The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast

The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 97 – What is Author Voice and How to Find Yours?

You’ve heard it many times before. The famous term: 'Author Voice'.

But what is it exactly and how do you develop one? Or should you even be concerned about your Author Voice?

That’s some of the questions Autumn and Jesper seek to answer in episode 97 of the Am Writing Fantasy podcast.

 

Link to episode 100 questionnaire: https://forms.gle/KDHdPnUB5A9cwViz7  

 

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Read the full transcript below.

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

Narrator (2s):
You're listening to The 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.

Jesper (30s):
Hello I'm Jesper and I'm Autumn. This is episode 97 of The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast. And you heard it before The famous term Author Voice, but what is it exactly and how do you develop one? Or should you even be concerned about your Author Voice in the first place? That's some of the questions that we will seek to answer in today's episode?

Autumn (56s):
Oh, it will be so much fun because I, it was, I did, I actually did some homework for this one. Again, I did some research and I think hearing some stuff out because it is, I could see why it's a confusing topic and it, some of the posts I read about it and I'm like, no, that's not what you were actually talking about. So it will be interesting to break this one and unpack it. But first, how is the moving saga now with that the house has been officially contracted?

Jesper (1m 25s):
Yeah, it's a it's it's going well, we signed the lease on an apartment, which is only like two minutes walk from the beach. So that's amazing. Yeah. I can't remember if I already mentioned it, not on a previous podcast episode or if I did. Sorry. Deal is, you know, but he's so excited actually looking. Yeah, we are looking forward to moving on to the, and the kids are also really much looking forward to it because they know they're going to get closer to the school and to their friends, you know, from, from the apartment is only a 15 minute bus ride to school. Whereas today we have to drive the kids every time and it takes, if they want to take the bus today will take them in a bit more than an hour to get to school and to visit our friends and so on.

Jesper (2m 14s):
So yeah, the kids who are very much looking forward to it, but yeah, my wife and I are also looking forward because it's going to be releasing some pressure on us to act as chauffeurs all the time. You're going to get away with not having to drive the kids way before they turn 16. So that's exciting. Yeah, that is good. Yeah. But I think that the trick becomes now, how do we get all this stuff from a house to fit into an apartment, which is probably like almost 50 square meters, smaller than that. So it's going to demand some serious organization skills to pull that off.

Autumn (2m 55s):
Yeah. You guys are definitely going to have a few things in storage, which we already about the strategies of labeling boxes. I think you guys are all,

Jesper (3m 5s):
So if we have to get a storage room, there was no way around that though.

Autumn (3m 8s):
But it'll be exciting. And it's, it's fun to clean out the cupboards and get rid of some things. This is from the person who's gotten rid of like 99% of this stuff she has owned. So don't get me started on if I would use the word fun, but, but okay. Cathartic, how's cathartic. It's a good word. But you have fair enough. At least it will be done once it's over with, then I will feel like it was nice, but I knew in the process itself, I am not so excited. So that's always the hard part and going through it. Yeah. Yeah. How about you? Oh, it's good. It's the leaves are falling here in Vermont so much.

Autumn (3m 51s):
It looks like it's snowing yellow. So it's, it's beautiful on it. We've had some, right. So it is nice. The rains have come back. So we are, are a little pond and stream outside of the cabin have actually filled. So we have flowing water. It's very picturesque, little chilly, perfect for staying inside. It goes to the wood stove and WRITING, which is good because I'm being my insane self. I have my own bucket at, to do for Am Writing Fantasy to keep things going here. And I have some clients and people I'm helping with their books or their covers, including some tarot cards. I'm gonna suddenly found myself doing some graphic design for, and meanwhile, I'm trying to finish up this trilogy.

Autumn (4m 37s):
I'm writing and hope to release in early 2021. And I just, I, I dreamt last night that I was dreaming. I'm starting to layer my need for sleep in my dreams. Since inception, I woke up thinking I'm dreaming about dreaming and this is not a good sign, but I love it. I love what I love, the way, the direction everything is heading it. I just need more time in the day I need, I need her. Mine is a little hourglass clock. I know we can build myself into my extra hours. It would be fantastic.

Autumn (5m 17s):
But what if you only spoke up from your dreams into another dream that you don't know your dreaming? Well, today's been really good. So I wanted to stick to this when I'm good. I'm fine. I'm fine with me living in a dream. It's just this one can manifest some more dragons and Magic. That would be awesome. Yeah.

Jesper (5m 39s):
Well that act as long as you are. Well, then you have to also have to be a model or something you don't want to get roasted by dragging us.

Autumn (5m 46s):
Yes. As long as the dragon is my pet and it will protect me. Okay. All right. I will look to problem solve it. Yeah.

Narrator (5m 53s):
A week on the internet with the Am Fantasy Podcast.

Jesper (6m 0s):
Now that we are only three episodes away from episode 100, it would be a good time for you to submit your question.

Autumn (6m 9s):
Yes. At the time is almost running out and we need some more questions. So please send us something, anything, it doesn't have to be about writing. It can be about what it's like to live at a tiny cabin in Vermont, or to sell your house in Denmark and move him into an apartment. Anything. Yeah.

Jesper (6m 29s):
Yeah. Well that might be a bit boring for somebody in the us too, to know how you sell the house.

Autumn (6m 34s):
So what someone might want to know. Oh, it could be anybody. Yeah. I have traveled all across North America in a land cruiser, including some amazingly difficult, like a boiling the brakes and having the muffler shear off in that one time with a grizzly bear. But, you know, so if you're curious, ask, if I'm not going to say, I don't want to know more about when you were in New Zealand and you went to the Hobbit. Yeah, that was cool. If I have to come up with questions, I know where I'm going,

Jesper (7m 8s):
Right? Yeah. That's cool. And then sometimes as well, I meet some really crazy people when I'm at refereeing. So maybe there are some stories that you want to hear them.

Autumn (7m 17s):
That's true. You do. Those are always some interesting stories. I had no idea. The world of a soccer or football is so deeply strange. It was interesting.

Jesper (7m 32s):
It's filled with a lot of very, very passionate people and they can't always control it.

Autumn (7m 40s):
Fair enough. I think that sounds a reasonable. I know I've never been a sports person recently. We managed to get the play pool, which is one of the few sports I enjoy. If you can call it a sport. Cause it's really mathematical, which was kind of sad. But, but besides having to do that, I have never been a sports fanatic or even a huge movie buff. So I don't quite, when I see these people like chanting and nearly tearing apart stadiums, I, I don't, I, I will never write a sports fan as a character because I don't think I can.

Jesper (8m 20s):
Now you said that it just reminded me... It was quite impressive how everybody could keep calm this last Saturday, because well, now you prompted me so very quickly, you two are here just to show a very short story. But this Saturday I had a match in the, basically... well... the stadium here in the main city or close to where I I'm living. So I had a match there and in the morning, I was woken up by a phone call from the football association and they said, Oh, we are in really big trouble. Can you take a second match today?

Jesper (9m 1s):
And I was like, in the morning, you know, the call woke me up, so I was a bit like disoriented and like, "yeah, well, what, when?" And they say, yeah, it was just an, a, it's a, it was like, what is that? I don't know what that is in miles, but it's like 60 kilometers from where I live. So it's not, it's not far fire in the Western standards, but it's fine enough that it takes a while to drive there. And I did some quick calculation of distances in, in my head. And it was like, well, that's not really gonna work as hard, because if I'm going to take that medicine, I will not be able to get to the other match in time. And she said, no, I know, but we don't have any other referees.

Jesper (9m 42s):
So can you take it, and that was like, yeah, OK. But then you have it. If you can call the, the, the other team's at the latest, Matt is just to tell them that I will not make it in time so that they know and that, and she said, yeah, yeah, no problem. I'll do, I'll do that. Now. I'll tell him that this was at the football association cost and this right. So that they don't get upset with you when they say, okay, that's fine. And then I'll do it. So I went and I refereed the first match. And then I drove as fast as I could back to the town here where I live. And it was just so weird because speaking of people, keeping comm, because there was not a lot, but that might've been like a, a, a hundred spectators in the stadium.

Jesper (10m 26s):
So it's not a lot, but it, it was like a day on the 19th, a, the highest leak for youth people. So it's the under 19 at the highest level, you can play up at. They were pretty good. And there was probably like a, a hundred people there to watch the game. And they were just sitting there twiddling their thumbs in stadium, like an hour. And then the referee walked in like 15 minutes after the games should have started. And everyone is just sitting there looking at it and I'm walking in like, LA, you know, of course I hurt as much as I could, but, and then, you know, take on some, a different shirt and what not. And then onto the pits, straight away, just stop the match.

Jesper (11m 6s):
But it was a bit, but it was so amazing, everybody. It was just so calm and relaxing to everybody, except there was no complaints about anything. So that was actually a pretty good. So I don't know if, what you said just reminded me of that. Right.

Autumn (11m 18s):
It's a good story. It was just like the kind of questions we want and the stories we hope to tell for a a hundred episodes. So that's a good one. Oh, that's too funny.

Jesper (11m 28s):
Yeah. So, we added the link in the show notes from where you can post your questions. It will take you two, a simple Google forum, and you can leave a written question there if you want. But of course we would prefer an audio or video file where you ask you a question. So that way we can play it during episode 100.

Autumn (11m 47s):
Yes. So we can have your voice with us on the air with this is air. What is, Podcast it? I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. But

Jesper (11m 58s):
The, and of course, if you want to record a video of yourself, don't worry about where you were pointing the camera. We don't need the actual images. We just need the audio. So yeah. Point the camera at the floor of the wall or something. If you want to say that we, because we were just going to strip off the audio anyway. So yeah, we don't, we don't need any images, so yes. Yeah. But all right. Before we finished off this segment, we also need to give a huge, thank you to you really. I hope I am pronouncing that correctly. That was my cousin and yeah. David Goslin and also guilt master Seth. Yes. So thank you so much for joining us on Patreon.

Jesper (12m 41s):
I think, well, I have said this before. I know, but in all honesty, it is the support on a patron is really what justifies the time that we spent recording these podcasts episodes every week. So I don't get me wrong. We love creating this podcast and that's the main drive behind why we do it. But that set, it is still time that we could have spent on Writing. So, hence just to do a lot on Patreon and a month really helps us keep the lights on. So if you haven't checked out patron, yet there is a link in the show notes. And I should, yeah, I, I should just tell you to take a look at the Query what we offer that if you haven't done so already.

Jesper (13m 25s):
So yeah, the link is in the show

Autumn (13m 28s):
And we would love to have you come and take a look at it.

Jesper (13m 32s):
Oh, sorry. I was playing my music to fast.

Autumn (13m 36s):
That's okay. I had a quick internet hiccup, which I am one cell phone tower repeaters through rural Vermont woods. What could I say? It's bad. That's nice. It isn't. It's nice. Except for the internet. We won't get into internet. I am very jealous of your internet. But and you know, we couldn't have a conversation about that if you want. No, I don't think that's what people are tuning in four. They want to know about our Author Voice. So we'll just jump into that. And we'll hope that my mind steady is out in the falling leaves. Do not somehow mysteriously interrupt the airwaves or maybe it was a dragon eating a tower. I'm not sure if it was something it could have been in my bed. I don't know if I'll have to talk to my dreams.

Autumn (14m 19s):
I get it. Right.

Jesper (14m 20s):
Okay. But let's start out by defining what we are talking about when we speak of Author Voice and I can just start out with a definition I found. And then you mentioned that you, you saw quite a few different definitions of it. So maybe you, you have something to add to it, but at least from Well a way I would define it would be to say that Author Voice is its the choice of words. So the way you punctuate a, how the author conveys personality and their characters, it's, it's basically like a unique identifier that sometimes at least allows you to recognize the authors writing.

Jesper (15m 4s):
Even if you don't know who wrote what you are reading. So yeah. If, if the Author Voice is strong enough, you can just out of reading it, you will tell you this is Author X. Yes. So I think that's how I would say.

Autumn (15m 20s):
I think that's a good one. And I, what I saw a lot on the internet is from other bloggers was they were confusing. Author Voice with character, voice, and those are, they overlapped the spheres of them. But technically they're totally different. Your characters can have a, Voice a way of speaking. What they described it as an entirely different from your yourself, your own like personal Voice, who you are as a person, as well as your Author Voice, which is how you write things, which is often. So if you, especially when you're newer, it's very similar to how you write things, but it's a more how you perceive the world in how you put it on paper, but your character is, you know, I've written a dystopian thriller that it has this politician at all.

Autumn (16m 9s):
I always felt like I was doing like mental gymnastics to squeeze my brain into those characters because I am not a male politician from Spain. I don't know where that came from, but that's the character. And once I got into his head, I could write stuff that I never would think of as a person. But technically I think when you broke it down there, you could still pull to be able to pull out pieces and say, these are examples of Author Voice, which will get into. But I do want to point that out that character voice, the way the characters are talking and the dialogue is actually kind of a different thing. It's not your Author Voice right.

Jesper (16m 50s):
Actually I would almost say that if you, so if we go with the idea for just a second here, that the character of Voice is the Author Voice like you found on some of those blogs there. I haven't read those blocks. So in all transparency, I'm just making up a hot air here. But, but if we just go with that idea for a second, wouldn't that just mean that let's say you have a strong Author Voice and the Author Voice is the unique identifier I just define. But if you didn't say that that's the characters for Voice wouldn't that just means that every single character sounds exactly the same because they all speak in the Author Voice

Autumn (17m 32s):
I think, I think that could happen, but that's not what you're going for. You want your characters to sound, you know, I, I think you're right. That's why I think there was some confusion and maybe why maybe especially novice authors might think character Voice is Author Voice authors who have a problem separating characters from themselves, which I've definitely seen in some books I've edited in some novice things where it's just like, every character sounds the same, which sounds exactly like the Narrator it's all just written in Author Voice. But if you do a good job developing your character's and especially when they are almost like pop alive in your head and they talk and think so entirely different from you that it's, it is like putting on someone else's skin.

Autumn (18m 19s):
That's a really strong character voice, and it will have pieces of it that our part of Author Voice our part of your voice. It's gonna be this tiny little, like its the salt and the recipe. Its not the overall KC that comes out and yes, I know I'm back to food metaphor. Sorry.

Jesper (18m 39s):
No, but I, I think speaking of characters, because I think very good example of this is a way back in episode 30, one of the Am Writing Fantasy Podcast here. We have the highly successful FANTASY Author Lindsay, Barocco on to talk about the importance of writing and series a, but I've read several of Lindsay's books and she writes these well, sometimes they are very snarky characters. What are the times? It's just like a very humorous once, but her characters are always very distinct. A and it's definitely part of her.

Jesper (19m 21s):
Author Voice the way she creates characters in the way that they behave. That's part of how she writes. Ah, and I don't think she will disagree with me when I say that many of her readers, they come back because of the characters. That's why they read the stories. But that's not to say that her character is, sounds the same because they don't know, but they all have this very like Lyndsey. Barocco kind of mock on him. You know, you, you know that it has her character is, but they are very different characters. They have different goals, they have different motivations. They speak in different ways, but it is just, well, I, I can't be bothered and this is probably the difficult part of it because it's a unique identifier at sometimes, sometimes how to put your finger on what exactly it is.

Jesper (20m 3s):
But she just has a way of creating characters that is her own way. And either people love it, some, some hate it and they don't want to read her books. And a lot, a lot of people have to say a lot like it and they read her books. So, so that's a good example of, of what you just talk about.

Autumn (20m 22s):
Yeah. That's an example, a perfect example. And it's just sort of stepping back and looking at it from a big picture. So yeah, the way an author creates characters in how well they are created and how unique and different in whatever it is, is about them is a part of your voice as part of what you become known for as an author. If that's your style or if you have, you know, the gritty detective, you know what those other types, there's different ways of writing and you would be known for that. If you're always have a touch of romance, that might be a part of your Author Voice. So it is, it is something I actually had to, I had a reader and leave a review and they have to admit, I looked for it before this one, but I have 20 books out and I can't remember which book this one was on, but they had described it that they read a few chapters and then the art, as they put it, the authors familiar hand came in and they knew it was one of my books.

Autumn (21m 14s):
And I was like, Oh, that was so it was such a beautiful way of phrasing it that I wish I could have found the review because it summed up how a reader looks at Author Voice how they can say, Oh, this is this Author it's like picking up a Neil Gaiman with the, you know, having the cover of the title rip off in about, you know, six sentences. And you'd be like, Oh, I know who wrote this. That's when you know, you have found an author's voice. Yeah. And do you,

Jesper (21m 41s):
And then, or if we take some, some one, like I got to the Christie, a, you know, her style was like heavily influenced by her time as a nurse in world war one, she has often characters use postman to carry out the murders in the quarries. So you also let the psychological trauma of war effect her characters. So that's, you know, that's, that's a way where her experiences splits into her stories and that's definitely part of her Author Voice

Autumn (22m 15s):
Yes. That's very true. And such. It is. I can see it changing over time. Like I wonder, especially from a novice Author, but say if you were a novice Author in your twenties and you wrote to your sixties, seventies or eighties, I'm sure your Author Voice would also change and evolve because you are going to go through so many changes in your life. I mean, you could imagine, like if you switch it, if you started writing as a teenager, can you imagine, and so your career is going to spend meeting someone, falling in love, maybe having kids getting married and all these things, how you're Author Voice is probably going to deepen or change over time. I know when I look back at it, like my first book, and I think that was only a written seven, eight, nine years ago, something like that.

Autumn (23m 1s):
I know if I wrote it Today it would sound to me, I think it would sound nothing like what it is written. It would come out different, similar but different. But I also know that it would be recognizable as mine. And I think it's that recognizable element. That is what your author's voice is. And probably some aspects might not change over your entire life. I mean, for one of them is how you were saying, like how you develop characters, a how much description you put into things, you know, are, are you an author who sits there and talks about smelling the orange blossoms and the breeze or, or you want, that's just pretty much like, you know, you're straight to the action. Those are the differences and how you write and that's a part of your voice.

Jesper (23m 47s):
Yeah. And then I feel like throwing a bit of curve ball here and then see what you think about it.

Autumn (23m 53s):
Do you like challenging me on while we were recording? Tell me, you know. Yeah.

Jesper (23m 59s):
Well, I usually come up with things and then I don't tell about, you know, about it in advanced, just throw it out because I feel its more interesting or you don't like it, but I feel it's interesting.

Autumn (24m 8s):
What do you like to see what you think of my feet?

Jesper (24m 12s):
Oh no, no, it's not too bad. I promise this is more like a reflection of, I'm curious about your thoughts on it. Because if we take somebody like J K Rowling, for example, she writes commercial fiction. The so does Lindsay broke her by the way and as well. So do you And I right. But the thing is that if we go into like the helicopter view around Author Voice then I feel like if you look at it from a literary critics perspective, they don't really spend any time analyzing works that are labeled as commercial fiction.

Jesper (24m 53s):
You know, they, they knew it would look at a more experimental in writing style and then say, okay, look at this very distinct Author Voice here and how this is different from what we've seen before. And this is a very brave Writing or whatever. Whereas the commercial fiction is just trying to tell a good story and that's it, you know, Rawling focuses on her audience and she writes for them to get the story across in a transparent manner as possible where the provost doesn't get in the way of the story at all. So I've just, my reflection in here is just, is that if we were talking about commercial fiction, how much do we then say that Author Voice plays into that versus the other types of a, you know, fiction where Author Voice might be more clear, you know, it might be more easily,

Autumn (25m 51s):
But yes. All right. So Author, Voice it's I think it's speculative fiction with a commercial fiction. It is more, it is toned down, but it's still there. I mean, if you think about like Ernest Hemingway and his Turner phrase and how he wrote, I mean, its so easy to no, that that was, you know, that's Hemingway or especially with the style where there is a third person like omniscient narrator Narrator or a narrator, the narrator often comes across as an Author Voice even though sometimes it is a character, but something about it creates more of a lie in the literary fiction has more of a distinctive Author Voice in poetry.

Autumn (26m 31s):
To me is a really good example. A poet's how there, where their punctuation, where they stopped the sentence as the words they use. M those, you read the whole book, the book of poetry. You have a very good feel for that. Voice and it's often, I mean, you read some poems and you know, whether or not you like these authors or you're going to like to get entire Pope book of poetry just based on one or two poems. And it's usually based on the subject of the Author Voice but so I think it's, I do think it's, it's different with commercial fiction, but it is still there because it's more of a hidden layer. It's a, it's still present though.

Autumn (27m 9s):
I mean, where we punctuate, how do we develop our characters weather? We use description's those types of things. Weather were fast paced weather. We had that a little bit of a romance. You get a feel for what is the package. So when you have that, Author what you are going to expect to see every single one of the books. And that is more than Voice I think when it comes to a speculative fiction, it's just like, Author plotting as well. It's all tied in there. You get the Author brand basically is sort of your Author Voice. Yeah.

Jesper (27m 41s):
And then of course, ah, well, I mean you mentioned Vinci Baroque a minute ago, right? I mean, she, she writes commercial fiction, ah, as well, and a Hare characters is definitely a very clear part of her Author Voice so it's a, it's not like I'm not, I'm not trying to say that in commercial fiction, there is no Author Voice I'm just saying that I think it might be a bit harder to notice it and you have to look a bit harder.

Autumn (28m 5s):
Oh no, I, I agree. And I think that's maybe why a lot of commercial fiction or fantasy authors, especially the way we wonder, like what is our Author Voice is that the characters Voice what does, is this nebulous thing? And that's because it is not as forward as it is in like non-fiction you have a very strong Author Voice and literary fiction. You have a very strong Author Voice, but in commercial fiction and fantasy fiction, it's it's much subtler because we do want the story to be for front. You know, we were telling this story of where you live with you. I like that phrase. You get the pros out of the way, you know, you're trying to get those words from him, encumbering the story you wanted to just flow and B a beautiful stories that people don't get hung up on certain phrases where yeah, you did fiction and you were like, you know, you could have so much more fun with metaphors.

Autumn (28m 54s):
I've had people yell at me for some of my metaphors because they didn't think they work together quite correctly, but I know that's part of my Author Voice get rid of it and get used to it. Yeah. But yeah,

Jesper (29m 4s):
That is so true because it is also, I think we also need to be mindful that it's different readers. I mean, the people who love to read books where they can just say well, in how the Author, you know, put together these words to make wonderful sentences. And so on, those readers are different readers than the ones who picks up a commercial fiction, people back and just chat through it. Right. 'cause they want to assault, absolved the story, but it's not the same thing. I mean, if, if you want to, at least for me, I mean, I prefer as well to read commercial fiction. I, I like the stories. I am there to read the wonderful Perros and whatnot.

Jesper (29m 46s):
It can probably start annoying me a bit if there's to much of it. So, hence that is also the kind of stories that are right. Because I know I don't like to ride overly prose, heavy stuff. I'm of course I want it to sound good. And what not, that's not what I'm saying it. Right. But, but it's just, I think you own preferences bleed to bleeds into your Author Voice. I mean, for example, I know if I write, when I write nonfiction, it's a very different tone and a style than what I use when I write fiction, because it's, it's different things, you know, it's different mediums. So you adapt and do you adapt to that?

Autumn (30m 24s):
That makes total sentence. Yes. And I think, cause that was actually another review, which I thought was so funny that an Author had pointed out of my work and they had said that M each of her serious, totally. Are you totally unique from one another or her writing style seem to shift a bit to accommodate the story. And I think that's why it's so true about commercial fictions and our Author Voice is that we do change the tone. You changed the tone to fit the character. You changed the tone to fit story. If I'm writing a novel, bright, it's going to be a lot brighter and happier, and there's going to be other tones to it than when I'm reading, like some of the darks fantasies that I'm writing that as much more gritty and the end of the world sort of stuff.

Autumn (31m 9s):
So our, I think we're a little bit more malleable. We kind of hide it and we kind of nuance different things because we don't want it to get in the way of the story, but there's still, you know, how often do we use metaphors that I do always make sure that I set a scene very well, the characters. So those are all sorts of, like I said, it's, it's becomes almost more of a brand. You could almost pull out those aspects and say, these are my books. I am, this is the type of Author I am, this is my brand. This is my Author Voice.

Jesper (31m 43s):
Mm. Yeah. And I guess a burning question that we could look into a bit here is how important is it to have or develop a distinct Author Voice because we were sort of tiptoeing around that question anyway, now, right?

Autumn (31m 57s):
Yeah. I guess so we like to dance around questions. It's fun.

Jesper (32m 2s):
Yeah. But I, you know, I, I think Author is often wants there Writing to stand out and there was nothing wrong with that. I mean, I understand that, but this Author, Voice a thingy here. It is, I think. And I'm curious, what do you think afterwards? Of course, as well, but I think it's really something that you can be too concerned about developing, because I honestly do think that while it might be Well, it might take you some time to understand exactly what your style actually is, but you are Author Voice his, in my view already there, you know, it it's been developing since the very first day you started writing and so you don't overthink it.

Jesper (32m 44s):
Yeah. That's kind of how I do with it.

Autumn (32m 47s):
I think so I think if you were writing Fantasy commercial fiction fiction and a new author came to me and they were, especially if they were stressed about the Author Voice or if anyone asked me and be like, don't even worry about it, write the backstory, you can write the best characters you can. And you know what readers will probably the more you're right. The more someone is going to point out like, Oh, you always do this. And that might be how you find out what your Author Voice is. I think I said I've had one or 20 books out now. So I kind of have an idea of what my Author Voice is and what I am selling when I write a book. So I understand that. And I've had some readers with me since the first book, by the way, if you are out there, I love you.

Autumn (33m 30s):
Thank you for sticking with me in as many years, but they are, if it comes as you right. More so your fans, when they become true fans, their fans, because of how you write of what you write. So they come over time and you don't even have to work on them because it's, it is a part of you and your personality and sort of how you put those words on paper. I did one of the blog posts I wrote. So, you know, someone pointed out that she writes just the way she speaks. And so that it is sort of the part of it. I mean, if you are Starkey or a, have a sense of humor is going to bleed through and to some of the characters you create the way they looked at the world, as much as we tried to create characters who are separate from us, there's still something we create.

Autumn (34m 23s):
And no, no, no. The hand of God or goddess that we are as authors were going to imbue them with some little sense of looking at the world, the way we look at the world and that's that a little, little touch. So that's your Author Voice coming through and everything you write it, it will be there, but if you don't sit there and do it like exercises to learn, to develop your voice, I mean, I guess you could go, right. Some poems, you'll probably figure out your Voice very quickly, but it's not going to translate well into a, a a hundred thousand words a novel.

Jesper (34m 57s):
No, I, and I think when you're first starting out writing, and if you're really experienced the Writing, the listeners here are some listeners will be, I think that they will probably recognize that what happens a lot is that when you were first starting out, you have a tendency to copy a bit, the style of writing that you're favorite authors right. In, but then after a while it starts morphing into your own thing. But I don't think really that you can sit down and say, okay, now I want to develop my own Author Voice because I don't think it works like that. It's it's not like a skill that you can.

Jesper (35m 38s):
I, I think it's just well, finding your Author Voice, it's just a process of writing and writing and writing sophomore, and then

Autumn (35m 47s):
It will come. Definitely. And I do think I still, at this point, if I read a book while I'm writing, I can feel a little bit of the tone of it sneak into my writing. But I do think that the editing can, you know, evens it out. That's what good at editing does. So it takes care of some of those changes, because goodness knows, even though I've learned to write very quickly, if you're writing style over a trilogy over six months can change from book one to book three easily. So it's, you know, those, those, what editing is good for is making sure that all sounds like it was the same person written, you know, consistently, but it is definitely something that is there, but it doesn't have to be, it develops, like you said, I think you can change a little bit over time as your experience changes over time.

Autumn (36m 36s):
But that is probably going to be some essence. That's just simply you and the way you look at the world since you opened your eyes the first time.

Jesper (36m 45s):
Hmm. Yeah. And I've also heard examples of, you know, what, when people could write books in our case, we are not a good example because of that case, you know, you will be the one doing all the editing. So in the end, it'll be more in your voice as such, which is fine. So, but I'm thinking more about the scenarios where I've heard people who they might write alternating points of view, alternating chapters. So in those cases, I think you will be able to recognize that there is a difference in the way each of those chapters are written. I have not. I've just heard this. So it's hearsay. I am not read any of those types of books for myself, but I've heard people say that they can tell which author was writing, which chapter

Autumn (37m 35s):
That makes I. And I am sure. I actually think about that when we do Patrick on post, because I do Monday post and you do one's at the end of the week. And sometimes I try to remember to quote unquote, sign mine, put my name at the bottom. Cause I know, you know, we get to be patrons. They don't know which one of us it was Writing but I wonder if I think I have seen one or two se, Oh, I know it, it was you. Or I knew it was you fall on the comment because of how you said something. And so yeah, when people do pick up those nuances, though, I will say I'm doing transcripts and putting our names on the transcripts of our podcast. I get lost sometimes. So this, so sometimes you go to the longer we know each other, I think we are going to have to watch that we might start talking a little bit of a light, but we have very similar viewpoints on things.

Autumn (38m 23s):
So I think that's just the way things go sometimes. That's all right. Considering what the opposite side of the Atlantic its kind of funny.

Jesper (38m 33s):
Absolutely. Yeah. No, but, but I just think if it proves the point that we have our own way of saying things, I mean, of course when, if you're using the Podcast transcript, that's an example that that comes out just the way we speak. So, but of course, when you are handling fiction, you are editing it. Meaning that I would get rid of all of the speech impediments I have and correct those and make it sound different. But also making sure that I don't start every sentence with So or something like that, right there. Like I said, in a previous podcast that I have a tendency to do, so I will, I will edit the, edit out all those sows to make sure that we start different paragraphs on different Sentences different and, and so on.

Jesper (39m 27s):
Right. But whereas the transcript is a bit different because that's just us speaking with fiction. I, I think some of the Author Voice lies

Autumn (39m 36s):
In the editing as well. I think it does to, because I know that's when you might work in some more metaphors that's when you might break up Sentences and ease and things are adding in the description, So whatever you do, it is part of creating your voice. I know I've recently read something that was, you know, that the writer didn't do many edits and I know what, like what I am doing at the time, like nine passes, which I know I'm a little obsessed. I like editing. So I tend to do layers and layers and layers of passes when I edit. And again, that is then part of my style, which comes across in my voice. And I know I, when I look at something and it's not written the same way, I know its usually the Polish is not there because it's not in the editing.

Autumn (40m 23s):
Mia. I even know when I'm writing, I wouldn't have called it my voice until I sat down and thought of it. What were you recording this episode? But when my writing is flowing and it's just like, it's coming so easily, whether I'm writing in a character's voice or anything it's because you know, the Author Voice is strong. Everything is, you know, you, when you have that synergy and writing is going well, that's usually, that's when you're Author Voice, it's just, everything's just gold and, and everything is working well. But when I can't find that character, Voice when I can't find my style in my flow, it's probably cause I am off a little bit and I just need to sit down and maybe, you know, get into my own head and, and maybe put it on my headphones.

Autumn (41m 5s):
Right. A little bit better. That will bring out the Author Voice.

Jesper (41m 10s):
Hmm. Yeah. And it, it might also be a case of the more mindful you become have you're own unique style and your own Author Voice the more you can, you can play on it on purpose and put it to you. Yeah.

Autumn (41m 22s):
Yeah. But I don't think I would think so. And that, that would be so something I would think and say, because I love, once my readers do know me well enough, I started misleading them. That's just sort of the fun, you know, its like the pied Piper of Hamlin. You never know if you're going to the seaside or the cliff. Yeah. Yeah. But I just think, Oh they all don't worry to much about this Author Voice thing. Right? I mean you can read many blog posts on the internet where people talk so much about how, if you don't have a unique Author Voice than you are not memorable a and you, you were basically doomed and they listen and putting in the $150 per hour, it will teach you to do yours.

Autumn (42m 7s):
No that's yeah. It might be that as well. Yeah. Are you sure it is? It's got to be no, I agree. You don't have to stress about your Author Voice if you're worried about being memorable, there are so many ways, you know, you're plotting your character's just write a really good fiction. You have that little twist, right. Something you love that is more important than sitting there and niggling about whether or not you've created it a unique Author Voice to me it's Writing as we often say, it's a marathon, not a sprint. You know, when you start getting your second series or a third series, as you develop all of these books, not only will you have found your Author Voice you'll have found fans who love you for your Author Voice and it will have all worked itself out without you wearing the bit about it.

Jesper (42m 58s):
So don't lose any sleep and don't dream about dreaming. 'cause that's just really confusing and you might never wake up. So that was a bit dark. Sorry about that. No, but the good news is that the cures pretty easy. Right, right, right. That's the cure. Eh, you know, if the Author Voice isn't in Q2 right now, it will become clear and as time goes by. Yeah. And just keep writing. Right. I mean absolutely. The story isn't it? Absolutely. You know, when you say it's a great question to ask your, your readers in your newsletter, after you published a couple of series of saying, Hey, what's your favorite aspect? What do you think is, you know, my father is Voice and see what people say because it could be a lot of fun.

Jesper (43m 45s):
Alright. So next Monday we'll do another one of our popular alternating lists. You have a top 10 mistakes, AMA sauce writers.

Narrator (43m 55s):
So 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 will 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 96 – Pitching Your Story to Hollywood (with Creative Producer Stephen Hodges)

Do you have dreams of watching your story played out on the big screen or as a series on TV? Want some tips to make that a possibility?

Join Autumn and special guest creative producer and children's fantasy author, Stephen Hodges, as they discuss what you need to pitch your story to producers, the differences between novels and screenplays, things to consider, and a quick wrap-up sidetrack into diversity and cultural appropriation in fiction!

Check out Stephen's wonderful story the Magic Poof at  https://www.themagicpoof.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 (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 to best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them now onto the show with your hosts Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt Hello

Autumn (31s):
Hello, I'm Autumn. Today. Yesper is a way that we're giving him a bit of a vacation and instead I have with me Stephen Hodges so Steven is here and you wear several different hats, which is really exciting. I know there's so many things. I think we could talk about that. We're going to have a fun trying to keep this on topic, but I know one of those is that you were an award-winning children's Fantasy Author with your series of the Magic Poof, which I love, I will link to the website because I love the images and the diversity of character is it's a moms choice award is adorable and they love the diversity of it. It's so sweet. And you also work in Hollywood production.

Autumn (1m 13s):
And I, like I mentioned before, we started going to get this totally wrong. I ran into you because you're a LA film scout, helping out the Page Turner awards, hosted by a book lover. So I let you wrap up that side of your life up if you would say, Oh, okay. Well, I do, I don't know. I think the page Turner warrants, when they put the name LA films got on there, I find that I find that funny because it makes me seem like I'm in a forest, you know, LA people, you know, scamming out things in a really, really my job is, is that I a, you know, I am a producer and I have worked in the film industry for quite some time in film and television. And I also did one on one project.

Stephen (1m 54s):
So it's basically, it's more of a development and I have my own company. And so development is essentially finding stuff that not only I create, but then others create and hopefully turn it into a film. So then when they say, Oh, wait a film scout. I always think of, you know, like an old movie or something like that, but really not just someone who likes to read other people's stuff and likes to put people together. So that's mainly my job as well as production stuff and everything in between, because in this industry, you have to have a pretty diverse in order to figure out what the why's and wherefores of how it works. And then you, yes, of course, we're working on the, my book series and I am in the process of Pitching it right now for you as an animated series.

Stephen (2m 42s):
So yeah, so lots of different hats, although I don't where actual hat's, because I'm not that hipster, but you know, in a way we do have some shine. So we do, I do put on plenty of sunblock, so yeah, that's good. Oh, I like that image. It it's just, as I mentioned before we get, and I'm over here on East coast.

Autumn (3m 0s):
Yes. Person in Denmark. So this is a whole different sphere, as much as I've driven by Hollywood I don't think I have gone. I went through it once when I was maybe a young teenager. So this is a whole, it's like an author saying, Oh, I've only done this in this and this and to anyone listening. And they're like, really that's just a ton. So from an outside perspective, you will get out of the things that you have listed on your LinkedIn bio and even on your Magic Poof bio Irene, you've worked in the matrix, you've done all these things. So that's just so cool. I am so grateful that you took the time to talk with us today.

Stephen (3m 35s):
Sure. Of course. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, the matrix was a, I actually started out in the industry I'm I'm from Phoenix, Arizona originally and, and wanting to all of those steps or graduated from college with no connections actually ended up starting my own film company with a mentor who was, when I went to the school, I did an internship at a local television station here, a and started working with a guy who was working on his first film. And I, instead of going straight to the Hollywood, we started our own production company instead. Why be a PA when you can be a vice-president right at a college as to why we did that for awhile, but then I also had to get a job.

Stephen (4m 15s):
So they ended up in a training in becoming a, a video engineer. So I'm working in an editing and live production, and that was my quote unquote waitress jobs. So the cool thing about me is that I actually know every site of production and it can pretty much do we have everybody's jobs. So on the matrix, I actually was up in a new engineer, which was a really fun experience, always fun to, you know, be I'm taking a lunch break in, sitting on the set, a and then all of a sudden Keanu Reeves comes in, sits next to you. You, because he happened to be here at the same place. And he's just a really nice guy. I actually, so that was interesting. So yeah, it was, it, it was a very fun experience, but very, very, it was huge.

Stephen (4m 56s):
Like, it was just like, you don't get how much stuff is going on. And usually you're in a bubble, you know, on one set of production crews, but that was a really fun experience.

Autumn (5m 6s):
That sound so amazing. And, you know, Kiano, he always has, seemed like a real earth kind of guy that I had to choose someone and Hollywood, I think he would make it on my top five list of people. I wouldn't mind running it into because he seems like a real person, so that's kind of less intimidating.

Stephen (5m 23s):
And now he is actually a really cool guy and he's just super, super laid back. Just a really, really nice guy.

Autumn (5m 28s):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's awesome. And like I said, I think you're, I want to talk a little bit about diversity in Fantasy, but I also want to talk about, you know, is really, I mean, I see this a lot more it's on the page Turner awards, I've seen a recent podcast. I think I've got an email somewhere like, Oh, was it last year? Maybe we were all just cooped up until we were all thinking of, you know, Fantasy and cinema and game of Thrones. And so everyone's sitting at home going, I could do that to, so it seems like there's idea in this energy about Pitching stories to Hollywood. So this is this really a thing. Do you think there is an uptick and people being interested or an up tick in even Hollywood considering this for people?

Stephen (6m 11s):
I think it it's always been there. I think that there's a now, especially with the, a boatload of streaming services in niche programming, you know, influencer's on the internet and tech talk and all of those different things. I think that there's a, there's a bitter, there's a people are starting to believe that there's not all of these gatekeepers. Right. And they were still arguing papers. And I actually am someone who has a mixed feeling about gatekeepers themselves, because I honestly think that you need them to a certain extent, but I also have run into a great deal of gatekeepers. You don't know what they're doing a whole.

Stephen (6m 51s):
So it's one of those things where it's a difficult process to try and parse out what's what's needed to do not. So I think that there's a lot of opportunity for people to do things, but at the same time, the, the audience is a lot more fragmented. So the idea that you are going to right something, and it will immediately become a game of Thrones. It is, that's a complete misnomer that's there, that's, that's the, you know, the trifecta that's, you know, ah, you know, somebody who came down and sprinkle some fairy dust on UW, along with, ya know, talent hard-work and being in the right place at the right time. But I do think that people have a lot more opportunity to do their own thing.

Stephen (7m 32s):
There is a lot of self publishing. There is a lot of people who I So published five books because I'm a, I don't with publishers for about a year and a half. And I actually pitched my series that Nickelodeon before I even had the books, cause I came up with about a year, but I, I realized that ah, the publishing industry is changing. And it's, to be honest with you, in my opinion, on the publishing and your district is kind of dead. The, the big publishers are really, they are, they based their model now really off of tentpole properties, which is similar to what's happening in movies with things like Marvel and stuff like that. And because of that, there's a lot less space for smaller people to be successful.

Stephen (8m 18s):
If you term success, as lots of people read your book and you make money. So I think its, but I do think that there is a lot of opportunity there, but it's also as difficult to get yourself known just because there is so much more, you know, there's so much more going on in the business. And actually you had mentioned a page for rewards and that's one thing that I like about them it's that there are kind of small when they are the ones who were pushing me originally a to, to, to judge their awards. But they seem to have a better opportunity for smaller, for smaller people just because they were a smaller and they are also based in London where as the us, it's just an extremely hard park and to get in.

Stephen (8m 60s):
But I think if you're, you know, if you persevere and you know the industry and you do all of this stuff and you work hard, do everything for you mainly do it for you and then home and then also, you know, look out for your audience. And that can take you a lot of places in a lot of different ways. And a lot of that is just, I, I don't wanna say it's luck because they don't really believe in a lot. I believe that things happen for a reason. So I think things will happen for you for a reason if you're in the right head space.

Autumn (9m 30s):
Oh, I like the sound of that though. So it's, it's not impossible. And I agree. I had originally thought of like the trying to sell your script to Hollywood or even one of the Netflix or HBO. It sort of like, you know, trying to pitch to these brick and mortar publisher, as you know, there are still gatekeepers who need to know the manuscript and how they look at it and what you need to do before you get there. If you want to have any chance of success. I mean the idea of just sending it off to somebody and they're gonna fall in love with it. And the next thing you know, you're going to be the next George RR Martin and knowing the fact that he had 30, 40 years of experience before getting to game of Thrones and he had been writing it for how many years. I think it's like seven years for each book.

Autumn (10m 11s):
So he was working on this a long time. He was overnight success story was about 40 years ago.

Stephen (10m 18s):
Yeah. His overnight success story is George R R Martin. You know, if he were a normal person, he could be retired right now, but I just thought, you know, so there they are just now working on the, they just went into a development in pre production on the, on the prequel series for game of Thrones, which I think is about how we start Gary. And, and, but you know, now all of that is, you know, because of COVID, all of the, all of our production is shut down, but that's our, it's a massive endeavor and they never would have taken something like that on when they first, you know, when they first came up with game of Thrones, obviously HBO has money. But if you watch the first episode of game of Thrones or even the first season, and you look at the amount of effects you used, or if you take a look at where it was shot, you know, Northern Ireland, it places like that plays to set up a production incentives, they didn't spend nearly as much money as you think that they did.

Stephen (11m 10s):
Not that they didn't spend a lot of money in our terms, but look at that compared to st the last season where they are just throwing money left and right, you know, there's, you know, boatloads, you know, the, the dragons are killer. You know, if the dragons are a calendar on the wall and all that stuff, but if you, if you actually watched the, you know, the first season, you can tell that the budget pretty much tripled a quadruple between the first season at the last season, only because it was a hit. If there wasn't, you know, if there wasn't a hit, when people didn't resonate with it and HBO had not pushed, it, it, it would have very easily gone, you know, gone away pretty quickly. And, and I think that it could even be said it was something like the Harry, even though a period Potter or for example, was a great as a book, she watched the first movie vs the last movie.

Stephen (11m 57s):
The movie is actually quite M, it's a little rough and a it's a little, M, it, it it's a little choppy, a it's a, it's still a great movie, but they didn't know how big of a success it would be. And then you can see the progression of not only budget, but also the willingness to put it in more, more behind the scenes from a, from a technical standpoint and also from a, from a talent standpoint.

Autumn (12m 22s):
Yeah. I have noticed that maybe, I don't think I've ever really noticed it with Harry Potter in game of Thrones, but it was a huge supernatural fan. And I recently, for whatever reasons to watch watched, like the first series again, and then you compare that even till the graphics and just the effects of the last 15, I can't remember what, which ones that you hit 14 or 15 in a row season's. And it was like, wow, this changed a heck of a lot. And not just because of the actors aged 15 years.

Stephen (12m 54s):
Absolutely. And you can, you can see that in something like one of my favorites, because I am a geek is the Mandalorian. And, you know, if you take a look at that and just, you know, on Disney plus and watch Mandalorian and see the, the amount of, of the amount of effort that's put in, in specifically with a second set, extensions in the chicken to check out the documentary's on the Mandalorian and just be amazed and what they do technologically M to create a non green screen environments, you know, but with advances in technology and in, in video walls and led walls and that type of thing, right. It's pretty amazing. But even if you look at the Mandalorian and the, one of the things that I like about it is is that it's, it's, it's an ethic star Wars movie, but yet in reality, it's a much smaller than that.

Stephen (13m 41s):
I think the story is better served by less expansiveness and more telling the story of the character in sort of a tighter environments. And you get the expansiveness of star Wars without necessarily having to be a gigantic movie. And then I think people have seen now the difference between what you can do specifically on a, something like a television series versus star Wars, the, the latest, the schools, the DNC, which I actually really enjoy, but the Mandalorian is something very different and they go into it with a very specific storytelling style about this character as oppose to, we have to, ya know, encompass this massive university, as opposed to what they bring in small elements, their fans know.

Stephen (14m 29s):
And that's part of the reason why it's popular or is it because, Oh, I saw that, you know, thing or whatever it is, and, you know, an object or something like that in the original star Wars film, which we knew it was a complete throw away because it was a prompt that somebody made for a scene. And then, you know, John Fabro will bring it into a, the Mandalorian and they'll be like, Oh my gosh. So that's one of those things, you know, and it, you know, we realize that actually a nice maker, but in, in the, you know, in the Mandalorian. So it's an actual, it's an ice cream maker anyway, sorry. I can kick out of that fact sheet. So anyway, I'm, I'm rambling, please continue.

Autumn (15m 3s):
Oh, well that's okay. That's why it's so interesting. And it actually, that's a really good point. So if you were thinking that, you know, this is something that you just really, it's got to be something that's on your bucket list, so you're going to go for it. Should you think, as a writer a about the scope and scale of your story, that if you do want it to have it, do you know, pitch it to have it turned into a movie or a series like Epic FANTASY like we were saying, and even science fiction, these have a lot of elements and Magic, this is a CGI effects. I do you want to try to minimize that? Would it make any difference? You know, as somebody who could look at it and say, Oh, do you know what? We can come up with this and keep the budget low, or you're looking at the 20 dragons and all this other stuff.

