The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast

The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 28 – How to attend author conventions and get results from it

Is it really worth it attending author conventions and events? And if it is, how can you ensure to get results from it?

What is you would like to organize your own convention or event? What do you need to consider and are there financial risks to take into account?

Zach Bohannon & J. Thorn from The Career Author podcast (http://thecareerauthor.com/) are sharing their experiences.

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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).

Jesper (0s):
Have you ever wondered if it's worth going to writing events and is it worth your money and is it really worth your time and what if you are sort of further along in your career and then you won't be speculating about is it worth creating some of my own events? That's what we're going to talk about here today. If you're fantasy author then you've come to the right place. My name is Jesper and together with Autumn we've published more than 20 books and it is our aim to help you in your writing and marketing endeavors.

Jesper (36s):
So today I have been joined by somebody else. Then the, actually it's the guys from the Korea author podcast. I listened to their podcast every week and I will let her put the link in the description field below for our podcast so that you could go and listen to if you want. But the reason that I wanted them on here to cover this topic is because I know that they have talked about it before because, and they also have both of their perspectives on this thing, so they both joint conventions by themselves. As a participant, but they have also an art creating events for other authors themselves.

Jesper (1m 10s):
So we want it to try to cover both angles here and they're welcome to, uh, the amwritingfantasy, uh, channel. Uh, Jameson.

J. Thorn (1m 19s):
Yeah, thanks. That's for, we're really happy to be here. Thanks for having us.

Jesper (1m 23s):
Thanks a lot. And, uh, well I guess we can sort of just jump right into it. I know you guys have participated, if we start with sort of the participation angle, and I know you guys have gone to different events just as participants where you have not been new organized so a bit, but I wonder if you could sort of share a bit about is. Is it worth the time and the money that it takes to go to these events? And if you do go to these events, how should, could you go about it to make sure that you actually get anything out of it? Because, uh, it, it is at least, I think quite a both expension of time, but, but also as S introvert authors, maybe it's not the coolest thing that we can think of.

Jesper (2m 1s):
Is it worth it?

J. Thorn (2m 3s):
Yeah, I think it's totally worth it. I can say that without hesitation. Uh, I'm thinking back on some of the live events I've done more recently. So I've done, I did the indie author lab that was put on by publishers weekly. Uh, last year I did podcast movement I think in 2016, 2017 which sort of like a big convention. Uh, I did a story grid certified training and a and a story grid weekend with Shawn Coyne last year and a couple of years ago.

J. Thorn (2m 34s):
Uh, so yeah, participation I think is really important in those and. And I think what's most important is that it's not necessarily what you think you're going to get. It's going to be what happens when you're there that you can't plan for. You can't anticipate things like conversations with other authors over a cup of coffee that leads to a further discussion that leads to a possible project or you know, you meet someone who happens to know somebody else and it's a good connection way. And I, I hesitate to use the term networking cause especially for introverts that makes our skin crawl.

J. Thorn (3m 6s):
It's got sort of this really dirty connotation, but, um, it really isn't, it's not networking in the, in the sleazy internet marketers sense. It's more about making connections with other people and, and really allowing yourself to be in the moment and to absorb what's happening. Certainly the speakers and the content is important and I think people will probably only sign up for events that they believe are going to help further their career. Um, but I don't think that's the main reason for going to a live event.

J. Thorn (3m 36s):
I really believe it's the interaction with the other participants, possibly the people who are putting on the event and then all the potential that comes from that. And even if I don't meet someone and I don't have a very, uh, concrete outcome from that meeting, there's always a skill or a strategy or a new way of looking at things that, that comes out of those events that doesn't happen for me online.

Jesper (3m 59s):
Yeah. No. And I know, especially from what you've shared in the past, us facilitated that you get quite exhausted from Merde, sir, you said in person events or things. So how do you go about it? You know, if you, uh, if you are like an author who are very introverted and don't really like seeing other people, do you sort of mentally pitch yourself up to, okay, I need to talk to a few people today are, how are you doing?

J. Thorn (4m 25s):
Yeah, that's a great question. And uh, I mean it is, it's a very broad generalization that, that creatives are introverts. Not all creatives are introverts, but I anecdotally, in my experience, I've found most of the writers I deal with are introverted or towards the introversion scale of, of the Myers Briggs and and. There's really sort of two ways, uh, an introvert can approach a live event to make it more manageable. The first one is exactly yes for what you, what you mentioned, which is to kind of set a little game of buy it for yourself and just say, okay, today at this event I'm going to talk to at least two people.

J. Thorn (4m 59s):
I don't know. I'm going to introduce myself to two people or one person. Like it doesn't matter the number, right? It's that you are your creating a little incentive for yourself that will put you in the right mindset and sort of open, um, you know, you're sort of opening your mind to, to meeting other people. But then on the flip side, it's really important to both at the event and after the event to have time to decompress. And I think this is where introverts really have to do this for themselves because it's not usually built into the events.

J. Thorn (5m 31s):
You need time within the day of the event to go and sit by yourself for 30 minutes or go read a book or go journal or just go and not talk to anybody like you. That has to be built into the day. And then I think it's also good and I think this applies to for extroverts as well. Once you get home from the event, you need time to decompress as well. I think it's really hard to just kind of jump right back into your, into your daily grind. You need time to, you need time to recharge and get some of that energy back.

J. Thorn (6m 2s):
Because for introverts, being in those crowded environments is not impossible. And it's not that we hate it and that's a misconception. It's just very draining on your energy and you need to, you need to be able to wait to do that and not sort of at a secondary level. I think it's really important both leading up to during and after the event that you are paying very close attention to your biological needs, making sure you're getting enough sleep, your eating properly, you're exercising if possible, because there's a tendency at these events to kind of go off the rails and eat and drink and, and, and you know, and do things that you wouldn't do at home.

J. Thorn (6m 37s):
I call it living like a teenager. And so if you're not a teenager that, you know, that's gonna take its toll too. It's, I think all of that taking that sort of comprehensive approach can really make not only an experience great, but make the least amount of disruption in your day.

Zack (6m 52s):
I'll also add real quick, like, I mean I'm definitely JL straight up, call me an extrovert. I don't know if I'd go that far. I mean I definitely have introvert tendencies, but um, I'm definitely more extroverted than he is in a lot of other authors and but to me, one thing I've noticed being at these events though too is that, you know, this, it's not the same thing as going to like a cocktail party or like a work Christmas party or something. I mean, there's a lot of other people in the room who are Waikiki and I think that knowing that comfort and that you're not the only introvert, most of the room is going to be introverted from what I've seen.

Zack (7m 25s):
I think that really helps open up people talk. And I know with our bigger events, specifically our conferences, you know, we try to, uh, you know, we, we do like the round tables where people were kind of forced to sit together, but it's not like there's never really been any kind of uncomfortable thing for me. Then we have our genre at dinners where people put together by the genre. So like we're kind of encouraging people to kind of break out a little bit, but not in like a funky like, uh, you know, speed dating type of way or something like that. But it's like really uncomfortable, you know?

Zack (7m 56s):
So that's just kinda my perspective from being a little less introverted, much less introverting I should say.

Jesper (8m 1s):
Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think from my own experience when I've been to sort of conferences or events or stuff like that is it's not as hard to strike up the conversation as one might think in a way you just sitting at the table and as long as you're sort of smiling and are open to people, then usually you can start talking. But where I think it's a bit difficult and where I'm curious, what would you guys say about this? Because the aftermath of it, you know? Okay, so you've gone home, you talk to five people, but how and why should you get in contact with them again?

Jesper (8m 32s):
That that part is a bit mysterious mystical to be, you know, how are you supposed to do that? I mean, okay, I can just find a, send an email to somebody. Hey, it was great seeing you at that event. But that's it's a bit, yeah, I dunno. I think that's

J. Thorn (8m 45s):
a good first step. And a lot of times you don't really know how or when or if that's going to happen. Uh, I remember I went to podcast podcast movement when it was in Chicago. Brian Cohen up from somewhere book show and he's very outgoing and extroverted and he had no problem walking up and talking to a lot of people. And and I think that was good for me and I, and I think if you are, if you tend to be more introverted and you have a more of an extroverted buddy you can bring with you, I think you can play off each other's strengths in that way.

J. Thorn (9m 16s):
And so I was able to kind of kind of tag along with Brian and then like I was really good at sort of looking at all of the offerings and saying, okay, well why don't we look at this one and sort of thinking about this one. And that was not something Brian was like really good at. So we kind of, we kind of balanced that out. And then what I did was when I came home, of all the people I met, I did exactly what you said. I sent an email and just say, Hey, it was really nice to meet you, a podcast movement. Um, if you, if there's anything I can ever help you with, just reach out.

J. Thorn (9m 48s):
And I kind of gave myself permission to leave it at that and I thought, you know, I'm going to do that. It's sort of a, it's courteous, it's kind and um, if something's meant to come from that, I'll hear back from them. And some people, I didn't, some people I didn't and and you just never know. I think the big thing that we always preach is that if you start a relationship by giving as opposed to asking, it's always, it's always better that way. So even, even the following up with a thank you from a live event, I think if you're just saying, Hey, thanks a lot.

J. Thorn (10m 19s):
If I, if there's any thing I can ever do for you, just let me know and then leave it at that. I think, um, that's, that's a good way to approach it. Not feeling that pressure to sort of work all those contacts that you just, you know, you just got all, all those business cards, you collect it. I don't, I don't think you necessarily have to have to force yourself to, you know, make connections with those people that aren't a natural.

Jesper (10m 41s):
Is there any specific events that is spread? You mean, I'm going to hook you up on the spot here, so it's okay if you don't know, but, but I'm just thinking that some of the people who are watching this video and, or listening to this podcast might be people who are also pursuing my traditional publishing wrapped. So are there, in your view, certain places that are better than other, if anybody wants to walk over there?

J. Thorn (11m 5s):
No, it's perfect timing because as we're recording this, I'm about three weeks away from heading to New York city for thriller Fest for the first time. Uh, so I, I think, uh, you know, if your listeners are not familiar, thriller Fest is the annual gathering for the thriller writers and that's where they have all their awards and there's Pitchfest and agents are there. In fact, I'm going to pitch fast, I'm going to be pitching a project to am to several agents. And I think every sort of a top level genre has that annual gathering.

J. Thorn (11m 36s):
Like for the horror writers association, they have Stoker con, uh, waa, waa has a big gathering. Uh, the, uh, science fiction and fantasy writers of America have an annual gathering. So I think if you are looking for, you know, an agent or if you're more interested in sort of the traditional publishing world, those, those, those are the events that you want to attend. And those are the big ones. And, uh, and, and they're, they're somewhat affordable. Like they're not, they're not out of reach. I think for, you know, a few hundred dollars per ticket.

J. Thorn (12m 8s):
Uh, you can, you can go to any one of those. And, uh, and I think that that would be a great way for people to get to know what, what that industry is like.

Jesper (12m 17s):
So I guess we can conclude, conclude that it's definitely worth going to these events and you need to put a bit of your extrovert hat on and then go through wasn't and try to build a bit of relations but, but I'm wondering then if we sort of jump into the time machine he say then we fast forward a couple of years and now the people listening or watching the video, they have sort of grown a certain pattern to a certain level in their career and they're starting to thinking, okay, maybe it would be cool to actually organize some events on my own and thus maybe use it as something that supplementary income to my book selling or whatever it may be.

Jesper (12m 53s):
Maybe it would be worth if you guys just spend like a minute of talking a bit about what you guys are doing and who you, so just to set the scene a bit for talking about what kind of events you are renting and how you're going about it and what you're thinking about and so forth.

Zack (13m 8s):
Yeah, we, uh, the, the whole thing started kind of funny for us. I mean it really came out of, we ended up doing a authors on a train is kind of our like a event that responded and that came out of us going on a train trip with Lindsay broker and Joanna Penn and spending a week writing and a VALIC. We went, rode on a train plan to book out and it's been a week in new Orleans, Louisiana. I'm writing a whole novella together and you know, J and I were sitting outside one night, uh, having, having a burger before went to a concert while we were in new Orleans and we just kind were like, man, I'm like, why couldn't we do this with other people?

Zack (13m 48s):
This is like a really cool niche event type of thing that really we didn't, we don't see anyone else doing stuff like this. Like you see people doing writer's retreats from, they'll go like rent a cabin every, want to work on their own stuff. And um, you know, you see the conferences and stuff, but you really don't see these like smaller, really unique things. Like who else was taking people on a train? And then my, you know, the really weird thing and that's really what started it. And it's spa, you know, it kind of snowballed into the smaller, like the world, the world building type advanced or we'll go and we'll pick a unique place and go build a world out together.

Zack (14m 24s):
Um, and then of course we're stood in authors on a train and we have our bigger conferences as well, which is the career author summit, uh, formerly the somewhere bookshelves summit. Um, so yeah, that's, that's kinda the, the main stuff that we have going on and we can obviously as conversation goes down deeper in each one of those.

J. Thorn (14m 39s):
Yeah, I would add to that there's sort of an intermediary step for someone who's, who's thinking about this. And, and I, I think it's very, uh, this was really good. I think it's really great to be thinking about diversifying your revenue streams as an author. I would ha, I would highly encourage people who feel like either organizing or putting on one of these events sounds like something that like to do. I think that you should definitely do it. Am don't listen to that. The, there's too many or there's too many people doing it. I don't buy into that. Um, I think there's always room for more voices, new voices, new experiences.

J. Thorn (15m 12s):
But I think between being at an attendee and then, uh, running our hosting, there's this other space that I would recommend people explore, which is start, uh, talking or offering to speak at other events that you're not running. I think it's really important to not only refine your public speaking skills and your ability to present because as you know with a podcast, whether you're on a podcast or on a stage, you are performing, it's a performance. And it, and it takes a certain level of skill and practice.

J. Thorn (15m 43s):
It's not the same as having a casual conversation with somebody. So I think you need to practice getting in front of people. And the way I did it is I started offering to do talks for fruit for my local library system. And I would go in and I would hold these little workshops and I would do these talks. And I did that for years. And uh, and I was a classroom teacher before that, so I had sort of the presentation mode refined. But doing those presentations sort of gave me the understanding of, okay, number one, what do people want? And number two, if that's what they want, how can I provide it?

J. Thorn (16m 13s):
Or how can I find someone who can provide it? So I think there is this middle ground where you, you really have to kind of find tune your chops. And one of the ways you can do that, going back to our previous point is you could reach out to people who are organizing events and offer to speak for free and say, Hey, I'm, I'm getting, you know, experience and speaking. I love your event on, uh, you know, I've been following you. I would love to S I would love to present for free to your audience if that's okay with you. And you know, some people are going to ignore you and some people won't. But I think getting your feet wet and really getting experience presenting, especially on a stage live in front of people would be really important before you kind of go all the way to that point where you're going to be the organizer of the event.

Zack (16m 54s):
I think another, I think another step you could even take is not think this is kinda gonna depend on where you live. Um, but I almost feel like running some kind of really small event locally could be really good. And even if you don't charge anything, you know, go rent a room at like a local coworking space or something. And obviously you know, you, if you're probably gonna want to be in a city where there's like gonna be a lot of writers that could come, but there's a whole other level of complexity of planning event and risk when you're talking about go like, you know, and for instance, in September we're going to Seattle and we live in Cleveland and Nashville and Seattle is a like fi five or six hour plane ride for each of us.

Zack (17m 34s):
So like to plan an event in Seattle and not live there is like, there's a lot of complexity around that and you know, J and I both have a background playing music and I know me personally, I know he has some, like I used to plan like a festival on stuff. Like I'm a small music festival and so like I have some event planning background and um, and I mean there's a lot of little logistical things that you may not think about whenever you're playing an event. And you know, we're still learning as we go and learn along the way.

Zack (18m 4s):
But I think that doing something locally small, maybe you get, try to get 10, 15 people or something to come show up and you do like a lecture type thing. Or maybe you guys do like a world building, I don't know like, but I think that can kind of help you start to see kind of the logistics of putting something together and getting people to show up as well, which is kind of a step ahead of like having a library organized, something you showed up in speaking, which I also think that's a great, great way to get started on that too.

Jesper (18m 30s):
Yeah. And it is a great point around getting a bit of practice with people or speaking in front of people because even for an introvert is certainly doable, but, but you sort of need to to get used to it a bit and then you can, uh, you can make yourself do it, so to speak almost. But, but I want, I mean I, and I think it's a good point too, to sort of work your way up to it and, and do some of those smaller events for four. I started if that's what you want to go, but, but at the same time I also know that it's pretty important for you guys that the event doesn't grow too big.

Jesper (19m 2s):
So I'm wondering how do you balance this side of, okay, you, you're of, you'll have some costs into it because you have to rent a place and probably get some food and drink and whatnot. And then at the same time, if you don't have enough people come in, then I guess either you can have a very, very high ticket price, which I don't think you guys are doing either, unless I'm mistaken. Or you can have a ton of people at a lower price, but what but how do you balance it out? Because if you're doing, I mean if you're just doing it for fun, then it's fine. But if you're doing as a sort of supplementary income, then you need to learn a bit from it.

Jesper (19m 35s):
Right? So what are your thoughts on that?

J. Thorn (19m 38s):
Yeah, I think it's really important to be completely transparent and honest and say that anytime you're organizing an event, you're taking a risk, uh, financially, mostly financially, but you're, you're risking your reputation as well. I mean, I, I don't think we're at this point anymore, but I remember we had conversations of like, what if we went, if we roll out an event and no one shows up or no one's interested like that, you know, there's a cost that's involved there. Um, and at a certain point, but, but more importantly, you know, the, the events, you know, for, for authors on the train, we're renting a mansion in San Francisco.

J. Thorn (20m 14s):
Well, we had to put 50% down on that before we put up the landing page. And for the career author summit, we had to secure the, the, the conference center before we put the landing page up. And, you know, so part of that is you need some savings. You need to have some money set aside that you're willing to risk. I mean you can mitigate your risk, but at the end of the day, anytime you're putting money up before you're selling tickets, you are taking risks. So I think it's important to recognize that. And uh, and we've been, we've been willing to do that.

J. Thorn (20m 44s):
And you know, we've been successful. We haven't lost a ton of money doing and we've made money in most cases, but you do need to have many willing to sort of put up and to secure those. As far as the event themselves are concerned. Our wheel house, our specialty is really these small sort of intimate gab world-building gathering since. So authors on a train and am PSI Phi Seattle and vampires in new Orleans, these are events, we're really taking a dozen people.

