October 23, 2023 • 68 mins
Tired of the traditional 9 to 5 grind and yearn to ignite your creative spark?
You've heard today's guest before . . . on our intro! We're talking with our podcast producer, Jim Wilbourne about his journey into the writing and publishing world.
Fun fact: a lot of writers don't write full time. Arguably most. In fact, many "full-time authors" have multiple streams of income. Jim has taken his background in music into the author world to provide audio engineering and editing services for audiobooks and podcasts—like ours! This has allowed him to embrace his unique writing style and still fulfill his creative career dreams.
We talk about how he focuses on evergreen content that can be shared essentially forever, his multi-years' long email autoresponder, repackaging content into multiple media formats, and the power of niche-focused marketing.
Jim Wilbourne is a creative at heart. If he’s not writing a novel, he’s writing and recording a song, or once again trying to learn how to draw. When he’s not working on the next project, he spends his free time working on another project. He totally has a life. Jim lives in the deep south with his wife and son and doesn’t miss the snow at all.
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Jim Wilbourne
Fiction Website: www.jimwilbourne.com
Audio Services: www.emergentrealms.com
All the Stuff: https://linktr.ee/jimwilbourne
The Author Wheel:
Website: www.AuthorWheel.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorWheel
Greta Boris:
Website: www.GretaBoris.com
Facebook: @GretaBorisAuthor
Instagram: @GretaBoris
Megan Haskell:
Website: www.MeganHaskell.com
Facebook & Instagram: @MeganHaskellAuthor
TikTok: @AuthorMeganHaskell
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Have you ever struggled to explain to others exactly what you write? Or wondered which of the many fiction ideas running through your brain you should tackle? If so, The Author Wheel’s new mini-course might be your solution.
7 Days to Clarity: Uncover Your Author Purpose will help you uncover your core writing motivations, avoid shiny-thing syndrome, and create clear marketing language.
Each daily email will lead you step by step in defining your author brand, crafting a mission statement, and distilling that statement into a pithy tagline. And, best of all, it’s free.
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Transcript
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 Boris, usa TodayBestselling Mystery Thriller.
Author.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
And I'm Megan Haskell , award-winning fantasy
adventure author, and togetherwe are the Author Wheel.
So we are very excited.
Today we have a fantasticepisode because we are talking
with our podcast audio engineereditor.
I don't know what the actualtitle is.
We should probably ask him,oops.
Podcast producer, our podcastproducer yeah, that's probably
(00:30):
right Podcast producer JimWillward, and he was an amazing
guest, because one of the thingsthat we talked about and I
can't wait for you to hear thissection of the interview, but
was the idea of the side hustleand that not every author is a
full time author.
But they're still working.
(00:51):
They're still doing things inthe industry.
They're just doing it more as aside hustle with other streams
of income.
So really great conversation.
So stay tuned for that.
But first Greta, what's goingon?
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Well, I am really into playing the Facebook ads
these days, which is just likeI'm laughing at myself, because
it's something I've avoided fora very long time and been
terrified of, but I'm reallyhaving fun with them, so I made
a couple of images that lookreally Halloweeny which really
works good for the.
Mauritician series, because kindof a Halloweeny kind of a
(01:27):
series anyway, and one of thoseimages is actually doing pretty
well.
I'm going to double check on ittoday.
But we had a conversation witha future guest about learning to
like the marketing and see itas a creative outlet.
So I feel like I'm kind ofdoing that.
So that's really fun.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
I'm going to need you to teach me that stuff later.
I mean, I know you take theclass from Matthew Holmes, who
we had on the show, so if youhaven't listened to that episode
, guys, go out and listen to it.
It was fabulous and I'vethought about signing up for his
course.
I just haven't had the time todedicate to it yet.
But, that's something I got tolearn how to do.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Well, he has a new one coming out that is all about
selling your books direct.
Yeah, yeah so that willprobably be the one for you.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
For sure.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Yeah, so yeah.
And then on writing news, I'mstill on the home stretch of
splitting hairs.
I was really hoping that todayI'd be able to say I was done
with my first draft, but no, butI'm going to get that done
before a big family camping tripwhich is coming up and before
our trip to 20 books, to 50Kwhich is also coming up.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Which I am so excited about.
This is the first.
I mean, I went to 20 books fiveyears ago-ish, before COVID,
and had a great time, and so I'mexcited to be able to go back
again this year.
I'm starting to make more of aneffort to get out and do more
conferences and shows and thingslike that.
