How do you know when an idea should become a poem or a short story instead of a longer work? How can indie authors publish and market poetry and short fiction in today's market? Joanna Penn and Orna Ross explore the creative processes, and the business behind writing short-form work, and discuss why being authentically human matters more than ever in our AI-driven world.

In the intro, How publishing has changed since 2015 [Jane Friedman];
The Two Authors Podcast; Anthropic settles piracy copyright lawsuit [WIRED; The New Publishing Standard]; AI-Assisted Artisan Author webinars; The Buried and the Drowned out now; Long distance walking and resilience at midlife [Books and Travel]

Today's show is sponsored by Draft2Digital, self-publishing with support, where you can get free formatting, free distribution to multiple stores, and a host of other benefits. Just go to www.draft2digital.com to get started.

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn 

Orna Ross is a multi-award-winning historical fiction novelist, poet, non-fiction author, and the founder of the Alliance of Independent Authors. Her latest poetry collection is Night Light As It Rises.

J.F. Penn is the Award winning, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of thrillers, dark fantasy, crime, horror, and travel memoir. Her short story collection, The Buried and the Drowned, is out now.

This discussion was originally published on the Self-Publishing with ALLi Podcast in July 2025.

You can find Orna at OrnaRoss.com and Jo at JFPennBooks.com and BooksAndTravel.page. You can find The Buried and the Drowned at: www.JFPenn.com/buried. You can find Night Light As It Rises here.

Jo: Today we are going to be talking about what we've both been working on recently. Actually, we've got a lot of craft-related discussion going on today as we talk about writing, publishing and marketing poetry and short fiction.

There are writing craft things in today's show and also business aspects. I had this idea about this show because Orna, you shared a poem written about your mom's death on your Go Creative podcast, and I did tear up and I'm sure a lot of people listening would've teared up too, and it must have been really hard to write. So I wanted to ask you — 

Orna: So poems pick me rather than me deciding. I don't actually, with longer work, I will make a decision. I'm going to do a book on such and such, but poems kind of come along or they don't.

And so this one arrived and that's why I decided to do it. In terms of why I decided to share it, which is a relatively new thing for me to do, and certainly new to do on the Go Creative podcast, something I am going to be doing going forward and share the poetry. I'm challenging myself at the moment to kind of go out there more and share those things.

Typically I would have just shared that with my poetry patrons. I wouldn't have gone any further with it. So now I'm trying to just be more human in the world of AI as you and I talk about a lot, that whole double down on being human thing. Well, you know, reading a poem that you've written yourself is probably about as human as it gets and that's why I decided to share it.

Then in terms of how do you know whether something's a poem or something longer for me, and again, I think it's really personal for each different writer, but for me —

If I can sense the whole experience in just one vivid moment kind of thing, that's a poem for me rather than an essay or a story.

So there'd be an image and there'd be a feeling, rather than, there may be an idea as well, but the image and the feeling are the main thing. If plots start coming in or characters, memory, side stories, anything like that, then it's a bigger thing, much bigger thing. Usually for me, novels and all. But one scene, one beat. That's poetry.

Jo: And you mentioned there about the doubling down of being human. And of course this poem about the death of your mother —

I mean, AI could generate something, but that is a human experience, right?

Orna: Yes, 100%. And I believe that this is a personal belief of mine as a writer, is one of my sort of writing credo. That the feeling and emotion and experiences that you're having while you're writing a poem that opens you out, that in some way that is conveyed to the reader who then experiences.

Not exactly the same. They're going to bring their own stuff to it, but they're going to have a sense of that humanity in the poem. I do feel that is something that can't be replicated. Very hard to describe, very hard to explain where it, where it comes, where you see it in the text, but I believe it's there.

But yeah, short stories are similar. You've been writing short stories recently and — 

Jo: I normally have like a story seed and I guess I have story seeds for novels as well. And I want to explore that.

But usually there has to be some kind of twist. So when I was growing up, I mean, I still read them sometimes, Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected, which I loved. And if people have an idea of Roald Dahl, I know in some ways he has been critiqued these days, but pretty dark children's writing as well.

But the Tales of the Unexpected are adult short stories. So I like having this sort of surprising or disturbing or unexpected sense about it. I do feel like you can explore different subgenres a lot more than novels. So my novels tend to be action adventure or straight thriller or supernatural thriller.

And then with my short stories, I get into all kinds of different things. So I've got some techno thrillers. I do a lot of archaeology. I like to research a lot, but my short stories do have these sort of themes and archaeology is certainly one of them.

So I think if I don't want to turn it into something bigger, I definitely think every short story could be turned into some kind of novel. But I don't necessarily want to do that.

I just finished a short story, it's called Between Two Breaths, and it stems from an experience I had scuba diving in the Poor Knights Islands in New Zealand almost 25 years ago, and I haven't actually written about it.

Funnily enough, I had written a poem back then I found, it's dated 2005, so I guess that's 20 years ago. And I'm actually going to put that in the edition in my collection to go with that short story. But it's an experience I had that I wanted to encapsulate in something short that leaves the reader with questions.

And actually, as we're talking, I'm wondering if that's the difference because with my novels, as a reader, I hate a cliffhanger at the end of a novel. I want things to be wrapped up. And thrillers are, even if they're in a series, are usually completely wrapped up. So they are, they're not like fantasy where you might have seven books and there's cliffhangers on every one.

A bit like the Roald Dahl stories, you can still be thinking about them later because they haven't necessarily ended. So yeah, I guess that's the difference.

And it's interesting because you said that the poem stems from emotion, whereas I feel like the short story, it does start with either a character or a place.

So, for example, I went, when I went up to Ely Cathedral, it sort of sparked this idea about the area being drowned and this place called Seahenge, which kind of emerged from the waters, this prehistoric wooden circle.

And I was like, I have to write a story about that. So that, I think that's kind of the difference, the emotion versus a place or a character. I don't know. What do you think?

Orna: Yeah, I think that speaks to me though. Of course you can have character and place in poetry. You have to have it in story in narrative forms, but in poetry you can have narrative elements as well.

Poetry can be everything, and I think it very much depends on what kind of poet you are. Just as you know what you said there about your novels are wrapped up and your short stories can be, have a much more open ending for another writer, might be the other way around. And it's very much, I often feel —

And we've discussed this before in terms of the fact that writing across genre and across the big macro genre of fiction and nonfiction. And then I do poetry as well. I mean, you wouldn't choose that if you were just operating from choice, would you? And in similar ways, I think the forms that we use, they kind of choose us a bit, don't they?

Jo: Yeah. And also for me, the short story, I'm a discovery writer. As I've talked about before, I don't necessarily know what the twist is going to be or what ending I will leave with. So, although I say that, that Between Two Breaths, I absolutely knew how it would end. I actually started with the end and then, because that's the experience I had, and I wanted to communicate that feeling.

Whereas Seahenge, I didn't know how it was going to end. I just knew that I wanted to have the emergence of this prehistoric circle, and it had this upturned tree in the middle and in the roots. Something was there like an ancient sacrifice. I love ancient sacrifice, as you know!

So I was like, well, what, what is it? What could that be? And that question of what could that be? I didn't necessarily know. And that's, you know, it eventually came to it.

And actually, I was going to ask you about this. So for me, writing a short story, it is a short process compared to a novel because normally I write between, let's say 5,000 and 10,000 words. I know the word count so you know, it literally just doesn't take so long. It could take a couple of weeks, but it doesn't take forever. Whereas a novel, you know, a lot more words.

But how about you? Because I feel like a poem can actually take a lot longer. So tell us about the process for writing a poem. Do you start with loads of words and edit or build up from a line? Like what is the process?

Orna: Yeah, so just on the thing of brevity and short. Short is one of the major reasons that I write poetry because novels and nonfiction for me take a very long time and — 

Actually, I have just one big epic I've been writing for a long time, a long poetry sequence about women and writing and a tradition, the writing tradition if you like.

So it's a huge theme and that one is taking a long time. But generally speaking, the fact that I can start and finish a poem sometimes in a day is just brilliant for me and it keeps me. I think I can keep on with these big fiction projects and things because I get the satisfaction of putting poetry together in between.

So, not every poem is done in a day, not by any means. Sometimes they take weeks and sometimes they take a few months. But that's nothing for me compared to the big books.

And in terms of then how I put it together —

And it might sound really strange, but I never did that for a long time. And now that I do, it's made such a difference to actually finishing, because before I started to do that. I had, I don't know how many hundreds of unfinished poems, but now that I do the prose outline first, if I start the poem, I finish it.

And so I free-write that summary by hand and kind of listening as I write more. Then I would, if I was writing fiction or nonfiction and start reading it aloud or take it for a walk and just begin to kind of recite any lines that are. I'm looking for the rhythm and the pulse of it. Again, much more than I would be for fiction or nonfiction.

And I'll start thinking about form. Should it be free verse? Should it be, you know, a sonnet or something else. At the moment I'm looking at rondeaux. Lots of, trying to do a few poems in that form because I never did it before until recently.

And then when I thought, I kind of realized, okay, that's enough. Now thinking and walking and reciting on that, I'll open a new file and then rewrite the whole thing as poem and then just as much as needed from there. Sometimes it needs lots, sometimes only a little, sometimes I'll take it for a walk again and again. Sometimes it'll just finish up, as I said, in a day.

Not very often, but that does happen. I know when it's done. I just know there's a sort of a click and there's nothing else to change, and there's a kind of a silence settles in around the words. So then I know it's finished.

Jo: Yeah. Well, it's really interesting. I think, was it Mary Oliver who said like, sometimes she'd be out walking and a poem would come towards her and she knew she had to catch it because if she didn't catch it, it would be gone.

Orna: Oh. That's the story that Elizabeth Gilbert tells in her TED Talk, isn't it?

Jo: Oh, is it?

Orna: It's not at the top of my head, but yeah, it's a brilliant story. She'd run back to the house to write it down and thought before she missed it. What about your process for stories, short stories.

Jo: Oh, I need to stay on poetry a minute because you made me, because the poem and people, I really recommend people go listen to you recite this, the poem for your mother. What's it called again?

Orna: It's called The Milky Ways.

Jo: Yeah, The Milky Ways. And it, I mean some of those images stick in my mind, but of course it was layered. It is a very specific moment. But it's layered with a lot of memory and other emotions other than grief, obviously.

And so to me it feels like some poems and I feel like some of our creative works, whatever. They are poetry, short fiction, nonfiction, whatever, memoir take a long, long time to come in some way emerge.

I mean like this short story about the diving at the Poor Knights. I don't know why I didn't write that before and it just feels like it took a very long time. So even though some of your poems you are writing quite quickly.

Orna: Yes, definitely. Definitely you can find yourself writing a poem about an experience that you'd forgotten about even, and that is really, really a very long time ago. I feel an awful lot of stuff that turns up in my poetry image wise goes back to childhood. So they take, they've taken half a century to get to get here and come out.

And I didn't start writing poetry at all until I was in my forties. I did as a teen, but I didn't then and a friend died. And so it just started at me again and I didn't really start writing it seriously until about, I was in my fifties really. So I do think poetry, I mean there are so many different kinds of poems.

It's macro genre, which has millions of genre within, but the kind of poems that I write definitely there, there's a maturing and maturing of the ideas and things are necessary to them, I think. Yeah, definitely.

Jo: Well, I've, as you know, turned 50, so maybe I'm coming into my next poetry period!

But if people, so if people listening, if they want to start writing. Because it also, it feels to me very, even though I have written some and I've taken some classes and I do buy and read poetry, but it feels so daunting compared to writing fiction or nonfiction.

For me, even memoir, writing a poem just seems so much weightier, I think because perhaps I mainly read poems that are quite serious and I love your poem, as I mentioned, and they, it feels so big. So if people listening, they want to write poems, but they don't really know how to start. You mentioned there's a prose outline, so what even is that? Just explain like how someone might start.

Orna: So in terms of the outline, it would just say what the poem is going to contain.

In the poem that you were talking about, literally just a moment standing at the window, looking out at the night sky a while behind me knowing, you know, my mother is in her bed and I can hear her breath, which is being artificially fed to her.

And knowing that, we have been told that she doesn't have a long time. So the outline is just the content, what's going to go in there. So it's, and it's best done, as I said, with free writing. Writing fast, raw, let it all out, just kind of pour it down onto the page.

And what you're looking for then is some words have energy in them. Free writing, some words in there, have more energy than others. And so you kind of pull them out and start to. You know, if it's a sentence, repeat that sentence in your mind and see what else calls and you're looking for, I mean, for me, what's very important, what makes a poem and why I don't agree that, you know, a lot of poetry that's called poetry for me, if it doesn't have an image.

In it then. It's not really a poem to me. It has to have emotion and image. And after that, then the best, the best possible words and the best possible order. I forget who said that as a description of good poetry, but yeah. Image and emotion to me are the heart of poetry. Otherwise, you might as well write prose.

To me, that's what makes a difference. So maybe that's where some people feel the challenge is to get the right image to encompass the emotion.

Jo: Yes. Because of course some poems have a certain, as you said like, like a meter or they're a certain type like my scuba diving one is a pantoum, so it has a certain rhythm to it and certain lines repeat and all of this kind of thing.

And that feels very like overly structured. And then of course we've got a lot of Insta poets who, it might just be an emotional, like, it might even read like an affirmation.

Orna: Hundred percent. And then there can be the opposite of that, where the structure becomes a complete confinement. And that's not poetry either.

So again, if it's playful and you're enjoying it, then it's poetic, but there's nothing poetic about trying to beat yourself into some form that's, you know, your English teacher taught you 30 years ago and you think you should write or whatever.

Poetry can be anything. And that freedom. Can be, you know, that can stop us. So if structure helps use structure, if structure doesn't help let it go.

Jo: Well, I guess —

I mean, I also feel like some people think that a short story has to be only one character in one setting and only one thing happens. But I actually, some of my short stories, so one in particular, De-extinction of the Nephilim, so it was based on, there's a company called Colossal and they're de-extincting things.

So they just did the dire wolf and they want to do the woolly mammoth and all this. And obviously Jurassic Park is the classic de-extinction story. This one's about the Nephilim and it has three point of view characters, an archaeologist and a geneticist, and a maternity nurse.

And so it was like, when that came to me, I knew the archaeologist had to find something underground, and that would then spark the rest of the story. And I didn't know that the other characters would come in and that story ended up being, I think it's about 8000 to 10,000. So it's a bit of a longer one.

But I feel like if people feel like it can only be one character in one place and all that, that can hem you in as well. So I do tend, obviously a short story does have a certain word count.

but generally I write in Scrivener exactly the same as I write my novels.

Then I print it out and hand edit. There are different scenes sometimes like mini chapters, so that De-extinction of the Nephilim, it's got like different chapters based on the different characters. And I still use ProWritingAid. I still work with my editor, Kristen. She edits my short stories as well. So I have exactly the same process, I guess for short stories as I do for fiction. And the only difference is, I guess the lens, but also the leaving it with a question.

Orna: And do you ever put short stories up on your blog or anything?

Jo: No, but I sell them individually, so they are on all the usual stores. They're on my JFPennBooks.com Shopify store.

And we are going to talk in a bit about the first print collection, but I find that actually, I mean, I've had people on my podcast, on The Creative Penn podcast talk about you should always try and license short stories to magazines and anthologies and submit them to competitions first because the contracts for short stories are some of the best in the business in that the rights revert usually very quickly, and the contracts are often either for first print rights and they expire quite quickly, or subsequent print rights.

And they're usually fine in terms of the people pay per word and all this. But I'm just so impatient that I normally, once I have an idea, I'm like, no, I need to write that story. And then I publish it and I send it out to my email list and you can actually make some decent money even selling them at 99 cents, which I feel, or $2.99.

But you can't price an individual short story too high. I also narrate them myself, the audio books as human me. So that can kind of add in that human element as well.

Orna: And value. And the people who say, you know. Send them out. I think underestimate how much creative energy that whole submission process takes, backwards and forwards. So I'm the same with poetry. I mean —

And if somebody approaches me or, I might, and I'm not saying never, never say never. I might decide I'd like to be in such and such a thing, but I need another reason to do it. So I have contributed to, at the moment, an anthology here in my new hometown of Hastings called Poet Town being put together.

And I have one in there. And also there's Washing Windows, which is a kind of a well-known series of Irish poets anthology in Ireland. I've got one in that, but generally speaking, I'm not going out there in the whole submission thing because it takes a lot of time and effort and energy to do that.

And I'd rather write another poem actually. So I just put, I just put them on my blog, at least two a month. The, the whatever my favorite two of the most recent kind of thing. One is for my patrons only and my best one of the month. And then when I have enough for a collection, I eventually publish it in book form, but that can take a long time.

So I have different poems sitting in different collections that won't be published until there are enough in them. But I am now beginning to bundle and looking at special editions through Kickstarter, that is something I would like to do, probably for this book.

And so the poem that you heard me read on the podcast is part of a collection of poems for bereavement, 12 Poems to Inspire series. And these are the grief and bereavement ones. So, yeah, I'm going to bring a few of those books together and create a special edition through Kickstarter in time for once again, once there's enough.

Jo: Do you teach writing poetry as part of your Patreon, or do you do classes at all? Or is that just not something you are…

Orna: No, I did in the past. Not anymore. Not anymore. Again, I'd rather just be doing it.

Jo: Oh, well, we might have to demand like a stretch goal for your Kickstarter, where you will do a special webinar or something for those of us who want to…

Orna: That sounds okay.

Jo: Yeah, I think that would be great because I feel like those of us who buy and read poetry often want to do more poetry. It's just that it feels, as I said, it feels. It feels important to me. It's really funny. Whereas I feel like my short stories, I write them and I'm really happy with them and they often, they encapsulate this moment but I don't feel that they're heavy in any way. I don't know.

Orna: Yeah. I think that's a bad place to start. It can be anything you want it to be. And I do think that's school, isn't it? Where they sat us down and chopped it up, like they dissected it like it was a rabbit in science class or something.

And that's not how poems are written, and it's not how they're read when you're reading for pleasure yourself. So, I would say just start with the poems you love. And just start to write. I mean, you're a very experienced writer, so you can write poetry, no problem. It just depends then on what kind of poetry it is that you want to try, but definitely take away all the, it's got to be heavy and brilliant and all of that because that's the stopper for all writing, isn't it?

I appreciate you feel that way about it. And I know you're exaggerating a bit, but, yeah, it can be really playful poetry and if you look at all the, in inverted commas, great poets, and you read, once you read deeply into what they, or sorry, widely into what they've written, you'll find that they've all written light, playful pieces, you know, poems that aren't very good really, that don't really quite work.

And they have their favorite kind of ways of going on and all of those, in inverted commas less than good, you know, poems are part of what actually produces one that does shine and reach a lot more people. So, yeah, playful, I think is, I would think is the key word when it comes to poetry.

Jo: It's certainly a challenge. Like, first of all, I do think that I thought a bit like maybe how I feel about poetry, which is maybe I'm not worthy and I feel I'm not really exaggerating.

I do feel like because maybe I studied English literature and I can be too serious about all these things. I feel like Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected, it's like a canon work in my mind, and to do a short story collection? Well, in the sort of literary world, doing a short story collection published by a traditional publishing house is a really big deal because let's face it, they don't make a ton of money.

Orna: So they're for super fans, you know? Yeah. Short story collections are for super fans, which means an author can do really well with them, but publishers don't tend to do so well with them.

Jo: So it does mean that the famous short story collections are sort of by big name authors. So I feel like that was the first challenge was, oh well I couldn't do that. And then I was like, no, I really want to do, I really want to have my own collection in print because it's easy enough to do a short ebook and a short audiobook digitally, but none of these are in print.

I do have a trilogy, which is in print, which is A Thousand Fiendish Angels, which is three short stories inspired by Dante's Inferno. So that is in print, but the rest of them are not. And so I really wanted to do that. And so that was one challenge. I was like, should I do it now? I really want to do it.

And then it was, okay, what do you call it? And this kind of titling of a short story collection, that I haven't written to be related to each other was really hard.

But this is where ChatGPT and Claude, I used both of them, uploaded all the eBooks that I'd written, all the short stories. Asked for titles for the themes, asked it to really examine the themes across the whole thing. And people could use Notebook LM, Google's Notebook LM as well.

Anything where you can get it to really look at your work and kind of analyze it. And we can't see these things ourselves, but there were loads and loads of titles, but the one I love is called The Buried and the Drowned, which, some people, if anyone's read my fiction, that does say a lot about me.

That is true. Super dark, dark little soul. But yeah, and I mean, for example, of the ones I've talked about here, Seahenge is very much about the drowned and De-extinction of the Nephilim is very much buried and it's the sort of dangers of messing with what has been buried for so long and what has been drowned will be drowned again and all that kind of thing.

So, so the sort of coming up with the title, but it's one of these occasions where I think AI tools can really help and I love the title. And then I asked it, okay, well I need a cover image. So let's brainstorm that. And I've worked with Jane Dixon-Smith, who's been my cover designer for more than a decade now.

And so we've got that going. I'm writing a couple of extra stories, which I won't publish separately, so people who have already read the other stories hopefully will want it because there'll be two exclusives. One of which will be that Between Two Breaths and a story called The Black Church, which is where I spent my 50th birthday.

I woke up next to the Black Church in Iceland. So writing that, my editor Kristen, is going to read the whole collection because another challenge is what order do you put these in? So I'm going to try and figure it out myself, and then I'm going to give it to Kristen, who has edited some of those stories already, but she will read it as a first reader.

I'm also expanding the author's note, so —

Like another one, it's about having an eye operation. When I had, after I had laser surgery. A few years ago it's called With a Demon's Eye, but it's things like that.

I've written these sort of super personal authors notes, which again, coming back to the being human in an age of AI, I feel like that's so important and, and putting in the special edition, I'm going to put like that poem I mentioned, which is really about my divorce and my first marriage, and also photos.

There's even a photo, a really old photo of me scuba diving during that time, back in the days when there wasn't digital cameras and stuff. So I want to make this collection, as you say, it is for super fans. I'm going to have a really low number on my Kickstarter, but it feels personally very important as part of my 50th year to do something that means so much.

But boy, I definitely feel it's been a challenge.

Orna: That's great. That sounds fantastic. When do you think it'll all come together? Do you have a date for the Kickstarter yet?

Jo: I'm aiming for 1st of September. We're recording this in July. So, if people are interested, it is up JFPenn.com/buried. The Buried and the Drowned. So JFPenn.com/buried and yeah, I think it will. I've bought a lot of short story collections off Kickstarter from people I don't know. I do actually think Kickstarter is a great place for short story collections. I think there is an audience there who are looking for them, and if you've bought one before, other ones come up in your recommendation algorithm.

So I'm kind of hoping that maybe some new people will find them, because again, people who read poetry, read poetry, people who read short stories as well as other things. But it's like if you like short stories, then maybe you find other ones by other authors.

Yeah, I mean, well what about your collection? Because you actually have quite a lot of poetry collections, so tell us about the process for that.

Orna: Yeah, it takes a while, as I said earlier, because I don't, I never sit down and say right, now I'm going to create a collection, you know? Or create a poetry book apart from that epic one, that's going to be one big, long poem.

So I have to wait until there are more than enough, on a linked theme. So I have ideas about what that might look like, and I have pinboards on the studio wall. And so I'd be looking for thematic overlaps between different poems or recurring symbols or something like that.

And then when they feel like they go together, I have a sense, almost like I'm writing a musical piece with them, you know, and of a rise and fall kind of thing. I like to feel that the reader will go in and begin to gather together, kind of what I'm saying, and then move more deeply into it and then kind of ascend out.

