The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast

The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 127 – What Fantasy Readers are Looking For—with Damon Courtney

What are fantasy readers looking for? What attracts them to your book? What sort of reader magnet do they pick up the most? Heck, what sort of giveaway should you join?

Join Autumn and special guest fantasy author and creator of Bookfunnel, Damon Courtney. They hash out some tips to help you understand what readers love and some ways that Bookfunnel can help you reach readers. Oh, and the fun of introducing your kids to D&D! 😉

Check out Bookfunnel at https://bookfunnel.com/.

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

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

Autumn (30s):
Hello, I'm autumn. And this is episode 127 of the M writing fantasy podcast. And today Yesper is on break. And so today I have with the fantasy author and founder of book funnel, Damon Courtney. Hi, David. Welcome to the am. Writing fantasy podcast, take three. This is take number three. We're doing this yet, But at least the second one, wasn't a full one. We got the error message, you know, like five minutes in, but just thank you for sticking with me. Hey,

Damon (1m 5s):
We all have to deal with the technical problems. Me more than most. So I'm the technical guy in the family. So anytime there's any problem, I get a text from my mother, my mother-in-law, my father-in-law anybody. Just, if there's a tech problem, I'm the one who gets the text. So it all, it happens to all of us, you know?

Autumn (1m 23s):
Yeah. I don't think you're supposed to be helping I'm on a podcast recording for someone else's podcast. We figured it out. I hope this is going to be the one they say third time's the charm. Yes. The jokes that I'm Fe. So does my husband. So three is a very significant for the face. So this is the take. This is the one I'm. This

Damon (1m 45s):
Is the one that's going to work. I feel confident in we're for everybody out there. We're going to try, it's going to sound like we're being really spontaneous, but we're faking all of it because we've already done this before,

Autumn (1m 55s):
As I just learned, which I didn't know. The first two times I talked to you is that you've actually had acting classes. So yeah, you're not you're ready for this. Totally.

Damon (2m 5s):
I have. So I spent a lot of, I grew up in, in doing a lot of theater and a lot of musical theater and things like that. So if you ever catch me at a conference, you'll, you'll sometimes catch me in the karaoke room and things like that. But so yeah, I, I grew up doing that and then I grew up playing Dungeons and dragons. That was really sort of where I got, I mean, I've read fantasy my whole life. It's it's 100% my Shondra, you know, a little dabbling here and there in science fiction, but I mean, it's always been fantasy for me. I loved, I grew up, you know, I didn't play like Cowboys and Indians, like other kids did. I didn't play army. So I played Knights and dragons. That's what I wanted to play from, from the time that I was a little kid.

Damon (2m 46s):
And so, you know, growing up, I, I was the dungeon master who did a lot. I ran the group for a really long time. And in fact, my friends and I still play not as regular as we used to we're we're getting back to bit more regularity. We all had kids sort of went to play. Then we had kids and we didn't play at all. And now we're sort of coming up the other side of the mountain, where a lot of our kids are, are reaching that age where we can sort of get back to a more regular schedule.

Autumn (3m 12s):
So you're saying you're not initiating the kids as new players. So

Damon (3m 15s):
The key, so we are actually, so that's awesome. Yeah. Know mine. So my son is 14 and he expressed an interest a few years ago. And so the dads got together and all of us have kids that are about that age. And we started playing D and D with them. I started running them through a group. And then my daughter, who's 11, who is, she's my mini me. Right. So my son is very much like my wife and he's a little bit more introverted, but he really enjoyed playing D and D even my daughter, she was nine. When she started, she would listen in on, on my son, Julian and I playing. And she very quickly was like, yeah, I think I'd like to try to play Dungeons and dragons. And I said, well, our group is kind of full right now. I would love for you to play.

Damon (3m 55s):
But you know, when you get a little bit older, so when she turned 11, she kept asking and I said, yeah, I would love for you to play. So now I actually play, we play Wednesday nights with my co-worker and his kids. He has three kids. And then my son, Julian, and my daughter, who's 11. And she is, she's such a ham. I mean, it's just me, right? She's absolutely 100% my kid, but it, it kills me. She's playing a rogue who it would be funny. And you would, if an adult were playing it and you'd think they were playing it as a part, she never seems to recall what her backstory is. And so in one module, she'll tell you that her parents died in the next module.

Damon (4m 37s):
It was her dad who ran off when she was a kid and it was just her and her mom. And then the module after that, her mom died. But her dad raised him. Like she just doesn't remember. And what's funny is as a rogue, you would almost play that off. Like they're constantly lying about who they are, but no, she really just can't remember who she, and so she improv all of it. And the DM that we're playing with, he's been really, really good. He's also a theater actor. He's either actually a professional actor. So it's, it's really great. He does all the voices and stuff. And Laura, he, he gives her the opportunity to, to role play out her character. So in this module, I know we're getting a little off track, but in this last module that we played last week, she, he had her find her long-lost mother, which again, could have been dead, not dead, just depending on which version of, of her character you were asking, but had her find her long lost mother and, oh, the happiness, like she's 11, but she's usually sitting right here beside me.

Damon (5m 39s):
I have her pull up her desk cause I help her with some of the technical parts and oh man, it was just, you know, she finds her long lost mother and it was just, it was just I'm over here just trying not to laugh because she's being dramatic and she's serious about it. It's been such a it's it's such a joy, watching your kids enjoy the things that you did, you know, growing up as a kid and especially something like Dungeons and dragons. And my son is a big, big fantasy reader. So we talk about the book series that I'm reading and the series that he's reading and we recommend stuff to each other. So yeah, love that.

Damon (6m 20s):
And really that's been my whole life. All my friends are big fantasy geeks and that's what we do. You know, I don't want to hang out

Autumn (6m 26s):
With you guys for a week. I would pay money for that just to get to play with you guys. That sounds amazing.

Damon (6m 35s):
As we've gotten older, it's actually, it tends to be more fun cause we don't get to see each other nearly as much. And so when we get back together, it's, I don't know, everybody's the same, we're all the same kids. We're all just eat dads now, but we're all still the same kids. And so we played, you know, characters that are gonna mess up the module and, and you know, characters that are going to have fun at that someone else's expense. Anyway. So yeah, when I sat down to write books, when I sat down to self-publish, you know, I had, my wife had gotten me a Kindle for Christmas, even though against her better judgment. Cause she knew that I was just going to spend all our money buying eBooks. And I read through several books that were sort of had been on my to be read pile for awhile.

Damon (7m 17s):
Once we, I usually I read at night, I don't sleep till late. And so I'll, I'll get into bed and that's what I'll read until I fall asleep. But once we had kids, there was almost none of that. I would fall in the bed and just, you know, when I was out. And so as my kids had gotten a little older, I, I really, I misreading right. I wanted to get back into it. So I convinced her to buy me a Kindle for Christmas, which she did. And I was, I read several books that were on my to be read pile. And then I was just kind of browsing around through the fantasy books. And I came across a book that had like crossed swords on the cover and it had a cool title and it was only three bucks. It was two 99. And I, I had not heard about the self publishing revolution at the point.

Damon (7m 57s):
This was probably 2009. It was. And, and so, and, and what happens was I lucked out because back then a lot of people were putting out, not premium product. Let's just call it not AAA titles. Right. So it very well could have been that I had picked up a self published book and then been like, this is not pretty good as it happened. It was a really great book. And then I get to the end and the author's note in the back of the book was just sort of talking about how he'd always wanted to be a writer. And this book was sitting in his heart, in his head for a long time. And as I'm reading this, I realized like, wait a minute. He, he just like, put this out there all by himself. You could do that.

Damon (8m 38s):
That's a thing. And so I went to bed that night thinking I could write a book. I mean, I've been making stories my whole life. I could write a book. And so I got up the next morning and started Googling and searching and found out there's this whole revolution of self publishing that was happening in the world. Right. And yeah, immediately writing my first book.

Autumn (8m 58s):
That is fantastic. I mean, in all of them, I have, I have to admit your trilogy looks fantastic. It has dragons on the cover. I mean, it looks the true sword and sorcery dungeon, you know, straight out of being a dungeon master and stuff. They look fantastic. So I think that is fantastic. Then I think I, as I said, in one of the previous takes, I didn't know that I I've been a member of BookFunnel for years and I was Googling it and saw in the intro that it said you were a fantasy author and book funnel came out of the fact that you wanted to share a fantasy book. I think it was with your mother. And I'm like, I've got to talk to you. So this is fantastic.

Damon (9m 35s):
Well, and it's cool. Cause I, I do a fair number of podcasts and I, you know, it's always about BookFunnel, which is great. That's, that's what I do. I mean, I sit in this chair, you know, I work in my home office. I sit in this chair and I programmed BookFunnel every single day, but I don't usually get to talk about the writing part. First of all, I'm not a publishing author at this point, I publish my trilogy and then now I write code all day, but I, I do read every single night and I still read fantasy every night. So I, I love to talk about the, the, I love to talk about my books and writing and I do love to talk about fantasy and that's not a part that I usually get talk about. So I was actually excited to come on because we get to do a little bit of both. Hopefully we'll talk a little bit about BookFunnel.

Damon (10m 17s):
Yes. If I didn't at least mention

Autumn (10m 18s):
It. Yeah. Okay. We got to talk at least a little bit, but definitely dragons too. So you ever see either sneak dragons into your code or do you, do you have another story idea in your head and you just you're letting it percolate? So they're gonna separate

Damon (10m 32s):
No, I have a whole notebook that I keep where I still write down ideas. My feeling is, or my hope is that I do absolutely want to get back to writing one day. Cause I just it's you always, I mean, if you're a writer, you always sort of had ideas, right. And now the beauty of the self publishing world is that if you have an idea, it's, it's entirely up to you. Whether you choose to make that idea a reality, like there, there is no one that can tell you. No, you could just decide that I'm going to write this book. I'm going to write it the way that I want it. I'm going to put the cover. I want the title I want and I'm going to put it out there into the world and I'm going to let readers decide whether it's good enough. Right. And I, I truly don't think that if self publishing hadn't come along, that I would have ever written anything.

Damon (11m 14s):
I'm not the kind of person who likes to go out and, and ask people's permission to do stuff. So I wouldn't have wanted it to go through the query and the editor and then have a bunch of people tell me that I suck. I know that I suck. I can be very self-deprecating I promise you. Right. Right. We're all really good at imagining how bad we suck. Right. And so I can't imagine anytime I'd ever thought about writing as a, as a, as a young man, I definitely would not have. I always thought, yeah, I don't want to go through all of that. And so I just never did it really wasn't until self publishing came along and I thought, wow, I, I want to try that.

Damon (11m 55s):
I just want to see if I can do it. Right. And then when I actually sat down, what's funny is I, I, I can be a little flighty. Sometimes I have these brand ideas and then I don't execute it or I execute 20% and then I abandoned them. And so I, I actually started writing the first book. I bought a copy of Scrivener, which was like 45 bucks. And yeah, after doing all this, it's just crazy. Right. And so I started writing it and I didn't tell my wife, which is strange for me because we'll talk about everything. And it wasn't until I actually finished the book. Now it was the first draft and it wasn't anything, you know, I still had a lot of work left to do on it, but there was always this, this little fear in the back of my head that we're just going to start writing this book and you're never going to finish it.

Damon (12m 40s):
It's not going to be a thing that you continue. So I, I started writing it late at night in my spare time. And then I was sitting at the dinner table one day and talking to my wife and I, you know, kind of took a bite. And I was like, I've been kind of thinking about maybe writing a book. He goes, oh, well, okay, Mike, what kind of book? You know, with fantasy? That just something like that. She says, I think that's a great idea. I think you'd be really good at that. And they took a few more bites. I already wrote a book. I didn't want to tell her until I finished it. And then, and then as I was, I continued on and I wrote the trilogy.

Damon (13m 20s):
I actually had a similar thing where I had this idea for a book funnel and I thought, oh, this is a really cool idea. I see this problem. And that Indies have, I have the same problem. And I think I can solve that problem. But I knew that if I allowed myself, I still hadn't finished my trilogy, which I still absolutely love the sort of true, very traditional fantasy trilogy. I can totally get behind the authors who are writing like 18 books series. But like, I need an ending. I want something where I know that I'm going to get to the end of this storyline. And then you can write a new trilogy and you can give me another story, but I really need to wrap the sky. And so I hadn't finished the, the third book of my trilogy. And I knew that if I started, if I gave myself permission to move on and work on this new idea that I had, which was book funnel, that I would never finish the series.

Damon (14m 8s):
And so I, I, I basically made that my, you know, you have to finish, you have to finish writing because you set out to do this. You started, you wanted to be a self published author. So go and do that. I finished the series and then you can go write that thing. And so that's what I did. I finished publishing my trilogy and then I started building will fall.

Autumn (14m 26s):
That is amazing. And that's, that's definitely, I understand I'm a task oriented. I like having one big project at a time, so I could see how that totally derail you. But it's, it is funny. So if you hadn't been an author, we wouldn't have book funnel and book funnel is huge. I think you are definitely, if not the number one, I think you were one of the first to come out with how you deliver things. And I know, I think everyone I've listened to a couple of the podcasts been on an every single one. I think the interview was like, I totally underused book flood because you have put so much, there's like hidden gems in there that everyone saw. I'm like, oh, you do audio files now. Right. I have audio books. I need to look into that more.

Autumn (15m 8s):
I'll make myself a note. I'm really good with sticky notes on my computer, on my screen. I absolutely love stickies. Thank you for Mac.

Damon (15m 17s):
Yeah. It started as something really small, which was just, I had my first book and, and you know, the advice from all the breweries at the time was sort of that, you know, you should, Hey, you should get people to, you should be building a mailing list and you should get people on your mailing list and you should give them like a nice, which we now call a reader magnet. But basically it's just a free story. If you have a bigger series, maybe the first book of your series for free something, right. Just to say, Hey, thanks for joining my list. And so I actually, I said, oh, that's a great idea. So I went out and wrote a short story that actually turned into a 25,000 word novella. Cause it couldn't stop. I couldn't stop writing it. And then I had this thing in my hand and I was like, okay, cool.

Damon (15m 57s):
I've got my reader magnet, which at the time was just a free thing and how do I deliver it? So I go and I click on all like all of the big authors at the time, which most of them are still huge today. They're like, okay, how are they delivering it? They attached like a PDF or an EPUB or a mobi to an email and said, here's your book. And I thought that can't be it. That can't be how you do this. Cause there's no way that a lot. Or I know a lot of people who would never figure this out. And so the first iteration of BookFunnel was really just trying to solve that problem. I need to make this really easy for a reader to get a book. And if you had found us five years ago, that was all we did.

Damon (16m 37s):
Was we just, you created, we created a little landing page for you. It showed off your book cover. And it said, here, click here. And we'll help you get your book to your Kindle or your Kobo or your Mac or PC or whatever it is you want to read on. And then, you know, then started the, the feature requests. Every, if you put out any business in the world, you know, it's the beauty of being a writer is sometimes that you, you write a book and you actually get to be done with it. You can say, I'm done with that book. Now you may not be done with that world. You may decide I want to do another trilogy in that world. Or I want to take this character and I want to write a standalone that expands on their story and you'll get readers who are like, I want to hear more about such and such, or can you write some more books about such and such, but by and large, if you do your job right, and people love your characters and your love your world, they will accept that you're done with that story.

Damon (17m 27s):
But it's off where you're never done. There is never a, Hey, we just added the final feature. Thank goodness we're done with that. I

Autumn (17m 35s):
Mean, how many times as Stephen King retired? So

Damon (17m 38s):
Yeah, exactly. And so we, you know, the minute we put book funnel out into the world, we started getting all these feature requests. And so the book funnel today that is five years on, has myriad features that, that you can do all kinds of things. And yes, we added audio, we added short audio delivery, we added full audio book delivery. You know, we still do the core of what we do, which is that ebook delivery. But now we have group promos where you can join other authors and find new readers in your genre. And you can work together with other authors to create landing pages and bundles that you can, that you can all promote together. And yes, you can do audio and you can send out your arts through a service.

Damon (18m 21s):
We have called certified mail that, you know, that, that does all this really cool stuff and sends automated reminders and follow emails and all this kind of stuff. And it's hard because if you had started a few years ago coming into BookFunnel, it would have been really easy. We do this one thing. And as we have grown, there's so much more that you can do. So that, that thing that you said, that's a common refrain that we hear I'm under utilizing my profile. And that's just because we were always building new stuff. We're always coming up with new features and sometimes we tell you about it. And then we move on and we work on the next feature. I call them feature grenades. We just kind of throw them at people. And then we move on and start working on something else. And that's not, that's not great, but I'm an engineer.

Damon (19m 2s):
That's what I do. When I finished one project, I go and I work on the next project.

Autumn (19m 5s):
Yeah. And I hear that a lot with authors with even their own newsletters, they send out an email saying, Hey, this book's been released. And maybe they'll just mention something like six months later saying, oh yeah, I love the new reviews on this book. And they get a ton more sales because people forgot that the book, you know, they hadn't seen that the book was out. If it's just like, I can see that with BookFunnel you need like a step-by-step comparison chart. Like, oh, by the way, at this date, we relaunched this. Have you checked it out?

Damon (19m 33s):
That's not a bad idea. Okay. Since the last time you were here, here's all the stuff.

Autumn (19m 37s):
Exactly. I, you might need to think about that because I know for me, like one of the things I drug drew me in, because I have a little bit of techie, I've got a computer software engineer in my family and my dad was again to a computer. So out of my family, I'm kind of like, I'm a low tier tech person, but I know what I'm doing. And I was delivering my own eBooks and stuff like that. But it was the questions from the reader saying, Hey, I don't know how to put this on my blah, blah, blah, blah phone. And I'm like, look, I just got my first smartphone. I don't know how you put a file. And I think somewhere I saw, so it's like you don't book funnel. They have tech people that do that for him, like 20 bucks a year. I think that was the starting price. I'm so sold.

Autumn (20m 18s):
Sold you answer all my questions like that. You saw you didn't you say like you have people, you can still do it to like really archaic devices that we consider.

Damon (20m 29s):
Yeah. We still see blackberries. I still, we have people that are on windows XP. I think the Blackberry's probably the oldest one. That's still like really, really, you're still using that. We see some windows phones. I mean, it's, it's, it's pretty impressive. Sometimes it's happened a few times, you know, it's you think I were kidding you, but I'm not. When I tell you that there are people that we've probably had a half dozen requests in the last five years where somebody asked us for a PDF because they wanted to print the whole thing out so they could read it on paper. And I was just like, that's, that's, that's not how eBooks work, but you know, cause I mean, hopefully so you can offer a PDF if you want to.

Damon (21m 10s):
We, you know, we, we give you the flexibility to offer whatever file formats that you want. And we take care of the delivery part, but yes, PDFs are always optional, but we do get, we have had some of those requests and I, I got that first request and I thought, surely they were messing with me. And then the more I emailed them back, I realized they're not messing with me. That's really what they wanted. Which just seems like I was very much in as soon as I could read digitally. I, my wife actually that, that same Christmas, that, that I got the Kindle. She bought a hardback of, of a series that I I'd read for many years. And it was the latest book in the series. And I cracked open the book and I started to read it. And I think I got three chapters there before I put it down and grabbed my Kindle and bought the same book in April and never looked back.

Damon (21m 53s):
I read everything electronically. It was a, it was an easy switch for me, which is my wife is a, is a huge audio book listener. And she's had the same experience now that she's, she has become an audio first consumer. If they, if the book is out on audio book 100% and she's going to get the audio book first. And if it doesn't have an audio book, which sometimes happens just because of delays, then she'll still read the ebook part. But she absolutely prefers audio books over any other format.

Autumn (22m 21s):
Yeah. That's my husband has never been a fantastic reader, but he discovered audio books and whole he's gotten through more books this year than I have. I'm like, how did this? I'm so impressed, but that's so you, first time you did S so you said you did a reader magnet that ended up being a novella and you get to see all these stats behind the scene. So what is the best reader magnet that you think works out? Is it giving away a whole book, novellas, short stories, people do excerpts. What do you think works out the best for readers getting readers to pick up a book?

Damon (22m 53s):
So I'll tell you, it really goes pretty much the way you would expect it from a tear, right? So the best thing you can possibly do is a full novel. And I don't, if you're just starting out as an author, if you've only got one or two books, I don't recommend you do that because you don't have a lot to sell. Right. But if you're an author out there, I mean, we have authors that have deep back lists. They've got 20, 30, 40 books out. Okay. I'm happy to give you a, we have several authors that will even give you the first, they've got three or four series, and they'll give you a starter library, which is the first book of each of those series for free. And the beauty is, is like, I just, if I can get you to read book one and you like it and you convert, then you're going to go on and buy the whole series. Right?

Damon (23m 32s):
So if I have a deep back list like that, then I'm happy to give away one, a full novel, maybe even two or three, if I've got a really a multiple series and a really big backlist, because that is the, the goal that, that reader, magnet, that lead magnet is always there to get people to read it, and then drive you into buying the rest of the series. If you don't have a full novel, or if you don't have a long back list on the Vela works great. Most readers feel like a novella is just a short novel, right? They don't, they don't have, I don't see anybody ever complained about undeveloped. And then there are several things that you can do there. That work really, really well if you're just starting out a series. So if you're a fantasy author and you're, you're just, you've got your first book published and you're like, okay, now I want to start building up that newsletter, writing a prequel novella, which is so easy for fantasy authors, because we've already done right.

Damon (24m 25s):
Well, we've already, I mean, I guarantee you, there's not a fantasy on there, out there who hasn't written their first book and doesn't have like 3000 years of history they've already written in their head. And we're like, well, maybe that happened in the dragon wars a thousand years ago. And before that it was the war of magic and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so like you have all of this world to play with. All you have to do is either just decide that you're going to pick some piece of that world that you're going to pull out. Or if you have some characters, maybe not even your main protagonists, but some side characters that you're going to pull out of your book and say, I'm going to write a prequel novella, or you take your protagonist and say, okay, I'm going to show you what happened just when they were kids, how he discovered magic for the first time, right?

Damon (25m 6s):
Something that you didn't like, you sort of alluded to in your book and the best reader magnet that you, that you can have for a series like that in fantasy is, is something that ties back into the series, because what you really want is they read that prequel novella and they get to the end and they want to immediately jump into the series. Because the point of this thing over here, the reader magnet is to get you to buy this thing over here, which is the actual books yourself. So that's, that works really, really, really well. And, and it also works as a secondary. If somebody organically buys your book one and gets to the end, and you say, Hey, thanks for reading. I hope you love my book. If you'd like to know where the heroes first met, I have this free will that you can get for free just for signing up for my newsletter.

Damon (25m 53s):
Right? So it works both as a, just sort of a, you never heard of me before, give this a read. You might like my writing and oh, you have heard of me. You've read some of my books. This book will fill in some of the story. You remember where they talked about that first time they met here's that story. And you can read that. And so that works really, really well for that. You can do the same thing with a short story. And I will tell you that again, full novel readers love the most novella. They love second short story. They love third excerpts. They love last. If you're going to do an excerpt, it's entirely possible. We have a lot of authors that do it. You just want to be really, really clear that what they are getting is chapter one through four, or they're getting some eggs, or you want to make clear that they are not getting the full book, because you are there on BookFunnel with other authors who are giving away a full book who are giving away into Vela.

Damon (26m 45s):
And so you want yours to be really clearly stated that this is not the full thing so that they don't feel like they got triggered. Yeah.

Autumn (26m 52s):
The last thing you want to do is make a reader feel like they were tricked or gypped into doing something that would be right.

Damon (26m 59s):
I mean, you know, it's, you gave up your email address, where do you have nobody and nobody, nobody paid money for the XR, but at the same time, you want people to walk away with a good feeling. It's one of the things that I tell people, I see these questions a lot when they talk about their reader, magnet, and the question that always comes up is it, unfortunately, what I see happen is it feels like authors are trying to do their best to do the least amount of work for this reader, magnet thing. Like, can I just write a 500 word, short story? Well, you can, but that's not going to impress anybody. And then it's like, well, can I just write in a Vela? Can I, can I do this? And then it becomes, do I have to buy a professional cover?

Damon (27m 39s):
Can't I just write some scribbles, some words and paint and put that up there. And what I tell people is this might be this reader, magnet that you're putting out there into the world. This might be the first time a reader is ever introduced to you as an author, right? They've never, they haven't read your other books. They aren't already in love with you as an author. So this might be the first thing they ever see from you. You really want that to be the first product that they get to know you for. When the goal is you like this so much that you went on to buy these other things. And it's especially short-sighted. If you have a longer running series, if you've got six and eight books or multiple trilogies that run back to back, it's, it's really shortsighted not to spend a few bucks to buy a really good cover for that novella, knowing that if I get you to read this, you might go and buy the entire series for

Autumn (28m 31s):
Me. Yes, I, I still, and I agree. I do so still see questions like, oh, you know, they just whip off the reader magnet. Sometimes it's don't, you need to do, you need to put as much care, almost more care. You need to give your best stuff away for free so that you can get the readers to love your series and be willing to stick with you. Let's let a concept of like a thousand true fans. You want them to be just, wow, this is fantastic. I've got to buy everything you've ever written. And I'm going to stick with you for the next decade. Like you have with your favorite authors. And that's huge. If you can get that kind of buy-in

Damon (29m 4s):
And that's what you want. You, you get the, so if I give you a free book and, and you know, you've, you, somebody comes into book fall on either. You know, you hope that you can drive traffic organically. That's that's going to be the best route to think you could get somebody who gets to the end of your book. And it's like, wow, I really liked that book. And I definitely want to read that people, the beauty of that is so what funnel allows you to create multiple tracking links that you can send, you can do anywhere you want. So you can actually put a different link in the back of book one and the back of book two in the back of book three, you can offer the same reader magnet, but there are different tracking links that go into the back of each one. So this gives you the, to find out where people are coming from. And the nice thing about that is if you get to the end, if you have a reader who gets to the end of book one, and they hated your book, the likelihood that they're going to be like, you know what?

Damon (29m 54s):
I want to go read the prequel of this terrible book and find out what happened is very low. So if they get to the end of book one, or even better to the end of book, two or three, and then they join your newsletter, you know, that that person, they really liked what they read, right? Because you, you, they came back for more. They actually came and they gave their email address and they downloaded that develop. And so that's the best traffic that you can get. But that doesn't mean that you can't get great traffic from other authors. If I write fantasy and you write fantasy and 18 other people that we all work together and send it to your newsletter. And I sent it to my newsletter, there are two really great things that happen. One, we all write fantasy. So my readers, yeah.

Damon (30m 36s):
They're predisposed to like what you're writing and your readers are predisposed to like what I'm writing, especially if we're all just like, we're straight up epic fantasy sword and sorcery, like we're really in them. Right. The second thing is if I send it to my newsletter and they click on it and then click your book, then the reader who just clicked on that is the exact kind of reader who a reads emails. Yeah. And then clicks on links in those emails. So any reader that gets sent to your list is definitely the kind of reader that you want to, that you want to be giving your book to. And, but those people are their leads, right? People think that they, they, you got 300 new people to sign up, which is not uncommon.

Damon (31m 16s):
You can join a group promo on both all and have hundreds of new people join your newsletter. And then what you really need to do is that's a lead. So they looked at your cover and they were like, wow, it's got dragons on it. And then they looked at the title and like, wow, the dragon sword. Oh, that looks cool. I definitely want that book. But now they're not a fan of yours yet. They're just a lead that liked your book. And that's great. So you got them, you hooked them, but now you need to set the hook and bring them in. So that's where you want to make sure that they read your book and then go on to become a super fan. It's like you were talking about the a thousand true fans, right. Because what you're trying to do is I need to get more traffic.

Damon (31m 57s):
I need to get people to read the book. But my goal is ultimately, once you read this book, I want to turn you into a super fan who will buy everything that I write for the rest of time. And I know that you, I mean, we've talked about it, but like, as a kid, there were authors that I knew, I knew their name. And I went into the bookstore and anytime they had a new book out, I bought it instantly. And they, I have some of those authors that I read when I was 10 years old. I'm 45. Now 35 years later, I'm still buying the book, the instant, I see their name. Right. I have a lot, I have an author alarm set up. And as soon as they publish the book, bam.

Autumn (32m 33s):
Yeah. And that's, yeah. That's what you want. Yeah. That's one thing I do love about Amazon. And even BookBub where you can follow authors and have those new release alerts, because it's like, you get so excited about a new book. So that is, I know last time, I always forget that you can do the, the new, the links I used to be so good at doing links. Like I would do a new link with every single giveaway. Cause I love the newsletter newsletter swaps and the giveaway group giveaway options that you can get your book funnel. There's days. It's like, I have an alert set up whenever the new one comes out and it's like 20 new giveaways. I'm like, oh my gosh, okay. I'm not going to join that many this month. I can only put so many in my newsletter. I've got to pick like the top four and that's all I get, but it it's nice that people can be very specific, but they can also join, you know, there's wide giveaways.

Autumn (33m 23s):
And then there's the focused one like Tiana and sometimes sub John, or you can get fantasy or urban fantasy. What do you think works the best for authors? I mean, should they be going, why do you think they work really well? If you're a fantasy author and you're teaming up with romance writers or is it good to throw your hat in those occasionally? Or do you think it's good to stick with your genre?

Damon (33m 41s):
So I would say that if you, so the best thing is always going to be to get as close to your genre as possible. If you write epic fantasy, which is what I, I love. So that's always the example that I use, but let's say romance, for example, you could join like a mega romance promo that has hundreds of other books in it. But the thing is that romance readers, oftentimes they, they might hop around between a few genres, but a lot of times, if I read contemporary romance, that's what I like. So your Amish romance is not going to appeal to me. And your Regency romance is not really going to appeal to me. And so there may be some crossover, I read contemporary romance, but small town romance is, is contemporary.

Damon (34m 22s):
And I kinda liked some of that. So you might get so some really good readers from a larger promo like that, that just sort of broadly romance, but you're definitely going to do better if I write small town, clean romance, right? So no explicit scenes and things like that. Then if I can find other authors who are all in exactly that genre, small town, clean romance, then all of our readers are definitely going to like the thing that we're writing. That doesn't mean that if you have the, if there aren't a lot of those promos, right? If you're looking at small town, clean romance and you find one or two, but you're sending out your newsletter every week. And so every week you'd like to include just a little bit of just a little promo down at the bottom that says, Hey, I'm in this promo with some other great clean romance authors.

Damon (35m 7s):
You might check it out. If you could only find two of them. And then you've got two more weeks in a month to fill, you might try one of those larger ones. Because the worst thing that happens is what so new people find your book. I mean, horrible, terrible, but you may actually end up getting a really solid reader from that group. They may be that they're a contemporary author, or even that they read Regency romance, but your cover, your cover looks funny to them and they decided to give it a try. And so they did, and now you've got a fan, right? You don't know where your super fans are gonna come from. We always think that we know we get to two into our heads. And we think that we know who our ideal reader is.

Damon (35m 48s):
And you may be right. You may even be really, really close to what your ideal reader is, but that doesn't mean that you know who every reader is. So you, I always tell people, draw, if you can find them the niche genres that you can narrow down and get as close to your genre as possible, those readers are going to be a lot closer to your, your absolute target audience. But it's worthwhile. We have at least a couple of times a year, authors will put together a big scifi fantasy mega promo, right? With hundreds of fantasy books now, fantasy and science fiction, right? Which always, for some reason, they always get lumped together. We even lumped them together and look out. I feel terrible because the truth is I do read, I dabble a little bit in science fiction, but I am by and large a fantasy reader.

Damon (36m 34s):
That's what 90% of what I read is going to be epic fantasy. That sort of, you know, and I'll, I'll shift around between medieval epic fantasy and oh, this one's based on addiction and this one's samurai mythos and things like that. That's really cool, but that's going to be what I read, but we always lump those together. That said a giant promo that has a hundred scifi fantasy authors in, it means that you are going to get exposed to a hundred people's audiences. And so, and again, what's the worst thing that happened. They saw your cover, it looked good. They downloaded it. They might read your book.

Autumn (37m 8s):
Yeah, that'd be fantastic. I have to admit every once in a while, like when I start, when I do some really Janiero specific and I see like the same books I've seen for month after month, I'm like, eh, it looks like a good giveaway, but we're going to go try something else that has different books. Because then we, I want to start reaching, you know, different authors and reaching out to different readers. And if you're getting, if you're ending up in the same newsletter every single month, that's probably going to start tapering off eventually. Right. So I know I asked you this question the first time and it was funny cause you looked a little surprised by like, oh, this is a difficult one because I tried so hard to find a question that no one had asked you and I've already asked it before. What do you think is your, what is either your favorite or the most underutilized feature in book funnel?

Damon (37m 50s):
Oh, what was my answer last time? I'm just kidding. I don't

Autumn (37m 55s):
Remember because I was like, I agree. I love that one. So

Damon (37m 59s):
What the most under utilized feature in both phones darn. Now I need a Crip sheet. Cause if you tell me the answer, that's what I would pick. But now I can't think of, of my favorite features is probably the themes. So we've, , I'm trying to think of, there are so many features and so many things you can do in BookFunnel, but I'll tell you like, as a developer, just like a writer, right? Nobody sits down to write a book that they don't want someone to read. Right. As authors, I know we all play coy. We're like, oh, I would just love. I'm just happy to have the book. I, I don't really care if anyone reads it.

Damon (38m 40s):
Absolutely. We want somebody to read that book and you feel good when I got the first time I got it and review that wasn't one of my buddies. I was like, holy crap. Someone read my book and they like it. It did. And so that's a super, it's a wonderful feeling. It's no different being a software developer. You, you go and you sit down and you build this super cool new feature and you think, wow, everybody's going to love this. And then you put it out there and nobody uses it. And that's just, that's like having a book that no one reads. Right? And so one of the features, one of the things that we tried to do really early on when we gave people book funnel was give authors the power to, to express themselves on their pages.

Damon (39m 21s):
And so when we made our landing pages, we made your book cover really huge. Because to me that is the number one thing that a reader is going to look at. Look, you go into a bookstore and there's a reason why the face out books sell way more than the spine out books. Right? And so my feeling was like, no, give them the book cover really large. And then the next thing was, give them a tagline, give them a hook, right? Don't just say, download your copy of book, title, give them something that hooks them in. And that authors don't think about that sometimes. But those are the things that, you know, when, when, when you land on a page, what readers are looking for is they look at your cover. First, your title, second, your blurb third. And then from those three, they're going to decide whether they actually want to click and then get that book.

Damon (40m 5s):
And a misconception that I see with a lot, with a lot of authors is when they're setting up their reader, reader, magnet, their assumption is that because this is free, that everyone will just take it. And that's not how that works. Like a free thing. You still have to convince people that they want this thing. And so that cover that tagline, that blurb, all of those are working together to get people to go, oh, this sounds really good. And then the second piece of that is it's not just getting them to take a copy. I need you to then read it because if you get it and you put it on your Kindle, but you don't actually read it, it doesn't actually do me any good. So all of those pieces are working in concert. And from the very first days of BookFunnel, we tried to give authors the power to customize the text and customize the look of their landing page.

Damon (40m 52s):
But it was never quite complete. I think we had 10 or 12 color options that you could choose from and we wanted to limit it so that it wasn't so that mostly so that authors couldn't shoot themselves in the foot and come up with like a lime Sherbert page. Oh know that blinds people, but ultimately, but ultimately we released just a few months ago, we released a feature called deans that really lets you alone the entire page. And the reason was that we saw more and more authors who really had leaned into creating their author brand. Right. And not, not just each individual book, but who are you as an author? What kind of books do you and why would I want to read your books over someone?

Damon (41m 37s):
Else's if you're a grim dark fantasy author, then make it very clear that that your books are filled with antiheroes and it's all grim dark, because that's going to attract, it's going to do two things. It's going to attract the readers who love that stuff. And it's going to push away the readers who don't want to read that stuff, which is okay, it's okay to be opinionated in your writing and say, look, I write grim dark. So if you're not into that, you probably not going to like my books. Right. And, but more and more authors were starting to lean into that author branding. They had created their own, they'd had designers create logos and they had their own, like, this is my brand color, right? They're John Deere green.

Damon (42m 17s):
Right? And so we said, we started seeing more of that and thought we can do that. Right. Cause one of the messages that we've always put out is that we're not in the business, the business of building our brand, we're in the business of building your brand. I actually don't care if anybody knows who book funnel is now readers love us because we've been getting them, helping them get books for five years. And so we have a lot of loyal readers who absolutely love book funnel, but I want them to get your book. I want them to drive towards your brand. So we released themes a few months ago that really lets you design the pages the way that you want them to set your colors, to set the, the way that the fonts are displayed. And then you can even replace our logo.

Damon (42m 57s):
You can actually remove the book from a logo from your page entirely and put your own logo in its place. And I think that's, I think that's awesome. I want you to make your pages your own so that when somebody lands on it, they know that they're looking at an autumn Burke book. They're not looking at a book on a page. Right. They're looking at your stuff. So I'm glad I had the same answer. I had to think about it for a second. Okay

Autumn (43m 22s):
Know, like I said, I was so excited because I am a graphic designer when you released it. I think it was the same day I got the email. I'm like, oh, I am setting up some. It was so cool to be able to put, because I do have my own local logo and to be able to put that up on the corner. And I mean, it looks like it's my page, it's my branding. And I was just like, yes, this is so awesome. So I have to admit, I love that one I'm waiting for right now. Just color choices. If you ever allow like a PDF background or like a JPEG background, be like, but just an idea. But then I do love being able to choose the colors and play around with it. So that was so exciting. And now they all look the same. So yeah. And you

Damon (43m 60s):
Get, once you create a theme, you can set that as the default for pen. So on book funnel, you can have multiple pin names, which means that, you know, this pen name, my scifi pen name has this cool dark black Starfield sort of feeling. And then over here, my fantasy one is I write Nobel bright fantasy, which is the opposite of grim dark, which is actually just fantasy. And so you can write these, you know, over here, my pages are for my fantasy pen name or this. And so you can create multiple themes. So you can even create a series theme, right? If you have a set of colors or if you've created a logo that's specific to a series, you can actually create a series theme and then label all of the books in that series, using that theme. And every time somebody lands on a page for a reader, magnet, or the first book in series, or even just a page that drives them to Amazon, all of that is themed in exactly the same thing.

Damon (44m 47s):
And so there's a, there's a continuity there and you can set a default and say, oh, this is my autumn Bert theme. I want it set on that author, that pen name. So that any page I create with that pen name is automatically going to be set to that theme so that you do start to get that cohesive information.

Autumn (45m 2s):
Yeah. It's just, it's fantastic. It's almost, I mean, I can make a match to my website. It's, it's perfect because I do use books, book, funnel. I love your coding help by the way, because I went and used book funnel to hook up to my PayPal and I have it on a different on the I'm writing fantasy website through pay hip and to be able to sell direct sales to readers and one, you have coding that makes it like this step-by-step it's like, you could figure it out as long as you can read some instructions and follow them. And it is fantastic because you're right. You've been around long enough book. Funnel is like the number one way of delivering books. And so when you tell, when I have like, why buy for me on my website? And I mentioned, Hey, these are the same books delivered through book funnel that you would get if you were just downloading my first, you know, my free giveaway.

Autumn (45m 50s):
And it has that. Buy-in like, okay, it's not a virus infected thing. That's going to look the fly, the innards of my computer. So that's, it is nice that you guys have been around and you do such a good job with the delivery that, you know, readers are not like, oh, okay. I used to be afraid of getting something directly from an author or afraid that someone would have inspected it somehow. And that's fine. And

Damon (46m 12s):
We give, so readers actually have a library of all the books they've ever gotten from BookFunnel whether they got a free book or whether they bought a book from your website and we deliver that because we do direct sales delivery. We haven't talked about that, but that's you sell direct. And then we have with the delivery of part about that, the nice thing about that is because there are so many tens of thousands of readers that you authors that use book funnel. There are millions of readers that go through BookFunnel every month. And there are tens of thousands of authors that, that, that either deliver free books or they do sales, or they do both. And now we've got a lot of audio book authors that are using us. We launched audio books last November. And so we have lots of audio book authors that are starting to do direct sales of their audio books, too. What's great about that is we have millions of readers out there who already have a library with book funnels.

Damon (46m 56s):
So if they buy a book from your website, it gets added to their library. But if they buy a book from my website, it goes to the same library. So even though they bought from two authors, completely different websites, they all funneled together. They all funnel together into the title. They all come together to be like one library. So we have readers that have thousands of books in their books, on a library, and they can read them in the book funnel app. They can read them in the cloud. We have a cloud reader where they can read all of their books right from their browser, or they can send it to their Kendall. And will they, I mean, like it's cool because we have so many readers that do recognize our brand and recognize the word book and go, oh, I know how to do that.

Damon (47m 39s):
I know how to get a book from that. So we do tell people if you're going to sell direct from your site, we have a little delivered by BookFunnel logo that you can put there. That just says, if you know what this is, it does provide a certain level of confidence to readers like, oh, I know that I'm going to be able to get this book. I understand. I know what that means. I already have a book from a library. I mean, we have, I think I checked at the end of the day. We probably have 15,000 people a day that are reading directly in our app. So I'm not, you know, when we started what clinical was all about, we do our best to try to send the books to your Kindle app or to your Kobo app or your nook or whatever it is that you're reading in. But over time we have more and more it's in the authors.

Damon (48m 18s):
We are steeped in this stuff, right? We live in this stuff every single day where we, we follow the Facebook groups, we follow keyboards. Like we read all of these posts. And so you start to get this idea in your head that, that the world works one way, because we're in this vacuum of, of some publishing information. I wouldn't say vacuum, but we're in this, this bubble where we're always being bombarded with information and you don't realize how many people out there have never read an ebook before, because I see them in my queue every single day, we answer four or 500 emails a day. And it was surprising to me how many people we would get, who would say, I don't know how to do this. I've never read anything, but paper books from the library, how do I do this?

Damon (49m 0s):
And what we found was that the assumption for most authors is everybody's got a Kindle, everybody's got the Kindle app. And the truth is that that's not true. And so we both here we were and we would say, oh, well go download the Kindle app. And you can read in that or download the Kobo app. And you can read in that, but all of those apps required a lot more work than just here. You can just read an our app. And because we didn't have an app that you could read it. And we actually didn't launch that until last January. But when we, when we launched that and we launched our cloud-based reader immediately, we started seeing an uptake in readers who just I'll just read it here in the book funnel app. And so the great thing about that is that if you're selling your book and I'm selling my book in tens of thousands of other authors are selling their books, then if all of them are going through the same place, then those readers do gain a confidence that I know where my books are going.

Damon (49m 50s):
And I know that I'll be able to get them later on another device. When I buy a new iPad, I can just get the book from the lap and boom, there's all my books.

Autumn (49m 57s):
Yes. I think that is brilliant because I do remember hearing horror stories about like, if Barnes noble, if something, you know, went down one of the big ebook stores, all those eBooks, I mean, you're where do, what do you do with them? Especially if they're at least book, at least alone with them use the same technology. Like EPUB even Amazon's EPUB now. Thank you. But it's, you know, if it's still up in somebody else's cloud or it's only on your nook, I think what do you do if it's, you know, the store's gone? So I do kind of like the fact that it's like, you know, you have this, I think curiosity, is there a way of following an author on book? So if you say like, I love autumn, Bert. I want to know if she has any other books here that I can pick up.

Autumn (50m 38s):
Is there a way of doing

Damon (50m 40s):
Not right now, but we've, we've talked a lot. I'd say we, my wife, Julie and I run the company, we're still a really, really small company. It's, it's really just five of us that do everything. And it's the other, the other three are our support team, but it's pretty much just Julia and I, who I do all the programming and Julie runs the company. So we we're always talking about ideas. Cause that's the, that's the big thing, right? The, the one that, the question that we get from all the authors is how do I find new readers? And especially, I think it's great, what we've tried to do. And what I've tried to tell authors is as much as possible, you should be pushing readers to your newsletter, to your website so that they can get it.

Damon (51m 21s):
So that we're so that nobody is in the middle, right, right. Facebook is, is great for reaching people. Twitter, you can get on Twitter, you can reach people with your Instagram. You like to post pictures. There are all these amazing social media tools that you can find people, but all of those tools act as middlemen between you and the reader. And what's really amazing is that we, before self publishing, you didn't really have that, that that's not a thing that really existed. Right? I mean, I remember as a kid growing up that, reading those books and, you know, you might find the occasional author who have like a fan club that you could join and you can write a letter to, or something like that. But you couldn't just jump on Twitter and say, Hey, such and such.

Damon (52m 2s):
I loved your latest book and they reply, but I could go so glad you loved it. Right. That's, that's an amazing thing. And I think that's even more so with self-published authors, people don't feel like, I mean, there are authors that I've read for years. That to me would be unapproachable. If they were at a conference, I would be the one going, you know, like Kettering off to the side.

Autumn (52m 23s):
If I ever see the old diamond, I'm going to have a heart attack. What

Damon (52m 27s):
Did you just say? Oh no. Yeah. If you saw him, you would be like right there. I could just go over and say hi. So, but like for self published authors, I don't think there is as much of that. There is a sort of a feeling of these are just real people and they're publishing great books. And so I always tell authors that you should absolutely take that connection is as close as you can. Let that reader talk directly to you. You know, there's this term that we use in software development called Flint stoning. And if you can imagine like Fred Flinstone, like paddling his feet under the car, and what it really means is there's a phrase that we say that's cause as do the things that don't scale.

Damon (53m 8s):
And that is like any time you have to personally answer an email, right? You autumn, Bert, you get an email from a reader and they say, Hey, I just finished this such and such series. And I absolutely loved it. You have to answer all those emails. And that's not something that scales cause there's one autumn Burke. And she can only answer so many emails in day with all the other things that you can do. But until you reach the level where hundreds or thousands of people are emailing you every day, answer those emails, answer every single one, because that one email that one reply. That could absolutely be the thing that turns that reader who really likes your book into a super fair, holy crap. The author actually emailed me back.

Damon (53m 48s):
I sent her an email to tell her I love her books. And she replied and asked me what my favorite character was. Holy crap. Right? That stuff, something that as a kid, imagine if you'd gotten a real reply, not the form letter. That's like, thank you for reaching out to the RA Salvador fan pub. Here's a picture of Bob, you know, with his dog. That was really nice. It's actually got, if you got a real reply that he'd written out and said, Hey, I'm so glad you liked the book. Here's a picture of me on the wall. Oh my God, absolutely framed that letter. And you would, you, if you weren't already a super fan, you would absolutely become a super fan. And so for those new authors that are just starting to put their work out into the world, and you're just start building that newsletter early, because you want to build that direct connection.

Damon (54m 36s):
If you create a Facebook fan page, that's great. You create a group on Facebook, but the problem is, if you get everybody to follow you over there, then Facebook is the one who owns the relationship between you and your reader. Every post that you make, you're basically asking Facebook permission, please show this to my fans so that they can see it. And that's not what you want. You want the ability for Indies to actually create real connections with readers is something that has never existed in the publishing world until now. And so as an Indi, you know, be Indy, be the kind who just like, you know what? I answer all my emails. If you email me, you're going to get a reply, put that in the author note in the back of your book, email me, here's my address.

Damon (55m 18s):
Tell me how much you love my book. I love to hear so many times so often we don't actually, we put these things out into the world and then crickets, we don't hear anything. I know that people are buying, right? What are they liking them? Yeah.

Autumn (55m 30s):
Some of those, a few reviews. Yeah. Those emails. I mean, they are just fantastic.

Damon (55m 35s):
And what's funny is you, I actually got more emails than I got reviews. I didn't have a lot of people read my book. I don't want to give the impression that there's like, there's just gobs, like was the best seller or anything. But I got more emails from people than I ever got reviews. And I think part of that is there's a certain kind of person who is willing to go and publicly leave a review on something and put it out there to me. It's it's I mean, and those are valuable because those reviews are incredibly valuable. Social proof to other readers who are trying to decide whether or not this book is something that they would like. But to me, getting that email, getting that, that kid, that 15 year old kid who emails you and tells you how much they love your book. That is so worth. It what's really funny is my best friend.

Damon (56m 17s):
He, he was one of the first ones to read my books and I never told anybody that I was writing a book until after I'd actually it, because I didn't want to embarrass myself at this. It's a, it's a common thing you hear among all right. That, especially with your first book, you know, you're going to like it. I've read it 28 times. But if I read it 29, I'm going to catch that typo that I missed. But when you finally put it out into the world, my best friend, he had read the books and he really liked him. He told me what he thought about them. His son is now 12 years old. And he sent me a picture of the other day of his son had picked up. Cause I'd sent him a copy of the trilogy and paperback, his son had picked up the book and started reading it, which he sent me the picture. And he's like smiling, reading the book, you know?

Damon (56m 58s):
And it's just totally cute picture. And it was wonderful. Cause he sent me along. He says, he says, guess who's reading your book. And then he writes me a quote. He's like, dad, if you read this great book, could you ask for a better compliment? Right. And that's what I thought until he got to the end of the book. And then he gets me, he sends me a text. He goes, so that should finish your book and puts it down. And he goes, man, I thought Harry Potter was good. And I thought, oh, I mean, yeah, it's yeah. I think the kids wrong, but I will take it. I'm going to take it. You're right. But that's one of those things that I've heard of authors, who've been around for a long time that have been writing books for years and decades, even in traditional publishing, you never know who is going to be the one who finds me, picks up your book.

Damon (57m 49s):
Even that book that you think is terrible. Right. That first book, that first road's not very good. Like you don't know how people are going to respond to that. And so put yourself out there, put your email in that, that field, put that newsletter sign up in there because you want to hear from those people when they find you and fall

Autumn (58m 6s):
In love. Oh yeah. I mean it is, to me it is those emails that you never know when you email someone, I've always, especially with COVID and everything else. I've had some hard years and I thought, you know, I want to be the nice person. I write noble bright too. So I like to Spire inspire hope. And so I always try to pay it forward and yeah, you never know what kind of day the person on the other end is going to be having. And I always like to, yeah, it's the one I, there are so many emails. I remember that people have sent to me either because it was a bad day or because you get to how much the book touched them that then, you know, I felt when you were talking about the kid, you know, you get those tingles and you're like, yeah, this is I say, I write because I have these stories in my head and I love the characters.

Autumn (58m 47s):
And I love the challenge of telling the story. But man, you know, it's those emails of those words of encouragement when someone else connects with you and could love something you've created, you're like, this is why I do it.

Damon (59m 1s):
It is why we all do it. And there's, there are abilities now for you to, to forge those direct connections, like never before. And so that's, I try to get authors to do that because that's one of the most beautiful parts about being an indie is, is really being able to actually talk to those readers and find those people who do love

Autumn (59m 21s):
Your absolutely. And there's so, okay. So we haven't even touched on print codes, which are something we have a conference coming up. I'm hoping to actually use print codes for the first time this fall,

Damon (59m 32s):
My second, that would be my second feature that I love that, that not a lot of authors use the ones who use it, use the crap out of it because it is so for those who don't. So what Kritikos let you do is generate a unique code, a batch of unique codes that you can literally, you don't have to print them, but that's what we designed them for. So that you could print out, you know, 500 bookmarks or 500 postcards. And each of them has an individual unique code on the back that you can then give to a reader. So it's, it's being able to carry your eBooks in your pocket and take them with you and give somebody, oh, Hey, I think you would love my book. Here's a free copy. And they go to a website, they type in that little code. And then once they get their book, that code is dead and no one else can use it.

