November 13, 2023 • 67 mins
Hard magic systems, finding community, and creating luxury hardback book...
This week is all about publishing on Kindle Unlimited and creating beautiful deluxe special edition books on Kickstarter.
Join us for a deep and insightful conversation with renowned fantasy author Rachel Rener, whose international best-selling Gilded Blood series has left readers spellbound...and tattooed. She shares her experiences on everything from writing and publishing in Kindle Unlimited, to community building and managing a successful Kickstarter campaign for a luxury limited edition series omnibus. It's absolutely gorgeous!
Rachel Rener is a #1 International Bestselling contemporary fantasy author who loves blurring the line between science and magic. Rachel is an animal loving, language learning, picture taking, mineral collecting, video game playing, modern rock listening, celery hating, acrylic painting kind of gal.
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Rachel Rener
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Greta Boris:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi everyone, welcome to the Author Wheel podcast.
I'm Greta Boris, USA Today BestSelling Mystery Thriller Author
.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
And I'm Megan Haskell , award-winning fantasy
adventure author, and togetherwe are the Author Wheel.
So today we are absolutelythrilled to have my good friend,
Rachel Renner, on the show.
She is the internationally bestselling author of the Gilded
Blood series, which is afantastic portal fantasy
(00:29):
adventure featuring a tattooartist who gets pulled into a
magical filing cabinet to enterthe Faye realm.
I was lucky enough to be anearly reader on the series and
advanced reader, beta reader soI can fully, 100% endorse the
series as being a fantastic read.
(00:49):
If you enjoy fantasy at all,especially portal fantasy or
contemporary fantasy thatcrosses between realms, you're
gonna like it.
You're just gonna like it.
It's just the way.
Just the way it goes.
But she actually just finished.
Well, at the time of ourinterview recording, she just
(01:10):
finished a Kickstarter for agorgeous limited edition
hardcover which grossed over$50,000 for her.
It's a fantastic story.
I mean, the Kickstarter storyitself is a fantastic story and
it was a fantastic journey forher as an author.
So we're gonna talk all abouther writing and publishing and
(01:32):
Kickstarter and all of thisstuff in this episode.
So it's a really, really goodconversation.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Yeah, and it was fun for me too, because she is in
Kindle Unlimited and I know thata lot of authors are not.
We kind of talk aboutcontroversy there, and she also
had some really good tips abouthow to run a Kickstarter and
things that kind of went awrythat she would do differently
next time.
So it's a really goodconversation.
(01:59):
But in terms of news for us wereally don't have a lot, because
we're recording this intro afew weeks early, well in advance
of the air date, which meansthat we don't have a lot to say.
In fact, when this airs we'lljust be getting back from 20
(02:19):
books to 50K.
So we're probably sleeping whenthis airs that's my guess and
recovering.
But we did decide what we woulddo is have a special Duo
episode next week with a fullupdate on the 20 books
conference, everything welearned, all the amazing people
we met and probably some previewlineups for podcast guests that
(02:44):
we're gonna have on the airnext year.
So it should be really fun Duoepisode.
Do not miss that.
And now here's Rachel.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Rachel is the number one international bestselling
contemporary fantasy author wholoves blurring the lines between
science and magic, and I'mactually gonna read a little bit
from her website, bio2, becauseI just think it's so funny, so
sorry I'm going there.
So Rachel is an animal lovinglanguage learning, picture
(03:16):
taking, mineral collecting,video game playing, modern rock
listening, celery hating,acrylic painting kind of gal.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
I forgot that I had written that I love.
I do feel like that sums me upin a nutshell, though.
Thank you yeah you're welcome.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
I had to share that Like it's just perfect for you,
it is.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Off air.
We are gonna have to talk aboutthe benefits of celery juice.
That's all I'm gonna say.
But moving on, I don't you knowwhat, greta?
Speaker 3 (03:48):
I like you, I respect you, but I don't wanna talk
about celery with you.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
I'll talk about it if the other hot button topics.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
I'm not talking about celery, okay, I feel that
strongly about it, okay Well,Okay, we can still be friends.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Oh good, that's awesome.
Okay, well, vegetables aside,rachel, why don't you go ahead
and, you know, tell us a littlebit more about yourself, how you
started writing, where you kindof came from and what your
journey has been like tobecoming the number one
international bestsellingcontemporary fantasy author.
(04:23):
Amazing person that you are.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Oh my gosh.
Well, thank you.
That makes me sound so muchcooler than I actually am.
I will try and keep this superconcise.
I was one of those people whobounced all over jobs.
I just I couldn't help but getbored.
I was not one of those peoplewho knew from, you know, the
time of conception that I wantedto be a writer.
You hear these writers who werelike I wrote my first novel
(04:47):
when I was two.
That was not me.
What I did was, you know, like,in third grade we had to write a
little short story to likespiral out of control and it was
, like you know, 30 pages longof nonsense, total nonsense.
When I was a freshman in highschool, we had to write a very
scientific paper on I think itwas like Ebola.
(05:10):
I don't know if it had to beEbola, but for whatever reason,
I chose Ebola and I don't knowif, I don't know if we got it
right, like, and I don't know ifyou're familiar with scientific
papers but there's no adverbs,there's no adjectives, it is
just pure, dry.
And anyway, I failed it so hardbecause I turned it into
dramatic, like gory, like super,like in the moment this woman
(05:35):
was like going through thejungle and ended up like cutting
her hand on bark, and then itended with her like bleeding out
of every crevice and so on andso forth.
And my science teacher wrote mymother and said, look, she's
gonna fail this, but I am gonnasend it off to her English
teacher because I'm just not inmy classroom.
And then, you know, I lived inJapan for a little while and I
(05:59):
had this blog, you know, back inblog sort of thing, and I wrote
about like singing toilets andthe fish heads that I was forced
to eat and that really took offwhat I didn't mean for it to.
So I've always sort of been anaccidental writer and a few
years ago I was working intranslation and localization.
(06:20):
My client was Amazon and I justnever stopped working.
You know, I worked holidays, Iworked nonstop, and so when I
quit that, I immediately went tolook for another job because I
was pretty lucrative and myhusband was like nope, enough of
this, enough of like jobbouncing, enough of doing these
(06:41):
like corporate jobs and so on.
You need to do somethingcreative.
And that's when I found outthat, unlike some pretty famous
plotters like Brandon Sandersonand JK Rawling people who know
the entire story, the lastsentence of their book, before
they even sit down to write it.
I learned about pansting, and Ifound out that I am a panster
(07:03):
because I just started writingand my first 90,000-word novel
was done in seven weeks.
So I think my brain was justdying to do this and I had been
denying it for a long time.
So and then?
The short answer to how I gothere was I made a lot of
mistakes.
The first few years.
I did not find myself a crew ofauthors.
(07:23):
I figured out all the things todo wrong.
So eventually, after a fewyears, I just knew everything to
do right and was the smartestperson ever after all of the
mistakes that I had made upfront.
And that's Rachel Renner in anutshell.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
There you go yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Well, so how did you settle into fantasy with the
sounds like it's really with asci-fi bent kind of?
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Yeah, it's pretty much fantasy, but I really enjoy
hard magic systems, and so thefirst series that I worked on
you know that book that I wrotein just a few weeks, it was your
traditional elemental magic,because I just I don't care how
many times it's been done, Ijust love elemental magic, but I
wanted it to be like a hardmagic system with rules and
(08:17):
based in like the natural law ofthings you know.
So my lightning isn't justconjuring lightning from the sky
, although that can't happen andit does happen in that book,
but in the Lightning Conjurerseries, because our bodies
actually run on electricity, ourbrains run on electricity.
I was able to turn lightningpowers into an almost empathic
(08:37):
ability, using science as afoundation for it, and, like my
tarot mansors, can make newelements, not just move rocks
around Not that there's anythingwrong with just moving rocks
around.
I mean, that's great but Ireally do enjoy magic that feels
super real.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Yeah, yeah, I can't move rocks around, so yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Yeah, and I have to say too, with the newer series,
the Gilda Blood series, which Iread Start to Finish, and I was
lucky enough to be an advancedreader on that one, which-.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
I loved having you as an advanced reader.
Probably that was so great.
The best advanced readers areauthors.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Well, I mean, all I said was oh my God, this is
awesome.
So I'm not sure how much help Iwas really, but Well, you were
helpful, truly Well.
That's good.
At least I was motivational.
No, but I was gonna say, one ofthe things that I really
appreciated about that seriesand then I actually found
(09:38):
inspiring for my own work wasyour, I guess, drawings that's
not quite the right term butlike the tattoos and the
intricacy of the designs thatyou created using geometry to
represent the magic, I thoughtthat was so cool.
I mean, she's a tattoo artistfor those that haven't read the
(09:59):
Gilded Blood series and soobviously you have to draw it
all out and it was amazing and Ireally appreciated how much
thought you put into how themagic worked with that.
So actually I'm curious how didyou come up with those designs?
Like, what was your process fordeveloping out that magic
system?
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Yeah, well, first of all, because she's a tattoo
artist, I actually went and Igot a tattoo, like as part of
the research process.
I wanted to make sure that Igot that down really well,
because I knew if I wrote abouta tattoo artist, people who
either were tattoo artists orwho had tattoos would be
interested in reading it, and Ididn't want anyone to say, hey,
(10:38):
now wait a minute.
And so that was a lot of fun.
But art is a really big part ofthe series and art is a big
part of my life.
I mean, people who arelistening to the podcast can't
see, but you and Greta can see,like in my background, like I
have a bunch of art on the walls.
And so I looked at sacredgeometry for inspiration.
(11:01):
I had never heard about itbefore, but it's very like
pro-nature, it's very like lifeaffirming, and so I just like
looked at a few of them and thenI would sit there at 11, 12
o'clock at night just likedrawing out these designs in
these runes.
And I was super excited in thefourth book I have a cheat sheet
for aspiring runemasters in theback and I put every single
(11:25):
rune that we had done in thebook back there and I even
turned them into temporarytattoos.
I know I know people who likethem so much, but it's been so
much fun.
I love the tattoo magic in thatbook.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Yeah, no, that's great and in fact, I believe, I
think I mean I backed you onyour Kickstarter, so I think I
get some of those tattoos maybe.
Yeah, I do.
I didn't back the hardcoverbecause, well, I don't have
bookshelf space, quite honestly,but I think even though I'm not
sure, but I think even still Imight get some of those tattoos.
I was very excited becausethey're very cool.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
You will.
You will.
In the art pack you will getsome of those and they look
really cool.
I'm super excited for that.
Thank you, by the way, forbacking that.
I super appreciate it.
Oh, of course, that Kickstarterwas wild.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Yeah, it was, and we are going to talk more about
that a little bit later, butfirst, why don't you tell us a
little bit more?
So one of the questions wealways ask is what was your
greatest roadblock as you werecoming up in the writer ranks,
and how did you overcome that?
Speaker 3 (12:26):
Yeah, so do you mean like initially, initially, or
after I had started writing andwas kind of progressing as a
writer?
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Your choice, your choice.
I think a lot of our listenersare on the maybe newer end of
the writer spectrum but, thatbeing said, I think the whole
journey is important, so kind ofwhat's the thing that stood out
to you as far as, like, youfelt like you had a hurdle that
you really needed to figure outalong the route.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
Yeah, I think initially my hurdle was
impatience and wanting so badlyto get this story out into the
world, and it really was soimportant to have the perfect
cover, to have a professionaleditor, to have a lot of people
(13:14):
read the book before it went outthere.
So, like my very first book wasactually a little bit of a
hurdle just because I wanted sobadly to like tell this story
and have everyone read it right,and I'm so glad that I stopped
for a moment.
I said, okay, hold on, we needto do this the right way, not
the rushed way.
And then there were also somethings in there like indie
(13:36):
versus trad, which were kind ofobstacles for me.
That's sort of a whole otherpodium to stand on, though we
could maybe talk about that aspart of another podcast, right,
because I know there's a lotthat goes into that.
And then I think the biggesthurdle for me was finding my
people and realizing that Ididn't have to do it alone, that
(13:58):
you are actually a betterwriter when you have other
authors in your life and you'rea better marketer when you have
other authors in your life.
And that just because I wasused to being a lone wolf
doesn't mean that that was theright way to do it.
And so, after I found my peoplewho had been publishing longer
than me, who are better writersthan me, who just knew this
(14:19):
stuff because they've been doingit longer, I feel like that's
when I really was able toovercome that hurdle of how do I
get these books out there.
And so, right, like findingpeople like you, megan and Greta
, like it's been, it's beenwonderful to kind of crush that
knowledge.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Now that is a very reoccurring theme in this
podcast.
How many authors we talk to whosay very similar thing.
And I think if you come fromsomething of a business
background, often you're taughtto think of other people as your
(14:55):
competitors.
So you have this natural, youknow, like reticence to I'm not
going to share with you how I domy Amazon ads, or I'm not going
to share with you how I do thisor that because you know
they're my competition.
But when you think about thefact that we're dealing like
with readers I mean I listenedto probably one to two
(15:18):
audiobooks a week.
You know somewhere in theaverage of five to six
audiobooks a month.
No matter how much I love yourwork, you could never write fast
enough to make me Right.
So we working together.
It's just, it's critical and itis.
