Latest / The Two Authors’ Podcast / Crushing the Newsletter Game with Melanie Harlow

Transcript

Crushing the Newsletter Game with Melanie Harlow · The Two Authors’ Podcast

• 0:00
  I should have said I'm not giving you any advice because I miss her terribly.
• 0:03
  Go one star her a whole bunch on her book.
• 0:08
  yeah.
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  Welcome to the Two Authors' Podcast, an entertaining chat show hosted by best-selling mystery and thriller authors Douglas Pratt and Nicholas Harvey.
• 0:20
  In lively, humorous and informative conversation with distinguished guests who share their thoughts and experience about forging a successful author career.
• 0:33
  Welcome this week's show, brought to you as always by the fabulous Vellum, the best formatting solution in all of the world.
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  It's amazing.
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  Beyond.
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  Infinity and beyond.
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  And I was messing with it the other day.
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  You know what the I really love about it?
• 0:48
  Like you can go into it.
• 0:50
  It's got these the live, you can like device preview.
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  So if you want to look at what it looks like on an iPhone, an iPad, on a paperback, any size, I think, but I guess they all kind of look the same.
• 1:01
  But anyway, it's pretty cool.
• 1:02
  Like you can just look at how it looks on the book, which helps you a lot when you're looking at where the back matter falls.
• 1:08
  Like you want that uh like QR code or whatever you're you're doing for your back matter to fall where they can read it and not.
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  end up on the next screen.
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  I think it's kinda cool.
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  It is.
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  You know, the print, that's the big place that it's makes a makes a huge difference because obviously on e readers and stuff, people change their font size and line spacing
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  and everything else.
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  So you never know where those breaks are gonna fall.
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  But in the print, you can control all that.
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  You can see it, you can preview it, you know exactly how it's gonna come out in the print.
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  So it's uh great feature.
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  And also, before we thank our Patreon supporters, I want you all to know we're having a great time here in Vegas right now as you're listening to this.
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  That's right.
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  We will be in Vegas at this time.
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  This is coming to you.
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  So this is coming out with the f like what's this the first day?
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  It's the it's the tenth, so it's the first day I think that we're really kinda getting involved there.
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  So it's vendor day, yeah.
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  day.
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  So we're hanging with the Brads of Vellum right now.
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  Come get badge from us.
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  Come get a badge.
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  Also, we wanna make sure we thank all of our Patreon supporters.
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  If you guys are finding any value from this show, please it's three dollars a month.
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  We try to throw in some good uh good questions, some good discussions on there.
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  Helps keep it on the air, folks.
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  Helps keep it on the air.
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  So we got a really great guest today.
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  We're kinda excited about this.
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  USA Today, best selling romance author Melanie Harlow.
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  We're gonna chat with her, but first we have a Two Authors' Question from our recent guest, Robert Gold.
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  Robert Gold, thank you very much for sticking around with a two-authors question for us.
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  You're turning the tables.
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  What do got for us?
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  Okay, gents.
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  I should say I've been fortunate enough to work with some of the greatest thriller writers, a lot of whom have come from the US, and a lot of my favorite writers, Karen
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  Slaughter, Harlan Coben, US based.
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  However, if I was to flip that and ask you who's your your favorite English thriller writers, who would they be?
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  Ooh.
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  Ooh wow, that's a good one.
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  Angela Marsons would be one of mine.
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  We've had Angela on the show and she's uh she's fantastic and she writes some some pretty cool books.
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  So I'm going there.
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  re actually reading Ava Glass is who we're having on next week, but and it's been really good.
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  Yeah.
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  But I'm gonna lean jump back to and he's a good friend of ours too, Luke Richardson.
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  He's got he writes some really good action action stuff.
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  But then there there's so many great
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  Treasure hunting type stuff he does.
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  stuff that he does on there.
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  And then, you know, we've got some there's just so many of them.
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  It's like it's tough to say.
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  Mick Herron, I mean the Slow Horses series.
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  Genius.
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  Uh geez.
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  I mean like and then John le Carré.
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  I mean it's I think there's a there's
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  Some guy called Robert Gold too, I've heard about him.
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  Baiting he baited that question.
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  He's like, oh
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  And he's noted how long we took around to get to saying that as well.
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  But I've heard he's a hell of a diva.
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  uh
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  So yeah.
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  So I I think that I mean, there's also that Nicholas Harvey.
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  I don't know.
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  I could count him as he's okay, so
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  I'm mid Atlantic now.
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  I don't I think I don't think the Brits claim me and I and I don't think the Americans claim me anymore, so
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  Well then you're my favorite Caymanian writer.
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  How's that?
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  There we go.
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  There we go.
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  So so so Rob, who you have had some amazing co-writes, Patterson obviously being one of those.
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  Have you got somebody else on the list globally that you would like to do something with?
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  Well that's what hey, I guess when my first book was published very kindly, I got some quotes that said, he's like the British Harlan Coben.
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  So I think Harlan would have to be my one.
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  I would love to work with Harlan Coben.
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  His novels twist and turn in such incredible ways.
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  And so I guess I've learnt a little bit from him.
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  and so yeah, I'd love to work with him.
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  Yeah, yeah.
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  And it might get made into a TV show or a movie.
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  Some of his have.
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  Hey, you just got child.
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  Why will you get on that horse?
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  Yeah.
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  I hope he's listening.
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  uh I think we do.
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  Exactly.
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  They're making movies out of his thoughts.
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  He doesn't even have time to write them and they're making movies out of it.
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  All right, Rob.
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  Thank you so much for joining us and and for the question.
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  We appreciate it.
• 5:29
  Hey, thanks guys.
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  Welcome to the show, Melanie.
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  We're so excited to have you with us today.
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  Thank you so much for inviting me.
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  I'm a fan of the podcast and I love a podcast in general.
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  And writers are my favorite people to talk to.
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  I think we should stop right there, Doug.
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  I don't think we're gonna get further ahead than we are right now when she said she likes the podcast.
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  That's it.
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  I know.
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  I don't care if she's making that up.
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  That is the best sign about ever.
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  listened to the NINC recap and it was like I was back there again.
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  It was so nice.
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  well, thank you so much.
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  Well, we just gotta start off right off the bat, kinda if if you listen, you know we kinda jump right in with kinda tell us how you got started writing, you know, when you first
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  published and that kind of thing, a little bit of about your history.
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  Yeah, so I was teaching high school English for a while and then I mean I love talking about books and some of the students were more enthusiastic than others, but I really did
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  I really did like teaching English, but I always had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to write.
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  So when I first took time off to have my oldest daughter who is 21 now,
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  I started thinking about it more seriously.
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  So I used to wake up at five in the morning before she would wake up.
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  And I would write between five and seven AM.
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  m And then when once she was up, that was that was that.
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  And I did try to get an agent in the beginning.
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  I was writing YA.
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  That was what I always thought I was going to write.
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  So this is roughly like two thousand nine, ten, eleven.
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  And I did query and try to get an agent and had some requests, but not much success.
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  I kept writing, writing, writing.
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  And then finally I had some friends who were self-publishing romance.
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  So I thought, you know, I'll just try it.
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  And that was in 2013.
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  I took one of the books that I had written as a YA.
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  It was a YA historical.
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  I don't know why I thought this was gonna sell, but I did.
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  And the agents like bless them.
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  They they were like, We really love your writing, but we I don't know how to sell this.
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  And at the time I was all offended.
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  I was like, what do you mean you don't know how to sell this?
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  I mean, turns out they were right.
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  There really isn't a market for like YA 1920s historical.
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  So I live in Detroit, which is had a really important role during Prohibition because we funneled in so much whiskey from Canada.
