Ep 331 Reaching Readers Beyond Social Media with Sara LaFontain

Welcome to Pencils and Lipstick. This is a podcast for indie authors. I'm Cat Caldwell, novelist, short story writer, and book coach. Here on Pencils and Lipstick, we're obsessed with bold things story, and it is my goal to bring you the writing tips that you need to make your novel come to life. Hello, everyone.

Welcome back to Pencils and Lipstick. This is episode 331. I'm Kat Caldwell, and it is the beginning of November already. I cannot believe it. A couple of things have happened in the last week.

A, I've decided to keep going with the podcast at least probably for the next few months for the next, so it's like I take the summer off, so we'll be going through May. I will let you know in May if if I'll be continuing it after that. It's just a very... That will have been seven years. So news, we'll keep going.

I was just about... Like, it was nice to hear back from some of you listeners. Thank you so much if you emailed me. It was really nice to hear that, that you wanted me to keep going. It's always fun to hear that.

And, obviously, like, if people are listening and they're benefiting from this, I I want to keep keep going. I just wonder if you guys want to keep hearing the... From me. Honestly, it was like, oh, today I have an interview with Sarah LaFontaine. It's a wonderful interview.

Sarah is awesome. She's doing some really fun things with her fellow romance authors that I think is really prevalent to what we've been talking about here is Like, how do you get... Market your book and, you know, how do you get it into the right hands and how do you... Like, one of the the best ways that you can do that is to market it with fellow authors. And I know a lot of you already know about BookFunnel and StoryOrigin and trying to get, you know, other people to share your book, but she's doing something a little bit different.

So, be sure to stick around and listen. I think it might give you some ideas on what you could possibly do, in order to get your book out there and your fellow, you know, whatever genre you, write out there. As we go into this very busy season, I just want to remind you all that this is probably not the time to start your ads. Like, disclaimer, I am kind of, like, full force all on board for ads at the moment. I am trying to figure out, Facebook ads.

I tried Amazon ads for a while and it it didn't quite work out, but I will be going back to them once I figure out Facebook ads. And it has taken me two months to figure them out and to get a winning ad. And that, like, over and over, I was told, like, that is really normal. It's really normal. It takes a while for this to...

For you to, like, figure it out and for the algorithm to get its bearings and for them to find the right audience. I also don't write a ton of really long series. So a lot of these writers are making their revenue off of, like, selling the first book and then people reading through, you know, especially if you're voracious, you have voracious readers as as like your reading base looking at like romance, like people who write series. So all of this takes like... You have to take that into consideration, right, when you're doing ads.

And I, I only say that to say, in my personal opinion, if you're looking into doing ads, don't scramble to do ads right now in the Christmas season. I understand that feeling of wanting to. Believe me, I have made the mistake of scrambling to do that. Everyone tells me that the prices will start going up for clicks. If you don't have them, you know, a winning ad already, it it can get really frustrating and you can lose a lot of money.

So just just my personal opinion. Of course, you have free will. As I always say, you have free will. You can do whatever you want. But if you're, you know, starting to learn ads, there will probably be people selling, you know, Black Friday sales of their courses.

That might be definitely something to look into, start learning, and then be ready to go in January. Now just in my my, like, experience, January tends to be really slow as far as, book sales and reading and whatever, but that doesn't mean that it's not a good time to try things out. I would assume that the cost per click will, like, drop significantly. Anyway, be on the lookout for the things that you need to learn for Black Friday. I will probably have a couple in my newsletter for whoever of my friends is selling their courses at discount.

Definitely be on the lookout for that, but it's probably not the greatest time to just, like, scramble and put together your ads. And speaking of, like, scrambling, you're gonna start getting a lot of emails of promotions and promotion sites. And we love the the promotion sites, right, like fussy library and written word media and all these. And they're... They they can be great.

They can be... Work really well. But again, in my experience, if you're scrambling to do... To sign up and to do them and you don't really have a strategy behind them, a lot of times it's just hit and miss. And when it misses, it can miss real hard and you feel like I am out $75 and the book barely budged and you can just feel really kind of down about it.

Like, because that's real money. Right? You're so please have, like, a strategy. I think it's great. Like, put more out there on social media about your book.

Try to figure that out. Do some collaborations. Definitely, like, try one of the written word media, the book promotion things, but just have a strategy behind it is what I'm saying. You know, if if you choose the date of, like, I don't know, randomly... And there's no great date.

Like, honestly, there's no, like, strategy to it. But if you get locked into, like, indecision mode, like I do sometimes, like, oh my gosh, what date should I choose? In my experience, it doesn't matter because you... There's so many factors you can't control. Right?

So let's say like December 1, you know, you sign up for some for some promotion. Be sure that you're telling people on social media on your newsletter, see if a couple of your writer friends will share about it in in their newsletter and see if you can, you know, simultaneously be in, like, a sale or what, you know, free promotion, whatever you decide to do on book funnel or story origin. You know, just have, like, the strategy behind it. Right? I'm telling you guys all the things that I I tell myself.

Like, I'm trying to to steward my time and my money and my my business better, having more of a strategy. And it's hard because you can start really feeling like I didn't do enough. I'm too busy. I need the book to keep moving. And I I just...

I feel you on that. I know those of you who are high in strategy, you're probably, like, dismissing this as crazy weird, you know, but those of us who are not super high in strategy, like, we can feel this real... It's just, like, overwhelm, I think, on, like, how am I gonna do this? And why haven't I been doing this? And I need to do this right now.

So I just want to say that if you guys haven't heard about the new Amazon Kindle plus thing, they are basically, as far as I understand, like merging the Kindle plus, which is k u, but now they wanna call it Kindle plus. And the audio versions, they're sort of merging those two together, so you'll be paid for one or the other. So, like, before when people would listen while reading, you would get paid for both, and I think they've caught on to that little scheme, and now you'll only be paid for one or the other. And now I don't know how it's gonna work if, like, somebody's reading and then they switch to audio. So it it feels like there will be some misrevenue there.

And a lot of people are upset about it, and I can see both sides. You know, none of us love change, honestly, and none of us love to be told that we're gonna be earning less money. On the other hand, if somebody's reading and listening to your book at the same time, it it does feel like you're getting paid double for kind of... I can see their side. Don't come at me.

I think just because I'm, like, being pro Amazon, I just... As a business... From a business perspective, I can see, why they did that. But it's something to consider. But, again, I see on social media people saying I'm jumping ship.

I'm not gonna be in Kindle plus anymore. KU, you know, I'm. This makes me mad. Just again, don't make decisions out of emotion. You know, for...

I always tell everyone, like, Amazon was is is great and bad at the same time. Like, they actually obliterated the gatekeepers. Right? We get to publish whatever we want, whenever we want. We get to control it.

We have way more say. No one can tell us that we can't write and publish a book, and that's amazing. But then we are kind of beholden to whatever they decide to do. And they're not like us as authors are not like their top priority. They have lots of different priorities.

Right? So there's like a con there. It's also a con that Kobo and Barnes and Noble are... They're just not really that competitive. So there's that.

I was wide for years, tried to do all their promotions, anything that they would give me, and it's rough. It's pretty rough out there. So it's... If you feel like you should be leaving Kindle, you can always try it. Like, it's fine.

It... Like, honestly, if you kinda keep your books, your ebooks at least in the same sort of place, if you're publishing them through Draft2Digital or, you know, publishing them, you know, individually, just know that if you put them back into Kindle plus, you know how to go and turn them all off. Experiment. Try to go wide. The all...

