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Launching a Book–Everything it Takes · Reality Writes

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_03: Hello, hello, and welcome to the reality rights podcast.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_03: I am author Ellie Alexander and I am here with my tech guy husband.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the tech guy.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_03: It's true.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_03: This is the podcast where we talk all things bookish, writer-ish, tech-ish, life-ish.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_03: Should I just keep saying ishes?
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you could.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: Could we add Star Wars-ish in there?
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we'll cover that sometimes.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh soccer-ish.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh liquor-ish.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: See what I did there?
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_03: He's here on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_03: Sure to tip your bartender.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_03: No, uh, this week, because I happen to have a brand new series launching, we thought it would be interesting if we sort of did a deep dive into everything that goes into launching a book.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: Everything?
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Everything.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Everything.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: So where are we going to start in the process?
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I think we should start from the beginning because if and and we are only going to go to launch day.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_03: Because if we then talked about everything that happens post-launch, this podcast would be like four and a half hours long.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that makes sense.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's still a lot of steps.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's like it's like three steps.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_03: It's like three.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_03: It's no big deal.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_03: You just snap.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_03: Magic.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_03: There it is.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I think the unique thing, what's exciting to me about this new series that's releasing this particular week, if you happen to be listening to the podcast, you might already have one of the new books in your hands, is that this is with a brand new publishing house.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_03: And they're kind of they're like bridging the gap between traditional publishing and independent publishing.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_03: And we together have now published in each format.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_03: Certainly, I I usually take all the lead when it comes to my traditional publishing, but you have been a huge support in our indie publishing arm.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_03: And then um now we're kind of in this in-between area.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_03: So I think we should talk about all three processes too, because they're slightly different sometimes.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh they're yeah, they're they're wildly different sometimes.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_03: Wildly different is probably more accurate, yes.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:17
  unknown: Yeah.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it all starts with first you you have to write the book, right?
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_03: You do sort of have to write the book first.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_03: It's funny because no joke, I have had writing students over the years because I teach and I coach writing, I've had many writing students who want to start like submitting to agents and submitting to editors when they have two or three chapters written.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, stop.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_03: I'm back up.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_03: You have to have the book ready to go because you only have one chance to make a first impression, and you don't want to shoot your shot and then be immediately rejected because the book is nowhere near done.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_03: And the writing process takes a while too.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, it it's I mean, I'm still amazed at the speed at which you do write, um, because you do write every day, uh, but nonetheless, it does take a while.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: That it's the that's the lengthiest part, right?
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's writing right, right?
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Writing the book.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_03: So if we back up to the beginning, the first thing that I usually do is I start sketching out a new idea.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_03: And this is usually brainstorming.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_03: If it's a series that I've been writing for a long time, like the Bake Shop Mysteries, in a few weeks I'm going to be starting in on book 21.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_03: Usually, as I'm wrapping up the last book, I already sort of have an idea percolating about what the next book is going to look like.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_03: But oftentimes you're part of that process too, where we're I'll just be like, hey, I have this rough sense of an idea, and we'll kind of brainstorm and collaborate together.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and that usually takes, I would say, at least a couple weeks.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it's easier than others because sometimes you'll come to me with things about, hey, what do you think about this?
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll be like, Well, I mean, it sounds great, but I don't know anything about these characters.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Or, you know, if it's like with your Bait Shop series, that's pretty easy because I'm well familiar with uh everybody in Ashland.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, same with Sloan, but uh this new series, not so much.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_03: No, they're all brand new.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_03: Annie, Hal, Fletcher, Pre, the gang, Professor Plum, yeah, it's exciting.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and then of course, if you're starting a brand new series or a brand new individual book, you also have to do in on top of sort of that initial sketching of an idea and forming together a rough plot, you also have to build that world out then too.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_03: So doing deep dives into characters, what are their traits, what do they look like, what are their tells?