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  So I had a great time writing this book about bootleggers and all different kinds of historical stuff, but I guess other YA people weren't gonna read it.
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  So I took that book and I made it a lot more sexy.
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  I upped the ages of everybody.
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  And I self-published that and then a follow-up.
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  Pretty quickly I saw that those agents were were probably right, and I moved to contemporary romance, which was everybody was having a better time writing contemporary
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  romance.
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  And
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  That's research I would think too.
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  Like that's just me.
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  Much less research.
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  So I moved into that lane in twenty fourteen and then I've been there ever since.
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  So going from I mean, obviously writing about Prohibition era Detroit style stuff it's and did you have speakeasies and stuff?
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  I don't know, with so
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  Yeah.
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  That's the name of it.
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  It's called Speak Easy.
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  Right, so yeah, like so what did what did go how did writing historical fiction, what did you take from that and then figure you could still use in contemporary?
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  What's kind of the difference besides the research?
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  Writing any book, you develop habits of discipline and focus.
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  And so I think it was great for me just uh
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  Ha ha.
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  I those are two things I do not have discipline and what was the other one?
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  How you finished the book then?
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  I mean, I think it so it definitely just taught me sort of how to be a writer.
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  And then as far as what's on the page, I think I just got better with dialogue, with description, with the mechanics of it, but then just also a better storyteller.
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  I have always been a reader, but it's very different.
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  When you're reading something you love.
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  you're so entranced by it, you're not stopping to think, well, how is she doing that?
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  Or how is he doing that?
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  So I really but the more you read, the more intuitive it becomes.
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  So I think hopefully I'm still getting better with every book.
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  The the first few books are never gonna be your your best written, uh which is something that I have to tell a lot of, you know, newer writers.
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  My first one's garbage.
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  Like utter like like it is it's on po it's on Amazon and I tell people don't read it, it's garbage and if I were smart I'd go read write it someday, but I've got other things to do,
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  so
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  Right, yeah.
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  I always tell people my first book is it's probably one of the best stories I'll ever come up with, because I had fifty something years to come up with that story.
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  Right.
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  Next the next one I had like six months to come up with it.
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  So I had this you know, the story's the best, but the cr from a craft point of view, you evolve, right?
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  So and and from it from its first writing I've gone back in and edited and made some improvements.
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  But it it could I'd love to be able to take the time to do that uh again.
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  But that's the big difference.
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  You ha you have these great uh story ideas, but then
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  The tools of the trade come with just doing it more and more, right?
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  Right.
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  And then you and there's a really wonderful sense of freedom when you're writing that first book.
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  You don't have any other like voices in your head.
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  No one's telling you anything.
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  You don't have bad reviews in your head.
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  You don't have when is the next one coming in your head.
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  You don't have, shoot, I did that in the last book.
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  Like sometimes I'm typing and I think I've I'm 30 some books in.
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  I feel that I have written this exact sentence before.
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  Or the same character names.
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  Like I'd be going through and go, have I had this character before and you know, did did I can he use this name again?
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  It is a side character.
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  Start running out of names.
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  oh
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  One hundred percent because there will be that person who'll be like, wait a minute, there was a Sebastian in your first book and now there's a Sebastian in your twenty-fifth.
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  Is that the same Sebastian?
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  And I'm like, nope, I just ran out of names.
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  Well, here's so you you made something uh a quick side question because you said this and it made me think about it.
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  My kids were just talking about what's a movie that you would wanna watch again for the first time and I was like, you know what?
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  As you say this, I think the idea of that finishing that first book, do you both agree?
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  Like, if you could go back and grab that that feeling you had when you finished that first book and you were like, Oh, it was so great, I finally did it.
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  I think that'd be the kind of the feel I'd wanna grab.
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  I wish I could grab the feeling of writing that first book all the time.
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  It was just me and the words.
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  I had no other voices in my head.
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  I barely had my own voice in my head.
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  It was just me and and the characters.
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  And it just felt so I didn't appreciate how good it felt.
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  Well you don't know.
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  I think it's like a c it's like a really cool high that you don't realize you're h you're getting at that point, so although the
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  I have with mine when I was a third of the way through and I'm like, how the hell am I gonna make write another two-thirds of this thing?
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  I have no I felt like
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  Do you plot or do you pants?
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  A mixture of the two.
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  And actually that's uh that's what I was doing then.
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  W when I wrote the first book that I wrote, I'd ri written some screenplays and stuff like that before, but never written a whole book.
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  And I was so ignorant.
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  I knew nothing.
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  I didn't even know or think about what genre when I was starting it.
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  So I just sat down, started writing and and I'd sort of plot out the next few bits and pieces and I had a bit of a skeleton plan for the whole thing, but
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  But you I mean, you're literally Googling how many words are supposed to be in a chapter, how many words are supposed to be in a book, right?
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  I mean, just the real bare bones basics.
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  So these the I agree, that feeling of euphoria when you got to the end of that book and some of the freedom while you're writing it, but also there was some terrors while writing
• 13:15
  it.
• 13:15
  for sure.
• 13:16
  Like, what am I doing?
• 13:18
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• 13:47
  All right.
• 13:47
  Now, uh speaking of stories, you have some brilliant small town settings that become characters in your books.
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  Talk about that a little bit, how you build that up.
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  And then when you do a new series and you gotta make a new town, how do you make it the same but completely different?
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  It's a challenge.
• 14:02
  It is a challenge because so much of what is appealing about small town romance is the small town setting.
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  And they're a lot alike.
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  So you do have to kind of work to make each one feel like its own individual self.
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  The first time I got really intentional about it was right before I started a series called Cloverleigh Farms, which was book one came out in 2019.
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  And I remember in the summer of 2018, I just really made the decision to treat
• 14:32
  writing more like a business, to treat my career more like a business and stop just writing whatever came into mind, covering it, how I felt like covering it.
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  In my early days, I had a lot of sort of covers that just didn't make sense or series that just didn't gel together as well as they should have.
• 14:48
  And I thought, no, okay, I've learned something, I'm gonna put it to use.
• 14:52
  And I knew better what my readers wanted from me.
• 14:54
  But it took it took a couple series to do that.
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  So with right before Cloverleigh Farms, I sat down and I mapped out
• 15:02
  The place, the families, the people, the tropes.
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  And I was very intentional about it.
• 15:08
  It's based on a place in Michigan.
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  So I set all my series now pretty much in northern Michigan.
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  It's just a beautiful area.
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  It has everything you'd want in in small town romance.
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  It has all four seasons.
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  We have lakes, you know, we have forests.
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  We have what we call mountains.
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  But if you're from, you know, we have some
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  Okay, I'll call them hills.
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  It's just a really beautiful area.
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  So I I was able to pull in a lot of what I love about the geography of the place, match it with characters, tropes, stories, things that I knew readers were gonna love, and then go
• 15:46
  from there.
• 15:47
  But yeah, then I I have revisited that place many times in my books because my readers really do they love when they hear the name Cloverleigh Farms.
• 15:57
  Right, right, Brilliant.
• 15:59
  Yeah.
• 15:59
  One of the things you said in there was you you made this decision to treat your writing as a business.
• 16:04
  That's something that we talk a lot about on this show is hey, writing's a pleasure, and if you want to do it for pleasure, that's fantastic.
• 16:12
  But if you want to make a career out of this, if you want it to to be your income, then approaching it that way is is so key, right?
• 16:22
  We've actually
• 16:23
  just started doing a talk that we just did for the first time called Publishing with Purpose.
• 16:26
  And some of the things you mentioned in there, some of the key elements of it, right?
• 16:30
  You've got to think ahead.
• 16:31
  And it's so hard to think of these.