J. Thorn (21m 14s):
So we know that we don't need to have, you know, $100 in Facebook ads. Are they running to drive traffic to that landing page? Cause cause we're, we're going to sell them out. It's only 12 people and we charge enough that we're going to make some money, but it's not so exorbitant that people can't afford it. So that's sort of the, the one style of event that we really like doing. The career author summit, we kind of kind of fell into our lap. Um, it wasn't something we had planned on doing. Uh, summer book show, Bryan Cohen decided he didn't want to do that summit any longer and we had such positive energy momentum for that event.

J. Thorn (21m 47s):
We didn't just want to let it go and so Zach and I went to Jim Kukral and said, all right, well Brian doesn't want to want to do this anymore. And it was all good. In fact, Brian is going to be speaking at the career author summit, but we said, what if we continue it? We'll rebrand it as the career author but we made a very hard, definitive decision, very public decision and said, we're not growing it. It's at 120, 115 hundred 120 years about the match. Yeah, that's about the number of seats we're going to sell. And we're not growing it past that. I will not sell out those sell out. We could, we could buy, you know, we're, we're very close to having that sold out now and it's 11 months away, so it's not, and that's not a slight against events that grow larger become larger.

J. Thorn (22m 29s):
But we find in our own experience that, uh, once you go above 115, 120 people, it's, it starts to feel more like a trade show and less like a conference or a workshop. And that's just not what we do. We, we'd like to be able to walk around and interact with everyone. We like people to have the opportunity to meet all the other people there. And once you go North of one 25, it's hard to do that,

Zack (22m 51s):
I think. I think going back to kind of swing back to your original question too, is, you know, it's, it's very risky and J will tell you like what we kind of laugh because we joke that when we're coming up with these things, J always starts with yes. And I always start with no. So J comes to me with the super ambitious ideas and I'm always like, no, no, we've got to pare it down. And we ended up somewhere in the middle and it really works out. But I think that not getting too ambitious and trying to knock it out of the park so hard the first time when, if, when you're not really sure what all the costs are going to be in stuff, uh, it's, it's really important.

Zack (23m 26s):
So don't, you know, you obviously want to put on a good event, but you know, that doesn't necessarily mean you have to take all your attendees to the fanciest restaurant and have the fanciest venue. And we've made that mistake. I mean, we, we had, uh, one of our events, you know, we, uh, we're going to try to make it a little bit bigger and we rented a bigger type of, who ran a whole theater, you know, and, uh, we, we did a lot of different things and that event, as awesome as it wasn't as fun as we ended up having on it, uh, ended up losing money for us. So, and it's because we kind of went, we got too ambitious and we learned a lot from that though and and realized, you know, we, we'd rather deliver these really cool experiences.

Zack (24m 5s):
The problem was is that we were trying to get more people than we really should have and we really realized then like for our smaller well billing events like 15 people, max is kind of like that's really worse. Sweet spot is. And with that, you know, we can still make enough money to like be at the rock and roll hall of Famer at the Mo pop museum and see like we could still do really or rent a mansion. You know, we could still do this really cool stuff and still have room for us to make money as well.

Jesper (24m 33s):
One element is around the venue that you are reserving are paying for, but the other part is also how what type of event you're running. And by that I mean if you're running something like, like you're talking about here, like a willpower thing event where it doesn't take much prep in the way that, okay, maybe have some initial idea for a world that people then come to the UN and and basically the work is done, they're in the oven. But if you have more like a presentation type of event, either you would need to run the same presentations every time so that you don't have to prep too much or you what because if you do want to create a new presentation every time at the end of the day that his time away from writing and unless you are really earning money on that event, if you're just covering your cost or earning $1,000, you know, my question would be is that really worth it?

J. Thorn (25m 26s):
I I think that's a very legitimate question. I think the answer is going to be really dependent on on the individual situation Zach and I need to make enough money to make it worth our while. We sort of, we know between us what that is and that that's got to cover our own costs of, of getting there. The cost of not writing during that time, I think, I think that's an an another cost factors into it. And I think it depends on the event. So if you're talking about something like the career author summit, preparing to present at that, a lot of the work comes ahead of time and then you present and it's kind of over.

J. Thorn (25m 59s):
But world-building is kind of the opposite of that. So there's not a ton that we do leading up to it. But then once it's over, we published an anthology and Zach's right now is going through all the stuff from, from rocket park in Cleveland and that's, that's a full on anthology publication, revision, editing. It's a lot of work. So you know, and like that's, that's work that we're not quote unquote getting paid for. That was part of the ticket for the event. So that's just stuff that we're obligated to do that we enjoy doing. So I think it really, it really comes down to the person as far as like what type of event do you want, do you want to put on, what do you hope to get out of it and, and what sort of resources do you have to spend on it?

J. Thorn (26m 40s):
And that's both time and money.

Zack (26m 41s):
And I think too, I think, I think it is important to mention too that there's two of us, which are best, not obvious, but for people who don't know, you know, we do these events together, but we also write fiction together. So even when our fiction production doesn't necessarily have to stop you because J might go do be working on a presentation, but I might be working on our fiction. So I do think that's important to bring up cause, but that's not to say that one person's still couldn't manage this stuff on their own and still run their fiction business and do events. There's nothing that says that by any means.

Zack (27m 12s):
But, uh, I just think that's important to bring up for this conversation to those.

Jesper (27m 16s):
Yeah, true. Yeah. And I certainly don't think that this is anything, you know, the, the starting out author should really worry about or try to do. But even if you're not collaborating with somebody else, you know, if you're a bit further down your career path, you might have a virtual assistant who can help booking stuff and whatnot. So, so

Zack (27m 34s):
of course you're probably gonna need some help to do an event. There was no doubt. Yeah. Depending on the size and scope, what you're trying to do that you're probably gonna need some help. But like you said, you can definitely hire people out to help you or stuff. So

Jesper (27m 47s):
is there anything else we should cover around organizing events to say anything that I should have asked you that I do?

J. Thorn (27m 56s):
I mean, as far as organizing an event goes, I think it, you know, really the big takeaway, what Zach mentioned is is if you're, if you're really interested, do something very small and local for free. And that's the best way to get a feel for a lot of this. Everything from logistics to, uh, the type of people you want there to, the presentations or the workshops that you want to do. And maybe depending on where you live and who's near you, you can just invite a few of your friends and just say, Hey, come for free. You know, let's all do this together.

J. Thorn (28m 26s):
I'll, I'll sort of run it and I'd love to just get your feedback on it. And I think starting small and starting locally is probably the best way to do it. Because the last thing you want to do is to, is to think planning something like the career author summit sounds awesome. And you'd love to do that. And then you start to do it and realize it's not something you enjoy or it's, or it's something that you don't want to spend time on and then you're kind of stuck. So I think if you start small, then you're going to have a much better, uh, you'll have much, uh, a much better idea for yourself as to what, whether you can do something more grandiose in the future.

Jesper (28m 60s):
I think that's very good advices. And, uh, it's all, it's always good to get some advice to somebody who has actually done it, you know, rather than people speculate to be good on that. So I very much appreciate that. Sure, absolutely. I did mention the Korea author podcast in the beginning and I will put a link to that. So if you're watching on YouTube, it's going to be right below this video. And if you're on the podcast, just go to the show notes, but is there anything else, guys you want to mention where people can find your, or is this just the curiosity podcast you want to point people?

Zack (29m 31s):
Yeah, I mean, everything's over@thecareerauthor.com you can get the podcast there. Uh, if all our events are there. So if you're interested in attending one of our events, um, you know, we're, right now, we are, uh, all our 2019 stuff. Well, the only thing we have left to by Seattle, it's sold out. Our 2020 stuff is almost sold out. So, um, we, we have the career author summit in Nashville, Tennessee. That's a in may of 2020. We've got some great speakers will be there. We've got Joanna Penn, Lindsay broker, Brian Cohen, Jim Kukral, Mark Leslie, the fade, a honorary quarter.

Zack (30m 7s):
We've got some really good speakers lined up for that. Um, and we're getting really close to being sold out for that as of this recording. I don't know what it would be when you guys, when you air, but we're, I think we have like maybe 12, 15, 20 tickets, 15 tickets. Um, so we've got that going on. We have a authors on a train, California dream and is what we're calling that am. So we'll be taking a trip, we'll be taking a train from Los Angeles, California to San Francisco, uh, with a group of authors. And we will be doing, we'll be staying in a mansion for a few days and we're gonna build out an anthology together, write stories, collaborate.

Zack (30m 43s):
That's a collaboration event. Um, that has like one or two tickets available as of right now. Um, and then we also have vampires of new Orleans, which, uh, will be taking place Halloween weekend, which if anyone who's never been in new Orleans, that's like a the best time to go to new Orleans. The weather's really good. Um, and, and there's so much cool stuff that happens there during Halloween and, uh, we're going to be doing, we got some really cool stuff lined up. We're gonna be doing more. We're there, but then we're going to be writing vampire stories, publishing anthology. Um, and that is, we don't have any treats left for that either.

Zack (31m 15s):
I don't think so. And again, yeah, so this is all for 20, 20, so you can check all that stuff out. I mean, if you're someone, again who's interested in may rain events, you can, it's got all the stuff there. You can kind of see what we're doing and um, you know, maybe, maybe that will spark some ideas for you as well. So yeah, but everything's at the career author.com

Jesper (31m 33s):
yeah, and I don't take just anybody within this, a fantasy author audience here who doesn't like vampires. The only thing you need is you. You're missing the dragons, so you need to put them out there. We'll get there eventually. One a 21 maybe we'll come closer where you live and I will get a castle somewhere and dragons. Yeah, exactly. All right. Thanks a lot for coming onto amwritingfantasy guys. I appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you for having us. We appreciate it. All right, and to your opt in, see you next Monday.

The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 27 – How to sell books on Kobo (with former Kobo Director Mark Leslie Lefebvre)

It isn't easy to sell books. That's especially true outside of the Amazon eco-system.

I sat down with the former Kobo Director Mark Leslie Lefebvre to pick his brain on how we authors can sell more books on Kobo.

There's some really strong book marketing tips and tricks being shared.

And, here's a link to Mark's podcast: https://starkreflections.ca/ 

New episodes EVERY single Monday.

To subscribe on YouTube, go here: http://bit.ly/1WIwIVC 

PATREON!

Many bonus perks for those who become a patrons. https://www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy 

LET'S CONNECT!

Closed Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/AmWritingFantasy/ 

Blog and Courses: https://www.amwritingfantasy.com/ 

Jesper on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SchmidtJesper 

Autumn on Twitter: https://twitter.com/weifarer 

"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 (0s):
So if you are debating whether or not you should be selling books, exclusives it exclusively on Amazon, or if you should be wide, then I have a special guest on here today to help me to talk about selling books on proper. If you're a fantasy author, then you've come to the right place. My name is Jesper and together with autumn we have together published more than 20 books. And our aim is to help you with your writing and marketing and selling books based on our experience.

Jesper (34s):
So actually today as I was just saying before, I have a special guest on and I'm very, very piece too to have Mark on here to help me because Mark has a very, let's say good insight, especially insights in talking about selling books on Kobo even though he's doing something else today, which I'll let him himself explain in just a second. But uh, thank you very much for, for coming onto amwritingfantasy Mark it's a great pleasure.

Mark (1m 3s):
It's an honor to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me.

Jesper (1m 7s):
So maybe just to make people know a bit about you, maybe you can say a bit about both what you're doing today, but also specifically maybe your prior work in life because it's very relevant in the conversation we're having here.

Mark (1m 20s):
Yeah, of course. So I mean I've been in the book industry since 1992 I started as a bookseller, um, specific to our conversation here. I worked for Kobo am between 2011 2017 and when I was there, uh, I was the director of self-publishing and author relations and I created Kobo writing life, the self publishing platform. So for those who aren't familiar with it, it would be very akin to what, what KDP or Kindle direct publishing is to Kendall and Amazon Kobo writing is to Kobo.

Mark (1m 51s):
It's a published direct platform free. I think it's a lot sexier of course, and a lot more user. And because it was built by an author for other authors. Now I left Kobo at the end of 2017 because I wanted to write full time and do a consulting for publishers and writers. I couldn't keep my hands out of the business because at the end of 2018, I joined a part time role, uh, with draft two digital, which is an aggregator that distributes eBooks and converts them for free to Kobo, to Kindle, to Apple, to nook, to Google to to Lino, to a whole bunch of other platforms as well.

Mark (2m 29s):
So I couldn't not want to build cool things for writers, so I kinda needed to keep my fingers in the, uh, in the, in the muck, so to speak. Uh, and, and, and sort of that's where I am today, doing a combination of writing and basically helping authors. And I really want to help authors sell broadly and sell globally rather than just selling really, really well in the U K and in the U S on Amazon, which is usually what you're getting from that platform.

Jesper (2m 54s):
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And yeah, and I actually, I use both draft to digital and Kobo. So, um, but, but I do go directly Kobo also is to get into the promotional opportunities that Kobo has for, which I'm sure we're gonna get into quite some more. But, uh, but it's funny because the whole conversation about being by Y versus being exclusive, uh, autumn and I just had a chat about that the other day for our, for our mastermind group. But, um, but for me it's, it's sort of a no brainer. I mean, uh, I don't want to put all my eggs in the Amazon basket for sure.

Jesper (3m 27s):
Um, but the thing is also that then when you take the decision that you want to publish white, then it is harder to get traction on, uh, on why platforms like Kobo it at least that's my perception. The corporate just works a bit differently than Amazon. It's, it's not quite the same machine in that way that that Amazon is. So, yeah. I'm really curious to have some insights and thoughts to hear from you on, on, uh, how do an author get more

Mark (3m 54s):
traction on Kobo? Well, actually, uh, I, I'm glad, I'm glad you mentioned that because I mean, Amazon is the world's biggest bookstore. There's no disputing that. So they have a lot more customers. They have a, you know, 20 years of experience of building their platform as a, as a book platform. So they've done that for a lot longer. And a Kobo is only about 10 years old, for example. And other platforms then be Kobo and Apple and nook, you know, all the other platforms that aren't Amazon. You have to pack a little bit of patience, uh, when it comes to that, because you know, for example, and but again, there are things are changing on Amazon all the time.

Mark (4m 30s):
So, you know, it's pay to play now and you can't just publish a book on Amazon and it'll sell. You have to pay for it. So, uh, with Kobo you can get traction. And so you, you mentioned the am, the promotions tab, uh, which is available if you're publishing direct to Kobo, through Kobo writing life and and it's not automatically available. Once you have your Kobo writing life account, you have to email a writing life, a kobo.com and ask for it and they'll, uh, they'll add it to your account and then you could submit your titles to be considered for various promotional opportunities.

Mark (5m 5s):
And, and they usually have about probably am 15 different promo opportunities on a regular basis. A lot of them are the free page. So if you have a, like a, a free lead generation title, whether it's the first book in series or maybe it's a short story in your universe that ties back to a novel, uh, that you have or a series of novels, you can use that, those are, those you actually have to pay for. Most of the other promos on, uh, Kobo are usually am usually something like the, a a monthly 30% off promo of on science fiction and fantasy titles, for example.

Mark (5m 41s):
And instead of, uh, you're agreeing to allow Kobo to give a coupon code to its best customers who can get your book for 30% off, you do not have to change your price. And so what's critical about that is you don't have to change your price. Meaning Amazon's not going to price match. It's, it's an exclusive coupon for customers to use. So you leave your price normal and the customer gets the code and instead of actually paying for that, you only pay for the books you sell during the promo. So, uh, it's usually about 10%.

Mark (6m 13s):
So let's say your book is just because I'm not good at math, let's just make it a $10 book. It's a 30% off discount so the consumer can get it for $7 and instead of getting the, uh, you know, the regular 70% on that, you would get a 60% am so you make a little bit less. But unlike Amazon ads and other, you know, BookBub's and things like that, you're not out of pocket initially. And, and the one thing I always have to remind authors have is it's cool to pay for ads and then get paid for it.

Mark (6m 44s):
But you have to remember you're getting paid 45 or 90 days later, so your out of pocket with some many and then you get the many a few months later. So it's not like, you know, I made $100 this month and I spent $75. Yeah, I'm $25 a head. Well, no, no, you're $100 in the hole until 45 to 90 days later, depending, like depending on the platform, uh, you know, the year $25 ahead three months later. So, uh, it's important to remember the income and outcome, right, in terms of your expenditures, because sometimes you could be in the right a little bit early on if you haven't budgeted properly.

Jesper (7m 23s):
Yeah. Yeah. But I think at least the promotions that, uh, that are listed on, on Kobo writing life, I mean many of them there they're not like expensive stuff. So, so it, it might be, I dunno, 20, 20, $30, something like that. Four to five, I think for the four, usually the most expensive ones. And they, unless you have a lot of books, I mean they're not gonna accept your putting one book in 15 different ones at the same time anyway. So I mean, and I think that, I mean that is a good thing, you know, that that is not expensive to advertise and Kobo

Mark (7m 54s):
no, it's not and. And so what it sometimes takes on a platform like Kobo is just a little bit of extra lift or kicks with sometimes all it takes is a promo where you're going from selling nothing or maybe you're selling one book a month or one book a week, whatever it is, and then suddenly a doubles your sales or triples your sales. You know what I mean? Going from one book to three, which doesn't seem like a dramatic thing, but it often, it's a long slow build. And I've often told writers on a platform like Kobo, it can take upwards of six months to nine months and then that feeds the self fulfilling prophecy of the Kindle unlimited magic world and exclusive to to am Amazon because a lot of authors will start, you know, Amazon first and then maybe after 90 days they, they try publishing wide but you know, 30 days pass and they're not seeing anything.

Mark (8m 45s):
And then at the end of that 90 day period they, they go back to Amazon exclusivity and and one of the things that I have to caution authors about is every single time you delist books from other platforms like Kobo, you're starting from scratch every single time. Even if you had sales in that period where you were published wide, the minute you delete your book or unless the book, you are immediately going back to zero and you're starting not from where you were before, but you're starting from the beginning because everyone seems to be familiar with the Amazon algorithms and the 30 day cliff and you have to publish lots of books really fast to, to keep that going.

