Bear with me. Maggie and LifeTree provide authors a team of seasoned professionals that are as good as, if not better than, what a new author would receive at from a Big Five contrract. This is it: the start of the Big Five model’s dissolution. In its stead will rise a new medium that enables and supports authors rather than eek dollars out of their blood-soaked fingers. While the cost to play might be high, it won’t be forever. Welcome to the new frontier.

You’ll learn the benefits and limitations of traditional and self-publishing. You’ll learn how to avoid scammy hybrid promises. You’ll get a glimpse at self-publishing’s history, and why we are so fortunate today. You’ll understand how and why bookstore distribution will separate you from the pack. You’ll learn all this and more.

I cannot tell you how much time passed. I can only relate to you that my fingers tingled and my heart raced. I had become an active participant in an Alternate Reality Game for the TV show Lost. And it changed my understanding of narrative forever.

Welcome to episode 22 of Bleeding Ink. Things are changing with this podcast. It will forever be about writing—but I’m taking it beyond the act of writing a novel. I’m exploring new media—expect interviews with media inventors, with pioneers who are reshaping narrative as we know it. As always, please visit bleedingink.fm to stay up to date on the show. Today it is my honor to present an interview with such an inventor—his name is Sean Stewart—and he’s helped create a new genre for storytelling: Alternate Reality Games.

Alternate Reality Games turn storytelling on its head. It allows for incredible agency from participants and distributes a narrative through familiar, real-world channels. Characters email readers. Txt readers. Call readers. Readers—should I say players?—solve puzzles that not only unlock more story but become the story. If at any point an ARG (alternate reality game) breaks the sacred oath by revealing that it might be a game, it has failed. This is NOT a Game is what immerses the audience into an alternate world. And such immersion it is.

Fans of ARGs have reported broken marriages, lost jobs and a total obsession with uncovering the "truth". It is storytelling dipped in heroin-laced dark chocolate. Swaths of communities form to conquer them. The bonds formed between players are long-lasting—Sean has even been invited to a few weddings of players who met through an ARG.

ARGs are cultural events. Their power lies in their transience. They present an experience like Woodstock or Burning Man, where congregations sever themselves from society, meet with purpose, shed egos, and join something larger than themselves, if only for a brief moment—a moment that ripples throughout the world. What writer wouldn’t want to engage their readers in such a way.

Sean and I talk about his entry into writing for ARGs—How Steven Spielberg helped form a dream team for what is now known as The Beast—the first, modern ARG. We discuss transmedia fiction and how Sean’s novel Cathy’s Book was the first of its kind and how it hit the NY Time Bestsellers list. We discuss games, augmented reality, dungeons and dragons, the components to ARGs, approaches to non-linear storytelling and much, much more. I promise you this episode will blow your mind as it did mine.

There’s never been a better time to self-publish. I’m constantly amazed at how the industry evolves on what seems like an hourly basis. It’s tough to keep up! Fortunately there are plenty of folks who help cut through the noise and provide solid info. People like Chandler Bolt.

Chandler will woo you with his southern drawl—if you can keep up. Words flee from his mouth and plead “You too can self-publish. You too can be a successful writer.” From this petition Chandler has founded a school to help would-be writers become successful authors. It’s aptly named the Self-Publishing School.

In this episode of Bleeding Ink, Chandler and I talk about how he went from a C- English student to 5x bestselling author, how he’s helped thousands achieve their dreams and publish their first novel, how to launch your book, how your book can unlock new career moves, and much more. You will be astounded at the opportunities and confidence that arise from writing. And Chandler is here to hold your hand.

Chandler’s also throwing a free online summit.

If you’ve ever wanted to write a book I encourage you to attend the Self-Publishing Success Summit. It’s online. It’s free. Let’s do some math. Your cost is your time. Time is money, I understand, but for your time you receive access to a boggling resource: over 40 top authors and entrepreneurs that practice what they preach and preach to you they shall.

Over 30,000 people attended last year and this year is on pace for more. And look, I’ve got a ticket for you!

Grab A FREE Ticket to the Self-Publishing Success Summit

There’s really no excuse. There’s no need to travel. It’s online. It’s free. And it’ll leave your head spinning and your heart roaring.

