Latest / The Daily Writer / A Beginner's Guide to MAPs (Multi-Author Projects) | Mary Felkins, Dalyn Weller, Kit Morgan

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A Beginner's Guide to MAPs (Multi-Author Projects) | Mary Felkins, Dalyn Weller, Kit Morgan · The Daily Writer

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Hey friends, welcome back to the Profitable Writer Podcast.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: If you're new here, my name is Kent Sanders.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm an author and ghostwriter, and this is the show that helps you grow your impact and income as a writer.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining me for this episode of our Summer Expert Series.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: As an author, you already know that there's lots of ways to collaborate with other writers.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: You can co-write a book, you can ghostwride for people, and stay in the background, you can be part of a series or an anthology, and there's lots more options in addition to those.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: However, I confess that until recently I had actually never heard of maps, otherwise known as multi-author projects.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: And these are typically a series of books written by different authors, but set in the same world or universe and often using some of the same characters.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: I was talking over email with a friend of mine, Mary Felkins, who is a fantastic author herself about something actually entirely different than map projects.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: And just in the course of the conversation, she mentioned that she was participating in these kind of collaborative projects.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so I thought it would be fun to interview Mary and two of her collaborators, Delyn Weller and Kit Morgan, about what they're doing and all about map projects.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: I was super curious, and I thought, well, since you listened to the show, you probably would be curious as well.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Some of the topics that we dive into in this episode include what are the parameters of a map and how they work, why you might want to collaborate in this way, how cross promotion works when doing map projects, the limitations and benefits of these kind of projects, and much more.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: You can check out each of our guests' individual sites by going to maryfelkins.com, delynweller.com, which is d-a-l-y-nweller.com, and authorkitmorgan.com.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, all those links will be in the show notes.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: This was a really fun and interesting and very inspiring conversation, not just about map projects, but about writing fiction and also just the writing life as a whole.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I hope you enjoy this as much as I did.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Here's my conversation with Mary Falkins, Dylan Weller, and Kit Morgan.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I am so excited about this conversation about multi-author projects, uh, also called map or in some circles, maps, uh, when you're talking about serials and other kinds of things.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: So um thank you, ladies, for joining me for this conversation.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really excited about this.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: So appreciate you being here.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_04: It's good to be here.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_04: We're excited to be here.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Let's uh kick it off this way.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, this might be a little bit of a messy conversation because there are four of us on this call.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm okay with that because life is not perfect, and anytime you have a conversation on Zoom, you know, it's not all perfectly aligned.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: So we're just gonna go with the flow and have fun.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's totally my goal with it.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: So um, Marion, we'll kind of start with you because you were the person that I initially connected with about this topic.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Help us understand what what is a multi-author project?
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: What is a map to begin with for all for writers who have never heard of this way of writing?
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: What's the gist of this concept and why would somebody want to do it?
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I think there are there are a few aspects to the way I understand it, it is multi, meaning that you have obviously more.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_04: It's not just you, so you have what I'd say two or or more, as many as I don't know how many kit you've had before, but as many as 23.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_04: I guess it could be endless, so it's 40 something.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, multi could be endless.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_04: So there's so you have all those individual voices, because as you write, everybody can pick up a book and you recognize the unique voice of the author, but then you have a kind of a shared story world, whether it's fantasy or in this case, is contemporary world, you know, Central Washington is kind of where we started our shared universe, if you will.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_04: But then the branding is collaborative, so you have you maintain that uniqueness, so it's not you need to sound like this, and you know, everybody be the same.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_04: Um, so that's so that that's the strength, and it's is the collaborative effort, and everybody has their those aspects that they bring to the table, in addition to having their own their their own unique voice and your unique story, and then you have characters within that universe that can kind of cross over and show up in different, show up in the coffee shop, show up, you know, uh at the rodeo, wherever, and that's kind of fun to to do it that way too.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, now just to be clear, so I make sure I understand, and so basically, many times in these podcast conversations, I I put myself or I try to put myself in the seat of the listener.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm kind of pretending to be somebody who knows absolutely nothing about this.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: So if it if I come across as really ignorant about this topic, uh because I'm doing that intentionally, but also because I am, but I'm really interested in learning about this.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: So that being said, are we talking about a book that features lots of different authors in the same world or universe, or are we talking about a series of books that each person writes a different book, but they're all set within the same world?
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Or it or can it be both things?