• 16:34
  I think back to when I was first, even I wrote the book when I was working full time doing something else.
• 16:39
  And then when I wrote the second book, I was thinking, Okay, I'd like to have a real go at this sort of thing.
• 16:43
  Even then, you think back to then and everything you didn't know.
• 16:47
  And so Yeah.
• 16:50
  Um, and that's
• 16:51
  The biggest message i is publishing with purpose.
• 16:53
  I mean make make sure there's a decision behind all those things that you do, all those choices that you make.
• 16:58
  It's great to hear you talk about
• 17:00
  Yeah, and I I because I think well first of all, if I knew everything that I needed to know when I was first starting out, I probably wouldn't have typed a word.
• 17:08
  Yeah, yeah, right.
• 17:09
  You never even try it.
• 17:10
  Like that's a lot of work.
• 17:12
  I mean I guess like
• 17:13
  oh So it's better, I think, that you don't know everything in the beginning, but you know, you you start riding the bike and you know, you work the muscles and you build them up.
• 17:24
  And then so at that point in 2018, you know, I'd been publishing for four years.
• 17:29
  I had, gosh, I think three series under my belt, and I was like, okay, I know what sells well for me.
• 17:38
  I know what my readers like.
• 17:40
  How can I take all of that and wrap it up, deliver it at this cadence and this schedule?
• 17:46
  And because I knew I wanted to be successful and make money at it, I didn't just want to write the books in my heart, which is a fantastic goal.
• 17:54
  If you just want to write the books in your heart, absolutely nothing wrong with that whatsoever.
• 18:00
  But I knew that I was looking to maximize revenue and really grow a readership with this.
• 18:06
  grow that newsletter.
• 18:07
  And so I thought very carefully about decisions with with that series.
• 18:12
  So that that being said, so as you're thinking about this, you have several series using a business mindset now that you how do you decide when a series may be coming to an end when
• 18:21
  you're gonna like, It's time to build a new town, so time to go someplace else.
• 18:25
  So I d have to decide at the top of the series how many books are going to be in it because I need to introduce the characters throughout.
• 18:32
  I want readers to be really anxious for Henry's book.
• 18:36
  So if I'm gonna make them anxious for Henry's book, Henry has to be there throughout the series.
• 18:41
  They have to care about Henry from the get-go.
• 18:43
  Mm.
• 18:44
  So why why why create a new sound instead of just adding a character, say, in Henry's book that now four books later be like, Oh, he gets his own book too.
• 18:50
  I think there's a sweet spot for a romance series somewhere between now certainly there'll be people who could prove me wrong about this.
• 18:57
  There are people who have series that have been going for decades and they're there, you know, there are dozens of books in.
• 19:03
  But I think for me the sweet spot is between three and five because after that point, the chances of a new reader coming in when I'm releasing book eight are slimmer than if I were
• 19:14
  to just start start a new place.
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  So it's almost it's almost discoverability for new readers is the new series as well.
• 19:20
  Like you might be able to grab somebody else who's like, Oh, I didn't know that yes, okay.
• 19:24
  A book one is hard.
• 19:25
  A book one can be a tough sell to your existing readers because they're gonna worry like, well, what if I don't love this?
• 19:31
  Like I like the old ones.
• 19:33
  You know, you don't have the pre-orders built up like you do as you move across a series that you're already into.
• 19:39
  But I I like an entry point and you know, a new series is is a new entry point.
• 19:44
  So that's one of the things we've talked about talking about book one.
• 19:46
  I think that is a challenge.
• 19:48
  we've both written new series two that are I think all of ours, well, mine definitely tie together in some way to my main series, but getting those first books off.
• 19:58
  So we've often said, like, I'm not even gonna bother advertising a series until you get three books in.
• 20:02
  Do you find there's a number when you've done and and at three to five books per series, I guess you kind of get the series done by the time you realize it's it's taken off.
• 20:10
  Is but do you think there's a number that is kind of a magic number where you're like, okay.
• 20:14
  I've got three in this series I can start pushing it harder.
• 20:18
  No, I push hard from book one.
• 20:20
  But I if when a new writer, if a debut author came to me and said, I'm starting my first series, should I advertise this book?
• 20:29
  I would say no.
• 20:30
  I would say three books.
• 20:32
  Once you are releasing the third book in the series, then you can start putting some money onto it.
• 20:38
  But prior to that, unless you were independently wealthy and you had money to burn,
• 20:43
  I would not recommend, I do not recommend a lot of advertising, but I'm at a point now in my career where I have a built-up readership.
• 20:49
  I have a budget for marketing that's healthy, so I I can't afford it.
• 20:55
  But if I couldn't, I would wait until I was three books into a series.
• 20:59
  If had money to burn I'd probably just write for fun.
• 21:02
  Yeah, hey.
• 21:04
  I'd go back to prohibition.
• 21:05
  Yeah, we got it.
• 21:07
  Just write that to them.
• 21:09
  So a question that I think would be great to hear your answer to is i you're established.
• 21:15
  We know you have a huge we'll get on to talk about your newsletter list.
• 21:17
  We know you have a big newsletter list.
• 21:19
  So even though starting a book one we talk about it being difficult, you're still dragging across a good size audience into that new series.
• 21:28
  And so you can start up advertising because it's n it's not like it's gonna launch into a void for you.
• 21:33
  But
• 21:34
  Is there a curve that you see that in that series you get up to say three books and then all of a sudden the rest of the world, apart from the people that you're directly telling
• 21:42
  about it, starts knowing about this series and it takes off?
• 21:45
  Do you see a curve like that or is it linear?
• 21:47
  That's a good question.
• 21:48
  Let's say in a five book series, if but I have had series, this is interesting.
• 21:53
  I was thinking about this recently.
• 21:55
  I have series where book one is the standout, and I have series where it's book two that is the standout.
• 22:03
  I don't know what it is particularly.
• 22:05
  Sometimes with a book sometimes it's a viral video.
• 22:09
  And so just more people found it for book two and then maybe they go back and read it.
• 22:14
  But generally
• 22:16
  Across a five book series, book one is gonna be the the best and then you're lucky if you can hang on throughout book five, but then you know, you'll see it.
• 22:29
  We used to have BookTrakr.
• 22:30
  Remember BookTrakr?
• 22:32
  So beautiful with their color coded everything.
• 22:35
  So you can see, you know, okay You can I don't know how to use Claude.
• 22:42
  I know I I I should figure it out.
• 22:44
  Melanie's romance, she's not allowed to use Claude.
• 22:47
  Yeah.
• 22:49
  You know, it's getting a little bit easier.
• 22:50
  People are admitting that they use it more for business things.
• 22:54
  I just have to set out time to teach myself a skill that isn't a craft thing.
• 22:57
  And because I get obsessed with craft courses, I probably need to learn how to do some other other things.
• 23:03
  But but anyway, I think it, you know, it will go up because as because people are still gonna come in and read book one, two, three, four, five.
• 23:10
  What's interesting is when you can tell there's a dud in a series.
• 23:14
  And every now and then that that does happen where you're like, wow, book four really missed the mark and you can see that.
• 23:20
  And do you burn the town down and kill all the people?
• 23:24
  No, I keep going.
• 23:26
  I keep going because I've I have promised a book for Henry and Henry is book five, so he he needs his book.
• 23:33
  Book six is Aliens Come in.
• 23:35
  Turn side five.
• 23:36
  We're thriller writers, so at some point the town has to burn and everyone has to die.
• 23:40
  And you can you can sort of sense it during the first, you know, couple of weeks, but it does take a little bit of time to be like, wow, that one underperformed.
• 23:48
  Now, if I started a series and I released, I let's say I had planned a five-book series and I released two or three books.
