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Romance Author Jenny Hale on Writing Fiction, Writing Habits & Indie Publishing · The Daily Writer

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome to the Daily Rider Podcast, where we bring you tips and inspiration each day to help you build habits for writing success.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_03: For more resources, including your free Daily Rider Starter Kit, visit DailyRiderLife.com.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_03: I recently attended the Amazing Rider Fest conference in Nashville.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_03: I met some amazing people there, including the renowned romance author Jenny Hale, which was a blast getting to meet her for the very first time.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_03: And many thanks to my good friend Honore Corter for the introduction to Jenny.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_03: Jenny is our guest today, and she is a USA-to-day, Amazon, and international best-selling author of romantic contemporary fiction.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_03: Her books have sold worldwide, have been translated into multiple languages, and even adapted for television.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_03: Her novels Coming Home for Christmas and Christmas Twitches and Metletalk Kisses are Hallmark Channel original movies.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_03: She was included in Oprah magazine's 19 Dreamy Summer Romances to Whisk You Away and both Southern Living's 30 Christmas novels to start reading now, as well as Beach Reads Perfect for Summer 2020.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_03: Her stories are chock full of feel-good romance and overflowing with warm settings, great friends and family.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_03: When Ginny isn't writing or heading up her romantic fiction imprint, Harpeth Road, she can be found running around her hometown of Nashville with her husband, two boys, and their labradoodle taking pictures, which is her favorite pastime.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_03: And this was a really fun conversation, I have to tell you, because I haven't really had a lot of fiction authors here on the podcast.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_03: We talk a lot about publishing, you know, traditional publishing versus independent publishing, success, mindset, habits, all those kinds of things, but I haven't really had a lot of fiction authors here on the show.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_03: So this was a fun conversation because Ginny not only is a very successful author on her own, she also has a publishing company which adds a whole interesting side to this conversation.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_03: So we get to talk about story structure, how to start writing fiction, Ginny's daily writing habit, which will blow you away, why she started her own publishing company, and much more.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_03: You can find all of Ginny's books at it's gennyhale.com.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_03: That's I-t-s Jenny, J-E-N-N-Y, Hale, H A L E.com.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_03: And I highly recommend also checking out her blog at her publishing website, which is HarpethRoad.com.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I think you're really going to enjoy this interview if you are interested in in publishing, in fiction and story structure, and all the cool things that Jenny is bringing to the table in this interview today.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_03: So here is my fun conversation with the amazing Jenny Hale.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_03: Jenny, welcome to the Daily Rider Podcast.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_03: I am absolutely thrilled that we were able to make time to have this chat.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_03: It was fun to meet you at RyderFest uh recently and um really glad to have you on the show.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_03: So thanks for being here.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm excited to be here.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_03: So I have a list of about 87 different topics that I can ask you about and that I'm really interested in, but I don't typically do nine-hour interviews, so I'll kind of whittle this list down.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_03: But I say that kind of jokingly, but kind of not because you're doing a lot of things that are really, really interesting and things that are just really cool and fun.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_03: And I don't even kind of know where to start.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_03: So maybe let's start here.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_03: Give us a rundown, if you can, of how in the world did you get into this world of writing novels and doing books because you've been so successful with this.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_03: What was your journey to beginning that whole world?
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: It found me.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I was an elementary school teacher.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: I taught public school for 18 years.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_03: Seriously?
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know that.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: District level.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, when I left, I was a district level ESL teacher.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: I taught teachers, um, went to state level conferences, um, did all the good stuff.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and I was uh I have a degree in readings as a reading specialist, ESL with an ESL endorsement and K through eight.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I've taught second, third, and fourth grade as a classroom teacher.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I was I had sort of found my writing journey within that job.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: I wrote the county's early, very early ESL program.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: I put together um teacher trainings for ESL and how to teach reading to kids who didn't know English.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I sort of weaseled my way into writing that way.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but at night I would read like Chiclet or, you know, women's fiction, you know, thing other books in my genre.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: And one night I just dying for a creative outlet, I just looked at my husband and I said, I think I could write one of these.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I know everyone thinks they can write, but I like really did.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: I could kind of see it, you know, I didn't have a clue how to do it.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: So he said, Well, go for it.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I sat down and I I wrote a book and it was horrible and it never saw the light of day.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I think like three of my friends might have it, and I've tried to get them all to burn it because it's horrible.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: But I um, but I got to the end of it and I realized that I I had 80,000 words in a basic story, and I could do it, I could tell the story.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: I just didn't know how.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I started to buy books on um point of view and books on character arcs.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: And as I would read, when I went back to reading, I would start to notice what I was doing wrong because I'd see these published authors and I'd go, oh, oh, oh, I see I see what they did there.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'd go buy a book on it and read it.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: And um, the second book, I sat down and did it again with armed with the knowledge that I had.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: And the second book that I wrote was Coming Home for Christmas that ended up on a Hallmark channel.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: And that is so crazy.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: I remember the second after that.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so this opens up like 85 questions in my mind.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_03: So, number one is can you recall any of those books that were really foundational and helping you as a storyteller?
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: I I mean, I loved On Writing by Stephen King.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: That was a big one just for sort of general purpose.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but the rest of them were very um specific.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: And it's been almost a decade now.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't remember the titles, you know, of each one.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: I've had someone else ask, could you tell me which books they were?
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I promise you, there's nothing in them that you wouldn't get at a from another book.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: It was just the general information that I was taking in.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: That makes sense.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: One book that I really, really love, and I still recommend it to people who aren't in this business, who don't really need to understand and get their head around publishing and like, do I need an agent?
