic arc that is the one that we often write about. And the one we readers often expect isn't so sometimes assume that it's the only type of arc. And that's where the character starts out as, Oh, let's go with the, the favorite trope of the farm girl who grows up and becomes a great warrior, becomes a King.

You know, they succeed in saving the country, becoming a great sorceress am something fantastic and magical. It's a progressive arc because you know, they do succeed, but there's also one called a flat arch. And that one you don't see many of the best examples that you usually are like James Bond or Superman. You know, think of something where the character, there's a whole bunch of books that could be read in any order. Well, the character arc never changes. They always start the book self-assured that they can solve the, and everyone else around them's going, I don't know if you got this one.

And at the end they're proven right. They do succeed. They might have some self-doubts along the way, but they do manage to solve the problem. There is one huge book example that uses a flat art. Can you guess what that one is? Mm, no, that's probably because you haven't read it hunger games. So that writing the movies. But I have not read the book. Yes, Katniss Everdeen. She does not really change her character kind of stays the same from beginning to end.

Her initial thoughts and feelings about the government, about herself, about everyone except who is her current boyfriend. She doesn't really change over the entire course of three books. So that is a park. And that's a good example where the rare examples of writing a flat arch in something that is not just a serial series like you know, James Bond or Sherlock Holmes.

Jesper (18m 48s): Yeah, yeah, exactly. If we are defining, I mean the character arc is sort of the, the change that the character will undergo as the story progressed. Right. And so, so that's good. But now that you mentioned James Bond, uh, tha that's, that's like the perfect example of a story that doesn't have a character arc. So, and if, if you're saying the same is in hunger games, then I mean, at the end of the day as story does not have to have a character arc. But I do think at least in the case of James Bond and uh, and uh, I have to be fully transparent here that I'm not rented the James Bond books, but, uh, of course watching the movies I've done and am well I don't know, you'll have to forgive me here when I say this, but I really don't like dams.

Am I guess in my view it is just simply because there's no depth to that character because there are no, I mean essentially James Bond again going by the movies, but James Bond is the same in the end of the movie as he was in the beginning of the movie. There is no change and at least in my view, if there are no character art, then there is no story. That's how I view it. And of course people can feel absolutely free to disagree with me, but, but I think the character arc is what adds depth and and without it.

It, it just doesn't work. No, I can't. That's not to say that you know that the, well now you call it the, I can't remember which words you use for it. But basically it's the same thing that I'm mixing things up here because, uh, as I've been talking about before, we've been talking about before we have an upcoming book, uh, on flooding. And in that book there is a section around character arcs and in there we called them the positive arc, the negative art and the steadfast app. But it's exactly the same as what autumn was just saying is just some different words for it.

So now that I have you all confused, what I wanted to was that when you are talking about the flat flat arch or what we in our upcoming guidebook is calling the steadfast arc it, it doesn't mean that because if you're using that flat art there, it doesn't mean that there is no arc. I mean that, that's sort of the difference. I'm trying to get it because maybe the character doesn't truly change their beliefs or who they are. Uh, but that, you know, the character can still start with a certain belief.

And then the novel plot sort of confirms that that belief was correct in, in it at the end. So the resolution then reinforce us to coach us original belief. And if you see what I'm getting at, so if you're sort of uh, working at using the character arc, even if the coach doesn't change, but you're using it to show that the belief that the Carter had is actually true, that's a different one than if you're just saying, okay, here's the respondent, he's going to do some cool shit and then the stories over.

Right? I mean those two things are very different and that's what I'm trying to say. Yes. Does that make any sense at all? I'm just rambling. No, because there's a lot of things if just because a character with a flat arch or a steadfast art, they can start with this belief, the self belief in you know, that they can solve this problem or they are who they say they are and everyone else doubts. Just because the novel might prove that. Correct. There's a whole pathway and self doubt and well it's an arc and that's what we're going to talk about is how to actually create that art.

And then the only thing that really changes is that, you know, at the end of a steadfast arc, they're proven correct. Where the other arcs like the negative arc, the positive arc, the negative one, you know, they, instead of being proven correct, they fail. And the other one, the positive arc, they start off believing maybe they're not good enough and they managed to succeed. They become something greater. So they all kind of have the same starting point, which is useful because to create an arc, it's almost all the same steps. So that's kind of great.

And it's not, even though it creates such a nuance character and creates a whole pathway through the novel for this character, the actual steps to begin creating a novel arc are not that difficult. And so that's really where we need to go next I think, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I was just thinking while you were talking there, um, because I think especially with the, with the, what the positive arc, what did, what did you call it again? A progressive or they are heroic. This just shows how amateur should we are.

You know, we haven't even aligned to terms before we started recording. There were like so many arcs but it's just what's out there. Yeah. But, but what I wanted to say about the positive one is that we were really at the core of it, we are dealing with internal change. It doesn't matter what you call it to be honest. But if you imagine a positive arc where the character is going from B being one kind of person to being another one. So

Autumn (23m 46s): this could be like weakness turning into strength or fear turning into bravery and, and you, you get the idea, right? So it's an internal change we're talking about. And then as a result you have this positive arc where at the core of it, the couch is sort of still the same person. However he or she has become, maybe you could say like a better or more fulfilled version of themselves. So, so I think that's the, that's the root of the positive change. No, that makes complete sense.

And I think often in a positive arc like that, you see an outward change too. But that's more symbolic because they believe more in themselves because they have created this internal change. It creates an external change as well. And that's sort of the fun thing because part of a character arc is internal and external things going on at the same time. Because sometimes you need those external factors to create the internal change. I mean really even in our own lives, why do we change? I, okay, I changed my hair color to purple because I felt like we're all, you change because you, you know, something is going to happen.

And that is usually the inciting incident. So that's one step. So yeah, it starts with you start with a character who has a certain belief and you need to create an external event that's going to make them reflect on who they are and what they need to become to, you know, reach this other goal. Yeah. And, and I think from movies and whatnot, I mean, it's often easiest to reference movies because we are, everybody wants us a lot of movies, but we don't always read the same books.

But in movies, I'm not the kind of ref reference a specific one, but just in general, do you know these kind of movies were something external, you know, something terrible happens and then afterwards the next scene you are seeing the characters now changing because of that external thing happening. And I don't know if it's because you know we are writers and Oh I'm a, I'm a writer that I just see way through that. It's just like that is to me that feels too lazy and it's like, yeah, okay, I understand that something external and big happened and also understand that of course it would influence you in one way or another.