But, so I usually break them into sections as well. And I have never really, you know, on the publishing business side for a long time I didn't really think about poetry in that way. So it was, I put stuff out there, but I didn't go out doing ad campaigns or anything like that with poetry.

So I've been quite unbusiness-like around it really and perfectly happy to do that and to see them as something that I write and people come to, people to know me, or as you say, who like reading poetry can find them.

But then I did start to put together this new most recent series, which is 12 Poems to Inspire, and this is a bit more commercial because they're written around a particular occasion or event.

So there are 12 about Christmas or that end of year time, new beginnings, for Mother's Day, 12 poems about love for Valentine's Day, that kind of thing. And so these are the ones that I'm going to now begin to bundle together and I'll do a Kickstarter and put together three of them I think, into a collection called Poetry of Light.

And then I am going to start, when the season comes round, actually actively promoting them. And so I think these are my most accessible poems, if you like. And the ones that are most likely to, it's worth treating them in that way.

Jo: Just on the number there, so you said, so you, because I've got some of your slim volumes, so those have 12 in, so when you say there's going to be three lots, so you're going to have a collection with 36 poems in, or —

Orna: Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? So yeah, in this case, yes. I specifically decided these short books, they were to really be almost like an expensive gift card in a situation where you'd buy somebody a sympathy card instead. Buy this slim volume and give them this instead to be more meaningful. They hopefully won't put it in the bin afterward.

It will last, they can come back to it and read it again and again. So that was the idea of them. They were deliberately slim and in fact, and they are illustrated as well. I forgot to say that my daughter, has done the illustrations. I had my own efforts at illustration, but I am updating them all now.

My daughter has done the illustrations for them. So, they're an experience specifically around a particular thing. So that wouldn't be your typical collection. I have, you know, they will be bigger. For example, I have Allowing Flow is a collection of mindfulness poetry. I'm not sure how many poems are there, but probably 50.

So I think the general consideration for a collection is 50 to 60 poems, makes a collection depending, again, on length of poems. So it's difficult to generalize, but that will be, you know, that will be the average, shall we say, for a collection.

Jo: And just on the poetry editing side, because as I mentioned, I work with my editor Kristen on the individual stories and then also for the whole collection. And obviously for fiction, I work with editors as I know you do.

Orna: Oh, yes. Contrary to what people think. Editing is just as important for poems as it is for fiction and nonfiction, and editors make poems immeasurably better. So, at every level, at the developmental level, in the individual poem, obviously, and copy editing and punctuation choices can make a huge difference to a poem's meaning actually.

So punctuation becomes super important. The shorter the form, the more important it is. So, yes. And you need an editor who writes and edits poetry. You can't just have your usual editor for poetry. I think it has to be somebody who understands and understands both when to step in and when to stay away. So, yeah, I think it's really important.

Jo: And then I guess the other thing, one of the reasons we do Kickstarters is because we want to produce gorgeous print books. So again, I'm doing green foil for The Buried and the Drowned, which on the cover is going to look awesome.

And there'll be a ribbon and sprayed edges. And the photos and the paper will be heavier and it will just be all the cool things that we can do once we get the Kickstarter money. And you can't really do it otherwise. But also —

Orna: Yeah, definitely. And I think if you're writing poetry is one thing, and producing poetry books is great.

But if you want to start to think about selling poetry, then you have to think about beautiful packaging, I think. Because that's essentially what people are looking for when they buy poems and they want, it can be very subtly beautiful, but the layout of the words on the page becomes all important and how that page feels.

And as you say, if you can make your poetry book look and feel gift worthy, then it has a much better chance of some commercial success. And it should also, I feel. The coherent emotional experience, the collection. So rather than, you know, here's the first 20 poems I ever wrote, all put together. There needs to be some sense of it working together as a whole, as a collection. And the editor can help with that as well.

And I mean, I have had, as I come to, you know, as I begin to bring a collection together, I would then realize I need more poetry for this collection and I would start to write specifically to finish off that collection, but is definitely something that happens.

Jo: Then the other thing for the Kickstarter, and in fact in general, I mentioned audio and audio narration. Now you have actually been quite resistant, I think, to publishing audio of you reading. So what are your thoughts? And of course you read this poem for your mother and The Milky Ways poem on your Go Creative podcast and it was fantastic.

Orna: That's why I'm doing it on the podcast. It's to warm myself up. I'm not drawn to doing it, but you and a few other people have said, and I can see myself how it, you know, it's, I would think it's becoming essential now too. As part of that human thing that we were talking about to read yourself.

So yes, I am, I'm going to do, now I do have a little short sampler of my poems out there in audio form, but I did that a very long time ago. At First Flush it's called, just a sample. But yes, I am going to do these myself and to audio. So when I do this collection and bundle everything, I'll have the audio as well.

Jo: Well, I mean, you mentioned that. Is it essential? I mean, I probably would've read the poem when you had put it somewhere, but because I'm an audio sort of reader in so many ways, hearing you read that poem, I think has a lot more impact. And again, as the human element. Hearing you read it is so important.

So for people who are listening who might be feeling as uncomfortable about it as you have, any tips for getting over that, I guess?

Orna: Feel the pain and then do it anyway? I don't really know that I'm the right person to give tips about this because as you say, I have been so. I've kept procrastinating it.

I just think for me, not listening back is kind of key. So getting it off to the producer and I don't want to do my own production, for example, on them. So yeah, I don't, but I'll go through the experience maybe, and then I'll share the tips at the far side. How's that?

Jo: I think that's good. And I mean, again, talking about the Kickstarter, which I think is a great way to do the poetry collection and the short story collection is that some, a lot of people buy audio through Kickstarter. It is one of the best ways to sell audio direct. So for example, I'd be very interested in buying the beautiful hardback if you're going to do one and plus the audio as an add-on.

That's how I would want your poetry would be those two editions. So that I would have the nice print book on my shelf. Like I've got Your Secret Rose beautiful edition on my shelf. And I would, but I would prefer to listen than I would to read.

So I don't know. I mean, that's how I feel as a consumer and what I see on my Kickstarters. With fiction and nonfiction so far is that people want the bundle with the audio. So even the print book with the ebook and the audio book as the bundle that they buy. I don't know, is that something you'll offer?

Orna: Yes. And I do think that's a great offer for poetry in particular actually, and short form for, you know, we're talking about short stories as well. I think, having that combination is, is a really good thing for short form.

Jo: Then I guess, before we finish up, we should, because we also talk about business and I guess the Kickstarter side is business, but marketing. I mean, what do you think about marketing for poetry? I mean, I guess doing the audio is one way and you can put those out.

Orna: Well, short form video is huge for poets and if you can do that well, I'm not going to ever do that, but if you can do that well, that is probably the easiest, best way.

And of course, in doing your video that you can then harvest your audio for your audio book so you're both producing and marketing at the same time, which is my favorite form of marketing content marketing.

You don't have to show your face necessarily if you don't want to. But you can still produce videos, so you, I see some poets doing, you know, stock footage or AI illustration or indeed just if they're that way inclined their own illustrations and music and putting it all together as beautiful sort of piece.

And that obviously is almost a form in itself. Film poetry is actually an emerging genre and there's some beautiful examples out there if people are attracted to that, but obviously that's very time consuming. So it's much more than just a way of marketing your poetry.

But video in poetry, like in every other aspect of publishing is definitely big right now. I think the main thing for poets is to get the poetry out on Substack, on social, on a blog, and I think your email list is super important. It's always important for everybody, but you are depending on that relationship with your readers, in a big way as a poet, I think.

I think one thing that I would say to people is don't target general poetry magazines or bloggers, or worse again, general book bloggers and people forget that poetry is a macro genre, like fiction and nonfiction. It divides up into genres, so there's no point in sending your inspirational poems to the dark goth collection, you know it's not going to work.

So you have to research your comparable poets like you would with fiction or nonfiction. And then you find out who's working in that arena and you send them a tailored pitch or you can swap reading with other poets. I mean, there's a very thriving poetry scene on all of the platforms. I think Instagram is the one that I'm most familiar with, though I'm not there anymore. I was part of that for a few years and I really loved it.

And then there are the magazines and the literary journals and stuff, which as I said, I don't do, but if you want to do those. And they are hungry for content always. And they like dealing directly with the poet and they're not inclined to deal with mainstream PR as much.

And then I think the other big thing is to build a reader team who will go out and do your early reviews, but also share your favorite lines and talk about the poems. I think that's really important and I would say don't do ads or any direct promotion until you've seen something work and you know, if you have a reading you do on TikTok or whatever and it goes down well, that's the point at which to invest. But it would be very easy to waste a lot of money and get nowhere.

Jo: And I think for me, a lot of the short story ideas and poems, we are not looking at the massive spike on launch. Like, I'm not expecting to do a six figure Kickstarter on a short story collection. You know, it's, I will probably have my lowest goal of any of my Kickstarters. But the point is that —

You know, some of them I wrote a decade ago. Same with your poems, right? They don't age ,these things. They really don't. So I feel like we launch them, we do the Kickstarter, which is a short launch, in only a couple of weeks in the end. But the point is that we will keep writing and people will find them over time.

So I just, I feel like that might take the pressure off some people is, look, just think about this as primarily poetry and short stories are creative things. I mean, you could say all books are creative, but these are very creative. You know, there are very few people who aim to make tons of money with these types of writing.

That's kind of how I feel. And then I will do my best, but as you say, I'm not going to spend any money on marketing it. I'm going to put it out there and, yeah, see what happens.

Orna: Exactly, and I think it is important for us to understand a bit about what is commercial, what is creative in our work when you're building up a body of work, you don't have to give the same marketing treatment to everything you produce.

You can go out knowing that something is, you're doing it largely for yourself and for those, for the super fans who kind of like everything you do or for people who particularly like a particular thing.

And there is absolutely no shame in aiming small sometimes. And keep the big guns for the things that are most likely to succeed with a wider audience.

Jo: Absolutely. And I guess that brings us back to definition of success and why. Why we write these things. And it really is, as we both said, I think these ideas just come to us and we know that we want to write them as a poem or as a short story. So I guess any finishing thoughts Orna?

Orna: Just that it's brilliant to be indie. You know, with this stuff, because it can be heartbreaking. I remember back in the day when indie wasn't a thing and trying to get somebody to be interested to say, yeah, it's just great to be able to just put it together, put it out there, see what happens, and not mind too much how it goes, that there is a great freedom in that, that I think is really, really precious.

Jo: Fantastic. So, yes, you can find mine at JFPenn.com/buried. And if people want to find your collection Orna?

Orna: OrnaRoss.com/nightlight.

Jo: Fantastic. Well, thanks for being with us today, everyone. We really hope that you have found this useful and all the best with writing your own poems and short stories.

Orna: Happy writing everyone and happy publishing.

The post Writing And Publishing Short Stories And Poetry With J.F. Penn And Orna Ross first appeared on The Creative Penn.

What if you could turn a monthly writing challenge into a successful book collaboration—all while recording the entire creative process as a podcast? What if hand-selling locally sells more books than online marketing? Clay Vermulm talks about his creative and business processes.

In the intro, Spotify’s new ‘Follow Along’ Feature for some audiobooks [Publishing Perspectives]; and thoughts on special edition vinyl or tapes for audio, like Harper Collins special edition example; AI-Assisted Artisan Author webinars; Hindenburg Narrator for audiobook mastering; Canterbury Cathedral; CreativePennBooks.com new theme; The Buried and the Drowned.

This episode is sponsored by Publisher Rocket, which will help you get your book in front of more Amazon readers so you can spend less time marketing and more time writing. I use Publisher Rocket for researching book titles, categories, and keywords — for new books and for updating my backlist. Check it out at www.PublisherRocket.com

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn 

Clay Vermulm is a horror novelist and short story author, co-author of Rain Shadows: Dark Tales from Washington State along with Tamara Kaye Sellman, and a podcaster at Fermented Fiction and Beneath the Rain Shadow.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. 

Show Notes

You can find Clay at RainShadowStories.com and on Substack.

Jo: Clay Vermulm is a horror novelist and short story author, co-author of Rain Shadows: Dark Tales from Washington State along with Tamara Kaye Sellman, and a podcaster at Fermented Fiction and Beneath the Rain Shadow. So welcome to the show, Clay.

Clay: Hey, thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited to be on here.

Jo: Lots for us to talk about. So first up—

Clay: Like a lot of people, I've been writing since I was a little kid with crayons and everything like that, so I think a lot of writers out there can relate to that story. More specifically, I went to college for English and history.

Like a lot of people, I think I was told through a good portion of my life this sort of narrative—and I think it's ironic, right? We tell people, “Oh, follow your dreams.”

If people do something creative when they're a kid or when they're younger, we encourage that. We parade that, we champion that. Then as soon as you turn 18, we're like, “Okay, time to make money now. Do something that's a real job.”

I always resented that, and once I got to college, I had a really good English professor who taught a class on actual publishing. His whole class was about how to submit a short story and how to go out there and try to get your work published.

Your final for the class was just to actually show him that you had submitted a short story to a professional market and written one, because we wrote and critiqued them throughout class.

I grew up in rural Montana, so I hadn't had a lot of opportunities to do critique groups or writing groups or theater or any of that until I went to college. Once I did and saw some of the avenues you could take to really pursue a life in creativity, I was totally hooked. That's where it officially began for me.

Honestly, I owe it largely to theater. I got into theater and I went to college on a wrestling scholarship. I ended up dropping out of that and going into the community theater, doing some shows, learning to write stage plays and standup comedy and music.

I tried writing everything and eventually landed on books because, as you know Joanna, you can carve out your own path in indie publishing in books, and you don't have to rely on like a million other people like you do in a play or a film.

That's why I've focused on writing novels and short stories in recent years, just to get some of my stories finished and get them out there.

Jo: So did you ever get a “real job” as college people like to call it, or—

Clay: I'm finally getting to where that is my full-time job. For about the last three years, I've been a full-time writer—freelance stuff, magazines, editing gigs, kind of patching all that together with what I publish and put out there and a bunch of other groups I work with.

So I'm there now, but it's only been about the last three years. Up until then I've worked lots of side jobs, kitchen jobs, a teaching job, and all kinds of stuff like that.

I freelanced in the film industry here in Seattle for a solid five, six years as well. When I was doing that, I was just taking whatever new job would come my way. So I did a lot of production assistant stuff and grip and electric stuff.

Jo: I think this is so important because I feel like a lot of people do think, “Oh well, it's just the one book.” Maybe they do a degree like yours in English and then they think, “Okay, I just need to write one book and that's it.”

But what you're talking about—this sort of patchwork of all these different creative things, plus bits and bobs of jobs—is really the reality, isn't it? I certainly don't know anyone who just writes one book and then that's it, they're done.

Clay: Yes, that is certainly an illusion, and a loosely held one at that. These days, I don't know anyone who's tried selling a book who still believes that.

Jo: But perhaps if you haven't yet finished that first book, you can still believe that. It's great that your professor encouraged you all to submit because I guess you also started getting rejections pretty early, right?

Because I saw from your website you do a lot of short stories.

Clay: That's kind of become my favorite medium, my favorite form. I like editing too, because I really like to bring other artists, other authors together on projects. I love to showcase things that are really beautiful and strong works of fiction, especially in the short market, because there's just sort of a thing that happens with short stories.

I think that a lot of writers read short stories. They are harder to get out to your actual larger reader base. Luckily in horror, I think there's been quite a movement towards reading short fiction, but even still, people primarily like to read novels or longer work for the larger reader base, it seems.

I love taking every opportunity I can to collaborate with people and to bring awesome artists together on projects and to get these stories that—even if they've been printed somewhere else before—to get them back out there.

When I find them and I'm like, “This story's awesome,” I see if I can get a reprint and make an anthology with it, just doing those kinds of projects. It's always been really rewarding to me. I think I like writing short stories because it also allows me to explore that editing side of the work as well.

Jo: I like writing shorts as well (my new collection is The Buried and the Drowned.)

It's funny you said writers read short stories, and I was just trying to question that in my mind, like, is that true? I think you are definitely right because many of us want to write them so we read them.

I definitely remember reading the Roald Dahl Tales of the Unexpected back in the eighties, and those still shaped me. Then I was thinking about the ones that I buy now and they are pretty much all horror, which is really interesting that you said that. So people listening, definitely short stories.

Let's talk about one of your collaborations then. You have this unusual origin story for the new collection called Rain Shadows.

Clay: It all ties together nicely. This story came out of a critique group where I met Tamara for the first time. I found this critique group randomly on Meetup, and it's actually a fantasy sci-fi critique group.

It's still going in North Seattle right now. It's a great group of people. If you happen to be a writer of sci-fi and fantasy, they're on Meetup as North Seattle Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers.

I met Tamara there and I was the only horror writer, which happens a lot in critique groups as well. You show up being the only horror writer is a common enough thing. Tamara came in with also some pretty dark stories that she was workshopping. It was like a bunch of dream sequences from her novel that she was working on.

As soon as I read her stuff, I was like, “This person is the person out of this group that I want to really work with. I hope she likes my stories because her writing's awesome.” We had a good chemistry.

We have a similar kind of style. I wouldn't say writing style, but we have a similar flavor of the kind of story we like to tell. We both liked the slow burn, the more psychological angle on horror, and it was just a good match.

From that moment on, I knew I wanted to work with Tamara at some time, in some way. I was thinking of the story I sort of told you earlier about how a lot of writers need that person. For a lot of people, that might be you, Joanna, in this podcast.

So that person to tell them that, “No, you can do this. There are avenues forward into the publishing industry for the everyday writer.” I wanted to show people that.

You have to overcome finishing it, and then showing it to some people, and getting some feedback and starting to polish that thing and edit that thing. You can't edit a blank page.

That's the twofold goal for this project: to both show people how to finish a project and how to kickstart that creativity, which is what we use the prompts for. Then also to show that early editing process and how far a story can come from a rough draft to a completed project.

I wanted to show how you just have to get into it, find somebody you can trust who can give you good feedback, and then work through it together.

Once you get that thing finished and you start editing it, you'll always be surprised how much of the story is in there on the first draft, how much you can bring out, and how much you can lift up and make it whatever you really want to make it.

So that was the goal of Rain Shadows—to encourage finishing your stories and getting through that early editing process to start the journey towards the finished draft and finishing projects, because that really is the hardest thing for a lot of beginning writers, I think.

Jo: Okay, so you didn't really explain the podcast. Tell us—

Because I've co-written with other people and there was certainly no podcasting involved!

Clay: That's fair. The concept of the podcast—it's called Beneath the Rain Shadow—and it is a craft-centric podcast focused around writing and editing short stories into a collection. Then we have collected them into a book, which is called Rain Shadows.

Every episode we alternate. So I would come in with a prompt that I created. I would give it to Tamara. She would write a story in a month's time, and at the end of the month we would record an episode where we critique that rough draft live on the show.

Every prompt was threefold. So they all had a Pacific Northwest location—and if you're not from America, the Pacific Northwest is the northwest Pacific coast corner of the country, like Washington State, Oregon, and Montana, Idaho, those kinds of areas.

We had a Pacific Northwest location, a Pacific Northwest quirk—so something that's funny about the area we live in or eccentric, like beard grooming or driving a Subaru or something like that. Then we had a horror trope—so these are everything from “sex equals death” to slashers or zombies or whatever you want to do.

Those are largely just jumping off points for us. We had a rule to include every part of the prompt in some way, but it could be as small as a character just driving a Subaru or the story could be centered around a Subaru, but it didn't have to.

That's how the podcast worked. We would come with these fun prompts, we would use them to challenge each other. We would use them to mess with each other a little bit because we're good friends.

For example, I did not want to have to write a slasher story, so I gave that to Tamara. Then for revenge, she gave me a zombie story because she knows I hate zombies.

Jo: I mean, to be fair, I do like horror, but I'm not into slasher at all. I also read very few zombies. I read Jonathan Maberry's zombies, but that's about it. This is so interesting to me because, well, one, you mentioned this critique group, this meetup, and two, I think you are just very collaborative, clearly, as a person.

As I said, I have co-written, but I definitely struggle with it. Do you think that you have had to learn techniques of collaboration? Do you think it's part of your personality to be collaborative?

Clay: That's a great question. I definitely learned a lot. The nice thing about co-writing like a single narrative would be one thing, right? And this isn't necessarily that because we were alternating short stories.

So we definitely co-edited this collection, but we also had the benefit of co-writing individual stories. So we still had final say over our own creative narratives, which I think helped.

I think that kind of collaboration could be a good way to work into it if it's your first time.

But regardless, I think the key to it is just you have to come into it with an open mind.

You have to come into it feeling ready and malleable, because as we all know, we have to kill our darlings in the writing game. That's just part of it. You're going to have passages of interior monologue or a beautiful conversation that you have to cut from the story because it just doesn't serve the larger goal.

You have to get to that stage of the editing process where you're able to take the feedback of your co-writer effectively and constructively and apply it to the work in a meaningful way.

I find that I always discover that makes the story better. It always does to get good feedback from an experienced collaborator who can bring an objective opinion to it and help you improve it from there. Then you have to make sure to hold onto the essence of the story.

I think the key to writing together is not to look at how they're going to change the story, but looking at it as what they're going to bring to the story.

What about their work or their style of writing or who they are as a person makes them someone you want to collaborate with? Remember that as you're working with them.

Because everybody is better than you at something. That's what I love about collaborating the most, everybody can bring something wholly unique. Everybody can tell a story that I could never tell.

That's what makes writing beautiful, right? I want that involved in all of my work if I can. If somebody else can bring their perspective, their vision, their creative power and energy to something I'm working on, it's always going to make my stuff better.

Also, pick your collaborators wisely. Do your research, read their stuff, get to know them as a person before you jump on board. That's important too. I knew very well that I was going to get along with Tamara on multiple levels.

As you've said, this is a podcast too, right? So it's extra tricky. You can't just be a good writer for this project to work. You also have to be good on the podcast, which is an entirely different set of skills.

Jo: I'm still interested in this. So you met this critique group. I've never been in a writer's group. I'm like a super lone wolf kind of writer!

So you talk there about the feedback and the critique in the podcast, Beneath the Rain Shadow. If people listening want to be a better critique partner, so somebody who is able to work with someone in the way that you are, where they're respecting that person's voice, they're respecting what the author wants to do with the story…

So like both you and I don't like slasher stories, but if a friend said, “Okay, I need your feedback on this,” we can't just say, “I don't like that.” I'm really asking—

I feel like I get so many emails from people that say, “I went to this critique group and I got absolutely slated. I just got destroyed because people were so negative and horrible. They just don't like my stuff.” So how do we tell the difference and help be better critique partners?

Clay: That's a great question, and finding a critique group is difficult. So if you are one of those people out there that's looking for a good critique group and you've just run into a bunch of bad situations, know that that's part of the process. That is normal.

There are good groups out there, and when you find them, they really do help make your work better. I think the key to it, if you're going into it as a critique partner, go into it remembering who you are and why you brought your stuff to the critique group.

Go in remembering what you're looking for from a group, and remembering how hard it is to put a story together and to bring a final story to the page and then share it with the world and put it out there. It's a very vulnerable thing.

Writing is such a lonely game, and the critique group can be a beautiful place to not only share your story and your work, which we all end up sharing with the world eventually, but it's a place where you get to share the process too, and that's the part that's so lonely.

That's the part that the world doesn't know about, right? Unless they're listening to interviews like this and getting that behind the scenes. Your critique group is a chance to go in there and share that whole experience with people who truly understand it.

I think that's always good for people whenever you're working through something difficult like writing. It can be a very difficult game, right? So I would say start with that, and then there are some semantic tips and tricks too.