Outlining allows the author to hammer out the knotty bits of a story’s shape and aids them in a few ways. It frees the mind of pesky plot corrections as the author undergoes the overwhelming task of writing prose. It maps a series of waypoints toward which the author may confidently point their pen. As Anne Lamott states to us in her self-deprecating and practical writing guide Bird by Bird:

“I go back to trying to breathe, slowly and calmly, and I finally notice the one-inch picture frame that I put on my desk to remind me of short assignments. It reminds me that all I have to do is to write down as much as I can see through a one-inch picture frame. This is all I have to bite off for the time being.”

Ladies and gentleman, imagine your one-inch frames all lined up and awaiting your pen: just show up, fill in the frames, and a novel emerges. It’s a beautiful way to work!

K.M. Weiland is my guest today. She is the award-winning author of several fiction and nonfiction gems, two of which we focus on in our interview: Structuring Your Novel and Outlining you Novel. There’s a little something here for every writer, whether you “pants” or “plot” or a dash of both, and you are sure to take away immediately applicable techniques you can apply to your novel or any writing endeavor.

Enjoy.

A firehose of sugar water is pointed at you. Look around. Count the number of distractions vying for your attention. Social media? Work? Email? News? Video games? The next bestseller? The latest viral video? Blog posts? Shopping? A glass of wine? Ahem—this podcast? The list grows in inverse proportion to our societal demands. Go to work—go to happy hour. Help the kids with homework—binge-watch hours of Netflix. Do something difficult—do something enjoyable.

Where attention equates to dollars there is an attention economy, a marketplace that fosters an influx of candied products to delight, to offer a respite over challenge, to numb rather than invigorate. It leads to “peak content,” where products are engineered to strip away pain—much like heroin.

The problem for writers is that a bundle of words are a more challenging prospect than say, a bundle of chocolate-dipped churros—I mean Instagram pics. Churros are easy and delicious. As writers, our competition is a basket of churros. I mean c’mon, it’s just unfair.

This is where Molly Barton comes in. She’s thought a lot about how to alleviate—God forbid—the challenges of reading while keeping its integrity intact. How can she sugar-coat narrative so that it becomes a slightly sweet snack that doesn’t expand the waistline. Her answer: serials. Her company: Serial Box.

Serial Box aims to be the “HBO for fiction.” Through her experience as Global Digital Director of Penguin Random House, she recognized a shift: the shape of story consumption is evolving. People want more in less time. Serial Box produces seasons of short narrative episodes (ebook and audio) just like television, and television is the king of time to entertainment ratio.

The power of serials lie in their ability to give readers a way to manage their time. They slice a narrative into savory mouth-wads, like a chewy, crunchy, salty-sweet bite-sized Snickers, and are tuned to the high-frequency attention band consumers operate on today. They dismiss that guilt-ridden bedside reading queue and lower the barrier to entering a fictional world, because, hey, they only take about 40 minutes to read—about the length of one episode of Silicon Valley or, for the audio version, an episode of Game of Thrones.

Serial Box has four series running at the time of this writing, with a fifth on the way and a few in the burner, and whose genres range from procedurals to SFF, and soon, historical drama. All are written by writing teams—a unique approach and, yes, it is similar to television production. Teamwork spreads the demands on their authors’ time. Out of the twelve or so episodes in a season, each writer is responsible for two, and at 12,000 words an episode, it is only a novella’s commitment. Oh, and this is discussed in the podcast, team writing can be ridiculously enjoyable.

Serialization gives authors other advantages such as rapid reader feedback that allows for course correction and better stories, and shorter stories mean higher completion rates, especially as the series progresses—40% of readers actually finish your novel, yikes. You can aggregate serials into larger works as well, which lead to even more engagement (and sales). There’s a lot of upside.

Of course, there’s downside too. Serials are not seen as literary and struggle to compete with epic works whose slower pace offer discerning readers a deeper involvement in the narrative. I like to think that as more writers hop on the serial bandwagon new narrative mechanics will arise to address these drawbacks.

Exciting stuff. Molly and I discuss all the above and more in this episode. Enjoy.

I’ve hired more than my share of book coach consultants. They are great. They unshackle you from the manacles of tired ideas—force you to dare bigger, do larger.

My guest today, Nick Stephenson, went from a dreading his soul-sucking job to becoming a best-selling author. He spent years stumbling, got fed up with what seemed like an impossible production schedule, and cleverly set about building an audience that couldn’t wait to purchase his next novel.