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and then after that's all done, then I always do an outline.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_03: So I sketch out an entire outline of each kind of key character, the suspects, what they're lying about, what they're hiding.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_03: And then I start writing the first draft.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when your office is off limits.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: 100%.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_03: 100%.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_03: Do not come near me.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: Don't knock on the door, don't, don't, yeah, it doesn't matter.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Unless the house is on fire.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: And even then, maybe, maybe not.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_03: Probably not.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you could you've got a window.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: You'll go out.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I can get out.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_03: I'm fine.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_03: I'm fine.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_03: Fend for yourself and go.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_03: For me now, the first draft usually takes about six to eight weeks.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_03: When I was obviously first writing, it took much longer.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_03: It took years.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and so I never want to put that myth out there to new writers of like, oh, it is gonna happen super fast.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_03: Sometimes that'll happen, but um, that has happened over time and practice and just consistently writing for me.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_03: So after I complete a first draft, then I let it sit for a while, and then the editing phase begins.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_03: And that's that's a whole other part of the process.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_03: It's a different part of your brain.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_03: I don't think I'm quite as militant about not being interrupted when I'm in the editing process.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: No, definitely not.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: But um, but I will say, I mean, one thing that we should point out is and and this is not true of every writer, but but for you for sure, because you have been writing for several years, is once you get done with that first draft and and you let it sit, it's not like we just pick up activities for that particular book.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: You're writing multiple books.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, or you know, multiple books are in process.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: So for the listeners out there, darlings out there, the darling, um, everything that we're talking about here is going on all the time.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: All the time, all like January through December, four weeks a month, like seven days a week, like all the time this stuff is going on.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: So just keep that in mind that when she's talking about the process, when one book goes to rest after the first draft is done, we're like it it's not like we're then just like sitting around and you know, having beers and cold drinks out in the backyard and everything.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: And we're we're working on stuff like the next phase for whatever other book or books you are currently working on.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, for sure.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_03: You say that like it's a bad thing.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_03: What?
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_03: Am I working too much?
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_03: Are you trying to send me a message?
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's not it's not a bad thing at all.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's a full-time job, though.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: So this goes back to we did an episode a while ago about uh no, writing really is a a is a real job, and this is this is part of it.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: So this is getting into the nitty-gritty of it, right?
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_03: This is getting into the nitty-gritty.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_03: And um, just like conjunction junction, what's your function?
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_03: Schoolhouse rock from the 1980s, we are literally taking you step by step through every part of the process, which I love.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so after I edit it, which is usually multiple rounds, then if I well, actually this is true no matter what path we're taking, then it would go to my early readers.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um sometimes called beta readers.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_03: Sometimes called beta readers, yep.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_03: These are people who have a first look who I always send specific requests for feedback because I don't want to get feedback that is wildly different.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_03: I want to have a very clear, concise idea of what's working, what's not working, suspects, that kind of thing.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_03: Then after I go through um through that process, the next step is I send it to my editor.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_03: So if I'm working on like Bake Shop or one of my traditionally published series, it goes to my editor at that publishing house and they then take time doing what's called a developmental edit.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_03: So this is where they're picking out like big picture things.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_03: If we're publishing it independently, I am then hiring a private developmental editor to do that exact same job.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_03: It's not like if we're publishing it ourselves, this whole editing phase just gets glossed over, right?
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_03: And we're like, oh, it's done.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_03: It's ready.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_03: It's fine.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: It would never be ready.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, or we would think it was ready, but there would be so many errors because, and you talk about this in your uh course um mystery series masterclass, uh it it doesn't matter how well you edit a book yourself or how great of an editor you consider yourself to be, if you're looking at something a hundred percent of the time, you're gonna gloss over some of the like easiest, like most frustrating errors imaginable.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: And they're gonna make it into the final copy.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then here's the best part readers are gonna tell you about it.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, they're gonna tell you about it.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: They love to tell you about it.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_03: I know they do love those gotcha moments.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I know I wrote an 80,000-word book and you found two errors.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_03: I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_03: But I mean, I get it.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like I we always want to put the most polished absolutely, but that happens even with the traditional publishing route with um with uh multiple editors, with like you know 52 week a year New York Times bestselling authors, like it still happens, it it just happened.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_03: It still happens, and um, I am still like I'm always shocked at how many because I know on my end, how many people touch and see the book that anything slips in is astounding to me.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but it is also because it's just it's it's a lot of words usually.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's a lot of words.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_03: It's a lot of words.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so after I get developmental feedback returned, and again, this is like structural, or sometimes again, if it's like the Bake Shop Mysteries, let's say, and it's been a long-running series, my editor might say, Hey, give readers like a little bit more background here about Thomas or Carlos or one of the characters.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_03: If it's a new series, like my secret bookcase mysteries that have just released, that might be more like, hey, let's do a little bit more world building, or or can we have a little more internal thought inside Annie's head as we're really trying to bring this world to life and get characters or get characters, get readers invested in the series.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_03: So those notes come back, and usually that's also, you know, there's a line edit that goes with it.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_03: I go through that process and then I return it to the team again, and then it goes through copy edits, which are oh, I don't know what I just touched there, but something went, well, did you hear that?