I I fully get that. But sort of using that as your trigger to say and yeah, now Whoa, here we go. And now the character transformed into somebody else because it just feels too easy to meet it. Do you know what I'm saying? I do. And to me, my favorite, worse movie trope is when you have the flood character who begins the beginning because of the incident that happened before. Like his brother died, a horrible death that he is somehow feels responsible for us. So he is this a lone Wolf character who is grieving and standoffish and no why or this is going right now so he can win the girl saved the day, blah blah blah, blah blah.

So I didn't see that one coming a mile long. So I think there are always nuances and there's always ways of handling it so that you know, it's fresh, it's new. So that the character I have, this is one of my favorite ones with illnesses. I, we often have this discussion, you think you're all in the men and then you get sick again and then you have to sleep a little bit or you do too much. You know, it's the same with characters and character arcs just because something happens, you do not have, you know, something happening does that, it's not a math formula does not equal automatic change.

There's gotta be steps, progressions, back, steps back, sliding. Other things can happen. That's when you get into the subplots. Then you have this other thing that's pulling in one way and maybe that's the wrong direction. You know the love interest, best friend dies, Oh my gosh, now things are really screwed up. So that's actually why I like the seven steps of story structure because it has, it's not just a three act for act. It has this kind of ups and downs and backsliding in a moment right there in the middle that can be this horrible, tragic event that makes you reevaluate everything again because you need to kind of have those pushes.

So I do know when we do, like when I do a character arc, I literally start with four different parts and those are usually, we talked about inner and outer things. So inner motivation, you know, there's gotta be some inner reason that a character wants to change. We talked about an outer motivation. That's usually an external factor that makes them also realize they need to change to adapt. There's usually inner obstacles. And that's what we're talking about now is the inner obstacles. And there's also outer obstacles. But let's start with the inner, the inner of the ones that are like, well, you know, yes, I want to be a writer.

That's a good inner obstacle or inner motivation. That's my motivation is I want to, yeah, but the outer off the inner obstacles are sorta like I have doubts or where do I find the writing time? You know, I don't have a dual thing to write on right now. So those are your other obstacles. Actually that last one, not have anything to write on. That's an outer obstacle. So you can see how they kind of work together where you know, it doesn't have to be the arch villain sending pension men to come and stop you.

That's an outer obstacle. But it can be something simple. Like I have no writing utensils. While that kind of sucks. So those four things though can start to make the basis of a character arc. So you just need to sit down and think about your character and look at like the inner motivation. You know, what is it the character really wants? What is their secret inner drive? And again, it could be secret. I mean you could have a character that goes around telling everyone I want to be the world's best champion and blah, blah blah.

And then you're going to have that one in the back corner who's like, I, you don't really came admitted to themselves that they secretly want to be a great source for it because everyone knows that magic isn't real, but that's what they really, really want. But then never tell anyone unless they're like totally drunk. That's the fun of having characters. This is where you start bringing out those nuances that I talked about and that's why I said I'll try not to get too off track because this is what I love about character building is that you take that little nugget, that inner motivation, the thing that they secretly want.

And you know, you decide if your characters out there boasting that this is what they want. Or if it's the one who's in the corner saying, uh, no, I just want to sit here at all. I want to do is sit here and I just want to watch the world go around. We're really, you know, there's a lot more going on back there.

Jesper (30m 17s): Yeah, yeah, exactly. And, and I, I think you're quite right in saying that, you know, everything sort of fits together. It's like one big puzzle. And that's also why in the, uh, in the, in the plotting book that we are finishing up there, there's a lot of diagrams and whatnot in it because everything sort of just, it slots in together like one big puzzle. But I do think that the key here is that you can use those external events like we just talked about too, to help facilitate the change. But the core of it, or the root of it should be the coach's own needs and motives.

So if you use that as your starting point to trigger the transformation, and then of course you can use these external event to support it as like a supporting structure. But if you use the inner motivations as, as your driver, then it will not come across like those movies that we were talking about before where, Oh, something happened and what B then now the person changed. You know then then, because if you can recognize that, well this character already had this motive inside of him or her and now they were trying to do something about it or they wanted to change maybe, and then something external happened and sort of pushed them over the line, then it works and then it comes across as very authentic and then you, you really feel like, okay, this makes sense.

You know, so, and that's why I said before that if you just push, push them over the line with the external event alone, that's where, to me it feels too flat and it feels like cheating because that's sort of the easiest solution, right? Whereas figuring out what are they inner motivations and how to actually build it up so that I both make it possible why they have this motivation, but I'm also showing it to the reader and then I'm using that as a weapon to drive the character arc. You know? That is not easy and that requires some serious thinking and some serious work and that's why it comes across as authentic because it actually makes sense.

Autumn (32m 15s): I think that's so, so true and so important. That's why I like books that even though they start with am action, but it's not necessarily the big action of the novel. It's like a little action and every day like, Oh, you know, one of the favorites is like showing that you know what's going to be your main character. Maybe they're picked on as a kid or they're struggling everyday. They don't quite fit in. They kind of already Harbor a desire for something different. Like you're, and then the big inciting incident comes and gives them an opportunity to become this new person. It's sort of, even if they sometimes miss it, but it's those books where everything is, you know, a field of flowers and it's sunny and breezy and then everything goes up in flames and they have to become the great heroic person.

It you're right. If they had started us, this peace loving person and now they have to go to war, it doesn't have the same resonance. It's a different type of story and it feels forced. Where if you see that character struggling a little bit in those first pages that they kind of want to be something different. They're trying to be do something different and they're just trying to get by and then your inciting incident happens. That outer motivation happens and then you see the character, you know, going, Hey, this sucks, but maybe I can get something out of this to become, it can become a stepping stone instead of the giant rock rolling down the mountain side and crushing you.

Jesper (33m 36s): Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, and I think there is another place whereby the character arc coincides or aligns itself where we will with the actual plot of the novel. So you were just talking about basically, well the, the trigger, the trigger, we could say, you know, in the beginning where maybe maybe the inciting incident helps in facilitating the change to start, but then if we move to the end of the novel or the end of the character arc, one of the things that we're trying to align with our future guidebook here on how to plot a novel is actually to make sure that the end of the character arc coincides with the climax of the story.

Absolutely. Cause if you can make that happen so that the character arc actually peaks at the same time that we reaching the climax, then that is really a good way to, you know, generate a very true reaction in the reader. And, uh, I think when that happens, then that is actually what w what will make them remember the story, right? That, that that's what makes them tell other people about how amazing this story really was. Because it wasn't just a climatic, you know, fantasy battle against the evil necromancer in the end of the story.