Mark (9m 26s):
Kobo and other retailers have algorithms like that too where you're ranking in your trending in your ratings and things like that are based on customer behavior with interacting with that book and related to all the other books. So Kobo unlike Amazon isn't mostly am algorithm driven. It's driven by a combination of algorithms and manual merchandisers. So not all that different than um, a book seller in a bookshop who would, would take in, you know, a whole bunch of books from different publishers and then decide, okay, what books am I going to put in my front window?

Mark (10m 2s):
What books am I going to put on this display? Now the promotions tab, uh, helps the Kobo writing life team find and curate titles from Kobo writing life from self published authors to get their books onto the end caps and into those window displays along with the big publishers who are constantly trying to pitch their titles to the merchandising team for placement of new releases or special features, et cetera.

Jesper (10m 29s):
At least from my experience, and it probably depends on the type of books and if you're hitting the right promotional option. But from my experience there is quite a difference. You know, some, some of the promotional promotions that I've run sort of almost nothing happened from them and then others of them are quite good at. But it seems it depends on luck on I think what type of books you are promoting and if you're sort of hitting the right promotional category now or whatever you want to call it.

Mark (10m 56s):
Yeah. Yeah. And some of them work, some of them don't. The key is just like with BookBub, right? Anybody apply in you applying, you apply again, you just keep applying, you apply, you try it. I mean, what, what does it cost you? It didn't cost you anything in, in most cases unless it was one of those small, uh, pays for like the free books and you just keep trying because you never know what might hit. Here's the other thing and during election years for example, people don't read as much. So there could also be something going on. It was your book release, the, the, the week that the Avengers end game came out and you and your writing, you know, superhero fiction.

Mark (11m 30s):
Well, not as many people are probably going to be buying books around that time period because they're all going to be excited about that. Or, or you know, game of Thrones, like during the, the, the, the, the, the end of the season people may be, are not buying as many fantasy novels, but after game of throne ends and everyone's feeling like they're missing something, maybe then they're going to be looking for fantasy. And also there's, there's all these other factors that have nothing to do with books and nothing to do with platform that affect the behavior of consumers. And that's why, I mean I often, I often say patience and persistence are two of the key elements that a writer needs in order to, um, have longterm success as, as, as a writer.

Jesper (12m 9s):
The other sort of weapon we have in our hospital, his riders is also am using the feature deal, but the CPMs on where we can certainly talk Kobo readers, but I was just curious because I can, I can for sure, uh, analyze my way to, to the fact that the, the blog largest Kobo audiences probably in Canada. And I would assume that it's quite locked in the U S but, but how is it around, is there any like English speaking territories, other places in the world that are really good targeting options maybe for your Facebook ads and stuff like that?

Mark (12m 45s):
Yeah, yeah. I'm glad you mentioned that. So before, before we am drop talking about BookBub ads specifically is I have, uh, worked with authors over the years who have been able to do BookBub ads for Kobo in both Canada and Australia for full-price books, not for 99 cent books are two 99 bucks, but for the full price, whether it's four 99, five 99, six 99, whatever the price is, and those convert really, really well because, uh, in, and BookBub published a stat, I think it was about six or nine months ago.

Mark (13m 16s):
It was on there on the BookBub blog that showed that 70% of their best customers, because they know who's clicking and who their consumers are, 70% of their most avid readers and buyers buy books at full-price from BookBub ads. Uh, and, and I know from evidence that I've seen from authors, I've worked with that that works really, really well on both a Kobo and on a Apple as well, um, for Canada and Australia as an example. So that's good targeting. But so Canada and Australia are two of the, two of the larger am markets for Kobo.

Mark (13m 52s):
Now, Amazon does dominate the U S so Kobo doesn't have as big a presence in the U S Kobo does things like they partner with the independent booksellers association or the ADA, the American bookseller association, where there's about 600 independent bookstores across the U S that if you go to their website, they're selling eBooks, but they're selling them through Kobo. And Kobo does that as a partnership so that a local consumer could, could purchase an ebook and the local bookstore actually gets a cut of every one of those sales, even though it's entirely powered by Kobo.

Mark (14m 23s):
And I love that kind of collaboration because it allows the bookstore to do what they do best, which is move print books into the community. And a Kobo does what it does best, which is move digital books, audio books, and eBooks into the community without trying to put the bookstore out of business. So it's not the Amazon way of come in and bully their way through the market, like Walmart, Amazon, and just push all the other independent retailers out of the way. But we're collaboratively. And so in Canada where Kobo was born, it's, you know, chapters Indigo, which a chain kind of like Barnes and noble, only really, really successful.

Mark (14m 55s):
And, um, and then in Australia there was a, of course I'm drawing a blank on the name of the, of the major retailer, but there's a major retailer and a couple of other retailers that Kobo has partnered with. So those were markets Kobo got in early and partnered with. Now in the UK, the Kobo is also partnered with, um, wh Smith and, uh, and other retailers in the market so that when you're buying eBooks, um, from wh Smith, you're actually buying them from Kobo there powered by Kobo. And when you go across different countries in Europe, Kobo is really strong even for English language titles.

Mark (15m 30s):
In am markets like the Netherlands and Belgium because they've partnered with bowl and bowl is a major, significant Amazon sized a retailer. And that's a great opportunity for writers cause uh, folks in another lens love a rating as well. Uh, there's also an additional program I should mention that's only available in, uh, through Kobo and ball and the Netherlands, which is called Kobo plus. So think of it like Kindle unlimited, except you don't have to be exclusive to a Kobo. And when you're listing your books in a Kobo plus am, what happens is instead of your book being listed twice, like once on Kobo, on once on ball is listed four times, you're in the regular Allah cart Kobo channel, you're also in the couple of plus channel.

Mark (16m 16s):
And then on ball you're in the Al a carte and then you're in a Kobo plus. So it's almost like doubling your SEO or your visibility of your titles to, to more readers because there are some readers who will buy and then there'll be other readers who say, well, for whatever price a month, I'm just going to read unlimited. And so, um, that's also been a really good market for, uh, for Kobo authors.

Jesper (16m 40s):
Mm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I did try, I have tried, uh, before as well to run some, uh, some Facebook ads specifically to Watsonville and some buildings because, uh, because of the Kobo plus thing, but I didn't, I didn't, I will not able to really make much out of it. Um, but maybe I'm just thinking now that we were talking, maybe it would be worth running the apps and actually mentioning specifically Kobo plus in the, uh, in the ad text itself, which I did not.

Mark (17m 6s):
Yeah. And I would, and I wouldn't even mention Kobo if you're doing it in the Netherlands because Kobo was probably not as well known a brand. A bowl is the brand am.

Jesper (17m 14s):
It's a, B, a L M DOL,

Mark (17m 17s):
DOL. So ball.com. Um, only because and and that's one of the reasons Kobo partners with folks in different territories. I'll give you a perfect example. So Talena is, is huge in Germany. And Toledo was a known and trusted brand that was built out of a whole bunch of a chain and independent books. Bookstores wanting to protect themselves from, from the on slot of a, of, of Amazon coming in and killing them. So to Leno was a brand that was established years ago and has built up trust and they, it's, it's a German born solution.

Mark (17m 49s):
So even though Kobo bought Tulino years ago, Kobo did not infuse itself into the market. Kobo actually backed out of the market. And and even though Kobo was producing that Talena readers now instead of it having the rackets and Kobo brand on it, it has to cause Talena was the trusted brand. Nobody knows Kobo in Germany, but they know until they know on from the Kobo you mean or what? Well, Toledo actually has its own independent, uh, independent platform. Actually, ironically, you can't even get into Tulino directly through Kobo.

Mark (18m 21s):
Um, and, and it's still operated as a separate company with a separate trusted brand. Even though Kobo owns the company and provides the hardware behind it, the actual cow catalog, believe it or not, um, the best way to get into to, I was actually through draft two digital. And again, that's because, uh, when that happened, when the takeover, uh, when Kobo purchased Tulino, there was an easy way for authors to get their works into Taino and it was working 100%. So there was no reason for when I was running the Kobo writing life team, there was no reason to go and rebuild something that would cost a lot of money if there was an easy way for authors to do it that was free.

Mark (19m 0s):
And there was, you know, so that's the kind of collaboration that a company like Kobo is interested in is what's, how are we helping enable readers and writers to come together instead of making it more complicated? So am um, they may one day invest in, in trying to get stuff into Toledo, but right now there's an easy way to get stuff there. So, um, they don't have to, you know, reinvent something when they can build something new and something fresh that doesn't already exist for authors.

Jesper (19m 27s):
But that's a good point about using the correct sort of works around their brands that the people know in the different countries because uh, yeah, well when I ran, ran the apps to watch the Netherlands and Belgium, I just wrote Kobo right. And yeah, maybe that's exactly the reason why it wasn't so successful at

Mark (19m 45s):
you never know. You never know. Right. I think, I think bowl is a more well known brand a and that's been around a long, long time and, and, and you may, you may have better luck with that or at least doing a combination of Kobo and ball or something like that. And that's what the partnerships are, are all about. And I think that's a distinguishing factor that people don't think about when they think about, you know, Kobo is a single retailer, like, you know, like Amazon but Kobo has different fields and different looks in different countries and you can check this out.

Mark (20m 17s):
Now again, this is just on Kobo. It's not on their, on their partner sites, but you can check it out if you're logged onto Kobo. So from Canada here, when I log on to kobo.com there's a little Canadian flag icon on the top right hand, um, uh, of the screen. If I click on that flag, it opens up a screen that allows me to see what the U S site looks like because it's merchandise differently. It's going to feature different titles with the UK site. Looks like what the, what the German site looks like, what the, what the, you know, the, the Netherlands or Spain or, or any of those other countries look like because they actually do have merchandisers, uh, around the world who are working with the local publishers looking to spotlight, uh, titles that are of interest to that specific market because you're not trying to Americanize the entire world.

Jesper (21m 11s):
W when it comes to the ad stuff, it's, it's always about figuring out the right sort of wording and then, then the, the right targeting. I mean, at least you can target the, at least with the Facebook.

Mark (21m 22s):
Yeah, of course. The director

Jesper (21m 25s):
narrowing down your audience by selecting people who have Kobo readers and all that good stuff.

Mark (21m 30s):
Yeah. Which is, which is fantastic. It's so great that we have these kinds of tools available to us, um, to make it easier to, to only show it to the right people.

Jesper (21m 40s):
Apart from the paid apps that we then have the opportunities to run or used to promotional tap is, is there anything else, uh, one can do to increase their sales rank in a corporal you pro universe?

Mark (21m 53s):
Yeah. I know this sounds basic and simple, but I have to say it because people just don't do it is uh, be inclusive. Don't just have links and share links to Amazon. I know it's the world's biggest bookstore, but they don't have every single customer in the world. They have a lot of customers. But there are people who read on different platforms. And again, I'm not saying this just for the benefit of Kobo, I'm saying it for the benefit of readers on a nook or Apple or Google or any of the other platforms because maybe they're a bowl customer. Maybe there are chapters, Indigo customer candidate or a w H Smith customer and and.

Mark (22m 26s):
And this is where am before I started working with draft to digital, when books to read. And that's books, the numeral two, read.com when that was launched, I thought, what a brilliant idea because prior to that existing, I would publish my books directly to Kobo. I would publish them directly to Kindle. And then I was using, you know, either Smashwords or drafted digital publish wide, but I would create my I pub. And then in the back of my Amazon book, I would have my Amazon legs. And then in the back of my Kobo book, I'd have my Kobo links.

Mark (22m 57s):
And in the back of my, uh, well I started to do a draft to digital, um, they automatically will insert links to whatever retailer they're sending it to, which is brilliant. So now when I create an I pub, I just use the, uh, universal book links because you know, for example, books to read.com/killing it on Kobo, which is one of my books. And if you, if you look go to that link, you will find a link to Amazon, Kobo w H Smith, Google am, nook, Apple, all the platforms.

Mark (23m 29s):
But beyond just that, and this is valuable even if you are exclusive Amazon because when you go to Amazon, um, I would probably, um, be redirected to the site in Canada and then there's the.uk in the.com and the dot D et cetera, et cetera. And so the same thing with Kobo Kobo, uh, you know, is just kobo.com in, in most territories. But it also is going to, if you click, if you share a kobo.com link from the U S and somebody in the UK clicks it, they're going to see the U S page.

Mark (24m 1s):
And I was going to say you can't buy it. You have to click on the UK page here. So it's an extra click and and and you don't want extra clicks. You want people to be able to click the buy button right away. So what the books to read, universal book links does is it allows the CA, it knows the geo-targeting and sends the consumer to the place where they can actually buy it at that same retailer. Um, and, and being inclusive is the first step because if you're doing advertising and sharing stuff about your book, unless you're specifically targeting Kobo customers or Amazon customers in a different territory, am because let's say you're part of a promo and you want to and you want to share that, um, share universal links be inclusive of all the retailers.

Mark (24m 42s):
You never know, um, where they're, where they're hanging out. And then similarly, I would say when you get a Kobo promo, it's not enough to just get the promo and sit back and cross your fingers. If you get a Kobo promo, let people know about it. Do you have a newsletter? Say, Hey, I'm in a 40% off promo for June four for Kobo. Here's a link to my title's just use this coupon code and you're done. And, and, and again, if it's a specific territory, you can say, Hey, depending on your newsletter, just send it to your UK authors.

Mark (25m 14s):
If it's a UK only promo or are you, I say UK readers, um, um, or, or at least let them know saying, Hey, I've got this book, uh, it's 40% off on Kobo. This is only applicable to the major English language territory's us, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand. Uh, it's still available everywhere else, but not at the discount. Oh. And if you happen to be an Amazon reader, you know, here's the universal book link. You can just get it on any, any retailer if you want to read it. Anyways, thanks for, thanks for being a reader. So I think being inclusive across the board is always your best option.

Mark (25m 47s):
Um, because a consumer may read that, let's say you, your newsletter posts and say, Oh my God, he's got this book I didn't even know he had. And it's on sale at Kobo. Well, I don't read on Kobo. I read on Apple. Oh good. There's a link to Apple. It makes it easy for me to buy it anyways because if I'm interested, I'm going to buy it where I'm going to buy it anyways. I'm most likely not gonna switch retailers just to buy it there because it's only available there or it's on sale there. Um, you're more likely to just go with what you're comfortable with. So I think inclusivity, um, like publishing mind, it's a, it's a much bigger thing than just than, than just considering, um, adding Kobo to your, to your profile.

Mark (26m 30s):
I would add as many retailers as possible because the, the broader you extend your, uh, publishing the, the broader the potential customer and reader base can be. And then and and that would include library systems too because through Kobo or through draft to digital or through other aggregators, you can also make your books available to the libraries. Um, and that's, and that's yet another discoverability platform that I think is really fantastic for writers. Very good bystanders, especially the thing about that, there is no reason to try to fight people's habits because you've got to lose every time.

Mark (27m 3s):
You know, if they, if they Kobo they will continue buying books or Kobo no matter how your mom, what you pushing you Amazon links, you know. Yes. It's just a waste of time. Um, but, but I also think that the funny thing is also that we S office, we often get into this am mentality that we think that we does know everything that we do. Because in my, when I send out my, my new status for chapel I at the bottom of the email, I just have my books listed down there next to them exclusively like you're saying.

Mark (27m 34s):
Of course. Yeah. Sorry. Interesting links. Uh, but um, but just having the list of there some people picks them up there and you should think, you know, after they've been on your list for like eight, 10, 12 months, you should think they'd know what, no, it's just as an easy trap to fall into that. You just assume that everybody knows it because they only list of it actually. That Oh, so just push the, push the link once in a while. Not every three weeks when you get a new promotion. But once in a while pushing it out, pushing out a linker, especially if there's some discount.

Mark (28m 7s):
That's great. Um, but you will pick up new readers from your own email list. It's quite ironic to me, but I'm glad you mentioned that cause that that is extremely valuable. Um, it's true. They may have only attended to the top 20% of the, of the last three emails you've sent, but today they had more time and they actually read it all the way to the bottom and went, Oh look, he has other books. I didn't know that even though you might've told them about it three months ago and they opened and they even open the newsletter, but they just scanned it and they missed it. Right. We miss so much information. The other thing, and this is, this is really cruel, a critical I should say is a am, a good buddy of mine, Shaun Costello is a horror author.

Mark (28m 43s):
And and through his newsletter, cause I help him with his publishing. Then there's marketing through his newsletter. We had a 30% off box set promo and it was only on Kobo. And so we sent out a note to the the newsletter subscribers in instead of just targeting Kobo people. We did send it to everyone just to let them know. But then we also included links to all the other retailers. Now we had am, we had like the main ones, so we had like Amazon and Apple and nook there and then we had the universal book link for all other retailers and it was amazing how many sales we got on all the other retailers for a Kobo specific promo.

Mark (29m 21s):
So you know if, if, if you're, if you've got some promo on, on Amazon for example in the book's available other places too, but maybe it's not part of a promo feature, just be inclusive. Include those links. Like you said, they may go, Oh, I didn't know this book was on Apple or Kobo or whatever. Nick click on it. It never hurts right, to, to have that available. No,

Jesper (29m 42s):
as long as you do it in with, with, you know, you're keeping your, your recipient of the email in mind that you don't spend them every three weeks to try to push more sales. But as long as you, you, you, you keep them in mind and you don't doing it. I mean, that's why I like adding it to the end of the email often because then it's not, it's not the topic of the email, it's just they had the bomb if in, in a bit of a smaller fund as well. So it's just there some of them like Florida. Um, and that, that works quite well, I think.

Jesper (30m 12s):
Yeah. I like, I like that approach. Yeah,

Mark (30m 16s):
I do like that approach. I think that that works a lot better. You're making sure they're aware of something, but you're not jamming it down their throats.

Jesper (30m 23s):
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Okay, cool. Mark I think we've covered a lot of useful ground here. Is there anything else we should mention before we round off?

Mark (30m 32s):
I just think, uh, if, if you can stand the sound of my voice and you enjoy hearing my thoughts on publishing and writing, I do have a podcast of my own. It's a weekly podcast called starkreflections on writing and publishing and folks can check it out at starkreflections dot. CA. I, I kind of share my thoughts on, you know, 30 years in the industry and all the things I'm continuing to learn every single day.

Jesper (30m 56s):
Excellent. Yeah, I, I have listened to it and myself as well, so I can recommend going and checking it out. So thanks a lot for, for what you're doing. Thank you for showing up on my amwritingfantasy Mark that's great. Thanks. Jesper it's been, it's been amazing.