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's a bonus, it's a bonus, it's a bump in the eye, it's a mystery.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_03: It's a mystery.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_03: It's because I'm talking about copy edits, and um copy edits are and page proofs are my least two favorite things about the writing process, but they're necessary.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_03: So the copy editor goes through line by line.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_03: This is where you know you're you're adding in a an Oxford comma, you're making sure that if I say the sun sets at 5 30, it's actually and it's June that that's really true and that we don't need to push that back.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_03: You wouldn't need to push that back.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: Totally.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_03: But if we're independently publishing, again, we are hiring a professional copy editor to go through the manuscript line by line.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that's important.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because uh again, you could be the best writer in the world, you're not the best editor.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it just doesn't, it's a totally different skill set.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: You're looking at writing in a totally different way, you're looking at uh sentence structure in a totally different way, and and you're again going back to what I said earlier, you're new to the story.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: So you're going to catch things that you wouldn't catch if you because you have read that same sentence 147 times.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that's part of why by copy edits and page proofs, I'm kind of sick of the book, too, because I've seen it and touched it so much myself and nothing seems fresh.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_03: At that point, there's really not a lot you can change either.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so it's not like in the developmental edit, if I really wanted to make some bigger structural changes, I can do that.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_03: But when you get to the last phase, which is page proofs, this is where you're going through the manuscript one last time and you're looking at any like, is a line off?
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_03: Is the spacing wrong?
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_03: Um, it's tedious and um you really can't change anything.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_03: So then this is the writer in me where I'm like, ooh, I could have, I could have used a better word there, but you really, you know, they they don't encourage you to make that level of change at that point.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_03: You know, because the book's already formatted and ready to go.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_03: So that is that part alone just gets us through the writing process.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_03: Now, let's say for some of the projects that we've worked on together and collaborated on, you while I am doing kind of these final rounds of copy edits and page proofs, you would be starting to work on cover art.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: Correct.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um and this is where I'd probably come up with like two or three different design, like high-level design ideas to run by you to say, hey, what do you think about this?
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think about that?
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you'll tell me how bad one looks usually.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: You'll say that.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I I am my own worst critic for sure.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I will say that.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be like, well, this one sucks, but you know, this is my favorite.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: You usually pick the other one, just you know, right?
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: That that part is totally true.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: So then I have to then I have to work on convincing myself that the one that I thought was the worst one is now the best one, and we gotta move forward with that.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: But but that's a lot of work too.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it follows pretty much the same process, right?
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: You sketch things out, kind of I get an early reader, an early viewer, right?
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: You look at it and you say, Okay, uh, yeah, I like this, or can we do more of that, or can this be bigger or whatever?
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: And um uh and then uh go back and iterate on that.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and then we then we have to once we lock in a design, um, then we have to start thinking about how the design is gonna flow through the cover because in it it's it's a it's much easier in an ebook format because you just have this rectangular, this tall rectangular image that you're putting together.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: But in print, you have to you have to think about how things are gonna look on the spine and how the image is gonna wrap around to the back, or is it gonna wrap around to the back and how much copy is gonna be there?
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: And you've got to make room for the barcode and all sorts of stuff.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh so all those considerations have to go into it.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: But again, it is an iterative process.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just one design and you're done.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_03: No, hardly.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_03: No, no.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_03: And then same thing, we often get uh feedback from friends, from family, from my people, yeah.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, exactly.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_03: Um to and that's always really interesting too, because I might be really leaning toward one cover, and then if we share it a little more broadly, it's interesting that like the feedback often comes back the opposite.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_03: So that's helpful.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I love getting to share um things with your patrons because they it I mean, it's fun to give people an early look at things, but then um they also generally have really, really good feedback.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I've I they they come from like all walks of life, and so it's great to kind of get this broad spectrum of you know views of what something looks like because just like the writing, the art is all subjective, so it's it's very interesting.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_03: But we do judge books by covers too.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_03: So like we we want covers that speak to the content inside, and we can do a whole podcast on this, but I have had some terrible covers over the years, covers that I thought of murder.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know that and I actually it's uh I I love that you have had those, not because of the way it made you feel, but because the bar set pretty low for me when it comes to cover design.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm a little selfishly, it's kind of cool that you know some of your earlier covers were not great.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: Not great.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_03: Now, if I'm um working with one of my big publishing houses in traditional publishing, this cover process is taking place, you know, months and months and months earlier.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_03: Usually a book goes up for pre-order a year in advance.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_03: And so as I'm finishing the previous book in the series, my editor is dinging dinging me saying, Hey, can I get like a two-paragraph blurb about what the next book is going to be and some ideas for cover art?