The only thing is, like, again, first quarter is not usually a great indication, not... You know, book sales tend to drop a bit. Not... Maybe not across the board, but, you know, it's... So it's like you might need to do it for a good six months to see if your books do well in Kobo and Barnes and Noble versus Amazon, you know?

So just just educate yourself on who's doing it, who's doing it well, how they're doing it well. Yeah. So don't try not to make decisions emotionally. Like, I understand that, but yeah, I'm again talking to myself, like, I'm trying to figure out audio books and where I should do them and how I should do them. And it's just like, it's hard to not make decisions out of my own emotions.

So that seems to be the big news. There's also, like, a social media, quote, blackout for Meta. I don't know. I don't pay attention to those anymore. If you wanna participate, go ahead and participate.

If you don't, I'd... Like, I honestly honestly don't know what to do other than social media. Sarah LaFontaine and I talk about this. And so her ideas and what she's doing with her friends, might be a a good one for you if you want to go, you know, lower your social media consumption. I'm just not anti social media.

Like, I I go up and down, but I do enjoy it. And I I just can see the benefits over the cons. So you have to make the choices for yourself, and I will end this beginning portion with that. You have to make the choices for yourself. I'm about to go out and do four different in person events from next weekend to December 12.

And those are always... I will always get somebody who will give me an opinion on something. The last big one was, oh, I hate it when you guys put... Write out the entire blurb on the back cover. I just want, like a little little quote or like a little tiny tagline.

That's all I want. And there are some authors who are doing that, and I actually have some printed that have that in my historical romance just to play... Have, like, two different variations, I guess. But the truth is I cannot change my entire book strategy because one person told me to do that or ask for it. So just take everything, you know, like, that's a great suggestion.

Thank you for letting me know. Like, I will take that into consideration. If you have the money to like... Because you have to pre order these books, right? Like you have to have these in print here and you have to be able to take them out.

And so that all takes investment. Right? So just just take that in the suggestions in, but remember that you are the one that should be making the final decision and that you should make the decision with purpose. Okay. So I know I haven't talked about this, like making the decision purposefully in your business for a while, but I say this about your book as well.

Like the decisions that you make in your story, you should be making purposefully, like you alone and understanding why you're making those decisions so that when a reviewer comes at you, you can be like, yeah, that's a great thought, but I made this decision on purpose for this story. Same with your business. Make the decision on purpose, whether... And it might be restricted by budget or time or whatever it is, your, your personal beliefs, your worldview, just know why you're making that decision and have like be confident in it and then go forward from there. So again, be on the lookout for all the things that you've always wanted, writing wise and story wise and course wise on, Black Friday because a lot of coaches, sell their stuff, you know, whoever you're following.

But but also know that you just gotta write your story. Right? You just gotta write your story. So be sure to be taking that time for yourself in this busy season to get some words down. It's our business, but it's also like our mental health care.

You know, I told somebody the other day, like, if I didn't have a place to take these, like, I can live in a sub reality sometimes with my stories. Like, they feel so real to me if I didn't get them out. I think I might be one of those crazy people. Like, maybe some of the women in the seventeen, eighteen hundreds that were crazy, like, actually were living this parallel story out in their head and they should have been writers. That's my theory now.

So I like to make things up, as you can tell. This is why I'm a fiction writer. All right. So be sure to like subscribe, give a review to the podcast. It's really helpful.

Be sure to go check out Sarah LaFontaine. Her links are in the show notes below, and be sure to sign up for my writer's newsletter and my reader's newsletter. If you like reading, you can find out so much about me and I do different topics on the newsletter, on writing, and you'll find out where I'm teaching next year, all the good things. And the writing newsletter, you will be the first to be, allowed into the ARC. But we'll be talking about ARCs next year, 2027, because I have some thoughts on them that I am developing.

So be sure to do that. Check out the show notes below. Definitely check out Sarah LaFontaine and be sure to finish this interview, you know, finish listening to it and and let her know that you're now following her. She's over on Substack. So all those links are in the show notes below.

If you wanna support the show, you can through Substack. I'm actually gonna be working this week to getting more stories out there and actually hitting publish on a couple articles that I've been thinking about. And I was a little too, like, scared, I guess, to hit publish on, but I'm going to anyway. So if you want to just support the podcast monetarily, you can do that. There's a couple of you.

Thank you so much for doing that. It's very helpful. It helps pay for the back end of this. I have to pay to, you know, get it uploaded and get, you know, save things and all that and booking. So if you wanna be on the show, please be sure to have had three books written at least.

This is a show on the writing life, our... Like how we're getting our books out there. It's... And we talk about the craft, right? But we're not talking about specific books.

We're talking about what it is to be a writer, and how we can continue to be better at that. So if you want to be on the show, just pitch me. Like you can go to my website and just fill out the contact form or you can DM me. But yeah, the biggest requirement is you have to have three books written or you have developed something that is important for writers. So that is also something that you can pitch me.

You don't have to be a writer for... To have developed something for writers. So without further ado, let's get into the interview with Sarah LaFontaine. Okay. Welcome back, everyone, to Pencils and Lipstick.

Today, I'm talking with a fellow book coach and author, Sarah Lafontaine. Nice to have you here, Sarah.

Yeah. Thanks for bringing me on.

It's been been a few months that we've tried, but our schedules are just crazy. So I'm so glad that we finally get to talk. We are in kind of a a coaching cohort, so that's how we've met. But, in case that no one knows who you are, do you wanna introduce yourself to everyone?

Sure. Hi, everyone. I'm Sarah, and I'm... I am a book coach, but I also write books. I'm an indie author of...

Published nine. I've written the, Whispering Pines Island collection. I like to call it a collection rather than a series because

it's all...

It's it's stand alones, so I don't want people to feel obligated to start with book one and

Yeah.

Through to pop in anywhere. Yeah. But that's romantic women's fiction that takes place on a fictional island in Lake Superior.

Okay.

And then I've written the Corbett Calamity series. I've got two books out in that, and I'm working on the third. And that, I like to call pop star thrillers.

Oh, I like that name.

Yeah. Yeah. My my main character, her curled stepbrother is a pop star. I think nineties boy band era, but now he's all grown up. Oh, awesome.

And people are trying to kill him. And, of course, you know, as his younger sister, she does not want that to happen, so she has to get involved. And there's a prequel novella to that too. It's a romance novella set in 1996 where their parents met at a boy band concert, of course.

How did you come up with that idea with the boy band? Did you... Were you a boy band fan?

I was not, but I

So you... You're the one that wants to kill them. Right.

Well, I worked at, I worked at a Spencer Gifts in high school and then during summer breaks in college. And that was the time when all, like, the NSYNC posters were there and the Backstreet Boys posters. And my coworker Kim and I would just sit there and make fun of them all the time. So I have no idea, like, why it pops into my head so many years later to write a book involving a boy band star.

That's so fun. I was actually years ago... Because I have three girls. So one of them was, like, preteen, and I went into some preteen store. I can't remember what it was.

And they were playing Backstreet Boys. And I was like, okay. As a mom of a preteen girl, this is actually kinda gross. Just like, this is so weird as a, you know, as a teen or preteen. My sister-in-law was so into them.

Oh my gosh. My my sister was into Spice Girls, so she, like, rejected the boys and was all about the girls. No. She was for Hanson Hanson Boys. Hanson.

I think... Yeah. The Hanson...

Brothers?

Yeah.

