April 15, 2024 • 54 mins
What makes a reader experience? How do you build a sustainable author career?
We're thrilled to have Kevin Tumlinson back on the show this week to talk about what he's coined "The Artisan Age." If you follow the podcast you know that we interviewed Kevin for our first episode of 2024, but we felt like we didn't have time to cover all the issues we wanted to talk about, including the rise of the reader experience and decline of the rapid release model.
If you're a writer looking to build a long-term author career, this is truly a conversation you won't want to miss.
Kevin Tumlinson is an award-winning and bestselling author of hundreds of books crafted to thrill and inspire. He recently left the role of CEO for BookSweeps, and is now helping to inspire writers as the industry seems to be shifting from a rapid release model to what Kevin has coined “The Artisan Age.” Kevin is known as the Voice of Indie Publishing for his work in podcasts, conferences, public speaking, and consulting for authors. Every day he helps and encourages hundreds of thousands of will-be and established authors around the globe.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi everyone and welcome to the Author Wheel
podcast.
I'm Greta Boras, usa Todaybestselling mystery thriller
author.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
And I'm Megan Haskell , award-winning fantasy
adventure author.
Together we are the AuthorWheel.
Today's episode might be myfavorite of the season so far.
Kevin Tomlinson joins us for asecond interview, this time all
about what he's coined as theartisan age.
It's a transition from thefast-paced churn of the rapid
(00:28):
release author model to a slower, more intentional, multifaceted
and yes, more complexexperience-based craft model for
long-term author sustainability.
Okay, I realize that was amouthful, but honestly, this one
touches a personal interest ofmine and also kind of a core
(00:50):
motivation for me, and I'llleave it there for now.
But trust me, you don't want tomiss this interview.
So before we dive into that,greta, what's your news this
week?
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Well, I do want to say I love this interview with
Kevin as well.
It really gives you a lot tothink about and a lot of
direction.
But yes, I will hush up on thatbecause readers, or readers,
listeners are probably going OK,stop talking, ladies, and let's
get to the interview.
So my big goal this week isjust it's super, just get ready.
(01:26):
We're taking a trip up thecoast to Morro Bay this weekend
and it's kind of been a longtime in coming.
So I'm very excited to just getaway for four or five days and
some R&R.
We'll go wine tasting andwalking on the beach, We'll go
see the sea lions and all thatkind of stuff.
It's just going to be very fun.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Yeah, Central coast is so beautiful.
It's one of my favoritefavorite road trip weekends.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Yeah, I feel like it's kind of like going to the
South of France or or you know,parts of Italy and it's right
here, so close to us.
It's just, it's really lovelyand just so I feel like a good,
responsible citizen.
I am going to take the fourthbook in what was my seven
deadlies to read while I'm gone,because books one through three
(02:13):
have been turned in so I got tostart on the next.
But I'm just going to enjoysome reading.
I'm not going to be likeworking, working.
So what are you up to?
Speaker 2 (02:24):
So for me, it is all about Kickstarter this week.
As of about an hour beforewe're recording this intro, I
actually hit the green launchbutton on the Kickstarter
campaign, and so the wheels areturning.
Yeah, it's really incrediblehow distracting a launch any
(02:45):
launch, not just Kickstarter,but any book launch, um can
really be, because I, you, Iobsessively hit that refresh
button and I have to tell myselfto just walk away.
I know so much easier said thandone, um, but luckily I have
plenty of other responsibilitiesand distractions.
This week as well, I'm tackling, you know, a lot of the kind of
(03:07):
ticky tack things that I'vebeen putting off for weeks or
even months.
So you know things like movingour seven days course to the
website instead of being anemail, working on my direct
sales website as well.
So I've got some likeadministrative things to take
care of.
And then, of course, I'm alsostill working on Aetherburned
(03:28):
and it's it's coming alongnicely.
I'm I'm gone back to thebeginning and I'm kind of doing
some first half edits to cleanup some of the character
motivations and staging, to makesure everybody's in the right
place and it all makes sense allthe way through before I head
into act three.
But I am still hoping to have asolid draft finished before
(03:49):
heading out on vacation in June.
Well, that's wonderful, yeah,yeah.
So that's it for me for now,but don't forget to subscribe to
the podcast.
Please post a review if youlove it and share your favorite
episode with a writer friend,because we don't advertise, so
word of mouth is how we get theword out.
(04:12):
That's it, anyway.
That's it for now.
So let's dive into the artisanage with Kevin Tomlinson.
We are so excited to have himback on the show.
But if you follow the podcast,you know that we interviewed
Kevin for our first episode of2024.
And it was such a greatconversation and Kevin is such
(04:32):
an interesting guy.
We couldn't cover everythingthat we wanted to talk to him
about in one show, so we broughthim back on for part two.
But a quick reminder in caseyou need his bio again Kevin
Tomlinson is an award-winningand best-selling author of
hundreds of books crafted tothrill and inspire.
He recently left the role ofCEO for BookSweeps and is now
(04:56):
helping to inspire writers asthe industry seems to be
shifting from a rapid releasemodel to what Kevin has coined
the artisan age.
Kevin is known as the voice ofindie publishing, for his work
in podcasts, conferences, publicspeaking and consulting for
authors.
Every day, he helps andencourages hundreds of thousands
(05:17):
of will-be and establishedauthors around the globe.
Welcome, kevin, we're excitedto have you here again.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
I'm so happy to be back.
Yay, Thank you for yeah, therewas every reason to not bring me
back and you guys brought meback.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
No, there's every reason to bring you back.
Yeah, quite the opposite.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
We are so interested in all of the things that you've
been doing.
So, which brings me to thefirst question, because it was
only a couple of months ago youwere on, and there have been a
lot of changes in your lifesince then.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
So why don't you share as much?
As you want to share all thenew things.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Not just changes in my life.
I mean, there's changeshappening in our, in our
industry that are prompting, Idon't know.
There's a, there's a dynamicshift happening for sure.
But yeah, and on a personalfront, I mean, yeah, I, so I, as
of a couple about a week or soago, as of the recording of this
episode, uh, I officially havestepped down as the ceo of book
(06:23):
sweeps and and you guys can askme whatever you want about that,
it's all everything's on the upthere.
But in addition to that, I alsoI've been doing the Author
Nation podcast with Joe Solari,who's taken over the well, it's
the State of the Nation fromAuthor Nation, I think is the
(06:43):
name of the Nation, from AuthorNation, I think is the name of
the podcast.
But Joe Solari, as some mayknow, has taken over what was
formerly the 20 Books to 50Kconference in Vegas and has
rebranded that as Author Nationand I think that is going to be
like right on the leading edgeof some of the evolution of this
(07:07):
industry.
So I'm kind of proud to be apart of that as well.
But yeah, those are kind of thetwo biggies, yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Yeah, Well, so the Author Nation conference.
Actually, this was not on ourlist of topics today, but you
know what we're going to talkabout it.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
We're just flowing with it today.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
But I am very excited about the changes that are
happening within that conferenceas well.
I actually went to 20 Books in,I think, their second year and
it was a great show, greatconference, lots of great people
.
But it had a very set mindsetof what it meant to be a
professional author, indieauthor, and I feel like that's
(07:53):
shifting.
And I feel like you're right,author Nation, as the changeover
for that conference has beenshifting its mindset, it seems
to be a little bit more open, alittle bit more inclusive of all
kinds of writers, whatevertheir goals, motivations,
purposes, methodologies,productivity levels, et cetera,
et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Yeah, I mean you, you mentioned when you were reading
my bio and, by the way, shewrote the bio.
So you mentioned that there'sthis shift happening from rapid
release, what we call the rapidrelease, to what I'm calling the
artisan age, and others havecoined their own terms for this.
(08:34):
It is a zeitgeist kind of thinghappening right now in the
business.
It's what's prompting peoplelike you know, joanna Penn and
others, to kind of shift the waythey're doing business.
But that conference, the 20Books conference, was really
focused on the whole rapidrelease model and you know the
(08:55):
20 Books to 50K group.
That's kind of part of thepremise of that.
You know, not to speak out ofturn I mean I'm not officially
connected with those guys oranything but in conversations
I've had with Michael Angeli andothers, that's kind of the
direction there.
But what I'm seeing, what a lotof us are seeing, is the rapid
(09:17):
release model is starting tokind of lose some of its luster
as things like AI start toemerge.
The AI-written books havereally changed the channel for
us and I don't see that stoppingor going away anytime soon.
But what it's done is opened anopportunity for a lot of us.
(09:38):
A lot of us have felt for atime, for a long time, that uh,
there's like this movementhappening, that there's this
transition and, um, there's ashift toward I hate to put it
this way, because this isn'tthis, there's context missing
here but it's a shift towardsquality.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
First, quality over quantity I'm going to interrupt
you there for a second, becauseI don't even necessarily think
it's quality of the story, butit's the quality of the
experience for the reader that'sthe context right there.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
That's, that's good context.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
I'm stealing that from you uh, when I write about
this next time, just give me alittle credit for it.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
That's all right, we're good, yeah, yeah that's
exactly what it is, though it'sthe we are.
We have, for a long while now,kind of given ourselves over to
this idea that we have to one wehave to write and release as
quickly as possible, becausethat's how you make the money,
and the money has alwaysdictated everything we've done.
I want to make it absolutelyclear.
(10:37):
There's absolutely nothingwrong with wanting to make a
living from your writing, thankgoodness, exactly See, I've
grown very fond of eating andit's just, it's kind of a habit,
but I I want to continue doingit.
Having a house over my headhaving, you know, being married,
because if I think, if I didn'thave an income, kara could do
(10:59):
better, frankly.
But I I've had for a long whilesort of stirring in my soul
because I am one of those.
You know, to a degree I'm arapid.
I have been a rapid releasewriter, meaning my version of it
was I was writing like a book amonth.
Sometimes I'd get crazy.
I have a book out there that Iwrote in one day oh my gosh that
(11:23):
book Evergreen.
We should talk about thatsometime.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
How can we be friends ?
I wrote the first draft of abook called Evergreen.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
60,000 words in an 18-hour window, oh my gosh.
And now I edited before Ireleased.
But that was my experiment,right?
But see, that was like for meat the time.
It was sort of a claim to famekind of thing.
I was known as being a veryfast and very skilled writer and
I kept pushing myself Well,fast forward.
(11:50):
A little like after a decade ofdoing that sort of thing, you
know, I reached a point where Iwas burnt out and just saturated
and just I lost all love forthis work, like I just I got to
a point where my soul washurting, you know, and there was
(12:12):
a good couple of years therewhere I've barely published
anything in the past couple ofyears because it just was hard
to face that page.