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Do I not even need an agent?
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: What is this writing thing?
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, is the writer's market.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's published every year.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they do a brand new one every year, and you can buy the writer's market in different genres.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: So there might be the writer's market for romance or uh the writer's market for fiction, the writer's market for nonfiction.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Barnes and Noble had them at the bookstore near me.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I just went to that shelf for writing.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: There's a whole shelf on writing.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think I bought everything there.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: But um, the writer's market was suggested to me by a literary lawyer in my town, and it was the only person I knew who knew anything about books.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I asked, and he said, I would suggest you go read The Writer's Market.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: And it the beginning of it, I want to say it's been a while since I've read it, but I think in the beginning it sort of gives you a rundown of the process of how to publish.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then I remember at the very back, it has a a current list of people accepting manuscripts, and it even denotes, or at least it did 10 years ago, it denotes the the people that are looking for new authors specifically.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: So it was I I liked that one.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: But as for writing craft, um, it was more of just sort of soaking in everything that I could learn about how to take my words and get them into the right order and get them onto the page to make people feel things.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_03: So if somebody were to take your novels and dissect those in terms of story structure, do you follow a similar story format or a story structure for most of those?
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_03: Similar to what Hallmark movies do, you know, I've heard people talk about whenever they do scripts for Hallmark, you have to kind of follow a template and that type of thing.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_03: So is it the same thing for your novels?
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now I will say when someone asks me to read one of my novels or what's my favorite novel, I always tell them my last one because it shows my most current learning.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'm learning all the time.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I can't say that what I'm gonna tell you right now is evident in my first book.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_03: Right, sure.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: I've accrued over 20 some books, but I generally stick to a five-act formula.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so and I actually just wrote an article about the five act formula that I use and I put it on my Harpeth Road blog.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: So we can talk about that later.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: But um, but I do I use a five-act structure just like a play.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and early on I used a three-act structure because I couldn't quite um dial it in to a five-act structure.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: So it was sort of like a beginning, a middle, and an end.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm sort of mathematical in the way that I do it, in that I will say, okay, I write somewhere between 70 and 80,000 words.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: So let's divide that by five.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that's how many words I need to write in the first act.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then I go write it.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I somehow hit it.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: I don't, you know, I don't know how I do it.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: That part is sort of um still mystifies me today, how I can write a book and it's the same length every time.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know why.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_03: Then do you have your your story beats more or less planned out?
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_03: Or how I guess I guess my question is, how um how granular do you get with your story details and the the story beats and and plot and all that before you actually start writing?
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_03: Is it you pretty much have it all planned out or you had kind of an idea, or is there some pantsing involved in that, or kind of a mix of all of all those things?
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's it's interesting because um I get a general idea of story in my mind.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I know like the guy, the girl, uh what's gonna keep them apart and how they're gonna get together generally.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I don't know how they're gonna get together all the way, but I have a general idea.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then I um I start to type, and the way I explain it, it's almost like divine inspiration.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: I type and it's like I'm watching a movie and I'm just typing what I see.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: And after about a thousand words, everyone just starts to stand still and I don't have anything left.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so I don't know what that process is or why it happens that way for me.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: But um where it can get slightly different is right now I am a writer for Harpeth Road Press.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: I work for myself because I I am the publisher and the author.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but when I was under a different publisher that I wasn't the head of, I would have to provide them with a pretty nice synopsis and you know, a treatment of here's what I'm gonna do, you know, here's the the book I'm going to write.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then, and so that required a little bit more planning to get out because sometimes I would even before I gave them the synopsis, I'd start writing about three to five chapters so I could get an idea of what in the world the book was even about, and I'd do it backwards, you know, and then write the synopsis.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: But now it depends on my mood and it depends on the book.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: I might write that synopsis after I've written the book, or I might write part of it before and then sort of add to it as I go.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I have a publisher mind anyway.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I tend to write the retailer description first, like what's gonna be on the back of the book.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: And from that, I just start writing and then I go back and add in what's that is so awesome.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_03: I love that.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's uh it's it depends.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: It depends.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's every book is different.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: So it's sort of, I have a general idea of how I do it, but it depends on the book and how easily it comes for me, comes to me.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_03: And you pretty much do a thousand words a day, correct?
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_03: Like rain or shine, holiday, weekday, weekend, doesn't matter.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_03: You that's pretty much your routine.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I do a thousand words.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you ask my family, I think I feel like they're gonna all have like post-traumatic stress of a thousand words because I write them every day, every holiday, every weekend, every day.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm on vacation, I'm the earliest one to wake up.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'll get up at 6 a.m.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'll sit down on my computer before anyone's up, and in an hour or two by 8 a.m., I've got my thousand words and I can go enjoy my day and I and I have my vacation.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: So um the only time it gets tricky is like Christmas Day.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I'll skip Christmas Day, but every now and again, most of the time, once everybody's sort of settled in that late afternoon time when people are kind of relaxing and we're all tired and we're covered up on the couch, I'll sneak away and get my thousand words and I still get them.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_03: So you always write in the early morning, or generally that's what you do?