Yeah. She's much younger than me, so that was... Yeah. I think you and I would have been friends in high school. I just couldn't handle the boy bands, but that that is a hilarious way to think about a thriller.

I don't think I've ever heard that one before. We're going to kill off the boy band. So are they... Are the... Is the series set today, and he's just older?

Yeah. The series is... Yeah. Well, actually, timing wise, it's, like, early two thousand tens because I didn't want him too old.

Yeah. True. True. True. True.

Although, I'm thinking as the world gets, like, way more technologically advanced, I really wanna go back to, like, early two thousands nine... Nineties to write because there's really no excuse anymore for all those, like, miscommunications and... You know? It's not fun.

Right. I read a book. I don't wanna say what it was, but I read I read a book where the whole thing could have been resolved with a twenty second Google search, like all the drama, all everything, all of the secrets. And I was like, you know, this could have been a really good book if it was set in 1980.

Yes.

But it's modern, and it takes five seconds, twenty seconds maybe at the most. Everything... All... No trauma, no drama. The...

They would have worked everything out. It was

That's a bit silly. Because it even gets to the point, like, my kids will be like, oh, yeah? You think so? And they'll pick up the phone. Like, it's automatic.

You know? So it doesn't... It's not even believable that they wouldn't think of it. You know? Like...

So... Yeah. But it's getting hard. It's getting hard to, like, I don't know, the the baby tropes, like, accidental. Like, that's probably not a thing.

You know? Like, it was... Just set it in the eighties and nineties, and then you can play a lot with different things. And... Yeah.

I don't know. It's probably also because I've started to watch Netflix has all the nineties rom coms. So, you know, you're going back to, like, when... If you missed the phone call, he really did stand you up. You know?

Right. Yeah. You see him out with someone, and you're like, oh, who is that? Oh, let me check his Instagram. Oh, he's with his sister.

She's in

town. So true. It's not... It's boring. It's boring.

I don't know. We're gonna have to figure... Or maybe I'm just too old. I need to go talk to young people. Why why do you break up these days?

Like, probably, like, Instagram stalking more like anything. What did you start writing? Was it thrillers, or was it, women?

By romantic women's fiction.

Okay. What do you what do you mean by romantic women's fiction?

So so my my debut novel was that last summer.

Okay.

And it's set on on this island in Lake Superior, small town romance. But as as I was writing it, I was like, this is a romance. I think this is a romance. But I sent it off to a developmental editor, and she was like, you know, maybe you shouldn't consider this a romance. This is really more women's fiction.

And I was like, oh, okay. Let me look into that because I wasn't really familiar with women's fiction as a genre. And I looked into it. I was like, oh, those are books I read too. I just didn't know it was called Right.

Special. Yes. And so the difference between romantic women's fiction and romance... Like, for for romance novel, you you know this. You have to...

There's two main elements. You've got romance has to be the central the central plot line, and you have to have the happily ever after happily for now ending. With romantic women's fiction, there's more focus on really the the growth of the characters and not as much on the romance. There's still a romance going on, but it's not it's not, will they get together? Will they not get together?

Let's focus on development of romance so much as let's focus on how these characters are growing and then growing into romance. Or at least that's how that's how I see it.

I think that's a good distinction. My my issue comes with how do readers differentiate. But, I mean, if they knew that, I think that they would see that clearly, and then they'd be like, oh, that's actually what I like to read it. That's not what I like to read. Because romance is starting to get a little too heavy.

You know? Like, everything is a romance. It's like, everything kind of is a love story. You know? But, like, I would consider Ellen Hillenbrand, like, the kind of the top at the moment romantic women's fiction.

I don't know. But, see, I would almost think Carly Fortune is a romantic women's fiction too, but she gets categorized as romance.

Yeah. Well, I just read... What was her... What's her book with the real pretty, like, purple cover that...

Yeah. The new one that came out or the Yeah. Yeah. Something summer something. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I would categorize I would categorize that as romantic women's fiction.

Yeah. I would too. Yeah. It's like the trads get to do whatever they want, and then we have to figure out the slot that we fit that we fit into. And then they're just like, whatever.

And then they'll find another thing. But, yeah, I don't know. I think it's for most readers, yeah, if you can sort of compare it, like romantic, but maybe a little bit deeper than a lot of the romance Mhmm. Coming out. I don't know.

You and I probably grow up grew up on the romance. That was... That... That's what it was. That's why they were 600 pages long.

You know? They... You had, like, all this growth, and there was, like, three years long of them, like, actually figuring out that they loved each other. And now there's... You know, it's just that short thing.

Mhmm. I don't know. I have beef with the romance genre at the moment as you can tell. Because, like, all the authors are doing stuff and all the readers are like, I don't know. I just want a good book.

Give me the good book. So then why did you start reading... Writing thrillers? Was it just a break? Or

Yeah. Well, I read a lot of thrillers. I love thrillers. But it was also... I I don't know how I I came up with the story.

It was actually... No. I do know how I came up with some of it. I was writing a book in my Whispering Pines Island series, and I wanted to bring in this celebrity whose friend was killed in a helicopter accident. And it did not work, and I threw that book out.

Okay.

But I really liked the whole helicopter crash scene. And I liked the character I was making who evolved into the older brother in my book.

Older brother.

But he's not the same person as what I was writing there. But I really like that scene that stuck in my head. And then I... When... I used to bike my kids to school on a on a cargo bike, and I would get a lot of thinking done on that bike ride.

Yes.

And one day, I'm biking along, and just the scene pops into my head of these two adults meeting at a boy band concert, that are, you know, there with their children. One's there with her daughter, and one is there with her her... His son who's in the band. And the scene stuck with me, so I wrote it down. And then I was like, oh, this boy could grow up and then have his friend die in a helicopter crash.

And so

It all worked out. Our brains are weird as writers.

Right? Like, I have no idea where any of this came from. It just popped into my head.

I'm It's like... That's what people don't understand of, like, some characters won't let you go or you're... They're just like, I'm still here. Come write a story about me. But I like what you did because I think a lot of writers have that scene or that character that's not working in something else.

And if they would just leave it for a second, it might become might become a different book, a whole different genre.

Yeah. Like, I I keep a trash file of things I deleted from other Yeah. Books, and I can pull from that whenever I want. And I think if if everyone keeps a trash file, I mean, sometimes you find gold in the trash.

Yeah. Absolutely. And I I love how you said that he wasn't the same character. That's so true. Like like, the...

I told one of my clients where I was like, you know, probably 10% of what you think will be in the story right now will end up in the story. And she was horrified. I was like, no. I I... I'm gonna stand by that.

I'm good at... Maybe 15.

I don't know. Well, it depends on how much outlining you do.

That's... Do you outline? No. I mean, I try. Yeah.

Well, that that might be my problem is that I don't outline. I try to write down I try to write down, like... Because, you know, life, and you got all the other things to do. So I try to write down the ideas I have. Like, oh, I think this should happen, and I think that should happen.

Oh, I like this scene. But even that doesn't always happen. You know? I'm trying to think of, like, yeah. No.

It doesn't always happen. You know? But but you're getting your brain working, and you'd at least... I at least write it down so I don't feel like I lost it. But if you don't outline, what what do you do?

Well, okay. I'm trying to out. I really am.

You are.

I work on a romance series. I'm actually outlining it.

Do you like it, or is it, like, resistance?

I I kinda do like it. Okay. But I'm following a very specific outline format. Okay. For my other books, you know...