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_04: I would say the second, correct me if you guys if if I'm wrong, but each they're individual books.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, they can be published together, bound together, but individual stories within that same universe.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: So okay.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Almost like the Marvel Cinematic Universe, or that kind of thing where you'll have different directors playing the same sandbox, but they're telling different stories.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: Is that a fair analogy?
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think so.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's probably closer to it.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: It could be like we have a small town and um characters that cross over into the books.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: Each author is writing her own story, but it's set in the same time period in the same place.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: There are some multi-author projects that share a similar theme and maybe set in different places.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's colorful.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: There are all kinds of ways to do it.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm in two different ones right now, and but they both operate the same in that it's the same setting, the same time period, and then character crossover, and then the authors.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: Part of what I love about the Christian writing community is the community.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: The community aspect of it for me is big.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: I live on a ranch, there are no other writers anywhere close to me.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so online life is kind of where it's at for me.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: And the multi-author projects are fun, partly because there's so much collaboration.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: We work together a lot, we have a lot of meetings, we have a lot of questions.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, in in both groups, there are um you have to work closely together to build the world.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: So you're writing your own story, but you're working with these other authors so that it's connected.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: Because um one of my favorite things, uh, oh gosh, at least 20 years ago, was reading the Bodie and Brock Taney series.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: Something I loved was the Easter eggs planted in the books.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: They had multiple series, but sometimes a character from one series would pop up in a completely different one.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought that was so fun um that I read them all.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so I do that in my books, but so the very fun thing about these multiple authors all writing together is that you kind of get that effect.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, that makes sense.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: A character in my book is gonna pop up in Kitts, and then two books later in Mary's, right?
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: You know, how does this work publishing-wise?
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have is it the same person or publisher who's publishing all these, or is it everybody kind of publishes their own stuff?
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have similar artwork?
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: How do how does all that work on a pragmatic level, publishing wise?
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_02: I'll answer this one.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, classically, say, for instance, one of the maps I was in a few years ago, the 12 Days of Christmas.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: You got 12 authors together.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_02: We based it off of the song, 12 days of Christmas.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_02: I was book number one, the partridge.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and we created this town and created the general storyline uh where the town was dying, and and the only way to bring it back to life was to get Mail Order Brides in there.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_02: My character was the town preacher.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_02: They didn't even have a church yet, they held church in the saloon.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: And he'd be writing his sermon notes when a whole brawl was going on on the other side of the room type thing.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_02: But um, we each individually published our books under our own Amazon account.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_02: Amazon then will put the books into a series for you, create a series page where readers readers can go look at the series page and see each individual author's book on this page, and they will also have it all lined up on your own books page.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_02: Book one, book two by so-and-so, book three is by another author, book four by yet another author.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so this is something Amazon does for you.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um when way back when 2014, I I really think we were the first ones to do it.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: It was Kirsten Osborne's Brain Child.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_02: Now, this woman is brilliant, and she's hilarious, um, came up with the idea for herself, me, and another author named Cassie Hayes to write uh basically the first multi-author project, and we did it based on three identical triplet brothers, and we each took a brother and they were all wanting to get married, and um we wound up writing three rounds of these, uh, and the readers loved it.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_02: It was at the readers' requests that we do it, and this was back in what we call the gold rush, which was where basically uh and I will disclose numbers on this one, uh, that book, um, that first book came out in December, and um in the end of December, and it made me 4,800 bucks just in just in one month.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: In it wasn't even the whole month, then in January, that one little book made me$9,135.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: And how is this a like a full-length book or is it more of a novella or how novel?
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it they were novella length, actually, about 45 for 35 to 45,000 words, but again, it is what we call the gold rush days.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: The gold rush advertise.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it you know, Kindle was still fairly new, it it had gotten its legs going and it was up and running well.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, they didn't start uh for basically changing the structure to where then you had to advertise until like 2017, 18, 19, back then, probably even in 16.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but it took hold.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_02: And then the next project that Kirsten came up with was the American Mail Order Bride Project, which was a bride from every state in the union.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_02: And so you're looking at 40 some odd different authors.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: Some of us took two books.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_02: I was Delaware and California.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: Nobody wants to go first, so I got really good at going first.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that's astrology, though.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: That's a um, but she came up with the idea of this huge multi-author project, and it it went off without a hitch.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_02: It was it was just beautifully done.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_02: We all uh she had her cover artist create a template that other authors, cover artists could use.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_02: So we all had similar covers, um, and managed to wrangle 40 some odd authors.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: It's like herding cats, and and get this project done.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_02: And it and that was a big, huge success.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: So these are all independently published.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: You're you're not going through a publisher, so everybody's making their own royalties.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: So coordinating with each other, communicating with each other, creating a town with each other, it's a lot of fun.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_02: It does take a bit of time.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but once you get that that base, you know, the what we call the the character bible, creation bible, whatever of the studying, the community, uh, then everybody can write their own book.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_02: You know, there's a word length you follow, whatever the suggested word length is.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um, if it's a very tight-knit project, like the 12 Days of Christmas was, my character is showing up in everybody's book throughout the 12 books.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so these authors would we'd get together and and talk.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_02: Is this what your character would do?