One technique I like to use, and Tamara will champion this technique as well: Take the story off your computer and put it on an e-reader or print it out or do something that makes it feel different than a Word document.

E-readers specifically are nice because they format it like a book, and I know it's kind of a dumb little thing, but it flicks a little switch in your brain and then you start reading it differently. You sort of have a different subconscious level of respect for it almost.

I don't know if you've experienced this at all, Joanna, but I find that's really useful for me to put it on a different device, take it off my computer and get the laptop out from in front of me. Then I feel like I'm editing or correcting a homework assignment.

Try to really look for what is the intentionality of the story, because every writer has that in every story. If you can find that, then the goal is just to help and try to aid in whatever way you can to bring that essence of the story to the surface and make the story more powerful.

You can only offer your subjective opinion, so be conscious of that, right? Everything you are offering is feedback or whatever. You never want to try to rewrite someone's story or tell them how to write.

You want to share your experience as a subjective reader, a consumer of the story itself, and then as a peer and as a writer. If you're going to give feedback, always offer something to go with it that helps bring the essence of the story to the surface.

I think if you could do those things, that's a good place to start on being a good critique partner. If you want to hear a really long rant about it, you can listen to episode one of Beneath the Rain Shadow.

Jo: I was going to say, I mean obviously you and Tamara do that on your show. But I also think those tips are pretty good for your own stories if you can get some distance from it.

Also, I think short stories are great for this kind of critiquing, aren't they? Because if people come with novels, I mean, you can't read a whole novel in that way, and if you get a chapter, then things don't make sense. There are open loops. You don't know all the things.

So short stories, again, you said writers read them because we write them. That's what they are. They're so perfect for this kind of critiquing and getting outside the genre you might usually work in.

Let's get into the business side. You and Tamara have started a new imprint for this and the other projects.

Talk about this, and also the publishing and production process and the marketing, because being a co-producer—and whether you are describing yourselves as co-writers or co-editors—this is difficult.

Clay: I'm still figuring out the business side, to be completely honest, when it comes to having an imprint. That is a new experience for me.

I have worked for a couple small indie presses and helped out at a couple other magazines and things like that. I've indie published my own anthologies and my own work, but I've always just done it under my own name and not really worried about that as much.

So doing this joint business venture with Tamara is very interesting, and luckily she has like 40 years of experience in the publishing industry. So she's definitely got that skillset to put together the marketing playbook and put together the timeline and help us stay on track for everything.

My part of that has largely been finding the contacts and utilizing a lot of the tools that I used when I have indie published my own work. So I have a good contact with a guy who's really good at book formatting, copy editing, and proofreading. So I usually go to him for my final stage stuff.

That's JW Donnelly at Dark Forest Press. I definitely recommend him if you need those kinds of late stage publishing services or editing services. He's awesome. So I've had those contacts for a while, and I helped connect some of those dots.

In terms of organizing everything and getting it all laid out, Tamara was largely the instrument of success there. We're trying a lot of things.

You come from a podcast, and one of the reasons I got into podcasting in the first place was actually from—I know you know these guys—Johnny B. Truant and Sean Platt's book Write. Publish. Repeat.

They talked about finding a way to create content that works for you and to be present in the writing community in a way that actually works for you instead of just social media lurking or half-heartedly doing something you're supposed to do.

Beneath the Rain Shadow is a great way to do that, as well as create a book. Then part of our marketing plan was always to have the creation of the book connected with the book itself as a product and that going all the way back to the podcast.

So they're in this nice loop of if you're out selling your books on the street, which we do a lot of that.

That's why we wanted it to be from Washington state and from where we both live, because people love that. When you're selling at these big events, conventions, and street fairs, and we do night markets and all kinds of things like that, this book is perfect for that because people love to read about where they're from.

They love to read that localized horror. So that's a really big part of our marketing plan as well, that boots on the ground selling mentality.

Then obviously we went wide too. We used Ingram Spark to distribute. If you're an indie publisher, you've got to learn about Ingram Spark.

If you want to get your book into libraries and you want to get your book into smaller bookstores and you're not going to go through a distribution network that's more established and do it yourself, Ingram Spark will be a required publishing asset for you in a lot of places. Especially for libraries and bookstores because they facilitate returns and stuff like that.

So that's something to know as well, but we just went wide on the internet and we are very focused on in-person sales with this book because it is so localized.

Jo: You knew you were going to do a book from the podcast—

Clay: We set up our pre-order about halfway through, I think. But as we were doing the podcast, we were still getting it all off the ground at the same time. Hopefully we'll be a little ahead of the curve on the next book, which is going to be very exciting as well, and the next season of the podcast.

Jo: I love the local idea again. You really baked some good marketing into the actual book itself, saying that people like to buy local stories. Of course, it doesn't have to be horror. People listening, if they write romance or whatever they write. Nonfiction as well.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre, who's been on the show, he's written sort of local various books about places. So I think this is really interesting.

How has that gone? What about writers like me who are still worried about this?

Clay: Definitely could give you some tips. I do a lot of that. We haven't sold a ton of Rain Shadows online, but we have sold almost 200 copies by hand already.

It's a lot of fun because you get to engage directly with your readership, and I think that goes a long way towards word of mouth, especially in this day and age of oversaturation out there.

There's so many writers, there's so many stories, there's so many books, so many algorithms to compete with.

If they meet you in person, I think they're more likely to do all of those things as well as to read the actual book. I think a lot of people are trophy collectors too, right? Just a good looking book for the shelf and you never read it. We all have giant TBR piles.

So that face-to-face interaction I think in this day and age is exceptionally powerful and important for indie authors. So that's a good reason to do it all by itself.

Doing a podcast is helpful for that, learning how to talk and raise your energy level, an appropriate on-air personality. You do have to adjust all that, right?

We're always putting on a little bit of a performance even when we're just having a chat essentially. So engaging with your audience, being genuinely interested in people, and letting them engage with the work. Then there's a few tricks we have in this collection specifically.

So something that's nice about it is at the start of every story, you get to see the prompt that created the story originally. So the Northwest location, the quirk, and the horror trope are there. Then we also have a map of Washington with a little star on it so you can point right to where every story happens.

This is nice for a couple of salesy reasons. It is a good way to get the book in people's hands, which is a classic sales trick, right? If you're selling at a street fair, you can get people holding the book. They're a lot more likely to buy the book.

Jo: Nice tip. So as in—

Clay: Mm-hmm. It goes a long way. People already have it in their hand, they're already thinking about it. Then you open it and you're like, “Oh, where are you from?” And they go, “Oh, I'm from Granite Falls.” And you're, “Oh, okay, well we have a story that takes place, boom, right here, right where you live.”

Then the other thing we have is a bookmark that lists all the horror tropes we did. So I will also be telling them about the one story with the one map picture that I'm showing them, and then I'll hand them the bookmark and be like, “And if you like any of these other horror tropes, we also did these 12 tropes, so you might be into this book for all these reasons.”

Then they're holding two things. So those are some of the simple tips and tricks. I would say just have a good energy, engage with people, be interested in them, ask them a question or two, and find out what they like to read.

Then in the case of this book, we went wide on topics. We went wide all over the horror genre. So we wrote stories from aliens to zombies to technology, creepy technology, all kinds of things. Mushrooms. So there's a wide swath of horror stuff that we included in this collection.

We did that knowing that we want to capture as big of a horror audience as we can, because there's a lot of people that are into a certain sub-genre, but then there's other aspects of horror they don't like, and largely those are based on misconceptions in a lot of cases anyway.

So hopefully this collection that's dedicated almost wholly to subverting tropes and taking unique approaches at old tired ideas can help with that and get some people reading horror.

Jo: I think that's really cool. I actually haven't really talked about this on the show, but I do have an idea for a book set in my county of Somerset here in the southwest of England.

As you're talking about this and the map and all of that, I'm thinking, yes, I mean, I can see how baking in that marketing early on is just such a good idea that I think that will help a lot of people listening actually. Let's just come back to some of the other considerations around podcasting.

So when you set up the podcast with Tamara, is this a business thing?

Clay: When it comes to this project, Tamara and I just split everything 50/50. We pay for a few hosting things and your standard things you have to have, like we have a domain name and we have a pretty basic website.

We have Patreon that we're still building out and we paid for all the publishing costs 50/50. We split royalties 50/50. So it's just all right down the middle for us.

Now for the next season, we're bringing on two more authors. So for that we have a different strategy that we've talked through and thought about quite a bit. We've decided we're going to pay them a good rate for short stories rather than do a royalty split.

Trying to split it… because I don't know if you've ever had to track someone down—it's a nightmare. It's the worst.

So that's another part of the strategy too that you might be interested in. When we do in-person sales, Tamara and I, so we split royalties just 50/50, but then when we order author copies to sell in person, we also just split the cost of that down the middle.

Then we split the books down the middle and then when we go out and sell in person, we don't really worry about royalties. If you sold the book, you keep the money for that book, unless we're both at the event. So we're collaborating on it on a lot of levels.

Luckily we have a lot of trust for each other, which is requisite for this, clearly, but it works for us. It wouldn't work in a lot of other situations.

So for the next one, that's why we're keeping it that we're going to pay both of you a good writing rate and then we are going to keep all the royalties because we don't want to have to chase our tails on that for the rest of eternity.

Jo: I think that's a really good idea, especially for short stories. I mean, having co-written with people for a decade now, some of those books, the monthly royalty is negligible. Even if you do it once every six months, it's like, oh my goodness, the time I have to spend doing reporting.

Although, to be fair, this is one place AI has just really started helping me because when you are wide, you get so many different reports from so many different vendors. I used to have to open everyone and go through and find the stuff, and now I just upload them all to ChatGPT Agent, and it does it for me. So this is a good part of AI for business admin.

But I think you are right there. I guess with your contracts with those people, there are also rights reversion within a certain amount of time because—

Clay: Yes, and we're just basing that on a cents per word situation.

We're trying to pay as high as we can, as close to the pro rates as we can. We'll probably end up averaging out that cents per word rate that everybody's happy with and then paying it as a flat rate.

Because it's all prompt based, right? And it's all writing in a month's time. There's all these other variables that someone might want to write longer or shorter. So we want them to have the flexibility to do that, but without breaking our banks.

So we're probably going to agree on a contract that's like we're going to pay 5 cents a word, which is considered a pro rate, right? Or I think it's 8 cents a word now, but 5 cents a word is a decent enough payment for an editor to pay you if you're a writer.

We'll probably agree to that with a set word count for each story, and then just pay a flat rate for all four stories since we rotate. Every writer will have to write three stories for the next book.

Jo: I think it's all good to think about though, if people get enthusiastic about doing short story anthologies. As you say, if you have 15 stories and 15 different writers, I mean, these kinds of payments are an absolute nightmare. I think you're doing the right thing there.

So let's talk a little bit more about podcasting because you also have your own podcast, Fermented Fiction, which I went over to have a little listen to before we started talking, and I was like, “Oh my goodness. This is a really long show.”

There's multiple hosts and you talk about lots of pop culture stuff, books and movies and stuff like that. I'm very interested in this. How does podcasting help you on the fiction side? Because I can see that it's part of your business and everything like that, but in your fiction side—

Clay: How much time do you got, Joanna?!

Jo: Well, you've got about five minutes left!

Clay: I love Fermented Fiction for so many reasons. It's become one of my favorite things I do.

As I said earlier, Johnny and Sean and David are huge inspirations to the beginning of my indie career and still huge inspirations to this day. They're also just such lovely people. They came on the show season one when we had like three listeners, because they're just willing to do that for people. So shout out to them, by the way.

So initially that was the goal, right? Was just to create an engine for engagement with the author community that felt meaningful and that felt productive instead of social media. Then it became something much more.

You're asking specifically about how it affects my fiction and how it helps with my writing, and Fermented Fiction has been fantastic for that because it helps me analyze fiction through a new lens, through a critical lens.

For those of you who don't know, the premise of Fermented Fiction is we invite on guests from the creative industries. So we will bring on filmmakers or writers or whoever else we can get.

We mostly bring on writers just because that's where we have connections, but we are open to bringing any creative people on. We've brought on some podcasters as well.

We choose a movie, book, or show and then we roll 2D20. So if you roll high, you have to defend the movie, book, or show. If you roll low, you have to attack it no matter what you actually think.

Then we do a 10 minute debate, and after the debate we do an hour, hour and a half long panel on the chosen movie, book or show and everything else that comes up along the way.

So this has been a fantastic exercise, Joanna, for analyzing work I love and work I don't love from a totally different lens because if you're watching or reading for Fermented Fiction, you have to be prepared to debate it either way.

So it's a good way to learn how to look for things you love in maybe movies that you didn't used to appreciate or that you didn't like on first watch or books. The same thing, right?

Maybe you read it and it wasn't your cup of tea, but if you're going in for the show, you've got to reread it and you've got to find something to love about it. Then same thing with things you love.

I had to debate against Pan's Labyrinth recently. Oh, it was so hard. It was so hard, Joanna. I had to watch that movie like three times in a row to be like, “How is this not a perfect movie?” And my conclusion was, it is. It is a perfect movie, but you can still find little things to nitpick. It's a fun exercise.

Almost more so with the things you love, right? Because then you can humanize those creators too by like, “Oh, this is still writing. It's still a story. It's still following a lot of the same rules I have to follow.”

That's a good way to look at the stories you love. It's not nitpicking for the sake of finding something that doesn't work. It's just nitpicking for finding the nuts and bolts that hold all stories together. They're in all the stories. Even the best ones. The best ones are just better at hiding it.

Jo: For sure. Any thoughts for fiction authors or anyone listening who thinks, “Oh, well, I kind of want to do a podcast because that would be awesome,” but it feels like it's oversubscribed now. Like we said with books, there's a lot of books. I mean, there's a lot of podcasts out there, right? It is hard to find an audience.

Clay: I will just give the answer I've heard from a lot of people, but I would say do it. You know, it doesn't hurt. It doesn't hurt to do it.

There's a low bar for entry when it comes to commitment in terms of money and stuff. These days you can get a pretty good mic for affordable costs. You can get a good webcam and that's all you need. Then you can get started.

I would say just think of why you want to do a podcast. What about it excites you? Because it's a lot of work and you're not going to make money on it, not for a very long time anyway.

You might eventually, but if that's your ticket to making money and then that's going to fund your writing career, neither of those is a great way to make money in the short and quick.

Jo: For sure.

Clay: So you're going to have to work really hard to pull off either of those career choices.

However, I do think podcasting is really good at fueling a creative career. It's really good at helping you promote yourself. It's a great way to put out good content out there without making your writing—if you don't want your writing to be the content that you feel you have lots of deadlines around or lots of obligations.

For example, I don't want to write a short story every month necessarily forever, right? I like doing it for Rain Shadows, but that's a self-contained project that has an end date. I don't feel like I have this looming obligation to my readership for all time to produce a story a week or something.

I would rather be able to take my time with my writing and release the stories I want to tell when they have become the stories I want to tell and not before. I like to have more control over that.

So for me, having a podcast is a great way for me to release something every single week that is directly connected to the work that is connected to the craft that is connected to the community in some way. That keeps you out there. It keeps your voice active, it keeps you thinking, it keeps you creative.

So I think podcasts can be great fuel for that. They can help you prop up your writing and vice versa. And they can be a great way to engage with the community in a meaningful way.

You will be shocked who will say yes if you ask them to come on a podcast. It's awesome. I mean, writers are very generous people a lot of the time. Most of the time. We've had all kinds of awesome guests on the show, and you can just ask. The worst thing people can say is no, and it's a great way to engage with the community.

Jo: Brilliant.

Clay: You can find everything about Rain Shadows at RainShadowStories.com. That is RainShadowStories.com. That will have the Beneath the Rain Shadow podcast and it will have all the info on that book.

I have a Substack: Clay Vermulm Fiction Horror. There you can join my newsletter and that will also get Fermented Fiction delivered right to your inbox, as well as a monthly letter from me with all the writing updates from Clay Vermulm Fiction and Beneath the Rain Shadows books.

Fermented Fiction is a weekly show, so we go live usually on Tuesdays and Wednesdays on YouTube, and we're just Fermented Fiction on there. We're easy to find.

Jo: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Clay. That was great.

Clay: Thank you. It was a true joy to be on this show. I've been listening a long time and thank you so much for taking a punt on me here.

The post Writing Short Stories, Publishing Collaboration, And Podcasting, With Clay Vermulm first appeared on The Creative Penn.

What happens when you fall in love with a book that deserves a wider audience but has never been translated into English? How do you navigate international copyright law, multiple publishers, and estate permissions when you have no translation experience? Dani James shares her journey from discovering a powerful Flemish memoir in her childhood home to becoming its first English translator, a labor of love that took years to complete.

In the intro, How to start dictating fiction [Helping Writers Become Authors]; Payment splitting with co-writers and collaborators [Draft2Digital]; Rise in spam and scam emails [Writer Beware]; The Thinking Game Documentary; My AI-Assisted Artisan Author webinars; The Buried and the Drowned, A Short Story Collection; Writing Partition with Merryn Glover [Books and Travel].

Write and format stunning books with Atticus. Create professional print books and eBooks easily with the all-in-one book writing software. Try it out at Atticus.io

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn 

Dani James is a writer and literary translator who recently translated Return to the Place I Never Left, a Holocaust survivor memoir by Tobias Schiff.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. 

Show Notes

You can find Dani at DaniJames.co.

Jo: Dani James is a writer and literary translator who recently translated Return to the Place I Never Left, a Holocaust survivor memoir by Tobias Schiff. Welcome to the show, Dani.

Dani: Thank you for having me.

Jo: It's great to have you on the show. First up, just—

Dani: I'm a writer based in New York City, but I grew up in Antwerp, Belgium. Even though I'd been writing creative nonfiction and fiction for years, Return to the Place I Never Left was my first foray into translation.

It was really driven by an interest in translating this book that I personally adored and kept rereading over the years. Thankfully, I speak several languages and I grew up going to school and learning Flemish and Dutch, and being educated in that language.

I had no previous translation background, but just because I enjoyed this book so much and felt it was deserving of a wider audience, it inspired me to try my hand at it.

That's ultimately what drew me to translation. I found a lot of joy in it, and I've actually learned a lot about how translation, in my opinion, can really enhance a creative practice in ways that I wouldn't have expected before I took this on.

Jo: It's fascinating because your accent is American to my ear, but I've worked in Belgium and people might not know much about Antwerp. How did you get from Belgium to New York City?

Dani: My parents actually met in New York City. That's also where I was born. They met in Washington Square Park in the eighties, I feel like that gives you a little bit of a lay of the land if you've ever been there.

My mother was visiting, my father's Jamaican and he had been living in the US since he was a teenager. My mother was visiting and they met and fell in love, ended up getting married and having me.

So I was actually born in New York City, but then when I was still a baby, we moved to Belgium. I did kindergarten all throughout high school in Belgium.

In the summertime though, I would come to New York City because the biggest part of my family is my dad's side of the family and they lived in New York. So I spent my summers—the whole summer and sometimes even the winter break—in New York City, and the rest of the time in Belgium.

I've been back in New York now for about 15 years. Now I do the opposite, I visit Belgium every summer. My mother still lives in Belgium and I have a lot of childhood friends there. That's how that came about, and why I definitely have the New York City accent.

Jo: Let's get into this book then. Return to the Place I Never Left has great personal meaning to you and your family. Tell us about that.

It seems so strange to hear your accent and then to think of the connections you have there.

Dani: There are so many connections actually. First, my grandparents were Holocaust survivors. When you think of the Jewish community in Belgium at the time where I grew up, they were all survivors or descendants of survivors. In the case of my grandparents, they survived the war by hiding.

My mom's side of the family is Jewish, so I am Jewish. The majority of both of my grandparents' families did not survive being deported to Auschwitz. The story of the Holocaust is one that is part of my family's history and therefore also my history.

I really grew up with this knowledge and knowing these stories. They're very common in my family because they've directly affected my relatives and my family members.

Growing up, when I used to go to synagogue—I'm not as religious, but I am of course culturally Jewish—for the high holidays, I did used to go to the synagogue to celebrate them.

Fun fact: typically there would be two Black people in the synagogue when I grew up in Belgium at the time, and it was me and another girl who actually is Tobias Schiff's granddaughter.

Me and this other girl, our mothers knew each other. Of course, it's a small community. We knew each other and I believe that this is how the book entered my home. I believe the daughter of Tobias Schiff, the mother of this childhood friend, ended up bringing a copy of the book when it first came out.

I don't really remember how I first was introduced to it, but I do know that like all people who grow up with big bookshelves at home, and when you're a reader, I would just pick up books from the bookshelf and at some point I came across Return to the Place I Never Left. The original title is Terug naar de plaats die ik nooit heb verlaten.

When I read this book the first time, it really stood out to me because I had known about the Holocaust, had heard all of these stories. Every family of survivors has these crazy stories that you know of and that you learn growing up, and I'd read several books.

It's very direct language because it comes from an oral project initially where he was interviewed for a documentary, and it makes reading it very accessible because the language is very direct. He's speaking to you as a friend, or sometimes it sounds as if he's speaking to himself as well.

It allows you to be a witness to his innermost thoughts, or it allows you to hear him speak to you as if he was a friend. The style of the book really drew me in and I ended up rereading it several times over the years.

I have really bad movie and book memory where I will forget entire plots. That works really well for me because it allows me to reread my favorites over and over again. Some of my favorite books and movies, I'll reread them or rewatch them four or five times.

That's one of the things I did with Return to the Place I Never Left. I've reread it several times over the years. At some point I thought I feel like more people would appreciate this story.

It gives people good insight into the experience of someone during the Holocaust and what that was like and surviving these death camps, and afterwards grappling and navigating with these really traumatic experiences and how that impacted him in his life. Outside of those really intriguing parts of the book, it's also set in Antwerp partially.

If you've traveled around the world, very few people know Belgium. A lot of people know the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, France, all the countries around it, but not a lot of people know about Belgium, and definitely not about Antwerp.

I also like the fact that in a way it shows some details about the city of Antwerp in a very unfortunate setting, but Antwerp is where I also grew up in Belgium.

For all these reasons, Return to the Place I Never Left is an incredibly powerful book in itself, but it also tells such an important story of important places and important experiences that are meaningful to me and many people around the world.

I think even if you don't have a personal connection to this, you could gain a lot and learn a lot just from reading this book.

Dani: Yes. There's actually quite a journey even to getting to this book. Originally Tobias Schiff was interviewed for a documentary, and the documentary was titled Récits d'Ellis Island. It was in French.

It was a documentary about Holocaust survivors and their experience, and I believe it was filmed in the late eighties and perhaps came out in 1989. It was filmed by a French filmmaker named Claude Lelouch. He interviewed Schiff for hours and learned about his experience.

Afterwards, the slot that the TV station had allocated—it was going to be aired on TV—was only 26 minutes long. The filmmaker thought, “How can I distill this story into 26 minutes? It's not doing justice to the entire story. I can't tell this story in such a short amount of time,” but it was a limitation set by the TV channel.

He had to edit it down, so what he ended up doing was releasing or publishing at the time the transcripts of his interviews with Tobias Schiff. Those initial transcripts were in French and I believe it was a little booklet.

Some editors came across it and thought, “Wow, this is really powerful,” and then contacted Schiff to collaborate and use these transcripts as a starting point to create what would then become Return to the Place I Never Left, the book.

He ended up writing more and it ended up being, instead of French, translated into Flemish or Dutch, which Schiff also spoke. That was the official first publication, which was published in the nineties in Belgium, the Flemish version of Return to the Place I Never Left. That version was then translated into French around 2012.