But it was also the time where the character actually came into his, his or her true being and because of that they succeeded. You know, then it's awesome.

Autumn (35m 3s): Absolutely. That's to me especially, I mean that's a whole different topic. Getting a tween character driven versus plot-driven because with fantasy you just about with all of the books we're talking about, people talk about them being character driven when really all of these books are plot-driven but when the character arc lines up in with the plot so that it's kind of driving the plot and forcing things to happen, that is when the novel becomes fantastic. That's when it feels like the character. It is a character driven novel when actually we have a plot and the plot is what's really driving whole story, but the character is making it feel like it's all happening because of this internal change, their struggles in the outers obstacles that are coming at them.

And I agree that's when, when you can combine those two in, there are definitely steps to do that. And diagrams and whole bunch of other ways is lined up with your character arc and the things are feeding into each other and then you hit the climax and it all has to happen. It's not just a climax of the plot and these big outside events, they're going to happen, but it's also the climax of the character arc. And are they going to succeed or fail or what's going to happen to the character? Oh my gosh, that's when you're like gripping the page and you, you know, that's when you're up at 3:00 AM your time.

Those are the books that are just so riveting. And yeah, that is where it's really part of the character arc in lining it up with the plot. So that all happens in seems to be interconnected, ran. It doesn't just happen randomly. It takes work and if you're a pantser and you do it afterwards, it's just a lot of editing. But you can do it too if you're a plotter or a hybrid more like me, you know, you gotta kind of remember that and work it out and make sure it's happening in the different events are triggering the different acts, but the events in the plot or triggering the character arc and the character art is triggering things in the plot and then it's like, bam, this is a huge novel.

This is so exciting. Yeah,

Jesper (37m 4s): it's funny you mentioned that stuff around the uh, plot-driven versus character-driven story because actually, um, uh, I'm actually making one of the a or an argument in, in the, in the plotting book in, in, in the, in the character section of the book. Um, because if, if you go through the exercises necessary to create a, both a proper character but also creating a proper character arc, then the argument I'm making in the book is that there is no such thing as a purely plucked driven book because the book is always about the characters.

It is always about the couch. A change that is what a story is about. A story is not about a country a is going to water with country B and then at the end of the novel, one of them wins. That's not a story. The story is interesting if there are characters in that setting who goes to war and the effect that that has on them as a person and maybe on their family or what do I know? But that's where the story is. So there is no thing, there was no such thing as a plot driven story.

If, if you at least follow the mythology that we are laying out in this future book here, that you're going to get your hands on it at some point. Um, because it is about the characters and it always has been.

Autumn (38m 25s): That's what I think is true. I mean, I, when people ask me if, uh, I have a hard time coming up with story ideas, if you can come up with a character, if you can look at something, you know, I have a bottle of conditioner on my desk, don't ask, has something to do with the purpling. You have something on your end. You just start adding character nuances, start adding motivation and personifying something. You can write an interesting flip piece of flash fiction tune entire novel because that's what resonates with people. That's what people want to know is the story of that individual, that personified object even.

That's all it takes sometimes to come up with a story is to simply look around your house and say, what do you think is the inner desires of my house plant? You end up going, cause trust me, you'll find a story and everything throwing a little bit of magic and a mad cat and you're going to be fun.

Jesper (39m 21s): Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I don't, you know, if autumn if we had been a bit smart about this stuff, you know, we would have had recorded this podcast episode like maybe in the week leading up to us actually releasing the book that we're talking about because this is a just us again but but we thought that we saw thought it an interesting topic. So we just wanted to share some ideas and give you, you know, the listeners some something to think about around the couch arcs and why they're so important.

But if we had been smart, as I said, we would have aligned it with the release of that book, but we didn't. But I don't know if we should say something. When do we actually expect to have this book done, do you think?

Autumn (40m 3s): Oh, let's see. I, there's a chance it could still be by the end of this year. Otherwise I think it'll be very early in 2020 but you know, I think maybe we're smarter than we realize. So there's, it's a huge book and there's so much in it and so much good stuff. So I bet we can find another topic and and you know, this'll just wet your whistle and we'll do another one I'm sure on something that is also a lot of books. I know we've mentioned it at least twice now, so it'll be important and will be able to tie it all in and then announced it's forthcoming release, but it's going well and I think we'll get there very soon.

You remember I had to do some, we did mention there's a lot of diagrams and I still putting those down as well, so it's coming.

Jesper (40m 49s): Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think the, the main or the biggest hurdle that is left apart from, of course some diagrams and whatnot. But other than that, I think that the biggest hurdles that we have left is that we want to include a free download with the book where you can basically download the plot for our first book in our new trilogy. And why we want to do that is basically because then you have the book as your guide and you can go through all the teachings in, in the that guide and basically then by downloading our, you know, that that free version or the platform Alburgh one, you can basically see all those, all that theory in practice.

So seeing how did we actually do what we're teaching in the book. So we thought that that would make like an excellent, uh, accompany or companion, whatever you want to call it, to, to, to the plotting book to make it the teachings even easier to understand and easier to follow. So, uh, so that's basically the biggest hurdle here from a time perspective is that we need to then complete the entire plot for the first book before we can do anything else. Um, but other than that, you know, the, the entire book has been written already and it just needs some editing and uh, and then it needs to download.

That will take quite some time and background. Yeah, so characters are sensitive to any story and without it, you have no story. Next week we're going to talk about ISB and numbers.

Narrator (42m 34s): If you like what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support the amwritingfantasy podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join autumn and Yesper on patrion.com/amwritingfantasy for as little as a dollar a month. You'll get awesome rewards and keep the amwritingfantasy podcast going. Stay safe out there

Speaker 3 (43m 1s): and see you next Monday.

The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 39 – Group promos - are they worth it?

There are so many ways to market your book from paid advertising to join promos and newsletter swaps. But does joining a free group promo really help you with sales or new readers?

Join Autumn and Jesper as they discuss the pros, cons, and possibilities out there with group promos in Episode 39 of the Am Writing Fantasy podcast.

Check out some of the links mentioned in today's show at:

https://storyoriginapp.com/

https://bookfunnel.com/

Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday.

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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).

Narrator (3s): You're listening to the amwritingfantasy podcast in today's publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need a literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing join to best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them. Now onto the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt

Jesper (31s): and hello there. I'm Jesper

Autumn (34s): and I'm autumn. This is episode number 39 amwritingfantasy podcast. Hey, we're going to talk about group promos and if they are worth it., but you know before we get there it's been a, even though we're batch recording things, we always have things going on. It's been always,

Jesper (55s): yeah, certainly. Certainly a lot of things. I mean this here in Denmark we just been hit by a complete like late Shama heat. It's a normally here by the end of August it's, well it's not cool but you know it's the summer sort of starting to come to an end, but now it's just like last couple of days. It's been 30 degrees here and a Celsius of course.