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: It used to be that I write in the early morning, but what's happened is somehow when I was a teacher, I've you know, I worked all day and then I wrote at night.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: And somehow I've managed to give myself another full-time job.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: I quit my teaching job so that I can write all day.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then I ended up becoming a publisher.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I publish all day.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: I work on publishing.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then I mean, right now, because we're small and because I own it, I'll write during the day if I get time or if there's a lull in the schedule.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: But I tend to publish all day and then at night I'll write.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: But my most creative time is in the morning.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and what's happened is I think the creativity for me has shifted, and that creative publishing is now at the forefront.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's why I use the morning for publishing, and I can get to everybody when I'm on email during the day.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I can have my meetings and all that good stuff.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_03: That's really, really fascinating.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_03: So there's almost a sense where you have kind of replaced your teaching job with your publishing job, and writing, in a sense, is still kind of a side hustle.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't for a while.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, for a while I was a full-time author.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: And the entire time I was a full-time author, I kept whining to my publishing team that I wanted to hang out within.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't want to just sit in my desk.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm an extrovert, so I didn't want to sit at my desk and write all day long.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: I needed that um conversation and I needed that um energy around me.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: And what I find is now that I'm publishing full time and that energy is around me, I am I am in that world all day long.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: I can write like that.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: And my writing comes really quickly for me and easily.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have to work so hard at it.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_03: That is really, really fascinating.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_03: And I think this is such a good conversation to have because there are a lot of people listening, some of whom they own their own business and they do things like I do, which is a lot of client work and as well as our own books or whatever.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_03: But there are other people who are they're working a full-time job doing something that's not related to writing.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_03: And I love that even though you are full-time in your very much a writing-based business as a publisher, still you're cranking out a thousand words a day, rain or shine, pretty much.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_03: No excuses, you're getting it done.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_03: You're you're up at night or you're getting up in the morning to do that.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_03: Just this whole idea of writing in the margins of your day and just getting it done and no excuses.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_03: That's really, really inspiring.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_03: It's inspiring to me.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_03: And I do this full time too.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: So well, thank you.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's a matter of me not, I don't sit still very well, right?
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, and I'm an extrovert, so I need energy all the time to move me in my purpose.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: And um, so I'm one of those people that I just keep going until my head hits the pillow and then I'm out for eight hours, and then I wake up at six and go start again.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that's just my personality.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: So it depends on your personality.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: But I saw a thing, it was actually with my church.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it was about when you do things for God and they put the walnuts in the jar.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever seen that?
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's a walnuts and rice.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: They had they put all this, they filled a jar with rice and then they tried to put the walnuts in and it wouldn't fit.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: And they said, but if you do the God stuff first and put the walnuts in first, all the rice fits around the walnuts.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: And that same idea is how I do my day.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: So if I can if I can get the big job done, whatever the big job is that day, whether it's homeschooling my kid, whether it's um doing the publishing, whether it's, you know, meetings that I have with people, things like that.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: The writing is the rice around the walnuts.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so if I can use my time wisely, all that extra time, I can fit it all in the jar.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_03: It's so interesting you say that.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_03: So I'll now obviously this is an audio podcast, so people listening can't see this.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_03: So I did a writing retreat a few weeks ago and we did something really similar where I gave everybody a jar.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_03: Literally I have this sitting around here, and I had rocks, pebbles, and sand.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_03: And it was the exact same idea of except applied to writing, put in the big rocks first, then put in the the other administrate administrative stuff in your day, and then put sand in, you know, that kind of thing.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_03: And then I wrote on it today matters because what you do today really does matter.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: So it does.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I tell my kids all the time, you know, when they say, Well, it's just a day, you can skip today.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, I can't skip today because it takes every day to make it happen.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and and that's and that's how I live my life.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: So if I know that I need to skip today, my job is to figure out how to squeeze it in somewhere where no one's gonna notice.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: No one's even gonna notice.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's what I end up doing.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: And like I said, when we go on vacation, they just know I unpack my entire office at the kitchen table in whatever condo we're in, at the beach or whatever, I unpack it all.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then at 6 a.m., I have my little coffee and I go over there and I'm working.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: And by the time they get up and want eggs and bacon, I'm done.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: And and no one's the wiser, you know.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: But it takes that every day to get.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_03: And what for the the software and technical geeks out there, myself included.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_03: Um, what do you write in?
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_03: Do you use something like Scrivener, Google Docs, Word?
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I am the most boring person ever because I use Word.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I've always used Word.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think it started because when I was a teacher, um, the laptop that I owned at my house was uh some kind of IBM, you know, like a cycle.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I even shared it with my husband who does finance.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: So we had to have all the Microsoft stuff.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what I learned to write in.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: And that's that's what we had at school as well was Microsoft Word and those.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: So even when I buy, I now work on a Mac so that I can use some of my other bells and whistles for graphics, but I still will buy the Microsoft package and put it on my Mac and write in Word.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_03: See, and I think that's that's really great to hear because there's a lot of writers who stress about, well, should I use this or should I use that, or this famous writer or this person that I love, they use this certain thing, but it really makes no difference.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_03: Just pick something and go with it because it's the words that matter, not necessarily the app that they're written in.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it doesn't have to be fancy and shiny.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, nothing about the writing life is fancy and shiny.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_03: That's a great point.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's usually pajamas and retainers and glasses and coffee, and you know, that's usually what it is.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: So it's um, you know, I I don't subscribe to any of those shiny things in my writing, partly because I don't have the time to learn them.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I need to be able to just go.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's about getting those words on the page as quickly as possible because I have other things I have to get done that day.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_03: So if somebody has an idea for a book, uh if they have a hint of an idea or maybe a plot point or a character, but they don't really know how to structure a story or where to go from there.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_03: Do you have any recommendations for how they should proceed from there?
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_03: Um, should they go out and buy some of those story structure, storytelling kind of books and study those?
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_03: Should they just write a first draft of write an ugly first draft of a story, even though they may not use it all?