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_03: So that process is happening simultaneously.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_03: And um, I don't I don't really have as much say.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_03: Then the cover just shows up in my inbox at some point in time.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_03: Sometimes I'll have a little bit of say in terms of um, you know, maybe like the awning color or the background colors or adding a little touch of something.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_03: But as the author, unless you're Stephen King or somebody, you're probably not getting a lot of input at that phase.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because you even had your color choice overruled once, I remember.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_03: I did, yeah.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: So so it's just kind of, but you know, I mean, the good thing about that particular series is the the covers are always great.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, oh, they're fantastic.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: They've been amazing.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_03: So And the other thing that's happening at this phase is landing on a final title, because a lot of times the title that I've started with does not become the final title.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_03: But once we're at the cover art phase, you have to definitely land on a final title.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um Although we did a quick piece of uh trivia.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: There is one book in the series that had a cover designed, and it gave it was the the picture was online early before pre-orders or like when pre-orders were going.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they got changed.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: It was a one-letter change.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but but it made a big difference because it totally changed the the font spacing and or the letter spacing and the font and everything.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: But um, that was uh a cup of holiday fear was originally cup of holiday fear.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um it got changed at the last minute.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_03: So literally the last minute.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_03: Well, and then the other thing that we've done when we've done independent publishing is we have also hired illustrators.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_03: Um that process is a little bit different.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_03: I brought out a copy of Jennifer Ann, yeah.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_03: Uh Jennifer Ann, um, who did Lost Coast Literary, she is an incredible artist, and so she hand drew the Victorian Mansion as I imagined it for this.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_03: And then also Kitty Wong, who is again an incredible illustrator, drew the cover for Beer and Loathing.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_03: And in both of these cases, then there was still a lot of work.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_03: I'm showing the back covers too for all of our darlings who are listening and not watching on YouTube.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, there was still a lot of work for you to do because the cover art arrives as just an illustrated sketch, but now you have to turn it into a digital book.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: And in both those cases, um, what we got was, you know, from from the artists was just the the you know tall, like rectangular um front cover illustration.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: So then I used Photoshop and and everything to extend that artwork out to make it wide um in order to then you get like the trim like you're talking about on the on the spine.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_03: I'm showing that darling.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_03: Sorry, sorry.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_03: Um Lost Coast where the beach like wraps around in the back.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: That wasn't part of Jennifer Ann's original sketch.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's uh just used uh Photoshop to fake it.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, because I can't draw.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, she's an amazing artist, so I they they both are.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, those covers are great.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: I love them.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_03: And again, um, you know, in this case, like with my bake shop, with my Sloan Crow series, with my new secret bookcase series, the publishing houses are doing all of that back end.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_03: They're hiring the cover artists, they're paying for that.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_03: When we're publishing independently, we then, you for the most part, are kind of the liaison between the artists because I'm like, okay, here's the vision, and then you're working on all the structural piece, and then we are paying out of pocket for that design.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: And and you know, like, I mean, they amazing artists deserve to get paid.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like we don't we don't we don't mind paying out of pocket, it's just that that is an added expense when you're and there are other ways.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you people there are a lot of independently published authors that design their own covers using.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, especially with the advent of AI, right?
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: There's there are a lot of uh other routes you can take, but it's been great um working with the artists that you you've found um because you found both of them.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um but they're not gonna be.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_03: Well, Katie slid into my DMs years ago.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_03: She's in Hong Kong, which is so cool.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_03: And she had read Sloan and loved the covers and said, Hey, if you ever need an artist, I would love to work with you.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_03: And then uh when we decided to keep this series going, I was like, wait a minute, I know who I want to hire for this.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, I love the process because I am not visual and I'm not an artist in that form at all.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_03: So it's always just delightful for me to watch someone like that that has that incredible talent take something that's in my head and bring it to life on the page.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, it's pretty it's really cool to see.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_03: And same for you.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_03: Like the I I didn't pull it out, but um the Sloan Krause short collections, like that just feels like stepping in to nitro.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_03: And you did you came up with that great idea of the covers on all three beer bottles, like genius.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: That was fun.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I get extra motivated when it's we're talking books of about beer.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_03: So right, but I think it's important for because one thing that comes up a lot when I'm working with new writers and they're trying to decide like what is my best path to publication, there's never like one right answer to that because they are so vastly different.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_03: In this instance, we're really showing you like how much time and effort and um you know money you're gonna shell out on your on your own if you're going the independent route versus the process of going traditionally, but in that, then you're giving up some creative control.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_03: Uh the process is gonna take longer.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: This is also potentially its own podcast, but you might put up sure, totally, because there's a lot of advice out there.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I, you know, not to say that we're right um a hundred percent of the time or or you know, by any means, but um but you you said you said it earlier in this podcast that um we judge books by their covers, and and covers are really important.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: So while there are tools out there to just slap together a cover and and run with it, I mean, I if I wanted to, I could have designed covers for both those books in 10 to 15 minutes and they would have been done.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, just done.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: You get can Canva has templates for ebooks, you just grab it, done.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: But it's just you know, you then you're gonna see other books out there with your same cover.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh right, you know, and that's like it you just need to stand out.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so we've talked covers.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_03: Then um, at the same time that the cover is happening, back cover copy also needs to be done.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, because and so I'm I'm writing this um if I'm independently publishing, otherwise the publishing house is writing it for me.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but this is also what's gonna go on the listings online as well, right?