• 23:57
  Generally, I think it would take three, and it just wasn't catching on.
• 24:02
  My readers weren't investing in it.
• 24:04
  I would not finish it necessarily.
• 24:06
  I feel fine walking away from
• 24:10
  A series that is underperforming for me because it is a business.
• 24:14
  And I don't owe those characters a book.
• 24:18
  And if the readers aren't showing up, I feel like, listen, I will better serve you if we start over somewhere new.
• 24:24
  Okay.
• 24:25
  That's brave.
• 24:26
  Have you had to do that?
• 24:27
  You've had to
• 24:28
  have not had to I
• 24:30
  I figured that.
• 24:31
  You were saying you'd do it, but you never had to do it.
• 24:33
  But I would.
• 24:34
  I have friends who did it.
• 24:35
  I ha I have one really good friend who just could not bring herself to write this one book.
• 24:40
  And so she told everybody that the hero moved to Egypt.
• 24:50
  I haven't seen a
• 24:51
  I have a series that I love that I'm four books in.
• 24:54
  I'm I write the fifth one 'cause it's gonna wrap the whole thing, but it does not has not sold well.
• 24:59
  And I it's it's probably my best series, but I'm going to You like it.
• 25:02
  I love it.
• 25:03
  I think it's r Nick tells me it's the best, but and my mom
• 25:06
  So I tell you it's the second best.
• 25:07
  Your date your Jay Delp is the best.
• 25:09
  But this is only narrowly behind it.
• 25:11
  It really is.
• 25:12
  And I just think there's a couple of things that uh marketing wise cover and title and stuff.
• 25:17
  If he I'm I'm badgering him like crazy to to re badger.
• 25:21
  I am I'm gonna write the li the fifth one.
• 25:23
  I'm not gonna end it end it, but I'm gonna end like wrap it all up and that way I can I don't have to worry about because I'm kinda like you.
• 25:29
  I'm like, I could write it but it does not make any money even though I enjoy writing it.
• 25:33
  I can go write something else.
• 25:34
  If you're getting joy out of it, that's currency too.
• 25:38
  And I do think that we have to invest.
• 25:40
  The mortgage company doesn't take it.
• 25:42
  They don't take it off the market, I've tried.
• 25:49
  True.
• 25:49
  And I do believe that I do believe in that.
• 25:51
  So I do try to kind of balance out some of the the projects.
• 25:54
  And and by wrapping that one, I have some other projects I want to do that I can kind of do as well.
• 25:58
  So I figure it gives me an opportunity to kind of spread out and I don't get quite as uh bombarded.
• 26:03
  But so let's talk a little bit about marketing because that's that's something that I know a lot of people want to talk about.
• 26:08
  And I know that we're all, you know, we're all writers, we put our words out there, but self-promotion for us is kind of a struggle, I know.
• 26:15
  For me, like so what are some ways your marketing
• 26:18
  to find new readers out there that are uh and I know there's a lot of Facebook ads, Amazon ads, but are there other things that you're finding that are great for getting new readers
• 26:27
  to come into your
• 26:29
  series.
• 26:30
  So I do run digital ads and I do use social media.
• 26:34
  I hired someone to do TikTok for me because I don't I've never been I'm I'm not that generation.
• 26:42
  So I was like, I don't really know how to use this.
• 26:44
  I don't engage with it as, you know, a user either.
• 26:48
  Doug's all over it.
• 26:49
  He's a big TikToker.
• 26:51
  I am not.
• 26:51
  No.
• 26:52
  My wife does all of my TikToks for me and she does run my TikTok channel for me.
• 26:55
  So she has told me never to get on there because I will screw up the algorithm.
• 27:00
  'Cause you'll watch the wrong stuff and screw up the algorithm.
• 27:03
  So I have I do have one that's mine I can look at and then she has the one that she does.
• 27:08
  Oh, she's g she's given Dougie a playpen on TikTok.
• 27:13
  You know, and I wanna tell you who s I wanna tell you whose fault that was too, is that was Mandy Morgan's fault who told her, Don't let him use that.
• 27:21
  He'll just screw up the algorithm.
• 27:22
  Mm-hmm.
• 27:23
  Yeah, I I that happens to me on Instagram a lot because I don't have a personal account.
• 27:27
  I only have the one account and I get taken in by a lot of dance videos.
• 27:32
  I watch a lot of ballet on Instagram, so it's constantly serving me dance videos.
• 27:37
  That's exactly what Nick does in his spare time is ballet videos.
• 27:41
  So you may come across him.
• 27:42
  They're dance videos, we can call it ballet.
• 27:46
  Yeah.
• 27:46
  Any kind of dance video, I I will watch it.
• 27:49
  But so I do this.
• 27:50
  you see us dance at NINC then?
• 27:52
  You were there or no, I not see beautiful.
• 27:56
  That was one undone, so you missed it.
• 27:58
  You missed it.
• 27:59
  it was something.
• 28:00
  Next time I'll have to pay more attention.
• 28:02
  You gotta uh yeah, karaoke it with us so with a little bit wild, so anyway, back to the TikTok.
• 28:09
  I do ads, I do use social media, I do use my newsletter, I exchange newsletter swaps, like exclusive swaps with friends, but even those over over time.
• 28:22
  I mean, I'm twelve years in at this point.
• 28:26
  So what I do to try to find new readers is gonna be different than somebody who is just starting out.
• 28:31
  When I was just starting out, I ran a lot of promotions.
• 28:34
  I used Written Word Media, BookBubs.
• 28:36
  Now there's
• 28:37
  An argument is Book Bub as effective as it used to be?
• 28:41
  Hard hard to say.
• 28:43
  Do you have do you have your thoughts on that, Nick?
• 28:44
  So
• 28:45
  Yes, I do.
• 28:47
  One of us just ran a one of us just ran a BookBub.
• 28:49
  We're not too impressed.
• 28:50
  So
• 28:52
  so let me ask about that.
• 28:53
  It was it a free featured featured deal?
• 28:56
  No, ninety-nine cents.
• 28:57
  I've moved away from doing free on stuff like that because of the Amazon algorithm and it it it likes conversion.
• 29:06
  So, well, current word is it likes conversion.
• 29:09
  So if you're sending traffic there that doesn't end up reading it, that can be damaging in the long term for relevance.
• 29:16
  And so I did a ninety nine cent and um so what you get in there is buying and they're more likely to to read it.
• 29:23
  But uh my most recent one was um
• 29:26
  did not have a great return.
• 29:28
  But I just did a promo week with a stack of different stuff to try, which I hadn't done in two years because they'd been getting less effective and they have not improved for me in
• 29:39
  effectiveness at the moment.
• 29:40
  But depends what you're after.
• 29:42
  Depends what you're looking for.
• 29:43
  If you're looking for a media ROI, you know, probably it's a little bit of a struggle.
• 29:49
  It's also super genre dependent.
• 29:52
  And for most of these promos that are out there, BookBub being very much one of these, if you look at where you land on the list and who else is on that list, if you're on there
• 30:02
  with and they they're doing they've always done a ton of Trad uh authors on there and deals with Trads.
• 30:07
  So if there's a stack of big name track Trads on there, by the time the person that gets that email has spent their two ninety nine and two ninety nine on the discounted Trad
• 30:17
  ebooks, and they get down to yours at ninety nine cents.
• 30:20
  And it looks promising, but they don't know who you are and they've already spent their budget for the day, you're done.
• 30:24
  And if you're down the list, especially if you're after the break and stuff like that, it makes it tough sled.
• 30:29
  Yeah, I do think it's less effective than it than it used to be.