I've had things shift andhappen in my life though that
have rekindled that, and part ofthat is this artisan age idea,
which is slow down, slow thepace, have a better experience
(12:33):
with the writing, fall back inlove with the writing, and so it
is a quality thing to a degree,but it's also just sort of it's
hard.
It's the soul of this wholething that got me into this in
the first place, you know, whenI first started writing, I
wasn't concerned about whetheror not I was going to knock a
book out in 30 days, you know,in order to keep the money
(12:54):
coming or any of that stuff.
I was concerned about whetherit was going to be a good book.
And I think we're starting tosee the entire industry is
starting to kind of awaken tothis.
And what's happened, what'sgoing to happen as a consequence
of this, is now we have toreplace the idea of, you know,
income based on the number ofbooks we're releasing each year
(13:16):
with you know.
There's a gap here, right, likediscoverability and income.
There's a piece there thatsomeone is going to figure out
to help writers be able to pullback a little and deep, dive
into the creativity and theheart of it and still make that
living.
That's where we are now.
(13:37):
We're at that crossroads.
We have to figure that pieceout.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Yeah, it's.
That whole idea is veryinteresting because, um, I was,
you know, my first series istraditionally published and, um,
my publisher said to me, um, apart of the contract was that
she wanted a book like everyeight to 10 months.
(14:01):
Yeah, and I was like, whoa,eight to 10 months, that's
really fast.
So coming into this whole indiething and hearing people like
write a book a month, I'm likewhat are you crazy?
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Is she still looking for authors?
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Yeah, really.
Yeah, actually she probably is,but yeah, it just was this slow
.
So to me I do think like,technically, people who've been
writing a lot, they have a skillset and, yes, if somebody said,
write these characters, writethis scene, write this plot,
(14:47):
most of us who've been writingfor a trope that wouldn't
normally be in that story, orthose are the things that I
think move something to a moreartisan position, from just
adequate not adequate is thewrong word, but you know what
I'm trying to say.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
That's you're hitting on.
One of the concepts that I'mtrying to kind of get out there
is that what we've got right nowis most of our business is
centered around a formula.
You know, we know, if we do, ifwe, you know, call it tropes,
call it whatever you want.
But we know, if we do, if we,you know, call it tropes, call
it whatever you want.
But we know, if we insert thischaracter into this scenario,
(15:28):
scenario in this genre, theoutcome is going to be a book
that is probably marketable,right, and that's not a terrible
way to think of uh of things.
But if you look around at therest of the creative world and
the what we called ipintellectual property, um,
that's happening an awful loteverywhere right now and it's
(15:49):
it's I, I think it's all based,it's coming out of fear, because
look at uh film in particular,is is bad about this, um, and
I'm gonna pick on disney and themarvel cinematic universe,
right, I knew it, I I was goingto take a sick example.
Well, because they've gotten toa point where they're afraid to
do anything more original thanwhat they did in the first 10
(16:12):
years, right, Like they'rerehashing the same sorts of
stories.
It's, you know, lukewarm sequelsand terrible, you know,
original.
The original films aren't sooriginal anymore.
Publishers, the same way.
There's a reason why CliveCussler has been in his grave
for a few years now and stillreleasing books, Like there's
(16:32):
authors who are no longer amongthe living, that have, you know,
as prolific a career as theydid before they died, and that's
because the publishers, the bigfive in particular they're only
going for the safe bets.
They're only going for the safebets and they're only going for
the things that, like they onlywant to invest in bestsellers,
as if there's a way to do thatindefinitely and they're able to
(16:56):
do it temporarily.
But what I'm seeing is atranslation of that happening in
the indie author space, andpart of this is being fueled by
the rise of language learningmodels, the AI as we call it,
our version of AI, and the whole, you know, rapid production of
books.
The value of rapid release hasbeen dented, if not tarnished or
(17:24):
even obliterated, by the factthat you know there's people out
there publishing a thousandbooks a day generated by AI.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
That's not an exaggeration, by the way.
Yeah, Like when I leftDraft2Digital, that was one of
the problems that we were havingto figure out and solve was
what do we do about people whoare uploading a thousand books a
day?
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Oh my gosh, I did talk to somebody at 20 Books.
He wasn't writing a thousandbooks a day, but he said his AI
wrote a book for him while hewas driving to the conference,
edited the book for him.
While he was driving to theconference he had another IA AI.
(18:07):
Excuse me, I can't even get theinitials right.
That's how much.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
I like it.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
And had another one create like 20 covers and then
by the time he pulled into theparking lot at the hotel he
picked a cover and hit publish.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Right yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
I'm like, can I go and not talk to you anymore now?
Speaker 2 (18:29):
And I think that's the thing, though right, it's a
pendulum swing.
We had this race to the bottomwhere the initial rapid release
followers or authors who didthat, they had a skill in that
they could write very quicklyand their stories were good,
right, like they, they I'm, youknow, you, you included, I guess
you know, at a book a month.
(18:50):
I'm going to call that rapidrelease as well, but it's that
doesn't take away at allnecessarily from the quality of
the book.
But it became this race to thebottom where who could write the
fastest, publish the cheapest,get it up there, get readers for
volume rather than for price orquality.
Like you know, talking tobusiness, business metrics,
(19:11):
you're looking for that nicelittle intersection between
between price and volume, supplyand demand.
But now, with AI, that bottomis there is no bottom anymore,
like there isn't.
So how do we, as authors, Iguess, tell readers the value of
our books and the fact that youknow we are putting more
(19:34):
emotion, soul, yeah, thoughtdepth, complexity, whatever,
into these stories that were notai, other than just saying this
is not an ai written book like?
Speaker 3 (19:43):
which, the way I'm planning to start putting you
know, 100% human, written in mybook description.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
I love that.
Yeah, I'm going to do that too.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
The first thing I want to say here is as much as
we I don't want to come down toohard on the rapid release model
, because as much as we mightding it and say you know,
quality suffers or something,that's not always the case first
of all, no it's not, there'sbeen some wonderfully good
stories come out of that modeland you know it is kind of it's
(20:17):
a.
Eventually you sort of trainyourself to be a really good
storyteller at a rapid clipthat's.
We borrowed a lot from the PulpFiction era.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
That's what I was just going to say.
The penny dreadfuls.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Right, and it's great practice as a writer If you can
produce that many words thatquickly.
The faster you go, the morestory you write, the better
storyteller you become.
It's great practice, right?
So yeah, I'm not knocking thehumans that do it.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Right, well, and even the AI.
So the thing I want to makeclear is, whether we like it or
not, there is a market for thosebooks, yeah right, if there
wasn't, they wouldn't exist.
And with the reader who iswilling to like, they have this
insatiable hunger for, you know,they don't care.
They're the ones that are veryforgiving of grammar and typos,
(21:03):
things like that, and, frankly,the AIs are going to produce a
lot cleaner work than theauthors who were rapid releasing
, so these readers are probablygoing to be satisfied.
That's not my reader.
That's the phrase that we allneed to be, you know, keep right
on our lips.
That's not my readernecessarily.
(21:25):
All need to be, you know, keepright on our lips.
That's not my readernecessarily.
I mean, those readers can readmy stuff too, but that's not the
, that's not the ideal readerthat I'm aiming for.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Not your target audience.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
Right, yeah, right, and so I think what we're going
to find is well.
First of all, if you'll notice,Amazon, Apple and others,
they're not denying these books.
They're not.
They're not saying we won'ttake these books.
In fact, Amazon is actuallyasking if you'll go ahead and
identify that it is AI.
The only reason I can think ofto do that is there's two
(21:56):
possibilities.
One, they're going to ban AIaltogether, and that's probably
their back pocket, in case thegovernment comes down on that or
something.
But two, and much more likelyto me, is it's going to become
its own separate category onAmazon.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
So that if I just want to read as many sci-fi
books as I possibly can, I canmaybe pay one price and download
as many AI you know narrated orgenerated books and narrated as
I want or as I can handle.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
So yeah, and that I think that would be great.
Yeah, honestly, yeah, becausethere are a lot of people who
are not going to want thosebooks.
Right, and there are people whoare going to want them.
But because one of my fears andmaybe it's a misguided fear,
but one of my fears in this isthat often readers don't.
(22:47):
They don't really know whatit's like a reader, doesn't know
who a publisher is.
Right, they're not like somereaders if they're librarians or
they're something like that,but most people don't pick up a
book and go oh it's great it waspublished by-.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Did you read the latest Random House book?
Oh man, oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Hachette has really been on it.
They don't know, they like anauthor, that's what they know.
So if they can't tell, becauseI've had people complain to me
to say, you know, the wholeindie community got jumped like
thrown into one bundle becausesomebody would read indie books
(23:31):
that were not professionallydone, right, you know, they
didn't use editors, they werefull of, and so then the whole
indie world got put into one bigbundle and it was like, well,
we don't read them, right,because those are not
professional books.
And I've had that said to me byreaders, you know.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
Yeah, me too.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Um.
So my fear has been with thisAI thing is that there are going
to be some readers who aregoing to pick them up and not
know that they're AI.
They'll just think they'reindie books and they're going to
feel.
What I've got to believe is inthere, with a lot of these books
(24:10):
, that it is missing a humancomponent and they might not be
able to put their finger on it,because grammar is okay,
punctuation is okay, it'sfollowing, you know the story
structure adequately, thepiecings, because all those
things a computer can do, yeah,but it's missing something.
It's missing the salt in therecipe.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
And I think that is what's going to slowly tune
those readers to go look for,you know, something a little
different, something a littlebetter.
The hard part for us is goingto be the discoverability side
of this right.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
But someone's going to figure that out and you know
I'm working with some folks.
I'm hoping I can maybe helpfigure that out.
There's a lot of there'sopportunity here.
Just like anytime there's anysort of tectonic shift in the
industry, it opens up a wholebunch of new opportunities.
Some of these are the sameproblems we've always faced, but
we've got new resources now andwe've got new incentive to
(25:14):
figure this out.
But I think what's going tohappen is like I genuinely think
that Amazon and others aregoing to differentiate AI
content from human writtencontent and what that's going to
do is satisfy the reader whocan't get enough.
You know, all my career I've hadto deal with the reader who
(25:35):
read my entire catalog in oneweekend.
Yeah, and yeah, once more, um.
But in the meantime, um, it'sgoing to open up opportunities
for the authors who are kind oftaking their time, slowing their
pace, and there is thepotential that they'll build
bigger, stronger audiencesbecause of this, which means
(25:56):
fewer books have to be, you know, released each year, because
the goal here would be like sellmore of a book instead of
writing more books.