Damon (1h 0m 14s):
Right? So it's a unique code. That's just for one person. And that actually came about because authors, we have so many authors that were emailing us and they were all going to a big conference and they couldn't, they couldn't actually take enough books on the airplane. Right. So they couldn't, they couldn't pack the books in because if you're taking paperbacks everywhere and then what they heard from, from years past, they'd actually heard from readers who had told them that as much as they love going to these conferences, by the end of the show, they had so many paperback books that they actually had to leave some behind in the hotel room cause they couldn't pack them all home. And so we were like, oh, Hey, wouldn't it be awesome. If you could give somebody an ebook right.

Damon (1h 0m 55s):
That they can go and get it on their own time when they get on their smartphone on their way home or they can just pick it up when they get home. So that was where print codes came about. I tell people that that book funnels roadmap, our development roadmap is always set by our authors when they're emailing us and asking us for features, we collate all that stuff together and go, you know what? That's a really cool idea. How w how long would it take to build that? We can build that. And so then we built it and printed codes was one of those things. So you're going to a conference.

Autumn (1h 1m 23s):
Yes. So, yeah, so I live in Vermont and they have a they've meant I've paid, I've paid since 20, 20, March, 2020 was supposed to be the conference. So now it's going to be October 20, 21. Yay. It's confirmed. And I am going to, I want to use them because the neat thing is, I mean, I've been to a, Comic-Con a little wine and use a QR code for what is a free e-book on BookFunnel, you know, you just scan it and take it. But this way, if I have a book that I'm selling, I can still give away a free copy as like a benefit for coming to this store, to the show. So I'm so excited. And since we talked last, I also created a bundle for my own series of eight book series.

Autumn (1h 2m 4s):
So you go and we'll pick up book one now for free, but when you get to book one, you get to see all the other covers below it. And they go to all the sales pages. Like you told me, there are such good features. I feel like you could do mentoring. Like this is how you use book funnel, but you're probably already busy enough that you don't need to have like a mentoring aspect to your day of all right. Let me step you through all the features and book funnel. Okay, good. Next person. Well,

Damon (1h 2m 28s):
If you can't, if you catch me at a conference, that's usually the kind of talk that I give is just talking through, not just the, it's not like a feature by feature list of book formula. It's really more of the, what we see authors using BookFunnel for that are like, wow, that's a really cool idea. That's not something that we had thought of. You know, one of the best things that you see as a developer is developing some product or some idea that you think is going to be used for X and then people grab it and they use it for X, Y, and Z. And you go, wow, that's a really cool idea. I hadn't even thought about that when I built it. And so it's neat to see what authors are doing. So if you catch me at a conference and that you come to see one of my talks, a lot of that is what I talk about is, is what those, what some of those authors that are, that are really using BookFunnel to its full effectiveness, the kinds of tricks and things that they're doing that are just really, really neat ideas that you probably haven't thought of

Autumn (1h 3m 21s):
Before. Yes. Well, I, I will definitely, I want to, I'm going to look for my conference schedule and that'll be like, the world is slowly, maybe returning to normal will be. Yeah. Or if you want to come to Vermont and October, which is gorgeous fantasy, come on a fantasy book show and fair. It'll be really fun. So you want to do a road trip of, thank you. I could talk to you all day about fantasy writing and books and dragons and BookFunnel of course, but is there any other special tip you want to give anyone before we, before I let you go back to answering, being one of the five people in BookFunnel you answering questions and emails?

Damon (1h 3m 58s):
No, I mean like just new features. We have audio books out there. So we haven't even really talked about audio books, but that has, has really gotten huge it's it's audio books are sort of now where eBooks were back in 2011 and they're just like, like a hockey stick. They're just shooting up like crazy. And so we build out audio books so that authors would have the same power with their eBooks, with their audio books that they, that book funnel has given authors with their eBooks. You can sell them direct from your website. You can give away free copies. You can do short, you can do short, like novella length audio. You can give those away. And all those things that we talked about, bundles and print codes and group promos and themes, all that stuff. Anything you can do with your ebook on book funnel, you can now do with audio books and short audio as well.

Damon (1h 4m 39s):
So we've, that's really been our push since the beginning of the year, because that's a, it's a whole new thing for us. You know, we're still building out all the ebook features and we're always working on stuff. But now as we build new features going forward, they're basically going to entail eBooks and audio books and every everything in between.

Autumn (1h 4m 58s):
Yeah. I, there I'm jealous. I signed up exclusive with ACX when they first started and have six books with them. And now, like, I see what you guys have doing. I'm like, darn it. How do I get over there instead of where I'm at? I don't know. We'll have to, I'll have to start

Damon (1h 5m 13s):
Reading you can't erase. Yes. Yeah, no, no, no. Most ACX they changed it to 90 days now, but it used to be one year. So if you've been in there for longer than one year, you can actually request to be removed from the exclusivity

Autumn (1h 5m 26s):
And just take my book with me and just take your book with you. Great queues full of tips. I'm going to go check into that. That's my next assignment. Now that I got a bundle page up for my one series. Thank you.

Damon (1h 5m 40s):
What about bundles? The last time that we talked, but that, that one didn't get recorded. So you guys missed out on that one, but every time we, every time we chat, I'm going to give you a to do list. You can just walk away and, and, you know, go off with your time.

Autumn (1h 5m 52s):
All right. I'm going to, yeah, that'll be funny. Yes. For all the laugh. When he hears that, because he hates my stickies. He, they make him run away screaming. I'm just going to start though up. I'm going to start like, just scheduling with you like every month, like, Hey, you got free time. Let's chat. Let's have a sticky chat chat. We can talk dragons. I swear. Oh, thank you so much. I love what funnel and all the features. And if, and if there is an author who has not heard of book funnel, there'll be a link in the show notes. Please go check it out. Because it is a fantastic way of delivering books and selling books and audio books now. And joining giveaways. I mean, then that's the only, just like scraping the surface of what you guys are offering.

Damon (1h 6m 32s):
Yeah. You can find us at dot com. And if you have any questions, even if you're not a book following user, you can email helping bill funnel.com. Our people are really knowledgeable, knowledgeable on, of course everything book funnel, but also really just kind of everything. Self-publishing we get lots of questions that have absolutely nothing to do with BookFunnel whatsoever. We get, we get questions from authors. Should I be NKU should I be why we should get questions from readers about like, what, what, what iPad should I buy? Which one? Which he reader is the best. Like we get, we get the craziest question sometimes. And it's, and I always talk about, we tell our people like, answer them. If you have an answer, answer them, even if it's just your personal opinion. Oh, I liked the iPad. Cause you can read on all these different apps or whatever, but whatever it is, we help all kinds of people.

Damon (1h 7m 14s):
So if you have any questions, send us an email. We're always there.

Autumn (1h 7m 17s):
Aye. You guys are brilliant. Thank you so much, David. And I really appreciate it. And I know this is the recording. That's going to work.

Damon (1h 7m 26s):
If not, I don't know what we're going to do on tape for, and we're just going to have like a karaoke sing off or something. Sounds

Autumn (1h 7m 31s):
Good to me. I'll be back, have a great day and thank you. And once again, thank you for having me

Narrator (1h 7m 38s):
Next. We're going to have, yes, we're going to do one of our famous top 10 worst. If you like, what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support the am. Writing fantasy podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join autumn and Jasper on patrion.com/and writing fantasy for as little as a dollar a month, you'll get awesome rewards and keep the M writing fantasy podcast going, stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 126 – Magic Systems Explained

How do you create a magic system for your novel that is both unique and interesting? How do you tackle magic systems when worldbuilding a fantasy setting?

Tune in to episode 126 of the Am Writing Fantasy podcast where Autumn and Jesper share exactly how they create magic systems for their fantasy world.

Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday. 

SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST!

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

Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy. For as little as a dollar a month, you’ll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going. 

Read the full transcript below.

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

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

Jesper (30s):
Hello, I'm Jesper.

Autumn (32s):
And I am Autumn.

Jesper (34s):
This is episode 126 of the Am Writing Fantasy Podcast. And I honestly don't know how we waited this long to discuss how to create a magic system, but never... what do you say? Never late than never or what do you say?

Autumn (51s):
That definitely works for me. Magic is like foundational a way where we've been joking about-

Jesper (57s):
Better late than never, that's what you're supposed to say. Not never late than never, that makes no sense.

Autumn (1m 4s):
Well, you know, my English wasn't perfect sometimes either. Oh, and this is, should it be interesting? Definitely. It would've been joking about magic and destroying computers all day. So, Hey, well, I know to talk about how you would develop that, if that was your story.

Jesper (1m 23s):
Yeah. Yeah. I'm really looking forward to it because Magic Systems, that is one of my favorite topics.

Autumn (1m 31s):
This world needs a better Magic System. If I was writing Earth it would probably be bad for some people.

Jesper (1m 40s):
No honestly, there's not enough magic in real life. Not we need more.

Autumn (1m 46s):
Magic definitely, this was the story, a totally different anyway. So how are things over a year, a side of the planet?

Jesper (1m 56s):
It's good, not too many exciting things going on here. To be honest, I'm working on the chapter by chapter plotting of the two and our new Sherry's and a, I should not be done by the end of this week. I hope so that yeah, so that, that's a pretty good, I'm just working on that. And a otherwise soccer is really picking back up here in Denmark last Saturday we had 500 matches to cover and the region that I belonged to, which was a, too much. So we actually have to tell some teams that a, they would not go there were not going to get a referee. Ow, because we didn't have it anymore.

Jesper (2m 36s):
It was just too many matches on one day they're excited. The COVID spraying, you know, lets go for it. Everybody is just wanting to play matches with just of course it was cool, but it's everybody wants to play out at the same day becomes a problem. Yeah. So just this week alone, I have three matches to referee. So yeah, in that sense it's a bit busy that you could say.

Autumn (2m 59s):
I was going to say on top of writing on top of, you know, everything else that you got going on plus work and yeah, that just keeps you on your toes is a little bit.

Jesper (3m 12s):
Yeah, just a little, maybe I'm going to be a bit tired and once we reached the weekend, but I have to referee a medicine that weekend as well. So that's not, you know, let's do it. I'm going to get much arrest. So Sunday I'm just going to be on the couch. Like yeah, I think it will. It'll be a well deserved couch day. I hope it is quiet and rainy and you don't feel like going out and you can just be like surf the internet and watch Netflix. Yeah. I can watch more of American gods. Like we talked about it in a past episode and I started to finish the entire first session of a season of it now. It's good.

Autumn (3m 45s):
All right. I've got to like a 14 day span coming up where I'm solo on. I might put that on the list.

Jesper (3m 52s):
I like it is. It's a really good, cool. I haven't checked though to be honest because there was only three seasons and I have not checked if, because I'm always concerned about checking on online about because then I'm going to get spoilers or something, but I have not checked if it's like a proper ending seasonal or if it's just the one of those where they're just not funding it and it just stops in the middle of it. I have not checked that, but I just have fingers crossed right now that is going to be a proper ending. And they had planned to end by the end of the season three, if not, then I'm going to get a bit upset.

Autumn (4m 28s):
But do I do remember reading that, that yeah, a Netflix likes to have a series that only go two or three. So hopefully people are writing, knowing that Netflix prefers is the only two or three seasons.

Jesper (4m 38s):
Yeah, but this one is Amazon prime.

Autumn (4m 41s):
Oh, that's right. Darn Ooh. I don't know. Good luck. Yeah. I don't know. Well, and I dare not look it up on the internet. So the, I don't mind, but how about you? What do you, what are you doing these days? At least a book. So I'm happy yesterday. Revolution came out. I mean, when we're recording this, it record it out. It came out just a few days ago. So by the time it's out in the world, the book will have been out for a little while. But yeah, so it's good to have only one more book to go and my teen to face here. So I can't weight and I'm working on the edits for that one at the same time, working on edits for our co-written book one. So I'm editing and editing and doing some graphic design just to keep my sanity I suppose, and what is going for some Wachs, but we're getting the spring rains, which we desperately need.

Autumn (5m 27s):
So I can't complain, but that means more inside time than outside time. Oh, you must be going crazy by all that editing by now. Jesus, I'll be happy when I finished tainted Fe and that I'm just working on our books and it will be much smoother.

1 (5m 42s):
My may is going to be a busy month for me as far as trying to juggle way too many things. But after this, hopefully it'll smooth out a little bit and I will and mention I'll be a little solo for almost two weeks. So that should just work myself to death, you know, forget, sleep, pretend like I'm not a vampire. And what is your plan? It particularly to have a college student, I could work all night. That's what I'm going to do, but it's a wonderful of working on is wonderful. I can't complain. I just need more hours than the day.

Narrator (6m 20s):
A week on the internet with The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast.

Jesper (6m 25s):
A few things to cover in this section today, but the most important part first. So we want to give a shout out and thank you to Creative Gray and James Delton. I think that's how you say it for joining us on Patreon.

Autumn (6m 42s):
Yes. Thank you for your always appreciate having your supporter.

Jesper (6m 46s):
Yeah. And not only is that, Dominic also increased his pledge. So thank you for your support as well, Dominic. So it is because if you guys together, of course, with the existing patron supporters that we can keep this show going. So if you are listening out there and you haven't checked patron out yet, then ask yourself if you feel that this podcast is perhaps worth a dollar a month.

Autumn (7m 12s):
Maybe I, we, we hope we think so. I would support us if I wasn't already supporting that. I give my title for Bella, give herself a dollar. Sounds good.

Jesper (7m 24s):
Well, that is a link to the show notes from where you can check out Patrion and all their rewards that we offer all over there. If you're interested. And once again, thank you so much a to creative, great James store and Dominic for, for you or pledges a, we really appreciate it. Yes, definitely. Thank you. And the other thing I wanted to mention, speaking of Patrion, I think everybody probably heard about Kindle alibi now, but I actually wrote a detailed overview together with my personal recommendations on Kindle Vela for our patron supporters. So by joining on patron, you are also gonna get access to that and tons and tons of advice that a we don't share anywhere else.

Jesper (8m 10s):
And a autumn, you have written quite a number of advice, articles and so on, on patron as well to join my writing tips and things their yes. Yeah. So a very good a we, we loved to see actually it is so that once we get to $100 a month on Patreon, which we are very, very close to, then we actually going to do a dedicated patron Q and a session on only for patron supporters. So, you know, if somebody wants to get in on that, you could jump in now and then just a play it's a bit there on patron.

Jesper (8m 51s):
And it's probably is not going to take too much to put it over the top. So that's true. And then we good to go that, what do you find? Oh, I can't wait. I, because I do, we've actually gotten to talk to a couple of our Patreon supporters and they're all awesome. And that would be really cool to get the help of a zoom chat are something with them. Yeah. And we'd just a, before the recording, this podcast episode, we also just came off the monthly Q and a session we do with all the students and old patron supporters at, at $5 and up. Ah, and it's, it's just wonderful. I love the interaction with people and I love the, you know, being able to see people's faces even better when they joined life. But also some people that just email it in some questions with this wonderful.

Jesper (9m 34s):
And I love being able to help directly like that. A it's it's fun to do the podcast, but that's more generic. Whereas the Q and a session is just responding directly to peoples' questions. So thats, I love that. Oh, you two, are you hoping? And you know, with COVID easing up, maybe there'll be more conferences and stuff again, because yeah. I love the in-person stuff. It's so much fun. Yeah. And we still have it on the idealist to see if we could do some sort of Am Writing Fantasy thing, maybe a live thing with P seeing people live and stuff like that to sounds dangerous, but maybe we should do that.

Autumn (10m 15s):
One day was six foot distancing, but where did you see me? The Facebook group, his over almost a 4.5 are for 4,500 members. So you, you know, that it would be a quiet the party. Yeah. That was going to be quite a bit crazy. I think it would be, yeah.

Narrator (10m 40s):
And on to today's topic.

Jesper (10m 40s):
So yeah, as I said at the top Magic Systems are probably apart from map-making one of my favorite topics, because it's such an integral part of the fantasy genre. It is. I, it is funny though, because I think I still remember writing, reading fantasy as a, you know, a young kid and thinking, oh, this is so cool.

Autumn (11m 0s):
And I just assumed all magic was Magic you know, is like the same as Tolkien to the, the theme is the first story you've read. All magic is going to be like that. And it was sort of the introduction that magic could be different in different stories and then there's limitations and how you overcome them that I'm like, oh, this is really cool. And then you start thinking, what kind of magic would I have? We just got asked that on the podcast, what kind of magic would you want? And it, it was just so fun to think about. And especially as a writer to structure magic and to do that, what are the weaknesses? What are the strengths? How can you overcome it? I, to me, those are the F the best parts of writing or figuring those things out and then putting two people together and having a battle and yeah.

Jesper (11m 43s):
To be good. Yeah. And there, it is also a very nice with a, with a magic wand, if it's just part of the it's part of a shopping cart. I had to me that if you read a, a fantasy novel and the magic just doesn't it. Okay. I'm not saying every single fence as you, Brooke has to have to have a lot of magic in it, but if it, if it's not a, at least the way in one way or another, and it's, it's also maybe a bit cool, you know, that it is not just the same thing you've seen a million times before then it makes a difference. I agree. Definitely. It makes it, there's just something really cool.

Autumn (12m 24s):
Well, this is what's part partially memorable, but yeah, I can't see either of us ever writing a low fantasy novel with very little magic, then I did right. A dystopian series where there is no magic, but lots of explosions. Sometimes it gets a prize yourself. You know, I have to admit those. That was, I was at the time I was writing my elemental magic fantasy series. And so that was that magic. And I just wanted something that was, couldn't be solved with magic. And it was a challenge to switch to something where things had to be done with just wit and intelligence and guns on them. It can be interesting, but yeah, I prefer a fantasy.

Autumn (13m 6s):
I prefer a magic and I think it's really fun. We've come up with some really different systems and through our own books. And then the book were writing together that make the magic, even that much more fun and interesting to write about. Yeah. So as part of the world, a building cost that we're offering on Am Writing Fantasy dot com, we have an entire module on developing Magic Systems. And within that, we have created six rules of magic and the course will go into a lot more details about what about ease of the six rules and add them what a lot more content to them. A, but in this episode here on the podcast today, we were thinking to just go through, let's say a bit more quick and then yet not totally quick overview of all the sections.

Autumn (13m 59s):
I think that sounds very good. And you recorded this module, so I will let you lead. I already missed you. You, you said you were Mo that this is your structure, so I will follow up. Yeah. So basically we'll just go through the six rules of magic here and yeah. And then we can talk a bit about it as we go as well. Yeah. And hopefully it'll help people to inspire you listeners for when you're doing your Magic Systems. So first rule of magic, it sounds like first rule of fight club, world. Was it like you liked these rules? All righty.

Jesper (14m 40s):
The first of all of a magic. So in order to explain our first rule of magic, I think I need to set the scene a bit because you see Magic Systems can either be very specific, but they can also be vague and mysterious or somewhere in between. That makes sense. Yep. Exactly. So if you take an example here takes a lot of the ring's for example. So on one hand we find magic and the, a lot of the rings that is very specific. So like the one ring, it is very clear what the one, one ring does and how it works.

Jesper (15m 20s):
It has rules, right? So that's a pretty obviously, conversely, we also find magic in middle earth that seems to have absolutely no rules and laws. Scandals is, yeah. He's the perfect example right there. And there are those, let's say that the magic of middle earth and it's especially with Gandel that is just too random. You know, one moment you will have Gandel running for his life, trying to escape orcs, and that the next one minute he pulls off some weird magic trick that you never heard about it before. And we didn't even know what it was possible in the setting. A, so there was a debate about that, and I'm not going to go into it.

Jesper (15m 60s):
It's a big, big rabbit hole. And the way I've seen some of the crazy conversations going on about that. So we'll leave that to everybody else to debate. But what I want to say about it, it was more than that. If you are looking at candles magic, then it is less rules and much more mystique. So you don't quite know what he can do really. And on the other hand, the ring, you know, you know exactly what you can do that. So I think, yeah, those, those were, there was one thing that I wanted to point out with Gandel for here. And actually I put paired a shorter audio clip here.

Jesper (16m 41s):
OK. And it is one of my favorite scenes in a lot of the rings and a, if you are ready for this and let me play it, and then I'll S I'll tell you afterwards why I included it. Is there better be irrelevance? You're not just geeking out on Lord of the rings. Yeah. I'm just going to play like 15 different sign clips from a lot of the rings. And there is no relevance whatsoever except for the Suffolk. Yeah, that sounds good. Okay. But maybe there was a relevance, but you could say if you could work out what it is that right.

Jesper (17m 57s):
I still get the goosebumps from listening to that is such a good to see which we could show the whole, like the actual, it would be so dramatic that you remember what is right. I care. And to remember what he, his fighting off, but yes, he is a little standing there and I say, you know, you were a not going any further and he's fighting the bell rock. That's what I, it was, I was like, I know is not the dragon. What is that? What is it? What it is it all right. I know where to go watch these movies again. Yeah, yeah. But the reason why included this, because it, you can hear the Clippy proclaims to be that wheel the, of the flavor of Anna. And we have absolutely no idea what the secret file is all about. It, it has never been mentioned before and the entire book a and well, he is just a, a wheel, all of it, for some reason, it could be making point that's the whole point, right?

Jesper (18m 48s):
It is intriguing. And it leaves us with like a sense of wonder on, we like a wonder what that is, is it sounds cool, but we don't really know what it is. So it put it into different words. Apart from the one ring Lord of the rings is what we can categorize as a soft magic system. So this is basically, if you ignore the one ring, this is where you have no rules. And the author doesn't really probably know himself or herself. What the extent of magic is what it can, it cannot do that. And it says what type of Magic Systems. And to me, I mean, as a writer, I used to think I would never like a soft magic system, but my favorite books, RSF to Magic Systems and in their own a way it's kind of fun.

Autumn (19m 30s):
I usually like rules because of that. I know how to break them and how to build tension, but it's also kind of fun to be like, it's not a, you could do whatever you want to know how this small little browny being like, well, do you mean, you know, that you can do that with a magic it's magic. So there is something, but for that as well. Absolutely. I think the key with a soft magic system is to be careful with the Dale's X marketer. So if people don't know there was an ex mark, and that is translated into the Cod in the machine, which basically means that a well, something within the machine will all of a sudden make it work. And then everything is resolved. And that, that in other words, to the problem with a soft Magic Systems is that let's say you reached the climax of your novel and the character is in a pinch there.

Jesper (20m 18s):
And it's a big, big problem at, and all of a sudden, it just pull some Rahm, spell out the nobody has heard about it before. And then he went to the, or defeats a dragon. And Winster everything that you want it to win or whatever that can feel a bit like, yeah, it it's a bit cheap is not a good resolution of an entire novel that you just pull out a random spell that fixes everything. So why don't you do it on metric system B careful with that stuff for the messaging systems. And I think that that's a way like some hard Magic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm on the opposite. At the end of the scale, we have the rule based Magic Systems. So this is referred to as hot magic, like you just said, and this example, it could be Patrick Ruthers or a Brandon Sanderson.

Jesper (21m 4s):
There are often found in this category. So a rule-based magic system just means that the reader us know what magic can and cannot do. So all of a sudden, you don't even have to worry about Davis X Makena anymore because there are rules to be followed. And the character's just cannot do whatever they pleased because its not possible within the Magic system. So they have the characters have to use their resolve and intelligence to figure out how maybe to use magic. But when, how can we use the magic two that advantage then it's not just putting out a, a spell. You never heard about it before. So we have a pretty hot magic system in our setting a Autumn.

Autumn (21m 45s):
Yes, definitely. Even to have a list of dispels that you could cast. Oh yeah. I think we have a very, I don't think I've had a heart of a magic system that is hard before. I mean, it's very, and it's very limited. It is like, you know what a nine things that you can do. So it is very, very limited and it's different. Cause it's, I think I'm somewhere usually in the middle where it's like, these are the certain rules, but if you could, of what you're doing, you can kind of like, you know, combine and overlap and discover new possibility is using the same rule system, which is always fun. But yeah, hard magic is neat though, because you do know the rules, you know what they are, what you can't do.

Autumn (22m 26s):
And so, you know, sort of like where the limits are, you know, what can cause tension? Okay. It's almost like Superman and kryptonite, but its it's more interactive and the interplay and that lends in the stress, it's, it's a understandable output so that, you know, the character can fall and be defeated and you're like, oh gosh, no, because this is what gets me with a doctor who with a Sonic screwdriver that light can do anything is a Sonic screwdriver. It, it should not be able to save the world, but it can and some episodes and that just drives me absolutely crazy. So you have to be careful if you do create rules, you don't then throw them to the wind.

Jesper (23m 8s):
No, I agree. But as you say, of course it can also be in-between somewhere, like just mentioned a, that it's a bit hard Magic Systems, but then not quite so J K Rowling. It's usually in here with her Harry Potter series that there is some rules within the Harry Potter, a universal magic sister, but then not quite any way, because then sometimes he pulls up some stuff that you never heard about it again. So there is also that possibility to, to, to, to settle your Magic Systems somewhere in between these two end points. And it is probably to the last a week, it's a sliding scale right there. You can play it with it as you want, but basically without realizing we actually covered the first rule of magic here, 'cause the first of all of our magic is to decide what kind of Magic Systems are you going to construct you?

Jesper (23m 55s):
This is a subject to the rules or is it not? Is it somewhere in-between, that's the first of all of magic. That's the first thing that you decide that it's a pretty cool rule. So I'm going to go with hybrid because it's good to have some wiggle room. Well, yeah, I actually liked most of them to be honest. I, I think that that each of them have their own challenges and they also come with their own benefits. A I don't necessarily, I think have a preference. I think most of it is. Okay. So the only thing that I don't like is it is to the soft magic system where all of a sudden, you, you do like the Gandel stumps. I don't like that to be honest because it just feels too easy. It feels like the author didn't know what to do.

Jesper (24m 35s):
So all of a sudden the magic used to just pull it up some stunts and then, oh, look at that. Everything was resolved. Yeah. I don't like that. But, but other than that than I think all of them are equally good. A AMPATH jail. There's a magic. We're good. Yeah. So second rule of magic. All right. This one asks, where does magic come from? That's interesting as well. So is it, it could be that you pull magic from nature, maybe from the spirits, maybe from another realm, maybe you pull energy off of things or you get from the gods or maybe from within yourself, there's a million options.

Jesper (25m 21s):
Yes. Reading, spell books, you, but then you'll probably a pill pulling it either from within yourself or your poorly is it's more about the second role is more about it. It's not so much of that, how you create the spell, but is more about where do you get where the, to the energy for the magic com from basically. So you, are you getting granted magic skills by the gods because you pray to them, for example, do you pull it from demons or do you lay lines with like, yeah. Yeah. Like what, like, you know, a setting where they call it the magic users to pull them, put it from within themselves because a magic system is based on emotions.

Jesper (26m 2s):
So you have to funnel your own emotions in order to, or channel you own own emotions in order to cast spells. So, but it could be a million things. But the answer to the question gives you a lot of interesting things to play on for the next coming rules here. Oh, okay. I like that one to, yeah. So should we move on to rule number three? Yeah. I don't think I have anything to add, but that makes sense. Cause yeah, it's not necessarily that like you have a type, a magic like elemental magic. It is. Is it the gods granting in the magic or is it your own innate solar ability or a power that it's like a, a another sense. So, okay. I got that one. You've got that.

Jesper (26m 43s):
Okay. Third role of magic or how can create a broken magic system that is, that sounded all, isn't it? You know, I don't think that what would you want to create a broken metric system where the thing is leaving space for magic to fail on? Not to always go asked. It was intended. That creates another sense of wonder. And it also hints of some sort of hidden depth within the magic system that keeps it intriguing and interesting. When do you spell Casa as well? When they had to deal with, or maybe some setbacks are disasters to one is once and awhile from a spell that goes wrong or maybe just doesn't happen at all a or something, you know?

Jesper (27m 25s):
But if you could create, create some sort, it should not happen very often obviously. But if you could create something that just once in awhile, the magic just doesn't work. Like you expected it to. Yeah, that, that is interesting. I think so. I that's why like this roll is definitely one of my favorites cause I, well, its not because I'm a really good at breaking things. I, but I have a really good at breaking them, but I do good with that. But I think is interesting if you know that if things go wrong, if things can go wonky and you know, you, it pushes your characters into the situations that are you even more, a tense that is better for the reader as better for your story.

Autumn (28m 6s):
It's so exciting. It, this is why I can do the completely soft Magic system where it's like, well you could do this, but then tomorrow you can't. I like to have at least some kind of groundwork groundwork laid that. I know some things are some things hold true. It is like if a gravity started just tomorrow, decided to reverse for 15 minutes, then to save you from getting hit by a car, wouldn't it be fantastic. But yeah. So I think this is a good one that maybe a lot of people don't think about it until they are trying to fight. But if you want to start thinking of your climax and thinking of ways your hero can fail, you need to know where are the weaknesses or how, how things can go wrong.

Autumn (28m 47s):
I still loved that about what it is the first time I have a dragon Lance and a red light. How you forget the smell after you, you cast it. So then you have a sit down, do you have to reread it again? I'm like, that's cool. That is really fun to have that weakness. You cast something and then you're like sugar. I need it again. And you to go and do this. Yeah, no, yes. It's true. That's the way it comes from D N D that that's the thing in draglines there. But, but that, that is a very cool, but I think as well of what you just said, it also made me think the back to the soft magic system, because for one, of course, if you have something like a broken magic system, then you need to foreshadow with before the ending that the brakes like.

Jesper (29m 28s):
So something may be in a minor situation early on to not a novel, we'd get to see the brake in the Magic Systems, so to speak. And it doesn't only just happen at the end because while it does to attention, if it can also come across as if, oh, OK, the author needed a bit more attention. So all of a sudden that spell failed and then never, ever failed before. So that's not good either, but just tracing back to the soft Magic Systems. I use that as well because it maybe just think that it goes with that as well. That if you have a soft metrics system where spells can, well, you just make it up basically because they can do whatever you want to do. But the thing is once the character has cast a spell, you have to remember that they can do it again.

Jesper (30m 13s):
Which means that if you cast a spell in book one and then in books for you that spell, it would actually have resolve the situation. Well, all of a sudden that character doesn't use that space for the reader will remember, and the reader will be like, Hey, Hey, to wait a minute, why didn't he just cast a spell? He used in book one, it would have fixed the whole thing. So be careful, it just, you need to keep track of this stuff. Then if you have like a, a, a soft magic system that what, what it spells have you actually used, and if they are applicable again, to resolve the latest situation that later book, lots of good only speaks to the fact that he, the characters should be using it again. It's a really good point. It is just because you have a loose are a soft magic system.

Autumn (30m 54s):
That doesn't mean that you don't have to pay attention to how the magic works or how you end up using it. And you're writing indeed. But that was a side track letting me get back to the fourth rule of magic, number four already, and number for you moving quickly here, what are the limitations of magic? Ooh, excellent. And this fourth rule of magic is actually mostly intended for you as a writer because most readers will probably never notice that it's here, but that doesn't matter what the story will become better. And that is the part that readers will and should notice because when our fourth rule of magic reads limitations, I'm not really talking about the costs of using magic.

Jesper (31m 41s):
Okay. You know, like you needing setting certain ingredients or something like that. So that that's not what I'm talking about. Limitations just means what magic cannot do. Okay. So that's a very important to know that it is a very important part. So that's like, if you're a water elemental, you can't use fire. That's just the way it is. That works. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just knowing that there is some stuff that the magic cannot do, or maybe it could also just be that a, nobody can ever, if you have, like, let's say you have the soft Magic Systems again, but maybe there was limitations in the sense that nobody can ever cast any sort of teleportation or time-travel spells or something like, you know, you could have certain types of spells or effects that they can not happen ever, no matter what, but those limitations are important.

Jesper (32m 30s):
And as I said, the reader might not notice what they, we'll probably not know that you have decided to teleportation is impossible. Right. But the fact that this never happens, it it's something that you don't have to play with because when you're writing again, you can't use teleportation. That's a resolution for a, a problem because you'd decided that there was this limit. Yes. And of course, bonus points for every author who could then link their limitations too, some sort of logical sense or a logical reason within their worldbuilding. And so if you can create a link there, you're going to get bonus points. Alright. I like that. I do know they're keeping track of their points, but that is a good point to make it, you know, is inherent to the world to that.

Autumn (33m 16s):
Yeah. It, so that the two are tied that you have this magic system that comes from the world and can not go beyond a certain reason because of something you've already created in the world. That is, that is cool. World-building that is definitely a masterful. Yeah, it is. Then it also shows the reader that you know, that there was a reason for this worldbuilding element actually had a consequence over here in the magic system. And so on. What's a, yes. It just apps and so much step to the world. Okay. Fifth role of magic almost a year. No. Yeah, we are.

Autumn (33m 56s):
We're moving right along. Yeah.

Jesper (33m 59s):
The fifth rule of magic is something we just touched upon actually. It's what the costs of magic. Oh cost. So this is like cost energy or is this, where are, you would say ingredients? It, you know, you are, I have to sacrifice something or a burns and herbal something or you just makes you tired. Is that, what do you mean by that? It could be, yeah. I mean, cost to import now on one hand, because avid readers of fantasy expect there to be a cost for the use of magic. So it's like a trope within this, your honor, and you need to abide to it. So let, let's give two examples here.

Jesper (34m 41s):
When Frodo uses the one ring siren can sense his presence might and the additional cost it is that the ring also sort of takes control over you. So you, you, you lose yourself to it's way and is power, right? So there was a direct cost of use. There was benefit from using it, but there was a cost every time that you do it, if that makes sense. And the other, I mean, it just kind of mention another example that I'm going to get back to what you set as well. Okay. But in the will of time series, by a Robert Jordan, men go and seen from using too much metric. Oh, that's great. I remember reading. So, and again, there is a cost of using the magic, but as you said, it could also be something less or you could also be that whenever you use magic, you become really, really tired and you have to sleep for example, or you get drained or it could be all kinds of things.

Jesper (35m 33s):
I think that there should be some sort of cost. Shouldn't be that you should not be allowed to run round, just casting 500 spells. And you know, with like, it doesn't matter. Hmm. But I have not read a few where they had very strong limitations, like the elemental magic and the cost was, you know, slower. Like they could cast quite a few spells, but yeah, if it just something big or if a cast too many of them, and you know, if your only a wider elemental and you are in the desert, there's all these over the smell's you, you can cast anyway. So I think sometimes having a strong limitation will allow you to have a looser cost, correct?

Jesper (36m 15s):
Yes. Yeah. Because essentially as well, that to some degree what we did with our Magic Systems as well, the costs of a fairly limited, in a sense that, but the limitations are a huge meaning that M because it's based off of emotions, if you have to pull from your emotions, but if you accidentally start mixing to emotions, so basically its like you have to purify your mind. Like let's say M the dragons is attacking you. I use that on a different podcast where yeah. Do that. Someone's going to it. If they've listened to it, they know how this ends true. But if the dragon is attacking you and you are scared, then you can channel being scared and use dispels that are associated to that emotion.

Jesper (37m 4s):
But if you then all of a sudden, let's say the, the dragon does a swipe with his tail. All of a sudden you didn't expect that. And then you get you a surprise and then you accidentally start challenging surprise as well as being scared at once. That's no good. The, and not in our world. I can engine some place you don't want to be. Well, it was some, you know, it just, all of a sudden you were going to get a random magic effects because the magic system can not handle that. You are mixing emotions. So you have to keep absolutely pure in your mind about what you're channeling and stick to that. And if you start feeling something else, which is pretty difficult not to do when a dragon is coming up to you, you need that the channel.

Autumn (37m 52s):
Yeah. Yeah. Imagine you needed a happiness pill. That's a pretty damn it difficult. It is. But we do have a cost because we do have a backlash of whatever magic you're channeling then kind of washes over you as well. So there is a cost, but it's a smaller cost because the limitations are so like you really, if you break the limitations, you're gonna have a horrible, a horrible experience who knows what was going to happen. And you know, you could turn the dragon in the, to dragons and yay. Oh my God. She is just making it even worse. Oh yes. Yeah. Well, if you start fighting each other and yourself.

Autumn (38m 32s):
Yeah.

Jesper (38m 33s):
Okay. Well that leaves the six rule of magic. All right. Well we're on six already. Right? I want to hear this one. Yeah. Yeah. So the sixth, the role of magic is what are the ramifications of magic? So applying the sixth rule is basically that well when applying it, I think to be honest, you have to limit yourself a bit as well, because at times it could be tempting to like, well, build a different way of how magic impacts society and culture is for every single country and every single species and every single race. And there the entire world, a, you probably don't wanna do that.

Autumn (39m 15s):
Okay. So ramifications are a sort of, how does that fit into the world that culturally like do people to people without magic tolerate magic users or they want to capture them and use them like lucky left for cons of what's going on with the whole world and those who do and do not have magic. Yeah, exactly. What, what, what impact does it have on society? The effect that magic exists I'm and I think this is, I mean, you can have a situation like, well, for example, lets just take Gandel for again, because it's so easy.

Jesper (39m 55s):
A lot of the rings or not at all. Okay. Well now what was that? That the other podcasts we won as well, they said to drink every time we've talked about laundry now and the thing that happened five times and one hour, goodness, that was drinking tea. Yeah. But where it was I going with this? Yeah. So for example, Gandalf, he he's a very revered in the middle earth. 'cause he's a magic user. Right? So in that society, the major that I just respected people, right. You could leave it at some things as simple as that, it doesn't have to be more in terms of ramifications, but it could also be that maybe people don't like people using maths, you maybe there was like a magic police that arrest people who use this magic or something like that.

Jesper (40m 50s):
Or maybe everybody can learn magic. So there is tons and tons of school's that you can, you, you can go back to when you are, you just start learning magic or there are so many ways you can make it a show in your culture and in your environment and in you're setting that magic his part of, of the setting, but just don't go overboard and cram into a million variations. But I think if you pick a few things and work with that, then that's going to get you a quite far. Yes. I think that makes sense. I mean, that's like my epic fantasy with elemental, a magic, anyone who has elemental magic was like for us to join an order, the church of for orders.

Autumn (41m 30s):
So you could even make it a religious, a quasi religious, I mean the magic came from the goddess. So you know, it all kind of fit together. So those are really fun ways to worldbuilding and make the magic fit into the world a little bit better if the limitations are coming from the world, you know, the result of having magic should be part of the world as well. And I think considering all that we've discussed is also worth mentioning how there are some cliche Phil Magic Systems that we have seen way too often. No. So I'm going to mention a few here. All right. This will be fun. I like to, the cliche is I'm going to mention a few ever since we mentioned you will see it, that are right.

Autumn (42m 15s):
I'm not sure where I will ever since we mentioned having a pen name in just writing a completely trope trash fix it, it to sell it so much. To me, it was like this other life now secretly wanted to do this. It, it would actually give you a bit fun, but I think it would be quite silly as well with people there's nothing really silly. So the time you are creating a Magic system for your setting, try to avoid the following for alright. Okay. Okay. Number one is healing based Magic. Not that healing spells there is that there are quite common. There is nothing wrong with that, but when magic becomes more or less like a standing for a hospital and you better stay clear that, and I've been in a bit guilty about that one myself.

Jesper (43m 6s):
So to try to avoid that, if it's not a very funny, when all the time the magic used to just heal, whoever gets hurt and they just continue to not cool. I used to have to set up to the world because I've definitely done this to, but if you don't wanna kill off to many characters to make the costs really high, you can heal someone, but it's a high cost to do it. But yeah, it's, it is one way of avoiding, killing off everyone. If that's something you don't wanna do. Yeah. But then to find better ways of doing that. Yeah. It's good to have a high cost to the 10 and number two is throwing Fireball's and the guilty of that to, but fireballs no, no pleas.

Jesper (43m 53s):
We've seen it a million, but then do something else with fire to you do to, to have them throw in something other than fireballs pleas just once in a while. No, no fireballs hold them. You know that you are prohibited from firewalls from now on a, it never gets breaking. I like breaking the rules. So be careful if that okay, well you're not allowed to do a lot of fireballs and only fireballs just, and I know that you're not gonna do that because you're not going to do the on the board. Okay. Yeah. And that this next one, this one is for you. All of them. So I've, I've been guilty after the first to myself.

Autumn (44m 34s):
Okay. So this one's specifically mine. I've, I've created a specific one for you because I have to, now that I'm guilty off and then I'm feeling bad and then I have to have to have to drag you down with me. All right. If I to pull me down and what is this? A slide elemental magic. I love the elemental magic there. It is seeing so many times whenever you are magic. See, and every time I think he, I tried to do something different when I did mine. I tried to have the powers do of a plus there's five is not for, so I just have five elements. But then you do have to explain that even though that as a culture in this world has five elements.

Autumn (45m 15s):
But yeah, I don't know. I still have no guilt. I adore him elemental magic and I tried to make it a scientific so that it was earth was minerals and you know, dead things and yeah, fire water could purify to, there was so much fun trickling out that precipitates, I don't know. And fire can do light to the, to cast illusions. I'd tried to make it a little fresh. Come on. I feel like you are not re very taking my cliche film. Magic Systems is a very seriously, just a basically saying that all of them is is, is good. It's magic. I have no regrets.

Autumn (45m 56s):
I just put in a magic.

Jesper (45m 57s):
Okay. What about it? My number for, and you probably don't like that one either then. Yeah. This is a guy with Harry Potter that we've just had too many witches and warlocks using once and spells ingredients. So let's take clear of that one. It can, can you just give me one, then I can get you that one actually. Aye. I've never written the story with spelling, ingredients and stuff. And I did love supernatural and the, the, you know, they'd be tracking down all this stuff that they needed for the spells, but I don't know, its, it would be hard to do it another original one. Is it sort of like a authoritarian legends at this point? I've read enough of those at the moment.

Autumn (46m 40s):
That I'm good. Yeah. I don't feel that this was a very good ending because I thought I had such good Clichy for the magic systems. And then your not on board. All I can just feed you. I want to write the cliche pill, magic systems. I'm going to just, you know, I want to start, I want to start this episode. Just not going the way I wanted it. Oh, I'm gonna go read that your pantry on a post on a Kindle Villa and maybe use that to write a cliched Magic Systems and I'll just be having a blast this weekend. Oh we have to be better here. It is. It is not going well. So the next week a autumn should have a very good interview lined up for you if all goes well. So it make sure to tune in it for that.

Narrator (47m 23s):
If you like what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST. Please tell a fellow about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join Autumn and Jesper on patreon.com/AmWritin Fantasy. For as little as a dollar a month, you'll get awesome rewards and keep The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast going. Stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 125 – What is Deep POV and How Can it Help Your Story?

Do you want to make your characters and writing pop? There are some pro techniques to enhance a character and connect the reader with her/him. One of them is using Deep POV.

Join us for a discussion on Deep POV. What is it? How do you do it? And when are there times you can purposefully not use it? We've got you covered in this episode!

To check out the K-Lytics report we mentioned, head over to https://k-lytics.com/dap/a/?a=7419&p=k-lytics.com/epic-fantasy

And you can check out our book Plot Development here: https://books2read.com/Plot-Development

Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday.  

SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST! Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review.  

Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy. For as little as a dollar a month, you’ll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going. 

Narrator (3s):
You're listening to The Am. Writing Fantasy Podcast in today's Publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need. And literary agent, there is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing. Join two best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them now on to the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt.

Jesper (31s):
Hello, I'm Jesper. This is episode 125 of The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast. And it's now time to discuss Deep point Of view, how we can Help you Story. I think that should be an interesting conversation, Autumn.

Autumn (50s):
I think so. I liked this one because you know what I like to put up the point of view, and this is like one of my favorite aspects of writing. And so we were just looking at what people liked as well on the, some of the pastor podcast episodes. And it seems like the ones that have to do with writing crafts are quite popular together with our very silly monthly ones where, where we just like go out on something as well. Those are my two favorite podcasts. So I'm with the listeners and I guess it means we have to do more of them. Right?

Jesper (1m 22s):
Probably we shouldn't do it like two or three times a month with it just to at least a half. I, that might be a bit too much,

Autumn (1m 29s):
but we can't have a whole, like there has to be a month dedicated to podcast in a room with nothing but a stupid tub, top 10 list.

Jesper (1m 42s):
All right. Maybe not, but we'll be fine, but how are things going on you and all of them.

Autumn (1m 50s):
I don't know if they are good as you know, but the listeners might not be as I just got back from a trip from seeing my parents, which I haven't been down to their house since like pre pandemic, of course, because we are a good little kids, but it was so nice and also so hard because they seem to have, like, it seems like everyone saying like the pandemic was like, what a century. They seem to age on way too much. On the last year, it was just terrifying. But you know, they take their naps and I got to spend some time with them and we went, we did go out, I got my first vaccinations, you know, 50%, 80% protected. I know it's a lot. So I have my next one scheduled.

Autumn (2m 30s):
And so we, we did go to work to do breweries and we went out just a little bit and then it could be a huge tide dinner or, you know, I'm a foodie yellow food. So I was making potstickers and Tom got gum, like Nike pronounce it Now, but I made it a coconut based supe. And it was just, honestly, it would be nice to go and visit your parents again after such a long while. Oh, it was eight drank too much beer drank too much wine, ate too much sugar. It's all of a good thing. It was a lot to like, exactly. You got to hang out with my folks. And they were definitely, they are definitely my, some of my favorite people on the planet. So it was really excellent.

Autumn (3m 10s):
And I got to see my nephew and he gave me, and I don't know if you saw the picture I shared on Instagram and Facebook, he gave me a 4k monitor, a 32 and just give it to monitor. So I, well, he wasn't using it and he does coding. He does, he was doing a little bit of a graphic design, but he's going more into coding. So it was like, I don't need for K to read code has got to monitor. I was like 24 inch side by side. He's good. But yeah, he didn't need this one anymore. And he knows I've been doing graphic design on my 13 inch Mac pro. And then it gives me this more as you put it, it was like, I could bring it to you, but it takes up my whole bag.

Autumn (3m 51s):
Wow. So I'm so excited. It was like the best late birthday present ever. It is fast. Spectacular. I have it. Yeah. I have to find a place to put it in our cabin

Jesper (4m 4s):
because it's too big for a table.

Autumn (4m 7s):
Yeah, exactly. It is. It is too big for a table. And so yeah, we were in, and we don't have a ton of wall space cause this captain has a ton of window. So like you don't get there or there are, so I can't wait though. And I already, yeah, I already was playing with a cover on it and going, Oh, I need to fix that. I couldn't even see it before. So, and it was a wonderful trip,

Jesper (4m 30s):
But we also have a trip that we went to visit my brother and his wife this past weekend, which is probably the first trip we've had in close to a year, I would say too to COVID-19 as well. And it was really nice. And the, the, the weather was good enough for us to sit outside a car, a couple of hours on the terrorist as well. So that was, that was good. Yeah. I like that. Yeah. But also over the past week, I've started watching a new show on Amazon prime. Have you watched the American gods?

Autumn (5m 5s):
Oh, no, I haven't. Not at all. I have seen it a little bit too. It,

Jesper (5m 8s):
I am only two episodes a season, but I would have to say, I mean, I avoided For, I don't know quite why, but for awhile I just felt like, know, it's not my thing. I don't want to watch it, but then I thought, yeah, okay, I'll give it a shot. And I started watching it. It's really good. I mean, after the first two episodes, so I'm like, Oh my God, I'm hooked. You know what? It's like, it delivers

Autumn (5m 34s):
Its kind of the way

Jesper (5m 35s):
That we liked to ride stores as well. Do you know? It it's very easy. You don't quite understand what's going on it. So it's kind of a bit of a mystery thing going on in there. Like, and, and the main character does not understand either. So he is trying to figure out what is going on here? Why are these people so weird? Did this? I think they are God, but they are behaving really weird and they can do all kinds of supernatural things, but it's not over done. Like is just small things. Like he flips a coin and every time it lands on heads, for example, just like every single time, just small stuff like that. And I still don't quite understand after two episodes of what they're trying to do and what does God actually wants the main character to do.

Jesper (6m 15s):
I don't know. And, and so that's the main character doesn't know either, but I like it. It is very intriguing and I want to watch more.

Autumn (6m 28s):
Oh cool. Well that's my husband has some trainings through may. Like he'll be gone half the month at two different times, so maybe I'll go check it out, but it sounds like it will keep me in touch with,

Narrator (6m 38s):
We can go on to the internet with The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast.

Jesper (6m 43s):
So back in episode 122, so that's not that long ago, but we had Alex Newton on from K Lytics and she had some great market research about the FANTASY Shamara and Alex were so incredibly kind afterwards that he should be at the latest detailed Fantasy market report with me. So I thought I would summarize the conclusions from that report here for everyone's benefit. Right.

Autumn (7m 13s):
Nice. Yeah, that sounds great. I can't wait to look at it when you summarize it and I know

Jesper (7m 18s):
You don't mind them. So I've picked out like what is like maybe eight, seven, eight different key points here that I thought I could just a waffle off here and hopefully be a bit helpful as well. Excellent. So first of all, after that, A romance in thrillers Fantasy remains the third highest selling Shamrock of The on the Amazon Kindle platforms. So, and during the first COVID-19 lockdown period, there was a very clear and very sharp drop in sales of APEC fantasy novels.

Jesper (7m 58s):
But the good news is that here in 2021 sales have been trending upwards again. So I don't know why people don't want to read Fantasy when they're on lock down, but I will hold it against them. I'll I'll have a grudge about that.

Autumn (8m 14s):
Yeah, I agree. I mean, seriously, you're stuck at home and maybe it's like too, like you can't go out and be in a fantasy world for a long time.

Jesper (8m 23s):
I would go. So the Epic Fantasy market is quite large. K Lytics measured around 800,000 a month in royalties being paid for Epic Fantasy. So that's pretty good. Mmm, wow. But it also shows actually there is in the top of the Epic FANTASY Shaundra, the competition is quite hard up there. So it means that it, it, it is a pretty good to write it in because there was a lot of readers, but to be on the bestseller lists and the two earn like on the top of the top of the chart, you have to sell a lot of books.

Jesper (9m 12s):
So it's not easy to get to the top of those lists, but, but at least there was a lot of readers. So I think that's good news.

Autumn (9m 22s):
Yeah. Yeah. That is good news. I mean even a small piece of a very big pie. It was a piece. It still tastes good. Yeah.

Jesper (9m 30s):
Maybe depending on what kind of pie it is. I guess I don't like Apple. Is that enough? It's true. I feel like most people like Apple. Yeah.

Autumn (9m 40s):
Well, you know, its kind of bland. Yeah. Well it, over here that there was a few States where they built cheddar cheese on top the top of the pie and I ain't touching that. Can

Jesper (9m 50s):
We do like a chocolate pie? Is that possible?

Autumn (9m 54s):
We Can do chocolate. I prefer coconut, but we can do a chocolate coconut and that'd be good. Yeah.

Jesper (9m 59s):
I don't think this is in Decatur or K Lytics report. So the next one and this one will interest you Autumn. So if one looks at the top 250 covers in the best seller list, then about half of them show symbols or scenery on the cover as opposed to any characters. Wow.