Autumn (1m 22s): Possibly 30 gosh, she's a sure there are no, Oh you mean,

Jesper (1m 29s): yeah, exactly. I mean it's really warm and it's am. It's incredible. I dunno what happened, but it's very wrong all of a sudden.

Autumn (1m 37s): That's funny cause that we've been in am, Adam and I, my husband and I don't like heat and that's half the reason we travel as we get to go up to the North, we like to be like for us to be 70 Fahrenheit. So you know that's pretty moderate. It's like a jacket might be necessary in the morning and usually when we're down in Pennsylvania and usually when we get here it's less stirring hot. But for end of August is actually perfect. Like 70s am. Beautiful, beautiful. It feels like fall, which I can't say it's really felt like fallen August in Pennsylvania since I was a little girl, so I'm not complaining.

Jesper (2m 14s): No. Wow, that's nice. I mean I actually don't mind it being hot outside, but I must admit right now in, you know, sitting inside in my little office here and recording this podcast, I'm like, it's feels like I'm sitting in a sauna or something. It's really, really well.

Autumn (2m 33s): I know the other on the other side of the Atlantic, I've got the window is open and I'm actually a little cool and capris.

Jesper (2m 40s): Yeah. Then that's the thing, right? Because if for me it's, it's late evening time now. So my problem is that if I opened the window or the insects comes in here, eh, if it was daytime it would be no problem. Right. But uh, during nighttime and you have the, you know, the lights turned on inside, then all the insects likes to come and I don't want that. So I have to sit in the sauna here and record. Oh, I will, I will. We're going to hold a few weeks. If you disappear, we know you possibly passed out. Oh shit.

Yeah. I mean, I was out the other day with my youngest son. He was playing in a, in a soccer tournament the other day and he was just as hard as this. It was 30 degrees and luckily none of the kids passed out, but it was, it was really, really, really warm. And they were playing this tournament so they will playing like eight matches or something. And it was, yeah, steaming from above and, but it was really cool. It was, uh, just as kids tournament, you know, and um, and uh, they didn't play very well for the first couple of matches.

They, they sort of draw off you and, and lost a few and maybe one one. So when once the group play was sort of done, then I was thinking, okay, we'll probably go home then because that was it. But then for some re reckless reason, they actually went to the semifinals as the last team that just made it above the cut. So, so then, okay, fine. Then there was one moment. So he played one more match and then they won the semifinal and all of a sudden they have to play the final playing really shitty for all the first like five matches was really shitty.

And then all of a sudden they were in the final. And, uh, it was actually really, really exciting because, you know, this, this tournament that they create, created here was, um, they, it, it's in the local club, so, so it's only the local club players who are there, but they're, they're from all kinds of different age groups. So what they do in this tournament is they mix and match the age groups. So did you have some of the young ones and some of the older ones and so they, they make like teams of five kids, but different ages in each team.

So, so they played together the young and the older ones, which is quite cool. And am my kid was one of the youngest there altogether. So they were playing this, a final match, the final against another team who had actually won every single match. So I thought, okay, they're going to get, you know, beaten really bad now. But they didn't, they really fought for it. And, uh, uh, the, the, the end of the game came and there was still no winners, so they had to play golden gold, you know?

So that means that the first one who scores will win the game and then went into that over time and they were playing and am and it was really, it was crazy. I mean at one point my, my young son here, so again, he's the youngest one on the pitch. So he came with the ball dribbling down, uh, towards the opponent's goal. And there was this defendant in front of him is like four years, four years older. And I was like, I was thinking like, Oh, pass the ball, pass the ball, pass the ball. You know, you're not going to get past that.

But he didn't, he actually dribbled past the guy. He was four years older than him and then all of a sudden he was alone in of the goalkeeper and the goalkeeper was like three years older than him as well. And he shot at the goal and it actually went past the goalkeeper, but it hit the post. It's just like, Whoa. And there was this like a, because it was the final, it was probably like a hundred people watching. So they went this like, Whoa, through the entire crowd, you know, this little boy pass pass through pass two kids who were just mud three and four years older than him.

And uh, but unfortunately they didn't win there. So they kept playing for a bit. And then a bit later on in the match, uh, my, my youngest Sunday, he got the ball again and this time he didn't pass it. But actually the guy he passed it to was the one who then, because of that past shut the winning goal and they actually want the final

Autumn (6m 42s): underdogs in the winters.

Jesper (6m 44s): Yeah. It was so amazing. And uh, I was really proud of him. He played so amazingly well and uh, he was almost in tears himself and am when they then, uh, handed over the trophies afterwards though there was only, there was only like one trophy for, for the team. So the team had to pick themselves and all the, all the young, all the boys than said, uh, where you played so amazingly, so what? We're going to give you the trophy. And uh, that was really, really awesome. And then there was the, they had to announce the best player of the tournament.

So the, in the, in the loudspeakers there, they called him up and said that he had played so well. So they, they made him the best, uh, play up the tournament. And I must admit, I tee it up a bit. That was really so proud. It was amazing.

Autumn (7m 29s): I teared up a little bit. I, I live, my kids are, um, this was my vicarious moment cause I don't have any children other than a small dog. So with that is just so, yeah,

Jesper (7m 39s): so awesome man. It was so well the surf and I think there was at least 20 people after afterwards who came over just to tell him how awesome he played and stuff. I mean, people, he doesn't normally talk to people who is not normally on his own team. So it was just amazing. And many parents also came over and said, Whoa, that was amazing. And you know, and he was, he's just a young kid, you know, he's really small compared to the other guys on the pitch. So, and it just, yeah, it was amazing. So that was my little story this week.

Autumn (8m 9s): What is a fantastic story? I don't think I have anything else to top that one.

Jesper (8m 16s): No, it was cool. I liked it. Oh, we on the internet with the amwritingfantasy podcast. So actually, um, I, I'm PO, I noticed something that made me laugh a bit in our Facebook group. Yeah. Because, uh, Dwayne poop out of the poll in the Facebook group and he asked for what a cliche or from a mine, and I don't know if it was just for fun that he made that poll or if he needed her for something but but I couldn't help laughing when my load and add an option called something mere models were never meant to witness that.