We interviewed an agent and Iwas surprised to hear that she's
(15:40):
trying to do the same thingwith her traditionally published
authors which I think, becauseit's always been kind of a
sometimes indies will like youknow they'll, they'll make the
path they'll go before and thenthe yeah people come along
behind and go.
Oh, that seems to be workingfor them.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
You know, I completely agree with you.
Yeah, it does seem to be in thenews who in a lot of ways, are
kind of paving the road for notjust the methods that work, like
coming together and doing likemulti author series that works
so well you don't ever see thatin the trad world but even like
the stories that we're telling,I think in some ways are
(16:20):
affecting the and I wish evenmore are affecting the
traditional publishing world,because I do feel like they've
gotten a little bit stuck inlike certain certain stories and
I feel like they need to pullback from that and start
expanding like the way they telltheir stories.
But again, that's like a wholeother podcast that we could get
(16:42):
into.
Yeah, and he's definitelyforward to the path in a lot of
ways, for sure.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Well, and I think it comes down to speed, to market
and risk tolerance because,quite honestly, indies, because
it is your book and your storyand the thing that you want to
do that feeds your creative soul, you're willing to kind of go
and expand in differentdirections, to say what is it
that I want to read that Ihaven't found in the market, and
then go for it, whereas withtrad, no, they're looking for
(17:10):
the same thing, just slightlydifferent, all the time, because
that's what sold last month,and so they want to make sure
that they're putting their moneybehind the thing.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
That's more or less quote, unquote, guaranteed which
none of it is, and half thetime very bad bets.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
But that's what, that's the data that they have
in front of them, so it becomesmore of a data analysis.
And then, yeah, it's stuck inthese, these ruts where that's,
that's all they put out.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Yeah, you're, you're absolutely right.
The word I was looking forearlier was formula.
They've got these formulas thatwork and like, yeah, maybe
every few years they reformulatea little bit, but in the end
it's all very similar formulasbecause, yeah, it's the same.
You're exactly right, it's thesafe way to go.
It's a safe way to make money.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Yeah, exactly the break, the breakout.
Books are rarely two formulayou know they're they're,
they're some they've taken,they've taken something like I'm
just thinking thriller likegone girl.
Somebody took some bigpublishing company took a risk
on that and it really broke thetraditional thriller formula.
And look how people responded.
(18:17):
And then everybody in theirbrother or sister wrote a girl
book and they were all based ongone girl and those never, none
of those did as well, because itoften is those really creative
things that, yeah, kind of breakthem all old, you know.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
Yeah, well said yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
So how did you find your other community?
Speaker 3 (18:46):
Um, you know the the first community I found, which
is the one that I just love themost, is indie fantasy addicts
on Facebook.
It's it's very reader centricand I really appreciated that.
And I think, like some authors,I initially went in there
saying like, oh great, like achannel to sell my books, and
(19:06):
quickly realize that that justis not the way to do it.
And thank goodness I learnedthat fast, right the way to sell
your books it's not going to doreader groups and push your
books.
It's terrible, don't do that.
And then they had a sistergroup called authors of IFA, and
(19:34):
so after a few years of likestarting off just kind of like
quietly in the background andthen like becoming more active
in the group and then offeringto help where I could,
eventually I became president ofthe ad and one of the admins of
the author group.
So then through that I learnedabout you know like 20 books to
(19:56):
50 K and the authors who, dad,who do that.
And then I learned about likelike Dragon Con.
You know where some of like thebiggest fantasy names go.
And then I went to Dragon Con.
I met authors there, so it'slike it just kept branching out
and meeting different kinds ofauthors in different stages of
their career, and I just it'sjust so great, like just
(20:18):
yesterday.
You know I'm going to a fewreally big conventions in 2024
and 2025 and I and a lot ofauthors do preorder forms.
And I was like I have no ideawhat to put on a form other than
hey, you want this book cool.
What's your address, right?
Um, and I asked the questionand the authors of IFA group and
(20:42):
I got, like the best, my back,you know.
So it's been, it's beenwonderful, and that's how I met
you.
Megan was through IFA.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Well, kind of sorta actually.
So we both know J Andrews,janice and, if you recall, we
were both on a panel for corncon in 2021.
Something like that.
And so Janice was like you haveto talk to Rachel, you're going
(21:11):
to love her.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
I do, I do and I never would have met Janice.
Yeah, yeah, uh-huh, yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
And then I got hooked up with IFA and so I loved that
group as well.
And it isn't a book promo site.
It is a book sharing site,meaning like you love, you know
readers who love the books.
They post reviews and doing the.
We did the summer readingchallenge and I've now done it
(21:41):
for two years.
I mean this year.
This year you were kind enoughto invite me to be one of the
author hosts, which was amazing.
That was so much fun.
It was great.
Yeah, it was great, but.
But even as a reader, likeseeing all the different books
that readers are really lovingand then, as an author,
understanding why they're lovingthose books and what's involved
in those books, what, whatspeaks to those readers has been
(22:04):
illuminating.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
Yeah, yeah, Exactly yeah, and, and, and.
Like I never would have knownJanice or any of these other
authors, like if I wasn't inthere and then Janice never
would have introduced me to you.
So I think the moral of thestory is like go make friends
with authors so you can thenmake friends with more authors.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Well, and it's.
It's interesting to see how allthose communities interact and
cross over, because I know.
Janice from another communitythat I was in, and those authors
are all fabulous people, butthey don't a lot of them don't
quite write what I write.
So then I've had to be like,okay, I need to expand and find
more writers that write what Iwrite.
And like can networking out.
(22:45):
But all of those connectionshelp over time.
So the more you put yourselfout there and give yourself that
time, the longer you're in thisgame, the you know, the more of
those connections andnetworking opportunities and all
of that stuff that you'reyou're come across.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
So it is, it is amazing.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
So let me ask you guys for our listeners' sake Say
, we have somebody out therewho's a pretty new writer and
maybe they only have like onebook out.
You know, what would yourecommend, Like what would be
the steps they could take tostart to build a community like
(23:26):
like you two have?
Speaker 3 (23:28):
I'll let you take that first, Megan.
I know I think I think you'vejust think you've done such a
really nice job of doing that,so I'd love to hear what you
have to say.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
That's really funny that you say that, because I
don't think I have at all, butthat's what you said.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Well, you're doing a great job of faking it then.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
There we go All right All right, I'll take it.
No, I mean, I think the.
I think the key thing isputting yourself out there quite
honestly.
So in my case it's.
I met gosh I don't evenremember how so, like I was, did
not call myself a writer untilI went to the Southern
California Writers Conference,which is where I met you, greta.
(24:07):
So all our listeners know atthis point I've mentioned this
several times, but.
But we met at that conferenceand prior to that, even though I
was writing, even though I wasdoing things, I didn't have a
novel published.
I didn't have one.
Well, when I went to theconference, I had my first draft
ready to go, but it wasn'tready to be published quite yet.
But I put myself out there.
(24:28):
I asked for, you know, I did anediting critique of my work.
I met other authors and Istarted there.
So I started local and then fromthere I don't really remember
how it all kind of panned out,but it's like you start meeting
oh well, this author knows thisperson, so you should go talk to
them about your book, becauseyou write sort of the same thing
(24:49):
, right?
So I would do that and I'd sayI just email people.
I mean, I did this to you,rachel, too.
I was like would you be myfriend, would you like to talk
once a month on the phone, right, like and and I?
And so I just do that.
And I am not an extrovert,despite appearances sometimes,
so it is a little scary, but bydoing that those connections
(25:13):
start to work out and it's likea spider web.
The more of those connectionsyou have, the more likely you
are to catch the fly.
I took that metaphor in a weird, weird direction.
I'll be your fly Megan.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Yeah, that's so cool.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
You just catch those authors so you can scum dry, you
can suck them into your web,but yeah, and then it just goes
from there.
So it's like one connectionleads to another connection and
you just have to pursue thoseopportunities and be open to
them.
I think.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
So go to go to writers conferences, join your
local writing group, get onFacebook groups that are genre
specific groups.
To the groups you write, I'msaying all the things right.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
You're doing a much better job of being having a
concise list of actionable items.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Because I've been having internet connections,
I've been doing a lot oflistening, so I've been pulling
out the things that you guyshave said.
So you know where I want to go.
Next we've talked about this isbecause Rachel is doing very
well in Kindle Unlimited andMegan does never want to talk to
(26:24):
me about Kindle Unlimited.
I want to hear Rachel, all yourjoy in Kindle Unlimited, Tell
us they're good, the bad and theugly.
Yeah, the good, the bad and theugly.
But before you do that, I justwant you to dial it back from
one second.
We never know who's listening.
There may be people out therewho are going what the heck is
Kindle Unlimited?
(26:45):
So maybe just start there.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
And so before I start there,the prologue.
Before the prologue, I justwant to put out the disclaimer
that, hilariously, this is oneof the great dividing lines in
the world and I say thislovingly, right, like no one's
actually fighting about it.
But there are people who feelvery, very strongly about going
(27:10):
wide, and then they're like it'salmost like and I'm making fun
of you, megan, I am it's almostlike a cult, like there's like
the wide cult versus, you know,like us, kindle Unlimited
sellouts, right, and so there'ssome contention about this,
which I find hilarious.
And then Kindle Unlimited.
Kindle Unlimited is asubscription program through
(27:33):
Amazon.
You pay a certain amount everymonth I don't actually know what
that is, I don't think it's alot and then you can read all
the books you want without limitthat are enrolled in Kindle
Unlimited, and then the authorsget paid per page read.
So that's that, if you aren'tin Kindle Unlimited, go sign up
(27:57):
and read my books.
Just kidding, megan.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
Oh no, no kidding.
Yes, do it, do it.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
You can read mine too .
Speaker 1 (28:03):
So, yeah, I'm with you.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
The irony is, as a reader, I am actually subscribed
to Kindle Unlimited.
As an author, I don't like theexclusivity agreement with it
and that's my big thing, so wetry to present, you know, all
the pros and cons of everything,so that is the one thing that
Kindle Unlimited requires thatthe Kobo subscription program
(28:26):
does not.
So I'm in the Kobo subscriptionprogram, but Amazon requires
you to be exclusive and onlyhave your eBooks available on
Amazon if you're in KindleUnlimited.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
So that's my little disclaimer, caveat thing
Absolutely.
And so, like I was white and Iwanna talk about what a pain in
the ass it is to publish wide,at least when I was doing it.
I think it's probably gottenbetter now.
But when you're formatting andpreparing your own manuscript
and you have to give one toAmazon with their guidelines and
(29:00):
one to Kobo with theirguidelines and one to
Smashboards with theirguidelines, and now I know we
have like drafts to digital Ibelieve it's called and it's
easier but you're still likeformatting multiple manuscripts
and having to upload them tomultiple sites.
And oh, megan is shaking herhead, no, but like you do have
Amazon and you do have draft todigital and you do have a few
(29:22):
other sites, that draft todigital does it still like?
If you are really really wide,you will have at least three
sites to upload your eBook too,and then that's not counting
paperbacks, right.
So it was really stressful.
Publishing was really stressful.
Advertising was also reallystressful because, yes, there
are like universal links and soyou would then advertise that
(29:45):
universal link and then, likepeople would click it and stuff,
but I personally just foundthat my ads weren't working.
I wasn't getting click-throughs.
I have thoughts on, maybe, whythat is, but it just I wasn't
making very much money.
And then for the Indie FantasyAddict Summer Reading Challenge,
(30:05):
when the first book of mynewest series, the Gilda Blood
series, came out, when Inks cameout, I was like you know what I
wanna thank our readers.
It's really hard to spend $4.99or $3.99 or $5.99 every time
you buy an eBook to read.
For this challenge, I'm justgonna enroll it on Kindle
Limited for the summer and thenI'm gonna pull it right back out
because they have 90 day terms.
(30:26):
And so I unpublished everywhereelse and like my heart broke
every time I didn't unsubscribeor an unpublished button, right
Um, and then I started making somuch money.
I was like this is probablyjust a fluke from the summer
reading challenge, I quadrupledmy income without even trying.
(30:49):
I was like, well, while I'menrolled, I may as well make
some ads.
I made primarily Facebook adsand I targeted them, and this is
another contentious thing ishow to target your Facebook ads.
But what worked for me wastargeting them by Kindle readers
and specifically looking forpeople who were on Amazoncom,
audiblecom, kindlecom, who ownedKindle readers, and then
(31:14):
narrowing it a little bit byfantasy or fantasy romance.
I just started making a lotmore money than I was, as much
as it kills me to be owned byAmazon, because I am owned by
Amazon and they are paying usless than they've ever paid us
before.
I think it's now one penny pertwo and a half pages read is
(31:35):
what I recently saw last month.
Not enough, right?
I, just at this point, can'tmake more money out of Kindle
Unlimited than I am in KindleUnlimited, but that's also why I
have an agent now and we'relooking at other things to maybe
get me out of that exclusivity.
But that's a few months downthe road, yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
I think that's an important distinction, as much
as we've had this conversation,and you're right within the
indie community there is thisdivide.
We on the author wheel try tobe unbiased Indie versus Trad,
plotter versus Panzer these areissues that people fight over.
(32:15):
We don't fight, we just talk,oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Sometimes loudly.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Well, especially me I get.