Autumn (15m 43s):
And you're like, Oh no, no, no.

Stephen (15m 44s):
So like, that's probably going to be about $20 million per Episode. I don't think it's, I don't think it's necessary. I don't think it's necessary to do either. What I do think is that your, your vision of your story's your story, but it's something on a printed page. Books are written very differently than screenplays. The screenplays are always about showing, not telling and books. You can have a lot of background, a lot of dialogue, a lot of you, you can even, you know, you can have a narration, you can have a, you know, an over arching Narrator or if you're, you were doing it in first person voice.

Stephen (16m 24s):
But I, I thought process is the same. If you were going to write something like that, right. At the way you want it, but also with an eye towards what the visuals would be. And then with regards to the scope, I think the scope has unlimited books, but I think its important for you to understand if you truly want to turn this into a television series or a movie that the vision that you have in your book is going to be radically different or very different than what you would normally expect to see on screen simply because of budgets in that type of things. So in other words, they always say, don't be afraid to kill your children. And I believe as a child in screenwriting and basically applies as well in the sense that if you've got this really awesome, you know, ethics seen with, you know, 30 Dragon's and you know, when a guy and his sor and a guy and the sword and you know, in whenever you have going on, chances are good.

Stephen (17m 19s):
That will probably be cut down. The funny thing about filmmaking vs Writing is, is that with limitations, as you have a much more, you have an opportunity to create story based on those limitations. And sometimes that's much more fun if you, if you're limited and you say, Hey, I want to shoot a dragon. You know, I'm going to show you the dragon blowing up a wall and they're like, well, you can't really do that. How do you tell the story with the characters without that element? In other words, that's a set piece, but that's not character. So how do you do that? One of the things I think they did really well and game of Thrones, a for the most part was they created the dragons as characters, but really the reason that they're sold that way, it's because they are a M, they are an extension of denarius target, Ariens personality, right?

Stephen (18m 11s):
So in other words, they're not really dragons they're, they're not pets, they're on their own thing, but they're really based on her personality and specifically on Emilia Clarke's acting as to how she treats them. And you know, what a good rule of thumb is of that is if you just go back to literally star Wars and I'm the empire strikes back. And one of the things that, you know, Hilda doesn't work and less Mark Hamill is a really good actor because he was basically acting like it with a puppet. And you don't believe that he was alive until Mark Hamill, as the actor gives you permission to believe that he is. So if you actually watch those scenes, you could see that he's acting opposite a puppet.

Stephen (18m 55s):
And even though a Frank Oz is amazing, it is still a puppet, you know? And so its one of those things where you have to, if you're thinking things from a filmmaking standpoint, you have to visually understand that if you create an or correct character or whatever it is, even if that character is even if that character is a relatively minor, there is still an extension of the skillset of the person who is acting opposite of them. If that makes sense.

Autumn (19m 22s):
Oh, that makes sense. And it it's one of those, you know, it was the combination of the script and the actor and eventually the CGI effects and it's all of these things together that really make it come alive. And that's, what's kind of cool and this is what I like that. But even about Writing, it's not just the Author is how the reader take the author's words and creates their own story in their mind. And it's the combination of the two that creates the Magic. So it's the same thing with Hollywood but a little bit different. And you were talking though about, you know, the Writing so is it something like that? Would you have a screenplay at hand or can you just have a book and should it be a best selling book or can you just have so much faith in yourself that you decided you're going to pitch it and I guess maybe write the screenplay.

Autumn (20m 7s):
I mean, do you need to do those things?

Stephen (20m 9s):
So I guess the answer is yes, there are, there really is. No, there is no cut and dried sort of method. My thought process is, is if you have a book and you want to, you know, sell it as a film or as a film, et cetera, et cetera, that you create a really excellent treatment. So in other words, when you write your book, write that first of all right, an amazing book, know your craft. There's a lot of people who say that they are writers and they are not, I'm a children's picture book writer. And everybody thinks that, you know, grandma's in their basement, crime goes out everyday, but the bottom line is there actually our rules and ways that are written, you have to understand the rules publishing specifically if you wanted it on paper and the word count on with all of that.

Stephen (20m 58s):
So there's just the, the rules. And then there is the actual writing of Story. So Writing in my case, Writing a picture book. Doesn't really writing a book. Writing a picture book, his understanding what the pictures are on your mind and understanding what the layout of the book is. And then also creating M language and sealing that, that equates to what you were trying to do, but also understanding who your audience. So I don't. So writing a picture book was a little different, but know your craft. I mean, I've written, I don't read a lot of, I can't remember how many books that I've read from the main screen, the screen Turner or award thing. Right? The first chapter is that I want to say over a a hundred books, which I didn't realize that that's what I was signing up for it at the top of the weekend of it was due.

Stephen (21m 44s):
I was like, Oh, I have to read all of this stuff. And I'm, I can tell what's in the first paragraph with it or not, I'm going to read the rest of it. And I had to be pretty draconian a about basically going, I don't have time to read all of this stuff, M it, if you didn't grab me and the first paragraph, and I'm not going to read you a first chapter and if I'm not gonna read your first chapter, that I'm not going to read your book, so know your craft and it has to be very loving and very exacting and it is not an easy thing to do for a writer. And so I get it. I understand that. And having written books, I understand how it difficult to do, but again, like I said, don't be afraid to kill your children because it really is not just about unfortunately, the entire book on premise it's, it's about, it can be about just a couple of words and you can agonize over a couple or three words or one sentence or the structure of the character for days.

Stephen (22m 37s):
And it could change as you continued write the book. So, but my advice for people who don't necessarily read scripts, because it's a bit of a different Writing muscle for me, first of all, is something very important to do if you want to do so, but it's a a, but to definitely have a treatment because you know, because I need a synopsis. So if you were going to hand this to me and I have 10 minutes to look at it, what do you want me to know? And it's not going to be that I have. And I don't know in 10 minutes, I'm not going to read you a 300 page book. I just don't have the time. You know, so a good, you know, these are the types of characters. This is the world. This is a, what I'm trying to do with this or something along the, the line of the eye of, of where you see it going.

Stephen (23m 22s):
So whether or not you have a big world, one book, or whether you see it as a series of 5,000, allow the person who's reading the work. Hopefully if they're actually good to see where your world can go, because sometimes your world will be going completely different directions. And if you would never, M never think of that. Someone could take out that someone could take it or they could say, I just don't get it. You know, or how is this any different from X or whatever. And you need to be able to answer those questions. You don't necessarily need to put writing a treatment as helpful. WRITING an excellent logline. A logline is simply one or two sentences that literally tells me everything I need to know about the book that makes me want to read more M.

Stephen (24m 6s):
So if you could summarize your work in two sentences and make somebody want to read it, that's a pretty good start,

Autumn (24m 13s):
But would it be an excellent if we could do that, it would be probably all selling and tons of books. So it's telling you we should work on no matter what. It's good to have it.

Stephen (24m 21s):
And that's what I'm currently doing for page sugar. So I'd get to get the pitch by several people tomorrow, you know, in my next webinars. So anyways, so that the first thing that I've taught in the first session was how to write a good logline. And again, you can write a lot. You can look that up on the net, it's not, this is confidential information, but thinking of it, actually sit down and do it. And then my other pieces of advice, if you truly want to write screenplays, and you're not certain about condensing, your book is find your favorite TV show, break it down, which is basically list out, you know, list your favorite episode and listen to it, you know, the best the scene and what's going on in the scenes and then write your favorites, right? A spec script of your favorite TV show.

Stephen (25m 2s):
And that will be very difficult very quickly when you realize how difficult that is. If you define a script to have it online, you can see how, how shows are broken down, learning the story. Again, it's learning in your class. So they're learning the structure. Is it a three act structure? If it's a sit-com it's normally it's normally three X, but it's two, two story lines, a and B storyline in our long it's a, B and C storylines. Or for that matter, if you wanted to write a screenplay M then go rewrite a screenplay, you know, go rewrite the godfather. So you see how it was broken down. We really do your research. You know, books are about research.

Stephen (25m 43s):
So you have to study your craft and you don't necessarily need to go to film school to do it, but there are writing is writing and it's, it's not, but that's very helpful for you to get into the mindset of what people are looking for from a script standpoint.

Autumn (26m 1s):
Yeah, I am sure it is a, it would really help you. If you want to do this, it would probably give you that edge of knowing, you know, what, how to do the writing and what has historically been done and how you put that into production and sort of the way you've immersed yourself into it all these years, you know, so much more that, you know, the things that you've probably forgotten or more than most people are just trying to get into those even realized. So yeah,

Stephen (26m 25s):
Sure. Yes. Well just, just, just writing your book has only the first step. I'd hate to tell you. I wish I wish there wasn't, but basically the writing your book is literally step number one of about, you know, I, and I don't try to discourage anybody, but the farther along you can get yourself before you get in front of somebody to pitch or get that brake, you know, that you have been waiting for for however long and in whatever form will put you so much farther ahead than just someone who's like, I wrote a great book. You should read it. I dunno why its not a TV show. It's like, well with an attitude like that, I'm immediately going to tell you, you know,

Autumn (27m 3s):
It just makes sense. Yeah, no it's appreciating that it is a lot of hard work and putting that effort in so that your you're also ready for that success when it comes, you know, I always think it helps to have a few books on your belt and maybe a platform built before you do hit that stratosphere because then you're going to have more to support you. And you're not going to be maybe a one shot wonder or something. I'd rather have this as a long-term career. Yeah, well I,

Stephen (27m 30s):
So we worked with a, a group briefly that they had created, speaking of FANTASY they had created a podcast and they are on Patrion. And I can't, to be honest with you, I can't remember the name that's just a couple of years ago, but they, I had a friend of mine who was a big fan of their podcast. It was pretty popular on from patriarchy standpoints M and it was a tee, it was basically a Dungeons and dragons, but it was, they had created some very, very good characters within the world of Dungeons and dragons and Dungeons and dragons is a different ball game because it's, it's really more of an over-arching sing. It's not necessarily like, Oh, you have to get the rights to Dungeons and dragons.

Stephen (28m 10s):
However, I would double check that, but basically works exist, et cetera, et cetera, in other words. But I think they have a whole storyline and they would do these three hour podcasts. And so they were, you know, and then they were for a couple of years, so they had a ton of material and I'm like, okay, well this is really great. But the first thing we need to do is figure out, you know, who the characters are in their world. And also I need some, I can't do three years' worth of podcasts in a movie. We need to come up with a storyline, et cetera, et cetera. But the thing that it was interesting, then it fell apart was that each of the people who contributed, so there were like four or five of them, they were doing this just kind of for fun. But then when something like this actually came along and there was some interest suddenly they were all in fighting with each other about who will watch, who owned, you know, which character who had created sort of the overarching world, et cetera, et cetera, at which point, if you're going to go to anybody in the industry, they're going to want you to have that button down because I'm not, its not my job to figure out, you know, between the five of you who owns the rights to all of this stuff.

Stephen (29m 14s):
And so they ended up in fighting and I don't even think they do the podcast anymore. So, you know, so its one of those things where its like, Oh, you actually have the opportunity. You are not prepared for the opportunity. So, you know, and so again, it's like you said, it's not just a matter of being a good writer. It's also understanding all, everything that goes into when the opportunity comes, are you actually prepared for it? Whether it be success are whether it be more of hard work are whether it, some Schmidt are like me basically saying this is really great, but you know, can we change this order to a fluffy rabbet and then, you know, New York is supposed to be a fluffy rabbit or maybe you'd go, no, it's not a floppy rabbit. It's an ORC and its which, and in which case we move on to the next executive.

Stephen (29m 56s):
So yeah.

Autumn (29m 59s):
Well that sounds exciting. And the one thing that it caught my attention to is you had mentioned before that the movie studios seem to be, I mean, it definitely seems like there are just doing remakes of a well-written avatar two and it was the whole Marvel series. Everything's sort of stuff that has been tried and true and they know it's going to be worth the budget. So do you think if you right in something that's more cutting edge, would that then push you to look more at Netflix or HBO? Or do you think you could try to sell that to movies or do you think most of them in the authors are better looking at like the TV series?

Stephen (30m 35s):
I'm you know what I am, I'm a big fan of TV series, mainly because I think that there's more room for Story, you know, the, the, my biggest concern about the films right now, although I actually just heard a very interesting story on NPR yesterday because of COVID right now, blockbusters are dead. M mainly because they can, they currently can't be maid and they really need a massive, a, you know, a box office presence. So in order to make their money back or to make the money and so on, and that was in the case for a week, that's been in case for a while, but now even more so in a time of COVID and they just pulled the latest James Bond movie in there pushing it until the next year because people can't get into theaters.

Stephen (31m 20s):
And so, and they are literally they're the largest state or change in the world is now a closing down all of their theaters until the next year with a few exceptions So so one thing about TV that's great right now you can make films for TV But content right now with regards to large block, that gesture while they were preparing for the end have COVID and the resumption of production. Stuff's starting to go towards smaller fare now towards indie fair, but something that you can actually stick on a Netflix, et cetera, et cetera. And with regards to actually Pitching to Netflix, M, it's kind of a mixed bag or a Netflix is an interesting organization and like all streaming services.

Stephen (32m 1s):
They've got a lot of the competition, but Netflix is a model is to actually cancel series after two or three seasons maximum, unless it's a massively popular. And they do that for a couple of reasons. Number one, it's about cost. So in the industry, when something starts becoming a successful, the people that are attached to it, the actors, et cetera, et cetera, start getting paid more money. The second thing is is, and so once it starts becoming successful, a cost of production goes up. The second thing is, is the Netflix likes to keep it fresh. So I'm actually looking at my neck's Netflix, Paige, right? I don't have time to do much of anything, let alone constantly be on their flip side, which I, I wish I did.

Stephen (32m 46s):
And you know, but they're, they are, they're interested in refreshing their content over and over. And also if you have something that's a lie, you get it on Netflix, that it doesn't necessarily mean immediate success in the sense that sometimes it's either too niche or your not getting enough viewers is based on what their algorithm is. So and nobody knows what their algorithm is, because if you knew that they'd had to kill you, they don't, you know, but they were successful shows and there was one show. I want to say it in Norway, M that figured out that you have social media channels and that type of thing at believe it was a Fantasy show I believe is about Vikings or something where they cracked kind of the Netflix algorithm to get enough people to watch it and enough sort of buzz around social media and stuff, where they managed to get a cup of our seasons out of that, as opposed to a Netflix was going to cancel it after one season.

Stephen (33m 41s):
So there's a lot of different things to do it. So Hey, go for the Netflix thing if you can. But I wouldn't, I wouldn't call it a Netflix. The panacea have, Oh my God. If I get it on Netflix, I have arrived because I think that there are other ways there's other platforms, but also you are most likely not, not going to be able to pitch directly to Netflix anyways, because they are very, because everybody wants to be, you know, so

Autumn (34m 6s):
Yes. And this is something that, you know, Author is, this is something like when you do book publishing, you need an agent and you do this and that. Or is that something that literally, if you're a single person and you're just determined to take this route and do the work and learn the stuff you can do it on your own or do you, or is it really helpful to go get an agent and let them do the hard work?

Stephen (34m 26s):
Sure. So again, the disappointing answer, unfortunately to everybody is yes to both of them. So I think that, that, you know, I have, I have an agent right now that's specifically for children's media. And I know these people that I do a lot of corporate work for Mattel toys. So I, so I know these people and work in these areas and they, you know, I just had a bit of a disappointment with the Magic poop because just of timing. And so they, they are very much in my corner or in a very small agency, a And, but they're still, you know, pushing me, but still I had to do a ton of work on my own so much so that I, I just signed another, another first look, deal with another woman.

Stephen (35m 13s):
Who's a producer who might be more likely to get it off, to get it going I'm. And I also have a, of all people Quiana, Reed's a sister looking at it. So she has her own production company. So it's still a matter of yeah, but I'm S I, myself personally, am still planning the payment that doesn't make any, any more special than in any of your listeners. It just makes me as someone who is pounded the pavement. So I think with regards to the agents, you are going to find that, and then I had friends who are in the award winning screenwriters, who have agents who, who can get their agent to call them back. So I think having an, having an agent is up to me, its almost like a M it's almost like saying, you know, I have a cool, you know, I have a magic post in my closet, which is, it gives you more street cred, but ultimately doing it on your own isn't it is, is mainly what you are going to do anyways.

Stephen (36m 7s):
And if you're talking about traditional publishing even more so traditional publishers are really, it's really difficult to break in traditional publishing wise. And so I think if you can get an agent as a self published person, that's fantastic, but you are also going to need to do a lot of the legwork yourself. I'm if you can get one great 'cause it's always great to have contacts, but my thought process is also think of non traditional avenues towards getting to work out their so for example, in my book, the Magic Poof is it that a little African American girl with, with, with Magic Hare a and I spent a lot of time going to African-American hair shows.

Stephen (36m 51s):
I am not African-American or do I have African American here? Although you probably have more knowledge about it than most people who actually are African-American at this point. But yeah, I was the only male a and the only I'm a Caucasian person at African-American hair shows for several years and people would come up to me and go, why the hell are you here? And I would say, you know, and it's only after they see the work that they doc got it, but that was a non traditional way of getting my work out there. That would That I don't see that most people wouldn't do. So if you have something that's got some sort of twist or if you have something that its difficult with FANTASY in general, depending on what you're, but there are non-traditional ways of getting your stuff out there, you know, and some people have on the pavement is some people go to Comicon and literally just be standing outside and they were handing out condoms.

Stephen (37m 44s):
There are handing out comic books to people, you know, or, or that type of thing. 'cause you just don't know if you don't know who you are going to meet, but also you don't know how you are going to create a fandom on it. It really is up to you to create your own fandom, even though there are other ways, you know, there's agent's and that type of thing. Yeah.

Autumn (38m 4s):
I think one of the most honest posts, internet of things I'd ever read on, even marketing was like, what I did was I wrote down 10 ideas at every day and I would try them, I'd cross them off. And eventually one of them worked and that's how I got to where I am today. And I'm like, yeah. And that's pretty much sums up how it really does work is not follow these exact steps and they will work for you. It is come up with a crap load of them. And one of them will eventually work for you.

Stephen (38m 32s):
There is, there is absolutely no spoon there, there really isn't there to go to the matrix. There is a, there's a lot of steps you can take. And there are things you can do to better prepare yourself for success or to create more success. But at the same time, there is a, it's a lot of trial and error based on exactly, you know, exactly what you're creating. And if you truly love what you're creating and your doing it for you, then none of that stuff will make a difference. And ultimately, ultimately it'll find its audience one way or another, depending on what you do. And it, and it's also cyclical with regards to trans in the industry. I mean, for the longest time, you know, back, I don't know how many years now I'm probably dating myself, but whenever Twilight was popular, which of course, you know, trust me, I saw it the first movie a try, right.

Stephen (39m 23s):
And I'm not a huge fan of it, but I know it, it was a huge thing. And then if you notice in Hollywood after Twilight happened, you got about 30 vampire spin-offs, you know, mostly in the young adult space in between space, but you know, but now vampires are dead, but now she's coming out with a new thing and I get the feeling of vampires. So we'll be on it again, you know? So it's just a, it's a knowing the industry and knowing where things are going right now, people have been looking for the next game of Thrones for like, since game of Thrones ended, you know, and you have something like the Witcher, which is on Netflix M and then that you have weird sort of hybrid things like stranger things and, and sort of everything in between, but you also have something called that's called Enola homes, which is basically a take on Sherlock Holmes with yeah.

Stephen (40m 15s):
Which is, which is very sweet. And, but it's also, but it's also, as you're still taking a genre, you know, you're taking Sherlock Holmes, which has been around since the 18 hundreds and your, your putting in a new twist on it. It, you know, and so that there's all these different ways of doing. It just depends on what you're writing my thought process because I'm happy, you know, because I enjoy a diversity in that type of thing is tell me how your story is different from everything else, while at the same time, how I can relate to it based on, you know, stuff that I like, you know? And so that's how the world or character is.

Stephen (40m 57s):
Right, right, right. Exactly. If you have another take on star Trek, M, that's cool, but that's, you are not going to get that nailed at the moment. 'cause they just canceled all of the movies. So, you know, if they're there, they're going back to the television show. So it's, it's, it's a, it's a line, it's a, it's a line, it's a M, but it's a fun one because if you really into genre M and there are certain genres that you really like and cross over and that type of thing, there is definitely a market for its just a question of, you know, what it is and where and where you want to take it.

Autumn (41m 29s):
Oh, that sounds really cool. So just out of curiosity, is there like the small vanity publishers that are, you know, pay us a whole bunch of money and will go and will, will produce your books for you? I mean, do you publishing do any of these publishers and do they ever, or a production companies come in and actually approach other people? I mean, if someone did that to you run screaming for instance, just out there yet.

Stephen (41m 56s):
I think that, so there's a lot of companies that offer that I had self published through a company called ex Libras, which is actually an imprint of penguin publishing and they're actually, we are taught by a penguin. I did that whole rout. So I'll, I'll be the first ones to say that I have spent more than my own fair share of my own money on those things. I, I don't see a lot of value in them because 95% of the time they'll blow a lot of, I mean, I attended a conference about that and say, Oh, you're gonna make your shoulder into a movie. And this was before I even knew everything that I knew, I et cetera, et cetera. And I made some good contacts, but I wouldn't say, I would say I spent a lot of money and there's a lot of people there who just, frankly, shouldn't be there in the sense that people that are writers or whatever.

Stephen (42m 43s):
It's two who aren't necessarily professionals who are trying to, who are trying to get into the dream if you will, without understanding the process. So I'm, I'm not completely against doing that, but I think if you're going to spend the money on something like that, like a conference or something like that, I absolutely think pitch fests are great. Not necessarily because you're gonna get picked up tomorrow, but because it gives you the experience of what Pitching actually is. And also you'll be amazed at the people you meet out there who have similar stories to yours, or you'll get inspired by, you know, somebody else's book or whatever. And so I think, you know, getting picked up at a pitch Fest is probably much less likely than they would want you to believe, but I would encourage people to do with not necessarily For to, to make that happen, but more along the lines have to meet people to network because networking is key and to grow and to understand the process because I can talk about Pitching all day, but until you are actually sitting in front of somebody who literally here is 30 pinches a day, or how were they catch you before lunch M and his trying to do all of the different things.

Stephen (43m 59s):
It it's a nerve racking thing and you need that. You need, you know, you, you need to understand that you have my attention for approximately 30 seconds, even though I told you it's three minutes. So if you can pitch me in 30 seconds or more likely, and about 10 that are actually willing to listen to everything else, you have to say, that's a really good skillset because it also helps you with writing, right?

Autumn (44m 23s):
No, I think, you know, it's, it's literally getting involved in a meshed and immersed in it and honing your skill and that's so important. And you're also making me feel good that I got you to come on the podcast. So you never know when you send that email. So I am, so I appreciate it. Oh, and before we go, we've been doing this for awhile, but I love, like I mentioned, I really into diversity, I think FANTASY is, is always had these trends of embracing diversity. I mean, for a while we were what Conan the barbarian. But since then in modern day it's FANTASY is beautiful. And I, like I mentioned, I love the pictures on your website, the magic Poof and I mean, I read that how you came up with that.

Autumn (45m 5s):
We were working on our loved ones hair and it came up with this idea that this magic hair and all of the things a little heroin gets into it's just so much fun. So do you think that's, that is a strong trend of Fantasy. Is that one of the brilliant things about it? And do you think I'm, I know there was a current chin of like appropriation. Do you ever worry that someone is going to come up to you and say, well, why did you write this? But it sounds like you didn't have that experience and you have a good answer.

Stephen (45m 31s):
Yeah. I think, I think it's always a, so my thing has always been, I am very aware of the eye, the need for diversity in character, but also then need to understand other people's stories. My thing is, is that as someone who's sort of a, you know, I'm, I'm from Phoenix, Arizona, and I'm kind of a traditional white guy, but I'm really not a traditional white guy. My, you know, my grandmother is from Mexico. So we used to have, to my ways that, you know, we used to have tamales at Christmas. So, you know, everyone else has a hand, we had tamales, then it was just kind of like, this is really make that much difference to me, but in Phoenix for the most part, and up until now, when I was little kid who was pretty, you know, pretty, pretty light.

Stephen (46m 15s):
My thing is is that if you're going to write diversity and your not necessarily considered my thing is is that everybody is different. Right? So, but the theme of my books is everybody feels different. So regardless, so I've always felt different because I'm a, I'm not a very large person. I'm kind of a, you know, I'm not, I'm not an athlete. I'm kind of a short, skinny geeky dude, you know? And so, you know, so its one of those things where I always felt different in my own skin and for many different reasons. And so I came at it from that standpoint because I can't talk about your experience as an African-American person growing up in an inner city, city, Detroit, because it's not my experience if you want to write about somebody like that.

Stephen (47m 1s):
But my suggestion is that you actually talk to somebody, talk to somebody about that. But what I would say about diversity is first of all, fantasy and sci-fi, I have always been, you know, great vehicles for telling diverse stories that are a wink and a nod to, you know, current cultural issues. You know, I mean you can go back to, you know, episodes of, again, I'm dating myself, but star Trek the next generation where they are literally talking about same-sex, you know, but there are not talking about same sex marriage, you know, it's an Episode. So I think its a little bit more blatant now and there's a lot of opportunity for Story, but my suggestion is, is include diversity.

Stephen (47m 44s):
But don't assume that you tell it from the perspective of, this is a, a character who is African-American, but they are African, but they're not a token African-American person or your trying to pretend like you grew up in the inner city of Chicago because you didn't M there there's everybody has all characters have there's there's a much deeper thing going on with, with human beings, especially in the current time of COVID that affects everybody and it may affect everybody differently, but there is still a universal of human truths that make sense, two people that come out and characters.

Stephen (48m 26s):
And then you overlay on top of that, the sort of diversity angle, if you will, or the idea that we also need to take into account these people's backgrounds. So if I were going to write a show about it, I actually do have a script about it's called the X, the X expatriate. And it's about, well, that's really not. And these current times it's probably not that on timely, but basically someone who is born in the United States, who then it gets based on new laws gets repatriated to Brazil. And so it was a Brazilian, an American repatriated to a place he has never known. So again, it's just a, its a fish out of water story. But at the same time, there was a very real aspect of sending somebody two completely different culture and then not knowing it, even though the color of their skin dictates that they're part of a culture.

Stephen (49m 13s):
So I think if you are going to do that type of thing, do your research partner up with people who have more background and information on it than you do, but also make it much more in-depth than I am. Some, you know, w whatever their background is is like John was, you know, it was actually raised on a Lakota, an Indian reservation, you know, and it's like, that's a really nice surface piece, but I don't really like, how does that affect John's overall view of the world? And that's what I'm interested in. It, I'm not interested in just the fact that we've laid on a background as a character and the assumption that the audience, then it goes, Oh, well, if he was raised on to a coded reservation than an, obviously he must be some sort of spiritual Sean and tight because he was raised with Eric and, you know, with native Americans, it's like, no, I want to see if you're going to, if you're going to do a diversity, which I think is totally needed, then do it in a way that transcends just surface level cultural norms or stereotypes or stereotypes,

Autumn (50m 16s):
The native American, always a wise Sharman is, you know, it's been done. We can move a line.

Stephen (50m 21s):
Yeah. Right, exactly. So in other words, in my, you know, in my book series and Magic group, for example, if the little girl me to learn, and it's not that she, she feels different because she's got Magic hair, but she also feels different because of like somewhat of a bitch because of the color of her skin. But mainly it's because she feels different because of who she is. And so, as I can speak to the color of her skin, based on that, I can make reference to it in a way that is helpful for people to understand, but really the, the, the element is about being feeling different. And I can feel that way. 'cause because as you know, I can understand Boeing because I was bullied when I was little, I can understand feeling different because I felt different when I was little, you know, and that type of thing.

Stephen (51m 5s):
Does that make sense?

Autumn (51m 7s):
No, it does. I love that because it brought up that idea of the iceberg. I mean, what people see on the surface, especially, I feel, I think we can still have lunch together, but yeah, it was just what people see when they look at me. I always find so hilarious because it's not who I internally see myself or all the depths of me is that iceberg tip people see that little iceberg and they are thinking, this is what you are. And for me, I think a lot of people who love the fantasy and sci-fi genre, it's not even close. It's just the surface.

Stephen (51m 36s):
Right. And then in my thought process is also, again, if people are going to be writing about diversity, then you have to either partner up with, with those that are diverse or, you know, do your research in a way. I was very careful, you know, you mentioned cultural appropriation.

Autumn (51m 52s):
No, no. I love to read. I went to the shows. Yeah.

Stephen (51m 55s):
Yeah. I mean, I it's like I, you know, I didn't just sort of sit around and go, I think I'm going to write it a little bit. That a little African-American girl I wrote, I did that. And then I M, you know, I know one of the leaders of black lives matter and, you know, set a date with academics and, you know, and it's that doesn't make me, you know, that doesn't make me a hero of, you know, African American people by any stretch of the imagination. But the point was, was simply for me to understand, you know, I, I learned so much about culture and that I didn't necessarily know based on my own background. And it was important to know that because when that question gets thrown to you, you have an answer as opposed to, Oh, well, I'd just put it in a, you know, whatever an African-American character or an Asian character, or, you know, or whatever.

Stephen (52m 42s):
It's a great read, a manga comic. That's a really, really cool, but if you're not in Japanese and your not full time, and you're not fully versed in the culture, then you should probably talk to some people and get an understanding as to why manga is so important in Japanese culture. And there was a reason why it's important in Japanese culture. Japanese culture is traditionally a much more, you know, much more stayed and less public with their emotions. Manga is a way for people to express their emotions in a way they wouldn't normally do it in a society that is considered a much more buttoned up if you will. And that's changing now with, with generations. But, you know, if you look at some manga stuff like that, some of that stuff is pretty intense, you know, and there is.

Stephen (53m 25s):
So it's a very immersing yourself and the culture of what you're writing and employing allies in that culture, I think is critical if you, if you want to hit the diversity angle, but also there's diversity in whatever it is in your own background. You know? So again, like I said, my paternal grandmother is from Mexico. We didn't really discuss it that much. It wasn't really that big of a thing, but it's like having tamales at Christmas. And, you know, my dad's trying to teach me Spanish when we were little and me going, I don't understand what I need to know Spanish, you know? And it's like, you know, unfortunately I don't know it, but it just really, you know, finding the diversity in your own culture or speaks to in your own background, it doesn't even have to be cultural is, is a thread that weaves through any story that works for everybody, not just for, you know, one specific person it's about the story and the characters and less ed D the cultural influences are an overlay to your people, you know, in your stories

Autumn (54m 24s):
That, that makes total sense. I love it. It's a very beautiful, and it does make sense. I mean, we should all have, at least if it's not authentic, that it's who we are. And then it's at least authentic two that we did the, we did the that's a street cred. We went and did the research. We talk to the Real people. We had them look at it and we weren't trying to hide it, or our staff and, you know, Barry at somewhere.

Stephen (54m 46s):
Sure, exactly. I mean, so I mean, a good example would be someone like if there was a person who was close to Martin Luther King jr. Who was white and, you know, wrote a screenplay or a book or something, well, more than like, even though they were wired, if they were travelling around with Martin Luther King jr. And actually new the guy, I will be much more likely to read their script as opposed to someone who is like an African-American person who was like, Oh, I've wrote a story about that Martin Luther King jr. It's like, well, but this guy has more, you know, this person actually knew him. You know, like I want to have a person is, so this person, in my opinion is more experienced. Now he might hit up somebody who is an executive, or it would be like, ah, because there's backlash, of course.

Stephen (55m 29s):
And you have to be mindful of it without being negative about it, but you have to be mindful of it, that there can be a backlash. And it's like, but you know, I don't, I don't know. Am I the only person who can write a story about short, skinny, white guys? Probably not, but I bet you that there was an African-American guy who was a short, skinny African American guy who was a nerd who grew up in a completely different city who is more like me than, you know, half the people that I grew up with it, if that makes sense. Yeah.

Autumn (55m 53s):
Can I get the eye do get that? That is awesome. Well, thank you. I didn't want to keep you forever. I know you're a busy guy, so I will wrap this up in just say, thank you so much for your time. It was, it was, especially for me that it's coming. I was like maybe one show up at night. I am not a big movie buff either though. A lot of the ones you mentioned, I'm like, Oh yeah, I do watch that one. So it was really interesting to hear that this is, you know, how you'd go about starting to do this. And I would know if I went down this route, I would have so much work to do, but that's okay at at least I would in knowledgeable on the other side and having done all the work, that means you are actually meant to be doing it. Otherwise it, you know, it's a labor of love.

Autumn (56m 34s):
Let's put it that way as well. I look forward to hearing that, you know, the Magic Poof has made it into its animated series or whatever, or however it comes out and we'll do the other projects that we're working on. I think it sounds fascinating. And I definitely think the world needs the voice that you've created. So thank you. And thank you again for your time today. Thanks so much. I do very much appreciate it. So next week, yes, we are. We back and we're going to be talking about finding an author of voice and what it is.

Narrator (57m 12s):
If you like, what you just heard, there is 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 in Jasper 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 95 – A New Way of Thinking About Your Author Website

Do you want to create an author website but it just feels too complicated? Maybe you don't know what it should include? Or maybe you just aren't sure what the point is for one?

Join Autumn and Jesper as they go over the essentials a modern author website needs as well as the soon-to-be completed redesign of Am Writing Fantasy's website!

Send us your questions for our 100th episode Q&A podcast at https://forms.gle/j61G2sHVYcXjkRiY9!

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 to best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them now onto the show with your hosts Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt Hello

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

Autumn (31s):
And I'm Autumn.

Jesper (34s):
This is episode 95 of The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast. And we are going to talk about Author websites because we all have one and we'll all be available. Website templates out there from What press and the, like, it's never been easier to put your Author website together yet. What should you consider when you are developing your author website? And since we are working on both a redesign of the Am Writing Fantasy website, and we are building a new author website for our joint fiction, we just thought that we could record a podcast episode to share what consideration and choices we've made and why I am looking forward to this one.

Autumn (1m 17s):
Cause of course, as you know, and maybe the listeners we'll soon be learning, I'm a website designer or so this is, you know, kind of right up my alley. So what, you know, by forced learning and computer programming and software engineering have run in my family since my dad brought home a Texas instrument computer when I was in high school. So I've been into computers ever since. So I'm not an expert, but I do know my way around a little bit of coding. And otherwise I have people in my family I can pay for help.

Jesper (1m 49s):
And I promised to get the advice that we are going to give his, not to, that you have to go out and find your own version of Autumn to do with side to side before, you know, we are going to try to break this down into something that you don't even need a dictionary to go and look up. So we are going to work this out for him. Yeah. It feels like we haven't talked in ages, but really its only been, I guess in a way its been a little bit of a skip because I was away and then you were ill. And so we have like, it's been almost two days, two weeks since we've talked to other than that.

Jesper (2m 23s):
Yeah. Think so. Yeah. We, because I had to cancel one when I got sick and then a and then you, yeah, you had your vacation. So if India, I think it is how it's been two weeks. How it should range. We're not used to that's no good. And it wasn't as they were usually chatting while we were well, even during that time, we're totally over email or even when you were IL, I think he responded to me So and it wasn't covered. So knock on wood. That was a good, good thing. It's just a regular cold from what you said. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I could also mention, because on the last podcast episode I mentioned, or the last one we had to now I'm losing track, which one it would be.

Jesper (2m 58s):
But at least I remember recently I mentioned that we had ordered a Corona test four, our oldest son as well. And I thought I better just say, here are on there as well. That I, that it was negative. So what we did not have a and he is, he is feeling fine by now. Of course. And then I got sick here. So he, so he passed it onto me, but I know

Autumn (3m 19s):
you should have a quarantine and him in his bedroom, but no, no that's probably not good.

Jesper (3m 26s):
See yeah. With a PlayStation or something, he probably wouldn't even mind The problem. It's like you can't ground a kid unless you take away all the electronic devices. And in my case, it's like the old days that I was gonna say it, in my case, you couldn't ground me unless you took where every single book and the house or every single piece of paper. Cause I also liked drawling. So I was just difficult. Yeah. Yeah. But a how was your vacation?

Autumn (3m 55s):
Oh, that was good. It was a, I was joking even on Instagram that, Hey, I went to a little cabin in the North of Vermont and in the Wood's next too, a stream and yes, I'd live in a little cabin in Vermont, in the South of Vermont and in the woods thanks to the stream. But I get to see You family and it was a bigger cabin and it had a hot tub. So that was kind of fun. And that's too bad. Yeah, no, I'll get the hang out with family. We had some rainy days and I did get some Writing in, but I what do you feel? You start at a good vacation for me unless I get so I'm writing it. Cause it's just, I had admitted to my worst addiction.

Autumn (4m 28s):
If you told me I had to give up writing, I'd probably say life is not worth living. So its pretty dire for me. I just T and Writing and maybe chocolate and wine would be subsets of you. This is what makes life good and make the ice cream. So it was lovely thing. But now I'm packing through my smaller Cabot in the woods, but it was a beautiful if I can, you know, if anyone wants to, you know, hand me, it was something like that, I will I'll take. It was a gorgeous.

Jesper (4m 58s):
Yeah. And you, you just made your way back today just in time for recording a podcast episodes

Autumn (5m 3s):
And for the student Q and a, we just had, so that was so fun. Yes. You know, I guess I'm dedicated. I just, this is what I like to do.

Jesper (5m 12s):
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's been well apart from being sick, it's been pretty busy on my end this well, because a yeah, the house sale is final. So that's good. So finally, to be able to say that a and we've been trying to find it, The place to rent, I guess I heard you set that. And so you looked at two apartments. We did it. So one of them is in the wrong city.

Jesper (5m 43s):
I guess you could say wrong. I mean, not the city where the kids go to school with, this is where we would like to move. It is in the central city though. Meaning that it's not like one of the, you probably don't know if even you can call the way we live today, a stopper, but we live in a small CD, like 15 kilometers way from the main hop. Here are the main hub city. So there are public transport from here to the place where the kids go to school is pretty bad. A but the apartment than the other Citi that we went there with just a bit like the main Citi in this area, the public transport is awesome from there.

Jesper (6m 21s):
So it actually only it's if it, if they take the Busch boss from there to the other city, were they go to school? Its only like 15 minutes on the bus, so its not bad at all. But then we also had an apartment this weekend. We went out looking at which it is in the city where they go to school. So it'd be like two or two minutes on a bike and you we'll be at a school that kind of quick a yeah. So that's like very, very close by. And the difference between the two places is that the, the one in the main city, it's like a completely new building.

Jesper (6m 56s):
It is a two minute walk from the beach. Everything is New it, of course, both of these apartments I had to say, of course they're a much smaller than the house we live in. So of course that, but they have both of them have that in common. So you have that on one hand, it is in the wrong city, so to speak, but it is new and it's right next to the beach. And on the other hand you have it's the stuff. It just in the right city write next to the school, But it, it, it is renovated, but its an old house. So its like, yeah, you know its a bit cold because the, the one in the main Citi, there's a, there's a heated floss in the entire department.

Jesper (7m 35s):
Right? The other one you probably need to put on some, a flip flops or something because they have what's called. So it's just night and day between the two in that sentence. Yeah. And also the one in which I really probably wanted the things I hate the most, to be honest or there's two things I hit the most about the one in the next to the school. There it is. Number one, your washing machine is in the basement. I hate that. So you have your own private one, but you have to basically go all the way down to the basement.

Jesper (8m 8s):
Every time you want to do laundry, it's like, no, I don't want to do that. No up and down the stairs they have all this. No, I don't wanna do that. Secondly, it is a bigger house. So they're is three apartments in house. Totally. So there's to other apartments, some other family's live in and then the one that we could possibly rent and a, there is a Gardener's will and it is the responsibility of all three families or all three rentals to take care of the garden.

Jesper (8m 41s):
So we have to take care of, of the garden together with the other ones. And you don't have any private life out there because everybody's, she has that garden. So it was like, if you want to sit down there, of course you can sit in the corner for yourself, but there will be other people in the summer right there. Right. It, you can't really, you, you just have to accept that you have like foster social interaction going on them and being introvert. That's not really the thing that I want to do. It's like, I don't want other people in Mica. So unless I invite them, just say, considering my ideal property, it's like a hundred acres with a house dead in the center and you can't see it and no one can reach you.

Jesper (9m 18s):
Yeah. So, and then of course the big differences is well that the house that is in the right Citi here next to the school is quite a lot cheaper than the one in the new site or in the main city because of costs because of the location four one, but also because of the one is in, in the new city and at a completely new building right now. So of course that it is quite more expensive.

Jesper (9m 48s):
Umm, but we had a, we've had a family meeting on Sunday and it was funny because my wife had this idea, let's make a list of pros and cons for each place. And it was like, it was so funny when we were done, she held up to two lists and it was like the one in the main city had a long list of pros and like a couple of bullet points, cons and the other one in which was right next to the school was exactly the opposite. Like a list of a long list of con's and a few pros.

Jesper (10m 19s):
It was like, Oh she was so like looking at this. I think the answer's quite a lot. Yes. But at least the end, the family's is an agreement. This was a good thing. You're not going to send like one kid and one spouse Deliv at one apartment. Oh no, no we we're pretty much aligned every day. All four of us at the, we prefer to the one in the, in the main cities. So we actually turn down on the other one and set step to the rental, a agency in the main CT that we would like to rent that one So waiting for the day and waiting for the rental contract to come through So but it should be OK.

Jesper (10m 53s):
At least they did confirm to me over the phone that they had received it for us. So I hope that that's true, but I feel much better one. So I see you a contract. I think that's very true. Yeah. So, but it should get sorted. I think so we can get moving. You ask.

Autumn (11m 10s):
Yay. Congratulations. It's exciting. It will be a lot of work, but change can be a good thing. So it would be wonderful.

Narrator (11m 19s):
A week on the internet with The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast

Jesper (11m 24s):
OK. So we need some questions. People ask to us Please I certainly I mentioned a Episode 100 is going to be and ask us anything. Episode to have a question, don't have to be limited to publishing marketing or riding. They can be anything you could ask. What are our favorite song, his or color or character and a novel, anything you at work or she can ask us a burning about writing Or marketing or publishing or anything like that.

Jesper (11m 57s):
So we're open to it all. I guess if it's too personal, we, we reserve the right to skip it, but send an email. It'll be so much fun. And if not an email, we would love it. If you would send either an audio file or a video, we can strip the audio from so that we can have your voice on our podcast with us. And there will be just really let me just kind of ad that little extra something special. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if you want to know where we grew up or when we first fell in love with the fantasy genre or, or whatever, that's gonna be fine, whatever you want to know, but it's going to be a bit more fun for you to listen to episode 100, if there's actually any questions on it.

Jesper (12m 43s):
So I wouldn't recommend you start posting your questions to us because episode 100 is not that far.

Autumn (12m 49s):
No, it's coming up so quickly. I can't believe we're we're on 95 already. Its, its it doesn't seem like it's been that long, but I guess according to my nephew, who's now in his thirties. It's yeah, it's been that long. I don't see how we've been doing this. Actually just had a, a little notice pop up that M it. We passed October 1st, which means Am Writing Fantasy are a little partnership has been going on I think three years now officially.

Jesper (13m 21s):
So that's awesome. Isn't it? It,

Autumn (13m 24s):
I think that's a fantastic, we should've had a, a little celebration, but it was on vacation. Sorry. So

Jesper (13m 30s):
Yeah. Yeah. Well it's never too late. If we could find an excuse to celebrate for a certain way.

Autumn (13m 36s):
Absolutely. Especially we will celebrate again and on episode 100 and hopefully it will be celebrating with a whole bunch of really fun questions.

Jesper (13m 44s):
Yeah. And we've added the link in the show notes from where you can post your questions. It'll take you two, a simple Google form and you can leave a written question if you want. Ah, but also as a Autumn said that we would really love an audio video file. So you can upload that too to that a Google form as well. I think I checked earlier today and I think you have to sign in via Google to get to the form. So feel free to email us as well. If, if you prefer, we don't really mind you, you can find a contact form on Am Writing fantasy.com.

Autumn (14m 19s):
If you wanna email us, that's also fine. We just want the questions. So it doesn't matter how you sending them to us. And if you want to just write in a question, that's fine too. We'll just read it aloud are on, on the air.

Jesper (14m 31s):
Absolutely. And we look forward to hearing what your questions are and it'll be really fun to give you the answers. Yeah. So before we go, I do want to say we just had a somewhat on Patrion up there pledge.

Autumn (14m 47s):
So we want to say thank you, Christina. And you're going to have to help me with her last. I have a sense now nor to looking forward to looking forward to, for you to try to pronounce it. I think its Danish. So I am waiting for me to pronounce it now you're by doing this expert, but I am guessing a fro fro. Okay. Because I know that Jay and your Dame is more of a why, but the AEA I do not. I did not ask Google how to pronounce this for me.

Autumn (15m 17s):
So what is the pronunciation of Christina's last name? F-.

Jesper (15m 23s):
Yeah, f-.

Autumn (15m 24s):
Yeah. I wasn't too far off one, Christina. F- here. Thank you Christina. For Kim for your shopping, your pledge. Sorry that I'm horrible at Danish. I will work on that yesterday.

Jesper (15m 39s):
You need to train it. Maybe that will make them my goal for next year together to learn a little bit more Danish. You've taught me. Hi. Hi. Hi. That's not true. You should always start with an easy one. So when you're learning a new language yeah.

Narrator (16m 1s):
And on to today's topic

Jesper (16m 4s):
Before we get started here, I want to say that while the author of Website helps in building your Author brand and it is an important marketing tool, it can also quite easily become overwhelming when you try to figure out what the Website should contain. And we put quite some thinking into the redesign of Am Writing fantasy.com and the Website that were building for our joint fiction. Yet, please don't let any of what we're gonna say here today or overwhelm you, you know, and just listen to what we are about to say, I've been taking inspiration from it, then they ignore the rest.