We've always compensated forlow sales by producing higher
quality and higher content, andnow we're kind of getting to an
era where I think we'll have tofigure it out, but I think we're
(26:18):
getting to an era where we'regoing to flip that script, yeah,
and we're going to startconcentrating on you know, I
know lots and lots of authorshave confided in me that, like I
didn't get into this businessto write a book a month, I want
to do my book a year and then go, you know, spend the rest of
the year on my custom catamaranor my, you know, my imported
(26:39):
castle, yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Yeah, well, it's, it's interesting.
So I have this.
I have this analogy or metaphorthat I, that I've been sharing
around a bit and I'll share ithere too, is that I think the
way I see the future of ourindustry is quite a bit like
like, quite honestly, a cocktail, right?
Because if you want to go havea drink, you can go to the
grocery store and you can getthe off the shelf pre-mixed
(27:03):
margarita.
You can take it home and youcan watch a movie and eat chips
and salsa while drinking yourmargarita.
That's one kind of experience.
And then there's, on the fullopposite end of the spectrum,
right, there's the very bougie,you know craftsperson bar where
you go in and the bartender'sgot the waxed mustache and he's
(27:24):
going to just fix you up thisperfect, handcrafted, all
natural, all you know handmadesyrups and all that stuff, and
it's going to be this beautifulconcoction that he's going to
present to you.
And it's about that experienceof going to the bar and being
with that bartender and beingwith that in that environment.
And then there's the dive bar,and then there's the corner pub
(27:47):
and then there's all these otherthings, right, everything in
between.
If you want to drink, you canchoose your experience, and I
think that's what readers aregoing to want to do and going to
be able to start to self-sortinto those kinds of experiences.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
Experience is king.
That's exactly the right idea,and I think what we're coming to
is the dawn of an era where thepiece we have to figure out is
how do we signal to the readerthe sort of experience that they
will have, and do it in areliable, you know, authentic
(28:23):
way, because some readers aregoing to want that art and
experience all the time andexperience all the time they're
going to want that.
You know there's readers wholove to read literary fiction,
who would turn their nose up atgenre fiction, right.
And then there's readers whoonly want to read genre fiction,
and they thought of reading,like you know, I don't know a
(28:45):
heartbreaking work, a staggeringgenius makes them want to gouge
their brain out right.
And so we have to recognizefirst who are we.
This is what's brilliant aboutthis, by the way.
This is the thing that's reallykind of resonating with me and
the whole artisan age.
You know, the artisanexperience can can go from
(29:08):
writing genre fiction to writingliterary fiction.
It can be anything in there,because it's all about the
experience and equally all aboutour expression of ourselves as
writers.
You know, I wrote genre fictionfor most of my career and I have
, as of the past couple of years, I've been shifting quite a bit
(29:29):
towards something that's a bitmore literary.
I'm probably still always goingto write a little bit of genre
stuff, but I'm discovering aboutmyself that there's more to me
than you know, dan Kotler, oryou know any sci-fi stuff I've
written.
There's more to me than that,and I think writers are starting
to kind of discover this aboutthemselves, and I think we're
(29:50):
finally entering an age wherethe indie author will have the
opportunity to lean in on thatand tailor these experiences
that readers will then be ableto kind of pick and choose the
experience they want to have.
I think it's coming.
I wish it were already.
You know I wish there wasalready a button to push, you
know, to import my book intoVellum and push the artisan
(30:11):
button.
And you know I wish there wasalready a button to push, you
know, to import my book intoVellum and push the artisan
button and you know, spit it out, but it's not there yet.
But I absolutely believe we'reclosing in on that as a concept.
That's where, by the way, thewhole direct sales thing that's
happening, that zeitgeist that'shappening, that's born of this.
(30:33):
Yeah, the idea that I'mproducing a book that's going
directly to the reader and I getto make more money for that.
Well, there's still thatdiscoverability problem, right.
Like you know, Joanna Penn, Ilove her, Joe hi but you know
she's got an audience Right andif she wants to sell direct, she
doesn't have to work as hard'sgot an audience Right and if she
wants to sell direct, shedoesn't have to work as hard to
(30:54):
get an audience.
She just advertises to herexisting audience.
I can do the same, but whatabout the kid coming in who just
wrote one book?
Speaker 1 (31:07):
You know he can't sell direct.
Well, I think there's right.
There's a couple of things Also.
Kickstarter is another one ofthose things that is in the same
category.
And again, people who havereally big audience and a really
big mailing list and a fan basesure they put up a Kickstarter
book and bing bang an audiencethat skews older and they're
like what the heck is thisKickstarter thing?
(31:38):
I'm not putting my credit cardon some other online thing.
You know what I mean.
They're just training people.
There is a big.
There are definitely hurdlesthat have to be jumped in this
process.
And then the other one thatstruck me after I read your
article was okay, how do I knowif I can call myself artisan?
(32:01):
Like you know, we tend to thinkthat we're better than not
everybody, but some people thinkthey're better than they are
and so it's like are we?
I mean, I could very much see avery novice new writer whose
books maybe are not quite thequality that they will be if
(32:21):
they keep writing for 10 yearsthinking that they're all that
in a bag of chips and trying tostart some.
I am an artisan.
Come to my website.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
I'm doing a.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
Kickstarter and then being very discouraged because
people are like, wait, what?
Why am I paying money, extramoney for your book?
Like what?
Yeah, yeah.
So there's that hurdle too, asknow thyself, and are you
positioned yet to be able tomake that leap into some of
these things?
So how give us your wisdom onthis?
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Well, I'm going to answer because I got things Okay
, Megan.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
Okay, megan, you go ahead.
No, I was going to say,eventually I'm going to hear
Kevin's yes, absolutely no.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
So a couple of things I think.
So, number one, on your pointabout the size of your audience.
I think, if you look at it,though, the difference is is the
number of people that you haveto find that are willing to pay
that premium.
Um, that can be a much smalleraudience.
Yes, then yes the, if you'rejust going the, what I'll call
(33:23):
the more traditional, but Idon't mean that in traditional
publishing sense, but more thetraditional indie, sure, where,
where you, you know you youpublish ebooks.
First you do all the newsletterswaps, all the mailers, you know
builders, all that stuff sothat you can get thousands of
(33:44):
potential readers to buy your$2.99 book.
Instead you're saying, okay, Ineed 100 readers to buy my $25
book, or whatever the math worksout.
I can't do mental math.
So, number one, I think theaudience that you need to find
to support your work ispotentially a lot smaller.
(34:04):
But also, I think once you knowwe have to learn patience right
, and I think this is notnecessarily a skill that works
for the modern age right now,but I think that if you can be
(34:25):
patient and understand that,yeah, you're not going to
probably be a bestseller offyour first book, but by book 10,
you know you can find thataudience or something like that
Then I think we can learn that.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
On the question of patience, let's talk about that
for a second, because that'sdefinitely something we all need
.
It's definitely something Idon't have, and it's something
that can only develop afteryou've been smacked around by
the mackerel that is thisbusiness for a while.
You know, when I first started,I was very by the way.
(34:59):
I think this is where rapidrelease was born was the idea
that I don't have time to put intwo years, three years, 10
years in order to see a returnon all this hard work I'm doing.
I need my books to make moneynow, and so I think that that is
one of the things.
That's a piece that's at theheart of how rapid release
(35:22):
evolved was.
If I write the book and I canget it out for sale and just get
a handful of people to buy it,I'm making money.
So that's that's part of it.
Handful of people to buy it,I'm making money, so that's
that's part of it.
The you know the idea of youknow the skill like learning.
You know how do you know you'regood enough or how do you know
that you've got artisan levelskill.
(35:42):
You may not know that and youmay not have it.
I think there's probably anadvantage to a lot of writers,
sort of acting as if this iswhat I did.
I'm going to be frank with you.
I came into this game and saidyou know what?
I'm just going to behave as ifI'm already a very successful
professional in this work.
(36:03):
Now, when I started all this,the first things I concentrated
on were you know, I didconcentrate on editing, though
not as much as I should have inthose early days, but I
concentrated on.
You know I want concentrate onediting, though not as much as I
should have in those early days, but I concentrated on.
You know I want a professionallooking cover.
I want, you know, theformatting to look great.
I want the book to be seamlesswhen it, when it's sitting next
to you know, something publishedby Random House or Hashhead or
(36:26):
someone else.
I want that book to look justlike those books.
The best compliment a goodfriend of mine ever gave me was
this looks just like a real book.
And that was it for me.
But I did the whole act as ifNow, sales didn't reflect my
attitude for a long while, butbecause I kept coming back to it
, I didn't give up on it.
(36:47):
I kept coming back saying, okay, I got a lot of feedback, a lot
of negative reviews for thatlast book because I, you know,
didn't edit, so I'd better editmore, or you know something like
that.
I used my experience to learnand grow and improve and
eventually I hit what I believeis that artisan level, and I
(37:09):
think that's going to happen fora lot of the young bucks, the
newcomers, as they're kind ofcoming into this.
If you can just, you know, finda standard and then make sure
you're hitting that standard,you will eventually improve and
you will eventually become thatartisan writer that we're
(37:29):
talking about writer that thatwe're talking about and I and I
think I think kind of to topivot off that a little bit too
you were listening to yourreaders, right.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
So so, yes, you acted as if and you tried to put out
the most professional book youcould.
I think all of that should bestandard practice for for new
authors.
Um, and then you listen toreaders, because the readers are
going to tell you whether ornot they think your book is high
quality, whether they'rewilling to to go back your
(38:00):
Kickstarter for the hardcover ornot.
Yeah you're gonna.
You're gonna learn that fromyour audience.
So the key is to start out,first of all, have the
understanding that you'reprobably not going to knock it
out of the park on book one,probably not book two or even
book three.
Right, you're, it's going totake time.
So if you start with thatattitude and then listen to the
(38:22):
readers, you can.
You can find your place andfind that audience that you need
.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
And to your point as well about you know you don't
need to sell as many copies,right?
That's a huge advantage thatthe indie author scene has over
traditional publishing, right?
Don't just sweep that under therug.
If I sell, you know, I actuallyI'm writing something that's
aimed at being a traditionalbook right now and it's there's
(38:53):
a little bit of a war between aself-published author and a
traditionally published authorand there's a comment that she
makes.
The indie author makes at onepoint that you know, I could
sell a third of the titles thatyou sold and buy a small island.
You know, and I think that's avery good way to look at it Like
(39:14):
, especially as we do, we startleaning in on things like direct
sale.
I mean, if you think aboutdirect sale, your overhead for
that sale tends to only be thecredit card processing fees or
something.
Right, 3% generally.
Right, so you're making like a90% royalty on that book.
You know, where are you goingto get that?
(39:34):
Anywhere else?
Nowhere, yeah, yeah, you know,on my traditional contracts I
was earning maybe 3% on the highside for any books I sold, and
that was only after I made backthe advance.
So you know, there's somethingthere that we need to keep in
mind as we enter the artisan ageis it takes less to be
(39:58):
successful.