Jo: Yes, that's crazy. He died in 1999, right? So this is now his estate who are making these decisions.

Dani: Yes, exactly.

Jo: So now it's in French, the book is in French.

Dani: Yes. In 2012, the book was translated into French, and then in 2017 it was republished in Belgium and the Netherlands in Flemish. In 2025 my version came out, which is the very first English translation of the book.

Jo: Which is great. We have to go further into this because some people listening might be thinking, “Oh great, if I find a book I love in a different language, I can just translate it.” But that's not true.

Dani: It was a complex process and I had no former knowledge of the process when I started. I just knew I wanted to translate the book. Before I even got started, I asked the family for permission.

I know one of Schiff's daughters, and so I was able to ask her because, as you mentioned, since Schiff passed away, the family is the estate. That was my initial request. I just said, “I really love your father's book. I would love to bring it to a wider audience. Would you be okay with me translating it?”

They said yes. They were actually excited about this prospect and I had a verbal confirmation. That was my first step.

I had had this idea for several years, but then in 2019 I did an MFA in creative writing, a Master's in Fine Arts. I had asked the director of the program if they had a translation course and they didn't, but they did encourage me to pursue this project. They said me translating it could be one of my final projects in addition to my thesis.

What was great is that even though there was no particular guidance on translation or what to do there, I was able to translate it and have someone give feedback on at least the parts that I produced with no context of the original.

That was just a good experience there, and I was motivated to work on it also alongside generating new material for a thesis.

Rights-wise, once I had completed the manuscript and I was ready to shop it around, I realized that when I looked into it a little bit more, I needed proof that I had the rights.

Jo: Yes, exactly. It's kind of crazy to me listening to you.

Dani: Yes, and I recognize that this is very different also because the original author had already passed away. There are several ways.

When books are published today and when the author is still alive, sometimes the publishers contract it out and they look for translators, and the publication deal then looks very differently because as a translator, you're contracted just to translate. The publishing deal is with the author, of course.

In this case it was very different. I have this manuscript, I start shopping it around, a publisher's interested. I have this note, this little PDF note from the family stating I have their permission.

Once the publisher was interested in publication and sent me a publication contract, then I had to ensure that I really had everything in order with the rights in Belgium and with the family.

Initially what I did is I have a friend, a good friend who's a lawyer, and I asked him to review and he said, “Okay, I can look at this, but you need to get yourself a real lawyer.”

So I got a lawyer and that was the best decision I had made because this lawyer had experience and really helped me navigate not just the publication deal with the publisher here because in the US I am the copyright holder of the English translation of Tobias Schiff's book.

Jo: I was going to say to people listening, this translation is a subsidiary right of the original book. Actually it is the publisher as well, I presume, of whichever you translated from—the French or the Flemish—that is also the point, right?

Dani: Yes, exactly. As I was navigating this—signing my publication deal and negotiating it here in the US—I was also navigating the rights in Belgium. Some of the steps we had to go through were that I had to formalize the permission.

First of all, we had to find out who owned the rights. Was it still the Belgian publisher or had it gone back to the estate? That's what we had to figure out. Actually, the rights had reverted back to the estate.

Jo: Oh, okay. That's good.

Dani: Yes, so then we knew who we had to collaborate with, who had the rights and who could transfer the rights to me or grant me permission. Then we had to create a document for the estate to sign. But in creating this document, we also had to navigate Belgian copyright law.

At some point I also had to find a Belgian lawyer to not just review, but to make sure that what we are writing in this document aligns with both US and Belgian copyright laws.

Jo: Oh my goodness.

Dani: Yes. We also, for best practice, had to translate the paperwork on the Belgian side as well. All the documentation with the family were in two languages, they were both in English and in Dutch or Flemish. All of that had to be squared away before I could sign the publication deal here.

Jo: You're paying for all of this, you're paying for all those legal things.

Dani: This is really a labor of love. I did not get an advance because I already had the finished manuscript. I was like, “Here it is.” So no advance.

Thankfully in Belgium there was an organization for Belgian authors and we were able to get support from a Belgian lawyer specializing in literature who was able to help us pro bono. So that was a beautiful find.

I had to dig deep, just because I was reaching out to several lawyers and trying to find out who could help and then find out about some organizations. It took a lot of navigating.

I have to say, I'm very grateful for my lawyer because my lawyer had more experience, not in translation specifically, but just in the literary or creative industry, and so he's able to see ten steps ahead.

While I'm looking at a document and thinking about how does this make sense for right now, he's thinking, “But what if three years down the line this happens and that happens?”

Jo: Yes, like if there's a potential movie, for example, from the English language.

It's like, “Okay, movie deal, massive amount of money comes into whose account and how does that get to the estate and where's the split?” It's great that you had that experience with your lawyer because these kinds of rights are really difficult to manage.

Dani: Yes. With the right people in place, specifically the lawyer, that was amazing. You mentioned no advance, you have to invest your money in it, but money well spent when it's someone who's really out to also protect you and has this experience and this insight for just those situations that you mentioned.

What about if there are movie rights involved? What if someone wants to adapt this into a play? Who owns the rights even?

Jo: Yes, or even somebody then decides to translate your English version into a different version. These things go back to multiple layers, which is why copyright law is so complicated. Just taking a view now—

I would say to people listening, it is important to get that stuff done before you start a project, because if you hadn't known them, they could have just said, “Well, no, you can't have the rights,” or they could have had an offer for an English translation as well, and your work would have been wasted. I guess it's just all worked out well.

Dani: I probably would have done it the same had I known. It ultimately, in my experience, was a great learning experience and like you mentioned, the book is here, it's published in the US, it's doing well. So it was very much worth it. I learned so much from it.

I've also learned that the way that the process works is not always this way, and it really depends on the whole situation. How long has the book been out? Who owns the rights? Is there interest? Is there a publisher?

Typically I would say though, in smaller cases, in the case of this book, this is written in Flemish or Dutch, it's a language that's not really spoken in many places in the world. Between the estate and the publishers, people would usually be excited to have this become available for a larger audience.

Typically there's also when you negotiate these rights and when you publish something, there's also a percentage of potentially profit sharing or royalty sharing, so it also benefits ultimately the rights holder if they're interested in that as well, of course.

Jo: Yes, absolutely. Potentially earning from that.

Dani: And also having the book receive a wider readership, so that's where the benefit lies.

Jo: Yes, absolutely. It's very different to you doing this pretty obscure book compared to somebody saying, “Oh, this is a bestselling novel in English, let's turn it into Flemish,” because that's sometimes a lot more complicated.

Let's just finish the publication story. You find a publisher who's interested. Was this just then an easy process all the way to publication, or—

Dani: I will say… it was a learning process.

Jo: This is your first publication, right?

Dani: Yes, my first publication that's through a publisher that's not in an anthology or literary magazine. The publisher was great. It's a small publisher, Wayne State University Press. Great team, small team, but they were great in keeping me in the loop.

I had to complete a sales and marketing questionnaire to talk about ideas about how we would market the book. I had to do a design questionnaire and was able to share my ideas for the cover art, which I really enjoyed because it was fun.

I would go into bookstores and look around and look at covers and think about ideas. The final cover for Return to the Place I Never Left merges some elements of the original cover, which I really love. It has red and the barbed wire, and we kept that the same.

Then there's also a lot of white space, which I was intentional about because there's also a lot of white space on every page. I felt like it really reflects this modernized version of the book.

We went through these design and marketing decisions and then through copy edits and proof edits. It actually went pretty smoothly because it was already a completed manuscript when I presented it to them. Those parts went well.

It was fun to think of new things to generate when it came to sales and marketing and the cover, but when it came to the book itself and the copy edits and the proof edits, that went pretty fast.

Jo: Well, it's not like they're going to say, “We need you to improve the story in this way,” because as a translation, you're not making a change to the story. I also presume they couldn't read the original, so they couldn't really say to you, “Well, that's the wrong word.”

Dani: That's right.

Jo: Just on that sales and marketing, because most authors have a massive problem with this—

Dani: A lot of it is, not all, but a lot of it is. The publisher will take some things on. They'll submit the book for reviews to several places. They'll sometimes share some ads that they've launched for the book in specific places.

I just recently came across a new prize for Jewish literature in translation, actually, given by an organization in the UK. I was able to contact my publisher and send it to them and ask them, “Hey, is this something that you could submit this book for?”

They will take that part on so I don't have to go and submit myself and send copies of the book myself. If I see an opportunity, I send it to them and see and ask them, “Was this on your radar already or not? Is this something you'll take care of or will I take care of it?”

They will do that, but I would say the majority falls on the author, or translator in this case, to really push it out into the world.

Jo: You made a lovely video. In fact, you pitched me for this and I went to watch your video and I think it's lovely. You've got a lovely voice, but you've got a lovely manner about you which comes across really well on video.

Dani: This is something I've done specifically for the book. I kind of shy away from video specifically.

Jo: Oh, me too. I think you did a good job of talking about yourself, but also about the book and reading. I know it's hard, but I do think it's an effective way of breaking through when books are hard to market.

Dani: Thank you. I think one of the things that made that video work as well is that the director of that video is also a friend of mine and a creative collaborator. He was really good at teasing out some responses from me, I would say.

I generally get excited when I speak about the book and the translation process. There's so much to say about it. I really appreciate it.

My friend, his name is Kofi, he's also a writer himself and a filmmaker. He was also very good at just asking specific questions and he also knows me and knows some parts of the stories.

He can look at it from an outsider perspective and then know, “Okay, this could be interesting to other people,” because there's some parts of the story that for me are just so normal that I don't really think somebody else would be interested in hearing this.

But he'd be the one to say, “Actually, let's talk about this a little bit more. I think people would be interested in that.” Sometimes I would think, “Really?”

Then later when people see the video, sometimes people come back and share some things that stood out to them in the video, and they're the things that I wouldn't have even put in that video myself because I would think this is normal, no one's going to care.

It's really helpful to have that outsider perspective, and when you have a good editor or director, they can really direct and pull out things from you and put them together in a way that would be interesting to the audience. I'm very grateful that's how that came together with two friends working on a project there.

Jo: I think from everything you've said, a lot of this has been based on relationships and tapping into your network, and I think that's really good and what you have to do, especially with a labor of love. I don't imagine this is going to make you like millions of dollars. I mean, it's just not the reality, is it?

Dani: We shall see. You never know.

Jo: The amount of work you've put in and the amount of work you're going to have to keep putting in to keep this book alive, I think is amazing. That's partly why I want to talk to you, because I feel like a lot of translation work is contracted by a publisher. It's not necessarily done in the way that you've done it.

Let's just briefly touch on the creative side of the translation. You said that you learned a lot, obviously, but that it enhanced a creative practice.

Dani: Happy to talk about this. Again, this was my very first time undertaking literary translation. So the first version was me translating it longhand. I wrote it in a notebook. I had the original book, and then I had my little notebook.

I translated it almost word for word. I wanted to stay as close to the original in this first version. Later I took my notes from my notebook and put them on my laptop and already started making some tweaks here and there.

You see a word and think, “Hmm, actually,” or sometimes I would notice, “Oh, I actually translated this with Flemish grammar, this doesn't quite read well in English.” So I start making those types of edits.

Over time, I would re-edit, reread the whole body of work and edit it. Over time, as I became more familiar with the text and started seeing certain things like, “Hmm, actually I feel like the way that this sentence is written, it kind of glosses over what's actually a really important moment.” So I made some choices there.

For example, the original, if you see the book, it has very little punctuation and only names and place names and people's names are capitalized. It reads almost like this stream of consciousness and it looks like poetry on the page. The original is the same way. That's where I got that style from.

I ended up pulling that style through a little bit more because there were some scenes in the original where I felt that you almost gloss over something that's really important.

I made deliberate choices to add some line breaks sometimes, or create more vignettes so that some parts were standalone. For example, when they get deported, or when scammers ring the doorbell pretending that they can get the daughter who's deported back to the family.

There were some moments that I felt could stand out a little bit more, and so those types of choices came in further editing rounds because I really wanted to honor this original text of this man who has passed away.

At the same time, I also wanted to really bring forth the meaning of the text as much as I could and make sure that it resonated with English readers as much as it did with me in reading it in Flemish.

Over time and later editing rounds, I saw that I became a little bit more comfortable in making those stylistic decisions to emphasize some things by changing words or adding a word or two, or removing a word or rejiggering a line.

That was challenging since I had no one to guide me through this, and so I had to think to myself —

What was helpful to me was to think about the fact that no two translations are the same. You have several classic novels that have been translated several times and some translations win awards.

What makes one translation better than the other? When I thought to myself about this, I realized, “Okay, it's okay to put some of myself into this piece.”

There are these two quotes by translators that I absolutely love. The first one is by Mark Polizzotti, who says, “When you read a translation, it doesn't mean it's a secondary experience. It doesn't mean that you're not reading the author. It means that you are reading the product of two authors: the original author and the translator who has to read the text, interpret it, and regenerate it in terms that make linguistic sense.“

There's another translator named Catherine Øhrgaard Jensen, who actually is now, I believe, the director of ALTA, which is an international organization for literary translators.

I love both of these quotes because they really show how the translation is, in a way, a collaboration. It is in a way being a conversation with the text of the original author and in some cases with the original author when the author is still alive.

Over time in later editing rounds, I was more comfortable in making these decisions and infusing a little bit more of myself and how I would approach this, how I would change this up a little bit to amplify this a little bit and make sure it reads well.

I made sure it presents well with the goal to honor the original text and make the English version as strong as the Flemish version. Once I was in that mode, I think the challenges, I wouldn't say fell away, but they became a lot more fun. Also because you're able to still be creative and really think of what is the perfect word here.

What words specifically would personify or would really highlight what this line means? Sometimes there's not a one-to-one translation either. Then you get to play around and really figure out, “Okay, which word do I use? Do I need two words to replace one?”

There's a lot. You have to really flex your creative muscles in ways that I hadn't really expected and in ways that I find have made me a better writer, even when I come back to my own projects.

You're so concerned with every single word. It's similar to poetry and to all good writing, really. We think about every word and what it evokes to the reader and how it looks on the page.

With translation, that is very true as well, in a way that I hadn't really expected when I started translating it. I didn't think that I would find so much joy and that I'd be able to be this creative when it came to word choice and sentence crafting.

Jo: It just sounds like a lovely process. I'm a kind of classic British person who doesn't speak any other languages, and I think it's really interesting.

I did want to just ask you about your thoughts on AI-assisted translation, because this is obviously becoming a big part of the industry now, in traditional publishing as well as in the self-publishing space. Obviously the type of book you are talking about is, like you said, more poetry. It's not a standard, just a novel, narrative novel.

Dani: I did not use it for Return to the Place I Never Left at all. I don't know that I would use it. I understand why people would use it, especially for a first draft potentially.

The reason that I would stay away from it personally is because I think even in that first draft, when you're taking words from one language into another, you become more familiar with the original text. So you're really rereading it from one language and putting it into English or the language that you're translating it in.

You already start forming ideas sometimes about certain words or certain things you might want to do or change when you're translating it. I think if I were to use an AI tool to take on even that earlier draft, it would already make assumptions for certain words.

As we mentioned, certain specific word choices can have such a big impact. Not every language has a one-to-one translation for every single word in a different language.

I think that process of becoming really intimately familiar with the original language and your first draft into the language you're translating in, I think that's actually quite important to do.

I would be nervous that AI would translate certain words, and then I would now look at the AI translation and base my translation off what AI already selected.

For some words, when you then look at the original, you might think, “Hmm, actually what the author meant is a little bit different from how AI translated it, but now I've given it the same meaning of the AI translation.” That's why I would personally be hesitant specifically when it comes to literary translation.

Now, for legal documents or marketing terms or anything, that's different. I'd probably leverage it, or I'd be open to leveraging it.

With literature and writing, we're so concerned with words and strong writing is so important at this time, I would not yet use it in my own translations. Who knows? That might change in the future.

Jo: Who knows. But I love that your process was so detailed, and as we said, you've put a lot of love into this project. Before we go, I am interested, are you done with translation? Like you mentioned you've got your MFA, you've got lots of other writing.

Dani: Yes, I am still open to other translation work. Actually, someone already gave me a little booklet to consider. It is a short book also about a Holocaust survivor, and I do plan to do something with that one day, just not right now.

Right now I am working on a fictional novel and one thing I have learned is when you are publishing something, you're steeped in the subject matter for at least a year, I'd say around two from writing it or generating it.

Then if you have a publication deal, or if you're self-publishing, the proof edits, the copy edits, you're so knee deep in the subject matter.

When it comes to the topic, like the Holocaust, it was very challenging at some point. I actually took a break for about three years after I had finalized the manuscript before I ended up picking it back up and shopping it around because it was a pandemic, it was lockdown.

There was a lot going on, and it's a very, very heavy subject matter, especially when this is something that my family members went through. What I've learned now is you have to be so entrenched in the subject matter for so long.

I actually have two manuscripts that are far closer to completion, but they also deal with quite heavy subjects. I have decided to pursue a different project that is a little bit of a lighter subject matter. It has some humor in it, a little bit of romance, little bit of juiciness.

That is going to be my next project that I hope to complete and be able to find a home for by next year. After that one then I'll tackle one of those other more serious or a little bit darker subjects again.

Jo: I think that's good. It's good to have a break. I often do a nonfiction book in between thing. It kind of helps, but I guess you've done a nonfiction that was the heavy one. But no, that's great.

Dani: Thank you. Return to the Place I Never Left can be found anywhere books are sold online, and also at DaniJames.co. That's my website. That's where you can order the book. That's where you can sign up for the newsletter. That's where I'll publish any upcoming events and readings. You can also find a link to my YouTube channel as well.

Jo: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Dani. That was great.

Dani: Thank you so much. I just really want to take a moment to thank you because I absolutely love your channel. I found you through YouTube, by the way. That is where I mainly listen to your podcast.

I have to say, you have created such an incredible wealth of resources for writers. Every time I look at your videos, I have like ten videos that are in my queue that I want to listen to, and they're all so helpful.

Even though I know that you talk a lot about the journey of being self-published, it's so helpful—all the guests you have on, all the resources. I just wanted to thank you. I have shared your channel with several of my friends who are writing books as well and taking on other creative projects. Big, big thank you for doing this work.

Jo: Thanks so much.

The post The Art And Business Of Literary Translation With Dani James first appeared on The Creative Penn.

What marketing principles remain true regardless of the tools you use? What are the different ways you can market your book, whatever your genre? In this episode, I share two chapters from my audiobook, Successful Self-Publishing, Fourth Edition.

In the intro, Pricing strategies on The Biz Book Broadcast;
What to do Three Years Before your book launch [Dan Blank]; ChatGPT GPT5; Gemini Storybook, ElevenLabs Music.

Plus, AI-Assisted Artisan Author webinars in September; Gothic Cathedrals; British Pilgrimage [Books and Travel]; The Buried and the Drowned – J.F. Penn.

Today's show is sponsored by ProWritingAid, writing and editing software that goes way beyond just grammar and typo checking. With its detailed reports on how to improve your writing and integration with writing software, ProWritingAid will help you improve your book before you send it to an editor, agent or publisher. Check it out for free or get 15% off the premium edition at www.ProWritingAid.com/joanna

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn 

J.F. Penn is an award-winning, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of thrillers, crime, horror, dark fantasy, short stories and travel memoir, as well as writing non-fiction for authors as Joanna Penn. She's also an award-winning podcaster and creative entrepreneur.

These chapters are excerpted from Successful Self-Publishing, Fourth Edition by Joanna Penn, available in ebook, audiobook, and print formats.

If you ask most authors about book marketing, they’re likely to grimace, shake their head, and sigh…

We became authors because we love to write, but if you want your books to sell — regardless of how you choose to publish — at some point you’ll need to embrace marketing as part of your author journey.

In this chapter, I’ll go through marketing principles that will be useful no matter how the industry changes. But first, let’s cover the question everyone always asks. 

There are many people and services you can hire for aspects of book marketing, but consider these questions:

Book marketing is not one thing, so you need to first consider what exactly you want to outsource. For example, setting up and running Amazon Ads is a different skill to pitching magazines and podcasts for interviews. 

You also have to consider whether you even want to start something you might not sustain. 

If you want to hire a professional, be specific about the tasks and your budget, as well as timeframe. For example, ‘Run Meta Ads for three months to the first book in my fantasy series’ or ‘Pitch media outlets for three months around my non-fiction self-help book on dealing with anxiety.’

If you want help with book marketing, you can hire vetted professionals from the Reedsy Marketplace and find people on the Alliance of Independent Authors Partner Member list.

While I have hired specific people over the years for short-term marketing campaigns, I primarily do my own marketing. Here are some principles that will help you if you choose to do the same.

Many authors feel that marketing and sales are negative in some way, but that attitude makes the whole thing more difficult. Whether you have a traditional book deal or you self-publish, you have to learn to market if you want to sell books. So, it’s time to reframe what marketing is!

Marketing is sharing what you love with people who will appreciate hearing about it.

Marketing is not shouting ‘buy my book’ every day on social media or accosting readers in bookstores or at author events. You should never be pushing anything to those who are not interested. Instead, try to attract people who will love what you do once they know about it.

We’re readers too and we all love to find new books to immerse ourselves in, so think about other readers in the same way.

If you’ve written a great story in a genre that you love, why would you ever be embarrassed about promoting it ethically to fans of that genre?

If you’ve written a book on gluten-free weight loss, it’s likely that you’ve achieved success with your method. You’re trying to help people, so why wouldn’t you want to spread the word?

Once you change your attitude, the whole marketing landscape shifts. It becomes far more positive when you’re sharing things you love and attracting like-minded people.

If you start enjoying marketing and make it a sustainable part of your creative life, you’ll find it works a whole lot better — and might even be fun!

Writing is about you. Publishing is about the book. Marketing is about the reader.

When we write, we are in our own heads. We’re thinking about ourselves. But when we publish and market, we have to switch our heads around to the other side of the equation and consider the person who reads or listens to the book and what they want out of the experience.

Step outside your own head and ask these questions: Who is my ideal reader? What emotion or outcome do they crave? What problem am I solving, or what entertainment experience am I providing?

The answers will help you with the words and images you use in marketing to attract the right readers.

When you write a book, you need to have somewhere to direct people so they can find out information about you and what you write.

There are many options for building your home on the internet, but an important consideration is who owns the site you build on.

If you use a free site, it’s owned by someone else, whereas if you pay for hosting, you control it. You can back it up and make sure it’s always available. This matters because things change over time.

Some authors let their publisher build a website for them, but what if you begin working with a different publisher?

Some authors just use a Facebook page, but what about when Facebook changes the rules (as they have done several times over the years)?

Some authors use a free website service, but if that company disappears or gets bought or decides your book isn’t appropriate, what happens to your site?

If you’re serious about writing and selling books for the long-term, then consider owning your website.

You can do all kinds of other things to market your book, but at least you’ll always have somewhere to send people.

Equally, it’s important to build your own email list of readers who like your books, because again, who knows what will happen in the future with the book retailers or the publishers you use?

If you have an email list of readers, you can always sell books whatever changes come along.

You can find the services I use and more tips at: www.TheCreativePenn.com/website-email-help 

Branding is your promise to the reader. It’s the words, images, and emotions that surround your work and the way readers think of you.

Many authors consider using a pseudonym, or different names if they write books aimed at separate audiences. I write under J.F. Penn for my fiction and memoir and Joanna Penn for my non-fiction for authors. I have different types of books with almost completely different audiences, so I need separate brands.

Book cover design also expresses brand and differs by genre. You should have some idea of the books and authors that are similar to yours. 