The more passionate I get aboutsomething, the louder I get.
But I think that's so importantto understand is that, yes,
wide is complicated.
There are things that make iteasier Vellum, for example, for
formatting they make it so easy.
So you were talking about themultiple versions of your
(32:41):
formatting and everything likethat.
Now Amazon is taking EPUB, soit's even easier.
I love Vellum, too, becauseVellum is my formatting software
for those that don't know, andit actually adjusts the links in
the book to fit the platformthat you're publishing to.
So that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
So it makes it so much easier.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
There are things in the works that I cannot speak to
that potentially will continueto make that easier for people.
So that is progressing, but itis complicated because you are
managing multiple sites and I donot make the money that you do.
That's just fact.
But, that being said, I amhoping, or my goal is, that I
(33:26):
build that wide audience.
And it's a slower build I writeslower, I do all these other
things so that long term I amhoping, or I believe, that I
will be better off than if I putall my eggs in the Amazon
basket today, because I'mbasically hedging my bet that at
some point Amazon is going tojust completely destroy its
(33:49):
authors and everybody is goingto have to start shifting anyway
.
So I'll be a step ahead if I dothat.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
It's fair.
Yeah, it's fair, it's atrade-off.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
It is a huge trade-off, and so you just have
to decide what's right for youand what makes the most sense
for what you're trying to do andwhere you're at right now.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
Yeah, I mean, you're absolutely right and I could not
agree more with not putting allyour eggs in one basket, not
just with KU versus wide, but Ijust saw that ex, formerly known
as Twitter.
Sorry, we're supposed to beunbiased, but I'm just really
frustrated with them right now.
I am so glad that I neverreally got deep into Twitter.
I really didn't Because thereare people who have built up.
(34:31):
There are 50,000 followersthere and now Twitter is like
cool, we're going to startcharging new people to tweet and
retweet and they're sendingpeople out of their droves.
So it's like you build up thesehuge audiences, you build up
these miniature empires.
You put all of your eggs in onebasket Amazon, facebook,
twitter.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
I mean, you might as well tweet.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
Right.
And then I've got 11,000followers on Facebook, right.
But there's a lot of issueswith Facebook and you can't
reach a lot of younger peoplethere, so you have to spread out
as much as you can, and also,we are only one freaking person.
We can only stretch ourselves sothin.
(35:14):
So I feel like one of thebiggest struggles Indies have is
pushing ourselves as far as wecan to get that success without
burning ourselves out where wecan't work anymore.
And so, yeah, ku is workinggreat for me.
Ku also doesn't pay me enoughand is taking advantage of me,
(35:39):
and I am glad that I have aliterary agent now and we are
looking at doing bigger anddifferent things with the series
, because I would be afraid tocontinue to keep all of my eggs
in that basket and having tostart over if they continue to
mistreat us worse and worse.
But for the moment, putting onmy blinders.
I make good money there, I sella lot of books there, I rank
high.
(35:59):
And, greta, if you're going tobe in KU, there are a couple of
things.
I recommend Targeting yourAmazon ads specifically for
people who are interested inAmazon, kindle and so on.
That really helps me with thoseclick-through rates.
And also, running Amazon ads,which, I am 100% positive,
(36:20):
increase your ranking justbecause you're running them.
I think even if you're notgetting a ton of clicks, amazon
will still push your book uphigher in the ranking to reward
you for giving them money.
I cannot confirm that, but itvery much seems to be the case.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
It makes sense.
And my Facebook ad I mean Itook Matthew Holmes Facebook ads
, course, and they're doing whatthey're supposed to do and I'm
scaling up a bit at a time.
So they're doing good, but nextyear, because it's one thing at
a time for me, because what yousaid is so true when you're
(37:01):
indie, it's like trying to getit all done.
You can get yourself to thepoint where you just don't have
any time to write, and thenwhat's the point?
So next year I'm going to learnAmazon ads.
I had one Amazon ad, but itnever did anything and I just
(37:24):
shut it off.
I was like I don't even knowwhat I'm doing.
I don't want to take the timeto learn this.
Speaker 3 (37:29):
I hate it.
I hated Amazon ads Like Iloathed them.
I was like there is no freakingway for me to make more money
than what I'm spending.
And then I realized that ithelped my ranking so much where
I think even people who weren'tclicking on the ads like they
just remembered my name in mybooks and I think that they
(37:50):
helped in that way.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
Well, you know what I have.
So I look at Amazon ads more astop of mind advertising.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
I have a traditionally published series
that is wide and doingabsolutely nothing.
So the way I felt about it is,if I'm going to learn it's kind
of like you Like, if I'm goingto learn this whole publishing
marketing thing, it's easier tolearn it at this one place, at
(38:23):
one platform, and then once Ikind of get that under my belt,
then I can take it widen.
It won't be so overwhelming.
So it's the baby steps.
That's my plan.
And also I do think, megan andI have talked to other authors
about this there's nothing wrongwith having maybe one series in
(38:44):
KU, because it really fitsthere and it really does well
there, and then another seriesthat you go wide with and yeah,
so you cannot have your eggs inone basket in that respect too,
because we had on Tanya Kappassometime back who's got a
million books.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
I think she said right, megan, a million books,
that's what she said, I think itwas just shy of a million, of a
million books, like 17,000series.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
And she's getting a film deal.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
She's like all that 15 bags of chips.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
How cool.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
Yeah, she is.
She's got some series in KU andshe has some series out of KU.
And this is her.
I think she sometimes moves one.
If it stops making so muchmoney in KU, she'll try moving
it out.
Something's not making so muchmoney out, she'll move it in.
But she's got so much money sheprobably has a VA.
Speaker 3 (39:43):
Keep on doing that for her, yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
That's where I want to get to getting that help.
Speaker 3 (39:51):
So yeah, I hear you, I'm right on that cusp, but also
it's like a control thing.
But I'm making enough money nowfor help and also I need to
find a really quality person tohelp, because these people
represent your brand.
You can't just find anyone whowill spam people's pages with
(40:12):
your books and throw up a bunchof hashtags and then say that
they're promoting you.
I think it's that's somethingI'd love to talk more about.
Down the line is finding reallygood quality PAs and VA's to
help you with this stuff.
So, yeah, because I have gottento the point where it's like I
do not write nearly enoughbecause I'm juggling so many
(40:34):
balls in my hands and droppingballs I drop balls a lot.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
Yeah, yeah.
And then they roll under thecouch and get desk bunnies, and
it's just you never find themagain.
Speaker 3 (40:45):
Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
All right.
Well, why don't we transitionthen now?
Because one thing that I know Imean I backed it, but your
Kickstarter did phenomenallywell, and that is one way that
you are not putting all youreggs on the Amazon basket.
You were able to do greatthings with this Kickstarter, so
why don't you tell us a littlebit about that and what
(41:10):
attracted to Kickstarter and howyou like?
Speaker 3 (41:14):
I don't remember what your final number was, but it
was something massive- it wasover 50 grand, yeah, yeah, OK,
so trying to make this likesuper concise too, Because
authors who talk about theirbooks are so good at being
concise right, we're superstrong at that.
So the Gilda Blood series isfour books.
(41:35):
We talked about how art andcolor are really important to it
.
So I, when I published them,was like, OK, I need to have a
deluxe color addition of thispaperback.
You're probably like what doesthis have to do with Kickstarter
, but I promise it makes sense.
So I printed in color everychapter, both in the black and
white and color additions.
(41:57):
Have a hand Like I designedthem chapter heading
illustrations, Because, again,tattoos are color Very important
.
I saw these authors going onKickstarter and just like
nailing it, getting these hugenumbers, but I thought to myself
, even though I had readerssaying, hey, what are you going
to do with deluxe version?
I said I have a color version.
(42:18):
I already have chapter headings.
I just don't want to milkpeople for money.
You know what I mean.
It would have to be so worth it.
And then I saw this cover by CePage and it just blew me away
and I messaged her.
(42:38):
I was like, please tell me whoyour artist is Because, again,
important to know authors rightso we can learn stuff.
And she was like it's this guynamed Yvette Yarling who lives
in Germany.
So I reached out to him saying,hey, there's no way I'm going
to be able to afford this.
But can we just talk about this?
If I wanted to do 13 full page,full color illustrations for a
(43:03):
deluxe, deluxe, deluxe book,what would that cost?
Since he and I worked out thenumbers and then finally, after
finding a woman named Madelinewho does these covers, that just
blew me away and looking atYvette's art and figuring out
that, OK, I can do this, I said,OK, we got to do this.
And at that point I knew Icould make it worth my readers'
(43:27):
money, because to do a book likethat is not cheap, right?
Like the omnibus went for $85.
So that was fun.
I guess I would say if you aregoing to make a special edition
book because that is starting toget very saturated,
particularly in the fantasymarket you can't just throw on a
(43:47):
new cover or say like, hey,we're going to put one or two
illustrations in there.
Like I feel like it's gettingto the point where you really
have to like sex it up, you know, and just make it like really,
really worth it, and I think wedid Like I think the book we
made is stunning.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
To the point that I have now booked Uei to do a new
cover for Last Stendant startingnext year.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
Cool, so again networking connections.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
Yes, yeah, so he will be designing a brand new
illustrated cover for LastStendant, and I'm thinking about
doing the plan, theoretical,tentative plan, although now
you've really made me go.
Hmm, I might have to thinkabout this more.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
Oh, and as I was saying it, I was like I'm
stressing people out by sayingthis no, but it's so true though
.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
I mean I think this is a microcosm of what's
happened in the publishingindustry as a whole, where, back
in 2012 or whatever, whenKindle first came out, you could
throw a book up there it didn'teven have to be edited and you
could make a million dollars.
But that's not true anymore.
Now you have to really like goabove and beyond.
You have to differentiateyourself.
(44:59):
I think that's alreadyhappening in Kickstarter, which
is fine and that's good.
But yeah, I mean, the tentativeplan is to I want to do each
title individually and then, bythe end, have a case box set
kind of a thing.
Yeah, but the idea would be thento do sort of what you've done
in a smaller version, but forLast Ascended, because I was so
(45:23):
inspired by your Kickstarter andhow beautiful that book really
is.
You know, it's just I'm at somepoint I couldn't.
I can't buy it because, like Isaid, I don't have any shelf
space.
But I'm very excited to at somepoint see a copy and like
actually get my hands on it andlook at it and examine it.
Because, from what I've seen, sofar, it just looks absolutely
(45:47):
brilliant.
Speaker 3 (45:49):
I really appreciate that, thank you.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
I saw on Kickstarter was a small publisher, I forget
where, somewhere in New England,and they had taken, like I
think there must have beenstories that were public domain,
like I saw.
One of them was Pinocchio.
So it was like the originalPinocchio, then they had a fine
(46:13):
art artist to illustrate it andit was more like a coffee table
book.
Those things were selling forlike $300.
And the people were backingthem like crazy and they were
gorgeous, like gorgeous.
And I think that's aninteresting thing, because I do
think with digital books, ifyou're really interested in just
(46:38):
getting a story as quickly asyou can, audio, digital books
and stuff like that is great.
But there is that when you havethat favorite story, when you
have that book that you love,getting something you can put
your hands on you don't justgetting just a paperback of it
(46:59):
or a regular hardcover is notthat special.
You know what I mean.
So why not go for the gorgeousthing?
It's like the two extremes.
Speaker 3 (47:08):
Yeah, exactly, I'm so sorry to our podcast listeners,
but I will explain this.
So I want to show you guys thisbook.
I got a Dragon Con.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 3 (47:18):
Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss.
It is covered in real, likesoft leather green.
It's gorgeous there is a lute,a 3D lute made out of wood, with
strings on it.
Oh, are they.
Those are actually strings, likeyou can like pluck them, you, I
mean like they don't make noise, but yeah, it's like wire
(47:38):
strings they move.
And then, like you open up onthe inside and it's like foil
and stuff.
Like I spent $225 on this book.
It was handmade, I neverthought I would, but I truly do
think there's a market.
Like when a book touches yoursoul, first of all you just want
the most beautiful version ofthat book possible.
Like I will never probably geta more beautiful book than this
(47:59):
book that I'm showing you rightnow.
And also I think that there arepeople who are like dragons and
they just want to surroundthemselves with beautiful, shiny
things, and those people alsotend to like fantasy books.
So I do think there are peoplewho are like my money is not
going to go to traveling, itmight not go to nice clothes, it
might not go to like a bighouse.
My money is going to go towardsfinding those beautiful books
(48:21):
out there, surrounding myself,with them in my dragon layer.
And I love those people.
I want to be best friends withthose people because and I don't
think that's going to goanywhere and I think the more we
push that bar and make evenmore beautiful books, the more
we're going to be sending peopleto Kickstarter to find more
treasures.
Speaker 2 (48:40):
I have a little story to tell on my daughter.
I think this is yesterday.
Yeah, yesterday we went to thelibrary to go see a talk by
Victoria Abbeyard who wrote RedQueen and Roundbreaker are her
two series.
And so we went and we listenedto her talk and it was amazing
(49:00):
and wonderful.
And as we're driving home, mydaughter goes.
When I grow up, I want to havea house that's just all
bookshelves and I want to justwalk through my house and just
be surrounded by books, piledand piled and piled of books.