So it made me smile, but then it made it even better when I saw that the, you know, of course the top spot or the one with the most world are gold, but just below them there is this something Mia moderns were never meant to witness as a, as a cliche thing. I just thought that was so funny. Oh, I, that would be a cliche to mind, but it's just so cool.

Autumn (9m 19s): That is great. I didn't notice that. I've got to get back into the Facebook group. I was been offline a little bit too long, so I have to go check that one out.

Jesper (9m 30s): Yeah, it was, it was quite funny. And am and of course I should also say, by the way, that any of you listening, if you want to join the Facebook group, do you know just search for amwritingfantasy among the groups on Facebook and just apply to getting and we will approve you or, yeah, I don't know. Maybe I'll also moderate a loop will actually, because often look, he is must faster than both you and me are in approving people, but uh, but we'll let you infrastructure. So, uh, yeah, if that's something you would like to join them, just do that.

Autumn (9m 59s): Yeah. I've got to go in after we're done recording and maybe relieve loop a little bit. We had a whole slurry of people joining today, which is awesome. But, uh, we've been recording podcasts and I've been getting all these notifications of people who want to join. I'm thinking, Oh, poor Luke, we've left him hanging there because we're recording. Should probably go help out after this.

Jesper (10m 19s): Yeah, maybe we should, but, uh, he's doing a good job though.

Autumn (10m 24s): You're doing an awesome job. So yeah, shout out to Luke. Thank you. Are awesome. Amwritingfantasy Facebook group. Moderator, so I thought it was funny cause I saw a comment that Irish had left on our recent YouTube video slash podcast where she could, on the one we were talking about whether or not you should take a break from your writing. And she said she could see both sides. And I totally agree. I was thinking about this because one thing we didn't mention to that episode is I think you, yes. For when you go on your family vacation, you try not to.

Right. So that's like a week or two off as well. So need to take writing breaks that during the year.

Jesper (11m 1s): Yeah, absolutely. And, uh, and that's, I think I also, I hopefully I made it clear in the last episode as well. Um, you know, that I haven't written anything for probably a month now or something because I'm so busy and in recording costs us, uh, for for amwritingfantasy so, so yeah, I mean, absolutely I do. I do take breaks and as you said, especially when I go on the case, but you know, you always catch me anyway. Autumn because I tried to make those, like I make these announcements before I go on vacation that I'm not going to work, I'm not going to do anything.

I will check the email and just reply if autumn sends me something, but otherwise I'm not gonna do anything. And then of course I'm going to send you something and then I always, you, you, you call me out on it and then you say, well, I thought you was supposed to be on vacations, but I don't write anything. No, but I, I am really and not doing anything, you know, I always end up doing something.

Autumn (11m 57s): Your brain definitely does not turn off because we're a certain vacation. You came back and I think you had like three or four pages a world-building. Um, I just had to do it. So it's true though. Sometimes when you take a break, you didn't go and you're like, I'm not going to be writing. That's when everything, Oh, you wouldn't like I always joke the minute I stepped into the shower and there's no possibility of writing paper or the minute I start cooking a really involved dinner, those are when the idea finally goes click and you're like, Oh shoot.

Jesper (12m 34s): Yeah. But that's exactly it, right? I mean as soon as you wind down from your day to day, being busy and running are about and whatever else we're doing on a day to day basis. So one, once you start with Lexington, all those creative things pops up in your mind and then I accidentally end up writing it down and sending emails to you. Autumn so yeah.

Autumn (12m 57s): Well I respond and we get work done even when we're both supposed to be taking a break, but that's okay.

Jesper (13m 3s): Okay. That's a good point that I was made though. You know that it is important especially, and I think she was also pointing out about, uh, the, you know, the print outs situation and, and there especially, it is really important to sort of give yourself a break. So I fully agree with that.

Autumn (13m 19s): I've certainly enjoyed mine, but I've got to get back to it.

Jesper (13m 23s): Right. So group promos, could you hear the sigh? I don't even know where to start with this because knowing almost no experience with, I mean, the funny thing I guess is that in the future we're going to release fiction together, but at least up until this point we've done so separately. So it means that you have some experience with group promos where I have very little, so I'll have to give you the reins on this one. Autumn

Autumn (13m 51s): that's fair enough. But yes, I think I've probably joined with mailing lists. Uh, they'd call him newsletter swaps even though you're not actually swapping your a mailing list with another author, you're just promoting another author in your newsletter. And I think I've been doing that since maybe my first year as an author or they started up pretty quick and there's been, I've seen the rise and fall of so many different platforms where you can organize them, share them. I've seen everything from, and I've actually hosted some group promos on amwritingfantasy or not amwritingfantasy but on autumn writing my personal website and Yesper I know you joined that one and you could probably mention what you thought of it, but that was back in the days when you had to build it yourself.

Now book funnel and story origin and some of the other ones, it's a freebie. They allow you to basically they create a website for you and you just send people there and so they have your own website. So there's a lot of ways of using them and the are often that you have to send that out to your newsletter and so that's sort of why you don't do that. Is that correct?

Jesper (15m 0s): Yes, that is correct. I mean am my problem, I have done it at some point some years back. But my problem with it is that I treat and, OK, let, let me back up a bit because otherwise this is gonna sound like I'm saying that in everybody else's, not treating their subscribers with respect. Uh, and that's really not what I'm, what I'm trying to say. So I don't, I don't want to put my foot in the middle of the heinousness to you, but what I'm, what I'm getting at is that I find it really important to always treat subscribers with respect.

Maybe I should put it like that because, and, and by that I'm not saying that running, you know, newsletter swaps are not treating them with respect. But what I mean on the other hand is that I feel personally and miles may vary here, so make up your own mind as what, what do you listen to think and, and maybe you see this differently as well of them. So I'm looking forward to hear your, your sort of thoughts on it. But at least in my own personal view, I think that if I'm going to push, you know, push a book or, or recommend a book or whatever you wanna call it to my email list, I should have read it because otherwise I don't, I don't want to do like, okay, uh, can you put my book on your email list and then I'll put your book in my email list if I've never read it.

Because I feel, at least to me it doesn't feel fair to my subscribers and that's why I stopped doing it a long while ago because I just feel like I have no idea if this book is good or not. And uh, yeah, I don't know that that's just my sort of philosophy.

Autumn (16m 34s): I can understand that because I think when it comes to doing individual swaps with authors, which is more what you're talking about, it is so hard to tell the quality. I mean, it helps to look at the cover and see if it looks professional. Maybe read the first couple of sample paragraphs pages that are on Amazon to double check. Because I definitely learned that one very early on is that, you know, it's don't just accept something out of the blue without looking at it first. Because yeah, you don't want to send something that you're kinda cringing and you're hoping your readers will never read it or they'll not think crazy for recommending it.

