Kate: Hey, this is Kate Karyus Quinn and I am co-hosting with Mindy McGinnis on her podcast Writer, Writer, Pants on Fire. And I am here because I invited myself, um, to be on Mindy's podcast, basically. I think that I texted you, or I emailed you. I was listening your podcast in, um, my car. I was actually listening the Becca Simm interview, which was amazing and so interesting. She works with indie authors a lot, and I actually was the one who told you to interview her. I like coming up with ideas. I think I'm like I'm very much an idea person. I'm not as good at, like executing them, which is why it's really fun to be like, Mindy! I have this idea for a podcast, and we should do it together. And we should talk about being in indie publishing because you are publishing, but you mostly, you know, interview traditional, authors. But a lot of people who wanna publish, you know, are considering both routes. And, you know, I've just recently in the last year started Indie publishing. It's really interesting as an author to look at both sides of it, and I think both routes are equally viable. You know, if you approach them professionally. And so you were like, Yeah, sure. And then I basically, like, stepped back and just, like, let you set it all up. And no, I just show up and talk, so, I mean...
Mindy: Yeah, that's a pretty good run down of what happened. Kate said you should do this. And then I did it. And then Kate was like, Oh, so we're going to do that. I'm like, dude, yeah, it's done. So for the next, like, three months, June, July and August, we have just Indy and self pub authors coming on and they’re hybrid as well. But we're gonna have a whole bunch of different authors coming on, Not necessarily in this order, but we're gonna have Lee Savino, Tara East, Alexandra Torre, David Gaughran, Katie Robert, Alaina Johnson, Tim Westover, Kurt Dinan and Glenn Dire are all going to be on the podcast, and we're gonna be talking to them about their processes.
Some of them are hybrid. We're gonna talk to them about how they decided to make the jump from traditional publishing to self and Indy and the pros and the cons on both sides. So we're just and also marketing because marketing is just the biggest thing where you know you can't sell anything if nobody knows it exists.
Kate: And I really think indie authors are way ahead of traditional authors on marketing, and partially, that's because they they have to be and be because it's it's not easier per se. But you have more control over your book in the back end to do different things with marketing. You can change the price you can, you have you know, more immediate feedback to know if things are working. So it makes marketing more worth it. And also you get money out immediately. I would never run um, you know, say, Facebook ads for my young adult books with Harper Teen because, um, I haven't earned out on those books. So I would basically just like the throwing money away, because I would never see a return on that. I'm not even close to earning out. And any Facebooks ads I ran would not get me significantly closer to that. But when I run Facebook ads on my indie books, I can immediately see that day how much I'm making that day and how many units I'm selling and how many pages are being read. And so, you know, I know if my ads are working and I'm going to, you know, two months later get paid out for those cells, it just makes a lot more sense.
And there's so many more things you can do. But like, I mean, one of the biggest thing that Indies talked about a lot of our newsletters, and that's really something that, um, I feel like traditional authors, not all of them, but a lot are sleeping on that and, um, really need to up their game.
Mindy: Well, you remember we were sharing. Where were we? We were somewhere. We were sharing a hotel room. Yeah. Was that was that Pennsylvania, or was It wasn't I don't think it was Pennsylvania. I think it was California was my tour, right?
Kate: Yeah, I think so. California. Yeah. You, when you're in a hotel room, you just remember the hotel room and, like everything outside of it disappears. It's like a hotel room anywhere.
Mindy: Yes. Yeah, that's was my experience, but I remember laying on my bed and you were just like, Mindy, do you have a newsletter? And I was like, Yeah, I send it out. You know, when I have releases or whatever. And you were like, Oh, yeah, I never open it, and you were like, that's because you're doing it wrong. And then Kate was just like, Now you need to read this book, which it was Newsletter Ninja. She was like, You need to read Newsletter Ninja. And you need to be sending out a newsletter every month that you do this and you did that. And I was like, Jesus Christ, Kate. Tell me some more things I need to do.
And then you literally were like well, the other thing is that You should fold Writer, Writer, Pants on Fire into your Mindy McGinnis site. You need to bring the blog and the podcast all into one place. And I was literally laying on the other bed going Fuck, fuck, fuck! Because you were, like, illustrating months and months and months of work. And you were right, Like I did all those things. I did all those things and, you know, have significant traffic on my site. And, um, of course, the newsletter. Now that I send now every first of the month, I have awesome open rates and click rates their amazing. And they do the little thing where I actually, like, ask a question. And if you answer me, you know we'll start a conversation. Do people actually do that? People will actually, like, email me back and be like, This is my cat, and I'm like, Oh, cool. I like your cat. And like, we end of just having conversations about things that have absolutely nothing to do with my books and it’s cool.
Kate: Yeah, because you're you know, you're connecting with your readers and you're not just trying to sell them something. And I remember I also told you like, be a little more chatty, like you are, like, very much like, here's the information. I mean, you're very good at. Like, um, you know me. I just go on and on and on and on, like I'm terrible at Twitter. Because even with the longer Twitter or size that you can now do I still have more things to say than fits in a tweet. You are very good at being compact with your words, and you are all mostly facts, like here it is, my new release and this is it. I was like, You have to be chatty and like No, make yourself seem like a person because you are really interesting person. And when people see you, you know, live when you do a panel or when you do signings, people are always like, Oh, my gosh, you're so funny or so interesting, and you’re like, you know, my books are not funny. You always have to tell them, but you know they're not.
Mindy: They're not.
Kate: Oh, no, But they're not funny. You are.
Mindy: I am. That's true. And I don’t, I don't do the chatty thing. And it's funny because you're right. You do tend to go on. I tend to not. I know that already I have noticed because we have already executed a couple of interviews with our guest authors. You'll get like, super chatty and I'll be like, man. And now I'm gonna, like, bring us back down to some information that would actually be useful.
Kate: Um, I my brain is not organized. It goes off in, like, 20,000 directions, and I will start out talking about one thing and suddenly be down the road because one thing reminds me of another thing and then another thing and another. And suddenly it's like, What were we talking about?