So for all our listeners, wewill be there, and I want to
(03:06):
make sure that you join theAuthorWheel Group on Facebook,
because we haven't figured outour schedule yet.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
No.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
We do not know.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
And honestly, folks, I cannot think about it until
I'm actually in Vegas.
We're going to be footloose infancy phrase oh man, oh man,
it's going to be a special week.
Yes, well, it's going to be fun.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
But yeah, so make sure you join the group.
I will put the link in the shownotes and that's where we will,
once we figure it out, post ourschedule and where we're going
to be, which bar or where we'regoing to meet up.
So if you'd like to come meetup and chat, we'll be around and
you can find out all thatinformation there.
(03:52):
And in the meantime, actually,if you are planning on going, go
to the group, post in the notes, say, hey, I'm going.
In fact, let's make a Greta,let's make a post for that, like
a comment post, just so that weknow who we should be looking
for, and yeah, and then you cancomment on there and say, hey,
I'm going to be there, and thenwe'll make sure we get
(04:12):
everything together.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Yeah, because we'd love to meet you guys.
Really really love to meet you.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
For sure.
It's nice to know we're nottalking into the void sometimes.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
I know.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Well, in my news, I only really have one other thing
to talk about, and that's thatI have been getting ready for
this week's special promo andI'm making Aetherbound free
through Sunday, october 29th.
So this is in advance ofHalloween and in advance of the
(04:46):
launch of book two titled AetherCross, which comes out
officially on all the platformsNovember 7th.
So if you're into a slightlyspooky contemporary fantasy, I
think you'll like this book.
It's actually it's got you knowdemons and it's got traveling
to the underworld and and andit's fun, it's got Tiki drinks
(05:08):
too.
So in fact, I like Can't beat.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
you can't beat the Tiki drinks.
I'm just saying Exactly exactly.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
And if you sign up for my list, I think well, there
, if you read the book you getlinks, you can sign up for my
list and you can download someof the recipes for the drinks.
Little little little secret,little secret Easter egg in
there.
But I do want to give thelittle pitch real quick and I
want to say that it's like SukiStackhouse meets Coyote Ugly and
(05:36):
a Laguna Beach Tiki Bar, butwith ancient gods and demons
instead of vampires.
And if you don't understandthose references, I don't know
if I can talk to you.
It might not be the series foryou If you don't might not be
the series for you I don't know,we'll see.
But you can grab it on yourfavorite digital bookstore or
direct from my website.
(05:56):
This week only for free,otherwise it's 499.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
There you go, there you go.
That's, that's wonderful.
So I guess we're moving on withthe show.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Yeah, let's get on with the show, and I am so
excited to have him on the show.
You guys are going to recognizehis smooth, dulcet tones, as
Greta says, because he isactually our sound engineer for
the podcast.
But I'll read his bio here realquick.
First, jim Wilborn is acreative at heart.
If he's not writing a novel,he's writing and recording a
(06:31):
song, or once again trying tolearn how to draw.
When he's not working on thenext project, he spends his free
time working on another project.
He totally has a life.
Jim lives in the deep Southwith his wife and son and does
not miss the snow at all.
So, jim, thank you so much forcoming on the show today.
We're excited to have you andactually have a little chat and
(06:53):
talk about all the things thatyou're doing.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Yeah, thank you for having me Of course, of course.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
So in your own words.
Why don't you tell us a littlebit more about yourself and how
you got into writing and whatyour journey has been like thus
far, thus far?
Speaker 3 (07:09):
So my journey is pretty generic.
I think you know I startedwriting when I was a lot younger
and stopped sometime in my lateteens and did something else
and then came back to it inadulthood and that's kind of the
short version.
The long version is more oflike I actually tried to self
(07:31):
publish my own book when I was11 or 12.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Oh my goodness, You're a prodigy.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
I wouldn't say prodigy, because that book was
awful.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
But I'm always prodigy Right.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
I've always been a DIY person.
You know, I've always wanted tobe the person who, if I could,
you know, do it myself, I woulddo it myself when it came to
creative projects.
So from there I moved intodoing a lot of like RPG work,
where I would email people backand forth, playing in a Star
(08:12):
Trek world where we wouldoperate a ship and we create
stories on the fly, kind of likea, like a D&D kind of thing.
But for Star Trek, which isreally love.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Oh, I love that, that's cool that's.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
I mean, that's unique , that's taking.
Like you said, you're going todo it your own way, right?
So?
Speaker 3 (08:33):
I got a lot of storytelling experience doing
that.