That's a concept we have a lotof trouble with.
It takes less of our time,takes less of our energy.
It takes fewer sales, like wecan do less and maybe even be
more successful.
And I think it's all kind ofcoming down to like, where's our
focus going to be?
What are we that aim to?
(40:20):
Produce the most professionalbook, the most creative thing
possible, do the most unique?
Then me churning out a hundredmore archaeological thrillers
that are based on the formulathat I've discovered?
Uh, what if the next book has,maybe, elements of that stuff?
But I took, you know, an extrasix months to a year to do
(40:42):
something, to really dig in anddo something extra creative with
it.
You know something that that noone else has done, or something
that no one else is willing toeven try?
Yeah, and that's where, again,indie publishers have a big
advantage over traditional thatno one else has done or
something that no one else iswilling to even try.
And that's where, again, indiepublishers have a big advantage
over traditional in that arena.
Because if I go to a publisherRandom House or otherwise say,
(41:05):
hey, I'm going to do this crazybook that you know it's just
going to be two people sittingat their mutual computers for
the first two thirds of the book, I'm going to get a big fat.
No, yeah, but I mean I say itwould never sell.
But you know, the market haschanged so much and there's so
many, like it's relatable, right.
Like if I've got two authorshaving a little bit of a feud
over social media, you know,maybe three or four years ago
(41:27):
that book wouldn't gain anytraction.
But at this point, like that's,we all went through three years
of sitting in front ofcomputers and that was our
interaction with the world,right.
So we're primed, like okay, Isee how that relationship I've
watched I forget how many indiefilms I watched over the course
(41:48):
of the pandemic years that wereeffectively shot on Zoom yeah, I
mean, we're ready for that kindof thing now.
We can be experimental to thatdegree now.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
Yeah, I also think that there's something to be
said for creatives whateverthey're doing whether it's art,
painting, you know, likephysical art or books, or music,
or whatever they're doing torecognize that getting the skill
level to where it needs to be,where people want to invest in
(42:24):
you, that just takes time andrepetition.
So I do think that that'ssomething that the rapid release
did for authors.
Yes, because if you write 50books, you're doing well, going
to be better, but you get to the50th book, then you were in the
first five, you know, I meanthat repetition.
It's like people who go to artschool.
(42:45):
You know they're painting overand over and over and over,
paintings that nobody's everexpected to purchase, or
musicians.
You know, you know, youpractice and practice and
practice.
Nobody's going to listen toyour early practice, right,
because it's bad I would argueeven that that's where genius
emerges.
Speaker 3 (43:04):
like you know what you've got musicians in
particular, you know they spenda lot of time just kind of
falling in love with theinstrument, with the.
You know the process of it andthey're so in love with it
they're willing to take risksand experiment, and the risks
are where genius emerges.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
Mm-hmm yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:23):
The rapid release model did encourage that.
One thing I think has beenmissing in a lot of respects is
you know, most of the time, ifyou have an industry like this,
there's a sort of mentor-menteerelationship where you have
someone you can turn to, who canguide you, and I think there's
an opening there as well as weshift, you know, into this new
(43:46):
model.
A lot of us who've been here fora while, who were successful,
like I, spend a lot of my timetalking to other authors.
You know, I mean that 100,000author thing in my bio, that's
true.
Over the course of a year,either through podcasts or, you
know, public speaking and someof the one-on-one stuff, like
(44:07):
thousands and thousands ofauthors pass by me and hear from
me and that's how I'm trying toget back to, you know, this
industry.
That reared me and I think, asmore of us kind of enter this
artisan mindset, that's going tobecome something that's
important to us, you know, islike how are we giving back and
(44:27):
shaping this?
Because the advantage ofhelping incoming authors reach
that artisan level is itencourages readers to look for
that level of quality and thatlevel of skill and to find it.
And because we're not rapidreleasing, we're not lost in the
wash.
Right, yeah, we want toencourage as many writers as
(44:49):
possible to come in and taketheir time and produce quality
books so that readers becomeaccustomed to that and start
looking for us and they can fillthe gap between my books.
Right, yeah, I write a book andthen a year later I write
another one and they can fill inthe void it's.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
It's to me in a way, it's kind of like going full
circle, that things come backagain, because my dad was a
publisher and an editor and Igrew up I mean he was mostly
magazines, but still, you know,he did edit some books and he
was involved with that and whenI first started writing fiction,
he just could not.
(45:27):
It was like well, your editor,your editor, is your mentor, you
need an editor.
It doesn't work like thatanymore.
Editors want your book editedso they don't have to do any
work.
Now I was lucky in my first fewbooks I did have an editor who
was also a college creativewriting professor and so she did
like mentor me.
(45:48):
But that is rare in this dayand age and that used to be the
norm, like an editor would lookfor someone who had this cool
story idea but was kind of rougharound the edges and would help
shape them and shape theircareer, and that is completely
lost in traditional publishing.
Speaker 3 (46:07):
But I think it's making a comeback.
Speaker 1 (46:09):
Yeah, the full circle thing.
Speaker 3 (46:11):
Yeah, I think part of the reason it was lost is
because they started outsourcingthat sort of thing to the
agents, and so agents became thefirst reader and it became the
gateway.
Nothing against agents, I mean,I like my agent, hi, my agent
Hi.
But there's also the problem ofthat's one more layer between
(46:32):
the writer and the people whoare actually the decision makers
, right, but I'm starting to seecoincidentally, I've been in a
conversation, I'm going inconversation, with somebody who
is talking about this very thing, with somebody who is talking
about this very thing they havea traditional-oriented
publishing arm now and they wantacquiring editors, they want
(46:55):
people to go out and find andthen nurture these writers in
their way, like this is our kindof story, so here's how you do
it, and they want these editorsto guide these writers through
that.
When I heard that, I'm likethat's, that's where we are,
(47:16):
that's that's the artisan age ina kind of nutshell, is that we,
we have come full circlebecause you know we got it's so
hard and I'm fumbling a little,but I mean that it's so hard and
I'm fumbling a little, but Imean it's so hard because it's
we go through this in everyaspect of culture where we get
to a point where it's like, okay, we have this machine now that
(47:38):
can do everything for us.
Let's talk about cured coffee.
I can pop a pot into a curedcoffee maker and I can get a cup
of java right, but it's not.
That's fine if I'm in a hurryand I don't have time to brew
something, but it's never goingto match the quality of like my
French press.
Or going to you know, anartisan coffee house where
(48:02):
somebody's lovingly craft, youknow fresh ground coffee and
crafted this latte with like apicture of you know roosevelt or
something on it.
You know, I mean, I, I can't dothat in a keurig yet, maybe
someday.
But there's two differentexperiences, right, and there's
two different reasons to pursuethose experiences, and that's
(48:22):
where I think that we are.
I think the reader is going tostart feeling this too.
The reader always trails thewriter on this kind of stuff for
for a while.
But, um, I'm already seeinglike the viewing public is tired
of the same direct.
Yeah, they're, they're tired ofit.
And and maybe I'm wrong maybethe writer trails the reader in
(48:43):
that respect, maybe maybethere's already a shift
happening.
I'm only just becoming aware ofit.
I'm kind of dense.
Speaker 1 (48:50):
Well, I mean, no, you are not, but I think it could
be a cumulative effect.
You know, writers, we are alsoreaders and we are also watchers
.
Right, and it's true.
I mean, if I see one morestupid TV series, that I can
predict absolutely everythingthat is going to happen.
(49:10):
In the first five minutes ofevery episode, I can tell you
who killed who, why they killedhim and how they killed him,
before they even introduce thekiller.
You know, and it's a come on,guys, we got to get a little bit
more, and then things will comeout that just have even the
slightest bit of uniqueness tothem, and everybody is talking
(49:32):
about it with enthusiasm becauseit's like, well, this is
different.
You know, it might not even begreat, it's just different, it's
awesome.
Speaker 3 (49:41):
Yeah, it's like we're hungry for something better.
We're so hungry for it that itdoesn't actually have to be
better, it just has to bedifferent.
Speaker 2 (49:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, on that note, we arecoming up on time, so, once
again, I think we're just goingto have to have you back to the
show.
Speaker 3 (50:02):
Anytime, anytime.
I'll try to make sure my Wi-Fiis in better shape Next time.
Speaker 2 (50:08):
I think we can make it all work, so I think it'll
come out great.
But do you have any links youwant to share Any places?
Where can we find you All thatgood wrap up stuff?
Speaker 3 (50:18):
You know, what would be good is if people would go to
my Substack, which I haven'tbeen promoting as much.
But if you go to it'skevintumlinsonsubstackcom and,
uh, you know, I have a link tothat on my website as well, at
kevin tumlinsoncom.
But if you go there, like,there's a free subscription,
there's also a paid subscription, uh.
(50:39):
But that's where I'm startingto kind of I'm experimenting,
that's where my artisan isshowing, I'm showing my art yeah
, yeah, it's a great sub stack.
Speaker 2 (50:48):
I've subscribed, uh, so I you know you have a whole
post on your artisan age conceptand I'm that's really resonated
with with me and with greta, so, um, so, thank you for sharing
your artisan on sub stack.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
It's fabulous no, I, I love this conversation because
I'm just going to throw my twocents in before I let you throw
your final two cents in.
And I love it because I think alot of us when I say us, I mean
writers in general have beenvery afraid what you mentioned
(51:31):
before.
There's fear has been driving alot of things with the AI and
the people who are uploadinghundreds, if not thousands, of
books a day.
It's a little terrifying.
You need to feel like you'regoing to be replaced by a
machine and you know, thisconversation has definitely
given me hope that we can forgea whole brave new artisan world.
Guys, come on, let's do ittogether.
(51:53):
So I definitely love thisconversation.
So your final thoughts, kevin,and I'll shut up my final
thoughts.
Speaker 3 (52:04):
Was I supposed to prepare something?
I?
I'm sorry, no, you just get tosay goodbye.
Well, first I want to thankboth of you, because this is the
second time I've been on theshow.
I've loved both times.
This is a topic, this ArtisanAge idea is something that I'm
(52:25):
very passionate about, andmostly because this is good for
readers, it's good for thewriting community, and that's
been a big part of my life andcareer is making sure that.
You know I'm involved in thethings.
Somehow, somehow, I foundmyself yet again at this
crossroads of an evolution inthe writing world and I am
(52:46):
really excited to see what comesnext.
Speaker 1 (52:48):
Great final thought.
So for those of you who've beenlistening to this whole thing
and maybe your brains are fryingor circling or whatever they're
doing we have a free course.
This is one of the ways Meganand I give back to the writing
community.