Mindy: And I always know what we were talking about, and I will bring us back to it in order to make me the full circle that is necessary. But yeah, it's true. But I think it's a good mix because you're chatty, I'm not chatty enough, and I know people like it. I personally like... hopefully you're enjoying listen to me chat right now, but personally, it's like when I listen to a podcast and people are having those conversations like when I was like where were we? What hotel where we in? and you're like I don't know. Maybe it was Pennsylvania or California. As a listener. I'm just like, dude, shut up. I don't care where you’re talking about. And you're like, no people like that. So I don't know. We'll see. We'll see if you guys like that.
Kate: I like that stuff. It makes me feel like we're friends and we're hanging out like it's like we're all sitting around and having a chat. Except I don't get to talk.
Mindy: I can see you driving a car and just answering back to the podcast.
Kate: I know. Totally. Yeah.
Mindy: No, I can see you doing that. I, am like skipping forward 15 seconds to see if they said something that mattered yet.
Kate: I like the chatty stuff. I mean, yeah, I really do. So speaking of chatty stuff, it is currently, um, April 22nd. We are in what week of quarantine are you in?
Mindy: I am in week six. Week six of full on in the house, watching Netflix quarantine.
Kate: I actually the other day said were in quarantine and my husband correct at me and he said, We're not in quarantine. He said we're staying indoors, but quarantine is only if you have symptoms, then you're in quarantine on. I was like, OK, Mister.
Mindy: I don't have a husband, so I don't get, like, corrected at all. That's so nice. What are you in week?
Kate: I have no idea. Time is meaningless. I'm terrible with time regardless. But, um, I have no idea. I really don't know. Since my birthday, the week of my birthday is when we went away. And that was March 19th.
Mindy: Yeah, so and my birthday is the same week.
Kate: Yes, that's right. Yeah. Yeah.
Mindy: And people get us confused all the time. We should...
Kate: I seriously think we have some sort of common ancestor. In um, Ireland or Germany, because we both have German and Irish, strong German and Irish ancestry.
Mindy: Yeah, and we are going constantly, constantly confused for one another. Like, if we're both at an event, I mean, I don't know how many copies of your books have been brought to me to sign, and I'm just, like, no that that's Kate. Wrong person. She's slightly taller.
Kate: Yes, slightly taller. And yeah, I mean, we're both tall we both have dark hair and, um, I actually I have a little bit of face blindness where, um, like, if someone changes their hair drastically or their hairstyle and it's very hard for me to recognize their face, like even with actors like you know, I'll watch a trailer and I'll be like, Why does that person look so familiar? And my husband will be like because it's Russell Crowe and I'm like,Oh...
Mindy: See, I I don't know if it would be called, like face acuity or something, but it's like I'll be watching, something and will be like that guy. How do I know that guy? And like, three minutes later, I'll be like he was in an episode of The Young Riders in 1991. Yep.
Kate: That's yeah, I do not have. That is very hard for me. I recognize voices more like If someone has a distinctive voice, I'll be like, I know that voice, but, um, you know, hairstyles get me all the time.
Mindy: The other day I was listening to, you know, like Pandora or whatever. And there was an ad, and I was like, OK, I know that voice like that’s someone famous and I'm supposed to be sitting here going Oh, yeah, that's so and so. But I couldn't figure it out. And I couldn't figure it out until, like, two minutes and all sudden, like, dude that’s Jeff Goldblum.
Kate: Shame on you. He has a distinctive voice. What was he schilling?
Mindy: I don't remember. See, it didn't work.
Kate: I guess it didn't. That was a foul. You’re too busy going, why do I know that voice?
Mindy: And then I'm like, Wait, what should that voice be saying? What do we know hat that voice says? Then I’m like – oh, that's a big pile of shit. And then I’m like, oh. That’s Jeff Goldblum.
Kate: So, um, are you sitting in your closet right now?
Mindy: Yes, I'm in my closet. I'm in my recording studio. I am in my bedroom with the door shut.
Kate: I'm sitting on my bed and I'm actually looking at my bedspread and there are splashes of blood all over it, and I'm probably gonna get in trouble for this. It's not my blood. It's my dog is in heat. Yeah, my puppy. So we got a puppy last September. Um, and we got her from a local breeder, a very responsible local breeder. And she has all her breeding dogs are getting older. And you know what some breeders do is they when their dogs get older, they give them to somebody else, you know, basically put out to pasture, adopt them out to somebody else.
But she was like, No, these dogs are part of our family, you know? She's like, I can't just like get rid of them. But, you know, she was like, we you know, they've done breeding. So, um, what they're doing is a, um find families who want to be guardians of a puppy, and they raise that puppy and then when the puppy is ready to be bred, we bring the puppy, you know, during the later heat to her house and they have a date with a boy doggy.
Mindy: If they really like each other, fall in love. And maybe...
Kate: Yes, yes, yes, it's It's like Lady and the Tramp with the with the spaghetti and meatball. And then you know that sexy part after that, where am I mean, they do have puppies at the end, lady and the tramp. So, you know, they...
Mindy: You know, it happened in that park. It totally happened in there.
Kate: And then she comes home and, you know, she spends most of her time at home until she's ready to give birth. And then the breeder takes our puppy and, um she gives birth at the breeder's house, and then she's there until, you know, the puppies are ready to go to their new homes. I thought this would be really interesting to do because I've never seen a dog in heat, and I really, honestly didn't know anything about it. Um, and I just want to be really cool to just be part of the process and like, you know, we can. Once she has the puppies, she's gonna like face time with us and let us see him. She doesn't want us to directly come until the puppies are weaned because she's afraid the mama, our little Luny might want to stop feeding her puppies cause she'll want to be with us again. I was a little nervous, but I was excited, and I didn't really know what it would be like. And so she she started having a little bit of blood. We noticed a little bit on the bedspread. She sleeps in our bad. It's been like that for a couple of days, just not that much. And she's a very clean dog. She really, really, really likes to just go to town down there, just licking away, keeping herself nice and tidy and she's always been that way.
But today she's she's dripping a lot more, and we're seeing drips on the floor more. So, um, I think it's kind of good. Like my, well, my 13 year old boy and my 10 year old daughter, Zoie, my 10 year old is, like, very matter of fact about it. Like, Luna is in heat, you know, that's why she's bleeding a little bit. And my 13 while he's only 13 a couple weeks he was like, Ewww! And she was just like, Jamie! She’s in heat. It’s totally normal, you know.