Okay. I will admit this. I'm... I've been working on the third book in my corporate calamity series for a couple years. I've I've written probably 200,000 words and thrown out most of them, and I'm redoing it.

If I had outlined, this book would've been out, you know, in 2023.

You think so?

I think so.

Okay.

Because I Why

why do you think so?

I find that I I keep putting ideas down and I'm writing it, and then I'm like, oh, this scene doesn't work. I should do something different instead. And then I do something completely different, and I'm like, oh, I need to bring in a new character. Oh, I need to do this. And it's just...

I end up with, like, a, like, 200,000 words, most of which I can't use.

So do you think if you outline, though, that you would stick to the outline?

I think I would stick to it enough.

Okay. Yeah. So you'd be able to resist the new ideas?

Yeah. Because I can... I I... Well, I like to think that I would take those new ideas and be like, oh, yeah. Those will be in another book.

Okay. Yeah. Maybe those ideas come when we feel stuck. Mhmm. And one of the problems with the, what is Jen...

Joanna Penn call us? Because because she doesn't like the word pantsers. I can't remember now. Discovery writers. I think that's what she calls us.

Oh, I call it, I have five minutes to write right now. Let's sit down and write. And I recognize that that's... It really isn't the best way to do it, especially if you've been on social media that day. Like, that already kills, like, half of my brain cells.

I just... I should just delete it completely. You have, like, kid stuff or, like, husband stuff or partner stuff, and you're just like, okay. But I have to write. I have to get something down.

And then, yeah, I've thrown out two manuscripts for sure and just been like, this isn't working. I just keep writing words, like, and they're not going anywhere. They're going the wrong place, and I just toss it. Yeah. I don't know.

Outlining sometimes, though, feels like like you already did the work, and now you gotta go back because it's not actually done. But a friend of mine figured out outlining for thrillers, and she loves it. And it's like a very bare minimum... She calls it a template, a very bare minimum template. And she'll just write in, like, what...

I don't... I guess it's parts, maybe. I don't know if it goes by chapters, however it is. And then she sits down. She knows exactly what she's writing that day.

That that does sound nice.

Yeah. Well, I like, if you're familiar with Jamie Gold, she has these fantastic, templates on her website for outlining that is is isn't like an Excel spreadsheet and you, you know, you need your inciting incident at this point or whatever. So you you put in at the top how... What your intended word count is, and it will tell you, you know, inciting incident needs to be between these pages and in this word count. And, you know, here's the end of your second...

You know, all all the different steps you need in your book. It'll tell you approximately where those should hit. Interesting. I kinda like that to just make sure that that my beats are in the right place. Yeah.

That I'm not dragging things out too long.

Yes. That can be especially true in women's fiction. We sure do like to, like, wax poetically. And it's usually not the right reader. Like, we need the men to read it, so we're like, read this book so that you can be better.

Do you... Are are you outlining then a thriller book? Are you outlining a romance series, but are you gonna go back and outline this new thriller?

No. I'm going to finish it from all this collected crap that I have. I'm recycling through it. I I just jigsaw puzzling it together, and then I'm gonna do, like, a... You know, obviously, rewrite it and connect everything.

Yeah. But it's it's the third one or it's like a stand alone? Like, is it It's

the third in the series.

Okay. But it's not a stand alone? I I think it's a thriller. Okay. Yeah.

Thrillers are, like, connected. Right?

They can be. It's a... You know, so it depends. Like, the, you see a lot where... I'm thinking of, Claire McIntosh, the DC Morgan series.

Mhmm.

I I guess it might be more mystery than thriller. But the the main character is a detective, and she's investigating one crime in the first book and then the second and third. But there's also this continuity of, like, her relationship with her with her younger sibling or her relationship with her mom, her relationship with this guy she's kinda seeing, that progresses throughout the series. So so my thriller series, like, each one is self contained. Like, there's a bad guy.

You know? Things go wrong. It gets resolved. The next book, there's a different bad guy. Things go wrong.

It gets resolved. But it's the same characters, and you see, like, the characters interacting and growing and changing throughout the series.

Do you find, like, that might be the hard part, like, remembering what they did in the book before that? Like, how do you remember that, or does it not matter for your series?

I mean, it matters a little bit because I'm bringing in the same characters, and there's... For for the corporate calamity series, there's this underlying thing where one of the men from the boy band died in a helicopter crash.

Right.

And that is a thread throughout all of the books because, you know, they miss him and, you know, he was murdered. Yeah. So, like, that that... You know, how they react to his death keeps coming up.

Okay. Yeah. That makes sense. Was this sister an investigative journalist already, or does she

have to become No. She... She's not an investigate. She is, she works as her brother's assistant.

Oh, so she's just

like She's doing these investigations on her own and keeps getting yelled at by an FBI agent and her brother's head of of security that she needs to stop doing this. And

But without her, they wouldn't be able to do it. So Exactly. Okay. Yeah.

I will tell you in my book matchmaker mayhem, nobody believed her that there was something wrong, and then we end up in a hostage situation in a heart shaped bathtub.

They should have listened. Yeah. I mean, heart shaped bathtubs are few and far between. We need to recap how that happened. Like, talking about a callback to the eighties.

Like, you just need a heart shaped bed. I was like, for some reason, an image of a movie is coming up, like, with a heart shape. Was that who's that? Austin Powers? Was that...

Did it have a heart shaped bed? I can't remember. Anyway, that's very, like, eighties, nineties kind of satire ish movies. That's hilarious. We did grow up in the best times.

I'm just... I tell my kids that all the time. But you also... So as an indie author, did you ever go trad? Did you ever wanna go trad?

No. When I first started writing, I I was looking into it. It was a career shift for me getting into writing, And I was like, okay. Well, how do I even do this? And I was reading about trad publishing.

But this was... I started looking at this in 2016, and indie publishing was on the rise.

And I

was like, oh, if I indie publish, I can control all the... All these factors myself. I can do this, and I can have a book out. If I want to go trad publishing, I've gotta spend, like, a year or two querying. Well, first, I have to, like, write my manuscript and get it edited and then spend a year or two querying and hope someone likes it and then be out on submission.

And then if a publishing company takes it, then it's another year or two. So we're looking at a six year project. I mean

Yeah. Literally. And if the world politics change and all of a sudden they don't want... Or, like, the internal traditional politics change, they don't want your book anymore. Like, it can get real messy.

Or your agent quits. Yeah. Like, wait a minute. You're supposed to represent me for all this. Some people have a really easy way, like, really, like, easy journey into traditionally publishing, but most people don't.

I mean, I actually tried. I don't know that I actually tried tried. Like, you're really supposed to try because I did have a baby. You know? I was, like, sending out, like, queries, and I didn't...

You know, whatever. There's a lot more information these days, but I do think it's actually harder these days, weirdly enough, because, like... I don't know. That's my opinion. Not that I haven't seen it off of anything.

I think there's so many more people wanting to publish now than there used to be because they see... You know, there's something like 14,000,000 books on Amazon. So you see that and you see all these people who are like, oh, yeah. I'm writing a book. I'm writing a book.

So you think, oh, I can do that. But, obviously, I'm better than all of them. Of course, I'm gonna get tried published.

Of course. Yes. Well... And it's like... I mean, these days, after...

Did you ever... Did you watch any of the trial that they had... Or, like, I don't know. It... I don't know if that was a trial.

It was like a senate hearing because they wanted to eat the other... Like, it was 5 TRAD, and

then it was I didn't watch any of it. But, yeah, when they were trying to merge some of the publishers.