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: Correct.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's interesting because you think, oh, well, you can just write some back cover copy and that's great and just throw it on there.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: But the amount of copy really has to tie into the design.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: So you can't like it, you know, if you have too much copy and you just jam the words on the page, that that's no good.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then if you have too little, it's like people will take in in print format.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, and the darlings out there can attest to this.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: If you've ever picked up a book and you turn it over and there's like three sentences on the back, and that's it, like you're gonna put that book right down.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: You're not even gonna read those sentences because you're gonna be like, whoa.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, they didn't even try, right?
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: So then, yeah.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, there's a fine balance um between offering readers enough of a glimpse into what the book's about and then being able to fit it into the design in a way that's readable and and you know entices people to purchase it.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_03: This is also the time in which um I'm again sorry, sorry for darlings at home, but I'm holding up Lost Coast and um you can see the blurbs and the poll quotes on top.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_03: This is that point in time where uh you might be putting a book up on NetGalle, the publishing house would put it up, or we would put it up on NetGalle and work on early reviews, sending it out to trade publications like for um for Lost Coast.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_03: The front quote is from the San Francisco book review.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_03: So you're sending it out to book reviewers, perhaps you're sending it out to author friends for blurbs, and you need to get all of those back relatively soon because those are going to end up on the cover or in the front of the book.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: And and if you are independently publishing, there is a very, very specific order and timing that goes into when all of this stuff gets uploaded.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: And you do not want to upload stuff that is not ready to print.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_03: No, we're gonna get into that first in a second, uh, because we have a great example of that.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_03: It's a terrible example, but it's a great example.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_03: But I'll leave a little cliffhanger for a moment and let's talk then because then it's sort of you're really taking the lead at this next phase because we're talking back matter, QR codes, um, layout formatting.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_03: What else?
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_03: Keywords.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it you've written the book and now we've got the edited book.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, well, almost fully edited because this some of this stuff is happening simultaneously.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm starting to get the cover designed and everything.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_00: But when you're publishing a book, you need to know how many pages it's going to be in order to calculate the width of the spine.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's very important because if you don't know the width of the spine, your design will either fold over onto the spine, which will look horrible, or the spine will fold over onto the cover, which will look equally as bad.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: So you really, and and this is that's the challenging part because if you're editing and you're like, well, right now it's 248 pages, and I'll be like, okay, well, and then we're gonna have 25 pages of back matter or whatever, and and you know, doing the math and everything.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: But then if you decide while in the editing phase, you decide I'm gonna add another scene in and you throw in 10 more pages, like that's enough to throw off the whole print and and and have to shift the design.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: So it is stressful.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: It is stressful, right?
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_03: And that's where um, and again, this is true um on both ends of the spectrum.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_03: If you're going indie or any kind of um traditional or like new publishing, uh, you I also have to write a dedication, acknowledgments, all of the back matter I am sending to you because that all gets put in with whatever you're doing when you start formatting book.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: And it I that's the difference, I guess, between traditional publishing and independently publishing.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: In traditional publishing, they'll say, okay, this it's done.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's it, it's done.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: And whereas independently publishing, you can just keep tinkering with it and being like, oh, I'm not really sure about that.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna keep going.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: So you kind of have to have that uh discipline to say this is it's done.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now we're going, this is the it's final copy, you know, 328 pages done.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_03: No more changes.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_03: Well, and I mean, I guess in trade the or traditional publishing, the other thing that that's probably why page proofs, you're pretty locked in.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_03: They might want to make one little tiny change, but you're not adding in paragraphs at that base.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: And that and that's totally fine because like one to two pages is not a problem because it doesn't really change the thickness of the book, but ten pages really does um change the thickness of a book.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um and any more than that, it would be just a disaster.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_03: And then you're going through the process of formatting print and ebook versions.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: And and that's another challenge because there are there are several apps out there, and we we use one called Vellum.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um I it's it's just one that I I've loved and and everything.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it it does the first.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_03: Talking about going indicate, she's like, I'm gonna give you Vellum and it will change your life.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_03: And you were immediately like, yes.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it's uh it's it's like a it's a native Mac application, so that I love that too.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: But it um it it does a great first pass at formatting the book for both print and ebook because the thing is you think, oh, it's only two formats, it's print and it's ebook, but no, it's not with ebook.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: You've got Kindles of all different sizes, you've got Nooks of all different sizes, you've got Kobos, you've got, you know, uh it just you've got iPads, you've got everything.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so you do have to go through and kind of check everything.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then you can't you can't just trust that this application formatted all 348 pages or whatever.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: You have to actually check all 348 pages to make sure that nothing broke, you know, because you might be printing hundreds of these books, and if something's broken and you just didn't bother to check it, again, disaster.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_03: Disaster.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_03: Uh okay, well, let's talk about that.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_03: Then you start once so at this point, then we have cover art, we have all everything is formatted, it's ready to go.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_03: Then you have to start uploading at places.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: And and again, there's there are services like Ingram and um and others that that I won't name that you can um you can upload your your book once and they will distribute to multiple places, to Apple Books, to Amazon, to Google Books, you know, Kobo, all like all of that.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: But the problem with that is that um all of those services have different parameters and formatting and everything.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so you can use a service that will push all your information out to everything at once, but you might not get the exact formatting you want.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: You might not get um, you might not be able to take advantage of all the features they have for marketing and promoting your book.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so we just we do it.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I say we because I do it.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: But um I do it uh uh individually for all of those services.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_03: And so for each platform.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for each platform.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so that means like if you if you rush and you you skip something, you miss something, you find an error, then that's like you know, eight more places that you have to upload the book again.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um so try not to have any errors before you upload.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, right.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_03: And then once it's published, again, if you find an error, you have to go back to all of those sites and do the same thing.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_03: Um as part of that, then you're also doing keywords and optimization.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_03: Can you talk about that a little bit?