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_03: What would you recommend somebody do just to kind of get the ball rolling if this is their first novel or their first fiction book?
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's funny that you say that.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's almost like I plugged you to say that, but I just finished a three-week series for the Harbor Through blog that's called The Writer's Writing Blueprint.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: And it's that very thing.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: It starts with using other authors as your guide and takes you from theory to practice with the 5x structure.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: So there are three posts on that on my our blog.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, as a publisher, one of the things that makes us different is it's owned by an author.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I've been in the weeds, I have been, you know, in underwater in edits and everything else.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so I wanted very much the teacher in me wanted very much to have a publisher that could also um support our authors in terms.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Terms of how to get the best out of their career and how to um build their career.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: So within that, we put all kinds of posts on our blog.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: I do lots of five or three-week series.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: We've done some on the like the writing blueprint was our last one.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: The next one is a five-week series starting next Wednesday.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the business of writing.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's all about, you know, do you need an LLC?
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: And what do you do?
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, once you start getting money for your writing.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we've done um a five-week series on the submissions masterclass, how to submit, how to know you're ready to submit, how to make sure that you do what publishers are looking for to get what you need and what agents are looking for.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: We've done lots of different posts.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: So um part of Harbor Throat is to make sure that our blog is supportive of our authors and that they get what they need from us.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I have a nice little three-week series they can check out.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_03: I love that.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_03: I love that.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_03: I was looking at your blog.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, I pulled it up a day or two ago.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um, because I think I asked you a question over email, and you were basically like, check out the blog, it's all there.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_03: And I opened it up, and it's one of those, I don't know if you have this experience sometimes, but you open it up and you're like, that's a gold mine.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna leave that tab open in Chrome, and I'm gonna come back to that when I have like two hours to read everything on the site.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_03: Because if I get into it now, I'm not gonna get anything else done.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's good, that makes me feel good, you know.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because again, I was a teacher for 18 years, I was an elementary school teacher with zero understanding of what I was doing as an author.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, when you know, when that first book came out, I kept waiting for people to realize I had no idea what I was doing, that this wasn't my first job.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: And and so I wanted to provide an atmosphere where if you're published by us, not only do we, you know, market the heck out of you and and publish you well, but we teach you all about it so that you're not in the dark as to what you can do as an author for yourself.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: So um it's more about support for our authors and letting other people know what we're looking for when we're trying to find authors that we feel are worth publishing.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_03: Let's dig into that a little bit.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_03: How, what kind of authors are you looking for at Harperth Road?
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_03: And how can somebody get involved with what you're doing there and submit?
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_03: Or how does all that process work and what are you looking for?
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I am a romance or romantic fiction writer.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: So what I found as I started to get into this business as an author is I have a very um keen sense of that genre.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: So when I went out, when I decided to be a publisher, the first thing I did was I tried all my ideas on my own books.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: And when they were super successful, then I thought, okay, I'm gonna dial all this in and learn about how to publish.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: But when it comes down to it, I publish well within my genre.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: So Harper Throad Press is a publisher of romantic fiction.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and what I tell people, sometimes I'll get these amazing submissions, but it's not romantic fiction.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I just tell them that one, I think they'll find their publishing home.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: And two, they want to find a publisher that absolutely knows without a shadow of a doubt how to market them.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: And if I don't feel that when I read it, I won't take it because it's not fair to the author or to me.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm looking for romantic fiction, contemporary romantic fiction.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: I love stories that have a romance component, but that also have multiple layers of conflict.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I know I write multi-generational stories.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: So a good example would be, you know, something like that with um, I have grandparents and I have dogs and I have cousins and friends, and you know, and then and then I'm also looking for um a really strong sense of character, a really good voice, and um, and strong conflict.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: I like a deeper romantic story.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what we're looking for.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure as we grow and and build, we'll branch out.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: But right now I'm honed in on that specifically.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: So if you have that kind of, if you say, Oh my gosh, that's me, that's the kind of story that I write.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: On Harpeth Road's website at the top, um, we have both agented submissions and unagented submissions.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: That way, because I got my first deal as an unagented submission.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: And to this day, 22 books later, I still don't have an agent.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's incredible.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: Very interesting that I'm not I'm not advocating to not get an agent because agents can open doors for you.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's just the way that I and I entered.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: So I still I can't let that go.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I know um a lot of publishers prefer only agented submissions because it's this extra layer between the publisher and the writer to sort of um weed out, you know, you know, when an agent sends you something that they've researched you as a publisher and they know exactly what you're looking for, um, versus somebody that's just like, oh, sure, I'll send a mine and hope it makes it.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: So, but I do offer the unagented submissions and I do look at those daily to see what's coming in.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_03: And do you have a certain number of books that you that let's say you're looking to publish in the next year?