(49:22):
And I go well, yeah, it's likethe ones that touch your heart,
that are special, like that'samazing.
You should definitely collectthose.
Have lots of bookshelves,that's wonderful, but let's not
have stacks because mom and melike earthquake hazard, oh gosh.
Speaker 1 (49:37):
That never occurred to me.
Speaker 2 (49:39):
You don't need to trip over the books.
Yeah Right, and she goes.
Well, ok, I don't mean thatliterally, but I do literally.
I want to have a room that'sjust all bookshelves, and then
people can come into my houseand they can sit in that room in
a comfy chair and they canborrow books.
Speaker 3 (49:56):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (49:57):
The library.
Anyway, it was the funniestthing ever.
But I think she I mean she's 11, right, but I think that
mentality and that desire forthe beautiful, shiny stories,
that, just like you said, touchyou and be surrounded by that,
really there's a big population,there's a lot of people that
(50:19):
feel that way.
Speaker 3 (50:20):
Yeah, absolutely.
So I want to talk aboutsomething.
There was something that marredmy Kickstarter and I actually
think it's important that wetalk about this, and I felt very
frustrated about it, but it'ssomething that authors and maybe
, like readers need to be awareof too.
Ok, so I paid a lot of stuffout of pocket, right, because in
(50:43):
order to do a Kickstarter,that's the hard thing and why,
in some ways, there's like abarrier to entry, and this is
not the thing that I'mcomplaining about.
I'm getting there.
There's some gatekeeping forKickstarter, because I had to
pay a lot of money up front.
I had to get threeillustrations done by UA so I
could show people like this iswhat we're doing.
(51:04):
You can't just say, hey, we'regoing to make it beautiful, you
have to show them.
I had to pay someone a Madelinefor the cover.
That was quite a bit of money,right, like these are expenses
that go out before you evenlaunch the Kickstarter.
That said so, a lot of moneywas spent.
I probably paid $4,000 out ofmy own pocket, and the art
(51:30):
budget for this book isextraordinary.
We are doing 13 full-colorhand-drawn illustrations.
We did the cover for Madeline.
We have the four originalcovers which I have an artist in
the Ukraine and I support herand she still lives in the
Ukraine throughout the war.
So my art budget wasastronomical and I employed the
(51:55):
work of three different artiststo make this Kickstarter.
This is where I'm getting to thepoint.
That was very difficult for meand did casting shadow in the
campaign and is controversial.
So the chapter headings I toldyou both, I illustrated them.
I did not pay myself for thosechapter headings, right?
I'm self-employed.
I wanted to redo the chapterheadings, for them to be
(52:18):
beautiful, full-color instead ofspot color.
There's 110 chapters in thisomnibus.
I cannot afford that and nor doI have enough time to do
individual paintings.
So I used a combination ofB-funky MS paint, canva, literal
(52:39):
painting with my own hand andscanning it in Sharpie and Mid
Journey and Mid Journey and Iput a disclaimer on there and I
explained it.
I said imagine me using MidJourney and then using all of
these other programs to thenturn that into something else,
(53:01):
right?
So I'm not just typing it intoMid Journey, taking the output
and publishing it.
I'm like using a jarlet tostencil a circle, right, and
then turning that into a snowman.
I feel very comfortable withthat.
I realize again, this is acontroversial subject, but I
personally I wasn't taking moneyfrom another artist.
I employed three other artiststo do this.
I wasn't worried about therebeing potentially any plagiarism
(53:24):
IP issues Because, again, I wastaking the output and then
greatly changing them using mytime and my art skills.
People there were maybe four orfive people who were furious,
who called me a plaguerizer, whosaid that I was supporting
robots and stepping all overpeople, and there were some
(53:48):
pretty angry people that therewas any AI used in this
whatsoever.
So be so careful if you'regoing to do that I did.
Now I did see that there wassomebody who used AI for their
Kickstarter for a fantasy book.
Didn't tell anyone it was AI,said that they redid their whole
thing and then people got itand they were furious that they
(54:10):
spent money that was onsomething that was like pure
artificial intelligence.
I think that really put a badtaste in people's mouths.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (54:18):
That whole debate, and this is a very interesting
debate.
Again, with the author wheel,we try to be unbiased and look
at all points of view.
The thing that so I'll tell youmy little story is that back
about a year ago, I was justplaying around with my journey.
This was not, in any way, shapeor form, going to be used for
(54:38):
me to make any money, but I wasplaying with it because it was
new, it was somethinginteresting and different, and I
am not a visual artist myselfthose art skills are beyond me,
quite honestly so I was justplaying with it.
So I sent out a newsletter andI said look what I'm doing.
Here's the debate.
I gave links to all thedifferent points of view and the
(55:00):
arguments that were happeningat the time and all this stuff.
I had furious emails come backjust from that, calling me names
, telling me what a bad person Iwas, that I was not the person
that they thought I was, allthis stuff.
So obviously it is a very hotbutton issue, but ultimately I
(55:23):
think that's what I thinkreaders and consumers of any
creative good are going to haveto learn how to differentiate,
learn where their own boundariesare and just put their money
where their mouth is ultimately.
But I think getting angry overit is so anti, I don't know.
(55:45):
It doesn't make sense to meBecause from what you did and
your level of change and I'veseen those images and they are
gorgeous and they are veryclearly not pure AI, pure
mid-journey you can tell thedifference and so you put a lot
of time and effort and energyinto using mid-journey as a tool
to make your own art better andmore efficient, and I think
(56:08):
that's what AI is good for,right.
Speaker 3 (56:11):
But I don't know.
I completely agree If we areusing AI to make our lives
better, if we are stillemploying artists, if the only
thing we're doing is makingagain.
No one else designed thosechapter headings.
I did so.
I am not penguin random house,right.
I am not MacMillion, I do nothave.
(56:32):
I am not Wizards of the Coats,who got in trouble for using AI
art because they aremulti-million dollar,
multi-billion dollar in somecases companies.
They can afford to employartists but me.
I already had to charge $85 forthis omnibus.
So to the people who are like,how dare you allow AI to make
(56:54):
your life a little bit easier?
I sort of wanted to challengethem and say, ok, would you have
been willing to pay $150 forthis omnibus, because I don't
have $100,000.
Speaker 2 (57:05):
I just don't.
I just don't.
And, like you said, it's nottaking anything away from
anybody else, because if youdidn't do that it wasn't going
to happen, right?
No, and that's another thing toconsider too.
It's like if you had the optionof hiring an artist.
Speaker 1 (57:22):
if you had that kind of money you would have probably
.
I worry exactly.
Speaker 2 (57:26):
But you weren't going to do it otherwise.
Speaker 3 (57:29):
So it would not have happened.
It would not have happenedright, and I don't have the time
, or I just don't have thebandwidth to do like 110
full-color paintings on my own.
So I guess this is a word tothe wise and a warning.
Just like you said, megan, youkind of have to know where your
(57:49):
own boundaries are with it.
I felt extremely comfortablewith it.
Other people did not, and I wassurprised by the 1% of people.
Again, it was only a handfulout of hundreds and hundreds,
but I was very surprised by thevehemence in which they
expressed their disdain for it.
So if you are thinking aboutdoing a Kickstarter out there
(58:13):
and you're planning on using AI,just be prepared.
There will be backlash,regardless of how you use that
AI.
Speaker 2 (58:20):
Yeah, yeah.
But I do want to take this on aslight other tangent too,
because I think that's whereKickstarter can really shine.
You can make those boundariesand you can give your readers an
experience and you can makesure that you are.
I use the analogy that it'slike you want to drink, right,
so you can go to Ralph's and youcan get the premixed margarita,
(58:44):
handle a margarita off theshelf and take it home and drink
it if you just want a margaritaand that's all you're looking
for.
Or you can go to the reallyhigh end fancy bar where they
especially make all the syrupsand it's mixed just so, and then
you've got the bartender withthe wax mustache who's going to
(59:04):
talk you up the whole time andlike freshly squeezed, locally
grown produce.
Absolutely right.
I want to go to that bar, right, yeah, but it's two ends of the
extreme.
And then there's everything inthe middle there's the dive bar,
there's the local hangout,there's the pub, there's the
whatever.
So that's what Kickstarter isallowing for, and so you, as the
(59:27):
reader, then decide whatexperience you're looking for
and you put your money wherethat fits.
So I think that's whatKickstarter is great at.
It's not like going on Amazonwhere you're just looking for a
book and you really probably Imean now they have the little
checkbox on their form orwhatever but you really have no
idea as a reader, necessarily,if this is how this book was
(59:50):
produced.
It's just a story and until youstart reading it, you might not
know.
But ultimately, authors, that'show we're going to
differentiate ourselves is bymaking experiences and then
allowing readers to find thattribe that they fit into.
So that's my soapbox for themoment.
Speaker 1 (01:00:11):
Well, the other thing , too, just to throw in, is that
technology is what it is andyou can't put the toothpaste
back in the tube.
I mean it is here, and so itjust depends on how people are
going to use it.
And it's interesting becausejust seeing things like when you
(01:00:32):
go out in the desert and yousee people who create a gorgeous
art out of old wrecked up signsand rusty bicycles or whatever
you know what I'm saying it'slike you can take whatever
exists in the world and you canturn it into art, or you can
(01:00:52):
just put something cheap out andeverybody can tell the
difference.
Over time.
You can tell the difference.
So, no matter how you're usingthis, I use chat, gpt to try to
write book descriptions andthings, and they're so stupid
it's ridiculous.
(01:01:14):
But I can use it to put in abook description and say make
this pithier, make this funnier,make this whatever, and I never
use their final product.
But I might use a phraser too.
I might use a differentadjective that I wouldn't have
thought of, I might use somedifferent things, and is that
(01:01:35):
any worse than using a thesaurusand saying I've used the word
amazing 14 times?
Ok, I need a new word foramazing.
So I guess that's where I'mgoing with it.
It's like we can be creativewith that, but I think it's
because it's new, and wheneversomething new comes along,
(01:01:56):
people are terrified.
Speaker 3 (01:01:58):
Yeah, and people don't necessarily understand it
either.
Like my brother is a softwareengineer and I said to him
someone said that AI stealspeople's art and he said that's
just kind of patently untrue.
It's like saying I want to drawa peacock and so you go and you
look at references of like 50different peacocks and then you
(01:02:21):
draw it using those references.
He was like they rove throughthe internet and, yeah, they
look at millions of differentdrawings To create this output,
but they're not just likepulling a picture from the
internet and saying like here'sthis one photo and I'm going to
just reproduce it andplagiarizing it.
So I thought that wasinteresting.
I do always think it'sinteresting when we have
(01:02:42):
something very complex andpeople who aren't necessarily
like software engineers, forexample, have to form opinions
on these things Not coming fromthat as like a strong background
in their education, and thenit's hard to go and do research,
right, I wonder what chat GPTwould say if you said, hey, talk
(01:03:07):
to me about AI and plagiarism.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:03:11):
You know that's a good question.
We should all go do that.
We should all go do that.
Speaker 3 (01:03:14):
Yeah, let's see what it says.
Speaker 2 (01:03:18):
Well, I hate to say it, because this is a
fascinating conversation and Ilove chatting with you and
having you on.
So we'll have to have you onagain, but we are coming up to
the top of the hour.
We do, unfortunately, need towrap it up.
But any kind of final thoughts,rachel?
Anything else you want to sharebefore we sign off?
Speaker 3 (01:03:37):
Wait up, put me on the spot, megan, I'm good at
that.
Ok, I do have one more thing.
So we talked about why to setup a Kickstarter.
We talked about some things tobe careful of some pitfalls.
I will give you a really goodpiece of advice.
Before you launch yourKickstarter, make sure that you
keep the pre-launch page livefor at least 30 days so you can
(01:04:00):
get those followers.
Also, make sure that you'reputting the Kickstarter link
everywhere and this, again, isbefore the project even goes
live when it's just thatpre-launch link.
Put it in the back matter ofyour books.
Put it on your social mediapages.
Put it in your author bio onauthor central.
Make sure that people who arereading that book and already
love that book can say oh hey,there's going to be a gorgeous
(01:04:22):
edition of this book.
Now that I've read it and I seeit in the back matter of this
book, I'm going to click on itand become a follower, because,
while those followers don't allconvert, having that flood of
people go to that page on thefirst 24 hours really helps
Kickstarter say ah, this is thespecial project, we're going to
make sure that we push it out toour followers as well.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:04:43):
Yeah, great, that's great advice.
Great advice, thank you, yeah.
So, rachel, why don't you tellpeople where they can find more
about you and your work?
Speaker 3 (01:04:53):
You can find me at rachaelrennercom.
It's only one end in Renner.
Jeremy.
Renner likes to be extra withhis two ends.
I'm also on Amazon, and whilemy ebooks are exclusive on KU,
you can find my paperbackspretty much wherever books are
sold online.
So it was such a pleasuretalking to you both.
I feel like you too are suchpowerhouses of knowledge and
(01:05:15):
you've spoken to so many people,and it's just been such a
privilege to come on the showand chat with you.
I would love to come back again.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (01:05:23):
We will definitely do this again.
This was so much fun.
So, everybody, I hope youenjoyed this conversation as
much as we did.