And after I finished that and Iwent to school, I went to
school for music, actually, andfrom there I did some light
touring and played in bands andas I got a little older I
(08:54):
thought you know, that wholewriting thing is still something
I really want to do and Istarted researching it and
trying to figure out how do Ibreak in to the industry.
And amongst all my research andfiguring out how to write and
everything at least well, thistime around I found out about
(09:15):
self publishing and it was gameover from there, because as soon
as I found out that people arejust publishing stuff onto
Kindle without a publisher, Iwas well, that's obviously what
I'm going to do.
I'm not going to submit toanything.
I would never waste my time onthat.
Maybe that's the hubris in me,but that just seemed like a very
(09:37):
natural fit for me.
So that's why I ended up beingan indie author instead of
trying to push for a trad deal.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
So Gotcha Well you know, it's an interesting thing
like listening to your bio.
First of all, I just want tomention that you and I have like
a surprising amount in common.
You we both lived inMassachusetts.
I'm also a musician.
I was raised by musicians.
It's like the thing I thought Iwas supposed to do.
And then segueing into booksand I also self published my
(10:08):
first book.
That was had a fabulous titleand there were good things about
it, but it's no longeravailable for purchase.
It's the wine and chocolateworkout.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
Yeah, I kind of want to read that.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Well, I got a couple copies.
I'll send you one, but but it'sinteresting how many creatives
have similar stories and the theidea about indie publishing,
like I like.
When you said you're sort of aDIY kind of person, I just
wonder, like, what is it thatmotivates us Like to do that,
(10:47):
like?
So Megan says it's becauseshe's a control freak what she
is a little bit.
I will.
I will go that For me.
I think the reason I did itinitially was because I'm just
impatient.
I don't want to wait for otherpeople until I did such a bad
job.
Then I went oh, I think maybe Ineed a publisher.
So then I did get a publisher.
(11:09):
But so what do you think thatcore motivation was that made
you go?
Oh, I will obviously do it thatway.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Um, I just, I don't know, I really don't know what
that is inside of me that makesme want to kind of I don't know,
I'm not good at being anemployee either Like I needed my
day job.
You know, I tried and plottedfor years to figure out how to
(11:39):
quit my day job and what can Ido, like what skills I need to
learn in order to Completelywork from home.
Like I just, I think, beingstuck in a system that I can't
turn or control, I mean, maybethat is it, it's, maybe it is
control, maybe it's just thatit's just your inner rebel.
(12:01):
Right, I want to be flexible.
I like to be able to turn onthe dime and try something new
and, you know, not be strictlybeholden to a certain way.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Can it be be have more agency in your life to more
freedom?
It's just interesting.
I it's like I threw thatquestion at you.
I'm sorry it wasn't on the listof questions, but you guys got
me thinking.
It's like what is it that?
Because now I'm really enjoyingin the publishing too, um, and
so it's just like interesting,what?
What is it that motivates usall?
(12:35):
But that's a maybe for aseparate podcast, though.
Um, so so.
But do tell us this what do youthink has been your greatest
roadblock to success, and andhow have you overcome it?
Are you still in the process ofovercoming it, or you know?
Give us some wisdom on that.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
So my biggest robot block to success is probably
speed.
I'm just a slow rider, um, andit's something that I feel that.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Yeah I, I'm just not very fast at all, Not at all,
not even a little bit fast.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
Um, you know, I, I write maybe 200 to 500 words a
day, maybe, um, and that's agood day for me.
You know, I, I put the wordsexactly where I want them.
I edit as I go and that's myday, um, and then I'm like wow,
that was, that was a whole lotof sentence crafting, you know,
(13:39):
because I don't, I do not writeand then go back and edit.
I mean, obviously I have tocopy, edit, but I, I say exactly
, I want to say it, exactly howI want to say it the first time
around, because I kind of don'twant to edit it beyond, like
commas and periods and you knowtypos.
Um, I kind of want to say itthe way I want to say it, and I
(14:01):
know that's not the mostefficient way to do it, but it
feels wrong to just leavesomething the way it is.
Um, and my brain just does notallow me to move forward without
having that in place.
Um, so in order to overcomethat, I've done several things.
Um, I've done several things.
(14:22):
First of all, I outline prettyextensively, because if I'm
doing that much editing whileI'm writing, I really need to
know where I'm going.
So I'm not also trying tofigure that out.
At the same time, I can kind ofjust craft each thing that I do
like it's and know thatwhatever I'm crafting is going
to fit in, and I don't have togo back and say, well, I have to
(14:45):
throw this all out now andoutside of that.