Examine their book covers and the color palette they use, as well as their author websites. 

Now try to apply those principles to your own author brand.

If you’re struggling with brand, don’t worry. It will emerge and become clearer over time as you find your voice and attract an audience over multiple books. 

When I started out, I published everything under Joanna Penn, and eventually split my author brand to make things clearer for readers, as well as myself. But it took five books and several years before I understood that was the right decision for me. 

If you want a sustainable career as an author, you need to consider what kinds of marketing you can consistently do over time. You can’t fake it or force yourself to do things you hate. Marketing needs to fit with your personality and your lifestyle, and that will differ for everyone. 

You also need to be personal and, in an age of AI, double down on being human. The more you share authentically, the more people will get to know, like, and trust you, and the more likely they are to want to buy your books. 

Of course, you have to draw your personal line in the sand. I don’t share pictures of my family on social media, and some authors use codenames for their children so they can talk about being a parent while still protecting privacy.

You also need to know what’s best for managing your energy. I’m an introvert, so I find in-person events and group things difficult, and I tend to avoid in-person marketing. I also don’t watch video online so I produce little of it, and I don’t do short-form video like TikTok or Instagram Reels. 

I listen to a lot of podcasts and audiobooks, so audio marketing is my primary channel. I have two shows, The Creative Penn Podcast for writers, which markets my Joanna Penn books, and my Books and Travel Podcast, which is for my J.F. Penn side. The shows go out on audio podcast feeds and also onto my two YouTube channels. 

I also like taking photos, so I use Instagram @jfpennauthor and also share on X @thecreativepenn. I share pictures of my travels and what I’m up to for research, and my cats, and over time, I’ve become a lot more open about what I like.

For example, I’m a taphophile. I enjoy walking around graveyards and I like ossuaries and crypts, as well as art history and cultural aspects of death and memento mori. It turns out there are many people with Gothic leanings like me, and people even send me photos of their favorite graveyards from all over the world now. 

Sharing details about your interests might not be an obvious path to book sales, but attracting readers slowly over time in an authentic way can underpin a sustainable long-term career.

New authors often focus on the launch of their latest book, but most indie authors and publishing companies make more money from the ‘back list,’ older books with more reviews and a sales history. A book is always new to someone who has just discovered it, and that ‘new’ book might not be your latest release.

Short-term marketing is a good option for new releases, for campaigns like a Kickstarter, or if you want to push a first-in-series book from your backlist to introduce people to your work. These kinds of campaigns usually include some form of paid marketing, which can drive a sales spike that drops once you stop pumping money and energy into it. For most authors, this is not sustainable.

Long-term marketing is more about building evergreen assets that drip sales every day. If you want a long-term career as an author, you need to think about building a sustainable baseline income, money that comes in from your books consistently every month without you having to keep paying for it.

Successful long-term marketing requires more books on the market, more streams of income, more readers on your email list, and consistent content marketing of some kind. It takes time to build but is worth the investment if you want a long-term career. The most successful authors combine these two approaches with sustainable marketing strategies.

If you’re not measuring the results of a promotion, how do you know if it worked?

Marketing should ultimately result in sales, and if you’re self-published, you can measure this easily, as you get daily sales figures from the self-publishing platforms. You can also check your rankings on the stores and take screenshots before and after the promotion to check results.

This is why I prefer online marketing to traditional media and PR. If you have a clickable link associated with your promotion, you can track results and understand what works and what doesn’t.

When I first started out, I had national TV, radio, and newspaper coverage, but it had no noticeable impact on my book sales. These days, I can pay for a BookBub ad or email my list with a link and see the resulting direct sales spike. Measure promotion results, rather than basing your opinion on assumptions or ego metrics (likes and comments rather than sales).

Track what matters to your author business: sales, income, profit, email subscriber growth, number of reviews, and use those to guide your next campaign.

Some people say being a writer is lonely, but that is a choice, because there are so many different communities you can join in person or online. You can also build one of your own. 

People want to belong to something, they want to be part of a group, and together, we can achieve more and the journey will be a lot more fun! 

I’m a member of the Alliance of Independent Authors, which has a thriving community online and also meets up in person at book industry events. I speak at and also attend lots of conferences, including Author Nation, the biggest indie author conference in the world. I’m also a member of several Facebook groups, for writing craft and author business, where I check in every few days to see what’s going on.

I also have my own Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn, where I share behind-the-scenes details about running an author business.

Not every group is for every person, of course, so you must find the places that feel right for you. But give things a try, be generous and helpful and a good community member, and you will find author friends.

Being part of a community can also lead to marketing ideas and opportunities — for example, collaborating on email newsletter swaps or book recommendations, joint promotions, multi-author bundles and box-sets, and cross promotion on podcasts and social media. 

Remember, as with writing, marketing gets easier with practice. Start small, be consistent, and focus on the principles that never change, even as the tools and platforms evolve over time. Marketing your book is not a onetime event but an ongoing process, so take one step at a time and iterate as you go. 

Experiment to find what works best for your personality and lifestyle — for each book and at each stage of your author journey. Once you choose a strategy, commit to it for the long term, and you’ll build an audience and book sales in a sustainable manner.

I’m often asked, “What’s the one thing I should do to market my book?”

Annoyingly, the answer is: “It depends.”

It depends on you and your personality, your book, your budget, your goals and definition of success, as well as market conditions. 

There is no silver bullet, no magic formula that works for every book and every author every time.

Here are some ideas you could use to get started. You can find books and courses on each of these, so if you’re drawn to a particular method, dive deeper, learn more, experiment, and see what works for you.

If you look at lists of the best-known, best-loved, and richest authors, they generally have a lot of books and have been publishing for many years.

We are writers. We write. So it makes sense that the best marketing starts by writing more books.

One book is not enough to establish an author career, if that’s what you want. Even if a single book breaks out and becomes the ‘must read’ of a particular year, it doesn’t mean that readers will buy the next book from that author. They may not even remember the author’s name. But if you have three or four books that offer the same type of experience and if a reader reads them all, you’re likely to have won a fan who will actively look for your next book.

Every time you launch something new, more people have a chance to find out about your work. Every time you write in a new genre or publish in a new format, different kinds of people discover you. Some of them will go on to buy or read or listen to more of your work, join your email list, or support you in other ways.

For example, perhaps you found me through my show, The Creative Penn Podcast, then you downloaded my Author Blueprint, then you listened to my craft audiobook, How to Write a Novel, and now you’ve bought this book.

Or perhaps you found my first thriller, Stone of Fire, as a free promotion through BookBub and then read all the others in the ARKANE thriller series, before supporting my Kickstarter for book 13, Spear of Destiny. 

I have a lot of books across many genres written over almost twenty years, so there are many different paths into my body of work, which grows over time as I continue to create. This is definitely my favorite way to market!

By producing new work, you will develop an audience over time, as well as finding your voice and increasing your creative self-confidence. You will become a better writer with every book, so the chances of readers loving your work will also increase.

You can also experiment with different forms. Try short stories, short non-fiction or novellas, as well as novels and full-length non-fiction or memoir. Once you have enough material, consider putting multiple books together in a boxset or bundle. There are so many possibilities!

Existing customers will buy more books from an author if the new book promises the same experience delivered in previous books, whether they are fiction or non-fiction. This is why series are so powerful.

As a reader, there are some authors I pre-order from because I love a particular series, even though I might not read the other books they have. I’m loyal to the series characters, even more so than the author, because I want to know what happens next and I get an (almost) guaranteed experience.

For non-fiction, there are authors who I trust and whose books I buy because I know they will be interesting, informative, and inspiring. 

If a reader discovers and loves your series when you release book five, they are likely to go back and buy the rest of them, which means more income for you and more satisfaction for the reader.

A novel in a series is also faster to write than a stand-alone title, as you don’t have to reinvent the characters and the world, you just need to find your plot and start writing.

If you write literary fiction or enjoy writing stand-alone books, consider the themes that tie your books together and think of ways to encourage people to move between them. You can create interconnected stand-alones — for example, books set in the same universe or linked by theme — so recommendation engines connect the dots.

Your options expand the more books you write. I have several fiction series, with the main being my ARKANE thrillers, but I also have stand-alone stories like Catacomb and Death Valley. For non-fiction, I have books for authors in a series, but I also have a memoir, Pilgrimage, which is a stand-alone. 

While it’s easier to market books in a series, I certainly understand the creative urge to write all kinds of different things!

Metadata is the information about your book, rather than the book itself. It includes your title, subtitle, series title, sales description, keywords, categories, and your author bio. Some platforms also include data points like reviews and sales history so their recommendation engines understand where your book fits into the ecosystem. 

We went through this in chapter 2.3, but metadata is a key aspect of marketing. If you find your marketing efforts aren’t getting the results you want, make sure you’ve made the right metadata choices for your book, and change things over time to keep it fresh.

The more books you publish, the more flexibility you have with pricing. You also won’t be so emotionally attached to any individual book, which makes it easier to play with pricing.

If you’re in Kindle Unlimited for your ebooks, you get five free days for promotion every ninety days. If you’re wide, you can set the price to free on all other stores, and Amazon will price match. My first ARKANE thriller, Stone of Fire, is free on all ebook stores, which brings people into the thirteen-book series.

You can also use limited-time discounts — for example, drop the price to 99 cents and promote the sale, introducing your books to new readers who might be hesitant to try a new author at full price.

You can also use fan pricing and launch pricing interspersed with full-priced books, rewarding your most loyal readers while still capitalizing on launch momentum and algorithms.

If you have books in a series, you can sell bundles at a great price, giving the reader value and putting more money in your pocket, especially if you sell direct.

Make sure you have a link at the back of your book to a free reader magnet, something that the reader wants, if they give you their email address.

For my non-fiction, I offer my free Author Blueprint ebook at: www.TheCreativePenn.com/blueprint

For fiction, I offer a free thriller at: www.JFPenn.com/free

The call to action for both is in the back of every book, and also on my websites, podcasts, and social media, and people sign up for these lists every day.

Once people are on your email list, stay in touch. Let them know about new releases and giveaways, and draw them closer to you by sharing personal photos, book recommendations, or behind-the-scenes research. If you’re unsure what to email about, join a few successful author lists and see what they’re doing.

There are lots of email services. I use and recommend Kit (previously ConvertKit) at: www.TheCreativePenn.com/kit

This group is a subset of your main email list, and is made up of readers who want advance reader copies (ARCs) and who are happy to promote, write reviews, and share on social media.

Some authors have incredibly active ARC teams with extra swag and giveaways as well as events. But you can keep it simple. I have an automated email inviting people to my Pennfriends list that goes out after six months on my fiction email list. They get early access to some new books and also free backlist books and many of them write reviews.

You can give away ebooks with watermarks through BookFunnel if you want to protect the files. 

You don’t need an ARC team to get reviews. You can just ask readers by including a call to action at the back of your books — for example, “If you enjoyed the book, please leave a review on the store where you bought it. Thank you.”

Many authors obsess about getting reviewed in traditional media, but it’s more important to build up social proof on the online stores or on Goodreads (owned by Amazon). This evidence of reader approval will help you get promotions. For example, BookBub requires a certain number of reviews and a high average review rating before accepting a book for promotion.

Free books are the easiest to get reviews on, so if you’re struggling to get started, put your book on a free promotion and do some advertising to get downloads.

There are lots of different social media platforms, and each has its own rules and tactics, as well as its own demographic. You cannot be successful on all of them, so focus on one or two, learn the right skills for that platform, test out different content, and lean into what works.

The rise in beautiful print editions, particularly for fiction, has benefitted from the trend in social media video, with TikTok videos driving many books up the bestseller lists.

While social media marketing can be ‘free’ in terms of money, you will certainly pay with your time. All the platforms reward regular content and engagement, which works for some authors, but not for others. 

There are authors who use social media effectively to drive massive sales and success online, but they put a lot of work in, or they hire people to help. Find successful authors in your niche to follow and model what they do if this is an area you want to focus on.

Personally, I’m not a huge fan of social media and use it more to prove I’m a human, sharing photos of my life and book research on Instagram @jfpennauthor. I also use X @thecreativepenn as a news platform where I learn about new technology and find content to share on my podcast. I also have Facebook pages, Pinterest boards, and a LinkedIn profile, but I’m not particularly active on any site.

Content marketing is my favorite form of marketing, and I’ve built my business around it. It’s essentially offering free content in your preferred format that educates, inspires, or entertains, and attracts people who might also be interested in buying your books, products, and services.

For non-fiction, I’ve been blogging and podcasting at www.TheCreativePenn.com since 2008. I also have a YouTube channel @thecreativepenn. 

For fiction, I have free short stories, audio and video on YouTube @jfpennauthor, and I also have my Books and Travel Podcast and blog.

This content can also be a stream of income. For example, YouTube videos can be monetized with ads, podcasts can include sponsorships, and Substack newsletters can offer a paid tier alongside free information.

Providing quality content over time builds up your site and you personally as an authority and trusted source in a niche. The content remains on your site and you can build up a body of work that continues to attract people over the long term. 

Content marketing often requires longer form pieces than social media. I create podcast interviews and episodes of thirty minutes to an hour weekly, instead of multiple thirty second videos on social media every day. No one has time for both things, so choose what suits you and your personality. 

To help you decide, ask yourself this question: What do you currently consume?

I walk a lot and listen to podcasts, and I rarely scroll social media, so it makes sense for me to focus on audio-first content marketing. I also travel and take a lot of photos for book research, which I enjoy sharing on my blog and podcast at BooksAndTravel.page. 

If you watch a lot of TikTok videos, or you love scrolling on Pinterest or reading articles on LinkedIn, then your own daily preferences should give you a hint as to what would suit you as a creator. 

If you don’t want to build up your own content marketing site, you can pitch podcasters, YouTubers, or bloggers with your book, and appear on their platforms.

Do your research to find shows that will be a great fit for your work, then send an effective pitch to a few specifically targeted creators. 

These interviews are never about selling your book. They are all about giving incredible value to the audience, which will make them want to find out more and naturally lead to book sales. Include five bullet points in your pitch about what exactly the audience will find useful, and make it easy for the host to understand why you’re a good fit.

This targeted approach will lead to much greater success than sending hundreds of pitches with a basic press release about your book.

Traditional media still has significant reach and authority, although it’s usually more for brand-building than direct sales.

Start by pitching local newspapers, TV, and radio, as they are often looking for local success stories and are easier to access than national media.

Research which journalists cover your topic or genre at each outlet, and look for those who have written similar stories. 

As with podcast pitches above, you need a hook beyond ‘I wrote a book.’ Connect your pitch to current events, trends, or a unique personal journey. Make sure you have a professional headshot, book cover image, short and long bio, and sample interview questions ready to send.

A lot of marketing takes time rather than money, but you can get traffic — and sales — more quickly if you use paid ads. 

The most popular and effective pay-per-click ads for authors are Amazon Advertising, Meta Ads for Facebook and Instagram, as well as BookBub Ads.

Choose which audience to market to, either with keywords or target audiences, set a budget, design the images, and let the ads run, paying per click or per impression. You’ll need a period of testing and time to monitor and adjust ads, and you may find you need to refresh the images or ad copy over time.

Most successful indie authors use paid advertising of some kind to drive traffic to their books, but it’s certainly not necessary. You need patience to learn the specific platform, test, monitor, analyze, and adjust ads. Or you can outsource your advertising, paying someone to run them as well as paying advertising platform costs.

This approach is most effective when you have multiple books in a series, as cost per click can be expensive if you only have one or two books.

I use Amazon Ads for some non-fiction books and rely on auto-ads using Amazon’s own algorithm to manage them. I also use Meta and BookBub Ads as part of short-term campaigns at launch or for promotional spikes.

The most popular email marketing newsletter services are BookBub Featured Deals, and Freebooksy, Bargain Booksy, and other options run by Written Word Media.

With these services, you pay to submit your book for a genre promotion, and they email their targeted list of readers with a link to your book, along with many others. Hopefully, you get enough sales to justify the cost.

To be clear, you are buying a place on an email blast to readers. You are not buying a list of email addresses. Never do that as it violates anti-spam regulations. 

While online marketing can be effective for reaching readers all over the world, in-person marketing can be rewarding for connections with readers and other authors, and can result in significant sales. 

In-person marketing might include speaking at a local networking event or school assembly, literary festival, book club, or library, as well as having a book stall at conventions, conferences, local fairs, and markets.

Investigate options in your area and balance the costs of setting up a stall and ordering physical stock with the potential for income and local marketing reach.

Even the most prolific authors can’t satisfy their readers alone, so it’s good to develop a network of authors in your genre, or those with a crossover audience. You can help promote each other’s books and do joint events and promotions together to keep readers reading in your niche. You’ll also make author friends, and this support is critical for long-term success.

There are lots of options for collaboration, from co-writing books, cross-promotion in email newsletters, to multi-author bundles, joint online launch parties, and social media sharing. If you’re new or want to expand your network, BookFunnel offers different kinds of group promos.

I collaborate with authors in lots of ways and often build relationships and attract opportunities through my podcast interviews. I’ve co-written fiction and non-fiction books, appeared on other shows, promoted authors to my email lists and on social media, and also collaborated on joint author in-person events.

I’ve also done bigger paid ad campaigns. In 2014, I was part of the Deadly Dozen, where twelve mystery and thriller authors hit the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists with our multi-author ebook boxset. We all ran different promotions as well as jointly paying for advertising, and we sold over 100,000 ebook bundles and attracted many readers to our email lists.

If you want to collaborate with other authors, be generous and helpful and you will attract opportunities. Volunteering at author conferences can also be a great way to build your network. 

It takes time to build out a sustainable marketing approach that keeps your books selling every month over many years.

You can pay for advertising right now and you will drive traffic to your books and hopefully sell some, but as soon as you stop paying, the sales will drop off. 

The best approach is to think of marketing as an ecosystem made up of multiple aspects around you and your creative work. 

What do you enjoy doing and what kinds of marketing can you sustain over time?

The most successful authors build marketing into their regular routine rather than treating it as a separate, painful task to check off as required for each book launch.

Marketing is about connecting people with your books. When you genuinely help people find stories they’ll love or solutions to their challenges, marketing becomes less about self-promotion and more about valuable service. It’s an important part of being a successful self-published author.

These chapters are excerpted from Successful Self-Publishing, Fourth Edition by Joanna Penn, available in ebook, audiobook, and print formats.

The post Book Marketing Tips For Fiction And Non-Fiction Authors With Joanna Penn first appeared on The Creative Penn.

Are you curious about the lives of your ancestors? What secrets might be hiding in your family tree, and where would you even begin to look for them? How do you turn dusty records and vague family stories into a compelling book for others to read? T.L. Whalan shares how she researched and wrote a book about her family history.

In the intro, InAudio.com and Spotify for Authors; The Written Word Podcast from Written Word Media; How to sell 1000 books a month [Author Media]; Vetted services from Alliance of Independent Authors, and Reedsy; Writer Beware for scams.

Plus, Ideogram for consistent Characters; Google Notebook LM video overviews; Gothic Cathedrals; The Buried and the Drowned – J.F. Penn.

Today's show is sponsored by Draft2Digital, self-publishing with support, where you can get free formatting, free distribution to multiple stores, and a host of other benefits. Just go to www.draft2digital.com to get started.

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn 

T.L. Whalan is the Australian author of short stories, young adult, and middle-grade fiction, as well as co-author of the family history project, The Wirrabara Whalans.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. 

Show Notes

You can find Tegan at TLWhalan.com.au.

Joanna: T.L. Whalan is the Australian author of short stories, young adult, and middle-grade fiction, as well as co-author of the family history project, The Wirrabara Whalans. Welcome to the show, Tegan.

Tegan: Thank you so much for having me.

Joanna: First up—

Tegan: Sure thing. It's pretty obvious from my accent that I'm Australian. I live in a town called Hamley Bridge, which has only 700 people. It's a country town north of Adelaide in South Australia. My husband and I chose this country life because of our animals.

We have dogs ourselves, but we also run a dog rescue. Last year we started bottle-raising orphaned lambs, and now we run a dog and lamb rescue. Over the last 15 years, we've re-homed about 400 animals.

In terms of my writing, I was one of those people who always said, “I'm going to write a novel one day,” but never really got around to it. Then, in mid-2014, I decided to get serious.

I Googled how to write a novel and discovered NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). I thought, “Well, that's good because I can wait until November.” So I did exactly that. I waited until November for NaNoWriMo, wrote a novel that year, and I've been writing compulsively ever since.

Joanna: Just on those bottle-fed orphan lambs. They turn into sheep, right? Do you just have loads of sheep?

Tegan: We've got 10 of our own sheep, which are wonderful pets. They're just like dogs; they run up to the fence and want pets and treats. The lambs that we're raising this year, we are finding good homes for, for them to live out their lives as lawnmowers and lovely pets themselves.

My husband's been very happy since we got the sheep. He hasn't had to mow the lawn, so it's been a good addition.

Joanna: Let's get into this family history project.

Tegan: There are lots of people who are quite into genealogy or their family history, and it's basically the study of lineage. Often people choose to start with themselves and then work their way back, figuring out who their ancestors are.

I think people are fascinated because we're all a little bit self-centered and want to know more about ourselves. When I'm researching my family tree and find a particularly exciting ancestor, I actually do the math and work out how much of their DNA is in me.

It's nice to know that person makes up part of me. So there's that aspect of learning about yourself that I think is really motivating.

Sometimes when you find a really nice tidbit, you get to the point that you go, “I think I might be the only person alive who knows this about this person.” It's a pretty cool feeling to think that you're at that brink of your research.

I've also done family trees for people in my fiction writing. When I've written historical fiction based on true historical figures, I have been known to make a family tree for that person because I want to make sure that I get it right in terms of their siblings, their parents, their aunties, their uncles, the years of their birth, and how old they would be.

Tegan: There are lots of resources, but I think sometimes people start in the wrong place. I'm a big advocate of starting with people who are alive now and interviewing them to get those stories. When that person passes, that story could potentially be gone as well.

While I agree it's exciting to get as far back on your family tree as possible, if we can start with living people and the resource that they provide, that's a really excellent starting point.

Once we have all the information we can from living people, we can start to look at other resources. As an Australian, a lot of our ship records are really important. For me, it's free settlers, but for plenty of people in Australia, there are convict records.

We have Births, Deaths and Marriages registries in Australia, which are a valuable resource, though there's a different one in every state, which makes it a little bit complicated.

In Australia, we have a newspaper website called Trove; I think the US equivalent is newspapers.com.

Newspapers have a phenomenal amount of information, like birth and death records, engagement notices, marriages, and sometimes even whole stories about a wedding, which will tell you who the wedding party was and what the bride wore.

We have also had to use Freedom of Information (FOI) to get information about some of our relatives. On my father's side, my great-grandfather was charged with being destitute as an 8-year-old boy and was then in what was fundamentally an orphanage.

We were able to seek freedom of information from the Department of Child Protection to get information about him. We're about to do something similar for one of my relatives who was institutionalized in a mental asylum. So those FOI records can be a valuable resource.

It's a little difficult to give really specific ideas on resources because they are often quite country-specific or even state-specific. For people who are interested, their state-based genealogical center is a good place to start for area-specific resources.

Tegan: Exactly, and they can be a really good resource. They make it their business to collate a lot of records, so you can sometimes search many records quite quickly.

They are useful, but part of the problem with them is that many are user-based, so some of the information is what other users have submitted. Sometimes that's useful, but sometimes that information is inaccurate. There's also the possibility of those inaccuracies spreading through many people's records on those sites.

So Ancestry and other sites are a really good starting point, and we certainly used it a lot to generate hints, but like all resources, you also need to corroborate them and try to access that original source if possible.