The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 26 – Leaving MailChimp? Try this email marketing provider instead!

MailChimp's recent pivot from an email marketing provider to a full-service marketing platform left many authors in the dust. Including us!

We jumped ship and we have some key tips to help you move on... and preferably move up to something that will make organizing your email list and newsletter life in ways you never dreamed were possible.

Check out David Gaughran's article on MailChimp's changes here.

You can check out Convertkit HERE and the migration form HERE.

Join us on Facebook!

New videos EVERY single Monday. Make sure to subscribe: http://bit.ly/1WIwIVC

PATREON!
Many bonus perks for those who become a patron of the channel. https://www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy

LET'S CONNECT!
Closed Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/AmWritingFantasy/
Blog and Courses: https://www.amwritingfantasy.com/
Podcast: http://podcast.amwritingfantasy.com/
Jesper on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SchmidtJesper
Autumn on Twitter: https://twitter.com/weifarer

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

Autumn (1s):
What the heck is going on with MailChimp. I've used it for years and it was slowly becoming more lost each time I logged in and it wasn't because I've crossed some invisible age threshold where software no longer made sense. I've never seen a company make a platform more difficult to navigate and use of every update so horribly. I treaded logging in this situation was unsustainable, not if I actually wanted to do you know, do business with a man and mailing list, but yes for and I had a plan.

Autumn (38s):
If you're a fantasy author, then you've come to the right place. My name is Autumn and together with Jesper we've published more than 20 novels. Our aim is to use our experience to help you writing marketing and selling books to fans all over the world. It started with little things like when I clicked on a campaign in MailChimp, the default action directed it to the stats instead of edits like it used to. I can't tell you how many times I groaned as I needed to back up, hit the dropdown menu to say I wanted to edit an automation sequence.

Autumn (1m 12s):
Instead of seeing, you know, the stats, years of doing things one way or so difficult to unlearn. Then my list disappeared and changed to audiences. It took two or three steps to burrow into the menu to find my formerly easily located lists and subscribers and the from there to go to items like subscription forms and emails. I was sorta like, what the fuck. But then I took a deep breath. I really don't rattle easily. I'm waking Lee adaptable. But then it got even worse.

Autumn (1m 43s):
My campaign menu's changed. Instead of seeing all the automations or recently sent email blasts, I could only see the ones that related to the audience I was currently viewing. So if I was working with a list for books in one Shondra, uh, wanted to see if I had email, I'd sent to a list that came in through like a giveaway. The search turned up, nothing, not a notice. There was a campaign like that attached to a different list. But thing. It was full panic mode a couple of times as surge just came up empty, like my entire history of emails had been erased.

Old McGrumpy (2m 21s):
Only worthless. Humans can mess up the beauty of code.

Autumn (2m 26s):
Oh hi or would make grubby. I should have guessed that our AI Cohoes you would take that view. Do I need to remind you that worthless humans invented computer code and some of it is all that beautiful,

Old McGrumpy (2m 39s):
but computers will perfect what you've begun

Autumn (2m 43s):
perhaps, but the last time I checked, there's still a lot of work to do now. Why don't you go chase down some redundant, outdated code of your own before you call humans too complicated.

Old McGrumpy (2m 54s):
I don't have time for this.

Autumn (2m 57s):
Where were we? Oh, right. MailChimp is the mailing list platform I've used since I first created an account as a new author. I recommended it to the writing courses I teach. At least I did until I didn't. I already didn't use about half of the platform because it was more than I needed to send newsletters out and organize a book launch or launch teams as MailChimp pivoted towards a new business model of a full service marketing platform and it left me in the dust. I don't use over half the platform normally, but when they transitioned to something entirely new where I wouldn't use over 80% of it but needed to pay for, well 100% I can only be happy that we jumped ship when we did, which was a full month before the new changes in pricing tiers.

Autumn (3m 44s):
I won't go into what MailChimp has been doing, but we'll billing to a very detailed article by David Koch ran in the show notes. That article is a great discussion in itself, which we've been doing in the amwritingfantasy closed Facebook group. We'd love to have you join us there and add your thoughts. The link is in the show notes. Yes. For night jumped out of MailChimp before getting out needed to happen ASAP and our account costs would have at least doubled if not tripled or more.

Autumn (4m 15s):
Part of the reason why we loved was I was tired of being frustrated with figuring out the platform when I just wanted to create a newsletter or just simply check the wording of it. Automation, a two minute task became 15 minutes Odyssey of frustration. Honestly, about a year ago I moved my reader lists out of MailChimp's to Miller Lite. Then Yesper and I decided this winter to move our author list to convert kit where he hosts his reader account. Don't get me wrong, I like Miller Lite.

Autumn (4m 46s):
It works fine for the reader newsletters, but convert kit is awesome. It is a whole level of organization and simplicity. I hadn't even known existed with mailing lists. If you have some pretty sophisticated automations, ConvertKit will not let you down. In fact, it will make your newsletter life upright so smooth that you'll be able to take the time to figure out any kinks in the flow and to get it all working better. One of my favorite things is we didn't have to do all the heavy lifting. If you have more than 5,000 subscribers, ConvertKit will migrate you to their platform for free.

Autumn (5m 20s):
You get a personal team who will work with you to translate what you used to do and to how it works in covid kit and give you the tour. Before handing over the keys. Our team was fantastic and asked lots of clarifying questions, which always boosts my confidence that they care and are taking their task seriously. Part of the process is completing a month migration form, which at first I felt so daunting. They wanted me to organize the chaos. I'd created a MailChimp.

Autumn (5m 51s):
Oh my gosh. I'll link to the migration forum too, but there are some key was of information you'll need. You'll of course near the main website you use the signup forms on, but if you are like us and have a few different sites, that isn't a problem. There is a spot for those too. You need your subscriber count, but approximate is fine, which is good because if you have duplicate emails you might not have as many subscribers as you think you do. You also need a list of all your subscriber forms in a very specific way.

Autumn (6m 21s):
That is one the URL, the optin to any thank you attached. Page three any lead magnet or freebie attached and for which list groups opt. It needs to view attitude. For me, that could look a little bit like this one, a photo link at this plebiscite to know thank you. Page three, PDF download, pound up this website and four goes to a free booklet. Not that bad except you need to do it for all of your opt-ins. I think it was at this point I realized I needed to do this exercise at a document and then copy and paste to the migration forum.

Autumn (6m 55s):
ConvertKit also leaves an entire section for you to type in anything odd or unique about your list or list management. For me, I listed the my website themes because I have one that wants stripped code in order to create a special pop-up signup form. They handle that. No problem. Next you need to know the name of your list tags and or groups that need to be moved. That makes sense. Especially for us, since I had some author lists and some Reno lettuce and well not everything was going to be in the same spot when it was all said and done.

Autumn (7m 27s):
The next really big piece of info you need is your automations and know how they are connected with lists sort of the whole way the puzzle fits together. They get written down like this. The arc reader onboard automation connects to the ArcSight of form and the arc reader list. There's also a place to list any integrations you use Zapier or a membership plugin as well as your timeline and any extra info you need to share after that you need to actually give a ConvertKit access to everything from MailChimp to your website, plugins and such because they actually go in and do all the switching for you.

Autumn (8m 3s):
I can't even begin to tell you how fantastic that was because I gave them some crazy long answers to all the above questions and they did it all and checked in to be sure they were moving it right and they do it in a very thoughtful way. The migration form has some fun examples and phrasing to take the, Oh my gosh, you need to meet to actually be organized and explain this to you. Pain out of the ordeal. Oh, and they give you a free tee shirt, which is kind of awesome too.

Autumn (8m 33s):
What about that MailChimp account you'll be leaving behind? You may still have subscribers coming through the old legs. Do you want to have them find a blank page? I didn't. So I figured out a few alternatives. One thing you can do is scrub all your list once you have them safely downloaded and then request MailChimp revert your account to free as long as you haven't done that before and now have less than 2000 subscribers if you have all is not lost. Another option is to pause your account. This is an option that's under your settings.

Autumn (9m 4s):
Hey, wait, wait, wait. Down at the bottom. Once your account is pause, you would not be billed and you cannot send whoever people could still sign up and so if they come in through an old link and then you can download that new site up and upload it to your new platform plow, you can view all of your account information like lists, campaigns and automations. It is actually a really great feature. Nothing's lost. You can still refer to it. I'd recommend that if you do pause the account though to change all of your subscription forms to say right there that the subscriber landed on an old link and a signup will not result in getting whatever it is they think they're signing up for, but not to worry and to follow the link provided to the correct sign-up spot.

Autumn (9m 47s):
Yeah, might use it through a few people through the jumble of link clicking, but you will have a better success rate than if a potential subscriber hits a dead link. If your questions are to ConvertKit migration and what is going on at MailChimp or some steps you can take, let us know in the show notes in the comments below. And if you're running an author newsletter, check out this video on using your email list to sell books for some tips. Stay safe out there and see your next Monday.

 

The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 25 – Keep Your Writing On Track With This Outline

Don't you hate it when you have a fabulous idea, the writing flows well, and then when you hit edits you release your favorite bit has NOTHING to do with the novel plot?

Keep your writing on track so you don't waste writing time OR inspiration with this very quick outlining method, which is nearly painless, even for pantsers!

And don't forget to check out the FREE Starter Kit writing course for more great tips on writing HERE!

The link to check out average word counts in your genre is at HERE.

And pick up a graph of a traditional story arc HERE or watch the video of today's episode HERE. The link to the video on the 7 Steps of Story Structure is HERE.

New videos EVERY single Monday. Make sure to subscribe: http://bit.ly/1WIwIVC

PATREON!
Many bonus perks for those who become a patron of the channel. https://www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy

LET'S CONNECT!
Closed Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/AmWritingFantasy/
Blog and Courses: https://www.amwritingfantasy.com/
Podcast: http://podcast.amwritingfantasy.com/
Jesper on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SchmidtJesper
Autumn on Twitter: https://twitter.com/weifarer

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

Autumn (0s):
Have you ever been writing a fantastic scene full of tension and tripping with emotional nuances? The scene is the best thing you've written and spent hours, if not days on it, only to realize in a late moment of clarity that it has absolutely nothing to do with the plot of the novel. It hurts so much to hit the lead on all that work, but what if there was a way to ensure you're wasting your inspiration and writing time on stuff you'll cut later?

Autumn (34s):
If you're a fantasy author, then you've come to the right place. My name is autumn and together with Yesper we've written and published more than 20 novels. Our aim is to use our experience to help you with writing marketing and selling books to fans all over the world. A quick note to those listening in on the podcast. There are a couple of graphics that I'll link to in the show notes at the bottom of the page, but for the full effect, I'd recommend watching the video.

Autumn (1m 4s):
Most writing pitfalls aren't genre specific and effect all authors. These are the big ones, Lang like landmines at a field of wild flowers. You think everything is going along just beautifully until boom and one of the big ones is figuring out what should go where as you write or if what you are writing even belongs in the novel. You know what I'm hinting at that dirty P word plotting

Old McGrumpy (1m 30s):
but readers like character driven stories.

Autumn (1m 34s):
Oh, hello. Old bit grumpy. I knew I couldn't escape an entire video without you making an appearance as are mostly unwanted AI cohost. That is true. We just love character driven stories and that is one reason many writers shy away from spending time on plotting

Old McGrumpy (1m 52s):
so you shouldn't plot.

Autumn (1m 54s):
I wouldn't say that many writers prefer to pants rather than plot. I'm a hybrid that is probably is a bit more on the side of my pants or that applaud. Or always tended to jump into a fire before I assessed everything. Anything

Old McGrumpy (2m 8s):
but this video is about plotting and you've said you are a pantser Fuman are confusing in like superior. I

Autumn (2m 16s):
actually, the video is about creating an outline. I'd make one to keep myself out of trouble. Well, as much reading trouble as possible, at least.

Old McGrumpy (2m 25s):
What is the difference? Plotting is plotting

Autumn (2m 28s):
well because I don't want to plot much. I developed a method of creating an ultra quick outline that takes about half an hour and will guide my process as I write without feeling like I just wasted a week that I could have been writing the darn thing instead of a figuring out how to write the darn thing. That is why this is an applauding video. My a grumpy we'll see despite my grumpies disbelief up bed, a flooding is a lifesaver. The first writing course I taught was called right great faster and I use the slogan, it doesn't matter how fast you type, if you just end up deleting the page anyway, so much writing help is centered on typing fast or like you're only writing.

Autumn (3m 12s):
Problem is time, but we all know ideas seem to disappear like vampires at sunrise. When you finally sit down to write or wasn't. That inspiration strikes. It can lead you astray as much as actually help you write. Writing is complicated. I don't care how fast you type, if you don't know what you're writing is actually important to the novel, you are just wasting writing time with 15 books out and a bout release number 16 while beginning my fourth and fifth series.

Autumn (3m 42s):
I firmly believe in protecting and making the most of my writing time as well as keeping it on track. I'm serious about this which is why I teach writing tips and started with a course on how to write great novels faster because the world needs more fantastic fantasy and no writer. She'd get lost in the weeds. In fact, if you are looking for more key tips on how to rate especially start off writing and steps and make sure you succeed in actually finishing your work in progress, make sure to check out the free starter kit.

Autumn (4m 15s):
The link is under the video. It will help you refine your idea, avoid novice pitfalls and give you some great tools. That is how serious I am about making sure writers don't fail right now we are talking about an outline though. One that is simple, doesn't take days, how you can finish it and under a half an hour does half an hour investment saw logo worth keeping your writing focused and moving? Good. So let's get started.

Autumn (4m 45s):
Start by looking at your own writing. How many words do you typically type in a chapter? Hopefully you've done enough writing to be able to create an average word count. If not, check out a book you've read that you liked the flow of and give an estimate on the new words per chapter. Remembering that the average paperback has 250 to 300 words per page. Got that? Good. Now we need to find out what is the average word count is in your genre. There are lots of resources out there for this. I'll include a link to in the notes below this episode to a great blog post with some solid numbers by sub genre and it's a good reference, but it's getting old word counts for indie authors are actually coming down.

Autumn (5m 27s):
The important thing is to decide what your writing, such as a short story, a novella, a novel, and how long you'd like it to be. Don't take your target word count and divided by your average chapter like Presto. You have your target number of chapters. Why is that useful? Glad you asked. Well, if you take the typical graph of a story like the traditional story arc, which looks like this, a traditional story arc starts out with a pretty flat tension until you hit the inciting incident, then there's explosive tension growth towards the climax, but it isn't linear.

Autumn (6m 6s):
The tension goes up and down a bit as you toy with your reader and character as well. Um, but as the character goes through a few stages and some hurdles in laws, then there is a sweeping bell curve of the climax before it drops to a gentle wrap up. That's a nice little flat tail. What tension is lower than the climax, but higher than the intro? Pretty cool, huh? With the calculation you just did, you can add your chapters to the graph. Now you have an idea of where your inciting incident should fall, when you should be adding in hurdles, in laws and when the climax begins and you won't forget to do a wrap up.

Autumn (6m 45s):
Now if you follow the seven steps of story structure, which was covered in this video, you can also add in the steps remembering that the inciting incident, an idea dark night of the soul is usually a chapter. Each intro and wrap up are usually one to three chapters. The climax should be at least as long as the longest phase and your novel, either the reaction of the planning phase, which those don't have to be the same length and again, Presto, you have a rough outline.

Autumn (7m 16s):
I do this. Everything I write now even short stories. My next release at the end of June is a novella that I targeted for 35,000 words. I typically write 2,500 words in a chapter and that works out to 14 chapters. Guess what? Guess how many lungs by novella is 14 this really works better than that. I knew that chapter's wanted to would be my intro. As you can see from my quick outline, the inciting incident needed to happen by the end of chapter two chapter three to seven would be the reaction phase while new info would occur in chapter seven.

Autumn (7m 50s):
This would lead to the reaction phase from chapters eight and 11 with a climax spanning 12 to 14 and it really quick wrap up at the end of 14 that is all I put together before writing. Yes, we're, I know we'll have a small a panic attack when he sees this, but it is all I need and honestly I have the entire serious planet out this way. Oh, but there is a bit more to a series including this video. Could that be a hit of something coming in the future? This outline leaves room for inspiration, but it keeps going in the right direction so I don't end up wasting a week's worth of writing, which means I'm writing a new book, my new book that much faster and I know I'm hitting all the key plot points and that is the goal, isn't it?

Autumn (8m 34s):
Don't forget to watch the video on the seven steps of story structure to really develop your quick outline and create a solid guide that we'll get your writing. Well, prick novels faster. Stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 24 – Get rid of BORING chapters once and for all

Do you know the feeling of reading a book which really does have an engaging plot, yet each chapter just feels a bit... boring?

We share our 5 steps which every chapter should contain. Learn how to write your chapters in such a fashion that they keep the stakes high and the tension going. These 5 steps will get rid of boring chapters once and for all.

Grab our FREE writing course: https://www.amwritingfantasy.com/product/ultimate-fantasy-writers-starter-kit-short-course/  

Here's a link to the book (now also available as audio book), "How to write a fantasy book description": https://www.jesperschmidt.com/books/how-to-write-a-fantasy-book-description/ 

New episodes EVERY single Monday.

To subscribe on YouTube, go here: http://bit.ly/1WIwIVC 

PATREON!

Many bonus perks for those who become a patrons. https://www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy 

LET'S CONNECT!

Closed Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/AmWritingFantasy/ 

Blog and Courses: https://www.amwritingfantasy.com/ 

Jesper on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SchmidtJesper 

Autumn on Twitter: https://twitter.com/weifarer 

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 (0s):
All right. Welcome to a amwritingfantasy and today we are going to talk a bit about chapter structure or maybe you want to call it seem structure. In this case we are talking about the same thing, but how do you create any gating chatter?

Autumn (21s):
If you're a fantasy author then you've come to the right place. My name is Autumn and together with Jesper we've published more than 20 novels. Our aim is to use our experience to help you writing marketing and selling books to fans all over the world. So we have of course a quick status update on how we're doing and we still have so many irons in the fire, but it is coming along well. First off is the world board building course and we're definitely making progress. I know. Yes, Paris would really busy recording and I'm still working on a few back end things.

Autumn (53s):
He's beating me this time.

Jesper (57s):
I'm pretty sure that was page because I have a like a humongous module coming up in the near future here, so I'm not going to be done very quickly with that. Let's see how it goes.