Jesper (16m 41s):
And so I thought it just wanted to mention that all of them, that sounds really, really fair because yes, it can be easily overwhelming and its changed. It does change to.

Autumn (16m 51s):
So if it happens to be five years from now and you just found us, which was so sad, but no, he should have found us and it can change it. I've seen Website design change radically if some problems or things that were pretty generic to really complicated with tons of information to now getting into this more streamlined look where there's actually a lot less words in text and you get to know people maybe through their email, this so its changed again and goodness knows what it's going to change two in the future.

Autumn (17m 22s):
That's actually part of the reason we're doing a redesign is that what we have is currently really complicated and it has a lot of visuals in right now, a lot more white spaces, what sort have in common, you know what people like to see. But again, if you do the right Website, hopefully it will manage through these trends. I've redone my personal author website a couple of times, but not too many. And I really like the way it looks now. And I don't think I'm going to change it too much unless I change some kind of background theme to something a lot more SEO friendly or something like that.

Jesper (17m 58s):
And you, you have it on your website and I think you flipped it pretty solid. The Way it is presented over the years. Yeah. Well it it's pretty simple to be honest, I don't, I, I don't bother genes. Maybe I should say, I don't know, but its just you, I don't know. I don't have time for that, but yeah. I think also we should mention that depending on when you listen to this, the redesign of the Am Writing Fantasy website might not have gone live yet. So because I just wanna mention that because if you go onto Am Writing fantasy.com and you don't see a or you think they're, well, this is the same as before it might be because we haven't pushed the update get so just be aware of that.

Jesper (18m 40s):
If you're listening to what's the end of 2020 or later than yeah, it should be up to date a or it should be the new designer RADA. So just be mindful about debt. So we are talking about stuff here that we haven't, we have the entire plan of what we want to redesign, but we haven't actually done it yet. Just so

Autumn (19m 1s):
Yeah. That's what happens when you have lots of projects on the burner and you just kind of stack them and it's in the queue, it's in the hopper, but I've got to get to it again since, since web designed has sort of my thing and I don't know, I guess we could always hire it out, but its kind of my thing and it's the same reason I do my own book covers. No one else will pick, put up with my own persnickety Nez. So I own that. I'm good with it. I'll do it.

Jesper (19m 29s):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean it would be silly. It wasn't when we have a resource like U here and it would be silly to it to pay somebody else to do it. That's right.

Autumn (19m 37s):
All right. So let's get into what a website should have, especially an author website.

Jesper (19m 44s):
Yeah. So I tried in my prep here, two basically sort of divided it into the different pages we are looking at, implementing on the website and then explain a bit what they are and why we have them the way why we intend to have them the way we intend to have them. So we can go through that. But I think as well, just to mention first, maybe there isn't overall driver behind the redesign of the Am Writing Fantasy website and it is the overall driver is simplification.

Jesper (20m 19s):
The current version of Am Writing Fantasy I mean it has a lot of very, very good information on it, but it's not simple. And the there's a lot of menus. There's a lot of things you can click around to get to different places and all that stuff. But I think one of the things that it doesn't do very well is to communicate concisely, what problem we're trying to solve for other authors. You know, there's lots information on the website, but when we came up to the point where we started talking about redesigning, we started questioning ourselves.

Jesper (20m 55s):
If it would serve us better for when author's are checking out on our website, that it would be much, much easier and communicated much clearer what we're trying to help them with. So in other words, we want to have both the Am Writing Fantasy website, but also the fiction Website we are going to be a bit later to answer three questions in the first few seconds. And that is number one. What do we offer? Number two, how will it make the life of the person, a person visiting our website better?

Jesper (21m 27s):
And number three, what do they need to do next? So if we can ask those are answered those three questions very, very quickly. The idea behind it is that the website should, will perform better in terms of basically converting people into doing things. We might want them to do like signing up to an email list or to go and listen to the podcast or whatever it may be. Right. But but that sort of the underlying thinking behind.

Autumn (21m 59s):
Absolutely. I think we, I will give a shout out two, I'm a marketing book. This is not necessarily to authors, but we've both read the StoryBrand by Donald Miller. And it is if you have any need for Website pointers, it really helps too read that it kind of breaks it down. But at the very least picture of yourself, I mean, usually you think a reader we'll find your website because they came through your books or you would think they would no, you know who you are, but there's a lot of reasons someone could land on your landing page, maybe your doing a giveaway or maybe they just type it in your name, wrong may be Google project up.

Autumn (22m 35s):
They should know what they just landed on in those first three to five seconds before, you know, you don't have long to hold onto someone landing on your website so they should know who you are. That it's an author page. The what genre you're right in. And if you are trying to get him on your newsletter or if you're trying to get some to sell something, you should, that should be the third question. That's answered that, that immediately click here to get a free book or click here to, by my hot new release, I'm a number one New York best seller. It should be right there, front and center.

Jesper (23m 6s):
First thing that pops up so that they have those, they know exactly where they landed and whether or not they want to be there.

Autumn (23m 13s):
Yeah, for sure. I mean, we all live in the very, very busy, busy online environment nowadays. And if you get onto a website and it starts talking about 2 million different things you, you might wanna know or could do with it. Yeah. You know, How we're, if we're honest, how are we gonna react ourselves? We are probably going to click away like, okay, no, I don't have time to look through all that. Right. And you go back, you click the back button to Google and you find another website and you click on that one is that it's just to find something while you're going to get the answer you want right away.

Jesper (23m 44s):
Right. So I think that's just the nature of the online environment nowadays. Yes,

Autumn (23m 50s):
Yes it does. Yeah. If someone landed on your website and a year, they had a blog post where your talking about your Kat and you know, it's something that happened over the Hallowe'en and there are not going to know who you are, what you are. So you don't have to have Author in the URL title, but you definitely should have something that indicates, Hey, I write books and this is a genre. And I know when I did my I, my redesign, I actually changed my Autumn WRITING is my personal website. It changed the logo because they had a book on it and it kinda came up with leaves.

Jesper (24m 22s):
Autumn ha ha. Yeah. This is what happens to me. Your mom named you after a season. And so I changed it though to a dragon and a book because I wanted it to say Author Fantasy very quickly because I didn't choose something that's at Fantasy. So those are important little tidbits you should keep in mind.

Autumn (24m 42s):
Yeah. It's it's about that firsthand an impression isn't it? Yes,

Jesper (24m 46s):
It really is. Yeah. They always want to make a good first impression because especially with today's modern age, they're not going to stick around very quickly or a very long if you don't make it clear who and what you are Now. So that's also why when we went into the redesign of Am Writing Fantasy that we actually, today, when you arrive at the Am Writing Fantasy Website M there is information about us, but then there is also a menu at the top would all kinds of different things you might could do.

Jesper (25m 19s):
And we actually decided to get rid of all that and just put in what is called a squeeze squeeze page. And that was hard to say, but basically a squeeze page is like, you can't do any its, its, its it is the landing page. So it, in that sense is just a webpage to arrive at all. But you can't really do anything except for one thing or click away from it. That's all you can do. And we decided to put a video of the two of us sharing our answers to the three questions that I mentioned before on, on there.

Jesper (25m 54s):
And then we also point people to sign up for the self publishing success because that's the, that's the free cause that we've mentioned on a podcast several times before, and that will be available once we've completed the website update a So quite soon.

Autumn (26m 11s):
I hope. Right. Oop. So I look forward to are a little redesigned in all of the little tidbits that feed into it, which are a part of the reason the redesign is not done because all these a little tidbits feed into it.

Jesper (26m 23s):
Yes. Yeah. And on the fiction side, we will point readers to download a free short story that we're gonna right. And ah, we only go to offer that's your story on the web site, on the squeeze page so you can not get it anywhere else. There is no way to get hand, to get a handle of it. You can buy it on Amazon or anything like that. So it's only going to be there. So it is exclusive content and that is it basically on that page. Nice and simple. You could download this stuff or a sign up for this cause. And here's a video of us talking a bit about it, answering those questions about why you should care and so on and so on.

Jesper (26m 59s):
And then if you scroll all the way to the bottom of that page, that will be a button there where you can click to go through to the rest of the Website. But there's nothing else on that page. There's no menus. There was nothing you could, you, you need to scroll all the way down and then say, I want to go to the website basically. And then if, of course you can. But other than that, the only purpose is that once you arrived here, you are right in your face is like sign up for this course or download this a three story. That's it.

Autumn (27m 29s):
And that's a, I mean, some people, or you might think of that almost as counterintuitive because you want, or you know, people as an author, you think you're doing a blog post and you want people to go and find you. But admittedly, if we're doing tweets about our blog posts and stuff, you might come in through the back door. But if you type in Am Writing Fantasy, you're gonna go to this landing page, a squeeze page and your going to have these options in it will be very clear and concise. And that's the best way people are so distracted with so many things going on that you want your website now to be clear, concise, simple, and not overwhelming.

Autumn (28m 3s):
Just not, you know, not a million places to click. Goodness knows. They say the same thing with our Author newsletters. You should have only one link to click and I'm still doing like 10 click links on my Author newsletters. They just can't get away from it. Cause I just ask too many questions and I'll have too many things or so yeah. So if this is, yeah,

Jesper (28m 22s):
So, but because I think the podcast episode he is, is entitled to a new way of thinking about it because I think what we need to get into our heads here is that the main purpose of this stuff is to get people on to the email list because on the email list, you show, if they sign up, I want a free ebook, they are gonna get onto an email list. If they are sign up, I want a self publishing success and success because they are kind of get on to the email list.

Jesper (28m 57s):
And a purpose is of course, once you get people onto your email list, you can offer them a ton of more value by all those emails or so of course your going to keep providing them with lots of, lots of good value and the emails, but it is also why are the emails that you can start building a relationship with an online relationship if we could call it that those people turn them from a casual readers, into a true fans. And we're gonna talk a ton more about this in an email marketing costs.

Jesper (29m 28s):
We are going to release a bit later here, but above all, I find it incredibly important that your homepage or landing pages or a squeeze page or, or whatever we call it, it is clean and it is straightforward. There's one thing I can do, that's it?

Autumn (29m 43s):
Yes. Right. And that's sort of what we mentioned at the top of the Podcast is that either there was a time when all this information is, are these huge bouts and how you came in to WRITING Fantasy all of that used to be on your websites. But now it's really, you'd have maybe a quote, but from yourself about what you think of the genre or just, and with a lot of white space around it, maybe a picture and that's really about it. You know, you want, you will be directing them only two, this one action. And that's what we want to do.

Jesper (30m 14s):
And then it's really the newsletter of the emails. Once they sign up and get on your newsletter list. That's when you start sharing all that other information now, because it's just, it's moved into a conversation, more into the emails and off the websites, websites are going really uncluttered. And I kinda like it. I liked, it's like having a book, you know, you, you switched to dialogue, you have a lot of white space and it's pretty, it's more like poetry, I guess.

Autumn (30m 41s):
No. Yeah. And a, and I think it is just, there was so much, so much content out there, right? That you almost feel overwhelmed. So once you arrive at, at a website where it's just like, wow, this is pretty clean. And there was one thing I can do here. If I don't like it, feel free to click away. Right. I mean, if you don't wanna, if you don't want a sign up to it, if we take Am Writing Fantasy as an example, if you don't want to sign up for our email list, you get access to a completely free course, then fine. Then you shouldn't be there anyway.

Autumn (31m 10s):
So I mean, that's the purpose, right?

Jesper (31m 13s):
You do this thing or you don't, that's the choice you have sign up or don't sign up and that's all. Umm, yeah. So that's a, that's a lie in that sense is very simple. But then I mentioned before that people could scroll down and then they could click there as you go through it through to the main website and both for the fiction website and also for Am Writing Fantasy, which is a nonfiction Website ah, they both need that homepage that you then arrive at. Once you have click that, take me through two, the website or whatever, we are going to call that button.

Jesper (31m 47s):
I don't know yet, but you need a homepage where they then arrive once they've clicked the button. And ah, this home page is rather simple when it comes to Am Writing fantasy.com because we actually just intend to put a bit of text. They are explaining that what Am Writing Fantasy I is and put some customers testimonials on them as well, because I think especially if you have a nonfiction business, like we do with Am Writing Fantasy it's good.

Autumn (32m 17s):
It's a good idea to showcase those customer system O'Neals because it'll help increase the trust in your brand. Obviously.

Jesper (32m 24s):
Whereas for our fiction website, it's slightly different because there are, we actually decided to add a video instead. Umm, but this time we would like two and I'm really, really looking forward to what this is going to turn out because I had another video. All of them did and it was awesome for a book trailer. But

Autumn (32m 47s):
Do you remember? That could be a few years. Yeah. Well yeah. Well I think you could do it quite quick probably, but I finally sat down to do it. I think it took two weeks. So yeah. I should be aware of my, my scheming. It ups the bar in what you expect me to do.

Jesper (33m 6s):
Yeah. That's the problem. Right? Once you start doing something good. I'll take notice an attitude list out. Okay. I see. Yeah. We can start doing this as well. Right?

Autumn (33m 13s):
Well it's just going to a trailer is awesome. Yeah.

Jesper (33m 15s):
Yeah. But actually the stuff we, we want to put it on the fiction website, its not a book trailer because we want the website to host all the different novels that is going to be set in the world. So we, we intend to make a trailer of the world of a lithium instead. So more like a setting trailer almost rather than a book specific. But of course, if you are, if your website is For a specific series of books that I would probably put maybe a book trailer there and say that, but in our case, we intend to write a ton of different books in this setting also in different areas of the world in different times.

Autumn (33m 51s):
So a times of the, of the, you know, the historical wise and in the setting and so on and so on. So yeah, it makes no sense to have one book trailer there. Yeah.

Jesper (34m 2s):
And how you mentioned testimonials as an author, if you have reviews, you know, I used a lot of reviews on my website. You don't want to do too many. You don't need like 16, but pick three and then have some links to your books or have the book trailer and then maybe another three years or something you don't need to jam them all together. I know the first time I did mine and it was a rotating banner that would just keep refreshing with different lines. It's like, no, that's not what you do. People actually prefer. M static. Images are videos now and they don't wanna just see, these are like rotating type text toast testimonials.

Autumn (34m 35s):
So it doesn't have to be so technical. It can be very static and just pretty, pretty pictures is a nice video and some testimonials just as textes, but we're, you know, in your case, as an author is reviews, it's a wonderful way to let people know this is, you're an honest Author you know, your people love your books. What have people said? I have a little bar now with my awards that was so exciting to do. So if you can sneak that in, you know, put that into this, this landing pages about its almost like an about page.

Jesper (35m 7s):
It is the homepage. I know M I don't have a squeeze page so much on my personal one. I have sort of like call it above the fold. So the first place you land is where I have my, my feature. I did that instead of a squeeze page, but below it, as my normal about page is a little bit about me. There's a lot more testimonials reviews and links to go to actually see what I'm writing in books and things like that. So that's what you kinda want to have on this page as an author, right? Yeah. The video format, I feel like that's pretty as well because video is just a lot more engaging than images or texts alone.

Jesper (35m 44s):
So I know the us, quite a lot of people have a lot of reluctance to create videos and I understand, but if you can, and it doesn't matter if you have to take 20 takes and edited like crazy it before you were happy with it. But I would almost say that if you can, it's probably better to put a video on the website of yourself, talking about your books and stuff like that, rather than it just being a picture, a headshot or with some texts on it.

Jesper (36m 15s):
Because it's just a way, if you go to a hundred websites Author websites today, you will find that 95 of them probably is an headshot and some text and maybe five of them have video. And those five is it's the ones that you are going to remember because I stand out. So I think it's a good idea to put that video format. And also on this page, if it's a fiction M website, then I would also on the homepage beneath the video, I'll then ad a catalog of your books.

Autumn (36m 48s):
Ah, and here I would advise to include links to all formats at all retailers because this way it is very easy for the reader to understand where they can find the paperback, the audio book at, or, and even eBooks I think. And maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong here on them. But I think sometimes we Author, we live in sight, this little bubble where we assume that everybody else knows where they can find paperbacks that Lia of course you've go to Amazon that that's print on demand.

Autumn (37m 21s):
That's when you get your paperbacks or all your books, you, you go to audible, you know, but I think that we assume that everybody knows that stuff because just a second nature, because this is our business, right? It's like, I don't think that all readers know that stuff. They don't necessarily know that. Can I get this one in paperback? It doesn't say on the website, anything about paper back. So they might be like, well then I don't know, then I don't bother. Right. But if it says, paperback, go here, go here, go here. Or do you have a book or here, eBooks here and here and here, you know, you can not make it any easier.

Jesper (37m 55s):
Right? And I think lowering the barrier for the purchase, as much as you can, it's going to serve you will

Autumn (38m 1s):
Absolutely it's you can, you could probably have too many links, but as long as you're clear, you know, have your ebook links have Your. If people don't know that there is a paper back that they might not think to act ask, if you have a way of selling signed paperbacks, you should have that separate from your paperback. One it. If you have hard back. So they should all be separate buttons and yet you make it as clear as simple. And there was a time where like every book had a, I think the book blurb and all this information in the good news, in many ways of your building, a website, you can get away from all of that.

Jesper (38m 33s):
Most places have a image of the, maybe a background that's either moving or just like cutout of the cover. And then the like the tag line and then basically ebook links, paperback links, auto, you know, all the, of the audio book like, and you just, you could just have your links. I need you to keep what you put them all their, and you make it as simple as possible. And even with mine, I mean, I ha I think you have it as simple as possible, but you still get people asking, how can I get this so that it does happen even though it's right there on the website.

Autumn (39m 7s):
But again, I have too many books. And then what you think make sense for to yourself often can be overwhelming and confusing or take too much time for readers. So it does definitely help to have someone who doesn't, isn't familiar with your website or your books, you know, to come and take a look and do some user testing. His or her testing is wonderful. They have some people click through and test all your links, make sure they go to the right places and that there are alive links because things happen and they, you might mess up on your coding and just copy the wrong thing.

Jesper (39m 40s):
And there is a nice tip though, if you happen to go, if you, I would assume your on Amazon, almost every one is they make it really easy that you can actually have people like click on the book image and it comes up with the inside samples. So they can go ahead and read it, write from your website. And then if they like it, they can actually click through that and go buy on Amazon. Amazon tries to make you like, Hey, you want to help cell in your books? There's this really cool link that pops up. It looks really pretty. It's really easy to embed. So you can check it out. If your, an author go to your book page, you'll see on the righthand side, you know, ad this little link, can you just need to follow the instructions and do it?

Autumn (40m 16s):
And it's I did it all on mine and its kind of fun.

Jesper (40m 20s):
Yeah. A and then I think so now you are on to the main website. So we have a few new menu items that we include, but there is a lot, lot more are very much reduced compared to what it used to be a and this one is optional. A, you know, you don't have to ask this one, but we gonna have a shop, a menu item, uhh, on both the fiction and the nonfiction website. And this is basically where people can buy merchandise. Obviously that's not something you have to do, but if you do have merchandise, then you can add that there.

Autumn (40m 51s):
I think that's good of of course the or the offerings that you have in terms of merchandise is different if its a nonfiction versus the fiction audience. Umm, but what they both have in common is that it is print on demand, merchandise, meaning that you don't want to end up in something where you have to then, you know, order something yourself and put it in boxes and ship it or whatever you don't want to do. Any of that, So it is a hundred percent print on demand. And there is a, quite a, quite a few vendors who can take care of all this for you.

Jesper (41m 23s):
So you basically your upload, the design's that you want them to create a and then they will make it for you. And ah, they will also ship it for you. But we chose zassel for our merchandise because at least at the point of this recording Sassel is the only one who will take care of that international that for you a and they do take a, may be a bit more of a cut compared to other vendors because they took care of that as well. But I don't really care cause having to keep track of that for every single country where the customer are located, because that's the key with a vet, it is about why the customer is located.

Jesper (42m 4s):
It is not where you are located. So you need to keep track of which country is this person in? What is the VAT level in that country? And then you need to pay those countries there that you own them and blah, blah, blah, blah. And no, no thank you. So we chose Sassel and they took care of all of that for us, just like a, just like Amazon does as well for us, when you sell the books on Amazon, they we'll also take care of that and we just get the code, right? So that's the same thing with Sassal they'll take a cut and gave us the rest and that's absolutely fine for us.

Autumn (42m 36s):
Definitely. Yes, there are a ton of other ones. So if you think are just going to be exclusive to the U S or you don't think Europe's going to come after you, there are other options, but at Zazzle and for books, if you want to sell books online, you'd be able to sell your own books. Pay hip was also won something we found out that also had our handle's bat. So if you want to hook up your pay hip to book funnel, which is they have fantastic instruction is very little coating, but I will say there is a coding, but I, you know, I made it through it.

Jesper (43m 8s):
So its a, you can see we sell are books right on our websites. So you can go ahead and do that and hook it up and not have to worry about, you know, how that, that is going to be taken out at the end. It's all taken care of for you. It's still a little bit of a percentage. Yeah. But it's less than royalties on Amazon. So its kind of cool to be able to sell stuff off your own website. And like I mentioned, if you want to go ahead and order, you know, five, 10 books of your paperbacks are hard back and sell them a assigned books, you might end up having to box them yourself.

Autumn (43m 41s):
But its kind of also really cool to be able to sell your own signed paperbacks For you know, all the holidays off of your own Website how's that for feeling like you are access sex successful Author

Jesper (43m 53s):
Yeah. And then both the fiction and nonfiction site will have an about page and also a contact page. And I will say that's the minimum, eh, you don't really need modern that to be honest, but a lot about page and a contact page should be there. And then we only have a few other pages that we want to add. Or so of course for Am Writing Fantasy We as you know, see listening to this podcast where we host the course's so those have to be on the website.

Autumn (44m 24s):
Of course, in our case, we, we, we add the course of their a and we of course have this Podcast feature. They are together with the YouTube channel and also the Am Writing Fantasy block, which has a ton of different topics and posts from I probably hundreds of posts. And so all of that is still there, but that is of course not on our fiction site, but if you do have a blog or anything that can help your site with a SEO, I think its good to have a, the key probably as though that you have to, you have to post new content on a regular basis.

Jesper (44m 57s):
Otherwise it doesn't really help much.

Autumn (44m 58s):
Yes I have definitely. There was between life happenings and things going on in Am Writing Fantasy blog. Well and kind of quiet for a little while. And I have noticed that since we started posting a more regularly, that it has definitely upped our SCO. So even as an author of people and you go and look on line, you Google it and they'd say the blog is dead. If maybe you're not getting as many hits, but you are still lifting yourself in the Google rankings. And it does really make a difference over time to have those blog posts.

Jesper (45m 28s):
I still still get people coming in even to my personal one and I haven't posted there for a couple of months. So they really should. I'm only trying to put out a series next year. I really should talk to people about it, but Oh well, but those are the simple one's yeah. I agree to the contact form, you know, with an author page. So you really just need that squeeze page. It's like the landing page, The a list of your books can all be on one page and not know about the contact. So we were talking about a three page Website very simple and very, very simple.

Autumn (45m 60s):
And you could possibly do a sort of like I did him just worry about your squeeze page is just that space above the fold and then you're done too, a page website. So its not too bad though. I, again, in the store, my ad a third one, but that's okay.

Jesper (46m 14s):
Yeah. I mean w and also this, ah, this next one is also one. We are going to add too, our fiction website, but you don't really have two, but we decided to add like a Vicky kind of area of the website for the fiction where we are going to share all kinds of details about the world. So basically it's like world building stuff I'm and we can share as well, because we are, we are getting some really, really cool custom made artwork created, so cool. And it is so beautiful and I really love it. So we can put that on the website as well.

Jesper (46m 45s):
And of course, as Rita's a FANTASY well, Redis a FANTASY Nothing. Yes. That's pretty logical. So we better give it to them. Yeah. So that's something you could do, but certainly don't have too, but I think it's nice though, as well, because once we plan to write lots and lots of books in this world, if people become fans of the setting, they would like to be able to go to someplace and read some more stuff about the setting as a whole.

Jesper (47m 16s):
So being able to do that, I think that will serve the serve it well, but of course, I mean, if you're only riding like a plant, like my first trilogy, for example, I just ever only intended to write those three books in that setting and nothing else.

Autumn (47m 30s):
So it might be a bit overkill to start creating a whole Vickie thing for three books. So then you might not wanna do it, but if you have like Grande of plants like us, it could be an idea, but the only optional, if it is a good way, if you do a blog, it's a good way of, if you happen to post about your world, you can then organize it into it. Kind of a little Wiki. I know for my, my Epic Fantasy in the world of a mirror I had started with before I actually made my companion book, I had all that kind of created and listed online and its great to have it there to be able to point people from the books, you know, Hey, here's a full sized map.

Autumn (48m 6s):
Hey, here is more about this one culture that I've made up. And so it is, it is fun. It gives you one something to post and then once you have it posted, you can turn it into a page and then you can just link to it. And it's basically a glossary or you can talk about your characters that way. So all of those things you can embed is a little Wiki fandom have you're own creation. You absolute, I think just to reiterate, I guess, but the key takeaway here is that the purpose of the website is to get people onto an email list.

Jesper (48m 40s):
So we keep it simple and we drive towards the email list wherever we can. We don't have some other pages which will help on CEO, SEO, which is as good of course. Umm, but I think often when authors are thinking about Website building youth often, are you think about it as an information hub where we just have all kinds of stuff about the authors and books and blah blah, blah or this and that like basically like I Am Writing Fantasy yesterday, there's all kinds of stuff we have. So in the kitchen sink I think.

Autumn (49m 11s):
Yeah, exactly. And that's what we try to steer away from here. Yes. And instead of just drive people onto the email list and there, I think in my view that is a bit of a different way of approaching building an author website. It is, I think it gives us a focus and makes it not feel so insurmountable. You kind of know what you should put in there instead of worrying about what you should put there. You know, its just to make sure, you know, just to get the authors or the readers to sign up, not to worry about other things.

Jesper (49m 45s):
Right? So hopefully we gave you some food for thought there and the next Monday Autumn will have a interview line up for you. So make sure you tune in for that.

Narrator (50m 2s):
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/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 94 – The ONE Word You Should STOP Starting Sentences With!

Is there ONE word that you really, really, need to avoid using when writing?

Autumn and Jesper is searching for the answer (and finds it) in episode 94 of the Am Writing Fantasy podcast.

Tune in for this fun and entertaining episode.

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 (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

Jesper (30s):
Hello, I'm Jesper and I'm Autumn. This is episode 94 of The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast and you know, Autumn I after the last week's episode where we've discussed common Writing Advice we hate the most THE Irene is just not quite last on me that we are going to share. WRITING advise on which words to start sentences with it, but it's not typical. Writing Advice, I like this topic because it's been in the que for a very long time.

Autumn (1m 3s):
One of the, it it's one of the one's that came with you when we formed the partnership and I've always been curious about what this word is for. What are the ones that two or three years I've been like, I wonder what the word is that you shouldn't start Sentences and I found him and I can't wait to share it with people. So, but that's not what we're going to talk about first. Well, I almost wanted to, no, now you're going to have to wait or are not there yet, because I know you teased me before we started that you have some news and so you've got to fess up now.

Jesper (1m 38s):
Okay. Yeah. Well, finally, finally, you have some news are around the house sale. Yeah. So that the couple who were, or who made this conditional purchased contract on our house, we still have to sell their own apartment. They have talked about the episodes. They have finally sold their apartment and now, Oh my God. So this is a real like contract sale. Well, yeah, so now we are inside the one week grace period, where they are entitled to change their mind and cancel the contract.

Jesper (2m 13s):
It's like, it's like a, a basic or a standard contract clause. So I don't think it'll happen. But it's basically, for cases, like, for example, if the person who are now bought the apartment, let's say that this person cannot get a loan into a bank. Even though they said that they could, for example, than this is the week whereby they have to step out of the contract and say, Oh, by the way, we, we don't want to do this anyway. And then of course everything would stop, but that's basically the only thing.

Jesper (2m 44s):
That'll stop it now. So if we get to this weekend and we haven't heard anything until then, then its final now, all right. And the house is sold. You have to tell me, you can make me wait for the Podcast. So it has so many. Yes.

Autumn (3m 0s):
Dear listener. He does this to me too, is not just you. It's not fair. That's so exciting. I am keeping my fingers crossed. OK. So one week more, hopefully just one week more.

Jesper (3m 15s):
Yeah. Basically less than one week, right? Yeah, because we are recording this on the Monday. So yeah, once we get to Friday evening, if we haven't heard of it until then, then its final. 18 months of sales process has then come to an end. So yeah.

Autumn (3m 31s):
Oh, I will be on pins and needles all week waiting to hear. You will have to let me know.

Jesper (3m 38s):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Remind me if I forget.

Autumn (3m 41s):
Yeah, I will. Considering the time difference before you go to sleep on Friday, I will send an email saying, Hey, what happened? Alright.

Jesper (3m 49s):
Yeah, I do. Yeah. Yeah. So basically this deal means that we have to be out and let's assume that everything goes fine now. Ah, so this means that we have to be out of this house by the 1st of January, 2021 at the latest. Wow. Yeah. I got to tell you, because the re the real estate agent called me when he sort of said that the Yeah now they sold their apartment and, and we are basically entering the one week grace period here.

Jesper (4m 20s):
So when he called me There, he also said, Hey dude, do you think that maybe we could arrange it so that the house is handled over to the new owners, perhaps like mid December or something, because I really don't wanna work on the 1st of January. Yeah.

Autumn (4m 36s):
That is too funny.

Jesper (4m 38s):
Yeah. Yeah. I would say, let's see. Let's see. I mean, of course, if, I mean, we, we need to start searching for somewhere, some place else to live now. But of course, if we find something, then as soon as we find something, then basically we can hand over the house if it happened before and right. At least buy the 1st of January and we have to be out. So we have to have found something. Yeah.

Autumn (5m 3s):
Are you gonna holidays and everything? I am sure you guys will probably try to be somewhere else so that you're not packing in the middle of Christmas with the kids. That would be rough. I'm sure are excited, but still yeah.

Jesper (5m 16s):
Yeah. Well basically we would like too, you know, the sooner we can find something else and get out of here the better. So if its possible to find something within the next months and a half or, or two, then you know, if, if its possible to move by the 1st of November, for example, then will do so. But let me see how it all pans out. We don't know yet because we're gonna start while we've been on these different wait list for, for places that we can rent four, the last one and a half year.

Jesper (5m 48s):
But we are on a passive, you know, we're passive on the waitlist, meaning that we don't know if there's anything available and its not until this coming weekend. Once this grace period comes to an end that I'm going to flip it to active. And when I do then we will we'll if there's anything available, then will be told that, Oh great, there is this. You can rent write, but it could also be that there is nothing available and then will have to look around it. But the real estate agent had promised us that, that they would try to help us find something that we could rent or that they will try to post and that and network and stuff.

Jesper (6m 24s):
So

Autumn (6m 26s):
They don't wanna work over January one. We'll probably try really hard or else.

Jesper (6m 33s):
Yeah. Well at least of course the real estate agent have a very good network. Right? So hopefully they will be something we can rent somewhere in at least in close proximity to where we eventually want to move as well. We ideally we can rent something in the same city that we want to go to So otherwise its a bit counterproductive, but yeah,

Autumn (6m 51s):
That it would be yeah. So that you would wanna get all your stuff over there and it will be so much easier, especially if you need to store anything are going to access it. It'll be good to be all in one spot.

Jesper (7m 4s):
Yeah. So that's a yeah, yeah. That's enough for me.

Autumn (7m 10s):
No. Well, nothing exciting. I am in my husband's back M my writing is going well, I've got some graphic design stuff going. Well the fall, whether has set in, which is, and it's funny though, a yellow leaves are now are trickling down from the tree's and are just, Hmm. It's just feeling like false. So its so exciting to see that it's this changing season. So all I can say is things are going good. Knock on wood. No COVID

Jesper (7m 40s):
Yeah. And but I think there's a lot of w well, I guess that's much further South or something, but isn't there are some still issues with fire is going on and the us all the way

Autumn (7m 50s):
That was filed or something horrible that's you know, out West. So we were I'm on the East coast, but yeah, so yeah, 2000 plus miles away. But where my husband was when he was traveling, he was, you know, he, they were getting small guns in the cities are smoke and smoke where he was. And that was still, you know, five to 600 miles away from the fires. It's it's bad, but nothing too close to where I am at, its on the East coast. It's been pretty quiet so far, but again, knock on wood.

Autumn (8m 22s):
You never know what we're in. We're still in severe drought as well. So you never know.

Jesper (8m 27s):
No. Yeah. I was actually pretty sad because one of the, one of the podcasts I listened to the, one of the host explained how he started. I think she's five or something like that. And he explained how his daughter thinks that smokey is where the condition now, because they asked, when did he gets asked, how is the weather? She just said it's Smokie. And that's a pretty sad, right? That is funny. But it's also sad. Yeah,

Autumn (8m 53s):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean we've driven through that area of California right after the paradise fire, which was a couple of years ago now. And we saw the community that had burned down and we saw people walking up the highway with like, you know, the little wheel bags. She was here at airports and they were just walking in a daze just North because they've lost everything. That's all they have. And it's, it's one thing to see it on the here and on the news, but to have driven through it and to see the lives overturned by it is just so traumatic that Yeah I my heart goes out to them, but it's such a, so much going on in this world where you, Oh, we just need an earthquake or a volcano.

Autumn (9m 34s):
And I think will pretty much have fire wind weather where we've got a couple of hurricanes coming. So yeah. That's the next thing earthquake. That's my guess.

Jesper (9m 43s):
Yeah. That's a way to turn this Podcast depressive.

Autumn (9m 46s):
Yeah. We'll try to tear it up

Jesper (9m 50s):
A week on the internet with The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast this is one of those famous last chance for a minute.

Autumn (9m 59s):
Yeah, that's right. So this is our last Roundup call that you wanted to join us on Patreon. Now is the time there is a something special going on over there. Yeah, indeed. And it runs only until the 19th

Jesper (10m 13s):
October. So you better get moving if you wanna join a very special giveaway that we are offering a golden ticket to our brand new and upcoming world building course. And by the way, I got to say that this cause is going to blow your mind. It has every thing and I mean, everything you can think of when it comes to FANTASY world-building so there is a reason why we spent two years building this, right?

Autumn (10m 40s):
Yeah. Yeah. I had to bet when I was working on those last module's and uploading 'em and that's where we got, we go beyond all the world building and we get into tieing world-building and storytelling together and weaving it all into something that is not an info dump. And they were like, we covered this to what are we just throwing in the kitchen sinks. So it has everything, you know, you would go from, okay, I'm lost in my world, building two, having a phenomenal world that you know, how to tie into your story as well as having developed a phenomenal story along the way.

Autumn (11m 14s):
So yeah, it's a one stop, you know, who has an amazing course? I can't believe it. That is almost done. So yeah,

Jesper (11m 19s):
But the good news is that the winter of the golden ticket will get access for free as part, as an exclusive VIP opening of the course and all of those not included in the VIP opening.

Autumn (11m 31s):
Well, they will just have to wait longer to get access to the course, I guess until 2021 probably is when will open it and why, but yeah. Yeah. So this is your only chance to get in on 2020, except for a few invite only kind of opportunities and this golden ticket,

Jesper (11m 49s):
But since only one person will win the golden ticket we have cos like we always do came up with a solution as to how we could reward everyone. We were just too nice. And I don't know were just nice. Were not to do now.

Autumn (12m 5s):
Yeah, that's true. I think, and its a good till they were going to do it, but we haven't decided yet to have we thought was going to either be a webinar or a prerecorded course module. Cause goodness knows we're good at doing those by email, but its going to be on a totally different way, a different strategy for advertising and what we call it. It was a reader's journey. So how do you think this is just really cool because I think the way, you know, I have to admit you come up with most, have this on your own, but the way that you've taken all of this information to develop way of advertising really kind of draws on a reader and turns him into a fan and we are going to like do this for the people who join us on Patrion.

Autumn (12m 45s):
Umm, for free, it's just a, well I guess you have to join Patrion. So that's a dollar, that's not a bad deal.

Jesper (12m 54s):
No, not at all. And of course all our existing patrons support us. They will get access to this for free as well. And they will also be entered into the golden ticket draw automatically. So everyone who joins us before the 19th of October will be eligible for four, this report. So you better go and check it out if you're interested. And I think, yeah, as you said, you know, for dollar a month, that's a pretty good deal.

Autumn (13m 22s):
I think it'd be really exciting. I mean it's no matter what, whether you just get the webinar or if you actually get the world building course for a dollar, I mean obviously you can join for five or 10, but a dollar as the starting level of that is pretty darn good. Yeah.

Jesper (13m 38s):
Yeah. And you also get all of the other rewards that we offer there. Not to mention that there is the actually hundreds of dedicated patron post designed to help you with your other career. And you're riding that you will get access too, as soon as you join. So if that sounds good, you can just follow the link two Patriots in the show notes as well. We hope to see you there.

Autumn (13m 59s):
Absolutely. And speaking of seeing people, so one of the things we don't talk about much with the Am Writing Fantasy when you do join us through the website or pick up something and you get these re these email tips that I've mentioned before is just like, I cannot believe we send out some of these email tips, like every, maybe once a month, about every three weeks they come. But did you see that email from Timo who thanked us? He, as he said a million times, thank you for the idea's in this email content marketing ideas in between releases is something that I've always struggled with.

Autumn (14m 31s):
And I wanted to do short stories, flux fiction, but it was never sure what parts of the actual writing experience would be remotely interesting to us as readers. So he thanked us for sending along one of our newsletters and you know, it's pretty cool when you have a newsletter that gets those kinds of responses, just for something you give away. Anyway, like every month I wanted to make sure you had seen it. And, but the readers know that, Hey, you know, we have a pretty awesome new, it's a letter that helps you out and keeps you going monthly.

Autumn (15m 3s):
So check it out

Jesper (15m 10s):
For the most part today. I think I'll let you take the driving seat on this one. Autumn often when the thoughts that often when the subject, I should say it is about craft,

Autumn (15m 22s):
Then you, most of them

Jesper (15m 24s):
At the time of the better teacher, I do have some reflections prepared the like, and thought that I could supplement with. But a, I think I'll leave it to you to sort of take us through this topic here.

Autumn (15m 36s):
All right. Well, I was laughing because I want to know how you manage this. This has two episodes in the row. I did homework and we haven't hit episode a hundred yet. So I don't know what's going on here. You figured out how to make me do homework. And I don't know, I'm usually the one who wings it and I came prepared today. So well,

Jesper (15m 56s):
Do you want to post to figure it out?

Autumn (15m 59s):
Yeah. You developed a strategy to get, yeah, that was not an issue. Maybe it's cause I finish the world building a course and I had more free time in, so maybe, you know, that other side that the good students site is coming back out after 20 some years maybe. But yeah. So you have, like I mentioned at the top of the episode, do you had had this topic since we decided to combine ideas and we develop the YouTube channel and built on the platform you had already developed with me and a FANTASY and we created the YouTube channel.

Autumn (16m 30s):
And so this, I dunno how long this one has been sitting in your idea that list. Yeah, I was going to say, it's been at least two years, but you had this topic that is stopping set up, starting sentences with this word. And that's just the nature of curiosity with the I'm. Like, I wonder if what that word is, when should you stop certain things?

Jesper (16m 52s):
Thing is when I, when I added that topic into the list of ideas that we could record a podcast about, I have no idea what that word is. You can just put that in there.

Autumn (17m 2s):
Yeah. We weren't even working together at the time. And lo and behold, you know, two years later it's finally going to happen. And I found that word because it like, you know, I am also an editor and writing coach on it, I would say on this side, but I have got so many sides going that I've got to be an octagonal dice or something to say it's one of the side anymore. But yeah, I finally was sitting when it was a week or so ago when we were deciding topics for the month.

Autumn (17m 32s):
And I said, I know what that word is. Gosh, started I know what it is. So we can finally have this podcast and I'm so excited. So do you want to know what the secret, where it is that you have to stop? Starting Sentences with this word and I know,

Jesper (17m 47s):
Yeah, I guess since I a topic two years ago and I still don't know what it is, I guess I should be fairly curious by now, right?

Autumn (17m 55s):
Yeah. Well hopefully we drummed up the tension for the listener, but so yes, AF this is consolidated Advice after helping many, many novice authors that I realized with the word was, and what I see over and over again with new authors is 90% of the time they're starting Sentences with he or she sheet with a pronoun and just don't stop. Starting 90% of your senses with this word. And I've got some good reasons. And I haven't example, so do you want to hear an example or a written this way?

Autumn (18m 30s):
And this is no one else's work. I wrote this, right?

Jesper (18m 34s):
Yeah. It was just about to say, hopefully you're not going to hang somebody out to dry.

Autumn (18m 39s):
We broke this and what's, what's sad is I actually had a right with the, what the end example will share at the end of the Episode. I had to start with that one and then backtracking to do this one big, because I, I, couldn't write it this way until I had something else to try to manipulate backwards. So it's kind of sad, but all right. So here's my example. He smelled Woodsmoke trapped by the trees. He thought it was from the campfire of the night before he realized that the birds had stopped singing. He halted his horse who started in Paul on the ground.

Autumn (19m 9s):
He wondered what was bothering her. He tried to keep her steady. As she moved sideways, he noticed a warm breeze that smelled a bit like sulfur. He realized what it was. He kicked his horse as flames erupted around him and his horse bolted. So that was nine Sentences. All of them started with the pronoun that a lot of he, for sure, especially when you read it, it's one thing to read it on a page, but when you hear it, it really does bring out the pronoun in the heat. But yeah. So why do you think this is a problem, especially for a reader?

Autumn (19m 43s):
Yeah. Well,

Jesper (19m 45s):
For one, you know, your eye starts to glaze over that kind of stuff. You, if you start skipping ahead, you know, and, and you, you miss you miss the details and by that, maybe its not the details in the self that is important. But what is important is that you're not getting immersed into the story and into the text because you start noticing all these he's you start skipping ahead. Oh there's more and there's more, there's more and it's just, it doesn't become an immersive story,

Autumn (20m 12s):
Right? No, it's just, there is something I tried to in the sense of that or a little varied, I tried to make it more active voice and passive. I tried not to make it a bad Writing you know, I was not, he was sitting and he was doing this and he was doing that. That was really, you know, make sure you're at least active voices. Was he halted? So he's doing things, but its still becomes monotonous. It's the tone has been not necessarily as the sentence structure has always the same in your brain. I stick just kind of starts going, Oh my goodness, I just need something else.

Autumn (20m 46s):
Something to on its like having the same Miele every single day and you just want something different in your brain is craving something different. So like you said, readers will start skipping ahead. I know as an editor on, I had passage's like this and I'm like, Oh really? I just, I start changing things just because I need to change it as well. So that's, that's why it's becomes an issue as, because it's just, your reader's are not going to see it. And even though you are doing things right with the active tone, you know, ACTA verbs, it's still, there is no variety they're and you know, readers want a feast.

Autumn (21m 24s):
They want to a banquet or they don't want, you know, a ham and cheese sandwich every single day. It's just, no you don't you come back for that, right?

Jesper (21m 32s):
No, that's right. Yeah. I had the, I had three different words that I sort of have I I tried to think about what Word do. I think I would be the one's that you should start with a, I agree with your choice water, but I did have three that I picked, so Oh, maybe I could just get him as well and then you can let me know what you think.

Autumn (21m 55s):
Yeah, absolutely.

Jesper (21m 58s):
Yeah, because the first one, well that is of course, if your writing first person than you are going to use it a lot. Yes, very true. And I think, or at least try not to use it at the beginning of every sentence because just like he basically

Autumn (22m 17s):
Really annoying. It came to me, it's the exact same Advice as if you're using the app, when you start using that same word is just you that's all you see. And it's, especially with Tommy With I becomes very self centered and I start just thinking, Oh gosh, this character only ever thinks about themselves. And I mean you're in that point of view, but there's something about it that I just find offensive So yeah. I have a real, I am. I actually avoid story's in first person. Cause I've a big problem with them and The I the eyes as a part of it.

Jesper (22m 45s):
Yeah. And my next one, I think it's more like, it's probably more like a question to you if you think it's bad on it at all. Okay. But yeah. Yeah. I noticed that the here on the podcast, for example, when we record PODCAST I tend to start sentences with the words. So a lot of it just works well as one of those transition words, you know, when we kick off a new topic. So

Autumn (23m 10s):
Yeah. So work best, avoid it at the beginning of sentences. Do you think that, I think in technical Writing EA are like, when you're writing your novel, you can have it every once in awhile because it is a good word and there's a speaking patterns, so is better than EI or those are just a really bad filler words. But it definitely, if you realize that you're writing, so like every other words, every other sentence, two Join two sentences are two thoughts together then, and you need to work on a few other ones, but I honestly don't hear you saying that.

Autumn (23m 45s):
And I do when I'm writing it. It is when I had to self edit out, I want to do. And so, and I'm like, okay, Nope, starting the sentence with something else. Not that again. I live at myself too. How many times I could use so in a way in a page, because it is a good transition Word and you just don't want to overuse it. Yeah.

Jesper (24m 3s):
Yeah. Good point. So

Autumn (24m 11s):
Do you have another one?

Jesper (24m 13s):
Yeah, I do have another one third option. I prepared a and I actually prepare to example

Autumn (24m 22s):
Cool as well. Excellent.

Jesper (24m 25s):
Yeah. It's it's when you start Sentences with, with, with, with, with the words with,

Autumn (24m 32s):
Yeah. All right. All right.

Jesper (24m 34s):
Yeah. I think that it might not always be the best way to start a sentence, you know, in many cases to work with can just be cut and yeah.