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, especially um, especially in uh on the bigger sites, but well, all of them really.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um but you know, choosing the right category for your book, um, choosing the appropriate keywords.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: Right, totally.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's just it's just cozy mystery.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: There's there are no other books in the cozy mystery category.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um no, you have to get like really niche down and and find the the keywords that are going to be popular enough that people are searching for them, but that don't have like a million other books to compete with.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um and that's that's is a challenge in and of itself.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a lot of work that goes into that as well.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: Although I do start doing that earlier in the process when you're writing the book, because once I know what the the gist of the story is going to be and everything, I can I can get um, you know, I I usually have a pretty good idea what I think the keywords are going to be and do my research to find the best ones.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that makes sense.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_03: And then um on the traditional side, the publishing house is doing all of that.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not involved at all.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_03: At some point in time.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_03: At some point in time, they will email me and be like, hey, the book is up and ready, or they will tell me, hey, the book is up and ready.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that it's more often that than than the former.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_03: It's true.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_03: Um, now we tease this out briefly, but we did have a horrific experience because in this process, when you're doing this whole side of things and you're you're logging the manuscript onto each of the platforms, you don't have to have the final, final manuscript ready like you talked about.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_03: But you do have to upload something that's similar.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_03: So let's say, you know, I know it's 330 pages, right?
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_03: So we did that with this lovely book, Fear and Loathing.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_03: And um what happened?
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we we wanted to get it up for pre-order so that all the independent bookshops that you've built relationships with over the years could order it and have it ready to go for readers and stuff with the day it came out.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: And we wanted to start generating buzz around it.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: So we had uploaded a file that was not yet final.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but we set the the publishing date and the first sale date like weeks in the future when it was supposed to happen and everything.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: And what happened was um the distributor uh they went ahead and they printed, just for whatever reason, they decided to print because they early.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because pre-orders started coming in, bookshops started ordering everything, so they decided to print books early, um, and like a month early, and which is ironic because they never do things this quickly.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_03: This was like a one-time thing, it's never happened before, but this time I don't even get my author copies until like a week or so after the book has already been released from my traditional publishing house.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_03: So you're like, what?
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so all told, I think what did we see?
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: What did we originally?
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, what did we finally decide the number of books that were out there?
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: I want to say I wanted to say it was 72.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's 72.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: And we found 67 of them.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: So there are five.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we we tracked them down.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: We heard from a lot of readers who got the book.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then yeah, they were like, I don't understand.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like in chapter two, you said this, but now you're saying that, and we're like, oh yeah, you've got one of the bag copies.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: Please send it to us and we'll send you a new one and get it with some extras and stuff.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: And um I felt so bad, but oh man, I was upset.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, that that was that was tough.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: So regardless, there are five like collector item versions of beer and loathing out in the wild somewhere.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: Or they're they may have been destroyed by really frustrated readers who were super upset that the mystery didn't make sense.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_03: The mystery didn't make sense, all the recipes in the back are wrong, like all the things.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: The rest yeah, the recipes were just placeholders from another book, just so we could get again going back to that spine width, um, so we could do some calculations and kind of estimate how how much space they were gonna take up.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: So if you have one of those copies for listening to this, darlings, and uh and you have one of the five copies out there, like get in touch, send it back.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: We'll send you a a real version of it and some bonus Sloan Krause stuff.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_03: That's right.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_03: Everyone, it was a little bit like you know, uh an Easter egg on because people who did find them, we sent them some fun stuff because we're like, please.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there were readers that were trying to find them too.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: They were like buying them and then returning them, and like, oh, this one's right.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I gotta find, yeah.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: It was pretty funny.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_00: But man, we were not happy when it happened.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_03: Um there was no laughter at that point.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, so fun.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_03: Um, okay, so assuming all has gone right and now all the books are up for pre-order, they're formatted, the cover's up.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_03: The next phase then is we're done.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_03: That's it.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_03: We're done.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: We're done.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's it, right?