So yeah, It's such a thing that people don't experience any more. But I would say as recently as 50 years ago, like like every, if you had a female dog like you just went without, like, nobody really got their dogs neutered or spayed.
Mindy: it's just plain ignorance about such things is always amusing to me. My ex had three older sisters and we lived together for like, we were together for 12. We lived together for five.
Kate: And you were living with the three older sisters?
Mindy: Yeah, that might have worked out better. He and I lived together for five years and, um, I'll never forget. Like he had three older sisters and they grew up, you know, with women around. And I came to bed one night and he was like, Hey, I'm not trying to be rude, but do you think that when you're bleeding that you could wear something when you come to bed so you don't bleed all over the sheets? And I was like, What are you talking about? And her was like, you know, you bleed on the sheets sometimes. He's like it's not a big deal. I'm just letting you know. And I was like, Do you think I'm not wearing something? I was like, Dude, I have on like a tampon and pad and you bleed through that shit and you got blood on the sheets and he was like, It's that much? And I was like, Dude, if you want me to free bleed all over you some night, I totally will. And then you will understand. It was it was just like you will think someone died in our bed and I was just like, Dude, seriously, you grew up with three older sisters. How do you not know this? And he was just like, I don't know.
Kate: It ruined him.
Mindy: I think that's why we broke up.
Kate: You just, you couldn't hide it enough that you have this terrible thing that happens. No, I think I'm just gonna just like live in, stay in a cave for a month.
Mindy: I'll just get a hotel room and freed bleed and write, we should do that. It would be amazing. We'll have to sync up.
Kate: We should just open it up. The Free Bleed women's writers thing and then we'll get some like men's activists will be like You can't discriminate up against us!
Mindy: We’ll be like come bleed with us, dude. I’ll cut ya. I’ll cut ya.
Kate: BYOT Bring Your Own Tampons.
Mindy: We took chatty like we're like, we're just going to go. We're gonna talk about menstruating dogs.
Kate: So that's my dog life right now. So everyone knows you're super into your cats. But you want to talk about what’s going on with your dog life or is it too sensitive?
Mindy: I can talk about my dog life. Um, yeah, and
Kate: I'm trying to peer pressure you into getting two dogs I know.
Mindy: And it's not gonna work, is just not gonna work. So yeah, you're really not...
Kate: But Mindy, they’re best friends!
Mindy: I don’t care if they’re best friends! They can go front another friend somewhere. That is not me, cause I don't need more friends. I'm not like I have a no, I have, like, two. And I'm good. My dog life. Everybody knows I have cats and I post my cats all over place. Um, for whatever reason, I don't know. I didn't post my dog that much, and I don't know why. It just It's not that I loved him less. He just wasn't, um, in my face all the time.
Kate: You had two dogs until recently.
Mindy: I did you boy, you really just want to drag all... You just want me to tell all the horrible things. Why don't we save? Why don't we save the horrible story of how Mindy went from having two dogs to having zero dogs for next week's intro?
Kate: That’s a great way to hook people. Want to hear a sad dog story? Join us next week for all the sad doggies.
Mindy: all the reasons why Mindy no longer has any dogs. Bad math. Let's let's do that. Because we've already shot it for, like, half an hour for our lead up for this one. Yes. All right. That's right. I’ll have Lee join us. Yeah, poor Lee, you know, no idea what she's just agreed to, but she does write werewolf like gangbang books. So I think she'll be fine.
Kate: All right, cool. Let's bring Lee on then.
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Kate: Well, Mindy and I both know each other because we started traditionally publishing together we were in the same debut group and, um, 2013. My god that seems like a 1,000,000 years ago.
Mindy: The golden age of YA.
Kate: It was the golden age of leaving our houses even like that is a different world now.
Mindy: Yes, I remember. We went places.
Lee: We’re living in a dystopian YA now!
Kate: We hit the end of the dystopia trend. Actually, Mindy, your book was like one of the last.
Mindy: Yeah, it just squeezed in. We I was lucky. And now, like, believe it or not, with these sales, people are texting me. People are emailing me. People are like, Oh my God, this is just like your book. And I'm like actually, it's like nothing like my book, but it's cool. I mean, if you want to read it... uh,
Kate: You're like, No, that's gonna happen later. Give it a couple more years. Mindy's book is about a world with no water.
Lee: I like the YA dystopia world, you know, the woman that discovers she has secret magical powers like I'm here for that and then fall in love with a werewolf. Like that's my sort of dystopia.
Mindy: I could definitely fall in love with a werewolf, but that's partially because I haven't left my house in five weeks, and I am only in communicating with animals right now. I was texting with someone and I was like, I'm only speaking to animals right now when we go back out into the real world, when I greet people. I'm just gonna lay down in front of them and show them my belly and like, roll around. That's how I'm gonna communicate.
Kate: I tried to do a zumba class on YouTube yesterday on and two of my Children sat on the couch watching me, critiquing. What are you gonna do? The push ups? I was like, I'm not doing the push ups and the dogs are under my feet. The little ones like sticking herr nose in my ass when I bend over. I was like, Oh, my God.
Lee: I downloaded Peleton, which I've gotten before. The yoga is pretty good, but I'm thinking, you know, I really want the yoga course where the instructor has a two year old on her back.
Kate: So you have two year old and a four year old. That is like the worst combination to be trapped in your house with not one toddler, but two.
Lee: It's pretty crazy, and we lucked out because my mother and sister had just moved for a brief time, according to my sister. She's staying with my mother and they live around the corner in an apartment, and we can walk there so we're quarantining among ourselves. And right now my kids are down at Grandma's. My mom said that she heard on NPR Review of Books, and they were talking about how women authors back in the day just would choose not to have kids like Jane Austen was. You know, just not going to go there because otherwise you can't be an author. I think it's better for us now. So I try to think of Jane Austen. I'm like, What would Jane Austen do? Apparently, she wrote, standing up in the corner and when someone would walk into the parlor should cover her work. That's totally me. I kind of need like a cave.