Autumn (24m 43s):
What if my stomach,

Jesper (24m 45s):
A very minor rewrite to actually make the census a flow better without losing its meaning. So I made an example here. Yeah,

Autumn (24m 52s):
That'd be fantastic. Okay.

Jesper (24m 54s):
OK. So here we go with The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast out Writing Advice the world has come to an end.

Autumn (25m 1s):
Yeah. I like your example

Jesper (25m 6s):
Versus the sentence, The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast dishing out Writing Advice. Has the world come to an end?

Autumn (25m 11s):
Yes, it is. The second, the second one is so much better. It has more authoritative tone. It's more of a stance. You can feel the stands of it. The other ones just that With is weakened as a whole entire sentence structure. So its, it might work in a sentence like an a paragraph, but if you really want that to be your tag line or a concrete example, you need to get rid of the width.

Jesper (25m 39s):
Yeah. Yeah. I, it says it exactly the same thing. I just feel like it's much more efficient.

Autumn (25m 44s):
Yeah. This, yes. I agree. The second one is much more impactful.

Jesper (25m 49s):
Yeah. Okay. So that was my three contributions to this conversation. Yeah.

Autumn (25m 57s):
All right. Well I have some ways to tighten up your Writing, especially if you're using pronouns or like he shear, I mean, if you're doing this, but it works with everything we've talked about. I mean another good example, it's just a sentence starter, but that almost every like 90% of the, that in your novel, you can go in and edit out, but that's later in the sentence, but we're not, we're not focusing on things that are coming later. We were talking about the stuff before the verb a so if you're using, these are some ways of looking at and tightening up your WRITING is as you know, tips on what to do in the first one is especially when you're using pronouns that he shear.

Autumn (26m 33s):
I, if you didn't notice my example, you're you know, what is a guy? Cause they used hee, but you don't know whose talking using the, I mean, especially when you start having several characters, especially several the same gender. That's the reason I actually chose. And this example that the horse was a female because I wanted to throw in, in a different pronoun. I figured one more. He used us going to be way too much. And an example that you can see, I know visually I do better and much more visual. So I like to read what I'm talking about.

Autumn (27m 5s):
If I heard this on a podcast, I'd be like, can you, can you write that down, please? That would be me. So you use names, you need to know when you have 42 male characters or a three women or something that you need to know who was, who, so your going to be using first names a lot more frequently than you would use. Say if you were actually talking to somebody, you just have to use the names so you can differentiate. And when you start using like her arm and it was referring back to the noun or the pronoun later in the sentence, if you don't have some of the like tissues arm, if you don't throw some of those other clues in there, you might get readers confused about whose arm is where.

Autumn (27m 45s):
So do you keep that in mind and try to read through after you write, to make sure that you, your leader pronouns and adjectives and stuff are referring to the right person. I see this a lot in writing that you start throwing in here is here. And I don't know whose doing what anymore and its just an old, it's just a brouhaha and you just don't wanna do that. So use names. You are gonna have to use names are a lot more. So that's my biggest piece of advice, especially just if I had broken up the, the example with just a name every once in awhile, it would have made a much more impactful.

Autumn (28m 22s):
All right. So you wanna hear Advice number two? Who do you have anything to say about using a name? Yeah,

Jesper (28m 27s):
No, no. I agree with, like you said, so carry on.

Autumn (28m 30s):
Yeah. So sentence variation, M structure as well as length. And that's definitely something when you're always starting a pronoun or a noun and then the verb and then, you know, something, some, you know, some phrase it's all in the same sentence, structure it like I've mentioned its its getting a ham and cheese sandwich and you want the feast. Do you want the bank? What? You need to break up things with starter clauses, just something different questions, something that's going to break up. That sentence structure, make things shorter.

Autumn (29m 0s):
You know, action sentences are so nice when they're snappy in their short, like three or three words long. That's a fantastic sentence. And then vary that with something that's, you know, 15 words, 20 words, you can break it up because reader's will speed up in. They'll slow down and its a wonderful way to get through a paragraph and they pay more attention when you start doing things like that. So it's a wonderful way to break up the monotony and keep someone's attention so that their not just starting to glaze over because it's he said something, right?

Jesper (29m 34s):
Yeah. And it is actually also using the sentence with the length of them. But the part, the structure of the paragraph to increase the momentum and increase the pacing. It's a quite well, I don't want, I don't even know if I could call it a trick because it's not a trick as a way to do it, but it's, it's very good to be mindful about, you know, that the, for example, if something, if your in the middle of a fight scene or something, then be mindful that OK, I'm just gonna right. A couple of a very short choppy sentences here to basically increase the pace of, of, of what is happening because it, it goes well with where the action on the page.

Jesper (30m 13s):
Right. So I think it's extremely helpful to be mindful about it. And it's so simple, but sometimes it's not until somebody tells you about it that you actually start thinking about, Oh yeah, I guess, yeah, that's not. And then you just start doing it, but, and it makes it a really big difference. But somebody has to tell you to the first place.

Autumn (30m 36s):
Yeah. Well we're telling you now it is good. Yeah. It is almost like music notes and they do call it beats. It is a type of way of setting the beet or the tone. And you know, if you have a steady drum, your going to eventually just start ignoring it. But if you start breaking it up, you will definitely here something different. You we'll be more aware. That's what you are doing with the sentence variation. You are setting your beats, your setting, your peace, and you're selling your tone. And it's one thing. Once you realize that, that this is sort of a composition and a piece of music and you start varying things.

Autumn (31m 10s):
Yes. I think your writing just kind of perks up the next level and yeah,

Jesper (31m 14s):
It feels good. All right.

Autumn (31m 17s):
Yeah. So yes. All right. So my advice, number three at a five. What to know what that in the next one is,

Jesper (31m 26s):
Do you want me to guess? Right.

Autumn (31m 28s):
Oh, I shared it with you. So that wouldn't be fair. I will admit that. So I will share. All right. So the third one is dialogue. If you didn't notice this a little paragraph example, there was no dialogue. Dialogue is a wonderful way to break things up. Unless of course you're just using, he said, and she said, because that's totally cheating. It's just doing the same thing. So use other dialogue tags. As we talked about this in the last episode, do you know Fantasy as one of the ones where you can get away with using growled and whispered and shouted, these are a wonderful dialog tags.

Autumn (32m 6s):
Technically they're telling us not showing emotion, but the FANTASY you get all the way with it a lot more because the readers, I think we do see said we wanna see nuances like grout or whispered and things. And of course there's action tags, action tag's or when the characters or physically doing something than you never even said, who said it? Its just because with the reader's mind, if you have dialogue in the same sentence with an action, they ought to a reader will automatically think that whoever is in that same sentence or a line is the same person who's.

Autumn (32m 39s):
So like put that away. He said, you know, he put the mug down instead of saying, he said that he put to put the mug down, you know, it's by doing the action at the same time and having the dialogue it's the same sentence or not the same sentence of same line of text. The reader will think that it, the person who is doing the action is also the person speaking. And so actually the tags are a fantastic way of just skipping the whole said ground whispered, shouted and breaking that up and having something completely different.

Autumn (33m 12s):
And it's definitely changing your sentence structure.

Jesper (33m 16s):
Yeah. And it is also a nice way of when, when we were talking about, well starting sentences with words, write this is also a different way to break it up and change it out and make Sentences started in different ways. Umm, you know, for example, the Starting because you could also put the action TAC in front of the, the, the dialogue. So that's another way you can sort of break up and start the censuses in a different way and just making sure it's, you know, that every paragraph start differently and not put the same word, but also not in the same way.

Jesper (33m 52s):
So yeah. It makes a huge difference.

Autumn (33m 54s):
Yeah. And that's where it's also so important not to have two people speaking in the same paragraph, you know, I do an end break and next, you know, as soon as a speaker changes, hit, enter and do a new paragraph because it gets confusing if you have too many people talking in the same paragraph and if you're using action tags, but like you said, you know, he walked to the window. When do you think she's coming home? You know, it's the same person who just walked to the window. That is just it this way the reader thinks.

Autumn (34m 24s):
But again, if you have someone else talking right after that year, just a loss so we can get confused. Don't do that. And I would say one last thing on dialogue two, it breaks up the texts visually you've got a lot more white space. And so that's kind of a nice break in all of that pros for the reader as well. So sometimes adding in white space is not a bad thing. No I yeah.

Jesper (34m 47s):
Say in most cases its actually a good thing because at least as a reader, I know with myself at least a week, if I, if I had to, well I always read on the Kindle. Right. But every time I changed the page on the Kindle, if every single page has just blocks of text, it doesn't take them a lot more like three or four pages because I feel like, Oh my God, this is,

Autumn (35m 8s):
Yeah. It's just nice to see. Or a lot of white spaces. Oh cool. You're not, there's something nice about, I know this guy, this page he's going to fly by. Yeah.

Jesper (35m 15s):
Yeah. I mean, I don't know why, but it just feels nice to To

Autumn (35m 19s):
Yeah. It feels like, okay, I'm reading fast. Yeah. What the hell does read faster. So is yeah, definitely. Yeah. I agree. It's just, it kind of makes it It again, it's a different type of changing the a B, but its so much its so nice to have, but yeah, if you're your reading, like it as an academic papers, its page after page of pros and you're like, Oh, you know, you feel like you're just eating heavy carbs. Yes. I love food. All my food. All my analogies are food. I love food. Okay. Sorry. I have dinner right after we record podcasts.

Autumn (35m 50s):
So just keep that in mind. So a number for advice or are you ready? Yes. All right. Description description is okay. Okay. Once in a while set the scene. I mentioned in the example, you know, there's a little bit of wood smoke. You know, you mentioned the trees and that there had been campfire of the night before, but there really isn't much scene setting description. You don't want to do pages. You don't really want to do solid paragraphs of description, but you can set the scene with the, you know, a little bit of a description about what maybe the trees looks like or you know, why is he riding a horse?

Autumn (36m 29s):
What does he carrying with them? Those are fine things to add in. And by doing that, most likely you're going to get rid of the pronoun cause you are going to be due to describing the florist. So that's already something different. So your breaking it up the little bit, you're gonna change up the tax. You are going to change up the sentence and that's exciting. So definitely add in some description.

Jesper (36m 49s):
Yeah. I only have one caveat to that.

Autumn (36m 51s):
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely.

Jesper (36m 58s):
The only caveat that I would have is that if the sentence that we are talking about right now is the first sentence of the novel, please don't start by describing the cloud's or how its raining or something like that.

Autumn (37m 12s):
Yeah. Cause I should say the, whether or not you do not start a number like that. No, always the best way you can get you enough for you to start with the pronouns. But if you can start with the main character are doing something or saying something is a much better way than you say, you know the sky look threatening tonight. It's just, yeah.

Jesper (37m 33s):
Okay. Well this has been So I was just about to use a swear word. They put there there's been so many novels where it always starts with how, how it is. It's the lightning or if there's a storm or its raining worse than it has been raining for 200 years or

Autumn (37m 51s):
I don't care, you don't know enough about the place to care about the weather. You need to care about the place first to know that it's unusual. I agree. Nope. That's a very good caveat. I I this was the second point of Episode. I totally agree with you. So all right.

Jesper (38m 9s):
Yeah. That's amazing. You can make a habit out of that. I wouldn't mind.

Autumn (38m 11s):
Yeah. And we'll see, ya know, I'm stubborn. So the feisty Syed. All right. So we are up to my fifth and final piece of advice. So things to do to break up your writing and make it more interesting. And that is if you're, especially if you're writing in third person, this you should right in something called deep I point of view, deep POV, which when you do that, your it's like writing in the first person, but your still using key. And she, so when your doing that, you actually avoid words like thought or wondered or looked because the character does it.

Autumn (38m 50s):
It's just like writing in first person. So if you would say you don't usually say, I thought about this, you would just give your thoughts. And that is a different way of writing. And by doing that and removing, he thought he wondered you drop off that pronoun and you make the sentence much more impactful. You just put it on the thought, you've just put in what he sees and that will totally change up your writing tone and make it much more interesting and also draws a connection deeper almost like you're riding in first person.

Autumn (39m 22s):
So that will really connect better with a reader. They will sync a lot better with a character. And if you want to fantastic example of this, pick up a George RR Martin, because he, he is a master of deep POV. And when you pick up one chapter and you switch to a different chapter, his tone and his writing style completely changes to fit that character. And the way that character sees and thinks, and even the metaphors in the analogy is at that character will think of. And it's just when you do that anyway, that level, it is fantastic writings.

Autumn (39m 56s):
So fantastic. You know, a really good example better than my example, but I, you know, I was just doing it for the podcast. We weren't going to go that deeply, but that is definitely my final ONE, you know, if you don't know what deep POV is, you know, put it in the comments so we can try to describe that better. We can link you to some blog posts or, or when, you know, I dunno if we could do a whole podcast on deep POV if people want to just let us know.

Jesper (40m 21s):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I do find it important that you know, that you are Sentences starts strong and also finish strong. I mean perhaps they have to finish even stronger than they started. But I think for me about all that we've talked about in this episode, I would almost say that the real trick isn't so much about which words to avoid. I do agree with what, the examples that you've given us here and, and your point about starting with he or she all the time.

Jesper (40m 53s):
I do agree with that, but, but I think that the real trick isn't that much about what to avoid, but it's much more about understanding the structure of sentences and paragraphs and making sure that you use a varied way of writing so that it doesn't become monotonous. And you just sit there and, and it's the same under the same and the same. Right? I think that is really the main takeaway modern it is to avoid a specific word.

Jesper (41m 25s):
Right?

Autumn (41m 25s):
Agree. I think that has definitely the main take away. I mean, if you need to fix the only way you can write fine, but then you're going to have to spend some time editing to break up your pro's and your sentence is, and I do have, so if you want to here, the example before we wrap up So I I used all the Advice and I will skip. If you need to know what it is, you'll have to zoom back in the PODCAST. So I'm not going to reread the first one. That's all he used is horrible, but at the exact same idea or rewritten to break it up a little bit, Rowan smelled Woodsmoke lingering under the dentistry canopy from the campfire for the night before.

Autumn (42m 1s):
But the birds had gone silent. He reined in his snorting horse putting the horses net because she pulled the ground. He whispered what's bothering you old girl. The horse kept an eye. Our ears pinned back to us. She sidled sideways or a warm wind brushed against the back of his neck. It held a hint of sulfur. Rowan would be rigid in the saddle, under his arm. His Mary Real reared. She bolded is tree is ignited to the right and the hidden dragon roared. So we went from nine Sentences to 10 or only one starts with heat and to, with the characters name. And I don't know about you, but I would much rather read the second one in the first one.

Autumn (42m 35s):
All right. It's a million times better, obviously. Yeah, absolutely. So yeah. Very good. I think there were some good takeaways here. Umm, despite our previous Episode on bad Writing Advice this was hopefully Writing Advice do you find it useful? Yeah. I don't know if it's coming Writing Advice so as long as we can claim that this is not common than the other. I think we we'll be good. Alright. I we'll go with that.

Jesper (43m 7s):
OK. So next Monday we plan to speak to you about a brand new way. You can think about your author website, but I'll leave it a bit cryptic for now.

Narrator (43m 19s):
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 all, some rewards and keep The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast going to stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 93 – 10 Common Writing Advice We HATE!

There is a LOT of writing advice and tips out there. Some of it is great, but there are a few that drive us crazy! Why would you ever tell an author that?

Join us as we share the bits of writing advice that have us gripping our keyboards with white knuckles of rage.

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 onto the show with your hosts Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt

Jesper (30s):
Hello I am Jesper

Autumn (31s):
and I Am Autumn

Jesper (34s):
This is Episode and 93 of The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast and there are loads of well meaning, and also pretty good writing advice out there. But there are also those that we just a, well, wait, and we are going to share 10 shots, examples today, and a, well, hopefully, I guess, cause we eat, we split this up. We each came up with five, but knowing us, we could have like, I expect at least two to overlap that as my guests, umm, there's a chance that it could be all fine, but hopefully we're gonna vintage hopefully were going to manage or at least eight pieces have a unique Advice if not 10, we'll see.

Jesper (1m 16s):
We'll see. But we tried to prepare 10 examples or at least, and hopefully, and the process will also menage to, well I guess deep on some of the, shall we say less strong Advice that exists out there.

Autumn (1m 30s):
I think that'd be fantastic. And it will be a ton of fun to hear what you find is the worst Advice yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm looking forward to get into this. Yes, but at first, so I haven't talked to you for a week. How are things over on the other side of the Atlantic?

Jesper (1m 48s):
It sounds good. It's good to have it. It's another one of those a are coming out of a busy weekend and I know that happens, which we were often, it feels like, but a Saturday, my, my oldest son had friends over for his birthday party. Oh excellent. He's turning 12. So you can almost guess what activity they have planned for this party can tell you if your boys, they all only boys for the birthday party and turning 12, they are, there's almost the only one thing they can do.

Autumn (2m 21s):
All right. You see, I'm not around 12 year old boys. So I I claim total ignorance.

Jesper (2m 29s):
It was a, they were just playing computer. So everybody brought their own computers and then they just sit there for eight hours in play computer. Righty that that's in there mind that's a potty, you know, I think the older people don't understand. Yeah. I was gonna say, are you like playing through the internet connection?

Autumn (2m 51s):
You were already playing with your friend's what's the matter is three in the same room. I then your next to each other. You, you are not.

Jesper (3m 0s):
So that's a huge difference apparently. Right? I can't wrap my and I live in this era and I can't wrap my brain around the things people do. So this is not a good sign. I always knew I was born in the wrong time period. Yeah, I think we were. Yeah. And I, on Sunday I was out to at a soccer tournament with my youngest, but actually then in the afternoon, a, our oldest actually start to feel pretty bad if you know, you know, he had a sore throat yesterday.

Jesper (3m 32s):
Oh Dan This. Yeah. And this morning he felt the, a bit constricted in his breathing So yeah. So we, as opposed to have another birthday party for our family and friends for this coming weekend. So I called the doctor this morning and we basically booked a COVID-19 test for him. So he's gonna get tested tomorrow. Oh, I don't think it's the coronavirus. I don't think so. I think it's just like normal falled flue kind of thing.

Jesper (4m 2s):
I, I think, but I don't know a, so we better be in the safe side. So we going to get him tested tomorrow. Yeah.

Autumn (4m 9s):
Well fingers crossed for him.

Jesper (4m 11s):
Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully it'll be okay.

Autumn (4m 15s):
Poor thing.

Jesper (4m 17s):
Yeah. Yeah. That's not good. So he's just been home. Today's he's been watching you tube for 11 hours to do. And I, when I was out like asking him, but some point don't even want me to do something else. So could you maybe read the book or something? She was like, what?

Autumn (4m 35s):
Well it's like, well, I just can't imagine. I mean, I was alone for what, three and a half weeks and I barely watched an hour of Netflix a day. So I guess I just do have been working at the time. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. How about getting stuff done? That was fantastic. I cranked up some big things on are to do lists. I'm not completely a day for sure. Yeah. But all the fun and games our over my husband came home yesterday. So he's doing his darndest to make sure my life is much more distracted, open a good way in a good way.

Autumn (5m 12s):
As long as the job of all spouses. Oh, we haven't seen each other for three and a half week. So it was like, you'd just get into something. And he like mentions, you know, once you get your attention, you just start writing a sentence. And I was like, Oh, what did y'all look read? Oh yeah, we should just put this stuff away for a couple of days than just talk. And that will be good. Yeah.

Jesper (5m 29s):
Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's always a bit weird. And I think at, at least I'd mentioned it to you before, but I don't remember if we talked about it on the podcast as well, but you know, my, my wife is from Finland. So when she goes back to Finland, once in a while, it's always like the first couple of days is like, Oh yeah, great. You, you can do all this stuff then you just want to do for yourself and what not that, but then like three or four days into it, it always feels a bit like a, this is a bit boring now. Yeah.

Autumn (5m 55s):
Right. That's what I think since, while probably since we in moved in together, this was the longest I have been alone in 20 years. Umm, so there was definitely some, like I had to find my pace again and find out what it's like to be me again at lone. And once I did, I was fine until you know about dinnertime. That's my weakness where they went to the talk to somebody. So yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. He was definitely into this and I'm happy to have a company again.

Jesper (6m 28s):
Yeah. And I'm sure the dog was happy that he returned as well.

Autumn (6m 31s):
He was so happy. He almost dissolved into a smaller versions of themselves. That's a weird thing about you are trying to imagine, what is this like inside the dog's mind, right? You don't understand that this person we'll come back. You know, probably a doc just thinks that he, he disappeared. They was like, there was like, I saw a light in the sh in the forest yesterday. It was probably UFO and it took, it just never kind of come pack and just know it thrilled.

Jesper (7m 0s):
If I only could explain this to my owner, she doesn't get it. She's like nothing happened to me. He could be busy too

Narrator (7m 13s):
A week on the internet with The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast.

Jesper (7m 19s):
So I mentioned it a few episodes back, but our very special giveaway on Patreon has gone life today. So excited. I always love when we have these little special things because well, one, they make us do something a little bit different and challenging, but it's just fun. It's such a great group over there. It is indeed. And we've decided to give away a golden ticket too. The wealth building course that we are just about done with now a so that means that there will be a chance to win completely free access to the wealth building course.

Jesper (7m 55s):
And it's such a cool chorus, which I can say because I just finished building it on Saturday. So know it's over to you to look through it, but it will, it's just so beautiful. So in depth it is an amazing story that's for sure. And it covers so much wood putting it together. I'm like, I can see why this took us about two years to put together, coz it is just so in depth So yeah. A golden ticket. It is this, this is really phenomenal golden ticket. That's not the only thing because we are going to also do something for everyone who joined us because that's just, we are yeah.

Jesper (8m 32s):
The first of all, the, the golden ticket, we'll actually give you an exclusive VIP, early access to the cost. So that's pretty neat already. But yeah. So what M says to him, because we, we will only draw one winner for the golden ticket. So yeah. We just felt like that's, that's a bit sad for everybody else. And what about the existing patrons supporters?

Autumn (8m 57s):
They do. We want to give something to them as well.

Jesper (9m 1s):
Exactly. And so we came up with the idea of doing a, well, we have a quite short or are we where we talk about a webinar or are prerecording it, but it's going to be a special event just for everyone who is on Patreon.

Autumn (9m 19s):
Yeah. We decided to name it the reader's journey. And a, this is basically how are we using paid advertising to warm up the audience over several different steps. I don't know if I would call this stuff that we are doing here, like in new thing, but it's definitely a bit of a different way of thinking about paid advertising. So its like putting your ads into a system and having, and have a plan about what you are advertising and when you are doing it and Y and we're going to share all of that in this exclusive either it's going to be a prerecorded like cost module on it, or its going to be a webinar, which we were recorded.

Autumn (10m 3s):
One of the To at least But, we're going to make this available to everybody who signs up to support us on Patrion before the 19th of October, that is 2020 in case you're listening to this much later, but you have to sign up before the 19th of October to get the stuff. And of course all existing patron supporters will get it automatically. So if that sounds good to you, you can just follow the link two Patrion in this show notes here and its only going to cost your dollar a month.

Autumn (10m 35s):
Actually. I will say that it's a pretty damn cheap cos module. Yeah. That you can get your hands on. There

Jesper (10m 42s):
It is. It's a very cool advertising system. So it's definitely worth a dollar or at least an Oh my goodness. For a dollar or you could potentially when the world building course So, especially with the special exclusive access, that's going to be very limited anyway. So it's, it's a really great deal.

Autumn (10m 59s):
Yeah, I think so. All right. What else is on the end?

Jesper (11m 4s):
Have you seen so many people have enjoyed it in the Am Writing Fantasy group? I don't think we've could M we've been able to keep up with the, of, you know,

Autumn (11m 13s):
I'm actually, I, I have to admit that I am struggling a bit to keep up a, in the sense of costs I could just go into every day, but it's like, I feel like I approve eight to 10 people and then four hours later, there's another path sitting desk. It's a lot, it's a, its difficult to keep up at eight. It's a good problem to have this. It's not complaining at all. It's it's nice that a lot of people want to join the, the Am Writing Fantasy Facebook group. So I really like it. But at the same time it's is keeping us busy. That's it?

Jesper (11m 43s):
The people in it is so funny, you know, it gets caught waiting. We're sorry. It's just, wow. There's been so many, but the conversations, I mean just one of the recent ones could have plucky, a teenager defeat you're big, bad, and you know, there's fun things and that's already got 27 comments and that's only two hours old. So yeah, there are just kind of having fun. And of course there's lots of encouragement and support and this as well as the fun post. So I just love it over there, but yeah. Aye between sleep and work and you know, eating, I'm not over there as much as needed and Luke thank goodness our moderator is got our backs because it does seem that way.

Jesper (12m 24s):
Oh yeah.

Autumn (12m 27s):
Yeah. It's a, it's a very lively, an active group. So, but we do, we do keep the entry sort of that we have to approve people for Join. We do keep that in April. Of course I D well, if we wanted to make it easy on ourselves, we could just disable that and let everybody join, but we don't want to do that because we want to keep it pretty moderated in the group as well. And we do like to do a nice, welcome message to everybody who joins us when they come in.

Autumn (12m 58s):
So we try to keep it very moderated and making sure that we don't see all the, well, we do see some, sometimes the post about self promotion, but we delete them pretty quickly. Yeah.

Jesper (13m 10s):
This is a group for chatting about writing and the problems of being a writer, not promoting her books.

Autumn (13m 22s):
It seems that listeners have liked in the past when we've done our alternating lists or, and so I think like we set at the top of the episode, I think we should try to do the same thing here today. All right.

Jesper (13m 34s):
I think that sounds good. And that was kind of prepared. So I did mine in one. Don't know if you could call it an ascending or descending order, but from what does it bug? What I don't think is quite as bad to what I think is some of the Advice it drives me crazy. So I dunno if you have yours in that order. Yeah. I've done the same thing. See I yeah. That's what we're going to have some overlapping. It's just the way booth. Yeah.

Autumn (13m 57s):
Yeah. Well, yeah. I must admit I'm a bit curious if we do have overlapping or not, but the last few times in the past, when we had done these kind of episodes, we have had quite a lot of overlap, but I don't know. Lets see, let's see if, if this might be the one

Jesper (14m 16s):
To break the mold, I don't know. Okay. Well let's say it know.

Autumn (14m 19s):
Yeah. So if we cover five week and a, if a cover five hours and then maybe well, if we can, maybe we can say when we cover each of them, maybe we can say a bit about, you know, give a bit of justification on why we chose the, the ones we did.

Jesper (14m 36s):
Oh yes. I hope so. Because I have to explain some of them. I know I have a specific reasons why they might be good advice, but there's parts of it that I just think are bad. So we'll have to see how, who we are, how much we overlap. I still I'm going with two I'm thinking at least do have ours. We'll have a laugh, but we'll see.

Autumn (14m 56s):
Okay. I will guess one day. Yeah.

Jesper (15m 2s):
We'll both be wrong. Don't worry. All right. Do you want to start? Yeah,

Autumn (15m 7s):
But yeah. Yeah, but I actually, yeah, I will. But I was also thinking that maybe at the end of it, maybe we should try. So at the end of it, we've heard all 10. Maybe some of them overlapping, I don't know, but maybe we should then try to agree on one that we like from our combined list of 10 items can jointly agree on this is the one we hate the most.

Jesper (15m 32s):
Okay. That'd be fine. And just to be sure, I actually wrote down my favorite piece of advice if we have to end on a better note and instead I'm really bad advice. Oh that's good. Yes. That, that would be a fun one. All right. So we might have to end on a favorite advice note. So there are, there are definitely some things not to ignore.

Autumn (15m 54s):
Right. Okay. Good, good, good. Yes. I was not being positive in my preparation. It didn't at all. So I only have negative ones. Yeah.

Jesper (16m 1s):
You'll have to think of a goal you will have. Do you have, I'm probably about 15, 20 minutes to come up with one piece of positive Advice I ah, now I should have warned you.

Autumn (16m 16s):
Where would the fund be in that? It's a much monitors, so much fun. It's more fun to see him. Yeah. Are you squirm and, and scrape for, to try to find something? Yeah, that's right.

Jesper (16m 25s):
You'll be doing some quick Googling while M I'm giving my,

Autumn (16m 30s):
My bed and then, or I'll let you go first and then I'll agree with you.

Jesper (16m 36s):
Oh, that's not fair, but you could probably do that.

Autumn (16m 42s):
Okay. So you wanna hear my number? Fine. Yeah.

Jesper (16m 45s):
Let's I want to hear your number five. Okay. So yeah.

Autumn (16m 49s):
Number five is read everything. You can get your hands on. Read a lot.

Jesper (16m 55s):
Oh, that's a good one.

Autumn (16m 58s):
Yeah. But you know, I do agree. That is good to read and you will become a better rider from reading a lot. I do agree with that, but I also believe that it matters what you're reading. I mean, why would you read a romance novel when you want to write Fantasy all right. I mean, but yeah, the, okay. The smarty pants out there will then say, well, it we'll broaden your horizon and then you will learn new things. Yeah.

Jesper (17m 27s):
Blah, blah, blah, blah. Good respect romance subplots. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,

Autumn (17m 32s):
Exactly. And, but honestly I couldn't care less. I want to read what I enjoy reading and then of course you could also say, well then you become very biased to the trucks and so on. So we'll see.

Jesper (17m 46s):
Can you explain it? I don't take so, you know, I'm probably a very fine

Autumn (17m 50s):
Tuned understanding of the . That's what I good. And what, I don't see the harm of that. And no one said either that I should go off to copy exactly what I've read either. So I still have to be creative with the stories that I'm going to tell, but that advice that I can only develop as a rider, as a writer or if I read outside my own I just don't do agree with that. Advice I mean, terrible, terrible. Advice

Jesper (18m 17s):
Right. I agree with you. I did not list this one, but I nearly did. And its basically for me what you said, but also because it doesn't say read good books are, you know, I guess I think that even if you read it within your genre, maybe it doesn't hurt to occasionally read a book that you're like, Oh my goodness, I can't believe someone's self publish. This are published this or it got published because it's just so old, you know, trophy or whatever, or the writing is not stellar, but it really helps the read some really good books by the master's, you know, read Some Neil Gaiman is something really, something really gripping so that you learn from the experts.

Jesper (18m 58s):
So I don't think I've, you know, you sometimes go in and you just pick up something on Amazon and because do you wanna read it? And it's just like, Whoa, don't just read this. You've got to feed yourself. So you've got to eat the salads, you know, you've got to use the healthy stuff. Don't just eat the sugar. So I definitely agree with you in it. If we had made a list of six, it, this one would have been on mine, but I didn't do it. So, so far we're not overlapping. So yeah, when I know what my number five is, I do, right?

Jesper (19m 27s):
My leased of the worst. I don't know if right. What inspires you that vice gets under my skin and in some ways, I mean, I agree with it. Definitely. If you should love, absolutely loved the story you were writing. It should fire you up. It should be, I mean, perfectly, it should be the book that you searched for your whole life and you've just really want to read it. But I think too many people misconstrue this one to me that they should only write one inspired or that when the story starts to bog down because you know, you know, when you're writing 80 a hundred thousand words or has a series, you know, a 300 to 400,000 words, it's going to bog down and then they switched to a new project that inspires the more and that doesn't work if you're going to actually, you know, right.

Jesper (20m 17s):
I think Writing, you know, maybe it should inspire you, but the Advice is not specific enough and eventually writing as not going to inspire you. And you just could have to sit your butt down and write it or you're never going to finish this book. So that's why they Advice drives me crazy. Right.

Autumn (20m 35s):
Yeah. I was just about to add a well, a variation of that one activity to my list, but I didn't, but a, but I could just add that one here. I guess my number six, if I had, because the variation that was about to add was the write. What do you know? Advice, I hate that. That's what we do. I have to ride what I know I am coming up with a fictional stories. You are. I mean, and I don't know how magic work in real life either.

Autumn (21m 5s):
So how can I

Jesper (21m 6s):
Exactly, I will say nothing more on that one. I have no comment. Okay. Fair enough. Okay. So you want none before I went number four? Yeah.

Autumn (21m 19s):
Okay. My number four is actually won that we sort of touched upon in the more recent Episode 91 of the Podcast here. Oh really? Oh yeah. Because we talked about daily word count in that episode.

Jesper (21m 33s):
Right? So let me get that right every day. Yeah.

Autumn (21m 38s):
It is basically the Advice that I hate when, when I hear or if you want to be a rider, you have to write every day. I mean, what the beep I think we explained the detail in our different viewpoints in, in Episode 91. So I'm not going to go into all of that again here, but this Advice did it make it onto my list, nevertheless, because I think it is extremely counterproductive to tell someone that they have to right. Every single day. Now you don't know.

Autumn (22m 9s):
Yeah. I mean, like I said, in episode 91, I think you should be making progress most days of the week, at least this could also be plotting or planning the story. It doesn't have to be actual Writing or maybe you are doing a bit of work on, on your author business. I mean, of course you have to be mindful that you aren't using something like world-building as a procrastination Tune I know what it is so tempting. I know. I know know, but you don't want to get stressed out by the fact that you have to write everyday, but of course you, you can come up with excuses for yourself not to right.

Autumn (22m 45s):
Either. So, you know, make progress, work on your novel or your author business, but yeah, don't leave. Let them take over your life. I think that's what we said in episode nine. Do you want as well? Oh yeah.

Jesper (22m 56s):
Can we, did we, you said, you know, you have to have some balance and know that you have, you know, a life and family and other things other than writing, especially when you are trying to balance Writing with a career or, and a family and you have some time that you set it aside to being an author, whether its plotting or researching or something, but yeah, a big shot of the story is progressing in some form in your life, but it might not always be writing every single day. I have to agree with you, right.

Autumn (23m 25s):
If this one is on your list as well then yeah.

Jesper (23m 28s):
Oh actually it's not. So you wanna know my number of four of them.

Autumn (23m 33s):
Yes, please.

Jesper (23m 35s):
Well, it's what you had just said. Write what you know, so it does, it's not a true overlap because that was the number six. But yeah, I basically said same thing. I mean, this is what we write as Fantasy. So how can, you know, what it feels like to be a dragon or a weasel or an El For how you know, how to use magic or B a vampire. So I think the fact that we use our imaginations and the fact we don't limit ourselves to what we know allows us to create amazing ideas and stories. And I think our genre is, is often considered like escape Fantasy I do you know, it's basically we want there's something in this world that is bothering us or troubling us.

Jesper (24m 14s):
And so we write about other worlds and other possibilities and that's sorta what a lot of readers or looking for. I mean, there is also now urban fantasy that as a huge chunk of the market, but it still a different version of this reality. It might be set in modern times are the city. I just watched this show that was set in modern times with the parallel universe. So it's, its still a different version of what we have and if we didn't expand our minds and do the things we don't no, but would like to see happen and ask those questions.

Jesper (24m 45s):
Those things wouldn't exist. So whenever someone tells me, write what you know, and I'm like, well I know I don't like I've got to something else.

Autumn (24m 55s):
No, I don't like what you just said. No, but I would even say if we look beyond Fantasy, you know, if you were writing, I don't know, lets say a romance or a thriller or whatever. I still don't understand the Advice of right. What do you know? So why is it that you can only So okay. If, well, I think at least last time I checked I'm a male. Yeah.

Jesper (25m 24s):
So why can I,

Autumn (25m 26s):
Why could I not write female characters for example? Or why could a woman not ride a male character? Its why do you have to box yourself into, this is the kind of things that I know about. So that's what I need two, right? Yeah. Why I I just don't get it right.

Jesper (25m 42s):
Aye. A hundred percent agree. And I think, I mean, I think I heard this advice even all the way back in high school and even then I'm just like, but if I were stuck to what I know, which is what lived growing up in small, rural Christian, Pennsylvania I'm bored or I don't, I don't want to box myself into this. I want so much more, you know, I want Hogwarts. So yeah. I know. I think its just really bad advice. So if anyone ever tells you that, just look at them and be like, I'm so sorry for you, then move on.

Autumn (26m 17s):
Yeah. And I would even say to the listener, you know, if, if you, if you want the stand, what this is, why this Advice is about it. And if you sort of understand the arguments about why its important, then please let us know, you know, comment on something. Because I know I would like to understand what the behind the line logic is of this advice because I just don't get it. And maybe I'm just thick and that's fine. But then please explain it to me so I could get it because I wanted to understand it's

Jesper (26m 44s):
Because I mean, it's not just You it's both of us. We were like, is this the ones No alright, so can you, this is your number three.

Autumn (26m 54s):
Well, I actually saw George RR Martin giving this advice on his website. I don't know if it's still on this website, but I noticed it at some point and I don't like, yeah.

Jesper (27m 5s):
Oh my goodness. Something from Georgia or a Martin, you don't like he, then

Autumn (27m 11s):
I know I'm walking on thin ice. You know, this is what I like to do. Right. I always put myself in situations where I don't know what's going to come back in my face.

Jesper (27m 23s):
If you're going to hear about this one from some readers or listeners. Definitely. Yeah

Autumn (27m 27s):
P but the Advice is so he said, quote, don't start writing a novel start with a short story and quote. And I believe he also went on to state that if you start out trying to write a novel or a series, it is like wanting to climb Mount Everest from day one. And I honestly don't feel that this is Advice is helpful to at all.

Jesper (27m 52s):
I agree

Autumn (27m 54s):
If one wants to write short stories than by all means. That's great. But why in the world, should you force yourself to write a source store? If you don't want too, if you find enjoyment from a short story is you probably don't even read short stories. I would guess then why would you do so I don't get it.

Jesper (28m 12s):
It honestly, because I do you think you and I both started with novel's we just dove head online. I mean, I started with a trilogy. That's not even published in the sitting in some boldly drawers somewhere. Yeah. But you know, when I did switch to short stories, you know, I can whip off 120,000 words, not a problem, but to do 10,000. Oh that's hard. That's really hard. I mean, some people were a marathon. Runner's some people are our sprinters. If you are a marathon, what are under your not going to be a good sprinter.

Jesper (28m 43s):
So don't beat yourself up for not being a sprinter. If you are designed to right. 500,000 words, go for it. It at the end, is it

Autumn (28m 52s):
Day you should write something that you are excited about writing and as well, I think I would say that writing a short story is not exactly the same thing as Writing a full length novel, like you were saying a marathon versus a sprinting. They are right? Yeah. I mean Sure a lot of the same knowledge and skills that you will learn from writing short stories. You can transfer all when to a novel Writing but it's still not exactly the same thing. I know. I mean, it's, it's, it's so stupid. It's like you don't stop writing a romance novel to learn how to write a fences.

Autumn (29m 24s):
You know what I mean?

Jesper (29m 24s):
Who makes no sense? What would you do that that's very true. It's you should. Yeah. I mean, I remember feeling overwhelmed. I started my first book and I realized that I wanted to make it a trilogy. I'm thinking, Oh my goodness should really be starting off as a trilogy. It turned out fine. It fine, challenged yourself. If you, what you want to write is a trilogy. Make that your goal do it. It doesn't matter if you're a newbie or you know, you have written 20 books. Go for it.

Autumn (29m 53s):
Yeah, I did too. The same thing, I started out with a trilogy and of course I had to rewrite book one like three times, but yeah,

Jesper (29m 59s):
But you know, we got there. Yeah.

Autumn (30m 1s):
But, but who cares? I mean, that's what I wanted to ride. And that was what I was excited about. And if you're not excited about it, you're not gonna keep up the momentum and the drive to get through it all because there's a lot of work. And you only realize that once you start writing and I know our listeners know all of this already. Right. But if, if you think, think that, okay. Do you also are Martin said that I should write 25 short stories before they do anything else?

Jesper (30m 25s):
No. You're gonna kill yourself. Even before you get to the stuff you wanted to ride. Yeah. I would be so boring. I've been tortured. These are interesting, but they are not my cup of tea. I mean, I'd rather write a novel. I'd rather right. A trilogy. Yeah.

Autumn (30m 40s):
So that, wasn't a, my number three,

Jesper (30m 42s):
A that's a good one. That one wasn't on my list. So, so far,

Autumn (30m 46s):
Thank you so far. I'm closer to be right at that. The only one.

Jesper (30m 49s):
Oh, you know, let's see. Okay. So my number three is to get an idea of what dialogue sounds like, listen to conversations around you. I just, I hate that piece of advice. My I every time I hear and I'm like, just no, just don't listen to this. Advice because you don't have ever listened to people around you. They make no sense when they talk. They are referring to things you have no clue about. There are usually like, you know, short catchphrases and filler words and tons of filler words and wandering pointless conversations.

Jesper (31m 25s):
And that's not dialog in a novel. And so don't do that. Every word in your novel should have her purpose is a special dialogue. It's in his writing. It's not a chat with your BFF. So, you know, don't listen to this. Advice if you want to learn to write dialogue, read some really good dialog has to go back to read. Greek plays like plays, have fantastic dialogue. Read those. Don't listen to people at a cafe. They, they are not going to teach you anything about dialogue except maybe what not to do.

Autumn (31m 56s):
Yeah. I think probably the only thing I would say you could pick up there is maybe not dialogue input, but more like the different way people speak. You could tell, you could get a bit of inspiration for different kinds of voices. And so that part may be helpful. But other, I would also say that it's a ton more helpfully. If you just made a list of your characters and then you sort of said, okay, how do this person reacts when they are, when they are stressed out, when they're happy, when they are angry and, and you just write down, how do they react?

Autumn (32m 31s):
And then making sure you have something different than all the boxes, that's a hundred times more helpful in terms of building very, a dialogue and, and having a character sound different from one another versus the listening to people in the cafe.

Jesper (32m 48s):
All right. So I don't have, that was on my list. I'm on my goodness. Oh and less. We have the next two. I am totally wrong. Oh, all right. Well that's to say, so what is your number to,

Autumn (33m 1s):
Yeah. And I don't think you have this one on your list. Autumn either of, you probably didn't expect it either.

Jesper (33m 8s):
Oh, this is good. This has gotta be a good one then, right?

Autumn (33m 11s):
Yeah. Yeah. So we're getting into the top two spots now. So we have to increase the seriousness, the items on the, yeah.

Jesper (33m 21s):
I should've brought the music along. We have a little tension music playing. Yeah.

Autumn (33m 23s):
Sorry. I guess we should have a, like a drum world. It is show don't tell them that they expect that. Huh?

Jesper (33m 32s):
Nope. Nope. Did not expect that one at, Oh, darn it. Now

Autumn (33m 37s):
At, I mean, when you show us, instead of telling it does make for a much more engaging and immersive reading experience for Sure right. So I'm fully on board with that and I'm, I'm not contradicting at all that show instead of Tel is important. And it is from that point of view. Good advice. But yet it is not good advice, I guess that requires some. Yeah.

Jesper (34m 0s):
Yeah. If you want to hear your explanation on this one.

Autumn (34m 4s):
Yeah. Well, the thing is that this Advice is thrown around so often that you can almost get obsessed about how to perfectly show rather than tell. And there is just no such thing as the perfect rider No and there are also times in the novel way. This is actually okay. Tell me you don't have to show all the time. And I think above all, don't get obsessed about how to do it correctly.

Autumn (34m 36s):
You know, I think especially this one Advice show, don't tell that's one of those things that you put on your list of things that you want to improve over time, because it is not something that you are going to grasp or internalize very quickly. I don't know. I just feel like this particular piece of writing advice often becomes a stumbling block. And because you're start obsessing about how important it is, because it is important in the sense, like I said before, right?

Autumn (35m 10s):
It does bring forth more engaging and immersive reading experiences. So it is extremely important. But if you get too obsessed about it, especially in the beginning, you are going to end up in a 200 edits, have your manuscript's and your not gonna get anywhere. Right. And I am sure that this happens all the time. And for that reason, I had to put it on the list even though in, in that is good

Jesper (35m 38s):
Advice right now, I won't disagree with you. And I have nothing more to say on it right now, so, Oh yeah. That's fine. So do you want to know my number to, yes. Alright. So my number two is just right, which is sort of like the one you had mentioned before, right? Every day, if it's a little different and I won't say I hate it a hundred percent just that you need to grow out of it quickly. Cause you and I are both plotters and I think at a minimum, even pantsers coz I mean, I know I started as a pantser and I still have a little bit of pants or a tendency I've been more of a hybrid.

Jesper (36m 15s):
You should take a look at story structure and make very quick outline of your goals, your themes, your characters, your seven stages or a plot development. And if you'd just write just vomit, word's onto a page, or you can end up with such a mess and that, and you don't even know if its editing or its not a good story telling and you don't know Y and that can be just as frustrating as not Writing. So that's where I have just write. I just think its, you know, if he's the only way you could get into Writing and you have something driving you and you want to right, but then you need to learn to develop your story structure.

Jesper (36m 51s):
You need to learn to deploy. You need to learn to develop the format of what makes a great story. And you're not going to get that. If you just spend your time writing and word vomiting. Oh word vomiting. No okay. Fair enough. Okay. So are we, are we down to number one? Oh geeze. All right. I'm ready. And what is your number one?

Autumn (37m 18s):
I have to say that it wasn't easy to figure out which one should be born the first place spot in this bat list of things.

Jesper (37m 25s):
How was he in? That were different. I knew that was the first one I wrote down. Okay. This is my number one pet peeve. So right now,

Autumn (37m 33s):
Right. I felt like I had to really think about it because it didn't only have to be a common Writing Advice that? I hate it also had to be one that I hated more than all of the other.

Jesper (37m 43s):
Yes. So yeah, this was fun.

Autumn (37m 47s):
Sort of gone. And I got hung up on this one when I first started out writing. Oh, because you basically hear it everywhere. Okay. I think it's like all, most the Holy grail of coming Writing Advice because it claims to fix your writing and make everything wonderful.

Jesper (38m 5s):
Oh, I have to hear this one. What is this? Yeah.

Autumn (38m 12s):
I'm talking about the Advice to remove all your Advice.

Jesper (38m 16s):
Oh, that one. I ignored that one so fast that I don't even think it exists.