Tegan: Yes, we certainly did. Our ancestors are mostly Irish, and that's who we pursue in this book. We got to the point that we hired a researcher in Ireland for some of our dead ends because if you are in a different country, you are more savvy about the genealogical systems in place.

Knowing locations and their proximity to one another can be really time-consuming. If I were doing that research from here, I would have to have a map app open all the time. Plus, as you mentioned, some sites require payment to access resources, which can be a hurdle in other countries.

We did get an Irish researcher who was fantastic; she managed to get us one generation further back, which was very valuable. There was another one we sent her that she wasn't able to get any further on, which made us feel very satisfied that we were able to get as far as we did.

Tegan: With different records, there are different processes in place. With a lot of the ones we've found in Australia, you have to be a very close relation to campaign for those records.

In the case I mentioned with the Department of Child Protection, my father was a direct descendant of that man, which is why he was able to apply for those records. There are different thresholds these organizations require you to meet for them to release that information.

It's certainly worth investigating, and it will be very nuanced depending on the information you're looking for and the organization or government agency you're approaching. A lot of family history is just taking your time and doing things bit by bit.

It might be that an organization has now changed its rules, or enough time has passed. Things often get quite loose after about 100 years, and there's more willingness to release records. It's worth revisiting resources because things can change.

Was it literally, “What was the name of your mother?” or did you go much wider?

Tegan: We went much more in-depth. When my parents and I started this project for the Whalans, we wanted it to be more than just a person's name, their date of birth, their children, and their date of death. We wanted to know who that person was.

So we compiled 13 questions, which we call the “cousin questions,” and they are available on my blog if anyone wants to see them. A lot of the questions were around location: where they went to school, where they were born, where they lived, where they traveled.

That information becomes really important when you're searching later because it helps to confirm that the person on a record is the one you're looking for. This is particularly relevant if you have a common surname like Smith. We had the benefit that Whalan is not a common name in Australia, which helped our research a lot.

The other questions were about the human story. We asked about people's idiosyncrasies and what they were proud of in their life. That gives you the flavor of a person.

One of my favorite stories we were told was about a man, from his son. He said that his father, when working on the farm, always wore his overalls, and in the front pocket, he always carried a $5 note in case the ice cream truck came by. I just think that's a beautiful way of explaining a person.

It gives you so much more character than his name and dates. You learn he's a farmer, he wears overalls, he must value ice cream, and you learn about the currency and that it was a cash-based society. We learned a lot from that little phrase, and that's the kind of rich color we wanted for our book.

Joanna: What about inaccuracies and corroboration?

Tegan: The first part is considering how close the person we're interviewing is to that person. In this particular case, the person telling me the story was his son, and his wife was in the background and laughed, remembering the story with him. So that gives me confidence that it's true.

We can also try to find other evidence. For example, a couple of older ladies told us their father lived in Yundi because of some kind of government chicken farm. They couldn't give me more details, but that sent me on a research journey.

I was able to find out that Yundi was set up by the government to teach impoverished families how to farm chickens. So that vague comment was steeped in truth. All those resources I've already talked about can be helpful in finding and corroborating those threads.

Also, if you interview multiple people, you can often get several versions of the same story. When we produced this book, we sometimes used direct quotes. In that way, we're not necessarily describing it as an absolute truth; we're describing what someone has said about these people, which again gives an impression of a person.

Joanna: How far back did you get?

Tegan: For The Wirrabara Whalans, we go back to 1810. It was a happy surprise that we managed to get ourselves back to 1810, to be honest. That ancestor, born in 1810, immigrated to Australia in 1855.

A lot of people don't particularly want to talk about their family.

Tegan: Overwhelmingly, the response has been pretty positive, and the ones that haven't been positive have been neutral, so that has been a success.

When we were interviewing people, my father, who is quite well connected with the Whalans, could call them up, introduce himself, and get an interview. I had the more difficult job of cold-calling a branch of the family we haven't been actively involved with. I had about a 50/50 success rate.

For those people who weren't willing to help, we respected that choice. A lot of people think they don't have anything to contribute, but almost everyone we interviewed would start with, “Well, I don't know much,” and then they would know quite a lot.

One of the decisions we made early on was that we were only going to feature people who had passed away. This meant we didn't have as much conflict as if we were presenting living people, and there were also privacy concerns.

Another way we protected ourselves was that once we had completed a chapter about their loved one, we gave them that chapter to review. We asked them to look over it and let us know if there was anything they wanted changed. Every now and then, there was a sentence or two they wanted to remove.

Family is important to us, so if someone was uncomfortable, we deleted it. In a 450-page manuscript, a sentence or two isn't going to make a big difference.

Tegan: The most shocking parts involved a lot of bar fights. The one that always shocks me was a bar fight described in a newspaper where one of my relatives broke another man's leg. The force you'd have to use to do that is just horrific to me.

That made it into the book. It's all readily accessible details from newspapers, not new things that aren't already in the public domain.

The nicest surprise was when we managed to go back one extra generation. We found a funeral notice for a woman that turned out to be my three-times great-grandmother.

Later, we were able to corroborate that with DNA; my father's DNA matched with someone with her same surname, which as far as we are concerned, confirms it. That was a very satisfying part of our journey.

We also found with DNA that my dad's uncle had an illegitimate child. We were able to confirm the name of that child through DNA. We knew they existed and had an idea of their name, and the DNA match confirmed it. It was another way we had two resources saying the same thing.

Tegan: There are a lot of images in the book. Many come from state libraries, which often allow you to use an image if you attribute the source and it's no longer in copyright. We purchased the occasional image from international library collections.

My parents drove all around South Australia taking photos of gravestones, so those are all our own images. There were also lots of family photos donated by family members who gave us consent to publish them.

The newspaper articles often appear in the book in full. They might be slightly fixed up if there are glaring errors, but for the most part, they're reproduced as they appeared and are fully credited.

It was really important for us to make a valid resource, so the book has a bibliography and references for most things throughout.

It sounds like a huge amount of work.

Tegan: It was a huge amount of work. I was working with my parents on this project, and we live geographically separated, so we had to use online ways to communicate and store information. We used Ancestry.com.au for a lot of our research collation because we could both access it from our different locations.

My parents did a lot of the research, and I did some research while also doing a lot of the formatting and writing. Almost from day one, I had a document that I was adding information to. It was basically one document that just kept growing and growing into the 450-page manuscript it is now.

Tegan: It was such a painful experience doing these family charts. From the early days, I knew I wanted a family chart for every family at the start of their chapter. I searched online for programs that could do it, but basically all of them fell down once I got to a family with 13 children.

As a result, the family charts in our book were all handmade in Word. That meant I could have a lot of control over the colors, the font, and the readability. It was a lot of work, and I actually had two family members help me with the formatting.

Those family tree charts were a nightmare, but they are very readable and look just how I wanted them to. So that's a small win, but there was a lot of pain to get there.

Tegan: We did a lot of work on this project, and we want people to learn not just about our family, but about all the aspects that fed into our family. We sometimes liken this book to being a history of the mid-north of South Australia.

The index we compiled is enormous, and if someone has a mid-north name, you can probably find it in there because many of the same families were moving around the area. This means we do get interest from people who just have a connection to the mid-north, not necessarily the Whalan family.

Most of our book sales have been to family, which is what we expected, but we do sell some to others. We recently attended a market in a small country town about a three-hour drive from Adelaide, and we sold six books. For a very niche family history book, we were really happy with that.

A lot of people were buying it because they know a Whalan, or they have a connection to the mid-north. A lot of the book is about the pioneering days and the shepherd lifestyle in that area.

The book is also in all the libraries we have to supply in Australia, plus some extra ones. We've also made donations of the book to some of the organizations we used in our research to make sure that information is preserved in their records.

Tegan: My website is TLWhalan.com.au. You can also find me on Facebook as T.L. Whalan.

The Wirrabara Whalans is my only book at the moment, but I am working on a young adult fiction series, which will appear in all those places once I get around to it. I've been busy with all the animals and bottle-feeding lambs four times a day!

Joanna: Well, look, it's been lovely to talk to you, Tegan. Thanks so much for your time.

Tegan: Thanks, Jo.

The post Researching And Writing Family History Or Genealogy With TL Whalan first appeared on The Creative Penn.

How do you turn a big-budget TV show idea into an audio drama you can produce yourself? What does it take to create a 10-hour, 30-actor historical drama? And how can guerrilla marketing in airport bookstores help find your audience? Alison Haselden shares her experience of writing and directing Wicked Dames.

In the intro, David Whyte on deeper writing [How I Write]; Midlife and the Great Unknown – David Whyte; How can I do my creative work when I’m so worried about the world? [Orna Ross]; Successful Self-Publishing Fourth Edition ebook on special; The Simple Path to Wealth 2025 Edition by JL Collins; Reshuffle: Who Wins When AI Restacks the Knowledge Economy by Sangeet Paul Choudary; The Buried and the Drowned Short Story Collection; Touching History: The Ancient Craft Of Stonemasonry [Books And Travel].

This podcast is sponsored by Kobo Writing Life, which helps authors self-publish and reach readers in global markets through the Kobo eco-system. You can also subscribe to the Kobo Writing Life podcast for interviews with successful indie authors.

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn 

Alison Haselden is an author, screenwriter, and actor. Her latest project is the historical fiction audio drama, Wicked Dames.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. 

Show Notes

You can find Alison at AlisonHaselden.com.

Joanna: Alison Haselden is an author, screenwriter, and actor. Her latest project is the historical fiction audio drama, Wicked Dames. Welcome to the show, Alison.

Alison: Thank you so much for having me, Jo.

Joanna: I'm excited to talk to you today. First off—

Alison: I have been in the creative world since the day I was born. I'm so grateful to have had a very supportive family who realized they had no choice; I was going to be singing, dancing, acting, and putting on plays in the neighborhood whether they wanted me to or not.

I grew up in Orlando, Florida, which has always had a bit of a pipeline to Los Angeles. In the nineties, we had all the boy bands and the Musketeers, so there was a lot of opportunity there.

I started working in professional acting at age six and was fortunate to be able to work and train throughout my childhood in Orlando, and I was able to go to Los Angeles a bit as well.

I was also an avid reader and writer my entire life. I just love stories in every medium I could get my hands on, which has continued into my adult life. I went to university for journalism and marketing, which really honed my writing skills.

Coming out of university, I worked in content marketing for seven years. That helped me get my reps in for building writing stamina, as well as learning marketing skills that now help me so much in my acting and writing careers.

It's been a beautiful journey. I'm at a place this year where I can look back and see that —

that I'm so grateful for now, even though they felt like detours at the time.

Now, I've quit the corporate world and I work for myself, marketing consulting for creative executives keeps the lights on while I pursue my acting and writing careers.

I act primarily in film and TV now. I just wrapped on my first series regular role in a limited series that should hopefully be coming out at the end of this year or in 2026. We released Wicked Dames in the fall of 2024, and I just finished writing my YA Fantasy. So, we've got a lot of projects going on.

Joanna: I love that. I love how you outlined that you also did jobs that maybe felt like you were treading water, but you were building on the side. I think some people think that you just go from child actor to TV shows to multimillionaire.

Alison: That is a common misconception.

Joanna: Like mid-list authors.

Alison: Exactly. It's the same thing.

Most folks that I work with, we all have something else going on on the side because this career is so inconsistent, and it's the same with writing. We all have to have multiple irons in the fire these days.

Joanna: On that, because you are juggling freelance work as well, with all these different projects and interests—

Alison: I used to be a “white-knuckle-it” kind of person and would hyper-schedule myself to try and pack every minute of every day with a box to check off. In the past two years, I have shifted away from that, and it's weirdly worked out better than I could have ever imagined. There's some kind of divine intervention there, I think.

Somehow, I rarely have competing deadlines and I follow my intuition in terms of what my priorities should be. If I have a deadline on something, of course, that gets put to the top of the pile, but I've been so fortunate that it's just worked out.

For example, this past year I was focusing solely on Wicked Dames from about April 2024 through the beginning of November 2024. Then I took a little break and an idea came to me, and I put my head down and wrote this whole YA fantasy I'm working on about witches in Nantucket.

Right when I finished that and needed a little break, this TV show opportunity came along. I couldn't really write while I was on set—it’s pretty demanding of your brain space—but it worked out because I needed to have time away before coming back for edits.

The less I try to control things, the more it weirdly works out in a way that is supportive of my creative process. There are so many different sides of our brain. I can't just be creatively brainstorming 24/7; I need to switch to the other side of my brain and do more logistical things.

For the way my energy works, being able to switch hats helps me recharge in the process, so I'm not over-functioning in one way for too long. Then I'm actually excited to go back and check in on another project.

Joanna: It sounds like you never do the same thing back-to-back; you're switching all the time.

Alison: Yes, and that part has been pure chance. I don't know how that's worked out so far, and maybe it won't be that way forever, but I really have been lucky enough to have quite a bit of variety that cycles through the year.

Joanna: Let's get into Wicked Dames. You mentioned the YA fantasy, but Wicked Dames is a historical story.

Alison: One of the unique things about my background is that I don't sit down and say, “Okay, I want to write a film script,” or, “Okay, I want to write a novel.” My ideas download into my brain, and I know immediately what format I want to lead with. I do write almost everything in multiple forms of IP.

I'm working on two different books right now, and I'll probably write a pilot episode or a spec sheet for each of those, but both came to me as a novel first.

Wicked Dames, however, came to me and I saw it as a TV show. I saw the visuals of it so clearly; it just felt like a TV show. I have written the book version of Wicked Dames, but my intuition really wanted me to get it out there in as close to a TV format as possible.

Anyone who knows about film and TV knows that historical fiction is very expensive to make. So, rather than try to scrounge together an opportunity to make it as a pilot episode, I wanted to get the IP out there as soon as possible, but I wanted it to feel very experiential.

I wanted the audience to feel like they were really in that world, and an audio drama was the perfect solution. Unlike an audiobook, which is typically one voice reading the book verbatim, an audio drama is essentially a TV show without the visuals.

You get a more immersive experience with all the different actors playing the characters, plus music and sound effects. It seemed like the right medium to get the story out into the world, and I'm so glad I did it that way.

I write a lot of historical fiction, fantasy, and some contemporary rom-com. Those might sound very different, but to me, they all have an element of magic to them, which is the throughline.

I've always loved historical fiction; it's so magical. It's an escape, but also so grounding because we know that parts of it are real. It just all flowed in that way.

Joanna: In terms of writing one, people might be able to picture a TV script with camera directions and dialogue.

Alison: Many people want to have strict rules, but really, there are no rules. I think there are even fewer rules for an audio drama script. I write it like a cross between a novel and a TV script.

The formatting on the page is structured like a TV script, so it doesn't read like a novel with paragraphs of text. We have the character breakdowns, the action, and the header that outlines the setting.

I do add a lot more to the action and description sections than I would for a traditional film or TV script. In this story, the narrator is doing a lot, so I wanted there to be plenty of description.

On my edit passes for Wicked Dames, I was thinking from the audience's perspective: if they are only listening with no visuals, what can be communicated via a sound effect and what cannot? That's where I would decide what kind of narration to add.

I didn't nitpick those details until the second or third editing pass. That really helped because you're going from being a storyteller to being more of a strategist, ensuring that your listeners have the best experience possible.

Joanna: Of course, you were both acting in and producing this.

Alison: Yes, I wore a lot of hats on this. I wrote it, I directed it, and I am a voice actor in it.

It was a lot, but I felt uniquely qualified to step into those roles. I wouldn't necessarily recommend that to all authors, unless you have a desire to learn some of those things.

For me, I really wanted the opportunity to flex those skills. One day I would love to be a showrunner of a TV show, and this was a good training ground for that.

Alison: I'm going to share all my secrets. I don't think I would've had the confidence to do something like this if I didn't know about some of these tools and opportunities.

One of the biggest barriers to entry people imagine is finding actors, but the beautiful thing is that there are actors at all levels out there.

It's been a difficult time in the entertainment industry following COVID and the writer and actor strikes in 2023. Our industry is still struggling to recover, so there are more actors than you'd think who are passionate about the work and looking for projects. It is very possible to find incredible actors who will work within your budget.

You have to do a little admin to get your account set up to post a casting call, but I cast all my actors through there. You can be transparent about your budget, set up the audition sides from your script, and then review everyone's profiles and submissions.

It seems like a lot, but I promise it's easier than you might think. There's a little nuance here. In the United States, I ran my project through the actors' union, SAG-AFTRA, because I wanted access to a wider net of actors.

You don't have to do this; you could do it as completely non-union, but then only non-union actors can be part of your project, which is totally fine. Those websites are open to both union and non-union projects.

This is where people get nervous—the technology. You have a few options to consider before casting. You could note in your casting call that you're only considering actors who already have recording equipment.

Or, you could make it open to all actors, but you would probably have to accommodate recording them, either by paying for their studio time or inviting them to a home studio.

Many actors who do voiceover work have microphones in their homes and can work with you over Zoom and send you the files. That is probably the easiest way.

I would say the biggest challenge for me, and the part I was least familiar with, was hiring an editor. The editing is everything, especially if you have a large cast and want lots of sound effects. The editor puts all of that together.

I would recommend saving up a decent amount of your budget for that because they put in a lot of hours. That's the part that takes the most time, the most budget, and the most back-and-forth to get the final product you envision.

Alison: We have 10 episodes in Wicked Dames, and they all range between 35 to 60 minutes. So, it's about 10 hours of content. We had over 30 actors participate, all with different-sized roles.

I paid my talent hourly—$25 an hour—or sometimes per session, depending on how much work they were doing. I was super upfront that I did not have a big budget. I paid my editor $3,500, which was a good deal because he was looking for the experience for his portfolio. I got really lucky.

I was putting in a lot of my own effort, so I was saving a lot of money but putting in the hours myself. I was able to produce the audio drama for under $6,000, which is very much on the lower side.

I was directing, coordinating talent, and had a tight recording schedule. I recorded every single day for the entire month of June last year.

I found a group of actors who were really excited about the project and deepening their own artistry. It was a slow season, so everyone had extra free time.

All the people who were part of the project were really meant to be part of it, and they brought so much life and fun. Seeing how they brought their own take on the characters I wrote was a joy.

Alison: There are a lot of routes with this, and it depends on your goals.

For me, my main goal was to get my IP out there and have a strong portfolio piece showcasing my work as a writer, actor, and director all in one. I wanted to hopefully break even and then start to build a community around my project.

I'm happy to say I was able to break even, and we've built a lot of community. My TikTok grew exponentially to 24,000 followers.

I'm in this for the long haul, and with the end goal of one day making this a TV show, it was more important for me to get the IP out there than to turn this particular audio drama into a business. Because of that, I chose to release it for free.

I have donation links in the show notes for those who enjoy it. However, you could put up a paywall through platforms like Patreon or Substack. That would probably have made more money but would have lowered the visibility, and I wanted visibility more than a short-term financial gain. You can also try to get ads on it.

One of the ways I built community was by hosting several in-person, themed events with local coffee shops and bars, which allowed for profit-share opportunities. That worked well to not only bring in a little money, but also to build fans around what we were doing.

Joanna: You said you broke even. Was that from donations and events?

Alison: Yes, it was from the donations. People were loving the show, making it all the way through, and then they would send us a tip if they enjoyed it, and it was through those events. It was very unexpected and heartwarming to see that people enjoyed what they were listening to and wanted to donate to our production.

Alison: It's the same as any other podcast. I just used the Spotify for Podcasters platform. It's cross-posted, so it's on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, and YouTube. It's accessible for free on all of those platforms.

I also have my own webpage for it with additional content. We filmed a video trailer, which was fun. There's a bit of a mystery in the story, so on the website, you can get some of the materials that the girls discover to put together the clues. I like making things interactive where I can.

Joanna: Now you've started— You better tell us more about the actual story.

Alison: Wicked Dames is about young women who seduced and killed Nazis during World War II. I was inspired by the very real stories of many young girls and women who did this—some as young as 13 years old. Some worked alone, some with local resistance groups, and some with official intelligence agencies.

I had read these stories over the years and thought it was crazy that no one had done anything with them. We have so many World War II stories, but most are about men in primary combat.

At the same time, my fiancé's grandmother was a Holocaust survivor, and her mother did incredible things to keep her family alive. I was hearing those stories, and I think they combined in my head and spit out Wicked Dames.

I wanted to explore the shades of gray. For young women in Berlin during this time, there were many different nuances to their experiences. Each of our girls comes from a different background and has personal challenges that lead them to work together.

We also have a bit of a serial killer moment; one of the girls in the group is a serial killer who is just benefiting from being alive during this time of war. I always thought,

She's mixed in with girls who are quite innocent and trying to do what's right, and others who have their own vendettas.

There are a lot of layers, a lot of mystery, and I think it's a pretty fun ride. I like to say it's a cross between Little Women and Peaky Blinders, with a dash of Inglourious Basterds.

Joanna: You come from a marketing background.

Alison: I definitely like to use a mix of tactics; I am not a “put all your eggs in one basket” kind of gal.

Digitally, we have the website, an email list, and social media promotion on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Threads. We had those in-person events and partnered with podcasts and other media outlets.

My favorite thing that I did was a bit of guerrilla marketing. I ordered a bunch of bookmarks with QR codes and wrote handwritten secret notes on antique-looking paper. I travel a lot, and so do people in my family, so I distributed those amongst everyone.

Anytime we went to the airport, we were stuffing these in airport bookstore books, trying to pick relevant ones like other historical fiction or World War II texts. I would also go to my local libraries and do that.

It's a delightful surprise if you pick up a book and there's a secret note inside. I would frame it as, “You've been recruited by the Wicked Dames. Learn more and check out the website.” It was really fun to track the QR codes and see where in the world the bookmarks ended up.

Joanna: That sounds amazing. Even if it didn't pay off in click-throughs.

Alison: And it made for really great social media content. People online thought the idea was cool, so the posts I made about doing that got a lot of engagement and traffic. It's all connected.

Joanna: You started by saying you want this to be a TV show.

Alison: I am so intuitively led now. I sat and brainstormed about the next steps, and what came to me was to write more.

Historical fiction is a difficult sell, especially right now. This IP is going to sit out there and hopefully continue to build community, and maybe it will come across the desk of someone who is excited by it.

Right now, I'm focusing on getting my foothold in through some of my other projects that I think would have an easier time getting a green light, like a contemporary rom-com or fantasy. Fantasy, even though it's big budget, is a more popular sell these days. I'm focusing on those projects.

My YA fantasy is completed and in edits, and I'm about halfway done with the first draft of my rom-com. I'm actually already talking with one network about that project, and I'm not even done with it.

If I hadn't listened to my intuition and had just continued pouring all my energy into Wicked Dames, I wouldn't have been able to make headway on these other projects, which I think will open up more opportunities and get me to a place where I can say, “Oh, and by the way, I have Wicked Dames here.”

In publishing, they often tell you to focus on one genre. However —

Having options helps when adjusting your sales strategy with the industry's ebb and flow. Sometimes they want something low-budget, and other times, during an abundance period, you can pitch your high-budget projects. I've let myself dabble for that reason.

In an industry that's so flaky, nothing's guaranteed until it's on the screen or the book is in your hands. I've taken that as permission to do whatever I want.

Alison: I certainly do get disheartened, but one of the blessings of having grown up working in this world is that I realize how impersonal it is. That can sting, but it's also freedom.

Timing is everything. It's easy to think that if something we love doesn't take off when we want it to, it's never going to work out. And yet, there's so much evidence of the opposite—projects started 10 years ago that suddenly find the right time and all the pieces fall into place.