The other thing is that I justcreate more content that is not
directly the book and I thinkwhat it is is that I'm slow on
one particular project.
I kind of I need time and spaceto breathe on any individual
(15:09):
thing.
But if you give me threedifferent projects I can do, you
know, an hour on one thing, youknow two hours on another and
you know an hour or two onanother thing and not feel
exhausted at all.
I think it's jumping to adifferent bring space that helps
me stay.
You know creative.
So consequently, you know I doa lot of book reviews and I
(15:35):
write a lot of essays now andthat's kind of what keeps me,
kind of my little hack of alwayshaving something to show my
audience rather than just thenext book.
So that's.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
That's really interesting, and I think it's.
It's what's interesting too andI think this is a topic that
needs to be brought out more isthat everybody's brain works
differently, right.
So, so, yeah, like for a longtime it was, you got to write
fast, you got to put out, youknow, a book a month, or you got
maybe not, maybe that's alittle, even a little fast, but
(16:13):
some people were.
Or, you know, you got to, yougot to do this, you got to do
that thing, everybody's got todo the thing, but the got to do
the thing is actually not alwaysthe right thing for that person
and I so feel.
Exactly you know where you're atas far as, like, I don't
outline but I do write carefullyand cleanly so that usually
(16:38):
most of the time I don't have togo back and heavily edit the
story, you know, and that's kindof part of my process.
But but, yeah, being that slowwriter, you do have to find
other ways and switching things.
I mean, that's why part of thereason why I do the author wheel
as well, is because it's adifferent brain space than the
creativity of the story, whichis a different brain space than
(17:01):
the creativity of, for example,designing merch or coming up
with, you know, social mediaposts or other things too.
So like breaking up your dayinto chunks that you can use to
be moving lots of things forwardat different times is such a
great idea for some people.
(17:22):
For some people it won't work,but I, you know, I love that it
works for you and that you'vekind of figured out a process to
keep yourself rolling, as wesay.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
You know, what I don't think we've mentioned yet
is what genre do you?
Speaker 3 (17:37):
write Jim, I write epic fantasy, so I write epic
fantasy.
I dev edit epic fantasy forother writers and that's my
writing.
Portion of the day is eitherI'm writing for myself or I'm
debiting for another author.
I have a few other authors thatI work with and a lot of times
(18:00):
it's just, you know, getting ona call with them and just
working through, like you know,the scene.
It's missing some conflict.
You got to, you got to instillsome conflict in the scene, or,
you know, I'm stuck, I don'tknow what to do with these
characters.
Blah, blah, blah.
Well, let's go back and let'slook at, okay, where, where are
we in the last book?
(18:21):
Okay, let's look at thecharacter arc and where this is
this character need to go.
You know, and working throughthose things which actually I
feel like is one of my bigsuperpowers is even though I'm a
slow writer.
You know I do not run of ideaslike ever I can.
If somebody is like, oh, Idon't know what to do, it's like
well, have you tried this, haveyou tried this, have you tried
(18:41):
this, have you tried this?
And I can just rattle them off.
Usually, sometimes I'm having aslow day and it doesn't work
that way, but that's one of thethings that I love doing and
working with other people andfiguring out, you know, how to
move their story forward.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
So, so sorry, Greta.
Before before we move on or askthe next question, let's give a
quick definition for the newwriters, who maybe don't know
what dev editing is.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
Yes, developmental editing, I said dev editing,
like everybody is supposed toknow my own little bit, well it
just shows how cool you areright.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
Like, because you're just like cool phrases and stuff
, right.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
I'm a dev editor.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Oh, there you go.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
Yes, but developmental editing is also
sometimes called content editing.
It's basically an editor wholooks at the story or the
content of whatever is beingwritten and edits for the
content, rather than you knowsyntax or the actual copy of the
(19:47):
story.
So you know, you work oncharacter arc, you work on the
plot, plot holes, you knowthings like that.
You know the flow, the, youknow the.
You know the drive pacing.
So that is what the debt betterspaces rather than oh, you know
you spelt this wrong or that'snot how you use a comma.
(20:08):
That's not really what theeditors do All right.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
So, greta, now you can ask your question.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
So actually, I was going to bring up this idea that
you mentioned about howeverybody's brains work
differently, because you knowwe're all into the Megan and I
are all into this clar, clarify,simplify, implement.
And part of the clarify pieceis really getting down into you,
like who you are, because, yes,it's a business.