And just hop on over toauthorwheelcom and you'll see
(53:09):
our free course and it's calledSeven Days to Clarity and it's
all about defining yourself as awriter, what you're trying to
do, creating an author missionstatement and then maybe even
taking that mission statementand turning it into a tagline.
So I really think it's veryappropriate material after
(53:31):
listening to this conversation.
So go on over and grab it anduntil next time, keep your
stories rolling.
Hi everyone and welcome to the Author Wheel
podcast.
I'm Greta Boras, usa Todaybestselling mystery thriller
author.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
And I'm Megan Haskell , award-winning fantasy
adventure author.
Together we are the AuthorWheel.
Today's episode might be myfavorite of the season so far.
Kevin Tomlinson joins us for asecond interview, this time all
about what he's coined as theartisan age.
It's a transition from thefast-paced churn of the rapid
(00:28):
release author model to a slower, more intentional, multifaceted
and yes, more complexexperience-based craft model for
long-term author sustainability.
Okay, I realize that was amouthful, but honestly, this one
touches a personal interest ofmine and also kind of a core
(00:50):
motivation for me, and I'llleave it there for now.
But trust me, you don't want tomiss this interview.
So before we dive into that,greta, what's your news this
week?
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Well, I do want to say I love this interview with
Kevin as well.
It really gives you a lot tothink about and a lot of
direction.
But yes, I will hush up on thatbecause readers, or readers,
listeners are probably going OK,stop talking, ladies, and let's
get to the interview.
So my big goal this week isjust it's super, just get ready.
(01:26):
We're taking a trip up thecoast to Morro Bay this weekend
and it's kind of been a longtime in coming.
So I'm very excited to just getaway for four or five days and
some R&R.
We'll go wine tasting andwalking on the beach, We'll go
see the sea lions and all thatkind of stuff.
It's just going to be very fun.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Yeah, Central coast is so beautiful.
It's one of my favoritefavorite road trip weekends.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
Yeah, I feel like it's kind of like going to the
South of France or or you know,parts of Italy and it's right
here, so close to us.
It's just, it's really lovelyand just so I feel like a good,
responsible citizen.
I am going to take the fourthbook in what was my seven
deadlies to read while I'm gone,because books one through three
(02:13):
have been turned in so I got tostart on the next.
But I'm just going to enjoysome reading.
I'm not going to be likeworking, working.
So what are you up to?
Speaker 2 (02:24):
So for me, it is all about Kickstarter this week.
As of about an hour beforewe're recording this intro, I
actually hit the green launchbutton on the Kickstarter
campaign, and so the wheels areturning.
Yeah, it's really incrediblehow distracting a launch any
(02:45):
launch, not just Kickstarter,but any book launch, um can
really be, because I, you, Iobsessively hit that refresh
button and I have to tell myselfto just walk away.
I know so much easier said thandone, um, but luckily I have
plenty of other responsibilitiesand distractions.
This week as well, I'm tackling, you know, a lot of the kind of
(03:07):
ticky tack things that I'vebeen putting off for weeks or
even months.
So you know things like movingour seven days course to the
website instead of being anemail, working on my direct
sales website as well.
So I've got some likeadministrative things to take
care of.
And then, of course, I'm alsostill working on Aetherburned
(03:28):
and it's it's coming alongnicely.
I'm I'm gone back to thebeginning and I'm kind of doing
some first half edits to cleanup some of the character
motivations and staging, to makesure everybody's in the right
place and it all makes sense allthe way through before I head
into act three.
But I am still hoping to have asolid draft finished before
(03:49):
heading out on vacation in June.
Well, that's wonderful, yeah,yeah.
So that's it for me for now,but don't forget to subscribe to
the podcast.
Please post a review if youlove it and share your favorite
episode with a writer friend,because we don't advertise, so
word of mouth is how we get theword out.
(04:12):
That's it, anyway.
That's it for now.
So let's dive into the artisanage with Kevin Tomlinson.
We are so excited to have himback on the show.
But if you follow the podcast,you know that we interviewed
Kevin for our first episode of2024.
And it was such a greatconversation and Kevin is such
(04:32):
an interesting guy.
We couldn't cover everythingthat we wanted to talk to him
about in one show, so we broughthim back on for part two.
But a quick reminder in caseyou need his bio again Kevin
Tomlinson is an award-winningand best-selling author of
hundreds of books crafted tothrill and inspire.
He recently left the role ofCEO for BookSweeps and is now
(04:56):
helping to inspire writers asthe industry seems to be
shifting from a rapid releasemodel to what Kevin has coined
the artisan age.
Kevin is known as the voice ofindie publishing, for his work
in podcasts, conferences, publicspeaking and consulting for
authors.
Every day, he helps andencourages hundreds of thousands
(05:17):
of will-be and establishedauthors around the globe.
Welcome, kevin, we're excitedto have you here again.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
I'm so happy to be back.
Yay, Thank you for yeah, therewas every reason to not bring me
back and you guys brought meback.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
No, there's every reason to bring you back.
Yeah, quite the opposite.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
We are so interested in all of the things that you've
been doing.
So, which brings me to thefirst question, because it was
only a couple of months ago youwere on, and there have been a
lot of changes in your lifesince then.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
So why don't you share as much?
As you want to share all thenew things.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Not just changes in my life.
I mean, there's changeshappening in our, in our
industry that are prompting, Idon't know.
There's a, there's a dynamicshift happening for sure.
But yeah, and on a personalfront, I mean, yeah, I, so I, as
of a couple about a week or soago, as of the recording of this
episode, uh, I officially havestepped down as the ceo of book
(06:23):
sweeps and and you guys can askme whatever you want about that,
it's all everything's on the upthere.
But in addition to that, I alsoI've been doing the Author
Nation podcast with Joe Solari,who's taken over the well, it's
the State of the Nation fromAuthor Nation, I think is the
(06:43):
name of the Nation, from AuthorNation, I think is the name of
the podcast.
But Joe Solari, as some mayknow, has taken over what was
formerly the 20 Books to 50Kconference in Vegas and has
rebranded that as Author Nationand I think that is going to be
like right on the leading edgeof some of the evolution of this
(07:07):
industry.
So I'm kind of proud to be apart of that as well.
But yeah, those are kind of thetwo biggies, yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Yeah, Well, so the Author Nation conference.
Actually, this was not on ourlist of topics today, but you
know what we're going to talkabout it.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
We're just flowing with it today.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
But I am very excited about the changes that are
happening within that conferenceas well.
I actually went to 20 Books in,I think, their second year and
it was a great show, greatconference, lots of great people
.
But it had a very set mindsetof what it meant to be a
professional author, indieauthor, and I feel like that's
(07:53):
shifting.
And I feel like you're right,author Nation, as the changeover
for that conference has beenshifting its mindset, it seems
to be a little bit more open, alittle bit more inclusive of all
kinds of writers, whatevertheir goals, motivations,
purposes, methodologies,productivity levels, et cetera,
et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Yeah, I mean you, you mentioned when you were reading
my bio and, by the way, shewrote the bio.
So you mentioned that there'sthis shift happening from rapid
release, what we call the rapidrelease, to what I'm calling the
artisan age, and others havecoined their own terms for this.
(08:34):
It is a zeitgeist kind of thinghappening right now in the
business.
It's what's prompting peoplelike you know, joanna Penn and
others, to kind of shift the waythey're doing business.
But that conference, the 20Books conference, was really
focused on the whole rapidrelease model and you know the
(08:55):
20 Books to 50K group.
That's kind of part of thepremise of that.
You know, not to speak out ofturn I mean I'm not officially
connected with those guys oranything but in conversations
I've had with Michael Angeli andothers, that's kind of the
direction there.
But what I'm seeing, what a lotof us are seeing, is the rapid
(09:17):
release model is starting tokind of lose some of its luster
as things like AI start toemerge.
The AI-written books havereally changed the channel for
us and I don't see that stoppingor going away anytime soon.
But what it's done is opened anopportunity for a lot of us.
(09:38):
A lot of us have felt for atime, for a long time, that uh,
there's like this movementhappening, that there's this
transition and, um, there's ashift toward I hate to put it
this way, because this isn'tthis, there's context missing
here but it's a shift towardsquality.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
First, quality over quantity I'm going to interrupt
you there for a second, becauseI don't even necessarily think
it's quality of the story, butit's the quality of the
experience for the reader that'sthe context right there.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
That's, that's good context.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
I'm stealing that from you uh, when I write about
this next time, just give me alittle credit for it.
Speaker 3 (10:15):
That's all right, we're good, yeah, yeah that's
exactly what it is, though it'sthe we are.
We have, for a long while now,kind of given ourselves over to
this idea that we have to one wehave to write and release as
quickly as possible, becausethat's how you make the money,
and the money has alwaysdictated everything we've done.
I want to make it absolutelyclear.
(10:37):
There's absolutely nothingwrong with wanting to make a
living from your writing, thankgoodness, exactly See, I've
grown very fond of eating andit's just, it's kind of a habit,
but I I want to continue doingit.
Having a house over my headhaving, you know, being married,
because if I think, if I didn'thave an income, kara could do
(10:59):
better, frankly.
But I I've had for a long whilesort of stirring in my soul
because I am one of those.
You know, to a degree I'm arapid.
I have been a rapid releasewriter, meaning my version of it
was I was writing like a book amonth.
Sometimes I'd get crazy.
I have a book out there that Iwrote in one day oh my gosh that
(11:23):
book Evergreen.
We should talk about thatsometime.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
How can we be friends ?
I wrote the first draft of abook called Evergreen.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
60,000 words in an 18-hour window, oh my gosh.
And now I edited before Ireleased.
But that was my experiment,right?
But see, that was like for meat the time.
It was sort of a claim to famekind of thing.
I was known as being a veryfast and very skilled writer and
I kept pushing myself Well,fast forward.
(11:50):
A little like after a decade ofdoing that sort of thing, you
know, I reached a point where Iwas burnt out and just saturated
and just I lost all love forthis work, like I just I got to
a point where my soul washurting, you know, and there was
(12:12):
a good couple of years therewhere I've barely published
anything in the past couple ofyears because it just was hard
to face that page.
I've had things shift andhappen in my life though that
have rekindled that, and part ofthat is this artisan age idea,
which is slow down, slow thepace, have a better experience
(12:33):
with the writing, fall back inlove with the writing, and so it
is a quality thing to a degree,but it's also just sort of it's
hard.
It's the soul of this wholething that got me into this in
the first place, you know, whenI first started writing, I
wasn't concerned about whetheror not I was going to knock a
book out in 30 days, you know,in order to keep the money
(12:54):
coming or any of that stuff.
I was concerned about whetherit was going to be a good book.
And I think we're starting tosee the entire industry is
starting to kind of awaken tothis.