Don't forget, if you are doingNaNoWriMo or just want to be
more productive and get morewords on the page, Megan and I,
for the end of October and allof November which I think this
(01:05:44):
episode's coming outmid-November are doing Between E
Soads, which are short episodeswith lots of tips On
productivity, how to get in theflow and all kinds of good stuff
so that you can get those bookswritten and keep your stories
rolling.
Hi everyone, welcome to the Author Wheel podcast.
I'm Greta Boris, USA Today BestSelling Mystery Thriller Author
.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
And I'm Megan Haskell , award-winning fantasy
adventure author, and togetherwe are the Author Wheel.
So today we are absolutelythrilled to have my good friend,
Rachel Renner, on the show.
She is the internationally bestselling author of the Gilded
Blood series, which is afantastic portal fantasy
(00:29):
adventure featuring a tattooartist who gets pulled into a
magical filing cabinet to enterthe Faye realm.
I was lucky enough to be anearly reader on the series and
advanced reader, beta reader soI can fully, 100% endorse the
series as being a fantastic read.
(00:49):
If you enjoy fantasy at all,especially portal fantasy or
contemporary fantasy thatcrosses between realms, you're
gonna like it.
You're just gonna like it.
It's just the way.
Just the way it goes.
But she actually just finished.
Well, at the time of ourinterview recording, she just
(01:10):
finished a Kickstarter for agorgeous limited edition
hardcover which grossed over$50,000 for her.
It's a fantastic story.
I mean, the Kickstarter storyitself is a fantastic story and
it was a fantastic journey forher as an author.
So we're gonna talk all abouther writing and publishing and
(01:32):
Kickstarter and all of thisstuff in this episode.
So it's a really, really goodconversation.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
Yeah, and it was fun for me too, because she is in
Kindle Unlimited and I know thata lot of authors are not.
We kind of talk aboutcontroversy there, and she also
had some really good tips abouthow to run a Kickstarter and
things that kind of went awrythat she would do differently
next time.
So it's a really goodconversation.
(01:59):
But in terms of news for us wereally don't have a lot, because
we're recording this intro afew weeks early, well in advance
of the air date, which meansthat we don't have a lot to say.
In fact, when this airs we'lljust be getting back from 20
(02:19):
books to 50K.
So we're probably sleeping whenthis airs that's my guess and
recovering.
But we did decide what we woulddo is have a special Duo
episode next week with a fullupdate on the 20 books
conference, everything welearned, all the amazing people
we met and probably some previewlineups for podcast guests that
(02:44):
we're gonna have on the airnext year.
So it should be really fun Duoepisode.
Do not miss that.
And now here's Rachel.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Rachel is the number one international bestselling
contemporary fantasy author wholoves blurring the lines between
science and magic, and I'mactually gonna read a little bit
from her website, bio2, becauseI just think it's so funny, so
sorry I'm going there.
So Rachel is an animal lovinglanguage learning, picture
(03:16):
taking, mineral collecting,video game playing, modern rock
listening, celery hating,acrylic painting kind of gal.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
I forgot that I had written that I love.
I do feel like that sums me upin a nutshell, though.
Thank you yeah you're welcome.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
I had to share that Like it's just perfect for you,
it is.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Off air.
We are gonna have to talk aboutthe benefits of celery juice.
That's all I'm gonna say.
But moving on, I don't you knowwhat, greta?
Speaker 3 (03:48):
I like you, I respect you, but I don't wanna talk
about celery with you.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
I'll talk about it if the other hot button topics.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
I'm not talking about celery, okay, I feel that
strongly about it, okay Well,Okay, we can still be friends.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Oh good, that's awesome.
Okay, well, vegetables aside,rachel, why don't you go ahead
and, you know, tell us a littlebit more about yourself, how you
started writing, where you kindof came from and what your
journey has been like tobecoming the number one
international bestsellingcontemporary fantasy author.
(04:23):
Amazing person that you are.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Oh my gosh.
Well, thank you.
That makes me sound so muchcooler than I actually am.
I will try and keep this superconcise.
I was one of those people whobounced all over jobs.
I just I couldn't help but getbored.
I was not one of those peoplewho knew from, you know, the
time of conception that I wantedto be a writer.
You hear these writers who werelike I wrote my first novel
(04:47):
when I was two.
That was not me.
What I did was, you know, like,in third grade we had to write a
little short story to likespiral out of control and it was
, like you know, 30 pages longof nonsense, total nonsense.
When I was a freshman in highschool, we had to write a very
scientific paper on I think itwas like Ebola.
(05:10):
I don't know if it had to beEbola, but for whatever reason,
I chose Ebola and I don't knowif, I don't know if we got it
right, like, and I don't know ifyou're familiar with scientific
papers but there's no adverbs,there's no adjectives, it is
just pure, dry.
And anyway, I failed it so hardbecause I turned it into
dramatic, like gory, like super,like in the moment this woman
(05:35):
was like going through thejungle and ended up like cutting
her hand on bark, and then itended with her like bleeding out
of every crevice and so on andso forth.
And my science teacher wrote mymother and said, look, she's
gonna fail this, but I am gonnasend it off to her English
teacher because I'm just not inmy classroom.
And then, you know, I lived inJapan for a little while and I
(05:59):
had this blog, you know, back inblog sort of thing, and I wrote
about like singing toilets andthe fish heads that I was forced
to eat and that really took offwhat I didn't mean for it to.
So I've always sort of been anaccidental writer and a few
years ago I was working intranslation and localization.
(06:20):
My client was Amazon and I justnever stopped working.
You know, I worked holidays, Iworked nonstop, and so when I
quit that, I immediately went tolook for another job because I
was pretty lucrative and myhusband was like nope, enough of
this, enough of like jobbouncing, enough of doing these
(06:41):
like corporate jobs and so on.
You need to do somethingcreative.
And that's when I found outthat, unlike some pretty famous
plotters like Brandon Sandersonand JK Rawling people who know
the entire story, the lastsentence of their book, before
they even sit down to write it.
I learned about pansting, and Ifound out that I am a panster
(07:03):
because I just started writingand my first 90,000-word novel
was done in seven weeks.
So I think my brain was justdying to do this and I had been
denying it for a long time.
So and then?
The short answer to how I gothere was I made a lot of
mistakes.
The first few years.
I did not find myself a crew ofauthors.
(07:23):
I figured out all the things todo wrong.
So eventually, after a fewyears, I just knew everything to
do right and was the smartestperson ever after all of the
mistakes that I had made upfront.
And that's Rachel Renner in anutshell.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
There you go yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Well, so how did you settle into fantasy with the
sounds like it's really with asci-fi bent kind of?
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Yeah, it's pretty much fantasy, but I really enjoy
hard magic systems, and so thefirst series that I worked on
you know that book that I wrotein just a few weeks, it was your
traditional elemental magic,because I just I don't care how
many times it's been done, Ijust love elemental magic, but I
wanted it to be like a hardmagic system with rules and
(08:17):
based in like the natural law ofthings you know.
So my lightning isn't justconjuring lightning from the sky
, although that can't happen andit does happen in that book,
but in the Lightning Conjurerseries, because our bodies
actually run on electricity, ourbrains run on electricity.
I was able to turn lightningpowers into an almost empathic
(08:37):
ability, using science as afoundation for it, and, like my
tarot mansors, can make newelements, not just move rocks
around Not that there's anythingwrong with just moving rocks
around.
I mean, that's great but Ireally do enjoy magic that feels
super real.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Yeah, yeah, I can't move rocks around, so yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Yeah, and I have to say too, with the newer series,
the Gilda Blood series, which Iread Start to Finish, and I was
lucky enough to be an advancedreader on that one, which-.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
I loved having you as an advanced reader.
Probably that was so great.
The best advanced readers areauthors.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Well, I mean, all I said was oh my God, this is
awesome.
So I'm not sure how much help Iwas really, but Well, you were
helpful, truly Well.
That's good.
At least I was motivational.
No, but I was gonna say, one ofthe things that I really
appreciated about that seriesand then I actually found
(09:38):
inspiring for my own work wasyour, I guess, drawings that's
not quite the right term butlike the tattoos and the
intricacy of the designs thatyou created using geometry to
represent the magic, I thoughtthat was so cool.
I mean, she's a tattoo artistfor those that haven't read the
(09:59):
Gilded Blood series and soobviously you have to draw it
all out and it was amazing and Ireally appreciated how much
thought you put into how themagic worked with that.
So actually I'm curious how didyou come up with those designs?
Like, what was your process fordeveloping out that magic
system?
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Yeah, well, first of all, because she's a tattoo
artist, I actually went and Igot a tattoo, like as part of
the research process.
I wanted to make sure that Igot that down really well,
because I knew if I wrote abouta tattoo artist, people who
either were tattoo artists orwho had tattoos would be
interested in reading it, and Ididn't want anyone to say, hey,
(10:38):
now wait a minute.
And so that was a lot of fun.
But art is a really big part ofthe series and art is a big
part of my life.
I mean, people who arelistening to the podcast can't
see, but you and Greta can see,like in my background, like I
have a bunch of art on the walls.
And so I looked at sacredgeometry for inspiration.
(11:01):
I had never heard about itbefore, but it's very like
pro-nature, it's very like lifeaffirming, and so I just like
looked at a few of them and thenI would sit there at 11, 12
o'clock at night just likedrawing out these designs in
these runes.
And I was super excited in thefourth book I have a cheat sheet
for aspiring runemasters in theback and I put every single
(11:25):
rune that we had done in thebook back there and I even
turned them into temporarytattoos.
I know I know people who likethem so much, but it's been so
much fun.
I love the tattoo magic in thatbook.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Yeah, no, that's great and in fact, I believe, I
think I mean I backed you onyour Kickstarter, so I think I
get some of those tattoos maybe.
Yeah, I do.
I didn't back the hardcoverbecause, well, I don't have
bookshelf space, quite honestly,but I think even though I'm not
sure, but I think even still Imight get some of those tattoos.
I was very excited becausethey're very cool.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
You will.
You will.
In the art pack you will getsome of those and they look
really cool.
I'm super excited for that.
Thank you, by the way, forbacking that.
I super appreciate it.
Oh, of course, that Kickstarterwas wild.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Yeah, it was, and we are going to talk more about
that a little bit later, butfirst, why don't you tell us a
little bit more?
So one of the questions wealways ask is what was your
greatest roadblock as you werecoming up in the writer ranks,
and how did you overcome that?
Speaker 3 (12:26):
Yeah, so do you mean like initially, initially, or
after I had started writing andwas kind of progressing as a
writer?
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Your choice, your choice.
I think a lot of our listenersare on the maybe newer end of
the writer spectrum but, thatbeing said, I think the whole
journey is important, so kind ofwhat's the thing that stood out
to you as far as, like, youfelt like you had a hurdle that
you really needed to figure outalong the route.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
Yeah, I think initially my hurdle was
impatience and wanting so badlyto get this story out into the
world, and it really was soimportant to have the perfect
cover, to have a professionaleditor, to have a lot of people
(13:14):
read the book before it went outthere.
So, like my very first book wasactually a little bit of a
hurdle just because I wanted sobadly to like tell this story
and have everyone read it right,and I'm so glad that I stopped
for a moment.
I said, okay, hold on, we needto do this the right way, not
the rushed way.
And then there were also somethings in there like indie
(13:36):
versus trad, which were kind ofobstacles for me.
That's sort of a whole otherpodium to stand on, though we
could maybe talk about that aspart of another podcast, right,
because I know there's a lotthat goes into that.
And then I think the biggesthurdle for me was finding my
people and realizing that Ididn't have to do it alone, that
(13:58):
you are actually a betterwriter when you have other
authors in your life and you'rea better marketer when you have
other authors in your life.
And that just because I wasused to being a lone wolf
doesn't mean that that was theright way to do it.
And so, after I found my peoplewho had been publishing longer
than me, who are better writersthan me, who just knew this
(14:19):
stuff because they've been doingit longer, I feel like that's
when I really was able toovercome that hurdle of how do I
get these books out there.
And so, right, like findingpeople like you, megan and Greta
, like it's been, it's beenwonderful to kind of crush that
knowledge.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Now that is a very reoccurring theme in this
podcast.
How many authors we talk to whosay very similar thing.
And I think if you come fromsomething of a business
background, often you're taughtto think of other people as your
(14:55):
competitors.
So you have this natural, youknow, like reticence to I'm not
going to share with you how I domy Amazon ads, or I'm not going
to share with you how I do thisor that because you know
they're my competition.
But when you think about thefact that we're dealing like
with readers I mean I listenedto probably one to two
(15:18):
audiobooks a week.
You know somewhere in theaverage of five to six
audiobooks a month.
No matter how much I love yourwork, you could never write fast
enough to make me Right.
So we working together.
It's just, it's critical and itis.
We interviewed an agent and Iwas surprised to hear that she's
(15:40):
trying to do the same thingwith her traditionally published
authors which I think, becauseit's always been kind of a
sometimes indies will like youknow they'll, they'll make the
path they'll go before and thenthe yeah people come along
behind and go.
Oh, that seems to be workingfor them.
Speaker 3 (15:59):
You know, I completely agree with you.