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_02: I've got him in this scene, and I'd read it and oh yeah, he'd totally do it that way.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's exactly what he would say.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_02: And then we'd leave it alone, or if there were changes to be made, no, he wouldn't say that.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_02: And vice versa, if I was using somebody else's characters in my story.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_02: Is this okay?
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_02: Would they do this or not?
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_02: Do I need to change it?
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_02: So um, there's all the collaboration, so a lot of work, but a lot of fun.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: In the Mars Bridge group, we often will send a scene.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, you know, your character, I'm putting your character in this scene.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: Does this work?
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: And you might say, Oh, that's fantastic, or you know, no, and then you work on it together.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: So it takes a lot of work, but it also takes a lot of you build relationships because you're you're having to be humble and teachable and also have leadership skills.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_04: One one thing too, part of this, I think the way I see that I didn't mention is and back to Kit, uh, as you can see, I think it's important to have when you're doing a project, the showrunner.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_04: So it's not just who wants to go first, it's she had to go first, she has a bigger readership.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_04: And one of the things we capitalized on is the fact that she has this weaver family that I don't know where they they're like all over the planet.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_04: And so we that may not be a name I would have ever thought of, but by golly, you know, in books, I have they you you know use that name.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_04: And and so her readers, she was saying, if we tuck in weavers here and there, however you want to use that, they'll read through.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_04: So you start with, oh, I know this, and then you know, we put an excerpt at the end of each book.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_04: If you like that story, then here's the first chapter of the next one, and that's what I have seen.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_04: It's just that read-through, so it brings the stronger, um, the the lesser, smaller audiences that that some of us have.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: Right, and you're not doing everything yourself, right?
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: You are marketing it for each other as well.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: There's not really room for a lot of self-interest, you know, everyone is promoting each other.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of cross-promotion, yeah.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's something that is really kind of beautiful.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: The indie um community, they are hard workers and they are um they're just so inspirational.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: They're kind of amazing, the things that they've been bold enough to do.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm writing with indie group as well as um a contracted traditionally published group.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: And um I would have to say the Wild Rose Ridge group that we're in together, every person has just come forward and used their strengths.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_01: We have Linda Joe Reed, who is the perfect secretary.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we just we all just work, we've become so close.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: And our drama's a yeah, the world we've created is amazing for the readers, but it's also been amazing for us.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now, to organize all this, so you mentioned that there has to be a lot of coordination to this, obviously.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: And Mary, you know, in our communications before this, um, you mentioned that each map has what you call a showrunner.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: And who is it?
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: How do you decide who kind of assumes that responsibility?
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: Or is this sort of a collective kind of a thing where everybody's contributing to let's say a Google Doc or something like that, where you have details about you know the map of a of a location, or how does this work on a practical level?
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_04: Well, as we had said, I mean we were already together in a group and an online coaching group, my book, Therapy, and this was just providentially the authors that were placed together.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_04: And so if the idea to do something fun, it just kind of naturally falls to somebody like Kit who has.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_04: I think in a group, you can either I just think it's important to do that because if if I could have started, but I think it may not have had the same momentum, then it's right, right.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_04: So I just think logically that makes more sense.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_04: And so again, just all the strategies too.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_04: Plus, you're not, I mean, I think just uniquely, we didn't say, hey, okay, let's sit down.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_04: We need somebody to administrate, we need somebody who can use Canva, we need somebody who who can know marketing.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_04: It's just kind of organically as we've trusted each other and communicated well, and uh it's it's just grown and gotten stronger as a result of that.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, we were an already established writing group.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: And this kind of came out of that, out of out of something that you already had established.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: It did, but for other multi-author groups, um, sometimes someone has the idea and then they just email people they know and say, Hey, would you like to do this with me?