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we're out.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_03: We did it.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: This is a common misconception.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_03: It is, that's true.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_03: That's true.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, then the real work starts.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_03: And this is just the tip of the iceberg because, like we said, we're only gonna get ourselves to launch day.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_03: So the next phase is a cover reveal.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_03: Getting readers excited.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_03: Um and we always try to do fun stuff with that.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: And again, you know, you can you can do something as simple as just posting on your social media channels with the picture of the cover.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's great.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but we always try to do something like creative and fun.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so we probably spend a lot of time planning that and then executing it, going and finding the right pastries to reveal the next bake shop mystery book or baking.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: Bacon, yeah, bacon souffles.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_03: Heading to the library for secret bookcases.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: I don't mind the the Sloan cover reveals though, because those usually involve going to a brewery.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: So that's pretty cool.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, uh, and then um really like starting to build social media excitement.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_03: So putting together a plan for posts and paid content, um, advertising.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's um it's a lot.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's there's a lot, like you said, the re I don't know if it's the real work, because I think the real work is writing the actual book, but the but the marketing of it is it's it's like writing the book 2.0, right?
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's just yeah, there's a lot that goes into it.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because you can't just you can't just keep posting pictures of the cover of the book.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like people get super bored and frustrated with that.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to be creative and you've got to come up with new things.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then when you get to your level where you're writing as many books as you are, we can't keep doing the same posts over and over and over.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, okay, here's a picture of Ellie standing in front of this cool fountain holding this book in this series.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_00: And now, two months later, here's another picture of Ellie in front of that same fountain holding a different book in a different series.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, going like this.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: I know, yeah.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_00: No, she has a book in her right hand in that photo, and it's in the left in that one.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's so true.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_03: Um, if uh if really either way, um, I would say what's exciting about working with Storm, my new publishing house, is they are all over the digital marketing space.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_03: So they have been sending me all the photos that you see that I've been sharing for the secret bookcase series, those are all coming from them, which is new because that doesn't usually happen.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_03: I would say the lion's share of marketing, regardless of which path you're taking, is really primarily on the author.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_03: Like publishing houses aren't putting together cover reveals for you.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_03: Um, every once in a while they might send some sort of like maybe banner for Facebook or an image, but that's that's pretty rare.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_03: Like most of this is us.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_00: I know I've been blown away by Storm.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's like it's exciting to see the level at which they're involved in getting the um the book launched.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's yeah, it's super exciting.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's refreshing.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_03: It's so fun.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_03: Um, this is also the time where bookstore outreach would be happening.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_03: And so if if uh that's with traditional or with me, again, most of that is on me.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_03: Um the traditional publishing houses are making sure that the books are going to be in bookstores.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_03: But if I am working on events, in-person signings, that kind of thing, I'm usually doing again, most of that outreach um to get bookstores excited about doing an event together.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that's um, I would say that that was a lot more work in the beginning.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_00: But over the years, you built so many relationships that you it's pretty much now to the point where like you would send an email and say, Hey, this book is coming out.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_00: And they'd be like, Yes, we can have you these dates, these time, whatever.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_00: Or they're reaching out to you saying, Hey, I see you have a new book coming out.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_00: Would you would you be willing to come for a signing on this date or whatever?
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_03: Which is amazing.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_03: I'm so grateful for that.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah, that that's been um, you know, obviously years of building us relationships.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_00: Taking a lot of work, yeah.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and then it would also be things like uh putting sending out newsletters.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_00: Email newsletters are big.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, in fact, uh things like email newsletters, like Patreon, thing things like that, you're giving readers peaks along the way, right?
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_00: So this all the steps that we've talked about, you we've been developing content for.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um sometimes you go a little too far and include maybe something in a photo that shouldn't be in the photo, like happened recently.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um my god, a major spoiler.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you were just trying to share, hey, writing out in my backyard or whatever, and it just it happened to be the page of the manuscript that you were editing that was in the photo.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_00: If people zoomed in happened to reveal something.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_03: People zoomed in.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't even think about zooming.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_03: It was yeah, that was a fail on my part.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_03: I'm so sorry.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_00: But it but it's that I mean, that's the kind of thing, right?