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's a great question.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: And when I get a lot, because I work in the industry, so I have people working for our books.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I have, you know, foreign rights agents and I'm doing TV stuff and all of those good things.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so people will ask, but for me right now, given our small boutique agency, what I want to do is publish the best of what I've got, whether that's one or five.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: I want to publish the very best.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: So if something comes through my inbox that I'm excited about, I'll ask to see the full immediately.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: No three chatters, like, give me the whole thing.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: I want to look at it.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and then from there I determine what we can take and what what what's worth the incredible investment of time and money to get them there.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so I don't have a number at this stage, but um partly because I don't want to cap it, and I also don't want to take something that isn't necessarily a good fit for us just to hit a number.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_03: And even let's say even if you are doing, let's say, three books over the next year, which I know that that's probably I'm sure you have a capacity far beyond that because you're a genius at this.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_03: I think most people would be shocked at the amount of effort and thought and planning and money that has to go into marketing three books really, really well.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's just like a vast array of things that have to happen.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that's one of the things that's been so fun about being on the publisher side is that I get to do the job of every person at my publisher.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: That that all those friends that I wanted to sit around their table, I now get to do their job because I decided to do this myself.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: And um, what I found is, you know, when when I was a writer submitting to agents, submitting to publishers, it was always so frustrating to me that it would take like two months to hear back from them.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: But while I sit here and I am giving everything I've got, and it's a full-time job, and I'm eating lunch at my desk and I'm up at six and I'm in bed at 11, and I'm working all day long on one or two books, I know why.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: You kind of get it two months to get back to somebody.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, and so I it gives me a really strong perspective of the industry and the business and what people are doing behind the scenes.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that's one of the things also with Harper Throat is I'm very transparent with that.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: I want to make sure people have a sense of what we are doing for them.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: What do we do for them in terms of marketing their books and you know, short and long-lead media and all the fun things that come along with publishing.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm pretty open with that.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_03: I love the fact that you have done all this yourself and you've very successfully done it.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_03: So it's not like most the vast majority of the time where where an author is working with a publisher, you're working basically with people who've most of them who've never written a book.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, let's just be honest.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_03: Anytime you're working with an agent or a publisher, or I'm sorry, an agent or an editor, and this is not a negative thing, it's just but it's just a fact that most of them have no experience as an author themselves.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_03: So they don't really know what it's like.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_03: That doesn't mean they should be an author necessarily, but it's cool because you have done this for yourself for how how many books now?
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_03: 20 some books?
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: 22, I believe it is.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: Just finished 22.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's not out yet.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_03: So you know what it's like to be an author doing all this stuff yourself.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_03: So you can speak very intimately and in a lot of detail and experience because you've been there and you've done it all, which I think is really cool.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_03: Most publishers can't really say that.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that was the goal is how do we create a publishing imprint that provides the support from an author's perspective?
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because I've been at every level.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: I've been like when when I give them a bio, I give them a lesson on how to write their bio.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I have my beginning bio, my middle of the road bio, and then my bio now so that they can see that your bio can start basic.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: And as you grow and people, you know, start to notice your books, you can add in your accolades and things that you do until you get the big fancy one.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so I've been at all the stages of being an author, and um, not all of them, but close to all of them.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I still have goals for as an author, but um I think that's you know, that's part of it is um is providing that support and that sort of reaching out.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like I said, I think it's a teacher in me.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: I want to support people, and as an author, I just didn't feel like I could.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: There are other authors who do, like their support is in terms of providing their story for readers.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: But for me, I just kept seeing this other side of things, this other piece of me.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think I said it at Writer Fest.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: My grandfather was a marketer and my grandmother was an artist, and the two together just you know wreaked havoc in in my genetics.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so I didn't go into writing because I've always wanted to be an author.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: I went into writing because it was a branch of creativity that I thought would be fun to try.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so for me, I have a different perspective of it, you know, than than others.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: So um that's how I ended up wanting to go on the publisher side, but with an author perspective, I guess.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_03: That but see, to me, that seems a lot healthier than most, and I'm gonna put myself in this category than uh it seems healthier in a way than people like me, who from the time I was a kid, you know, I remember my middle school English teacher said, I want you to dedicate your first book to me.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_03: And people always told me you should be a writer, and I always wanted to do that.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_03: But the the downside of sort of feeling like you were born to write your whole life, the downside of that is that your identity and sometimes your self-worth is so attached to to writing that it's hard to get anything started because you feel so much internal pressure to do it.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_03: And so I love the fact that you just kind of decided to do it as a side thing and because it sounded fun, and that you didn't attach like your whole self-identity and self-worth to books and writing.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_03: And I that to me seems like a much healthier pathway.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I hope so, but it also is a harder pathway because um it's it's more difficult for me.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: I have to work to understand um that can also impact authors, that feeling you're talking about can impact authors during edits or you know, any time they need to abandon large chunks of text.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so for me, I never had that, and so that's something that I have to learn um to be empathetic over.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: For me, I mean, because I mean I remember one book, I just scrapped 50,000 words, just delete and start it over because my publisher and I were having a conversation.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Oh, well, what if I wrote this and they liked it better?
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just literally deleted it, went on.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: But for others, that that one instance would might be weeks in the making.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: It might be excruciating for them.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so in a way, maybe it's healthier, I don't know, but I think it is healthier, but it it's I really do makes the um because my goal is to reach the writer, you know, the goal is to to support the creative, and we all have different uh methods and we all have different ways we got to it, and we all have different motivations behind it as well.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that's um always on the forefront is being empathetic.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, in my mind, I'm like, just delete it.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_03: Let's just do it, move on.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_03: It's a business decision, you know.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_03: It's like the godfather, it's it's uh it's a business, it's not personal.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_02: That's right.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_03: Well, for so many people, it is personal.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, it's just it's just a book, it's not like your whole life.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and I think too, for me, it was it gets less personal, and it's always for me about reaching readers, always.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so by book 22, I'm not as attached because I've written 20 to 20.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_03: It's another book, it's just it's just yet another book.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I love it.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: My goal with every book is to um make people emote in a new way that I haven't done before, and so for me, that's the goal, that's what I'm working for.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: But the words and the journey to get there, I'm looking for the best route so I can get rid of those words in a second.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that I think some of it is perspective too.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: If you've done it a certain number of books after a while, you get used to the editing realm of oh gosh, I'm gonna need to delete this.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_00: And hopefully you dial it in and you don't need to delete as much.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, hopefully by the time you get to book 22, you don't have a lot to change.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I want to respect your time, but I do have a couple more questions.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_03: I feel like I always lie when I say that.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_03: And then I end up asking like 10 more questions.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: Fine, go for it.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_03: Um, that's basically when I say it's like if people listen to my show on a regular basis, I say that all the time.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_03: That's really like my clue to the guest that hey, I'm aware we've been doing this call for a while and I want to respect your time, but I still have a couple more questions.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_03: One thing I want to ask about is how your as is how you do your book covers, because that is such a critical part of the publishing process.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_03: And your book covers are so good.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_03: And I don't I don't read a lot of romance, I don't honestly read a lot of fiction, but that's gonna change because I'm gonna start reading your stuff.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm I'm just so in awe of how good your book covers are.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_03: Like they're just really, really good.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_03: And they draw me in, and I'm not even that's not even like my typical genre to read in.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_03: So, how do you get those covers designed?