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so that person is sort of the front runner because they're organizing it.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: Some of them are run amazingly well, and then I hear rumors about some that are run very poorly.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I'm sorry, go ahead.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_04: I just know that Kit, you've had some experiences.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know what they are, it doesn't matter, but where there have been groups that have been hard to work with, or it's it's not, it's it's not an unselfish endeavor.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_04: And so that's kind of been our at least for me, certainly my mantra, just we need to work um well together.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_04: And I think it's done, it's it's been a huge blessing.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: And we've streamlined too, because we've been doing this for a few years.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: We have the same cover artist.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_03: Uh-huh.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: She creates a template, and then she, when we're ready, we let her know what we want.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: So we all work with the same cover artist, and we have a continuity editor who actually turns out to be an amazing proofreader as well.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_01: She's really she does she's sexual.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_04: And uh and and has become a fan of the series instead of just let me do this as a job.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_04: It's she's really enjoyed the the stories and given her feedback.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so I'm I'm sorry, go ahead.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: I was gonna ask, what can you list list two or three series that people could look up on Amazon so they get a feel for what these books look like?
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I can't speak proper English.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I'm a professional writer.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: What do these books look like?
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: And uh what do they look like, you know, like in a series, and they can get a feel for the the vibe of these.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: So, what are two or three things that they would search on Amazon to try and find some of the series that uh that you guys have worked on?
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: I think we could all give examples.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna say right away the Wild Rose Ridge series because that's what we're writing, and then there's the Sunrise.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the Sunrise has also several.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm doing the Hometown Hearts series with them, and then I know Kit's been in lots, so okay.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: Anything you could you could share with this kit as far as maybe a couple of series that people could check out.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I've been in, well, of course, the big one was the American Mail Order Bride series, uh huh.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_02: And you just do Amazon's search for American Mail Order Bride series, and it should come up.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_02: Another one I was in that went on for I don't know how many books was called the Cowboy and Angels series.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um Kirsten Osborne was a part of that.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_02: Uh it was the brainchild of a mother-daughter team who write together.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_03: That's cool.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um Joe of Joe Noel, I believe is the pseudonym they write under.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but it was matchmaking angels, you know, just cute, good, clean, fun books.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um and uh oh I'm trying to I'm in four right now, so that's five if you count Wild Rose Ridge.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_04: So that what was the one was it last year?
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_02: Cowboy Kisses and Holiday Wish, something like Yeah, that that was uh it was called um Christmas Wishes and Cowboy Kisses.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_02: That that was 23 authors.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and what we did is we did a huge that was a little different.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_02: That was a box set.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_02: All the books went into a box set and under its own account so that the monies could be split between the 23 authors and and those are often shorter books.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I'm in several holiday uh collaborations of box sets, like up to 14, and I think one's got 18 authors in it.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_02: These are short little 20,000 to 25,000 word okay, oftentimes, but they're usually just a theme.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: One of them I'm in right now is just mistletoe.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_02: Mistletoe has to be in the story.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_02: They're contemporary romance romances, another one romantic comedy.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and then another one is is just uh contemporary holiday, um, just Christmas themed.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: How does Amazon take books by different authors and put those in a series?
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody has to go in and and indicate to Amazon that they're part of a series, correct?
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: How does that work?
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_02: You have to email them and let them know you've got a multi-author series.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, okay.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_02: And uh you give them the title, the author, and the ASIN number of each book, if they're live or on pre-order.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_02: And uh they you give them also a blurb that you want for the series, otherwise, they'll take the blurb from the first book in the series and they'll create the page.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: So there is somebody physically in Amazon who is actually checking this.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: You can't just go and say my book is a part of whatever series, obviously.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right, yeah.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: Interesting, okay.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: Not when it's multi-author, when it's just you creating your own series.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if that's changed, but I was able to, I have two other series, but when it's multi-author, I think someone has to do exactly what Kit just said.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, one person has to be the contact person for the series.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_02: If it's okay, if it's your own individual series, you create that, they have a place uh in KDP to create that.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and like like this book is number one, or this book you're uploading is number six of such and such a series, they'll actually have a drop-down menu and you pick which series you're adding to.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they've they've made it very convenient for us.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: So and so all the all the so the books in in these series are available, obviously, ebook and I assume print, correct?
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, some it depends on the length.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_02: There they might be just ebook, some it might depend on the author, whether they just leave it up to the author if they want to do a print version.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um but not audiobooks for these.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_02: That's up to the author.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_02: Like my American Mail Order Bride books are print, ebook, and audio.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_03: Uh-huh.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um, where other authors they only did the ebook.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, others did a print and ebook.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_02: I like to do all three.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: I I always think of maybe someone with uh site difficulties being able to have an audiobook or write.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: We'll get back to the conversation in just a minute, but I want to take a moment to give a big thanks to today's sponsor, Vellum.