And they wanted to become, like, three. So I was watching Brandon Sanderson talk about it. So that's how you do things these days. Days. Right?

You don't actually watch the actual appearance. You listen to someone else talk about it. But he... Because he was traditionally published in the nineties. So, like, that's already, you know, like, pretty good.

You're you're there. You got up there. And he was talking about how even back then, they would pull out an entire, New York Times spread for his books, and he would tell them that is not my audience. Like, you are... Like, the people who read the New York Times, very few of them are going to pick up a Brandon Sanderson book, and he's not wrong.

Like, everyone... I didn't know Brandon Sanderson until my brother who's, like, a helicopter pilot in the army is like, Brandon Sanderson is the best because they had nothing better to do in the desert than, like, read an 800 page book. You know? And it just... I think he writes for men, basically.

But he would... Like, that's why he left because they couldn't quite figure it figure it out. And they said it doesn't actually matter. It's... We're, like, staking our claim because if we didn't do it, our reputation would be on the line of, like, as the...

Like, in between the houses. I was like, that's insane. That's really crazy. And now, like, the more that... If you become trad, you might get an advance, but you gotta earn that out.

And you still have to do all your marketing. So, really, I don't understand the... I mean, I guess you have the small chance of becoming the next, you know, insert name here. Who's big... Who's become big all of a sudden?

Like, you did walk into Barnes and Noble.

Yeah. I was gonna say Freda McFadden, but she started out indie. Right?

And she's... Isn't she a brain surgeon? Yeah. Isn't that crazy? Oh my gosh.

It actually makes me think, like, I really should get going. How does she how does she figure all that out? You know? But, yeah, I don't know if she started indie. I mean, like, Colleen Hoover started indie, and then they...

You know, she's definitely gone further. I think Sarah j Maas only went TRAD, and BE Schwab has only been TRAD. Is that true? Like, there are some people who are there.

Yeah. Like, Well, Emily Henry. I think she's only been Trad. Right?

I think she's only been Trad. K. F. Kuang has only been Trad. So, you know, like, they pretty much get their books done and out there, and they have a following, and they get the marketing behind them.

But but there's so many books written. But... So on the other... Like, I'm like you. If you're going to have to do the marketing anyway, which is the part that sucks the most, That's the part I think sucks the most.

Do you like... Do you enjoy marketing?

Not really. Okay.

Yeah. It's okay. See, we're kindred spirits. This is this is not this is not something I thought about. I should have thought about more.

So I I published my first one in 2017, and I was just like, it's amazing. And then I was like, it's not selling. Like, this is terrible. It's not selling at all. I think some people were better at the business part than me, but, yeah, marketing is not at all, I think.

Yeah. Well, marketing is tough because it always changes, and all the advice changes. And, you know, the places you should be marketing changes. You know, when I first started, people were, like, market on Facebook, and I did. I actually did really well for a while.

And then it just sort of tapered off, and I haven't been able to get get back up to that level. Right. And I don't... My books didn't change. I didn't change, like, but somehow the algorithm did.

Yes. Yeah. I think it's all ads now. Like, it was it was a bit easier when it wasn't all about the money. I think there are more things now for us to spend money on Mhmm.

That semi promise.

Yeah.. Well, yeah, everyone's teaching classes now. Like, everyone's teaching classes on marketing now or, you know, all it takes is someone to sell one book successfully, and then they're like, hey. I'm an expert. Pay me a lot of money for my class.

Yes. That's... I have noticed that. And I I am not one to, like, say names on certain things, but it's not that they maybe don't know what they're talking about, but very few of them actually show the proof. Mhmm.

Like, you can say whatever you want on it... Social media. You can tell me you you sold 50,000 books. I don't... But on what platform and show me actually, like, what you did.

Mhmm. There is one gentleman... Do I even... I can't even remember his name, but he is English. And I actually watched him sell on TikTok.

And, like, that was what he did. He showed up, and he talked about his books, and he ended up doing quite well. But I think even TikTok changed. You know, that... Like, didn't they sell it or somebody bought it or something?

And Yeah. Now it's not the same anymore. So I'm not even sure he knows what he's talking about anymore in the sense of that's not how it was. It... It's no longer how it was.

Yeah. It all changes so fast. And I think, you also have to always ask because I I see people talking all the time like, oh my gosh. My book is selling so well. I'm really excited.

Oh, I'm doing great. But then if you ask them, they're they're like, yeah. A stranger bought my book. I'm so excited. Well, okay.

So we have different definitions of doing great to them.

I sold one. This is how good this is. Yeah. Oh, well, I did hear somebody on a pocket... I don't know, something, where he was like, I am a very successful artist.

I just moved the definition of successful to me when I wanted to. So I was like, fair enough. You know? I mean, whatever. But that that is the thing.

What is really interesting to me is when you... When I have the time to put together, like, a marketing strategy, how quickly your book can move in the Amazon rankings, which means most of them aren't selling at all. You know? Like, that's what's kind of scary and frustrating.

Well, I'll I'll admit that when I see people talk about how great their book is doing, I'll go look at their Amazon ratings. And if it's, you know, a much higher numb... If it's a much larger number than mine, I'm like, oh, then you're not doing that great because I know I'm not.

Right. Because it's very, very difficult. I mean, if you see... I mean, I I think you just have to be really real in this day and age. Like, even the people who have who have made it...

Who made it, like, made it in in any respect of what we would call success. Like, if you were making money every month and a lot of them kinda quit their jobs before COVID, like, every... Everything changed.

Yeah.

It... And there's just no... If you're starting now, you just can't really trust to listen to what they're saying. It's it's no longer valid. Yeah.

And if if you've got someone who already hit big, like, before COVID, and now they've got, you know, a 100,000 followers, and they're like, oh, yeah. It's really easy to market. I just, you know, post on my socials, and everybody buys my book. Well, yeah, because you have a 100,000 fans already, which is awesome, and I love that for them, but it doesn't work for everybody.

Yes. And that's... That is a difference. It's not just followers. It's fans.

Mhmm. Like, you you did well. And I mean, kudos to them for even figuring it out before COVID because I didn't. You know? Like, figuring out these are the people who wanna read my books, and now I kept going and kept doing that.

So anybody listening listening starting out, they're probably all just, like, depressed. But, didn't you start a a substack with writers? What... But the... Was it marketing, or was it just sort of trying to find the same readers?

Trying to find readers. Okay. Yeah. It's called Iris and Ivy Reads, and it's myself and six other authors. And we all write contemporary women's fiction.

And so we we put it together. It's actually targeted towards readers. We we write a post about reading. Okay. And then in each one, we we make recommendations based on a theme so that we're Right.

You know? And sometimes, you know, we're recommending each other's books or authors we know, and sometimes they're, you know, bigger name authors. But we're really just trying to spread, you know, well, a love of reading, obviously. Right. But just...

We all love reading ourselves, and we wanna reach readers who like the same books we like.

Yeah. Yeah. I really like that idea because I think more than anything, you need collaboration. Like, it's so hard if... Because the idea is great.

Like, okay. I'm gonna start a Substack, and I'm gonna recommend books. And so quickly, you're gonna be running out of steam. It's it's almost impossible to... I don't know.

Some people do read a lot of books. Although, things have come out where people aren't actually reading the books. They're just, like, skimming the front and back. But if you can figure out people who write along the same, like, having the same readership ish. Right?

Mhmm. And so you've had this for... Has it been a year already?

We started in January.