Kate: My 10 year old daughter is really cuddly, and she will sometimes, like, come and cuddle up to me when I'm like sitting with my computer and like, if I'm writing, I'm like baby, go somewhere else. I was like, I can't stand to have someone looking over my shoulder. Don't look at my computer when I'm writing like it's so terrible. It's very private, and now I'm co-writing too most of my Indy books are Co-written and we use Google Docs. So I have been writing and then I suddenly see like a cursor near where I'm writing. I realize co authors in there and I, like, yell at them on Slack like Go somewhere else. Don’t work like in the same spot.
Lee: Yeah, I'm careful about that because I totally I co-write a lot also, and I'm totally then typing in the doc and go to, like, replace some character's name. And then a child attacks me and things get all screwy. I mean, there's practical reasons why I want privacy.
Mindy: My cats have contributed to many of my books. I mean, I've actually found things that I have turned into the editor, where there's a line where it's just like the cat had walked across my keyboard and my cursor had jumped, you know, and I just didn't see it. And my editor at this point, it's just like, “this must be where Minnow contributed to the book.”
I don't know. I don't need like, total isolation. I was working full time when I started writing, and so if I had a chance, I would work at work. I got pretty good at writing with background, always writing while a TV is on. I can write in public, I’ll write in airports, like it's just it hit a point with all the traveling and stuff where I had to not be picky about my environment if I was going to get anything done.
Lee: I think I'm gonna just need to build... I mean, writing is a habit. It's a muscle you can exercise so I can learn how to do it. I guess with the toddler on one leg and the dog on my feet.
Kate: I find on Children's television shows are really good background noise for me, actually, because obviously I have a toddler, a 10 year old and an almost 13 year old. He's a month away from being 13 my oldest, but, um, the littlest one gets a lot of iPad and a lot of TV, especially lately, and I can like write with Dora, Blue's Clues that horrible Blimpie any of those in the background
Lee: See if mine were a little older and I'm supposed be home schooling. I think I would just teach them how to create unboxing YouTube videos.
Mindy: We’re talking about traditional publishing, which is how Kate and I began. And then recently, Kate and Demetria as well. Our friend Demitria and Kate have started, Ah, wandering out into the Indie world. And so if you could talk a little bit about what made you make that decision and ah, you know how you found success?
Kate: Yeah, like how long you've been doing it, too? I mean, I feel like I'm still a baby author and that in the indie world.
Lee: The fact that you guys can write an excellent book, you know, well enough to get picked up by an agent and a publisher. There are so many more hoops to jump through. Um, because being an Indie author, you could just, like, slap your grocery list onto a word account and upload it right? But to get going and to get selling, I highly recommend honing in on genre and sub genre and the same sort of things that you guys did to get picked up by an agent and then a publisher.
I actually went to college for creative writing. So I was in the world where you were supposed to write literary fiction, submit to agents. Um, and I graduated in 2007 and finished my book in 2008 and started submitting it. And it was actually right at the point where you could start to be an indie author without having to buy a bunch of print books and boxes with them in the back of your car and travel cross country selling your print books out of the back of your car. You could upload to Smashwords, right? And I kind of fooled around and I actually gave up. I was like, You know what? This probably isn't gonna work. I should get a real job, and I did. And I was depressed. And then—
Kate: Cam I ask a question? The book you wrote the first book you wrote. So did you. I know you write like genre fiction. Now, when you were in that literary college setting, did you try and write literary? Or did you, were you the person who was like writing genre fiction and having your classmates like, sneer at you and be like, ugh?
Lee: I always knew I wanted to write genre fiction. They let me take my last senior year and do independent study. And that's why I kind of went to this college because they were very supportive of, like, independent work. I did write something that could pass as literary, but it had a main character who was a werewolf. So it was very much like fantasy. They loved it. My professors loved it. Like I didn't quit submitting, uh, things to classes. I was so over creative writing classes. I just think they're just a waste of time. I wish I had taken more literature classes.
Kate: So would you, if you could go back would you be a creative writing major again or do you feel like it's... I'm coming from, I have to say as somebody who has a BFA in theater and an MFA in film and television production and will be paying off my student loans until I die. So yeah.
Mindy: And to counter that, I did do the lit circle. So that was what my degree was in. I have never taken a single creative writing class in my life. I went the route of studying literature, so yeah, really interesting to get your take on that.
Lee: So the only thing that a person needs to be a creative writer is to write, and I honestly, if I could do it again, I would probably go back and do that. Like that Steve Jobs saying, where you just take whatever class interests you. I would take a lot more philosophy, a lot more history, a lot more English, like just literature classes, a lot more ancient art and mythology I would just take probably they would never graduate me cause I would just take whatever I want. It actually have this thought in mind of one day writing some sort of literary fiction book and getting invited back as a writer in residence, which they will not allow me to do if all I’ve written is erotic romance, but whatever, cause I'm making a lot of money. I have paid off my student loans.
Kate: Don't you think you would have more to like teach students about working as a writer, being someone who is actually living off the writing and actually able to pay their loans off the writing than somebody who has had a literary novel published?
Lee: Yeah, absolutely no. In fact, I teach courses like I have courses up and I coach authors, and I don't coach them on how to write a book. Um, although I will give advice on that, but I prefer to coach on the marketing and, like, have a sales hook.
Kate: Kids need to be taught, there are ways to put yourself out there like you did. There are better ways than just going to auditions and hoping someone picks you like you should be a creator and sort of start your own things.
Lee: We're going to see more of that. I believe so. And in the indie world—or
the author world, you know, with us going indie or having the option to go indie it’s gonna happen in the film world. And that's what happened in 2015 as I was like, You know what? I'm just gonna be an author. I might never make any money, but I want to be an author because I wanna be an author. And I do not want to wait till I’m 80 years old and looking back on my life to be like, Oh, I wish I had. I’m gonna do it now.
Mindy: So, in 2015, that was right about the time when attitudes towards self publishing we're starting to change because it very much used to be, Well, people who self published couldn't make it in the trad world. And so they're going this other route. And I know that was very much the mindset for a lot of people who were traditionally published, to be honest. And I do think the stigma has been lifted from self publishing a lot in recent years, and I think that is due to the fact that you can findgreat success. So I mean, you mentioned you've done very well, like financially. Are you comfortable sharing numbers?
Lee: I made half a million dollars last year.