• 30:32
  I mean, uh and at this point, if I were starting out, I I truly believe the packaging is everything, an on-trend, genre-specific cover.
• 30:43
  You have to nail that blurb.
• 30:45
  It should make sense for your genre.
• 30:47
  It should sound like the other blurbs in your genre.
• 30:51
  So I think you just have to do a ton of research, be willing to invest in a good cover.
• 30:58
  And write a good blurb.
• 30:59
  I mean, I think that that you need to get people to that product page.
• 31:03
  And a good cover is gonna do that, whether you run paid ads or not.
• 31:06
  Even if you just have some people sharing it on social media, what romance authors are doing now is called a content team.
• 31:13
  And so you you have a content team, and these are people who are willing to create content based on assets that you provide and and share it.
• 31:24
  And then the content team members
• 31:27
  Are rewarded.
• 31:29
  Sometimes you can surprise them.
• 31:30
  You send them a paperback that they can't get anywhere else, or you know, different things so that it becomes kind of just a cool, fun thing to be on someone's content team.
• 31:40
  And now, if you're brand new, you're not gonna automatically have a content team with 500 people on it.
• 31:45
  But even if you had 10 people, if you had 10 readers, you start there.
• 31:51
  I mean, every you have to everybody started somewhere.
• 31:54
  Is a content team kind of similar to like a beta team?
• 31:58
  You've built it yourself of say your own followers and then okay.
• 32:02
  That's a pretty smart, smart way of doing that.
• 32:04
  And you kind of farming that out there.
• 32:06
  So well, so let's talk a little bit about newsletters.
• 32:10
  One of the things that Nick and I uh one of the reasons we loved to get you on here is you did a talk at NINC a couple years ago that we both said, Oh, that's brilliant.
• 32:17
  Why have you been you romance authors were hiding this secret
• 32:20
  Sneaky.
• 32:22
  Told us about and so we didn't know about it.
• 32:24
  We started Whoa, this is great and we did it and le both of us I think we I know Nick says he doubled.
• 32:30
  I don't remember exactly, but I put a significant amount of of new uh subscribers on my newsletter list following some of the stuff you suggested and
• 32:38
  Amazing.
• 32:38
  I'm dying to know what I said that was so helpful.
• 32:42
  Well I think
• 32:43
  said you need to have a newsletter, that's what you said.
• 32:46
  Turns out you go from zero to one, you've doubled it.
• 32:52
  Yeah.
• 32:53
  Okay.
• 32:54
  No, you you you kinda started us on the thought of like doing some bonus material.
• 32:58
  Uh romance you guys get to do character cards.
• 33:01
  Nobody really cares about character cards and our thriller stuff.
• 33:04
  But but you get to be you do get to be creative.
• 33:07
  So but talk us through it, Melanie.
• 33:09
  What's the uh if you can remember what you you told us originally.
• 33:13
  Yeah.
• 33:14
  I think the strategy that you're talking about is the what we called a bonus scene opt-in or a cookie opt-in.
• 33:21
  And so as soon as you get to the end of my my ebook, let's say, it looks a little bit different in a paperback.
• 33:28
  I use a QR code.
• 33:29
  But in an ebook, you can say, Thank you so much for reading.
• 33:33
  If you would like a peek into hero and heroine's future, subscribe to my newsletter and the first thing you will be sent is a bonus scene.
• 33:43
  And so you you're catching them right at the end when they just want more of that character.
• 33:48
  They just want more of the feeling that they have right now in their fuzzy wuzzy heart.
• 33:54
  And so they click a link or they use a QR code and it takes you.
• 33:59
  For me, I use Kit, and so I have landing pages or forms embedded in my website.
• 34:05
  And they, you know, they put their name, their email, and then it says, Great.
• 34:12
  Check your inbox to confirm because I have the double opt-in.
• 34:15
  Then the subject matter of that confirmation email says confirm to get your bonus scene.
• 34:23
  And maybe it'll say like confirm to get your if irresistible, let's say was the title of the book, your irresistible bonus scene.
• 34:29
  They open it up and they click confirm and that immediately navigates them to a scene on my website that's on my website is sort of hidden.
• 34:40
  And so they they read it right there.
• 34:42
  Other authors do it where as soon as you click it takes them to BookFunnel and they are
• 34:47
  But I I've done that.
• 34:48
  So yeah, Nick Nick does it the other way.
• 34:50
  So yes kind of
• 34:52
  I didn't feel like setting all that up.
• 34:54
  So I just use my website for it, but you you also can use BookFunnel.
• 34:59
  However, what I did was at the end of the year, I often or when I finish a series, I take all of the bonus scenes, create a file, and then I offer it as like a Christmas gift.
• 35:09
  And I say, Here here's free all my bonus scenes for this series.
• 35:13
  You can use BookFunnel and download it now.
• 35:15
  But I think the key to it is so you you're capturing them right at the end where they just want more of that one.
• 35:21
  you know, couple in romance.
• 35:23
  I don't know what it would be for another genre, but whatever that feeling is, you want the scene to capture that.
• 35:28
  So I've been going into the future, a proposal, a wedding, a baby, a sweet family scene many years in the future.
• 35:36
  And then I also have it set up.
• 35:39
  The next day they get a follow-up email that says, Did you enjoy your irresistible bonus scene?
• 35:44
  If you didn't get it, click here and it takes them there.
• 35:47
  If you did, here's what's up next.
• 35:50
  And then it
• 35:50
  It it leads them to the next book, the the funnel.
• 35:54
  So there's some deliberate steps you've you've built in there that qualifies these folks to get on your newsletter list by the sound of it.
• 36:03
  They've got to get sent an email and they have to react to an email to make sure.
• 36:07
  But as soon as they confirm it, they're on.
• 36:09
  I I have the double opt-in because that was all the recommendations at the time, you know.
• 36:13
  And then when they hit confirm, they're just taken directly to the scene.
• 36:16
  There's nothing else they have to do.
• 36:18
  I felt like I was removing some friction by having it be just a quick navigate right there rather than a download.
• 36:25
  That's what I like about having it on the website rather than the download, yeah.
• 36:29
  It was it was pretty easy.
• 36:31
  I use WordPress.
• 36:32
  I am not techie, but I can manage it.
• 36:34
  And then if it's the newest release and there is nowhere next to go in the series, I send them in that follow-up email my reader map graphic with all the starting points and I
• 36:47
  suggest a starting point for them.
• 36:49
  that's kind of cool.
• 36:51
  Nick, you should do one with like for AJ dive sites.
• 36:54
  Like do a map with like the different dive sites you have.
• 36:56
  That'd be kind of neat.
• 36:57
  Okay.
• 36:57
  Done a mixture of different things.
• 36:59
  I've had a song for one that had the music thing in it.
• 37:03
  I've done the one thing you that I've learned that you don't want to do is placing it that feels like a scene that's immediately ending the book after the book.
• 37:13
  Because even if it's a sort of right after, if it's pitched out a little further, like slightly slightly separated into the future, it's kind of okay.
• 37:21
  But if it feels like it's something that happened fairly soon afterwards, I got emails about that.
• 37:27
  I had to download this to finish the book, don't it?
• 37:33
  No.
• 37:35
  Bonus saying you want to bonus chapter
• 37:37
  And call it a bonus scene, a peek at their future, something else.
• 37:41
  You you the book needs to feel like a complete experience.
• 37:45
  That's also why for other like opt-in cookies, I would never use a partial chapter.
• 37:51
  I don't use a scene from an existing book.
• 37:54
  I don't use a chapter one.
• 37:56
  It needs to feel like something that you can't get anywhere else.
• 38:00
  It needs to feel exclusive.
• 38:01
  They are giving you their email.