Yeah, it does seem to be in thenews who in a lot of ways, are
kind of paving the road for notjust the methods that work, like
coming together and doing likemulti author series that works
so well you don't ever see thatin the trad world but even like
the stories that we're telling,I think in some ways are
(16:20):
affecting the and I wish evenmore are affecting the
traditional publishing world,because I do feel like they've
gotten a little bit stuck inlike certain certain stories and
I feel like they need to pullback from that and start
expanding like the way they telltheir stories.
But again, that's like a wholeother podcast that we could get
(16:42):
into.
Yeah, and he's definitelyforward to the path in a lot of
ways, for sure.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
Well, and I think it comes down to speed, to market
and risk tolerance because,quite honestly, indies, because
it is your book and your storyand the thing that you want to
do that feeds your creative soul, you're willing to kind of go
and expand in differentdirections, to say what is it
that I want to read that Ihaven't found in the market, and
then go for it, whereas withtrad, no, they're looking for
(17:10):
the same thing, just slightlydifferent, all the time, because
that's what sold last month,and so they want to make sure
that they're putting their moneybehind the thing.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
That's more or less quote, unquote, guaranteed which
none of it is, and half thetime very bad bets.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
But that's what, that's the data that they have
in front of them, so it becomesmore of a data analysis.
And then, yeah, it's stuck inthese, these ruts where that's,
that's all they put out.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Yeah, you're, you're absolutely right.
The word I was looking forearlier was formula.
They've got these formulas thatwork and like, yeah, maybe
every few years they reformulatea little bit, but in the end
it's all very similar formulasbecause, yeah, it's the same.
You're exactly right, it's thesafe way to go.
It's a safe way to make money.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Yeah, exactly the break, the breakout.
Books are rarely two formulayou know they're they're,
they're some they've taken,they've taken something like I'm
just thinking thriller likegone girl.
Somebody took some bigpublishing company took a risk
on that and it really broke thetraditional thriller formula.
And look how people responded.
(18:17):
And then everybody in theirbrother or sister wrote a girl
book and they were all based ongone girl and those never, none
of those did as well, because itoften is those really creative
things that, yeah, kind of breakthem all old, you know.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
Yeah, well said yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
So how did you find your other community?
Speaker 3 (18:46):
Um, you know the the first community I found, which
is the one that I just love themost, is indie fantasy addicts
on Facebook.
It's it's very reader centricand I really appreciated that.
And I think, like some authors,I initially went in there
saying like, oh great, like achannel to sell my books, and
(19:06):
quickly realize that that justis not the way to do it.
And thank goodness I learnedthat fast, right the way to sell
your books it's not going to doreader groups and push your
books.
It's terrible, don't do that.
And then they had a sistergroup called authors of IFA, and
(19:34):
so after a few years of likestarting off just kind of like
quietly in the background andthen like becoming more active
in the group and then offeringto help where I could,
eventually I became president ofthe ad and one of the admins of
the author group.
So then through that I learnedabout you know like 20 books to
(19:56):
50 K and the authors who, dad,who do that.
And then I learned about likelike Dragon Con.
You know where some of like thebiggest fantasy names go.
And then I went to Dragon Con.
I met authors there, so it'slike it just kept branching out
and meeting different kinds ofauthors in different stages of
their career, and I just it'sjust so great, like just
(20:18):
yesterday.
You know I'm going to a fewreally big conventions in 2024
and 2025 and I and a lot ofauthors do preorder forms.
And I was like I have no ideawhat to put on a form other than
hey, you want this book cool.
What's your address, right?
Um, and I asked the questionand the authors of IFA group and
(20:42):
I got, like the best, my back,you know.
So it's been, it's beenwonderful, and that's how I met
you.
Megan was through IFA.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Well, kind of sorta actually.
So we both know J Andrews,janice and, if you recall, we
were both on a panel for corncon in 2021.
Something like that.
And so Janice was like you haveto talk to Rachel, you're going
(21:11):
to love her.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
I do, I do and I never would have met Janice.
Yeah, yeah, uh-huh, yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
And then I got hooked up with IFA and so I loved that
group as well.
And it isn't a book promo site.
It is a book sharing site,meaning like you love, you know
readers who love the books.
They post reviews and doing the.
We did the summer readingchallenge and I've now done it
(21:41):
for two years.
I mean this year.
This year you were kind enoughto invite me to be one of the
author hosts, which was amazing.
That was so much fun.
It was great.
Yeah, it was great, but.
But even as a reader, likeseeing all the different books
that readers are really lovingand then, as an author,
understanding why they're lovingthose books and what's involved
in those books, what, whatspeaks to those readers has been
(22:04):
illuminating.
Speaker 3 (22:07):
Yeah, yeah, Exactly yeah, and, and, and.
Like I never would have knownJanice or any of these other
authors, like if I wasn't inthere and then Janice never
would have introduced me to you.
So I think the moral of thestory is like go make friends
with authors so you can thenmake friends with more authors.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Well, and it's.
It's interesting to see how allthose communities interact and
cross over, because I know.
Janice from another communitythat I was in, and those authors
are all fabulous people, butthey don't a lot of them don't
quite write what I write.
So then I've had to be like,okay, I need to expand and find
more writers that write what Iwrite.
And like can networking out.
(22:45):
But all of those connectionshelp over time.
So the more you put yourselfout there and give yourself that
time, the longer you're in thisgame, the you know, the more of
those connections andnetworking opportunities and all
of that stuff that you'reyou're come across.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
So it is, it is amazing.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
So let me ask you guys for our listeners' sake Say
, we have somebody out therewho's a pretty new writer and
maybe they only have like onebook out.
You know, what would yourecommend, Like what would be
the steps they could take tostart to build a community like
(23:26):
like you two have?
Speaker 3 (23:28):
I'll let you take that first, Megan.
I know I think I think you'vejust think you've done such a
really nice job of doing that,so I'd love to hear what you
have to say.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
That's really funny that you say that, because I
don't think I have at all, butthat's what you said.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
Well, you're doing a great job of faking it then.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
There we go All right All right, I'll take it.
No, I mean, I think the.
I think the key thing isputting yourself out there quite
honestly.
So in my case it's.
I met gosh I don't evenremember how so, like I was, did
not call myself a writer untilI went to the Southern
California Writers Conference,which is where I met you, greta.
(24:07):
So all our listeners know atthis point I've mentioned this
several times, but.
But we met at that conferenceand prior to that, even though I
was writing, even though I wasdoing things, I didn't have a
novel published.
I didn't have one.
Well, when I went to theconference, I had my first draft
ready to go, but it wasn'tready to be published quite yet.
But I put myself out there.
(24:28):
I asked for, you know, I did anediting critique of my work.
I met other authors and Istarted there.
So I started local and then fromthere I don't really remember
how it all kind of panned out,but it's like you start meeting
oh well, this author knows thisperson, so you should go talk to
them about your book, becauseyou write sort of the same thing
(24:49):
, right?
So I would do that and I'd sayI just email people.
I mean, I did this to you,rachel, too.
I was like would you be myfriend, would you like to talk
once a month on the phone, right, like and and I?
And so I just do that.
And I am not an extrovert,despite appearances sometimes,
so it is a little scary, but bydoing that those connections
(25:13):
start to work out and it's likea spider web.
The more of those connectionsyou have, the more likely you
are to catch the fly.
I took that metaphor in a weird, weird direction.
I'll be your fly Megan.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Yeah, that's so cool.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
You just catch those authors so you can scum dry, you
can suck them into your web,but yeah, and then it just goes
from there.
So it's like one connectionleads to another connection and
you just have to pursue thoseopportunities and be open to
them.
I think.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
So go to go to writers conferences, join your
local writing group, get onFacebook groups that are genre
specific groups.
To the groups you write, I'msaying all the things right.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
You're doing a much better job of being having a
concise list of actionable items.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
Because I've been having internet connections,
I've been doing a lot oflistening, so I've been pulling
out the things that you guyshave said.
So you know where I want to go.
Next we've talked about this isbecause Rachel is doing very
well in Kindle Unlimited andMegan does never want to talk to
(26:24):
me about Kindle Unlimited.
I want to hear Rachel, all yourjoy in Kindle Unlimited, Tell
us they're good, the bad and theugly.
Yeah, the good, the bad and theugly.
But before you do that, I justwant you to dial it back from
one second.
We never know who's listening.
There may be people out therewho are going what the heck is
Kindle Unlimited?
(26:45):
So maybe just start there.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
And so before I start there,the prologue.
Before the prologue, I justwant to put out the disclaimer
that, hilariously, this is oneof the great dividing lines in
the world and I say thislovingly, right, like no one's
actually fighting about it.
But there are people who feelvery, very strongly about going
(27:10):
wide, and then they're like it'salmost like and I'm making fun
of you, megan, I am it's almostlike a cult, like there's like
the wide cult versus, you know,like us, kindle Unlimited
sellouts, right, and so there'ssome contention about this,
which I find hilarious.
And then Kindle Unlimited.
Kindle Unlimited is asubscription program through
(27:33):
Amazon.
You pay a certain amount everymonth I don't actually know what
that is, I don't think it's alot and then you can read all
the books you want without limitthat are enrolled in Kindle
Unlimited, and then the authorsget paid per page read.
So that's that, if you aren'tin Kindle Unlimited, go sign up
(27:57):
and read my books.
Just kidding, megan.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
Oh no, no kidding.
Yes, do it, do it.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
You can read mine too .
Speaker 1 (28:03):
So, yeah, I'm with you.
Speaker 2 (28:05):
The irony is, as a reader, I am actually subscribed
to Kindle Unlimited.
As an author, I don't like theexclusivity agreement with it
and that's my big thing, so wetry to present, you know, all
the pros and cons of everything,so that is the one thing that
Kindle Unlimited requires thatthe Kobo subscription program
(28:26):
does not.
So I'm in the Kobo subscriptionprogram, but Amazon requires
you to be exclusive and onlyhave your eBooks available on
Amazon if you're in KindleUnlimited.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
So that's my little disclaimer, caveat thing
Absolutely.
And so, like I was white and Iwanna talk about what a pain in
the ass it is to publish wide,at least when I was doing it.
I think it's probably gottenbetter now.
But when you're formatting andpreparing your own manuscript
and you have to give one toAmazon with their guidelines and
(29:00):
one to Kobo with theirguidelines and one to
Smashboards with theirguidelines, and now I know we
have like drafts to digital Ibelieve it's called and it's
easier but you're still likeformatting multiple manuscripts
and having to upload them tomultiple sites.
And oh, megan is shaking herhead, no, but like you do have
Amazon and you do have draft todigital and you do have a few
(29:22):
other sites, that draft todigital does it still like?
If you are really really wide,you will have at least three
sites to upload your eBook too,and then that's not counting
paperbacks, right.
So it was really stressful.
Publishing was really stressful.
Advertising was also reallystressful because, yes, there
are like universal links and soyou would then advertise that
(29:45):
universal link and then, likepeople would click it and stuff,
but I personally just foundthat my ads weren't working.
I wasn't getting click-throughs.
I have thoughts on, maybe, whythat is, but it just I wasn't
making very much money.
And then for the Indie FantasyAddict Summer Reading Challenge,
(30:05):
when the first book of mynewest series, the Gilda Blood
series, came out, when Inks cameout, I was like you know what I
wanna thank our readers.
It's really hard to spend $4.99or $3.99 or $5.99 every time
you buy an eBook to read.
For this challenge, I'm justgonna enroll it on Kindle
Limited for the summer and thenI'm gonna pull it right back out
because they have 90 day terms.
(30:26):
And so I unpublished everywhereelse and like my heart broke
every time I didn't unsubscribeor an unpublished button, right
Um, and then I started making somuch money.
I was like this is probablyjust a fluke from the summer
reading challenge, I quadrupledmy income without even trying.
(30:49):
I was like, well, while I'menrolled, I may as well make
some ads.
I made primarily Facebook adsand I targeted them, and this is
another contentious thing ishow to target your Facebook ads.
But what worked for me wastargeting them by Kindle readers
and specifically looking forpeople who were on Amazoncom,
audiblecom, kindlecom, who ownedKindle readers, and then
(31:14):
narrowing it a little bit byfantasy or fantasy romance.
I just started making a lotmore money than I was, as much
as it kills me to be owned byAmazon, because I am owned by
Amazon and they are paying usless than they've ever paid us
before.
I think it's now one penny pertwo and a half pages read is
(31:35):
what I recently saw last month.
Not enough, right?
I, just at this point, can'tmake more money out of Kindle
Unlimited than I am in KindleUnlimited, but that's also why I
have an agent now and we'relooking at other things to maybe
get me out of that exclusivity.
But that's a few months downthe road, yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
I think that's an important distinction, as much
as we've had this conversation,and you're right within the
indie community there is thisdivide.
We on the author wheel try tobe unbiased Indie versus Trad,
plotter versus Panzer these areissues that people fight over.
(32:15):
We don't fight, we just talk,oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Sometimes loudly.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
Well, especially me I get.
The more passionate I get aboutsomething, the louder I get.
But I think that's so importantto understand is that, yes,
wide is complicated.
There are things that make iteasier Vellum, for example, for
formatting they make it so easy.
So you were talking about themultiple versions of your
(32:41):
formatting and everything likethat.
Now Amazon is taking EPUB, soit's even easier.
I love Vellum, too, becauseVellum is my formatting software
for those that don't know, andit actually adjusts the links in
the book to fit the platformthat you're publishing to.