And what's happened, what'sgoing to happen as a consequence
of this, is now we have toreplace the idea of, you know,
income based on the number ofbooks we're releasing each year
(13:16):
with you know.
There's a gap here, right, likediscoverability and income.
There's a piece there thatsomeone is going to figure out
to help writers be able to pullback a little and deep, dive
into the creativity and theheart of it and still make that
living.
That's where we are now.
(13:37):
We're at that crossroads.
We have to figure that pieceout.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Yeah, it's.
That whole idea is veryinteresting because, um, I was,
you know, my first series istraditionally published and, um,
my publisher said to me, um, apart of the contract was that
she wanted a book like everyeight to 10 months.
(14:01):
Yeah, and I was like, whoa,eight to 10 months, that's
really fast.
So coming into this whole indiething and hearing people like
write a book a month, I'm likewhat are you crazy?
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Is she still looking for authors?
Speaker 1 (14:15):
Yeah, really.
Yeah, actually she probably is,but yeah, it just was this slow
.
So to me I do think like,technically, people who've been
writing a lot, they have a skillset and, yes, if somebody said,
write these characters, writethis scene, write this plot,
(14:47):
most of us who've been writingfor a trope that wouldn't
normally be in that story, orthose are the things that I
think move something to a moreartisan position, from just
adequate not adequate is thewrong word, but you know what
I'm trying to say.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
That's you're hitting on.
One of the concepts that I'mtrying to kind of get out there
is that what we've got right nowis most of our business is
centered around a formula.
You know, we know, if we do, ifwe, you know, call it tropes,
call it whatever you want.
But we know, if we do, if we,you know, call it tropes, call
it whatever you want.
But we know, if we insert thischaracter into this scenario,
(15:28):
scenario in this genre, theoutcome is going to be a book
that is probably marketable,right, and that's not a terrible
way to think of uh of things.
But if you look around at therest of the creative world and
the what we called ipintellectual property, um,
that's happening an awful loteverywhere right now and it's
(15:49):
it's I, I think it's all based,it's coming out of fear, because
look at uh film in particular,is is bad about this, um, and
I'm gonna pick on disney and themarvel cinematic universe,
right, I knew it, I I was goingto take a sick example.
Well, because they've gotten toa point where they're afraid to
do anything more original thanwhat they did in the first 10
(16:12):
years, right, Like they'rerehashing the same sorts of
stories.
It's, you know, lukewarm sequelsand terrible, you know,
original.
The original films aren't sooriginal anymore.
Publishers, the same way.
There's a reason why CliveCussler has been in his grave
for a few years now and stillreleasing books, Like there's
(16:32):
authors who are no longer amongthe living, that have, you know,
as prolific a career as theydid before they died, and that's
because the publishers, the bigfive in particular they're only
going for the safe bets.
They're only going for the safebets and they're only going for
the things that, like they onlywant to invest in bestsellers,
as if there's a way to do thatindefinitely and they're able to
(16:56):
do it temporarily.
But what I'm seeing is atranslation of that happening in
the indie author space, andpart of this is being fueled by
the rise of language learningmodels, the AI as we call it,
our version of AI, and the whole, you know, rapid production of
books.
The value of rapid release hasbeen dented, if not tarnished or
(17:24):
even obliterated, by the factthat you know there's people out
there publishing a thousandbooks a day generated by AI.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
That's not an exaggeration, by the way.
Yeah, Like when I leftDraft2Digital, that was one of
the problems that we were havingto figure out and solve was
what do we do about people whoare uploading a thousand books a
day?
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Oh my gosh, I did talk to somebody at 20 Books.
He wasn't writing a thousandbooks a day, but he said his AI
wrote a book for him while hewas driving to the conference,
edited the book for him.
While he was driving to theconference he had another IA AI.
(18:07):
Excuse me, I can't even get theinitials right.
That's how much.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
I like it.
Speaker 1 (18:11):
And had another one create like 20 covers and then
by the time he pulled into theparking lot at the hotel he
picked a cover and hit publish.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Right yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
I'm like, can I go and not talk to you anymore now?
Speaker 2 (18:29):
And I think that's the thing, though right, it's a
pendulum swing.
We had this race to the bottomwhere the initial rapid release
followers or authors who didthat, they had a skill in that
they could write very quicklyand their stories were good,
right, like they, they I'm, youknow, you, you included, I guess
you know, at a book a month.
(18:50):
I'm going to call that rapidrelease as well, but it's that
doesn't take away at allnecessarily from the quality of
the book.
But it became this race to thebottom where who could write the
fastest, publish the cheapest,get it up there, get readers for
volume rather than for price orquality.
Like you know, talking tobusiness, business metrics,
(19:11):
you're looking for that nicelittle intersection between
between price and volume, supplyand demand.
But now, with AI, that bottomis there is no bottom anymore,
like there isn't.
So how do we, as authors, Iguess, tell readers the value of
our books and the fact that youknow we are putting more
(19:34):
emotion, soul, yeah, thoughtdepth, complexity, whatever,
into these stories that were notai, other than just saying this
is not an ai written book like?
Speaker 3 (19:43):
which, the way I'm planning to start putting you
know, 100% human, written in mybook description.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
I love that.
Yeah, I'm going to do that too.
Speaker 3 (19:54):
The first thing I want to say here is as much as
we I don't want to come down toohard on the rapid release model
, because as much as we mightding it and say you know,
quality suffers or something,that's not always the case first
of all, no it's not, there'sbeen some wonderfully good
stories come out of that modeland you know it is kind of it's
(20:17):
a.
Eventually you sort of trainyourself to be a really good
storyteller at a rapid clipthat's.
We borrowed a lot from the PulpFiction era.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
That's what I was just going to say.
The penny dreadfuls.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
Right, and it's great practice as a writer If you can
produce that many words thatquickly.
The faster you go, the morestory you write, the better
storyteller you become.
It's great practice, right?
So yeah, I'm not knocking thehumans that do it.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Right, well, and even the AI.
So the thing I want to makeclear is, whether we like it or
not, there is a market for thosebooks, yeah right, if there
wasn't, they wouldn't exist.
And with the reader who iswilling to like, they have this
insatiable hunger for, you know,they don't care.
They're the ones that are veryforgiving of grammar and typos,
(21:03):
things like that, and, frankly,the AIs are going to produce a
lot cleaner work than theauthors who were rapid releasing
, so these readers are probablygoing to be satisfied.
That's not my reader.
That's the phrase that we allneed to be, you know, keep right
on our lips.
That's not my readernecessarily.
(21:25):
All need to be, you know, keepright on our lips.
That's not my readernecessarily.
I mean, those readers can readmy stuff too, but that's not the
, that's not the ideal readerthat I'm aiming for.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Not your target audience.
Speaker 3 (21:33):
Right, yeah, right, and so I think what we're going
to find is well.
First of all, if you'll notice,Amazon, Apple and others,
they're not denying these books.
They're not.
They're not saying we won'ttake these books.
In fact, Amazon is actuallyasking if you'll go ahead and
identify that it is AI.
The only reason I can think ofto do that is there's two
(21:56):
possibilities.
One, they're going to ban AIaltogether, and that's probably
their back pocket, in case thegovernment comes down on that or
something.
But two, and much more likelyto me, is it's going to become
its own separate category onAmazon.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
So that if I just want to read as many sci-fi
books as I possibly can, I canmaybe pay one price and download
as many AI you know narrated orgenerated books and narrated as
I want or as I can handle.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
So yeah, and that I think that would be great.
Yeah, honestly, yeah, becausethere are a lot of people who
are not going to want thosebooks.
Right, and there are people whoare going to want them.
But because one of my fears andmaybe it's a misguided fear,
but one of my fears in this isthat often readers don't.
(22:47):
They don't really know whatit's like a reader, doesn't know
who a publisher is.
Right, they're not like somereaders if they're librarians or
they're something like that,but most people don't pick up a
book and go oh it's great it waspublished by-.
Speaker 3 (23:04):
Did you read the latest Random House book?
Oh man, oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
Hachette has really been on it.
They don't know, they like anauthor, that's what they know.
So if they can't tell, becauseI've had people complain to me
to say, you know, the wholeindie community got jumped like
thrown into one bundle becausesomebody would read indie books
(23:31):
that were not professionallydone, right, you know, they
didn't use editors, they werefull of, and so then the whole
indie world got put into one bigbundle and it was like, well,
we don't read them, right,because those are not
professional books.
And I've had that said to me byreaders, you know.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
Yeah, me too.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Um.
So my fear has been with thisAI thing is that there are going
to be some readers who aregoing to pick them up and not
know that they're AI.
They'll just think they'reindie books and they're going to
feel.
What I've got to believe is inthere, with a lot of these books
(24:10):
, that it is missing a humancomponent and they might not be
able to put their finger on it,because grammar is okay,
punctuation is okay, it'sfollowing, you know the story
structure adequately, thepiecings, because all those
things a computer can do, yeah,but it's missing something.
It's missing the salt in therecipe.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
And I think that is what's going to slowly tune
those readers to go look for,you know, something a little
different, something a littlebetter.
The hard part for us is goingto be the discoverability side
of this right.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
But someone's going to figure that out and you know
I'm working with some folks.
I'm hoping I can maybe helpfigure that out.
There's a lot of there'sopportunity here.
Just like anytime there's anysort of tectonic shift in the
industry, it opens up a wholebunch of new opportunities.
Some of these are the sameproblems we've always faced, but
we've got new resources now andwe've got new incentive to
(25:14):
figure this out.
But I think what's going tohappen is like I genuinely think
that Amazon and others aregoing to differentiate AI
content from human writtencontent and what that's going to
do is satisfy the reader whocan't get enough.
You know, all my career I've hadto deal with the reader who
(25:35):
read my entire catalog in oneweekend.
Yeah, and yeah, once more, um.
But in the meantime, um, it'sgoing to open up opportunities
for the authors who are kind oftaking their time, slowing their
pace, and there is thepotential that they'll build
bigger, stronger audiencesbecause of this, which means
(25:56):
fewer books have to be, you know, released each year, because
the goal here would be like sellmore of a book instead of
writing more books.
We've always compensated forlow sales by producing higher
quality and higher content, andnow we're kind of getting to an
era where I think we'll have tofigure it out, but I think we're
(26:18):
getting to an era where we'regoing to flip that script, yeah,
and we're going to startconcentrating on you know, I
know lots and lots of authorshave confided in me that, like I
didn't get into this businessto write a book a month, I want
to do my book a year and then go, you know, spend the rest of
the year on my custom catamaranor my, you know, my imported
(26:39):
castle, yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
Yeah, well, it's, it's interesting.
So I have this.
I have this analogy or metaphorthat I, that I've been sharing
around a bit and I'll share ithere too, is that I think the
way I see the future of ourindustry is quite a bit like
like, quite honestly, a cocktail, right?