(20:36):
Yes, writing novels is abusiness, but it's also creative
.
And I know there are peoplethat say, well, I've never had
writer's block.
I mean, yeah, I've never askeda dentist to see having dental
block, or a policeman if he'shaving ticket block.
Yeah, yeah, I get that.
In fact, I've said that.
However, it's different.
It is a different.
(20:57):
There's like a dentist doesn'thave to wake up in the morning
and go how am I going to fillthat tooth?
You know there's many differentways I could do it and maybe if
I was in Act One of the toothfilling process, I would just
start to you know, like theydon't do that, they like learn a
way to fill a tooth.
(21:19):
And maybe in every one of us,while there's a like, oh, that's
a little bit of a uniqueproblem, but otherwise it's
pretty much you do the samething.
And, having said so, I do thinkwriter's block is a thing, and I
think a lot of the time, thereason that we have it is
because we hear how somebodyelse does it and we think we
(21:40):
have to do it that way and ourbrains just have this complete
rebellion and don't want to doit.
And it's sort of like what wewere talking about earlier with
you know what makes a personwant to indie publish what you
know.
It's like we all have differentmotivations for things, and so
I just think it's kind ofbrilliant that you figured out
(22:00):
that you are a slow writer andthat you've embraced that, and
then we actually talked aboutthis very briefly before we got
on the call, which is what I'msegwaying into to help you
maintain some semblance ofpaying the bills, because you're
a slow writer.
You've done a bunch of otherthings, so what do you tell
(22:21):
listeners?
Get them like motivated to knowoh, I can do other things.
Well, like developmentalediting would be one, but share
some more with us.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
Yeah.
So this is the big secret,especially if you're a new
writer, is that most of us haveother gigs, like most of us
don't just write fiction ifyou're a fiction writer or it's
usually other things that we doto fill in the gaps of the money
that we need to survive,because it's just not the
(22:54):
easiest way to make a bunch ofmoney writing fiction especially
.
But you know that doesn't meanyou can't be fulfilled
creatively.
If you're not just writingfiction.
You can find ways to take whatyou love doing and kind of move
sideways.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
It also doesn't make you any less of a writer, just
to interrupt for one second,because, exactly like doing it,
you know as, and it can still bea business, it can still be
something that you're you'redoing for income and for a
career, but Doing other stuffdoesn't make you any less of a
writer.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
Right, right, exactly and amen.
No, I just say amen keep going,jim, there we go.
So For me, I decided, okay.
Once I realized that I was aslow writer, I thought, okay,
well, there are other thingsthat I learned how to do.
How can I make those thingsintersect with the things that I
(23:55):
love to do?
So I started with editingpodcasts for writers.
You know, and you know I ThinkI got my first podcast editing
job for writers Maybe back in2017, and since then I've just
taken on gigs here and there andthat led me to doing audiobooks
(24:18):
.
I've done audiobooks for severalauthors where, instead of me
actually doing the audiobook, Ido the hard part, and by hard
part I mean the tedious part ofgoing in and editing for breaths
, and you know cutting out allthe mistakes and you know
putting it all together andmoving it around.
Like the pacing of that is alittle often I'm not just a
(24:41):
little bit.
That is incredibly timeconsuming and very tedious.
But you know, coming from, youknow a place where I had
experience in audio engineering.
It's not difficult for me, it'smore of just you know you get
into a flow and you just startdoing it and just keep going and
hopefully, if it's a reallygood story, it's actually a
(25:01):
little bit enjoyable, so thatthat makes it fun too.
Um, and then from there, I alsowent into Some video editing as
well, as well as doing my ownvideos.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
So yeah, well, so I know you have done the audiobook
Production.
I'm gonna call it that.
I don't know if that's actuallythe right term or not, but the
audio production for GarrettRobinson, who is a great,
phenomenal, epic fantasy author.
I love him and so I know you'vedone his his audiobooks.
(25:34):
Is this a bigger part of youraudio engineering business or is
it mostly the podcast or kindof?
How do you break that down andwhat?
What does that look like as faras like your production
schedule?
Speaker 3 (25:47):
Right.
So audiobooks are a little morerandom, like Garrett is, I
think I I have.
Garrett is one of my maincustomers, but I don't know when
he's going to throw one at me.
So it'll be like you'll say, oh, I have a audiobook coming out
(26:10):
For you in three months and I'llbe like, alright, well, I will
make sure I have sometimescleared for you, because I love
working on this books.