So that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
So it makes it so much easier.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
There are things in the works that I cannot speak to
that potentially will continueto make that easier for people.
So that is progressing, but itis complicated because you are
managing multiple sites and I donot make the money that you do.
That's just fact.
But, that being said, I amhoping, or my goal is, that I
(33:26):
build that wide audience.
And it's a slower build I writeslower, I do all these other
things so that long term I amhoping, or I believe, that I
will be better off than if I putall my eggs in the Amazon
basket today, because I'mbasically hedging my bet that at
some point Amazon is going tojust completely destroy its
(33:49):
authors and everybody is goingto have to start shifting anyway
.
So I'll be a step ahead if I dothat.
Speaker 3 (33:56):
It's fair.
Yeah, it's fair, it's atrade-off.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
It is a huge trade-off, and so you just have
to decide what's right for youand what makes the most sense
for what you're trying to do andwhere you're at right now.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
Yeah, I mean, you're absolutely right and I could not
agree more with not putting allyour eggs in one basket, not
just with KU versus wide, but Ijust saw that ex, formerly known
as Twitter.
Sorry, we're supposed to beunbiased, but I'm just really
frustrated with them right now.
I am so glad that I neverreally got deep into Twitter.
I really didn't Because thereare people who have built up.
(34:31):
There are 50,000 followersthere and now Twitter is like
cool, we're going to startcharging new people to tweet and
retweet and they're sendingpeople out of their droves.
So it's like you build up thesehuge audiences, you build up
these miniature empires.
You put all of your eggs in onebasket Amazon, facebook,
twitter.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
I mean, you might as well tweet.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
Right.
And then I've got 11,000followers on Facebook, right.
But there's a lot of issueswith Facebook and you can't
reach a lot of younger peoplethere, so you have to spread out
as much as you can, and also,we are only one freaking person.
We can only stretch ourselves sothin.
(35:14):
So I feel like one of thebiggest struggles Indies have is
pushing ourselves as far as wecan to get that success without
burning ourselves out where wecan't work anymore.
And so, yeah, ku is workinggreat for me.
Ku also doesn't pay me enoughand is taking advantage of me,
(35:39):
and I am glad that I have aliterary agent now and we are
looking at doing bigger anddifferent things with the series
, because I would be afraid tocontinue to keep all of my eggs
in that basket and having tostart over if they continue to
mistreat us worse and worse.
But for the moment, putting onmy blinders.
I make good money there, I sella lot of books there, I rank
high.
(35:59):
And, greta, if you're going tobe in KU, there are a couple of
things.
I recommend Targeting yourAmazon ads specifically for
people who are interested inAmazon, kindle and so on.
That really helps me with thoseclick-through rates.
And also, running Amazon ads,which, I am 100% positive,
(36:20):
increase your ranking justbecause you're running them.
I think even if you're notgetting a ton of clicks, amazon
will still push your book uphigher in the ranking to reward
you for giving them money.
I cannot confirm that, but itvery much seems to be the case.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
It makes sense.
And my Facebook ad I mean Itook Matthew Holmes Facebook ads
, course, and they're doing whatthey're supposed to do and I'm
scaling up a bit at a time.
So they're doing good, but nextyear, because it's one thing at
a time for me, because what yousaid is so true when you're
(37:01):
indie, it's like trying to getit all done.
You can get yourself to thepoint where you just don't have
any time to write, and thenwhat's the point?
So next year I'm going to learnAmazon ads.
I had one Amazon ad, but itnever did anything and I just
(37:24):
shut it off.
I was like I don't even knowwhat I'm doing.
I don't want to take the timeto learn this.
Speaker 3 (37:29):
I hate it.
I hated Amazon ads Like Iloathed them.
I was like there is no freakingway for me to make more money
than what I'm spending.
And then I realized that ithelped my ranking so much where
I think even people who weren'tclicking on the ads like they
just remembered my name in mybooks and I think that they
(37:50):
helped in that way.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:54):
Well, you know what I have.
So I look at Amazon ads more astop of mind advertising.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
I have a traditionally published series
that is wide and doingabsolutely nothing.
So the way I felt about it is,if I'm going to learn it's kind
of like you Like, if I'm goingto learn this whole publishing
marketing thing, it's easier tolearn it at this one place, at
(38:23):
one platform, and then once Ikind of get that under my belt,
then I can take it widen.
It won't be so overwhelming.
So it's the baby steps.
That's my plan.
And also I do think, megan andI have talked to other authors
about this there's nothing wrongwith having maybe one series in
(38:44):
KU, because it really fitsthere and it really does well
there, and then another seriesthat you go wide with and yeah,
so you cannot have your eggs inone basket in that respect too,
because we had on Tanya Kappassometime back who's got a
million books.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
I think she said right, megan, a million books,
that's what she said, I think itwas just shy of a million, of a
million books, like 17,000series.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
And she's getting a film deal.
Speaker 1 (39:17):
She's like all that 15 bags of chips.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
How cool.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
Yeah, she is.
She's got some series in KU andshe has some series out of KU.
And this is her.
I think she sometimes moves one.
If it stops making so muchmoney in KU, she'll try moving
it out.
Something's not making so muchmoney out, she'll move it in.
But she's got so much money sheprobably has a VA.
Speaker 3 (39:43):
Keep on doing that for her, yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:45):
That's where I want to get to getting that help.
Speaker 3 (39:51):
So yeah, I hear you, I'm right on that cusp, but also
it's like a control thing.
But I'm making enough money nowfor help and also I need to
find a really quality person tohelp, because these people
represent your brand.
You can't just find anyone whowill spam people's pages with
(40:12):
your books and throw up a bunchof hashtags and then say that
they're promoting you.
I think it's that's somethingI'd love to talk more about.
Down the line is finding reallygood quality PAs and VA's to
help you with this stuff.
So, yeah, because I have gottento the point where it's like I
do not write nearly enoughbecause I'm juggling so many
(40:34):
balls in my hands and droppingballs I drop balls a lot.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
Yeah, yeah.
And then they roll under thecouch and get desk bunnies, and
it's just you never find themagain.
Speaker 3 (40:45):
Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
All right.
Well, why don't we transitionthen now?
Because one thing that I know Imean I backed it, but your
Kickstarter did phenomenallywell, and that is one way that
you are not putting all youreggs on the Amazon basket.
You were able to do greatthings with this Kickstarter, so
why don't you tell us a littlebit about that and what
(41:10):
attracted to Kickstarter and howyou like?
Speaker 3 (41:14):
I don't remember what your final number was, but it
was something massive- it wasover 50 grand, yeah, yeah, OK,
so trying to make this likesuper concise too, Because
authors who talk about theirbooks are so good at being
concise right, we're superstrong at that.
So the Gilda Blood series isfour books.
(41:35):
We talked about how art andcolor are really important to it
.
So I, when I published them,was like, OK, I need to have a
deluxe color addition of thispaperback.
You're probably like what doesthis have to do with Kickstarter
, but I promise it makes sense.
So I printed in color everychapter, both in the black and
white and color additions.
(41:57):
Have a hand Like I designedthem chapter heading
illustrations, Because, again,tattoos are color Very important
.
I saw these authors going onKickstarter and just like
nailing it, getting these hugenumbers, but I thought to myself
, even though I had readerssaying, hey, what are you going
to do with deluxe version?
I said I have a color version.
(42:18):
I already have chapter headings.
I just don't want to milkpeople for money.
You know what I mean.
It would have to be so worth it.
And then I saw this cover by CePage and it just blew me away
and I messaged her.
(42:38):
I was like, please tell me whoyour artist is Because, again,
important to know authors rightso we can learn stuff.
And she was like it's this guynamed Yvette Yarling who lives
in Germany.
So I reached out to him saying,hey, there's no way I'm going
to be able to afford this.
But can we just talk about this?
If I wanted to do 13 full page,full color illustrations for a
(43:03):
deluxe, deluxe, deluxe book,what would that cost?
Since he and I worked out thenumbers and then finally, after
finding a woman named Madelinewho does these covers, that just
blew me away and looking atYvette's art and figuring out
that, OK, I can do this, I said,OK, we got to do this.
And at that point I knew Icould make it worth my readers'
(43:27):
money, because to do a book likethat is not cheap, right?
Like the omnibus went for $85.
So that was fun.
I guess I would say if you aregoing to make a special edition
book because that is starting toget very saturated,
particularly in the fantasymarket you can't just throw on a
(43:47):
new cover or say like, hey,we're going to put one or two
illustrations in there.
Like I feel like it's gettingto the point where you really
have to like sex it up, you know, and just make it like really,
really worth it, and I think wedid Like I think the book we
made is stunning.
Speaker 2 (44:07):
To the point that I have now booked Uei to do a new
cover for Last Stendant startingnext year.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
Cool, so again networking connections.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
Yes, yeah, so he will be designing a brand new
illustrated cover for LastStendant, and I'm thinking about
doing the plan, theoretical,tentative plan, although now
you've really made me go.
Hmm, I might have to thinkabout this more.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
Oh, and as I was saying it, I was like I'm
stressing people out by sayingthis no, but it's so true though
.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
I mean I think this is a microcosm of what's
happened in the publishingindustry as a whole, where, back
in 2012 or whatever, whenKindle first came out, you could
throw a book up there it didn'teven have to be edited and you
could make a million dollars.
But that's not true anymore.
Now you have to really like goabove and beyond.
You have to differentiateyourself.
(44:59):
I think that's alreadyhappening in Kickstarter, which
is fine and that's good.
But yeah, I mean, the tentativeplan is to I want to do each
title individually and then, bythe end, have a case box set
kind of a thing.
Yeah, but the idea would be thento do sort of what you've done
in a smaller version, but forLast Ascended, because I was so
(45:23):
inspired by your Kickstarter andhow beautiful that book really
is.
You know, it's just I'm at somepoint I couldn't.
I can't buy it because, like Isaid, I don't have any shelf
space.
But I'm very excited to at somepoint see a copy and like
actually get my hands on it andlook at it and examine it.
Because, from what I've seen, sofar, it just looks absolutely
(45:47):
brilliant.
Speaker 3 (45:49):
I really appreciate that, thank you.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
I saw on Kickstarter was a small publisher, I forget
where, somewhere in New England,and they had taken, like I
think there must have beenstories that were public domain,
like I saw.
One of them was Pinocchio.
So it was like the originalPinocchio, then they had a fine
(46:13):
art artist to illustrate it andit was more like a coffee table
book.
Those things were selling forlike $300.
And the people were backingthem like crazy and they were
gorgeous, like gorgeous.
And I think that's aninteresting thing, because I do
think with digital books, ifyou're really interested in just
(46:38):
getting a story as quickly asyou can, audio, digital books
and stuff like that is great.
But there is that when you havethat favorite story, when you
have that book that you love,getting something you can put
your hands on you don't justgetting just a paperback of it
(46:59):
or a regular hardcover is notthat special.
You know what I mean.
So why not go for the gorgeousthing?
It's like the two extremes.
Speaker 3 (47:08):
Yeah, exactly, I'm so sorry to our podcast listeners,
but I will explain this.
So I want to show you guys thisbook.
I got a Dragon Con.
Speaker 1 (47:17):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 3 (47:18):
Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss.
It is covered in real, likesoft leather green.
It's gorgeous there is a lute,a 3D lute made out of wood, with
strings on it.
Oh, are they.
Those are actually strings, likeyou can like pluck them, you, I
mean like they don't make noise, but yeah, it's like wire
(47:38):
strings they move.
And then, like you open up onthe inside and it's like foil
and stuff.
Like I spent $225 on this book.
It was handmade, I neverthought I would, but I truly do
think there's a market.
Like when a book touches yoursoul, first of all you just want
the most beautiful version ofthat book possible.
Like I will never probably geta more beautiful book than this
(47:59):
book that I'm showing you rightnow.
And also I think that there arepeople who are like dragons and
they just want to surroundthemselves with beautiful, shiny
things, and those people alsotend to like fantasy books.
So I do think there are peoplewho are like my money is not
going to go to traveling, itmight not go to nice clothes, it
might not go to like a bighouse.
My money is going to go towardsfinding those beautiful books
(48:21):
out there, surrounding myself,with them in my dragon layer.
And I love those people.
I want to be best friends withthose people because and I don't
think that's going to goanywhere and I think the more we
push that bar and make evenmore beautiful books, the more
we're going to be sending peopleto Kickstarter to find more
treasures.
Speaker 2 (48:40):
I have a little story to tell on my daughter.
I think this is yesterday.
Yeah, yesterday we went to thelibrary to go see a talk by
Victoria Abbeyard who wrote RedQueen and Roundbreaker are her
two series.
And so we went and we listenedto her talk and it was amazing
(49:00):
and wonderful.
And as we're driving home, mydaughter goes.
When I grow up, I want to havea house that's just all
bookshelves and I want to justwalk through my house and just
be surrounded by books, piledand piled and piled of books.
(49:22):
And I go well, yeah, it's likethe ones that touch your heart,
that are special, like that'samazing.
You should definitely collectthose.
Have lots of bookshelves,that's wonderful, but let's not
have stacks because mom and melike earthquake hazard, oh gosh.
Speaker 1 (49:37):
That never occurred to me.