Autumn (10m 26s):
That's so interesting. It was surprising for me because me as a reader, I look at it and I'm like, eh, you know, what does it tell me about the Story? It's a pretty Fantasy picture, kind of interesting, but every time I've used a symbol picture as well. So I find it as interesting as well,

Jesper (10m 43s):
Because then it goes onto say that 23% of covers shows a male, usually like warrior type of character on the cover. Whereas 14% shows a female character. But the interesting part though, is that okay if you compare the sales rank between the books that has a female character on the cover, versus those that has a male character on the cover, the female covers actually tend to rank higher than the ones with a male Now. And I think that's a very interesting to know as, as well. 'cause if you look at the fact that there is 23% of the mails on the covers, you might go to the conclusion to say, Oh, well that means that it's better to have the males on the cover it, but actually it's the opposite.

Jesper (11m 32s):
It's better to have females.

Autumn (11m 35s):
Yeah. What do you need to have more, have more female cover? We have an Elvin female assessment. Yeah.

Jesper (11m 43s):
Got it.

Autumn (11m 44s):
Yeah. Well we can do, how can I put her into book one? Alright. We won't get in to cover a spectrum and other good

Jesper (11m 52s):
News for those who write military, that's a category on Amazon and hear the sales rank versus competition ratio is quite in your favor. So in other words, it's a pretty good category to publish your books in. So I think that's a good information to have if you're right. That kind of book.

Autumn (12m 17s):
Yeah. Yeah. Or if you're thinking of writing that down

Jesper (12m 20s):
Pricing, so $3, $3 99 and $4 99 is the most frequent price point among FA Epic fantasy books on Amazon. But the highest yielding price point is nine 99 followed by seven 99, which I think is pretty good news for us because we are planning to sell around six 99, seven, nine to nine or something like that. So that's pretty good. That is the highest, highest kneeling price point.

Autumn (12m 52s):
Yeah. That is really interesting. I'm surprised you think. Why do you think that counts box sites are those individually books?

Jesper (12m 59s):
I think it is. I think in part it has to do with the traditionally published books where the chart's more and there are, that's probably a school's to data in a bit, I guess M but what it does prove though, is the people who are willing to pay the higher price point for books a day. So if you make sure that your covers are indistinguishable from the traditional publishing, meaning that they look just as a professional, then there is, there should be no reason why people wouldn't want to buy it. And at six 99, seven 99 or something like that, even nine 99. I know we talked with the actually twice, I think, but way back when this podcast was a YouTube channel, we talked to Joseph Malick twice and he sells his, all his books are at nine 99.

Jesper (13m 49s):
So it's yeah, it's a possible, right. But anyway, three 99, four 99, that's the most frequent price points. So if you want to stay within the frame of what people are used to, then that's probably the price point to go for it, but we are going to sell out books a bit higher than that, but it's up to you. Of course.

Autumn (14m 7s):
Sounds exciting. And also

Jesper (14m 10s):
About two thirds of all the Epic fantasy books are outside Kindle unlimited.

Autumn (14m 20s):
Hm. Yeah. Interesting. So there's only a third that are in Kindle unlimited. Oh it's so that is, it makes me wonder if the people, if that's a smaller pool so that they are actually doing well, there's less competition. Or if readers just prefer to be outside of it, you know, there are wide, these books are, or why it's not a hundred a month.

Jesper (14m 40s):
I can only say got my gut feeling. Is that a, I think there is room to play in Kindle unlimited. If you put Epic FANTASY in there. I think, I think that you can get a new readers because there's not enough Epic fantasy books in Kindle unlimited. They want to read. So I think it's probably a pretty good place to place your books, but that is just my gut feeling. I don't have any data to back that up. So there is a ton more stuff in this report. So if you are curious, do you have listener? I should. Yes. Did you go and check out the full report is mighty helpful in order to understand what is working and what is trending in the Epic Fantasy market.

Jesper (15m 23s):
And I only gave you the highlights here. So we'll add a link in the show notes so that you can check it out yourself. The full report will cost you $37, but it is well, well worth it and on to perhaps a good place to stop is with a definition.

Autumn (15m 47s):
Why is it? Oh, that's all it's boring sometimes. You know, I think it was a very good way to start though. It's true. Well, it should be, it helps to clarify things, but yeah. So Deep point of view that has usually referring to a third person limited, which I think that sounds even more confusing point of view. So a third person is when you use, he, she, his, her, you know that tight, but rather than I, which is a first person and limited means not omniscience. You literally are like Writing along on the character. Scholder you can only see, hear, feel, touch what that character feels seasoned here is in touch.

Autumn (16m 27s):
So if someone has a running up to the character from behind the character is not going to see it, they're going to see what's in front of them, like their best friend standing up in throwing an X and thinking, Oh my God, why is he is trying to get out of my best friend or trying to kill me? Well, really throwing an ax at the, you know, the ogre coming up from behind. So those are the types of stories we're talking about. So if you write it in first person and your property, you are already limited and you are already sort of in a Deep point of view, your really grounded anchored into that character. So what we're doing is we're looking at anchoring the reader into a character, but using third-person now, why is a third person useful for Fantasy Writing? I know, you know this one, right?

Jesper (17m 9s):
Well actually, before getting that far, I was also thinking that, Oh, maybe I I've tried to prepare some examples just to a few prepare. I always plan things on them. Why do you keep pointing out things?

Autumn (17m 29s):
Yeah, because I think I just looked at the title of the day and said, Oh yeah, I'm good to know

Jesper (17m 33s):
This way. I plan things. It was just to try to give you a couple of examples of that. So maybe, maybe make it a bit more real, but basically you, so we are trying to, with the point of view, we are trying to sort of hit a style of writing where we immersed to read as much as possible into the point of view character. And I think it's basically like, if you imagine watching your favorite films or TV shows, you know, we are trying to mimic in the Writing that we only experience in CS and knows what the character knows a and thereby we are limiting the narrative, so to speak.

Jesper (18m 19s):
So I tried to make one of each, so an example where we have like a third person limited, like that's what most of us Fantasy authors normally. Right. And then another example with a Deep point of view. And I don't know how well I'm going to succeed here. So you'll have your own, my edit there anyway, Autumn. So you will have to edit stuff. Okay. This is the regular third person limited. Okay, ready? I need to do my voice storytelling my voice. I probably can't keep that up without a laughing. Okay, fine. Are you hurt the King's voice? Booming in the great hall, calling him in the way he had come to know signifying the King's anger.

Jesper (19m 7s):
What had he done wrong? Fi find out. I didn't know yet if a familiar unease ceased his stomach. Okay. So that was like third person limited, pretty standard regular. And now my attempt of a transforming the same scene into a Deep point of view. So, and now you are the editor here. Remember the penetrating force of the King's voice echo throughout the great hall. Find out, felt it in his bones. And as he had so many times before, what has he done wrong this time? Come here right now.

Jesper (19m 47s):
Shout at the King as if he was nothing but a laptop find out it felt the knot twisting and tightening in her stomach with every step toward the red faced man.

Autumn (19m 60s):
Yeah. That's perfect. Congratulations. I think that's fantastic. I think it's pretty obvious. Yeah.

Jesper (20m 5s):
Obvious. Which one is the most engaging, right?

Autumn (20m 11s):
Oh yeah. The second one that was just, I mean, you know, to me, it's so brilliant because you really, you feel it. It's not, you're not just being told what's is going on with the character or what he's thinking and feeling that you kind of, you feel it, you were like, Oh, the gut twisting, you know, the anxiety. It, it heightens to me like, if I'm thinking of it as an art terms, it's upping the contrast, your getting that really kind of gripping engagement, what you don't get with just regular sort of center or a third person limited. Yeah. You definitely don't get up.

Jesper (20m 42s):
All righty. You, you feel the blood boiling and all of that stuff right in that that's the way anger or the sadness or whatever the character feels that we feel it that's at least that's how I feel like Deep point of view, just bring so much more to the story. I actually learned what act in preparing, because yes, I do prepare for these episodes, all of them. But in preparing for this episode, I a, I actually learned that a star, this a Deep point of view Writing is actually only became popular in WRITING like 20 to 30 to 40 years ago. I didn't know that before or researching this. So that's that I find that quite interesting.

Autumn (21m 26s):
Yeah. I mean, before that, even if you look at Tolkin, it is technically omniscient, even though you're mostly staying with Frodo, but there are times token head hops because you know, no one else what other people are doing. They had more of a Narrator type of voice. Now we have more of a character. Yeah.

Jesper (21m 46s):
You told her why is that in the beginning? It is. It's much more akin to what you normally see in movies. And so on. I mean, I know of course you don't get under the skin of the characters in the movies, But, but watching the character's in a movie, you sorta get the feeling about their feelings. Right. So it's different from being told that The, then he went there and then he did this and, and so on.

Autumn (22m 12s):
Exactly. And it's, I mean, that's where you have those little tension. I think it really ups the tension to be in the point of view, even in movies, you had that moment where you might dwell on something like just the breathlessness or if a panting I have watched a movie recently were the whole seen was black. And you had just heard someone say breathing, that's a Deep point of view. So that is when you're just, everything is down to just that one little focus. And because it is so tension, field and emotion field, you really engage with the character. If the bad news is, if you hate the character, you really like, Oh, I don't think engage with this character. But if you like the character, if you were rooting for them, Oh, you are just like grip in the book or the Kindle.

Jesper (22m 52s):
Now I talk to my son. Well, so far away from what you were saying early on that, I completely forgot now.

Autumn (23m 1s):
Oh, well, why, why are there to see the author specifically writing in third person verses first person? Or what's the better angle that this is? What is the main mode? I do know there are some first-person stories out there, but majority of the authors are the right person.

Jesper (23m 17s):
You think the last part of it is because we like to have multiple point of view characters. And so when we write the third person limited, it, it allows us, for example, between chapter's to switch to another character. And then we are getting inside the head of that character. But if you were writing in the first person, you can see call every character. I then it would be pretty confusing for the reader who is I now? And then this is all of a sudden another person. So yeah, as you said, a fantasy novels do exist with a first person, but they are, they are pretty limited a that there is not that many of them, I think in the grand scheme of things. Yeah,

Autumn (23m 55s):
No, mostly urban fancy. Yeah. I think urban fantasy is mostly an AI-based Story, which surprises me. And even when I write from urban Fantasy and I always stick to a third person because I like characters that that's what Epic Fantasy I can think of Tolkien, how many doors and every one that was running her off onto this quest, all of the hobbits. I mean, there were so many characters. You could not write that in first person or he could do like, who are we here? What are we talking about? You know, I'm in small, I've got to just stick with a small, we're fine. Right?

Jesper (24m 27s):
Yeah. But I think as well for us, for this whole thing to actually work, you have to know your point of care, point of view characters really, really well, because otherwise you, you simply won't be able to write their personal point of view about what's going to happen. So yeah, there's a step.

Autumn (24m 50s):
Yeah. There is that you definitely its up and things, a notch because when you're in Deep point of view, everything comes as if it was from that character. So even your word choice, one of my examples is I had a character who hated her father. So every time I'm in her point of view, should, did she ever think of even her father, his father? No. She thought of him his first name as father. She would never say daddy or dad, because that is, you know, that's an emotional resonance. And so it is literally picking every choice your metaphors become from that character. So we should do that anyway, but you really have to do it with the point of view.

Autumn (25m 30s):
So you have a character that is a sailor. Is there gonna be thinking someone has a S their tents like taught the rigging? There are not going to have some things, you know, Oh, their stress, like a farmer or under the hot son. That's not what they are familiar with. You, you have to be very specific with every word choice so that you're just kind of pulling the reader in to this very narrow window of what it is like to live in. Yeah.

Jesper (25m 51s):
Not only that also in terms of the character's personal and motivations and the background of the character, or even, you know, like something happens and a character don't like it. Okay. So you need to know, well, the reason he doesn't like it, this because a so-and-so happened in the past and it brings back back bad memories and stuff like that sort of thing. You can not see it into the narrative unless you know it, so it puts more demand on you to have a new character creation process to really know them. Of course, a in the plotting guidebook, we wrote, we have a whole section that we'll talk you through this. We will put the link to that won in the show notes as well.

Jesper (26m 32s):
So, so if your interest that you can check it out at any rate, or whether you follow a guidebook all, or you do it by yourself, I think the main point is just that you really need to understand all those details about the, or otherwise it's going to be very hot. You can ride the point of view, but it's going to be very hard to do it well, unless you know those things.

Autumn (26m 54s):
Yes. And it does, it's going to take practice anyway. But yeah, and I think one of the other things is like you mentioned your, Your have this character reacts a certain way because of something that happened in the past, but not always jumping back into that flashback, or even explaining like acted, you know, aggressively or said, I don't want to hear about that being. And then he has, and then you'd do that character. He thinks about the time that blah, blah, blah, you don't do that. In the point of view, you don't go wander off into character thoughts either. You, you really it's picking and choosing what is going to be related to the reader slowly and over a time. And it should come out in the other dialogue or a, maybe you'll do a flashback later, or you'll have something else to explain why that reaction is.

Autumn (27m 38s):
You can allow that the reader to be a little bit like, Oh, well, I don't know why they did that. Exactly. But it's an obvious trait. Something triggered this emotion. And that is definitely one of the writing techniques to is that you actually get rid of things. Like he thought he wondered hee all those little verbs. It says the character is thinking that no one of these just do it. You have that thought, Oh yeah, you do this action. You don't think about doing it, right.

Jesper (28m 4s):
Yeah. At least some of what you said there. I think that that applies just as well to the third person limited you, you should try to not wander off into all these kinds of other explanations as well. And that's not specific to Deep point of view where so much I think it's yeah. It's, it's just good Writing. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Autumn (28m 27s):
Yeah. Geez. You both said it. Yeah. Too funny.

Jesper (28m 31s):
But is there, I was just wondering, because you're being the editor here. So if, for example, let's say I'm being the listener here. Now I wrote, I wrote my first draft and now I'm sitting down and I want to edit it and I want to make sure it is Deep point of view. Well, enough if I can say it like that. So is there anything you would say, like, this is a sort of the check list or these other things that you should be top five things you should be looking for? Something like that. It is. Is there any, anything you do when you edit all of them too, to make sure that, that the product is well in or written well, and the point of view?

Autumn (29m 21s):
Absolutely. And I mean, the first one I think is taking out those things, like he thinks like, when she feels like if you had to sentence, like he, you know, if he feels a sweat of sweat beat on his forehead, no, you just go straight to sweat. What does it feel when a sweat runs down out of that hit right on his skin. Yes, exactly, exactly what you try to really imagine what it would feel like to do that. And you cut out those words that he feels, and he thinks, because those are actually create a little barrier between the character and the reader. And the whole point of the point of view is to just remove that barrier. And another thing is you often see people say like, he thinks about this, or he thinks that she is an idiot.

Autumn (30m 8s):
No, it would literally be like, she's an idiot. That would be the character thought you would start doing those little introductory phases because it is literally like journaling in third-person. You want it to seem like you were just totally seated in that. Yeah.

Jesper (30m 22s):
Yeah. I think that is exactly the key. Right? If you imagine yourself, when you're riding, if you imagine how I am inside the character, I wouldn't say to myself, I'm thinking, I would just think it right.

Autumn (30m 35s):
I know exactly. If you wouldn't write it in first person, you won't write it in a Deep point of view. And so, yeah, like I think about going to the grocery store now, don't you just go to the grocery store and that is how it works. And those are the important little clues. And even like I said, the Italian is a lot of ice. Sometimes get readers who will read back when I stuff it's like, well, this is a thought it should be an Italian as well. You don't have to do that at the point of view, it should come across very naturally. If you want to see some really good Deep point of view, go read some George RR Martin. He is an expert at really anchoring into a character's head and really feeling like that world comes alive through that character.

Autumn (31m 18s):
And that is, you know, you really make sure you dwell on the other senses, seeing what else is going on so that you have the thinking, the feeling of the touching, the tasting, all of those things are very much alive and nuanced throughout every single chapter. Yeah.

Jesper (31m 34s):
Yeah, absolutely. And I think actually, I don't know if, if, if, if you agree with me here, but I'm almost thinking like isn't a lot of this really a bit of just a mindset shift on your approach to Writing rather than it is like a new technique as such. That's, that's almost how I think about it.

Autumn (31m 59s):
I think it is. It is just realizing that the reason for this person is so spectacular is that you are really just with one character and you feel so connected with that character. And that's what gets you turning pages is because you want to see what happens to that character. So this was being able to do that exact same thing and those exact same emotional pools, but with multiple characters. And again, though, this is where you need to be careful or is that you then don't want to have 10 character's in your story. You want to keep it as limited as possible. And when it really becomes hard is when you switch to a character you don't like, or like the villain, you want to do the best you can to be that character, his voice, and show the world through their perspective.

Autumn (32m 47s):
And that's why it works so fantastic. When you have those gray characters that you have a good characters that have some bad falls and bad characters that had some really good ones that you can show that they are really doing all of the wrong things, but for the right reasons. And that's where it's so impactful. It, it makes the stories. I think the ones that are really linger with you after you closed the book are the ones that are written and Deep point of view because you just really can not get these characters out of your head. And when you're writing it, you really can't get these characters. Knowing that

Jesper (33m 19s):
That's also a challenge in the sense that we recently completed our first a reader magnet on a short story where the character, he is one of the Ember dwarves and I was setting, which means that the end, but wolfs are not very nice, you know, setting a no. And then the third thing is that as people know, I can actually be quite a challenge to write a character like that because he can come across as not being very nice. He's not very likable necessarily because that's the way he is. That's a part of their culture.

Jesper (33m 59s):
So it was a bit of a challenge to write it in a way whereby the Rita actually understands where the guy's coming from, you know, the, that they understand, like he's not doing these things or he doesn't view things this way because he wants to be evil or anything like that. It is just, that's the way he grew up. That's, that's part of his culture. And of course, Deep point of view is excellent at explaining those things. But at the same time, it's also a bit of a challenge to, to nuance it a bit so that it doesn't come across as well as to blatant, because it's quite easy to sort of say, like, you're saying, well, we use grocery shopping before.

Jesper (34m 42s):
Right. But, but if it was, you know, if it was something set Fantasy related, like it all peoples all humans, I hate to humans or whatever. Right. And then it's very easily to just say that and move on. But then you're also leaving the reader with the feeling like this is a complete idiot, this person, right. I don't like that, that character. So I guess is what I'm trying to say and what I'm talking to, what else is probably as well that you need to be a bit mindful about how you do it as well, too. So you can just do not end up coming across as it will assholes. Basically. You don't want that either, right?

Autumn (35m 22s):
No, no. I think that's a really important, I mean, if for some reason maybe this is, it speaks poorly of me, but I have often been able to get into my villains easier than a few other characters. I had one that was a politician and an extrovert, and he could just whip off these speeches and to get into his mind. Cool. I mean, it felt like it was a contortionist, but that's just what you're trying to put on this other person's skin and its even more. So you have to understand how they act, why they act, how they would see things and why do they care about the things they do, even if its completely different from you and you'd have to avoid explaining it from an outside perspective, like, Oh, humans are horrible and just go all out.

Autumn (36m 6s):
But most humans, you know, and then going into a rant about what's going on with humans, no, you have to be like humans, there's stupid meat sacks. You know, you have to, they're always carrying about things that yeah. You know, like money and whatever, and that's not what the door is square or whatever it is. You have to stick really deeply into that mindset of that character in that race. And you really, like you said, you really have to have all of that, figure it out to start writing. And even when I used to have to get to the Deep point of view, if the character was an already alive in my head, I would have to do some journaling. I would have to do some day before story is, I'd call it like the day before they ended up in the novel and I would write those in first person and I'd be like, Oh, you know, that's why this character is acting this way.

Autumn (36m 49s):
And that's why we are that way. When you start on page one, when they enter the story, you are like, you already have that figured out, you know, their mindset and you can kind of push yourself into it because you really do have to almost right a little bit before you start writing to really understand the character or go back and add it in when you edit, because that's the other thing to look for is going back and, you know, checking over all your work and seeing where that mindset could be better, where you can cut out words where you can really make sure it's coming from the character as a worldview and their lens of how the world works and what they're really aiming. You know?

Jesper (37m 26s):
Yeah. The thing that I find quite difficult with the point of view is for example, in the novel's we are currently riding, we have a, a goddess and when you are dealing with basically a deity, you know, some, somebody who is, who is just not all of our world and probably have motivations and drives that we don't even understand. They are. I, I really feel with her when writing her and I feel is very, very difficult to, to do other than basically more standard third person limited around her because I don't know how she feels.

Autumn (38m 16s):
No, but I think it in its own way, I think that's kind of exciting because with their person limited versus Deep point of view, so you have a character that's kind of unknowable and you just kind of change how they're being portrayed, especially because you know, if that character is maybe not a good point of view, but you hear it, see them more and dialogue, or even if you are in their mind, but its kind of less clear and less anchored that's you can do that purposefully to make this character seem more unknowable. And it's a very slight difference, but you can use these to your advantage. And I think that's sort of, what's cool about it is that you don't have to have every single character anchored in to your point of view.

Autumn (38m 60s):
If you have one that is more lofty, you can keep them out of it. And one of the neat things is, is if you are a misleading character and they are firmly believed that EI is going to happen and that is what they're aiming towards and that as maybe the lie they have been told, but they believe at a a hundred percent. And so the reader will believe at a a hundred percent all the while, you know, see you is what's gonna happen and you have this huge shift, it can be so much more dramatic and maybe you shouldn't delay it in light to your reader is, but it's so much fun to lie to your readers and Deep point of view. And it's believable because there's not that omniscient pull back where you are kind of like hinting at it.

Autumn (39m 41s):
The character is going full tilt towards believing. This is true. And they kind of get a carpet whipped out from under there. So yeah,

Jesper (39m 49s):
You can have some of those a bit like what the character didn't know was blah, blah, blah, that you sometimes see that in some, I think you all can do this as well. Sometimes. Like what Frodo didn't know at this point in time was out at the door. That kind of thing is no go in and Deep point of view.

Autumn (40m 8s):
No. And I think a lot of writer's think that, that his building the tension, But 2 million that is completely remove the emotion of right. It's maybe you would have, yeah. You have a little bit of curiosity, four. It, but it's so much more like get you a gasp when the character is just yanked a different direction that you didn't see coming. But when you hear like this lady's little clues, but what if he didn't know it was over on the Shire? Oh, you know that's, if you're just suddenly pulled out of the story, I don't know if that character's head and its just not as much fun. You can actually put the book down at that point and a lot going on. Yeah.

Jesper (40m 41s):
Yeah. I would say that a guy in conclusion, I think I would pose a challenge to the listener. You know, if, if you're never written in Deep point of view before, try it out, it doesn't have to be perfect. That's fine. But just try it out. Try to imagine yourself in the skin of the character and Right. What you feel, what you hear, what you see, what you teach or taste, what you can touch and that's, that's what you are allowed to. Right? Nothing else. You are not allowed to say. He didn't know this, that he didn't know that. Or explain this in that like you would normally you have to go with what the character knows and feels and tried to write a chapter like that and compare it to your other chapters.

Jesper (41m 28s):
And I almost want to say with certainty that you will find that it's,

Autumn (41m 37s):
You'll find, you'll find that you resonate with the character more. You'll find those more action. There is a lot less. Tell me a lot more sho and it'll just be like, you'll be like, wow, this is, this is pretty good. And if you don't come back and let us know what I want to see the difference because I firmly believed the point of view. Those are the stories that I love to read. And they're the ones I loved to write. And I think you'll find other readers react differently. If you show me what you wrote to someone else. Well, no matter what you think, if you show it to someone or a reader, see what they say, which one? So I don't know. Is there any like, did we miss some important elements here when it comes to the point of view a Autumn?

Autumn (42m 20s):
I don't think so. The line is going to readers. I had hopping. I was just like doing that. I would love misleading my readers. I have to admit it. And just that it's an important way of showing even your evil characters. It really is a useful technique. Or even if you then switch to a third person, limited for a, some characters that are much more unknowable, it can be really okay. So next Monday we actually are gonna talk about one of my favorite topics because we are going to talk about creating a magic system.

Narrator (42m 54s):
And if you like what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join Autumn and Yesper on patrion.com/ Am. Writing Fantasy for as little as a dollar a month. You'll get awesome rewards and keep The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast, going to stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 124 – Will Social Media Actually Help to Sell Books?

Perhaps you've asked yourself more than once whether or not social media actually sells any books? Is it worth the time and effort you put into to schedule and post new stuff on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc.?

In this episode of the Am Writing Fantasy podcast, Autumn and Jesper share their personal experiences and provides an answer as to whether you're better off spending your time writing or if social media is actually a good thing.

Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday. 

SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST!
Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. 

Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy. For as little as a dollar a month, you’ll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going. 

Read the full transcript below.

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

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

Jesper (30s):
Hello, I'm Jesper.

Autumn (31s):
And I have Autumn.

Jesper (33s):
This is episode 124 of The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast. And in this episode, Autumn, and I will discuss if social media helps selling books on it. And I'm curious to hear your thoughts on this topic, Autumn.

Autumn (49s):
Oh, it will be, it'll be fun. I don't think it will be anything surprising between you and I, but it'll be interesting to share this with the listeners and see what their takeaway is and what we get in comments. Oh, looking forward to it. Yeah, for sure. But you also had a, a good week. You've been traveling for once. I have to look at it since the, you can actually see my background. It's a little different this week. I took us a sudden, well, I'd been wanting to do this since, Oh, I made a promise to my parents. And I think November that I would come see them December and then coronavirus ramped up and it wasn't safe. And even in the house, I mean, we are talking about a third and fourth wave.

Autumn (1m 30s):
He was going on across the world and new lockdowns, but we finally just said, well, we're going to, so we drove a few hundred miles South or down in Pennsylvania and I'm visiting my family and it's too much food, too much sugar, too much beer. And it's wonderful. I'm not getting quite as much work done. I am actually surprisingly doing some work and I swear and putting the way my laptop for the rest of it today, at least I'm going to crack open the wine with my dad and we'll sit in the back deck and, you know, absorbed some sun and watched that a little pull up with some fish and you know, it's so good to be down here. So I I'm thrilled.

Autumn (2m 11s):
That's what we did a little crazy probably, you know, this year or this world. I don't know if there is a good time, but we hopefully will finally be getting that delayed vaccine shot this week. So fingers crossed. It's a nice, yeah. So it was not quite as silly as it seems. No, but that's a pretty good news. And a also getting to see the family after so long. It's a very nice that it is very, it's been really good. I'm having tons of fun. If you could say that we'll be visiting your parents to know how are the things for you?

Jesper (2m 49s):
No. It's good. I went to the hairdresser for the first time today. So, well maybe my headset for those watching on YouTube, you can't really see it any way. But, it feels so much better. It's amazing. I didn't know how vital hairdressers were, but apparently they are.

Autumn (3m 6s):
We'll help you tip. Well, if you don't know, what do you tip and Denmark. So, you know, well there, you know that you guys just have it, right?

Jesper (3m 17s):
Nope. That's not something that we do. And we, and then the consequences, sometimes when we travel, we can't quite work out how. When am I supposed to tip? Do I do it now? How much should I tip? And we can figure that stuff out. It's not in our culture.

Autumn (3m 30s):
Oh yeah. I was going to say, I live in a culture where you tip and I still don't know when you're supposed to tip or not tip. So yeah. And I told you on our drive down to Pennsylvania, we've been listening to that book a year of living Danish lately. I feel like I'm getting some insight to Danish culture. It's probably completely wrong, but it's been thrilling to listen to the differences going I'm in the wrong country. You, I just fled out of it that you haven't been a carrot countries. So there you go. Well,

Jesper (3m 56s):
What was your key? Take-away from that lesson

Autumn (3m 58s):
And I'm not quite done yet, but yeah, it's just a, you take care of each other and that that's really cool.

Jesper (4m 6s):
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But we'll at least, I mean, we do, when it comes to tipping, we, we don't have a anybody's salary depending on tips. You know, if people are paid enough that they, they can, they can make their living. So you don't have to worry about tipping anybody because they had research, you have enough, enough money to, to, to support yourself. So,

Autumn (4m 27s):
And do you understand that in your life? You're cool with that, even if it requires to paying more, you know, it's a livelihood, it's just like, Oh, well, that's, that's why we need to hear you understand this, that everyone has a right to live. And yeah.

Jesper (4m 41s):
Yeah. That was definitely that. I mean, here, I mean, everything is very expensive, you know, normally are in foreign, just foreign news comes to Denmark. They're like, wow, this is an expensive place. And, and yes it is actually. But on the other hand, you know, there's a lot of social security. There was a lot of things that you don't have to pay for it, as I said this and so on and so on. So in that area, but we also pay a lot of money in Texas. Yes.

Autumn (5m 8s):
We did hear that. It was like a 50%.

Jesper (5m 11s):
Yeah. Yeah. So it depends a bit on how much you earn of course, but a but somewhere in there between 45 and 65 is quite normal. So, but, but, and again, our salaries is also high, so you have to pay more in Texas. Yes. But you also earn more. So I think compared to the U S I think we are quite better off still as an individual citizens. I mean, yeah.

Autumn (5m 42s):
I think as a, as a society, I think your gap, and I think you do have a lot of, one of the lowest gaps between rich and poor in a developed nation. So I think that's really says something, right?

Jesper (5m 55s):
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But speaking of visiting family, I'm actually also planning to go visit my brother and his wife and his wife is coming weekend, which is also something that hasn't happened for months. So that's also pretty good. And I also finished writing the first draft of album. Yeah.

Autumn (6m 17s):
And it's been quite the a week. This was so exciting and I haven't finished reading it yet. Of course, obviously I haven't finished editing yet, but Oh my gosh. My first book is I, I have two books, we have the, the novella and now we have the book book, so, and so it was good. Yeah.

Jesper (6m 32s):
Right. And do you have wills the first full novel, or at least the first draft that's done? So that's nice, but, but one thing I did figure out, and of course you and I have been talking about this a Autumn, but I thought maybe some of the audience would be interesting as well in this, because one thing I did start thinking about what's that I needed. I I'll try to see if I can improve my writing speed right now, because I just, I would really like to increase my word count per hour. So I've started a bit of an experiment. We'll see how it goes to once I get into writing a book too, but I'm thinking that if I get it to work and I increased my word count per hour, then we could probably make it into like a future podcast episode at some point in time.

Jesper (7m 20s):
And she, you know, what I've done and, and how it's working in and, and, and whatnot, because I'm thinking a lot of our listeners would probably be interested in that as well.

Autumn (7m 29s):
Oh, I think they'd be interested even while you're doing it. Even if it does it end up working, but you won't get there. Oh, I I'm sure you've already seen a small increase. So it'll be interesting to see how it goes. Yeah.

Narrator (7m 42s):
A week on the internet with The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast.

Jesper (7m 48s):
So we have a world-building post starting two twin, quite significantly in the Am Writing Fantasy Facebook group. And the people were asking questions and getting feedback and wish you the details about a fantasy worlds. And so I just thought I would mention that because yeah, I love Well, but like,

Autumn (8m 7s):
Yeah. So that's the one You ConEd in Dunn, but it looks like a lot of writers were really just felt like sharing the world's. We're asking all these posts or I liked it. It was kind of like, and if I haven't developed it yet, you all have to stimulate my, you know, creativity to come up with an answer. I'm like, Oh, well, that's, that's fun. So you get to come up with these questions on there. We don't know the answer. You are going to start developing your world even more from it. So it they've been good pose. They were so big that we actually had to create a master post. It just kinda of like not flat. Everything has to, one has an actual writing question that wasn't getting answered. So,

Jesper (8m 41s):
Oh yeah. Thanks. Thanks to Lou for organizing that a bit. Yeah.

Autumn (8m 46s):
Yes. He stayed on top of it. It was very good.

Jesper (8m 50s):
Yeah. Yeah. But I love how a few people could help each other out. And as long as tomes keep civil and friendly than I think online communities like, like this is really good to have. Yeah. So if, of course, if you haven't checked it out already, you are free to join. You can just search for Am Writing Fantasy in the group section of Facebook and you will find us. But yeah, I think that was all I wanted to mention about what it was going on on the incident this week.

Autumn (9m 21s):
Yeah. Well, I did notice that if we haven't passed it by the time this is Erin, it's definitely past it, but I think we hit 4,000 members of the Facebook group. So, well, you know, it's not too shabby is getting a little, its getting so popular. What are you are popular? Popular? Well, probably not the only ones who can speak know. So we only ran a podcast. This is nothing, but it is getting so popular. You and I we're like, you know, letting in 60, 70 people at a time, we were like, wow, this is, this is wonderful, but all the way it, so it's changed a little bit. Now people, hopefully it gets streamlined in a little bit better, but come to Georgia is good. It's been really fun.

Jesper (10m 3s):
No, no, that's a good point. And that is probably just worth mentioning as well. Just so people are aware of, because you might notice that the, in the Facebook group that a, we always tried to put in like welcome. And then we mentioned every single member who came in to the Facebook group, my name and we really liked doing that. And that was sort of purposely thing. Then we decided to do it because we felt it was a very nice way to be inclusive and welcome people in personally. But yeah, as a lot of them just said passing 4,000 members now and we get a lot of people joining, its like some days there was like 40, 50 people a day and it's just like, it's too much.

Jesper (10m 46s):
So we have, as it turned on automatically at Autumn auto approval, I guess it's what is called an Facebook language. So people will automatically get in. So you will actually stop seeing those are very nice, a personalized welcome messages because I'm sorry, but its just too much now and it's sucking up. It's in writing out all those. I mean it takes me like 15 or 20 minutes just to write out that one message. And then if I have to do that or Luke or Jason or Autumn has to do that, like everyday, almost it it's a bit too much. So hopefully you will understand why we stopped doing that now.

Autumn (11m 23s):
Yes we are still welcome you and we're so happy you're there, but it does the personalized welcome messages. When you start hitting 62, 74 people at a shot and it's taking a half an hour to write out or you just you're welcome message. Just want to say hi and introduce yourself, let us know what you're there and do it. We'll be happy for that two days.

Jesper (11m 48s):
So as we are getting into this one, I actually don't know if, if some of what I'm going to say will be unexpected to some, I don't know, but I think it's worth to talk about social media because if we are not very careful or perhaps even despite the fact that we are being careful, social media tends to take up quite a portion of your time and it can also influence your life for good or bad. But what do you say? That's true.

Autumn (12m 21s):
Oh, I see. I definitely say that's true. I mean, I know my husband has actually completely gotten off of social media because he realized what a bad influence it had been in his life. And so that we have me on the other side as an author where I tell him I don't have a pro at a private profile really anymore in my profile, my, it is my public profile. And you know, as an author I was working with Am Writing Fantasy. So if I'm online, if you Google me, if you Google my husband, he doesn't exist. So if you Google me, you'd get like 10 pages. So it's a good, hard to have that under a very small roof. Yeah.

Jesper (12m 55s):
That's so true. Yeah. And also I'm not going to, well, let me, pre-phase everything that I'm going to say from this point out a I'm not coming at this topic as if I have the right answers. So just know that going in here. I just think that it's an interesting conversation and of course I have some viewpoints, but I think our listeners should make up their own mind about social media and a, you know, with anything we say, hear, if you agree with it fine, if you don't, it's also okay. It, it is just some few points that we have. And I don't think that this episode is designed to come out with like a recommendation as such.

Jesper (13m 36s):
It's just more of just our reflections and then you can do with it. What do you want? I guess that's the best way to say it. Yeah.

Autumn (13m 43s):
I think I'll have my phone and call it a recommendation. They might not have my writer, coach hat on that says if this is what I would tell you as a friend, the author to another author of what are you, you should focus your time. But yeah, if you happen to love social media and you were a total extrovert and you are doing well, or if you are shy, I want to stay away. If you want to be like my husband and don't exist, you're a ghost on the internet. Its all good. It's fine. If you be who you are and what you feel comfortable with it, you shouldn't put yourself out there if you're uncomfortable and you should not put yourself out there unless you're not reading it at all. That's probably a problem. But if you just love being out there, then that's fine too.

Autumn (14m 24s):
Make time for him to schedule it and make sure you also get your writing done too. If you wanted to be an author. Yeah.

Jesper (14m 30s):
And I know you have been playing around a bit with the Instagram and Pinterest on something or something like that, but I want to circle back to that, but I was just thinking maybe a good place to start would be to mention it because we just talked about the Am, Writing Fantasy, your Facebook group, for example, and just unpacking like say the group thing in general. I think that might be a good place to start since we just touched upon it and we can of course use Am Writing Fantasy as an example here, but I'm more looking at it at S group's in general. And I think it's a great group. The thing is just that it's not helping selling anything, you know, of course In with Am Writing Fantasy.

Jesper (15m 15s):
Well that, that is of course non-fiction so, but even though, I mean we have nonfiction books out guide books for us. We have that, but a group like this is not helping to sell anything. It, it doesn't bring any revenue or anything our way we are trying to build a good reader group for our readers at the moment. And maybe at some point that'll start paying off. I don't know. Yeah. But what, what's your thoughts about running groups on social media platforms?

Autumn (15m 45s):
Well, I, my biggest one because there are some really interesting Facebook groups and it is as an author of the best it's we naturally want to hang out with other authors and network, which is awesome. That's why we have Am Writing Fantasy. We can go out and network with other authors, but really if we're trying to get the word out about our books, you want to be in reader groups. And there's a few really cool ones like Epic Fantasy fanatics is the one that if I go into I'm like sucked in because it will be laughing my head off hysterically. And then I have to show it to my husband because of course he's not on social media now, but it's fantastic to be able to go hang out with readers. But one of the biggest things you'll see on almost every single reader group is you can't spam.

Autumn (16m 26s):
You're not supposed to be a lot of them have either no self promotion rules or only a single thread where you're allowed to mention you're an author. They do not want to see you posting about your book at every single breath. And I think that's really important to know that they are literally there to enjoy it. They expect authors to enjoy it as a reader, not to be enjoying it as a way of life sniping off reader is so that you can kinda bring them into your, your full do you desperate to be pissing them off in there. That's great. If you meet some people and you know, they asked for a recommendation and you give to them and they happen to pick up your book, that's enough, your primary purpose. Are you going to get kicked out in? Some of them were really kinda fun.

Autumn (17m 6s):
You don't wanna get kicked out and miss all the members and things.

Jesper (17m 12s):
That's true, but I'm also thinking in terms of running your own group. And I think the, and here of course I, again, I could be wrong and this is just my, my opinion here. But I think those who have got started really early and they have massive groups and it's working for them, but I think it's working because they got started really early. And that early mover advantage, there are just paste a lot of dividends. Yeah. And M and those people who were in that group as like thousands of people, and then I will use to Def it it's part of their habit. It's part of that group is part of what I do.

Jesper (17m 54s):
That's part of what, the ones that I check. But if you come in now with nothing and you're starting to try to build it, I'm really not convinced that it's worth the time and effort. We, we did try a short for a short while too, have a REIT, a group on Facebook. We actually shot it down and moved them to good reach because at least they are readers are hanging out. But also that we are trying to build it in its not easy.

Autumn (18m 19s):
It is not easy. So I don't know. Yeah. I mean, and I do know a few authors who have it, like you said, they were kind of active readers groups. Even if there are small, a few hundred people to do it, maybe a couple of thousand, I mean that's kind of exciting and they work really hard if you author's. I know there are posting, it's not even about their own books and that's usually the biggest thing. It's usually they're out there posting, like there are showing a Fantasy image and saying, Hey caption This, what do you think of this there saying good morning there saying good night. It was like, I don't know if you have to admit, so what I'm talking and I am definitely an introvert. And a lot of authors are introverts when it comes to social media. I've often said if I wasn't an author, I wouldn't have a social media profile.

Autumn (18m 60s):
I'm more like my husband. And it's probably why we we've been together 20 years' go figure. We are very common, but it's, I'd like I do like, this is where I like talking. Especially during a pandemic, it was a wonderful having these networks with readers and people that it's just like, Oh, we were already online. We are already have these conversations. So it was fantastic. But to have that reader group is a lot of work. And the times that I really put into a focusing, I am going to get this going and going to market. I'm going to do this post, this post, this post. And it's a heck of a lot of time. And if you're a busy, if you have a full time job, if you have kids, it really eats into your writing time. And so the other problem I see when you're putting your group on another platform, just like we're doing with good reads.

Autumn (19m 48s):
But if you're doing it on Facebook, Facebook has the problem were, you know, they might not see your post at all. If you're not paying to promote posts to the people who want to see your post, which is really silly for that is literally how Facebook works. People follow your page and then you pay to boost your post so that they actually see what you're sending out. They might not be seeing the stuff you are posting in your groups anymore. It's Facebook started with groups, they went to two pages and then the groups no longer saw what you posted on your page. And now they switched back to the groups. And so if you're posting on your page, most likely, most people are not seeing anything. You are posting groups who are active right now, but there's a lot of rumors that in 2021 group's are going to be marginalized again.

Autumn (20m 32s):
And so you are going to lose connection with your readers. It's just frustrating. There are some places where if you really love social media, good reads. If they're following your groups, they will see and they're getting there. They didn't get daily or weekly announcements of a, a synopsis as I have everything that everyone's posted. So if there are really interested in, they can actually get access that they will get access to everything you've posted on. Good reads. Amazon hasn't changed that yet. Thank you, Amazon, please. Don't you have not yet. The mighty networks, there's a few places that have started groups on mighty networks. You and I have talked about switching to mighty networks there. If you post something, literally everyone sees it.

Autumn (21m 14s):
Everyone gets an email or if they have the notifications turned on, it had like places where if you are going to put in the time and money and effort, you know, they're actually going to see it without you, then having to pay for them to have to go see it. And that is my biggest problem with social media, where at least the platform's where it's a time, its not a general timeline at a specific where you have post something and then the next post below it has something posted after it. When they start mixing it up on favorite post liked, Post's just, they start playing with those algorithms and people. Aren't seeing stuff. Why are you putting in all of this time? Cause you know, if we circle back to it and we talk about how much time I've tried to put into it makes it making some of this work and following all the best tops, topics and tips.

Autumn (22m 2s):
Holy crap. You know, it's like the weak, you don't work it all. You get any writing done in it. Oh, when you're just doing the marketing, I either not very fast or I'm not good at it or it does just take a boatload of time, right?

Jesper (22m 16s):
Yeah. That will show you on Instagram and Pinterest experiment and you ran a bit. They have to see if we could get more Gatesman in there. But again, if it's a time sink and I feel like the evolution of all of these platforms, so it doesn't matter if it is it's Facebook, it's Amazon. It is the same thing as the evolution seems to be that it is more or less, just everything is turning page a plea. So if you don't pay for it, I forget about it. I, I hope good reach is not going to go that way at some point as well, but who knows if it is owned by Amazon so we could easily do. And once they have X, M w you stop all the advertising spots that they can get on to the Amazon store pages, then where to go.

Jesper (23m 2s):
And they will might turn to the eye on Goodreads and say, why don't we start putting some ads over there? I mean, there's readers over there. Why or why can't we just start advertising over there as well? And then you have, well, yeah, I can easily see that happen. But I think just building an audience on these different platforms, it might just be it's, it's probably not the best use of your time. And I would probably even say that it's, it's more important how much time it takes it away from your writing time because writing new words is always, always, always more important than it is to interact with your audience on social media.

Jesper (23m 43s):
I don't know. Do you think that is controversial to

Autumn (23m 46s):
Oh no. I don't think it is. I think it's important to interact with readers, but I think there's multiple ways of doing that from your own e-mails to good reads to a social media, to going out to a book fair. I mean, you should definitely be like, look at your month and find ways of interacting with readers, but you should be writing first. I would say if you had a choice of what to do first and a night, right first, and then have some wine downtime to talk to readers, they are, however, it is a social media, compose emails, do a newsletter or do something and do it in that order. Don't put talking to them first because then you're already online and its like, you just want to check out this one more thing.

Autumn (24m 31s):
You can go down the rabbit hole, you end up talking to someone else in the next thing you know, you didn't read anything that night and that's not helping your journey as an author.

Jesper (24m 40s):
No indeed. But I think that for me though, it was a clear distinction between social media and email. This email list for me is completely different because on the e-mail list, you own the data. You own that list of people. Nobody can change the rules on you. You can download them anytime you want. You can take them to some other supply. If your current suppliers I'm making a fool of themselves or whatever. So you have plenty of options to do something and you can control the message. And yes, of course is true that there will be some, for whatever reason, when you send out an email, some of the emails disappeared and cyberspace and they never arrived in some of the inboxes.

Jesper (25m 21s):
That's the name of the game, but it's not like 1% of the people we'll see you a message unless you pay that. That's not how it worked. So email is different. So, but if I look at it from a social media perspective, but I also feel like maybe it was probably a different maybe five to 10 years ago, but I feel more and more like social media is just white noise. I know it's, there's just a lot of stuff there. It's a time sink. And is it, it is being constructed in a way whereby you are in endorphins are kicking, you know, you're getting rewarded for a posting, something about that, like the best side of yourself that you can think of.

Jesper (26m 6s):
And then somebody will like, you have a wonderful picture of your cat or whatever and, and then you, you, you feel rewarded and then, Oh, that was nice. Great. And then you we'll do some more of that. And I mean, I get it if I understand it, but my point is just that I don't think it helps at all. If we are looking at it from building an author, a brand is so much, I really don't. Yes. Maybe a bit. But if you are putting in a, a a hundred hours, you know, you're not going to get that value out of it as you would have done putting in a a hundred hours writing instead. But it, I don't know, I'm struggling with it because I think like you, if I did not have an author, a business to run, I wouldn't be on Facebook either.

Jesper (26m 51s):
I would not have a profile on Facebook. I actually don't like it in that sense. And I don't like the way Facebook handles privacy and stuff like that. I have a lot of concerns with Facebook in general, but the thing is too, the Facebook ads, they work incredibly well. So it's like, I know it's a completely double standards here, Right? Because on one hand I don't like it. But on the other hand I found it very useful. And so

Autumn (27m 17s):
It is tough and that is, and those are the ethical questions, you know, that you, especially for you and I, and we wrestle with it, okay, this is this incredibly invasive a platform that is mining your information. Cause as they say, if you are not paying anything to be on the platform like Facebook, then you are the product. So they are using it for data. And I'm not being a conspiracy theory theory as a steer, you can go online and look at all the data they're collecting. I love, I have a picture of data, pixel D to a scraper that tells me how many pixels or on websites I visit. And it was like, Holy crap, they are following you everywhere. So thank goodness. So the new Apple, and there's a few places where you can block all that, but then we are paying them for it does that's the worst part.

Autumn (28m 1s):
And then we go and we, we do use that to then try to sell a book or something, but it works so well because they've mined all of the data. It is.

Jesper (28m 11s):
Yeah. And so it's like, it's, it's like giving money to the devil and then complained about it. The devil exists. I mean it, yes we do. You know, it is tough.

Autumn (28m 21s):
It is tough. And I would also say that there is, I agree with you about newsletters versus normal social media that we thought of it. But there's this new hybrid Now like mighty networks or some of these faces that have gone. And if you become a very popular author where people are coming to you, you can put a Mach social media website or on your website, its like forums. But now they look, they can look exactly like Instagram or it looked exactly like face, but maybe not exactly because, but they're following that kind of platform. So you can create your own social media site. So if you want, if readers love coming and working and interacting with you, but you were sick of Facebook, moved them into your own website, but you'd have to be a big enough that they are coming to you.

Autumn (29m 4s):
But yeah, that's what

Jesper (29m 5s):
I meant. Oh, it's not going to work. Right. But

Autumn (29m 7s):
This is not, unless you have to be the way, you know, way bigger already. But there are sites where you control mighty networks being one of them were you can control the access to list all of those things that currently Facebook does it allow you to do it.

Jesper (29m 23s):
But the problem is again, I mean the tools, there's plenty of tools. There's plenty of ways and, and good ways to organize things, yourself, own the data, making sure that they can take your audience away from you. If you put it in at a time to build it in. And, and that's good. That is good. But the end, if there's just a big pot, because the thing is that you have to drive all that traffic and that is just a million times harder and this white noise world than then you might think getting people on. I mean, yeah. As you mentioned earlier, we have been talking about moving maybe something to mighty networks at some point, especially if, if Facebook goes through with what we've sort of heard on the grape wine that they might need some Facebook groups this year and make them well pretty pointless.

Jesper (30m 17s):
I think if they go ahead with their plans for lets see how it ends up. But if they do, we have been talking about moving to mighty networks, but again, they are, my main concern is really that then we have to drive all the traffic. Whereas today that Facebook algorithm drive the traffic that it shows the FA Am Writing Fantasy Facebook group to Facebook users that it knows we'll be interested in it. And then they come on board and they enter a group and we can have conversations with those people are and so on and so on. And that's wonderful. But if I have to go out by myself and say, Hey, you know, if you are interested, if you are a Fantasy author and you are interested in knowing more about a It and interact with your fellow Fantasy authors, come on over to mighty networks. The only thing you need to do now is to download an app.

Jesper (30m 59s):
You don't have already created an account you don't have already. And then, I mean, nobody wants to do that. So it's so hot,

Autumn (31m 8s):
Especially to me, it's like in what you were saying earlier is so true. It's like those endorphins, most people who are on social media because it is feel good and they wanna do that post that goes viral. They wouldn't have that comment that people go in like, and it's nice to network and talk to other people. It's a wonderful, like in the Am Writing Fantasy Facebook group where, you know, authors are actually getting help in their field who are overcoming her reason. And that is fantastic. But I think that is the rarity. And so many people who come to our groups like nothing else is quite like this group. They're not finding that in many other places because we are so strict on self-promotion and because we just have an awesome group and an awesome group of writers at authors.

Autumn (31m 48s):
But usually like I do love Instagram, but the interaction there I've seen that go downhill. Like I started on Twitter, I love Twitter. And it was a writer as our So Starkey and it was so much fun being on Twitter, but something There changed and I moved eventually I'd tried, Facebook did like it. I got on to Instagram and I really enjoy it because I'm a very, you know, I'm a graphic artist who I love the pictures and that was fantastic. But I've seen that even kind of going downhill where now that's not just the post order or that you're just getting shown things that they think you'll like and interact with. But it's like everyone is shouting and waving there. You know, the pretty pictures, but no ones, not many people are across talking unless you happen to know each other and we've known each other for years.

Autumn (32m 33s):
Then we are still communicating, reaching the new people. It's mostly people following to get more followers liking to try to, hopefully you will come in like their stuff. It feels very one sided it. And it wasn't like that before. And I do think it's just feeding that, you know, everyone wants to be an Instagram influencer. They want to have that viral post and it becomes so impressive and huge. It's not about connecting with readers. And I, I do miss that warmth, that actual like, Hey, there's a few people I know on here that they are half the reason I go back because it's one way I get to talk to them.

Jesper (33m 10s):
And especially with talking about Twitter, because that's also a one way or I have changed my way of operating with it quite a lot. I used to use Twitter very actively. I used to spend an hour, hour and a half every week scheduling the next week's manual tweets where I gave people like updates on what's happening in my life, how five I come with, my writing, all those different thing, anything that I just thought that people might be interested in. So, and I spent an hour and now, and a half every week scheduling the next week's posts and I have almost 50,000 followers on Twitter.