Then it comes to the group promos, which are a little different because then you're just selling a reader, Hey, here's a whole suite of books that are either they're usually on sale or the freebies or to sign up to get the freebie. So you know, they know they're subscribing to a whole lot of other authors, which again, do you want your readers to be overwhelmed by signing up for another 50 books? But at the same time, there are also great opportunities for spreading the word. I know with my first book, my debut novel, Boardman of water, you know, that's been Permafree now for a few years and I've, I'm actually still toy with the idea is some point.

Does that Permafree status and does it need to end thinking about that? Because I think that'll be a question maybe for a another podcast coming up is, you know, should Permafree be permanent, but we'll come back to that later. But I know when I was my only book or you know, the first book, I only had one trilogy and I felt like I was pushing that out to way too many promos and I wasn't seeing much gain because it was like every promo I could join I was putting that in and I thought, okay, you know, you have to start limiting who where you're putting in.

And I think that's my advice even today. It doesn't hurt to try a sale's promo. I've done, I'm doing both now. Sales promos and group promos where you're doing a free book that people are signing up for. And sometimes I do a free promo where literally the book is free, just go get to soccer. It's fine. I'm giving it away. And I think, uh, by doing those, you do get to run into other authors. Everyone joins in to send it to their newsletter and you usually get a pretty slick graphic.

And so you're just sending them saying, Hey, you know, it's not like necessarily this is the book you should go look at but go see if there's anything here that suits your fancy. But again, it's easy. This summer I have never seen so many group promos and I don't know if it's because people are just getting their act together. They're realizing that these, for authors where they're usually free to join, there's a few that have maybe, you know, chip in to get an Amazon gift card. Do you know something that'll make more people come and look at that page? So there are a few that costs, but in general, these things are free.

Uh, what you're doing is actually supporting other authors. So that's awesome because seriously, that's one thing I love about authors is where we're so good. We're not competitive, we don't look at each other as competitors. We looked at each other as, Hey, I can only feed a reader, you know, one or two books a year that leaves, what, 364 days or you know, 300 something other days that they need to read books. And I can send them yours. That's not a problem. I want to make sure that they stay a reader and don't give up on books cause I can't find anything to read.

So these group promos, you know, they give readers a chance to go look at them, check them out. But again, I know this summer I have seen so many, I usually use book funnel and story origin. I used to use instaFreebie, but I've been off that for a little while now. And it's just, I literally, I, this morning I got a notice of for new promos I think every day. It's a weird day that goes by when I don't get a notice that I have at least one new group promo that is open to be joined.

That's a lot of promos. And I know when I first saw it I was like, Oh this is great. And I happen to have like for first in series books. I have four series out now. So Hey, I've got lots of books. I didn't, you know, go push out. I got two new releases that I can put a new release promos. And you get really excited until you go and sit down to do your newsletter and you realize that you know, you signed up for like six promos and you're supposed to be telling your readers about six different promos. You need to start, you need to come down and definitely take a look at, you know, what are you getting out at the start?

You know, tracking the link, seeing if people are using them. I know when I do a book funnel one, I don't just send them a generic one. I use a specifically create a special link for each promo so I can go back in and see how many people downloaded the book. I can get those, that feedback. So I know if it was really worth my while. A book funnel is really cool because it also tells you how many people look at the page versus downloaded. So if you're seeing age discrepancy there, you can be like, ah, I got to work on something because people are looking at it, the cover is off asleep good enough for people to go look at it.

But for some reason they get to and something on there is not, you know, they're not clicking through. So there's some great nuances, things you can kind of tweak, tease out by doing these promos. But only if you take the time to do the stats. And one of the important things is you have to join the right promo. Uh, there's a lot of multi-genre like new release promos, so that could be a multi-genre one. There are some 99 cent books, which is again a multi-genre one. You know, am I going to do good, do well there or should I just stick to the ones that are Epic fantasy or dark fantasy or the ones that are specific like magic worlds.

Uh, there's one that was recently heroines, that was great. And then there was another one I went to join that they made it sound like female magic users. And when the promo came out, the graphics, it was all about witches. I was like, okay, no, I'm pulling my phone out when I'm not writing. Which craft? I love witchcraft. I would love to write a book on it, but these are not in, this is about elemental magic on a fantasy world that's not going to fit anything else in is probably a waste of my time and maybe my readers won't like it, but I have no proof of that. So I'm probably gonna to waste their time by sending it to them.

Jesper (22m 48s): Yeah. Yeah. And uh, of course, I'm glad that you pointed out the difference between the newsletter swap and a group promo. Uh, I was also the one you ran, I can't remember a long while back. Uh, actually maybe it was,

Autumn (23m 3s): yeah, there's probably, I think at least it wasn't this year, so it might've been 2018

Jesper (23m 8s): probably then. Yeah. Uh, but I was part of that and, and uh, I think I got like, I don't know, three, 400 subscribers or something from that one, uh, onto the email list, which is, which was pretty good. Um, so I mean there is of course, well, okay, again, let me back up a bit here because there's so many nuances in this conversation because one thing you're saying, okay, a group promo, you get 400 suffers from it. And that's wonderful. Yeah. Okay, that's good.

But you can also look at it from the angle of saying, but okay, so these 400 subscribers just loaded Kindle with 50 different books and they're not gonna read any of them anyways. So what's the point? Right. And then on, and then of course I could then switch it back the other way around and then start arguing, well, okay. But then if you have them on your email list, it's stand up to you as the author to, to write even beta emails than the other ones so that they get invested in intrigued in U S North or, right. And of course that's, that's within your power to, to try to do something there.

But but there is some sort of argument hidden somewhere in here around the quality of the subscribers, you know, uh, I've heard many, many times for like Freebooksy and stuff like that. You know, that you can get a ton of subscribers but they are worthless. So, and since we are paying for subscribers on the email list, at some point we also have to start asking ourselves, you know, what kind of readers do we want on that list? Right, exactly. Yes.

So it's just, it's, it's, it's a bit complicated.

Autumn (24m 47s): That's where, I mean, cause I was going, you took the words out of my mouth. You get subscriber as it is up to you to make them believe that your book is worth reading. And of course you only get like maybe one or two emails to get them excited and maybe off of you, it's in your power, but you're not going to get every single one of them sticking with you. And of course, hopefully that's why there's the unsubscribe button. And hopefully if you're doing list cleaning, um, that might be when you start cleaning out some people who've never seem to be opening your emails or responding to you.