• 38:03
  You need to give them something valuable.
• 38:05
  been treating it kind of like the end of Marvel movies, like you get to the end of the credits, there's that whole extra scene that doesn't matter to the story for the most
• 38:12
  part, but just kinda is that bonus thing.
• 38:15
  But some other people still go, I had to download this.
• 38:18
  How dare you make me do that?
• 38:20
  And I was like, okay, well you didn't have to, so that's that's also how that's also how they sound that when they e when they email me, they sound like that all the time.
• 38:27
  So
• 38:28
  uh Now when you're setting up so you talked about well, okay, question one.
• 38:34
  I've got too many questions.
• 38:35
  That's the trouble.
• 38:36
  So you're putting a bonus in every release.
• 38:39
  So not just the book ones, every release that you do?
• 38:41
  Every release, yes.
• 38:43
  I get that question a lot.
• 38:44
  So you're writing bonus scenes for every book that you write, and the answer is yes.
• 38:50
  What do you see from book one to say book six in those series?
• 38:54
  What do you see being the most effective bonus in adding new people to your list?
• 39:00
  That's interesting question.
• 39:01
  I don't know that it it varies.
• 39:03
  Like I people when they get there, they they just click it.
• 39:06
  I don't think it matters because I always say the same thing, just to peek into the future.
• 39:10
  So I don't know if there's a way to tell what kind of bonus scenes are performing better than the others because I refer to them all the the same way.
• 39:18
  But I think it needs to deliver the same feeling.
• 39:21
  A lot of romance authors are so smart, they use those bonus scenes maybe to drop a cookie crumb about.
• 39:28
  The next book in the series.
• 39:30
  And so it not only wraps it up, gives you that warm fuzzy, but it also kind of is a gives you a little curiosity seed so that you're anxious for the next book.
• 39:40
  That's a successful bonus scene.
• 39:43
  The work you do to get somebody on the list is in the book itself.
• 39:47
  You write a fantastic book and then you drop the opt-in in the perfect place.
• 39:53
  That's the work you do beforehand.
• 39:54
  You know, the bonus scene itself.
• 39:57
  the work should be relatively light.
• 39:58
  They just want another thousand words to make them feel good.
• 40:02
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 40:03
  So I'm I'm a I'm a bit of a dork, so I I track a lot of these bits and pieces.
• 40:08
  So I definitely see that the book one bonus gets more new readers.
• 40:12
  So deeper into the series, you get plenty of people taking that bonus, but the majority of them are already on your list, right?
• 40:20
  So actual new names you you're adding comes tends to come from the front.
• 40:25
  I have not tracked that.
• 40:26
  So it it's harder for me.
• 40:28
  I can tell on on the back end of Kit, I can see how many hits a landing page has gotten.
• 40:34
  And you are correct.
• 40:35
  It's always more on a book one because that's where you're bringing in, that's the entry point.
• 40:39
  Rather than although if I've had a viral video on a book two, which happened to me with the with the series r in twenty twenty one, I had a a viral TikTok and I got a ton of
• 40:51
  people coming into book two.
• 40:52
  So that I have a lot of people who
• 40:55
  got on the list from that book.
• 40:57
  So you have viral TikToks.
• 40:58
  You don't even have TikTok, you said.
• 40:59
  So you're really good.
• 41:01
  Yeah.
• 41:03
  I mean it's it's not me, it's just like a scene from the book.
• 41:06
  I know it's it's I'm just yeah, I'm just teasing it.
• 41:08
  But it's kinda great.
• 41:09
  I don't even think it was one of my TikTok.
• 41:11
  Oh, so like and somebody else who did it.
• 41:14
  It was a book talker.
• 41:15
  Yeah.
• 41:16
  And now a quick word from this episode's sponsor.
• 41:18
  Booksflyer changed the way I approach my Amazon ads.
• 41:21
  Instead of fretting over my ads every day, I check in once a week, confident that nothing has gone crazy and that I haven't missed out on a chance to up the spend on ads that are
• 41:30
  delivering a positive ROI.
• 41:32
  Booksflyer handled it.
• 41:33
  Total game changer.
• 41:34
  With outstanding value and amazing customer service.
• 41:37
  Check it out for yourself at booksflyer.com.
• 41:40
  Do you still think though w we've been talking lately too about the changes?
• 41:43
  I mean, you've been doing this for twelve years.
• 41:45
  Do you think newsletters still hold the same place they used to in marketing?
• 41:49
  Yes and no.
• 41:50
  I think they are still nothing moves the needle for me like a newsletter, still to to this day.
• 41:56
  When I send a newsletter out with a sale of freebie, I can see the spike that day on my dashboard.
• 42:02
  Now to be fair, Melanie, if you don't mind me putting you on the spot, approximately how many people do you have on your newsletter list?
• 42:11
  Now I and the first question I get is uh
• 42:22
  My list needs some Viagra.
• 42:24
  It's like, huh?
• 42:27
  gonna be completely candid with you guys.
• 42:29
  So I used to have more.
• 42:31
  When Gmail started making it very easy to unsubscribe, I started to have a lot more unsubscribes.
• 42:39
  And I signed a traditional deal with a traditional publisher.
• 42:44
  So I did not release any indie books for it's two years now.
• 42:49
  I haven't had an indie release in two years.
• 42:51
  So I haven't had any opt-ins or bonus scenes.
• 42:54
  So my unsubscribes have out
• 42:57
  Paste my new subscribes for the most part.
• 43:01
  So I am at a net loss for subscribers over the last several years.
• 43:07
  I think I used to have like 187,000 and now I'm just over 180,000.
• 43:13
  So, which is very painful for me to think about, let alone say out loud.
• 43:17
  It's still a big list.
• 43:19
  And I my open rate is usually between 40 and 44%.
• 43:23
  For a list that size, that is strong.
• 43:25
  That's pretty impressive.
• 43:26
  It's still a good size list and it's still doing some muscular work for me.
• 43:31
  Yeah.
• 43:32
  So I do still think that it is worth it.
• 43:34
  And I I have a new indie series coming in 2027.
• 43:38
  I have three books planned and I am hoping to gain back some of those.
• 43:42
  Now it will be an interesting experiment because I don't know if people are hopping on email lists, even for bonus scenes for romance authors, like they were between 20.
• 43:53
  eighteen, let's say, and twenty twenty four.
• 43:56
  That was a very good period of years for authors in romance growing a list.
• 44:05
  That will be really interesting to get that feedback because people are so scared on clicking on anything these days.
• 44:10
  It's in and a lot of people, a lot of things with ads we're seeing is they'll see the ad, they'll go, I want that.
• 44:16
  They'll go to Amazon or wherever they buy their books and go get it, but they won't click on the ad to get there 'cause they're there's they've been trained not to click on things.
• 44:24
  We're all oversubscribed at this point.
• 44:26
  I'm leaving lists too that that I subscribe to.
• 44:29
  So I I fully get it.
• 44:31
  And in reality, you only want people on there.
• 44:34
  I mean, it's expensive to maintain a big list.
• 44:36
  You want people on there who are interested in what you have to say.
• 44:41
  I do still think it's worth investing time and money into your list.
• 44:45
  I don't know that it's the miracle that it used to be newsletter swaps.
• 44:50
  We used to do them all the time.
• 44:52
  I think they they used to be more effective than they are.
• 44:54
  I don't bother really to go out and arrange them anymore.
• 44:58
  Occasionally I will put a friend's new release in or a freebie or something like that, but you don't find really established romance authors anymore so worried about newsletter
• 45:09
  swaps.
• 45:10
  I remembered what it was I was going to say.
• 45:12
  So when I do bonuses in the back, because I don't do them in every release anymore, because I've got my my series tend to be longer.