Jesper (33m 56s):
And that, that might look nice and, and sound nice. But honestly it doesn't make that part's have a difference because also that has turned white nose and I would always respond. Or if somebody tweets directly at me, I always respond to them. So I still do that, but I have completely stopped doing anything manual. I don't share any, I mean, I load up for example, when we are now released this podcast episode 124, once that's done, I will upload it into my auto poster. So it will go into my like automated cycle of tweets that it will start sending it out once in awhile.

Jesper (34m 37s):
So that's all I do. So everything that goes on out on my Twitter feed is either or to push from my cycle of content, which of course, I think people will find that interest in that there was a lot of content as a, this is a a hundred episode, 124. So we have done a lot of episodes in a, and we have two and a half years of a YouTube videos before that as well. So there is tons and tons and tons of content. And I I'm still of course hoping that if people come across my profile There, they will find some stuff and think, Oh, this is pretty cool. Or at least some of it that they will find some, something that interests him and they can go and check it out. Of course. And it doesn't cost anything to listen to a podcast episode or what's a YouTube video that is something they can easily do, but the whole manual engagement and a time investment, I put it in into it before I just stopped doing.

Jesper (35m 28s):
And honestly, I've not seen any difference whatsoever when it comes to marketing or sales effectiveness at all or nothing. It changes absolutely zero,

Autumn (35m 39s):
Which is so it is sad because I do remember Twitter before the bots. And that's when I, that's where I had gained over 20,000 followers. And I still actually have most of them if they've dropped off a little bit, but I mean, Hey, you rarely go in there. And that's the worst thing it's like, I should say, if I'm not actually going to go to respond to people, I should just shut down the account. But it's hard to say, Oh, it's one of 2000 people, but by don't want them. And that's how we met at you. And I started to talking Actually on Twitter. So, you know, but it is, it's changed so much. There was a lot of white noise. And now that there are bots, there's a lot of people who are just not physically present and Instagram is still interesting.

Autumn (36m 20s):
They're just starting to do the sideloading where you're getting to be able to schedule posts and get them up because I mean, it is, Instagram is still very much. You have to be manually doing it, but there are a couple of platforms that are actually now allowing them to do Instagram post. As far as even today, I got an announcement that the social media schedule or use is not allowed to do the first post, a post and a comment. The first comment on Instagram, because the comment is usually where you put all your hashtags. So this is huge for if your marketing, you can go ahead and preload all this stuff, but that means you're not actually home Instagram talking to anyone else is just a whole bunch of robots on their talking to each other.

Autumn (37m 4s):
That's so we all have like an AI lives that we never go on in and check out. This is not again, not selling any books at that was sort of the point of this conversation. It's just robots talking, you know?

Jesper (37m 16s):
Yeah. It, it just puts Instagram in at the same bucket as everything else afterwards, right now, everything is just the same as just, it's just AI as a posting stuff on behalf of whatever you loaded into it. And then everybody does that. I mean, I not to say that no books are ever sold from, from tweets or posts on Instagram and so on. I'm I'm sure that there are books are sold from it once in awhile. But my point is more, if you like being on the platform, if you enjoy it already then fine, then, then you know, we use it and, and, and post manually due to the things you like to do.

Jesper (37m 57s):
But I think we need to stop seeing social media as if it's some sort of obligation that if you want to build a proper platform, if you want to sell books, you have to be on social media. I don't think that's the case anymore. I really don't. And I would almost challenge people to say, if you don't already enjoy it, a try, just stop checking the platforms. Maybe you run an experiment for a week and do like this, right. Create two time slots a week and say, during these two times, half an hour, I'm allowed to go into this platform. And I'm just going to check the messages in reply things and what not. But the rest of the time throughout the next week, I'm not going to login.

Jesper (38m 40s):
I'm not going to even look at it. I just completely ignored. And then tell me what the difference is because I bet you, there is nothing, absolutely zero difference. No, other than you have made more time for yourself and you have more time to write and you don't get sucked into these rabbit holes. Yeah. So try that or even better. That just occurred to me, try to delete the app from your phone and see what happens. Then it looks

Autumn (39m 5s):
Instagram because that's the only way it exists. But yes, but you know, I, I agree with what we were saying even about endorphins. I mean, I think it really does get inside your head and you want to make that viral post. Do you want to start seeing the really serious marketers? And when you really get serious about marketing on it, you know, they're talking about your tracking, what posts you do that day? What types of posts, how many lights did it get it? I mean, you want an hour just tracking all your insight, you know, your Instagram posts for the month and seeing which ones or getting the most interactions. What days, what type of post or is it? It is insane. And that becomes its own obsession. And again, yeah, a Lake is not a reader.

Autumn (39m 46s):
It, it might not mean anything and it might be just someone going down pretty picture, pretty picture. You paint a picture of a funny, funny, or that, you know, to come back like me, you know, trying to get a Lake for a Lake, it might not be that important. And if you take a social media break for a week or so, the first few days are always tough, but when you can clear your head and then you hear your story and your, hear your characters again, and you're like, this is what's important. Go see your family. Like we've done. It's what's important. But yeah, I mean, you mentioned that Instagram chorus, I try to enact a very serious Instagram course ahead of all of these tips. And it was so hard. It ate up so much time and I'd be a part of it is having like a theme and a brand, especially with the Instagram.

Autumn (40m 30s):
So I had made my own personal filter cause you know, I'm a graphic artist. I do all these crazy things. It became no fun for me to be on Instagram because instead of taking a picture of a pretty picture with the sky or a lead or, you know, flowers, I live in insight. So I'm doing all of these really things instead of I had to go and take that picture and run it through this filter, then go back and repost it and then make sure I had the hashtags in a certain area and do this. I was all serious. It took all the fun out of it. And I actually lost followers. I dropped by like 20. And I was just like, what the heck? And so I found that just so you know, funny, I've put it in like five times as much effort and time and planning and it totally burned.

Autumn (41m 19s):
And it was really funny. Cause all my, I do have a second Instagram profile cause so, you know, I like Instagram and I'm a graphic artist. So then the other profile I've got my graphic artist and there I have always been kind of a very personal, so purposeful. Like I share a very white quote and then I do it very graphic picture, color or heavy like cut, cut, book cover. I did. And then I do a, a white picture. So it shows up as This, you know, you look through it, it's got a pattern to it and that's just the way I do it. That one is totally different. You know, people love it because what I'm sharing is graphic Media. If I don't share on that one, I see the results in my website. So oddly enough for it as an artist and it works fantastic by doing these very serious posts that have always been very serious minded.

Autumn (42m 1s):
The other one, it was other authors quotes by doing like quotes from Stephen King. Oh, those would be like viral. Everyone loved them, sharing them copied on bookmarked my own stuff as well. Oddly enough, with my graphic one and some of the quotes, I had asked questions like a, you know, as an author, how are you finding book marketing? And so many authors came back to me saying, yeah, every time I posted about my book, I lose readers. You know, people complained and they brought their stock following me. And he was like, I'm on here because I'm an author. And every time I post, I lose followers, no seriously. Why bother him as an author?

Jesper (42m 40s):
So the point and but, but again, that's where, that's where the email list is good because there isn't an entrance criteria. And if somebody has to type in their e-mail address, they have to confirm the fact that yes, I want to receive email. So already there are those who don't want anything at all. They are not never going to go through. This is actually quite funny. Just a side note here, because I was preparing a Facebook app earlier today than it is going to go live tomorrow. Well, we are recording ahead of time. So by the time you hear it, this is already in the past, but never say that that was not the point. The point was more to say, I actually on purpose wrote into the add text itself is that yes, this will require you to leave an e-mail address.

Jesper (43m 26s):
And if you don't like it, cool, no problem. They actually put it in on purpose because I have seen it 2 million times. Now that every time you see all of the complaints started in the comment section. So this is again, one, you have to put it in your e-mail, but if you wouldn't have to put it in your e-mail address, if you wouldn't come on to our email list, what would be the point of us even running the ad is completely pointless, right? Because a part of the process is also to solve people off right. Or sort them out. So basically the ones who doesn't want to do any, who doesn't want to engage at all with us, who doesn't want to hear from us again. Well, great that you didn't sign up because then we don't want you there.

Jesper (44m 7s):
Okay. So it, it is. But

Autumn (44m 10s):
I think, yeah,

Jesper (44m 13s):
I've just gotten a bit fed up with social media by now. I must admit, I also don't like how it feels sometimes like posts are being made and written in controversial or provocative ways on purpose just to get engagement. Not necessarily even because the post of beliefs or things, what he, or she posted, but more just because they know that this is going to piss some people off, sorry for the language. And then I'll get a lot of comments and so on and so on. And I don't know. I, I, my, I just feel like my life is too valuable for stuff like that. And I don't wanna spend time on it.

Jesper (44m 53s):
Don't get me wrong. I love personal interaction. Like you said earlier as well, Autumn, I like it. When you have like the one-to-one conversation with somebody who has something great to say, or it doesn't have to be about any thing that I wrote at it, but it just like this sort of personalized ping pong. I like that. Stuff like that. That is cool. But going on social media to try to find that situation or that ping pong, it's just there's to many other things that just drains my energy, to be honest. So I dunno, I'm no longer a fan of social media, I guess. That's my conclusion. Two, all of this conversation.

Autumn (45m 31s):
I know you've heard, especially on Instagram, even on Twitter, on Twitter, I think it was, they sent the first a thousand people. You felt you met, it would be the ones that you would remember the most in. I think on Instagram is like the first hundred or 200 people that you interact with and meet in there. First followers. Those are the ones that you kind of like, I keep going back and connecting with. But after that it just becomes competition. That's true. Yeah. I think, you know, there's a couple people that I've met that way. You being one of them. And I don't think you were my first a thousand though. I had at least every once in a way that you do, we meet up with other people and it's a great way, but I definitely have to play devil's advocate, even though I know we're getting like towards the end. So if you have this freebie, we want to give a way so that people get on your newsletter litter list.

Autumn (46m 16s):
Where do you share it other than social media? How did you get people to hear about the free book you are offering?

Jesper (46m 23s):
No. No, but that's exactly the thing. I mean, we are in a pay to play market. Now, the only effect, if we are talking about freebies, like a PDF, a free book, of course You, if it's uploaded through Amazon, you can advertise it on Amazon using the Amazon app. So if you want, but let's assume it's not, let's just assume that something you are giving away because you want people on your email list and the only really effective way. And this is again, it's double standards. I know, but they only really affect the way it is. Facebook. ASCE is the only thing that really, really works well when you, you can post on social media and all of that, but you can't like you are going to get like less than half a percent of people actually taking any action or a signing up compared to how many impressions you've got.

Jesper (47m 11s):
So it's a whole ton of effort, almost no gain. Where is the paid Facebook ads? So you can get them to perform quite well. It takes some know-how and it takes some testing and some money and so on, but you could get it to work quite well. And that's the name of the game? Unfortunately,

Autumn (47m 31s):
If we were not using Facebook ads to, for example, for what Am Writing Fantasy and so on, then I have no idea where we would find anybody. It just wouldn't happen. No, we would just, it would be like we didn't exist. I mean, marketing is important. And unfortunately marketing right now is social media and it is a pay to play market. The freebie use, the author is helping authors to boost posts. That was, it was a part of what I used to love about social media. And its just, even when they are helping each other now it's, you're just not making as big of an impact. I swear the algorithm pushes you down if you're not paying. And I've mentioned my, my theory that way to you before that, I just think if they see that you don't pay anything, if you just have a little negative somewhere in your little algorithm, it just kinda keeps you under a certain cap.

Autumn (48m 19s):
And until someone proves me wrong, which I don't think there's any way. Cause none of us know what these algorithms are doing. I just firmly believe that it is true. And so I don't know, I'm a stubborn, so now I refused to pay for anything. But you do all of the work and because I'd be like, no, they can't have that, but you have sort of a, you have sort of outsource it to me nowadays anyway, but, but still, I mean they're is a difference between talking about engaging on social media versus running paid ads on social media. And those two things are actually two different thing. I mean its the same platform, but it was two different activities. Yes. Running the paid ads. I don't like giving Facebook money, but I understand that it's the name of the game and it's something that we have to live with.

Autumn (49m 2s):
So hence I do it, but meaning engaging on Facebook, like posting things on my author page every week and stuff, I don't do any of that. Nothing at all. So that's just way, I mean that there is a difference between the two ways of using the social media platform that create. And that is I think the difference do you can set up the ad and tweak it and get it running. And maybe you just need some monthly tweaking at that point. Even AMS ads, its sort of the same thing. Once you get them running, if they're working or you're usually doing okay, you are getting the word out of your marketing somehow butt going on to Instagram or good reads or Facebook or Twitter and spending 15 minutes or an hour or two hours.

Autumn (49m 45s):
And just talking to people, that's not gonna sell you the books that are running an ad. Well actually do know. So I think that's, as far as we go today and next Monday we are going to discuss deep point of view. What is it? And how can deep point of view help you out?

Narrator (50m 9s):
If you like, what you just heard. There was a few things you can do to support The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join Autumn and Jesper on patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy for as little as a dollar a month, you'll get awesome rewards and keep The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast going. Stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 123 – Top 10 WORST Fantasy Worlds

An awesome fantasy world can make a story — just as a terrible or terrifying one can make you run for a different book. Join Autumn and Jesper as they go head to head to come up with the worst fantasy world... or figure out how to create a story out of some pretty horrifying recommendations.

If you want to check out the Story Idea book Autumn and Jesper mention in the podcast, head over to https://books2read.com/StoryIdeas  (and check out the brand new audiobook that was just released!).

OR pick up the Plot Development book and get a free ebook copy of Story Ideas at https://books2read.com/Plot-Development.

Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday. 

SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST!

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

Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy. For as little as a dollar a month, you’ll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going. 

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

Narrator (2s):
You're listening to The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast in today's Publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need. And literary agent, there is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing. Join two best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them now on to the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt.

Jesper (30s):
Hello, I'm Jesper.

Autumn (31s):
And I am Autumn.

Jesper (33s):
This is episode 123 of The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast. And today we are going to run it one of our not so serious episodes. We are going to dive into our alternate alternating lists. That's what, what I'm trying to say at the WORST and or scary fantasy world that we can think of. So they should probably be able to be a good one.

Autumn (1m 2s):
And it should be, I have some fun doing some research thinking or finding some books. I am not sure if I wanted to read, but just to get inspiration, but it was actually a really fun one to come up with the list. So will have to see if I do a stool. Appreciate. Dominic's a comment that I always win it. And so I just thought, well, that's, that's the stuff we don't talk to her.

Jesper (1m 25s):
And I think actually I think we already know who's going to win this one. So apparently we don't need to talk to, well, no, he does know what he was talking about it.

Autumn (1m 35s):
I figured out that comment would make you go and do like extra work on this one.

Jesper (1m 40s):
So actually it wasn't the back of my mind when I make my list, I was like, I have to come up with something good today. So I figured, so it will have to see, I definitely have a surprise for you at number one where I pulled it from. So it will have to, Oh no, it's already such as like, Oh no. Oh no. It, it must be a bad thing. One. Yeah. I'm sure you don't worry. You don't want you to stress now. And we have to get that.

Autumn (2m 5s):
It's like at the end, it's in 40 minutes. So don't worry about it. You don't want to stress to the next 40 minutes. I can probably count. Let it go. You do you have more of a calm? I thought I was a competitor until I met you and you have a much more of a competition edge.

Jesper (2m 22s):
Okay. To say, I like to compete, to be honest with him and well, I can at least pretend to be a sore loser. Normally. I'm not that I like to. I like to play the game here. You have to be a good example, too. The kids who are the referee and the adults you referee, sometimes it sounds like the last weekend I handed out three yellow cards for people who were doing the scent, you know, complaining about things. So well, but that's a nice thing that, you know, there are, I don't have to be the sole lose. If they disagree with me, I can just give them the yellow car. End of story. That you know, you do not have that power over me. I'm sorry. No worries.

Jesper (3m 2s):
Yeah. Yeah. I think I've said to my wife at some point that I would love it. If it was possible, you know, in business meetings to bring my yellow and red cards and you just like, yeah,

Autumn (3m 12s):
Well you are out by, by that. Wouldn't be so much easier than it would be pretty good, like a mediator or something. That'd be fantastic. You know, here's your card and you got to do your out time out yet. Go sit up for five minutes. So that would change the dynamics of things so much. It would. But I think that a lot of people wouldn't like you either, but That's a different story. You probably have to work for an independent agency where they can't fire you.

Jesper (3m 39s):
Yeah. Well, that's it, Is that the moral on again with all the cards in his pocket? Or what the hell are you Sure? It was like, Oh no, it's another meeting today. Yeah.

Autumn (3m 49s):
Oh, well, but it is besides that, besides the refereeing, how are things over on your side as well as the Atlantic?

Jesper (3m 55s):
Well, it's a pretty good. My son's were actually going to go to the hairdresser today for the first time in months down the road in the lockdown. Yeah. It was a sign that I was very jealous, but then it just got worse because then the head rest is a canceled. Oh no, it was so frustrating. My, my oldest son who was really annoyed by it at the, Yeah. I don't know, like everybody else, I guess a we, or like a hair monsters is walking around here the whole time

Autumn (4m 23s):
Or like my long hair. I took a couple years to grow this. Backout different for, you know, and that's the same as well. Go for the Viking. Look, you know, in braids and some long it'll be fine. Yeah. And that's your heritage, it's your heritage. You, you need to go for it. Yeah.

Jesper (4m 43s):
But that is true. But actually over the weekend as well, just to say, tell you that, that I watch one of the movies that you were recommending,

Autumn (4m 51s):
Which one

Jesper (4m 52s):
I've watched The yang yang master on the floor.

Autumn (4m 55s):
Excellent. What did you think you didn't even say?

Jesper (4m 58s):
No, I didn't know if that was on purpose Or holding out. I always want to hold Out and stuff up.

Autumn (5m 5s):
Then we recorded a podcast or a I'm sensing a trend.

Jesper (5m 9s):
Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. No, no. I think, I think it was good. I like the is not going to do in this partnership, but I liked, as you said as well that you don't quite see Don and coming. Oh, I like that.

Autumn (5m 24s):
Yeah. I, I, the setup was like, Oh, there's no way out of the day. Oh really? That makes so much sense. It's perfect. So that one is much better than the, the other one that is also the ying-yang masters, having the one that one's not quite as good. And like I said, especially for the one you just watched ferret demons. Oh my God, what a fair or a demon. So I might technically have one if you've seen my dog, but yeah. They're so cute. And they were all, so yeah.

Jesper (5m 53s):
So, so we have any listeners out there. If you want to a way that it is a FANTASY movie, it is, it is Chinese, but that doesn't mean I don't mind being a Chinese, but maybe some people do it, but it's called the young, young master. And it's a show on Netflix. So a, if you want to check that out and ah, yeah, I should have just have to do it. It's a bit different in many ways, you know, it's, it has almost like a human side to it as well. Like it's a, it's a bit, it's not silly at all, but, but it is a bit like some of the creatures is a bit, like, I almost feel like they put in down as a comical relief, you know,

Autumn (6m 33s):
And the turtles,

Jesper (6m 36s):
They are also pretty cool. I mean, it is very FANTASY heavy, at least. So yeah.

Autumn (6m 40s):
FANTASY have a very good CGI, very good acting and a story that has a twist at the end that you don't see coming and you don't see how that's going to have to work out. I thought it was a fantastic FA fantastic storytelling and fun event. It would, if it was a book, I totally would have to read it. So it was excellent.

Jesper (6m 60s):
Yeah. Yeah. And I think it was based on or off a book. No, no, no, no, no. I read actually the first movie, the one I just watched the yang master, that's actually based off a video game. And then the other one that you just mentioned, the turn it to yang yang master, they turn it to you or something. I think it was called that's based off the book. Okay. And that one is, I have not watched the second one, the eternity one yet. But as far as I read that one is a bit more dark. Whereas this one young master is a bit more lighthearted.

Autumn (7m 31s):
That sounds very correct. Yeah.

Jesper (7m 35s):
Okay. But how about you? You, you had a bit of a bumpy ride, this bus.

Autumn (7m 40s):
Okay. That seems to be a, as long as it doesn't go back to whatever month I said that I felt like I was cursed. I know, I think that was February, but as long as it doesn't go that way, we should be all right. But its been, that's been a little bit of a hiccup. My vaccine was canceled at the last minute. So now I don't get vaccinated until may because they changed the Johns, the Johnson and Johnson has some side effects, which I have to admit. I would probably be right in the target of potentials for side effects. So Lina, maybe it was a good thing, but it has been one of those weeks where you feel like the rug has pulled out of you, I'm a Hunter you with every step. So at this point I'm just expecting someone to push me off a cliff and we stay away from cliffs or they're just send me a parachute and Well, or Mary Poppins or has an umbrella or something I need to, I need a safety net this week, but we will get through it.

Autumn (8m 36s):
And I will not. Maybe it's because of what happens to be my birthday or a week. So maybe its just, you know, fate instead of rubbing in it, I will ignore that. I've been hoping for a good week. I'm planning for a good birthday. Oddly enough. It's been, the weather here has been gorgeous in the sixties. Sunny, just lovely. Except for oddly enough that day on my birthday, it was supposed to snow seven inches. Right. And so I was going to go out to a, a lovely restaurant were actually having a certificate.

Autumn (9m 16s):
I think it was going to be perfect. And now I'm just thinking, well shoot, I'm just going to get cheesecake and cheesecake. Good. Maybe it was too much hot chocolate in Rome and cheese kick-ass or movie or something. I feel like this movie and just get it over with, but that's how my week moving on.

Jesper (9m 40s):
Okay. So if you just want to move on,

Autumn (9m 44s):
Let's go up

Narrator (9m 45s):
A week on the internet with The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast.

Jesper (9m 50s):
I okay. It took out a long, long time for audible to accept the files. I am pleased to announce that the audio book version of our guide book on how to develop story ideas is now finally available for like four or five months old. So I think more than that, I think it's great. They have a year of six month.

Autumn (10m 14s):
Oh that is insane. I am so excited though. You did it again. You didn't tell me this or no, I didn't come to you in education were running up this disk. They'll send you back for training. Yeah.

Jesper (10m 29s):
Well I thought it's excellent communication. I'm telling you right now.

Autumn (10m 35s):
Well, that is exciting. So what are we going to do to sell a bright, having our book finally approved as an audio book

Jesper (10m 44s):
That I don't know that it's a celebration. That's the part, I don't know how to do. I need more training on how I'll just say like, but maybe because I have an audio sample prepared, but maybe you could just to remind people what this book is about. And then afterwards I can just play a short sample right here and now

Autumn (11m 4s):
Six months in a week of heck it's a story ideas now. So I do remember that it is full of tips and ideas on developing your story ideas and how to generate different ways of coming up with ideas in getting the, that flowing, its almost like creating a muscle memory of how do you come up with ideas and develop that. And it's a whole different skillset. So it's all about that. And I think I did. Okay. And I'm going to stop speaking.

Jesper (11m 35s):
How are you afraid you are going to jinx it?

Autumn (11m 39s):
Yeah, definitely. Let me touch on the computer. It will go black.

Jesper (11m 43s):
Okay. So I have a, a short sample lined up here just so that the For Lissa listeners. So you can see, you can hear what is, sounds like it's a bit more than a minute in length. So a lien back and just a listened to it here. And of course listener, if, if you're not too interested in this book, just, you know, we use your podcast app too, a skip ahead in a minute or something, but here we go.

Derek Botten (12m 10s):
We don't need to understand how our brains produce Ideas. We need to acknowledge that they do. It's not magic generating story ideas. Isn't a single event, but a creative process that involves collecting input from our environment and experiences to transform those loose fragments into a coherent hole. Well, we said that most original ideas has already been conceived. We also mentioned how inspiration is at the heart of combining OLED elements into something new or the greatest novel it is yet to be written. And when that happens will still be able to say the greatest novel is you have to be written. Every idea in the world is waiting to be done again with a new spin or an unexpected reveal.

Derek Botten (12m 56s):
All it takes is to understand how to open our minds and allow inspiration to hit home. The more we experience, the more material we have available to interrelate and create new combinations from the better. For instance, when J K Rowling came up with the idea for Harry Potter, she was stuck on a train from Manchester to London, King's cross. Or how about Suzanne Collins? She got the idea for the hunger games when channel surfing between reality TV and actual war coverage from Iraq. The point is that story ideas are all around us. We need to train our brains to look for them and then note them down. As soon as they come into existence, in a sense, it becomes a simple matter of collecting enough input from your environment and putting those ideas through the brainstorming process.

Derek Botten (13m 46s):
This will lead you to the perfect premise for your story. So

Jesper (13m 51s):
How do you like the Narrator here? Why don't you want him?

Autumn (13m 53s):
And he's got a very soothing as a friendly voice. I can listen to that one all day. Yeah, I really liked.

Jesper (14m 2s):
So we place the link in the show notes from a where you can find this audio book and if you prefer an ebook version or a paperback that's found via that same link as well. And a little secret for our listeners here is that the Epic ebook version of this book is actually available for free because if you buy the plotting guide and will also put a link to that one in the show notes as well. But if you, by the plotting guide insight, you will actually find a link which will give you this story idea book for free. Of course the ebook version of it, the audio book version you can get for free.

Autumn (14m 39s):
You know, fortunately I was actually thinking as well, all of them that, and of course I'm communicating this to you now. Okay. That was great. A very Well known. Is it okay?

Jesper (14m 54s):
Yeah. Cause I'm going to have communication skills here. What if we a set that I'm the first five people who leave a review of this podcast will get a free audio book.

Autumn (15m 10s):
I think that's brilliant. I love giving rewards to listeners. So let's do it. It will have to, we'll have to be on the spot and checking times, but yeah, first five who leave a review.

Jesper (15m 24s):
Yeah. So we will do it like this. If you like the podcast, leave a rating and review right now and we are going to go first, come first served. Meaning it is when we receive your information about the review left. So you will leave your ratings, leave your review, then go to Am Writing Fantasy dot com and use the contact form on their and send us a link or a screenshot of the review. If you just left. And the first five emails we get and that's the timestamp in our inbox, the first five we get, we will get back to those five people with a free download code for this audio book.

Jesper (16m 5s):
So don't delay, if you wait too long, it will be too late. So yeah, go ahead and, and leave a review and a will give you a free audio book sound the same time.

Autumn (16m 16s):
Yeah, I think that's a really cool and then that's a way of celebrating. We go into audio book. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jesper (16m 21s):
That's true. Yeah. Inadvertently and this is celebrate is something I wouldn't even notice myself. That's my bad on who we are going to work on. That I have a feeling that we are accidentally going to expire some people today when we go through all of this Autumn. Yeah,

Autumn (16m 45s):
Probably I would think so. I definitely chose M one or two worlds where I think I would probably not make it more of a pro. Definitely not to the teenage years, but if it was dropped in it as an adult, I would probably have a few hours still live. So yeah,

Jesper (16m 60s):
It seems to be my way, maybe not to inspire people in the way that they are going to copy the actual things that we say, but maybe some of the stuff we say it may be. Some people feel like I can actually use a small part of that on an element of that and change it around to something else. And a, I think, you know, you know, if that happens too, some of the listeners please steal away, just take whatever we say and use it. I don't care. You can steal all you want from this podcast episode. And then of course at the end will have to conclude a winner. Even though we might actually do that in two seconds, that's probably a predetermined, but,

Autumn (17m 36s):
And knowing how my week is going. Sure. I Have no doubt. I'm expecting the PODCAST, to die and in a second,

Jesper (17m 44s):
No, no, please. Don't jinx it a, I know your blood will have, it has quite an effect on electronics, right? It does. It, it does. That's what it is. That one step back. Yeah. Don't touch the computer Please. Before we get started, I came across a very funny comment, a on the internet, but I just thought it would, she has to be okay. It doesn't really fit into the list of five, but it was just such a funny comment that the way I thought was good at it. So we were, there was the question on the inside and posted about, which was the Wii WORST Fantasy Worlds to live in four, a normal person.

Jesper (18m 26s):
And so it doesn't quite fit with our lists. Yeah. But somebody to answer to this question was, well, I think it would be becoming a volunteer firefighter in King's landing.

Autumn (18m 41s):
Well, that's, that has a pretty good comment, But pretty bad jobs to have it. It's a pretty bad job or that kind of hard for me. So I dunno, I think we'd be left. So if they want us to share it up, all right, well I'm sure you'll get a few chuckles or who are listening to it. So that, it's a very good one, but I have to admit, I said there is, I, we both made a point not to steal from work's because we don't want to say that we think this world is horrible and it's like your favorite story. So we tried to come up with our own and I think that's the way to do it, but getting some inspiration, like reading some comments and stuff online, and there were some really funny comments and there were some things at work.

Autumn (19m 23s):
And I did, I really did find the one that was like WORST Worlds. And there was a whole setup about a cursor town that I like. This is really would be interesting story. And it's sounds creepy. And what do you need to start bookmarking some of these, but it was actually not bad at all. Yeah, no, it was more of like, it's the WORST world. Like you would not want to be out in the world actually. And it was like, Oh, that must have been a very riveting story. So, you know, WORST worlds can be very inspiring. That's true.

Jesper (19m 56s):
Yeah. I don't think that's not quite the way I've gone with my list, to be honest, if either it's not like inspiring And at all,

Autumn (20m 4s):
I think I went with the potential for death horrifying and yeah. That's about where I went.

Jesper (20m 13s):
Yeah. I tried to put a slightly different angle on most of mine to be honest, but because I have to try too. Yeah. Well now that is to say that, you know, the problem is sometimes when you try to be too unique, then it falls apart. So I ah, no, I, I am losing confidence in my list. All of it.

Autumn (20m 35s):
Excellent. No, that's not good. I am ready to begin. Now I on me, I need a, when this week come on, it's my birthday. And we see that this my pantry, cause this is like Jesper. I powers your using on me. Like I'm Fe it's not fair. It's just not fair. I can't deny my breath. Right.

Jesper (21m 0s):
Okay. Okay. Well, I almost feel like I want you to stop because I want to hear if I'm, if you start out really strong than I am getting really nervous, but if we could settle my nervous a bit, If, if the first one you've come up with is like, yeah, no, it's okay. Then I would feel better already.

Autumn (21m 14s):
Well, this is my first one. We'll make you feel better because it was kind of, I actually changed it from something incredibly boring because I went with stories that would create Worlds that we create a horrible story. I guess it was really the theme of a mine. Yes, yes. And so that's what I wanted. But the first one is kind of, I just had to put it in there and I have a reason. And I'll let you see if you can guess because its something that I think you would suspect knowing me and also knowing something that's true to your heart as well.

Jesper (21m 43s):
So are you setting me up for failure? So if I can guess it, that it makes me look like for you, you should have known this.

Autumn (21m 49s):
Oh, we'll see. We'll see what we've already even talked about it today. So you're ready from my number one. Well, my number five is not the worst world. We are going to build out a number five. Yes. My number five. So this is a world where the water has been turned to undrinkable muck full of chemicals that will slowly poison you. Any animals that live in it or are mutated in the inevitable that live in the water. The soil has been contaminated so much that you are lucky to grow crops. And even if you could, the SOF, your reign will most likely destroy them. If it rains at all, it might be a drought year or it might be the aesthetic hurricane full of tornadoes.

Autumn (22m 29s):
It just comes in waves out. Everything. Most animals have been killed off due to the pollutants. The landscape has a wasteland have destroyed cities. Birt husks. The building's massive contamination from the number of dead bodies, trash and leaked chemicals where any humans are writing about like Savage cannibals in the cities. So your best bet to live at all is in the countryside. If you are lucky to find any areas with existing forest and have a decent soils and of course food is scarce as possibly contaminated. And but if you band together at all with other humans to check out An existence here, they may look at you as a potential food source.

Jesper (23m 11s):
Hmm.

Autumn (23m 12s):
So I do know there are a dystopian stories that kind of had this world, but can you guess why this to me is one of the worst scariest worlds I can possibly imagine even though it's number five on my list.

Jesper (23m 32s):
Hmm.

Autumn (23m 32s):
Before we start and before we started talking in a recording today, we were talking almost about this topic when you are walking on the coast.

Jesper (23m 45s):
Yeah. The people are Polluting stuff and whatnot.

Autumn (23m 48s):
And it's based on what my absolute terrifying vision of what can happen to this world in what we're doing to it. And it had to put this one in there, right? No, this is the conservation side of me going. Yeah,

Jesper (24m 3s):
No, no. So yeah. This is like a fast-forwarding 500 years or something. And then see what you get up with you on that. /

Autumn (24m 10s):
I was afraid of fast forwarding, like 38 years.

Jesper (24m 14s):
Three years. Oh my God. I hope not.

Autumn (24m 16s):
This is a 30, But yeah, there are days I am terrified to see what we are going to wake up to tomorrow. So

Jesper (24m 21s):
No, no that's true. So it was just a, just yesterday it was a sunshine here find with her and then like 10 minutes later it got all cloudy and it started snowing and I was looking at it, Linda White. What happened here is just like the way the climate is so fucked up. This incredible is yeah, it is really bad.

Autumn (24m 42s):
Alright. So hopefully that will be eased you into the competition.

Jesper (24m 47s):
Yeah. Yeah. Maybe. I don't know if I feel better, but I don't feel worse either. So yeah, it was okay. That's a win. Yeah. So this year you were a number five. Okay. So my number five is I'm sort of in the same vein as You. I meaning that I was trying to think of something that would be the worst nightmare for, from a writer's perspective. Okay. So imagine that you have created this wonderful fantasy world and you have created your characters, you have written the first chapter and now at some point during your world building, you thought that readers wanted something different, you know, something that they have never seen before.

Jesper (25m 36s):
So your decided that this world, it would rain once every day. Okay. So, so far so good. Yeah. That's fine. It doesn't sound too. Yeah.

Autumn (25m 46s):
But I know. And it sounds like the Costa Rica actually, it was like everyday two o'clock so we can turn on a faucet and it rained. Right.

Jesper (25m 54s):
That's why I got it from No, but the thing is that every time it rains, everyone changes personality. Oh. So every day, the past is your characters will now become somebody else. Oh. And they will want something else. They don't remember what they were doing or why they're just on a new mission with new ones and motivations all of a sudden. So imagine what a mess. This novel will be. Every single chapter, the character is somebody new and there is no coherent overlap it, everything that they're doing, no consistent. It's a story arc, just character arc.

Jesper (26m 35s):
It's just a random chapters of a person's life that goes nowhere. And you can go four, 150,000 words like that.

Autumn (26m 45s):
I don't know if I could read it 150,000 words you could imagine being in the editor. I'm just going. No, no, no, no.

Jesper (26m 53s):
But it is unique. Well building, no, I promise you. Nobody has seen it before. I

Autumn (26m 57s):
Agree with you. And there might be a reason for that.

Jesper (27m 1s):
Or you think, you know, maybe the, everybody else is just not as much of a genius too. Right?

Autumn (27m 5s):
This is true as a writer. That one is absolutely horrifying. I just how you are, right. It would be just a bunch of short stories that begin and end every 24 hours or so it was just me. Yes. You could say. I mean, OK. So you could come up with the characters that is doing it's so darn just like wondering if its maybe it was more aware and maybe is it because you get wet and trying to hide from the rain and, and maintain who they are or do you have past lives? Like memories of flickers of things that you might have been doing before? See, you could Plot this year.

Jesper (27m 40s):
Yeah. I can do it now. You are destroying it. It was a bad idea. Now you're making are starting to make it better and making it work. And that's not the point. It's the bad list. This one is not the point. This is not to make it work.

Autumn (27m 51s):
And not to say I could write a story in this world. All right. Fine. No, it's horrible. There you go.

Jesper (27m 58s):
I am not convinced that I was very sincere. Okay. You ready for it? By number of For, okay.

Autumn (28m 4s):
What do you want to move on? Alright, so this one, this one I actually named, I call it Thou shall not right.

Jesper (28m 10s):
Okay. That sounds serious. Yes. That's a very serious.

Autumn (28m 12s):
This is great. Yeah. Serious world. I would not last year. Ah, it's a world that is dominated by a very strict religion. Or if you're a futuristic tech, a very strict AI where the priest or AI can read thoughts. So if you are disobey or if you even think about disobeying, you just killed your immediately kill. They just give up and go boom. So devotion is absolute or compliance is absolute. And that's why I'm saying, if I were in this world, it would be like five. It says you're out of here. So I am just not good at obeying things. I swear. I, it was a nice teenager. It's just been since then.

Autumn (28m 54s):
So yeah. That's, that's why I call it that I shall not because of this world.

Jesper (28m 59s):
Yeah. I wouldn't last long and I can tell you, And if they can, if they can read your thoughts, then nobody can avoid thinking something against the rules. Once in a while it was just impossible. I mean, everybody would die in this world. You know, there would be nobody left just the AI or the priests is. Yeah,

Autumn (29m 19s):
I agree. And that's what That I, so in the eye by making it so strict that even your thoughts, we can get, you killed that. It just writing a story. What are you going to do with all these robots? Like people just, you know, thinking happy thoughts or listening to like constant music to keep themselves like the site or, you know, you want to write about the rebel. You want to, if I right about the person, who's going to find a way out of this trick. But yeah.

Jesper (29m 43s):
But, but then if you had a non I'm going to, I'm trying to destroy you as too. So if you have the character who was actually the only one who is mine, they can not read. And he is trying to battle the powers that be in trying to figure out how we can free the rest of the people from this sort of mind control. Yeah. I can write that story. Not a problem,

Autumn (30m 5s):
A problem. As long as you can throw in the one person like you can't read, you'd be all set. But if it's a a hundred percent, they can read all your thoughts and your growth from the time you were a child, you were like, yeah.

Jesper (30m 15s):
Do you know what if it this way? What if it's one of the AI's who is going to be in it? Oh, I like that one. There you go. Ding, ding. Ding.

Autumn (30m 25s):
Yeah. Very nice. Yeah. Okay, good. So if you were making my bad ideas is a good ones. I am going to make you a bad ideas and the good ones as well. If that's the way you want it to be that way. Yeah. Okay. So my number for yes. And this one might be quite interesting for the writer. I think maybe the reader we'll actually hate you for '

Jesper (30m 53s):
It. Excellent. So The foreword to some one star reviews coming your way,

Autumn (30m 58s):
It would ever write a book just to get one star or you would like to start up the pen name. Like I want to write trash. Yeah.

Jesper (31m 3s):
You're going to change the worst stuff I can think of that.

Autumn (31m 6s):
But you might like, it would be the ones that take off anyway. Go ahead. Your number for her.

Jesper (31m 13s):
Yeah. Yeah. So, so this is a setting where it's, let's say it's mostly like the, well, the detail, so that makes it better. But it's actually the fact that there is no details. Okay. So everything is just made up at random as you go. Oh, and so it's not, it's not so, so that you make it up as you go as in like discovery Writing and then you will make it fit into what you already got. This is more like you have to use a random generator on the internet and whatever it tells you, that's what you have to use as the settings setting the elements.

Autumn (31m 59s):
So if it like spits out umbrella and Gumdrop rainstorm, that's great.

Jesper (32m 4s):
And then this is what it is then that's what it is.

Autumn (32m 8s):
This is going to be really fun as a writer, but you know, the readers or going to be like, Oh, this makes no sense at all.

Jesper (32m 14s):
Okay. Why did he throw in an umbrella at the dragon there? That makes no sense. So yeah. Yeah. I think readers will be pretty damn frustrated with this kind of world. No, but I can imagine teaching yeah.

Autumn (32m 30s):
Writer conference, I'm a writer course like an in-person one and it's like it's right. Or improv or it would be so much fun to teach, to be like, cause it is something like storytelling around a campfire. I have, you know, when you do some of those exercises where you have to continue on a story that you passed in the chain and it was going to be so much fun. So this is sort of like kind of along those lines. And you know, as a, as our teacher, I would like to, I want to go do this as a reader. I would hate your guts. Yes.

Jesper (32m 59s):
It would be like, Oh, this is the worst crap I've ever.

Autumn (33m 4s):
But it, yeah. For a tool I'm just like developing your author voice and coming up with Ideas. It would be a blast.

Jesper (33m 14s):
Yeah. True. All right. Well lets see, I like that one. Okay. All right. Well I don't like it, but okay. That's good that you do.

Autumn (33m 22s):
I, I see it a tool. It, it would be an interesting tool, but yeah. And I would never want to publish something that can get out of it unless you like developed it For

Jesper (33m 33s):
Well the fast, imagine how fast you can write it. Just copy and pasting out of random generators like in here with that. And then he did and then the next random generating And copy that paste in, it will take you like half a day and then you have another. Yeah,

Autumn (33m 45s):
Well it would be for the bizarre I'm sure some of it's going to go do this now and just see what comes up, dragon in whatever the search term comes up with it. Or you go out there. You are good. All right. So you are ready for my number three.

Jesper (34m 1s):
Yes.

Autumn (34m 1s):
All right. I named this one too. And it sort of reminds me of your number five. So I call this one now you're here now. You're not okay. And so this is a world where random wormholes appear without warning, you can be walking down a path and be transported to the top of the mountain or the middle of the ocean or in a erupting volcano. And so like Stories I life, it would be so chaotic and unpredictable that it would be impossible to actually write a comprehensive story because you would just be like walking and poof, you know, you wouldn't be able to be with any one. You love you wouldn't your life would be inconsistent. So where yours was your memories or a race, hear you are physically, you know who you are and you're physically transported.

Autumn (34m 46s):
Do you know to a cliff?

Jesper (34m 51s):
Yeah. Nice. But could you have like some sort of limited countermeasure or something?

Autumn (34m 57s):
I'm not sure if something, if you run up a bit.

Jesper (34m 60s):
Yeah. So, so if you have something like if you have this substance or whatever it is, and it's very limited in supply, but if you have it, you can basically just walk straight through the wormhole, roll out and taking you anywhere. You, you know, we just want to walk through it and keep going wherever you are, where we are going already. But if you don't have it, it sucks you up and drops you somewhere else.

Autumn (35m 21s):
I could see that. Or I can imagine if, you know, if, if you manage to have kids and you know, there are people are evolving on this world, eventually evolutionarily, someone's going to be able to control where the worm hole goes or at least start being able to manipulate it slightly. Would that be fun? So Yes, I, I was again, yeah. You know, you can find your way around it, but at, at, at its purest form before the child has evolved enough to learn that if they are thinking about something, they can direct where the wormhole goes and completely change as a society, it would be just a mess to Right. I, the love interest, poof.

Jesper (35m 59s):
Well, she is now in the middle of the ocean and proof. He is in the volcano.

Autumn (36m 4s):
We have stories over and it was the choose your own adventure gone wrong.

Jesper (36m 9s):
But it would actually also be pretty crazy from like, like say if, lets say you have the One like court made that knows how to control this and its like, poof, well the arm is, or is that your front gate now?

Autumn (36m 24s):
But yeah, there you go. That's like pretty great.

Jesper (36m 28s):
And yeah, and also,

Autumn (36m 29s):
I mean, that's the other thing. So I mentioned that it was all happens when you're walking. So what if you don't walk, you know, that's what you use to send them the servant's or something. There's definitely ways of playing with this so that it would be much less, much more controlled. And that's what you need to be able to develop a story is having control of things. But the minute things go completely random. Yeah. Good luck for writing the book. That's just me is true. Yes. Okay.

Jesper (36m 56s):
You are not my fault for my number three. I sort of decided that to make my list a winning list, I needed to also play on some scary ones are excellent. So number three and number two is scary ones rather than a terrible ones. Bad ones. Okay. And I felt like with two of those on my list is going to be really strong. Okay. And what better way to do that than picking some real world locations to serve as inspiration for Stories, settings. Okay. So when things are based off of reality, then it becomes a bit more scary and it's true.

Jesper (37m 41s):
Let's go back here in the Nordics actually in Norway to be precise, you will find a place known as ECA is house fortress. That's already sounds terrifying. Yeah, it is. As it sounds, it's a medieval castle and is actually also used as the mysterious setting for the fiction novel, the snowman, which is written by Joe Nesper. If you know him, it's a pretty well known Norwegian author. But the thing is that many locals act to report that this place is haunted.

Jesper (38m 21s):
Excellent. So the most famous residents today are the ghosts of a woman and the demon dog that wonder is the castle grounds. Oh demon dogs. Yeah. So imagine a story where you are trapped inside this castle. I think that could be pretty damn horrific

Autumn (38m 43s):
Though, if a real story. Cause we both have watched those M the haunting of Hill house, the haunting of, or something blind manner. I can't remember the one that is correct. We have of both watched those and Yes, I, horror story is hunting Stories are definitely spine tingling, especially when it's based on real events. So this can be quite, let's see, it's not a terrifying one to write it. And I think that'd be a fun story to write. So Writing. Yeah. Yeah. But it's a terrifying setting. It is a terrifying and that I did, I just didn't notice. We were so many people would say yes, it sounds like a great story to write, but we're talking like worse for at least this is a real thing. That's, that's terrifying.

Autumn (39m 23s):
You don't want to live and you don't want to live in, In even game of Thrones. I mean, it has to be people to live, to survive. If you are a good person, you are dead in like two days. So there's are no places if you want to really live. But yeah,

Jesper (39m 39s):
Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, that was my

Autumn (39m 41s):
Number three. How do I like that? That sounds like it's going to be on must visit to the list when I come over to see, you know. Yeah.

Jesper (39m 48s):
Well it is in Norway and not in Denmark, but anyway, so yeah.

Autumn (39m 51s):
Is it still closer to you than it is to me? So yeah,

Jesper (39m 54s):
I guess it is. Yes. Technically you could say that. Yeah.

Autumn (39m 58s):
Okay. So it's the end of the world. It's good or excellent. I like that. I love it. I used to read horror, haunted, Real hauntings stories when I was a teenager. So that's really cool. All right. So you ready for my number to,

Jesper (40m 14s):
yes.

Autumn (40m 14s):
All right. This one I named poison. So this is a world where the soil is formed from uranium. So it's not such a high level that you would die instantly if you found yourself there, but high enough that it quickly starts affecting your DNA. So lumps will form across your skin has massive cancers form under your lymph nodes.

Jesper (40m 38s):
Your lungs will feel with cancer cells so that you have a hard time breathing. The marrow of your bones is altered, weakening the structure so that you can just break your leg or your toes as are walking. Your hair will start to fall out. Your skin turns to boils and kinda like just lost all of your body. Oh my God, you is excruciatingly painful until you finally die with relief. So this is poison. Have fun writing a story set there.

Autumn (41m 12s):
Well, I get it. I, I can see that there is a common trend here. And every one you come up with, this will have something like that. Nobody will survive this. It's impossible to live in those settings.

Jesper (41m 25s):
Do you know if your characters are dying because of the world? Its, you know, it's not going to be a really interesting story. Oh maybe when you made this list, you had a bad week and you poured it into the city.

Autumn (41m 37s):
I do it. Write this yesterday. No I I right noble. Right. And the reason I can write Nobel prize as I make lists like this one, I have a bad week. Every one dies, but I won't make it into a story. So this is what don't worry.

Jesper (41m 54s):
Got it. Okay. If you say So. Yeah.

Autumn (41m 57s):
Oh that's great. You are on for too. So,

Jesper (42m 0s):
But two is a yeah, I want again a scary one as I said. Okay. And I was thinking, what could make it more scary than number three is it sort of has to write. And I wanted to try to see if I could see all the way to read with this one. Oh,

Autumn (42m 18s):
Okay. And your number two. So this is confidence because you still have one to go.

Jesper (42m 23s):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I do buy number one is obvious. Who

Autumn (42m 26s):
Was the witness over? The last is fine.

Jesper (42m 30s):
Excellent. So the guy in the catacombs of Paris, those were used by actually one of my favorite vampire authors and rice. Yeah. And she used it for a coven of vampires in the novel, an interview with a vampire or interview with the vampire may be, or even vampire. I can't remember, but either or people know what I mean? Yes. And that is already pretty cool. But what if I told you that the catacombs beneath the city of Paris, there are actual skeletal remains of over 6 million people down there.

Autumn (43m 9s):
Well, let's see. Yeah. I didn't know it was 6 million, but I knew I've seen the walls of the skulls and the bones and I, yeah, I do. Like, Momento more, I, I, so I love these little death images and skulls. I should've been a goth, but I never was a goth if you do need to goth. But yes, the momentum OR I in the bones down there are S Oh, fascinating. I wanted to see them and it was in Paris and it never did make it down to the category.

Jesper (43m 34s):
Oh, nice. Yeah. You can actually see the, the part of the stacked on top of each other is down there in, in the, the catacombs there. But now I don't want to Fantasy setting where its just about skeletons everywhere to sort of a bit boring here. Well, I suppose it might be a bit scary for some, but I don't think it is scary enough. So what if the deceased walked a month among us, but you don't know who they are. So they act like us. They look like us, but they are not us.

Jesper (44m 15s):
So the scary part is that you know that they exist only. You don't know who it is, so it could be one of your friends. It could be your spouse. You don't know that it would be so imagining going through like that.

Autumn (44m 34s):
Not knowing if your, one of the other that would be good.

Jesper (44m 38s):
What are they up to? No good right there. Their trying to get rid of mankind. And so what a bit and you know that they exist, but you don't know who it is.

Autumn (44m 45s):
That would be very interesting. That'd be a fun tension filled novel too. Right? I have to admit, right.

Jesper (44m 50s):
Oh for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it would be scary like hell

Autumn (44m 54s):
If it was real-world in like imagining that the Corona virus, the people who are infected were changed somehow. Yeah. If this was a real world and you just did it, it was the impact of getting sick with something was much more devastating and it wasn't just deaths, but change you into something like a zombie, you know, that's like not into zombie stories, but something like that. Yeah. Then what would be, if this was a real thing that would be terrifying. Yeah.

Jesper (45m 19s):
Yeah. But even in the Samba Stories, it's usually it's the human. So who are the scary ones into zombies? Story is not the Somme B's because the humans, humans are so scary because they can come up with all this ingenious ways of trapping in killing people and what not. So the sound bites well that they can be scary if there's a lot of them and you do. And you're trapped of course, but humans are much more dangerous. And imagine that if these people were like, look like you and act like you, but they are not you. And they want actually to, to kill you. So just going to grocery shopping you, you always have to be concerned if somebody's calling you over, it's like, Oh, are they going to kill me or something?

Jesper (46m 0s):
Or somebody at the side of it arose you, you come across a car has like, you know, the typical trope of a puncture tire. And they're like, can you help me? No. Hell no, I won't have to help you. Bye-bye

Autumn (46m 13s):
So much for a lot of good Samaritans.

Jesper (46m 16s):
They don't make system this setting. I think,

Autumn (46m 18s):
Oh, I like that. That is, that would be a very, I wouldn't know what to live there. I like, I wouldn't be able to trust you. This would be horrible. No. Yeah. I can't do that. Alright, so you ready for my number one? This one is a bit of a surprise. Actually.

Jesper (46m 35s):
I hope it's not too good, but yes, I'm ready.

Autumn (46m 39s):
This one also has a name. So its called the black Marsh in the bowl of Ashe, which both exists on the coast have storms. And I know that you are so intimately because of this one. I know we said we wouldn't pull from anyone else's novel, but I did pull from my novel. So this is from my Epic fantasy series, a rise of the fifth order. And I think they go back to it in games of fire. But so this is mine. So the, you know, stealing this one, but if you want to come and visit, talk to me, well we'll work it out. So it's, it was, it's a difficult place I'd never, ever would've went to visit here. And it was actually difficult to write about because it's so hard not to have your characters die.