Okay. Oh, it's not... Okay. How's it how is it going? You guys have been able to keep it up.

So Yeah.

I think it's going well. It it was... It's easy to keep it up because we started at the beginning of the year, and we just mapped it on a spreadsheet. And every... We all signed up for when we would write the main post, and then we listed all the different, the different recommendation themes.

And we... I created a Google form for that. So you just go in, and you can sit down in the afternoon and fill out the next six months' worth of recommendations.

Okay. Yeah. That'd be nice.

Yeah. So it's it's really it's really easy to put together. I'm the one that links the recommendations, and it takes me, like, you know, twenty minutes every two weeks. And Okay. Someone else uploads the post, and I I don't know how long it takes her, probably five minutes.

And then, of course, you know, we're each writing three or four posts a year.

Yeah. That's not bad at all.

Yeah. And then two two of the women record the post for us. So I don't I don't even have to do, like, the podcast recording part of the Substack. And that's just... You know, it's a five minute it's a five minute read, so they're not very long.

Oh, so they're reading what

you wrote. Reading the post. Uh-huh.

That's a good idea. How'd you come up with that idea?

Actually, at the women's fiction writers association retreat in Albuquerque, the speaker was... Oh my god. I've just blanked on her name. Oh my god. I've I've I've blanked on her name, but she was this...

She's this... She writes historical historical fiction. I can picture her. Anyway, her Substack, she was taught... She did a whole presentation on Substack, and she talked about recording her posts.

And it was just like, oh, you can do that. I didn't know you could do that. Yeah.

I wouldn't have even thought of it.

Yeah. And we were, one of my coauthors from this group was there with me at the retreat, and we were and we were, like, at that Substack thing ready to take notes because we had already been planning this out.

Yeah.

And so we're just like, oh oh, we can... We definitely need to incorporate that into our substack.

Yeah. That's genius, actually. Yeah. So if you don't have time to read, but you wanna listen to what you're saying Yeah. Interesting.

And so for... To get the the subscribers, has it been quite easy? Have you just... Is it organic?

We've been... Yeah. Some of it organic. We did a big giveaway that brought in that brought in some. And I have I have bookmarks with the Iris and Ivy Reads link and everything on it that I get...

That I've been giving out at book events. Yeah. And, you know, we... Everyone shares it in their own newsletters. And so, you know, it's it's been slow building up.

We'd like to attract more readers. A lot of the bill... You know, our our initial round of followers was all people we know.

Yeah. Well, that's how it goes. Yeah. But we're... Writers are readers too.

Yep. But that's what... I mean, I was talking to a fellow friend, Becky, and it's like you either have to you either have to pay to get things moving or you just have to be okay with organic because it's just so... And, like, kind of the slower pace because there's so much stuff out there. And so you just sort of have to be like, me.

You're gonna like my page better, you know, and just... It just... It is what it is. I like the, like, the... We're we're kinda going away from, like, the rapid release and the rapid, all this, like, constantly pushing out content and instead of making it a little, like, better content Mhmm.

And then slower growth, and then you know that it's actually genuine and authentic.

Well, it's it's tough for writers, I think, that commit to being like, oh, I'm gonna have a newsletter. I'm gonna send it out every week, and I'm gonna have, like, this big, long essay in it. And that's... I feel like that's too much. It's taking you away from your own writing.

And I think you lose readers who are like, I'm bored. Tell me when the next book is coming out.

Right. Yeah. Newsletters are tricky, aren't they? Because... So you have the Substack and you have a newsletter.

So I don't have a newsletter at the moment. I have one, and I just stopped because it was taking too much mental energy to have to be like, oh, I've... I'm not a chatty person. So I'm trying to write, like, this chatty newsletter when I really got nothing to say. I don't wanna be like, hey, guys.

Oh, so here's what my kids are up to, and, you know, I'm getting some writing done, but my book's not up for a while. Like, it's just... I don't think people care enough. It gets weird. Yeah.

It gets really weird. I think it's a lot easier to run a writing newsletter than it is a reading newsletter. But there are some people who do it so well. Yeah. Yeah.

But I'm kinda like, yeah. I'm like, I'm not gonna... Like, I'll say little things, but, gosh, it it gets really strange. And yet my... I guess, because I'm a nineties girl from the Midwest, I'm like, nobody cares.

It's kinda like when people were, like, posting what they ate for breakfast on Facebook in 2010, and you're, like, literally, no way. Yeah. Place doctor. But, I mean, I don't know. Yes.

It it is rough. So you have to have something. You have to somehow find your readers. But, I mean, I like this. I think this is a good idea for for people out there to think, well, could I gather a couple writers who might have the same readership, and can we put something together?

And that would... I mean, I think that would count as a newsletter. It's getting the work done to get some some readers. You said... You mentioned that you were doing in person events.

How many have you done?

Well, I'm doing, I've done a few. I'm part of the... Our local Tucson author alliance. Okay. And so we've done a couple of book events, and we had a table at the Tucson Festival of Books, which is the second largest book festival in the country.

Yeah. So you

got to put your books on there?

Mhmm. Yeah.

How did that go?

It was a lot of fun. You know, you set up a table and you got your books and your, like, table banner and everything else, and you get to talk to a lot of readers. Yeah. I will say one thing I found very interesting watching readers at the... At these different book events.

Like, you you think, oh, you know, with my book, I've gotta have the cover right and the blurb and the and, like, the fur... You know, the opening chapter and everything. People were just, like, looking at the cover, talking to the author, and buying the book. I didn't... I saw hardly anyone even flipping through books

to, like That's interesting.

Yeah. I thought it was... It's not how I shop. Yeah. So...

And, you know, I didn't mind. Like like, I had a woman come up to my table, and she looked over my book covers and everything, and she she's like, oh, yeah. I like romantic women's fiction. Which one of these do you like best? And I was like, oh, well, if this were a love story is my favorite in the series.

She's like, great. And she bought it. Like, she didn't even look at... She didn't even read the blurb on the back.

And I

was like, this is great. This is my kind of husband. Yeah. I meant to say I love

I like this cover and I like this title. It is interesting to talk. I had one woman come up to me and say, oh, I hate it that you guys put the blurb on the back. I don't wanna know anything about it other than just give me a tagline. And I was like, oh, I didn't know what to say to that.

But I was like, well, I mean, okay. But, like, everyone has a blurb. You know? No. Like, hardcovers don't.

So I guess they usually have

They do in the jacket, though. Hardcovers aren't Yeah.

I I guess you can avoid it easier. I

Well, you don't have to look at the back of the book. I mean, that's the last page.

Like Yeah. You usually have to, like, flip it over. Yeah. It's... It is interesting.

I think there's also, like, we can get really trapped in the online sphere of writers, you know, and then we forget to, like, go talk to the readers because it is harder to find them. Like, because they're they're a local dentist or teacher. You know? They're not, like, technically in our area of expertise. It it is difficult to know what they want, but I think they're far less particular than what our online sphere claims.

Yeah. Maybe I was hoping.

Yeah. Well, I see it, like, romance or you've probably seen this where people are like, oh, these are the tropes I read, and they only wanna read these specific, like, three tropes. And so all the ads are like, oh, mine includes small town romance, grumpy sunshine, enemies to lovers, blah blah. You know, listing, like, 10 different things.

Yeah. I don't even know what that means half the time. Like, I mean, that... You didn't really tell me much about your book when you say that. Yeah.