• 26:38
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• 26:47
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• 27:07
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• 27:19
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• 27:25
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• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now let's get back to the conversation.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: How are how are you all doing audiobooks?
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: Are you hiring other people to do those?
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: Are you narrating those yourselves?
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: Are you using AI narration?
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: How do you do that?
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: I right now I'm using I'm in a beta program with KDP using the AI narration, which I actually am impressed with.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: I thought it was going to be terrible because I've heard AI voices that just are robotic, but they really have improved.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't think it's available to everyone right now, but um because it's still in beta, but for whatever reason, they chose me to allow me to have uh at first it was just two or three books in the program, and it doesn't cost you a thing, right?
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: And then for whatever reason, they notified me that all of my books could go in there.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: Now, my very first book, I have a friend who's a TV producer, and she asked me if she could do that.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: So the first one is a person who had a studio and just wanted to do it, it was a devotional that she really liked.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: And then the other ones have been using that beta AI, and I actually really like it.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: You can go in and edit the way it pronounces words, you can but it's it's it's easy and it's good.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_04: So here's an example of the benefit of collaborating is that Delyn drew attention to that in the dashboard.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_04: Hey everybody, check and see.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_04: And I kind of glanced over that, and all four of the Wild Rose Ridge books are were eligible, also.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_04: So I'm actually listening to this first one that we did last spring on audio, and yeah, the voices are really you have like eight to choose from.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_04: And again, I'm thinking about people it uh who that's the only way that they can enjoy the story, and it also opens your eyes too, to as a writer, how things might be confusing, or and then I so yeah, it's it's it's a good learning experience as a writer too, to keep that in mind.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_04: Maybe you need more attribution tags.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, on print, they know that's a private thought, but they're not gonna understand that when they're listening to it.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_04: So I'm right, right listening to the whole thing uh to to have that one available as an audiobook.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to get into uh a little bit um the income side of things, whatever whatever you all can can share that you feel is appropriate, etc.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: However, um before I forget, I want to ask about the reading habits of people who are consuming these types of books.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because I do think that that's important for for people to keep in mind is what what kind of reader are you writing for?
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: So can you give give us some insights into what kind of person would be most likely to consume books that are written like this?
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, are they just reading a lot of books quickly?
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: Are they buying a ton of books?
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: Are they reading like a book a day?
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like my my mother-in-law, she's been gone for a number of years.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um she would read like a novel a day.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, she was a very, very, very fast reader.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, what kinds of people tend to consume books that are written with this map sort of of model?
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'll I'll take this one too.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_02: It a lot of it depends on the the demographic you're writing for.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_02: Uh my main wheelhouse, so to speak, is historical western romance.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_02: So um a lot of the audience uh are retirees, they're age 65 and up.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: Interesting, okay.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because they grew up with watching shows like The Virginian and the West, the John Wayne Westerns, and we're talking in the 40s, 50s, 60s, and into the 70s.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_02: Um they love it, it's they're you know, they're simple good versus evil, the hero gets the girl type thing.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_02: And that resonates with them with their childhood and younger days and thing and what they grew up with.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_02: And uh whereas you might have contemporary romance, it's generally the bulk of the audience is is younger, 35 to 55, mostly women, um, though men do read it too.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um quite a few men read the westerns, the historical westerns.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you have paranormal romance where the genre may be even younger, or the audience may be even younger, uh, 20s and 30s and 40-year-olds.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_02: So, but as the where I've seen most of a lot of map groups is in western uh genre because that's where it it really began.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's interesting.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there's a lot of map groups, and then you saw it branching out into other genres, of course, but uh you see a ton of it in historical, and that's regency as well.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: I find that really fascinating because there really is, you know, if you look on Amazon like at the top hundred bestsellers, um I don't know how else to say this, but but it seems like bestsellers have gotten weirder over the last 10 or 15 years.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like, like things have and probably that's just like culture in general, like they push to the extreme, like you know, like books books that are popular uh on Amazon, and I I guess I'm talking about like the more adult themed books, like it's stuff that it that's popular nowadays that you wouldn't that maybe wouldn't have been popular.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's just more of a coarseness of the way culture is going or something, or books that are really kind of strange or different or just plain weird.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: But what I hear you saying is that there is still very much a readership for simple, clean, family-oriented stuff.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because I feel like some of the more extreme things get a lot of attention, but there's still very much a hunger for just good old.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: I sound I sound like uh, you know, I'm 85 when I say this, but for just good old, clean, simple stories, right?