Autumn (47m 21s):
So this is one character is mostly survive. So first this is the coast of storms, which is similar to the eternal storm. If you've heard of that in Venezuela, whereas the catacomb go river beats Lake Maracaibo. So there's an average of 260 storm, 260 storm days a year. So it's like a lightning there all the time. And that inspired the coast of storms in my novels. And it's always pitch black broken only by lightning and a lot of rain. So if your outside of the two main cities, you are in a landscape, you can barely see its most likely you are going to be soaking wet. You were walking through Mark and mud and to make it even more fun because you know what I like fun thinking as an ecologist, any plants or in this area, they can't photosynthesize.

Autumn (48m 7s):
They will be dormant waiting for the one or, you know, two days of sunlight where they can suddenly reproduce and grow leaves and all that other stuff or are they are going to find energy and a food source. And other means so most of the plants are actually carnivores. So giant thing is that Venus fly traps. My cat's for a strangling vines with thorns have suck your blood. So you know, the plants are going to kill you so you can imagine what kind of insects and animals eat plants up to the plans can already eat you. So you probably don't want to run into any the creatures that live there. What makes it even more fun?

Autumn (48m 47s):
Because you know, me and I love really fun. Fantasy settings is if you have magic, you can't use it in the black Marsh. And that is because most of the area is littered with bones of creatures that the bones themselves don't allow magic. So there are like nullifying bones, which it works out quite well. It's usually in the story, but the problem is why would that adoptation of animals having bones that repel magic happen? Well, if, because there is an apex predator that eats magic. So if you can actually save yourself using magic from these like kind of carnivorous plants, you're going to be attracting something that is going to come and eat you like giant or a pack of a lost or Raptor as a kind of reminds me of, they will just get you down and eat your way.

Autumn (49m 36s):
So yeah, I have some of my, I say my favorite characters in their it's just me. So I mean, it was really hard to just shove them into this landscape and hope that they came out the other side 'cause it was very desperately needed that they'll go in there, but you know, so that's my black Marche. It's quite a place. So I like that one. Yeah. It's quite fun too. Try to get your character's out of a pickle 'cause if they can be used magic, they shouldn't be. And most likely they can and there are fighting things when they are used to being trained with magics, there is something we got to use sorts of knives. Good. Look to you.

Jesper (50m 15s):
Yeah. But that's exactly why you want to have your character's in situations were in the beginning as an author, you don't even know how to get them out of it. And, and, but then if you worked hard at it to find a way for them to get out of it, it will come across very, you know, very, very strong reasoning and a, a, a, a very good logic. So, so yeah.

Autumn (50m 35s):
Well, thank you. I'm glad that you liked my number one. I do,

Jesper (50m 39s):
But I also feel is cheating because you took your own. So I think you were already disqualified now the Yes,

Autumn (50m 48s):
I will trust the listener's to decide if it was just qualified.

Jesper (50m 51s):
Okay. But I know, I don't want to say, I don't want to hear it from Dominick. I don't care what you said. I'm just kidding, Dominique. If you're listening, listening.

Autumn (50m 60s):
Oh, all right. Well lets see if I got, Let, just toss down. What is your number one?

Jesper (51m 6s):
Okay. So this one is really bad, like bad in an annoying way. So I guess if you, if you read it as a humorous book, then maybe it would be okay, but that's only until you realized that it was actually intended to be taking seriously and then it'll just be, So This is a world where we are bringing to life the most hated cliches that exists. So let me share some with you in this world. Like you have the fact that there is only one single way to defeat.

Jesper (51m 48s):
The bad guy can not be done in every way on the other, any other way. Only one way. That's the only way to do it. Okay. You have everything in the world with every place. And every item is a very long and hard to pronounce Fantasy names And the heroes cannot, of course also easily defeat, highly trained Warrior's in combat, even though there are no other system that is something you just do.

Autumn (52m 17s):
Excellent. And the majors are always wiggling their eyebrows.

Jesper (52m 22s):
And I can add some more if you want like villains who are apparently just evil because they are evil. They were born that way. Or how about everything that happens, happens because a prophecy for Told it. Yeah. I think that would be pretty damn annoying fantasy world to read.

Autumn (52m 44s):
And it would be a horrible one to read it. It would be, I think he was in the boring one, two right in. But yeah, that would be just, I couldn't imagine going through a whole book cover all of the tropes, every single cliche you could throw in there and just show up to go to town with it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Jesper (53m 5s):
If, if, if you didn't take a serious and, and you just made it a bit like very humoristic that could work. But if you're trying to run it like an Epic FANTASY and you're stuffing all of this in there, it's going to be a nightmare. It's a reef.

Autumn (53m 16s):
It's one of those ones where if it's a role-playing game, it might be a fun one to be in cars. You can just decimate your competition. You are the hero and therefore you will get to the end, you'll get a Brown. And you'll definitely get that. You know, it's like one of those ones when you're having a bad week, you just want to play that role playing game because you're going to smash to everyone. But to sit there and actually read it all like a 150,000 words with me, just wiggling their eyebrows and women and chain Malbec, Kini is all the women that have to have to do it yet.

Jesper (53m 44s):
Yeah, yeah, of course. Yes. That is there a as well as an, every time a woman in the room that you will have like a full paragraph describing her upper body in detail. Like there's no reason for it. It's just like a long a description of that. It's just like, and then probably a very nasty old man made sitting in the corner of wiggling. His brows said something really nasty, like

Autumn (54m 9s):
Yeah, yeah. Oh lets just go back to the 1980s. Oh my God. I go and read one of 'em. Oh, one of those Hemmons or something.

Jesper (54m 23s):
Yeah, that's painful. That is a pretty painful one. I have to admit.

Autumn (54m 26s):
I am actually impressed that besides slightly with the rain versus my wormholes, having a slight kind of tendency to each other, we were in a completely different and again for this list, that's pretty impressive for WORST Fantasy Worlds Actually almost no overlap in these ones at all.

Jesper (54m 46s):
We did have some in the, in the us quite far back now, I guess in terms of Episode. But yeah, we did have at some point where our list has a lot of overlap, but not anymore.

Autumn (54m 57s):
Where are we seem to have gone away from them? I also think our list for a longer than I think they might have been 10 and now were just, you know, now we just choose the cream of the crop, have five. Yeah. It's like the best of the best. And that's all right. Well I have to admit to some of your story's I think it would be absolutely fun, but your number one would be except for a role-playing game. I just could not read that OR right in that I would just be, it would be less, it was Shrek a fish spoof couldn't do it, but it would be a fun spoof. If it would be fun to write comedic Fantasy one day I could get into that, right?

Jesper (55m 33s):
Yeah. Yeah. Maybe. Yeah. I like your AI thing to be honest.

Autumn (55m 38s):
And so I want to thank you. That's excellent.

Jesper (55m 41s):
I didn't say that. I just said I liked it because you know, you have to, again, communication skills here, Autumn, you know, before you deliver bad news, you get the good news. Right? So you just first say, I like your AI and then you said, but I'm sorry that you lost. Yeah.

Autumn (55m 57s):
So I, I am leaving that up to the listener. I'm sorry. You, neither of us are good in this list or if we are, we're equally powerful.

Jesper (56m 8s):
Really? I thought I was the one deciding who One. Oh, okay. Well I guess we will leave it for our listeners. So let us know who you think had the best list or that works best. And don't forget to go fill out a review and then go over to Am Writing Fantasy, to come and send us a screenshot or a link through the contact form. And if you're one of the first five, we will get you an audio book.

Narrator (56m 43s):
Okay. So next Monday we are going to discuss If social media activities at, can you help us all to us to sell books if its actually just a waste of time? If you like what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support The Am. Writing Fantasy Podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join Autumn and Jesper on patrion.com/ Am. Writing Fantasy for as little as a dollar a month, you'll get awesome rewards and keep The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast, going to stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 122 – Latest Trends and Niches in the Fantasy Book Market (with Alex from K-lytics)

Do you want to sell more books, face less competition, and achieve a higher return on your publishing investments?

K-lytics has the answers and this episode of the Am Writing Fantasy podcast, Jesper talk to the owner of K-lytics, Alex, to gain a better understanding of what K-lytics is and what the latest trends and niches are within the fantasy genre.

Learn more about K-lytics here: https://k-lytics.com/ 

Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday. 

SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST!

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

Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy. For as little as a dollar a month, you’ll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going.

Read the full transcript below.

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

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

Jesper (30s):
Hello, I'm Jesper. This is episode 122 of The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast. Autumn is taking a break today and instead of have a great guest for you. So I'm gonna talk to Alex Newton from K lyrics today and welcome to The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast, Alex.

Alex (48s):
Hello, and thanks a lot for having me.

Jesper (51s):
Yeah, it's a pleasure. I think I've heard you talk on so many podcasts now that your voice is almost feels familiar to me.

Alex (59s):
Oh, wow. I didn't, I didn't realize it would be that many, but you know yeah. The occasional conference or a webinar that has happened, it does happen.

Jesper (1m 8s):
Yeah. And also the nice videos you send out with K-lytics, the summarization videos. I've listened to you there are many times as well. That's the funny part, right? It's like the listener's who listens to podcasts. They also use to my, and Autumn's voice.

Alex (1m 23s):
Right. Yeah. I can imagine because as you say, what I do usually comes with video and voiceover to explain the things, because the numbers can be a very dry matter. So I I'll try it to make it palatable. And the best way I found was with the video and with a voice accompanying the, the graphs and the dry stuff. Yeah. Yeah.

Jesper (1m 47s):
And that's works really well. And we'll get into k-lytics in is just in a minute, but maybe just before we get that far, maybe you could share a bit about yourself. I believe you are on my side of the Atlantic for change. I normally always record, but somebody in the US, but you are in Switzerland, is that right?

Alex (2m 5s):
I am. I'm based in Switzerland Now. I I'm a native German. You know, I grew up in Germany. I had my professional life there as a management consultant. Although there, I basically worked all over the globe and, and some 10 years ago when my little daughter was born and, you know, I had the typical corporate executive type of life, 24 hours, seven days a week Comic-Con activity and living out of the suitcase, I thought, Hey, you know, something should change. And, and that was right in that. What was it called? Like the Kindle gold rush. You can almost say, so it was almost by coincidence. I got into, Hey, what's Amazon doing? And, and yeah, six years ago, I officially launched k-lytics, which by the way is simply Kindle and analytics, but I didn't want it to get into the trademark dispute on day one.

Alex (2m 56s):
So I dropped the k-lytics from the Kindle and here we are with K Lytics. So right now I have a, we've moved to Switzerland system one and a half years back and never looked back. So right now I'm, I'm very much running K Lytics amongst a couple of other things and, and enjoy my time here in this very nice little country that stands as a stronghold in so many aspects hear right in the middle of Europe.

Jesper (3m 25s):
Yeah. That's true. Yes. So you lived in Germany before then?

Alex (3m 28s):
Yes. Yes. I, I grew up in the Southwest of Germany and lived in Munich for many years and then near the stood guard area. So in the Southern area of Germany, yeah.

Jesper (3m 39s):
Oh, okay. Yeah. I like watching the Bayern Munich games on television

Alex (3m 43s):
Except last night. All right. So congratulations to Paris.

Jesper (3m 50s):
Yeah, I guess so. But yeah, you did touch a little bit on a slightly there, but maybe you can explain that, you know, a bit more to those who have, who have no idea what K Lytics is. Maybe you can put a bit more, let's say the baseline information into what is it.

Alex (4m 11s):
And in very simple terms, we tried to provide market research information to authors and publishers publishers to help them make better Publishing decisions is now that sounds very abstract, but if you're in an author, if you are saying the Fantasy on a world, and you decide about your next book project, or you are Writing already a, you know, your rights in the middle of a book project. And, and if you feel a little bit, mm, there is a market out there, or perhaps, you know, readers and potential buyers. So if you are not just writing for therapeutic reasons, or you have nothing else to do, but because you also want to make a living with your writing, you we'll have to face up to the fact that you run a business, right.

Alex (4m 57s):
In any business that gets into a new product or service. Usually we'll do some kind of market research on it. If it's only like talking to a couple of existing customers or in your case, existing readers, Hey, what are your, like, did this resonate with you and how we do this on the ground on a scale by basically looking at a hundreds of thousands of books, and there are sales ranks on Amazon. And by aggregating the data from those books over time, or by certain genres, or by certain categories, we can basically deduct what is trending, what is going on? What is going down, what is selling, what is selling, but what is already crowded, what is selling and perhaps not overly crowded.

Alex (5m 46s):
So we very much come into the game when people make decisions about that Publishing project. And later on, as, you know, things become very tactical in what category is, can I apply to my, what should be the pricing? If I do Epic Fantasy, you know, what are all the other Epic fantasy books are being priced at? Am I too high? Am I too low? And it can get very nitty-gritty in tactical than on the other side. But in essence, it is looking at what's out there in terms of data, aggregating it in an intelligible way and then packaging it so that not every author is a mathematician, obviously, so that you can make a very simple inclusions with you with the writing direction you take.

Jesper (6m 32s):
Yeah, no. I personally really like a K lyrics and, and the reports, but I am curious, you know, why, why did you start Kelly this in the first place? Because I, I, in the Kindle gold cross back then there was nothing like this. So was it just like you thought that, well, this is missing, so I'll try to do it, or, or what, what was the driver behind you creating Catalytics in the first place?

Alex (6m 57s):
It was almost a like half an accident that I ended up in the publishing world. Now I did start in my career in publishing, like literally 30 years back into a London based publishing company. And so there was some affinity with the publishing world, but at the point 10 years ago, when I started the first experiments, as you said, was a Kindle gold rush. And it was at that time when I looked at something, Hey, I want to work from home. So right now I'm clicking on all of those PayPal by button's. Is there anyway that others could click on mine? That was the out the, the, the onset.

Alex (7m 37s):
So I was looking into various markets, you know, fitness Market, online consulting, Market information products, you name it. And I almost, by coincidence, I can came across one of those famous, or I think by now more in famous, you know, get, are rich with Kindle types of courses for the $99, you know, or these types of things in. And at first it was, you know, I was more thinking about publishing rather than writing, but having been a corporate management consultant for twenty-five years and having been in boardrooms 25 years, you vary, you become a very conservative meaning.

Alex (8m 18s):
You know, I don't believe that. So you, you, you really tried to look at the facts and based decisions. On fact. So I started looking at Amazon sales ranks. I started to talk to people, Hey, if this whatever poly or a recipe books that everybody says is the thing, you know, if that has, I would say is to rank off 50,000 on Amazon, does it actually selling anything? And I found, I know its not selling anything, although everybody's saying, you know, you can get rich by, by uploading your grand grandmother is not even, Palio a recipe book, Polly-O breakfast, a recipe book. And at that point in time, I actually coined term, which I call to the present day, the polio breakfast recipes syndrome, meaning, you know, people tried to convince you that you can make money with some obscure, a nonfiction book upload to Kindle, which obviously is a total lie, but to the present day, but people are being sold courses, you know, to, to get into self publishing and make a living by uploading your knitting patterns and that sort of thing, which is obviously a complete nonsense.

Alex (9m 23s):
And so at that point in time, I started doing some, it's almost like data experiments with Amazon and I figured out, Hey, that works. And then I was in the one where on the Facebook group and start a chair. I remember my first K Lytics report was very plainly about the top 30 main Kindle category. So essentially it was looking at is romance selling more than sci-fi and fantasy and sci-fi and fantasy selling more than engineering and transportation Book. So, you know, it like super crude level and people tore it out of my hands and then ask, Hey, can you do this? Can you do this full sub categories? And then people start diving into sub sub categories and, and the rest is history.

Alex (10m 8s):
I think ever since 2015, we've been tracking more than 7,000 kids and a generous month in month out looking at hundreds of thousands of books.

Jesper (10m 19s):
Wow. Yeah, it's impressive. I mean, you must have quite some machine power to data scrape all that information. Right.

Alex (10m 26s):
Well, you know, it's not like a super large scale operation because first of all, you know, you don't want to, I think there can things to be said about, you know, to what extent can, and should you do automated visits on other websites? I know, I mean, in many industries you have it, you know, take hotel, price engines and all that stuff, but you know, it's a very, very small scale. So Amazon wouldn't even notice that. So, and, and also coming more from a data science point of view, you, you know, there is no value in just collecting data. The value comes with intelligent analysis of, and also the intelligence sampling, right? We look at books like seven days a month, like not every hour because also, you know, that would take bandwidths that also Amazon wouldn't be happy with.

Alex (11m 10s):
So we add more like a, you know, not like the occasional visitor, you know, but it's a, it's a, it's a very fine line between what is, what is ethical and what isn't right. And so we chose to do a very hands off type off the data operation that samples book's rather than as you term it scrape, you know, the, the, the Ammons on site every hour or, you know, which is not, not, not the type of business I want to get into.

Jesper (11m 41s):
No, no, that's fair. That's fair enough. And its always good to be a bit ethical about what you do. Although I think with Amazon, they have a scale that they know everybody and a lot of people who are scraping that data and I don't really think that to be honest, but, but its always good to have some ethical considerations. Yeah,

Alex (11m 58s):
Absolutely. And, and, and, and in the end of the day, you know, we were there with that humble data collection to basically help help their clients, you know, that, that feed their whole Publishing and engine. So a and a, and so far, you know, six years they've, they've never complained. I've never complained. And, and, and the people have people that have been happy. So I hope it stays that way.

Jesper (12m 22s):
No, that's perfect. So when it comes to the fantasy genre and that's sort of what we are all about here is also in the name of the Podcast because it is quite obvious, but considering the fantasy genre, I was hoping maybe you could share a bit about, you know, Latest data and your latest trends or sort of what you see when it comes to the FANTASY showing or what is trending and so on. I mean, first of all,

Alex (12m 49s):
Well, the good news is that, you know, out of those big JARAs on Kindle, I mean, you have romance has always number one full of by Mr. Thriller suspense, then you have a bit of non-fiction, but usually it's and Fantasy. And I apologize if I, if I some make a sum with science-fiction I know of many FANTASY all for the first time, how can, how can Amazon, how does Amazon dare put those in one bucket at the very top level already, which I know is not the case, but you know, a scifi and fantasy as, as one umbrella category is, is usually the third largest. And especially during the last 12 months have this crazy pandemic time, we've seen quite some changes and changes in read the behavior.

Alex (13m 35s):
And the good news they are is that overall people who have been looking for more, w we see categories that have to do with humor have been trending up. And if we see a very dark reads, you know, post-apocalyptic stuff is going down, but the, but the good news is anything that provided, say a, a, a good escapism for readers during these dire times has in essence benefited. And therefore, for example, in Fantasy overall, we saw a bit of a dip obviously about a year ago during the first log down periods. Like, because there are people who have been buying non-fiction books about how to bake bread, and it took a market share from some fiction, but, you know, very, very briefly after a brief period, we saw the, the overall Book market, obviously benefiting greatly from these dire times with a print book sales in the us, having grown, showing the highest growth rates in a decade with 8% growth.

Alex (14m 37s):
Amazon grew 25% in the Kindle select global fund. So the royalties paid two author. So I mean, 25%, that's huge. And one of the beneficiary JARAs was Fantasy. Overall, as one example, if you take Epic FANTASY as an example at which is probably like the general, epitomizing a bit of Fantasy as a, I wouldn't say cliche, but as an overarching theme, you know, why, what makes Fantasy the Epic side of the thing is obviously clearly position to provide an escapism. And that category on Amazon had been like, it, it sort of had a peak before, back in 2017 or 18 around that time and with all its fluctuations, you know, and it has then had a bit of a downward trend all the way into the start of 2020.

Alex (15m 33s):
And then after that brief dip, during the first blog down in it, it really shot up back again. And you see that these types of Fantasy markets are clearly benefited and we can, we can go and in, in Canmore, if you want, but on a, on a high level, you see that Fantasy Epic FANTASY, a very big Market, but also very high ceiling. So there, you can say it's a, it's a very grown up, very established mainstream Market on in the Kindle world. And then obviously you have these hundreds of when not hundreds, but, you know, a 10, 20 like big sub genres, you know, from Seoul to source a reaction and adventure game adaptations.

Alex (16m 14s):
And they tend to do pretty well on the Kindle platform. So especially over the last year, all the teen young adult driven type of Fantasy, we saw a lot of trends happening there. And if you want, we can, you know, I can take into the data here as we speak and, and looking into some of those.

Jesper (16m 36s):
Yeah, for sure. I, I think that would be very interesting because a part of it is, and that's what I liked with the K leader reports is also to do, to try to see, because at least for myself and, and Autumn, the stuff that we write, we, we are sort of settled in, in the Epic fantasy world. So, eh, I think the competition is probably pretty fierce there to be honest, but maybe you can contradict me, but, But I, I'm more thinking for, especially if you're sort of starting out and, and, you know, let's say you had decided that I liked to right Fantasy, but I actually like very many different types of Fantasy, then it could definitely also make sense to look into the catalytic reports and, and try to see, okay, is there some of these SOPs showed us where there was just less competition and it makes it a bit easier to get more sales, write it that way.

Jesper (17m 29s):
I think K-lytics, this is very useful apart from what you mentioned earlier as well, that even if you are established in something, you can use it to figure out what is the good price range for books, what is the average pricing and, and so on. So your position, your product's so to speak or your books correctly, but, ah, but yeah, please share more details, right. I mean,

Alex (17m 51s):
As you mentioned, it, a Epic, Epic fantasy, I think is a good example of, as you say, that there are established mainstream markets and just entering in there, you know, as a new comer could be a bit of an uphill battle. I mean, if you, if you look at the Epic Fantasy data, we did a study start of this year. That is one of the examples of a well, in my corporate world, we would say a very concentrated market, right? Where a few to determine, determine the bulk of the sales, you know, with obviously at the very top of the, the Brandon Sanderson, you know, crushing it with, with all his, his books and obviously the classics, the talkings and the Robert Georgians, the obviously George R.

Alex (18m 39s):
Martin and all the F the fan fiction, the, the, the spin offs, the jaw, the Abercrombie side of the world. And, and then already, even with some of the, you know, a big, big names or whatever, what was it like rubbing havin, you know, that there is a whole number of names were immediately, you see the books of their sales rank, you know? Yeah. You know, it, it's a tough market. Now, the good news for Epic Fenton, what good or bad news depends on the eye of the beholder is there while you have like Publishing companies that really dominate like Tor books, right. That, that sine on like everybody or a bid or the DAW, there, there is a couple of big outfits out there, but then you do have an increasing chair in the publishers, the, the typical, you know, author that wants to make use of the self publishing self publishing world and all the opportunities that come with it.

Alex (19m 39s):
And there, we do see a bit of like a balance between a traditionally published or with the specialized Epic FANTASY publishing houses and a couple of, you know, really good self-publishers that found that out a way into the game Now. But if you don't want to get head on with the brand and send the suns and of the world around, you will pose exactly the question you will pose exactly the question you posed, you know, are there opportunities out there in the overall fantasy world where it's perhaps a bit less competitive, less crowded, less established also.

Alex (20m 21s):
And, and I would clearly say yes, you know, I mean, especially if you, if you'd be able to also address some of the teen young adult readership, which is not necessarily teen young adult people, because obviously there's research that suggests that the bulk of the teen young adult fantasy books are actually not read necessarily by, by teens or young adults, but also adults. So they really have opportunities, you know, I mean, take the huge Market, take the huge Market of urban FANTASY is by now, it's also no longer a niche market, but that created a whole, a publishing self publishing sub empire, where it's really been about, well, what types of urban Fantasy do I do?

Alex (21m 9s):
Is it, you know, the, the, the leather clad chick that's running around with swords slang vampires at night and working at Starbucks by day, or am I going more into the Jim butcher type of world? And there, the data can, can give you hints. So for example, we saw a, what was it like a, almost like a five-year decline after the big hunger games hype was over, right. And with a pandemic we saw with many of the teens being sitting there at home, and after the homeschooling having to do something, there is perhaps the only so much Netflix who can watch you are only so many mobile devices available that they had to read books again, I don't know, but we saw a huge increase again in, in 17 young out adult FANTASY.

Alex (21m 58s):
Segment's for example, these I'm a bit dystopian type of a royalty novels. Kira cos I think it was primarily a driver, obviously there was also the hunger games sequel, but those were pride to a predominantly self-published authors who really took the whole segment segment up again. And if I just look at the, the, the data of, of over a year or, you know, paranormal Fantasy has, has, has found a bit of a, a return if you also off two years off having done well, but paranormal, for example, the hole paranormal romance, paranormal Fantasy, I, that has peaked, I would say 2013, 14 ever since then, these waves are by the way, very long-term.

Alex (22m 47s):
When I talk about writing to market or looking at these, this data, there is not about a monthly fluctuations. That's about catching the wave that carries you. And your project is over obviously a period of years rather than, rather than months. So by and large, you know, a teen young adult, whether its Fantasy fairy tales, especially in the teen young adult world, if you are a bit flexible to also put a touch on romance, into It, selling extremely well, you know, failed romance, paranormal, Romans vampire romance. Now for many Fantasy rights, they will go like, Oh yeah, no, that's like, I have to like Roman.

Alex (23m 27s):
So it was like, okay, okay. Yes, I read you You. But for that reader who is looking for an escape, those vampires and that stuff, you know, or the whole thing happening in a complete fantasy world. And there, there is a world building going into it, perhaps not elaborate with maps and stuff. As you have in a tall Keaton type of a trilogy seven, 150 pages, I will tell you, God knows what, but to those who are in those jars, they make a good living with it. Partly, And, and there they are not obsessed with academic definition of what constitutes Fantasy and what doesn't, but basically looking at what do readers want and then almost from a menu.

Alex (24m 13s):
Okay. Best example I'd say currently is, I mean, we are about, I don't know what your age yeah. They asked by the way, we're sort of the same generation. So we know movies like the, the witches of Eastwick right. Which is a vast awake. Or then later in the, in the late nineties, there was that other one with, with, I think they call Kitman right? So you have, which is, you have Housewives who are in their spare time, which is now right now we have a book Market getting going where some authors who've been big name authors in general, such as women's fiction, paranormal romance, urban fantasy, all of these jars are getting very crowded and cozy mystery.

Alex (25m 0s):
Now they came together, they bended together and created something which is called paranormal women's fiction. They even gave it its own hashtag PWF. And if you look at it, it is Fantasy, you know, is a about, which is about w you know, that shadow whirled it's, it's bringing a cozy mystery. And so, especially what has been doing well in cozy mystery was paranormal cozy mystery, which is where they bring women's fiction into it because they target very specific. The authors themselves are usually like 45 and older. So they credibly you are right about all of these mid life problems.

Alex (25m 40s):
You know, kids go on to college or midlife depression, and, and why they have women cast that in a FANTASY, in an urban fantasy world. You no overcome their mid-life problems so that that's not a long monologue that I give here, but it it's just to put some flesh to the bone when it comes to reading the Market, looking at trends and Writing to Trends, but without bending yourself, that's the important thing, you know, with what are you good at? And you're Fantasy writing and how can you take it and twisted in a way that you can combine your love, passion and craft with some Market aspects of a trend, more than others.

Alex (26m 23s):
There is no guarantee for a success obviously, but I think the whole publishing business has where people do it in a professional way. It's very much become around the credo, this mantra of, of how do we increase the odds of success at at least if you can not guarantee success.

Jesper (26m 43s):
Yeah. And it's so true. If, one look at it, especially with Amazon, I mean, Amazon is probably, well, it's, it's a good and bad in the sense that for most authors is, at least at Amazon is like 90% of the income. And that is good in the sense that if you can make it work on Amazon, there was a good likelihood that you will also have some money from it, but on the, the bad side then yeah, you're completely reliant on, on Amazon, which is, that's a whole different conversation. And I don't like that too much, but let's leave that alone for now. But I think what this is really about to me is trying to find, not compromising with what you want to write.

Jesper (27m 26s):
I mean, because I don't think it works. If you start looking at a K latex report and say, Oh, I can see that this a is working really well and is trending. So I'm gonna write some books, that's your option. Right. And, but I don't like those kind of books. I don't read those kinds of books. A and I didn't really care about it, but I'm just going to write it because apparently that's sort of readers want, I don't think that works 'cause it will also come across in the story that you don't really like it. And if you don't read it to yourself as well, you probably don't even understand the tropes of it. So, so leave that alone. But I think what, I'm trying more to say it, and that's why I find that K Lytics is very useful. For example, when Autumn I, and I write out the books, I know that what you also said, ah, as well, that, you know, some sort of romance in the books, usually it works well and probably half, or if not more than half, I think of the readers of Fantasy in general, a woman.

Jesper (28m 20s):
So if you don't put any WOTSO, if everything is just a sword fighting and dragons and, and what not, well, that can still be a great story. But if you don't put any romance in there, which is the data in Caledon, it also tells you is something that people like to read. You are missing out some stuff that you were, you could gain, maybe a lot more readers because you have some hope. And so all of them, and I always put some romance sub-plots into our Epic Fantasy stories. There is always some romance going on in those stories. And its more like for me, it's one of those things where I'm okay with it. I, I, you know, I don't love the romance of plots as such.

Jesper (29m 2s):
It's not my thing, so to speak, but I don't mind either. So, so the question is more like, why wouldn't we put it in? I mean our Autumn likes it. So she is naturally bent to what is that? And she does those things really well. And that's of course the benefit I can enjoy that, the fact that I write books together with her so she can put her touch on those things. So that's great for me. But my point is just to say that you can look at something like K lyrics reports and you can pick out some pieces where you feel like these are Okay for me. You know, I, I don't mind them. I understand them enough that I feel like I can write at least a subplot concerning it and then put that into the books. And hopefully you will see somewhat more success rather than going down your tunnel vision way of, I only write this because this is the only thing that I like and every party that doesn't like that well, bad luck for them and Okay, fair enough for it.

Jesper (29m 54s):
That's what you want to do, but if you wanna get some money for it as well, maybe you need to think of a bit about what readers actually or looking for.

Alex (30m 3s):
Right. And, and I think you couldn't have put it in into a better way. And you, you mentioned a couple of elements there that that may be worth reiterating on the one is the love and passion for what you do. Like you say, if you don't love it to yourself, if you don't love Amish romance and you know, could imagine writing it for the next five years, then don't no matter how high it's trending. Right. And the, the other elements that you mentioned would be for me also Kraft Skil, I think there are a certain genres, a, you know, to write good sex scenes that are a steamy, but not pornographic. That that is a craft skill, you know, not every writer is able to do so and to do so.

Alex (30m 47s):
I wouldn't know where to begin. Well, you tell me, and, and then there is also the thing about knowledge, right? I mean, a even if you, you know, during the hype times off of a literature role-playing game, the lid RPG in game lit when a Spielberg took the whole thing into the mainstream movie theater, well, you had people, you know, quarrying quarrelling about Well is the, is, is in that lid, RPG novel is the scoring and the gaming element, like really genuine. And I'm, I mean, if, if you are not a gamer yourself, you know, the readership, the nerds, the geeks, you know, they, they can smell this from like 50 miles.

Alex (31m 32s):
So don't, don't get into it. So there is this, I always say, there's this passion factor and the knowledge that the craft skill factor and the, the knowledge factor, but we are all of these things coming into play. So, I mean, even Mozart, although he, I think at the end of the career that he was not so shining anymore, but you know, even the great artists and composers, a lot of them, they, they worked for money and they composed what was the royalty. I wanted to hear it, not just what they had in, in their inspiration and their inspiration. So it, it was pop music and at, at the point in time, so if you're in, in, in Epic Fantasy and let's, I don't know whether it were, it exists, but if you're a hardcore Epic FANTASY writers and, you know, its source and darkness and shadows, Well, it, it will be good to know that themes, like if you have in your title end book description, something around darkness, around shadows, about war battles or something around age ages, centuries, power, and magic, you know, these five strong words, you know, constitute like whatever 60, 70% of the royalties and, and books contain them.

Alex (32m 43s):
But if you say, no, I'm going to write about whatever the, the, the golden And dungeon and the stone, the chaos and cry. And, you know, these are all also, you think very strong, compelling words, but the royalties are a much lower. You get the idea so that there is certain things that at certain points in time seem to resonate with certain reader groups. And it's just by bringing the arts and sciences a bit together and say, Mmm, no problem. I, I have it a lot more amongst my romance writers because they can almost like on the fly as they write the story, they can say, well, my God, it, if everybody currently likes mountain man, you know, living in, in, in a cabin, in as opposed to the billionaire or a vice versa, they can very quickly change characters and, and move the book more into a direction that may not resonate well even too, or are they rewrite the whole book and the like, remarketed were you, you had whatever, five years of age, I always say, you know, when we were, we were young and watching black and white movies, you had, you had women wanting to be kissed by a millionaire's or, you know, in Marilyn Monroe and the time's today, they don't want to be kissed by millionaires.

Alex (34m 4s):
They want to be whipped by a billionaire. So you had this whole 50 shades of gray, pretty, pretty extreme staff. And, and that was like a never-ending story, but the market, it was getting very crowded in all of a sudden you had on Amazon, especially with the advertising restrictions on Amazon, on a very steamy content. You had a big surge also with the age group, probably have the typical Kindle device oner in any case clean and wholesome Romans was doing extremely well and was still more of a niche type of market. And all of a sudden, you know, we, we reported on over five years of the trend of clean and wholesome romance.

Alex (34m 46s):
And over time you found even some steamy authors rewrite there, a billionaire romance novels, there are 50 shades of gray it into more like, yeah, clean and wholesome, clean read Swede, Romans billionaire romance, 'cause it was simply less crowded and in high demand. And, and that is what I mean with like reading the market in a way where you don't bend yourself, but you just tried to increase the, as you put it also in the, the odds of success.

Jesper (35m 18s):
Yeah, exactly. And, and I think, and that's, that's basically where you can see you can, because it's let me rephrase that because it's really, really difficult to do that on your own. I mean, she just tried to go to Amazon and look through the, the different categories and tried to look at the top seller list and the different categories, but it's really, really difficult for you to ma to spot trends on your own because it's, it is so much data and it is so complicated that that's where I really see that Kayla Alex can help. Just a, I mean, I am You mostly of you and Kayla, it is like, it's an input. And then you, you need to unpack it yourself and say, okay, what of this can I use?

Jesper (35m 59s):
And is this something where I have some sort of Venn diagram overlap between what I like to write and what the market likes to read, and then I'll try to merge those two together and make it fit there. And then I think for me that that's the point of it. But before we get into the end of the conversation that I wanted to also give you a chance to explain a bit, what if one buys K Lytics or goes into clearly, what, what is it that you're getting in there? And what are the reports that you were sending out and so on? And, and maybe also a bit about what are the, I think you have some tears as well. If I remember correctly has been a while since I was in their, but maybe just a bit of the pricing tiers and so on, if you don't mind.

Alex (36m 39s):
No, no, no. Of course not. I mean, for those who are interested, basically, you know, we, we serve authors from the fledgling interested authors to, to publishing houses. So we have to provide, you know, different entry points into, into the products. So you can, we provide memberships and we provide single reports. Now within the, within Bose, the, the baseline for everything is the data that we collect and that we publish every month and an updated database. And what you basically can have is, is there are basically two big pillow's to the product. The one is a ready-made PDF report. Say there, there is a 70 page Epic Fantasy reports, 17 pages that comes with a video that completely dissects the Amazon available data on Epic Fantasy.

Alex (37m 29s):
So if you're only interested in like that one Jara, you can simply go to the KLA, the sharp at K high for analytics.com/shop purchase the Epic Fantasy report. And we'll keep you busy for a good week. I'd say, if you really want to absorb the data, look at the video and especially makes sense of it, of how does that fit with your writing. So that is one entry points. So you can choose what we call genre reports on the card. There's two types of them. Ones are like really going in depth on certain sub jars, such as Epic FANTASY. There are others. We have a more general scifi and fantasy report that are not as deep in the analysis, but they are much broader because they would comparatively look well, there is more than a, a a hundred PSI Phi and Fantasy categories, and they would do exactly like we discuss before, well, what his, what is trending hire?

Alex (38m 19s):
Is it urban FANTASY or is it a paranormal row? You know, is it is. So it looks at the category of data in a competitive way. So these are the types of John reports and you can buy them out a card, or if you are interested in more than one Jara, then we, the memberships, because the memberships give you access to basically a multiple reports at a time. And these, our monthly memberships, they come into tiers. One is premium. One has elite that lead to us to the highest tiers. And the difference between the two tiers has also actually a very simple, the highest tier a Gibbs gives you unrestricted access to everything. And one thing is all the reports. The other thing is though that database now also premium gives you the database, but the depth of the data you see premium basically would give you the data every month for about 420 down two sub category level.

Alex (39m 13s):
But if you want to get into also this really granular and detailed, you know, in which 10 categories shall I put my book's sort of thing, then the elite level comes handy because there are, we track 7,000 categories, you know, from the gardening and horticulture to the lowest level Fantasy category of that, that exists. So, so especially if you want to also look a bit what's happening across job has gotten because some authors are very open-minded, you know, they write, say a urban Fantasy, but they really, because they know the JARAs are more and more blended and they want to know what is going on in romance, what is going on in mystery so that they keep a bit of head off, you know, ah, you know, there is a certain thing emerging could that's come over into like the paranormal women's fiction example I gave earlier that is sort of the << inaudible >> of like four genre trends meeting in a certain suite spot and meaning at a certain target rate, a group.

Alex (40m 13s):
And that has what we do. So there is entry points from ala carte to membership's obviously we promote the membership's also price-wise 'cause, that is what keeps us afloat. And it gives us the continuity to provide this research, which we've now been doing for six years and hope, hopefully not too many more years to come.

Jesper (40m 35s):
Oh yeah, for sure. And I definitely like to support what you are doing because I, I do think it's a very, very helpful, and that is stuff that authors can not do on their own. Umm, and I definitely also SUPPORT the, the, the fact that membership levels who is wanting to keep the business going. So we know this ourselves with, with Patrion, for example, is also sort of a membership ship site for this podcast. So it's, it's the same thing, but at least I will say to the listeners here as well, that if, if you don't know, if, you know, with this data things sort of me, I would definitely recommend just start out, maybe buying one of the younger reports for, for Fantasy.

Jesper (41m 16s):
I did that as well, several years ago now, but, but I did this as well and it's not expensive at all. I can't remember now, Alex, I, but I, I think it was like 25, maybe

Alex (41m 26s):
It's $37 that are a report on them. And you get probably, you know, more than 70 pages of, of, of analysis all aggregated in a understandable way. So it it's, as you say it as a writer that you should, of course we know, especially as an indie writer, you have so many other business aspects to run as, you know, the marketing, the ad's, the newsletters, you know, there is already enough business stuff going on to then say on top of it, do you'd want to become a market research experts may not be your core competency. So we, we crunch the data on hundreds of thousands of books so that you don't have to, that is the very simple essence of it

Jesper (42m 8s):
Indeed, yes. So I will put a link to K Lytics in the show notes so any of your listeners who are interested to check it out a bit more than a follow that link and on the k-lytics website does a lot more information as well. Hopefully we touch the ball upon most of it, but there is explanations about what it is and what your getting inside of the report and, and all that stuff. So I want you to, to at least go check that one out. Thank you. And thank you so much for coming Alex, and speak to us out here and share a bit about all of this data crunching stuff.

Alex (42m 44s):
Was a pleasure and a, hey, also all the best with your, with your own podcast. You know, I think its great that we see also so many people in the, in the publishing world and in the self publishing world for that matter to collaborate, you know, and, and have these forums for our people can exchange. I thought, and it was the last, at least I'd say, you know, of course there is traditionally published WORST. There is a hybrid publishes, you know, who have in some areas they have their rights back. They want you to go go half and they are half traditional And they have the, you know, like hardcore self published is. And from what I've seen is, especially in that hyper, then self publishing part of the journey, I've seen people be so fast and picking up Trends in, in, in collaborating together that they are in some areas of the rebar pull parts of the market.

Alex (43m 39s):
But before the traditional publishers even know it exists as a market. So Andy, I think it's also things to these podcasts and forums like yours, where these thoughts are exchanged and transported to the community that, that make that happen.

Jesper (43m 58s):
Oh yeah. Yeah. I agree. But okay. Thank you so much for, for coming here, Alex. And next Monday I we'll have a Autumn back here and that we are going to do one of our monthly fun episodes where we are going to discuss the top 10 worst and scariest FANTASY world.

Narrator (44m 16s):
If you like, what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join Autumn and Jesper on patrieon.com/AmWritingFantasy for as little as a dollar a month, you'll get awesome rewards and keep The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast going. Stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 121 – Thoughts, Tips & Tricks, on ProWritingAid

Over the past few months Autumn and Jesper have tested out different types of writing software. Against AutoCrit and Fictionary, your hosts decided that ProWritingAid is the best one of them all.

In this episode of the Am Writing Fantasy podcast, Autumn and Jesper (well, mostly Autumn), explains why ProWritingAid is such a great support tool for authors.

Sprinkled in are tips and tricks, you can take away and apply in your own writing process.

ProWritingAid can be found here: https://prowritingaid.com/ 

Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday. 

SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST!

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

Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy. For as little as a dollar a month, you’ll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going.

Read the full transcript below.

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

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

Jesper (30s):
Hello, I'm Jesper And I'm Autumn. This is episode 121 of The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast. I, and the over the past few months, we have been testing out some different types of writing software. We tried Fictionary AutoCrit and pro WRITING eight, and I think we've arrived at a favorite that we can talk about today. Autumn.

Autumn (55s):
Yes, I definitely have my favorite in there is actually I should mention that one or two features that I wish it had at one of the other ones sort of did. So, you know, maybe I'll do some, maybe I'll be able to convince the staff at the one of our top choice. They've had a few features. That's my wishlist.

Jesper (1m 15s):
Yeah. So we are going to deep dive a bit on ProWritingAid today and share our thoughts about it. And why are we? Well, I, I think it's not a secret that we like it very much. So we are going to talk about that and hopefully that will help some people, if they are not familiar with ProWritingAid already, then maybe they we'll be inclined to check that out. Or if they are already using pro Writing eight, maybe we are going to mention a few things they were not aware of.

Autumn (1m 44s):
Absolutely. Or at least may be some ways of using it that they hadn't considered. So I think it will be fun. I've definitely been using this tool heavily on some major novels. I feel like all I have been doing is editing I since January and that's okay. That means there was a lot of Writing in 2020, so that's all right, right. It's good to be pushing things out the door in Publishing. So that's exciting.

Jesper (2m 19s):
Its been Easter holidays here in, in Denmark, which means that a, I actually got quite some writing done on a book One. Yes you have been doing really well. Yeah. I am only seven chapters so away from the ending now, so that's pretty cool.

Autumn (2m 34s):
That is so cool. More editing.

Jesper (2m 38s):
You're never going to be done. It's just forever and going.

Autumn (2m 42s):
Oh this is my punishment. Like I think so, but yeah, yeah, yeah. You're just clocking right ahead. Well, I hope you had a good Easter as well as some time off or.

Jesper (2m 55s):
Yeah. Yeah. Well I do to the usual Corona stuff to there wasn't much we could do, but I got some Ikea furniture put together and we got rid of the bit of the, I think we are down to like five or six moving boxes after we moved, but everything else has not been unpacked. Yeah. That's amazing.

Autumn (3m 16s):
That's good. So that is really good. And that means that you can, hopefully now that it's turning towards spring ish, I would have hoped they're that you can actually go for walks on the beach are through town and not be worried about, you know, coming back to a new apartment full of boxes.

Jesper (3m 31s):
Yeah, that's true. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Autumn (3m 33s):
And, and we've also started to allow soccer game now. So I'd been out refereeing, a couple of matches, which was nice to get started on again. So things are lightening up. No, you can't say lighting up. That sounds like we were putting on fire, but it's not getting better. That's exciting. And that's always an improvement. How about you? Oh, Goodlife my husband I'm was on top of things and he made an appointment for me to actually both of us to go get our coronavirus vaccine. So I'm very excited. And at the end of the month I, I might get to go down and see my parents and that's exciting.

Autumn (4m 14s):
So I'm looking forward to that. We have, we don't have kids, so we didn't have like an Easter where your high things, but we have our own traditions since we never did have children that we, I have a deal. I've got an in with the Easter bunny and he comes every year and gives me this nice little basket of all of my favorite things. I don't know how he knows, but then he hides Adams, everything. So everything is hidden. And I get to spend the morning sipping. My tea is sitting there like this watching for his Easter candy. And it's just one of my favorite holiday. He has a, he gets back though.

Autumn (4m 55s):
My tea delivery is brought by Easter, Easter Bunny's cousin is Jack and Jack likes to hide my tea delivery. So, you know, we each have our own issues with rabbits. Yeah.

Jesper (5m 11s):
All right. Okay.

Autumn (5m 12s):
Rabbits on a naughty, I guess. So we had an actual, a visitor That this year it was possibly an Easter raccoon. We had a raccoon outside of the cabin on Saturday night and he was adorable and just the big guys, he was a very healthy, feisty invasive right now, but he hasn't come back since then.

Jesper (5m 36s):
Oh wow. Yeah.

Autumn (5m 37s):
Yeah. Well that animal life I noticed as well, somebody in the Facebook group a and apologies, I forgot who it was, but I just noticed that somebody was a posting some stuff about, I think it was a, she that she almost died because she was, she got bit by a snake. Yeah.

Jesper (5m 57s):
And as she survived, she was Okay now, But it was just like sometimes when I hear stuff like that, it it's just so foreign for me here in Denmark. We, we don't have any thing, you know? Well, I think we have one snake that has some venom that can be, but there was only that one, a type here in this country and it it's not lethal. Oh, well, okay. If you are out in the middle of nowhere and you get bitten by it and you don't get to the hospital, I guess you could be lethal, but its not, it's not to bad. You have time to go to the hospital and everything as well. So it's not like instant re reacting, Venmo or anything like that. So I don't know that the whole thing about all those animals are not, well, it doesn't have to be posted it, but just because like you were mentioning like, Oh that that whole thing has just so foreign to me.

Autumn (6m 45s):
I mean, I think they don't know if you remember, if I told you that last year when we were walking to the, the main house on the property, We, I saw something running through the field and coming up towards us and I'm like, why is there a Shetland pony loose? I mean, I'm in Vermont, of course people would have ponies and that I'd be like, that's not a pony. That's a bear. That way. It was literally the biggest black bear I've seen outside of the Labrador we traveled, I slept next to Grizzly's have visited our camp site, but to be walking and Vermont, you know, I'm on my way to take a shower. My dog has like 50 feet ahead of me. And I'm like, yeah, it was cute. And I just happy.

Autumn (7m 25s):
My dog is very well behaved. And if you open, you do a hug thing and you call him, he comes running with ears back. It was a little tail wagging. So I was doing that. Well, I watching this bear run about 10 feet behind him and I'm like, okay. So yeah, there is. And then a few other ones a month later and we saw the female mother with two of her Cubs walked right by the front of the cabin. And so what, that was just amazing and I'm glad that it was inside of the camp because she would have had the third Cub going on with her.

Jesper (7m 56s):
Yeah,

Autumn (7m 56s):
Yeah. If I could sit inside and watch it and I know that I am safe, then I think that would be pretty cool. But honestly walking around like in the forest and knowing that that bear could suddenly pop up, like I know why as a dangerous person, I'm just not used to that kind of thing. And it's only one thing that frightens me and the forest and that's actually other humans, most animals is there. Fine. People are scary.

Jesper (8m 21s):
That Is true. Yeah. And, but that's also where we normally see and all the, some of the TV series, right. Is actually the humans that are the most scary ones to come across and not to some of these.

Autumn (8m 34s):
No, no, that's true.

Narrator (8m 39s):
A week on the internet with The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast.,

Autumn (8m 44s):
So I was wondering that you noticed that the Facebook has announced that they're gonna, they're going to create a new Publishing platform. I haven't seen something and I noticed that the article, but I didn't go read the full thing. So no, you can feel the listener in as well as me. Yeah,

Jesper (9m 2s):
Well, yeah, kind of. I just thought that it was quite a significant news, so I just want it to share it. But I did actually write up a post for our patron supporters with my thoughts on this topic. So if people want to go into the details, then should I should just to go on to patron it and check out what I, she had there, but I just found it pretty interesting. And that's why I wanted to share it. And of course you can also do a search on the internet if you want to check it out yourself. But I think it's something to keep an eye on, but I'm not so convinced as of yet, which is what I explained on Patrion, but let's see where it goes.

Jesper (9m 45s):
At least I just want it to mention it so people can keep an eye on it.

Autumn (9m 48s):
Yeah. Well, you know how I feel about Facebook that yeah. Yeah. And I actually, I like Instagram, so that's kind of sad. I think I liked it better before Facebook bought it, but yeah, that's pretty much my, a theory on most things of Facebook is okay. That's a nice little moving on.

Jesper (10m 9s):
Yeah. Moving on. Okay. Well let's speaking of patron as well. We want to give a huge shout out to Brian men. Dunka I hope that's how you pronounce the names, but yeah. Bryan is our new newest patient and support us. So thank you so much, Brian. And then we could not keep The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast going if it wasn't for people like you. So thank you for that.

Autumn (10m 36s):
Yeah, definitely. Well, we love having you join us there and I mean, it's been good. It's been busy, even Dominic. I want to give a shout out to him who posted a link to us, unspecified spontaneously. And it's saying how much he was enjoying what he was learning on Patrion. So that's just, that's wonderful to know that you're really helping other authors and that's what we do over on Patriot and even more than we do in the Am Writing Fantasy Facebook group. So I would love to see other people. Do you have to sit there? Yeah,

Jesper (11m 9s):
Absolutely. Yeah. So those are the link in the show notes, if you are interested and there's all kinds of rewards that we offer over there as well. So, so, so I'll go and check that one out. But one more thing on M O O D is, and I almost felt like not sharing this one with a new term.

Autumn (11m 30s):
You really do have something else. Now what's up Please. I, how are you saying that? These for me?

Jesper (11m 39s):
Yeah, I did actually say yes and I loved to spring things on you in the middle of a podcast episode, but this one is actually gonna play in your favor. And that's why I want really to be shared with you because I feel like I'm playing cards into your hands that you can use laid on Against me.

Autumn (11m 55s):
And I don't like that. I love that. Please share it. It's my birthday this month. Come on. This is my present Please. Okay. So, okay. So let us stay present. And did you notice that the YouTube comments on Episode 119, where was she at the 10 WORST stories ever told, Oh, well let me guess I'm winning and by winning, please tell me I'm winning. So when we, just for the listener, when we are doing these alternating lists episodes where we sort of go a bit crazy and have a bit of fun with some random topic like we did in episode one 19, when we, she had those a 10 worst stories ever Told, we always a have a bit of a competition going on as well, where we try to best each other and see, you can build the best list, basically.

Autumn (12m 45s):
What are the best, worst lists? You know, the best worst lists. Yeah. Usually, And on that note, Dominick said, and this paints me so much to read out loud. So you are killing me, Dominick. They just don't post like this in these kinds of comments. You Dominic. So Dominic wrote quote, Oh, Oh my God. I'd have to psych myself up for this evening. She'll just send it to me. All of them tends to win. Yes. Pro on quote is what it says. Autumn temps to when, what is that? It wasn't even just that episode.