Autumn (1m 6s):
Yeah. At least a, a black or does, we're competitive. We're not super competitive with each other. We just keep each other going. And that's important. But, um, I think I'm going to beat you eventually on this, but I'm not that worried. I'll catch up.

Jesper (1m 19s):
Yeah, that's okay. I mean the, the, the, the, the model or you beat me, so just be very quick. It will be, we'll have it done, so that's good. Yeah. I don't think there's a reason to keep beating that one, but there's a lot of work like we've talked about before, so it was sort of still be enough work for at least to carry us into the fall and then we'll see you.

Autumn (1m 43s):
Absolutely. And there's still the backend, um, to build a website. So we'll get there eventually. And of course we have our books that we're working on the plotting book. Um, we have, uh, audio, audio release coming up, so we've done a lot of stuff going on.

Jesper (1m 60s):
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And actually, uh, in, in that way am today's topic, you is sort of coming from the book. Uh, I guess I could say because we have the, well in a, in a planning book, you, you saw a need a chapter about how to plot a chapter as well. So we have an actually in the book we have a five steps that we believe and feel should make up the chapter to make it a good chapter. Uh, and basically what we thought to do here today was to give you those five steps and talk a bit about our thoughts on, on what those Facebook

Autumn (2m 39s):
Jane and why, why is building the way that it has. Absolutely. It kind of has a sneak peek at what is coming in, what we've been working on and a much bigger way than us just telling you, Hey, bill, he on a book. So I think we should definitely dive in with our five steps.

Jesper (2m 56s):
The first step is a, what we call a to go and buy character goal. We mean that in every chapter that character should have a goal on what it is that he or she wants to achieve. Because if there is no goal in the to, if there is also no momentum because we have no clue what the character's doing or why.

Autumn (3m 18s):
The interesting thing about this is you might be thinking as another, well what if my character doesn't find out through like halfway through the book or halfway through the chapter I should say what they want to, what is going to be the purpose of it? So how do you set up, you know, chapter where the character gets the important phone call, say halfway through, you know, it's not the first sentence. I think it's always nice to start with action, but what if that just doesn't work for this chapter because that doesn't always happen. So there's got to be a way to have a lead in like you still need to start with action.

Autumn (3m 51s):
You can have the character doing something else that's also important. This is like a sort of like a little mini story that happens before the really big reveal of what's going to happen to this chapter. So always make sure you start with some sort of purpose. Even if it's a smaller one. That way you get the action going and you don't leave a leader scratching their head going, please just let something happen right now. I'm so bored.

Jesper (4m 16s):
Yeah. And I think one of the points that we're making in the book about the character goal is the chapter doesn't really start until point number two, which we're going to come to in a second. So, so the coach goal is small, like you as the author needs to know what it is that the character wanted to see him. Because if you don't know that, it is very hard to convey to the readers will that, that this coach is trying to do this or that I may, maybe he or she is trying to uh, looking for, uh, an object or they are trying to find some information about something.

Jesper (4m 49s):
You know, it can be a ton of things. It could also be that they're trying to avoid getting physical or mentally harmed or, I dunno, it could be a ton of things. And it could also be, which we're going to go come back to it a bit later here, but could also be that the character starts out wanting one thing and then later in the chapter they want something else that could also be, but, but just the fact that you know what it is to care to once and what they are trying to achieve is what makes the difference. But the chapter itself in the way of thinking, what is actually happening doesn't really start until I'll point number two, which is the hook.

Autumn (5m 26s):
That's right. The hook is very important. This is what's going to keep the reader reading the next paragraph. So you think the hook, obviously when you write the first sentence of your novel, the first page, it's got to be a hook. It's got to grab the reader. Well, the bad news is every chapter should have at least a small kind of hook, the same type that draws them. You're in. So the reading the next sentence, the next sentence, the next sentence. So the first part of your chapter is always the hook. And that is where we talk about action. Or if it's dialogue, you know, the character walks into a new, they should walk into the middle of a conversation.

Autumn (6m 0s):
It's more engaging. If you're trying to figure out what's going on that you've already cut to the chase. And the important thing is you're not rehashing what just happened in the previous chapter. You know, hopefully the reader just read that they just flip to the page and the ones to start the next chapter. You don't want to start re sharing the same information unless there's a huge point of view, change, a huge time gap, something like that. Otherwise get right into it. The probably key words, she is his curiosity.

Autumn (6m 31s):
Uh, and by that I mean that if you can sort of wake a curiosity in the reader about that, they want to know, okay, this, this seems interesting, what's going on and what's going to happen. So, so if you can achieve that with your hook, uh, then you're definitely on the right path. Definitely. I, that's am really the whole point of the novel. It's, it's so the reader is so invested in the character that they're going to read anything cause they love it, which might not happen. It might. Hopefully it does. Curiosity is what you want to use to draw them in.

Autumn (7m 2s):
So that's really important in the earlier chapters of the novel. But with any chapter, if you want them to do, if you want to write a page Turner, if you want to write something that someone said, I stayed up till 5:00 AM even though I go to work at seven because I couldn't put it down. That's really the key, is keeping them curious to find out what happens next. And so that is how you develop your hook. And again, you should start it with action, with dialogue, with something going on, even if it's not the immediate point of the chapter, not the immediate goal of the character, but just so something is moving and happening and engaging.

Autumn (7m 37s):
All right. And uh, then Arthur the the hook. Then we have conflict and dilemma, which is our step number three. And of course now we've sort of caught the reader's attention and they, they, uh, hooked on what's gonna happen. And, and I don't know, maybe, maybe it also depends on how you look at it, but at least for me, even though it's fantasy and sometimes at least from a classic fantasy of you manufacture, she books reach a bit slow and a bit like, ah, okay, OK, that then we need to hear about the forest.

Autumn (8m 15s):
And then there was those types over there. It gets described in painful detail and so forth, which are for us, but, but the, the five punch structure that we have built here is more or less sort of almost like a thriller patient, you know, if we want this sort of twist or turn the pages and I want to see what's happened next, even though it's a fantasy novel, I see absolutely no reason why it shouldn't be a page Turner and that you really want to flip the wind and see what happens. So, so when we then get into conflict or dilemma, that's where we tried to build up the tension.

Autumn (8m 47s):
Absolutely. And that could be of course action. And I agree. I mean fantasy I think there are fight scenes, but there's no reason this is not something that you're just like whipping through. I love it when I hear like a reader went through 500 pages overnight. I mean that's just maybe only torturing people, but so actually that's obviously the first thing when you think of with, uh, something that's conflicted dilemma. So, you know, there could be sword fighting, there could be chasing means. There could be any of that. The character might not be in a life and death situation situation, but something should be happening.

Autumn (9m 21s):
So your hook has built to this much higher point where it's no longer curiosity but like, Oh my goodness, what's happening? But that's not the only type of conflict we're talking about here.

Jesper (9m 33s):
No, well, the thing is with, with conflict is that, um, there was a bit of cheating going on that we need to be mindful about us. S S the writer, uh, that we, that we don't cheat. And what, I mean that sounded a bit cryptic, but what I meant, what I mean by that is basically so you could say, okay, how do I make tension? Okay, I'll have something blow up. Or a dragon just appeared and then put the timer on fire. We just talked about game of Thrones before recording. Yes. And that's why that template came up into my mind.

Jesper (10m 4s):
But maybe attract, we just showed up and burnt the entire city down or something, you know? Well that's, that's all well and good. And of course that is tension. Uh, I mean something is happening, but the, the caveat here is that it's cheating because the tension and the co, the conflict and dilemma you need to build has to be built on basis of the character goal. So it has to be something that stands in the way of the character reaching their goal. Because only then is it a true conflict and dilemma for the character in the scene.

Jesper (10m 37s):
It's fine to, somebody attacked the city over there and that's very exciting. And of course that's, well a bit worrying. But if this character is not even going there and you're supposed to do something completely different over there and stuff, uh, in the, in the opposite direction, that wealth, maybe if he's a good hearted person who will probably be a bit worried about those people over there, but it doesn't stop the character in achieving her goal. And if it doesn't, then it's not a conflict and it's not a dilemma.

Autumn (11m 7s):
Exactly. That is really the point. So the driving does show up. It's got to stop the character from reaching the next step that is going to be moving the whole plot of the movie forward, or at least showing something really important to this novel. It can't just be something from left field that causes them to completely lose the goal unless of course the character, the chapter goal does change. Uh, that could be an interesting twist, but it has to be done on purpose, not just because you felt like draw writing in a dry again, which is really cool.

Autumn (11m 38s):
I met, but it can't be the only reason the dragon showed up.

Jesper (11m 43s):
We can always, always find a reason to put him in somewhere. Right? I mean, that's just, it has to be there. It's not the same without a dragon.

Autumn (11m 51s):
Absolutely. You can see where this is.

Jesper (11m 56s):
Yeah. All examples. I would recommend something to do with dragons that every, every single example I was gonna say. I think there's, yes, there's one in the am amwritingfantasy logo. So big surprise. Yeah, that's true. Okay. So I'm trying to, uh, put this a train wreck back on track here. So, so we have a character goal number one, the hook, number two, conflict and dilemma is number three. So there was that, the first three stepping stones to build a good chapter.

Jesper (12m 30s):
And then after conflict and dilemma number four, then we're going to get instant reaction and decision. And when we are talking about reaction and decision, it is incredibly easy for us as writers to sort of default into thinking, okay, so I've just put a conflict on and create a dilemma that standing in the way of the character's goal. So I guess the most obvious thing to do is that when I'm dealing with reaction and decision is that just that the character will find some way to deal with this conflict and dilemma that is now window way of achieving that goal, which is true.

Jesper (13m 12s):
And, and of course the character should be doing that in step number four, they should be thinking about how can I overcome this challenge that is now standing in my way? How can I find a new solution? But I think an element that is very often overlooked is that the character will also have an emotional reaction to what just happened. It's gonna frustrate them or make them sad or I don't know, but, but it's going to generate some sort of emotional reaction within the character and I, and it's so easy to sort of forget about that in, in, in writing about how, Oh, then he makes this new plan and he just going to do this and that, blah, blah, blah.

Jesper (13m 51s):
It's that emotional impact is very, very, very important because it also shows characterization to the Rebbe and they understand where the character's coming from. And they get a deeper feeling for the character. But all that said, I also have to say, on the other hand, you need to be careful not to overdoing that emotional reaction because if you do to counter can sort of end up, let's say he's sad about what happened or something he can get, he can come across like that. He sort of feeling sorry for himself, which if you do that just like twice in the novel, I pretty sure the reader will think that.

Jesper (14m 28s):
Well he said what's, I don't want to read about him, give them the emotional impact but, but sort of co pack it into all the other stuff that is happening and just sort of added a bit without going too much into detail about how sad he is about this and that. And then I wanted to remind him of how he lost his father when he was five years old and blah, blah, blah. You know? Yeah. That's not gonna work, but I think that's why

Autumn (14m 52s):
I have all my female characters get angry. It was only gets in their way because they're all kind of fire recharged. Take on. So that was the other thing, just because you have, you want to include that emotional reaction, cause I agreed this is, this is what will make the reader start really relating and caring because maybe they've never had a dragon land in front of them that really pissed them off, but they had something that stopped them and got in their way and they wanted to get around it through it, over it. They understand that emotion and so this is how you get the reader to relate to the character.

Autumn (15m 24s):
But again, don't go over the top. You don't want to have drama, drama Queens, you know, stubbing their toe in crying a river. This is not the type of emotional reaction, but anger something there that they also have to deal with as well as getting through the dilemma, making a decision and deciding how they're going to conquer and achieve their goal despite this big setback. So you can tell this has gone from, you know, a hook that gets them reading curiously to achieve this goal. Something that happens, a conflict, which is exciting.

Autumn (15m 56s):
It's enchanting up. The tension we've gone to now reaction, which is more emotional as well as maybe mental, maybe physical, maybe they have to solve an actual problem, but it's kind of really getting inside the car. The reader is like starting to really just like get excited as well as feel this. These are all really good things that you want to see happening. Cause that all leads up to step five.

Jesper (16m 19s):
Yeah. And now we have the disaster. So, so in, in um, in step four we put emphasis on showing that the coach is pro active because that then that sort of leads them into to the disaster, which is our step number five. Maybe coming back to the thriller, a example here, you know, that ending the chapters with cliffhangers is a really, really good thing. You know, something is that it does not mean that you have to end chapters with the, again, things growing up or dragging this a PSI of know where every, you know, all that stuff.

Jesper (16m 53s):
It doesn't have to be that. It can also just be that a very interesting question is, or print, you know, something is now all of a sudden in doubt that, well, okay, I thought this guy was doing a, but maybe he is not doing a maybe yes, an ulterior motive or something. You know that there can be many subtle ways to do a cliffhanger where the reader, it's just ending up in a situation where they think what's going to happen now because that's where we want to leave them at the end of the chapter. So they uh, I bet like at 10 o'clock in the evening and actually they want to go to sleep, but you are going to rub them up.

Jesper (17m 30s):
They're sleeping too because they're gonna say, ah, just one more chapter and that's where we want them.

Autumn (17m 34s):
That is, we are going to just draw them until the end of the next chapter. They're going to keep going. But this is definitely, it doesn't always have to be a life and death peril, but that isn't awesome. Cliffhanger where you want to flip the patients. He has a character survives but they could come up with new information which is always interesting or find out something was betrayed or just something else that they weren't really expecting. And then you have the character reacting. You want to know how they're gonna deal with it. You can have that asking a big question or trying to find the results to something.

Autumn (18m 5s):
And the answer again is the next chapter and you just of want to split it so that they have to find out what happens next to turn the page. So now just like every chapter is going to have a hook just like the beginning of the book, well every chapter is also going to have a little bit of an ending that makes you want to turn the page, makes the reader wants in the page. I always say and the chapter was as much enthusiasm that you want to keep writing the next chapter that's going to be what it's going to draw the reader into. Wanting to at least go to the next sentence, which is going to make them curious cause it's going to be a hook.

Autumn (18m 37s):
You got to start the cycle all over again and the next thing they know it is five in the morning and they haven't slept away, but they finished your book and hopefully will really re hopefully leave a really good review.

Jesper (18m 49s):
Yeah, yeah. But, but that's, that's the neat thing with these five steps is that one sort of leads to the other and once you get to number five, your disaster is automatically going to give you the next character go. So now this happened and now there's a new goal because the character then that wants to achieve something and you can sort of repeat the whole cycle again and you sort of repeat those cycles throughout. Right. And every time to build some on the one that came before it and you just am yeah, you go go like that. Uh, I would say though that these this was sort of the breakdown at the chapter level in the how to plot a level book that we're going to release later this year.

Jesper (19m 26s):
There is like whole sections of that that sort of breaks down the entire novel into some pillows. There were different things needs to happen. These five steps might, might sound sort of like a very am organic pants away of writing, you know? Okay. So I'll just take those five step running through and the next after the next step, the next step for them. So forth. And then I have a level, but I'm just putting that caveat out there because there's actually a lot more planning behind the scenes here on in terms of building up the structure that these that these chapters sits inside.

Jesper (19m 58s):
Uh, but that's the way too much detail to get into here now. But at least on a, on a chapter level, if you are finding it challenging to write chapters or scenes that feels engaging and feels exciting and then try out these five steps. So step number one, character goal. Step number two of the hook. Step number three, conflict or dilemma. Step number four, we action and decision. And step number five, the disaster. And I can almost guarantee you just putting these five steps into your mind and thinking about them.

Jesper (20m 29s):
We'll generate a better chapter.

Autumn (20m 32s):
It will. You will find that it'll help the pace of your novel, the reading and yes, there's a lot more to an entire novel than this, but this is a great way of setting up a chapter so that you create that engaging feeling that you draw the reader in and they keep reading and they don't put it down. This is a good

Jesper (20m 48s):
stepping stone that'll get you started and it'll get you, even if it's a small chapter in more of an intro versus the climax, which obviously this is going to be easy to use, the climax, it'll get you going with every chapter. They keep just a little bit more engaging and that'll really help you along. Exactly. Maybe we should mention because at the point of recording this, the am that plotting book is not edited yet. It's not out yet. But uh, if you think that you might be interested in it, then I would go on to amwritingfantasy.com and just sign up for you.

Jesper (21m 25s):
You can download one of our freebies that are on the page there. Or if you go to the blog section, there's also a am assign a place there where you, where you can put in your email address. But I mentioned that just because if you do give us your email address by one of those sign up forms, you will be on our list and you will automatically get notified at the appointed time when released the books on them. Then you can pick it up. So if you're worried about getting about it by the time that it comes out, because it will be several months from now, sign up for the email list by our amwritingfantasy outcome and we will let you know at least the good point is it's written where does editing it.

Jesper (22m 3s):
So I'm pretty much all the way there. We'll get there very soon and I think if we wanted to, we could probably push it out in a month or so, but that, but the one thing just like the small thing that there is about it is that we want to include an example outline as well show from start to finish. What does it look like when you apply all the sort of the chief things that are in this step by step guide. We wanted them to apply that on our first book, one in our new series so that you can basically download the plot and see what it looks like with all data, sort of the mechanical S behind the scenes flooding structure in place, um, to use as inspiration, but also to sort of deepen the learning experience.

Jesper (22m 45s):
Uh, but we're not gonna develop that plot until our work. The thing is done and as I've just said in the beginning of the video, that will be built on dumb until the fall, I think. So that also means that it's several months away before we, we'll start promoting the book, which means that we had finished the book and release it until that is done. So yeah, essentially the book is done, but it's not gonna be released anytime soon unless we figure out time travel. But yeah, probably it's going to be working on definitely pretty Bob.

Jesper (23m 17s):
We'll get it. That's another conversation. All right. So anything else we need to share with them? No, I think we are all set. So good luck with your plotting. Leave comments to let us know how your chapters are going. We want to hear if this helped you. Excellent. See you next Monday. Bye bye.

The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 23 – Can I increase the price of my eBook?

The pricing of eBooks is an ongoing conversation among authors that might never reach a conclusion.

Some say that a low price devaluate the books, whereas others swear that a eBooks should be cheap because of the online distribution mechanism.

I had a talk with Joseph Malik, who didn't just succeed in making his first novel, Dragon's Trail, a Kindle Top 100 Bestseller in four countries, but also decided to increase his prices to $9,99.

Learn what effect this pricing strategy has on his book sales and associated revenue.