I've seen too much evidence of that, and that's what I turn to when I'm having a hard day. I look at those stories from other artists, and that gives me hope. I've never been a competitive person, except with myself. I believe that seeing other people's success and their journeys is proof of what is possible for us.

Also, like I've said this whole time, I allow myself to indulge in what genuinely lights me up creatively. I'm always happier with that work, and people always like that work better too.

On the days I'm feeling down, I remind myself that I genuinely delight in the work. It's the business side of it that's the sucky part. So, I let myself go back into my creative cave, and that's where I recharge.

Joanna: That's super encouraging.

Alison: All of the updates on the multifaceted aspects of my career are on my website, AlisonHaselden.com. I'm also pretty active on social media—Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Threads—under my name, Alison Haselden.

I also have a fun new series on YouTube called “The Showrunner Note,” where I walk through my pitch for adapting popular books into TV shows or films. If you are a fellow book and media lover, that might be something fun. I would love to connect.

Joanna: Well, thank you so much for your time, Alison. That was great.

Alison: Thank you so much for having me.

The post Writing And Directing Audio Drama And The Constant Creator Mindset With Alison Haselden first appeared on The Creative Penn.

Are you feeling overwhelmed by the pressure to constantly release new books and battle algorithms? Do you wonder if there's a more sustainable, low-stress path to a successful author career? Is it possible to focus on art, build a loyal fanbase, and escape the publishing rat race? In this episode, Johnny B. Truant discusses the artisan author approach.

In the intro, When your brain says “write!” but your body says, “nope.” [The Author Stack]; Productivity, AI, and pushback [Seth Godin]; The Buried and the Drowned, Short Story Collection.

This episode is sponsored by Publisher Rocket, which will help you get your book in front of more Amazon readers so you can spend less time marketing and more time writing. I use Publisher Rocket for researching book titles, categories, and keywords — for new books and for updating my backlist. Check it out at www.PublisherRocket.com

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn 

Johnny B. Truant is the author of over one hundred and fifty books across multiple genres, including thriller, science fiction, fantasy, comedy, and nonfiction. His latest book is The Artisan Author: The Low-Stress, High-Quality, Fan-Focused Approach to Escaping the Publishing Rat Race.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. 

Show Notes

You can find Johnny at JohnnyBTruant.com, and the Artisan Author Kickstarter here.

Joanna: Johnny B. Truant is the author of over one hundred and fifty books across multiple genres, including thriller, science fiction, fantasy, comedy, and nonfiction. His latest book is The Artisan Author: The Low-Stress, High-Quality, Fan-Focused Approach to Escaping the Publishing Rat Race. So welcome back to the show, Johnny.

Johnny: Man, it is so fun to be on The Creative Penn. It's just like coming home. It's just so great. So thank you for having me.

Joanna: Well, you've been on the show multiple times over the years, and the last time was a couple of years ago when you were pivoting into this stage of your author journey. So we are going to jump straight into the topic today.

Johnny: I used to do a lot of author education. We had a podcast and a book and all that. Around the time COVID started, I stopped doing a lot of that and just focused on fiction.

When I came back to the 20Books Conference, the last one, so much had changed. People were really ramping up AI in different ways, the rapid release had gotten faster, and all the tactical stuff had gotten more tactical.

I just remembered thinking, “Boy, I always wanted to just write books my own way, at my own speed.” Despite going fast, I don't like being forced to go fast and I don't know if this is a game I want to play anymore.

You have to fit into all the very specific categories that the algorithms like to promote, and a lot of people are playing those games. In the midst of that, I did talk to another author. You may know her. She's British and runs a podcast.

Joanna: Yes, it was me!

Johnny: I know that you had said—I don't know if you used the word ‘artisan,' but you definitely described a lot of the things that I'm looking at now, which is, “I don't want to go in that direction either, and I'm doing more and more of what I want to do and trusting my true fans to be interested in it.”

Over the course of the next year, I started thinking more and more about that. What if instead of going into that faster, faster, rapid-release, kind of a death spiral sometimes—a lot of burnouts is related to that—

I would just call them artists and readers. We don't have to worry about price and we don't have to worry about fighting the algorithms. We can just rely on a one-to-one connection to true fans rather than hoping the algorithms will find people for us.

Joanna: Yes, and I did use that word. In fact, a couple of years ago, I wrote a positioning paper for the show about positioning myself also in the artisan space. I think this is really important. It's something that we obviously care about.

Having known you for many years, our conversation was sort of, “Look, don't give it all up because you are great at this.” I've been reading your writing for a long, long time, before you wrote fiction. I think what is nice about this period right now is that we do get to question things.

For a while, there were kind of rules. You guys had a book, what was it, The Fiction Formula or something like that, at one point?

Johnny: You know, it's so funny because I work with Sean Platt. I was working with him a lot more in that nonfiction space, and Sean will do things like that. He'll say, “Okay, we're going to call it The Fiction Formula.” And I'm like, “But we've already talked about how there's no formula.”

He's like, “No, no, that's the genius. It's going to be called The Fiction Formula. There is no formula,” because he wants the catch.

Joanna: But the thing is, there almost was for a bit.

Like you said, we met again at the last 20BooksTo50k. That was actually a thing for a period of time. Now I kind of say, “Well, one book to 50k.” Like you said, you can, if you do fine goods to discerning customers, you can do one book to 50k. It's a very different time.

It's almost like at the beginning of the indie revolution, we got to reinvent the way things were done. I feel like that's where we are again.

I feel like where we are now, fifteen-plus years into the indie revolution, or maybe seventeen-plus years into it, now we can reinvent it all over again.

Johnny: Yes, and that's something that I explored in The Artisan Author book. It was almost a little bit of a history lesson, not because I wanted to bore people with it, but because we were on this very sensible and aspirational trajectory for a while.

We came out of the old traditional publishing days where you had to query an agent and hope that you hit the right person at the right time and in the right mood. Instead, we were suddenly without gatekeepers and we could do what we wanted.

Then it started to be, “Okay, so if you write more books, you'll make more money.” We helped to contribute to that with Write. Publish. Repeat.

Then it became that at all costs, with no governor on it. Like, let's just go faster. Let's forget about the caveats of trying to enjoy yourself and maybe trying to write art that you actually care about.

It was like when you watch a kid grow up and then you're away for a year and you see that kid again, and that kid has gotten so big. It's kind of like that. I came back and it was like, “Oh, I remember rapid release.” It was this annoying little thing over there, and then it had become this huge thing and had become almost default.

That's what bothered me the most. It wasn't that it was so dominant, it was that I knew that there were new writers coming in—not just at that conference or the Author Nation conference to follow it, but people who watch from afar, who listen to the podcasts and watch the YouTube videos.

I just thought of those poor authors coming in and how overwhelming this must be. “I finally finished the book I always wanted to write. Okay, now write six more and release them every three weeks.” It's just terrible.

Joanna: It is. But I wanted to make the point that —

— and possibly true that the people who were making more income that way. As you say, also in the time that we've been doing this, people have disappeared.

Now, you disappeared, but you came back.

Johnny: You said that they're loud and that more of them appeared. That's part of the problem, really. Because they are loud—and by loud I don't mean necessarily obnoxious, I just mean that you tend to talk about it a lot when you've found something that works like that.

It's a vanishingly small percentage of authors, but because they are so loud, they're the ones who usually speak or write books or whatever. So it looks to people as if that's the norm, and if you aren't making serious bank as a rapid-release author, then you're just not trying hard enough.

It's not; it's this tiny percentage. I remember reading in one of Becca Syme's books, she had done the research to determine how many books actually make money, and it's the vast, vast, vast majority who don't make any money at all.

Yet those people are being given the same advice as everyone else, as if that's the majority and that's the way the majority works, and it's just not true.

Johnny: Well, the first thing is it's art first and profit second.

I think that's the key defining hallmark, meaning that you're writing what it is that you want to write. You can define art however you want to define it. It usually just means, “This is the thing I want to do, and so I'm going to do it.”

But practically speaking, the biggest thing that I think is going to be attractive to people is you don't have to burn yourself out. You don't have to keep doing this.

When I came back this year, I gave a presentation called “The Artisan Author,” with the tagline “the low-stress, high-quality, fan-focused way to beat the publishing rat race.”

People came up to me after and they said, “I didn't really know that this was an option. Thank you for giving me some clarity into the fact that it's not rapid release or nothing,” which is what most people think. So, yes, there was a lot of appetite for it.

Johnny: Well, certainly—and I didn't really finish my thought, so I apologize—the idea is that release of pressure. “Take your time” is another one of the pillars. Connecting with fans is a huge one to me.

That leads to this weird kind of backwards logic where usually self-published authors want to think bigger and faster because a lot of us have this very strong entrepreneurial streak, and it's almost eclipsed the artistic streak that people used to predominantly come into publishing for.

It used to be you came in because you wanted to write a book, and maybe you'd make money at it. Now it's like, “Here's a way to make money, and so I'm going to do it as quickly as I can.”

The customer focus thing is anti-leverage. Rapid release is trying to do as much leverage as possible. “If I make this one book, if I use the algorithms to my maximal advantage, then I can blow up without needing to do necessarily as much work.”

It's very highly leveraged, and the artisan approach is actually the opposite, where it's very, very one-to-one. So that means that you're making individual connections.

So, I'll give you an example. I do a lot of live selling, and I know that you wanted to ask about that. That's a super high-quality bond. When I meet those people, it's like I almost get them to like me before they even buy the book. So they leap very close to the fan end of the spectrum rather than the casual end.

I had somebody email me yesterday and say, “Hey, I bought one of your books at some open-air market here in Austin. I wish you had pressured me to buy the whole series because now I'm out of books. When are you doing this again?”

So tonight, he and one of his friends, I'm going to take books to them and I'm going to sell them. It's nineteen total books between these two guys, but that's the sort of quality connection to fans rather than a one-to-many connection. That slow scale, I think, is much more logical to people.

It's something that we can actually imagine because it follows the normal rules of regular commerce and interpersonal communication in a way that rapid release never did, which was just anonymous algorithms.

This entire thing, the founding principle, is Kevin Kelly's “1000 True Fans.” We're not looking to do that rapid-release paradigm, so you can't do artisan things with those customers.

You need to invert the paradigm and say, “Okay, rather than trying for high leverage, I'm going to connect with people one-on-one. I'm going to create high-quality stuff, and then find the individual people who are interested in that and then bring them into my camp until I have theoretically a thousand of them,” according to Kevin Kelly.

Joanna: It's amazing how well that has stood the test of time. That was, I think the original one was back in 2006, which again, would've been around the time when you were writing on Copyblogger and doing the online marketing stuff.

This is what's so crazy, is you and I both come from that highly leveraged world where online marketing was the primary thing. Yet now, you've said in the book and you just said there about how you love live selling, and I find that very surprising.

I'm an introvert and I find it incredibly hard. I don't know whether it's also being a highly sensitive person, but I find a lot of visual stimulation just too tiring. I can't look at all these people's faces. I can't deal with the noise.

Johnny: Well, this is actually kind of funny because it is a really good fit for me, and in retrospect, I see why. It's because I have a strong extrovert streak in me that a lot of authors don't. So it is a little more natural for me, but I didn't know that.

I was at the last Author Nation this year, and I actually had a presentation scheduled, but I hadn't done any of this live selling. This is only six months old.

I talked to our mutual friend, Mark Lefebvre, and Mark was talking about how much he missed going out and doing book signings. I said, “Oh my God, I have nightmares about that. Just imagining being that poor author at the table who everybody's trying not to make eye contact with.”

His reaction was so genuinely shocked. He said, “Why?” Someone that I knew and respected and who I thought I shared a lot in common with, really loves it, and was shocked that I wouldn't.

What I started to realize is, yes, you can go out and you can be the sad author behind the table who's just sitting there and everybody's ignoring. Or you can take it as part of the art, and the puzzle of solving how to market these books has become such a fun part of it. How can I sell them?

So to answer the question, I've done everything from small farmer's markets up to my first Comic-Con coming soon. I've done huge street festivals.

What I've started to realize is it's just about being nice. I mean, that sounds so basic, but I don't go out and say, “Hey, want a book? Want a book?” and chase people down the street.

Instead, the book people, they turn toward you.

They express interest, and so they're already warm by the time you talk to them. You're not having to go out there and be a carnival barker.

So if somebody's interested in my Beam series, for instance, they're looking at that.

I'll say, “Hey, did you see the original Battlestar Galactica?” Oh yes, they've always seen it. Then I say, “You know how that was really a political power play drama that just happens to take place in space?” “Yes, I know that.” “Well, The Beam is a political power play drama that just happens to take place in blah, blah, blah.”

It becomes much more about having conversations, and sometimes they don't buy, but that's fine. I've met some really interesting people.

When you go in with that attitude of “I'm just going to go out and meet people who are interested in books,” that shift alone makes a huge difference, for me anyway. I don't really care if they buy, although they tend to do so. It's kind of amazing.

The things that have shocked me the most are learning about my customers in ways that I never ever could have before. I've learned which of my covers are most attractive. I've learned that my covers in particular are attractive enough, apparently, that people will usually buy a book without even reading the back.

I will talk to them, they'll say, “Oh, that sounds good,” and they don't ask the price and they don't read the back, and they just buy it.

I've learned that there are things that I can recommend to people. So one of the things I get a lot is, “Oh, I would love to get back into reading, but I haven't done it as much.” It's like they're apologizing to me.

So instead of saying, “Oh, well that's too bad, see ya,” I'll usually recommend something really fast-paced like The Target, which is like John Wick meets Fight Club. A lot of people go, “Oh, it's a fast-paced short book that has that energy. Okay, I will do it.”

I would never see these things and I would never meet these people and I would never have people saying, “I want to buy three hundred dollars worth of books from you if you come down and meet me today,” if I wasn't doing all this stuff.

Joanna: So, some practical questions. You have a huge backlist, and when you are doing these in-person sales at, say, a market, you've got to set up a table. It is only so big, and you've got to schlep all the stuff down, and books are heavy.

Johnny: Well, one of the key things in The Artisan Author book that I talk about a lot is, “it depends.” So I just want to say this ahead of time: I'm going tell you what I do, but it is not advice. It is not, “you should do this.”

I have several friends, some of them we have in common, who do a lot of conventions and they'll say things like, “Take fewer books, just take a few, because it's an overwhelming environment. Make your table really clean. Don't bring everything.”

I'm going to bring absolutely everything I have to a Comic-Con, which is not the quote-unquote “official” way to do it. It isn't what most people do.

It works really well with my style because I have such a broad backlist and because they're interested in me first—which is an artisan principle, you're trying to interest them in you, not just an individual book. There are people who will say, “Well, I don't really like sci-fi.”

“Okay, well, do you like thrillers? Do you like urban fantasy? Do you like regular fantasy?” There's always something else. That sense of visual overwhelm is actually a positive thing because it just looks like, “Wow, there's a lot of stuff here.”

Typically, an outdoor booth space is ten feet by ten feet. I have to do a lot of them outside, which I'm not always super happy about, but that's the way they are here in Texas. So I have a ten by ten tent.

For Comic-Con, it's a little smaller, it's eight by eight, and it's just a puzzle each time to say, “Well, how should I arrange things?” When I'm outside, I typically do a corner if I can, because that allows me twenty feet of space rather than just ten to stack up all my books.

I have to adjust every single time. It's different buyers, it's different setups, it's different locations. For me, it's just about displaying the books, and then that attracts them.

Usually the book people come over with big eyes like, “Ooh, books.” They already like the idea of the books. They're like, “Wow, I didn't think there were going to be book people here.” So I just talk to them and see where their tastes lie, and then I guide them towards something that they might enjoy.

Joanna: Yes, so what you just said there I think is a really big point: they didn't know there'd be book people there. So these are not book fairs in general, these are other types of markets.

Johnny: Yes. In the book, I have a section that's like, “Finding Readers.” I divided that into multiple buckets where you're either doing the passive thing, where you're trying to find readers on Amazon or wherever.

The best ways to do this, I think, is what I call the third bucket, which is “creating customers out of nowhere” or something like that, because that's what it feels like.

By the way, if you're getting cold chills at the idea of selling live, that's so not the point. This isn't a live-selling book. It just happens to be something that I really enjoy and that works well for me. But there is some degree of personal connection in everything in that “finding readers out of nowhere” sort of thing.

If you let people know that you are an author, just casually in your personal life, eventually you'll find that the word gets around, because authors are interesting to people.

Some of those people, they didn't know they were in the market, but hey, “I just met an author. Maybe I want to buy one of their books.” That's what all of those most effective artisan strategies are for me.

It's like you're fishing in a pond where nobody else is fishing. You're just meeting people and nobody else is pursuing them. So when I'm set up at a street festival, nobody is there trying to buy a book, and then they go, “Oh, there are books.” And it's like I don't have any competition, and they self-sort. It's a very cool thing.

Joanna: I like that. Perhaps it's also less intimidating because when I saw your stall at Author Nation, you were in a room with hundreds of other authors with books. So it's very hard not to have some kind of comparison.

I know Matt Dinniman, the huge LitRPG author, had a queue out the door. Whereas if you are an author and you are at a fair next to cupcakes or soaps or something, I suppose you definitely can be noticed by the people who want that. So I actually like that tip.

Johnny: Well, first of all, I want to say that yes, you do need to have more books than you're going to sell, because that's something that isn't always noticed. At least that's my philosophy, because a sparse table is kind of a sad table.

Imagine you went into Barnes and Noble and there were three copies left. No, you want those shelves overflowing. So in my house right now, I probably have five to six hundred books, and I'll typically take a few hundred to any given event.

It depends on the event. I did a big event called the Pecan Street Festival here in Austin and I sold about two hundred and twenty books, but it's more common at a smaller one to sell thirty or so. It'll give you an idea of the scope.

What I've found is that as I've dialed this in, because I am iterating very quickly, I'm doing an event and then calibrating and learning. I also stepped up from very small markets to bigger markets.

What I've learned is that for me personally—and again, this is me personally, your mileage may vary—

Because that's such a reliable thing, I'm actually actively looking for ones with big table fees.

I want to pay as much as possible, because if I'm going to go out there for a weekend, I want something where I'm going to walk away with more money than I would otherwise.

You just kind of have to be aware that this is an area where if you did want to get into live selling, you do need to invest in yourself, but you can start very small. What I tell people is, go slow.

If you're interested in this, you can split a table with somebody at an event if you are intimidated by the idea of having to be there the entire time, because you can come and go if you have a table mate.

You can start at a very small farmer's market. The first farmer's market that I went to locally here was thirty-five dollars. Compare that to the Comic-Cons, which can be near a thousand dollars.

If you just think small to begin with and you just take a limited stock, then your investment in the table fee, the equipment, and the books is much smaller.

I've just kept reinvesting. If I made three hundred and fifty dollars and I spent one hundred and fifty dollars, then that gives me two hundred dollars that I then go back and buy more books for the next bigger event. So you can step into it, and I would suggest that people do, if they're interested.

Johnny: Well, again, did you see my shout-out? I did mention that Jo Penn has a really good “Minimum Viable Store” episode of a podcast. That's kind of the approach that I took.

The thing about Shopify for me, I don't know if this is true for everybody, is that it takes a certain amount of momentum to get it started, like a rock rolling down a hill. I have found that if I'm not actively advertising, my store traffic dwindles to almost nothing.

So given that you have to pay for the software every single month, it's one of those things where I don't know whether to recommend it or not. I tried to give a whole bunch of caveats to people and said, “If you're ready to go in, or if you just want to have it established so you can build it, then great, but know what you're getting into.”

There's so much talk about “go direct” that I think there's probably a lot of people who are investing all the time and money and hassle and mental headaches of building a Shopify store and then not getting the reward out of it to pay for it.

I also know so many people who I would consider artisan authors who do a lot of direct selling, and they're largely advertising-driven. So that's kind of the way I look at it.

If you can afford to start playing with advertising, it might be a better move financially, but if you just want to begin growing your store, you can do it over time. What do you think? Do you need to advertise aggressively?

Joanna: I don't advertise, but like you and I, I have always done email lists and also launching. Where you do in-person sales, I always say, “Buying direct from me means buying from my Shopify stores.”

So my hardbacks and stuff are on my Shopify, the bundles are on Shopify, the special deals, the whole series—

My workbooks and all of my website stuff, the podcast, my emails—they all direct people to those pages first.

[My stores are at CreativePennBooks.com and JFPennBooks.com]

So you are right, you need traffic. I don't think you need to advertise because I don't advertise to my stores right now, but I do send traffic from my other sources, like this show, for example.

Johnny: Right. Well, you're kind of your own advertising too. That is a thing.

Joanna: It's marketing. It's not paid advertising. But you are right, you can't just build it and they will come, but I don't think you can do that anywhere. You can't do that on Amazon, you can't do that wherever.

Johnny: No, but what I love about this is that —

The fact that your approach is already so different from my experience and some other people that I know is really cool.

You're able to drive artisan traffic on your Shopify store, and I have focused so much on driving it in live sales. It's just different pools, different buckets.

Joanna: Let's come to one of the things in the subtitle of the book, which says “The Low-Stress Approach.” Low stress is a very interesting term to use, Johnny, because you taught marketing back in the day.

In the book, you say you don't do social media anymore. There's a lot of things that are stressful, social media being one of them for me, but marketing still matters.

Johnny: So interestingly, I work much more now than I used to. Neither of us, I think, were ever doing rapid release, not by its formal definition, but it is such a high-churn thing. That low-pressure thing… I think there's a huge difference between what you have to do and when you have options.

When I say that I work a lot now, I'm choosing to build something on my own timetable, and I can do it however I want and follow the results that I'm getting. What bugs me about rapid release is the “have to” of it.

I think that's where the stress and the pressure comes from, because the algorithm demands that you keep producing, otherwise it falls apart. So, to be clear, the target I'm looking at as maybe not so great for a lot of authors is rapid release with an almost exclusive Kindle Unlimited focus.

There are plenty of people who use Kindle Unlimited who I think are artisan authors, or can be, because they just have that for their eBooks and they have a sensible funnel.

Typically it's that myopic focus on largely Amazon-only because it's exclusive, largely just eBooks only, and then America-only almost by default.

When you talk about international, that bugs the crap out of me that it seems like so many authors, including authors in other countries sometimes, are considering, “Well, I'm just going to hit the US market primarily.” Because, yes, Amazon has stores outside of the US, but it's really the US that we're focusing on.

So that sort of churn, that very specific thing… you don't have diversification of assets, so you have to keep producing because that's all you have. When I say low pressure, it means that if you wanted to take a two-week vacation, you could do it.

Meanwhile, I know rapid-release authors who are like, “Man, if I want to take a two-week vacation, I have to work really, really fast so that I have something to release while I'm on vacation. Otherwise, I'm going to get to the four or five-week mark and my whole empire is going to collapse.”

It's that relentless grind and the fact that you almost have to do it forever—because when does the algorithm give you a break? I think that's what's leading so many people into this horrible burnout.

Joanna: Well then, can you comment on the lack of social media? Because—

Johnny: Yes, I don't believe that at all. I don't like social media.

By the way, that's no judgment. I know plenty of people do like it. I just don't, and so I don't do the things that I don't want to do. I think that an artisan author is kind of stubborn and says, “Well, I don't want to do things that I don't want to do.”

For me, I think that there are many different ways to focus. I had a guy next to me at a live stall recently, and he was just enamored with my displays and kept saying, “You have to do social media, man.” What I kept trying to tell him was, “I have X amount of energy and focus, and I can spend it wherever I want.”