It occurred to him that the whole “release a book every six weeks” cycle was unsustainable and offered little in return for the time spent. He noticed the success of services like BookBub, who had massive mailing lists, and decided, “Hey, why can’t I do the same?”

If you have an engaged audience, you can skip the middle man.

But how does an author, or anyone selling a product, skip the middle man? It’s not like you can just throw up a website and expect the sales to roll in. Nick decided to leverage sites like Amazon to grow his audience. To convert Amazon traffic into hungry fans.

Nick has perfected the art of leveraging monolithic systems to turn attention toward his books. And now he teaches other authors how to do the same. It’s got me terribly excited—not just for it’s potential, which is has plenty of, but also for it’s complete lack of sleaziness. It’s one of the most honest and delightful sales techniques I’ve seen.

Enjoy.

“Pull up Pavement Cafe at Night,” Harry said to me.

I did. And look, I so kindly provided it above. Harry and I discuss it in episode 17 where he explains how personal culture influences the lens through which we view art. This also applies to writing. Once you’ve identified the lens' prescription for a given audience, you can create crystal clear works for them.

Writers today face peak content as enemy number one. So much noise. Even great writers can’t break through. But some writers can cut like a knife through butter. How? With words calibrated against a specific spectrum of culture. Culture is a general word, however. Culture is the shape of your psyche after years of living. It is the rose-tinted pair of glasses that peers at the world.

There are universal tenets that can stir all cultures. Then there are narrative techniques that confuse. It’s notoriously difficult to know which works in what situation. That’s what an editor is for. They provide an outside perspective and help tune your words for the given audience.

Harry Dewulf is one such editor.

I hired Harry to edit a short story (more on that in future episodes). This led to a two and a half hour conversation which I’ve whittled into this 40 minute piece. In it we discuss a wide range of writing topics: self-publishing, where to start, how to boost writing culture, how to become a great writer, how to make the most of the editing process, and more. There are some particularly enlightening moments that I don’t want to spoil for you.

Let me say this, however. I’m a different writer now that I’ve worked with Harry. Something in me clicked and I’m better for it. He’s a treasure trove of literary knowledge, but he’s also a brazen champion of words that will fight to the death in their honor.

“I feel like I’m doing life wrong if I’m working all the time.”

The above quote is from a writer who raked in half a million dollars while enjoying time on an island off the coast of Vancouver. His name is Paul Jarvis. And he’s my guest on this episode of Bleeding Ink. Take powdered zen master, add half a cup of hustler and a cup of geek with a healthy pinch of weirdo, and stir into this mix the finest Canadian maple syrup to concoct a Paul. Like few other content creators he slices through the internet’s deafening garble by staying true to a voice sincere and made of Grade A Helpfulness™.

You need to listen to Paul Jarvis. He’s got this marketing stuff figured the hell out.

Twitter, Facebook, SnapChat, Instagram, make the world a teeny tiny place. They are integral to the shape of humanity’s future communication, for better or worse. So new are these platforms that their strengths and weaknesses are mere wisps on faddish winds. But we do know these: They are good at connecting. They are not so good at creating sustained and intimate engagement. Acquaintances want to connect. Artists want to engage.

Paul is an artist. The sole goal for his marketing endeavors is to form relationships with similar minds so they may experience inspired conversation, paradigm shifts in thought, and have a damn good time doing it. There’s an underlying purity and bravado to Paul’s vibe—these extend from a man who’s spent more time building his character than building his livelihood, or rather he’s taken his character and made it his livelihood. And that’s the point: we must sell ourselves, we are the product. Why not invest all our energies into ourselves? Are we not our greatest asset?

“I feel like I’m doing life wrong if I’m working all the time,” Paul said to me and chuckled. He’s big on life balance and enlists the help of tiny robots to automate many of the more mundane tasks of keeping his clients on track, encouraged, and engaged with his work. Okay, maybe he doesn’t actually use tiny robots, but he does leverage the automation powers of Mailchimp and Zapier to free him up for thoughtful work and long, long vacations.