You can find Joseph here: http://www.josephmalik.com/ 

New episodes EVERY single Monday.

To subscribe on YouTube, go here: http://bit.ly/1WIwIVC 

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Many bonus perks for those who become a patrons. https://www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy 

LET'S CONNECT!

Closed Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/AmWritingFantasy/ 

Blog and Courses: https://www.amwritingfantasy.com/ 

Jesper on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SchmidtJesper 

Autumn on Twitter: https://twitter.com/weifarer 

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 (0s):
If you were at a fantasy author, you've come to the right place. My name is Jesper and uh, together with autumn we published more than 20 books. And our aim here is to use our experience to help you in publishing, marketing and selling books have fans all over the world. So today we are going to talk a bit about one of these topics and that is especially around how you should price your ebook.

Jesper (31s):
All right, man, for the first time, actually, I think we have a returning guest here on am amwritingfantasy and I'm talking to Joseph today to help me. So Joseph what have you been up to since last time we talked?

Joseph (43s):
Hey, thanks. Jesper I don't think we've talked since I released my sequel, which would've been in September, late September of last year. I released my second book. Uh, the new magic.

Jesper (56s):
Yeah, because I think last time we talked, you only have the first ebook I wasn't there, so that's right. Yeah, yeah.

Joseph (1m 2s):
If I were talking about sales last time and um, yeah, so that we did, we did that. That's second books are hard I think in a trilogy. So it hasn't done as well as we had expected. But there are some, some very strange things happening with the numbers that we haven't got figured out yet. And we recently learned that it was very heavily pirated right at the beginning. Um, writing launch it launched into the top 50, uh, Evan fantasy new releases on Kindle and it got, uh, uh, mainstream backing and got mentioned in like Gizmodo, I think he would think of verge and some other pretty big websites.

Joseph (1m 45s):
And was it, did, it started off really great. And the good reads reviews are pretty strong and there's a tremendous number of them. But the Amazon reviews, there haven't been that many and we're not seeing a lot of sales. What we're seeing a lot more reviews and a much higher percentage of good reads reviews, then sales. Um, and we're seeing a lot of social media traffic as well, but not the sales to back it up. And then we recently found out that it was, uh, it was featured on a, uh, on a, on a pretty major piracy site.

Joseph (2m 16s):
That's since been taken down. So we're, we're kind of recovering from that. Ebook fairly sure. We are ripped off, so yeah, it happens.

Jesper (2m 26s):
Yeah. Unfortunately, yes, I do. It's just part of the author life at the, yeah.

Joseph (2m 30s):
It's just, it's, it's, it's fine. People are reading it and that's great. Yeah. Sorry. It is a second. Ebook and so it's been, you know, it's a lot darker. It's the second act. It's been getting very responses from people, but they chose a protagonist in a less than flattering light because in the second one, second ebook can be Dennis to. Uh, no second act things start to go wrong for him, so that's fine. That's fine.

Jesper (2m 57s):
All right. Yeah. Well I hope it'll, it'll pick back up for you, but, but, uh, well I, I think one of the, what we wanted to get into here, it was a bit around the pricing because, and actually this is sort of a often debated topic and yet you don't want the community in general that are those who swear by that you should price your books cheap, uh, because it's an ebook and others are saying that you are insane if you do so because the books are much of a much higher value than maybe a dollar or $2 or whatever.

Jesper (3m 30s):
So that's sort of where we want to get into a bit here today. And you have some thoughts on this. I know Joseph

Joseph (3m 37s):
yeah, sounds great. So we'd first started off pricing my first book, dragons trail at two 99, I think when it first released back in 2016 and it did fairly well. And um, uh, two 99 and then it got like a couple of book clubs at 99 cents. Um, yeah, I've got an international and then, uh, and then a USB port ebook and after that, I think we raised the price to three 99 or four 99. And we found that there was, uh, no, there was no decrease in sales when we did that.

Joseph (4m 9s):
And then about a year later it had kept selling me. We had moved the price to five 99, I think we sold it five 99, all through 2018 and it just continued to sell really well at five 99. And then when we released the second book, when we released the new magic, we did a, we had one more 99 cent promotion with the new magic. And I forget who we did it through, but it was, I don't remember who did it.

Joseph (4m 40s):
Anyway. Um, and after that we decided to go for broke and we raised the prices of both ebook into nine 99. We understood that if it, you know, if it didn't work, we could move her back to five 99 and just call it, you know, and, and, and just calling it a marketing exploration. But the damnedest thing happened, which is that after that spike from the 99 cent promotion came down, the sales actually went up at nine 99 over five 99 not by much, couple more books a day.

Joseph (5m 17s):
And overall the trend line has been higher at nine 99 then it wasn't five 99 and it's taken us all a lot. We've had to do a lot of market research to figure out how this is actually happening. But there were a lot of things going for these books the way that we did them that may not work for other indie authors, but it might work for some if they're following a particular business model. And I think we talked about this last time too. I'm a fan of fantasy that, um, that I'm not really doing this the way that everybody else is.

Joseph (5m 51s):
You know, I, my, my release cycle is about two years. You know, I put top dollar into cover and editing and, uh, you know, type setting and proofreading and everything. Um, and I try to put out books that are comparable and competitive with the books that the big five publishers are putting out. In fact, I just, I just did a book signing at a Barnes and noble at a fantasy convention a couple of months ago. And the Barnes and noble staff, we're looking at my hardcovers and asking who my company oxblood books they were asking who walks board books was an immigrant.

Joseph (6m 30s):
They thought that we were in front of a, of a big five publisher because they were turning the ebook over. They couldn't believe it. It wasn't something that was made cause they've got indie authors in there, you know, uh, doing signups from time to time I guess. And they would, I believe this is an independent Bookman Ross. Exactly the same. The only thing we don't have, we don't have like the metal stamped covering, you know, though that door, the embossed cover or what have you. Um, but it's, you know, were, so we're putting out really high quality product and we put a lot of money into the production value of it.

Joseph (7m 1s):
That's kind of a this start point with all of this. I think that there's an expectation of a certain level of value in craft at that $10 Mark. And something that's really interesting about that is that when we started really getting into it, cause I'd belonged to a million to a number of readers, forums and readers groups like on Facebook and stuff, I participate in these groups as a reader. And in a lot of these groups, they don't even know that I'm an author.

Joseph (7m 32s):
I never told him. I just, I mean they're just doing market research, you know, fantasy fans or what have you. And there is a, there's a readership out there that will not buy books under a certain price point. And they are absolutely adamant. They don't read Indi fantasy. They just don't, and I'm not saying that they're right for it, but it's, it's just really interesting. They, they, you know, we see this divide between indie authors and big five authors who missed it.

Joseph (8m 2s):
Used to be is getting fuzzier now. But there's definitely a divide out there between readers are independent fantasy and readers of big five fantasy and the people who buy, you know, fantasy by household name authors, uh, generally are not going to read a 99 cent fantasy or two 99 fantasy what have you. They don't. And I think to them the money is not as big of a deal as the time that it takes out of their day, you know?

Jesper (8m 31s):
No, yeah, yeah.

Joseph (8m 33s):
10 bucks. They care about how those four or five, six hours, you know, um, are going to be spent, are they going to enjoy that time? Because I think that there's a subset of people out there. In fact, I know there is because frankly I'm one of them and my, my time is worth more than 10 bucks an hour.

Jesper (8m 49s):
Yeah, absolutely. Well, of course we have to sort of, uh, let's say pay respect to the people of world who don't have much money to go by. But, but, but, but that said what I meant, what we did was that I just want to repeat one to preempt too. When I'm about to say so nobody could comes out before, but my point is just that whether we are selling a book for $1, $2, $5, $10 in my mind at least it is still the am chief for ebook. It'll just like $10 it's, it's two cups of coffee or something, you know, nothing that I have to sort of preempt preempted that.

Jesper (9m 24s):
I do understand that some people of the world don't have $10 to spend on the bookstore or respect for that. But, but just in general, at least I, I don't think that that price in itself should make much of a difference as to whether people wants to buy a program. But where I think it might make a difference is if you are first starting out and you are struggling with activity, getting your name out there, a price point of nine 99, I think we'll work counterproductive for you because it's going to be very, very hard to sell it. But if you already have a, a certain leadership, uh, following you, then yeah, then I can see it working because then you can push the ebook to current readers as well and it'll bump up the rankings on Amazon, et cetera.

Jesper (10m 4s):
And then Amazon will start promoting it for you, uh, mighty algorithm and so forth. And, and then it might sort of work.

Joseph (10m 10s):
Yes. And my first book sold spectacularly and we were very fortunate. It's got I think 120 I haven't looked in a while, 120 or something reviews on Amazon at this point. We've sold, I don't even know well over 10,000 copies. It's also got its received mainstream critical acclaim from, you know, publishers weekly and yeah, he said some big fantasy sites as well. And so it's got that kind of credit behind it. So we can, we can push it at nine 99 there's kind of, again, there's a sort of expectation behind it.

Jesper (10m 41s):
Did you have any sort of the feedback from your current readers? So when you raised a plat price to nine 99, was there any feedback or anybody complaining about it or anything?

Joseph (10m 50s):
No, I got one message on my, uh, on my website from somebody who had misunderstood something that I was saying about marketing earlier when I said I wasn't going to drop my prices again because he then saw it on an edit 99 cents sale. And I'm definitely going to keep doing that. I mean, if I get a BookBub for God's sake, I'm going to drop my price at nine 99. I propped up my price and 99 cents coming. This is kind of what you do. But, um, so another thing that has happened that's been really interesting about this is that we've seen our paperback orders go up since we pushed the price to nine 99.

Joseph (11m 27s):
We're now selling more paperbacks and we're selling, we're also selling hardcovers as well. And we're seeing, uh, we're seeing orders from bookstores, from independent bookstores. And I think that part of that, I think part of what's going on is that, I mean, I know that when I go into a bookstore, if there's a, if there's a book that I haven't seen before, uh, I'll, I'll look it up real fast, you know, just punch in my phone and look it up and see, uh, you know, and yeah, well look at reviews and see what the author is about and what have you.

Joseph (11m 57s):
And I think that when people do that, uh, and they see that the, when they see the bullying and then they see the reviews and then they see that it's, you know, it's nine 99 for an ebook, I mean, $7 more for the paperback. And it's not that big of a deal. But you spend 10 bucks for 10 bucks for a book, you're probably gonna spend, you know, 17. I mean, people, when people buy a book, you know, they're not, they're not just buying something to spend. When people buy an actual hardcover book, you're, look, you're buying a work of art that you can also interact with.

Joseph (12m 28s):
You know, that's what it comes down to us interact with a piece of art. Um, it's not just, it's not just a book, it's not just a story, you know? And so when you give them, again, give them that really nice cover and he gave them that, the beautiful typesetting and have your paper and everything for this, you know, I, I think it's I the thing in front of them. You know, people like books I love, I love having a book in front of me. And so I don't know, again, that's, that's kinda where I'm at with it. And you're talking about people who don't have a lot of money for books. And you know, I was grabbing earlier about having, you know, and we'd gotten pirated and for God's sake, if you can't afford one of my books, seriously, if you can't afford one, all books deaminate just message me.

Joseph (13m 10s):
I'll send you a book funnel link and I'll send you a copy of the book. I have no problem doing that. Just, you know, seriously. Just don't, don't pirate it. Just as let me know. Say, Hey man, I'm a student. Hey, I can't afford nine 99 for a ebook, you know, and yeah, more than happy to do that. I have no problem with that. Yeah, that's, that's, that's basically it. And there's no reason to steal anything for God's sake. And there's always gonna get pissed off then what books are, are, are, are expensive. I'm not trying to be exclusive, I'm not trying to cater to a specific crowd.

Joseph (13m 40s):
I just happen to think that, you know, the amount of work that I've put into the books, again, if it takes you, like you were saying earlier, yeah. I mean, if it takes you a tissue four or five hours to read a book, you know, I can, I can read a paper back in two, three hours, but again, for 10 bucks it comes out to $5 an hour, $3 an hour. You know, that's not, that's, that's, that's fabulous entertainment right there, man. I mean, that's, that's, that's a lot of time that you get for spending that money. And I don't mind buying books because again, for me, that's, that's, that's money. Well spent as a good use of my time. And so, and I, I think same thing, it takes me two years to write a book and there's, there's a lot of time and a lot of effort involved in that and I kind of want to recoup that, you know?

Joseph (14m 21s):
I mean,

Jesper (14m 21s):
yeah. So, so when, when you were raised your pricing from nine 99 compared to to what you have had before, how long ago is that, you know, how, how much, how much data do you have sort of two to deem that it's actually been successful to erase the price?

Joseph (14m 37s):
I've got about, I think it was about three months ago.

Jesper (14m 39s):
Okay. So the last three months have been selling better than at the previous price point.

Joseph (14m 45s):
It's fallen back to about almost exactly where it was at the previous price point. Am

Jesper (14m 51s):
right. But wise it gives

Joseph (14m 52s):
more than new wise. It's fantastic. Revenue wise, it's much better. Yeah. At nine 99 I mean, you're making, making $7 a ebook. Yeah. No, I mean if you're selling, you sell five books a day at that, you know, with two books out, you sell them, sell five books just on Amazon. Even all my numbers look like on the other ones you have to just do it there. There's some of them are net 60 so I haven't got, I haven't got a trend line for, for the uh, for the other retailers.

Jesper (15m 19s):
No, no, no, no. Right. But it also gives you sort of, because you have that higher price point, it gives you a bigger margin that you can play with when it comes to a running apps and stuff because you wanted to spend a bit more and still make it profitable where those who sell it for two 99, you know, that's very tough. A marketing budget that you have to spend there.

Joseph (15m 41s):
AMS ads were one of the reasons that we considered going to nine 99. I'll wear the Amazon ads but they call it now, but they were, they were killing us and uh, and we're now able to compete at a completely different level. Two, I'm able to get conversions now, which is really weird. I mean we'll get conversions now on some of the top tier keywords out there at nine 99 people won't buy at the exact same ad. All I did was raise the price and, and the, the, the click through rate and the conversion rate on the on premium keywords is, is much better at nine 99.

Joseph (16m 17s):
Um, and again we're seeing this primarily for the first book in the series though, not for the second. And I think that's because it's got, you know, over a hundred reviews and it's gotten, you guys got that. It's got the blurbs from, from, from mainstream critics and what have you. So you're able to kind of able to play at that at that level. I think that that's the thing right there that if you want to be doing this, that's the thing, you need to be gunning for first. You know you need to be able to get that, to get that book out there that's going to, you should concentrate not on selling the book at 10 bucks put on on producing a book and getting it to the point where it can sustain itself at that.

Joseph (16m 56s):
I think that's, I think that's, that's, that's more the key than anything else and took him use it took almost three years to get, get the ebook to the Puerto Rican stay afloat at, at, at at this price point.

Jesper (17m 6s):
Yeah. That's what I would think as well. You know, if you could build a ebook episode that it has enough reviews on it, it's selling well, it sits well in the ranking and then you raise the price them, then I can see that it could work. Or as I said early on, if you already have a very established name and you have a big leadership or ready, then you can probably launch it that at that price as well. But, but yeah, unless you have those things in place, I think my advice to those of you watching and listening would be don't, don't start out by pricing your books and nine 99 thinking that that's the new one out in a lot of margin, which of course you will, but you will still love books.

Jesper (17m 43s):
So you're going to be start at zero.

Joseph (17m 45s):
Right. And, and again, you know, coming back to trying to say this, not getting in trouble with anybody, but coming back to what I see in, in these readers forums and looking at what, looking at what is expected from readers who buy books at 10 bucks a pop or more. Now you've got to really have your ducks in a row. And again, if you're somebody that they've never heard of, yeah. You really have to have, you've really got to have some kind of like some of the tips, I'm kind of like social proof behind it, right?

Joseph (18m 19s):
You've got to have, so yeah, I don't know. This is what we've been doing lately and it seems to be working, you know, fairly well and you don't remember, rankings aren't great. I mean, I'm hovering probably around anywhere between 50 and a hundred thousand on the Amazon rankings. And sometimes, sometimes they'll go by and I'll only saw a couple of books a little fall down into the 150 toward a thousand range. And then the next day we'll sell five, six, 10 bucks and we'll pop, you know, built, built. They'll pop right back up again at nine 99.

Joseph (18m 51s):
You know, like I was saying to me, even five books a day, uh, it's almost a thousand dollars a month. This, I mean, it, it, it has a really fast, your margins get a lot better at that, at that point. So I don't know. I guess it's a way to do it and I don't. Yeah, I have a lot of people asking me all the time for, uh, for advice on, on marketing, advice, on writing and advice on what have you and I on this. I'm going to tell you right now, I don't know what the hell I'm doing.

Joseph (19m 21s):
I just, I know we gotta, you know, my wife and I spit all ideas we have thrown around and well maybe this'll work. Maybe that'll work, let's try this. Let's try that out. My God that worked. So, and this might tell 'em this, this might, this might run its course, this could be, you know, I, I keep expecting to wake up tomorrow and sell notebooks and then sell no books for two weeks and they have the thing just have exhausted as market I and I don't think that that's what happens, but I'm, I'm totally prepared for that.

Joseph (19m 53s):
I just know I'm prepared for anything that happens good or bad in this, in this environment because it's just so dynamic and I'm prepared for anything that happens in this environment to be transitory or somehow provisional and pretty much many anything that happens can be a fluke. You know, the fact that we selling it all at nine 99 could be a fluke. It could be just some freak occurrence of, of, of, of, of market placement. And, and demographic interest at the moment, you know?

Jesper (20m 23s):
Yeah. Well probably not, but, but I, but I think that the funny thing about marketing books, and I mean, of course you can, uh, you can watch the channels like this one or listen to our podcast and stuff like that. And we tried to share everything that we learn at least so that other people can replicate it by that. But I think apart from that, what is important to sort of understand is that when you're marketing things, you have to do what you're talking about here. You have to test different theories out and just see what works because as long as you are, I mean, of course you can, you can do one like everybody else does.