• 45:19
  When I do a bonus in the back, so it's the first call to action, they go to they sign up, they go to the website, and at the bottom of the bonus, I have the link to pre-order the
• 45:28
  next book in the series.
• 45:30
  When I have that system opposed to the first call to action is to pre-order the next book in the series and no bonus, I get
• 45:38
  More pre orders when it's the immediate call to action.
• 45:40
  Although it's right at the bottom of the bonus there.
• 45:42
  So it's just one you know, they've just read something more that hopefully they're they're keen on.
• 45:47
  And then the the there's the click down the bottom there.
• 45:50
  It's not a huge difference, but it's five to ten percent less pre-orders.
• 45:54
  Yeah, th I would believe it.
• 45:55
  The first call to action when somebody finishes a book, that's gonna be what you get.
• 45:59
  So you have a choice to make.
• 46:00
  Would you rather have the pre-order for the next book, or would you rather have the person on your list?
• 46:05
  It's a it that's a hard decision to make.
• 46:07
  For me, uh at least at this point, I want that person on my list because I will have multiple opportunities to show to to have them pre-order the book.
• 46:17
  And if I have them on my list, I've got them for a a long period of time.
• 46:22
  And I want a way to be able to communicate with them outside of the Amazon or whatever other platform I don't own.
• 46:29
  So an email to me is pretty valuable.
• 46:31
  I would say as valuable as a pre-order, maybe.
• 46:35
  Uh so that that's why I have prioritized it.
• 46:38
  You could make your first automation after greeting them is don't forget to pre order the next one.
• 46:43
  So you mu you are maybe at least increasing your your percentage at that point.
• 46:48
  I don't know.
• 46:49
  And I do have the pre-order there.
• 46:50
  I have the the bonus scene opt-in to get on my newsletter list.
• 46:54
  And then I have what's coming next.
• 46:55
  I do share a chapter.
• 46:57
  If I have it written, I will share a chapter of the next book and the pre-order.
• 47:02
  So I do have the two opt-ins.
• 47:03
  I just have the or the two calls to action.
• 47:06
  I just have the the mailing list first.
• 47:08
  And then in that follow-up sequence, the very next day that I talked about when I say, Did you get your bonus scene?
• 47:14
  If there's another book in the series, obviously I say
• 47:17
  Time to read the next book in the series.
• 47:19
  And if it is a pre-order, I do have a pre-order there, but I also send, you know, oh, do you want something to read right now?
• 47:26
  I send the reader map and make a suggestion for an entry point.
• 47:29
  I think, you know, one of the things we've been talking about in our circles is is this year and the madness that's continuing this year and the challenges we have out there.
• 47:38
  do you mean?
• 47:41
  Well, that's the foreigner sitting on an island in the Caribbean looking at America uh pointing fingers.
• 47:50
  Yeah, exactly.
• 47:51
  Look away.
• 47:52
  Look away.
• 47:52
  So uh but there's challenges, right?
• 47:54
  meta changing everything, turning it on its head, making uh that incredibly more difficult for us.
• 47:59
  Uh you know, meta ads aren't built for selling e books on and so what they're doing isn't made for us and it's not meant to hurt us, it just by product.
• 48:07
  But you know, Amazon are switching things around and and changing things up and and to combat lots of different things that again sometimes hurts some of us.
• 48:15
  So it's tricky.
• 48:15
  So one of the things we've been discussing a lot is full circle, right?
• 48:19
  Coming back to what are the basics.
• 48:21
  If you were having good success with meta ads, so and if you had series and you were feeding people into book one of the series, you didn't have to release so often.
• 48:32
  Whereas a few years back
• 48:34
  It was rapid release.
• 48:35
  Hey, the faster you can release, the better it is.
• 48:36
  And we all see the big spikes when we release.
• 48:38
  So we try and do that.
• 48:39
  And then newsletter, relying on your newsletter and building your newsletter.
• 48:44
  And I feel like at the moment it's a little bit full circle where we're back on, well, the releases are the big spikes for us at the moment, and that the tail from releases is much
• 48:52
  shorter than it used to be.
• 48:54
  So it pushes us to release uh sooner when we can.
• 48:57
  But the newsletter thing I think is becoming bigger again.
• 49:00
  It's sort of like for me mentally, I've been on
• 49:03
  treading water with it, like it's steadily growing and it's but I but right now Doug and I have spent a bunch of time talking about it like and we've got some stuff in process.
• 49:10
  How are we going to build that newsletter list?
• 49:12
  How are we going to grow it?
• 49:13
  How are we going to get back to that?
• 49:14
  I think it's worth your time.
• 49:15
  I think it absolutely is worth your time.
• 49:17
  I think send out regularly.
• 49:19
  I don't do weekly.
• 49:20
  I do every other week.
• 49:21
  It's not always on the same day.
• 49:23
  I used to aim for every other Tuesday, but I was like, why am I making myself crazy about this?
• 49:27
  They don't care what day it is.
• 49:29
  So, you know, it's pretty much every other week.
• 49:32
  I try to give them something that they're not gonna see on social media, something that they're not gonna hear about in my Facebook group, something that is just
• 49:38
  between me and the subscribers, whether it's a little piece of family life, something that I've been doing.
• 49:44
  So it's not all sell, sell, sell either, but they do like to hear about the behind the scenes, you know, work, what's coming up.
• 49:51
  I do think that it is worth your time.
• 49:53
  And it is something as Meta changes things, as Amazon changes things, this is you.
• 49:59
  This is a group of your readers that is interested in you.
• 50:01
  You know, and I was thinking about with the pre-order thing, as soon as you they click pre-order at the end of your book,
• 50:08
  They are taken to Amazon.
• 50:10
  There are so many things on that product page that could take them in other places.
• 50:14
  When they come to my website for that bonus scene, I've got them a little bit.
• 50:20
  Maybe they'll play around on my website, see what else, you know, is there.
• 50:24
  What audio do I have available?
• 50:26
  What events am I going to be at?
• 50:28
  Are you doing merch on there?
• 50:30
  So I do have I have merch through I can't even remember what the what the space is or the the like vendor that that makes them.
• 50:38
  I do.
• 50:38
  And then I have a Shopify store.
• 50:41
  It is not currently open.
• 50:43
  I had somebody managing it for me and she how dare she, she left to write a book.
• 50:47
  So I know.
• 50:50
  That's what happens.
• 50:51
  That's what happens when you inspire people.
• 50:53
  Stop inspiring people.
• 50:56
  I I gave her all my advice and then she left to write a book.
• 51:00
  See, we give advice and most of the time it bombs on and people are like, why
• 51:04
  Yeah, they sent us a bill.
• 51:08
  Yeah, I I should have said I'm not giving you any advice 'cause I miss her terribly.
• 51:12
  One star her a whole bunch on her board.
• 51:18
  I would never.
• 51:19
  Terrible writer, fabulous assistant.
• 51:22
  But uh
• 51:24
  All right, we've kept you forever here.
• 51:25
  This has been brilliant and there's so much more we want to ask.
• 51:28
  We insist that you come on again sometime so we can keep this going.
• 51:32
  But we have a couple of couple of things we're gonna throw at you before you before you're done here.
• 51:36
  Question we ask everyone is what do you consider is your author's superpower?
• 51:41
  Discipline.
• 51:42
  I'm really focused.
• 51:43
  I get up early.
• 51:44
  I put my butt in the chair.
• 51:46
  I put my phone on, do not disturb.
• 51:48
  And I just keep at it.
• 51:51
  That's great.
• 51:52
  Doug does not e uh have that gene.
• 51:55
  I said, no discipline, no focus.