Autumn (38m 23s):
All right. Well that's good. Good on you then, because I think that good writers do you use at verbs? And I honestly believe that they do have a place as well. I mean, of course it has to be done moderation and you do need to be careful not overusing the adverbs, but as long as you can find a way to walk that line, you know, please don't do what I did. And when I first started out with my first manuscript, you know, I have come across this Advice so I did a search in my manuscript once I was done and basically start searching for adverbs with the aim to change them all to something else.

Autumn (39m 3s):
And it is really not a very productive use of your time. And its, it's not like you are writing will get elevated to a godlike state is afterward.

Jesper (39m 15s):
But in fact you might lose something by doing that. Yeah.

Autumn (39m 18s):
Yes. So yeah, I think I would just wanna say, you know, cut yourself some Slack. Okay. You know, don't, don't get too hung up on this stuff here and I dunno just because it, it gave me such a headache when I first started out. So that's what I put on. Number one. Yeah.

Jesper (39m 36s):
Yeah. You know how I got over that one? Because I hear that one too. I was taking a novel writing class as an adult education class after work. And it was one of the first things they told me was, but then there was someone else who was doing their manuscript. They are reading and they have used an advert that I had used had gotten torn apart four and there were praised for it, but I kind of set what the bleep I went home and this was a mixed class So I and I was one of the few Fantasy writers.

Jesper (40m 8s):
They are almost everyone else was doing memoirs. And so I pulled out a whole, my favorite Fantasy right. So there is a lot of kilos when I think I even had George RR Martin because of the game of Thrones, the first book has been out that long. So I had that one on my shelf. I had Mercedes Lackey, all of them and I photocopied a full chapter and I went through and I highlighted all of the advertar and adverbs. I underlined all the adjectives and then I calculated the average per page. And I said, screw you all are, the average was three to five per page.

Jesper (40m 39s):
I'm doing to just do that. And you can just take your advice and shove it. So that's why that Advice doesn't bother me anymore for one,

Autumn (40m 48s):
I think good on you. And secondly, that it was so much smarter than what I did.

Jesper (40m 55s):
Right? I mean, when you get me riled asked my husband, actually, you don't ask him. You don't want, when you don't want those stories, public's never asked him, but all right. But yeah, that one did really drive me crazy, but it's been so long and I kind of literally torched it in my brain, but I think I talked to actually forgotten that one and I have to admit if I went back, I probably would add to my list. If I had seven, my seventh, one way, way back would have been to always use said as a dialogue tag, I hate that.

Jesper (41m 28s):
Right. Especially for FANTASY WRITING it's just, it doesn't apply. We use a lot more issues. That might be it in certain genres, but it does not work in Fantasy Writing but that's not my number one. Do you want to know what my number one is? What is your number one? It show don't tell me. Oh no. Okay. But you know what I wrote? Yeah.

Autumn (41m 51s):
Then in my show, don't tell, I was sure that Autumn is not going to have this one on my list.

Jesper (41m 56s):
Well, that is my number one pet peeve. And I think it's sort of, because I just didn't, it was sort of like the Admiral thing. I just didn't quite understand it and understand what it meant. She would be like show don't tell it, show don't tell show. Don't tell him what does that mean? What does that actually mean? Fine. Give me a definition of that. And it is actually good advice. Like you said it is. It's when it's explained it's a good advice, but it's also incredibly misleading because even though it says, you know, if your character's angry, don't tell your reader's I angry.

Jesper (42m 28s):
You wanted to show that she is angry by throwing things and speaking loudly and doing actions and that in that way, it is a very good advice, like you said, but there are times, like you said, when your writing, you do tell if a character is moving across country and nothing happens, you don't tell your reader about it. You just sum it up in like two sentences. You, you, you know, when and where they were here, they got to here and the journey. Perfect. And there is a total current trend. Have I see a lot with new riders that they feel they have to show up every minute, have a character as a life that you can not tell you anything about that character.

Jesper (43m 7s):
You can't skip time. And I really don't care about learning about how someone brushes their teeth, unless it's important to the story. So there are times when you're writing, you tell and I've been doing a lot of editing recently. So I just seems like I keep coming across these painfully detailed scenes that are shown of characters, doing things. And when you finally finished the story, you're like, she just, just cut that, wrap it up.

Jesper (43m 38s):
They got ready for work. There you go. That's the whole morning routine. So yeah, that's my current pet peeve. Sorry. So we have one, which means your right. You're the one who guess we'd have one the same so that you were in this one. I dunno what you wanted, but you will do it.

Autumn (43m 57s):
I wanted the honor of being right?

Jesper (43m 59s):
Yeah, it feels good. All right. Well this one we way to feeling better, actually. I humbly valuable to you. You are correct in Episode. Now you're going to forget which one we are doing. 93. You are,

Autumn (44m 11s):
It took almost a hundred episodes before. Right?

Jesper (44m 16s):
That's pretty good. Actually one out of my control. So it's not too bad. Yeah. Yeah.

Autumn (44m 20s):
Maybe once we get close to her episode, 200 and not get another one. Right.

Jesper (44m 23s):
All right. We'll get it.

Autumn (44m 27s):
Yeah. But I guess it's well from a conclusion, point of view, I guess since the only one we both

Jesper (44m 32s):
Had on the list, then I guess that's the one we jointly hate the most in isn't it? Yes. I think so. I think that is definitely, probably are our joint a painful one. Like I said, I probably would have agreed with you in the adverbs, except that I I thoroughly kicked that one in the butt early. Yeah. That was cool. Should have done the same thing I ever did a blog post about it and shared my results because I was so angry. I should have red that one. Then you should have asked if we'd found each other's sooner or you might have been hilarious, but so do you want to know?

Jesper (45m 9s):
I actually have two pieces of writing Advice and then I have a quote. I did my homework. You should be so as well, what happened? It only took almost a hundred hours. So that's what I did homework. Umm, alright. So I actually have two pieces of favorite Advice if you wanted to hear them. Yes, please. The first one is you can edit a blank page and I do appreciate that on you. Every time I feel like my writing is going poorly or whatever is going on, I just remind myself, it doesn't matter.

Jesper (45m 42s):
I need to just write it. I need to push through whatever stumbling block I have because you can't edit something that doesn't exist. So you just need to write it and then you can go back and fix it. So that was definitely one of my heartfelt once. But one of my most absolutely favorite ones that I kept pasted on my WRITING space is paint. What, the words you leave on written because I, to me that's symbolizes the magic of Writing and the magic have reading is that were only half half of the spell and the other half as the reader.

Jesper (46m 14s):
So you have to leave room for the reader to take what you're writing and construct parts of it for themselves. And that's what makes a story magical to me. So that one is definitely my favorite piece of writing advice is to paint what, the words that you leave unwritten or an unsaid. I love that won it. Can't top that high can end with a lovely quote. That is kind of a fun summary to all of the pieces of advice that we just have given, but it would be good or bad.

Jesper (46m 45s):
OK. Yeah. And this is from Michael Moorcock. He says ignore all pro offered rules and create your own suitable for what you want to say.

Narrator (46m 57s):
Right.

Jesper (46m 58s):
All right. So next Monday we're going to discuss if there is a particular word that you need to stop starting sentences to with that almost sounded like Common Writing Advice We HATE

Narrator (47m 9s):
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 92 – Leveraging Readers as Co-Creators (a PhD thesis by Lisa-Marie Cabrelli)

How do you battle visibility in today's publishing landscape? How can you enable word-of-mouth marketing for your books?

Lisa-Marie Cabrelli joins episode 92 of the Am Writing Fantasy podcast.

She is currently writing a PhD thesis on enabling readers to become co-creators.

This episode will challenge your preconceived notions about indie publishing, as well as, selling books in a crowded marketplace. Well worth the listen.

Links to resources mentioned in this episode:

Sign up for Lisa-Marie's newsletter: http://www.laptoplifelisa.com/ 

Lisa-Marie on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/laptoplifelisa

Lisa-Marie on Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/laptoplifelisa

Story planning app: https://www.archivos.digital/

Worldbuilding app: https://www.worldanvil.com/ 

Note taking app: http://www.roamresearch.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 (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

Jesper (30s):
Hello. I'm Jesper and this is episode 92 of The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast. And while Autumn is taking care of some of them, other activities today, I'll have a conversation with Lisa Marie and I had to say that this is one that I've been looking forward to because you see its not often that one gets to talk to someone who has a PhD in creative writing, where the world building as one of the critical components. That's amazing.

Jesper (1m 0s):
I'm looking very much forward to this. Welcome to the am writing fantasy podcast. Lisa I

Lisa-Marie (1m 7s):
Thank you. I'm very happy to be here.

Jesper (1m 10s):
So maybe you could start out just by telling us a bit about yourself, right?

Lisa-Marie (1m 14s):
Sure. I'm actually not yet a PhD so I'm actually doing P PhD research right now. I've had a pretty diverse life. I M was an entrepreneur for a long time. I had my own an eCommerce business and I sold that in 2015, which allowed me to retire and do my dream job, which is of course writing novels. And umm, as part of the, when I was writing novels, it turned out that we were going to have to come to Scotland for a few years to look after my mother-in-law and I decided to go back to school.

Lisa-Marie (1m 55s):
So I went back and got my masters in creative writing and then I was encouraged to move on to get my PhD. So there's two pots have a PhD in a practice based creative writing degree. And that is writing a novel 'em to its natural lent. So I'm writing it dystopian fiction novel, which was about a 120,000 woods. And also WRITING a and accompanying critical thesis, which was about 40,000 word.

Lisa-Marie (2m 25s):
So that's I am working on that right now. We have about a year left. So yeah.

Jesper (2m 30s):
Is there like a specific focus you have to do with your PhD a broader than you, you know? Well, well I understand riding a novel. What do you have to like do a more theoretical focuses on something specific?

Lisa-Marie (2m 41s):
Yes. So normally when people do a practice based research degree and they're writing a novel, they do, what's called an X of Jesus, which was kind of an examination of your creative writing practice. But I decided that I wanted to go a little bit further. I'm very interested in the self publishing and why the self publishing world as has not yet sort of reached its tendrils into the, a academic and, and more formal literary critique community.

Lisa-Marie (3m 12s):
So I decided to do my creative Co I sorry. The critical component as research, focusing on redefining the role of the author in this post press genre fiction world. So the digital economy of course, has been the key to allowing all of us to be able to express ourselves through self publishing. And umm, I was interested in really examining how the role of the author has changed beyond the traditional publishing community.

Lisa-Marie (3m 48s):
And I theorize that authorship in the future is going to have to follow a more collaborative model and that there has been such an evolution for three components of this collaborative model, which is that all for the reader and the text, umm, over the last 20 years in a specific, you know, primarily. And so we have to, as authors move along with ah, the changes that have been happening and the publishing environment and the post press environment and well building is a huge part of that.

Lisa-Marie (4m 26s):
It cannot be ignored that the text is no longer a single isolated narrative. It's now usually especially obviously science fiction and fantasy simply a gateway into a larger world. So it's a, the Cola that combination of the author has self publisher. The reader has what I call a Creators a reader, which was kind of an extension of the early adopter who is the fan and the world, which is the extension of a single narrative into a, a multi narrative trans media environment.

Lisa-Marie (5m 2s):
If that makes sense.

Jesper (5m 4s):
Yeah, because I think it originally, when I heard you talking about collaboration, I was sort of thinking like moving into a world where it would be more common for authors to cocreate. There are stories which for certainly in at least in self publishing that has been an ongoing trend for the last couple of years. But actually I think you're sort of talking a bit about something else here. Not really about whether or not there were several authors co-creating stuff, but Moore, I guess the triangle between the actual work and a writer and the reader, is that right?

Jesper (5m 38s):
Yeah,

Lisa-Marie (5m 38s):
That's correct. I mean cocreation between authors is most certainly something that is, you know, should be examined further, but I'm specifically looking more to cocreation between the author and the reader and the world environment. So it's really between the author and the reader that I find interesting because I would say that the ban is the early adopter of this role, that I've coined creator reader. And that's the individual who is spurred beyond the activity of meaning making when reading fiction and into the activity of creator.

Lisa-Marie (6m 20s):
And that's been going on for a hundred years, the fan community, but now I'm theorizing that that is going to turn into a, more of a mainstream requirement of genre fiction readers and that the author has to prepare themselves for that and also provide the environment, even the physical environment as well within which this creator a reader can express themselves. So it is, it's a co-creation between the author and the reader as well as it is between the th this triangle that your discussing the authors of the reader and the world.

Jesper (6m 59s):
Right? So you're, are you thinking in terms of big because we live in a very social media kind of environment and that we have a lot of ways to express ourselves. I mean, people can a run their own YouTube channels. I'll do a podcast like this one out, whatever they want. So are you thinking in the sense that we're moving into it being more commonplace that fans have, let's say certain books do you use or whatever they will create their own content in relation to that book series?

Jesper (7m 30s):
Is that sort of the line of thinking?

Lisa-Marie (7m 32s):
Absolutely. That's exactly the line of thinking that I'm going down it in the past, in the, you know, in the late 20th century, reading was really considered to be a very private expression of taste. So it was something that people did alone and, and the quiet and do, you know, social reading a began in the late 20th century, primarily with, with book clubs, be beginning to rise in popularity.

Lisa-Marie (8m 6s):
And then of course the digital economy exploded social reading opportunities. And it's from this social reading environment that Readers have this, not all Readers right. This is a small portion of the general reading population have this desire to actually create And. I positing that as the author's responsibility to ASP in the self publishing environment and the genre fiction environment specifically to provide opportunities for the older, for the reader to move into that creation space.

Lisa-Marie (8m 44s):
So,

Jesper (8m 45s):
So this is automatically, already sparked like two questions for me, because one on one question is, so how do you, how do you propose that the author both to prepare themselves two to, to do that. And, and also how, how do we create an environment whereby the readers can actually get to co-create in, in the setting as, as we please, or is it not something that we have to worry about other than they will sort of find their own way into this social media environment? That was sort of one question.

Jesper (9m 15s):
And, and I guess the other question is, have you had any thoughts about, because there is some sort of copyright licensing problems here as well, I guess that we need to maybe think about it or maybe you, you, you think it's not necessary and this is just a new world we we're looking at now. What do you think?

Lisa-Marie (9m 35s):
Yeah. I'm so do your first question. The third part of my thesis really kind of addresses EI an imagined process that a collaborative author could follow in order to provide this kind of environment that we're talking about. So in traditional literary theory, that this type of co-creation technically happens with literary reading. So the theory says that Narrator, I that a reader narratively, co-create a narrative with an author in their mind when they are doing really, you know, deep literary reading and that this cocreation is virtual.

Lisa-Marie (10m 20s):
And that's what a reader response theory really is. It's set. The reader is creating something from the text and the text no longer belongs to the author. So we'll talk about that and copyright in your copyright question next. But my theory is that John, our reading is obviously not literary reading, its considered passive reading, which is an probably an incorrect title for it, for that kind of reading. My theory is that the cocreation that happens virtually in a literary Reid has needs to happen in real life and physically in a genre read So it is the author's job.

Lisa-Marie (11m 2s):
Do you create that kind of environment? You know it in my theory. And so, yes, and the third chapter I talk about from the very beginning, how a genre fiction author should make sure that they are engaging the reader and three different points to make sure that that reader becomes moves into this created a reader role, which is the optimal role for an author. In my theory, both economically and aesthetically, because it provides economic advantages too, a self published author because when you have those thousand true fans, you really have a group of Readers that will stick with you and your world and your, and your series, you know, above and beyond there, they will become your one click a group.

Lisa-Marie (11m 52s):
And then also it serves an author because it gives an author of the opportunity to experience the kind of artistic growth that they perhaps would not have if they were to shut themselves off from this opportunity to collaborate with their readership. If that makes sense. So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So the theory is to engage with the Readers On in three levels, a one is socially and community.

Lisa-Marie (12m 22s):
So you begins to the very beginning, start to build your community in a lot of people are self published. Authors are doing all of this already. I'm just basically putting it into the academic context, engage them in your texts. So what is it you're doing within your gateway texts to engage and encourage a co creator of Readers and then also engaging them in the expanded text, which is, which becomes the story world. So that process is what I'm kind of developing as the last stage of my critical thesis component, right.

Lisa-Marie (12m 57s):
Because we are right.

Jesper (12m 59s):
I feel like, you know, I love it myself when, when a fictional world feels like it really grabs your attention. Right. And, and it pulls you in and, and you, you sort of want to explore more of that setting as a whole. And it basically goes beyond the story itself. So I for sure. I love though that kind of thing. And I know of course many Fantasy I Readers lot that sorta thing as well. I just had a reflection about what you said about building, building the community and, and having that the Readers to cocreate and whatnot in today's world.

Jesper (13m 33s):
I feel like everybody is so busy and there are so many social media contexts. There are so many groups. If your hand, if you decide for example, to run a Facebook group, how do you have any reflections about how, how do we get people to actually engage and, and start on this? Co-creation

Lisa-Marie (13m 50s):
Sure. I mean, we look to fandom as what we do and that's actually what I'm doing. And my research I'm look deeply into fandom and figure out what is it about these particular texts or these particular story words that drag these fans I'm into the position where they're there. They're obsessed now, not every reader is ever going to be in a fandom, right? There are people who will never become creator Readers and that's fine.

Lisa-Marie (14m 21s):
And though you will still have those readers and those readers will still be engaged. But the ones that you want to look for are those fans that will become these super I'm super obsessed. It's the wrong word, but super engaged, write this,

Jesper (14m 39s):
Is it true? Fans I liked a true fan.

Lisa-Marie (14m 42s):
You'll get your 1002 fans. And those are your creator Readers so yes, everyone is obviously very busy. There's a bazillion Facebook pages. You can follow that's. You know, the newsletter fatigued with authors is a very, very Real. And so that is exactly what my research is, is looking into. Where are the points that you can engage your readership throughout the process of writing and a, you know, production, distribution, and reception of a novel.

Lisa-Marie (15m 17s):
And those are the three points of the ones that I discussed. So the social and community, and the biggest point in the first step is to find your beta reading community and engage your beta reading community. Not necessarily as simply people who are just going to read the book and give you reviews, which was, I think were a lot of self published authors treat their beta Rita community as, but engage your beta Rita community from the very beginning, as co-authors not in any sort of credit, you know, or, or, or copyright wise, but people who you turn to to make sure that from the very first would you buy it on the page, these people are involved.

Lisa-Marie (16m 4s):
And I've actually done that with the novel that I'm writing for this particular degree. So you get a group of beta readers and you don't just ask them the questions. Like, did you like the novel? And do you want to review it? You ask them the really deep questions about what's missing. What didn't you understand? What should I add? What did you not like? So though that's the first step of real engagement, and those are the core of what's going to become, you're a creator, a readership. And then obviously in the next stage, which is within the text, there's a lot of intertextual world-building techniques that office can use to encourage this type of engagement.

Lisa-Marie (16m 46s):
And a lot of it has to do with making sure your very, very careful about the type of backstory that you include within your book. A lot of fantasy and science fiction readers go really overboard on our own backstory and leaving, you know, leaving gaps as one of the most essential things for, into textual engagement, making sure that there are places where readers really feel that they can step in and have something to contribute.

Lisa-Marie (17m 18s):
So even though you may know what happens with this particular character, or you may know the backstory of this particular event, making sure that either you don't share it, or you encourage our readership two complete that backstory for you. So that sort of leads into the world building aspect, which is I have created a physical world environment. So I looked at several options for this archivist is a fantastic, a online tool for exploring world relationships.

Lisa-Marie (17m 59s):
It's a really fabulous, it, it didn't work in the end for me because I needed a lot more a space for a text. So I moved to world Advil, which is also fabulous and works really well for a lot of science fiction and fantasy folks. But again, didn't really do what I needed to do for what I'm theorizing. So I moved into a tool called Rome research, and it's a fabulous tours brand new. It, it just came out at the end of 2019, and I'm actually gonna be developing some courses, four, our own research in how to use it in creative writing environment, because its really, really powerful giving Readers that environment that post Reid.

Lisa-Marie (18m 41s):
So after the immersive experience of the narrative, they can step out of the single text, which I'm calling and gateway texts. There can be multiple gateway texts that lead into the story world and into the story world with the author specifically not being the, and it will be cool, you know, a decider for what happens within that world environment.

Lisa-Marie (19m 12s):
I mean it's, it's, it's probably even valuable for an author to step away from the world at that point and pass it on to, you know, I'm, I'm speaking business speak here, but that's my, my background, a product manager who says, okay, this world now belongs to you. What is it that you want to do with it? And then they will say, I can step back in two, write another text, you know, from their own perspective, in their own point of view. So too, to your copyright issue, fandom traditionally is very anti a commercial.

Lisa-Marie (19m 51s):
The fandom environment is anti commercial. What part of that is because they had to be an antique commercial because early efforts at publishing fandoms for commercial benefit fandom tax for commercial benefits were really slammed by the traditional publishing industry. So in order to protect themselves, fandoms often proclaim this like an anti commercialism. But I think there is a desire within the fandom community. And I think we're seeing that in self publishing specifically and the science fiction and fantasy world for fans to be able to contribute to a world and benefit economically.

Lisa-Marie (20m 32s):
And so there is a model, there is an economic model that an author can develop whereby it benefits both the author and the reader economically and aesthetically.

Jesper (20m 46s):
It's very interesting. I'm just thinking here as well, because I can remember maybe it was like 10, 20 episodes ago or something like that. We had, ah, we had more Lafferty on who it was. She has written novels for a star Wars and its interesting and comparing whats, you said to what you were saying because with star Wars, for example, that's also a massive universe obviously and, and, and the Lord air is really expensive, but she basically said like, OK. So when I have to ride for star Wars, they gave, give me like disciplinary where we are strict guidelines on what I can do in what I can not do in the setting.

Jesper (21m 26s):
Whereas I think what your saying is basically the opposite. You sort of just release it out into the world and you know, you guys figure out what happened to you or whatever. Right. So I think what you're saying is that the fans we'll just developed, the background story are fill in part of the world that was not really filled in and the rider or the owner of the work doesn't really, you know, put any restrictions on it.

Lisa-Marie (21m 52s):
Yeah. I mean, that's one of the benefits of being a self publisher, right? I mean the reason why star Wars and those other huge franchise franchises are so strict is because the copyright is owned by w I N in an iron fist in a way by the corporation. It is not really about you, you know, artistic license, its about making sure that the corporation can keep the economic benefits have, you know, the expanding world.

Lisa-Marie (22m 23s):
So one of the benefits of self publishing is as an author, you know, I have the capability to say, yes, this is my, you know, my world that, that, you know, I started and This, these are the gateway text's that I have written, but do you know what they're is? There is a benefit in me opening it up and allowing Readers and fans I to contribute their own versions of the world and this story world, it, it doesn't mean that the author is giving up control because the author still has the ultimate word on, on what gets into the, you know, official Canon.

Lisa-Marie (23m 5s):
But it means that the author has this incredible opportunity to co-create with a readership and produce exactly what the readership is looking for. And then also give the advantage to people who perhaps don't have the capability to self publish themselves, or don't have the, you know, the business savvy to go out and do all the things that is required in the, in the self publishing community to get your workout there.

Lisa-Marie (23m 38s):
The author has the opportunity to also help those people as well. And it will benefit both of them mutually. So perhaps the orthotics, you 20%, 30% of whatever they decide to publish under their story, well title. And perhaps they have a free environment where anyone can publish and it's technically not part of the cannon, but their not going to restrict fan's from what they want to add or want to write within that story world. It's it's only going to benefit the author in the long run.

Lisa-Marie (24m 11s):
I mean, I don't get in to the economic aspect of it very much in my thesis just because I, I don't have enough room, but it's my belief that copyright in general is if you hang onto it too, tightly your in this environment, in this digital environment, you're restricting the opportunity to spread awareness of your work. So the people who like, you know, restrict there, their graphics from being spread, I mean, of course you need to be credited, but people don't want their art to be spread out on the internet, even though its credited, I think they are making a big mistake.

Lisa-Marie (24m 50s):
I think there is a benefit in making people feel as though they an actually making people a, a part of the, the, the, of the creative experience, right?

Jesper (25m 5s):
Yeah. I like, I like to sort of become very practical, helps with that because you know, many of our listeners hear there might be, they might be riding their first novel on maybe the first series of something, but they haven't been made. Maybe they haven't gotten very far. Maybe they, they only have like, lets say 200 people on their email list who they know will actually read it at this point in time. So I I I because I can fully imagine that if your like George RR Martin, for example, and you set up something and say, okay guys, you can, you can sort of start developing in this part of the world and what not a lot of people will just do it because they would love to.

Jesper (25m 43s):
But for the cell published author with maybe a limited audience, how do you think that people would get best gets started in getting the, so what did you call them? Create a Readers going in and in creating something right.

Lisa-Marie (25m 59s):
Well, I mean, I think the number one key is reader engagement. It's absolutely essential from the very beginning. I mean I wrote prior to moving into my PhD a prior to actually start in my master's I wrote a romantic comedy and people would say, well, you know, there's no world building and romantic comedy. There is no opportunity for reader engagement and its that's incorrect. The, the readers of any kind of genre have a desire to be engaged with the author, with a community and with the story world.

Lisa-Marie (26m 33s):
So I would say to any author that is just starting out is make sure that you are engaging with your reader community, umm, as they are, as though they are your friends. I mean every single email that you get you an answer it, Oh, you know, every single request you get four somebody who wants you to read their short story that they've done based on your, a novel, you, you read it and you respond to it. I mean just because you only have 200 people on your list, I can guarantee you it, if you have 200 people on your list, you're going to have at least one or two of them send you an email about your work and you need to make sure that the, you know, the first step of reader engagement is author and community.

Lisa-Marie (27m 23s):
So you need to make sure that you are really open and available to your readers so that they feel like, well, they will have a relationship and a connection with you that carries on into your work.

Jesper (27m 38s):
Yeah, that makes sense. And I, I fully agree with that as well. And also the whole point about always responding to email it, it doesn't have to be about the work, but any email you get from, from, from Readers always respond to it. I, I fully agree with that. So I guess to some extent what we are, well, we're sort of talking about making small steps that over the long term will make a big difference, right? In the sense that okay, if you get, if you get one person onboard and they will develop, maybe, maybe they do a bit of drawings of, to the settings or whatever, because there just like it, I had some Readers in the past doing that day, made some, some of their own art work of some places in a novel, which was a very nice or maybe other people would like to do a bit of wealth building.

Jesper (28m 24s):
Another person might want to write a short story elaborating on one of the characters background is, is that sort of what you're thinking? And then you just encourage that and you maybe provide some sort of platform where people can post stuff or something like that. Yeah.

Lisa-Marie (28m 41s):
Sorry. Yes. That is exactly right. I mean, we are We I don't address it again and my thesis because they don't have room, but umm, we are living in a transmedia environment. There are multiple opportunities to expand a narrative beyond simply just writing another story are writing another book into a series. There are opportunities for people to, like you said, draw the settings, draw all the characters, write short stories, write poetry, make films. And people are doing that within these fandoms right now with the, with the, within the big franchise fandoms.

Lisa-Marie (29m 16s):
So as an author, I'm encouraging that kind of co-creative activity and giving your readers' the place to do that I think is kind of the way forward. And I, and I'm not saying this as anything new, I mean, author's are doing this right now. What I'm doing is putting it into sort of an academic through an academic lens so that we can get academia itself as well, more interested in this changing role of authorship.

Lisa-Marie (29m 53s):
I mean they're still really stuck on this idea of the genius author. You know, this solitary ingenious ortho who is an inspired and writes this, you know, an amazing piece of literature and then is discovered by the traditional publishing industry. And all of this is really the only legitimate method of authorship. It seems within the, the, as you know, the majority of the literary academic community right now.

Lisa-Marie (30m 24s):
So my goal is to try and get academia and, and the more traditional community to try and look at authorship a little bit differently to let go of this concept of genius, authorship and coffee copyright. I mean it's difficult because that has a huge impact on a traditional publishing industry who is already struggling, you know, with the search in self publishing and the, and the changing environment, they are not necessarily technologically savvy, their not necessarily keeping up with the changes and they don't have the infrastructure or the methodologies in place to support the kind of it, you know, co-creative process that I am talking about.

Lisa-Marie (31m 5s):
So there is, there is a great deal of, of, of resistance, but I think that it's obviously happening out there right now. There are some authors who are extremely good at it and who are doing it. So let's take a look at it from, you know, a research perspective and figure out what's working, why and what it means to literary theory and the literary establishment as we move forward.

Jesper (31m 31s):
Yeah. That one, I definitely liked about it. And I have to admit as well, the way that you asked for a lot of challenging sum, some set of beliefs here. Right. So I quite like that, but yeah, but what I, what I do like about what you're saying is because one of the things that we keep coming back too, over and over and over again, when we are doing our podcast where we are interviewing other authors and so on and so on, we always come back to the problem of visibility, you know, in, in today's internet based, always connected kind of world.

Jesper (32m 1s):
There is so much stuff out there, especially after a self publishing came through with over the last 10 years or so, maybe a bit less, but there are so many books if you go to Amazon as well as ton of tons of tons of books in every genre. So getting your books to actually become visible to Readers and therefor also of course, hoping to earn some money is one of the most difficult things to do. And one of the things we have always said from our side is that that is why your email list it's so incredibly important.

Jesper (32m 35s):
And that is so important to have that conversation going with the reader's life. Like you have all also set here, but I think you are input here adds another element to what we usually say in our advice. And that is that if you can get these co-creators, this is Rita Creators I to do work in your world, your base basically sort of encouraged that a word of mouth marketing, basically, right?

Jesper (33m 6s):
So today we'll start spreading out across all their own social media feeds and they will share that stuff, which will hopefully will also lead to new readers back into your work at the end is, is my logic here? Correct?

Lisa-Marie (33m 20s):
Absolutely. That's absolutely correct. Listen, I I I'm first and foremost, a business person. That's my background, I'm an entrepreneur. I built a business from scratch. And so my ideas are very much, you know, economically business focused and really its nothing more than building a brand. So you're story world and you the author and you, you and you become your brand. You make promises to your readers that then you fulfilled, right?

Lisa-Marie (33m 53s):
U you, you find out you very closely specify who your target reader is. You make promises you no to that reader threw things like, you know, tropes and genres and, and, and stuff like that. And you develop a brand relationship. So yes it is about using the word of mouth just as brands do and giving reader's the opportunity to spread the word about your brand.

Lisa-Marie (34m 25s):
I know a lot of authors that would feel really gross thinking about it that way, because a lot of, especially in the traditional publishing industry, obviously they is what you write is art. But my premise is that you can still write on it and you can still be an artist while taking advantage of what the digital economy is offering you from an economic perspective. So if you were to be building a brand, do you would slowly begin gathering your 1000 true fans, which obviously authors do through social media and their email list, which again, I think is absolutely true.

Lisa-Marie (35m 6s):
It's the number one most important thing. And making sure that once the reader enters into a relationship with your brand, that's the only place they want to go. So that's why you provide this story world in this opportunity to engage at a level that most traditional methods of authorship don't allow. Does that make sense?

Jesper (35m 34s):
Yeah, absolutely. It makes sense. But have you, from your personal experience trying to live this stuff, have you had the experience that you can actually get people to co create or a small or is it always a bit like cricket? So as you know, that you will ask people to encourage them to create something and then maybe one or two people do that, but nobody else what's your experience there?

Lisa-Marie (35m 56s):
Well, the reason that I started getting really interested in this was watching other authors do it. So I know that it does happen with other authors. I, when I was writing my romantic comedy, I did have people come in and request to create, wanting to write short stories on the characters, wanting me to expand storylines and gaps that I would then say to them. I don't, I don't feel it that doesn't, you know, there's no nothing that resonates with me to expand that, but you go ahead.

Lisa-Marie (36m 27s):
So yeah, I the people do. I truly believe that people do want to do it. One of them unfortunate things about doing a PhD is that its a three, four, five year process. And so a lot of the economic exploration I would like to do to test these theories I can't do because I'm so focused on the, you know, the, the actual research and academic aspects on, on the, on the writing side, because really I'm doing a creative writing degree, not a business or economic degree.

Lisa-Marie (37m 2s):
So I have to focus on the, on the, on the literary component, but post my PhD, I fully plan on, you know, exploring this in at multiple levels, perhaps even start in my own small, a publishing company where I worked with authors who are interested in working in this way and not just in the science fiction and fantasy genre, like I said to you, I believe that there's, I mean, crime fiction is a huge opportunity for people to get engaged and in worlds, a romance is a huge opportunity.

Lisa-Marie (37m 36s):
So I think I'm, I do think that their, there are, I haven't experienced a huge volume of it because like I said, I'm really focused on the theoretical aspects of it right now, but I think it's out there there's enough evidence to show. I mean, I don't, you, you obviously know Michael Andrew Lee and I interviewed one of his team members for, for the PhD and there are folks who write whole novels that he picks up within his, besides a science fiction and fantasy worlds.

Lisa-Marie (38m 9s):
So it's happening out there right now.

Jesper (38m 13s):
Yeah, I agree. And a, one of the things that, a, one of the things that Autumn and I already have planned is that at some point in the future, we, we would like other authors too, right. In our settings as well because our setting is, is going to be huge and there's got to be a lot of stories you can tell in it and we can not tell all of it. So, so that we wanted to do anyway, but I still feel like there's a slight distinction, you know, basically basically becoming a publishing company because that's basically what we would become, right? So we would have our own authors that we have contracts with and they would ride in our setting.

Jesper (38m 47s):
Umm, but they own stories obviously and our setting. So, but that's becoming a publishing company. Whereas on the other hand, there's this whole other element to it, which is more like the fan fiction or the fandom. It doesn't have to be fiction. It could be pictures of videos or whatever people wanna make, but that there is no contract. They are, that's more like just and understanding about and encouraging people to actually create stuff. And then of course, I guess what would help if we, as authors would help promote that stuff once it's created it, if they created a cue, a cool video, or when you have the YouTube channel, maybe you are bloated as the author to the YouTube channel and the person will feel like this is awesome.

Jesper (39m 27s):
You know, I got to make a video that came on to the author of a YouTube channel or whatever. I'm just making something up here. But, but I feel like those two parallel streams here, whereas one of them is about basically more like becoming a publisher. Where's the other one is more about fandom and providing opportunities to fans, to express themselves.

Lisa-Marie (39m 49s):
Yeah. And I think they, I think what I'm saying in, in my thesis is that those two things can merge together that we're moving from a reading community into a writing community. And so those people who you are talking about as fans or Readers actually have the capability to contribute and be authors and they're is their, there are the things that they are creating, the contributions they are creating are worthy enough to be shared under the author's concept of what their, their world is.

Lisa-Marie (40m 27s):
So again, it comes down to a conversation about copyright and how, and if you want to include an economic or an economic aspect in the relationship with your fans or not, I mean, that's all stuff that needs to be though through and worked out well and will obviously be at the final component of my thesis when I propose like what people can do is as the next day.

Jesper (40m 53s):
Well, I think definitely you are challenging some of the set beliefs here and I very much liked that. Is there anything, is there anything I should have asked you about do some read that I haven't something important to mention?

Lisa-Marie (41m 6s):
No, I don't think so. I think we've probably covered everything. I just hope that, you know, I have, I don't speak about my research very often publicly and I'm a new academic, so I'm hoping that the way I put it forward had the kind of clarity and it needed, you know, outside of the academic speak that I'm used to doing right now.

Jesper (41m 31s):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I, you explained it well a and those are, there was some mindset stuff you have to think about it in terms of how are we approaching our Readers and, and how do we develop our worlds? And I think we tried throughout our conversation here to bring it a bit bit outside of theory and, and sort of become practical a bit as well, just to see it. Okay. How could we potentially do this? But I also like the fact that we can leave in a bit to the listener as well, too, to think creatively about how can you engage with your readers and how can you enable them to become a creator readers and B part of your world and in whatever fashion that you liked, because there was also some individuality here at play in terms of how much you feel comfortable with and how much do you want to, to, to engage with Readers on this level.

Jesper (42m 24s):
But I do think there's a lot of truth to the fact that if you can do this, this is one of the ways where you can combat that visibility issue, that we all struggle with a in today's landscape here when it comes to a true self publishing. So I think that was excellent. And a, we had a very, very good conversation here. So all I want to say is a thank you so much for coming on to The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast Lisa Marie and as I expected this to be a very interesting conversation, so thank you, you are welcome.

Jesper (42m 59s):
And if it, and I will be releasing a lot of this stuff in a more writer focused or the focused format, like nonacademic format, umm, as I progress in terms of courses and, and things like that. So if anybody is interested, they can just pop over to my website and sign up for my newsletter and that this stuff will be coming out in more detail as it progresses. That sounds great. Then if you can email me the link to where people can go, ah, and maybe also the link to you.

Jesper (43m 32s):
You mentioned some tools in the session here, so maybe if you could email me that stuff, then I'll put it into show notes and then listeners can just go straight through them to go to the show notes and just click through a, that would probably be the easiest way to do it. And ah, I know if a for sure Lisa Marie that I will sign up to your email a bit less because I wanted to see what you've come up with. Okay. It sounds good. All right. So next Monday Autumn is back on the Podcast and to be honest, we haven't quite worked out what topic we're going to cover just yet, but we'll definitely settle on something.

Jesper (44m 6s):
Good.

Narrator (44m 8s):
If you like what you've 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 to stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 91 – What is a GOOD Daily Word Count?

It's often debated among authors: What is a a good daily word count? Is word count even important?

In episode 91 of the Am Writing Fantasy podcast, Autumn and Jesper answer these questions. You might be surprised to hear the answer.

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 onto the show with your hosts Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt

Jesper (30s):
Hello I am Jesper

Autumn (31s):
and I am Autumn.

Jesper (33s):
This is Episode 91 of The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast and you probably come across to the advice to write every day, many, many times before that's something we've all heard. There are also those who say that you should have a daily word count, but it's it's. So we are going to reflect on that topic today and discuss the daily word counts. I am looking forward to it because this was, even though I knew this podcast topic was coming up unrelated to that, I recently had some very deep reflection on word counts and how it affected my writing.

Autumn (1m 12s):
And I think it does. So I look forward to it when we get into the topics, but first the Odyssey of your house selling in your life. How were things over in Denmark? Oh, good. That's good. I, by the way, I think it's the first time I I've heard somebody say deep reflections about what Count. I don't think I've ever heard that sentence said before, but I loved being a regional, so that's. Yeah, no, no, everything's good. Over here.

Jesper (1m 42s):
Not nothing new to report on the house, selling in front. We are still waiting for those people to sell their own place first. So God knows that when that will happen, but hopefully I was still fingers crossed. I will hope that it won't take too long, but who knows? Yeah. So hopefully this is not as long as the Odyssey is and you don't have a 10 year wait. All right. Oh yeah. But actually I was thinking it gets to, its been a bit of a while since I told one of my referee stories. Excellent.

Jesper (2m 12s):
And considering how bad things turned out two weeks ago, I was thinking that maybe, or maybe it was a good story for today.

Autumn (2m 19s):
Oh perfect. I would love to hear it.

Jesper (2m 22s):
Okay. Yeah. Well thanks. Just goes crazy sometimes with these matches and then I have the, had a match two weeks ago, a wish it was played with the, you know, much intensity and a, it was pretty physical work as well, you know, in the sense that they were, they were tackling, tackling each other pretty hard and a, well, I also had to issue a few reload cards and so on that's it that's what happens. Right. But so we play 90 minutes in a soccer match and a buy the 80th minute.

Jesper (2m 55s):
The Hometeam had been in the lead with one to kneel for almost the entire Mets. I think they squat like after 10 minutes or something like that. So, so basically we had 10 minutes to go and they had been leading one nil all the way through and was basically in control of the mat as such, but then in the last 10 minutes, the way to equalize, Oh, this, this getting out and say like, yeah. And then of course a intensity Rose quite a lot and we got into overtime.

Jesper (3m 28s):
So that's within the last two minutes of the game where it still one, one. And then within those last two minutes, I awarded the penalty kick to the way team and a, yeah, you can imagine how upset the home team got. So they were extremely angry that we're complaining and yelling and a, you know, the spectators from the sidelines who are not very happy either. They probably felt that it was an unfair ruling, but I still stand by the fact that there was a penalty kick.

Jesper (4m 2s):
So that was awarded and, and especially no, you know, when you get a penalty kick in the last dying minutes of a match, it's it will determine the win in this case. Right. So yeah. Obviously they, emotions are running high now. Mmm. And the away team scored. Oh no. And shortly after that I blew the whistle and ended the match. So the away team, actually one, after having been behind almost all the way through, there was a lot of angry faces and shouting and all that kind of thing going on.

Jesper (4m 41s):
And then, you know, afterwords the teams convene at this center of the pitch with the customary as per the fair plea rules or the game that you convened at the center to just say, thank you for the match studio of the team. And of course it didn't go to Well because they were pretty angry. And ah, I was sort of standing there and, you know, looking at some players who was standing in front of me just because they were not too friendly. So I just wanted to make sure that everything was okay.

Jesper (5m 11s):
And then behind me, I, all of a sudden had a lot of promotion and I turn it around and basically there was a fight breaking up and I was like, what the hell? And then I brought over there and a, one of the team coaches also rushed us over there and we get the party split apart and separated them. And at this point in time, I think that the whole thing is probably because of the frustration that has been built up from losing the game. Right. So yeah, we just separate them and we'll go off to our different, a lot of the rooms and then trying to keep them separated, write.

Jesper (5m 46s):
So, and then with this particular place where we were playing the game, the locker room's is, is further away from the actual feel of place. We have to work for a while. So I went up there and then when I got up there, then the away team came to me and say, Hey, do you know that the home team player just kicked out a guy on the stomach? Oh my goodness. I was like, what? He did, what they say? Yeah, yeah. Then he kicked him and then they call it the play that out. And he pulled up his Jersey to show me. And you could just see on his stomach, like a clear boot boot imprint on his stomach and skin was all colored.

Jesper (6m 24s):
Right. You know? And there was even a little bit of bleeding at the bottom were one of the steps from the boot have made this impact. It's like, why do you do,

Autumn (6m 32s):
Do you believe that no, that's not appropriate. Yeah.

Jesper (6m 36s):
Well we have, it's just like this. I mean, one is going on in my mind. What are some people are thinking I don't get it.

Autumn (6m 42s):
No. Especially, I mean, they know Fairplay, it's frustrating, but you know, go hit a punching bag life isn't fair. And that's just the way the rules went. Right?

Jesper (6m 53s):
Yeah. Well, I just don't understand. I mean, well, we've seen also professional players do stupid things in, even at the world cup final, ya know, the French captain sent it in sedan many years ago. He head butted another player and was shown on a red car in the middle of the world cup final. Also what happens there as well. Alright. And not that this is an excuse, right? Violence has never OK. But I can see how, if you're playing four, a lot of money on a very high prestigious, I can sort of understand not that violence is okay in any way, but I can understand the emotions you might get high.

Jesper (7m 31s):
Right. Right here, are we talking like an amateur league match? Like doesn't really matter if you win. I mean, we'll of course it does too, your honor, but nobody is gonna win any money or nobody is gonna, you know, all of a sudden get it, get in to the major leagues because you're going to lose this match. So in that sense of it doesn't matter right now. I just, I don't know. I just don't get it. Sometimes people weird.

Autumn (7m 55s):
Yeah. I guess it's what I used to tell my employees when I had to a field office and I was the boss and I would tell them, look, you can tell me anything, unless it's life, death or world peace. I'm not going to get worked up. Just, just tell me, I, I totally am way too calm. I think about things, but those are my three points. Unless it's life and death are a world. Peace. I got to get excited. So it's fine. Just, just tell me so I don't get these players either. Unfortunately.

Jesper (8m 26s):
Yeah, no. So that was my referee story. I think sometimes when crazy things happen and then usually people liked to hear my stories, but I don't know if the listeners, if they don't then let us know if you don't like my stories, but otherwise I'll assume that you liked them. Because normally when we at like family parties or dinner things or whatever people usually like to hear their stories.

Autumn (8m 46s):
Yeah. So I think it's a very entertaining. So hopefully they like it too, because I don't want you to stop. Otherwise I'll have to talk more offline. Yeah.

Jesper (8m 53s):
Yeah. How do I think so too, with you? Good. I

Autumn (8m 56s):
Am still, I think I'm in week two, week three of on my own and being a single parent to my small dogs, but things are good. Yeah I husband has finally turning, turning back towards the East. So I expect to see him within the next 10 weeks or so 2000 plus miles to try to drive back through COVID this was his own auto. So you could write a whole novel and just this little trip threw everything.

Autumn (9m 27s):
So I'm looking forward to it. And its nice to know who's getting a little bit closer every single day, but definitely been getting my work done. But I did realize because getting work done, I finally updated my website, which means I added the books. We just published a suburb to my website, which are excellent. And you know, this whole time I thought those books were 17, 18 and 19. And the book I'm writing now the series I'm writing now is 20 to 21 and 20 To and that's kind of thinking, Oh my gosh, my 20th book, I am so excited.

Autumn (9m 60s):
I'm going to break out the good scotch. I'm going to have a little, you know, party. And it will be, you know, even if it's virtual, I'm so excited to think when I really spoke 20. And guess what I realized when I counted up the books on my website

Jesper (10m 13s):
That you were already above two and

Autumn (10m 17s):
Yeah. So are 18 or 19 and 20. I'm like, Oh I can't believe I miscounted my own books. Its an embarrassing, I mean, I know I'm kind of low key and calm, but I thought I'd do had a cow's no, well yeah.

Jesper (10m 39s):
Well it has been many years since you and I went to school. So maybe we forgot it.