Um, I also work with a audiobookcompany Called AB audio
services.
I think that's the title of it.
Hmm, I don't remember the exactname, but it's AB services, I
(26:31):
think.
Oh, this is embarrassing.
Anyway, the point is is thatthey have a bunch of audio
engineers and a bunch ofnarrators and I Put my name in
the hat for hey, if you needsomebody to hop in and clean up
a bunch of stuff for you lastminute, hit me up and I'll do
that.
And I basically Kind of getthese things and it's usually a
(26:53):
week or two out, but they'relike, oh, we need it a few weeks
from now and I say okay, andthen I fit it into my schedule
and clean it up for them andsend it back.
That and podcasts are kind ofhow I fill in my time outside of
writing and that it's.
It's a little chaotic Sometimes, not knowing exactly when a
(27:16):
project will fall on my lap, um,but usually they don't all land
at the same time and if they do, you know, most people are
pretty understanding if I say,well, I already have this other
project and it wait a few moreweeks, or can I do this other
thing first, because it's theykind of came to me first and
often they're fine with that,and If they're not fine with
(27:38):
that they will move on to thenext person.
You kind of have to be okaywith that, because you can't do
everything.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
So so I would guess that the podcast are a little
bit more steady because mostpeople are podcasting to a
schedule.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
Right, right it's.
It's a lot more regular.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
the podcast, yeah, and they're shorter too, so it's
probably easier to fit them inthe cracks.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
Absolutely.
Yeah, it's by, by a very largemile, the audiobooks you know
editing.
Let's say it's a 15 houraudiobook.
It takes me, you know, fourtimes longer than that to do the
audiobook.
Sometimes I, if it's withsomeone I'm more familiar with,
(28:21):
like Garrett, maybe it's alittle bit less Because I know
his voice very well in his setupand I know what he's going to
do and what he isn't going to do, especially, especially, even
with any narrator that I'mfamiliar with, not just Garrett.
If I get another job and it'swhat that narrator I'm familiar
with, I've gotten a little bitto the point where I can kind of
(28:43):
just look at that sound wavesand kind of tell what they're
saying as far as the sounds.
So I know what S's look like, Iknow what T's look like, I know
what B's look.
I knew I know these littlenuances in the sound waves and I
can kind of go through and justsay, oh, that's a breath, I
need to cut that out or that's abreath.
You know, I'll move it intothis track to make it a little
bit quieter.
You know, and you get into thisa little bit of a flow state
(29:08):
when you can work a little bitfaster than normal with somebody
that you're familiar with, butit takes a long time and it's
very tedious Sounds like it.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Yeah but that's why we hire you to do ours.
I.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Think Megan tried to do one or two.
I didn't even try.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
She tried, no, no it was a requirement from day one.
If we were gonna do this, I wasnot gonna do the yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Have you ever thought about narrating the audio?
Because, as we mentioned whenwe got on the dulcet tones, you
have a.
You have a really, really nicespeaking voice.
Have you ever thought aboutnarrating yourself?
Speaker 3 (29:49):
Um, I have thought about it, but I Don't know what.
I would narrow a way, narrow itwell see, I narrow.
Wait, I can't even pronounce itcorrectly.
I don't know exactly what Ishould do, but I thought about
narrating my own books, but Idon't think my voice is right
(30:10):
for epic fantasy.
So I mean, I really wish it wasthat make it very convenient.
Maybe I could do like a YAthing, something like that.
I don't know, but it's justnever something that I've
seriously considered.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Yeah, well, you know, what I'm really fascinated with
and some day I hope to getinvolved with, is I love how
some of the audio books areturning into almost like audio
theater and that's becoming athing where people are taking
their, their stories and andAlmost writing a screenplay
(30:45):
scripty kind of thing for themand turning them into more of an
audio theater where they've gotMore than one-way sector and
they've got sound effects andmaybe music coming in and out
and all that.
I just find that alsofascinating and they love it.
So if you ever get into thatjust like, let me know.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
I Mean it's something that I could pull off.
It's man, it's a.
It's a lot harder than just theaudio book because of all the
different elements and findingthe right sound effects or
creating them yourself and youknow, managing a bunch of other
talent, you know, with thedifferent Voice actors, and I
(31:23):
mean it can.
It's a lot more moving pieces.
So yeah.
I can imagine the productionfor that would be very expensive
.
I wonder how much you know the,the companies that do that,
Actually charge for that.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Plenty.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
I think.
I think.
I think most of them, and maybeI'm wrong, but I think most of
them, or many of them.