• 51:56
  So I'm curious how how so how fast do you write?
• 51:59
  I mean, do you writing you write a lot of books, so
• 52:01
  It's relative.
• 52:02
  I don't consider myself a a particularly fast writer.
• 52:06
  I use Pacemaker.
• 52:08
  So put in my books.
• 52:10
  Keeps him from keeling over.
• 52:14
  Not yet.
• 52:15
  Hopefully I don't need it.
• 52:16
  So that's if you give it a time limit and how many words you want to write and then how you like to do it.
• 52:22
  Like if you like to build steadily, if you want to do the same amount every day, if you want it to give you like some days more, some days less, then you can customize the
• 52:30
  schedule, like I need this weekend off.
• 52:32
  I never want to work on Saturdays.
• 52:34
  So I use Pacemaker and it makes me a a schedule and I like the rise to the challenge.
• 52:39
  So days one and two.
• 52:41
  Sometimes my word count goal is only like two or three hundred words and I
• 52:45
  Brush it like within an hour, and I'm like, I'm amazing.
• 52:50
  It feels so good.
• 52:50
  And then I generally like it where I never have to write more than 2,000 words in a day.
• 52:57
  So I try to give myself enough time.
• 53:00
  Now, yesterday I happened to have a really great day.
• 53:02
  It was rare, and I wrote uh like 3,700 words, but it's because I knew where I was going.
• 53:08
  The I'm well into the book, but my sweet spot is like
• 53:13
  twelve hundred to fifteen hundred words, I really love those days.
• 53:18
  Oh.
• 53:18
  Well I see that's about right.
• 53:19
  That's for those are good.
• 53:20
  So then our final question for you, we'll go ahead and jump this 'cause we have kept you way too long, you've been wonderful.
• 53:25
  But our wheel of questions I have customized for the season, so we'll see what we got.
• 53:32
  I get to customize them all the time, so we're gonna we run through questions.
• 53:37
  And he's lubricated the wheel so it spins over.
• 53:39
  You see he thumbed it there.
• 53:41
  Do you see that?
• 53:41
  Do you see that?
• 53:42
  He thumbed it.
• 53:44
  You want the question too?
• 53:45
  All right, it is what's your favorite scary movie?
• 53:48
  I hate scary movies.
• 53:50
  Oh, what's the scariest movie you can think of then?
• 53:53
  Pet Sematary.
• 53:54
  My friend made me watch it in like the eighth grade and I to this day have nightmares about it.
• 54:00
  That was a creepy one, yeah.
• 54:01
  Okay, so
• 54:02
  So it's not just me that is a scary movie.
• 54:05
  But it is a creepy movie, yeah.
• 54:06
  It is pretty creepy.
• 54:06
  Nick, what's your favorite scary movie?
• 54:09
  I have no favorite scary movies.
• 54:10
  I refuse to put myself through it.
• 54:13
  I I I don't understand anyone that wants to sit there terrified.
• 54:18
  I don't get it.
• 54:19
  I mean turn on the news, that'll terrify you.
• 54:21
  Most of are not scare like not like there's like well, we watched the what we watch The Fly the other night 'cause it's Halloween.
• 54:28
  Then then we watched last night The Thing, the old John Carpenter, and we watched the original Halloween.
• 54:33
  I mean they're not scary, scary, but they're
• 54:35
  The last horror movie I watched was the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre and it was with a bunch of friends that was a creep in school thing.
• 54:43
  And you know, so you can't walk out of the room, right?
• 54:45
  So that's it.
• 54:47
  I was done.
• 54:48
  There's no way I'm watching another horror movie.
• 54:50
  Okay.
• 54:51
  Well, all right.
• 54:52
  Y'all two fell flat on Halloween week here.
• 54:54
  Well
• 54:55
  But I like Halloween some Halloween movies, like the Jack Skellington stuff and that.
• 54:59
  Yeah.
• 55:00
  okay.
• 55:00
  I'm gonna be honest with you, I cannot stand Nightmare Before Christmas.
• 55:04
  It is one of my least favorite movies ever.
• 55:06
  really?
• 55:06
  I love it.
• 55:06
  I am in it.
• 55:07
  I am in the outskirts of that.
• 55:10
  I hate that movie.
• 55:11
  I hate most of Tim.
• 55:12
  I like some of Tim Burton stuff.
• 55:14
  Yeah, I like Tim Burton.
• 55:15
  I like some of Tim Burton, but some of Tim Burton.
• 55:17
  I'm like, eh.
• 55:18
  Like I love Beetlejuice.
• 55:19
  I love the original Batman.
• 55:22
  No, I didn't care for his hand, so I love it.
• 55:26
  No, my idea of a Halloween movie is like It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.
• 55:31
  I'm with you.
• 55:31
  I'm with um you.
• 55:35
  Scary when the pumpkin comes out of the thing.
• 55:39
  Thank you so much though.
• 55:40
  This has been brilliant.
• 55:41
  Thank you so much for spending all this time with us.
• 55:43
  My pleasure.
• 55:44
  Thanks for having me.
• 55:51
  thank you so much Melanie.
• 55:52
  She was so much fun.
• 55:53
  She's a delight.
• 55:54
  What a lovely lady.
• 55:55
  And if if you get a chance to hear her speak, she's going to be at both SPS London and Texas, and NINC next year.
• 56:04
  She is great when she speaks.
• 56:07
  And and her like I said, w her stuff on Newsletter that we talked to her or her and NINC a couple of years ago has really changed the l how we were doing business then.
• 56:14
  And I don't think it's changing.
• 56:17
  I think I mean it may have some of the methods are maybe changing, but the importance of newsletter, as you said and Melanie both, is like it's super important right now.
• 56:24
  Like
• 56:25
  That method of getting getting people on there.
• 56:27
  The the great thing about having something in the back of the book, they just read the book.
• 56:31
  They liked the book.
• 56:32
  If they if they didn't like the book, they're not gonna sign up to your newsletter anyway.
• 56:35
  But i if they just read the book and they loved the book and you say, Hey, here's something extra about this character or or about this situation, it's the perfect time.
• 56:43
  They're clamoring for more.
• 56:44
  They're still in bed with you at this point, so go ahead and grab while they're there, you know?
• 56:48
  Go kicking them out.
• 56:49
  All right.
• 56:50
  Brilliant.
• 56:51
  This is this is a good one.
• 56:52
  Thank you so much, Melanie.
• 56:53
  Thank you to our Patreon subscribers.
• 56:55
  Uh, we love you folks.
• 56:57
  Three dollars a month over at patreon.com and you can get all the bonus stuff.
• 57:00
  We just had a brilliant little bonus session with Melanie Harlow, so that's the kind of thing you're gonna get over there.
• 57:05
  Huge thanks to our friends at at Vellum.
• 57:08
  this will come out after we've been to Vegas, but I can tell you we had a great time at Vegas chatting with the Brads, which will actually happen in two weeks' time.
• 57:16
  That's right, absolutely.
• 57:16
  So
• 57:17
  I'm looking into the future.
• 57:19
  It actually happens a day as it comes out.
• 57:21
  We're in Vegas right now.
• 57:22
  oh
• 57:23
  right, we are.
• 57:23
  That's is that's when this will come out.
• 57:24
  We're in Paris right now and we can't wait to see Brads of Vellum.
• 57:28
  Perfect.
• 57:29
  Tune in next time to the Two Authors' Podcasts and till then.
• 57:32
  Be cool to each other.
• 57:34
  Fair winds and following seas.
• 57:36
  You've been listening to the Two Authors' Podcast with Nicholas Harvey and Douglas Pratt.
• 57:42
  Subscribe on your favorite platform for new shows coming every week.