Autumn (10m 44s):
Yeah. Yes. So anyway, or at least I know the book, I have book 21 written and I'm working on 20 to 23. It's slowly coming together in plotting, but just by when I released at all party anyway. Yeah,

Jesper (10m 57s):
Yeah. You should we go on the internet with The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast so last week I set up a very special giveaway On Patrion And I'm thinking maybe you could start out Autumn by just explaining how far we come with the world building costs because then I will cover how that actually ties into the giveaway.

Autumn (11m 24s):
Yeah, that sounds good. All the modules are recorded. I don't know if anyone follows me on Instagram. They probably saw the post that showed, Hey, this wasn't a Writing post. This is a something else on my computer. As I uploaded the final modules. And also I did celebrate that. I at least danced around the cabin to some music and had some realms. You know, I will do the parties. Didn't see you and its been such a journey. We are here on this course to finally have the modules recorded and as speak. Well, not right now, but this week I have been working on getting the website built and that's over half done.

Autumn (12m 1s):
So we're so close to having this full course finally at long, last complete finally.

Jesper (12m 7s):
Well there's like two years later or something.

Autumn (12m 10s):
Yeah, we've been off of, I mean, we've been off a world. It, it took a lot longer than seven days, but it's, it's amazing what his in this course. And it does always astound me when I look through everything as I've been doing well or uploading all the videos. So it's ah, it is very exciting to see it come together and it's such an awesome course.

Jesper (12m 32s):
Yeah. So more on that because in the future, but why I wanted to get all of them to just to say all of that was to explain the special giveaway we are going to run on Patrion. So we've decided to give away a golden ticket to the world with of course, meaning that their is a chance to win a completely free access to

Autumn (12m 55s):
Yeah. And that's, what's really exciting about this is that it's going to be a limited release. So this is really a golden ticket. This is like exclusive, exclusive, not every week. This is not going to be a wide open entrance either. It's going to be gated. So this is really, really a golden ticket.

Jesper (13m 11s):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Because we would like to basically give access to just a few people at first to the costs because we want to, well, both here the feedback and as such, but we also would like to get some testimonials from, from those people that we give access to in the beginning. So there is a chance that you can become a part of that exclusive team for free, but there is more because we always have to sweeten deal right now.

Autumn (13m 39s):
Absolutely. Everyone has got a win. We are so nice that way, right?

Jesper (13m 43s):
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Because the golden ticket has a draw, meaning only one person who will win, but we are going to give something to everyone. And that also includes all our existing patron supporters because we just appreciate it. You guys in girls so much. So now we're going to give everybody something. So basically everyone who signs up to become a patron support and everyone who is already as a Porter, we'll be giving access to either it could be a free video cost module or perhaps we are going to run it as a webinar and then recorded.

Jesper (14m 19s):
We haven't quite made up our mind on that. But what it will be about is what we call the reader's journey. This is basically how you can use paid advertising to warm up your audience over several different steps and a then hopefully of course get them to buy something at this.

Autumn (14m 40s):
Yeah, that's right. I think so. It's such a cool webinar topic as well and its yeah, everyone will benefit from that. So this is We excellent. And how do we still have to work out a few of the kinks, but I know we will. Yeah.

Jesper (14m 52s):
So EVERY patron support. Our new old will get access too to that video of course module or webinar, whatever we decide, what are the other, but it will get that for free. So if that sounds good to you, you can just follow the link to Patrion in the show notes. It might not say anything about the special giveaway just yet, but as I just explained, all existing patrons will automatically be part of the giveaway. So if you want to make sure you don't forget about it and head on over and sign up right away for as little as a dollar, you can be part of this giveaway.

Jesper (15m 31s):
So I would say that's pretty good.

Autumn (15m 32s):
It would be a, when you want to get to say it, if you could win in this course on a dollar, Holy crap, that would be a, such a wonderful, I'm quite jealous. I just want to receive enough to have built it, but that's okay. It'll be fantastic.

Jesper (15m 47s):
Yeah. Okay. Anything else before we move into today's topic?

Autumn (15m 51s):
No. Otherwise I just wanted to say that the Am Writing Fantasy group on Facebook has been newly, very active, but so as supportive, I noticed that out, we had a new member who asked a question about isn't really possible to have a life in a job you actually enjoy and kids and also still right. And the last I checked was over 93 comments and I know one on one, one of his was just like, I can't believe how you know, amazingly supportive you guys are. So that is just, I went to, I wish I could help everyone there as well as that.

Autumn (16m 25s):
Of course COVID safely So but I just think that it's just wonderful to see such encouragement among fellow Fantasy authors. So if anyone else's looking for that type of support, come join us on Facebook. It actually does exist on Facebook.

Jesper (16m 46s):
Okay. Autumn I was thinking I could start us out by two quotes from famous writers to sort of set the scene a bit here. Yeah. And then maybe we can use that as a springboard to reflect upon today's topic.

Autumn (17m 0s):
That sounds perfect. I love it. When you do the homework. Fantastic.

Jesper (17m 4s):
Yeah. I am pretty good at that.

Autumn (17m 7s):
Yeah. Yeah.

Jesper (17m 9s):
Yeah. So let me start out with the first one is from Anne rice and I just like Anne rice so much and I love her books, especially the empire ones, but the, so it goes like this quote WRITING is what makes it a writer, nothing more, nothing less go where the pleasure is in your writing, go where the pain is. Write the book you would like to read right to book your I've been trying to fight, but have not found, but right.

Jesper (17m 40s):
And remember there are no rules for our profession ignore rules and a half.

Autumn (17m 45s):
Yeah. I love and price. That is a wonderful quote. I think that's a good

Jesper (17m 50s):
One. That'd be it. Just do the second one. And then we can just maybe do, are reflections on these quotes here afterwords. So the second one is from the all famous Stephen King. Ah, so he says, quote, I like to get 10 pages a day, which amounts to 2000 words. That's 180,000 words over a three month span at good enough length for a book and put a book on. Yeah. And he and his book on writing Stephen King continues to give the advice that new writers should write 1000 words everyday with one rest day per week.

Jesper (18m 29s):
Well, what do you think about these quotes? Yeah.

Autumn (18m 31s):
Awesome. All right. Well I've told you guys like totally opposite ends. Do you have an ricing saying right. You know what it is in your sole, what it is that you are passionate about and it doesn't matter how long it takes to the journey to get their, and then you have Stephen King of very succinctly saying basically write 10 pages, a thousand words a day, just do it. It doesn't matter what, so those are, that's definitely been what I've been thinking about reading recently. I mean, I am a big proponent of I goals, having goals.

Autumn (19m 1s):
I try and do weekly goals, but I have recently, it was now that I have Scrivener and it lets you put in a daily word count goal. I've adjusted to that. So my, my weekly goal has gone to a daily writing goal and I, I have noticed a change in my writing that I've only recently, I think finally managed to adjust back to where I wanted it. And that's been a long journey of 20 bucks to get back to There. So I think, I think just so hard and re said to me, it's the true model.

Autumn (19m 33s):
There are no rules to this. There are things you can try out and try on for size, but you need to do so to see if they fit and they might not fit and who has to be willing to try something else. If it doesn't, if you find out its been a little too tight, a little too loose, just not your style.

Jesper (19m 53s):
Yeah. But you know, I also actually saw some overlap between the two quotes, even though they are different because I think Anne rice is also saying that Writing is what makes it a rider, but it goes without saying, if we don't write well, we, well, I guess this could be argued as well, but if we don't ride, we're not gonna publish anything. And if we don't publish anything then, well, I guess we could discuss that. But what are we then, you know, is if you're just riding as a hobby, I've been a writer or does it, do you have to pup?

Jesper (20m 29s):
Is that I know that's a completely different rabbit hole and they want to go there right now, but it's a whole different Podcast I yeah, nothing that is not that there is anything wrong with Ida or, but of course it, if you want to make an income or at least we could say, then you have to right. And you have to continue to write. And it's the same thing, Steven King sets, right? He has sets that you have to write 'em in order too, to become a writer or be a writer. But I'm thinking that the fact that he wants new writers to set a daily word count.

Jesper (20m 59s):
I like the part, at least about that, that where it sort of forces them to set a goal and strive to achieve that goal. And I feel like that's important because at the end of the day, a lot of this is also about building up a habit of writing. And if having a daily work Count is what helps you build up a habit of writing then I think that's a pretty good thing. Yeah,

Autumn (21m 26s):
Definitely. I mean, definitely I, to me, its the thousand words a day, I mean that's, that is actually my daily goal in Scrivener. And usually I'm there's days on blasting past it I'm like, well, especially if I have woken up at 4:00 AM and because my character's are talking to me, I'm going to have a thousand words had done before at 8:00 AM. Not a problem, but there's a daze, you know, that I could not there's times it is. I've actually realized for me, it's important to map out your productivity, not only in your time's of like, when are you most productive and most creative during the day, but when are you the most verbose?

Autumn (22m 2s):
What are you really like? The story is just jelling and you can churn out 3000 words if you can sit down for enough time. And when are there times at your book is Maybe, you know, if you're pushing 250 words and your doing a bit of plotting, that's perfect. And I've written enough books now that I know my scale, I know my graph of when I'm going to have my word count, go up when it's not going to be that much when a plotting is more important. So a thousand words as a newbie is heavy.

Autumn (22m 33s):
Yeah. That's a lot. I think, you know, if you're starting out in your, just trying to make a goal, you know, 250 or 100, you know, just, you have to write, you do have to write, even if it's a sentence, I know there's been times in my life and that's why I liked having a, a weekly goal where I knew, cause I was a manager, I had a field office, I had nighttime meetings. I would have to be in early. It would be out in the field. I'd be reprimanding people, whatever. If I got a sentence down, I was like, Yes I score today. I got seven words out.

Autumn (23m 4s):
And there are times though, you know, Saturday morning it was quiet. I had three hours off you go. Yeah, that was fine. So, ah, you know, can you just can't agree? I loved Stephen King. I used to live in Maine. We used to joke is my neighbor, but he, it was never my neighbor, but a thousand words as a whole lot. It's a lot, a lot, a lot for a newbie. I think that's kinda tough. Yeah. And then

Jesper (23m 27s):
Yeah, I think as well as an alternative to word count, just to maybe add that onto it is you could also look at what time slots instead of what counts I have worked with Word counts, but I've also worked with time slots. And for example, if you are maybe a very busy, like Like you were just saying that you could also be that you are one of those people who just get really distracted by the internet.

Jesper (23m 59s):
Every time you sit at the computer.

Autumn (24m 0s):
Yeah. He was like, Oh, that YouTube video is about what's interesting. Yeah. I got to also be the case. Yeah.

Jesper (24m 7s):
Yeah. But no matter what it is rather than maybe what Count you, you could say how much time can I dedicate a day to Writing right. And if that's 15 minutes fine, if it's 30 minutes better, but whatever you can devote, devote that time and say, okay, I'm gonna right there. And I dunno if you need to pull out the cable to the internet routed and do that during that time. Yeah.

Autumn (24m 32s):
Yeah. Turn your computer off wifi mode Yes yeah,

Jesper (24m 35s):
Yeah. Something. Yeah. But, and then just right, whatever you can eat, if you get 50 words, then you got 50 words and that's fine. You know, I think we just need to be careful not to get too hung up on Yeah. I need to write a thousand words today and its, especially when, when we are just starting out because its so easy to get into self blame and guilting yourself for not achieving what you wanted to achieve. And then while I guess I should write 2000 words tomorrow then, and then you even more stressed.

Jesper (25m 9s):
I don't know. I like what, like we said, it's just a moment ago is I think it's about billing up the habit of Writing and however you do that, it doesn't necessarily have to be with the world Word Count I I don't think so.

Autumn (25m 26s):
Agree. I mean, to me I think that most important part is just setting aside time, writing time. I mean, when I had the full time job, I would, it was when I came home grade, my husband got to see and I would write, it would have 45 minutes. I would have even now when it's the morning and things are going well and no matter what time I got up, that's time as flexible. But there was a certain point where its like, okay, I have got to go have breakfast, I've got to put this away. I've got other things to do today. And that was my cutoff time. And I think that's important. And another version I used to it's like world Word Count.

Autumn (25m 58s):
But if you're, if you're a little softer chapter Count I I used to have a, just a chapter Count like maybe three chapters a week. It didn't matter how I filled that in during my writing time. But as well, if I hit that goal, it seemed a little bit easier to have a week long ago and a set time to just try for it because it's it was, it was pretty easy. I always try to make it achievable. And I think figuring out what is achievable for you to put some side of TA you know, some time aside every day, maybe a day off.

Autumn (26m 28s):
I kinda liked that with Stephen King. It's kind of cute. Don't think that I try not to take a day off no matter what. Even in my days off, I'm still writing in the morning. I don't care, but it's, it's a good thing to figure out what, as an achievable, a word count for You some people, I know, one woman writing 5,000 words a day. I know some people, if they're happy they can get a page 250 words a day. It shows progress, keeping progress going Is is really the idea to do it, sitting down, doing it as an idea. But you are going to have to write an experiment and find out what fits your life so that your not the hermit locked in the study, never seeing your family.

Autumn (27m 6s):
And you know, that's what a good feeling either just to hit a goal for something that you should feel passionate about, you shouldn't be missing life because you want to write a thousand words today. You should also get to walk the dog, something to spend time with your family. That's why you have them. So

Jesper (27m 23s):
Yeah. Yeah. The, the, the chapter goal that you mentioned, that was actually how I do it nowadays. Umm, well, first of all, I don't have daily word counts anymore because we'll be between The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast recording here. Do we get courses and all kinds of other things? Its I don't write every day I work every day on our business, but it's different things. Sometimes I'm, you know, costs building or today we were recording podcasts. I've been preparing some slides for one of our classes as well as this morning.

Jesper (27m 57s):
So I'm always working on our business and there the author parts of my life. But I just don't know we'll in the beginning when I wrote my first novel, I actually had a daily work camp set in Scrivener. Think if I remember correctly, I think it might've been 1200 words or something like that. That's pretty impressive. Yeah. Well I got up at four 30 in the morning and wrote for a couple of hours and a dip that for like two years or something. So it's doable.

Jesper (28m 28s):
But of course I fully agree what you say. You have to, you have to think about something that works for you. If, if you feel like it's slave labor to do your writing everyday because you set so tough goals on yourself, then you're going to burn out on it. So it's, that is not worth it. But I quit. I kind of, for myself, at least I like to just set myself some goals, you know, and then work towards those. For example, I could say indeed, this week I'm gonna, or every week I'm going to complete three chapters for example. And then I also know my creative work I have to do in the first half of the day.

Jesper (29m 4s):
Usually I prefer to do them in the morning because then I'm I could do more creative work there, whereas in the afternoon or as well, I guess almost just after lunchtime, I'm a, I am already a bit tired, but all the marketing stuff, ah, you know, I could, I could do that on auto pilot almost. So I could do that easily and the afternoon where as the creative work I'll have to do in the morning. So I just think the main thing is that you get your butt in the seat and you've put your fingers on a keyboard and you are, you get productive.

Jesper (29m 39s):
But how do you do that if you do, why daily word count or if you do it with more like weekly goals, more like I do or we, well, we also like our to do lists.

Autumn (29m 52s):
Do you and I, are we going to do list? Which is awesome because it makes life easier, but yeah. Yeah. And you know, but even adding it for me, sometimes I used to have just a little note on my iPad back when I was writing on an iPad with an external keyboard and it would just be like, you know, just a little checkbox, three chapters this week. And that was my reminder. And that's all I needed to remind myself that this is something, you know, you need to do. You need to take seriously. Cause sometimes putting it on your to do list is sometimes its, you know, going out on social media and sing, I'm going to do this, whatever it takes to give you me that pressure if you need it.

Autumn (30m 29s):
But you also can't get yourself so much pressure that you hate it, but you also need to be responsible and not spend all your time on social media saying how much you should be. Writing that's that's too much of a cliche. Don't do that.

Jesper (30m 43s):
Yeah. I think to some degree we could compare too. You know, if, if let's say you wanna build your muscles and then you sign up for gym membership and then you only go to the gym once a week. I mean, that's good. It's better than zero, right? But your not going to build up your muscles now, not for one time a week now you have to be much more consistent then. And Writing is a muscle and in exactly the same way that you have to repeatedly exercise your writing skills and then you will become better.

Jesper (31m 15s):
But you do not become better by let's say Writing half an hour every Friday morning, for example, it's that? It's just not enough. No, but at the same time, it's sort of this balance. You have to walk, right? Because on one hand it shouldn't be so much that you get stressed out about it and it feels overwhelming. But on the other hand it cannot be. So let's say rare and I, in this case I categorize one time a week as rare.

Jesper (31m 47s):
Yeah. But it cannot be that red as well. You don't build up momentum and then you get to learn. Right. So that's great. Well at least in the beginning, that's how that might be difficult. But you have to, maybe you could just watch one Netflix show less than a day or something. Yeah, yeah.

Autumn (32m 3s):
Yeah. So the thing, I mean, I remember that was advice I'm recently. I remember giving to an author that, you know, they said they only liked to write when they were inspired. I think that's a, that's a great inspiration is a wonderful thing. But I think we used, we are using the same terms you were just doing Writing is a muscle. So if you only weight to your inspired are always going to be basically a little flabby, but if you are exercising, if you're proficient in it and that inspiration hits, how much further are you going to be? How much more, how much better is what you're going to write, going to be when you're inspired, if you made it through those bits that are uninspiring and in any novel and in the novella, even in a short story, you're going to hit stretches where you're like, Oh jeez.

Autumn (32m 45s):
You know, I just, you've got to sit down and just simply push through. And that is an important thing, but yeah, exactly. If your not exercising and if you cannot make use of that energy, when it comes so that you can channel it and create something big and really boost yourself towards the end goal, then you're just, you're not always going to be kind of just churning along. And at least you hopefully you'll be turning, but it will be a very slow pace and it will be so much easier to have their steam run out and you'll never get to that end goal.

Jesper (33m 18s):
Yeah. And I just sitting here thinking that maybe we should say what people don't wanna hear as well.

Autumn (33m 29s):
Yeah. But they have to have a goal that they have to be writing every day or yeah.

Jesper (33m 35s):
Well, it is. It's just like, you know, if, if you wanna take your Writing serious, you, you kind of come up with excuses. Like I don't feel inspired today, so I'm not gonna, I mean, WRITING is an issue. This is the part that nobody wants to hear. Right. If, if you wanna be serious about it, if it is a job as it is, and you can not turn up to your day job for example, and tell your manager, I don't feel inspired today. So I'll come back here.

Autumn (34m 2s):
Yeah. I mean, you can talk about how it works out.

Jesper (34m 6s):
I don't think you'll last very long in that company, but the point is just that like any job you will have times during your Writing where it feels a bit like, ah, I know it's a bit tough going today. I don't really feel like it, but you just have to put through it for me, especially in the middle of a novel that's where I find it hardest. Yeah. Because the exciting new beginnings over with, and I'm looking forward to get to the ending were a lot of, and then the middle is a bit, a bit like, ah, okay.

Jesper (34m 39s):
There still a long way to go, but I already feel like I've been added for a long time as well. All right. So it's a toughest part, I guess its like when you run a marathon I could get in the way I have not tried that, but I could guess in the middle you were also a bit like, Oh my God, there's a long way yet. Right.

Autumn (34m 55s):
Oh. Oh. And I think its funny because we have had a conversation with him between you and you and Jay were, you both had said book two was the hardest in the middles of the hardest to right. And to me it's the beginning, the first book and the first third of a book, that's when my word count is lower on spending a lot more time plotting and outlining even though I think I have it plotted, I realized I don't have it plotted. And I'm so, you know, it's 50, 50 writing and plotting and coming up with ideas. But once I hit, like I just hit chapter 10 and what I'm writing now and its, its fine, its, you know, I, I don't even notice the word count goal except to say like, Oh I passed it already.

Autumn (35m 33s):
So I probably should op it, but it's just, I don't, to me, it's nice to have something standard and you see how much higher I can get. And then there's days that I don't something happens and I don't quite make it. But I did notice that word count. Having a word count has affected some of my writing. But you had something to say, so I'll let you go first. No, it's just a annoying comment that I thought about that was just about to say, Oh, if only you had written a guide book on how to plot the beginning of a novel Autumn, then you can read that guide book and, and you wouldn't have that problem anymore, right?

Autumn (36m 8s):
Yeah. Yeah. No, it that'd be funny. What do I do? I just a little bit more of a hybrid when I'm on my own. Once, once the characters start talking to me, like I said, this last week, I've been up at four, four 30 and five 30 on three different days. The, the day in between I was always like hit sleep until six 30. But the other days I just, you know, the characters are actually talking in my head and I'm like, I'm getting up. I'm I'm going to go. Right. I don't care that its 4:00 AM I'm alone in my cabinet and I just have the dog.

Autumn (36m 39s):
He was like, I ain't giving up now. So I'd just go downstairs and to have a lot of tea or that day and get through it and then sleep the next day. And then so just keep going. So the novel's going incredibly well, but I did notice that I do think having a word count goal that I've now started pretty much ignoring is a good thing that I'm ignoring it because I think I'm very task oriented. And I know that about myself. I just, I like finishing tasks just for the sake of finishing a task and marketing it off and lets all the only reward I really need, except for forcing myself occasionally to have a celebration when I hit a milestone.

Autumn (37m 19s):
But I've noticed that sometimes just trying to reach that goal that I will, I will, I'll put my butt in the chair and I will sit down and I will write even when it's not going well. And my writing was in blacking, something that recently I managed to get back were instead of just racing, threw themes, to get Saenz, to get you, you know, the chapter can hit my goal, whatever it is, just trying to get everything done. I'm kind of relaxing into it. And it reminds me of Writing my first book when I didn't know anything and I didn't care about when I finished it.

Autumn (37m 53s):
I was just writing because I love words. I love words so much. I love word play. I love literature. And so I'm just enjoying using words and developing these scenes and really spending time with my characters. And that's, you know, they're getting the up at 4:00 AM. And so I'm obviously spending a lot of time with them. And by doing that, by allowing myself to slow down and settle into these scenes, I've had to add a couple of extra chapters that I hadn't planned on because scenes are taking a little longer, but they have so much more depth, so much more impact, so much more character development.

Autumn (38m 28s):
And I also realized, I looked down at my word Count I'm like, Holy crap. I'm at 200, 300 2,500 words. I've got to start thinking you, is this a chapter break coming up? I'm zooming past my word, count goals by almost ignoring them by doing what feels right by falling in races advice and just doing it for the sheer love of what I'm writing. And that feels pretty darn good.

Jesper (38m 54s):
Yeah. And then don't you think as well? I mean, I, at least I've noticed us, you know, those times were I just kind of pushed through, even though that day, I might not feel like it. I noticed that when I come back to that Writing a day or two or three later. Yeah.

Autumn (39m 9s):
It is not bad at all. Usually it's just when your, in the,

Jesper (39m 12s):
Yeah, it feels like, Oh I am not in the mood. I am not inspired it. Doesn't gel with me today. This is bad writing. And then when you go on

Autumn (39m 19s):
And when they come back to it, it's, you know, it's not, its actually pretty good. They have, it's usually I guess when I do my content edit, you know, I can usually see those chapters where I push through and I'll write myself a note, like to add more description or add this, whatever it is missing. But its usually decent. I mean, its not like I'm ever cutting it from the novels because I am enough have a plotter that I, no it needs to be their, it just might need to be added to it developed a little bit more. But if you don't do it, if you don't put those words down, even on the bad days, you have nothing to edit. So just put the words down and they're not going to be as bad as you think if you're a plotter are at least, you know, that they're supposed to be there.

Autumn (39m 55s):
You'll just have to add in maybe some more adjectives or some more dialogue, just bring out the prick out the way, you know, take off the rough does and bring out the Schein and its, there, it is their even in the bad days because you're have been exercising, your writing mussel, you know what you're doing? You're proficient at it. Even on the bad days, year, still, at least hitting the above average and on the awesome days' you know what you're you you're up there with the best of them and that feels really good. Right?

Jesper (40m 25s):
Yeah. So I think I've sort of have arrived at a takeaway from this whole conversation. Don't know if you were ready for that yet. Yeah.

Autumn (40m 33s):
Yeah. So I think while were hitting our marks, I think I'm feeling ready for having you boil this whole 40 minutes now, right?

Jesper (40m 40s):
Yeah. Yeah. I think above everything else. I think this, this really comes down to is don't give up. Yeah. You know, if, if, if setting a daily word count works for you then said a day at camp, if you don't have time to write a thousand words every day start smaller. Yeah. Perhaps you could do 300 words a day because 300 words, but still a a hundred thousand word fantasy novel in about a year now

Autumn (41m 11s):
Do you mind if

Jesper (41m 14s):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I just, I really want to push back on the whole, you know, if you want to be successful, you have to right. All the time and release a novel every month. Like it is that sort of thing goes around. You know, it is, I've heard it multiple times and I don't, I don't like it. No, I don't like it either.

Autumn (41m 34s):
I mean, its been, and we've obviously just released three nonfiction books, but since I haven't at least a fantasy novel in over a year and what I released last year were two novellas to two new, a new series. And that I'm only just Writing I won't release the trilogy until its, its completely written. So you know, readers are still following me. I'm still getting encouragement. They're responding to my emails. I get emails to normally daily. So it's like they haven't gone away. You don't have to release a novel a year.

Autumn (42m 5s):
You just have to be communicated in the sharing and let them be on the journey with you because a good model might take a year, might take six months. You'll figure it out once you hit your stride. But I agree. Just keep going. Don't give up.

Jesper (42m 21s):
Yeah, I am. I'm also a completely on board with its been a while, but I've heard at some point, do you want a pen set that a way that the whole model about rapid releasing and releasing a new novel every month, she just said, you know, I'm not gonna even going to try to get onto that treadmill because I don't want to be, there will be exhausted. And I really liked that because it's, it's like there are so many people getting stressed out by the high pressure that they here on social media and maybe our also, I don't know, maybe also on podcast or maybe the author's giving advice.

Jesper (42m 53s):
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Just make sure you read enough books and you released stuff all the time than the algorithm on Amazon. We'll favor you. And while there is truth to that, it doesn't, it just doesn't bring any good. If you feel so much pressure to, you have to write every day that all your love for WRITING goes away because its, it just becomes a one big slug. Right. You know, I have to right. 10,000 words everyday because otherwise it can't keep up with the, with the competition. And I know I just liked the I'm just going to ignore it a treadmill all together kind of attitude.

Jesper (43m 24s):
That's going to turn up your head there.

Autumn (43m 26s):
I agree. I think as much as I tried for a little while to be a little faster, but now that I think you lose finding your author voice, if you don't give yourself some time to mature and find your author voice and find your passion for it, I mean you should write every day, but you should also take the time to find out what it is you right. And why is your right in what your passionate about Writing and you want to be, you don't want to do you want to be Neil Gaiman? You wanna be known for what you write.

Autumn (43m 55s):
Not that you write a book a month. So think about what it is that you want to be known for as it is at a book or a month that you're the author who always had to pick a month, no matter what you're turning out or is it the fact that you've created something that is, you know, Neil Gaiman, if they don't know how long it takes him to write a book, but I know he's not worried about getting it out in the next month.

Jesper (44m 16s):
Yeah, no. Well I guess for some extent we can't compare some of Georgia or Martin is probably the most famous example of all of this white. Yeah.

Autumn (44m 23s):
Yeah. But it wasn't got to go there, but yeah.

Jesper (44m 27s):
Yeah. And help my self, you know?

Autumn (44m 29s):
Yeah. But don't, we might get hit category,

Jesper (44m 32s):
But its still, we can compare with that either because these guys have so much money that they, they even have to ride if they don't want two. Right. But for the rest of us, a mortal people have to think about this kind of thing. But above all, I think longterm view, that's what you need to take instead, you know, make sure you prioritize Writing but please don't let it take over your life. So all right. The next Monday I should have a very interesting interview lined up for you.

Jesper (45m 6s):
And I can say that it involves world-building in part, at least that's right.

Narrator (45m 12s):
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 90 – Tips to Find & Work With a Graphic Designer

Fantasy artwork is amazing, whether you want it for your cover, website, marketing images, or just because it is so darn cool. But how do you go about getting some made to fit your story?

Join Jesper and Autumn as they discuss the ins and outs of finding and hiring a graphic designer to bring your story to artistic life!

Help us celebrate Episode 100 of the podcast!

We are collecting questions to answer during the episode. Do you have one for us? If so, go to https://forms.gle/9rCF79xa3fJYEZW96 to submit it!

And if you want to check out J. Thorn's absolutely FREE scene writing course that we mention in the episode follow this link: https://chaptercheck.com?ref=19

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 (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 riding 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.

Jesper (30s):
Hello? I am Yesper

Autumn (31s):
and I'm Autumn.

Jesper (33s):
This is episode 90 of The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast and today we are going to dive right To the world of graphical And a Fantasy at work. It's awesome. And I personally loved it, but how do you find an artist to work with? And once you do, what do you need to be mindful about it? And I think you probably have loads two share in this episode,

Autumn (59s):
I I've been silently laughing over, hear I've been so excited about this episode. So yeah, we're looking forward to this won a lot. Yeah. Maybe its because I'm a graphic artists, but ya know, we can get into the story about how long they've been drawing. FANTASY late now. How have you been here? How is it over it? On your side to the planet?

Jesper (1m 22s):
No, it was good. It's good. We've finally got a signature on the contract for the house that before we started, that is so that was on purpose. Oh that is mean of you held out that it is fantastic. Congratulations. And that was good. Yeah. It's now it's still, like I mentioned a few times before in previous episodes of still a conditional signature. So they have to sell their own apartment first before the deal is final. And of course the worst case you note, they won't be able to sell the Dara apartment.

Jesper (1m 56s):
And if they don't then I think it's the 1st of November. Or if I remember correctly, the, the deal will expire. If they have not told or saw the apartment before then of course it can be an extended if they want too, but they can walk away if at that point if they want. So there is still that condition too. It, but at least they, we got a signature now. So hopefully if all goes, well, we have to start finding a new place to live in the near future here. So I hope fingers crossed fingers crossed for you to, I mean, that's, it's so interesting too with the conditional a conditional conditionals, like I am wondering, you know what his, they get an offer on their apartment, but it's a conditional offer based on having to sell something.

Jesper (2m 37s):
You can get this whole chain going, but I guess having a cutoff date kind of frees everyone from that happening. Yeah. I kind of, ya know, but yeah, in, in theory you can get like condition's on conditions on conditions, so and so forth. There's a whole chain of people, essentially you could, but we'll see. I mean they say, they told us, at least they told us a real estate agent rather than they have two parties interest in buying your apartment already.

Jesper (3m 8s):
And it was both of them wanted to move in by the 1st of November. So that could be a very quick so that it could be very quick if it all holds up. But sometimes, you know, people talk with no action. So let's see. But a maybe, and on top of that, to be honest, tomorrow afternoon, we have another, some other people coming to see the house as well, which is weird.

Autumn (3m 32s):
So even though it was already under a conditional contract, someone's gonna come in, stick their head into it.

Jesper (3m 39s):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because if they want to buy it unconditionally and they can still grab the house.

Autumn (3m 44s):
Well, I forgot about that part of the contract. Ah that's total sniping. That can be exciting. Yeah.

Jesper (3m 53s):
Yeah. But of course it puts a us and a real estate did it in a good position write because when they're here watching the house tomorrow, you can basically tell them you're you need to get your finger out DB because otherwise there's somebody else has already signed the contract. So either you buy it now or its gone, so he can really put the pressure on them tomorrow. So as to how that goes back to that.

Autumn (4m 14s):
Well, good luck. That's exciting. It's a really happy about it because I've got to move closer to their friends, right?

Jesper (4m 21s):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So they are very happy. So hopefully everything pans out otherwise. Oh my God. They are going to get disappointed.

Autumn (4m 29s):
Hopefully I'll keep my fingers crossed for you guys. Yeah. Hey, I also want to add,

Jesper (4m 34s):
You mentioned, did you notice how Iris edited a small video clip together? Merching our ultimate Fantasy writer's guide course with pirates of the Caribbean.

Autumn (4m 45s):
Is that no, it was that something she shared on Patreon, Petra on a, I think I picked it up from Twitter. Oh yeah.

Jesper (4m 54s):
So you upload her to, to, to her Instagram account, we now have Johnny Depp running around or in this case right out of the awesome captain, Jack Sparrow running around and talking about our cost. So yeah,

Autumn (5m 8s):
No, I did not see that. I've been a little bit under water with some stuff's getting done, like, you know, my husband's going on a road trip with his mom out West and I'm home alone and you would think there's less to do, but suddenly there's, I'm doing stuff you would normally have done around the cabin two. So I think that there's more to To so I always, I was eating less. But doing more work. I dunno how that happened, but I, as soon as we're done here, I'm going on to Instagram and checking this out.

Autumn (5m 38s):
I don't know how I missed it.

Jesper (5m 41s):
No, that's awesome. And, and thank you. Buy the way I was for doing that. That's a, that was so great. Yeah.

Autumn (5m 47s):
Yeah. I can't wait, go see it. It sounds fantastic. Yeah.

Jesper (5m 51s):
So how, how are you otherwise doing, you know, what, being home alone in all of that.

Autumn (5m 56s):
Oh, you know, as we're saying it

Jesper (5m 58s):
It's always one of those, like, you know, he goes away for three days that it is like a mini vacation. I'm like, yes, I'm going to eat junk food or whatever. And I'm going to get a ton of work done. And I usually just put my nose to the grindstone and usually he even takes the dog. So it is like literally I have only responsible that is to remember, to feed myself and whatever little odds and ends I have to do around the cabin. But this time he left the dog and he was gone for a, at least three weeks. Its kind of, you know, at the end dates or a little open-ended. So I having a much harder time.

Jesper (6m 30s):
You suddenly someone you spent 20 years of your life with has gone for an extended period and you're like, I'm going to get all this work done. And then you're like, Oh, just want to watch Netflix. I'm lonely two weeks just for a long time as what is it is where you were. Once we sold our house before we set off into the world and on our four year a road trip, we spent what almost all of December apart. And that was the first time since we were newlyweds that we'd been apart that long while we were with families. So it was a different this time. I'm literally here on my own with just the dog and yeah, you might hear him talking a couple times.

Jesper (7m 4s):
We'll see. Hopefully its just about to say it at least. Do you have a doctor? That's good. Otherwise who would be a really lonely? Yes, I got the dog.

Narrator (7m 16s):
Oh a week on the internet with The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast so a friend of the podcast

Jesper (7m 23s):
Class and fellow author J Thorn has just met his most popular costs are 100% free a, he sells it on your, to me for a 99 or 49. That's what I was supposed to say $49, but you can get it for nothing now. And I wanted to mention that here because actually he has no registration required, no email address, no credit card information. There is nothing you need to do. You can just go and basically take the course right away.

Jesper (7m 53s):
You don't have to download or install anything. Absolutely. No for us. And I thought that was pretty cool. So I wanted to mention that and it is Jays how to write a scene video, cause that is not 100% free and he gave us actually a special link from where you can then start watching it right now if you want. And we have included that link in the show notes. So if you just follow that and once you arrive on that page from the link that you have to scroll down to the button and, and they're you, you will find a buttoned where it says $0 on it.

Jesper (8m 25s):
That's nice. Yeah. So that's very nice. So if you want to grab a free video costs on how to write a scene than making sure that you to follow that link there in the show notes, we can definitely leave out for J Thorn he knows what he's doing and he's really good. So, and also a very nice guy. Oh yeah. So this is gonna say absolutely. He's definitely just a good writer and just a great guy. So love that. I just can't believe that it's not even

Autumn (8m 56s):
Collecting email addresses. I mean, this was like just hack. I might have to adjust, you know, want to have these after do as while eating lunch by myself actually just for the heck of it.

Jesper (9m 8s):
Yeah. But I, yeah, that's exactly why I think it's so cool. And why I wanted to mention it here because usually with these kind of things, obviously when you and I are them as well, when we do these kind of free things are giveaways or whatever, normally we always collect the email address because that sort of the hole point as well too, so that you can start communicating with people on the longterm and if they only want the cost, they can just because just unsubscribe and no questions asked, but it is pretty rare that we see somebody not collecting any information whatsoever, but just giving the course away for free.

Jesper (9m 43s):
So a yeah, that's pretty cool. But anyway, listener go and check it out if you want and if not, yeah, I do something else, but then we can, but also a way I also would add just a quick reminder, a for episode 100, we are going to run a QA session, but it's not only a Q and a about writing and marketing and publishing, but you can ask us anything. So please stop posting your questions because without your question is sort of going to be pretty boring or episode 100.

Jesper (10m 17s):
So we included a link to the contact form for our website in the show notes. So you can go there and just type in your question, but if you do send us an audio recording of your question so we can play it on episode 100, we will give it already over any text-based question. So, but don't please don't stress about the audio part just to record your cell phone, your phone or something like that. And just send that file to us, even if it's a video file.

Jesper (10m 47s):
Yeah. We can strip the audio off of them ourselves. Yeah,

Autumn (10m 50s):
Exactly. It could just be so much more fun to have the voice of, you know, the person asking the question a on the podcast. So I think that would be so much more fun. So that would be great. Just to give you can put it on the wall if you're self-conscious or your dog or something were just going to grab the audio. You can leave it blank. That's fine. Hey, were funny mask. I don't know. As long as you can speak clearly because you'll be of course used on the podcast can wait to hear where the questions are and it will be so much fun to see the different.

Autumn (11m 22s):
Tell me, you know, what people come up with task us.

Jesper (11m 25s):
Yeah. So please don't put it off, you know, submit your question today. So we don't forget about it. A and a, we also of course need a bit of time to prepare on our side, but that's not the main part. The main part is just that we want to make sure we collect enough questions because as I said, it's got to be pretty boring and it's your fault. If you end up with a five minute long episode, 100 and we just say, hi and bye.

Autumn (11m 50s):
Well, I think we'll get some questions. I have faith in our listeners. You'll up with something to ask us, won't you?

Jesper (11m 57s):
Yeah. So Autumn you are the resident Graphic artists of The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast so where do we start this conversation?

Autumn (12m 10s):
Well, I guess it depends on, we can talk about you and I have gone in together and we have hired a graphic artist to work on stuff for our upcoming illicium books. So that has been a fantastic experience and gives us both of the taste of what it's like to go out and hire someone other than me, who usually ends up doing the graphics, but you know, I can't do it all. And we found someone fantastic. He's a, what he's given us so far, he's just an amazing artist.

Autumn (12m 41s):
So it's always a good experience. But most of the time, most of you are authors are not going out, looking for illustrations. Like we are, most of the times, most authors are looking for cover book covers and things like that. So we could talk about how to go about finding an artist and maybe some of the Tips I think what to look for, because what's interesting is just been taking a Photoshop course dedicated to book, cover artists, and some of the stuff I had thought in the back of my mind to hear a professional mentioning it.

Autumn (13m 16s):
I'm like, Oh yeah, okay. Yeah. I hundred percent agree with you. They're so that's always a good sign.

Jesper (13m 24s):
Yeah, for sure. But actually I think the first thing to do before we even get any further it's probably when you want to look into hiring a graphic artist, I think the first thing to do is to try to think about what kind of graphic design that it is that you need, you know, because creating Fantasy art work, like the guy who we hired to do is like, you know, from scratch drawing FANTASY artwork, that is not the same skillset as creating a logo or website or even a book cover it's it's different.

Jesper (14m 2s):
And I think you'll need to find somebody or when you start searching for a graphic artists, you need to find someone with a strong portfolio in the type of work that you're looking for. And not just a talented visual artists, because maybe you can find somebody who can, who can draw like the most amazing dragons you've ever seen. But if it's about designing a website, maybe, maybe it's stuff the right fit anyway. So don't do you think is important to sort of think through what is the purpose here before you start searching for the tape of artists that you, that you going to work with?

Autumn (14m 40s):
Yes, that is definitely a first step is to have very clearly in your mind what you are seeking. You know, if your looking for the logo of a book cover, all of those things are different skills. I've seen some amazing artists, composite artist are hand drawn artists who can not produce a marketable book cover. It's a totally different skill set. So that is the difficulty you need to know what you are looking for before you go out and then you need to decide where you're going.

Autumn (15m 11s):
And there's a few different places you can go and find artists, but definitely I agree. First step is knowing exactly kind of what you're looking for. So that way, when you go and you fall in love with something you're a falling love with the right type of image, whether that's a landscape or a website or a book cover.

Jesper (15m 30s):
Yeah. Do we want to talk a bit about where you can find these artists? Yeah,

Autumn (15m 34s):
Absolutely. So it's the, one of the best places out there for Fantasy artists' is going to deviant art and that is a website that's been a long, I think they are having, Oh, they're having a big anniversary party. And I should know because I, you know, I got their emails and get, I think it's the 20 year why they have been around for quite a while, which is very exciting. And so they're, you know, there are, are tried and true our community and that is, what's so exciting and they are really, they have some great search functions.

Autumn (16m 12s):
You can go into deviant art and you can search for, you know, dragons and landscape and FANTASY, they have a whole bunch, which is whatever you want to do. Start typing in some keywords, in doing a search, you'll find some artists and images that are going to totally knock your socks off. Yeah.

Jesper (16m 30s):
And that was just about its just about to say, I could get completely lost the DVD and not for hours. Its just like, you know, if you go in there and start looking at all those FANTASY outwork is absolutely amazing. And of course some of the artists that in there are people who are making art work for like huge brands. So it was for some of them. Yeah indeed. So some of them are, are people who take like $5,000 for one image and stuff. They are so unbelievably talented. It it's amazing.

Jesper (16m 60s):
I mean, even if you don't, if you're not looking for an artist, just, you know, try to go to Deb and not just to get a search around for bit just for the fun of it. I mean, Jesus, it's so amazing.

Autumn (17m 11s):
It is. It's a deviant art that is going to give you some quality and you can go into the profiles. And a lot of the artists there will say, if they're accepting commission, some of them will have websites and rates and everything is linked up. So it's a very, very good, very clean. They have good portfolios. It's better than doing something like Pinterest is often a lot of stolen photos from deviant art. So you don't want to go they're yeah, there were all these, sometimes they're not quote on quote stolen, but sometimes they are not linked up two who the proper artists' is. So don't go to Pinterest.

Autumn (17m 42s):
That's not going, it was going to give you some beautiful images, but it might not take you two. The actual artist, it could take you to some website are tertiary website. Its it's a mess. Pinterest is an absolute master. As far as it goes with a new image and copyright and linking to the actual artist. I wouldn't trust a single artist ever listed there unless you do some reverse image searching and find out who it really was on deviant art. And another people polices people liked to go to Fiverr witch.

Autumn (18m 13s):
There are some skilled artists, but there's a lot of very unskilled artists who don't know their there, John rhe, or are some of the better techniques who aren't quite as well trained as the deviant artists. So you could go to Fiverr, but I don't really recommend it or at least be very cautious and to make sure you're getting what you're expecting and make sure you really vet that the artist is, is able to produce the images. They may be displaying as their portfolio because I've heard some horror stories that way where someone has an exquisite portfolio promises the world and does not deliver, but your under our contract.

Autumn (18m 54s):
So you do need to pay. Yeah.

Jesper (18m 57s):
Hmm. Yeah. And I think op work as well. Wouldn't that be a good place?

Autumn (19m 3s):
It's definitely a, a, I have an Upwork profile. So that is definitely a possibility you can go there. There's also people buy per hour by hour, which is the UK kind of version. There's a few, I think Contra is another new one. So there was a few freelance gig community's that are popping up. And so you can go in there and search and op work is in bad. You can usually find some people, it has its own issues. And I would say, if you really want to support an artist, go straight to DV in art because Upwork all these companies like people try our, they take a cut of the artists commission and sometimes it's up to 30%.

Autumn (19m 39s):
So if you can go to the artists directly, you will be providing them and be a better profit margin. And trust me, sometimes people want, I've seen want someone list that they want in a book cover and all this, and then listen to this and do this. And it was probably about what I would charge a thousand dollars for in their budget on Upwork $100. And it was like, Oh no, So. I think that would be another thing is to do some research and look around and kind of try to get an idea of what a budget is for this.

Autumn (20m 11s):
Don't go on to Upwork and list that you want this amazing Am Fantasy image, that's all of these details and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You're going to use it for your website and the book cover. And, and you want to pay $25 do go in with a rational idea. Arts artists have been trained. I mean, I have a four year degree. I've been drawing for 35 plus years. If you want someone have that skill level, think of them as professionals. Are you going to go to the cut rate surgeon or your going to pay for someone who knows what they're doing?

Autumn (20m 43s):
So to keep that in mind, this is a skilled profession on, these are amazing talented individuals in just like with you and your writing. You do want to get paid for your time of actually doing it.

Jesper (20m 56s):
Yeah. I also made a note of a 99 designs as another website, but I actually listening to what you just said. Maybe I shouldn't like that one as much as I do because the reason I like 99 designs is because you can create a project there and then basically you will have artists audition for you. So basically you get to pick whoever you think is the best one. And you can just move ahead with that person. But based on what you just said, that's prob from the artist's point of view, that's probably not very good, a good setup because you have to do a lot of additions and maybe you don't get select.

Jesper (21m 33s):
So you could end up spending quite a lot of your time as an artist without actually getting any orders. Correct.

Autumn (21m 41s):
So I started the 99 design profile and I looked at a few of the options and I thought about how much time it was going to take for me to do an audition two, possibly have my Work voted on and maybe selective one of 20. And then like, you know, I do better just making a premade and posting it on Facebook and or a deviant art. And I would have course, I mean, as an artist, you can go in and use probably that as a premade or as something else, somewhere else. Once you create a background image, if it's not selected, I don't think you're tied into a contract that you can never reuse the image that you made for your audition, but its, it could be a huge time sink and it was definitely not a route I decided to take, but I do know as an author looking for a book cover, it has an amazing, fantastic, ya know, option because ewe, you get all these ideas thrown at you that you might not have come up on your own.