The trope thing was weird where it can't... It, like, popped up out of nowhere. And I was like, I have to learn what tropes are now. It just, like, gets to the point where you're like, oh, crap. And then you realize that you're writing them anyway because it's just a basic, you know, fundamental building block of storytelling, but it's like it's just another word for it.

I don't know. Sometimes I feel like you have to leave that writer online world and just take a deep breath and go to in person and be like, buy my book. Read it. Please leave a a review. That's all I care about.

Please leave a review. That's it. So do you think... Are you gonna keep doing in person?

Oh, yeah. Definitely. Well, I like I like getting out there. And I was like, we did one... My organization did one book event that was very poorly attended.

Mhmm.

But it was also super fun because that meant I just was, like, walking around talking to the other the other authors. So I got to know a bunch of other writers. We... And when there were when there were no customers wandering around, we're just chatting.

Yeah. Were these multigenere Yeah. Events? Yeah. I think that I'm gonna stick to multigenere.

I did branch out and do specifically romance this year, and that was... There are too many of us. I will tell you that. There's, like, that is that is one of the issues. And I did...

I talked to a a young woman who had her table near me who literally had stars in her eyes. Like, you could tell it was her first time, and she was like, I... And she came in with boxes and boxes of books. And I was like... And I had my one box.

And she sort of looked at me, and I was like, I've done a few of these before. And she was like, no. I mean, we're... I mean, there's, like, 500 people attending. And I said, yeah.

And there's a 120 authors. Like... So, I mean, I I do tend to be a little more... I call it realistic. Some people call it cynical.

But I was right. So I think one person said he was a thriller. Right? So in one of the Facebook groups I'm in, he said, I take, 10% of the tickets that they've sold and that many books. Because, otherwise, you you can literally bring as many books as you can possibly fit in your car, but is it worth it?

You know, is it worth having all those books printed or whatever? And I was like, yeah. That actually tends to be about what what I have sold. You know? Sometimes...

And some... Sometimes you might sell out, but that feels better than, you know, coming in with

Yeah. Well my boxes. If you sell out, you still have your cards, and you sit there and tell people, oh, I'm so sorry. My books were really popular today, but here's... Take my card.

I'm on... You know,

I'm It actually helps you. I feel like you're like, oh, dang. I missed her books. It must be really good. I need to go out there.

I also think the the multigenere don't get into all the crazy extras like the romance people. I don't know. Did you see a lot of crazy extras? Like, bracelets and and

Oh, yeah.

Did you? Okay. Yeah.

Not not at the... Not at our booth because we were only selling books. But, yeah, I saw, oh, I saw a fantasy author actually that had her books, but also bookmarks, but also keychains, but also

Yeah.

Printed things, but also, you know, just so much. I think

she's been influenced by the romance people. Yeah. I saw I saw candles, bracelets. I saw one. She did...

She was genius, though. She had the bracelets that went with the went with the book, like, the little charm, and you could buy the bracelet or you could buy the book. Or if you bought both, if you bought the bracelet, the book was only $5 more. And I was like Smart. Smart.

Right? It's like Well,

I like I like the idea of putting together, like, a gift basket type thing. Like, here's your here's your reading night. Here's your book and your candle and your Yeah. Packet of tea.

Yes. I have seen that too. I think it just... I I am not awesome at sales. I'm great at talking to people sales wise.

Like, you can get this and you can get that. So I did... Like, I do have different little bundles of the series that I have, but, yeah, some people are just really good. You gotta be right out there. Like, grab them, you know, and talk to them.

I mean, you cannot let it drain you of energy.

Yeah. I did I did a Barnes and Noble signing, and there were five of those authors scattered around the store. And I was right next to this... Actually, the nicest person I've ever met, who writes... She had, like, this meditations for women book, and she was selling like crazy, but she was also just super cheerful, super nice, super friendly, super encouraging.

I was just like, oh, she's so good at this. I love her. And she was like, oh, and you should check out Sarah's books. Like, she was sending people to me too. She was just, you know, one of those amazing people.

But just watching her, I was like, how do I how do I sell like you?

I know. I think that there there are people like that. They're just Mhmm. I I I mean, I told somebody I having somebody with you because it's so much... Like, if I had to sell your books, I'd be all over it.

Be like, it's Sarah LaFontaine to get... You know, you don't... Been selling my books. I'm like, I don't know if you like it. I don't know what it is.

You know? It just... You like, but there are some people that just... And this woman always shows up with her husband, and they are, like, tag teaming it. Right?

There was another woman who... She's just snarkly, and she's out there, and she's just, like, you know, always talking to people. But, yeah, I have to I have to learn how to do that. Yeah. I think I would need, like, three monsters before I'm like, oh..

Like, what's wrong with you? I don't know. Sign... I can't sign right now. Like, I will sign with me.

Gosh. So what... Let's talk a little bit about your book coaching because you do a couple things. You do editing, book coaching. What else do you do?

Is that it?

Yeah. Editing... Development, letting management evaluations, book coaching. And I've started branching into coaching indie authors. Okay.

Right now, I'm just doing consultations. So when people are stuck or if people are deciding if they wanna do the indie author path, they can come and sit down with me, and I can talk them through it and help them make their decisions, help with, oh, you're stuck on your KDP dashboard because you don't know what you're doing. Great. Screen share, and I'll, you know, walk you through.

Okay. Well, that's interesting. Not many people are doing that.

Yeah. I'm doing that, and I'm I'm building up an indie author, more of a... I don't wanna call it a course, but more of a a package deal where I help you all the way through. So that's gonna be up on my website soon.

Okay. Well... And that would be, like, they finished their manuscript, but now you're helping them with, like, all the little things that Yeah.

Like, here's your here's your timeline from now until you publish. And, like, let's... Okay. By this date, you need to have your ISBNs. By this date, you need to have your cover and do your cover reveal and just get it.

And... But all the back end stuff too. Because I see I see other people doing this with, like, the marketing part. Like, oh, let's schedule you. Here's where your launch is gonna be.

Here's when you send out your. But there also needs to be a, here's when you need to have it uploaded to IngramSpark by. Here's when you need to do this. Get all all the technical back end stuff going too.

Yeah. Because some of that is, like, literally the worst. Yes. Getting it formatted, I don't know why. It really shouldn't be that hard.

Because, like, every time you, like, get it formatted and and get it onto a PDF, you find that one type of... Let me go back in, and then you find it again. And this last time I got it printed, you you know, you get your author copy. And I was doing, you know, recording, like, an Instagram reel, and I opened it. And I literally saw the typo, and I was like, well, I guess I should be happy I found it.

But, you know, like, it's just... Oh, anyway. That... Yeah. That...

All that stuff is hard.

Yeah.

So you are going to... At the moment, if they... Do I see that here? You just It's

on my services page.

On your services page. Oh, yeah. Your indie publishing consultation. Yeah. I like that.

Is it gonna be, like, a cohort, or is it just gonna be individual?

I'd like to start... I'd... I'm gonna start with individuals, but then, yeah, I'd like to do a cohort.

Okay. Your your editing prices are pretty reasonable. I agree. People should hire me. They should.

I'm, like, looking at... Oh my goodness. That is quite reasonable. So what would you say is different between the manuscript evaluation and the full developmental edit?

Basically, the the depths of it... Like, the developmental edit, I do inline comments throughout the entire throughout the entire book rather than just, my manuscript evaluations, just the first 50 pages. And, really, the difference between them is when you need them in the process.

Okay.