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_03: And do you have some sort of um how much how much do you give the designer uh in terms of direction with those and um you know color schemes?
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_03: I'm just kind of curious your your thinking on that because I'm super intrigued by it.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, cover design is my number one priority.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: It is it is the thing, in my opinion, that gets people to pick up a book.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so when I decided to um start Harper Third Press, my goal was to um I want to portray a certain brand.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: So one particular author is going to have a recognizable brand across all of her books.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um and you can see mine, and I have to make tiny little tweaks to my books from the books that were done by a different publisher.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: I want people to recognize Harpeth Rhodes books, but I want them to fit within my entire brand as well.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I tweak in tiny, tiny bits.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then it depends.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: I like I said, my grandmother was an artist, so I have a weird connection to graphic design.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, everything that you see on Harpeth Road down to the photos on our website are done by me.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: Everything.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, all of my um, all of our social media graphics are done by me.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_00: But I have a fantastic cover designer who is amazing.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: Kristen Ingbritson is her name.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so sometimes she'll come up with um with a cover, and sometimes I'll come up with something and say, can you christanize this?
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like I have this rough idea.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: Can you go make it into something?
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: So this one um she came up with herself.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_00: This is the memory keeper.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_00: Gosh, that's a good cover.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_00: I can't see it, but um, the memory keeper has two rocking chairs, an old front porch on the front.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so for my brand, my brand, what we've decided is going to be zoomed in um setting-based photography with something sweet on the front.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_00: So on the memory keeper, the the flowers were the something sweet.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: Then we did Butterfly Sisters, which has um it's done in pinks and blues, and it has a little boat on the front, but it still has those flowers and some butterflies there.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then I came up with the Christmas letters in a gold sort of setting.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_00: It was like a similar, um, a similar idea with some gold um sparkles in the background and said, Can you go run with this?
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_00: And she came up with the the actual cover that's on the Christmas letters that was very, very close to mine, but just like blew it out of the blew my ideas out of the water.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so so it's a collaborative process.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't take us long because I think we think similarly.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: So sometimes I'll just go cut out a boat and stick it on her cover and be like, do something like this, and then she'll go find one and do it, you know.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_00: So we just have a good conversation, but I do feed back to her.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_00: So she gives me an you know initial ideas, and then I feed back to her.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: Usually only it takes like two or three times, little stuff.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, can I see that in yellow?
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_00: What if you made that blue?
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and then um, and she'll whip it up and send it over, and then we've got our cover.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_03: That is so that's so interesting that you approach it that way.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_03: And I've I've noticed I can tell when it's one of your book covers because they all kind of have the same vibe and they all make me want to pick it up.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_03: And and I think that that to me speaks to how good they are because it's again, it's not a genre I read a lot in.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_03: So, but the fact that I kind of want to pick it up is like, man, that's really good.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_03: It just makes you want to grab the book and start reading it, which is what it's designed to do, of course.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_00: The goal, that's the goal.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so the first thing I ask myself when she gives me six cover options is which one of these causes emotion within me when I look at it.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, that's good.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm looking for an emotive cover.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that lots of people have lots of data on what works for covers, but I always say that data doesn't trump design and that you can have all the data that you want, but until you get the design just right, okay, kind of do what you want it to do.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_00: So um, for me, it's about design and emotion, which cover is gonna really show it, really show me that that emotion.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_00: And on top of that, explain what's inside the pages.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it needs to match what's inside.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_03: So, should I be concerned as an author?
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_03: Because I have a book series, I've got a two, three books on the work on the works in that series.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_03: It's called 60 Minute Guides for Writers.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_03: They're little short books on practical things for writers, like ones on how to build a writing habit, ones on you know, different ways you can make money as a writer, other things like that.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_03: But then I have another series that's one I did for my son, and it has a whole different design.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_03: For writers who are doing different series of books that are completely different topics, should should I be concerned that the designs for those are going to be completely different?
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_03: Or should I just consider those two completely separate brands under the bigger umbrella of here's my books?
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's a great question.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_00: And what you have to ask yourself is what is the purpose of them all looking the same?
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_00: The purpose of my books all being recognizable is because somebody who buys this book on the left is gonna also want to read the one on the right, and vice versa.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then, so if you're writing nonfiction, if you're writing something that's like children's nonfiction, is it necessary for a children's nonfiction reader to recognize a writing book?