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: Is that a fair way to say that?
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, that's very fair.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, back in 2015, there was a whole group of authors who were uh pushing for a category their own of clean and wholesome, and they got it.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_02: Amazon gave it to them.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_02: Interesting.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_02: One of the groups I'm in for a holiday uh collaboration, these are authors who who are writing what we call spicy, but they're writing, they're trying their hand at clean and wholesome.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_02: Something different, something new, and and and maybe they're tired of writing the other stuff.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um and uh there's what is called clean and wholesome, there's what's called sweet, um, there's different names for it.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but generally, whether it's contemporary, fantasy, paranormal, western, whatever, it's just good, clean fun.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_02: That's the goal.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think as the world gets crazier, people are longing for a little comfortable corner, yes, where you have a book community where it's where it's wholesome and clean, and you have a little adventure, but you don't, you know, you don't get into anything dark or dirty.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: I try to create a little small town where people can come and visit and their dogs and their kids and their families, and yeah, there are tough issues too, but there's always a happy ending.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: I think I like those.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: We all I think because the world is kind of nuts and we want some comfort.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_04: And people feel safe with that too.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_04: It's interesting interacted with with people at book signings, and you know, I will introduce romance.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_04: I kind of get into the Christian part a little bit uh carefully because you don't want to I want to draw people.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_04: So, but if you say romance, they're usually very much attracted.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_04: And it's either uh, you know, say it's clean romance, you get this uh just this look of relief, like yes, I want to, I don't even care what it's about, I'll buy it.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_04: And then even then the reader that loves romance of all types will say, Well, you know, that's okay too, meaning I'm willing to give that a try.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_04: And so you have that that privilege too of introducing something that's refreshingly cleaner.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_04: Even um an avid reader I know who confess that you know when once they do the deed, then it's it kind of ruins the story for the online, yeah.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: And kind of like releases attention that you know, like that there's probably a lot of reasons people love Hallmark movies, but I I walked into the living room.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: This has just been a few days ago.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: My wife loves Hallmark stuff, and at the end of the, you know, they typically don't kiss till the end of a Hallmark movie.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's like a standard Hallmark thing.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: And they had this really passionate kiss at the very end of the movie, and we were like, Whoa, that's spicy for Hallmark, you know.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but but it but it you're right, it's like it it kind of you know it it releases a tension that readers in a certain genre are going to expect that's gonna go on till the end of the story.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I like contemporary western writing, uh, and I call it uh a hallmark yellowstone mashup.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so you get the cowboys and you get the adventure and you get all that, but you don't get, you know, 6,000 f-bombs and blood and guts and all that.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: No, I I write very clean and I write I'm a Christian and I write Christian, but it's not you know overtly.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_04: The books are clean and they're fun, so there's a way to tell the truth without being, you know, it's kind of a fun challenge to help them on their little spiritual journey and try to consider people of all beliefs, and at the end, you know, God saves the day, but it's it's just very subtle.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, I can have one of my characters in the Christmas series is a pastor with a past.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_04: That's the whole tagline.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_04: It's like, oh, what's that all about?
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_04: Like, you mean he hasn't been godly since birth?
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_04: No, not at all.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_04: So it's just it's kind of it's redemptive, I think.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_04: And readers do are looking for that.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_04: It's so yeah, there's definitely a hunger, it just there's so much other shouting, so much shouting uh from darker places that it's harder to get the voice out there, but there's definitely a readership, yeah.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_02: There's there's even a secondary genre.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you have clean and wholesome category, and then you have what's called closed door romance that has started.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_02: And um what closed door it clean and wholesome, there may kiss at the end of the book.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_02: There, you know, there's no making out, no heavy petting, no nothing like that.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_02: You might even have two or three kisses during the book, hand holding closed door.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um maybe he has his arm around her back and you know is running his hand up and down her back, and and um there's you can have a bit more violence, you know, people might die.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, not just the family cow, but people might get killed and clean and wholesome.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_02: Not a lot of people die, is it type thing?
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but still it's it's it's a little bit more, but it's still completely that that door closes.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, you know, imagination, right?
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_04: And and maybe who knows?