They're publishers, you'reright.
So they, they buy the rightsand and do it that way, rather
than having the authors Pay inadvance or do a royalty share or
whatever okay.
Yeah, yeah, it's a littledifferent, little different
(31:58):
model.
I'm more like, more like, yeah,audio book publisher.
Well, so let's transition then.
Now I want to hear more aboutyour YouTube channel because I
know and I love it.
I, your intro.
You're like this is gonna bejust what I want to do.
When I want to do it isBasically, which I love.
(32:20):
It's great Because I'm alsoactually starting a YouTube
channel.
I'm just reading chapters ofaether bound, but I'm just
getting started with that andyou've been doing this for a
while now.
So why don't you tell us alittle bit about how you got
into doing YouTube videos,starting your channel, and what
you've been doing and why?
Speaker 3 (32:42):
Mm-hmm, um, I think the reason I started Um Was a
big kick in the butt for me wasseeing Daniel Green.
I don't know if you've everheard of him.
He's a big booktuber onbooktube and he was talking
about the Braden SandersonKickstarter that changed the
world, um, and you this wholething.
(33:05):
He said something that reallyshook me.
He said you know, a lot ofauthors are just not willing to
do crazy things in order to getnoticed, and he's he also writes
now to Daniel Green and he hasa huge YouTube audience.
(33:27):
And he said you know, I gainedthis huge audience, you know,
putting in the work every day onYouTube.
And yeah, I mean a lot ofpeople will say that I have an
advantage by that, but it's notlike I didn't work hard for this
audience.
So I thought, you know what alot of authors are a little
camera shy, you know, maybe I,maybe I'll just do it.
(33:48):
And then I came To therealization that I kind of don't
want to be a booktuber, atleast in the conventional sense.
I mean, I enjoy booktubers,watching them, I like knowing
what they read and theirthoughts about books and all of
that, and I and I love bookhauls and seeing book hauls, but
(34:09):
it just didn't fill mecreatively creating that content
.
So I kind of had to come to therealization that I want to do
something different in thatspace.
So I had a few correct, alittle bit of criteria.
A the channel needed to helpbuild into my overall model,
(34:31):
which is Really selling books.
You know, if it didn't help mesell books, it didn't make sense
.
So I couldn't play video games.
You know I couldn't do a makeupchannel.
You know it had to be aboutbooks.
I mean, I'm sure there's cleverways to do that and get that.
You know traffic, but I neededto attract epic fantasy fans.
The second thing was it neededto be reader focused, because I
(34:56):
could make a whole lot ofcontent about writer focused
things, but that's going toattract the wrong people and not
that those people might notread my books.
I kind of just want to attractreaders Instead of writers, who
are also readers, whichhopefully I attract them to.
So with those two things inmind and me not wanting to do
(35:18):
the typical book to content, Ithought, okay, what can I do?
That basically leaves me withnothing, right?
So I thought, well, there arenot a whole lot of channels on
YouTube that talk about.
You know the stuff that writerskind of think about, but from a
(35:39):
reader approachable way Um, likethe history of the genre.
You know how Certain thingswork inside of not like the
themes of a story and how theyinteract.
And you know all the stuff thatyou learned in your high school
or maybe College lit class thatyou kind of didn't want to
(36:00):
learn, maybe because they madeyou write a, read a boring book,
and You're like, ah, I don'tlike this because I don't like
reading this book, so this isnot interesting to me.
But when you start bringing itout from a fantasy novel that
you really love or sci-fi novelthat you really love or whatever
genre genre you're really into,that stuff becomes interesting
(36:21):
again and I wanted to Find waysto show fantasy fans that yeah,
I mean, all that stuff applieshere and it makes the books even
richer if you appreciate themfrom this angle as well.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
I saw your one that was on the, I think, was like on
how horror Intersects withfantasy or something, and I
don't read.
So I mean, I have, of course,everybody's read Lord of the
Rings and Then all that.
I've read some epic fantasy,but it's a really famous stuff,
but it's not the genre that Igravitate to.
(36:56):
But you know, yeah, if I have aguilty pleasure, it is horror,
and not slash or horror, but thelike, the true creepy,
thoughtful type of horror, andso I saw your.
Your post on that and how youwere talking even about some
fairy tales.
I don't know I loved it.
(37:17):
I was just I was really into it.
I was like this is Because Ithink it is fun too for people
to realize, nostalgic Lee, thata lot of the stuff they read
when they were a kid really doeshave like horror overtones or
fantasy overtones or Mysteryover.