Because if you want to go havea drink, you can go to the
grocery store and you can getthe off the shelf pre-mixed
(27:03):
margarita.
You can take it home and youcan watch a movie and eat chips
and salsa while drinking yourmargarita.
That's one kind of experience.
And then there's, on the fullopposite end of the spectrum,
right, there's the very bougie,you know craftsperson bar where
you go in and the bartender'sgot the waxed mustache and he's
(27:24):
going to just fix you up thisperfect, handcrafted, all
natural, all you know handmadesyrups and all that stuff, and
it's going to be this beautifulconcoction that he's going to
present to you.
And it's about that experienceof going to the bar and being
with that bartender and beingwith that in that environment.
And then there's the dive bar,and then there's the corner pub
(27:47):
and then there's all these otherthings, right, everything in
between.
If you want to drink, you canchoose your experience, and I
think that's what readers aregoing to want to do and going to
be able to start to self-sortinto those kinds of experiences.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
Experience is king.
That's exactly the right idea,and I think what we're coming to
is the dawn of an era where thepiece we have to figure out is
how do we signal to the readerthe sort of experience that they
will have, and do it in areliable, you know, authentic
(28:23):
way, because some readers aregoing to want that art and
experience all the time andexperience all the time they're
going to want that.
You know there's readers wholove to read literary fiction,
who would turn their nose up atgenre fiction, right.
And then there's readers whoonly want to read genre fiction,
and they thought of reading,like you know, I don't know a
(28:45):
heartbreaking work, a staggeringgenius makes them want to gouge
their brain out right.
And so we have to recognizefirst who are we.
This is what's brilliant aboutthis, by the way.
This is the thing that's reallykind of resonating with me and
the whole artisan age.
You know, the artisanexperience can can go from
(29:08):
writing genre fiction to writingliterary fiction.
It can be anything in there,because it's all about the
experience and equally all aboutour expression of ourselves as
writers.
You know, I wrote genre fictionfor most of my career and I have
, as of the past couple of years, I've been shifting quite a bit
(29:29):
towards something that's a bitmore literary.
I'm probably still always goingto write a little bit of genre
stuff, but I'm discovering aboutmyself that there's more to me
than you know, dan Kotler, oryou know any sci-fi stuff I've
written.
There's more to me than that,and I think writers are starting
to kind of discover this aboutthemselves, and I think we're
(29:50):
finally entering an age wherethe indie author will have the
opportunity to lean in on thatand tailor these experiences
that readers will then be ableto kind of pick and choose the
experience they want to have.
I think it's coming.
I wish it were already.
You know I wish there wasalready a button to push, you
know, to import my book intoVellum and push the artisan
(30:11):
button.
And you know I wish there wasalready a button to push, you
know, to import my book intoVellum and push the artisan
button and you know, spit it out, but it's not there yet.
But I absolutely believe we'reclosing in on that as a concept.
That's where, by the way, thewhole direct sales thing that's
happening, that zeitgeist that'shappening, that's born of this.
(30:33):
Yeah, the idea that I'mproducing a book that's going
directly to the reader and I getto make more money for that.
Well, there's still thatdiscoverability problem, right.
Like you know, Joanna Penn, Ilove her, Joe hi but you know
she's got an audience Right andif she wants to sell direct, she
doesn't have to work as hard'sgot an audience Right and if she
wants to sell direct, shedoesn't have to work as hard to
(30:54):
get an audience.
She just advertises to herexisting audience.
I can do the same, but whatabout the kid coming in who just
wrote one book?
Speaker 1 (31:07):
You know he can't sell direct.
Well, I think there's right.
There's a couple of things Also.
Kickstarter is another one ofthose things that is in the same
category.
And again, people who havereally big audience and a really
big mailing list and a fan basesure they put up a Kickstarter
book and bing bang an audiencethat skews older and they're
like what the heck is thisKickstarter thing?
(31:38):
I'm not putting my credit cardon some other online thing.
You know what I mean.
They're just training people.
There is a big.
There are definitely hurdlesthat have to be jumped in this
process.
And then the other one thatstruck me after I read your
article was okay, how do I knowif I can call myself artisan?
(32:01):
Like you know, we tend to thinkthat we're better than not
everybody, but some people thinkthey're better than they are
and so it's like are we?
I mean, I could very much see avery novice new writer whose
books maybe are not quite thequality that they will be if
(32:21):
they keep writing for 10 yearsthinking that they're all that
in a bag of chips and trying tostart some.
I am an artisan.
Come to my website.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
I'm doing a.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
Kickstarter and then being very discouraged because
people are like, wait, what?
Why am I paying money, extramoney for your book?
Like what?
Yeah, yeah.
So there's that hurdle too, asknow thyself, and are you
positioned yet to be able tomake that leap into some of
these things?
So how give us your wisdom onthis?
Speaker 2 (32:54):
Well, I'm going to answer because I got things Okay
, Megan.
Speaker 1 (32:57):
Okay, megan, you go ahead.
No, I was going to say,eventually I'm going to hear
Kevin's yes, absolutely no.
Speaker 2 (33:03):
So a couple of things I think.
So, number one, on your pointabout the size of your audience.
I think, if you look at it,though, the difference is is the
number of people that you haveto find that are willing to pay
that premium.
Um, that can be a much smalleraudience.
Yes, then yes the, if you'rejust going the, what I'll call
(33:23):
the more traditional, but Idon't mean that in traditional
publishing sense, but more thetraditional indie, sure, where,
where you, you know you youpublish ebooks.
First you do all the newsletterswaps, all the mailers, you know
builders, all that stuff sothat you can get thousands of
(33:44):
potential readers to buy your$2.99 book.
Instead you're saying, okay, Ineed 100 readers to buy my $25
book, or whatever the math worksout.
I can't do mental math.
So, number one, I think theaudience that you need to find
to support your work ispotentially a lot smaller.
(34:04):
But also, I think once you knowwe have to learn patience right
, and I think this is notnecessarily a skill that works
for the modern age right now,but I think that if you can be
(34:25):
patient and understand that,yeah, you're not going to
probably be a bestseller offyour first book, but by book 10,
you know you can find thataudience or something like that
Then I think we can learn that.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
On the question of patience, let's talk about that
for a second, because that'sdefinitely something we all need
.
It's definitely something Idon't have, and it's something
that can only develop afteryou've been smacked around by
the mackerel that is thisbusiness for a while.
You know, when I first started,I was very by the way.
(34:59):
I think this is where rapidrelease was born was the idea
that I don't have time to put intwo years, three years, 10
years in order to see a returnon all this hard work I'm doing.
I need my books to make moneynow, and so I think that that is
one of the things.
That's a piece that's at theheart of how rapid release
(35:22):
evolved was.
If I write the book and I canget it out for sale and just get
a handful of people to buy it,I'm making money.
So that's that's part of it.
Handful of people to buy it,I'm making money, so that's
that's part of it.
The you know the idea of youknow the skill like learning.
You know how do you know you'regood enough or how do you know
that you've got artisan levelskill.
(35:42):
You may not know that and youmay not have it.
I think there's probably anadvantage to a lot of writers,
sort of acting as if this iswhat I did.
I'm going to be frank with you.
I came into this game and saidyou know what?
I'm just going to behave as ifI'm already a very successful
professional in this work.
(36:03):
Now, when I started all this,the first things I concentrated
on were you know, I didconcentrate on editing, though
not as much as I should have inthose early days, but I
concentrated on.
You know I want concentrate onediting, though not as much as I
should have in those early days, but I concentrated on.
You know I want a professionallooking cover.
I want, you know, theformatting to look great.
I want the book to be seamlesswhen it, when it's sitting next
to you know, something publishedby Random House or Hashhead or
(36:26):
someone else.
I want that book to look justlike those books.
The best compliment a goodfriend of mine ever gave me was
this looks just like a real book.
And that was it for me.
But I did the whole act as ifNow, sales didn't reflect my
attitude for a long while, butbecause I kept coming back to it
, I didn't give up on it.
(36:47):
I kept coming back saying, okay, I got a lot of feedback, a lot
of negative reviews for thatlast book because I, you know,
didn't edit, so I'd better editmore, or you know something like
that.
I used my experience to learnand grow and improve and
eventually I hit what I believeis that artisan level, and I
(37:09):
think that's going to happen fora lot of the young bucks, the
newcomers, as they're kind ofcoming into this.
If you can just, you know, finda standard and then make sure
you're hitting that standard,you will eventually improve and
you will eventually become thatartisan writer that we're
(37:29):
talking about writer that thatwe're talking about and I and I
think I think kind of to topivot off that a little bit too
you were listening to yourreaders, right.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
So so, yes, you acted as if and you tried to put out
the most professional book youcould.
I think all of that should bestandard practice for for new
authors.
Um, and then you listen toreaders, because the readers are
going to tell you whether ornot they think your book is high
quality, whether they'rewilling to to go back your
(38:00):
Kickstarter for the hardcover ornot.
Yeah you're gonna.
You're gonna learn that fromyour audience.
So the key is to start out,first of all, have the
understanding that you'reprobably not going to knock it
out of the park on book one,probably not book two or even
book three.
Right, you're, it's going totake time.
So if you start with thatattitude and then listen to the
(38:22):
readers, you can.
You can find your place andfind that audience that you need
.
Speaker 3 (38:28):
And to your point as well about you know you don't
need to sell as many copies,right?
That's a huge advantage thatthe indie author scene has over
traditional publishing, right?
Don't just sweep that under therug.
If I sell, you know, I actuallyI'm writing something that's
aimed at being a traditionalbook right now and it's there's
(38:53):
a little bit of a war between aself-published author and a
traditionally published authorand there's a comment that she
makes.
The indie author makes at onepoint that you know, I could
sell a third of the titles thatyou sold and buy a small island.
You know, and I think that's avery good way to look at it Like
(39:14):
, especially as we do, we startleaning in on things like direct
sale.
I mean, if you think aboutdirect sale, your overhead for
that sale tends to only be thecredit card processing fees or
something.
Right, 3% generally.
Right, so you're making like a90% royalty on that book.
You know, where are you goingto get that?
(39:34):
Anywhere else?
Nowhere, yeah, yeah, you know,on my traditional contracts I
was earning maybe 3% on the highside for any books I sold, and
that was only after I made backthe advance.
So you know, there's somethingthere that we need to keep in
mind as we enter the artisan ageis it takes less to be
(39:58):
successful.
That's a concept we have a lotof trouble with.
It takes less of our time,takes less of our energy.
It takes fewer sales, like wecan do less and maybe even be
more successful.
And I think it's all kind ofcoming down to like, where's our
focus going to be?
What are we that aim to?
(40:20):
Produce the most professionalbook, the most creative thing
possible, do the most unique?