Mindy: Fuck me. Okay.
Lee: Loans are gone, and my college costs a lot of money. Even though I got scholarships, it wasn't, it wasn’t inexpensive. Four year university. Yeah, I made Let me let me back up because I recently put this out in a group that I have for authors on Facebook, Millionaire Author Mastermind.
Kate: I’m in it!
Lee: And I mean for the point of that group, to be very honest about the fact that I love writing and it is art for me, but I am gonna make money. And I’ve found a way to combine that.
Kate: I love that. That is the best part of the indie world. Honestly, I feel like people are so much more up front about, like, this is a business I want to make money. And yes, I love to write. Yes, you know, you have to have passion for your story, but also like, don't be stupid and, you know, go out and write something that no one is going to read and is never going to sell. And there's so much more transparency about money too. It's really so different. It
Lee: It’s very cool, and I wanted to step into that, but also not push it in people's faces. So if you join the group, you're going to get me talking about money. If you don't join the group, I'm probably not gonna mention it unless you're in my circle, you know? So, yeah, I've embraced the money. I also understand that people would look at me like, oh, she writes pulp. But I love, I love what I write, and it means something to me. I think that you can still be an artist and be very creative, but also write something that's gonna have appeal, and I always want to write about werewolves. I just did. I want to write werewolf romance and I went to college thinking these are the books I write. Why? Because when I read the classics women as they were depicted in Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary, Tess of the Duberville's, Portrait of a Lady. All these male authors were writing about women and in the end, the women had horrible experiences. I didn't want to read that anymore. I was 16 and I was like fuck this, I'm gonna go read SciFi fantasy where the women are tough and strong and beautiful and they get on dragons and they save the world.
Kate: What were you reading at 16, that was that. Those books. Who were your authors who were your influences?
Lee: Ursula K. LeGuin, Anne McCaffrey was a big one and then loved her. I remember going finding the romance section, and I would stand there, and I would not check the books out because I was like, Oh my God, I do not want my mother to see this book cover. I would read them standing in the aisle and honestly, if you want to get I mean, I'm an erotica author, So I write about sex. I write tons of sex scenes, my word count per hour when I have tracked it. It goes way up when I'm writing a sex scene, also flirty banter. And there's body parts moving. And it's a lot of description and dialogues and apparently fight scenes and sex scenes, that's where I speed up. So I just put a lot of those in my books and I write really fast.
Mindy: How many books do you put in a year?
Lee: 6 to 12.
Mindy: Okay. Wow.
Lee: They're an average of 40,000 words long, so that's none. That's not like—
Mindy: If it was a physical book, it would be thin. Art aside, I do get frustrated with the, you know, follow your heart, right, your dream kind of thing if you're following your heart and writing your dream and not able to pay your bills-- because that was me for a long time. And I love to talk about tapping into that success like you. Obviously you have to write a product that people want to read. Yes, but you also have to put it visually in front of them. You guys were talking before about, you know, creating art and then like presenting yourself to the world in a different way and thinking outside the box and not necessarily climbing the ladders that have been put there in the past for people to, you know, rung up in order to achieve anything.
And I think that's very true and it's super interesting, and I also think it's really fucking hard to stand out when everyone is doing it. I struggle with it myself all the time. I mean, I used to be super super active on social media, and I went through a break up last year that just, like, devastated me, and I just kind of pulled back and I haven't really gone back yet, and a lot of it. It just feels so fruitless. So like, can you talk about some of the methods that you have found that are effective in the in the world?
Lee: So you do not need social media. It is a waste of time. The diminishing returns happen very quickly, like after like probably an hour a week, so don't worry about it If you love it, do it. Do one thing. Like if you love Instagram, do Instagram. Love Facebook like I do, do Facebook. If you hate Linked In, don't do Linked In, right? Um and if you hate all social media, don't worry about it. This is what you need. You need to pick a genre, ideally, a sub genre, and you need to study the tropes. And I want you to match tropes with voice so your art comes in with the voice, But when you go to put a cover up, you look at the tropes in the genre. So for me it would be a wolf on the cover cause I'm writing werewolf romance and I'm writing Sexy Werewolf romance. So it's a sexy guy on the cover with a wolf that is it. Very simple. That's my cover
Kate: Can I interrupt? I know like I see a lot of times like, I think I know what you mean when you say tropes, but I know like I always see whenever there's a post about it. Like on a Facebook group will always be somebody saying, What do you mean by tropes? and what are tropes? I mean, if you are saying werewolf is a trope, you really have to know, like what people expect in a werewolf book. Like what people expect in a vampire book. Like werewolf, how much can you, I guess, go outside the lines. Can you have a werewolf that, um, that doesn't have a full moon thing? What are the rules within each trope and how far out of them can you go? Because right now, I, my co writers and I were writing, um, Academy urban fantasy more in the young adult range. And, um, I think we're sticking to tropes. But I’m not always sure.
Lee: I could talk about the academy urban fantasy trope as I see it. So, first of all, genre fiction, you need a happy ending. If you have a long series, ideally like Harry Potter, the big bad guy, the boss of the game doesn't get beaten until the end of the book, like the end of the Series right? Each book there's a There's a win. Each of those books pretty much followed the beat sheet. And I highly recommend Blake Snider's book on filmmaking and script writing called Save the Cat. And it talks about the beat sheet. And I find with all my students, with all my co writers and with my own writing that when I have some awareness of the beats as they fall in a book, the book becomes stronger and it doesn't like sag in the middle as mine are wont to do. And also the ending is very satisfying and honestly, romance authors will deal with, will put up with a lot and the same with erotica readers.
Honestly, guys, if you’re brand new and you are okay or would love to even write erotica, go for it. Write under a pen name and just write tons and tons of stuff, you just have to, like, pick a kink and write it. But, honestly, you're practicing writing. And you don't want so much of a story as long as you're writing what the erotica readers want, which is... they don't even want, well, they wanna have the ending of a certain type, but they don't need like you know them to find true love, the characters or whatever. In romance, they must find true love. Werewolf romance one of them needs, at least one of them, maybe both of them, needs to be a werewolf and needs to... part of the fun part of those types of books in the genre on the sub genre. Is this typically a human woman discovering this this paranormal world. Now you could switch it up. You could have it the other way. But honestly, if you read a lot of werewolf romance, you’re gonna kind of internalize the tropes.