Autumn (13m 24s):
It was in general. What, Davidic your, thank you. You made my day. I owe you like a page or a review or something. Thank you.

Jesper (13m 39s):
Yeah. Well, no, I strongly strongly disagree with those YouTube comments like that. And I, I don't actually appreciate getting that kind of comments. Oh, I love it. That's just fantastic. I have a winning, I hate it. That I have a feel for this one is going to come back and bite me later. I don't like it now and now it's hanging There. It's the precedent. Has it been, can we move on? I don't feel like talking about this anymore. All right, lets get into editing

Narrator (14m 9s):
And on to today's topic.

Jesper (14m 13s):
Okay. So when we write together, I'm usually doing the first draft while you and shots of the editing Autumn. So pro Writing ADE is sort of your domain. Yeah. You did give me a virtual to have a providing aid before we invested in it. But the fact that I'm not doing the editing also means that I have a, not too much knowledge, is that what you are actually doing inside the stool? Well then I guess you're a role in today's podcast is letting me know if what I'm saying is clear and understandable and not gobbling, but yeah, it was right to ask the stupid questions today.

Autumn (14m 57s):
And It is, I, I, we started in January. So again, I had, we were planning on writing together. You were working, we were working on the novella And I was also finishing up my tainted face series and I wanted something to really enhance my editing. I mean, I think I do a pretty good job. I do several passes. We've talked about how we edit it before is that I do like a content edit and then I do like a word choice that I am doing really the fine tuning, you know, making sure everything looks good. And then I send it to the editor and I just wanted something a little bit more on that fine tuning. And so this was after the content edit were, I know all the subplots are good in general, everything. I think everything, I think it should be, there is there, but something before I said that to the editor and because of that, we looked at Fictionary we looked at AutoCrit and when I was looking at Fictionary, I think I suddenly thought I should check out for a Writing aid because I was a user with that when they were just mostly either or the like a little BB company.

Autumn (15m 60s):
Umm. And it was on my Google drive when they still had my full time job. And I was doing some editing like in Google drive all at work and in my lunch break and stuff like that. So I had a premium subscription at one time to ProWritingAid long time ago when I thought it was pretty impressive that what they do now, there are pretty awesome. So that's, that's sort of the background of what happened. Yeah,

Jesper (16m 32s):
Yeah, yeah indeed. And I just want it to inject as well that, because the other part of why we we're looking at these different software was also that we have been thinking that at some point in the future, we don't know when, but, and it could be years out. I don't know. But we have been thinking that at some point because the, the world, the fictional world, a, a, a fantasy world that we call it Elysium, the one that we created is so big and we created it so big on purpose because we were thinking that maybe at some point we would like to publish other authors who write in this setting as well.

Jesper (17m 13s):
So one of the initial drivers behind looking into all of this was actually that we were trying to see if we could find some sort of software that could help analyzing work. Meaning for example, let's say that we wanted to take on board a two or three authors or something like that. And we said, okay, we are, if anybody is interesting in us Publishing your work, which would also mean that we are advertising it and all of that stuff on your behalf, then M you know, send some, some of your work to us so we can see your writing. But the problem with that of course, would be that it means that we would have to sit there and REIT nine novels.

Jesper (17m 57s):
For example, we are at my reading speed, how will it take three years? So that's, that was not very good. So if we were trying to see that the Fictionary AutoCrit is that those were the two weeks we started with before Autumn thought of ProWritingAid. But when we were trying to see, can we use any of those tools to sort of like load in a manuscript and then get some sort of report from the software saying, what is the WRITING like, so that we want to, we, of course, do you want to read some of it, but we don't want to be forced to read entire novels. You know, it would be like in initial screening thing. So we, if it said already, or if the software were to assess, this is not a very good, and then why spend all the time reading It?

Jesper (18m 43s):
Whereas if the software says, this is really good, Oh, there's no problems with it. Then we could go in and read it. Right. So we were, we were looking for some sort of screening process. So, so it was just to put the whole thing in context, because I may be, some people will think that pro writing aid is not quite the same as AutoCrit and Fictionary, there is some overlap, but its not quite the same. So it was just to explain where we were coming from as well. They're right. How about it?

Autumn (19m 8s):
Yeah, I don't think so. There are all, I would say it's definitely worth checking out AutoCrit and Fictionary and they all have different things that they do. AutoCrit steam to be more towards editing. They had a lot of reports that were similar to ProWritingAid, but not quite as beefy. And then Fictionary had some really good tips on how to write better and develop your novel better. But actually it didn't get into a lot of the editing I aspects where pro writing aid has a really in depth editor. But besides that they have this wonderful overview that tells you, Hey, these are the areas, your strong in which I love that they started out with, these are the ones that you did well in.

Autumn (19m 53s):
And then they have ones where they kindly say, these are our areas you might want to look working on. And then you can go into each of those individual areas that they say you need to work on. And there is a sub report where you can just look it just that one and work on it and fix it. And I've developed 'cause I've done like what three or four devils already. And it's what March is pro writing aid and going through all of these Stories, I, I feel like I'm like totally an expert on which of these reports that I go through and I have my own little standard of running through them to see how things develop and what I liked to develop. And I have noticed actually some really cool corks, but depending on my characters that a few reports will actually show up different ways.

Autumn (20m 40s):
And so you can almost see the character's voice showing up in the report. So it's kind of, that's really fine tuned in a nuanced. When you notice, when you're noticing a software in AI going through something and saying this report, this metric has always reading this one, it's this character or you're like the herd. That's really funny, but the nice things that are really cool, it is really cool. And I could tell you what to report that is, but which ones I noticed, but there are definitely some reports there that I don't go into quite as much. And that's okay. I mean, everyone is going to look at things differently. Some of them, I just don't take the time and maybe they should spend more time on them, but I feel like I've already covered them later, but some of them we can get into some of the best reports.

Autumn (21m 25s):
And I know my favorite is I call it echoes and this is a phenomenon. I'm sure you've noticed this, that once you think of a word, you tend to use it two or three times really close. Like after you write it the first time, like you'll think of something really such a strange word. I don't want to pick out something, but you know, we would not pencil, but it would be like maybe a description and action and you'll end up using like thrust or pooled or glanced. Look, those words like that. And you'll look it, you know, reuse it like two sentences later and then you'll reuse it like six sentences later and that just gets boring for the reader. That's why we have a thesaurus.

Autumn (22m 8s):
And it's hard though, when you're editing and especially in editing, editing your own work, it is so hard to find those words are used to read backwards. My entire manuscript backwards, just trying to find them other people would read it allowed because you hear it. It often can you catch up so much easier that way. So you have to do something to really see what's in front of you or are, you can run it through a ProWritingAid and look through the echoes. They have two different versions that it took me a second to do this, but they have word repeat, which looks at every single time you've used that word in the entire chapter. I, the beautiful thing about ProWritingAid is if you write in Scrivener, like we do it actually can open a and file and edit chapter by chapter in Scrivener.

Autumn (22m 50s):
So you don't need to have to like move your file into a different format or spit it out into word. Its just, I love having everything in one place. So it's so nice that it does that. And so I'm opening up my Scribner file and letting it run something you don't want to do the whole repeats, but echos just does when you use that word again within the next, so many words, like you can set it to whatever you want. 300, 500, a thousand of that's a little high, but depends on what you're writing. If you are doing a site to a scientific journal, you might want it really high. You might run at a really low. And that is definitely to me. The place to start is to see how many times we have reuse the same word.

Autumn (23m 30s):
And it's just like, even when I thought I was good and I was being paying so much attention too, you know, not reusing the word too many times. Oh no. When you run it through this echos check, you're just like, Oh my goodness. I am in love with this word. Look as fallback. WORST. I, I double check that one all the time because it seems like I always reuse that one way to many times. So I'm often running through and doing stuff There.

Jesper (24m 5s):
Yeah. Yeah. I can't say on top of my mind, which ones I, but I definitely noticed as well that even when I write the first draft, sometimes I, I noticed myself repeating the same word. So I do, I do as will pick up that you saw us and tries to try to even the first draft to try to use some different words just to not make it too painful for you.

Autumn (24m 30s):
I do have a painful on myself. It's just our tendency to do that as a writer is it's like we get these things stuck in our head and we just keep using the same word. And it's just so nice. Like I said, it's so hard to find it on your own and that it has this echo cheque is just so fantastic. It was one of my favorite once you run is where I usually start. And it is impressive how much that cleans up your Writing right off the get go. You're really forest it's nice. Cause highlights, not only where are you used it at? Like how many spaces do you use it? But then it comes up. If you'd click on it, you could come up with a thesaurus and you can see, you know, other options you can think about it.

Autumn (25m 13s):
And that's really, that's my most time consuming. Umm, so the terracing to it, that that is my most time-consuming edit in pro Writing rate ADE is running the Echo's cheque that can easily take a half an hour or more. Cause I'm really reading through it and pulling things out and trying to change, not just using the Taurus. Yeah. First chapter and that just using us the stories. But I tend to sometimes rearrange sentences and really try to really, really develop things a little bit better with this check.

Jesper (25m 46s):
And when you do that, so when you make changes, it changes inside the Scrivener file itself, correct?

Autumn (25m 52s):
Yes. Correct. And that is one of the nice thing. So when I then go back and open up, Scrivner all my changes, our there, as long as we hit save it and it does more new, if you didn't save it, it says, Hey, you didn't say this, but you do have to hit save. Its not like I'm I worked on a Mac. So when I get so used to like what I changed something, obviously I wanted to change it. If I changed it, I wouldn't have changed at all if I didn't need to change that. So max always save everything if you change it, but me and upper Writing it, you have to actually hit the safe. Right. And so

Jesper (26m 23s):
What are some of the other reports and in the software

Autumn (26m 26s):
From their I, the one I have noticed that actually have some nuances based on character's as well as my own author of voice is called stickie, which I think that it's just sound like a fun, have fun reports to run, But sticky sentences, our ones that you use a lot of filler words instead of the nouns and adjectives and verbs, the filler ones like the is, Oh, well actually yours is a verb, but you know, not even strong verbs. So when you have the sentence with a lot of those, its harder to comprehend for a reader. They are going to call us and they can be really short sentences, but usually they tend to be your longer sentences. And that's the one I've noticed that I have a few characters that do speak in a kind of wordy styles and those sticky, those were my sticky rating.

Autumn (27m 13s):
We'll be like 46%. And it does give you ranges of what is normal in writing. So I think Forti is usually the upper level. I tend to, if I hit 40, I'm really proud of myself, usually 42% like you, my low end, I tend to write short sentences, which is funny. And it gives you a sentence variation that it says like average sentence length. I think it was between 11 and 18 based on the genre I've chosen. And I tend to write like 10.2 sentence length, 10.2 words per sentence, as my seems to be my average or a 10.8, 11.2. But my sticky index has a really high. So every once in a while I have a sentence it's like 32 words, you know?

Autumn (27m 55s):
So, and it is, it is at least something that does give you, there is a whole report on length where it'll tell you your sentence length and it'll show you almost like an audit auditable, Audio graph, you know, the ups and downs. It will show you so you can see that you are really varying your sentences. These are important tools that it's happy. It's when I do, you know, read ProWritingAid eye, look at it and I'm like, Oh yeah, I've already got that good. So I tend to skip the length report unless I just feel like, you know, looking at fun squiggly graphs, but the sticky sentence, one is one where you get to sit down and you see the sentences. And then it's in this computer is saying, this might be confusing. This is going to make readers stall and you can go through and try to reduce those sentences and clean them up and move out some of the stuff.

Autumn (28m 41s):
Do you really need to have this description, the description and, and, and an, or, and can you break this into several sentences and clean it up? And that really does help. That will help your reader so much to no, Hey, this is really long sentence or this was a really, even a short sense that just is not clear. Or can you put it in a better noun? Can't you put it in a better verb, make this a little bit more concrete, less sticky sentence. And so that was a fantastic one. And from there I think,

Jesper (29m 16s):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And quite a lot of these basically things that helps with the line by line editing. But I believe that, yeah. I mean, I don't think unless I'm wrong, but I don't think you are using it so much. But I do believe that ProWritingAid has some stuff that helps with short of character arcs on all the plotting elements and stuff like that.

Autumn (29m 39s):
Yeah. But it has a little bit, it has some later ones, it has reports on pacing. So you can see how many sentences, how many paragraphs you have that are slow. One thing I wish it did is it will tell you how many paragraphs you have that are slow, but it won't tell you out of how many paragraphs and the chapter I have a knot, it'll tell you sentences. Or like how many sentences you have, but not how many paragraphs. And I think it would be so cool. If it would tell you, you have like nine paragraphs out of 28 that are slow because then if you wanted to, you could make your own chart to see how that is graphing. But it does help to see like, is this a lull you can, you should know for yourself, like, Hey, I meant to write this chapter as a law or this one is a hurdle.

Autumn (30m 26s):
So it should be a lot more exciting. And you look at it and you're like, Oh, I only have four slowed paragraphs. Perfect. This is a hurdle. Or you lug it out and you open it up. And its like its 10 slow paragraphs that are full of like description and emotion. And its just really slow and you're like, Oh well that's okay. This is a lull. Or should it be, should I be reworking lists to make sure it's better? So that is one. And that it has one report. This is the only platform out of everything that we looked at that had to report that was on the census, that it actually looked through your text and pulled out how many times, how many words you use at fit each of the five senses. And that was fantastic. And that's where it Fictionary I thought was pretty cool.

Autumn (31m 7s):
It gave you some advice to always use all the senses, but you were supposed to fill in which words you were using, ProWritingAid says, Hey, you use 2%. So four words that were in a smell. And I think that is really cool. So with just one quick check, you can say like I hit all of the senses or it says you're missing one. You can be like, Oh gosh, I'd have to go back in and add in this one. So I think that's a fantastic report. It really gives you an idea of how you're doing on all using all the senses. You know, do you see only 50% is site and you didn't use any touch. This would be horrible. You need to go fix that.

Jesper (31m 51s):
Yeah. So in some degree or some sense, I guess you could say that if you are looking for some sort of software tool, when you are, let's say first starting out and you basically want to work more around story structure, character arcs, then Fictionary might be the better choice. But if you're looking for some software that can really help elevating you're writing and, and looking sense Instructure's structures, word choices, using a census and all of that stuff, then pro writing aid. Well, it, it, it is more powerful than Fictionary and, And I, I, I, and I also think the Fictionary is better than an AutoCrit.

Jesper (32m 38s):
So, so I think that's the thing is it's almost like AutoCrit then Fictionary and then ProWritingAid I, but, but that's of course looking at our own needs, but if you are like a completely new author, you want some help, some software help in terms of just structuring the story, then Fictionary might actually be better than ProWritingAid for your needs.

Autumn (32m 58s):
I agree. Yeah. The one thing I really enjoyed with Fictionary for the cause there was a free trial and I mean, if you want to go check it out, that's what I think it's really cool. It's got a 14 day free trial, the Fictionary and there's a 14 day free trial with ProWritingAid I, so you can't lose the fact. You can do both the same time and you use ProWritingAid I in Fictionary and then you are really doing some powerful writing at the same time. He probably could just focus on one or the other first though, but there are some really cool note features and Fictionary where it goes. And you want to know that, like it tells you to use a sentences and you can go click on the little question, Mark and explains why and what you're supposed to be doing. And I kind of like those notes at the time.

Autumn (33m 39s):
I was like, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But now when I'm in ProWritingAid of the one thing that I think it really isn't the gray that greatest, That, and I've actually sent out a question to the staff over there is I think the thesaurus is kind of the week. I also have a pro or a premium subscription to Grammarly and Grammarly is purely just fixing your sentences, the thesaurus period's, you know, those kind of things, the concrete changes. It doesn't give you any of the reports, a writing ProWritingAid. So I think ProWritingAid has more powerful, but Grammarly is the stories and understanding how you used the word in the sentence. Like if it, the word could be announced or a verb Grammarly, we will figure out what it is and give you some really amazing concrete suggestions for your thesaurus.

Autumn (34m 30s):
ProWritingAid I, 70% of the time, I think there's a word in there that's acceptable. Maybe less than that. Sometimes 40%. It depends on the word. Like I had, I had reuse shoulder or a few times and one of the F the suggestions, and this is the source was left. And like, how has left a good replacement for a shoulder? I just, that one sticks in my mind, but it's not usually that bad, but there are times where if you highlight the word one place, it will give you some suggestions and then you highlight it below. It won't have any suggestions. And I'm just, I don't like those in consistencies. I'm often either, either I know a better word myself, or I'm reworking the sentence and I'll just come up with something better or I'm going into, you know, Googling synonyms of another word.

Autumn (35m 17s):
And I've actually put in a, a S a T they don't have a ticket, but they have a way of putting in features that you suggestions. And so I put it in a suggestion where we can add in our own words into that, the source, because I am so sick of Googling the same words, because I can't remember that I used it in the previous chapter. And I know there is something better. So that's about it. The one place, I really think ProWritingAid, I does kind of fall flat that the source could be a lot more robust and, you know, if I could have anything I ever wanted, I would love to see them like do a next generation where it says, Hey, you use this word, like shoulder or a glance. So many times, why don't you try using a different body part?

Autumn (35m 58s):
Why don't you try? I would love to like, see, like the emotional side is Saurus if you've ever used that online or have that book, which we'll have to have it on my Kindle when they were doing, you know, edit. And I wish it would be like tied into pro writing aid where it says, Hey, this looks like it's an emotional Q, why don't you try this one? But in all honesty, that's what you pay an editor for. If you're paying for a really good editor, they should be picking this stuff up. I think it would be so cool to be like developing the AI too that level. But, you know that's a really big ask it. I know that I was basically like, I want you to like, program an editor into a pro writing it, but it would also be really cool if it could develop that much and be like, Hey, you're using an emotional Q, why don't you try something else here?

Autumn (36m 47s):
Hint, hint, you know?

Jesper (36m 49s):
Yeah, yeah. For sure on that. That would be cool. Yeah. I should also mention by the way that, and I do not remember the episode number, but you can go out and then you can go back and check if you, if you want. But we did interview the CEO of Fictionary and a past episode when she talked to Christina, I think she is called and she a, she talked a lot about, well, all the features within Fictionary. So it Fictionary is something you were interested in just to go back through the podcast feed and find the one where we are talking about Fictionary and then listening to that one as well. But I was also thinking Autumn. Mmm. So using a software can sometimes feel a bit overwhelming, meaning like, Okay, so I have all of this report's I've had all this stuff I can, I can get from the software, but maybe if you maybe would be useful for some people to just, if you sort of just boil down a bit about what would be the sort of steps that you would suggest, like do this and then do this, and then do this sort of a give or give some people a bit of a template for ProWritingAid basically.

Autumn (38m 1s):
Yeah, absolutely. And it's one of those things, no matter where you open it, it has this huge menu of reports across the top. And you can run an overview, always, especially if you're just getting familiar with the program and your not sure where to start or how your own writing is looking, run the overview report for us, because it'll get you oriented. It'll tell you where you are strong. Yay. I love that. They tell you what you are strong. It will give you some graphs. It it'll tell you, go focus on, you know, go look at these other individual reports. So, you know, that will give you a good starting point. Then at that point, the One report, I would say, never, ever, ever run. They have one that is basically All it'll run every single report that it does all at the same time.

Autumn (38m 44s):
And just highlight all of your texts. It is chaos. I mean, I am chaotic. I admit it, but this is chaos. This is so overwhelming. So just to skip that one. Yeah. And also skip repeats because those two will just make you feel like, Oh my God, I don't even know where to start with this. You will feel so overwhelmed. Just skip that, go to the Echo's, you know, do your overview, go to the echos, you know, to double check your length of your sentences, which is a good one. Run your sticky report below stickie, as cliche as that is a fantastic one. There was a report on dialogue. It'll tell you if you're using things consistently, there's also a consistency cheque, which is also really awesome. So you will tell you if your capitalizations are a consistent, like, are you M you know, mages, or do you have names that are your upper cases and sometimes lower casing.

Autumn (39m 32s):
It will get you to, you have fixed for that. You can go down and then do there's one for homonyms. I used to be horrible in homonyms have gotten better. I would say the homonym report that there is, it tells you every single word that is a potential homonym. It doesn't just look for ones you might have missed. You used that so that it might confuse you. Cause like if you, it will highlight or a cause, or it can be an, or it can be aura as in like a panel. So he'll say you might get yourself a little more overwhelmed with some of those reports. You've got to look at them in, take a minute. You know, there is some information that you can go online and see what they're about. Read those run, you know, the sensory, the pacing run all of those, but to each one individually in a kind of his set up in order that if you start on echoes and work your way to the right, just go in that sequence and then come back.

Autumn (40m 25s):
And there is a final one that I love to wrap up. Two final ones to wrap up with. And one is overused and its like echoes, but its totally different. It, it tells you if you simply used this word too many times as compared to previous WRITING, like I say, look so it'll tell you, Hey, you have started sentences with ING endings way to many times compared to publish Writing, go fix those. And then once you do your overused words, checked, go and run the regular grammar. That's the last step, which is actually the first report. So it's a live report, go fix everything there it tells you to do and then hit save.

Autumn (41m 11s):
And that chapter's done.

Jesper (41m 13s):
Yeah. So I think overall, if you are, I mean ProWritingAid should probably be a useful tool for almost everyone. I would say AutoCrit I would say Nope, just to skip that one. If you need to ask, if we set before, if you, if you are quite knew to writing and you need more of the structural help than probably check out, Fictionary maybe get both Fictionary and a pro Writing eight on trial versions and see which one you, you like the most. But I think it's probably safe to say that you are editing phase and you're writing will become better by using some of this software.

Jesper (41m 58s):
It's not, it's not just some, you know, nice thing to have it it's almost in the category of need to have, because it actually does make a big difference. It really does. I think my set, my chapters edited with pro writing aid are so much stronger than what I was doing before pro writing aid. I really think that the sentences and the echos and the checks that I'm doing through providing aid, I see an improvement. It's got an extra Polish that I could not have done on my own. Yeah. So that's something for, for you to check out, to sign up for a trial version of pro writing aid.

Jesper (42m 39s):
If you have an AE or if you are using already and to see what you, what you think of it. But other than that, then the next Monday, I'm hoping to have an interview for you with Alex Newton, from Kayla Tricks. And we are going to talk about what sells in the fantasy genre. Yeah.

Narrator (42m 57s):
If you like what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join Autumn and Jesper on patreon.com/AmwritingFantasy. For as little as a dollar a month you'll get awesome rewards and keep The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast going. Stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 120 – The Mindset You Need to Self Publish Successfully

There is an underlying key to being a successful self-published author. Do you want to know what the secret is? It's all about your mindset.

Autumn and Jesper delve into what that outlook is and why it can make such a difference to how you fair as an indie author in this episode. See if you have the attitude and why you need to develop it if you don't.

Check out the FREE Self Publishing Success Course that we mention in the episode at https://ultimatefantasywritersguide.com/self-publishing-success/

Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday.  

SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST! Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review.  

Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy. For as little as a dollar a month, you’ll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going. 

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

Narrator (2s):
You're listening to The Am writing Fantasy Podcast in today's Publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need. And literary agent, there is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing. Join two best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them now on to the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt.

Jesper (30s):
Hello, I am Jesper.

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

Jesper (34s):
This is episode 120 of The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast. And today we are going to share some thoughts or tips that will be you. We got to break your career as a writer. And the personally, I think that this stuff is something that is often overlooked, but I don't know. What do you think about that?

Autumn (52s):
All of them. I think its definitely not talked about it, but I've just like, Oh wow. Don't pressure or this is going to make or break or you just don't get it into that stuff. And cheese hard stops like, Oh my gosh, am I ready for this episode? I don't know why, but no, I agree. This may be a sound better than it is. It's very, you've ramped the tension right up straight to the insight pull incident and boom.

Jesper (1m 20s):
Okay. Yeah, I should do it the other way around like, like maybe start out by saying this might be a completely useless Episode and there's going to be no tips for you at all. And then we can go from there because then it only got to get better.

Autumn (1m 35s):
That's something that I don't know if that's going to work right there. I think we just have to stick with what we started with. And this was one of the most important episode of your entire author career. And then we had to little bit on that two point, Oh my God. Now that you've set that and now I got conscious about it and no, that's not a good, that's why you thought of anything. And I would just apply that on like nothing ever happens. If someone is going to call you out and I am here for that. So it's all right. Yeah. And you have jumped off pretty quickly as well. So you kind of surprised me. Oh well. So how are things over on your side of the planet?

Jesper (2m 15s):
Well as good a school. So I close to this week here in the Denmark. Of course we are a recording a bit ahead of time. So it's East the holidays at the moment. So the kids are home, which means that the I get to sleep In and I could just get up like nine or 10 in the morning and then right. A chapter before lunch center, you know, I could get used to, this sounds really like my life, but that's one way except for the kids and no indeed. Yeah. I would say it's really nice. And a fantastic. Yeah. And also the fact that I can asleep in the also means that my wife and I have had some time to watch this TV series late in the evening where we are now, I would normally go to bed, but we didn't have been watching some, some stuff and I finished up or we finished up watching a show on HBO called a bear town.

Jesper (3m 6s):
Are you familiar with that one? No, no, no. I haven't even heard that line. So Bri, our town is a, a, a Swedish series. OK. And it's about a, a youth hockey team. Ah, which is not doing particularly well. Oh yeah. But then a former NHL player comes home from the us and he was like at the end of his career and he checks takes on the job of coaching this team. So at this point you're probably thinking, it sounds like some sort of sport series right here. Yeah. But it's not because here it turns a bit dark, but that's usually the type of stories out there.

Jesper (3m 53s):
Like as you know, you know, but so to start a player of the team, he actually ends up raping the coach daughter. Oh I, I, but then 'cause, it becomes very, it's, it's a very serious, serious series what it was about to say, but it becomes very, I don't know what the right word is, but interesting in one way or another, because it starts exploring because you are in a very small towns, society or community and its sort of explores, how does a close knit group of people who know each other really well deal with a situation like this, where you have like the popular kid that everybody's hoping that he's gonna be the next hot key star or a hockey star.

Jesper (4m 39s):
This is going to, you know, put this town on the map and then you have this new girl in town that basically nobody knows. And she, and of course he goes to the police with what happened and so on. And then this whole thing plays out about how the community as well as dealing with the situation. And I really feel like it's, it's very interesting. And it's also very interesting as it dives into details about how, how we, human beings are incredibly good at justifying things to ourselves. Even when we know that our standpoint is clearly wrong, they are because so many of these characters, they, they really convince themselves that they're point of view is the right one.

Jesper (5m 28s):
When, you know, when you're looking at it as, as the viewer and of course you are at a distance, but it makes sense from the person being inside of that community reacting that way. But when you're looking at it as a view at a distance, you can sort of see how completely wrong it is. And it is actually a very I'm, it's a very interesting story.

Autumn (5m 47s):
To be honest, it sounded interesting though, since I've spent 90% of my life in small towns, I have a feeling of that. I'd be like, Oh, I know this is so true.

Jesper (5m 58s):
It, yeah, It could be. Yeah. I, I mean, of course its a pretty serious topic, so it's not like a lighthearted thing that you sit down and watch, but, and I, I would maybe have liked the ending to have a bit more oomph in the end, but what I do recommend the people checking out bedtime time at town on HBO and of course watching it in the original Swedish language, trying to swap titles, instead of all the toppings stuff, I was about to use a nasty word. So the FCC does not broadcast, you know, register, watch over us as a Podcast thing. Goodness. I don't know how we got around that one way or the prolapse to swear.

Jesper (6m 42s):
Yeah. Yeah. Well technically we would have to market in our podcast hosting that there was wearing in the a seven mile language.

Autumn (6m 51s):
Ooh. Yeah. So a lot. Well I thought to the bullets just, just, just, well we can just add a beep. Yeah. Yeah.

Jesper (7m 2s):
Okay. But that, that's something I could recommend if people need something to a new shoes to look at. And so I guess it's the right way of saying it, but yeah. You need your stomach like a bit of a topic though. Yeah. So Coker prepared for a very serious topic. Yeah. Knowing small towns, I can see how it would totally grow out of proportion and being on an easy resolution that you would imagine. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, hopefully you have some more lighthearted stuff on your side of the Atlantic.

Autumn (7m 37s):
Absolutely. It's like spring here are all of our snow. I mean, Vermont, we had so much, well not so much, no. We had a normal winter For, you know, in 2020 in climate change, but it like melted in five days and now the weather is like in the sixties and it's sunny and the streams running. So its beautiful. But it's also, I feel that like I don't usually get spring itus or whatever you want to call it where you are. Like, I just want to go outside of my spring. I, this is what we use. It's cool. Yeah. Or senior-itis when you were a senior in school and you just could not concentrate cause you know, you're about to graduate. So this is a spring fever and I just want to go outside and go for a hike. And I got some work done over the weekend just because it was raining.

Autumn (8m 20s):
So I've got a chance to work on some covers and I'm almost done editing I'm in my book three and my tainted face series. So that's like, yeah, it's so much work going on. We just, we're almost done editing a reader magnet that we've got going on. So I don't know. I might have to take a break and go for a, a little bit of a walk soon. That would be kind of nice. But otherwise life is pretty good. I can not complain. It's hard to concentrate. It's my worst thing. I could say that I was speaking of shows. I sent you one that was, if someone wants a Fantasy that has amazing graphics as a major amazing CGI in a really good story. I sent that one to you that yin yang master's, which is actually proved is by China, which was trying not to read into that.

Autumn (9m 6s):
I'm like, is there any propaganda in here? So there's and what's funny is, and that's what I didn't tell you is there is use two movies so you can get a master's and then there's a second one that has a subtitle. I know that I can remember what it was, but you know what it reminded me of, it sounded like someone came up with like, there is a main character or here's a little bit of a story in a world in the background. And so two different people wrote an idea for it and they decided they liked them both and produced both. So they could almost relate. They feel more like a parallel stories of parallel ideas. And so it was very interesting to watch them back to back and be like, Oh, is that the same character?

Autumn (9m 46s):
But that's a totally different story for him. I don't know how this works, but the, the one in the yin-yang masters do it without the subtitle. I just, it was a fantastic story telling. Very good. And so if someone wants something much more fun, I wants to see ferret demons should have won a ferret demon. You get to watch that. Yeah. Will I we'll definitely watch it. Yeah. I have added to My, I have an app on my phone where I keep track of everything I need to watch a and then I added to it in there. It's where it was pretty good.

Jesper (10m 21s):
So every time I hear about a cool show or a good movie, I just add it in there because then it's it's there and I won't forget about it. And then every time I've done watching something, I go into the app and then I just find something I want to see next. Nice. That's a very useful app, right?

Narrator (10m 40s):
Oh, a week on the internet with The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast. Yeah.

Jesper (10m 45s):
Find a way of voices came out with their 2020 headphone report. It has where they share all the data that they collect it on the audio of that market over the past year. Okay. So it's up with audio books then. Yeah. And you know how I love to put you on the spot, Autumn. I, this is not fair. Yes. That's what I love it. This is because it's not fair. So I was wondering if you couldn't guess, which is young Rose had the most growth in the audio book market in 2020, but I have prepared some very, very short sound clips for you.

Jesper (11m 32s):
So it is going to give you a hint. Okay. So this is a podcast. So some clips are cool. So it is basically sound clips that is hopefully giving you some idea about a young, right. That's the point of the sound clip? So there is no words is just music.

Autumn (11m 51s):
Oh, this is true. It just me, I am going to argue, remember I'm half deaf. So it was just not fair, but lets go for it.

Jesper (11m 59s):
Okay. So I'm going to give you some clip number one and then see if you can guess what's younger. This is okay.

Autumn (12m 13s):
Yeah.

Jesper (12m 13s):
That's it that's like a fog horn. What could that be?

Autumn (12m 18s):
I'm guessing thriller, but I would almost have said for those clothes, it's a misery actually mystery.

Jesper (12m 26s):
Oh yeah. It's a mystery. We had a growth of 158% in 2020. That's exciting. That's a lot. That is a lot. Yeah. Okay. And number two on the list of the second, most growth in 2020 and let me know what this sound Clip. What do you, what do you think this is? Okay.

Autumn (13m 1s):
Yeah.

Jesper (13m 2s):
Yeah, of course. It's so obvious. Well, I'm going to guess because I, because I found this out Clip that is a completely obvious to everybody else is like, what is that?

Autumn (13m 13s):
I would say a memoir. I mean, it sounds too sad to be like cozy and romance. It sounds in the stallion to me. And that's why I would say memoir.

Jesper (13m 25s):
You just trying to be difficult. Of course a romance. Yeah. So I don't know if lifting at the end of the music, we really portrays romance. It's obvious growth rate by 146%.

Autumn (13m 45s):
Wow. That is amazing. And it doesn't actually surprise me. I mean, in COVID who was not looking for a good role mans to sweep you away from this place.

Jesper (13m 55s):
Yeah. Maybe. Yeah. It could be it, but Okay. Number three and a final show. Is that experience the most growth in 2020? Well, not the final one, but the top three final in the top three. Alright. So are we ready for this song? Clip? Yeah. I'm just going to be getting one, right? Are you ready?

Autumn (14m 31s):
I'm guessing Weston say something to do with Cowboys or a Western. It has to be Western.

Jesper (14m 35s):
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Autumn (14m 38s):
What is it?

Jesper (14m 40s):
It's Fantasy.

Autumn (14m 41s):
I can not be Fantasy. Yeah. It sounds like a Western. You misled me. You totally misled me, but okay.

Jesper (14m 50s):
So what's the Fantasy grow 68%. So it's not as smart as the other one's but it's still quite significant. That's good. That is it. What do you think of those growth numbers or

Autumn (15m 2s):
the growth numbers are a fantastic, there are in many ways, in some ways surprising because you know, COVID people are locked down, but it also, if your homie might be listening to Moore, I know, I think my husband has gone for the weekend and I actually ended up streaming a YouTube, a, a series called art at the highest actually he was on CuriosityStream or to the highest, but then when he got back, I'm like you have a subscription to audible. I want access to your books so I can see it when you're holding, when you were working on the computer or your music's. Okay. But its kind of fun to listen to a story so I can see audio books growing.

Jesper (15m 43s):
Yeah. It is growing very much about that. Oh, I also think that it also has to do with the distribution of it, that it, I mean, if you looked at the top three emerging markets after the us, it was Canada followed by Australia and I don't think those two were very surprising, but number three was Sweden. I wasn't really expecting that. So I, I think in part of the big growth numbers in part, because the base line is fairly low, so its easy to get into the triple digit growth rates kind of scary. That's true. So I think that there was that and then it's getting more and more widespread a and therefore as well as you're getting into many more new markets, which helps the growth rates.

Autumn (16m 26s):
I personally don't think it is. I still think it's early days when it comes to audiobooks.

Jesper (16m 33s):
I don't think that the market print tracing, is that a great to be honest. So it it's still Yeah, it's still early days and I was still, even though we keep hearing about these massive growth rates, I would still say that unless your e-books are selling really well, they don't get don't rush into creating an audio book just because you hear that that was great growth rate because honestly you probably not going to earn back to the production cost unless you're selling quite well already. I agree that that would be an, almost a whole talk because of, you know, how audio books affects sales.

Autumn (17m 7s):
But yeah, even my current series, I enjoy audio books, which I did couldn't say before I used to not, but I have no plans right now to put, turn the teen at Faye in the audio books, even though we're a couple of readers of asked for it is a lot of work in really expensive. And if it doesn't really effect your regular sales on Amazon, it's not like this major boost, No way. If the, if the production cost were low, which I don't think they will be in three or four years, maybe for now than it would be a no brainer to always just like we always create a paperback print on demand version, then you would always create an audio book just because it's another, it's another way of selling you a book right now.

Jesper (17m 50s):
I'm not a format, which I think is good, but when you have to pay like 5k or something for it, it's like, ah, now when they get to the AI, that has a very natural voice that you can just drop in your text and it creates a very nice sounding audio book.

Autumn (18m 6s):
I don't want to put voice actors at a work because they are amazing. But you know, if you could just upload an audio book file, like have it converted. And it was a few hundred bucks, Holy kind of, I would probably do it. Yeah. Or maybe I'm even thinking of you, if you could look in the future, you could look at a market where it's just a designated, like it, it will say here is the, you know, a cheap audio book and it will say this is a I rated and there will be an expensive version of an audio book where assess this is a voice acting narrated or something.

Jesper (18m 39s):
I, I could imagine that it would happen so that it's like, if you don't care or some readers don't care, you know that as long as that's the case then. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And as long as it as decent, they are happy and then they will pay or paid at a discount or have the budget version. But I can imagine that will happen in three or four or five years maybe for now that, that you will have two versions of audio books. That's a whole other topic. So I could see that happening.

Autumn (19m 6s):
Definitely me too. It will be interesting

Narrator (19m 11s):
And on to today's topic. Okay. So

Jesper (19m 16s):
Yeah, I'm thinking that it's probably useful to just start up by stating that when Well, I was about to say we, but actually, I mean me when I'm talking about Mindset, because I can only talk about myself and I have my own biases, meaning that a for instance, when I'm tackling this topic in this episode here, I'm coming at the Mindset from a commercial point of view, meaning what is the mindset behind making a living from writing and earning money from it. And I also understand that in saying that not everyone is Writing to make money and that is perfectly fine, nothing wrong with that whatsoever.

Jesper (20m 2s):
However, I just want to share it. That's where I'm coming from when I'm talking about Mindset. So I don't know, maybe, maybe you have a different perspective on, on it out of, I don't know, but that, that sort of way I'm thinking, I think with you, when we come to author Mindset that is looking at it from a business perspective. So you're looking at the marketing and is sort of wrapped up into it. But I think I do have maybe a little bit of the artistic because I also think part of part of what makes you a good author platform, a good market or a successful author, hopefully, you know, making money is that you also care about the quality and your abilities as a writer.

Autumn (20m 44s):
So to me, I have a little bit of the artistic side, but I think it of overlaps, you know, the sphere is, are definitely where they joined is to me as the author of marriage Mindset. It's not a hundred percent marketing. It's not a a hundred percent craft, but there's a point where you merge those two. And that is my idea of an, a successful and a rewarding author Mindset. Yeah. Hm. Okay, good. Yes or no, but I, I think it's good to see if, I mean, we, we might come at it from like 80%, the same angle, but then slightly different anyway, which is probably good.

Jesper (21m 23s):
Yeah. That's probably a good way. Or you have to have something different.

Autumn (21m 25s):
I'll play devil's advocate if I have two, just so we are not always in agreement, you know, if you have two, like if I take it and you make it sound like you don't enjoy it at all, and this is like,

Jesper (21m 35s):
okay, I will sacrifice myself to do it, but in reality you love it.

Autumn (21m 41s):
They don't need to know is that I'm very, I would like to be Willy well in just play the play at the numbers, you know, but maybe one place to stop could be easy to talk a bit about catching reader's attention. I guess I could put that label on it because honestly, I think from a mindset perspective, you know, when you're thinking about how to get readers to read your work, I think the attention span is too big or as turtle probably, or one of the biggest hurdles we have in today's Publishing landscape.

Jesper (22m 26s):
And from a mindset perspective, I'm looking at it in the point of view about understanding who is it actually that we are keep competing against for reader's attention. That's true because they say it or the office.

Autumn (22m 46s):
No, not really. Well, Amazon, I do agree with that. A recent interview with Mark Coker, where he said Amazon is sort of pitting other authors against what their authors, because if you could do a search on Amazon for another, ah, for your, even yourself. So the first floor of slots are paid advertisers. And before you actually get to the person you are looking for, and that is really annoying, that is on Amazon. But in general, if you're talking about whose attention or, you know, we, as author's trying to pull readers' into, it's not for some other authors, that's there not our competition. It is the rest of the world. The app's the media games, Audio books.

Autumn (23m 30s):
There's so many other things that are competed to try to get a real game games is a good one.

Jesper (23m 37s):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean to some extent I, Yeah, I like you said, I, I think just some extent you could make an argument to say that there is some competition about A, between other authors, but I'm also of the firm belief that those people who really like to read, they will always go on to read more. And there's no way that we can write enough books for them on our own. So if they like to read, they will read more and other authors as well. So in some, some sense you are not really those people. I don't think we were competing that's as much for the attention because they love reading and they will continue reading. But all of the big chunk of people that sits in the middle, you know, we have those to reach a lot.

Jesper (24m 21s):
And all the time at the bottom may be of the, of the buckets. We have those who are basically never reads. And, and then in the middle we have the majority of people who reach sometimes, but not all the time. And for those people, I really think that our main competitor And I, that's why I said games. I think that's a good point that you made there. But what are the ones that I was thinking about was really streaming services like Netflix, HBO, Amazon, and that kind of thing, because one of those people are going to do, you know, they come back from home, they've even the dinner there. They have a sort of thinking, should I go and lie on the couch and watch the next episode of my series on Netflix?

Jesper (25m 6s):
Or should I open the eye book and start reading? All right. I mean, that's really the choice that they are making and that's not an easy competition to be him because it really means that you have to produce a very, very high quality content, meaning that you are you a story. It has to be really, really good. And that's not, I hope not for everybody Am I change? Hopefully you already know that you have to produce really good content, but there are also those that think that they can sort of get away with a half decent cover and they will get there on two, which is a, an English teacher to do the editing.

Jesper (25m 51s):
And then that should be fine. Right? And then they just put it that way.

Autumn (25m 55s):
Well, if you're trying to compete against Netflix, people are not going to read that book then, you know, it's, they will Peter out very quickly. I mean, there's so much more to it. I mean, having a little bit of psychology and knowing like you need to have a hook at the end of every chapter that makes them want to turn the page and then a good opening to the next chapter so that they don't want to be like, Oh, it's a different point of view. Or there is the answer to my question. You want to keep them going and going because it is a lot of marketing. It is a lot of trying to feed their curiosity so that they want this more than the ease of sitting back and watching a show because even science-wise watching a movie, it's only a lighting up part of your brain.

Autumn (26m 36s):
So I mean, it is really couch potato. It is truly low energy, low, low need of a paying attention. You can still surf On your phone and you've watched a show and talk to your spouse and you know, you can do a multi-task when you read it. If you're really reading, it's like just the rest of the world could be on fire. And you're like, just one more chapter, just one more time. So it's a little more energy. And to have it fires up your brain, like your actually there doing it, if it has a well-written book, all of your senses are firing. It's like, you're dreaming it. It's your it's becoming part of you and movies do not actually do that to you. So it's a totally different process that you're trying to get readers hooked on, get that adrenaline rush going, You know?

Jesper (27m 23s):
Yeah, that's true because essentially the, well, what do you know, watching a slow a, a, a, a show on Netflix, for example, if it is just being served to you right now, whereas the reading is an immersive, may you are inserting yourself into the story. Whereas watching his show on Netflix, it's just a couch potato or wanting something. And, you know, you don't, unless the character mentioned a smell or sneezes, or does something to clue you in that they're smelling something. It doesn't even Dawn on you that, you know, they're sitting by the campfire in there going to smell like Ash. But when you're reading it, there are a good writer is going to have layer that in or the smell of a dragon, or is it the smell of something?

Jesper (28m 6s):
And it's going to immerse you, like you said, in a far different way. And that's what the people who love reading. That's what they love has because it really drags you in and you don't get that quality unless you're working on it, unless you're doing it, you know, on purpose.

Autumn (28m 22s):
Even after 20 some books, I still have a Check where I check all of my chapters for things like the five sentences and stuff, because it's easy to get into the mood and you're done writing and you go all the visual and very little auditory because I'm half deaf. So let me do, you know, you got to add that stuff and yeah.

Jesper (28m 42s):
Yeah, that's true.

Autumn (28m 44s):
And, and that's really where the Mindset thing comes in. Meaning that if you have to be conscious about the fact that you have to produce really, really high quality work, because otherwise, if its sort of halfway there, you can imagine like somebody is sitting there with the Kindle Or whatever they are reading on. And There are sort of, well maybe they read two chapters and they're like, Oh, well it's not really engaging me the stuff. And then they are watching over at the TV, hanging on the wall over there and it's like, no, let me, let me go watch some TV or is that right?

Jesper (29m 17s):
Yeah. Yeah. That's the problem. So it is, it's not an easy for sure, but a, but it is important to be aware of.

Autumn (29m 25s):
Definitely. And I think that's, I like that you started on that one. Cause like I said to me, the quality, the artistic, the desire to keep trying to improve yourself and your craft and your writing to me, it's very important. It's important, artistically, as important as your mindset that always having that curiosity, you never say I Am good enough. I do not need to learn anything else about Writing. I don't need to read any books because I don't need to learn anything. That's not going to, it's not the right mindset to have to be a successful author. You should always be thinking, what can I do better? How w who is another author? Who's better than I am. So I'm going to read there and see what I like. And I'm going to break it down. Every time we read a book, every time we watched a movie, you are like breaking down the plots and the characters in the person next to you.

Autumn (30m 9s):
I was like, Oh my gosh, just please it enjoy this. And you were like, no, I'm going to tell you that that was foreshadowing. I know that that's true because, well, at least for me, when I started writing myself, the way I experience stories was like, if you a, if you were looking at it one way, you could say broken forever.

Jesper (30m 38s):
But if you look at it on another way, it's just changed forever because, well, yeah, I don't know how to improve because in some way it has broken because I cannot enjoy a story. Like it could be four because I'm looking, I'm looking at a structure behind the words and, and I cannot help myself. Or even sometimes I try consciously to ignore it and just read the story. She would go up, but I cannot help myself looking at, Oh, that was a forest at foreshadowing hint there. And there was something that I might pick it up and I just can't let it go. I'm reading one. Now I just started, I'm probably like 20% Intuit. I'm not going to mention the title of anything. So don't worry. Ah, I'm not going to put any time anybody down on it, but actually, you know, but, but honestly I really liked it.

Jesper (31m 22s):
It was so far, it's a really good book. It's a really good story. But the one thing that I did pick it up already is that because it's a FANTASY, so you have multiple characters and I've done this myself in the past as well. So I'm not thinking on the author at all. But the introduction of the point of view characters is quite aggressive in the early phases of the book. Meaning that you're, you are sort of, are you jumping from one to the next, to the next, to the next, like the, for the first four or five chapters in a row? And it is slightly confusing, but as you, because you don't quite understand how it connects together. And, and also you are a bit like when you get back to the characters, like which character was this again?

Jesper (32m 7s):
Because it was introduced too fast and I've done this myself. So I'm not thinking on anybody at all, but I just think that there is something there I notice is a slightly detour, But, but there's something there about thinking about how are you eating new characters into the story and not going too fast. I think I'm 25% in the, according to my Kindle now. And is it starting to make sense? I can see how it connects now, but the first like 15%, maybe 2015, 20% of the book, it was pretty confusing even though what was happening was really cool. And I really liked it. It, it was cool. Cool action scenes and everything was really good.

Autumn (32m 48s):
Well, billing is great, but it's just a small things that might tick some people off. Some readers me like, no, this is too confusing. I'm going to give up it's right.

Jesper (32m 58s):
And you can't write it for everyone. So there is going to, you're never going to satisfy everyone, but it's definitely something to think, to keep in mind, as you learn your craft, you know, you have someone who maybe will point that out to you or something for yourself to think about. And I think that's where the idea of always improving, you know, looking at how things are working, reading other books and seeing what worked and what didn't work, so that you can look at your next story and you keep writing and keep going.

Autumn (33m 26s):
Indeed. And the other thing that I also feel like it is really important when it comes to Mindset is long-term thinking a little bit. I like that one, because this is of course where I'm looping back to the fact that I was set in the beginning, that I am looking at this from a commercial perspective, but overnight riches almost never happens. So if you're trying to plan for, or even hoping that your debut novel we'll be like this major Success, it probably won't a, and I'm sorry, but the truth of the matter, and we can take a couple of examples here. So Lee child, for example, a highly, highly successful British a thriller author.

Jesper (34m 10s):
I, he is, I think last time I tried to look it up, he was estimated to have a net worth of around $50 million. Okay. So I guess we can call that successful. Can we,

Autumn (34m 22s):
Yeah, I guess, I mean really? Yeah.

Jesper (34m 24s):
Yeah. But he didn't really find much success until he had published about 10 books and George RR Martin is similar. Yes.

Autumn (34m 32s):
Yeah. I'll say he has had a very long career to finally reach the pinnacle that he has. And he's no, you know, the kid anymore either.

Jesper (34m 43s):
No, indeed. So it's, it's small like millions. I know it's not just going to start rolling and you know, it's, it's a matter of over the longterm to build a catalog of books with each will earn you a little bit more and to make that career out of writing, you have to consistently be working on a new book. And this is not me saying that you have to release a new title every month. Not at all because I, I know some people do and that's how they enter the living and find if that's what you can do. But to me, it would stress me out. If I felt like I had to release a new title every month and write 6,000 words a day as something, Nope, not going to happen.

Autumn (35m 25s):
I'm not that kind of a writer. And I don't want to be either, but at least put your butt in the chair and at least two, some writing so that you are at least working on your back a back catalog all the time or building that back catalog 'cause At the end of the day, that's where the money is going to come from. And then they go down the line 15, 20 books later, or like with your tire Martin, 20 years later, if you finally get some awesome success than great. But I, I think planing for that, or even expecting that it's not going to bring you any good. No. And especially in today's market, I mean, maybe you will hit it out of the park with one book, but you, I think we've both seen it.

Autumn (36m 6s):
I think Chris Fox as a few other authors who have try it a couple of a different series and they still, even once they become popular, they can have something that doesn't sell because it's not as much of an interest. So you have to keep trying in generating new content and trying to find maybe the book that hopefully Lyfts all of them up, but you could always have that one series and everyone's like, Oh, Oh, well, that's the one we don't talk about, you know?

Jesper (36m 30s):
Oh yeah. You remember when he wrote that, you know, it's, it's always going to be a challenge, but it's definitely, you want to keep writing and you want to remember that this is a marathon. If you're doing this as a passion, if you were expecting to write three books and you're going to be as famous as George R. Martin or Stephanie Meyer or a JK Rowling's those that really is the less than a 1% have the 1% have the 1%, there are so many millions of authors and there are many, you know, maybe hundreds of thousands, maybe just thousands that are making a full time living off of Writing. There's many more who are having it as a very solid PR part time job, or as a part of a different part time job, or, you know, balancing several things.

Autumn (37m 14s):
And then there's others that this is literally just going to be a hobby. That's not going to be a huge revenue stream. So you need to remember there's all of these different tiers and it is sort of onto you two have the mindset, the strategy is the goal was the marketing, the skills, the quality, all of those tools to help sometimes the luck to make this into something more.

Jesper (37m 40s):
Yeah, Yeah. Agree with that. And everybody fits into those categories differently. And, and, and, and that's also absolutely fine.

Autumn (37m 47s):
I just think from the front have mine set perspective, I just think it's important not to sort of set yourself up for failure, meaning that you get into it with the idea that I'm going to be in the top 1% of all authors globally. And I'm going to be as rich as a J K Rowling or something like that. It's well, great if it happens, but it's probably not. And if you're setting yourself up for that, you can see you're almost only gonna fail and you are going to disappoint yourself. One of the reasons is not all of them, but one of the reasons why people stop writing is because they get disappointed and they feel like, no, this is not what I expected. It should be. I had hoped that I was going to learn a lot more money by now or, or, or whatever.