And there are, I think the group promos where people have to go down individually and pick a book that they think looks interesting, are far better than the group promos where they are basically signing up to win a prize. Like there's a few out there where everyone who goes into, it's going to get a free ebook to the winner or free paperback. Okay.

Jesper (25m 38s): Or the way you, even the worst, the ones where they give away like a am Amazon gift card or something. I think that's some of the worst thing that you can ever offer because those people are there because they want the gift card, not the books.

Autumn (25m 50s): Yes, exactly. And often a gift card, you're not even sure they're gonna use it for books. It'd be at least that's they're giving away a Kindle or something. You have an idea that they like books, but again, they can turn around and sell it. So. Exactly. So those are, those are the ones, I mean I joined those when I was first started and you can get, originally, I think the most I've ever gotten from one of those was almost 5,000 subscribers. That was early on, very early on. So it was one shot. You suddenly get 5,000 subscribers, you know, but again, as soon as you get that, you're probably sending out an email and those 5,000 people are getting emails from what, 25 30 different authors.

So later group promos have gotten more organized where the like, okay, I've seen one where it's like if your last name starts between a and D, you can send on this day just that readers don't get overwhelmed. But again, that's what those inboxes are gonna look like for that entire week. It's going to be from all these authors and all these introductions. And I know I'd be like, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete.

Jesper (26m 57s): Yeah. Or people just use like a fake a on another fake. But you know that you just use the Hotmail account that they just created for this stuff. And then as soon as they get the books onto the Kindle that, you know, they never log into that Hotmail account. They never read the emails, they just grabbed the book and then that's it. Right. So what's the again, what's the value there then?

Autumn (27m 16s): And exactly. And plus I know those group promos just like everything. I think this is even true with book sales, just everything it's, or even advertising, it's harder to get those numbers. I mean, my first promo that I ever did, I think I got 10,000 downloads now I don't even get 10,000 downloads. If I do a book funnel, it's just there are so many more books. So now you know, you're talking about a couple hundred a baby, a thousand subscribers are fantastic. But honestly that one month long promo that I organized, I was thrilled with the outcome because you know, most people are, we're seeing between two to 500 subscribers.

That is fantastic. In a month. Some of the ones I joined now, you know, I think I just had a group promo where I think I had 322 downloads and I'm like, Hey, that was pretty good actually. It is. I was actually really surprised. So there are still some ones, but again, it's coming. It's drilling down and telling yourself one, you can't join every single one there is because then you are going to get your book out there to maybe too many people. And again, if they're choosing it, that's great. But again, you're sending it to your readers too and you should do your part.

And so you don't want to drive your readers crazy with like four or five, six promos of every single email. It's kind of, you know, that's really taking advantage of them. Or are you doing a newsletter where you're just sending out emails about other books or are you doing a newsletter that's about your writing and you've got to make that choice and find that balance.

Jesper (28m 44s): Yeah, I agree. I agree. And I would say, you know, if it's sort of like a group promo for example, like the one you hosted the last year where there was a ton of free books and then you know each, each person within that promo code then email their own list and say, okay, here's a link from where you could download a ton of books and needs of the authors in there gave a book away for free. And I think something like that is fine because you're doing a service to your reader by, you know, here's a lot of fantasy books that you can get for free.

So most readers will like that. But that said, you have to be really mindful because if you do that all the time, if I was on my favorite authors email list and he was, he or she was emailing me, eh, let's say every second week with another 50 books that I could die, I would go and seem pretty quickly. It's like, what the, I mean, I cannot not read all these books anyway. And I mean once in a while doing it like once every six or something like that. To me, and again, this is personal preference, so take that with a grain of salt.

But in my personal preference, that would be okay. Uh, the, the newsletter swaps I hate, but I don't know. I mean, I, I do know that, uh, this might be a bit of a different sort of topic, but it's been something that I've really been turning over and over in my mind because I've been thinking that for like, I think it was two podcast episodes back, I was mentioning how I was thinking about creating like a free course for four authors, uh, to give away to, to our new led newsletter subscribers on, on amwritingfantasy.

And one of the things, our sessions or whatever you wanna call it for for that free costs has been around. I want to talk something about this Permafree stuff, which is linked into the newsletters or sorry, LinkedIn to promotions. And, um, and, and this topic that we're talking about here today, because obviously the value in group promos is because you're giving away a free book. But I still haven't really made up my mind and that's what I want. I want to make up my mind so that I can give sort of a here's my, here's my why as to why I'm thinking the way I am.

Because right now I'm not sure because on one hand, I mean I have my own and you also have your own, your one for free Permafree and I do see every day probably like, I dunno, maybe 10 downloads on Amazon without me doing anything. It's just because it's free. And that's certainly 10 downloads. I wouldn't have been there otherwise. And then of course, if, if some people liked the book, then they will go and buy book number two in the book number three and so forth. So there's a logic there at play.

But this is then the flip side. And this is where I haven't really made up my mind which camp I'm in and I need to figure that out. But I also understand the argument of saying yes, but since Rita's I able to just download so many free books as as it is possible today, there's a ton of free books out there. Basically the, the, that that was, I don't know who coined this term, but somebody, somebody called it Kindle stuffing, you know, that you're just filling your Kindle up with a ton of books just because there's also this collector's item, eh, sort of need that kicks in.

Like, Oh, it's awesome. Like I have 2000 books or whatever, you know, at the end, they're not gonna read any of it anyway. And they're not, if they are downloading this many books and signing up for this many promos, they're not going to read the emails either. So, so what I, when I was saying early on that it's the new job as an author to make sure that you write emails that that hooked them. But if they don't read any of them, it doesn't really matter. And you know, you're just playing into a game of, yeah, let's feel everybody's people, you know, every, every one's Kindles up with free books.

And then I don't know what the point is anymore because the goal is gone in this terminology he or, or this point of view, but, but as again, as I said, I don't know which camp I sort of believe in, if I believe that it is a good viable option to do the Permafree because years back it was a very viable strategy and it worked really well. But nowadays with so many free books and so many people downloading them, uh, I'm not sure if we've sort of moved past the point in the market where the free book is not that good anymore to have.

But yeah, I, I really don't know and I, I need to do more thinking because I cannot make up my mind. So I know that's not very helpful. That's my thinking.