Like, I like to do... I think of manuscript evaluations as you've written your book. You've gone through all these steps. You've probably had a developmental edit already. You think, okay.

I'm ready to publish, but I need professional eyes on it to make sure I'm not missing anything, to make sure things really do flow well. Whereas a developmental edit is, okay. I've done a couple drafts. I've self edited, but now I need to make sure my story makes sense, my character makes sense. Everyone, you know, is staying in character and the plot works and everything else.

There's no huge inconsistencies.

Okay. So it's just a little bit deeper. The, I heard somebody say that if... Eventually, you should write enough books that you don't need an editor. And I...

Okay. I'm not gonna say what I think. What do you think about this, David?

I think you can get to the point where you've written enough books you don't need a developmental edit. But you absolutely need an editor.

Yes. I think you can end up publishing a 800 page tome that nobody wants to say you shouldn't publish. Yes. Then nobody will read. Yeah.

I mean, it's always good to have somebody else's eyes on your book. And it's interesting. Like

Yeah. And it's good to have professional eyes on your book. Like, I take Good

point.

I take a reader centric approach. Like like, how would a reader interpret this? You know?

Would a

would a regular reader understand this? Does this match a reader's expectations? Because I think you can get eyes on your book where you're like, oh, best friend, please read my book. And she's like, yes. It's wonderful.

I love it. And she doesn't tell you that, you know, six pages of info dumps at the start is a bad idea.

Right. Because she just skipped it, and it was fine. Yeah. And then she forgot that she skipped it, and then she said it was a great book. I mean, there is this sort of argument going on of, like, how expensive it is to bring out a book.

It is very expensive. I I find it interesting that so many people are still going indie. Like, oh, I'm gonna write a book. Like you said, like, everyone's writing a book, and they're gonna go write a book. I think they get to the end of that book before they realize how much they now have to invest, book cover, editing, in order to get a good book.

Mhmm. Because I have... I like to support indie authors. I picked up a couple books over the summer, and I'm like, if you had only given this to a developmental editor, it could have been so much better. Mhmm.

Yeah. Even good.

Yeah. I read an indie book recently where I was like, oh my gosh. So much potential here. I I would've fixed this. I would've fixed this.

I would've told you to fix this.

Yes. And there's nothing like... It's not really judgment because we all need the fixes. You all... We always need those eyes on there, but you're so close to the story that you can't see

it. Mhmm.

Or it could have been, like, so... It could have been a great book. You know? Some of them I could hardly even finish. Although I have to say, I read a trad book that I was like, that's crazy that they published this book.

This is this is not good. I don't know. Anything anything can happen in that world. So do you pretty much take anyone, or do you just work with women's fiction, or do you work with thriller too? Or or

Yeah. I focus on women's fiction, thrillers. I do some romance. I don't work with things like sci fi and fantasy because I just don't know those genres.

Yeah.

So I I I I don't feel like I could honestly help someone with one of those.

Okay. Yeah. I mean, that's fair enough. And with your, ongoing coaching, like, is that month to month, or do people sign up for, like, I don't wanna write them... My book this year, and you get them through.

Yeah. Yeah. I'd probably do a package deal where it's six sessions. Okay. And you've gotta take them within six months, but you can do them faster.

I have one client that was giving me her chapters, like, every week, which is super fast.

Yeah.

I was really, really into it. So she sped through the packages faster. But then other times people... You know, because life gets in the way or, you know, something happens. So I don't I don't say, oh, you have to have it this month and this month and this month, and you'll hear your deadlines.

I'm really open about it because I understand life gets in the way, and maybe you wanna go on vacation and not think about writing or, you know, your kid gets sick or whatever comes up. So I just do, like, here's your here's your package of, like, six, and you submit these pages. You know, whenever you submit the pages to me, you know, I I have... I use Google Drive and have them upload it. And then they just send me an email and say, I've uploaded it.

I'm like, great. Here's a Zoom link to schedule your appointment.

Okay. And then at the end of that, would... Do they have the manuscript done usually, or are they just sort of, like, on their... On a good path?

It depends. They can, they can purchase another package because it's just, 5,000 words per thing. So that's

Like, six months past. Yeah. Somebody's really committed. Yeah.

And, I mean, that's only 30,000 words. So,

You never know. I I saw this one guy who's just cranking it out 30,000 word novellas, which I couldn't I just couldn't do. But he's, hey, he's making making a career out of it. Oh, I had a question for you, and I'm not sure that I can remember it now. It was about coaching, but...

Okay. Well, whatever. So when they sign sign up with you, like, do they... Do you talk to them first and then they

Oh, yeah.

Send you the manuscript? Or

Yeah. I've got... On my website, I've got a contact me form, and I actually have them fill out a form about themselves first. Okay. Because, honestly, we doubt people who aren't serious about coaching.

You know, if it's tough if it's tough to answer questions about your book, you might not be ready for this part of the process.

Yes.

Yeah. And then and then we do a discovery call and Okay. You know, see if we get along.

Yes. This is very important. Is it mostly new writers, or is it sometimes amazing?

So far in my coaching, I mostly work with newer writers.

Mhmm.

But I'm open to... Obviously, I'm open to much more experienced writers.

I know. It's like, it... I I at least didn't know about coaching back when I was like, oh, I gotta get this thing done. But I really think... Like anything, it's like having a, professional trainer or whatever.

Like, it helps you stay on track. Yeah. And then more than anything, I have found my clients just get, like, talking through what they have already written or they're thinking about writing. It really solidifies it, and then it makes it that much easier to write it. You know?

Because if it's just, like, in your head... But

Yeah. And having having a coach is great because the coach has read your other stuff and and knows your thought process all along. So if we're five sessions in and you're like, oh, I've been thinking about this. I'm like, oh, right. That character from, you know, five sessions that you wanted to bring in and hadn't yet.

You know, the coach remembers that stuff. The random writer you met at a critique group at the library doesn't know doesn't know the whole backstory of your characters.

Yes. This is true. And I would say even because you have so much more experience than that than just that person in the critique group that you're able to move away your personal biases and be like, listen. Because I don't know if you've had... Like, a client will come in.

They'll be like, so and so says I should change all of this. You know? And you're like,

okay. Yeah. I was I was working with someone once who kept saying, oh, well, my critique group said this. My critique group said this. And I was like, you're writing women's fiction.

That old man in your critique group is writing a memoir of his, you know, trip at the seventies, doesn't read women's fiction. He's giving you bad advice.

Yes. Yes. Because advice, like, professional advice, like you said, versus an opinion on what they like reading, it's completely different. So, yes, please take writing critique groups with a grain of salt. Yeah.

It's good to have friends. You know? But but it's good to understand this before you change everything for a 70 year old man's opinion.

Right.

Like, that he's not gonna do it. It's just like that woman who doesn't wanna read the blurbs. Okay. Well, I'm not going to change industry standards for you. Get the Kindle version, I guess.

I don't know. You won't see it. Well, we are... I will have your links to your Substack and to your website below. Are you on anything else, any social media or anything where people can find you?

I'm on Instagram.

Instagram. Yes.

Yes. I have I have I have an author page, and I have a new book coach page on on Instagram. Oh, nice. Separated them out recently.

Okay. Alright. How's that going? Just keeping up with two

I'm bad at social media anyway, so it's, you know, going the way it goes for people who don't enjoy social media.

I know. We need something new, I feel like. Alright. Well, thank you, Sarah, for coming on. It was just so much fun to talk to you.

Yeah. Thanks for having me. This has been fun.