At the time I was talking to him, I was choosing to spend it around the square in a small Texas town selling books. That was how I was using my energy because there are many different things that you could do that could make a lot of money, but you have to pick and choose them. Otherwise, I just think we get spread too thin.

For me, that's just a choice that I've made not to do social media, but there are plenty of other choices. The people who do social media heavily might decide, “I'm not going to do advertising,” or, “I'm certainly not going to sell live.” So it's just a different choice for me. I have opted out of that.

You're right, everybody says you must do social media, and I'm here to tell you that you don't. I don't do it at all.

Joanna: I'm almost completely off it, but I'm still on X for looking at things and I put some pictures on Instagram @jfpennauthor , but I'm just not on it every day.

I think more and more, as you say, part of the artisan approach is choosing what you want to do because it's a lifestyle as well, right? It's a lifestyle that we want, and we want to live this way, and we want it to be sustainable.

So you mentioned Kickstarter there, and of course I also love Kickstarter. What I love about it, apart from being able to do amazing books and gorgeous signed things, is that it's more campaign-focused.

So you can do a big push for a couple of weeks and then you fulfill. So I like that kind of approach too, which I think works with taking a break and stuff like that.

Because this is your second or third, something like that?

Johnny: No, it's actually my sixth. The Kickstarter for The Artisan Author is my sixth because we were old school. Sean and I did Fiction Unboxed and then StoryShop back around 2014 or 2016 or so. It was a while ago, before Brandon Sanderson nuked Kickstarter with his books.

The reason that I like it… interestingly, I just thought it was a cool tool to play with originally. “Boy, I can do these cool, beautiful books and I can have a direct connection, and from a business standpoint, I can have a higher average order value” and that sort of thing.

What's been interesting is that as I've really been thinking in an artisan direction, my brain has been there and I've realized, “Oh, launches don't really matter in the way that they used to.”

For me, a typical book launch was on Amazon… now I think, “Oh, well, the Kickstarter should just be my launch.” Then I don't really have to have a launch on the bookstores.

Now, you need some mechanism to get some reviews and stuff because that matters, but you can ask your Kickstarter backers to review your book on Amazon if you want.

The back-shelving of Amazon has kind of made me say, “Well, the Kickstarter is just my main tool now. That's just how I launch.” And when it's been launched, then it's been launched and it becomes one more book in my catalog.

I don't have to keep throwing fuel on that fire in the same way because the people who are coming back to me week after week, they're self-fueling. I don't need to hit them with some algorithmic thing on Amazon.

Johnny: Yes, it's live right now — The Artisan Author.

This is actually kind of fun. I wanted to just do the Kickstarter for the reasons that I've already mentioned, and I thought, “Well, okay, I can create the audiobook and the paperback and the ebook and then I'll have a nice hardback special edition.”

The more I thought about it and the more I did comparison shopping and market research, I realized—and I knew this—that usually for a non-fiction Kickstarter, you're able to offer some sort of higher-touch service.

So I've kind of reframed—and stick with me on this because it's a little weird—I don't really like online courses because so many of them just rub me the wrong way. I know I made a bunch of them, and I'm just kind of burned out on that. I was like, “Wouldn't it be cool if I could do a course, but I don't want to do a course like that? That sucks.”

I was talking to my wife, who had coached me through something a little while ago where I was feeling kind of lonely out here, not being around people. She said, “Well, you always really liked college. You've talked about wanting to lecture at a college. Wouldn't that be cool?”

Those conversations came together and I thought, “What if I were to do it like a college?”

I get that it's a little weird, that it would be like an Artisan University, but rather than having a bunch of pre-recorded things with some sort of grandiose promises, it's more like, “No, what if you were to go through and we were to treat the book like a textbook over a ten-week curriculum and have units and discussions and a final exam and all the sort of trappings of college?”

It felt like a really cool experiment. So it's very different from the typical online course, but that's the way I'm framing everything.

If you want to just self-learn and you just want to get the ebook or the paperback or whatever, that's great. But then I have these many tiers of attending the course, from auditing it to doing high-touch accountability groups and almost like private tutoring. So it's kind of cool. I'm really curious to see what happens and how people like it.

Joanna: And of course, people can just get the ebook if they want.

Johnny: Yes, and it'll be available as a normal book too. If you aren't into Kickstarter, you can just go and search for it. It's on Amazon and Kobo and Barnes & Noble and all those places as a pre-order.

For people who really like the Kickstarter energy, I thought this would be cool. I kind of like the idea of doing the professor thing. I think that might be really neat.

Johnny: Well, most importantly, the Kickstarter is at JohnnyBTruant.com/artisan, and that'll redirect to the regular book after the Kickstarter.

Then I'm at JohnnyBTruant.com. There are links to my live selling schedule if you happen to be in or around Austin or anywhere I'm going, or if you want to check out my book catalog or anything like that.

Joanna: Fantastic. Well, thanks so much for your time, Johnny. That was great.

Johnny: Thanks for having me on.

The post The Artisan Author With Johnny B Truant first appeared on The Creative Penn.

Are you struggling to get reviews for your book? Wondering how to navigate the different types of reviews, from customer feedback to professional blurbs? Joe Walters from IndependentBookReview.com gives his tips.

In the intro, how important is ‘truth' in memoir? The Observer on Raynor Winn's The Salt Path; Raynor's statement; Memoir controversies [The Guardian]; Tips on memoir writing and ‘truth'; The Buried and the Drowned Short Story Collection; and when life stops you from achieving a goal.

Today's show is sponsored by ProWritingAid, writing and editing software that goes way beyond just grammar and typo checking. With its detailed reports on how to improve your writing and integration with writing software, ProWritingAid will help you improve your book before you send it to an editor, agent or publisher. Check it out for free or get 15% off the premium edition at www.ProWritingAid.com/joanna

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn 

Joe Walters is the author of The Truth About Book Reviews: An Insider's Guide to Getting and Using Reviews to Grow Your Readership, and also runs IndependentBookReview.com, which focuses on reviewing indie books.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. 

Show Notes

You can find Joe at IndependentBookReview.com.

Joanna: Joe Walters is the author of The Truth About Book Reviews: An Insider's Guide to Getting and Using Reviews to Grow Your Readership, and also runs IndependentBookReview.com, which focuses on reviewing indie books. So welcome to the show, Joe.

Joe: Oh, thank you so much for having me.

Joanna: It's good to have you on. So first up—

Joe: I started writing back in college and fell in love with it through Ray Bradbury. I wanted to be a high school English teacher, but I learned pretty quickly that teaching was a lot of work when I came home, and not the same as discussing books in college.

So, I decided to become a volunteer reader for a literary magazine called Indianola Review. We were print and digital, and I would read short stories with a team and vote on whether they would be published. I absolutely loved that.

I moved away from teaching and became a server so that I could have more time to read and write. While I was serving, I found a job in Oregon as the marketing director at a small press called Inkwater Press.

By some miracle, I got that job and had to figure out what book marketing was. It's a long game, and I read your book and so many others about how to do it. I got my feet wet, figured out how to market and sell books, and how to get authors who I knew cared about their writing read by more people.

Then I had to move from Portland, Oregon, and come back home to Pennsylvania. But I didn't want to stop being in publishing, so I started Independent Book Review.

I started building that and worked freelance for two other indie presses, Paper Raven Books and Sunbury Press. I was targeting book reviews for them, doing metadata, book descriptions, author bios—anything you could think of for book marketing.

I was doing all of that for those presses while building Independent Book Review. A couple of years ago, Independent Book Review became my full-time job. So every day, I'm editing and promoting reviews, and it's truly the best job I've ever had.

Joanna: I love that. I love that you have loved books and stories so much that you've dedicated so much time to it. But why indie books then? Because you obviously worked in the more traditional side as well, and you come from literature at university and all that.

Joe: I just knew how much they needed it. It has nothing to do with quality why they're not getting picked up by major review companies or major blurbers. Their books are still great.

They still get editing and great cover design, but they don't have big teams or a lot of money behind them pushing the books. I knew how much I could at least be another voice for them.

“Indie” really means all of the authors that you know down the street, your friends. It's very rare that you're friends with Stephen King.

So, I'm all indie all the time, that's for sure. Except for my leisure reading—sometimes I dabble elsewhere.

Joanna: We all read around. When you are a big reader like we are, you hardly ever look at the publisher, right? It's not like we go shopping by publisher, but you are right in terms of who reviews stuff. Then your own book—

Joe: I've always been a fiction writer. I've been writing short stories for a long time. I'm still working on a novel I started 10 years ago, and it's not there yet. I wanted to finish that book before I got my book review book out, but then I just had to get the book review book out.

I couldn't wait on my little 10-year-old protagonist anymore. I had to jump in and offer my expertise to the indie community for book reviews.

Mostly, when I was working for presses, I just got the question a lot: “How do you get book reviews?” “How do you get certain types of book reviews?” So, big media, blogs, podcast interviews, customer reviews—I got all of these questions all the time. I wanted to create a resource for all of those authors.

I enjoy writing about it too. I've been writing book marketing blogs for years, and I always thought that was my best chance of making jokes. So I filled my book with jokes and as much experience and knowledge as I have, and put them all in one place.

You're going to get specific platforms to try pitching. You're going to have book review resources in my book. I just tried to gather all of the things in one place instead of authors and presses searching forever to figure out what works.

I tried to compress everything I know into one document, and now I've got it with The Truth About Book Reviews.

Joanna: It is super useful. We are going to come to the content of the book in a minute. Given that this was, I guess, your first self-publishing experience, how did that go?

Joe: Oh, too many things.

First of all, the timeline. The hope I had for finishing a book in like three months definitely got sidetracked. With the amount of things I have to do for Independent Book Review and in my everyday life, three months was impossible.

Initially, I said, “Oh, this book's going to be out in January,” and here we are with a July 10th release date and I'm still sprinting. So that is difficult.

Also, I tried to upload my ebook for KDP pre-order about two weeks ago with a different subtitle, and they shut me down four or five different times before I had to change it. I even told my wife, “I'm not changing the subtitle. I like it too much. I'm not keyword farming or anything. I'm not cheating.”

My book is about books. The subtitle was originally “An Insider's Guide to Getting Book Reviews and Using Them to Market Your Book.” Pretty straightforward, I think. But you can't have “book” too many times in the title and subtitle.

I had it three times, so I cut one out. I said, “Getting Reviews and Using Them to Market Your Book,” and they didn't even like that. So I had to get rid of it. There are no “books” in the subtitle now, but at least it's up for pre-order.

Joanna: This is so interesting. With my very first book, I also put up something—this was in the early days when there was only really Amazon in terms of self-publishing. I had something like “From Idea to Amazon” as a subtitle, and they shut that down because, of course, I used their own company name, and I understood that.

The word “book” does seem a little extreme, especially when it's about book reviews. But this is the point, there are all of these things that are difficult to do.

So let's get into the content of the book. It is super useful. So authors do obviously talk about book reviews as if they're one thing, but they're not all one thing.

Joe: I separate them into three different types of reviews. I've seen other marketers separate them into four, but let's stick with three for now.

The first one in my timeline is blurbs or editorial reviews. Basically, those are like testimonials for your book.

You ask authors or experts in your niche to read an early copy of your book and provide a few sentences of praise for it so that you can use it on your marketing material. That could be putting it on your book cover.

For example, if you get a big notable name, you put J.F. Penn right on the front cover, and bam, that's helping other readers and browsers see that this could be a book for them.

You can also put it on your Amazon page itself in the editorial review section through Amazon Author Central, or you can do it with Amazon A+ content, which is graphics on your Amazon page. I love those. You can also use it on things like your website and on social media graphics.

One of my favorite things to do is to use it in future pitches. If I reach out to a different review platform and I have a blurb from a notable company who said this book was incredible and gave it a starred review, then that really works wonders for helping that recipient think maybe this book's quality has already been gate-kept in a way that indie authors aren't always.

It's a way for readers to see, “Okay, somebody read this book and somebody said it was good.” So those would be blurbs or editorial reviews.

The second type of review I consider media or trade reviews. Media reviews, to me, are any reviews in the media. I'm going to count social media because it has it in the name. I think as long as you're getting publicity for it, that is a media review. You can get it on social media. Podcasts aren't always necessarily a review, but it's media.

Then trade reviews are from trade review publications—publications that focus only on books, as opposed to bigger media like People that focuses on culture and fashion and all sorts of cool stuff in addition to books. You can use those in different ways too.

The first of which is publicity. Share that link with your audience. Then you can put it on your websites as well. Just like blurbs, you can pull a quote from your larger review and use it with newsletters, websites, and social media. You can also put it in distributor backends like PublishDrive or IngramSpark.

You're getting those reviews for your product page so every browser that comes sees that you have 150 reviews and can scroll through them to find out what everyday people are saying about it. So that is a totally different strategy than the strategy that you would use for media reviews.

Joanna: That is a great overview.

It's interesting because I've certainly always focused more on customer reviews than anything else because they help the algorithms, they help the social proof, and they help with advertising. It's very hard to advertise a book with no reviews.

The comments I get from authors now are, “Oh, well, it's all right for you. You've got X number of reviews.” And I'm like, “Yeah, we all start somewhere.” So if someone listening is like, “Okay, I need to get customer reviews on, say, Amazon or Goodreads,”—

Joe: Everybody does start somewhere. It is difficult and time-consuming, most of all. So much in publishing is you're either paying for it with your dollars or your time, and with customer reviews, so much of it is your time.

My favorite way to get customer reviews is using comp titles. Even if you wrote the most unique book you've ever read, other people have written unique books. You should have been reading other books similar to yours while you were writing it or before, but you can check them out now on the bestseller pages on Amazon.

You can find books that are similar to yours, and then find out where those books have been reviewed. If you're looking for customer reviews, head over to their Amazon page and see if they've been published in the last 10 to 15 years.

You don't want to go too deep, and you probably don't want to pick books that have a thousand-plus reviews, but maybe in the 100 to 500 review range. You can scroll down to those customer reviews and check out if those reviewers have profiles.

If they have profiles, they might share public social media accounts or websites, and they like to be pitched for free reviews. So that's definitely one of the best ways that I've found to get new customer reviews.

You can also do the same thing with smaller blogs. Smaller blogs can turn into customer reviews pretty often.

If you search a book just like yours and you Google it or you ask ChatGPT to find where they've been reviewed and you pay attention to the lesser-known ones, then you can give yourself a pretty good shot of pitching for a customer review from those places. Asking for the blog review first and seeing if it can convert into a customer review.

Then there's also building a launch team. I know if you are just starting out, you might not have a big list of supporters who you know will be reading your book, but—

Anybody who you've worked with in a writing workshop or something in the past—as long as they're not Facebook friends with you, so they shouldn't be really close people to you—you can build launch teams by recognizing who you've interacted with in the past and who might want to support you.

Ask them to read an early copy so that they can help out in that first week of publication. I did that with my newsletter a lot. I built a launch team through my newsletter by just creating a form for people to sign up and putting it in my automation sequence. I ended up getting 20-plus people to offer to review the book.

So there are options. They're all going to take time.

You can also try paid resources. You can't pay for customer reviews, but you can pay places like Pubby, where you can read other indie author books and get your book reviewed in return. They work around it in that way.

Then you can try things like BookFunnel, StoryOrigin, and NetGalley. PubNook is another one like Pubby. There are options; it's just about time.

Joanna: This is so important.

You did say it there, but just to emphasize, you cannot offer something in exchange for a review. So when we're offering our book to people, we are saying, “Here's my book.” I always just say, “If you like it and would like to leave a review, I'd really appreciate that.”

It has to be somebody's free choice to do a review. And as you said, you can't pay someone to do a review. There are lots of these services, but that's not allowed. So as you say, there are ways around it, but we have to be clear.

If I send out an email to my review list, my ARC team, maybe one out of three, or sometimes one in two, will actually leave a review within the period. So even people who've signed up to say they will do a review… I guess what I'm saying is don't get annoyed with people if they don't.

Everyone has things on their to-do list, haven't they? So we do have to be careful about how we're asking for these things.

Joe: Yes, I said it multiple times in my book: really, don't get annoyed at these people. They're offering to read your book; that is the best part. So if they leave a review, that is super helpful, but if they disappear, that's okay too. Don't chase people and be annoyed. Do not chase them.

Joanna: These lovely book bloggers do all this stuff basically for the love of it, and they just get so many pitches. So, yes, it is one of those sort of frustrating areas, but also really important.

So let's say, like me, when I was a new author, I did make a lot more effort. There'll be authors listening who have an email list, they have a lot of books. The more backlist you have, the more difficult it is to try and tell people which book you need reviews on.

Because basically, you need to get reviews regularly in order to keep things sort of moving.

Joe: This is a good problem to have, really. But you do still have to stay on top of it even though you have less time to pitch one-on-one.

My favorite way, the easiest way, is to make sure that there's a page at the end of the book that includes an actual clickable link. What I like to do is create a redirection link before your book is available. My redirection link is independentbookreview.com/reviewlink. I just use that through WordPress.

Right now, the ebook is not published, so if I were to redirect that link to my ebook review page, it would just be dead. So right now, pre-publication, it's taking you to a Goodreads review page, which you can have beforehand.

Once the book gets published, you go over to the redirect, you change the link, and then you don't have to edit the ebook or anything. All the person has to do is click that link when the book is already out.

You should have changed it to the ebook review link, so you don't have to edit anything. It's just automatically clickable. So that's one of my favorite ways to do it, for sure. Then you don't have to do any work after that.

I also like automation sequences in emails. You can set up a special sign-up page for those who read your book. Let's say you have a specific link that you send them to in your bio or in the front matter.

They sign up via a specific form that separates them in your email company, and you can have a review request that automatically goes out to whoever signed up for that 30 days after, for example. You already know that these are the people who came from your book. I like automation sequences in emails, for sure.

And then, make it easy to find on your website. All you need is “Contact for review copies.” It's very simple. Have an email if you want, or a contact box. You can also have a Google Form or a Jotform for people to click and say, “I want to join my ARC team.”

They sign up, put their information in, and you will already have somebody to send it out to the next time your book comes out.

Joanna: I like those, good tips there. So let's come to the blurbs or the editorial reviews because this has very much been a sort of traditionally published thing. Indies have never really done this as much.

It was interesting that earlier in the year, there was a Simon and Schuster article in The Guardian here in the UK, and it basically said —

I thought that was interesting because it seems to suggest that there's a sort of move against these kinds of blurbs and editorial reviews. So what are your thoughts on when these are useful?

How can we get them in an authentic way rather than just always pitching famous names?

Joe: Yes, I love that article. Somebody said it finally. I feel like it's so true. Rewarding connections over talent—blurbs are connections.

Stephen King is one of the most prolific blurbers I know. I don't know if he reads all those books. I would love to ask him, but I just don't know. It's about putting their name on your marketing. If they get to put their name on your popular book cover, that's positive for them.

The thing is that most readers, I would say, don't really understand the connections part of it in the same way that literary inside-circle people do. I know this, other writers know this, authors know this, that some of these blurbs mean that maybe they share an agent with that author or have the same indie press.

But it's still about needing more content, and blurbs are content. You can't be the one who calls your book spectacular, so putting somebody else's name on there is beneficial.

Connections are good too. I'm a person who runs a book review site. If I see that somebody has a connection with someone as influential as Ta-Nehisi Coates and the book is in the niche, then it gets my brain going.

It's like, “Oh, maybe they were in the same writing program, maybe they have the same agent, maybe they were in a panel together.” Those are still beneficial. That means that that book could get good publicity, like Ta-Nehisi Coates's books get good publicity.

I like them. Bookstores and librarians still like them. I understand it from the Simon and Schuster side because their books are already getting into bookstores and libraries. They're succeeding there. We need as much help as we can get as indies, so I still like them.

Media and trade reviews can also be used as blurbs, so you don't necessarily have to have these crazy good connections. Although, of course, it's really helpful to have connections. All you need to do is get reviewed on these other platforms, and you can use them in that way.

In terms of getting them authentically, just having an actually marketable book and story, I think, is the most important. You have to have the recipient believe in that product before they endorse it.

So you have to look at it and be like, “Okay, this doesn't include any problematic tropes in the description, or the cover isn't already bad.”

There are a lot of things that go into it, but make sure it's marketable right away, and then just be genuine in your pitch. And maybe read their books before you pitch them.

Joanna: I mean, this is what I was going to say. The worst thing is I get so many pitches all the time, and most of them are completely inappropriate.

They're just not targeted at me, either my non-fiction or my fiction, and that is the most frustrating thing.

Joe: Absolutely. And we can tell too, when you say, “I've read your book” or “I read your website,” and then you use a generic example that is in every book, make sure it's so pointed.

If you're reaching out to a romance author and you've read one of their books, don't just say, “Oh, the love story was so sweet.” No. Say something like, “Timmy and Sarah in the locker room.” Be so specific.

Make sure that they see it and recognize, “Okay, they actually did read it, and I like that scene too.” So hit their feels a little bit by being really specific.

Joanna: Definitely. I think that's a really good tip.

It also has to be a good fit with the genre. Reading a book is not like listening to a song. This is not like a three-to-five-minute job. This is reading a book, which for most of us, we have so many books on our TBR list, that taking time out to read a book is significant.

The other thing I guess is the amount of time. I think one of the reasons traditional publishing is much better at this kind of thing is because they have such a long lead time. They might give people six months, whereas most indies are like, “Oh, it comes out next week.” So doing it a lot further in advance, I guess, would be another tip.

Joe: Yes, absolutely.

Joanna: Okay. So then what about influencers and other media? We don't have any connections with these people. Everybody wants a big-name TikToker to do a review on their book on their channel.

Joe: I think first, you have to have a good platform. Not necessarily a big follower platform, although it would help, but make sure wherever you're pitching social media influencers, in particular, that your platform is actually good at curating the content.

If you think of it in terms of a collaboration, they want their stuff to get seen by your people too. So build up your people, make sure that the actual content is likable, lovable, unique, stands out, and is good, shareable content, first of all.

Then, if you are looking for Instagram in particular and you want to DM influencers, you're going to have to find a way to get them to follow you. I think that would be the biggest piece of it. So seek out not necessarily relationships, but engage with their stuff.

Make sure they see you in the comments. Make sure you are being genuine and trying to form connections rather than just pitching someone cold because if you pitch somebody cold who doesn't follow you on Instagram, you're going to get buried in their message requests. So definitely try to work with that first.

It's going to take a ton of time, but it's time that maybe, if you're on social media already, you are already spending there. So I think those things make a big difference over time.

Even if you do start a month before publication, you can still make it work as long as you are forming a connection over time.

In terms of finding those people, you just have to spend time on your platforms. Whichever platform you think would be most beneficial to you, spend time on it. See who is being successful. Search your keywords, search your comp titles, search your categories, and let the TikTok algorithm start to show you more book stuff.

The only way to reach out to and find these people is to find them on those platforms first.

Joanna: So there's a whole load of people going, “This sounds like a ton of work. I don't want to be doing this. This is an absolute nightmare.” So what are the lines around paying for reviews? We mentioned that there are some ways around this.

I guess also tell us about Independent Book Review, because I think you have both options, don't you? So tell us about that.

Joe: Yes. First, it is a time nightmare sometimes. I wrote this book to be the most helpful for authors to recognize what they're up against and where they should be putting their time, because realistically, there's just more time than you have to spend getting book reviews.

It's also about not putting too much pressure on yourself. Recognize how much work this is, but don't take shortcuts by trying to pay for customer reviews. You cannot do it. You don't want your account banned; you don't want the other people's accounts banned. So make sure you put a full stop there.

Don't try to get around it by getting Facebook friends or the person who lives in your house to write a review for you. Skip out on all that.