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: It does yeah, as far as the marketing goes, knowing what people want and being able to give it to them, if it's in your comfort zone, you know, like I really focus on uh because I firmly believe people want community right now.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_01: Online life is lonely, people are socially ill because there's just not enough community.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I think totally agree.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's one reason why small towns um populated with the same old, same old comforting people, you know, um are attractive to readers.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: You want to create this safe place for them to come, and it's kind of like being friends with them, really.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_01: Look, I feel friends with my readers because I'm creating this world where I like to be and they're enjoying coming to it.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_01: And and I know that a lot of like kids mentioned, a lot of my readers are retired or close to it, they're caregivers of their parents or their grandkids, um, and they want an escape.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so I try to make sure the books are in Kindle Unlimited so that people, you know, unlimited incomes can read those books.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_01: And it's another reason why, you know, we try to make sure that our series is in um, if possible, it's in Audible, it's paperback.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_01: We we try to give all the availability that we can, and they're in KU because we know that a lot of our readers are on a limited income and it's a way to bless them.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's a way to serve.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_01: If you know, like I can't get out much because I have a ranch to take care of and a family, but it's still a way to serve.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'd love to dive into as I mentioned earlier, any anything related to income from this that that you're open to sharing or willing to share, or percentages, or or anything that might be helpful to readers in terms of, or to readers, to listeners, in terms of what could somebody who really dives into this uh maybe expect over the short term, over the long term?
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um what can you give us?
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because people are always interested in hearing about that side of things.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_01: I think this is Kit's wheelhouse here because she studies a lot and she works hard at it.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_01: Had a lot of trial and no pressure, kit.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_00: No pressure at all.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and and aspiring authors can get discouraged nowadays because they've, as I mentioned before, the gold rush.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_02: They've heard about that.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, what was that?
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, that's what it was.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_02: How lovely to have gotten in at that point.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but an author who who works hard, they they know their audience, they've found their audience, see what they like, then start writing.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_02: That's called writing to market, um, can make a go of it.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_02: But don't, you know, like everybody says, don't quit your day job because it takes a while to get going.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_02: And it depends on what genre it is.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_02: Some genres are much larger than others.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, Western historical, for example, is a very niche genre, it's it's a very niche audience.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, Regency is a bigger audience, women's fiction is an even bigger audience.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_02: That one's huge.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think there's money to be made, but like I'm part of my book, Therapy, and Susie Mae Warren is our fearless leader, and she's amazing.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_01: And she will say it's you have to spend money to make money.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_01: So for marketing, you have she said she said that she started selling Tupperware to get marketing money.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_01: You have to have a little account that's set apart for marketing.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then the other thing is quality, quantity, and quickness.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_01: You have to write books, and you have to write a lot of them.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to write that down.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like that's it.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's a whole that's a that's that's a whole thing right there.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_02: There's a flip side of that too.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_02: Um, there's a gentleman, Matthew J.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_02: Holmes, and his wife is Laura Holmes.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_02: And she's only written five books.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_02: She writes uh like five fantasy type books.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_02: But and he's he's her ads man, and he created Facebook ads for his wife, and they have made a living off her five books for you know five or six years now.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_02: And she's working, she only does one book a year.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but he figured out how to do Facebook ads very, very well, and now he teaches others how to do Facebook ads, and um so it it depends now.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_02: I'm in the camp of of you know quality, quantity, and quickness.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I don't advertise, and I'm a six-digit author, but I have a lot of books, and they are all about community.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_02: When Delyn said people love that community, it's it's very, very true.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_02: I've created entire towns, entire communities, and they'll crisscross, they'll visit each other.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_02: Characters from one town will go visit characters in another town, this sort of thing.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, this because, like she said, people are craving that, especially now.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_02: It's something they want anyway, but now even more so.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_02: And so books that have these communities in them, no matter what the genre, get very popular very fast.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_00: How many books have you have you written at this point?
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_00: And how long have you been writing?
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_02: I actually was a book reviewer back in the early 90s.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I was encouraged by Julia Quinn of Bridgerton Fame.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_02: Um because I wrote the review of her first book when she was having a really bad day.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_02: She read that review and went, Oh, thank you.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_02: Somebody loves me.
• 46:24
  SPEAKER_00: My wife loves Bridgerton.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and Julie's a fantastic person.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um anyway, she she's like, Your reviews are absolutely hilarious.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_02: Why aren't you writing a book?
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_02: Because I do write with a lot of comedy.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so I said, Well, I guess I could try to write one.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_02: So I did, and I stuck it in a trunk for 13 years.
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_02: Uh years later, somebody said, 'You ever gonna do anything with that?' I went, Oh, I suppose I should.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_02: So it got picked up by a small press in 2006 or seven and hit the bookshelves like two Christmas Eve of 2008, I think it was.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um long story short, my daughter's student loans were coming due.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_02: Now we're in 2012 and I need money.