Autumn (33m 18s): But I, I don't disagree and I do think that, um, I know even like I said, we both have PERMA freeze. But my two, my newest series, the one I've got two in the works that I'm, that I'm going to finish one first and then finish the other one. But I have put out two novellas and I did not make them free. And people, I'm sorry, leaders who are listening to this, I have no plans of making them free right now. If you happen to hunt around, you may find them in a free promo somewhere, but it will be exclusive.

It's usually only for a couple of weeks. It's only by my choice. Otherwise they're on Amazon and they are 99 cents and I'm not planning on making them Permafree I'm planning on doing that and maybe every once in awhile opening them up briefly on my website or through these group promos and that'll be the only way to get them for free. And it is a, it's a different technique and more people are using that where you know, your book is for sale online, a for sale on Amazon. But occasionally you can get it as something exclusive and that adds that little extra shine that hopefully people will read it.

And I also think that novellas are becoming more of the, the way of giving away a free book. You and I both have full length Epic fantasy novels. I know mine is 105,000 words and I do have people downloading it every day without even being advertising it. Uh, they do go on and read the incomplete six books series, which is fantastic. And I loved that. But so I don't know, maybe born of water will stay free because I don't have a novella at the beginning. But you know, if I ever came up with one, I may switch it over and create a novella and put that at the beginning and offer that as free.

I'm not sure. And that's the tough thing. Readers, if you're listening to this, writers are not trying to milk you for money. We're trying to make a living. I am a full time author and graphic artists. This is literally how I put food on my plate. So I don't think there's anything wrong with making a living where you can afford to eat and be creative and get paid to be a creative individual. I think it's fantastic. I hope. But it is important and it's not always, it's not easy every day cause trumps me.

But book sales fluctuate. Yeah. Yeah it does. But you start getting smart with this as a business and you have to start asking questions. I'm happily, I'm a prolific writer enough. I except for my two week recent break when I've got to get myself back in gear and get this book done. Uh, you know, I'm usually a prolific enough where I can release a couple books a year. I can hoping to do an entire series plus what we're writing next year. 2020 is going to be big and that is fantastic. And that's a good way of doing it.

And because I have 16 books out, I can play with different techniques and that's amazing. That's so much fun.

Jesper (36m 13s): Once you have, the easier it becomes, obviously

Autumn (36m 15s): it does, it's try different tactics with different books and not sweat it because when you only have one series to play with, it's a big change. Does decide to put something in Kindle unlimited to do, you know, make something free versus not free. Those are big changes and they have a very big impact when it's your only series.

Jesper (36m 34s): Yeah, indeed. And if I, if I can just share one more of, uh, my, uh, look it from this side and then look it from that side arguments here because you triggered something else in me and what you just said because yeah, I mean when you were talking about am that we also have to make a living from selling books and, and you know, that we shouldn't feel, I guess you didn't say this, but I guess it's, it's sort of embedded in there somewhere. We shouldn't feel ashamed about charting for our work. And I'm sort of of the opinion here.

So, so he, okay, so he comes to a side and afterwards I'll give you the B side, but, but the AA side is saying, I mean Kindle books or eBooks, it doesn't matter if it's Kindle or on COBOL, wherever you're selling books. But a book for five, six, seven, eight, I'll even say nine 99 it's damn cheap. I mean, come on, you're, you're getting like 100,000 word novel that is probably taking sometimes years, but at at least quite a while. And uh, if it's a very experienced writer than it'll be fast obviously.

But then you're also getting quality, but you're getting a quality novel for let's say, just go with a high price you and say 10 bucks, 10 bucks is not a lot for a book. And I feel like we have sort of put ourselves in a situation a bit as authors of where now there is an expectation that you can get it for, you know, almost nothing. And, and that's sort of the, the B side of this whole argument is, but what are, what are we, what is our goal here?

I mean, what are we trying to do? Because if, if on one hand you were saying, okay, a side here I'm charging nine 99 side is saying I'm going to go Permafree obviously the besides argument here is that well if I'm going after and Rita who has never heard me before and I'm going to say to him, okay, Hey read my book and you just have to give me $10 and then I'm saying, and by the way, that's not expensive at all. And then the reader, if I put the reading glasses on and he looks at the beside and the byside, well well you don't know me so you have never read any of my work.

So I think it's free ad and I'm going to give you this book for free. And then you can make up your mind yourself. And if you like it, you can read more and then of course you have to pay for it. But at least there was no barrier of entrance here that you need to pass it. You know, it's the barriers soloed at that. You can just give it a try. It's like a free sample thing, which is, which is sort of like they do in the supermarket as well. When they want you to buy some new chips or something, right? They give you a few future taste and then they want you to buy but so a and B side here, I mean they don't, but they both have valid points in my view.

And again, this is where I cannot make up my mind because if we have really taught the readers of in today's day and age that you should just expect authors to write books for free. I mean then we just shot ourselves in the foot and, and what is the point then? Right? But on the other hand, since everybody else in the market or not everybody else, no, I'm exaggerating now but right but but since there is a lot of people in the market who are giving their books away for free and the barrier of entrance is so low, as I said before, how are you going to compete at that?

Against that if you're saying, but I'm going to chow chow to nine nine to nine, right. I mean, if you're having a huge email list and you and the people love what you're doing, then well that's not a problem. You can just sell it for nine 99 and people will buy it. But I'm coming at this from the angle of what is the advice for a new author? She should you, should you make your poop Permafree and then say, and then I'm going to run some group promos and whatnot to, to get my name out there. Or are you just Kindle stuffing? You know, are you just playing into the, to the Kindle stuff in game and actually it's not gonna make any difference for your author career at all.

And I don't know. So again, I need to make up my mind so I can make it cost module on this stuff because I really, I don't know right now.

Autumn (40m 40s): Well, I think that that's gonna be a question that's, Hey, that's when we can ask our listeners as well.

Jesper (40m 45s): Oh yeah, that would be good. Yeah. I would love some perspectives on this.

Autumn (40m 49s): Yeah. Let us know if you think you know, free books are Kindle stuffing or if you think that's a really valid way, especially as a new author, if it's something that we should be looking at and doing so that you know, you get to be known as you were, you know, learning and growing as an author. And you know, once you get your email list to like something reasonable and 5,000 you can start charging like at least 99 cents for your new novella. And you know, let us know what you think because next week we talk about character arcs.

Narrator (41m 30s): If you like what you just heard, there's a few things you can to support the amwritingfantasy podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join autumn and Yesper on patrion.com/amwritingfantasy for as little as a dollar a month. You'll get awesome rewards and keep the amwritingfantasy podcast going. Stay safe out there and see you next Monday.