You’ll be like, OK, I have to have a happy ending like everything needs to be resolved. And they and they, they are in love and they end up staying in love, right? And then if you follow the beat sheet, there's conflict going on. Um, there's external conflicts and internal conflict. But your readers will forgive you a lot as long as you have this wolf who is showing up, Let's say at her high school, and he's like the, you know, the bad boy high schooler. And she's interested in him. And then she she's at a party and she wants to get close to him. And then she sees him turn into a wolf and run off into the woods and, oh, my God, there's this world that I'm entering into, and it's kind of a metaphor for rites of passage and growing up. And you can get into all that. Or you could just enjoy the fact that you know, she’s falling in love with this big bad wolf literally and play with it.
And then, you know, hopefully there's some bad guys in there and they're fighting the bad guys and, um, they’re fighting each other and their love for each other. But by the end of a werewolf romance, they're gonna end up together. And that could happen within 40,000 words for me. I've written a lot of werewolf romance, and I wrote one series where it's set in Viking, Norway or historical times. But the Vikings are werewfoles. I don't know. It has all the elements that people like. It has these warriors turning into giant monster wolves and saving the women. Or fighting with the women Or, you know, some of the women are witches who are very powerful. And so there's all sorts of ways I've I've put my own voice of my own ideas and my own, um, decision that, I think that Viking berserker warriors are werewolves, actually. Now I'm gonna write about it. What if they really were? What? What what would happen? How do they fall in love?
And then in my contemporary world, I've had, um, Motorcycle Club. So these big tatted up guys with leather vest turn into werewolves at night and you know, a human woman wanders in and she's weirded out because, you know, she's a lawyer and she's all put together and they're all big guys, and he's all interested in her. And then suddenly she sees him turn into a wolf too and then, but they’re also falling in love and falling into bed with one another, because that's what my books are about.
I've taken the one thing which in a werewolf romance, needs to be happy ending. And there needs to be a time where the readers see the character shift into a wolf like and learn about the werewolf world as this other world, and that’s why this paranormal reader grabs my book and opens it. And I understand that and I deliver that. But in my contemporary series, I put in tons of jokes and they’re on motorcycles and in my Viking series, put in tons of like witches and warring with a mage and plague and all sorts of crazy stuff. Some people get frustrated when some book sells really well, and they're like that writing was so bad. But I would like you to flip that around. I'd like you to say, What was it about that book that enticed readers? Because then you go write a book with elements that entice the readers, but then write it better and, you know, put in what you know, putting more beautiful prose or whatever your strengths are amazing twists in the plot.
Kate: I totally agree with the Beat Sheet. Actually, I've written pretty much my whole life. I always wanted to be a writer, but I was never able to finish a novel until after I went to film school, and I learned how to write screenplays, and I learned the screenplay structure, which is what you know, Save the Cat is all about and, um, then I was in Tennessee and I had a brand new baby and I didn't know anybody, and that's when I first started writing my first novel.
Lee: My first novel is nowhere. Like you cannot find it.
Kate: Yeah, Mine too. Oh, no, it's terrible. I opened it up like, a year ago, thinking I could like mine it for parts. And I was like, Oh, this is, uh bad. Like really bad.
Mindy: No, that happened to me to. I wrote my first novel in high, no in college, and I went back to look at it, and I was like, No, that's not gonna, that's not going to cut it. It was terrible. But I always tell people, you know, while you're writing, you can't be aware of how bad it is when you're growing as a writer.
Kate: You can't.
Mindy: Because you can't just be like I actually suck at this thing, you know? I mean, you gotta have a certain amount of hubris to even begin.
Kate: It's true. You really do. You have to be like Oprah's gonna be calling!
Lee: As a beginner we have so much excitement and also it doesn't take very much for us to get like rapidly better. because we know so little. So you learn one thing and then you suddenly you have improved so much, and I'm at the point where, I’m like if I could just get 1% better. If could just get 10% better. You know, that is a big deal for me because I do have a lot of skills. Oh my gosh, Guys I have been writing like half a 1,000,000 words for five years now every year and publishing most of those words and getting paid on most of those words, which then I've funneled into moving forward with my career.
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Mindy: I'm looking at your books on Amazon. I can see you know some of your tactics at work here as far as pricing, Um, but also I want to shift you back around to talking about promotion and marketing because So, for example, I'm looking at your berserker saga. The 1st one and you have 426 reviews, for one thing, and your 1st one is 99 cents, and it's on Kindle Unlimited. So if you could talk a little bit about that end of it. Pure business, what's your process? And how did you arrive at learning what was the best? Your best methods? I know you said Social media doesn't matter.
Lee: Yeah. Social media doesn't matter. Newsletter mailing lists do, and that is internet marketing 101. You want to sell a course online. You want to sell Children's books on online. You want to sell werewolf romance online, get a mailing list. I have a freebie that I offer for the berserker series. So I've actually I probably have a freebie for every single series that I... like my main series. And how do decide whether they were my main series? Well, book one took off and I decided to just keep writing in that world, you know? And I have, you know, 13 books in the series. Well, I don't care if I put book one free or book one on sale at night at 0.99, and that's my loss leader. And that's a marketing term. But you're giving away something for free.
Because when you think about your reading experience, how did you get into the authors that you're really into? Typically, someone handed you the book and said, You need to read this or you were in a library. You picked it up there. And a lot of times our entree to a new author is through a free book. So I'm ok with giving away books, probably because I feel less confident about my advertising skills. Um, and I feel more, like hey, try me out. And if you hate me, you'll never pick up anything by me again. And then I get messages where people are like I love you. I'm so glad I found you. I got a free book.
There are ways to get reviews on books. One is to ask for them. Um, that first freebie I popped out there, the 99 cent book you're talking about. I at the end of it was like, You know, I'm thinking about writing more books in this series, but let me know if you liked it and a lot of people just wrote a review saying, I like it, I want more. Or they would tell me because I put my email on there. And then I think I also give that book away a lot. So I probably have more people who read it and get excited and come back and write a review. And then I do remember reaching out to some reviewers, people I know who have an email list of people who will leave reviews like an ARC team. And I just gave them a book that wasn't new. I gave them, I gave them that book and it was old when I was like, Hey, you know, I’d like more reviews on this book. I'm trying to get a BookBub on it or something, and I need more reviews on it. I, like, give that book away a ton, and that is a great strategy.