• 47:12
  SPEAKER_02: Oh boy.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_02: Uh oh, I can write.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, okay.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not writing another giant sci-fi because I have several pen names.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_02: Kit Morgan's just the main one.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_02: So that's when I started writing Westerns.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I just simply took a character from my Time Master series and made her the author, and that's Kit Morgan.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_02: My fictional me has way more books than the real me.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_02: How that happened, I don't know.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_02: But oh, I guess it was because I wrote community, and those books took off because they fell in love with the towns and the townspeople and the but I think I'm on number 175.
• 47:53
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_02: But that's over a 11 crazy coming up on an 11-year period.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_02: But and I'm nothing compared to some, but I you know, and they're varying lengths.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_02: My Time Master books are up to 164,000 words.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but I write little novellas, you know, 20, 25,000 words, average is 55 to 60.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_02: It just depends on the series.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, that's a lot of words.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but they're like I say, there are authors who have way more books than me and have been writing for less years.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's amazingly prolonged.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_00: So, how many words a day?
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_00: And as I mentioned earlier, you know, we probably should do a separate podcast interview on this, but just how many words a day are you writing at this point?
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_02: Give or take um right now to get done what I need to get done.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_02: I've got four shorts to write, which means they're less than three of them are 20,000 words, one's at 25, the one I'm working on now.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_02: Or no, two at 20, one at 25, one at 28, and then a time master book, which I'm 53,000 words in, it will probably wind up around 135.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_02: It releases November 30th.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_02: We're going to thousand words a day.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_00: That's incredible.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_02: What it'll take, which is you just figure out, I figure a comfortable typing speed for me is 37 point.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_02: I've done the math, 37.5 words per minute.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_02: Each chapter is about 1950, 2000 words.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_02: That's 52 minutes, 54 minutes, something like about 52 minutes.
• 49:41
  SPEAKER_02: So broken up into yeah, three 15 minute sprints, one seven-minute sprint, take a break, go do something, then write another one.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_02: But I also dictate.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_02: Now we're doing that in a half hour, right?
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_02: So you're only talking two hours of dictation or about a little over three and a half hours of of typing.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_02: You just a job.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_02: That's this is my full-time job.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_00: This is how I make a absolutely full-time job.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_04: The Zoom room has been a big help.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_04: The Zoom room by part of this collaboration was introducing us to one of Kit's um author friends, Christine, who has uh Facebook group at Creative Capsule, and then she treats the Zoom kind of like what we're gonna be doing now, like an opportunity.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_04: It's strictly an opportunity to write.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_04: You might be doing your newsletter, but if you need to get those 10,000 words in, you you sign in to the Zoom room and you have your mic off and you have your camera on or off.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_04: It's up to you.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_04: It kind of keeps you accountable so you don't just get up and you know walk away.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_04: But uh just having that mindset of I need to get this done today, I'm gonna go into the Zoom room because there are other people who are working.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_04: It's just like if you walked into a room and everybody's quietly working, that's a spiritual office at work.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's like an office and everybody has their individual cubby, you know.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_02: It it changes the mindset.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_04: I feel like I'm being watched whether my camera's on or off, and I it just it does something biochemically that makes you productive, far more productive than I would be if I'm like, well, yeah, I don't know.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_01: If you're gonna be serious about it, you need work hours, you know, uh flexible for sure, but you know, it's a job.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a job, but it's a fun job.
• 51:45
  unknown: Yeah.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I have really enjoyed this conversation.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh gosh, we need to do a follow-up on this sometime.
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_00: I have way, way more questions, and I'm really intrigued by this way of creating, but also this business model.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's fascinating.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I appreciate each one of you being willing to take an hour out of your day and chopping into your writing time, especially to uh share with profitable writer listeners.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I will have links to each of your sites and all that good stuff in the show notes so we don't have to go through kind of the rigor morola of where can people find you.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_00: I do that many times, but uh when I have multiple people as guests on an episode, it gets a little bit cumbersome.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I will have all that in the show notes.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_00: But uh want to thank you, three ladies, for joining me today.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_00: This has been an honor and a privilege, and you have really inspired me to up my word game.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, thanks so much for joining me for another episode of The Profitable Writer.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_00: Hope you enjoyed that conversation just as much as I did.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_00: Looking forward to the next episode, which features a conversation with fiction author Patrick O'Donnell, who's made a very interesting career transition by taking what he had learned from a longtime career in law enforcement and channeling that into crime fiction.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a fan of fiction, you're absolutely going to love that conversation, and I look forward to seeing you then.