Autumn (38m 33s):
But if they had just kept writing maybe four books more

Jesper (38m 37s):
From the word AI, it now it would make it a difference. So it was just a shame too, to drop your writing because of something like that. And I think it's important to try to set yourself up by thinking long term, maybe earning 50 K a hundred K a year. Maybe that's modern enough for what you want. I mean, who says you have to earn millions, maybe even 10 K if it's the sidekick, the 10 K can pay your summer vacation every year. And maybe that is

Autumn (39m 7s):
Yeah, absolutely fine. Yeah. I mean, nothing wrong with that. You should definitely have, you know, your idea of what, what is the, what is, I think everyone should have a solid, this is my goal to get to and know that it might take time to get there. And do you, like you said, maybe it's only 10 K a year, but to say, if I hit five K a year, 10 K a year, if I could do this much money, I would feel like I was totally successful and no, it doesn't hurt to have that like, you know, shooting for the stars. That's Okay. Because maybe then you'll hit the moon. That there's nothing wrong with that. But to know, to at least know that thinking you're going to hit JK Rowling's level is probably really going to be amazing and lucky and hard, but that's okay if you just hit Jupiter, the Jupiter is nice.

Autumn (39m 54s):
You know, you don't have to go outside of the solar system, but just to have that Real, that reality check where it's great to maybe dream big. But remember that is dreaming. The reality is going to be in something a lot closer to home and know what that is. Do you know what you really want to work towards and then working towards it? And for me, this is one part of my mindset, I think is really important. And I remember when I was first becoming an entrepreneur and I read that the sign of someone who will make a good entrepreneur is someone who can work for 12 hours, go to bed and feel like I'm out of ideas. I am disappointed nothing work today. And they will wake up in the morning and they'll go, all right, what am I trying to do today?

Autumn (40m 35s):
And you will start over with all the same passion, all of the same curiosity, problem solving, look at things from a new perspective, you have to wake up in the morning and say, I am doing this again. Cause this is what I want to do. And you're going to look at it from a different angle. And if you feel like you need to, someone keep bolstering you and telling you because you can everyone, you know, cheerleaders. But if you need that over 50% of the time, like 80% of the time, you are looking for someone telling you you're going to be okay, you're going to do a good job. This is going to be really hard for you. You need to have a certain level of confidence in what you're doing, your marketing. And if you don't have it, now go take the lessons, go get the skills, bring yourself up to where you feel.

Autumn (41m 15s):
You are capable of succeeding. You just need to keep, you need to work, keep working and getting there because it is a lot of hard work. And if you don't believe in yourself, and if you're not trying to improve yourself, then it's going to be that much harder and you probably will give, so you need to have that mindset of what am I gonna do now? This was a tough day. I'm having a glass of wine in some chocolate and tomorrow we are going to hit the ground running.

Jesper (41m 46s):
And tomorrow I'm going to make waffles dog. The dog Shrek is secretly.

Autumn (41m 57s):
One of my favorite movies. It's just awesome. Is the first one I ever watched the turnout, all of the fairy tales in their heads. And I'm like, this is it. This is why I love This. So yes, tomorrow you will have to make waffles if you were going to get up and you're going to do the waffles. And if you had to end the day in wine again, that's OK. But the next day you're doing waffles again.

Jesper (42m 18s):
Not, not, not everyday, hopefully ending the day with wine. That's that's not going to be very healthy in the long term waffles in the morning. And why did the evening, I think is going to be the end of you at some point. Yeah.

Autumn (42m 29s):
Why not? If you want me to, if you were enjoying life. Yeah.

Jesper (42m 33s):
But at least if, if, if you need some encouragement and if you need some support and back up the head off, over to the Am, Writing Fantasy Facebook group, 'cause, there is a lot of good people helping each other in their, and an offering SUPPORT. So, so that's at least the community that will help you. So feel free to join there. If you just go to the group session section on Facebook and search for Am Writing Fantasy, and you will find us. Yeah. But I have one more Autumn. And I think this is probably the most important one of them all

Autumn (43m 2s):
I used to be. I'll see. I'll see if I agree with you.

Jesper (43m 5s):
Yeah. Of course. Devil's advocate over there. You can see how we love it. Yeah.

Autumn (43m 9s):
Yeah. Absolutely. Well,

Jesper (43m 13s):
I think, and again, this is coming from the commercial perspective again. Right. But they are those who have the mindset that if the writing is just good enough, then the readers will come to me and it will grow from there. They will start reading the next book I write and the book after that. And if I got through that because of the writing is so great. So the only thing I really need to focus on is my writing skills. And don't get me wrong. Writing skills is incredibly important. Of course, you have to be able to tell a really, really good story and have really good writing as well.

Jesper (43m 53s):
But yeah, Yeah. It's not everything.

Autumn (43m 57s):
No, no, no. It's not every day and age. You just,

Jesper (43m 59s):
Or you have to advertise your books, but above all, you have to build an email list so that you can get in touch with your readers when you release a new book, because honestly, readers, I'm not as loyal to the author. As you might think. In many cases, they don't even remember what the author's name was. Then they might not remember the title of the book, but they don't really remember who the author was. And they don't really according to research. And I cannot remember the exact numbers, but I, it was something to do With that in an average Rita's I would have to have read three or four books of the same author before they started remembering what the author named was.

Jesper (44m 42s):
Because otherwise you just don't remember if you had them on your e-mail list, you can send them an email and you can say, Hey, the new book is ready here. Here's the link. So you can pick it up right now. And then they might not necessarily, but they might go on and do that because they know there's a reason why they ended up on your list and the first place it was because they liked what they read. So they don't have to remember to check Amazon. I wonder if this author here really is something new, because nobody will do that, right. That they won't go on to Amazon once a month to check if you uploaded the new book.

Autumn (45m 14s):
But if you get them on your email list, you could just tell them, and that's not a sale right there. So for me, the mindset around thinking that the writing is the only important thing, I think that probably worked 10 years ago, but not anymore. And even in 10 years ago, I'm not sure if it was, I mean, it helped when eBooks were, if you were out with eBooks, we're new and you were in a good writer, you were probably right now on the forefront. But for most people, it's not just about being a good writer. I mean, I, I, my true, true deep fans, you know, they tell me that I'm better than Told can. I just love them so much, but it's not enough if you don't have the mindset of how to market, of how to stay in touch with your readers, how to connect with them and even know some of those like little marketing tips, like this is why I saved.

Autumn (45m 59s):
I wrote an entire series and now I'm releasing them. Back-to-back it's not just because of, you know, the excitement of releasing them. Back-to-back but it's also because readers will then, you know, not get lost in the series. They will be like, Oh, it was the next ones out. Oh, the next ones out. And they come right along with it very quickly, because most series don't sell until you get to the last book anyway. So you might as well say to them all up to the end, but those are the things again. So you're always looking for it's more than writing. I love the writing craft. If I could just be a little hermit in the woods. Oh, Hey, nevermind. So if you could just sit in and right now we have to worry about marketing is fantastic, but it's not the reality.

Jesper (46m 41s):
You have to know how to Mark it and you have to be able to talk to your readers and know where they are and they have to be able to find you. And the email list is definitely the easiest way of doing that.

Autumn (46m 54s):
Yeah. It's a devil's advocate in the woods have spoken.

Jesper (46m 57s):
That's right.

Autumn (46m 58s):
And I got quite a hermit because I have a, another hermit with me. So what are two hermits? I don't know what the term would be. Hermits assists. Well, I know a hermit or a place where hermit lives as call it a hermit Todd. It was just so I can go with that.

Jesper (47m 16s):
Okay. Well, anyway, if you liked what you heard today, and if you want to sort of dive much more deeper into all the different aspects of being a self published author, what you Should be aware of, what you should think about everything to do with like creating covers that fix Fitz, the markets, how is the Amazon algorithm works? How to run book launches and so much more, the good news is that Autumn and I created a a hundred percent FREE costs that we call it self publishing success course. And I would encourage you to go and check that one out. We will place a link to the sign up page in the show notes.

Jesper (47m 60s):
A and it's not going to cost you anything other than you need to put it in your email address two too, so that we can email you the different modules and you get onto the cost platform. But I suggest that you check it out and there is so much good content in there that you can dive into. And of course, if you don't like it, you can unsubscribe at any time. No questions asked. So it's easy. Check it out for FREE. And yeah, that's pretty cool. So I think it's an amazing Course. So yes, it is. It is definitely something that if you're starting out or even just stalled or just have questions, this is definitely the thing to take. I wish I had it when I first started in 2012.

Jesper (48m 41s):
So I'm glad we have it now and can help out authors and helped them on their journey and help their mindset because there are things as a whole module on mindset you want to,

Autumn (48m 54s):
Okay.

Jesper (48m 54s):
Yeah. So next Monday we will do a deep dive into a tool that we are finding incredibly valuable when editing and that's the software called pro Writing. I, yeah.

Narrator (49m 5s):
Yeah. If you like what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join Autumn and Jesper on patrion.com/ Am. Writing Fantasy for as little as a dollar a month. You'll get awesome rewards and keep The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast, going to stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 119 – Top 10 WORST Stories Ever Told!

In preparation for this episode of the Am Writing Fantasy podcast, Autumn and Jesper have suffered through some of the WORST movies. 

This is an entertaining top 10 of the movies which tells the worst stories EVER.

At the end, the hosts share some thoughts on what NOT to do when creating stories of our own. 

Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday. 

SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST!

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

Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy. For as little as a dollar a month, you’ll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going. 

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

Narrator (2s):
You're listening to The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast in today's Publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need a literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from riding. Join two best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them now on to the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt.

Jesper (30s):
Hello, I'm Jesper

Autumn (31s):
and I'm Autumn.

Jesper (33s):
This is episode 119 of The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast. And it is time for one of our ultimate this again, One of those not so serious Episode. So we hope that you will enjoy it as we enter the world of the WORST Stories Ever Told we were looking forward to this one,

Autumn (56s):
which is funny because when you first mentioned it, I said, I don't know how I'm gonna do on this one, but the secret that I had forgotten about really what's that. Oh, well, have you ever heard of mystery science theater?

Jesper (1m 17s):
No, I'm not sure. No, no, no.

Autumn (1m 20s):
I'll tell you all about it and why it's my ace in the hole and I'm going to do so blow you out of the water on this one.

Jesper (1m 27s):
Why do we get well, OK. Let's see. But, but I actually have some surprises lined up as well, so yeah, you'll see. You'll see. I I'm going to impress, you know, I was gonna say this one, maybe it's a good, it's not the right term. This'll be so bad how bad it's going to be an excellent.

Autumn (1m 47s):
I can not wait. Well, how are the things over in Denmark?

Jesper (1m 55s):
A well for for one, we've had some chats today. Excellent. So that's a good start. And a, I'm also expecting to start refereeing next week. And I hope I actually, last weekend I did do a on the 15th match a So, but senior soccer should pick up again this coming weekend. I hope so. I'm really looking forward to that too, that we are getting out of some so Corona restrictions that makes us all our lives are a nightmare. So, so that's good. That's exciting. Yeah. Oh yeah. And speaking about Corona restrictions, we are actually managed to go to Ikea last Saturday and no one would really not be excited about it going to Ikea.

Jesper (2m 45s):
But the thing is that since we moved into the apartment, we've had quite some furniture that we needed to deliver back to Ikea. I can click on host. Yeah. They closed. And we were stuck with it here in the apartment because we thought we couldn't go anywhere. So it would deliver it back. And we also have like one wall in the bedroom that is still filled up with moving boxes because we needed to deliver that stuff back to Ikea. And then we needed to buy a new piece of furniture. So we could empty all those boxes and put it in to a cabinet. But we couldn't do all of that. So we've been waiting a lot for like three months, but finally,

Autumn (3m 26s):
Yeah,

Jesper (3m 26s):
Indeed. So a lot of finally last Saturday they reopened so we could get it. We still have it. You still have to book a time and all of that stuff in order to be able to go inside of a warehouse where there's like 10 people in this humongous place. But nevertheless, we in medicine and the way we actually got to our staff deliver delivered back and bought the new stuff and took that with us home. So when Easter holidays comes up here quite soon, I know what I have to do. I have to put Ikea stuff back together. Again, it's just not my favorite thing to do, but at least we are done with it.

Autumn (3m 60s):
Yeah. Well, like I said, I wish you were closer. I love building things. You saw me building my cabin that we're staying in. And so yeah. I would love to help out building things, but its kind of a, you know, I can't quite make the flight, even though things are improving slowly in the us, they are hoping they're saying, ah, my husband's signed me up for our a coronavirus vaccination. So like that's exciting that they got to my age bracket. It's not the bottom of the, the brackets focused.

Jesper (4m 31s):
Yeah. I don't know if it's good or bad weather when your number comes off. It's like, Hmm. Is this because they think either I'm old or they think that it's something wrong with me. So we better actually meet this person. This is just like what what's going on. Yeah.

Autumn (4m 44s):
Well they had already let me put it down to eight to 16 year olds. What you had to have one of these certain listed health things and I'm like, Nope, Nope, Nope. I'm, I'm perfectly fine, but I'm older than 16, but they finally opened it up to my age group. So that's exciting. That means I might be able to see my parents some time to, So we have a date for it already. What do you know when it's going to be sometime in April, April and April. Okay. I haven't even been told about it yet when I'm gonna get any vaccines. Yeah. So yeah. We'll see. But hopefully within the next couple, a couple of months then yeah, Yeah, yeah. Well, my parents have gotten there's, and they've been out two breweries, you know, every one space, it sounds like they are out and about all of it everywhere, but you know, the tables are really far.

Autumn (5m 29s):
So, you know, it's like if there's three other people in the entire room with them, it's amazing. I'm usually there taking pictures and it's empty, but they've been out and you know, going to get a draft beers and taking photos. I'm just like dad, but I go to

Jesper (5m 44s):
Yeah. Yeah. And we've all had enough of this stuff by now. So a for sure we need to, I think everybody is looking forward to get to the other side of it. I guess my biggest fears just because they are starting to open it up now. So my biggest thing is just that it will happen. Like it did it last time they start to open it up and then like, three-four weeks later they shot it all down. And then if they do that, I think people will get pretty damn upset because people are just fed up with it.

Autumn (6m 11s):
Yeah. Especially with the spring, you know, now it's almost spring here and some are rolling out. If they shut everything down for the summer, I think there would be a revolution here. They just don't do it. Let them go. Yeah.

Jesper (6m 24s):
Yeah. We don't. We are, we've had enough. Yeah. But otherwise, if anything is everything good on your end

Autumn (6m 32s):
And do lots of covers and writing and reading and all that kind of stuff. But overall, mostly just working on my laptop because it's still only in the forties, which I can't think of what that would be in Celsius, but it's just above, you know, a little bit above freezing. So it looks beautiful and the feel so warm and you go outside and about 15 minutes later they was like, I need something warm to drink. So it's looking in fighting almost all of the snow is gone, but it is still spring and very early here, but it's exciting to see the water running in this stream again and sea ground and all of those good things.

Autumn (7m 13s):
Yeah.

Narrator (7m 13s):
Oh a week on the internet with The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast.

Jesper (7m 19s):
Yeah. So I don't know if you have something you want to share in this section, all of them, but I'm just going to keep it very brief. But I just wanted to check if you had something first before I do that. Nothing else

Autumn (7m 29s):
Too exciting. It's been so busy and I'd been working on Instagram, working on how to do Instagram and all of these other things, but something specifically to the Podcast, nothing to share with authors yet, but I'm working on a few things.

Jesper (7m 43s):
Okay, cool. Yeah. I'm also just going to keep it very briefly. Just the small thing he had. I just wanted to say that it, it will speaking to you the listener, if you enjoy The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast, the best thing you can really do for us is to tell another author, a friend about it. We are still in the process of growing our listenership here. So we would really like for a lot more people to find us. So if you like this podcast will not tell an author, a friend about it and you will be helping us out. And you will also help out the person who you are telling you about a great podcast and listen to. So it's like a sort of like a win, win situation that doesn't cost you anything on the contrary, you will probably going to get a lot of gratitude in return.

Jesper (8m 29s):
So a yeah, I just wanted to remind that that's a really small and easy thing that you can do that it will actually make meaning quite a lot for us.

Autumn (8m 39s):
Absolutely come Sherise join us and help spread the word. We would appreciate it.

Jesper (8m 45s):
Yeah. So with that being said, should we just a dive? Yeah,

Autumn (8m 49s):
I think so. Because this one, we have WORST Stories. I have plots and we both have five each to see and are trying to figure out which one's the worst of the worst. So I think we better get into it. Yeah.

Jesper (9m 6s):
Okay. So this is going to be interesting. I mean, I think when you, initially, when I started building my list here, initially I wanted to only make picks of stuff that I had read or seen. But, but as it turned out, I think I'm pretty good at avoiding bad stories. So yeah. So I admit that I had to pick some stuff that I haven't actually read or watch, but it just sounds so horrible that I added them to the list that I anyway, but I would say that basically more or less all of it, I do have some sort of connection to it.

Jesper (9m 51s):
So, and it's not something that I just picked at random, but I will, as we go through, I will say what I have seen and what I have not seen to make a key bot. What I did too, is that I only picked movies because then I can play some sound clips as we go along.

Autumn (10m 11s):
Well, you are in such a cheater. I only picked movies too, but I did not go and get sound clips, actually the movies. I don't know if I could've found sound clips in the us, I re watched them, but I have seen all five that are going to be sharing. And I like, I see hinted earlier. I could have shared 14 and actually so 50 to a total of 15, because one of them isn't because I've watched two seasons of something that is called mystery science theater. And you're going to love the story behind this.

Jesper (10m 44s):
So it, it sounds like if it's so bad, why did you want us to cease in some of it?

Autumn (10m 49s):
Because that's the point. So it's a show. It's a mystery science theater 3000 is actually called. It's a show that uses the premise of a show.

Jesper (10m 59s):
Wait, so is this your first entry on the list of your art?

Autumn (11m 1s):
Nope. This is just a set-up of how bad my entries are going to be. They go for it. Or it's the set up is that they are showing the most horrible movie ever in an attempt to melt the mind of a research subject slash prisoner. There's a hostage. And to keep her Saturday, he used, made this robot companions that watch they are inflicted with this movie with him. And they're just sitting there and making snide comments about the movies the entire time. And this is huge. This has a cult following it is so, so popular that they actually ran a Kickstarter campaign to get in a Netflix, to do 14 Xtra shows.

Autumn (11m 42s):
So it's a serious. So I've watched the series of 11 and 12, which we put out on Netflix, all 14 of them there, just with the whole WORST shows that

Jesper (11m 54s):
You need to have some popcorn, a beer and a sense of humor and you will die laughing and growing at the same time. So good luck beating me on this one. Oh my God. What? It does not sound very good. No, it's a fantastic, horrible Amy. There's no other, I can not wait to tell you about them. No you do. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it was see who comes up with a WORST stuff because it, it it's really about it. It has to be so bad that you'd like almost prefer to do a, I don't know. I would say that you would prefer to do something really horrible to yourself instead of just to avoid watching it. That has to be that bad.

Jesper (12m 35s):
I've got it. My number one. It's fantastic. I can not wait. And the high, I don't like your confidence. If you have way too much confidence going into this list and easily to you a bit more relaxed like it. Yeah. We'll see, kind of let's let's see. Let's just go through and now you're just like, you're way too confident. I don't like this. Maybe it should we change the subject? So today show or something else better at it. Just shifting on the fly. Your are going to be the one who left in the dust. So whatever you want to do, I will win this one. Well, okay. I think we have jointly agreed that all the past ones I have won.

Jesper (13m 16s):
So if you win one time, maybe I can give you that, but still I know why I'm going to win this one. I am not too bad, too bad pics that you, you just can't beat them. We'll see if we will have one of the same ones. Why would that be funny? But we'll say, I think we need to get started though. So what should, what should we start with you? You know, obviously lease worse to worse. I take it. Yeah. I think I organized mine so that it goes from, let me just do a quick check on my list here. I don't know if mine are organized At no, because mine are so incredibly bad.

Jesper (14m 0s):
All of them that it does not matter which order you would take them in. They can beat all of you or no problems. So they are just in random order of mine. Okay. Minor from lease worse to worse. So I was, I did my homework. I watched 14, 15 show and she was 15 shitty. She goes in preparation for the test was born for this one. Lets go. I was humbled. I'll let you go first. Okay. So I have a short audio clip for you here for us to be ready to go for it.

Audio Clip (14m 41s):
I've got something on my radar. Looks like a fog bank and that's moving straight toward us. Kind of fog moves against the wind.

Jesper (14m 53s):
So based on what you just heard that you might be able to, Can you guess what it is or maybe not yessing Pacific room? No. Pacific room is pretty good. What do you mean? But It's not on my list, but there's better movies out there. Yeah, yeah, there it is. But its definitely not on a list of the worst movies ever. OK. So what was that one? So this one is the FOC from 2005. I did not see that one. Oh, well we'll be happy that I don't know. I Want you to enjoy a really bad book. It's a, it's a reboot of a movie from 1988, a and I only watched this 2005 version.

Jesper (15m 38s):
So I don't know about the original ones, but this is one of those cases where you sort of, you see the premise of the movie and when you think it could be quite interesting, but you still, you still a bit skeptical 'cause there's something inside of you telling like Mmm you know that feeling. So all the alarm bells are going off in your mind, like wanting you to, this is probably going to be crap, but then you watched the trailer and it was just like, well there is something in this sort of set up that I quite like, you know, this whole thing about dos a fork and there is some mystery about something happens and it's dangerous.

Jesper (16m 21s):
And just start thinking, well maybe you should try to just watch it because it, it could be good. Maybe it was, it might be worth a try. Yeah. So who, let me just explain what is about here. So I need to, I just need something to justify why I actually wasted my time watching this movie. So how does this sound? So we're in a town where the founder's got the money by murdering a colony of lepers. Okay. Nobody knows about this terrible past. And now we're like a a hundred years later where a character return's just as a statue, it is raised in a tribute of the founders and then comes the fork and there's something inside the fog, something vengeful.

Jesper (17m 16s):
So a little super nice or something. Oh my God, no, it could be good, but it was bad. So I went against my better adjustment and I washed it and my God, it was stupid. But you know, first of all, when you have like teenagers dancing around in bikini's on board and all the fishing boat, then you already knows that a lib there's just not going to be good will. And then on top of that, the plot just of, it just keeps going and going and going and going. It doesn't really add anything to the story at all.

Jesper (17m 58s):
And then you should think that by the time to spend so much time on adding plot for no real reason, you should think that then at least they would be able to deliver a satisfying ending. NOT it just, it does not make any sense at the end that either, I mean, I'm going to spoil it here, but why the heck are we suddenly presented with some We of thing that is going on with like some luck between a human and a ghost? I mean, in the middle of it as sort of a horror story is like what's going on here. So just like it makes no sense at all. No, no. I didn't see that one coming to strip from, to criticize.

Jesper (18m 42s):
There seems to be the consensus as well as the original, 1988 version. I wasn't that good either. So that sort of begs to question to me like, well, I remake it when you, when you're creating something that is bad to begin with. It's just bad, bad, bad. I mean, what the fuck? That's bad. I don't know. I think I have so much worse. I'm just going to start it. OK. This is the shit and move you. Okay.

Autumn (19m 14s):
And I don't know, it, it sounds like a good one for a couple of years sitting on the laughter. Laugh at yourself. Silly. Yeah,

Jesper (19m 20s):
No, you don't want to do it now.

Autumn (19m 24s):
Alright. Well you want to know what my number five one, and this is my only one that was not featured on mystery science theater 3000. Okay. So this one is actually 2020 and it was produced on Netflix. This is a series and I've mentioned this one a couple of times and two, you cursed. It actually makes my list of horrible shows. So it's, this is a retelling of the authorial legend from the viewpoint of Nim whey, which is the lady of a Lake. And so this has set before she becomes the lady as a Lake before author meets Arthur meets Merlin. So it's like, he's not, you know, like the source of the stone young, he's a buddy as a teenager.

Autumn (20m 8s):
And it sounds to me because I mean, I writing a story about Faye and Nim Wei is Faye. And I'm thinking, Oh my gosh, this is going to be really excited to have a little fun with Arthur Arthur in legends. I am, yeah. I have seen way too many years, but I love the funny, this is going to be awesome. Now it was so bad, but I feel bad because of the actors and the actresses. There are some really good ones. There's Floki from Vikings is a Berlin. I mean, there are some really good actors and actresses and they do their darn best to deliver these characters. Like you kind of care, but it was, it was bad that that my husband would put this on the nights.

Autumn (20m 50s):
He just wants to go to sleep. And then I'd be sitting in there, just yell, trying not to yell at the TV, set up. And then the plot holes and the inconsistencies and the jumps that made absolutely no sense and trying not to wake him up. And it was just really bad, but there are some of the inconsistency, as some of them are like, and they always, always, you know, it was, this is a story about the Fe, but for some reason, and it's about Dibley, who's the girl. But for some reason, Arthur, is that the one who has always right. And he was humid in the mail and it was just so silly, but you know, they are some of the silliness, there is a grain mill. All the grain mills have been killed, but you know, taken over by the evil King, he was trying to wipe out the Fe and There down to one.

Autumn (21m 37s):
So whose idea is that to go protect the one that's or if there is, how many nights did they sent you? You know, how many Fe warriors do they send like a five to go protect your food supply. And I go, and of course, if it goes to crap there that they burn them out in a mil, the green night and earth are, are almost about to die. But, and then when she shows up who she was magical, but she doesn't really know how to control it, but she manages to save the day. And later on, they are, she claims queenship. There is no, there's never been a fake queen. She claims queenship because she has the sword of the Kings, because one is what you do it, even though everyone's excited that she, she claims that she was going to be the queen, even though she has been hiding from them, not collaborating in any of the older meetings to like protect her people.

Autumn (22m 32s):
She had sent a letter to the Qing invading saying, Hey, I'll get you back the sword. If you let the face go that Arthur sister or a Morgan and Morgan Le Fay, the source for us eventually now dictates to her. So this wasn't even her idea she's done. Absolutely nothing, but everyone's like your queen, but like, yeah, standard, there was so many plot holes and things and I'm just like, you know, so anyway, it makes my number five, which is pretty safe. Yeah. Okay.

Jesper (23m 9s):
I think I have come across some, if I might be confusing, it was something else. But I do think I've seen some, you know, some of those trailers running when I log into Netflix and stuff like that, about it and, and, and the list, it must have been, it must have looked bad enough that I did hear of it because I have not watched any of it.

Autumn (23m 29s):
I haven't recommended to you, but this was the only one that could have gotten in a sound clip for a day. I feel so disappointed now, But yeah, yeah,

Jesper (23m 36s):
Yeah. Well, believe it. You're probably gonna lose on point because you didn't have some clips. Let's see here.

Autumn (23m 43s):
I let's say I've got some doozies that I don't think you can even

Jesper (23m 46s):
Come close to. Oh shit. Okay. I need to up my game. All right, let's go for it to a number of For, okay. So brace yourself for this sound clip, because this is going to be bad. Okay. You ready?

Audio Clip (24m 5s):
effective. We've got a white male, 54 years old. we had another one so far. The one thing is that all of the victims have in common is a fierce site to go together.

Jesper (24m 27s):
I'm going to stop it. That it was so fucking ridiculous so that you can already hear shit. This is, she say, it's the only thing we have in common as a parasite. They, this is at the FIA site to be here site. Oh. So they would go to a website. Yeah. It killed them. And for this one, I actually learned my lesson. So I have not watched it, but the trailer was so bad, but it just, the trailer itself scares me off. And I was pretty good. In addition to it, initially I checked it off because it said it was from the same director of a house on a haunted Hill. Well, actually it wouldn't saying that it had just realized that there are some people that's probably a good statement.

Jesper (25m 9s):
I think that that's true. But this movie is it fair.com. It's called O and M initially sort of pulled me in because I don't want to eat it. It had me checking out the trailer and so on because it carries some of the same tropes as the ring. Did you ever watched the ring? I actually have not watched the ring, but I, I, it looked interesting. I only did and watch it because I wasn't doing horror movies at the time. No, no. Yeah. I don't want so many horror movies either, or at least not for the last couple of years before the end. I quite liked a lot of them, but I enjoyed the ring. The ring in my view is a really good movie, the movie. But I have to say that the original, like, I think it's, I think it's Japanese or some of these at least Asian or originally a, a and the Asian version is better than the American version, but yeah, that's the one that you had wanted to see, but I just, it looked actually scary enough.

Jesper (26m 2s):
And I was at a point in my life where I thought like, I don't need this. No, no, no, no. It is pretty scary. The rink, to be honest, but, but in the ring, people die from watching a videotape. Right. And it is well done and it is scary. But so here they have just replace the video tape with a website. So when you visit this website, then like, I don't know what 24 hours later. So I don't know. I have watched it, but I'm people buy and a, well, at least here, at least we can see like, if you align it with some Shangri tropes, if it works right. Because it got me into Christ. I mean, even either the title, it was so bad.

Jesper (26m 46s):
Like,

Autumn (26m 46s):
I mean

Jesper (26m 48s):
It, in the title, I was very skeptical when a sort of titled feared at calm was like, no, but then I could just see like the links back to the ring and stuff like that. It got me so far, at least are checking out. So it's just sorta like a, you know, on Amazon, if you can, if you can align yourself with some tropes in at least people will start checking it out. Of course, then you shouldn't have a shitty trailer like this one. And then people run away screaming from it. But yeah,

Autumn (27m 13s):
That's true. Good point to take away after your trailers. Yeah.

Jesper (27m 16s):
But since I haven't watched it myself, I collect it. Some words for it,

Autumn (27m 20s):
From the critics. Okay. Let's hear it.

Jesper (27m 23s):
This one is from the New York daily news. So it goes like this quote, the story, it's a mess. This is it. A proper and critic, right? The story, this is a, it's a mess. Some of the images are offensive. The acting on the par and the dialogue. Silly. Yeah.

Autumn (27m 45s):
Yeah.

Jesper (27m 45s):
And how about this one from Metro times, quote for you.com his full of inconsistencies and contradictions, but none are more than disturbing than the fact that not only, no, sorry, none are more disturbing than the fact that not a single policeman wears gloves at any of the crime scene scattered throughout the field in quotes.

Autumn (28m 12s):
Then my,

Jesper (28m 12s):
And then my favorite one is my personal favorite one. This is from us today. Quote, theater comm is a cinematic equivalent of spam in your head,

Autumn (28m 20s):
Email inbox hurt that I would not want that review EVER. That would be a painful, I feel kind of bad for the person who, you know, someone obviously love this and I don't know if they did, but yeah.

Jesper (28m 38s):
I mean, when he was so bad that the, even the trailers gets me off, then it had to go on my top five.

Autumn (28m 45s):
That's horrible. I know that it was pretty horrible, but you are going to love my number for it's just, okay, lets be ready. And I'm not sure if you can make it better than this, but let's try. So she says that I'll have sound, but this is, you know, I would have literally had to watch it. This was before trailers and SoundCloud clips and all that. But this is called the beast of hollow mountain. I think that's a title. That's a good title. And it sounds pretty good. Yeah. It's, it's got it. All. It is caught the lovable orphan boy who is trunk father who's eaten by the beast. It's got to love triangle for and by a Texas cowboy who, who falls for the wealthy Mexican girl, her patrol Don Rek.

Autumn (29m 29s):
Oh and the beast, which is the Tyrannosaurus Rex. Yeah. It didn't quite see that coming in. But in fact, this, this show we here, I think he was from the 1950s. It, it is

Jesper (29m 45s):
Well I'm in the movie. Is when is it set In? Is it it's a step in and the real world? Or was it like a fence as you posted

Autumn (29m 51s):
Is the real world, Texas sort of like the zero Zuora sort of like kind of a time period. That kind of a thing.

Jesper (29m 57s):
We have to run on a sec Rex in that. Okay. How did that go up there?

Autumn (30m 1s):
Yeah. Well it's this show is listed as the first film to show dinosaurs and Cowboys in the same picture. Right?

Jesper (30m 11s):
So how do you do to get that out to you?

Autumn (30m 14s):
I don't know, but it's fantastically horrible. And the plot it was talking to the plot is like a hundred percent based on state or tropes obviously. So you know, the good guy to Texas cowboy, he just loves the girl. The girl was being forced to marry this guy because our family says, you know, he was wealthy. It was one of the guy for you. And of course the man she's marrying is cruel and that this sweet little boy who, you know, he's has a trunk and he was trying to take care of them and be the adult. And his dad goes and gets eaten by this monster. And it was so sad As I haven't really looked at anything before I've watched it. And so I'm waiting on pins and needles thinking this beast or the mountain was going to be a dragon.

Autumn (30m 56s):
It had to give me a dragon. It was so excited and that it ends up being this dinosaur, which I agree. It, it makes no sense at all. It just there's this beast and the H how that ended up in the mountain. I don't know. But don't they never explain the best part. That was a special effect. So this is back in the era of stop motion on like clay animation, right. And features it has this crazy tongue. It's like, it's hilarious. It's constantly out of its mouth like this, like Medusa a snake. Oh, I had to wake up. Adam fell asleep for the switch. I had to wake him up and be like, yeah, I'll have to see this, this, this, no, no, no.

Jesper (31m 38s):
Oh, how cool of you? So you were waking them up to see the boy is shitty movie on your mind.

Autumn (31m 44s):
I see the, this tirade a source right now it's worth watching just four, but it was totally tropes to death. I had been all the way down, no surprises, except for obviously the dinosaur and the cowboy and the Mexican Dawn. But I mean, the cowboy tries to save his fiance, his girl, the woman who loves her fiance. Oh. Till he gets eaten. By the time you write a source Rex, but this made it to number four instead of lower, because it actually had, besides all the tropes won good plot points. One of the first scenes is that the ranger looking for some lost cows and the swamp, and then they actually end up coming back to the swamp in using this swamp, just stop the dinosaur.

Autumn (32m 27s):
It's like, Oh my God, they are so tired of that up. So that it was amazing that they typed it up. So I just buy this one, made it a number four. Otherwise Texan cowboy, missing ranch, hands,

Jesper (32m 41s):
Cows missing a love triangle. Orphan boy. It was so tropey, now that it's fantastic. Okay. But I have to deduct the 0.4, the fact that you would wake up your husband to look like to sleep and then your waking up to what is the most shitty stuff. But he was watching it with me and I don't think you can deduct a point unless we brought him in and asked him if it wasn't good or a bad, because he was laughing as we were, as I was looking at these yesterday, he was like, Oh my God. I remember that. So yeah. Will you say that?

Jesper (33m 22s):
I, yeah. Everybody can say that. I think it was fine, but Oh, but that one was actually not that bad for a really bad movie. Hmm. It was the special effects was just fantastic. I, I absolutely loved the door to source tongue. Oh yeah. Well, it was like a, the original King Kong and stuff like that. So it looks so bad the two, but it doesn't get in the movies too. I did not go back that far, but no, I didn't go back to that. Fight that because then you could have always, everything was shit. All right. Well that was my job, but so my next one.

Jesper (34m 4s):
Alright. You might actually recognize the voice in this clip. Okay. Okay. All right. Ready?

Audio Clip (34m 13s):
I learned the truth for a long time ago. Jennifer end of the dark is when the case for most of us alive, it's happening again?

Jesper (34m 28s):
Did you recognize the male voice? Oh, most, but he just couldn't quite catch it. It's Christmas later as I hear it now, but yeah. Okay. So which is this one? This is a, a lone in a dock. Oh, the one in the dark now I don't think I was sad. I swear one of the sentences, there is the exact same one that used the trailer for pitch black, which is visit. Yes. But that's a different, Okay. Anyway, this is a loan for the dock and I'm here to see where it's going to get slightly embarrassing. You know, you did watch this one. No, I did watch it.

Jesper (35m 7s):
Yes. But I have to admit how incredibly stupid. So this, this movie is based on the video game. Okay. So, so far so good. The only problem was that it is actually based on a different video game at night. I thought it was so I was really unprepared completely. So I went into this thinking that this was a movie on a video game That I love to play when I was a child, I really liked it. And then I started watching this movie and I was like, this makes no sense. I really don't understand how, how are they?

Jesper (35m 48s):
And it took me quite a while before I figured out that this is something completely different, just it was two different video games completely. And they have nothing to do with each other. But, and, and then I tried later on, I tried to figure out what, what what's that game called then? That I actually liked plating because I clearly remember it as it is called alone in a dark that game. But then when I looked alone or with the doc up on the internet, then I can see it's a different game. So it is not the same one, but I still haven't worked out what the, what the one that I wanted to watch was them. So I ended up watching this movie that has nothing to do with what I wanted.

Jesper (36m 32s):
Right. And I was in for the most shitty experience ever, because you're basically following like a supernatural detective who uncovers a long lost tribe who worshiped demons. And of course, demons are then attempting to reach into our world. OK. And our detectives can only stop them by acquiring the help of his ex ex-girlfriend. Of course, of course, because that's what you do. Well, see, that's why you shouldn't be broken up with her, you know? Yeah. So, yeah. You know what, I it's just, I just realized that basically my first three picks are horror movies that are, So let's say something.

Jesper (37m 20s):
I, well, horror movies, I think are hard to get right now. Yeah. It was just like the only thing that I can say, you don't want this movie. It, it is such a waste of time and it just to drive home the point. So listen to this quote, which is from the movie. Okay. Okay. And this is just to show us, she would do, this is a, So a bit of context. They are in a cave and the character to is going to speak here. I think it's a girlfriend, she's a pointing at some native American text on the wall into cave. Okay. And then she says, quote, it's a warning. It says, once you make it down here, live, you're already dead and quote.

Jesper (38m 4s):
It's just, I don't know. It was just like the most shitty dialogue I could. And I couldn't even make up something that's shitty. I did just that. It's all good. It was pretty much say it. I want to make it down here. Like if you're already dead, I mean, what the fuck are you talking about? That's impossible. Yeah. Hi. I guess its supposed to be frightening. What? I would have been like the grammar Nazi going. I don't know. I, I think he could reword this. Yeah. Oh my God. So bad. Please. Don't watch that movie. Well, I, I have, mine

Autumn (38m 37s):
Is not a horror movie. In fact mine is Fantasy. Yeah. I have fence coming up as well as good. I got to have in my list. So my number three is an ATAR, the fighting evil. Who have you ever heard of it? That

Jesper (38m 51s):
Sounds really bad.

Autumn (38m 55s):
It's the perfect trope. It starts the film opens or is this baby at star or who has a birth Mark? And so it means that someday it will, of course he will grow up to destroy the spider cold. And so can you, you know, there's this, it obviously this prophecy, so we got this prophecy baby birth Mark.

Jesper (39m 17s):
And that makes sense. Yeah.

Autumn (39m 19s):
So the high priest of the ancient one, he attempts to kill the baby's. So the birthmark is covered up and he sent off to live in a far away village where as he was growing up, he decided that he really actually is in love with a woman who's grown up at CES sister and he asked for permission to marry her. And that's what he finds out. It's not really a sister and he was adopted

Jesper (39m 41s):
And well, that was a very convenient,

Autumn (39m 44s):
This and that makes a fine, even though they grew up as siblings, I'm sure. No. Oh anyways. So in the home study setting, what can you do? Yeah, that's right teenagers. But you know, obviously the King finds out about it or it comes and how he feels his sister slash brother takes her back. And there's all these things like he finds this warrior again, another trope who was an enemy of this ancient source or that had Tara supposed to be the one to take down. So there's all of this law Amazons are in, there are this woman who is an Amazon and a woman who wins Hill and falls head over heels in love with them, but goes with them to rescue his wife, bride slash sister.

Autumn (40m 29s):
And she ends up dying, not the Sr the bride, she banks. It, it is so true. So convoluted, everyone's stereotypical your looking at the only good part was that, you know, what was the spider call? So there was a mess of spiders crawling all over and the, yeah. So the ancient one, the evil source, or was a pretty, it was kind of interesting, but it's, it's just pretty much, yeah. You can look to go through it and going, my head hurts. Hey,

Jesper (41m 1s):
How much can you just crawling in my head?

Autumn (41m 7s):
It was my head. Would've been better. I mean, if it had no direct Plott it just makes no sense, but he kept tripping over a things. And this word here is suppose to teach them how to fight and ends up actually having been working for the ancient world. It just, it was just, you're just finally going, just end it please.

Jesper (41m 26s):
He's put me out of my misery.

Autumn (41m 29s):
Why did you start this one? And yeah, if it wasn't him, you know, the robot's

Jesper (41m 34s):
A mystery science theater is sitting there groaning themselves. Yeah. You couldn't have made it through this one a lot. Oh my God. I don't understand why you want to so many good. If I am just masochistic, I guessed, I don't know what they were saying. That they were funny and they get better from here and go to the top two are just out of the park or I can't wait. Oh my God. Okay. Well I have two left. All right, let's go.

Jesper (42m 14s):
And this one is not horror. So this is what this one is. Well, it's Fantasy slash adventure. I would call it all right. Now you're paying attention. It's also the first movie and a series, which was actually one of my favorite series growing up. Okay. It was before streaming services. And I actually remember a friend on and myself. We went to a gas station just up the street back then. And then they had like displays have movies that you could rent. I think I remember a desk. There was a ton of them that was probably like 50 movies or something. That was probably It.

Jesper (42m 54s):
And you can shuffle through to them and find out what do you want it? And we rented THE, we had previously rented the first movie in this series and we really liked it. And then we got to this one with the second movie in this series. Okay. So see if you can get, guess what? This is

Audio Clip (43m 22s):
In the fall there's centuries bond burst. Nothing could have prepared them for an

Jesper (43m 31s):
It's just a way to say it. The quickening. It was just like, it sounds so bad. This is so eighties. It's incredible. Yeah, it is. It's a it's it's like, lets take a word and see if you can sell it. Say it in such a way. It sounds bad. Even though it was like the quickening. I mean, it sounds like what the heck they all came up with. So do you know what I mean? What movie does this? The quickening is like the subtitle of it that it's not ringing a bell. It's a Highlander to Oh, okay. Shoot at. It's been a long time. Yeah, indeed. I don't think honestly, I don't think I would enjoy Highland Highlander one today, but as a kid, but I loved it.

Jesper (44m 14s):
I thought it was still good that I was so cool. And all of that, you know, he, well, he was pretty gruesome, gruesome right in the cafeteria, the others. And then he got that powers. It's a pretty bad, but the way I loved it. And then we, we went to a, we rented this a, this a high level to, from the gas station and I was Probably like 14 years old or something. And we went home and what is it? And I hated it. Even back then as 14 years old, it was just like, it's a completely mindless story where the good guy fights the bad guy, but it's showing up it just because you don't, there is absolutely no point to it. There was nothing going on that that makes any meaning in this movie at all.

Jesper (44m 59s):
And it just makes no sense. And also it doesn't add anything to the story universe at all. I can, I can almost see it. It almost feels like somebody, you know, maybe the movie director or something went into the writers room, maybe at that point in time where they were all like brainstorming, what could this be? And then he just said, well, that sounds great. Let's take all of that. And we were just going to film It. No reason to no reason to change or any of them will just go straight with you as you have it here. It's it's like a complete mess. Oh my God. So you kill yourself. If you try to walk this way, because it's so bad.

Autumn (45m 42s):
I remember that from the eighties though. That's where the idea is that the second, you know, any of the sequels were always just like horrible. 'cause it's just like kind of like, Oh, some of like the first one that seemed to be a second one and they throw out everything was no sense, but it was not that surprising, But Oh, that is pretty. It is sad when they do something like that. Especially two where the first movie was it horrible though? Like you said, things had changed a little bit in since you were born.

Jesper (46m 9s):
I think it would be a horrible today, but you know, when I was like 13 or something, I don't know. I can remember a time when the first one came out probably a couple of years before, but 12, 13 years old or whatever, it was amazing, but they don't want us to the second one.

Autumn (46m 26s):
I'll keep that in mind. I mean, you have to remember it. So your, your closer in age to my husband. So I was a few years older and by that time I could drive and I don't know if I was watching bad movies at that time. Yeah.

Jesper (46m 38s):
I don't know. Maybe, you know, well then I'll go back and revisit it. Yeah.

Autumn (46m 43s):
Okay. Unless I really feel like watching bad movies, which like, if you've already agreed, I might be like for some strange reason, so bad that you're, you turn off your author brain and you just go, wow.

Jesper (46m 56s):
I hate it because I feel like I'm wasting my life is like, I'm never going to get this one and a half hours back. This is just a complete waste of life.

Autumn (47m 5s):
I understand. Alright, well that, you're going to love my number two. Then you are ready. This one is more scifi. It's like, yeah, it's called the daytime ended and a bad day. Well, let's say the whole movie fits into the note that was in Wikipedia about the name that the film was originally titled. Earth's final fury, which is, that's a pretty good title. Yeah, no, that was pretty cool. That was changed the vortex because they thought it would sell more tickets. And the final title, the day time ended, came around For no one knows why that's pretty much fits the movie

Jesper (47m 41s):
Except for the war Tech's title. The other two is for sure

Autumn (47m 45s):
That that's all fine, but I would not say that that would not sell it. So this one, the premise is this family, a young family, parents, two kids moved to the Sonoran desert, which was a very pretty desert. And then the other grandparents and these weird, it's a super Nova in conjunction sort of thing going on. And then those are the reports about UFO's or in the area. And the one daughter kind of has this telepathic connection to one of the aliens. And then the grandmother C is one overnight. Of course there's lots of screaming and running and they're terrified. And I think that they see the UFO was with a really horrible light's in the sky and they run outside. I remember the horses getting away as well.

Autumn (48m 26s):
There, we had a little ranch in all of the family hides over night in separate areas because they are terrified. And while they're outside hiding, there is actually these giant monsters that come through a reptilian thing and this other thing, and they're just battling it out in the snow and Derrick deserts. But then the UFL is come back and like lasers at the monsters and then the sunrises and everyone gets up and they walk and they're all together as a family. And they would look over in through the next Valley. And there's this weird futuristic city, which I actually didn't know until I read the plot on this one, that it actually is supposed to be like a thousand years until the future. I had no clue watching it. And then it adds with like the doctor saying that it's all going to be fine now.

Autumn (49m 11s):
That's it. Hey, when was this made? Is not as old as its sound. I might've been the 80th as well. So it would have

Jesper (49m 22s):
To go like special effects and stuff like

Autumn (49m 25s):
That as well. Really horrible. I mean the reptilian amphibious creatures that are fighting, I don't even know why they were there, where they came from, what they had to do with the little UFO's that are zapping through the walls and these a little space lights and people would freeze. And it's just

Jesper (49m 44s):
Sounds more confusing than anything. That's it? Like you even do it even explaining what it was about. You lost me a bit there, like, Oh yeah.

Autumn (49m 52s):
Oh, what are you? There is no sense. And like I said, until I actually read the description of it to remind myself what it was. I was like, I don't see how you go from Okay. To conjunctions aliens, reptilian, creatures fighting each other to the future. So I joke now I actually thought they ended up on the alien planet and they have been transported there. I chose blue what was going on in some really bad acting and really bad explaining. I, and even

Jesper (50m 28s):
When I think about horses and the desert, Alrighty, you should've been a clue, that's it? Yeah. That doesn't work very well for a range of situations. But yeah, no. So it's, that one was pretty painful. Not as bad as number one, but it was pretty. Yeah. Hmm. Okay. I think that one you had before, it sounded Western this one way to be honest, but Okay. So the final one on my list is also one way I loved the original, Okay. Is also one from my childhood. So it was probably not that good today if I watched it again, but I won't, but this is not a sequel.

Jesper (51m 10s):
This is a remake and it's from 2002. So C if you can guess what this is,

Audio Clip (51m 21s):
It's the world's number one phenomenon. I cruise. They just thought that you could just write it in. And three players, rules. The game told you this, the promised land two or three, two, one.

Jesper (51m 44s):
That was just somebody's laughing because he, I didn't know, he just slammed him into the ground or something. It might be a bit of tough one to guess if I was gonna say it, but it's going to be Eddie guests. I would just throw out mortal Kombat, but I have no idea. No. Okay. You want to just not too bad. We have a guest. It's a roller ball. All right. Well, I don't, haven't seen the first one or the remakes, so, okay. So tell me about this one. Yeah. So the original is from 1975. Wow. And I watched that when I was at a child and I really liked it. So rollable, it's this sort of extreme sport.

Jesper (52m 27s):
Okay. So they have like this metal bowl and they are on an oval pitch that just goes round and round. And then they were holding the walls where we have to put the middle ball into that. Just go to a point actually like a fun game. Oh, well, yeah. It's pretty crazy because they, they drive like motorcycles on the pitch and they, they, they hit each other. I think as far as I remember, they had weapons as well. So it's like, you, you, you can die from, to gaming. And that was why I loved it was so different and it was so cool. And then they had made all of this kind of special gear and, and stuff like they want to do. It was cool. And then in a 2002 and some morons decided to let's do a remake of that one.

Jesper (53m 10s):
Yeah. That was a good idea. Oh no, no. It's just, it's horrible. So you have, in this remake, you have entire scenes, which are basically serves. Absolutely no purpose. So I just want to be just one example. Here's this just tells me if you think that sounds like good story telling to you. Okay. So you have one character dragging another character across town to some sort of a apartment building to look for somebody who isn't there and you don't know why and the person they are looking for is never, ever mentioned again.

Autumn (53m 57s):
Wow.

Jesper (53m 58s):
Oh, look for somebody that you don't know who it is. And it's never mentioned again. And then they walk away again and you will be like,

Autumn (54m 6s):
Huh? Yeah, that doesn't, that it doesn't work for me. So that's,

Jesper (54m 10s):
But that, that's how these entire movie is, is just, wow. This is nothing in it. That makes any sense. I don't know if they were drunk or something when they make the script for it or is it just like Jesus Christ?

Autumn (54m 25s):
That's pointless plots. Just, Yeah. Pointless scenes get under my skin. So that would, I would not have made it through that one. I would've gotten up and done something else. I would've been like I'm right here.

Jesper (54m 39s):
That was five very terrible movie picks. Yeah.

Autumn (54m 42s):
Okay. All right. You're ready for him. My number one in the back to Fantasy for this one, this is called the wizards of the last kingdom. How's that for a title? I think also it sounds pretty cool. So I was excited when I saw this one on the mystery science theater. Cause you know yeah. But it sounds like, you know, if it doesn't have to be, this will be great. It was so brave, knowingly bad in a series of bad shows. I mean, it doesn't even have a spark that made me laugh. I was so disappointed and it will all of the one out of all of them. I remember this one, the least. So I actually had to look this one up quite a bit, but it starts nice. There is a peaceful kingdom of at home and there's a teenage boy, Simon.

Autumn (55m 24s):
Who's the son of the court wizard, the Kings wizard and this evil sorcerer convinces the queen two overthrow her husband, a name, the sourcer, the ruler. And so S the sourcer or the goods source, or, you know, a wizard census, you know, realize this is what's happening. And he is like, gives her sun this magic ring. It says, you must keep this at all costs and protect the princess. And of course the princess gets captured and what assignment do the sun? And he loses the ring like that first scene gone at it so that it starts, you know, it goes crazy. So Simon grows up, he meets this disgrace hero Corps who is going to help them rescue the princess.