Paul has penned five books. They hit bestseller charts. How? One word at a time, one mistake after another. Paul is a hyper-learner, he thrives on jumping naked into arctic waters to see if he can survive on his universe-given wit. He figured out the whole bestselling book thing and said, “What’s next?” Courses were. He made a cool half-million dollars helping people grow and thrive like himself. Now Paul has a legion of dedicated followers—er, he wouldn’t like the term “follower,” let’s say “companions”—who will no doubt benefit from wherever Paul wants to take himself next. Count me in.

Enjoy.

"NY-based editor + consultant. Formerly of a big five publisher."

The above quote should concern a Big-5 exec. It’s a common slogan among Reedsy.com editor profiles. These brave free agents are tuned into a growing sentiment that publishers turn their nose at: there’s a teaming pool of writers out there who find the middleman a hinderance rather than an asset. Come all ye editors, for a market needs you.

Reedsy.com connects writers with editors, designers, publicists and marketing specialists. They sift through thousands of applicants (10,000 thus far), vet their skills and present to you only the finest self-publishing industry talent. No more second guessing whether an editor is an medaled veteran or a suave amateur. They’ve built a platform for the discerning writer to discover in record time an individual or team to take their work from good to stellar.

So, cost. Independent authors aren’t known to possess the widest coffers. Let’s be clear: these services cost money and they are not cheap—as any quality service isn’t. This means you must have a budget in mind and plan for it. While the sky’s the limit, Reedsy can take you to high altitudes with fewer dollars than competing strategies. For a little more cash, they can take you into the stratosphere.

Cover design will run you about $500 (we have a giveaway). Editing: $1500+. Publicists and Marketing go on up from there. I understand these numbers may seem daunting, but Reedsy.com performs most of the footwork for you so that your dollars converge into the high-quality product possible.

Someone has to pay for these services. It’s going to be you or it’s going to be your publisher (one would hope). Paying what may seem like a large sum up front will net you greater profits from having 100% control over your royalties. This is the bet publishers take on you. It’s a bet you need to take too if you want more control. Ask yourself if giving up 90% of your profits is worth the cost.

If you decide on this route, expect this: You will reduce the risk that your book launch will fail. It’s a competitive market, you may as well put your best face on. Are you guaranteed success? Never. But you raise your chances. You will also have contributed to elevating the quality of “indie” books. This is romantic, yes, and means little to your bottom line, but it is a cause worth supporting and will shift readers’ dollars toward self-published works.

Reedsy.com won’t distribute you into bookstores, but the internet has solved that conundrum. Reedsy.com won’t give you a Big-5 stamp of approval: this you must earn on your own through outreach and quality output. It will enable you to create the highest quality product at a reasonable price and with an efficiency only a publisher can provide. It’s an exciting time to be an author.

Alas, Ricardo Fayet, co-founder of Reedsy.com explains all of this in great detail in our interview. Enjoy.

You may be wondering, “JSL, I’m an indie author, but you keep interviewing traditionally published folks! That’s not very indie, is it?.” Sure it is. Discovering what traditional publishers offer authors will allow you to reproduce those those offerings. It gives perspective, shows you what you are up against. And you never know, the traditional route may be a better choice for you. I’m fond of the entire publishing spectrum. Self-published? A somewhere between hybrid? Puritan for niche imprints? Big five champion? Sure, why not? We are all snowflakes with unique, sticky preferences.

In this episode I interview a traditionally published author. She will teach you a thing or two about craft and targeting a wide swath of audiences. Victoria (V.E.) Schwab has published with Disney/Hyperion, TOR and Harper Greenwillow, who selected Victoria musically woven fantasy stories for their ability to leap onto your mind’s stage. She writes for the young. She writes for the not-so-young. She excels in treating both to worlds that defy imagination and characters that wrench the heart.

She’s accomplished all this at the tender age of 28. With twelve books under her belt and four more on the horizon, Victoria breeds envy and garners respect from the most ambitious authors. She’s also a hoot, too. Victoria and I were none the wiser to each other prior to our chat, but afterward we were fast friends. I chalk it up to her cool wit and sincere love of writing—where two kindred sojourners find solidarity in sharing their struggles, insights and successes (hers more than mine).

Upon the episode’s closing ear tickle, you will have gained a renewed confidence toward writing and a heavy bag of writing tricks will weigh down your hands. If you are a fan of Victoria’s work, you will have scooped up a precious gemstone through which her stories will appear all the more vivid and enticing.

Enjoy.