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_03: No, no, two different audiences.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_00: So as long as your audiences are separate, and again, I'm fiction versus nonfiction.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_00: I think nonfiction is a whole different animal in terms of how to approach it and how to market it.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: But for me, the goal of making them recognizable and fitting within the brand is so that people who get excited about one of my books can find all the rest of them.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_00: And when I put a new one out, they recognize it and go, is it one of hers?
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_00: And they'll notice it.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_03: And there's a thing with readers, isn't there, where if they've bought several of your other books, it doesn't really matter what the new book is.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_03: They're just in the habit of buying the books.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_03: And there's this impulse that a lot of us have where we want to be completists.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_03: And we we just want the set of whatever it doesn't even matter if we really like the new one.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_03: We just want the set of things.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I have readers say that I have all your books.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I have all your paperbacks, and they'll show me pictures of all of them on their bookshelf.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I think there is that, you know, and I think too, there are people that call.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_00: I've had people say, Jenny Hale is my autobi, my autobi author.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_00: I love being an auto-by-author.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_00: So exciting.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing makes me do cartwheels more than hearing that somebody says I'm an auto-by-author because when I put a book out, they'll just buy it.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_03: That's that's almost like the highest compliment they can give you.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_00: It is.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_00: As a writer, that is the best.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_00: That and I left your review.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_00: I left your review.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_03: So if if you can get them to be an auto reviewer, like that would be cool.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know how that would work.
• 45:18
  SPEAKER_02: I know, right?
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_03: The the final thing I want to ask about here is, and you mentioned this a minute a minute ago, uh, your new book, The Christmas Letters.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_03: So I wonder if you can tell us about that and um what we can expect with that.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_03: And of course, I I was gonna say where people can get it, but I know where everybody knows where they can get them.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_00: So the Christmas letters um came, it actually was started with a seed of panic, in that every time I sit down to write a brand new book, I have that moment of panic where I think, oh my gosh, I have to write again.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_00: I have to do something else that's gonna be as amazing or better than the last one.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_00: And it can't be anything like anything I've written.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was sitting there thinking of ideas, and I thought, you know, Christmas romance, they always end up like in the ball gown at the plaza, and the you know, rich guy sweeps them off their feet.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so as I'm thinking of this, I'm like, what if the rich guy isn't all these cracked up to be?
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_00: What if the regular guy is the guy that's the best guy?
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_00: And that got me thinking.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so the book actually begins where she's in a big red ball gown and she's at the plaza, and she her mom's calling her from rural Tennessee and needs to talk to her, and she's going into a gala for, you know, a big fundraiser with her husband or her boyfriend who um she's dying to marry, and they've been together like seven years and he won't come in.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_00: And she's all of this is coming out as she's running up the stairs saying, Mama, I'll call you back.
• 46:48
  SPEAKER_00: And they break up right there in the plaza, and that's chapter one.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then she has to go back to her small Tennessee town and everyone that she left behind when she ran after this guy.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's sort of how it how the Christmas letters began.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_00: But within that, um, again, I said I write multi-generational.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_00: So when she gets back home, she and her mother are at her Nan's farmhouse.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_00: And um her mother gets a letter from um from a lawyer that says, You don't own this farmhouse and we need you to vacate the property.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_00: And the daughter and the mother are just completely confused by this because Nan got married in this house.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_00: She's always lived in this house.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_00: She lived there with, you know, raised her kids there.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so they keep trying to figure all of this out over Christmas.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_00: And in the midst of that, Nan's best friend who's still alive, Beatrice is her name, she hands Elizabeth, the main character, a stack of Christmas letters because her nan used to write Christmas letters to everybody.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, I think you need to read these.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_00: Your nan asked me to hold them for her, and um, and since she's passed, I think you need to read them.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_00: And in those letters, those Christmas letters, she uncovers an entirely different version of her family that changes everything about who she is and and and what's you know coming down the pike for her.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_00: So that's sort of how the Christmas letters began.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_03: Well I sort of had my evening planned, but now I'm gonna have to go get the and I know I've I'm gonna get a print copy of this, but um I'm gonna have to just get it on Kindle and the end of this tonight.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_03: You've got me really intrigued.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yay.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, everybody, I didn't expect it when I wrote it.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_00: I knew that I put a twist in it, but I was so surprised, happily surprised, that people are freaking out on Amazon uh reviews over the twists that's in it.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, they're like, you have to read this book.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't expect that when I wrote it.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I knew I put a twist in it because I always tried to make it so it's not um terribly, you know, predictable, but I had no idea that it that it caught people off guard like it did.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_03: Wow, that's that's really fascinating.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_03: That's really, really fascinating.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_03: So, and you put out a Christmas book every year, correct?
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_00: I do.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_00: I do a summer book and a Christmas book, just because at six months of writing, you know, after Christmas, you need to do summer.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_00: So to get it all to get a year's worth in.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_03: It reminds me of um is his name Richard Paul Evans?
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_03: Do I have that correct?
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_03: Who does uh he's written a bunch of Christmas fiction.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_03: So you're sort of like the counterpart to what he does in in a way, because he's done a lot of that.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_03: I just think that's so cool that um, and Christmas has so many different possibilities for drama and for stories and emotion and meaning and all those things.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_00: Family and heartwarming moments.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's such a perfect backdrop for for my brand, which is all about you know, heartwarming, family-oriented, multi-generational families.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I think it's just it lends itself to that.
• 50:13
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, my first book, I didn't even know coming home for Christmas, I didn't even realize I had said it at Christmas, but not really paid a lot of attention to it.