Speaker 2 (49:39):
You don't need to trip over the books.
Yeah Right, and she goes.
Well, ok, I don't mean thatliterally, but I do literally.
I want to have a room that'sjust all bookshelves, and then
people can come into my houseand they can sit in that room in
a comfy chair and they canborrow books.
Speaker 3 (49:56):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (49:57):
The library.
Anyway, it was the funniestthing ever.
But I think she I mean she's 11, right, but I think that
mentality and that desire forthe beautiful, shiny stories,
that, just like you said, touchyou and be surrounded by that,
really there's a big population,there's a lot of people that
(50:19):
feel that way.
Speaker 3 (50:20):
Yeah, absolutely.
So I want to talk aboutsomething.
There was something that marredmy Kickstarter and I actually
think it's important that wetalk about this, and I felt very
frustrated about it, but it'ssomething that authors and maybe
, like readers need to be awareof too.
Ok, so I paid a lot of stuffout of pocket, right, because in
(50:43):
order to do a Kickstarter,that's the hard thing and why,
in some ways, there's like abarrier to entry, and this is
not the thing that I'mcomplaining about.
I'm getting there.
There's some gatekeeping forKickstarter, because I had to
pay a lot of money up front.
I had to get threeillustrations done by UA so I
could show people like this iswhat we're doing.
(51:04):
You can't just say, hey, we'regoing to make it beautiful, you
have to show them.
I had to pay someone a Madelinefor the cover.
That was quite a bit of money,right, like these are expenses
that go out before you evenlaunch the Kickstarter.
That said so, a lot of moneywas spent.
I probably paid $4,000 out ofmy own pocket, and the art
(51:30):
budget for this book isextraordinary.
We are doing 13 full-colorhand-drawn illustrations.
We did the cover for Madeline.
We have the four originalcovers which I have an artist in
the Ukraine and I support herand she still lives in the
Ukraine throughout the war.
So my art budget wasastronomical and I employed the
(51:55):
work of three different artiststo make this Kickstarter.
This is where I'm getting to thepoint.
That was very difficult for meand did casting shadow in the
campaign and is controversial.
So the chapter headings I toldyou both, I illustrated them.
I did not pay myself for thosechapter headings, right?
I'm self-employed.
I wanted to redo the chapterheadings, for them to be
(52:18):
beautiful, full-color instead ofspot color.
There's 110 chapters in thisomnibus.
I cannot afford that and nor doI have enough time to do
individual paintings.
So I used a combination ofB-funky MS paint, canva, literal
(52:39):
painting with my own hand andscanning it in Sharpie and Mid
Journey and Mid Journey and Iput a disclaimer on there and I
explained it.
I said imagine me using MidJourney and then using all of
these other programs to thenturn that into something else,
(53:01):
right?
So I'm not just typing it intoMid Journey, taking the output
and publishing it.
I'm like using a jarlet tostencil a circle, right, and
then turning that into a snowman.
I feel very comfortable withthat.
I realize again, this is acontroversial subject, but I
personally I wasn't taking moneyfrom another artist.
I employed three other artiststo do this.
I wasn't worried about therebeing potentially any plagiarism
(53:24):
IP issues Because, again, I wastaking the output and then
greatly changing them using mytime and my art skills.
People there were maybe four orfive people who were furious,
who called me a plaguerizer, whosaid that I was supporting
robots and stepping all overpeople, and there were some
(53:48):
pretty angry people that therewas any AI used in this
whatsoever.
So be so careful if you'regoing to do that I did.
Now I did see that there wassomebody who used AI for their
Kickstarter for a fantasy book.
Didn't tell anyone it was AI,said that they redid their whole
thing and then people got itand they were furious that they
(54:10):
spent money that was onsomething that was like pure
artificial intelligence.
I think that really put a badtaste in people's mouths.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (54:18):
That whole debate, and this is a very interesting
debate.
Again, with the author wheel,we try to be unbiased and look
at all points of view.
The thing that so I'll tell youmy little story is that back
about a year ago, I was justplaying around with my journey.
This was not, in any way, shapeor form, going to be used for
(54:38):
me to make any money, but I wasplaying with it because it was
new, it was somethinginteresting and different, and I
am not a visual artist myselfthose art skills are beyond me,
quite honestly so I was justplaying with it.
So I sent out a newsletter andI said look what I'm doing.
Here's the debate.
I gave links to all thedifferent points of view and the
(55:00):
arguments that were happeningat the time and all this stuff.
I had furious emails come backjust from that, calling me names
, telling me what a bad person Iwas, that I was not the person
that they thought I was, allthis stuff.
So obviously it is a very hotbutton issue, but ultimately I
(55:23):
think that's what I thinkreaders and consumers of any
creative good are going to haveto learn how to differentiate,
learn where their own boundariesare and just put their money
where their mouth is ultimately.
But I think getting angry overit is so anti, I don't know.
(55:45):
It doesn't make sense to meBecause from what you did and
your level of change and I'veseen those images and they are
gorgeous and they are veryclearly not pure AI, pure
mid-journey you can tell thedifference and so you put a lot
of time and effort and energyinto using mid-journey as a tool
to make your own art better andmore efficient, and I think
(56:08):
that's what AI is good for,right.
Speaker 3 (56:11):
But I don't know.
I completely agree If we areusing AI to make our lives
better, if we are stillemploying artists, if the only
thing we're doing is makingagain.
No one else designed thosechapter headings.
I did so.
I am not penguin random house,right.
I am not MacMillion, I do nothave.
(56:32):
I am not Wizards of the Coats,who got in trouble for using AI
art because they aremulti-million dollar,
multi-billion dollar in somecases companies.
They can afford to employartists but me.
I already had to charge $85 forthis omnibus.
So to the people who are like,how dare you allow AI to make
(56:54):
your life a little bit easier?
I sort of wanted to challengethem and say, ok, would you have
been willing to pay $150 forthis omnibus, because I don't
have $100,000.
Speaker 2 (57:05):
I just don't.
I just don't.
And, like you said, it's nottaking anything away from
anybody else, because if youdidn't do that it wasn't going
to happen, right?
No, and that's another thing toconsider too.
It's like if you had the optionof hiring an artist.
Speaker 1 (57:22):
if you had that kind of money you would have probably
.
I worry exactly.
Speaker 2 (57:26):
But you weren't going to do it otherwise.
Speaker 3 (57:29):
So it would not have happened.
It would not have happenedright, and I don't have the time
, or I just don't have thebandwidth to do like 110
full-color paintings on my own.
So I guess this is a word tothe wise and a warning.
Just like you said, megan, youkind of have to know where your
(57:49):
own boundaries are with it.
I felt extremely comfortablewith it.
Other people did not, and I wassurprised by the 1% of people.
Again, it was only a handfulout of hundreds and hundreds,
but I was very surprised by thevehemence in which they
expressed their disdain for it.
So if you are thinking aboutdoing a Kickstarter out there
(58:13):
and you're planning on using AI,just be prepared.
There will be backlash,regardless of how you use that
AI.
Speaker 2 (58:20):
Yeah, yeah.
But I do want to take this on aslight other tangent too,
because I think that's whereKickstarter can really shine.
You can make those boundariesand you can give your readers an
experience and you can makesure that you are.
I use the analogy that it'slike you want to drink, right,
so you can go to Ralph's and youcan get the premixed margarita,
(58:44):
handle a margarita off theshelf and take it home and drink
it if you just want a margaritaand that's all you're looking
for.
Or you can go to the reallyhigh end fancy bar where they
especially make all the syrupsand it's mixed just so, and then
you've got the bartender withthe wax mustache who's going to
(59:04):
talk you up the whole time andlike freshly squeezed, locally
grown produce.
Absolutely right.
I want to go to that bar, right, yeah, but it's two ends of the
extreme.
And then there's everything inthe middle there's the dive bar,
there's the local hangout,there's the pub, there's the
whatever.
So that's what Kickstarter isallowing for, and so you, as the
(59:27):
reader, then decide whatexperience you're looking for
and you put your money wherethat fits.
So I think that's whatKickstarter is great at.
It's not like going on Amazonwhere you're just looking for a
book and you really probably Imean now they have the little
checkbox on their form orwhatever but you really have no
idea as a reader, necessarily,if this is how this book was
(59:50):
produced.
It's just a story and until youstart reading it, you might not
know.
But ultimately, authors, that'show we're going to
differentiate ourselves is bymaking experiences and then
allowing readers to find thattribe that they fit into.
So that's my soapbox for themoment.
Speaker 1 (01:00:11):
Well, the other thing , too, just to throw in, is that
technology is what it is andyou can't put the toothpaste
back in the tube.
I mean it is here, and so itjust depends on how people are
going to use it.
And it's interesting becausejust seeing things like when you
(01:00:32):
go out in the desert and yousee people who create a gorgeous
art out of old wrecked up signsand rusty bicycles or whatever
you know what I'm saying it'slike you can take whatever
exists in the world and you canturn it into art, or you can
(01:00:52):
just put something cheap out andeverybody can tell the
difference.
Over time.
You can tell the difference.
So, no matter how you're usingthis, I use chat, gpt to try to
write book descriptions andthings, and they're so stupid
it's ridiculous.
(01:01:14):
But I can use it to put in abook description and say make
this pithier, make this funnier,make this whatever, and I never
use their final product.
But I might use a phraser too.
I might use a differentadjective that I wouldn't have
thought of, I might use somedifferent things, and is that
(01:01:35):
any worse than using a thesaurusand saying I've used the word
amazing 14 times?
Ok, I need a new word foramazing.
So I guess that's where I'mgoing with it.
It's like we can be creativewith that, but I think it's
because it's new, and wheneversomething new comes along,
(01:01:56):
people are terrified.
Speaker 3 (01:01:58):
Yeah, and people don't necessarily understand it
either.
Like my brother is a softwareengineer and I said to him
someone said that AI stealspeople's art and he said that's
just kind of patently untrue.
It's like saying I want to drawa peacock and so you go and you
look at references of like 50different peacocks and then you
(01:02:21):
draw it using those references.
He was like they rove throughthe internet and, yeah, they
look at millions of differentdrawings To create this output,
but they're not just likepulling a picture from the
internet and saying like here'sthis one photo and I'm going to
just reproduce it andplagiarizing it.
So I thought that wasinteresting.
I do always think it'sinteresting when we have
(01:02:42):
something very complex andpeople who aren't necessarily
like software engineers, forexample, have to form opinions
on these things Not coming fromthat as like a strong background
in their education, and thenit's hard to go and do research,
right, I wonder what chat GPTwould say if you said, hey, talk
(01:03:07):
to me about AI and plagiarism.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:03:11):
You know that's a good question.
We should all go do that.
We should all go do that.
Speaker 3 (01:03:14):
Yeah, let's see what it says.
Speaker 2 (01:03:18):
Well, I hate to say it, because this is a
fascinating conversation and Ilove chatting with you and
having you on.
So we'll have to have you onagain, but we are coming up to
the top of the hour.
We do, unfortunately, need towrap it up.
But any kind of final thoughts,rachel?
Anything else you want to sharebefore we sign off?
Speaker 3 (01:03:37):
Wait up, put me on the spot, megan, I'm good at
that.
Ok, I do have one more thing.
So we talked about why to setup a Kickstarter.
We talked about some things tobe careful of some pitfalls.
I will give you a really goodpiece of advice.
Before you launch yourKickstarter, make sure that you
keep the pre-launch page livefor at least 30 days so you can
(01:04:00):
get those followers.
Also, make sure that you'reputting the Kickstarter link
everywhere and this, again, isbefore the project even goes
live when it's just thatpre-launch link.
Put it in the back matter ofyour books.
Put it on your social mediapages.
Put it in your author bio onauthor central.
Make sure that people who arereading that book and already
love that book can say oh hey,there's going to be a gorgeous
(01:04:22):
edition of this book.
Now that I've read it and I seeit in the back matter of this
book, I'm going to click on itand become a follower, because,
while those followers don't allconvert, having that flood of
people go to that page on thefirst 24 hours really helps
Kickstarter say ah, this is thespecial project, we're going to
make sure that we push it out toour followers as well.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:04:43):
Yeah, great, that's great advice.
Great advice, thank you, yeah.
So, rachel, why don't you tellpeople where they can find more
about you and your work?
Speaker 3 (01:04:53):
You can find me at rachaelrennercom.
It's only one end in Renner.
Jeremy.
Renner likes to be extra withhis two ends.
I'm also on Amazon, and whilemy ebooks are exclusive on KU,
you can find my paperbackspretty much wherever books are
sold online.
So it was such a pleasuretalking to you both.
I feel like you too are suchpowerhouses of knowledge and
(01:05:15):
you've spoken to so many people,and it's just been such a
privilege to come on the showand chat with you.
I would love to come back again.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (01:05:23):
We will definitely do this again.
This was so much fun.
So, everybody, I hope youenjoyed this conversation as
much as we did.
Don't forget, if you are doingNaNoWriMo or just want to be
more productive and get morewords on the page, Megan and I,
for the end of October and allof November which I think this
(01:05:44):
episode's coming outmid-November are doing Between E
Soads, which are short episodeswith lots of tips On
productivity, how to get in theflow and all kinds of good stuff
so that you can get those bookswritten and keep your stories
rolling.
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