I know someone who makes seven figures in romance, and she mainly advertises one book of hers, and that book is free and the first in a trilogy. And it leads to another book that's 4.99 then a third book that's 4.99 then everything that she's writing, since that first trilogy ties into the same world. So okay, and she has this map in her head of Like, where she wants her readers to go. But she only really advertises that first free book and then her new release. And she’s hitting the USA Today list, based on her fan base.
Mindy: Really cool. So what you're saying is, Mailing list. What about paid advertising?
Lee: Paid advertising is awesome, but I would make sure that you have a product because now we're talking bank. Write a book, a product that people love. So I really think that to start earning a living as an author, you've have to write a book and write a series on that book that really hits the right tropes. It doesn't have to be trendy, but it has to hook people enough so that they take a chance on you, buy your book and then fallin love with your voice. So that again, that’s voice. Then at the end of the book, you say, Hey, do you want to hear more from me? And you get them on your mailing list. Now I say, Hey, you want a free book related to this 1st one? And they say, Yep, Please. And that's how I get them onto my mailing list and I have 30,000 people in my mailing list. So when I have a new release. I email them, and I'm not hoping that Facebook shows my post. And I'm not hoping that Amazon sends out email blast or whatever. I email 30, probably closer to 40 now 40,000 people. Guys, I'm now translating my own books into German.
Kate: What?
Lee: I did the same thing, I got book one through five of the berserker series, which you mentioned, already translated. I put them up and then I went back to the translator, said, Hi, I have this very short, like 20,000 word freebie, and I paid another $1000 for him to translate that, and I put it up and the only way they get it - it's never been for sale. It will never be for sale. The only way they get it is by signing up to a special mailing list that I call my German berserker mailing list. Two days ago, I got, um, another berserker book translated because I have a long Series in that world. Um, so it's book seven or something, so I put it up on Amazon, waited till it was live. Then I went back to my mailing list, which is now 700 people, and I emailed them and said, Hi. The next in the berserker series is out And here's the link and I said all that in German and I had to get my translator to translate that. He basically translated some basic phrases like “new book, now in German” with a title, and I just email them with the cover and they click on it. I can go in actually right now and see how many people clicked on it. But I can also watch the money pour in. Cause you can log in and see how many people are buying your books. Like that day, right?
Kate: Is Germany a big market to like tap into after the non-English speaking?
Lee: That would be your number one market after English.
Mindy: Is that specifically for erotica? Or is that...
Lee: Erotica does very well, dark romance, which I also write, does very well, which is like Mafia. Where he, like, kidnaps her that’s dark romance. That does well. I found that paranormal does pretty well. SciFi Romance does pretty good.
It looks like out of 720 people that I emailed yesterday, 250 people opened. It, opened the email and 123 people clicked on it. And then a percentage of those people will have bought the book. And then Amazon says, Oh, this book is selling and they might like send emails out about it, they might push it up. People I've noticed on Facebook because I do love Facebook, So I am on Facebook a ton. I have noticed that people will share new releases and it's all in German, the post in the in the links of my berserker book in German. So you know, letting people know and having the power to let people know that you have a product live, its Internet marketing 101, is like build a mailing list. So if you do nothing, write your books and build a mailing list. Like that's and you can probably. Actually, I'm pretty sure you could hit six figures on that alone.
Mindy: And a loss leader is the key to that?
Lee: No, I mean, I think of your writing. I mean, honestly, if you wrote something like the Hunger Games and it was full price and then Book two's coming out and you had everyone who loved your work on an email list like, Hey, you want to know when book two is coming out? Sign up to this email list! And you got what, 100,000 people to sign up? Probably and then you email them. You could do fine without having a loss leader, but you know, I write so much. It made sense for me to write a long Series, put book one on sale permanently and and then also offer an exclusive freebie. So I wrote a piece of fiction that I never will make money off. I hand it to people who signed up for my email list like That's the deal. You give me your email, you allow me to email you until you unsubscribe from my list and I'll give you this free work.
Kate: Is the freebie a full length book?
Lee: It's 20,000 words. So in romance a good freebie would be Meet the parent, adopt a cat or a dog. They have a little fight about their wedding and then they get married at the end of the freebie or baby, baby time. Uh oh, yeah, in romance those little extras write themselves, cause you're like, I want to write their wedding scene or wherever.
Kate: Can I ask what do you get for your open rate on your huge email list? The 30,000 one?
Lee: It’s typically like 30 to 40%. It looks like last time was only 26% but the time before that was 30%
Kate: Do you go through and trim deadweight at some point?
Lee: Yeah, and MailerLite, which is the software use that I recommend, um makes it easy to do that. And again, what the one thing I love about a mailing list is it's really set it and forget it. Like I set it up and I'm not tweaking with it. I'm not messing with it. It is up, and people in Germany are joining my mailing list in the middle of the night.
Kate: That's awesome. Well, is it the middle of the night for them, or are Germans just late night people?
Lee: If you're in Kindle Unlimited, it's really interesting. You get paid per page read and I have software that They report page reads. And it's so cool to watch, like everything click over into midnight, and suddenly you have, like, 20 pages reads already. And you're like somebody's reading! Either someone on the East Coast or in the middle of the night. Or it could be, you know, they're in Australia in the morning. I don't know.
Kate: I've noticed that, too. Yeah, it always seems to pick up, like at night, like I'm on the East Coast and like, around like 7or 8 It's like seems like a picks up. Yeah, it's very funny.
Mindy: I know that on my phone last night, I had a moment cause I was up late. It was after midnight. And, my phone gave me my notification of how much you've been on your phone today or whatever. Your usage Report. And for whatever reason, that popped up. And it said you've been using your phone for 11 minutes, and I was like, Oh, that's pretty cool. 11 minutes in one day. I feel good about myself, right? And then I realized it was 12:12.
Lee: You’ve been using it for 11 minutes... or the entire day.