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_00: That you're you've got all and and we have checklists, like we have a whole launch kit that we use for this kind of thing.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_00: And and so it's it even with that, you've got so many moving parts and everything.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_00: You just took a break at one point, you're like, hey, I'm gonna put I'm gonna give people a peek into what's going on and get some excitement going around in this book, and bang.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's like massive spoiler.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people were excited, so no, they were definitely excited, but a few readers were like, Why did I zoom in?
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_03: My aunt.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_00: You didn't used to be able to zoom in on Instagram.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_03: No, what was that Rhett and Link song about like uh Rhett and Link, yeah.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_03: Rhett and Link, uh mythical morning.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_03: So great.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_03: Um, this is also the phase in which you would start making merch.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is the phase where like um maybe we're gonna do a candle fragrance that goes with the title of a book.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um maybe we're going to make stickers for the book.
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we always try to do something, especially when we're independently publishing the books, because um I'm like it it's just an opportunity for us to give a little something extra to readers who buy it directly through us, and and that's always fun.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um and and we we also send those to bookshops when we can too, so that they can do the same.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_03: So they just get a bonus giveaway to get to share with readers.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_03: And then we're usually mapping out the actual launch events.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_03: Is it gonna be some sort of a public event?
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_03: Is it gonna be social media?
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_03: Are we doing a live stream?
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_03: What book signings am I doing?
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_03: How far are we traveling, etc.?
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_00: And also if if well, regardl it um, regardless of which path we've taken to publication, we're prepping for the arrival of the print copies that we're going to get.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_00: So you'll get your author copies from your traditional publishers.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then if we're independently publishing, we've ordered those and we're waiting.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm doing the logistics to make sure we have enough mailers to send out the books that we get, clearing out space in my horribly messy maker space here to uh have stacks of books ready to go.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, making sure we have enough shipping labels in the printer so that that you know doesn't have to be done by hand and everything.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_03: Um printing out all of the like personalized inscriptions so that I can sign them all and make sure that everybody gets a message that they want to get.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_00: That that is actually something and and all of this, all of this we've I mean, it's been trial and error.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like we've we've learned the good thing about uh I think one of the best things about you uh uh you and me in terms of working together is we make mistakes for sure, because everybody does, but we don't make the same mistake more than once, usually, because we we tend to learn our lessons or we make we add that into the plan and we understand, okay, we can't like uh I remember I can't remember if it was Lost Coast Literary, it might have been Lost Coast Literary.
• 47:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um we didn't have enough mailers, and then and then it was like me frantically driving around a staple.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_00: Every staple is an office depot in like a 20-mile radius trying to find more padded mailers to send the books out because we had the wrong size and didn't check the box before it was time to ship the books out to people.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_03: So I mean it was just like it could have worked, yeah.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_03: But could have crammed it.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I couldn't, I neither of us wanted to do that, but it was one of those things where it's like, oh no, okay, we gotta be more than half the books would have arrived damaged and we would have felt terrible.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, yeah.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_03: And then that takes us to launch day.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_00: Now the book's out.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_00: So now the book's out.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_00: You spend most of your day posting on social media and responding to readers um who are you know like gracious enough to congratulate you and follow you and and send you well wishes and everything.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_00: And um and and with your patrons, we send a newsletter out on launch day, so we have to have that ready the uh the day before at a minimum.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um and yeah, uh interviews.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's just like you you are you're locked down on launch day.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, usually launch day, actually, usually the like the week of launch day for the most part.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not I'm not usually writing unless I have to be, like if a deadline didn't line up the right way because it's all in.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_03: But it's also like I'm just like because you can't see me, darling, so I'm grinning.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_03: But um this part going back to what you said early on, like it never gets old.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_03: And I don't think it gets old for you either, because there's just this like buzz and energy of like, oh my gosh, all this work that we just spent a year plus putting into something is now out there and readers are like holding that book in their hands, like that is still just magical.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I agree.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, it it is frustrating and and maddening when when things go wrong, but but when you put all that work in and the book successfully launches and readers are super happy to get it and and people love it, and start dropping comments about how great the cover looks, everything, that all of that is it's 10 times better, you know.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's just it's always fun.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_03: So fun.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_03: Um yeah, so I think um we have successfully walked through that phase of the process.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_03: And at some point um over the podcast, we're gonna need to do part two of this, which is everything that happens from launch day on.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_00: Which, yeah, because you think, okay, the book's launched, that you're done.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_03: Oh never to touch it again.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_03: No, no, no.
• 50:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's like that's then then phase two begins.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, we will have to do, we'll have to do like launch in a book phase two episode.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_03: We'll do that next.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_03: All right.
• 51:00
  SPEAKER_03: Well, on that note, uh, cheers to uh launch week of the secret bookcase mystery.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's right, I can't wait for this one to be.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_02: I'm excited.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_02: All right, darling, until next time.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time.