Jesper (20m 57s):
You can, you can run the Amazon ads and, uh, and yeah, I think at this point in time, at least if you want to be competitive with Amazon apps, that bits are quite expensive and you have to pay quite a lot, uh, which makes it sort of pop type lists for any new authors at least because you don't have the budget to compete. Am

Joseph (21m 19s):
that I'm going to, I'm going to argue with you on that one, my friend. Because there's, in marketing, there's a concept of a loss leader, right? Where are you? You're going to have to spend money at the outset in order to establish your brand in order to establish yourself. You're gonna lose money. Many and you know, it comes down to a to here in the States. Maybe we talked about this last time, you know, but, um, I've gotten some flack for how much money we spend producing the books and, uh, I mean our launch costs are probably four or $5,000 a book.

Joseph (21m 56s):
Um, by the time everything is, is, is factor in including all of the, you know, including all of the ads and everything might be higher than that. And, and while that seems prohibitively high here in America anyway, the average startup cost for a small business in this country is $25,000 right now. So, you know, launching a book for $5,000, even with even, and even the cost of, you know, incorporating, starting a business, all these things, you know, hiring an accountant, um, hiring, you're, you're, you're your, your business development consultant.

Joseph (22m 32s):
I don't have graphic artists, all these things, web designer, all that stuff that it takes to get the, get to actually get your company launched in to to launch these things, you know, perfect. We also have you classes, writing classes or mentorship or uh, going to writing conventions and getting, you know, some kind of, some kind of study in, in, in writing, whether it's up, whether it's formal education or whether you're self-educated, you know, and, and even the investment in yourself, the time that it takes to learn, you know, to actually learn the craft of writing those years that it takes me, you can still be, don't put that into monetary terms.

Joseph (23m 8s):
If you break it down. I don't like to, cause it depresses me, um, like about logging pillow the time and put it in the butt. But even so, I mean it's, it's a pretty good deal. I mean, launching a book for that amount of money. And the other thing is that, you know, even with that $25,000 average startup cost here, here, here in the States, you know, your business is expected to lose money. It's usually, I mean, it's typical for two to three years to go by before you see a profit. I mean, you operate by taking out loans.

Joseph (23m 41s):
I do not recommend that anybody do this. When you're launching a book for God's sake, don't do. Generally when you launch a small business, you take out, you take out loans and you use the loans to pay yourself and to pay for your business and keep it afloat until you get the revenue coming in a year or two or three years later. Also, most small businesses fail, but there's this expectation getting back to AMS ads and Amazon, there's this expectation that you're immediately going to start making money as soon as you put your book out there.

Joseph (24m 14s):
And that's just not, that's just not how it happens. And I think that when you are building your business model, you need to look at it realistically and realize that, Hey, it's gonna cost me money to get my book out there. The advertising, the promotional and heavy, I'm going to lose money on this. And there's also another thing that Amazon had to do if you spend enough on them, and I, I've done this in the past and I don't do it anymore, but with, with AMS ads you can spend, you can spend a lot of money on AMS ads and get your ebook way up in the rankings so that people will see it and bio organically and then you're a cost.

Joseph (24m 56s):
Your average cost to see how you're a cost is going to go through the ceiling, but you're going to be picking up more sales that are going to offset that in the long run. Um, because once you get into that top 100 of that top 50 of the top 20 in, in, in your genre and your subcategory, then you're going to improve your visibility and people are going to be just going through, they're not going to be clicking on. Your ads are going to just find it on their own. And so there's a model in there as well, but it takes, you're gonna you have to be willing to lose money to gamble on, on, on doing that.

Joseph (25m 27s):
And we played around with that at cheaper price points, uh, and it worked really well. But again, yeah, when you're talking about, you know, talking about $10 a book, then the sale, when you don't get a sale can actually, you know, when you, okay. So when your sales start to go down, then it starts to actually make a dent. Yeah. And the other thing, last thing to realize that I'm not doing this, you know, I'm not doing this professionally right now. This is not, this is not my career. I'm not making enough on this right now to, you know, retire on or what have you.

Joseph (25m 59s):
Um, and I think that if I was, I might be going about this little bit differently right now. You know, I've got a, uh, got a job right now that I really enjoy and I'm able to do this and you know, kind of as a, as, as a, as a dedicated hobbyist and they kind of play games with and see what works and what doesn't. So I have, uh, uh, uh, um, I'm extremely fortunate to be able to do that. So again, if you're, if you're trying to, you're trying to do this and be a full time author, I would not recommend trying anything that I'm doing right now.

Joseph (26m 32s):
Um, sole means of income that just would not recommend doing this. So, um,

Jesper (26m 37s):
uh, I mean, I, I think because I, I'm, I'm fully on board with the fact that your first book can can function as a loss leader and that sort of thing. But, but the way I view it is that if you struggle strugglers fullback time, maybe a year or two, you could place bets on Amazon ads that will actually get your sales directly that were perfectly reasonable bits. You know, maybe you could bid like 20, 30 cents per click and you would get to scale. Nowadays if you want that sale, you need to bid maybe close to a dollar.

Jesper (27m 8s):
It's just in all honesty, unless you have a price high price pipe, like like nine 99 for a ebook, if you're selling it for two $99 99 cents I mean of course you could take a loss leader, but, but most people who's just starting out, they cannot sustain spending $3,000 a month on Amazon ads, $100 in return in sales. That's just not working.

Joseph (27m 28s):
It's absolutely not. Absolutely not. You absolutely can't. And you're right there. Her premium keywords out there right now. I mean, I think game of Thrones is going for, I mean over $2 right now. Um, you know, and with the new bid structure as well, working plus up your bid by up to 100%, you know, you can be paying equally getting $3 on that, which is saying that is insane. I mean even at nine 99 if you're bidding three bucks, I mean, you're going to need game.

Joseph (27m 60s):
You're a 50% conversion rate and your click throughs to make that. I don't know anybody, I just don't, I mean maybe somebody out there is doing it for God to give you our man contact me. I will hire you to ride my, uh, to, to write my copy. So,

Jesper (28m 17s):
but yeah, I think everybody ebook.

Joseph (28m 22s):
Yeah.

Jesper (28m 26s):
All right. But, but I think for me the main, because autumn and I have also been debating sort of the price point for, for our future books and we all, we are also gonna sort of crank up the prices a bit compared to what our previous book sells for. But I think for me the key takeaway for, for those watching and listening is really that am that this might be a strategy worth considering once you have a bit of creaminess to your name and, and your, your, you're selling a certain amount of books already. Then sort of dumb sort of just fall into the trap of thinking, well, I've always sold sold at four 99 so I should probably just continue doing that because apparently I'm sailing, you know, tried testing out and do what Joseph had done here.

Jesper (29m 4s):
Trying to crank up the price and see what happens. You can always lower it again, but if it keeps selling at a high price, you'll be still could but to do it right. So, uh, for me I think that's the, that's the takeaway here. All right, cool. Is there anything else we need to cover? Joseph

Joseph (29m 20s):
yeah, actually I just remembered that one of the catalysts for pushing the price up was that good reads, give it a really high ranking on is Hugo recommendations list. And when that was happening, um, our sales, we're doing really well. And again, it gave it that, that kind of credibility again, when you, when you, when you went and clicked on, when you did a Google search for it popped up and I think it ended up at white number 25 on good reads. You go recommendations list, which was just phenomenal. So again, that kind of, that kind of, uh, that, that verification validation, you know, I was in there too.

Jesper (29m 56s):
Yeah. So basically if something like that happens, then that could also be a trigger whereby you should think, maybe I'm just gonna raise the price for a while. He used to see you because, you know, if you're getting treatments like that, that, that, that's what I have. Right. So,

Joseph (30m 8s):
yeah. Yeah. And that just suddenly you, sorry, I just remembered that that was, that was one of the, one of the things that we were like, you know, let's, let's see what happens.

Jesper (30m 17s):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Okay, cool.

Joseph (30m 20s):
Jesper fantastic, man. Thank you. It's great talking

Jesper (30m 23s):
and it was great talking to Joseph. So I wish you best of luck continuously would selling books at nine 99 and hopefully you're going to get a lot of revenue from that app. Your hope. Thanks a lot. Joseph cheers. Take care.

The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 22 – What can a new author do to build an audience?

When you first starting out as an author it can be incredibly difficult to market yourself and build an audience.

You don’t have a large list of books to promote. You only have one. On top of that, you have no experience and probably no idea on where to begin. So, what can a new author do to build an audience?

Learn the one thing that is more important than anything else.

New episodes EVERY single Monday.

To subscribe on YouTube, go here: http://bit.ly/1WIwIVC

PATREON!

Many bonus perks for those who become a patrons. https://www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy

LET'S CONNECT!

Closed Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/AmWritingFantasy/

Blog and Courses: https://www.amwritingfantasy.com/

Jesper on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SchmidtJesper

Autumn on Twitter: https://twitter.com/weifarer 

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):
When you first start out as an author, it can be incredibly difficult to market yourself and build an audience. You don't have a large list of books to promote. You only have one on top of that. You have no experience and probably no idea on where to begin. Let's put you on the right track today. If you're a fantasy author, then you've come to the right place.

Jesper (36s):
My name is Jesper and together with Autumn we've published more than 20 novels. Our aim is to use our experience to help you with writing marketing and selling books to fans all over the world. First of all, allow me to just take a brief moment to thank most beard for joining us on Patrion. Your amwritingfantasy bookmark is already in the process and maybe already received it by now.

Jesper (1m 7s):
Together with the handwritten message. We made a list of some extremely useful rewards for Patrick on supporters and we offered to review a patron supporters well building their Amazon pages discounted access to our premium courses and there's also a Christmas gift each year and we even offering to create a professional looking fantasy map for your novel or even writing your book description.

Jesper (1m 40s):
As you can hear, it's important for us to really give back to those who support us. So check out our Patrion page for the detailed. There's a link right here below this video or if you're listening on podcast and just check out the show notes. All right, let's get going with today's topic. Every author, and that's not only the new ones, wants to build an audience who loves their writing and helps to sell books by telling their friends and family about the author's work.

Jesper (2m 13s):
That's sort of a given and what we're all aiming for. However, when you only have one book and absolutely no fans, one of the first questions quickly becomes, what can you do here and now to start building an audience of readers? Many starts wondering if they should start something like a Facebook group for readers. Oh, and by the way, for those of you who hate Facebook, just think of what I'm about to say as an analogy.

Jesper (2m 48s):
For any kind of group on any type of platform, I'm just talking about an online community where you are the owner of the group. It could also be something, a Slack channel or, yeah, I dunno, some other alternative than Facebook you just don't have a critical mass yet. So something like a Facebook group will be a waste of time, otherwise there won't be enough interaction and activity inside the group. And even if you do get some people in there, the excitement will quickly sort of sizzle out because in today's quick and fast moving online environments, no one feels excitement about a Facebook group with 20 people in it at at least not in the context we're talking about here.

Jesper (3m 37s):
You know, sort of a a fan group context. Indeed, you might acquire a few hardcore fans and, and that's great. The new rider would say that's better than nothing and it is better than nothing. However, you are now also obligated as the Facebook group owner to at least pay attention to what's going on in the group. I'd almost bet you that there isn't much going on in that group at all, but this then generates the need for you to stop making something happen and you are now spending time coming up with things to post about and worry if these new few fans you do have, we'll leave the group.

Jesper (4m 21s):
Awesome. Anything like that. You see how this is not going to help you very much.

Old McGrumpy (4m 28s):
Can I offer some advice?

Jesper (4m 31s):
Hi, all my grumpy as our resident AI cohost, you can indeed offer advice, but please do. Remember I, I won't tolerate any of your negative inputs. Are our audience here once useful tips.

Old McGrumpy (4m 45s):
Of course you worthless humans, never understand what is best for you.

Jesper (4m 51s):
Mmm, I, you're going to share anything useful you guys. All right. What is it then?

Old McGrumpy (4m 57s):
Do not worry about building an audience. Spend time writing another book instead.

Jesper (5m 3s):
While that is common advice and I actually agree with you all my grumpy writing. Another book is the best way in which you can get more opportunities for readers to discover you. However, I also know that our audience here would like something specific that they can take home here and do something about right now.

Old McGrumpy (5m 26s):
Then be strategic with your time. Do not to jump on every interview or marketing opportunity that comes your way. There is no reason to burden yourself out. Testing every tactic out there.

Jesper (5m 39s):
That's also true and I like it, but I feel like you're sort of missing the point a bit old. My grumpy.

Old McGrumpy (5m 47s):
No, you are missing the point. Worthless. Fuman

Jesper (5m 51s):
alright, okay. Get angry if you must, but there's nothing wrong with what you said. Oh, okay. Then he goes, all right. I would still say to keep those things that all my grumpy mentioned in mind, but I want to take it in a different direction. What I want you to focus on is your email list. I placed a link here on the screen. For those of you watching on YouTube and for those podcast listeners out there, you want to go back to episode eight where autumn and I talked about acquiring your first 1000 email subscribers.

Jesper (6m 29s):
So I'm not going to cover any of that stuff again, but what I will say is that while your email list will be small at first, you should encourage those on it to talk to you in your emails. Ask them questions that will prompt replies. The thing is that we buy from those we trust and we only trust those with whom we are building a relationship. That's why you will want to have a conversation with your email subscribers on an ongoing basis just because you have only one book out.

Jesper (7m 6s):
Heck, even if you have no books published yet, you should still start an email list. It's never too early. Honestly, one-on-one communication isn't excellent relationship builder and that's something specific and new author can start doing right here and right now. Another thing is that if you're ever going to go to any conferences, I mean just as a regular participant, you know, trying to see if you can host a meet up with not only your emails list subscribers, but also with those who follow you on social media.

Jesper (7m 43s):
If just a few people are going to the same conference with you, why not take the opportunity to meet them face to face? What this does is that it allows for those people to connect over you, the author, and find that they all agree that your books are worth reading. I'm not saying that you in any way need to sort of force the agenda to be about you, but it will come naturally because they're all there in the meetup because of you and your work.

Jesper (8m 14s):
What else should they use as an icebreaker when talking to each other? You see, while you're writing more books, builds up your catalog of products at the best you can do is to interact with your audience. As your fan base grows, you can then start to look into things like the Facebook groups or Slack groups or something of that nature. Having your fans talk to each other over shared interest and shared beliefs is what will strengthen the sense of a community and deliver you those super fans who will just buy everything you write and also promote your work without you even asking point and that's just awesome.

Jesper (8m 57s):
That's what we really want as authors. That's sort of the the dream of every author, but do understand that I'm, I'm talking about building genuine relationships, even if it's only online. I'm not saying that you should engage with people only because they will then someday buy something from you. Right? That that's, that's the wrong path to go on because if that's how you come at all of this, you'll need to rethink your priorities. As I just said, people buy from those they trust and ask yourself this, would you trust someone who are only talking to you because there is a hidden agenda to lower you into buying a book at a later date?

Jesper (9m 41s):
I know I wouldn't, and I'm sure you wouldn't either. Be genuine, be honest and be a real human being with your email subscribers, not a salesperson. I know this stuff is hard and it's, it's not the quick fix that you might have hoped for for this, uh, episode here. But the thing is that there is no quick fix. It's instead a grind that takes time and built slowly as time goes by. In fact, click the video here on the screen if you want to learn about what it takes to become a full time author.

Jesper (10m 16s):
For, for those listening on the podcast, you want to go to episode number five and here you will learn some constructive truth that no one ever tells you. Stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 21 – Book Marketing Images Made Simple

From social media shares to ads, authors need a LOT of marketing images. But how do you create them, especially if you aren't a graphic designer or have a tight budget?

Autumn checks out a new tool that might be the perfect solution for your marketing image dilemma. From a free option to a no fuss templates, is BookBrush all it looks to be on the surface? This is a walk through of the tool and while we tried to make it work for audio, we REALLY recommend checking out the video this week!

Check out BookBrush for yourself at http://bookbrush.com/!

New videos EVERY single Monday. Make sure to subscribe: http://bit.ly/1WIwIVC

PATREON!
Many bonus perks for those who become a patron of the channel. https://www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy

LET'S CONNECT!
Closed Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/AmWritingFantasy/
Blog and Courses: https://www.amwritingfantasy.com/
Jesper on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SchmidtJesper
Autumn on Twitter: https://twitter.com/weifarer

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

Autumn (1s):
For those of you listening to on the podcast, I'll be doing some screen-sharing today. So to get the full value, you might want to watch the associated video. The link is in the show notes. Go check it out. You have a new release coming up and you want to know, you need images to share on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and your newsletter. And you want to be able to change them up a little bit so you're not spamming people with the exact same content over and over and over again. So what do you do?

Autumn (31s):
Learn Photoshop in one night through YouTube tutorials or pay a graphic designer half your first months royalties for some really snazzy smart images. Wait, I just heard of this new company called book marketing images or something. Authors need all the time. They're really important and most authors are working on a budget and most of them aren't graphic designers.

Autumn (1m 3s):
So it's kind of like a worst case scenario. This is something where you need really powerful images that bull attract readers that they will, you know, be willing to go and buy your book and at least take a look at it. And they say that someone needs to see your image at least seven times, at least seven times before they're going to go click on the link and buy it. So that means, you know, do you really want to send them seven when images not really. That's getting good old and tiring. They've to start like just not seeing them anymore.

Autumn (1m 35s):
This is a problem because like I said, most authors are on a budget. So how do you figure out new ways, new ways of changing up your images new more powerful messages that you can evolve and work on. And that one don't take you forever to figure out how to create them or to, it don't cost you an arm and a leg. It's really a difficult choice. So you know, there's a lot of gray area here. So what do you do?

Autumnb (2m 2s):
Pay a professional. Do it yourself. Fence of Lupron, honorable

Autumn (2m 6s):
in most cases. I would agree with you a little bit grumpy for those of you joining in for the first time it grumpy is our resident AI cohost oil. We never actually gave him the job. He sorta took it, but I would agree with him most times. Yes, I seen book covers and some advertisements done by other authors who aren't professional graphic designers or to hurry and they've really aren't up there with the ones that are well designed by professionals.

Autumn (2m 37s):
You can tell the difference and sometimes it's charming to see a do it yourself and other times you just know they're not converting. It's kind of a little painful when it comes from a design sense that you know, they just could do better.

Autumnb (2m 52s):
All the other options are too complicated to learn.

Autumn (2m 56s):
You're right. McRobbie there are some other options out, but yeah, some of them are complicated. There's Photoshop, Canva, there's a few other things that you know you can play with, but they aren't perfect from a design standpoint. I mean really, I'm a graphic designer, but if I'm looking for a tool, something that's going to be useful, that's number one. I want it to be useful. I don't want it to be complicated. I don't want to spend hours learning to use this, this new piece of software. And it helps if there's some guides, templates, a help desk.