Mindy: I have spent the entire day scrolling through instagram I was just like, Oh, shit, yeah. I was like all proud of myself for being unconnected. And then I was like, Oh, my God, that that's embarrassing.
Kate: So I actually wanted to talk to you about something I heard you on when you were on the Writing Gals podcast. But you said something on there. That for me was one of those light bulb moments, and I thought it was so brilliant. And you were talking about writing blurbs. And you said you don't want to put like your secret sauce in the blurb. Like the blurb isn't meant to be like telling people the whole story and all the things like you, you’re positioning it. You’re marketing it. You're showing the parts of it that you want to get people excited about, you know, sort of like if you are showing somebody a new car and they are excited about having a race car, you're not going to talk about the heated seats. But if you are, you know, showing a mom with a minivan who are you know, what, the toddlers you're going to show her, like, you know, no touch sliding doors and stuff. And I was just like it, it just I don't know why I like, it made so much sense. It was so simple that it was like one of those moments where I just went like, Oh, I get it because I've always hated writing blurbs and summaries and all that stuff, and I always just felt like I had to say all the things because otherwise, like people wouldn't understand the story. And suddenly I was like, Oh, I get it. I just need to tell them the things that will make them want to read it.
Lee: Yeah, that's again. It's trope plus, voice, because I really you know, the blurb is where you put the tropes. You know, I might have like a funny parrot. I'm writing a book for a class and it's a romcom. And there's a funny parrot. The funny Parrot is not going in the Blurb. The funny parrot is not going on the book cover, but the funny parrot’s gonna make people laugh in the book. So I called that the secret sauce like That's the secret that's going to get them to want to read every book that I've ever written because they just laugh so hard about the parrot, right? No, it's going nowhere near the cover, like maybe a special edition cover for, like, my true fans one day. If that book ends up making me tons of money and it's just insane, it's my most popular book. Maybe, but probably not that, you know.
I'm gonna elevate certain things to the level of the cover and if it's a werewolf romance, which this book is not, But if it's a werewolf romance it would be the wolves to represent the werewolf and then the man And then typically, my titles.. Someone actually mocked my titles. And my co-writer and I cracked up so hard because we're like, Well, we want to make it obvious that this is a werewolf romance. We want it to be so on the nose. At the same time, we do have a lot of voice.
So in your in your blurb, your book description feel free, like showcase your writing and your literary strength for real. But do it in a way like, for example, an urban fantasy academy make the voice super snarky. You know, I actually wrote a blurb I helped a student of mine launch. And it was an academy book, and it and I wrote the blurb, and I had so much fun writing it cause it was very like in your face. And, you know, these academy boys are gonna take me down. That sort of like, sassy and and so you're giving them a taste of what's gonna be in the book? Right? That sass and that. But you're also saying she's at an academy there. It's a school of magic, like the basics of what's in the books before, like Oh, it's an academy romance. Um, Then add the voice end, so if it's funny put in the jokes, if it's serious and intense, don’t.
And by the way, the best way I'm actually doing this now on the advice of one of my coaches is the best way to learn how to get good writing blurbs is you go and you look at your genre, your sub genre, which you should know if you want to make money at this thing. Um, going your sub genre, look at all the top selling books and start clicking on them individually and write out the Blurb longhand and do that for 30 days on end. And you're basically, I don't know, apprenticing yourself to copy writing. You know, if you're gonna be a painter, you would have to like paint the skies. The Masters would have their apprentices just paint in the skies for like, years. So you're gonna go for 30 days, you're gonna write out longhand those blurbs and get the style.
That's how you quickly learn copyrighting. And then, um, keep doing that. Write out blurbs maybe to sort of whet your palate and then right out, um, your own blurb a couple different ways, and eventually you'll be amazing at writing blurbs. So I here I have not gone to the end of the exercise. I've skipped a couple days already, but I'm gonna try it because, um, you know that cover And that blurb is, if you can master those and then you can write a decent book, you can make money at this thing.
Kate: Would you say with that exercise that people should Definitely, though be looking at Indy books because there really is a difference in how publishers write blurbs for traditionally published books and how indie authors write blurbs. Like a lot of times in the author blurbs are first person, I think traditional ones are or, you know, they try to lead with either quotes or with a, you know, an author recommending it or, you know, x meets y. Expect lots of name checking more and just longer, whereas I find that Indie tends to be tighter.,
Lee: Well, I would say that Indie authors are able to quickly pivot and we’re able to reach demand in need in a market so quickly. Like, for example, academy books. If traditionally publishers were gonna jump on the academy trend. It's gonna be over by the time books get out of the pipeline.
Kate: Oh, for sure.
Lee: But I would recommend you probably copy out both Why? Well, you have nothing to lose. And I think that over time we're gonna see, you know, my goal is for my writing to get more polished and to get more so that people look and they're like, Silverwood press. Oh, that's a, That's a big publisher, like they don't know it's me and my husband. Right then, quality of my books are, you know, equal or better than a traditionally pubbed book. I mean, that's my goal, because, you know, I'm an artist and I take my craft seriously.
But I would also say the blurbs I tend to choose for this exercise are the ones that make me want to read the book. But typically it's more the Indie book, and I think I just gravitate more to indie books because I want to read a specific sub genre to get a big trope thing But there are definitely traditionally published books that grabbed me. I just picked up one YA one, and I could tell by the quality of the writing that it was from Wattpad. It was someone who had been taken from Wattpad. It was interesting to me, like, I don't know. Pretty soon there's gonna be a blend. And maybe this book is much better edited than it was when it was on Wattpad. But it still has the same voice. But that’s okay, Because if readers were happy with it, then who cares whether it was on Wattpad? Whether she didn't get an agent or she just published an Indy. So you pick a blur that makes you want to read the book.
Mindy: So let our listeners know where they can sign up for your email list that you were telling us about?
Lee: LeeSavino.com is where I have my free books and freebies up and then at LeeSavino.com/author-advice or on Facebook. Um, go ahead and find the Millionaire Author Mastermind cause I'm in there a lot, even though that even though Facebook is not a place you should be if you want to write a lot and get books published. But I'm doing okay, So I allow myself to be on there. I have an alarm and I set it. I am on there a lot. And what's cool is There's a great many authors on there, and it's a great author community that I've built.