Autumn (22m 34s):
So, you know, some, sometimes it works out everyone that has a different work technique in a work flow. But as an artist, I stay away from that one because it seemed like, Oh yeah, it looked like a tough one. Understand? Yeah. Understand if there is Facebook to, because you can go in and search for art on Facebook. But I think it's very unwieldy and not a good search function. I would go for it straight for DV in art over that one as well.

Jesper (23m 0s):
Okay. Yeah. And I feel like for the rest of this conversation, I almost feel like we should disregard, but it covers and maybe just, and you can disagree with me here with me here or if you want it. But I almost feel like saying that book cover design is something you find somebody experienced with a book covers to do, whereas graphical artists for the rest of this conversation, meaning creating like a well basically artwork.

Jesper (23m 35s):
That's something different because to me a good book, cover designer we'll know exactly what the is looking for and what readers of that is looking for and they can find something and usually they can also find a well, you know, there's a ton more or better than me or them, but, but usually they can find images that they can just manipulate and make it look awesome. But also hit the shank or tropes. And that is a million times more important than having the most cool like dragon on the cover.

Jesper (24m 9s):
Oh yeah. Well that's not a good example because dragon on the covers it's within the genre, but some really, really cool art work that, that its just, it might look amazing, but just because it's a good artist doesn't mean that they know what to put on a book cover. And so I almost feel like I want to disregard book covers from here on out.

Autumn (24m 33s):
Well I think we should be just because of this title of this may be, think of book cover. So I think we should do like a two minute quick book cover rundown and, but I do agree book covers and artwork are entirely different and I think it's important that other authors realize that a good book cover is not necessarily the best marketing image. I mean, it should be a good marketing image of your book, but if you want something that is like a website image or just something more graphical, those I can add, those are often very different images are very complex.

Autumn (25m 9s):
They could be a very large, very in depth. When you look for a book cover artist, you want to find someone who knows how to take just a portion of that and make a composition that fits the color. The tone of the genre fits the tone of your book. And part of that is also having an amazingly good knowledge of type setting and font choice and layout and elements like that that are pretty different from just a large scale image. That is usually more like a scene from your book.

Autumn (25m 42s):
Those two things may not be the same. And so I think most authors might not realize that, especially if you, you know, you're thinking you're going to use this image for multipurposes. Sometimes you can take a little snippet of a bigger image and turn it into your book cover, but often it doesn't quite work. And if you ever, I did just find out this interesting tip. If you ever have questions about book cover is, and if yours is holding up, there is a website called lousy covers.com or maybe is a lousy book covers. But if you just Google lousy book covers, you will find this website.

Autumn (26m 14s):
And if you're ever wondering, you know, looking for a book cover artist and you're like, is this good enough go there? And you get a good feel for really lousy book covers pretty quickly. And if something, it looks familiar, you don't wanna go with a cover artist. So keep that in mine. I think when it comes to most book cover artists where they fall flat is the typesetting is the font choices and how it looks in with a placement on the image and what's behind it. If it's very legible, that's it's own totally different skill set.

Autumn (26m 46s):
So if you are going to get an artist and you want it for a book cover, you might have to get two different artists. If they're not someone who can understand the type setting and how its going to work when your book cover and that we won't even get into like the techniques you need to do to spit that out as something that's going to be printable at the right DPI, it totally different process.

Jesper (27m 9s):
Absolutely. And maybe that was enough about the cookbook come in.

Autumn (27m 12s):
Exactly as I would say, onward in to graphic design and to the general Fantasy image.

Jesper (27m 20s):
Yeah. So I was thinking we could sort of talk through the process that we used here recently when we hired a, a, an artist to do our work or our art work for us. And of course we use DV and not a, I guess that's not a surprise because what has been said so far, but what we did was basically we went into deviant art and we made a list of artists that we, the ones that we like the most basically, umm, and we also focused on not just the artist that we liked the most, but also the artists who then created the type of artwork we were looking for it because there is a ton of amazing artists on deviant art.

Jesper (28m 7s):
But what also becomes apparent once you just spend a bit of time they're is that their style differs, you know, some of them maybe making it well, some of them have had this kind of a bit of Katurah as well.

Autumn (28m 21s):
They have drawing, we have like a manga Banga is very popular. Yeah, yeah.

Jesper (28m 24s):
Yes. And it looks really cool, but unless that's what you were looking for, then that's not really a good artist to put on your, on your shortlist because well they would, that's the way they draw. Right. And not to say that some of them can't draw both cartoonish or manga and regular pictures or images, some of them can, but just be mindful when you start creating your short list of artists, they are that you want to look for people who are really good at it.

Jesper (28m 55s):
But also that matches the style that you are looking for. And a in our case, we were, we were looking for what, I don't know, quote unquote, realistic artwork, if you can call it that

Autumn (29m 8s):
I would call it realistic. But also we we're looking for something that was a hundred percent like hand drawn painted. They will find it. So there's the manga artists who do the more cartoonish style. There's the ones that are doing a hundred percent original hand drawn there's ones who are using Daz 3d, which makes three D models. And you have a whole set of people doing things with that though, whether they are merging drawing elements. And then you have photo compositing, which is, you know, taking stock photos and layering it in with some hand drawn elements and creating a wholesale in way.

Autumn (29m 41s):
So all of those things exist in all of those things are legitimate graphic artists. So your going to have to go through and find things and look for the kind of style that you like. And you also have to decide like, do you want the ones with a huge, fantastic landscape's or do you want ones that are really focusing on a character's or even do you want someone who's really looking at action scenes? Some people can do amazing characters, just standing there, but you want to throw in magic and you know, hitting something in a machine guns firing or whatever you're looking at in the, they really can't do that.

Autumn (30m 17s):
So it's in Fantasy you have a team of the machine guns shooting at like a giant Hawks and dragons. Those are, those are out there,

Jesper (30m 26s):
No machine guns get rid of the machine.

Autumn (30m 29s):
Oh, it's a whole different sub shot or a FANTASY we don't want that, you know, tanks. Okay, fine.

Jesper (30m 38s):
Yeah. So once we have a short list of artists, we went on basically just a regular internet search, a we just used the Google images to be honest, but we were just finding a balance of images in sort of the style and in the level of quality that we were looking for, because what we did next was then we created a list of all the kind of images that we wanted to create. So basically it was just like a long bulleted list with a, like one or two sentences, a description of what we were looking for know more than that.

Jesper (31m 16s):
So it could be, Mmm, well, it could be the dragging for example. OK. So we need the dragon. Mmm. And then maybe a few words about what this dragon looks like or sentence or two or something like that. And then we didn't the point was to find images on the internet with Dragon's, but we just found a random pictures of sorts of this is to kind of style in quality. We wanted just to show the artist's that, ah, this is what we're looking for. And here's then the list of things that we want you to create.

Jesper (31m 50s):
And I can't remember. We've probably had like, I dunno, what do we have? Like 30, 40 items all the way too long ago.

Autumn (31m 57s):
It was, I would recommend two. Definitely. Maybe have that narrowed down to maybe your top five, depending on, you know, your budget and just an idea of the, I think I have us having images of saying, this is what inspired us. Really. It really helps as an artist to be able to say, Oh good, you know, some kind of hand drawn sketch if a few ideas people, or even me as an artist, I've made a mood board, or if I'm creating to cover to get an idea of what's out there, what inspired me to make this cover?

Autumn (32m 27s):
So you want to make a mood board for the artists, your trying to hire that's when, when they love you for it.

Jesper (32m 36s):
Yeah. So what we did next was then of course, we reached out to these different artists on our short list and we basically just asked them for pricing information And well, surprise, surprise. It turned out. And some of them were incredibly expensive. Some of them were like these $4,005,000 per item. It's a while there was several of the other's who were well in the same price range.

Jesper (33m 5s):
I have, I guess I have to say that none of this is cheap, right? I mean, once you go out and ask for custom artwork, it has never cheap a so you have to go into this with the right expectations. Artwork will cost you. That's just, that's just the bottom line of this. But I think based on our list, at least we found that depending on the complexity of the images that we wanted created, I mean, some of them are more expensive than other ones, but at least I think based on what we found, we can expect to pay somewhere between 500 and a thousand dollars per image, depending on which one it is.

Autumn (33m 45s):
Yeah. So that was going to say about the going rate for, especially at night, we were looking for hand drawn, but this has a lot of work. Even if you're a fast at it, it's a lot of where you're not pulling in other elements. I can make things go faster. So these were young. Yeah. It's not cheap. And you should definitely go into it expecting to pay a certain amount because do you know that's what you're asking for is quite a high level of technical skill.

Jesper (34m 10s):
Yeah. And and 502, a thousand dollars per game is that it's not the expensive ones. Yeah.

Autumn (34m 17s):
Oh. But there are some amazingly talented people who probably it could be making more than they're charging. So you can always look for those.

Jesper (34m 26s):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean the, if you just want one image, for example, if you want a single image, then I think, I mean not, not, well, it could be wrong to say that everybody can, you can probably find the money for that, but that's not fair to say either. But my point was just that you don't have to be as insane as us to have like a list of 30 of 20 or 30 items you want created two times $500. Right. That's insane. But, but it's just us. So, you know, I have to be a stupid answer.

Jesper (34m 57s):
Yeah.

Autumn (34m 57s):
No, Oh yeah. That's do you don't want to go crazy. You don't want to have to be putting this on your credit card because it just like, you know, editing and everything else. What your going to get back. If it's for your book or something, you got to make sure you're balancing your budget here, but Hey, if it's your Christmas birthday present and you can scrape up the money, all of these are so cool. They're so I can see, I just love what I, like I said, we've been shown it's totally worth it.

Jesper (35m 24s):
Yeah. So basically we got back all the pricing information from these artists and then of course we had to make a choice. And since we already made the short list, based on the stuff we saw on deviant art, basically from an artwork prospective, we knew that all of them were good already. So the question then becomes, what do you do then? And at least for us, we didn't actually just pick the cheapest one. But instead we actually factored in stuff like how quickly did the artist reply to our emails?

Jesper (35m 59s):
Because I don't know about UDL listener, but at least for me personally, I hate working with somebody who you constantly have to chase four, getting a reply. I really, really hated a, so I want to be able to send an email and get a reply within, say a day or two or something like that. I think that is a fair expectation. If this is a professional working relationship,

Autumn (36m 24s):
Definitely I can agree. That's one of my pet peeves. And another thing you wanna think about To is there a schedule? I mean, if their really good, but I know a couple of cover artists that is literally taking commissions for a March, 2021. So that's an important thing to maybe ask is when would you fit me in, is it someone who can fit you in, in a month or two? Or is there someone who's two years out because they are doing a new role and you know, gaming are there or something and you are, they just literally, well not, they would love to work with you, but, and not right now.

Autumn (36m 56s):
Yeah.

Jesper (36m 58s):
It just made me think that there was actually one of the artist's on the list who didn't even send back pricing information. It just wrote back, well, you won't be able to afford me anyway. And it was all in all of the person wrote back to us. It's like, okay, yeah,

Autumn (37m 12s):
You should go with someone. You, Mmm. We might not have been looking for commissions' or at least not out of the, the water's we were looking. And I think that's an important thing is how chatty, you know, not only how fast or they reply, but, or are they like one or two words or is it someone you, can, you feel comfortable talking to, you want to make sure that you can get information back and you know, they're there getting what you're asking four, are you at least for like, you communicate with them without like being yelled at Yeah and what I do. Yeah.

Jesper (37m 42s):
And then this is important. Once you have sorta made you a pick here, and of course we can't tell you how, how to pick a day, pick the person, but of course, price, the price does matter. And I think it met us a lot. How fast are we applying that? And also what Autumn just said about, ah, how, what feel do you get about the person write? But the next steps then becomes important. I'm in our case, when we did, we, we basically agreed with the artist to do three trial images for us and just to get a feel for how do we work together?

Jesper (38m 16s):
We agreed that were not going to pay for any of it before all three is done. And before we were happy with all of them and then the artist's will do those three images. And then afterwards we will decide if we like the working relationship than we wanted to work with the artist on a more permanent in the long term basis. But for dad, I think it's important to have some sort of in place with the person. And when I say contract, it's not like you have to start writing 20 pages of contract or whatever, but you need something in writing that clearly lays out stuff like, okay, who owns the right to the images once they are created?

Jesper (38m 52s):
What about the payment terms? As I just said, Oh, we prefer only two pay once the work done, but there are different ways of doing that. You should also agree. They're what type of files are to be delivered? Is it in black and white? Is it in color? Ah, what is the resolution rate of the files? And also what is the turnaround time that you agree? So if I place your order today, when am I going to get the first draft of the images? When, when can I expect the final images to be done and so on and so on.

Jesper (39m 23s):
And so those things, you need something in writing two to, to, you know, lay out those terms so that it's clear to everybody because a otherwise you might end up in some trouble later because also as, as we talked about here, right? If, if we are talking more than just the single image, just turn images, for example, there could still be $5,000, right? So you don't want to have $5,000 floating out there on kind of a Well.

Jesper (39m 55s):
I don't know quite what we have agreed terms right now. I would start a good idea. Yeah,

Autumn (39m 59s):
No, you definitely covered everything. And I would also say, even if you agree with EVERY you, I think you're touched everything that I can think of it, especially the copy. Right. But you also might want to work on you. No. What can they share? Even like, you know, are they going to be able to post some drafts on DVD or in art? Or is there something you we're trying to keep under wraps into a big reveal, you should have that kind of a communication and possibly have that in a contract. It's not quite the same as, you know, if you were sharing, I'm an unpublished manuscript with somebody and you're worried about them stealing the whole thing.

Autumn (40m 33s):
Well, you know, you'd need to know who owns the rights to the work in progress is sorta the way to think of it because there are some artists who we'll be sharing it on their social media. And if you don't want that shared while it's still working draft, make sure you make that clear and yeah. Payment terms. There's a lot of different ones. Sometimes it's at the end. Sometimes its, you know, thirds are as you're going a long as you hit certain milestones, but most artists, if you're hiring someone whose professional has what they are used to, most of them are a flexible on certain issues.

Autumn (41m 6s):
So it shouldn't be too difficult. But again, so you want to make sure though, you don't want to just go with what they're saying. You want to make sure you know, the file types and what a difference is between a P and G filed is in a JPEG in your resolutions, on what size do you need? You need to know all of that so that your getting what you expect out of and you don't end up with something, this size of a thumbnail that you can do anything with.

Jesper (41m 32s):
Yeah, absolutely. So

Autumn (41m 34s):
I don't know autumn, if we are, if we should not conclude something like Like the top advice, uhh, when finding and working with an artist space, do you know based on everything we talked about or maybe something we didn't mention, what, what would you say? The number one advice I would be, I would say be as an author, looking for something, going with an idea of what you want be kind, but B specific always be a polite. It's a very nice you say you don't want someone who comes across to as demanding before you even get to know somebody.

Autumn (42m 10s):
But I would also say Mike, to me, coming from an artist point of view, you know, if you go, if you can find their exact website or their portfolio on DV in art and contact them directly, instead of through a third party like Upwork, that really helps because artists, they are expensive. They except for the ones who were making it big, its, you know, it's, you're doing this. A fulltime are in your spare time and it's not a high paying gig despite talking about, you know, something that costs a thousand dollars.

Autumn (42m 42s):
It takes a lot of time and a lot of work to make that. So the more you can put towards the artist directly, instead of having another party, take a portion, that's just a win win for everyone. Alright, next Monday it should be a fun one. Everyone talks about the daily word counts. Like what is a good target to set? Or should you even care about something? Like what counts

Narrator (43m 8s):
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/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 89 – Launching Non-Fiction Books Wide

We've shared launch plans and discussed the debate on launching books wide versus going with KDP select ... so how does all of that really go when you release books?

Join Autumn and Jesper as they discuss the release of not one, but THREE new non-fiction books! Does the launch plan really work? What things should you keep in mind? We are so glad you asked ...

Help us celebrate Episode 100 of the podcast!

We are collecting questions to answer during the episode. Do you have one for us? If so, go to https://forms.gle/9rCF79xa3fJYEZW96 to submit it!

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 onto 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 89 of the am writing fantasy podcast. And as you probably know, if you've been listening to this podcast for a while, we recently released not one but three nonfiction guides for authors and we launched these books white. So today we were thinking that we were going to share a bit of our reflections on how it all went. And I guess what can be expected when launching nonfiction books? I think it's exciting.

Jesper (1m 5s):
I think my first comment would be three to three books at once then what was the deal with that? But I guess we can get, if we think it's a good idea to just throw it all together and have a really big party, but it was fun and I'm so happy. We finally have those out there, but for us, it's been a week. How are things over in Denmark? I heard that things actually COVID wise are kind of good over there. Yeah. It's going produce pretty good.

Jesper (1m 35s):
As I just said before we started recording the official count of people actually hospitalized at the moment for COVID-19 is 13 people. That's it? That Indian type thing, I can't even comprehend such Sloan number. That's pretty good. Yeah. So, because I was also over the weekend, I was out referring my first official tournament soccer match. So that was pretty cool after all the yeah, because after, you know, w with the COVID-19 again and all that, I've had a few practice matches here and there, but has been far between, because of all the lockdown.

Jesper (2m 13s):
So this was the first real one, if you can call it that fans and everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's really exciting. It's like normal. Yeah. I mean, there was not a lot of people that were, it might've been, I dunno, a hundred people watching or something, but, but it was good. It was great to start again. Although I have to say the, the stadium temperature said it red 33 degrees Celsius with just like a 91 Fahrenheit.

Jesper (2m 47s):
So you can imagine running around for 90 minutes. That was pretty damn warm. I would have collapsed after the first five minutes. That's not for me. Oh, it was more for, but, but actually you, you play us. Didn't, didn't slow down at all. You know, they went all in for 90 minutes and they were, well, we were all sweating like crazy afterwards, but

Autumn (3m 13s):
That's a good thing. It was good. Math soup was good too.

Jesper (3m 16s):
But then afterwards I was really tired. So I actually went home and watched something that I've started watching something new.

Autumn (3m 23s):
Oh, really? Which one would you pick up?

Jesper (3m 26s):
Yeah, because we recently got ourselves an Amazon prime subscription. Excellent. Yeah. And I've heard so many, so many times speak well of Battlestar Galactica and I've never watched it.

Autumn (3m 42s):
No, no, I don't think I might've picked up an episode here or there, but I've never really watched it to, to know what's going on or the characters or anything.

Jesper (3m 51s):
No. Okay. Because I what's the first two seasons by now and it is slightly dated, but it's still very good, you know, because I understand what all the hype was about around it's like, it's, it's basically just like we talk about in our book on plotting, you know, they focus a lot on the characters and the character arcs and the character developments and their interrelationships, you know, they have this entire collectic war going on against something called the silence.

Jesper (4m 24s):
So that does take up, it's a fair amount of air time, but they focus just as much on the characters and their personalities and relationships. I really liked that. And I think that's really what makes the show good or takes it like a notch up, you know, the, the war against the silence yet. That's pretty cool. It's very scifi is like what you would expect from the genre and that alone is it's okay. You know, but if that was the only thing they had in there, I think it would just be mediocre.

Jesper (4m 57s):
What makes it really good is because of all the character development that goes on in there. So it's just very, very much aligned with what we said in our plotting book.

Autumn (5m 7s):
That's well, that's a good sign. I guess one of us, either they or us, or both of us were on the right track. And I'll have to keep that on my, in mind because my husband's taking a bit of a trip out West and is actually gonna be away for about three weeks. And I don't want to continue to show time. It's a long time and I don't want to continue. The show is we usually watch one show at night. We're so like structured. And so we watch our only show and we've been watching certain series together, so I don't want to continue those. So I've, it's, I've been debating.

Autumn (5m 37s):
Do I go back and start season? What is supernatural, which will that'll keep me entertained for quite a while. Keep that in mind. So if I decided to try something new battle scars, Battlestar Galactica.

Jesper (5m 49s):
Yeah. If you want to, I don't know if you like scifi, but I quite enjoy both scifi and fantasy, to be honest. Yeah. It's, it's, it's pretty good. Excellent. Well, I'll keep that in mind. We go on the internet with the yam writing fantasy podcast. All right. So we talked about what to do for episode 100, a few times by now some of you also gave us some ideas, you posted them to us.

Jesper (6m 19s):
So, so thank you very much for the input and well, taking out the time to share your thoughts with us. We really appreciated that, but I think as well, we've made our bile mine now, haven't we?

Autumn (6m 32s):
Yeah. We debated our own ideas and talked about the suggestions that were given to us. And I think we came up with a pretty good plan. It didn't, it wasn't the first one we hit on, but once we hit on it, we just kept coming back to it. So I think that means,

Jesper (6m 49s):
Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if it's very original, but we had a lot of different things sort of juggling and we were debating back and forth and there was some really good ideas that some of you guys posted to us. So thank you for that. But some of them just, well, they required too much of, well, for example, reviewing, there was some very good ideas about what about reviewing some writing and stuff like that, but we didn't really feel comfortable with reviewing somebody's writing on air like this.

Jesper (7m 24s):
And I don't think many people were, feel comfortable getting their writing reviewed on air like this either. So, and besides we thought that, okay, but then we need quite a lot of different things to be able to feel 45 minutes of an episode. That is also interesting. So that didn't gel very well with us. So we sort of went away from that. And we went back to, I think some of, one of the first idea we had, but then we went away from it, but we then came back and that was basically that we want to try to run a Q and a session.

Jesper (7m 57s):
Yeah. But not just like a regular Q and a, but more like ask us anything kind of episode. You know,

Autumn (8m 5s):
I think it's, it'll be so much fun because yeah. It could be, you know, someone asking about our own writing, the crazy road trip I did with my husband and, you know, being a soccer coach or specifics about books and marketing and writing. So it's the whole gamut. Yeah.

Jesper (8m 25s):
Just, you know, ask us anything. It doesn't have to be with writing, marketing or publishing, but it could be anything you're just curious about. You want to hear about, I teased on a past episode that maybe you want to hear about the time I had to put my hands on a power cable to two and people were watching me to see if I was going to die before they decided if they were going to touch it. So maybe you want to hear that story, but whatever you want to know, you can ask it and we will, we'll try to, to get it answered in 100.

Jesper (8m 57s):
It is still a bit out in terms of timewise here. But I think we need to start talking about it now because we need, of course, to be able to have a full Q and a session, we need to have enough questions. So basically you should start sending them to us now. And we have included their link in the show notes to the contact form on our website. So you can just go there and type in your question if you want.

Jesper (9m 27s):
But there was something we would very much more love for you to do isn't that right? Autumn, rather than sending me text questions.

Autumn (9m 36s):
Yes. We have going to give a preference to anyone who sends us an audio or a video that we can pull the audio from of the question, because this is a podcast and we would love to have your voice on here asking the question. I think that'll just be so much fun.

Jesper (9m 55s):
Yeah, absolutely. And it doesn't have to be over complicated this stuff. Right. You know, just use your phone or whatever and just record. Yeah. Well, a video file where you were just posting your question, you don't have to film yourself if you don't want to just fill in the wall or something, because we were just going to strip the audio off so we can play it to you on the podcast and stuff. So yeah, we would love some audio questions rather than just text ones. But if you only want to send the text one, then please do that.

Jesper (10m 26s):
And we will shut up.

Autumn (10m 28s):
Yeah, go ahead. I was gonna say, if you want to do an audio, if it doesn't want to be your voice, if you're horribly shy, you can get someone asked else to ask your question for you. Be inventive. It'd be fine. As long as it's legible and we understand it and it's an English. We're good.

Jesper (10m 42s):
Yeah. English would be preferred at least if you want us to answer,

Autumn (10m 48s):
I guess it's someone else in data you can translate for us. But the, you know

Jesper (10m 52s):
Yeah, I guess so. Yes. It would be fine as well. But yeah, so that, that I I'm looking forward to episode 100. That should, that should be a lot of fun, but yeah, it goes without saying without enough questions, it's not going to be very much. Well, I guess you can always listen to us sitting here twiddling our thumbs for 45 minutes. If you want,

Autumn (11m 12s):
We could ask each other questions, but yeah, no, well, I think, I think we'll get enough. Just, just send in your questions. It'll be really fun. And I think it'll be a different episode, so it'll be a little bit, you know, we'll try something new for a change.

Jesper (11m 30s):
Okay.

Narrator (11m 30s):
And on to, today's topic.

Jesper (11m 34s):
Okay. So we are talking about launching nonfiction books today and just for reference in case you're coming in on this episode, we are talking about the launch we did for our plot development book and the associate workbook, as well as the book, we entitled story ideas. So that last one is like a shorting quick to read companion book, but we lost all of those three books here recently, actually from just a couple of weeks back from recording this.

Jesper (12m 7s):
So, so yeah, just for context, that's what we're talking about when we are talking about three books that we recently launched. So that was just a service in full form new list.

Autumn (12m 19s):
Yeah. So we released them August 3rd, which when this is when this video or this podcast is released, that will be just over a month ago. And why again, did we do three books at once? I don't, I'm still don't know how that snuck up on us like that.

Jesper (12m 35s):
Well, it was like, eh, yeah, the initial idea was only two of course write the plotting book. But then when I started writing it, one of the first thing I came to was like, okay, but if we have to start talking about how to plot a novel, obviously there needs to be like a story idea. And then I started debating with myself. Should it just make like the intro chapters about developing story ideas, but then I feel like, nah, yeah. But there is some other stuff I want to say about, you know, getting inspiration and stuff like that.

Jesper (13m 6s):
And I didn't feel like that that fitted in very well with the rest of the book, so, Oh no. Okay. Fine. And so I think I said to you let's do a short story idea on the side and you said, yeah. Okay, fine. And then I wrote a bit more and then I felt

Autumn (13m 21s):
Well, there's actually, a lot of

Jesper (13m 23s):
Exercise is one could do for each of these chapters. I wonder maybe we should make a book. And then I came back to you again, see, we do like a third book as well.

Autumn (13m 35s):
And so I think the plotting book and the workbook do make sense together, but I have to say looking back my first advice to anyone doing this, try to release one book at once I think, or at least give your spells selves a little bit more time. Because I think on my end, because I handled the editing and the typo slang with the feedback from our type of slayers, which we'll get to in a few minutes and then the formatting and crunching that all in with three books at once in a deadline, because we already had the preorder up was like, Whoa.

Autumn (14m 9s):
So, but we will get into some of that. And some of it's good and some of it was just like, wow, that was, it was a lot of steps in there, but we should back up and start with the beginning, which you already kind of handled. We handled the, where these ideas came from. So I think the next part is, okay, so we had the manuscripts and we're launching nonfiction books. How did we go about a bit, what was our first step that we did when we had the manuscripts in hand after editing?

Autumn (14m 39s):
Obviously?

Jesper (14m 41s):
Yeah, of course we could. We could mention here as well that we did share our entire launch process in episode 72 and all the different steps that we take. So I don't think we're going to go over all the different steps here all over again. So check out episode 72, if you're interested in learning all the different book, launch steps that we usually take, but I think what is worth mentioning here is something around expectations, because I think that's a good thing to discuss when we're discussing book launches in general, because you know, when you get, it goes without saying, obviously everybody wants to run as optimal, a book launch as possible with and getting the best results possible, obviously that it goes without saying, right?

Jesper (15m 35s):
Absolutely. Yeah. But the other one is, but the other part of this is to sort of, yeah, I don't, I don't know how to say it, but like you can come into the book launch thinking, Oh yeah, I'm going to launch these books and I'm going to earn a gazillion dollars and it's going to be great. And I have a lot of expectations. Right. But I think one of the things we did at least going into this, even actually before we started writing these books, was that we did a bit of market research about how much books on plodding selling in general, you know, is it like a, it's a something that you sell a lot of books from whatnot.

Jesper (16m 14s):
And what, and we even before we started writing, going in, we already knew that this is not the type of books where you usually sell a ton of books or a ton of copies. It's you, you can earn some money from this topic and these kinds of guidebooks on plotting, but it's not like a, like a hot topic. You know, it's not something like you're going to sell a ton of books for. So that that's important going in that you sort of know what I'm, what am I going to because otherwise you're going to get disappointed.

Autumn (16m 49s):
Absolutely. I think that's, I mean, everyone wants their book to do well and they would love a runaway bestseller. And there's always, maybe that secret hope line there, but these were books 17, 18 and 19 in my catalog with my name on them. And I'm just not at that point where it's like, I know it's, it's not a sprint. It is a marathon. So what I want is that to write something that is quality will last a long time and will be valuable and loved by other people, you know, whether it's a fiction or nonfiction.

Autumn (17m 21s):
So I always look at it. It's not what happens the first day, the first week or the first month. So I, Oh, I think I go into every book launching, yay, they're alive. You can go get them. And absolutely adoring. What really blew me away with these three books is some of the comments from the typo slayers that helped with editing and the proofreading, and then went in and did with the reviews. And they were just phenomenal feedback. People love them. Authors said this, you know, this restored, my passion, this helped me find something, you know, I've been missing for ages or that I overlooked.

Autumn (17m 56s):
And you sit in a way that I, it never clicked before that made it more worthwhile than the little orange tags that did show up. I have to admit that was so exciting. Did show up on all three books that we hit, number one, new releases. So that was fantastic. But yeah, I didn't go in thinking we're going to hit number one in Amazon, and we're going to make a thousand dollars in one day on these books. That's not what I was going in and looking for. I was going in saying, Hey, at the time it was like, Oh my gosh, authors really love this.

Autumn (18m 27s):
And they're very appreciative. We wrote these books and that was the icing on my cake. And that we'd been talking about getting them done for like a year, just getting them out the door made me very, very happy. This is our year of getting things out the door that have been sitting at the threshold for a little too long. So I'm very,

Jesper (18m 45s):
Yeah, no, that's true. But, and I think the other part of this is that essentially we did write these books probably more for ourselves, meaning that we are heading into writing fiction jointly as well. So because of that, we needed to have a solid process in place between us on how, how are we gonna figure out what the stories are that we're going to write together? And we, and especially once you co-writing, it, it needs to be pretty damn clear from the beginning, where are we going to go with the story and what's going to happen?

Jesper (19m 21s):
What are the character arcs and all of that stuff. So we needed a guide ourselves. And that, I think that was basically the main driver for writing the, these books in the first place, more so than it was, you know, how much money are we going to earn from it? That that was secondary, to be honest. Yes. It's not to say that we don't want to sell copies of obviously of course we do want, but that was not the main driver.

Autumn (19m 46s):
No, we didn't do the market research to find that one niche where we thought we'd make, you know, six figures and yeah, there are ways of doing that. And there's other, I think, topics in podcasts of trying to narrow it down and write a book to basically get an instant bestseller. We did focus on a process for ourselves and a process that is solid, that will help other authors. And that's really kind of why they came about. And I definitely think that was, that helps color our view. And of course it was also really good to get, to run through our launch sequence and see how everything worked and successfully, obviously we did a very good job.

Autumn (20m 24s):
You, you were in charge of the keywords and selecting the categories and you did an excellent job because all three books did hit number one, new release. So that was wonderful moment. We, I was actually disappointed that, you know, those number one new release tags that don't like somehow get archived on your book page I, anything, come on, design something kits, number one, you should have like some lingering trace of it just to make the author happy.

Jesper (20m 50s):
No, what I would really like, if, if whenever you get one of those orange tacks, I would love if Amazon would just set up the system so that they automatically send you a screenshot of it or something, Oh, that'd be so sweet because it's so annoying. You have to sit there yourself and you have to watch it and you have to see the ranking climbing. And then when it gets high enough and you get the tag, then you have to screenshot it. If you do miss it, it's just gone. It's just like, it's annoying. Just email used to say, Hey, congratulations, you became number one in this category.

Jesper (21m 22s):
And then just sent you a, some sort of either, you know, screenshot or just a batch or whatever. I don't care. But there's something so that you don't have to watch it manually. That is, it feels so eighties. Yeah. Why do I have to sit there? And what's the screen and refresh. I mean, it makes no sense, but that's okay.

Autumn (21m 42s):
It is. Yeah. I had always envisioned that they would, you know, automatically just send you a little badge. You could put on your cover or at least, you know, stick something on your own book page, but unless it's not true. Yeah.

Jesper (21m 56s):
But basically, yeah, it was a lot

Autumn (21m 58s):
Out of picking. Well,

Jesper (22m 2s):
It was down to picking the right categories, of course. And we're going to talk much more about this in, in our brand new course called self pop success. Once we released later this year, there, we're going to talk much more about selecting these categories and whatnot, because to be honest, becoming the best, getting that Bessel attack on Amazon, if you just know a bit about what you're doing there, it's not difficult. It's not like we signed a ton of books to get that. If you pick the right categories, it's, it's not that hot.

Jesper (22m 32s):
So you just need to be well aware of what you're doing there. And the other thing is which again, we're going to talk a lot more about that in so Pepsi, two sets cause as well, but basically all of this came from just us leveraging our email list. We didn't really do anything else in terms of advertising. I mean, we did not run any ads, paid ads to, to these books at all. We had, we didn't even have any Amazon ads running during the preorder phase or anything.

Jesper (23m 4s):
It was purely from the email list at the pump them up to best-sellers all three of them. So, so that was of course. Great.

Autumn (23m 13s):
Do you think it is easier to get a number one, like new release on a nonfiction versus like a fantasy where there are some sub genres, but they seem to be pretty full. It's really hard to find a sub genre of fantasy that is empty enough where you think you're going to hit it with just, I mean, I don't know how many sales, but you know, a hundred sales or something like that. It's at least it felt easier on the nonfiction and every time I release something in fantasy, I just kind of already have that kind of hopeless feeling of, yeah.

Autumn (23m 45s):
I either have to really lie about what kind of story this is just so I can get that number one, new release tag, or I'm just going to say, it's, I'd rather have it in the right category and just heck with all the best selling stuff as much fun as it is.

Jesper (23m 60s):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, if you're right, if you're talking about an Epic fantasy novel, then indeed. Yeah, of course it's much easier with these. Oh, somebody is driving behind past my window. I hope it doesn't make too much background noise. Sorry for that. But you can also do it the fiction. I think it depends on what kind of fiction is that you write and what categories that would fit into. But if, if it is indeed Epic fantasy, then, and you stick it in an Epic fantasy, then of course it's very, very difficult to get a bestseller tag in that category and nonfiction.

Jesper (24m 34s):
You have, you have more leeway of course. And also some of these categories, there's not a lot of competition in them. So that makes it by default fairly easy. I mean, if you can sell, I don't know, let's say 40, 50 copies in a date and you're probably going to be bestseller right now. And if you have enough on the email list, that's not difficult at all. Basically it's, it's fairly easy. Right. So, so that, yeah, that's just, it's just a matter of knowing what you're doing there and doing a bit of research on these categories.

Jesper (25m 7s):
And we're going to explain all of that in the, in the self published S course. So yeah. Talking about email list, by the way, if you want to be one of the first people to know when this course is available, then just head on over to am writing fantasy.com. We have some different signup forms on different pages or whatever, but just grab whichever one appeals to most of you and then sign up there. But then you will get onto our email list and we will make sure to let you know, as soon as this free courses is out later this year.

Autumn (25m 38s):
Yeah. Maybe since I'm, I am in charge of the website, I could maybe go in there and I'll do a blog post or something like saying, Hey, if you want to know about this course, you know, sign up here. And that way we can get some people on a waiting list. So you're not struggling to try to figure out where could I go if I want to hear about this, because he's two, actually we're gonna have three courses. So we did just three books. Then we're gonna have three courses coming out this fall. We're like in sets of threes at the moment. I wonder what the next thing is because there's three last, my mom likes to say, you know, things come in third.

Autumn (26m 12s):
So we have three set. We'll have three sets of three. Is it an, I don't know what the third set of threes is going to be, but apparently there'll be something.

Jesper (26m 19s):
Yeah. Yeah. But actually I was wondering, I had a question for you here because I was wondering when we were heading into the release of these three books, we also were also in the middle of the pandemic, as we all know. Yes. Did you have any initial thoughts heading into it about how, and maybe, maybe not it would affect book sales in the pandemic or did you not really think about that heading in?

Autumn (26m 51s):
I think I've been thinking about book sales in may because with a pandemic hit, I saw book sales go up because so many people were home when they were picking up new books and with the preorder, we actually had the price drops. So I made sure that I was letting people know saying, you know, if you're interested in these books, we have this preorder sale. Once they're released, the prices are going to go up. So now is the time to get them. And I was thinking that, you know, this is probably if people right now have more time, a lot of them are, I know it's a quick side story.

Autumn (27m 25s):
A one time since I worked for the government, we were on furlough. So 16 days without pay sent home because the government was shut down. So I had two weeks off. Didn't know if I get paid again. And it was an amazing experience in its own way, because it was just like, Hey, this is what it's like to do. What I want to do in my own time. I worked on my own business. I worked on my writing. I worked on, I was building a house at the time and I went back to work afterwards saying, crap, this want to go do that some more.

Autumn (27m 56s):
I was fine. And I've been thinking throughout this entire pandemic that a lot of people have been sent home. They know what it's like to be working for someone else. And then they get this eye opening experience. And so many people have taken the time to take extra lessons, to build new experience, beef up things that they want to do. And I've always wanted to try because they had the time and they, they might have lost their job or they're at home because you know, their businesses closed down. And so I was thinking, there's going to be some people who have always wanted to write a book who are now trying to write struggling.

Autumn (28m 30s):
And a book on plot development might be right up their alley. Especially if the, you know, the people picked up our podcasts, they picked up other stuff that we've been doing. And so they're going to be like, yeah, Hey, I'm going to go ahead and get this. So I thought this was actually going to be a good thing. Is this to me in the pandemic has been great for people who want to try something new and are really reaching out unless, and in the other way, it's the other half of the equation. It's been horrible for people who have suffered from depression and anxiety. That's, it's a schism between the two. So I try to stay on the happy side, but definitely I thought they had a pretty good chance of actually helping the books release.

Jesper (29m 8s):
Yeah. Yeah,

Autumn (29m 10s):
No. What did you think, were you thinking it would be, or are you thinking? No,

Jesper (29m 16s):
I think probably very similar. I mean, what we have seen afterwards as well is that there is an uptake in online book sales during the coronavirus actually quite significantly uptake because people are staying at home. So they're reading more. So I wasn't really concerned about that going in either where I do think in hindsight here that we might have made a mistake was that we, we released these books in the middle of the summer holidays. Then I guess the devil's advocate here could say that summer holidays doesn't matter.

Jesper (29m 51s):
We were, everybody was home anyway, but I don't know, but still it feels to me like that timing was a bit off there.

Autumn (30m 0s):
I could see that. And especially in the state, so it was early August when we released them. And the way the mental attitude in the United States has been is by this point, you know, they're pushing to reopen a lot of the States, whether or not we were safe or ready to. And I think people are just kind of even talking to my parents who have been incredibly good at staying in quarantine and self isolating. They're just done with it. They're true. They're so ready to be done with it. So I think there is a mental exhaustion with the pandemic and staying home and reading another book.

Autumn (30m 33s):
So, and the fact that things were open, the beaches were open. We were in the middle of summer. So I do think that me, you know, it's one of those years, I mean, you could, we scheduled it over a month and a half out w with the preorder. And we picked the date. It was like June, end of made you. And we're like, it's going to be August 3rd. You don't know what's going to happen. And you know, an asteroid could have hit the planet. By that point. We just did not know. And you never do with preorders and you do have the opportunity to push them further back because you don't know you, you know, some dire event could literally happen a few days.

Autumn (31m 8s):
There are people who released books on September 11th because they did not know what was going to happen in the world that day. It's always, there's always a chance. So I I'm glad we stuck with it. There's always a chance we could have pushed it, you know, said we needed another week. There was times when it was formatting going, Oh my goodness. If I get another email about, you know, we had so many types of slayers sending us emails, some of them sent in pages of comments and, you know, change this, or one thing off here, I was shocked.

Autumn (31m 41s):
Usually, you know, you get back from your fantasy books. And usually I want to hear from my beta readers or alpha Rita's or arc readers, they're like, Oh, you know, there's like, you know, if some of them has 10 comments to change, that was a lot. But we had some incredibly skilled, detailed readers that picked up on stuff that our two editors missed. And I think one of them, when I copied it out of the email and stuck it into pages, just so I could save it and like delete them as I went through it, it was over 10 pages of comments.

Autumn (32m 14s):
So there was enough of those that I was like, there was a few times I was like, I can't do this. I, I got, there was enough that I wasn't even sure if I had already checked them. So I had to check all of them every single time. And I usually have a very good like memory that way of being able to say no,

Jesper (32m 31s):
That one, I did that when I did that, I couldn't do that

Autumn (32m 34s):
Time. So that would be one of my comments is that three books at once with the incredibly amazing, powerful type of slayers that we had that were just, I cannot believe the level of picking up things that they had. If, if everyone read this well, they could hire this team for like publishing companies. They were amazing. But there were times I was thinking, there's no way I'm going to get this done so that we can, I can get them to you while you were actually on vacation, you had to take off of your vacation, open up your laptop and upload the final books once I got them to you.

Autumn (33m 8s):
So, you know, the timing wise, we were juggling your vacation deadlines, lots of comments and feedback. And there was a few times I was like, can we do August like 20 something of August 3rd? But I do think it's important if you're going to announce something like a deadline, and this is when we're going to do it, it's very important professionally, you know, to stick to it and your readers are anticipating it, our readers were anticipating it. And so I thought it was very important that we get it done.

Autumn (33m 39s):
Whether I met a few extra days, sleepless nights, whatever it got done. And you took time off, you took like a solid, like eight or nine hour day, I think off of the occasion to get all this done. That's what we do because we have to make sure we do it.

Jesper (33m 56s):
Yeah, yeah, no, I agree. But, but, but I think that's also the lesson learned here about, you know, when we planted, initially we should have thought about early August might not be the best time either do it earlier or do it later. But I think timing wise, that was a bit of a blunder on our side, but yeah, you live in, you learn, right?

Autumn (34m 21s):
Oh yeah. I think, I mean, I kind of know that I'm may, June is a very big book release month is like everyone is posting new releases and I can see probably September is a good tip. Yeah. October is probably a good book release time. I honestly think,

Jesper (34m 38s):
I think anyone to be honest, but, but just in the middle, it's just, it's like, if you decide to release a book on the 25th of December, you know, that's not pretty smart, right. So it's, it's, it's just like you have a few times a year or the 1st of January, that might be a bit stupid as well. There's a few times a year where you definitely want to avoid those. But other than that, I don't think it matters if you pick April or may or September, October, but it doesn't matter. As long as you just at least stay clear of those.

Jesper (35m 7s):
Like maybe handful of times a year where you just know that this is bad timing. Right. And the middle of the summer holidays is probably one of those stag tries to stay clear of that. But on the other hand, of course, if you want to get the bestseller tag in a category, that's pretty damn easy though, during those times. So to do something while they're off,

Autumn (35m 31s):
Yes, that would be the key. And I do say, I know every time I look at my sales and they seem a little flatter than I do remember there was a study that said any holiday, be U S or worldwide, you have to be careful because sometimes, you know, different countries will have a different impact, but family holiday. So anytime we're going to be spending time with family, you are just horrible about books sell weekends. So things were like Memorial day in the United States where you're having picnics Thanksgiving, stuff like that. They're usually horrible book sale days.

Autumn (36m 2s):
So those are, those are times to definitely think about avoiding or if no one is going to be selling any books and you can actually get your list to go by. Maybe you'll do really well.

Jesper (36m 12s):
Indeed, indeed. Yeah. I wanted to return back to, well, just sales and expectations in a minute here. But, but before going there, I was just thinking maybe we should just talk a minute about launching wide and why we are launching wide instead of exclusive. So I don't know. Do you want to say a bit about that?

Autumn (36m 34s):
Well, I know you and I have both always had our books wide. I think I did put one series once in KDP select for a little while just to see if it would do better there. And it didn't. I went back to why a lot of my readers are already there, but for us, I think it's both a philosophy that to have all of your eggs in one basket to have everything on Amazon and dependent on Amazon sells selling and to be exclusive, they're just kind of curtails what you can do as an author.

Autumn (37m 7s):
We, by not being wide, we can sell right off of our website, which we do do. And as a fantastic opportunity to have those extra sales. And plus there are authors who want to be able to get this book on their Cobos, their nooks. So we're wide so that we can deliver to those as well. And I know that's part definitely part of why it is. It's sort of a, it's a business perspective because we don't want to be just if Amazon, for some reason, if the United States government does manage to do what they want to do and break it apart, it's going to be total chaos.

Autumn (37m 40s):
And I don't want to be just relying on Amazon to be my only source of book related income. Not when I can put it on my own platform this way.

Jesper (37m 49s):
No, indeed. Yeah. And it's not that there's anything wrong with the Ken little limited. I mean, we might very well decide once we will release some of our joint fiction. We might very well decide to put some of that in Kindle unlimited, but I think that the point is more, if you have everything only on Amazon, then you are, whether that is then Kindle unlimited or not, it doesn't really matter in this context, but it's more like if you're a hundred percent dependent on Amazon and what Amazon decides to do well, that's a very big risk to take with your author business.

Jesper (38m 22s):
So certainly don't want to do that. And I also think on top of that, when we're looking at nonfiction titles like this, they wouldn't perform very well in cannot limit anyway. So it just makes sense to put them wide.

Autumn (38m 37s):
Yeah. I don't think there would have been any advantage to being on Kindle unlimited for nonfiction, for books like this. I do see it maybe for a new fantasy series. Sometimes it's not a bad thing, but I would probably only do the, the one is a three month sign up and then pull them and go wide. But that's also because you and I have a platform that is wide. If I was a brand new author, maybe I would do six months or a year on Kendall unlimited. Cause it's a, they have some stuff that really helps new and upcoming authors and that might help as an advantage if it was our first books out there.

Jesper (39m 14s):
Yeah. And as, as I've said before, as well, the algorithm on Amazon, it does give you a bit of an upside. If you're in Kentland limited, it does favor you. So, so that is nice. But yeah, I am not to turn this into a Kindle unlimited conversation as such, but it, I think it's also important to point out that it's a per book decision. It's not like you have to decide either or either all your books has to be wide or either your books have to be in con kinda limited.