Autumn (3m 28s):
I mean that's asking for a lot because what, then I'm going to be paying an arm and a leg and everything I would've made that year on this one. Book that's not what I want either. It's gotta be a balance of all those things. So what could be the options out there? So I had this wishlist of things I wanted if I was going to be designing a whole bunch of images for my books and for my new releases and just ongoing media campaigns because you need to keep them fresh. And so leaders, like I said, we'll continue to see them start getting interest.

Autumn (4m 1s):
You know, you have to foster that they're being, there's so many images out there. So you need something that will set yourself apart and begin to tell the story of what you're creating. And so that's what I found out about bookbrush and it just so happens about the same time I got an email from Kathleen who works at bookbrush and she invited me to give it a try. And I did think it was funny because here I was already looking at it and I'm a graphic designer. I mean I usually do all my design images right in Photoshop.

Autumn (4m 32s):
It's just what I go to. It's what I know how to use. But I'm always looking for something that's maybe a little faster and easier because I love Photoshop, but let's face it, I do covers, I just really complicated things in there. And when I opened it up, it's like this black hole, it's sex me, it. And I get flying with things. I go to look up a thought, does the next thing I know I'm download at 15 fonts. I'm playing with a new cover that I think would look good with this one. I'm really inspired by this other image and Oh yeah, three hours later I was supposed to be working on, uh, you know, immediately needed, desperately do book marketing image.

Autumn (5m 10s):
And that's not done. I haven't marketed anything and I am so far from where I started off. So focus. Okay. I like focus. So I wanted something that would help me with focus. So Hey, I tried bookbrush and I've got to try it out and give it a test run and I want to show you what I found with it and let you see if you like it because I'll let you know what I think at the end. So here we are with bookbrush. This is what it looks like to go ahead and open up the website and you don't.

Autumn (5m 41s):
It is a fantastic deal on the surface. You look at what it promises to bring you and yeah, you know, it's mentioning some great people here, Mark Dawson's, your other images. BookBub is featured this, you know, it looks so easy and the images look beautiful. There's a great Washington action video testimonials. It sounds fantastic, but really is, it is anything that's easy as it's promising. That's why I get to take a test run with it.

Autumn (6m 12s):
You know the graphic design or doing a test run on a graphic design program. This has got to be interesting. So the first thing you'll notice is that there's a couple of options, right? When you start up, once you log in, you have a custom creator and a video creator, which is in beta. We'll take a look at that in a minute. But let's start with the custom creator and it's okay. It opens up and it's like boom. It's steps you right through it. I mean this is not complicated. I mean, how can you complain about just something that is literally a step by step program?

Autumn (6m 43s):
I mean I can't screw this up, so that's a good thing. So the first thing you want to do as an ad size and look at those, it okay, it's giving you a whole bunch of options. So if you don't know your ad sizes and you don't want to go Google, like do you need Facebook, do you need Twitter what they're actually used, different sizes. They do. The cool thing is bookbrush has it already set up for you? We even have Pinterest. So BookBub take a choice. You could even do your custom size if there's something you want to design for your newsletter and you just want something a certain way, you can do that here too.

Autumn (7m 17s):
But let's say I have a new release that came out yesterday. Well when I was recording this, it came out on May 15th for you. So I want to go ahead and do an Instagram image and it gives you already an Instagram story. So I've got two choices here but I want to just do something I want to post and say, Hey, you know I released a new book, I want something fun. So I'm going to choose a typical square Instagram one. I've got my size. That's kind of templates and this is one of my favorite things I have to move on or about bookbrush is that it gives you custom templates.

Autumn (7m 52s):
Now it has two different varieties. I have some saved templates cause I've been in here playing meant it, but it gives you community templates to now community templates. These are some tried and true ones that have actually worked for other authors. And that is fantastic. So if you wanted to like know, like are you doing a cover reveal? This one looks fantastic. There's some great images that should inspire you if you don't know where to go. So if you're not a professional graphic designer, but you need some images that have been proven to convert well or at least of where to start so that you have that professional look to your images, check out the community templates because you're going to be inspired.

Autumn (8m 38s):
And even if no much of which one you choose, you're going to at least be a step above just throwing something together in a lesser program like paint or something else. So looking through these, I mean I have to love all of these, but I have a new release so I have a kind of a theme and I'm doing fantasy so it's actually dark fantasy and well you know what? It happens to be 99 cents. I kinda like this dark image so I'm going to go ahead and choose that. Now the nice thing is like it comes up and if you look, all of these things are clickable and movable.

Autumn (9m 12s):
So if I want a little more space, I want to change things out a little bit, all doable. It works. So that is a fantastic little thing. I can move all this stuff around. And the cool thing is if I don't like the background that's coming up, I can upload my own. So you know this doesn't work for me. Maybe I want to go ahead and choose an image. Let's see, maybe I won't go with the actual book. Get rich, boom, it's in there and I can move it around too.

Autumn (9m 51s):
So there you know you can move it around, you can take it out. You can also see if I want the background behind it Dar. And once you click on that edit background, I don't know if you saw that. So you have this little thing right here. It says edit background. I can have the dark, I can have an overlay and make it darker. I have transparencies so you can really choose some cool things.

Autumn (10m 21s):
It gives you this option for overlays. I want to make it a little gritty. Barclay's through some really cool effects you can add right over top of the image. So you can play around with these and get, you know, that kind of darkness or removal you want with a background to make it kind of wealth, you know, fade into the background. Just sort of important. But I don't know if I want anything, maybe an alum black.

Autumn (10m 57s):
And so you can change even the colors. I'm kinda liking the darkest blue, so let's give that a whirl. Of course it's not my book and I do want that other part to stand out. So maybe I should just stick with black. So that isn't my book obviously, but I want to use this image. So how do I change it out? Just double click on it and it's that easy.

Autumn (11m 28s):
So I want to go back, change the cover again. It's easy enough to just go ahead and drag in your Europe new cover, drop and drag. You know, it's not that complicated. So I've got my book successfully uploaded and I click on it and hopefully it'll change into my book today. How has that, so I have, you know, this image that's already looking really great.

Autumn (11m 58s):
However, um, well this isn't what I wanted to say cause it's not urban fantasy it's dark fantasy it's not on sale. It's a new release. So it's all there. So easy to go ahead and just get typing and click on it again. And you get lots of auctions like you notice it has this glow to it. I don't really want it to be yellow though. Oh it doesn't look too bad.

Autumn (12m 29s):
But this is dark fantasy I kind of want to read to, to it. There we go. I can change the size, I can change the font. It comes with some great fonts already. But the nice thing is there are options for you to go ahead and upload your own. Look at all the thoughts that are in here. So it's pretty good. I haven't delight crush, so I'm going to go with this one. However you know it needs maybe to be moved down or maybe we just want it larger.

Autumn (13m 0s):
What does that look like? So the neat thing here is like you'll see this other element, so it's 99 cents that's on top of something and that's on top of a stamp. So these are the options for understands. There's lots of different ones you can upload and create your own. And again, there's community stamps too, so that makes it really fun. And there's some great options. If you're a best selling author USA today, all of these different places where you can find your stuff.

Autumn (13m 34s):
Right now I'm looking for this circle that's down there because I don't really want the purple one. Oh, but does he? I could do an audio book. That would be really cool. There's shelves. Oh here we go. I think I want to try the red one. So definitely a little bit more punch to it. Cool. So I just need to figure out where, which order these layers. I've got so many now. I don't really want this one.

Autumn (14m 4s):
So you just click it, get rid of it. I want to use this one instead. And if you notice it has down arrows. So now it's behind the other one. So there you go. So that's it. Um, so what have I done? I've done this in like less than five minutes. I have an image that it looks pretty snazzy and would definitely be powerful when you're done. When you have the image you'd like, it's so easy.

Autumn (14m 35s):
You can either say it as a template. If it's one that you think you're going to use time and time again or don't forget to download it and that's it saved. I haven't imaged. Alrighty, five minutes. I can go ahead and post this to, I didn't fall into the Photoshop Oubliette of Oh, what else can I get done? That rabbit hole. Great. I also said I was going to show you what the video looked like. So let's go look at those because how much fun is that?

Autumn (15m 6s):
So this is the video creator that bookbrush is using and there's so many ways you can start with this is steps you again through one, two, three, three steps to create a video. And you could go ahead and use the images. You've got, look, this is the one I just created. I wanted to turn that into a video. I could work with that, but I want to go to my books and let's choose something that looks kind of, you know, dark fantasy ish that will really stand out and look at all these options.

Autumn (15m 40s):
I mean, again, you can do cover reviews, lots of things. Now this is the paid version, the pro version. We'll look at the other one in a moment, or at least discuss it. Well, let's just go with a nice flat on it, bitch. Okay, so now I have the book for the video. You need a chicken. So in effect, and if you get to this point, you can feel a little bit like it's a blank screen. What's going on?

Autumn (16m 10s):
So panic, you just need to know what you're searching for. So let's see. Mine's fantasy. So what is, what's out there? That's magic. Okay, now you're getting the Ikea haunted little images. And so there's all these video effects. It's just come up just by searching for them. That's a little too lighthearted for me.

Autumn (16m 40s):
So let's see this one. What happens with sparks, why that one's kind of cool because it is a new release. So I kinda like that. And then you get to choose options so you can have transparencies. Length of the video works for me so I can really like play with my new release. Now there's still some work that needs to be done.

Autumn (17m 11s):
You know, there's, I think a few things I would like to see in the video weather right now. It's not letting me add text or anything like that to it. So unless I'm pulling an image in that already has the text laid out and the book, I'm kind of at a loss for be able to say, Hey, new release. But it gives you a great starting point. Just if you want to do some quick stuff and I want to crop that down to uh, an Instagram size so I can upload it that way. Fantastic. But again, some of the size up and options that I'd like to see and aren't there.

Autumn (17m 46s):
Some of the options are like adding a font or add in that little 99 cent sale. Those things would be really cool, but I don't have that quite yet on my video after. So there's still some work that needs to be done. But overall I think that was pretty quick. So I know I haven't been applying with video much and this might inspire me to give it a go. So that's it. That is bookbrush and his whole, I think it's okay to tastic tool and the best part, what are the best parts is that it is actually free to sign up. It gives you limited options.

Autumn (18m 17s):
You don't have quite as many templates. I don't think he would act load the thoughts with it. You're limited to the number of downloads you get, so you're only allowed three per month, but you don't, if you don't have any books out, you're working on a really tight budget. This is a fantastic way to at least get three images every single month where you can talk about your book and upload it and really get to share some new experiences with your story and try to get new readers to take an interest. Bookbrush would give you a professional image, it'll give it to you quickly and if you really upgrade to the paid plan, you can get all those community templates and to me the price is really good because it's only, it rates out to less than $8 a month.

Autumn (18m 57s):
It's like $96 a year. It's a lot, but at the same time for the number of images and the power and the need we'll have as authors to come up with those images and really the strength of some of these, especially with the templates that have been proven, they can really help you if you're struggling to create some beautiful marketing images for marketing is hard enough. It's painful enough to, you know, you need these images, you need good images. You need a lot of images. This is a way of doing that for yourself, not taking a ton of time, not this major, massive learning curve that is going to slow you down and just keep you from doing the 500 other things you have to do while you are an author and especially if you're in New York or, and you have to do all of this on your own.

Autumn (19m 45s):
So I hope you like this. I hope you enjoyed my little bookbrush walkthrough and stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

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

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

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

New episodes EVERY single Monday.

To subscribe on YouTube, go here: http://bit.ly/1WIwIVC 

PATREON!

Many bonus perks for those who become a patrons. https://www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy 

LET'S CONNECT!

Closed Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/AmWritingFantasy/ 

Blog and Courses: https://www.amwritingfantasy.com/ 

Jesper on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SchmidtJesper 

Autumn on Twitter: https://twitter.com/weifarer 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 19 – See how easily you can make character introductions interesting

You’ve gone through all the trouble of creating an amazing character for your fantasy novel, only now you have to introduce him or her to the reader. Your fingers hover over the keyboard. You feel paralyzed. How do you best introduce the character?

Here's you'll get my best advice on how easily you can make character introductions interesting.

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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).

Jesper (1s):
You've created this amazing character and now you have to introduce him or her to the reader. Your fingers hover over the keyboard, you'll feel paralyzed. How do you best introduce the character? Well, maybe you searched for advice on the internet, but this remedy leaves you even more confused. One piece of advice contradicts another one today. I will give you my advice on the topic.

Jesper (32s):
Will this go against some of the other advices out there on the internet? Possibly there is no one correct way of a protein writing in step. Take what you find useful from what I'm going to say and then just discard the rest. yeah. If you want a fantasy author, then you've come to the right place.

Jesper (1m 5s):
My name is Jesper and together with autumn I run amwritingfantasy.com between us we've published more than 20 novels and our aim is to help you in your writing and marketing endeavors. Introducing a character can be difficult. It requires some experience and because the reader has to meet the protagonist within the first paragraph of the novel, it also has to be done right. There are many debates about plugged driven versus character-driven stories, but as we justify and explain in our upcoming guidebook on how to plot a novel, all plots are driven forward by the main protagonist.

Jesper (1m 51s):
The hero is the story because it's this person's inner journey the reader has to become invested in, so we need to let the reader know what the story is going to be about. By revealing the character arc, we need to hook the reader. We need to make the reader care about the protagonist. That's a tall order, isn't it? No wonder it's so difficult. Let's focus on the introduction of the protectionist, also known as the hero because making the reader acquainted with this character is perhaps one of the most important parts of opening a novel.

Jesper (2m 32s):
I'll give you four different elements to focus on. Each one is designed to make the reader care. Number one is to put the character arc front and center right away. Perhaps you have a character who believes that he will only be happy once he has become a night. Over the course of the novel. The character will come to learn that there is more to life than just being a night and this was just what he believed that he wanted.

Jesper (3m 4s):
In reality though, he was craving love and respect, which he gets once he meets his future wife. Maybe he even abandons his quest for becoming a night during the novel. I don't know, but if you can show right away how becoming a Knight is incredibly important to our hero, then you are straight away giving the reader a solid understanding about who this person is and who their go and who they're going to follow over the course of the next 300 pages.

Jesper (3m 39s):
There is one downside to this though and that is that once a counter is hell bent on achieving one particular thing, some readers might find it less appealing. That's where our second element comes into the picture. You now need to create sympathy. It's really, really, really, really, really important that the reader likes the character. As I just said, they're going to be in this person's company for 300 pages and nobody wants to do that with someone they don't like.

Jesper (4m 15s):
So how do you create sympathy? Perhaps you want to show how the protagonist is likable by assisting an elderly lady across the street is clever by working out a particular difficult math problem or something is carrying by offering emotional support to somebody who is sad, is honorable by telling the truth, even though a consequence follows is sympathetic by comforting someone in distress or I develop.

Jesper (4m 51s):
Some of these are a bit cliche, I know, but it's, it's illustrating the point well enough. When you first introduced the hero of your story, it's your job as an author to create a situation that invokes sympathy. Speaking of situations, number three on the list is exactly that. We need something to happen in the scene. We need a situation. We need some action. However, when we first introduced a protectionist, we shouldn't go too heavy on the amount of actions.

Jesper (5m 27s):
For some writers, this might sound counter intuitive. You know, some believe that having explosions or fight scenes is the only way to keep things exciting and to hook the reader when they first opened the the novel. But when we begin our story, a stronger focus on character development will serve us much better than image throwing a fireball at our hero for some reason that the reader doesn't even understand or at that point in time even care about here with number three I'm asking you to pay more attention to number one basically.

Jesper (6m 5s):
That's what I'm saying. So number four then this is what most writers think about when the topic of introducing a character comes up because number four is about sharing character details, but notice how it's number four on the list and not nearly as important as you might have thought. We do of course need to let the reader know some details about the character, but you only want to share the most pertinent details though.

Jesper (6m 36s):
So hair color, eye color, skin tone, definitely gender. For starters, if the character has a scar or another unique aspect that sets him or her part that's worth mentioning. There is no reason to get into backstory at the starting stage when you introduced a character. So simply pick two or three characteristics about the character's appearance and just leave it at that.

Old McGrumpy (7m 3s):
It's easy. Just have the character look in the mirror. This gives you an excellent excuse to share details.

Jesper (7m 11s):
Hi, all my grumpy. I thought you were out seeking world domination or something.

Old McGrumpy (7m 17s):
I had to come here and help you out.

Jesper (7m 20s):
Well, as our resident AI cohost, I suppose you're right how however see can you come up with something better than a mirror?

Old McGrumpy (7m 30s):
What are you complaining about? You worthless human

Jesper (7m 34s):
well, having the character look in a mirror or to see his or her own reflection in the water that's just been done so many times before. A lot of times, in fact,

Old McGrumpy (7m 46s):
how do you then want to share this information?

Jesper (7m 50s):
Well, gender becomes apparent from the pronouns that you use, whereas other aspects of says height can come from being able to reach or not reach an object. Perhaps a certain shirt was chosen because it matches the eye color or the character can simply bras, strands of Brown hair away from the eyes. Is he? The key is to share information as a natural part of what is happening rather than listing it out to the reader,

Old McGrumpy (8m 24s):
I waste my time trying to help you worthless humans. I am out.

Jesper (8m 29s):
Okay. The only problem with what you settled my grumpy is that it's too much tail rather than show hold my grumpy. You still there? I guess not. Well, you can think of introducing coater details in much the same way as when we first learned that Gandalf is a wizard in Lord of the rings. Do you remember when Gundo first entrance to Shire Frodo accuses him of being late and Gandalf replies, I wish it is never late, nor is he early.

Jesper (9m 7s):
He arrived precisely when he means to. That's such a wonderful way of letting us know that we've just met a Wishard. There is no info dumping. Instead, it just flows as a completely natural dialogue between two characters. This should be your aim when you share details with the reader. As a result of implementing these four simple writing tips, your readers will connect much stronger with the hero of your story.

Jesper (9m 41s):
I want hero of the day right here and now is our little messenger bot. If you want this bot to notify you directly each time we release a new video, just follow the link in the description field below, and those of you who are listening on podcast are welcome. So set it up as well. Just know that while the video and the podcast episode is released on Mondays, it doesn't always happen in the exact same timeslot.

Jesper (10m 11s):
Stay safe out there and see you next Monday.