Then me churning out a hundredmore archaeological thrillers
that are based on the formulathat I've discovered?
Uh, what if the next book has,maybe, elements of that stuff?
But I took, you know, an extrasix months to a year to do
(40:42):
something, to really dig in anddo something extra creative with
it.
You know something that that noone else has done, or something
that no one else is willing toeven try?
Yeah, and that's where, again,indie publishers have a big
advantage over traditional thatno one else has done or
something that no one else iswilling to even try.
And that's where, again, indiepublishers have a big advantage
over traditional in that arena.
Because if I go to a publisherRandom House or otherwise say,
(41:05):
hey, I'm going to do this crazybook that you know it's just
going to be two people sittingat their mutual computers for
the first two thirds of the book, I'm going to get a big fat.
No, yeah, but I mean I say itwould never sell.
But you know, the market haschanged so much and there's so
many, like it's relatable, right.
Like if I've got two authorshaving a little bit of a feud
over social media, you know,maybe three or four years ago
(41:27):
that book wouldn't gain anytraction.
But at this point, like that's,we all went through three years
of sitting in front ofcomputers and that was our
interaction with the world,right.
So we're primed, like okay, Isee how that relationship I've
watched I forget how many indiefilms I watched over the course
(41:48):
of the pandemic years that wereeffectively shot on Zoom yeah, I
mean, we're ready for that kindof thing now.
We can be experimental to thatdegree now.
Speaker 1 (42:02):
Yeah, I also think that there's something to be
said for creatives whateverthey're doing whether it's art,
painting, you know, likephysical art or books, or music,
or whatever they're doing torecognize that getting the skill
level to where it needs to be,where people want to invest in
(42:24):
you, that just takes time andrepetition.
So I do think that that'ssomething that the rapid release
did for authors.
Yes, because if you write 50books, you're doing well, going
to be better, but you get to the50th book, then you were in the
first five, you know, I meanthat repetition.
It's like people who go to artschool.
(42:45):
You know they're painting overand over and over and over,
paintings that nobody's everexpected to purchase, or
musicians.
You know, you know, youpractice and practice and
practice.
Nobody's going to listen toyour early practice, right,
because it's bad I would argueeven that that's where genius
emerges.
Speaker 3 (43:04):
like you know what you've got musicians in
particular, you know they spenda lot of time just kind of
falling in love with theinstrument, with the.
You know the process of it andthey're so in love with it
they're willing to take risksand experiment, and the risks
are where genius emerges.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
Mm-hmm yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:23):
The rapid release model did encourage that.
One thing I think has beenmissing in a lot of respects is
you know, most of the time, ifyou have an industry like this,
there's a sort of mentor-menteerelationship where you have
someone you can turn to, who canguide you, and I think there's
an opening there as well as weshift, you know, into this new
(43:46):
model.
A lot of us who've been here fora while, who were successful,
like I, spend a lot of my timetalking to other authors.
You know, I mean that 100,000author thing in my bio, that's
true.
Over the course of a year,either through podcasts or, you
know, public speaking and someof the one-on-one stuff, like
(44:07):
thousands and thousands ofauthors pass by me and hear from
me and that's how I'm trying toget back to, you know, this
industry.
That reared me and I think, asmore of us kind of enter this
artisan mindset, that's going tobecome something that's
important to us, you know, islike how are we giving back and
(44:27):
shaping this?
Because the advantage ofhelping incoming authors reach
that artisan level is itencourages readers to look for
that level of quality and thatlevel of skill and to find it.
And because we're not rapidreleasing, we're not lost in the
wash.
Right, yeah, we want toencourage as many writers as
(44:49):
possible to come in and taketheir time and produce quality
books so that readers becomeaccustomed to that and start
looking for us and they can fillthe gap between my books.
Right, yeah, I write a book andthen a year later I write
another one and they can fill inthe void it's.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
It's to me in a way, it's kind of like going full
circle, that things come backagain, because my dad was a
publisher and an editor and Igrew up I mean he was mostly
magazines, but still, you know,he did edit some books and he
was involved with that and whenI first started writing fiction,
he just could not.
(45:27):
It was like well, your editor,your editor, is your mentor, you
need an editor.
It doesn't work like thatanymore.
Editors want your book editedso they don't have to do any
work.
Now I was lucky in my first fewbooks I did have an editor who
was also a college creativewriting professor and so she did
like mentor me.
(45:48):
But that is rare in this dayand age and that used to be the
norm, like an editor would lookfor someone who had this cool
story idea but was kind of rougharound the edges and would help
shape them and shape theircareer, and that is completely
lost in traditional publishing.
Speaker 3 (46:07):
But I think it's making a comeback.
Speaker 1 (46:09):
Yeah, the full circle thing.
Speaker 3 (46:11):
Yeah, I think part of the reason it was lost is
because they started outsourcingthat sort of thing to the
agents, and so agents became thefirst reader and it became the
gateway.
Nothing against agents, I mean,I like my agent, hi, my agent
Hi.
But there's also the problem ofthat's one more layer between
(46:32):
the writer and the people whoare actually the decision makers
, right, but I'm starting to seecoincidentally, I've been in a
conversation, I'm going inconversation, with somebody who
is talking about this very thing, with somebody who is talking
about this very thing they havea traditional-oriented
publishing arm now and they wantacquiring editors, they want
(46:55):
people to go out and find andthen nurture these writers in
their way, like this is our kindof story, so here's how you do
it, and they want these editorsto guide these writers through
that.
When I heard that, I'm likethat's, that's where we are,
(47:16):
that's that's the artisan age ina kind of nutshell, is that we,
we have come full circlebecause you know we got it's so
hard and I'm fumbling a little,but I mean that it's so hard and
I'm fumbling a little, but Imean it's so hard because it's
we go through this in everyaspect of culture where we get
to a point where it's like, okay, we have this machine now that
(47:38):
can do everything for us.
Let's talk about cured coffee.
I can pop a pot into a curedcoffee maker and I can get a cup
of java right, but it's not.
That's fine if I'm in a hurryand I don't have time to brew
something, but it's never goingto match the quality of like my
French press.
Or going to you know, anartisan coffee house where
(48:02):
somebody's lovingly craft, youknow fresh ground coffee and
crafted this latte with like apicture of you know roosevelt or
something on it.
You know, I mean, I, I can't dothat in a keurig yet, maybe
someday.
But there's two differentexperiences, right, and there's
two different reasons to pursuethose experiences, and that's
(48:22):
where I think that we are.
I think the reader is going tostart feeling this too.
The reader always trails thewriter on this kind of stuff for
for a while.
But, um, I'm already seeinglike the viewing public is tired
of the same direct.
Yeah, they're, they're tired ofit.
And and maybe I'm wrong maybethe writer trails the reader in
(48:43):
that respect, maybe maybethere's already a shift
happening.
I'm only just becoming aware ofit.
I'm kind of dense.
Speaker 1 (48:50):
Well, I mean, no, you are not, but I think it could
be a cumulative effect.
You know, writers, we are alsoreaders and we are also watchers
.
Right, and it's true.
I mean, if I see one morestupid TV series, that I can
predict absolutely everythingthat is going to happen.
(49:10):
In the first five minutes ofevery episode, I can tell you
who killed who, why they killedhim and how they killed him,
before they even introduce thekiller.
You know, and it's a come on,guys, we got to get a little bit
more, and then things will comeout that just have even the
slightest bit of uniqueness tothem, and everybody is talking
(49:32):
about it with enthusiasm becauseit's like, well, this is
different.
You know, it might not even begreat, it's just different, it's
awesome.
Speaker 3 (49:41):
Yeah, it's like we're hungry for something better.
We're so hungry for it that itdoesn't actually have to be
better, it just has to bedifferent.
Speaker 2 (49:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, on that note, we arecoming up on time, so, once
again, I think we're just goingto have to have you back to the
show.
Speaker 3 (50:02):
Anytime, anytime.
I'll try to make sure my Wi-Fiis in better shape Next time.
Speaker 2 (50:08):
I think we can make it all work, so I think it'll
come out great.
But do you have any links youwant to share Any places?
Where can we find you All thatgood wrap up stuff?
Speaker 3 (50:18):
You know, what would be good is if people would go to
my Substack, which I haven'tbeen promoting as much.
But if you go to it'skevintumlinsonsubstackcom and,
uh, you know, I have a link tothat on my website as well, at
kevin tumlinsoncom.
But if you go there, like,there's a free subscription,
there's also a paid subscription, uh.
(50:39):
But that's where I'm startingto kind of I'm experimenting,
that's where my artisan isshowing, I'm showing my art yeah
, yeah, it's a great sub stack.
Speaker 2 (50:48):
I've subscribed, uh, so I you know you have a whole
post on your artisan age conceptand I'm that's really resonated
with with me and with greta, so, um, so, thank you for sharing
your artisan on sub stack.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
It's fabulous no, I, I love this conversation because
I'm just going to throw my twocents in before I let you throw
your final two cents in.
And I love it because I think alot of us when I say us, I mean
writers in general have beenvery afraid what you mentioned
(51:31):
before.
There's fear has been driving alot of things with the AI and
the people who are uploadinghundreds, if not thousands, of
books a day.
It's a little terrifying.
You need to feel like you'regoing to be replaced by a
machine and you know, thisconversation has definitely
given me hope that we can forgea whole brave new artisan world.
Guys, come on, let's do ittogether.
(51:53):
So I definitely love thisconversation.
So your final thoughts, kevin,and I'll shut up my final
thoughts.
Speaker 3 (52:04):
Was I supposed to prepare something?
I?
I'm sorry, no, you just get tosay goodbye.
Well, first I want to thankboth of you, because this is the
second time I've been on theshow.
I've loved both times.
This is a topic, this ArtisanAge idea is something that I'm
(52:25):
very passionate about, andmostly because this is good for
readers, it's good for thewriting community, and that's
been a big part of my life andcareer is making sure that.
You know I'm involved in thethings.
Somehow, somehow, I foundmyself yet again at this
crossroads of an evolution inthe writing world and I am
(52:46):
really excited to see what comesnext.
Speaker 1 (52:48):
Great final thought.
So for those of you who've beenlistening to this whole thing
and maybe your brains are fryingor circling or whatever they're
doing we have a free course.
This is one of the ways Meganand I give back to the writing
community.
And just hop on over toauthorwheelcom and you'll see
(53:09):
our free course and it's calledSeven Days to Clarity and it's
all about defining yourself as awriter, what you're trying to
do, creating an author missionstatement and then maybe even
taking that mission statementand turning it into a tagline.
So I really think it's veryappropriate material after
(53:31):
listening to this conversation.
So go on over and grab it anduntil next time, keep your
stories rolling.
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