Autumn (56m 10s):
But Simon ends up rescuing core half the time, even though Simon doesn't have a clue, has never shown any aptitude or any training in magic Ever until this point until he thrust on to the world that he knows nothing about. And so he still, he still saving the wizard. Its so bad that Simon somehow manages to raise the zombies of dead hero's to come help him rescue the princess. And the dead heroes gets so annoyed at Simon and they end up attacking him

Jesper (56m 40s):
Or he does sound pretty annoying, super

Autumn (56m 43s):
Annoying, everything goes horribly wrong. And they ended up getting some help. They managed to get the villagers to help them and they would go raid the castle. Simon manages to find the fricking missing ring that he dropped in the castle and has been in plain sight since day one. Even though the evil wizard can find it. Oh now the best part, the best part is then Simon with the ring now battles, the experienced, skilled, evil wizards. He was just lying there on the ground on it. I think it was like, I remember a glowing, like you had to see the glow. It was somewhere a slightly hidden, but it was like, you know, maybe in a suit of armor or something, it was so obviously is not going to where you want to be.

Autumn (57m 26s):
He would have dropped it. It was so stupid. But you know, the, the, the grand finale, this is between the special effects and Simon, the novice is fighting. This experienced Grandmaster, evil wizard and winning and winning the princess. It was just such a hit. I know I was so bad and this sums it up really well. This is by the writer Edna HA because I don't recall this movie with so much shot as it was beaten to death, when they whittled it down to what was useful from the footage, it only ran 58 minutes. Now, Roger, as a director had done a lot of sword and sorcery of films. So you told a couple of the editor's to pull all they could from them and edit that footage together.

Autumn (58m 9s):
So now the finished movie has a 15 to 20 minutes Prolo. The, it has nothing to do with the rest of the day.

Jesper (58m 17s):
So HA

Autumn (58m 17s):
So that's my number one to beat that.

Jesper (58m 22s):
And so you have like 20 minutes that has nothing to do with

Autumn (58m 27s):
Nope. There's just these people fighting and this pro log about what's going on. It's just, Oh, and then they get you in the movie and which was bad enough. And like I said, I mean, if all the things he drops the ring. Yeah. And maybe he should have dropped it out in the wilderness. Yeah.

Jesper (58m 42s):
We just did this run into theaters and stuff like that. Oh yeah.

Autumn (58m 46s):
I remember. I remember there was this whole, no, actually I was at a tar, had a huge issue about his and the name and going on blue Ray. I CA it was a little bit older. I don't know if it was in B rated theaters or something, but it was a civil, a movie and it had ratings. You can look it up on, I am. I can't remember what it's called, but you have to be, I am DB it's they're Oh my God. You know, it was, was it called me again? It was called the wizards of the lost kingdom. So I have, are you interested in this one now?

Jesper (59m 23s):
I have to look it up

Autumn (59m 24s):
So you'll have to look it up. And there was a sequel and I've watched the cul too. And that one will be even worse, but I don't want to go there. I can speak well, comparatively.

Jesper (59m 40s):
Oh my God. It has 2.8 out of 10 rating.

Autumn (59m 45s):
If I win this one with that moving, it is so horrible. It was bad. Tropes, bad acting. Just, just bad, so bad.

Jesper (59m 56s):
But, but how, how I still don't understand. So you are watching 20 minutes of a sort of intro stuff where people are just fighting. You have no idea what's going on.

Autumn (1h 0m 4s):
Well, if there were some voiceover saying previous, you know, the history of the kingdom, there was a war. Yes. And then this good King Rose and write it all the countries wrongs. And he has his Nobel wizard and the daughter and marriage and Oh, look, there's the evil wizard to once to overthrow everything for 20 minutes. Yeah.

Jesper (1h 0m 24s):
And then all of a sudden it just starts with something and, and he drops a ring in a silo or something. And then once off doing all kinds of things to figure it out, that it's right there. When he left in the beginning,

Autumn (1h 0m 38s):
Are they able sort of source who was taken over at the castle? Can't find it. Even though it was like, what's the point? I don't know if there was one other than the guy that wasn't evil, evil source or who took over. And there was Simon who want it to save everyone.

Jesper (1h 0m 56s):
And since I'm an idiot, but I mean, the people writing this must have had some sort of story. They want it to tell her something. I mean, what, what does this,

Autumn (1h 1m 5s):
I think he might be expecting too much of. I don't know. I would have to go and ask Edna HA who said, you know, it was the director's fault who turned it into the mush pit. Yeah.

Jesper (1h 1m 18s):
But they did it. Did they go in to the kindergarten and say, Hey, can any of your kid's to direct the movie for us?

Autumn (1h 1m 24s):
Probably. It was like, yeah, I can tell it is painful. And again, it, a lot of it comes down to the tropes and no plot. And it was so God, so stupid. I mean, if you're going to lose the magic ring seriously at the source or worse feet and you can't find it. And then the battle between the two of them and he wins, I'm sorry. He would have been toast like that. It just, no. So anyway, I think I won In it. It's true. I know what it is. Yeah. I think actually that might be the worst one.

Autumn (1h 2m 6s):
It was the worst out of 14. I'm really bad movie.

Jesper (1h 2m 10s):
It's a 20 minute intro. I just can't. I can't even imagine ever seeing it. I mean, all, all of these other movies that I had, they are really shitty, but they don't have 20 minute pointless intro for nothing. I mean, come on. That's incredible.

Autumn (1h 2m 24s):
It's a long enough to put it in theaters. That's incredible.

Jesper (1h 2m 30s):
Jesus, you mentioned those people buying a ticket, how upset they are going to be afterwords is just like, what the heck was this? Like you just paid for this shit.

Autumn (1h 2m 37s):
Yeah. And I was expecting a bad movie and I was disappointed because it was so bad. It wasn't even funny. I mean, some of the other ones we're like, Oh, you know, let's do shots every time they say this or something. This was just really bad.

Jesper (1h 2m 52s):
Okay. I'll give you this one. A even though I had to deduct points from you, you still can you stop the cost of you inside the cross? The finish line before me, it was like, I don't have made a major defeat. It's just a slight small one.

Autumn (1h 3m 6s):
Oh, well I will be gracious in my winnings. Yeah.

Jesper (1h 3m 10s):
I think they will probably put us at like 10 to one or something.

Autumn (1h 3m 15s):
Yeah, sure. Yeah. I have 10. And you have one. I understand that. Yeah.

Jesper (1h 3m 19s):
Oh no. But the other way around, because I'm sure we'd already caught it at 11 Podcast about alternating list. So I must be up at 10 to one. Now

Autumn (1h 3m 27s):
We'll have to go check out or the listener as you can let us know who's winning. I'm pretty sure it's me. Yeah.

Jesper (1h 3m 33s):
Can I trust them? Just this one? Yes. Yes. But the overall there's, there's a clear difference so that, yeah, we'll be back to this creation stuff again the next month. And then I will need to pull a win back home again. So, yeah, but I was wondering in closing off here, is there any like serious for just one second? Is there any serious learnings? One can take from all of this nightmare is shit that we had just been through.

Autumn (1h 4m 9s):
Don't use stereotypical characters. It's okay. If you use tropes, everyone uses tropes. You should break them or twist them. That helps make characters that are original. That's really where the heart of the story line. All of the ones that I listed had tropes, which is bad enough, but characters, I mean Texas cowboy, Mexican, Fiona, you know, a love interest Therese for her come up with a real characters that the reader is gonna care about. And if you want to have a love triangle, have a love triangle, just don't throw in the term in the store.

Jesper (1h 4m 45s):
Yeah. Yeah. And the trucks pull the audience in. So yeah. I mean, I think it proves that it works, right. I mean, if, if you align it with tropes, people will start checking it up. It's like, wow, this looks interesting because it's something that they recognize that it would work. It doesn't work. So please, please, please add something new and interesting. And please don't just rehash. What is already done as well. It does not make it any better. And I'm looking at new Marvel. Can you give a shit together?

Autumn (1h 5m 16s):
A little warning? If you have been warned,

Jesper (1h 5m 18s):
It was good enough. Okay, cool. Next Monday we we'll be back. And the way we will discuss something that is incredibly important, but often overlooked. And that's the mindset you need to adopt in order to self publish.

Narrator (1h 5m 35s):
If you'd like what? You just heard, that there's a few things you can do to support The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join Autumn and Jesper on patreon.com/ Am. Writing Fantasy for as little as a dollar a month. You'll get awesome rewards and keep The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast, going to stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 118 – 2021 Indie Publishing Predictions - with Mark Coker

What is in store for indie authors in 2021?

Join Autumn and special guest, Mark Coker, the CEO and founder of Smashwords as they discuss his predictions for 2021. There are some highs and some trends to be cautious of, as well as some new tools that might help you find your readers.

Check out the blog of Mark's predictions at https://blog.smashwords.com/2020/12/publishing2021.html and visit Smashwords at https://www.smashwords.com/.

Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday.  

SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST! Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review.  

Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy. For as little as a dollar a month, you’ll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going. 

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

Narrator (0s):
You're listening to The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast in today's Publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need a literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing. Join two best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them now on to the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt.

Autumn (29s):
Hello. Well, I am Autumn and today. Yes, Jesper is on a bit of a vacation. And instead I have a very special guest with me, Mark Coker, the CEO and founder of Smashwords a high Mark. Thank you so much for joining me here today to be here. Oh, I really, really appreciate it. I'll let you introduce me to be more of your background than I could have scraped off the web, if you would be so kind

Mark (57s):
As to how much do you want?

Autumn (59s):
Well, we have 45 minutes, but I think guests, you know, they might want us to get into, we're going to talk about your 20, 21 Publishing Predictions. So Hey, you know,

Mark (1m 9s):
Well, make it really quick. Okay. So the story of Smashwords. So I founded Smashwords about 13 years ago, it was born out of necessity. My wife and I had written a book together, my wife as a former reporter for soap opera, weekly magazine. So we wrote a Romana clef about the soap opera industry wrote it in a cabin in the woods in Vermont.

Autumn (1m 30s):
Oh no, no. We just felt it from a connection. Yeah.

Mark (1m 35s):
We were lucky enough to get represented by distal and got a rich in New York. So one of the top agency's they shopped around to all of the major publishers of commercial women's fiction twice for two years. And it just got nothing but rejection. And the, the only feedback that we got from the publisher's that, that you know, that they never tell you that your book's sucks or that your writing sucks. They just say, its it's not right for us. Or we don't know how to place it or whatever. The only feedback that we got was that previous novels that the targeted soap opera fans hadn't performed well. So they were, they weren't willing to take a chance on our work. And it was really disappointing to have the, the door shut in our faces.

Mark (2m 17s):
And I started thinking about the challenges that we were facing. We knew that, you know, we had already shown our Book to fans of soap operas, and we knew that fans of soap operas enjoyed our books, our book. So I started imagining, you know, there are probably a hundreds of thousands, millions of other writers, just like us who were unable to get a book deal simply because the publishers didn't see the commercial potential and their work. And I also started thinking, you know, commercial potential is the wrong way to value literature. It, you know, books are worth so much more than money. You can't measure them by money alone. And if we're only going to measure the value of a worth based on how many of the value of a book based on how many copies it can sell them.

Mark (2m 59s):
And then eventually we're just going to have nothing but celebrity books. And, and we don't want that. You know, I, I love diversity in Writing diversity in thought and umm, you know, what better way to, you know, to, to celebrate the diversity of humanity than to what anyone published. So I thought, you know, anybody in the world should be able to publish because at the time you could self publish video on YouTube, you know, 13 years ago, 14 years ago, you can self publish on a blog and you know, it, it was still, it was a contentious time. People thought, well how dare someone think they can be a reporter or a journalist on their blog or, or published on YouTube.

Mark (3m 39s):
But you know, those people were reaching massive audiences and, and some of them were commercializing this audience. So why not make it possible for any writer anywhere in the world to publish an e-book for free. And that was the Genesis of Smashwords. That's what we launched in early 2008. We're pretty much the first to market with it. Amazon launched their digital text platform, which is now KTP just a couple of months before us. So we were working on the same thing at the same time, you know, launched it a great time. We launched it at a time when eBooks were less than 1% of the overall book market had no idea that they were about to explode like they did.

Mark (4m 20s):
And so it was just this perfect storm, you know, in those first, early years of 2008, 2013, where the promise of self publishing met the, the, the, the advantages of digital distribution of eBooks because suddenly retailers could stock every single book, every single e-book. They wanted every single e-book from every self published author. And we were there at the beginning, knocking down those doors and opening up these major retailers to self published authors and once self published authors got mainstream distribution at Barnes and noble Sony, you know, Kobo, Apple, Amazon There, sales exploded now.

Mark (5m 5s):
And it completely changed how writers and how the industry views self publishing. Because 13 years ago there was a tremendous stigma around self publishing. Yeah. No one wanted to self publish now, you know, unless you are foolish really, and you really have to believe in yourself, right?

Autumn (5m 27s):
Yeah. Yeah. You're almost considered either a failure or your book was enough quality. All of that was a horrible thing to get over those people today don't even realize, right?

Mark (5m 36s):
No, it was a horrible time and, and writer's were the most vicious to their fellow writers, you know? And well, yeah, somewhat, sometimes, sometimes, but yeah, it was, it, it was a way back 13, 14 years ago. A if you self published, really your only option is to self publish was in print. Yeah. But without a traditional publisher supporting you, you, weren't going to be able to get bookstore distribution. And if you couldn't get into stores where people went to buy books, you are going to fail is a writer. And that's why most self published authors were failing. It wasn't necessarily because they were sucky writers or that they were vain.

Mark (6m 18s):
I mean, let's be honest, all Publishing his vein. Okay. That all Publishing this vanity. Yeah. You've got to be like, you, you believe that you've created something you believe that it's valuable to other people there's some vanity in that. So it was just admit it all. And, but yeah, but what we saw is that readers don't care for Book a self-published author. If it comes from a publisher, they just care about the quality of that author of the quality of the writing in the value that they are getting. So yeah, so everything changed, you know, very, very quickly in 2008, 2009, 2010, you know, we were there at a very exciting time and, you know, writers around the world were unleashed upon the world has published authors and you know, many of them didn't sell very much, but a few of them, the same authors that couldn't get a traditional publishing deal at the same authors that couldn't get an agent, you know, it started becoming international bestsellers, you know, in New York times, best sellers USA today, bestseller wall street, journal bestsellers.

Mark (7m 22s):
So it's an exciting, and every time there's a, a, a, a, an indie author who's successful, it really inspires the rest of us. It takes, it shows us that yes, you can self publish with pride, professionalism and commercial success. And so what else matters

Autumn (7m 37s):
Exactly to me, I, EVERY, and a lot of gurus and the advice in writing an industry, and I know you've in Britain read on your blog, you know, you have to define what success is for you. And to me, you know, but at the time this was released will have been released, but I'm actually releasing my 21st book on this coming Sunday. And I'm hearing back from the arch team. And I think these are already fans. So that's why I chose them to be part of my book launch. And to hear those are like, Oh, this is the best you've ever read or written. And, you know, it's a gripping. And you're like, we just love you all are going to have one reader say that to you, to me, that's success. And that is just, you can't get that if it wasn't for platforms like Smashwords, or, you know, Amazon and all the others, but, you know, full disclosure, I suppose I should have a full disclosure.

Autumn (8m 25s):
Right. I joined Smashwords. I did Amazon independently and I uploaded my debut novel, born of water to Smashwords in 2012. I'm almost 10 years old on the platform. So I am very excited. I've been with you, not since your beginning, but since my beginning is an author in my journey. And I think there is a Smashwords. I know that there's a lot of other platforms draft to digital is one that, you know, I think it's a very direct competitor since you act as a distributor. And so it draft to digital, but you know, to me, you offer it more benefits and I've kept all my books on. Smashwords not just because of the loyalty, because I love your message. And I love the feeling that you really care about authors, and you are an author, but I think of how far things are like coupons.

Autumn (9m 9s):
You've just started doing something else. I want to ask you about a pre release pre-sale feature is going to talk about that in a little bit. It's part of a, sort of your Predictions. So you have this really cool things that I don't know, any other platform where I can say, like, you know what, I'm going to give people who join my, read your list of 50% off coupon, or I'm going to give them a special free coupon too. It's just so cool. It's so easy. And I really appreciate the flexibility, the things that you can do on Smashwords that you really do not have control on any other platforms.

Mark (9m 43s):
Well, thanks. You know, I really appreciate that. You know, we've got a lot of, a lot of authors that have been with Smashwords for, you know, for 10 years or longer that still have not been introduced to. So, so many of these tools that we provide, yeah.

Autumn (9m 58s):
I have to admit that you have an on the questionnaire, a section, and I started filling in out, but I ain't never finished it so that

Mark (10m 6s):
You all through interviews

Autumn (10m 7s):
As I started mine. And I don't think I ever finished it and hit publish.

Mark (10m 11s):
Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, that was one of my mini wacky ideas. You know, my background is in public relations. I used to run a PR agency and, you know, in PR our job was to get our fortune 500 clients interviewed and the press that you, you know, you are always looking for a free press coverage. Everybody wants to be interviewed and tell their story. And, you know, authors are the same way. And I thought, well, wouldn't it be cool if we could just create this tool that would allow author's to interview themselves in and share the story behind the author. And so that's been really fun feature. I, I think we've had that feature for six or seven years now. Yeah. That's one of many features.

Mark (10m 51s):
And you mentioned Smashwords coupons. You know, that's something that we did very early on. I think we introduced Smashwords coupons maybe in 2009 and we've since expanded it. I mean, there's so many different coupon options that we offer. Now, nobody in the industry offers the, the breadth and depth and the flexibility. You can create any kind of custom coupon using these tools. And it's, it's fun to see.

Autumn (11m 17s):
Yeah, it is fun to see her. I bet to see them being used and this and that would be needed to be a reason. You have a reader, it talk to you as an author, but to have all of these authors using your platform and making sales and making connections must be amazing.

Mark (11m 34s):
Yeah. You know, I can't, I still can't believe that Smashwords became what it did. Yeah. I can't believe that like a 150,000 authors around the world are using us. I can't believe that we've got like 550,000 books. Yeah. And, and, you know, lots of things have changed. Like you mentioned that we have competitors now. I mean, there are dozens, really hundreds of Smashwords clones out there. Now, there, there are just so many different ways to get your books out. Its pretty confusing for providers, especially new writers because sometimes too much choice is paralyzing.

Autumn (12m 20s):
I totally agree. I was very helpful because it kind of cutting things out really easy to say, Okay know meat. Oh, well that's three options I can too. Right.

Mark (12m 32s):
Yeah. Well, I, I just feel like, you know, when I, I just imagined new writers coming onto the scene now and it must, they must feel like I feel when I go to the grocery store to buy laundry detergent, you know, how do you choose there? There's, there's 30 different brands and different types and they all kind of do the same thing and they all clean clothes. So how do I choose? I mean, often I'll go to buy laundry detergent and I see too much choice and I just don't buy anything. And I said that, I see that happening with a lot of authors that they, they just get so paralyzed by the complexity what's involved in becoming a self published businessperson, you know, often the, It put, it makes them vulnerable to making poor decisions, to falling victim to predators.

Autumn (13m 21s):
Oh yeah. That is horribly true. Unfortunately there's too many services. I mean working as a writing coach and we offer some courses or the Am Writing Fantasy and we try to be very upfront about what we offer, but the other side of it, that people who are predatory on new authors and basically they they're stealing like author's dreams. Sometimes they make it to the point where the author gives up and I just,

Mark (13m 47s):
Oh totally. Oh yeah. It, yeah. It makes me really mad when I, yeah. When you talk about dreams being stolen, that's exactly what's happening. You know, a writer may spend their entire life dreaming of writing a book and then they finally get to the point where they make the commitment to do it and complete it. And to have someone take advantage of them at that very moment when they're most vulnerable, when they're first learning and, and basically just parasitize the opportunity. It's, it's really sad to see. That's why education is so important.

Mark (14m 27s):
Definitely. And that's why, you know, in the author's need to look out for their fellow Indies.

Autumn (14m 33s):
That's why I think groups in that there are some benefits of social media in some of the platforms as much as it was sometimes. So yeah, but we can support each other and send out tips and warnings a to let you know, you know, don't listen to this water and you know, don't you ask for advice on 'cause otherwise you can end up in definitely the wrong spot and lose a lot of hard work or at least the passion you had because of that can really just suck it away. Now I did. I don't know if you noticed this, but I did think of it at Amazon recently rolled out that authors actually allow you to control your series. You guys that's been on your platform since I think I uploaded my first book in a series, I stopped that and be like, Oh, they're copying you guys.

Autumn (15m 19s):
Yeah, yeah,

Mark (15m 20s):
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, I've used to, I can say I enjoy it. You know, we have invented many things it's Smashwords and then it just gets copied. Many of these innovations just get copied. Umm, you know, it's one of the reasons that, you know, for the first time ever, we filed for a patent for the Smashwords pre-sales tool that you mentioned. Yeah.

Autumn (15m 46s):
That's a good idea. You guys deserve it because I feel like I said, I have stuck around and I think you guys have a lot of integrity and you have a lot of feeling and you truly care about authors, which is fantastic. And part of what you do. So every year, I believe from what looking back, you do these Publishing Predictions and then you do a follow-up post at the end of the year. So this year you did 13 of them. And I know it hit home for me because like looking at 'em how you talked about Facebook, Amazon and Google solidifying their platforms really because of COVID they became, these monster is in 2020. And you looked at that and that really hit home for me, especially cause like I've mentioned that it was organizing this arc team and I had one reader who's been with me for, I think almost the whole time.

Autumn (16m 30s):
And she was like, well, I would love to join the launch team, but you probably want reviews for Amazon. And you know, I, for whatever reason I didn't ask you, you can't do reviews on Amazon. And I'm like, no, you know, the whole point of this is not to put more money in the number one, the, most of the world's most richest man's pocket. I'm like, you can, you can push on good reads, which is technically still owned by Amazon. You can post it on your blog. And so yeah, she is on my, on my launch team because its not all about just Amazon and they thought it was so interesting though. You talked about how these big places became massive in 2020 and that's how you began your Predictions.

Mark (17m 10s):
Yeah. You know, it, it's really interesting to see, you know, I had spent a lot of time last year as everyone else did thinking about the pandemic and you know, I, I like to think about how what's happening today is going to impact the world, you know, one, two, five, 10, 20 years from now. Yeah. And, and it's also fun to stick, to sit back and think about some of the big macro trends that are powering forward in like, like a, like a storm I'm just carrying us in the wind. And, and so, you know, eCommerce is a really big trends that, you know, people are moving online, doing more of their transactions online, more of there, not just socializing online, but they are purchasing And, and entertainment online.

Mark (18m 1s):
So things have been moving to the online space for a long time, but what we saw and, and we've also seen consolidation over the last 10, 15 years around a couple of really big tech platforms, you know, Amazon, Google, Facebook, and what what's really coming to light now in a w is that the pandemic and the lockdowns accelerated the consolidation around these few large companies and each of these large companies mediates the relationship between the writer and the writer's audience.

Mark (18m 43s):
They are the new gatekeepers. They determine which readers can see your book, which readers can consider your book. So if you, if you, if your marketing on Facebook, you got to pay them. You know, even if you have built up your own organic social media platform there, you've got to pay them now to reach your audience. If you're Publishing at Amazon and Amazon is now pay-to-play, they have so much power and the business they determine which books are seen in which art in the books that are seen are either of the exclusive books under KDP select or books published by the Amazon imprints or books where the author is willing to pay.

Mark (19m 27s):
The tax are a tole in the form of Amazon advertising to basically trap all the platforms of other authors. Because that's the, that's the way that, I mean the, the way Amazon advertising is set up, it's very nefarious because basically when you pay to advertise, you are paying to trample and other authors brand. Yeah. Yeah. You're definitely onto their coattails and holding on. Yeah. Like you can go to jail Amazon right now type in your pen name and the first four results are going to be for other authors. Yeah. Yes. That is a huge, yes.

Mark (20m 8s):
That is a huge disservice to your readers because you know, your readers are looking for books by you. All right. All right. But the first results that come up are a sponsored ads from other authors. So your readers are confused and being diverted away from you, even though they're looking for from you. So that's, that's a, that's a pretty toxic caustic, umm, you know, system long term. And we're seeing that it's, it's basically going to suck the profits out of Publishing and make them more pay to play. So you don't have to pay Amazon to publish there. But if you want to be seen, these are the, yeah, these are the toll Gates that Amazon's putting up.

Mark (20m 47s):
So, you know, author's need to be concerned about this. You know, authors are losing their independence, they're losing their ability to control their own destinies. And it's because you've got to have a few very strong, platform's have consolidated their power are consolidated, their market reach and the case of Amazon. Umm, you know, they, they control the world's largest collection of ebook buyers. Yeah.

Autumn (21m 14s):
A very powerful search engine that everyone likes to say is just so good. But like you said, what's the purpose of the best surgeon and you can run wen now it's bringing up only Amazon, you know, ad's that people are paying there. Yeah.

Mark (21m 28s):
Yeah. I think what we've seen with Amazon over the last 13 years is we went from, or they went from really a brilliantly architected search system where books that were selling best and being reviewed the best buy readers would bubble up and become more visible. That, that to me is an example of a good search, good organic discovery. But what they've been doing over the years, you know, every single year or they make little policy tweeks that all have the effect of, of, of putting up barriers, right. Making the search results. When I talked about this in the Predictions going from organic inorganic and no, no one's ever referred to a search algorithms as organic or inorganic or well I guess organic, they have, but in organic, I mean that these are artificial constructs that Amazon has created.

Mark (22m 21s):
So they're not, they're not recommending books to readers because that's the book that the reader will satisfy the reader the most or that the book that the reader is looking for, they are recommending books that benefit Amazon, the most books that cost Amazon less books were Amazon could pay the author of a loyal or a lower royalty or book's where they can pay in an effective Loyall and effectively lower royalty 'cause in order for you to get that 70% you had to pay, you know, a whole bunch of money in an Amazon advertising. So your effective royalty rate is not 70% any more at Amazon. If you are using their tools. You know, if you're in KDP, select the are exclusive, the cost to you is you don't get to distribute anywhere else.

Mark (23m 6s):
And then there's a cost to That. And these are the costs that are difficult to manage it. You said to measure it.

Autumn (23m 13s):
That's one of the things that you talked about with KDP select and even COBA select, which I haven't even thought of, but the subscription services. I mean, what that is, you talk, you talked about how that is really dragging down the royalty for all author's because we are going to start getting used to less and less.

Mark (23m 30s):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It, it concerns me that authors are so quick to take less.

Autumn (23m 37s):
I am. And I had thought of it that way until I read how you had written it. And I'm like, you're right where it's like, we are so desperate for readers that we're willing say here's our book for free or you know, for just pennies pennies for what other people would normally pay to read.

Mark (23m 51s):
Yeah. I, I just wrote a story of the other day. I forgot the name of the company. It just brought in $16 million and venture funding. Oh well They're paying author's 25% list of authors who signed contracts with them, you know, authors. It, it concerns me that so many authors are willing to work for free.

Autumn (24m 21s):
And

Mark (24m 23s):
You know, I, and, and to work for Les in exchange for readership, I mean, you talked earlier about what it feels like to, to receive those appellations from your readers, because that's really why we write. We wrote, we write to touch people and to change the world. And that's where most writers are coming from a there's a lot, there just a higher purpose. And, and so, you know, Amazon understands that writers write for reasons that are different than traditional publishers publish traditional publishers are publishing because their running a business to make money. It it's not that traditional publishers or bad people, they're all Book lovers to, But the business and the nature of the business itself is there.

Mark (25m 4s):
They are. They have to make money to keep the lights on authors who are working from home, who might have other sources of income or who just love to write because there are artists want to express themselves

Autumn (25m 17s):
Addicted to it as well.

Mark (25m 20s):
Well look, I, I think, I think art is one of the most noble pursuits anyone can pursue. Yep. All right. This is art and it's, it's not the most lucrative job. This is not a job. This is not a career that you follow to make a lot of money. You know, I've, I've been telling people since I first found out Smashwords, if you want to make a lot of money, go get a job at McDonald's you'll make more, most authors will make more working. Full-time at McDonald's than they will as a self published author. You've got to be doing this for reasons other than money. But if you're smart, you can do it for the love of writing, but still make money. And

Autumn (25m 57s):
That's. Yeah.

Mark (25m 59s):
And that that's that's, you know, the advice that I try to give authors, you know, a lot of the advice that we share is focused on, you know, evergreen best practices, things that we'll help you achieve all of your dreams, help you reach reader's help you touch your readers, but also help you earn some income because you deserve it right now. But in order for an author to maximize their opportunity, they need to approach it like a smart business person. And that's where the education comes in because we're not all naturally business people, you know, writers come from all walks, you know, like someone who studied art in college and studied business like I did,

Autumn (26m 43s):
Did the, so I get it. You know, I know if I could rewrite, if I could redo the entire educational system, every a part of high school would be money management and business classes, because almost everyone has a side gig. Aside had a passion that they are developing on the side. They're going to start their own little business at some point, whether it's mowing lawns or writing a book, we all should have those basics, market marketing and business expense ideas. Yeah,

Mark (27m 12s):
Yeah, yeah. That would be, that would be awesome if they would introduce that into like the high school curriculum, financial literacy, because you know, if you don't understand the language, you don't understand the terms or the concepts, then you get victimized by it.

Autumn (27m 31s):
Exactly. Definitely. But you did. So we have, you know, you have these, these trends where, and you even mentioned that there's a lot of platforms and you said we've had some consolidation, but you think even some of these duplicates in all of these there's thousands of places you can sell your books. Do you think some of those might be slowly fading it maybe in 2021?

Mark (27m 54s):
Yeah. I, I think we are going to see continued consolidation in Publishing and, And from multiple areas. So we've already got the, the pending acquisition of Simon and Schuster by penguin, random house, assuming that it goes through it, it may not go through if the government takes a close look at that because too much consolidation and the publishing industry starts creating an anti-competitive environment. That's not good for other publishers and not good for consumers. So we'll see if that goes through, but there's definitely a strong, a momentum towards further consolidation in Publishing among publishers' to reach, you know what?

Mark (28m 36s):
This is, it's in a, in a Publishing, it's a slow growth business and that's been generous calling Publishing a growth business. It, it, it, it, it's probably a flat to down business overall for publishing, especially if you account for inflation over the last 15 years, a the growth has been really minimal. So it, it's not a high-growth business, all of Publishing. So there, there, there will be more consolidation pressure among the publishers is going to be tougher for a smaller, independent publishers, two stay in business because there's just so much competition now.

Mark (29m 17s):
And, and, you know, the eBooks changed the dynamics of the competition as well in the old world of print publishers where maybe putting out 300,000 books a year and bookstores, you know, even in a large bookstore might only be able to hold 50,000 titles and inventory. So books were constantly being pushed out of print. There was always a limited supply of books controlled by the publishers, but now there's an unlimited supply of books, thanks to eBooks. Excuse me. And these books never go out of print. Yes. So they, they, you know, I've referred many times in the past to them as like cobwebs have stainless steel, they're going to be on the shelves forever. The retailer wants to carry your Book. Even if you don't sell a single copy in a year, they want to carry your Book.

Mark (29m 59s):
They want it on a shelf because they know that they recognize that there are readers value diversity and the discoverability have as many different titles as possible, but that, that creates pressures for the authors pressures for the publishers. And then when you look at the retailing space, I mean, it, we've already seen, you know, Barnes and noble, Apple Kobo. They are, those retailers have suffered over the last five years.

Autumn (30m 28s):
So even though, even though the books are becoming more popular, you think the publisher, they are not making enough money off of them, or why are they suffering?

Mark (30m 37s):
Because the, the store, I think the story is probably a little bit unique for each of them, but at Barnes and noble, which was an early pioneer in e-books would the nook. And for a while, there was one of the largest sellers of any books after Amazon, they've been in a long term decline, they are losing customers to Amazon and self publishing. And then the authors have had a big hand in that, you know, every time an author decides to make their ebook exclusive to Amazon for a period of three months, that's a vote to put all the other retailers out of business.

Mark (31m 17s):
So there are millions of readers every single year that can't buy the books they want to buy at Barnes and noble or Apple or Cobo or Smashwords. And they are forced to go to the Amazon if they want that Book. And so eventually, you know, all of these different retailers start losing their customers. It makes it more difficult for them too, to, to, to the great things they do for authors. It makes it difficult for them to operate their businesses. That makes it difficult for them to continue to invest in an effort to invest in innovation. And, and so it becomes death by a thousand cuts. And so I started talking about this back in 2011, when they first announced KDP select, and this would be the long term implication is that you're going to slowly starved these retailers, have their customers reduce the ability to compete.

Mark (32m 10s):
What happened, Sony, an early pioneer and the Book retailing left that market Barnes and noble, his, his, you know, a shadow of their former self Cobos, not as significant as they were in the past. And they're still a significant player. You know, Apple is not as significant as they were in the past. I hate to say, and I love Apple. I mean, I love all of these retailers. I even love Amazon. I mean, every single retailer has the opportunity to do good in the world, by introducing they're customers to your book's, that's the way the world should be is the more retailers out there. The more Book is waking up every morning, it spending their sour time thinking about how can I introduce more readers, two more books that I love that that creates and, and an amazing opportunities for authors publishers for Book culture, you know, the more booksellers out there in the world, the better, but as it is right now, if you want to start an ebook startup, you really don't have a snowball's chance in hell.

Mark (33m 18s):
No, you know, you can't well, if it it's really difficult, unless you're able to get, you know, $15 million in venture capital money and you're willing to lose millions of dollars to get started. And even then it's no guaranteed because when you look at what's important to readers, readers, value, selection, and price, selection, and price, they're like to have the biggest or most important factors in convenience too. But every one of the offers, good convenience, thanks to KDP. Select Amazon is always going to have, you know, somewhere between 1 million in however many books that they have exclusive that Amazon, I don't know what it is.

Mark (34m 4s):
It might be 3 million books are exclusive at Amazon. Now, I don't know. So that's 3 million reasons that you can't shop anywhere else if you want to buy these books. So, you know, that, that that's, that's some of what's happening is these are the things that don't happen overnight. They happen slowly over time, drip, drip, drip, the, the lifeblood of these retailers is slowly being pulled away. So like, let's say you want to, let's, let's say you love Fantasy, and you want to launch an ebook store that specializes in Fantasy, and you're going to do the best job of curating FANTASY and offer the best possible selection and great prices. You're going to serve your Fantasy customers better than anyone else, but you can't get the inventory to serve your customers because it's locked up at Amazon exclusively.

Mark (34m 52s):
So you don't have a snowball's chance in hell of building a successful business. And if you do your just barely going to scrape by the, the, the, the, the playing field right now is not level for, you know, entrepreneur entrepreneurs. And, and that's not a good thing, because we want that innovation and Publishing. You want to see dozens of new Publishing startups starting every single year, bringing new ideas to market. But, but as it is right now, I mean, most venture capitalists don't even wanna talk to people that, that wanna launch a business that is going to compete against Amazon or launch a business that Amazon might enter overnight.

Mark (35m 34s):
Maybe they've already seen at Amazon announced that they're gonna enter a market and all of the other companies and that market plunge.

Autumn (35m 42s):
That's true. Okay. Well, I think that's a, do you have some really good predictions that are helpful? And I also wanna talk about the things that authors can do. So you'd said reading because of the COVID because of the lockdown, because the cancellation of the Trump's show or a reading is still going to be popular in 2021. And I think that's, that's important Book sale Book, whether its sales or giveaways or whatever we're doing, people are still hungry for books, but what we as authors to do, what can we do? So you don't, I think a lot of authors don't realize that AMS ads running these ads are also cutting into our royalty. There are a bottom line, what are things we can do that we can help reverse these trends?

Autumn (36m 24s):
Obviously don't go hit KDB, select publish wide is definitely one of them, but what else can authors do to try to reach readers' and support a healthy market place where discoverability and a passion for reading is the most important thing, right?

Mark (36m 41s):
Yeah. Well, okay. So it, it starts with resisting this siren call of going to exclusive at Amazon, right? And I realized that is difficult for a lot of authors, but that's the first step. So just SUPPORT as many different retailers as possible with your books. So get your books at all the different retailers on your website, in your blog. And when you promote your books, list links to the different retailers, let the reader decide which retailer they want to shop out. Give them the options that is really important. You earlier, we talked about, you know, the, the, the consolidation and the dark side of that. Well, there is a solution to that.

Mark (37m 21s):
There is a hopeful solution to that, and it's in the hands of authors. It's more important than ever for authors to build a platform that they control so that their relationship with readers is no longer mediated by some third party, by some retailer, by some marketing platform. So the author mailing list, the private mailing list, I think that his, you know, I've, I've been beating this drum for a long time, but I think that should be every author. His biggest priority for the year ahead is every single reader you have out there, your thousands of readers, you want every single one of them signed up for your mailing list. It's not enough for them to be following you on Twitter and Facebook, because they're not seeing most of what you're putting out there on Twitter.

Mark (38m 5s):
And Facebook is only going to see a small fraction of it. But if, if you can get them on your mailing list, you control the message. You deliver the message to them when you want, and your readers will never miss another release of yours. So that, that, that's just really important in the, you know, that it fits in with what we're doing with Smashwords presales.

Autumn (38m 27s):
Let's talk about it. So you've just launched. This I've even tried it out, but I did, I did get the email now that my book is like a week away saying, Hey, we want to try it out the pre-sale, but I actually do presales on my own website with the sort of what you're suggesting, but this is something that other authors who aren't set up to celebrate off their own website. This is a whole new feature. And it's really exciting. Yeah.

Mark (38m 48s):
Yeah. And even if you are already selling off of your own website, you might still want to consider using this tool. So let's talk about what this tool is. You know, a lot of people don't even know what pre-orders are. Right. You know, when we talk about, when we talk about best practices, you know, we've been talking about preorders. This is one of the most important best practices for the last eight or nine years. Yeah. About 85% of self published authors. Don't do pre-orders. Even though, even though authors who do pre-orders sell a lot more books than author's who don't like, pre-orders are still one of the biggest secrets to selling more books.

Mark (39m 33s):
And it, it boggles my mind that most authors it's, every single author, you know, like listeners today, if you only take one thing away from this, do a preorder, look at your Publishing calender for the next 12 months, get everything up on preorder. Now you don't even need a cover. You don't even need a final manuscript. You can get that preorder listing up that all the major retailers. So you can start collecting orders. Now it gives you more shelf space for longer. So do a pre order. So with a pre-order for authors who are familiar with them since most aren't a pre-order allows your customer to basically place an order reservation for your book when it comes out in the future.

Mark (40m 17s):
So your book has a future release state, the customer place's the reservation with a preorder. And then when the book releases on its public release state, that book automatically appears in their library at the retailer on their device. And the credit card is charged. So that's a pre-order customers love pre-orders. The presale is different. Yes. So a pre-sale where the pre-order, you've got a single public announcement that a public release date across all the different retailers with a presale, you're doing an early exclusive, early release. So you're just, you're deciding to let certain customers have early access to your book.

Mark (40m 57s):
The power of a presale for an indie author is that customers value timeliness, especially your biggest fans. If they can read your book even a week or even a day before every one else, they're going to lose their minds in a good way.

Autumn (41m 20s):
Yes. They're so excited that you want. Yeah,

Mark (41m 22s):
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, your job is to please your readers and the readers who will be most pleased by a presale are going to be your super fans. You're the most important readers, because it's a way for you to, Hey, super fans. I'm going to let you read my book early and it's going to make them enjoy the book more. It's going to make them wanna talk about your book more to their friends. It's all good. And so we built a system it's Smashwords and this is it's called Smashwords presales and it, his patent pending. So we file the patent for it. It was just fantastic that that allows any author. Who's doing a pre-order at Smashwords to also do a presale, and you can do a, either a public presale. So it's merchandised in this Smashwords store where you can do a private pre-sale, where are you might decide, okay.

Mark (42m 8s):
I am going to control who has an early access to my book. And I want to say, for example, I only want to offer access to subscribers, to my private newsletter and as a perk, as my thank you to all of these readers who signed up for my private mailing lists, I'm going to give them exclusive early access to my new release. You know, I'm gonna let them buy it at two days early or one day early or a week early. It doesn't matter. It's going to be early and the readers are going to lose their mind. So that's what you can do. And then it, and so this is a, this is a chance for authors, I think, to retake their platform.

Mark (42m 49s):
Now, currently, no retailer, if you sell your e-book is going to tell, give you the e-mail address of that customer. All right. Well, that changed with Smashwords. Pre-sales when we launched it a little over a year ago. So now anyone who is purchasing your pre-sale is going to be given the option to subscribe to your private mailing list. And if they subscribe to it, if they give Smashwords permission to share their email address with you, the author, then we will share that e-mail address with you, THE author for that pre-cell. And let's say that it it's more important to you than anything to get as many readers onto your private mailing list.

Mark (43m 36s):
You can even offer as part of this Smashwords pre-sales Toole. You can offer it to a special incentive for the, for the reader to agree, to share their email address with you, like, you know, a discount then all of that can be done within the tool in a lot of the people who are using the pre-sales tool or doing that, they're offering like a dollar off $2 off to really encourage the customer to click the box to say, yeah, you have my permission signed me up for this author's private newsletter.

Autumn (44m 10s):
This is a really brilliant, and one that you are doing it and how it's working. That's really fascinating. And yeah,

Mark (44m 17s):
Got it up. You know, we're, we're, we're big into privacy at Smashwords and, you know, respecting people's email addresses. So we, we set it up so that in order for an author to even use that feature of capturing the email addresses, they have to agree to some very simple, best practices of how they're going to handle this customers email address. Yeah. Yeah. But it's just basic stuff. Like you're not going to sell our rent that email, or you're just going to use it for your own mailing list. So yeah, it's a really, it's a really cool tool that I think is going to help put a lot of the power back into the hands of indie authors, I think.

Mark (44m 57s):
And this is a lot more than that we can say, Oh, I was just gonna say, and then there's a lot more that we'll be doing with it at Smashwords.

Autumn (45m 5s):
Oh, excellent. I guess in between the coupons in the pre-sale, if someone's not sure if they should try it out, Smashwords it's just a, they might have heard rumors about the old meat grinder process and the stuff, but I we'll get into that with some other time. It's not scary. I've been doing this for almost 10 years. It's a fantastic platform. So Grindr is infamous. It is. I have to admit when you started taking any public though, and because I use velum and I haven't, there's a beautiful, it's fine. If it's not a problem. Yeah.

Mark (45m 39s):
We've been taking the time, you know, author produced for eight years. Yep. I still see people online complaining that, you know, Smashwords makes me do Microsoft word. No, no, we don't.

Autumn (45m 53s):
You

Mark (45m 53s):
Could say it's your ebook your way. So you can upload word. Most authors still do word for word is a great tool because that you upload that single file, that single word file. And we produce it into multiple ebook file types, and word is easy to control, but you know, vellum was great too. So if you use vellum use vellum.

Autumn (46m 15s):
Yeah. It works. And they get out to all the stories, your still my distributor. And I can go into my dashboard and see all my sales across all of the distribution in like daily sales is the one shot deal. It's, it's so convenient that it's crazy not to be trying this with somebody. And I think you guys have the cornerstone in innovation. So I am glad, I'm glad you were still coming up with these new ideas and that you're patenting them so that Amazon and other places will just steal them away from you anymore.

Mark (46m 45s):
Well, you know, we are trying to patent it, so it, it's not easy to get a patent, especially as a patent like this, it it's, you know, because it touches a lot of things. It doesn't just touch eBooks. Right. It touches anything sold online and

Autumn (47m 3s):
That's fine. Yeah. Well,

Mark (47m 5s):
Yeah. So, you know, we, we have been going back and forth with the us patent office and I, I don't know if we are going to get it are not, you know, I'm still got my fingers crossed, but you know, our hope is that once we get the patent, we want to license this broadly. We want everyone using it. We want our competitor's using it. We're going to make it. You know, I, I think it's really going to help level the playing field for indie authors. If more in the author's can start using this and taking the power back because with the pre-sale you decided you, you get to it, you get to basically a harness, the power or the anticipation That of, you know, thousands of readers dying to get your next release.

Mark (47m 52s):
You get to trade that anticipation for something that benefits you the author. And that's the ability for you to build your platform, to sell your book at a higher royalty rate, because, you know, at the Smashwords store pays up to 80% list. You know, a lot of people don't realize that no, it was in 99 cent books often earn 80% list. If there's enough books in the customer's shopping cart, you know, there's really no reason not to do it. So it's, it's exciting to see, you know, the early adopters experimenting with it and doing new things with it.

Autumn (48m 28s):
Well, I think that I still have a few days till my release. Maybe I won't go put this in. I didn't realize that you can get the e-mail list or email address. So I might go give this a go tonight. Yeah.

Mark (48m 40s):
Yeah. So, you know it, if you think about it, I don't know how many people you have following you on Facebook or Twitter, or it might be thousands. Those are soft followers and get them to your opportunity is to convert all of those soft followers into a hard followers on your private mailing list so that you can reach them so that the tool will help them.

Autumn (49m 7s):
No, that's perfect. Well, thank you. I mean, we've almost been two an hour, 50 minutes, so I don't want to take up all of your time. You're CEO of a very well, to me, a very important company.

Mark (49m 17s):
That's a highfalutin title.

Autumn (49m 19s):
Well, that's all, I think it's important that I love what you, I love that what you're doing for in the author's that you have Smashwords, But that there's someone out they're fighting, basically for all of the, you're an author. You need to have our voices heard to take back. Like you said, the power of what other places are trying to claim. I mean, you only make so much money off of a book. I'm happy that over time, you know, in the books have gone for like two 99. So they average price the four 99, five 99, but that's done now how much time for books that can take months and months and months too. Right? So it's nice that there's someone fighting for higher royalties for us to keep control of our careers at the, of what really is the heart of the indie author movement, which has us controlling our fate.

Mark (50m 4s):
Well, it certainly what we fight For, and we need to see more indie authors fight for it as well. Because, you know, we talked earlier that many of the authors that will willingly surrender their independence to give it up, they'll surrender royalty rates, they'll surrender their ability to price their own books. There are certain they'll surrender their rights, all exchange for the promise of more visibility. And it's M it's a slippery slope. You know, we talked about the valuation. There is massive devaluation pressure out there because there is a glut of high quality books on the market. And, and so it creates a situation where someone like Amazon can take advantage of that glut.

Mark (50m 49s):
And that's exactly what they're doing. They've decided to, you know, create a tiered market. And there are certain authors that play by certain rules that can get the visibility. And those are the authors where Amazon pays less and it's all pretty transparent,

Autumn (51m 11s):
But yeah, I think that's a good way of putting it in. And I like it. I said, I think that is fantastic that you are fighting for the Indy author and try to wake us up when you start, you know, you get tied up lid and try to do sales and try to generate, you know, reading, like you said, trading in for readers are taking the lower royalty to get better exposure to remembering what the bigger picture is and what the whole market is. Like I said, I did an art degree are an English degree, not marketing. So it's important that someone is speaking about the other side.

Mark (51m 42s):
Yeah. And also, you know, I see so much of the conversation when you see what indie authors are talking about, much of the conversation focuses on the wrong thing. You know, it's like, how do I Please Amazon's algorithms? I mean, should we allow our futures to be censored by algorithms? No. And other conversations aren't happening. Like I think a lot of authors are losing sight of the importance of quality. Nothing is more important than craft and your ability to right. A reader pleasing Book. It looks like we might have lost the connection there for a little bit.

Mark (52m 25s):
Yeah.

Autumn (52m 25s):
Yeah. It was just a little bit, hopefully it came back. We'll see how it goes. Okay.

Mark (52m 29s):
Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, I think there's still lots of great opportunity for authors. I think the pandemic kind of reminded readers and former readers about the joys of books. And so I think that's going to stick with us for awhile. I think we're going to see increased reading for the next couple of years, just because of the pandemic.

Autumn (52m 53s):
That's fantastic. I mean, an and readership, eBooks marketing, there are still areas growing. So I think there's still a future to be an author, whether its, you know, how much you're making or what you're in it for it for a success is a different platform. But looking at the whole perspective and maybe what you want, your legacy, what is the in the market? Do you know, what are we trying to sell out our rights again, it's a good question to ponder and think about when you are deciding where to publish right.

Mark (53m 24s):
Focus on the long term, that's really what indie authors should do, you know, ask yourself, how will my decision impact my future five years from now? And if you start thinking that way, then indie authors will start making smart decisions in they'll start reaping better results over the long-term. You know, even when we talk about this being a massive, you know, talking about the, the, the market being flat for a long time for Publishing that the Publishing market is not a lucrative growth market. Well it still a multibillion dollar business. There is still an amazing opportunity for every single author, if they focus on what matters most. So focus on the craft of writing the most reader, pleasing books that you can take your reader's to an emotionally satisfying, extreme, because good books aren't good enough anymore.

Mark (54m 9s):
Your book needs to be super awesome. So if you're going to spend money on anything, spend it on editing, write the most incredible Book you can because the most incredible book is going to be the best marketing for that book and have a great books market themselves. And then, you know, study best practices. You know, I've written books about best practices in all my books are available for free. So the Smashwords book, marketing guide, every author can take advantage of that and you don't even need to be at Smashwords. It's a free ebook. You get 65 free book marketing ideas. It's all focused on best practices. So these are not a femoral flash in the pan tricks.

Mark (54m 49s):
These are the things that are going to work, you know, just as well today as they worked five years ago and five years from now, you know, these are the essential oils. If you get the best practices down, you'll have a much more successful longterm career. And one of those best practices that we talked about of course is pre-orders and pre sales. And pre-sales pre-sales are a new best practice and you know, but let's get more people doing preorders This as well.

Autumn (55m 18s):
Okay. That sounds, I'm going to put that down on our, our market, our list of topics for the podcast, because I did not realize that most authors weren't doing pre-orders. So we'll get that one

Mark (55m 30s):
Startling. If you go back and you look at some of the old Smashwords surveys that I've published at the blog, and you know, you got this very small percentage of authors doing pre-orders and those are the authors that are on the USA today, bestseller list. But those are the authors that are scooping up all the sales for the new books. And there's a camera, it's the pre-order authors, right?

Autumn (55m 51s):
I will, I will go in and scoop up that data. And if I can't find it, I'll email Jim and I'm sure he can find it for me, but thank you so much, Mark, for taking the time and being in here. And I appreciate it. And if anyone has questions, we're going to link up to your 20, 21 Predictions and Smashwords and Have author's go check it out and see everything that you guys offer as well as, you know, you have some good Predictions in some incredible best tips of what we should be doing. So thank you so much for doing that. Every single, not just this year. All right. Well great. Thanks Autumn. Thank you. Good luck.

Autumn (56m 32s):
And so Yes for it, we'll be back next week and we we'll be discussing a one of our humorous ones on some systems. You come back and check it out.

Narrator (56m 42s):
If you like, what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join Autumn and Yesper on patrion.com/ Am. Writing Fantasy for as little as a dollar a month, you'll get awesome rewards and keep The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast, going to stay safe out there and see you next Monday.