Jesper (39m 44s):
You know, it's a popup decision. You're going to have some books wide, other ones in Caitlin limited for a short duration of time, a longer duration of time. I think perhaps, well, we'll need to find out what we do with our joint fiction once we got that far, but it could be that we stick them in Kindle unlimited and see how, how it goes. If it goes really well, maybe they'll stay there for a good while. Maybe we pull them out after three months because we want to put them wide. But yeah, this is of course a whole different conversation. But I guess what I could say is that as well, in our case, he, even though we published wide, 90% of our sales came from Amazon.

Jesper (40m 23s):
And that's basically also what I expected, to be honest. I, I do wish that the competitors would grab a bigger market share in the future because competition. Yeah. I mean like real competition for Amazon will actually serve us. Authors will, but yeah, there's just no way around it for the time being, at least Amazon is just the big boy in the school yard and they scoop up most of it. So that's just the way it is.

Jesper (40m 54s):
We did get some sale from the other stores, but it's not worth mentioning really compared to Amazon.

Autumn (41m 1s):
Yeah. A, this is the sad truth, but if we don't keep supporting those other platforms, they'll never grow big enough to give a little bit of competition to Amazon. So that's why like, you know, being wide and supporting them. But yeah, it's definitely a pro book decision. It's sort of like whether if you could be a hybrid author, some of your books might be with a publisher. Some of them might be independent published. That is the fight. It just makes you stronger and maybe a little more diverse and dynamic as an author.

Jesper (41m 31s):
Yeah. I think overall I'm actually pretty happy with the launch. It went according to expectations. It did not sell more or less than sort of what I expected. Of course, it's always nice to have even more sales, I guess you could say that, but, but given how we've run no paid advertising during the launch at all. And we only write on the email list. I think it was a unacceptable result.

Autumn (41m 58s):
I'm thrilled with it. I think it was great. And like I said, to me, it was the comments from the type of slayers and then seeing the reviews as they got posted. And again, even for us, the reviews were, we gave the type of Slayer quite a lot of time because they were not small books while at least the plotting book was not a small book. And

Jesper (42m 16s):
What is it like 90 words or something 90,000 words, I think

Autumn (42m 20s):
There was nonfiction. So this is not something you get caught up in and getting to the climax. I mean, this is like a lot of them said, yeah, I was reading it. And then I started working on my book and then I'm like, okay, I have to finish this. And I have to, now I'm going to go back and do all the exercises. So it was, it was said that we gave them a lot of time. And I do think that was an advantage because some of them signed up for all three books, but because we gave them some time and it was the summer holidays. A few people have been really who had said that, Hey, yes. Yeah, of course. I want to sign up. I want to read this early.

Autumn (42m 51s):
And then I'm going to do a review for you guys have not posted the reviews. And again, it's summer, it's back to school, it's a pandemic. And they also had probably three, four weeks before, you know, they wrote a review or they put it on good reads or they sent us an email saying how much they liked it. And then the actual release, you know, there's a, you lose a little bit of steam. And so that's a, that's a difficult one to feel out. It's much easier to release one book, a fiction book that people are really excited about. And you can kind of shorten up that timeline and get all that excitement or crunch time together, where with nonfiction and throw so many books, we had a lot more space.

Autumn (43m 28s):
And I think we, might've lost a little bit of that real excitement to get things posted what happens that you can't post the reviews yeah. Until the release. So those are things to consider. We did what we did and I'm still very happy.

Jesper (43m 45s):
Yeah. I think it was fine as well. We have now, now we are, well, some at the point of this recording, we are some weeks past a release. So we've now turned on some, some test apps on Amazon, which well, it's basically more, eh, to collect data, to see what kind of keywords people are clicking on so that we can use that data to dial on the ads a bit later on. So you can definitely tell as well that the sales and the ranking on Amazon is dwindling now, which is also makes sense.

Jesper (44m 20s):
Of course, you know, the email list already got the emails about the release. They already bought what they wanted to buy now. So now we are into the Amazon market space, meaning that it's up to try to find people on Amazon who would like this kind of book. And yeah, as we said before, in 2020, it is extremely difficult to get visibility for your books unless you use paid advertising. And at that desk, just the name of the game and that's okay. So we're currently collecting some data and then we can dial on the ads as we get a bit further along, but we end this for the longterm.

Jesper (44m 58s):
So it doesn't matter, you know, w we'll probably spend the next four weeks or so slowly Gator gathering the data we need to, to use for future ads. And then over time we will get the access to, to work and focus on the ones that converts well, and then we'll, we'll get there. So I think overall, autumn, if we are to reach any sort of conclusion here, I think that the best lesson probably to draw from all of this is to one go into the launch with realistic expectations.

Jesper (45m 34s):
We talked about that

Autumn (45m 36s):
I can concur with that.

Jesper (45m 37s):
Yeah. And also, and perhaps even more importantly, I think you set this first and then I just mentioned it a minute ago as well, but think longterm, rather than focusing on getting bogged down or even very, very frustrated with how many or how few sales you made on a very short term notice because that's, I see that quite a lot, you know, people are getting really hung up about whether did I sell 15 copies or 25 copies yesterday and well, yeah, it's nice.

Jesper (46m 7s):
Of course, if you sell a lot every day, but try to distance yourself a bit from that stressful environment there and a look at it longterm instead, I think that's much better.

Autumn (46m 21s):
I think so. I think every time I see someone being negative, or even if I'm like, Oh, I want to sell more books. Well then think of ways of doing that and make actionable steps, wishing for it is not going to make it happen. So think longterm say, okay, well, Hey, I need to try some new strategies. Cause my books fail her dwindling. Or, you know, I should do AMS ads or I should check my keywords or I should do some more promos. If you're feeling frustrated about your book sales, take that energy or frustration and put it into something more creative.

Autumn (46m 52s):
Like how can you market better? Go watch a video on it, go listen to a podcast like ours and get some inspiration and ideas on how to market it. Don't just sit there and get frustrated, but definitely going in with those realistic expectations and then having realistic expectations on book sales and considering it as a longterm plan. And I would definitely, I would add to that, that unless you have even, I mean, we're a team. So we have, you know, people around us, we had other types of slayers. So we had a huge network helping us out to produce these books, which was fantastic.

Autumn (47m 26s):
It was still overwhelming with three books. So make sure you have a bite size chunk. That's my third takeaway is you can be ambitious, but make sure you don't burn yourself out and need your own vacation. After release books. I can have something against my strategy of releasing several books at the time. At least it was nonfiction. I can say definitely. If you're writing a series, I can see the advantage of releasing book one book to book three, but I think like a month in between, so you can celebrate each one and catch your breath and then go for the next one.

Autumn (48m 5s):
But you know, if we do it again, I, if I get overwhelmed, I'll just go hire a format. I actually probably never would it be like I gotta format more, but it'll be all right. And next time, maybe next time we should find out to write for nonfiction books and then release those, ah, ha what's sad is I'm already working on our next nonfiction one. So now we've talked about breaking it up into two. So we'll have to see how this goes. We'll see, learn from my mistakes.

Autumn (48m 37s):
So next Monday we'll discuss not only how to find, but also how to work with a graphical designer. Sodas that

Narrator (48m 44s):
Interesting. 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 M writing fantasy podcast going, stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 88 – Running a Successful Kickstarter Campaign (with Chris Fox)

The highly successful indie author, Chris Fox, joins the Am Writing Fantasy podcast in episode 88 to share how he managed to fully fund his Kickstarter campaign.

Chris collected almost $22,000 for his RPG rulebook, based on his fiction work.

If you have any plans to ever run a Kickstarter, or is just curious, this episode will offer you tons of inspiration and advice.

Links to resources mentioned in this episode:

https://www.backerkit.com/

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/

https://www.chrisfoxwrites.com/

Chris Fox on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCu6RYg6_-pTQxLVq3Fv6lYg

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 onto the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt, and Jesper Schmidt.

Jesper (30s):
Hello, I am Jesper and this is episode 88 of the am writing fantasy podcast. So, Autumn is taking a break today trying to get the final pieces of our wealth building costs recorded. So I've instead invited an awesome guest on, and that is Chris Fox. So Chris used to work with iPhone development, but has since gone on to write and publish over 20 novels. He also writes nonfiction books for authors, much like autumn and myself, and have spoken, I think probably all over the U S about writing to market and earning a living from writing.

Jesper (1m 6s):
So it's a great pleasure to say, welcome to the am writing fantasy podcast, Chris, thanks for having me on. It's a pleasure to be here. Yeah, that's great. And is there anything important that I left out of that intro there, Chris? I try to collect as much as I could from the internet, you know, there might be, but I'm not sure how relevant it is to your audience. I've got a lot of weird things over my career. Probably the odd thing is the app that I wrote was used to scope Stephen Colbert his ear on national TV.

Jesper (1m 38s):
So there's an episode that I got to watch the show where they use my app on it. It was pretty cool. Oh, nice. Yeah. But you, at some point you then decided no I'm going to do some writing instead of this stuff. I guess I always preferred writing and the writing was my goal from, from childhood, but we were taught, or at least we were taught from previous millennium that you couldn't make a living from your writing. And so I believed it and I gave it up because I didn't believe I could make a living. And as soon as I realized that I could, I got right back to it. Yeah. Good thing that you did because you're doing well nowadays, I guess, but yeah.

Jesper (2m 14s):
We're going to talk about how to run a successful Kickstarter campaign today, but I have to as well admit that I asked you to come onto a podcast, Chris, not only to share your insight with our listeners, but also because I have a personal interest in this topic because you see I've, I've actually written both a book on universal rules for how to run a miniature war gaming campaign, as well as another guide book on running a narrative campaign.

Jesper (2m 44s):
So that's almost like an RPG rule set, like, like you have run on a Kickstarter, which so I thought it would be excellent to talk to you about, you know, the Kickstarter campaign, how you did it, what things are good to think about and hopefully our audience, you will get a lot from listening to them.

Chris (3m 4s):
Yeah. I'm an open book. So if you have specific questions, I'm happy to answer them. Or if you want me to give kind of a broad overview of the process, I can start there.

Jesper (3m 12s):
Yeah. I th I do have specific questions, but maybe actually it would be a good place to, just to start a bit more general overall overview about Kickstarter. Maybe, maybe a bit of, I don't have any specific questions about the mindset going into running a Kickstarter. So maybe that's something you could touch a bit upon here.

Chris (3m 29s):
So stop. Sure. I recommend Kickstarter and there are other similar platforms like Indiegogo, but Kickstarter or any similar platform is a great way for you to allow your fans to express appreciation. So we all have super fans. If you're releasing novels and anybody reading them, and they're willing to spend a small fortune to support you, they want to see your art succeed. So Kickstarter is the way in which we can do that. I mean, all of your fans are gonna pay, you know, your $5 or whatever you're charging for your, your latest novel, but many of them would be willing to pay $500 for some special service or autograph book or a thing.

Chris (4m 2s):
You could do our mention of them in a novel somewhere. And if you sort of build a Kickstarter around fulfilling your, your super fans desires, you can walk away with quite a bit of cash.

Jesper (4m 14s):
Yeah. And the Kickstarter you ran, remind me again, how much funding did you get through that one?

Chris (4m 21s):
Just shy of $30,000.

Jesper (4m 24s):
That's pretty damn good because I think your, your goal was far less than that. Right?

Chris (4m 29s):
My goal was, I want to say 10, 10 loss. I should get it up and look, let me, let me look. What did I go for? We're already so far past the kick server. We just went live on drive-through RPG yesterday. Nice. Congratulations. Yeah. I'm looking to see what our original goal was $6,000 since the original goal,

Jesper (4m 54s):
Right? Yeah. Yeah. So you, you blew way, way, way past that. But I remember, I can't remember if it was because I read it somewhere or maybe I heard you talk about it somewhere, but I think I recall you saying something like that, going into it, that it was important for you to have a, you know, a mindset that this was more like, you know, if, if it gets funded great, but it was more like a learning experience. Is that right?

Chris (5m 21s):
Very much so. So if you are counting on Kickstarter is a means of funding, an endeavor that's really risky. And I was fortunately in a position where I didn't have to do that. I could bankrupt myself. So I was testing the market to see if they were interested in what I was producing. But if a flop I would have been prepared for that, I would have been a very valuable lesson about how much time and attention do I put into this project if the market's not really interested in it.

Jesper (5m 45s):
Yeah. Yeah. And also, I guess it can be a bit difficult to gauge from, from the get, go about, ah, how much engagement am I going to get here? You know, how many people will actually be willing to say, okay, I'm going to support this project, right?

Chris (6m 1s):
Yeah. Kickstarter's a wonderful weather in that way where, you know, if you have a big mailing list, we were fortunate enough to have been an author for a little bit. And you want to know if they're going to buy something and you ask them, they'll all say yes, but the, they actually call me the money and pay for it. It's a different story. So if you set up a Kickstarter, they're able to put their money where their mouth is. And one of the nice things too is if they ever back you or express any interest on one of your Kickstarters, anytime you post a new Kickstarter, they're going to see that too. So if you're a novelist and you're kickstarting your audio books, every time a new book comes out in the series, all of the people who backed it or were interested in backing, it will, we'll hear about the next one.

Jesper (6m 38s):
Yeah. And I guess as well, if, if your Kickstarter fails as in it doesn't, you, you doesn't succeed, you don't succeed in reading, reaching your goal. I guess you can use, do you still have access to all the backers there? So you could basically start, start over all over again, if you want

Chris (6m 55s):
You do. And in fact, what you can do is, and I want to say it was Kevin, Kevin Tomlinson, who mentioned this, but I could be wrong. Maybe, maybe I'm giving the wrong person credit, but the next day you can run a second Kickstarter and you can look at how much money you've actually raised and set a modest goal. So if your goal was 6,000 and you only got 4,000, you've created a Kickstarter the very next day for $4,000 and say, Hey guys, if you all back it again, we can fund it. And in his case, it's exactly what he did. And he funded it. So it was lower than what he had initially wanted, but he did still get funding to get the product he was making created.

Jesper (7m 28s):
Right. Yeah. That's smart. That makes good sense. Yeah, because you see the, the, the two books that I mentioned that I've written the next year. So from now on, and probably a year going in the next 12 months, we'll do some playtesting of the whole thing and do some edits and whatnot as necessary if we find something. But then the thinking is that once we get to perhaps late 20, 21, that we are looking to run a Kickstarter campaign in order to raise enough funding to, to basically pay for custom artwork, there was a lot of nice art where we would like create it, but it's not cheap that stuff for some,

Chris (8m 6s):
Yeah. It's definitely a huge fucking back.

Jesper (8m 10s):
Yeah. But I think maybe to dive in a bit on the actual sort of the page on Kickstarter, what, what are some best fundamental practices that you would say once you start, once you log into Kickstarter and you're gonna set up your first project there, or your first campaign, how do you fill in all the different fields that are there? What, what should people be thinking about in your view? What's the most important thing?

Chris (8m 38s):
Well, the first thing you want to do is come at this from a fan's perspective, what would interest you as a fan and get you to commit, to pledging your heartburn money for something that may not even fund or may not ever deliver after thoughts. And I think that starts with your video because the very first thing that people do when they come to your Kickstarter page is they watch that video. It's usually three to five minutes long. So recording that video is critical. So it's outside of Kickstarter itself as platform, but you need a video where you can say, Hey, listen guys, this is what I'm making. This is what I need from you guys.

Chris (9m 9s):
And this is what we'll be able to create. If you give us the resources that we need and the video that I have really killed it. I mean, people will enjoy it. It's only five minutes long, but it showed them exactly what we wanted to create. We showcase a lot of our high quality artwork. And then from there, once they've watched the video, they're going to start looking at the rest of the page and you're telling a story. You're telling us, this is what we built. This is how far we've come. And this is how far we have to go and showing them what they're helping you build. And then on the right hand side of the page, as they're scrolling down, they're seeing higher and higher levels of pledges.

Chris (9m 40s):
So we'll start with your low-level versions. And then by the time they get to the bottom, they're seeing whatever the most expensive thing that you can offer them is. And by that point, if they've read all the way down, they've seen your whole story. Those are the types of people who are likely to pledge at that level anyway.

Jesper (9m 54s):
Yeah. Yeah. And I think as well, when I looked through you, it's been a bit a while, but I did look through your entire project on Kickstarter as well. And if I remember correctly, you had quite a lot of artwork and different, you know, pictures of character sheets and stuff like that all the way down through the entire project description. Isn't that right?

Chris (10m 17s):
It is. And, and in my case, the reason for that is I am a gamer. I am my target audience. And I understand that for a game like Dungeons and dragons, if you're going to pick my interest, you have to do it visually. There has to be three or four things that really hooked me in that. Tell me this universe is going to offer something I haven't seen before. Wow. Never seen a dragon target department, star ship. If you can't show them that and then show them an awesome character sheet, other people can. And that's who we're competing with. Yeah.

Jesper (10m 43s):
Yeah. Nice. Especially remember myself that once I got to the character sheet, I was thinking, Oh, this is cool. For some reason, we always loved the character sheets, don't we?

Chris (10m 54s):
Yeah. It's such a gamer thing where you want to know, you want to be able to tell it all the information in, and we have this wonderful paper doll where you can see the power arm or that you'll pilot and there's little boxes that are drawn to each of the locations. You know, what weapons you have, where, what potions or your potion motors. That's pretty cool.

Jesper (11m 9s):
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I think as well, in addition to whatever you posted on Kickstarter, you also recorded a bunch of like complimentary videos where I think both of you shared the RPG rules that you created. And you mentioned those in the Kickstarter campaign as well, basically pointing people out to YouTube videos and stuff like that. Did you feel like that was worth the effort? You know, did, did many people check out those videos or how do you feel about that?

Jesper (11m 40s):
Now? Looking back at it,

Chris (11m 42s):
I'm still releasing videos. I have another one coming out on Friday. I took a bit of a break because I was working on production, but my goal is to have every part of the system covered. And so initially I did all the rules for character creation. So if you're not sure exactly how to make a character and you have questions, you can actually go through the videos and it'll tell you how to do everything. I've now added them for various systems. So you can see how the magic system works and how combat works. And I think it helped a lot of people, but they wanted to see real game play examples like live gameplay. And so now we're adding videos using the roll 20 platform, which is a way for you to game online.

Chris (12m 16s):
And that platform is allowing us to demonstrate things so I can show them how spells work. I can show them how to run combat, or how to role play, or sort of what you need to do as a game master. And right now, I don't think that we're getting a ton of engagement. Cause it's still a very small channel with family. I have a couple of hundred subscribers, which, you know, contrast that to my writing channel, just like, you know, 36 or 37,000 people. It's a very small channel for the role playing game, but I expect over time, it'll grow as we release more books. And my goal is less total amount of traffic and more, if some random person finds this little while today, do they have literally every resource they can think that they would need in video form to teach them how to play this game.

Chris (12m 52s):
And I just want to make sure they have a complete library.

Jesper (12m 56s):
Yeah. So, so you think in terms of a longterm view, you, you think it's useful with those videos there? Because I know, you know, some years back before we started podcasting, we were doing YouTube videos as well, years back, and I know how much work it goes into creating those videos. Even if you're just going to release like a 10 minute video that takes hours of work. So I was getting frustrated at some point back then that, you know, if there wasn't enough views on it, I felt like, okay, why am I spending this much time doing these?

Jesper (13m 29s):
But are you saying that you think longterm wise, it is still a good thing, even though you might not right now have too much engagement.

Chris (13m 37s):
Absolutely. So let's say in five years, the Meditech Chronicles, I've already got 10 novels out. By that point, let's say I have 30 and all those and the magic Chronicles, there are 10 books on the role playing universe. We have hundreds and hundreds of hours of audio audible already. Like what if that's going to just keep growing? Eventually we're ramming for like a Netflix series. I mean, there's a lot we want to do with this universe. This is the backbone that games were going to need. And so every time somebody new comes, all of the work that I've put in over the last, you know, X number of years is going to be useful. And what really taught me, this is the other YouTube channel that I manage because initially I was, I was like, you are very driven by how many views am I getting by not getting enough views?

Chris (14m 15s):
And it comes over time. If you just keep producing good content, people will find you when it grabs since I'm much less concerned about that now.

Jesper (14m 22s):
Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. For sure. So nowadays you, you said it just went live on, what did you say

Chris (14m 32s):
On August 18th? So today's the 19th that we're recording this. It just went live on the 18th and that's just the digital version. The paperback will probably be another two weeks and there's a hard back on live at the same time.

Jesper (14m 44s):
So are you selling them on Amazon as well, or

Chris (14m 48s):
That remains to be seen. And I think that's a great topic for the podcast. If you would ask me that a month ago, the answer would have been, no, you can't really sell them in the same way, how you could fulfill a role playing game order. So I could print books and do print on demand, but digitally you couldn't fulfill the order. Then I got an email last week that Amazon was folding Comicology into Kindle unlimited. So that got me really excited since that's where you read graphic novels, which is effectively what a roleplaying book is. And I went, I looked and sure enough, I'm able to translate my role playing game into a format that you can now read in Kindle.

Chris (15m 21s):
So if somebody has an iPad or even an iPhone, they can look at the rules and scroll through it and look at some of these pages. So I haven't uploaded it. Yeah. But my goal in the next week is to convert my role playing game, using their it's called the common creator into a format that I can upload and then start selling it directly on Amazon, through Kindle. And as of right now, to my knowledge, there are literally zero world playing games doing that. So it's sort of that first mover advantage.

Jesper (15m 47s):
Yeah, indeed. I also checked, you know, the, if you look at like the, the, the common like Dungeons and dragons books and whatnot, do you kind of course order all the hot packs and that stuff from Amazon, but indeed there was no Kindle version available of them, but I guess it's, isn't it mostly like a formatting? I mean, it's going to be a nightmare in, in our case, for example, autumn always format our books. So I'm sure she's going to have a nightmare with due to pictures and stuff like that, but isn't it mostly just a formatting problem. And I mean, if you tweak and play enough with the formatting, I don't see why you couldn't make a Kindle version.

Chris (16m 24s):
Well, we've never been able to do it in the past because the devices themselves weren't capable of really adequately displaying what we were building, but now they took the functionality from the comics allergy app, and I think they built it into Kindle. And so what happens is you have these, these stops, so let's say you've got four different paragraph headings on a page. If you tap the screen, once it'll auto scroll to the next paragraph. Right. And so that functionality you have to add manually. And I guess in that sense, there's some, some formatting, but the software makes it really easy for you to do that.

Jesper (16m 51s):
Yeah. Nice. Yeah, because a rule book, I think a RPG rule book in Kindle on Amazon, I think actually it would sell really well because there's not a lot of it.

Chris (17m 4s):
Yeah. There's not a tough competition. So we're going to see how it does. I should have it live in the next week or two, you know, I already spend between five and $12,000 a month in advertising, mostly to Kindle unlimited books. So know the market and know who to advertise to and know who to approach. So if people are interested, I, I will see if they'll buy it.

Jesper (17m 25s):
Yeah, yeah. For sure. Yeah. But the ones who then support it on Kickstarter, did you give them like a PDF version of the book once they, once the campaign was successful or, or how did you do that?

Chris (17m 38s):
We're, we're in the process of that now. So I sent them an initial PDF, like beta versions of the book, and I've been updating it ever since. And then just a couple of days ago, we sent them the very final edition of the PDF, so they can finally having their hands on it. So they've had a complete game they could play for, for a little over a week. There's also an art library, which has most of the artwork that went into the book, as well as, you know, character sheets that are sort of gathered in one location. So they have wallpapers and whatever else they want. And those have been passed out too. So people have kind of all the stuff they need to play.

Chris (18m 10s):
The majority of our orders though, were not digital. They were for the hardback version, lots and lots of people want that one hand. It surprised me. How many gamers still play using a hard cover book because I've been using personally and iPad for years. I love having, you know, the 50 books I needed for a risk game on one iPad, as opposed to carrying a duffle bag. Like I used to,

Jesper (18m 32s):
Yeah, I get that. And then, well, you, you need to have some sort of fulfillment thing there, but is that drive through RPG? Do they take care of that? Because otherwise you will be shipping a lot of hard copies yourself, which I assume you don't want to do.

Chris (18m 47s):
Right. So try through IPG functions very much like Amazon. And for those that don't know on Amazon, you're running through, it used to be create space and I can do it directly through KTP you're creating paperbacks and we do nothing. So Amazon does a hundred percent of the fulfillment and returns. We don't have to touch anything, they just pay us extra money. And it's basically the same thing with drive through RPG, for Kickstarter, you are responsible for your own fulfillment. And so what I recommend is you set up an account with a site called the backer kit.com. And what they do is help you manage it's the fill the whole Kickstarter.

Chris (19m 17s):
And also if you set up like a Stripe account or a PayPal account, they'll take orders. So if you have something like meeting your preorder selling, they can take reorders. They can even allow people to contribute to the Kickstarter after the Kickstarter is ended. So what people were doing is like I had one person paying an extra $600 to have the character and sort of do a novel. Another one wanted to go for a short story written for 400 bucks. So after the Kickstarter had ended back for kid allowed me to continue pulling in more fun so that we had a larger pool to purchase artwork.

Jesper (19m 47s):
Oh, okay. That's very cool. Did you say backerkit.com?

Chris (19m 52s):
Yes. Backer kit. That's a, B a C K E R kit.com.

Jesper (19m 58s):
Okay. Interesting. That's good. I didn't know that one. So that was, that was a good one. I know as well that you had some stretch goals on your campaign there. And I wanted to ask you if you, if you find a stretch goals important in terms, in terms of like enticing people to reach the next level, once you have fully funded. And if you do think that, do you have any thoughts about what makes for a good stretch goal?

Chris (20m 28s):
I think they matter a lot, a lot. And I think what makes for a good stretch goal is something that every person who looks at it feels like their involvement matters. So if somebody is looking at your stretch goals and says, I don't care about that one, I don't care about that one. I don't care about that one. That's not a good sign. You want everyone on the stretch goals? It'd be something like, Oh, I'd really like to have that. So in the case of an RPG, if you can, we're going to add two more classes. You know, there are classes that wouldn't be in the book otherwise, but you're going to unlock X class in Y class that are going to be in the book. If you hit this level, every player of the game, what's that extra content.

Chris (20m 58s):
So when you are crafting the rewards, just make sure that they're relevant to all, all backers. I think you also want to make sure that people in the sense that go ahead.

Jesper (21m 12s):
No, no, no. Just continue. I'll ask afterwards.

Chris (21m 16s):
Okay. I was going to say, I think they need to be achievable. So you want to make sure that when you are doing these rewards, that the things that you're agreeing to create for your fans, aren't going to cost you a bunch of extra money. I've seen this on a few Kickstarters where, you know, if we hit this goal, I'm going to make this thing that costs more than the extra stretch goal. So you want to be careful here. I have crafted all of my rewards in such a way that it's not going to cost us a lot of extra money to add it.

Jesper (21m 41s):
Oh yeah. That that's, it goes along with it. It's the same thing about the fulfillment stuff. Right? You, you need to be careful about those things so that you don't set yourself up. I mean, if you're going in blind, I guess people, some people have at least I have heard horror stories of people setting up stuff where they basically were intending. Yeah. I'm just going to ship this stuff out myself. And they ended up paying more in shipping than, than they actually funded in Kickstarter. Right. So the whole point is out the window.

Chris (22m 11s):
Yeah. And, and I really was cognizant that when I set it up. So for example, the delivery for the role playing game, if we're getting either the hard back or the paperback is going to be through drive through RPG and they print in the United States and in the UK. And so the backers are going to be responsible for their own shipping. I don't have to pay anything. It'll be, you know, the whole transaction will be handled directly through the site. All I do is send them a code. They plug in the code. So the book itself is considered free. You know, I've already paid for this code and then they just pay their own shipping and it gets sent out to them.

Chris (22m 41s):
And that fulfillment should be really easy for me to do. It's part of why I chose to do it this way.

Jesper (22m 46s):
Yeah. Because I assume you could also have set up something, you know, if you wanted, you could have, I know we just talked about the Kindle edition, right. But assume you could have set it up by Amazon as well. Couldn't you? Just put in the paper back there or something like that. Or,

Chris (23m 1s):
And I thought that was an option. And if you really are selling a lot of copies, you can actually start running stock and getting cheaper prices by printing larger orders. So it's certainly an option if you're done with the dragons that you gave, you want to run your own warehouse. So if you saw three Amazon,

Jesper (23m 20s):
And I think some of what you said about stretch goals, I assume that also applies to how you decided to set up your tiers, meaning that you probably had some thorough thinking about what to put into those tiers so that it would be interesting for people to, to sign up. But, but how did you, how did you go through the, what was your sort of thought process in terms of

Chris (23m 46s):
Both deciding what is the reward for each tier, but also how much money to ask on each of the tiers I looked at how much time it's going to take me to write the material, how much artwork I would need to acquire to deliver on the stuff I was saying, I was creating a, and then I sat tears accordingly. So this is stuff that I already wanted to build in the future. Anyway, it's just that we have to accelerate our timeline a little bit. And I just made sure to ask for enough money that I'd be able to pay for the additional artwork. Right. Did you also think about, you know, making sure that these T is something that gets progressively more and more interesting as you move down or, or was it more just purely, like you say, you know, about how much time am I going to spend on creating each one?

Chris (24m 29s):
And then the time consuming ones are just more expensive because I'm just thinking if there was a way to, you know, entice people to sign up for maybe that slightly higher tier rather than just the lowest ones. Right. And I think that I could have done a better job. That'd be the first thing I would say this being my first Kickstarter, right. A general idea of what I was trying to do, but now that I've run it, I would give a better and a little bit different stretch goal reward structure. And I would have a lot more purchasable rewards in the Kickstarter that offer different things.

Chris (25m 1s):
So as an example, I would offer autographed copies of various novels. They have nothing at all to do with the role playing game, but these are people that like the universe and I could allow them to buy a complete set of the main series novels or seven of them autographed. And, you know, I could charge 500 bucks and write them a special message. And I'm willing to bet I could probably sell 10 of those easily because people would love to have that autograph set on their shelf because you know, it would be numbered and signed and, and you, you know, you show them, Hey, no one else in the world, but the 10 people who get this are going to have access to it.

Chris (25m 32s):
And then you can give that to your fan. So I could have done a lot more of that than I did. I didn't create enough avenues for them to express their support. And I'm going to the next Kickstarter, which we're going to be running probably in late October or early November. Okay. Yeah. Do you think you can have too many tears? Yes. And so the, the reason why you don't list them all necessarily right off the bat is it feels impossible to hit some of the higher tiers. So what I'll do is I'll have them all written down, but I'll only post like maybe the next two or three they're currently relevant to things.

Chris (26m 11s):
So they're only saying, so you've got five define, they're only seeing three of them. So how does that work? Well, you can update the description on your Kickstarter or any time. So if you were to say what your stretch goal is, I've got a 15, 20 and $25,000 one when you're starting to it's 20,000, then you add a 30 and a 40. Right? Okay. So, so in addition to stretch goals, basically what, no, those are as stretch goals. Like you can keep redefining stretch goals whenever you want. So when you have stretch goals, you don't have to say on day one, here's every stretch goal I'm ever going to add.

Chris (26m 43s):
You can have of them. And then throughout the Kickstarter, you can just keep adding stretchables on any given day, just update the description. And here's a new stretch goal. So what I'll do is only list the ones that are easily achievable we're about to hit them. And then it looks like we can do, and then the ones that would be really expensive. So like I'm not going to put a $40,000 stretch goal when we only have $5,000 in backing.

3 (27m 2s):
No, that makes sense. Yeah.

Jesper (27m 5s):
Okay. I was thinking to move into a bit of the marketing stuff as well, because one thing is setting up the Kickstarter and think about all these best practices and, and, and all the important elements that, that you just have mentioned here through, through the episode so far. But the other thing is, unless we can get people to that Kickstarter page and get them excited about it, then the whole thing won't really fly very far. So in terms of marketing your Kickstarter campaign, I know that you said at some point that you were contacting other authors and so on to basically increase your outreach there.

Jesper (27m 43s):
But I was wondering, were these like authors, you knew them all already, or were you like cold pitching some authors or, or how did you do that?

Chris (27m 53s):
These were all people that owed me a favor. So in no instance that I cold email someone and say, Hey, can you share this with your audience? I was basically just calling in favors. I think it's a huge, huge ask to ask somebody to send anything to their list on your behalf. And so I'm very, very careful about when I ask. So I had spent a couple of years building up favors before I cashed that in. Right,

Jesper (28m 14s):
Right. Yeah. Because I would think as well, we also recently saw Brandon Sanderson have massive success on a Kickstarter campaign with like a limited edition or whatever it was of, of one of his books there. And I think with Kickstarter, and it's the same thing with Patrion and these kinds of things, unless you have the audience there, it becomes very, very difficult to market it very effective. I mean, if you're starting from zero, let's say you have, you have a, your grandmother and, and your cousin on your email list.

Jesper (28m 44s):
Right. I mean, it's going, I think it's going to be extremely difficult to build up very much momentum on a Kickstarter project, but what are your thoughts?

Chris (28m 55s):
Yeah, I agree. Okay. Kickstarter is not for you to say, okay, I want to build a business and I don't have any money. So I'm going to go make a Kickstarter page and people are going to give me a bunch of money. That's not going to happen. You really need a working product. And this is what Kickstarter expects. You basically need a prototype. You need to be ready to go with something before you start asking for more money. So what you need to do is build up a following first, if you have no following right off the bat, Kickstarter will be useless for you. You need to come in with, I've got an email list and I've been working with fans and they know what I'm building. Maybe I have support from other areas.

Chris (29m 25s):
So it's sort of the combination of that. And to that end, I would spend more time as a new creator working on the stuff I'm creating and I'm networking with other creators, then I would worry about crowdfunding,

Jesper (29m 38s):
Right? Yeah. Yeah. And I think that makes sense because it's, this, it's the same thing with Patrion and so forth, you know, it just because you release some YouTube videos, so nobody's going to sign up for patron and offer support unless you build, or you built that longterm, like trust and, and, and like factor there that they enjoy the content that you're putting out. And they know that as well, of course, that they can trust the fact that you will complete whatever you say, that they can be packing on Kickstarter and, and they will get their stuff in hand as well at, at some later date.

Jesper (30m 11s):
Right?

Chris (30m 14s):
Yeah. That's the big fear. I think for a lot of them is that, are you actually going to ever finish this and deliver because you walk away, they don't really have a lot of recourse by the time they figure out that they got burned, usually it's too late for them to refund or they don't really want to bother with it. So they count. Most people I know is lost money. If they've got something that isn't fun. So it's kind of a roll of dice on a lot of the Kickstarters that we backed don't go anywhere. So it is, I do have to say really, really nice to know that I'm living up to what I said, I will do. We have a complete game we're delivering exactly what we promised we would give fans.

Chris (30m 46s):
And I think if you can't do that, you're never going to be able to run another successful Kickstarter because you know, the whole thing.

Jesper (30m 54s):
Yeah. I think you're a hundred percent right there, but I assume that Kickstarter is sort of governing a bit as well, that the, you know, if the product is not delivered, then don't kickstart to make sure to refund people their money or send it back to don't. They like have the money sitting in a holding pot that they control or something.

Chris (31m 11s):
Not really. So what happens is they release the funds to you. So after the Kickstarter is done and all credit cards were processed, you've not got the money. If they file a dispute with Kickstarter, I think they can pursue you for a refund and get that money back. But very few people do that. Most people are just, you know, sort of eaten the cost and hope that it would get funded. So theoretically, I do believe every person who backed you could go to Kickstarter and say, Hey, listen, I want my money back. They burned me. And it was a scam. And that Kickstarter would prosecute the heck out of you. Their team seems to take that very seriously.

Chris (31m 42s):
And they were going to work with in that regard where they're, you know, if they saw anything was at all fishy, they would pointed out.

Jesper (31m 48s):
Yeah. And I guess if it does not fund successfully, doesn't don't they just send people back or maybe they don't even charge people money then or whatever,

Chris (31m 55s):
And no one gets charged at all. So if you try to fund, you get to 9,000 out of 10,000. No one's credit card will ever be charged.

Jesper (32m 1s):
Right. Right. Okay. That's easy then. Yeah. Okay. But maybe getting back from it a moment too, to those authors that you were casting in favors from, I think I saw at some point that you talked about that you were reaching out to a few a day or something like that. And I was wondering a bit about, because when you said that I could understand it from the like workload perspective, you know, that you're sort of spreading it out and you don't have to do too much every day and can take care of all your writing and other parts of your business, which makes completely sense.

Jesper (32m 36s):
But I was wondering a bit about how the worked out for you, you know, here in hindsight, in the sense that you have a Kickstarter, which is only open in this window here from date X to date Y, and if you, at least the way I understood it, and maybe I misunderstood and then you can correct me. But the way I understood it was that throughout that period of time, you were reaching out to a couple of people a day. But do you think in hindsight, if, if my understanding is incorrect and then correct me, but if that's correct, and do you think in hindsight you would still do it that way?

Jesper (33m 14s):
Or do you think it would be better to reach out and email all those people or contact all those people in advance of the start date, even so that they know that, okay, in two weeks from now, I would like you to do this rather than here's an email. Can you please do this now? Because the Kickstarter ends in two weeks, you know, something like that, do you get what I'm saying?

Chris (33m 34s):
I do. And it depends on how much social capital you want to burn. So the more you ask of these people and the more you say, okay, on this specific day, I need you to, to launch my preorder or like announced my preorder or in my case, talk about this Kickstarter. The more that you ask, the less, you're going to be able to ask later, if you send a single email and just say, Hey, listen, if it aligns with your audience any time in the next 30 days, if you could announce this, that'd be great. And you just leave it at that. If they can't do anything, you haven't really burned any social capital. If they do do something for you, great.

Chris (34m 5s):
It helped the vast majority of what I did to promote my Kickstarter. Wasn't going out and asking other offers. It was, it was telling my own audience. And those were the people that really were driving it. I don't think I got a ton of momentum from having other authors announce it. And about 50% of the people in the video that you're referring to, where I said, I was going to go talk to these authors. I didn't even actually message. I decided, you know what? I don't think this is a good thing for me to ask for some of those authors, like they probably would have done it because they owed me some favors, but I wouldn't have gotten very many sales because I'm asking science fiction authors to sell role playing games.

Chris (34m 38s):
And that doesn't make sense unless they have role playing game audiences.

Jesper (34m 43s):
No. So maybe, you know, like you, well, if you know them, of course, but like YouTube channels that are focusing on roleplaying games, for example, or podcasts focusing on focusing on role playing games, those kinds of people will, they will, of course have an audience who are interesting in the topic at hand. So do you think it would be,

Chris (35m 7s):
I think it's an amazing way for you to get publicity. Those are the people you want to spend your time contacting, set up a free version of your game or a copy of your novel. If that's more relevant and then, you know, reach out to them and say, Hey, listen, and this is always how I phrase it. This is how your podcast did. Your audience will benefit from having the honestly gas. This is what I offer you. This is why it's beneficial to you. So not from the perspective of I'm an author. I want to sell role playing games and books, but I think I can deliver some good content to, to an audience, a podcast.

Chris (35m 38s):
And you're more likely to be accepted. And that's a good use of your time and writing it for marketing.

Jesper (35m 43s):
Yeah. Yeah. I guess the trick then becomes to make sure that, that you can have those episodes go live while people can still support the Kickstarter, but that's probably a different conversation than

Chris (35m 54s):
That. That is an issue. That is an issue. Oftentimes though you can get people to share that stuff fairly far in advance. One of the things that I did as a mistake is I didn't set up a preorder for the Kickstarter. So for those that don't know, what I learned afterwards is you can set up a Kickstarter before it's set to go live. So if I don't intend it to go live until November 1st, I can build it today and I could put it up there and people can see it so that my followers know it's going to start way, way before I actually started. And I would have done that if you do that and you start going on some podcasts, then if it takes them a while to get the episode out, it's still before the end of the Kickstarter.

Chris (36m 28s):
So I think it matters a lot and I could have done a better job with that.

Jesper (36m 32s):
Yeah, yeah, indeed. And I think you mentioned as well, Chris, that you were doing some kind of paid advertising as well, but what did you do there?

Chris (36m 40s):
But I did do a little bit, so what I did and I'm actually doing some normal right now is I thought about areas where I, as a gamer would want to see this. Like if you were building a role playing game, where would I care to see it, where I would consider it to be space? And for me that was Facebook Reddit and, and really Amazon. And then the three locations I could think of where if I was scrolling through my feed and I saw the school role playing game and it was sponsored, I'd probably still buy it. So I ran like, I don't know, $40 a day in ads to Reddit and maybe slightly higher and Facebook and tried to drive some signups for the Quickstart guide.

Chris (37m 13s):
And then also now selling the book.

Jesper (37m 17s):
Right. So you were offering them, well, I guess you were pointing them towards the Kickstarter then, right?

Chris (37m 24s):
Initially. Yes. So I had to show them the Kickstarter page, which, you know, almost sells itself. It's great to have one page where they can pledge that has all of their marketing material, all of your images, even the video. So yeah, that was the primary place I was driving people.

Jesper (37m 38s):
Yeah. And I guess the thing that I'm a bit curious about here is because I fully get all the, you know, the, the, you have all the sales copy, basically, if we can call it that on the Kickstarter page. So, so that makes sense. But I'm curious as to, how did you entice, for example, let's take Facebook ads for as an example here. So of course it's a lot about targeting roleplaying, people who are interesting roleplaying or whatnot, but I'm just struggling a bit too.

Jesper (38m 11s):
And this is what I'm curious about too, to understand if I, for example myself, if I just take myself as an example, I see something popping up in my feed. It's an ad for some sort of Kickstarter thing. Then of course, I already know before I click on it, this is somebody who, which I, you know, they ask you for money for it, obviously. And if I don't know the person already, I'm just struggling to whether or not I would actually click on it. But, and that's why I'm, I'm, I'm a bit curious about how you, how you target at that and not, how did you get people to actually, because if they arrive at the Kickstarter page and you have all that good stuff that you have, the videos you have, the nice artwork and all that, then I'm pretty sure people will get interested, but how do you get them to go there?

Jesper (38m 56s):
How did you, how did you find like a good formula for what entice people to click on the ad?

Chris (39m 2s):
Well, that, that makes for a good advertiser. So we're talking really about psychology and reaching people and understanding what benefits and emotional triggers are going to get them to act. But you can boil it down simply and take all the marketing, speak away and say what interests your audience. Like if you're showing them exactly what they're interested in, they're going to click on it. So let me give you an example. I want a super amazing gaming table. We're talking like a several thousand dollar table. That is a super specialty item that most people will never order. And I started mentioning this to my friends and I was thinking about getting a custom made table table.

Chris (39m 34s):
And before I knew it, ads starting showing up on Facebook showing tables that were exactly what I was looking for. I don't care who spanking them. I don't care what the company is. I don't care anything about them. Initially. I care about the table. So I click on the ad because I want to see this table. Can they build what it is that I want? And it's the same for a role playing game. If you've been playing Pathfinder for the last five years and your group is just burned out on Pathfinder and you just are so sick of fantasy. And so you suggest, okay, like let's play shout around it. People are like, well, no, I don't really want to do that.

Chris (40m 4s):
And so you're looking for a new game and you see mine and happens to look like it'll, it'll scratch the, get your after it's some new world that you can sink your teeth into. It's the value proposition. Gamers want to be able to understand the nuts and bolts of how the universe works. And if I can give you a new universe with good rules and good artwork and a good concept, and you're excited about the character types that you might play. And then on top of that, you find out that there's novels available for it. Then that's an easy sell. So back in my youth, Sharon, BattleTech forgotten realms, dragon lands.

Chris (40m 38s):
These were the series that you got into as role playing games, because they had dozens of novels that you could read to further your understanding. So you just sort of come up with a overall value proposition, show people, Hey, listen, this universe is going to be worth your time. If you invest in it and that they get a lot more interested. And that starts with the image that you're choosing, that they're initially going to click on it, got to interest them. It's got to be some sort of deep symbol that they understand, you know, maybe they love dragons and they're used. And so if they see a dragon tearing apart a star ship, that's going to get them to slow down and actually look at it.

Jesper (41m 13s):
Yeah. And dragons and space that that's always cool. But was there any type of promotion that you would like to have done a crisp, but for whatever reason you didn't.

Chris (41m 27s):
Yeah. I would have done the podcast tour. So I have a good friend of mine who knows a lot about kickstarting. And he said that if you had come into this with six months of lead time, it easily could have been six figure Kickstarter. What I needed to do is get it up as soon as possible and started going on larger podcasts and start running more game sessions and showing more of what I had. And so when I run the second Kickstarter, we're going to test that stuff and I'm going to try going on much larger productions. And, you know, we'll be playing a lot more roll 20 games and having a lot more videos available and you know, a lot more extra stuff.

Chris (41m 58s):
And hopefully we can, we can sort of hit a critical mass and get a lot more people interested.

Jesper (42m 4s):
Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. But I think, I want to say thank you so much for joining us today, Chris, and thank you for sharing your knowledge and your experience with, with such kindness as you, as you've done it.

Chris (42m 16s):
Yeah, my pleasure. Thank you so much for having me on.

Jesper (42m 19s):
If people want to learn more about you, where should they go? Chris,

Chris (42m 24s):
Chris Fox writes.com is probably the best central hub. If you are into videos that have information on how to be a writer, how to market, how to write a youtube.com/chris box rights. If you like fiction, I would check out the magic tech chronicles.com and you can see my role playing game and the associated novels.

Jesper (42m 43s):
All right. Thank you so much. Alright. Next Monday, autumn will be back and we are. I have a very interesting episode prepared for you sharing our results on lossing three nonfiction books here in 2020.

Narrator (42m 58s):
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.