• 50:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it was my publisher who said, let's really up the ante here and make this about Christmas.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_00: It was called Flipped For You, is what I had um originally titled that.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_00: And they gave it Coming Home for Christmas, a big Christmas title.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then my editors, you know, were like, Add more Christmas right here, add more Christmas right here, you know, all the way through.
• 50:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then it ended up being a full-on Christmas novel.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_03: And when do you so the Christmas letters, when did you start writing that?
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_03: Was it last Christmas?
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_03: And then you start the publishing stuff sort of in in the not in the middle of the year because that's probably too late.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_03: But how does that that cycle work?
• 50:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well, digital publishing is a lot faster than traditional publishing.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's not a bad thing.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's just the difference in the way that they're managed because traditional publishing, they have to deal with massive print runs of 10, 20, 30,000 copies.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_00: They've got to warehouse them, they've got to put them in the catalog, and people have, you know, different um stores have to buy them, right?
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then they ship them out to the Barnes and Nobles or whatever.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_00: And they've got all this trucking and stuff.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_00: So they need a lot more time.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_00: But digital, literally, the minute I get the final version, I can upload it on every platform in the world.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_00: Just boom, boom.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_00: It'll be up in, you know, somewhere between 24 hours and two weeks.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so, depending on the platform.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_00: So digital runs really quickly, and my career was built on digital.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_00: But as I'm getting into this publishing business and I'm messing around with what I want to do in print, um, I have started to see if I can back myself up to give myself more time in case I want to try different things.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_00: So it used to be I would write a book at the end of that six months, boom, it comes out.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I just now um wrote a summer book that I'm editing and I've started a Christmas book to try to double time it to see if I can get a year ahead.
• 52:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd like to be a year ahead, but it's usually six months, is what I've been doing.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_00: That helps.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I was just kind of curious how that works because you seem to be on a pretty regular schedule uh with the summer and then a Christmas book.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I just I'm double timing it now, just because you know, I need more to do, right?
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_03: Like you're not doing enough.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_03: You need yet another job.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_03: I hear there's a there's a teacher shortage.
• 52:41
  SPEAKER_03: So, you know, if the whole author and publisher thing goes away, then I'm I'm sure you are really not motivated to go back into that career.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_03: Especially not post-COVID.
• 52:51
  SPEAKER_00: I just can't.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_00: I can't do it.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, one, I don't have any time to do it, but um, there's just no way.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I mean, I was approached to teach at the college level as well, just a class and even a class.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_00: I just said there's it's a lot.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, I could do it.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I would love to, but yeah, not yet.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_00: Not yet.
• 53:10
  SPEAKER_03: I did that job for a long time, and and um adjuncts don't get paid very well either, typically.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_00: So it would be for the love of it, right?
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_00: It would be for the love, yeah.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_03: The love of the love of teaching, the love of grading, all that stuff.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_03: Gee, this has been an absolute blast.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_03: I've learned a ton, and I'm just so glad that we connected at RyderFest.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_03: I'm so glad that I went and got to meet you and some other cool people.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_03: Um, you've really inspired me with this conversation.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_03: And I mean, I do this for a living too, but one of the reasons I do this this podcast is I get to learn all kinds of stuff from really successful people like yourself.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_03: So I appreciate you taking time to do this.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 53:43
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for having me.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's been a blast.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_03: Anytime.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_03: Looking forward to getting this episode out there so people can go get your new book and the whole collection as well.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_03: I think they'll be a blast.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yay.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_02: I hope they do.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_02: I hope they check it out.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_03: I'm sure they will.
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I hope that you have taken as much from this conversation as I have.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_03: I took a ton of notes and I learned a lot uh from Jenny.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_03: As I mentioned at the end of our interview, this was just a really, really fun conversation.
• 54:09
  SPEAKER_03: And it's so interesting to me to talk to people who really never set out to be authors.
• 54:14
  SPEAKER_03: It's not something maybe they really thought about when they were younger, like I did.
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but at some point in their life, somebody made the suggestion, hey, maybe you could write books.
• 54:22
  SPEAKER_03: Or or they had the idea while they were in the midst of a totally different career.
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_03: And it's so inspiring to see how she shifted from her teaching career into this very, very successful career, not just as an author, but also as a publisher.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_03: So I hope that you were really inspired by this as much as I was.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_03: Many thanks to Ginny for taking the time to be a guest today.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_03: And as always, thanks for taking the time to listen to these episodes.
• 54:44
  SPEAKER_03: It means a lot that you tune in to the Daily Writer Podcast.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_03: There's a ton of podcasts out there, as we all know.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_03: So the fact that you're spending time with me here on this show and today with Ginny really, really means a lot to me.
• 54:55
  SPEAKER_03: Hey, before we go, I want to let you know that today's episode is sponsored by Indie Author University, featuring the Book Marketing Mastery course.
• 55:02
  SPEAKER_03: If you're tired of being disappointed by your book sales and want to sell more books faster, easier, and with more fun than ever, make sure and sign up today.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_03: Book Marketing Mastery is created by my friend and business coach Honore Corter, who I mentioned at the top of this episode as introducing me to Jenny at RiderFest.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_03: And Honore has sold over 4 million books.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_03: This brand new course is fantastic, and I've taken it myself and I've started to apply what I'm learning in the course.
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_03: To sign up for Book Marketing Mastery, visit DailyRiderLife.com/slash bookmarketingmastery.
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_03: There's also a link in the show notes, by the way, and use the code DAILYRIDER, that's all one word daily writer, to get 10% off.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks for listening, and I'll see you tomorrow.