You know what I mean, that thecrossover from some of that
nostalgia stuff and I don't know.
(37:40):
I found it really fascinating.
So I like your YouTube channel.
I think it very interesting.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
I hope other readers like it as well well and I think
it's a really good point andthat that you can apply all that
stuff that they applied toclassic literature in high
school or whatever.
You can apply that toWell-written genre fiction,
(38:07):
whatever genre.
It is right.
Like there are still themes inPretty.
You know most books like sureyou get the.
You get books that are just youknow, plot, plot, plot, action,
action, action and and maybethe character doesn't grow or
change all that much over thebook and they're still fun to
read, right.
But you can also get reallyjust deep.
You know thrillers or deepfantasy where they have layers
(38:32):
of History from you know otherliterature as well as themes and
then you get the character arcsand they're off.
I mean, just because we writegenre doesn't mean we're not
literary.
That's my point.
Because we write genre doesn'tmean we're not literary.
You know it's, it's.
(38:52):
So I love that your channel isbringing that out and bringing
that to the forefront and, Ithink, legitimizing in readers
minds that it's okay.
It doesn't have to be a guiltypleasure to read this stuff, to
read genre romance too, like itdoesn't have to be a guilty
pleasure.
It can be actually very, youknow, deep storytelling and very
(39:17):
inspirational and motivationalas well, so I love that you're
doing that.
I think it's a great space tobe in the market.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
Genre fiction.
I just read an article on thisand I'm really bad with
remembering dates so I wastrying to Google it really
quickly.
But genre fiction wasn't even athing, like nobody ever called
it that.
It was just fiction.
There was fiction and there wasnonfiction.
And you know, nowadays we lookback and we go, oh, you know,
(39:45):
pride and prejudice, that's ofthis really a romance, but back
then it was just a book, and youknow so.
Or Frankenstein now we look atthat as horror, but when Mary
Shelley wrote it it was just abook.
And so I do think that some ofthe current prejudice against
the idea of genre fiction isreally kind of silly.
(40:06):
And I also think that nottracing back the roots of what
you love to some of its original, that everything did cross over
back then.
There's so many things crossedover back then and you know,
like Gothic romance was kind ofa crossover of Horror in romance
(40:27):
, bet or thriller in romance.
So I don't know today.
I guess my whole point is I'mgetting long winded here that we
do, we forget the roots ofthings and we get, we start
parsing things so much and thenwe get prejudice against oh,
she's just a genre writer.
Well, so are you.
I don't know what you're right,but whatever it is, it is a
genre.
So there you go, and everybodylistening.
(40:50):
Go to Jim's YouTube channel andyou will learn the roots of
these things and be a bettereducated reader.
That's my, that's my littlesoapbox.
I'm getting off of it right now.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
All right, so yeah, so I guess.
So for YouTube.
I think that's we kind ofcovered everything there.
I mean, do you have any tipsfor those of us who are just
starting to try and exploreYouTube for fiction?
Speaker 3 (41:21):
So, again, like I said, it's make sure you're
tracking the right people.
So make sure you.
That means having kind of anintentional idea of who your
ideal viewer is and how theyintersect with your ideal reader
, you know.
So are they the same person orhow much do they cross over if
(41:43):
they're not the same person?
And if they aren't the sameperson, you know, are you doing
this just for fun, just a, youknow, fulfill, a creative edge,
which is totally valid?
Or are you doing this tosomehow funnel?
You know it's part of yourfunnel, a funnel of your sales
funnel?
If it is, then you have tofigure out how to make your
(42:05):
reader and that person closer tobeing the same person.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
So you mean you have to clarify your purpose.
Speaker 3 (42:14):
Mm.
Yeah, I think you do.
I think you do yes.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
And a plan.
Speaker 3 (42:26):
Yeah, it's kind of funny how that it always comes
back to that, doesn't it?
Another?
big thing that I would say thata lot of people talk about is,
you know the dreaded A word, thealgorithm.
And a big part of that is justunderstanding that, and YouTube
says this themselves.
(42:47):
And the more you start to thinkin this way, the more helpful
it is is that the algorithm isjust the audience.
The algorithm suggests theaudience.
If they do not like what you'remaking, then YouTube won't show
it to anybody.
So if you make good content andyou package it well with a
(43:11):
thumbnail and a title that'sattractive, it's going to do
better than something that isn'twell produced or isn't well put
together or isn't well packaged.
Same thing with books, samething with YouTube.
And it used to be that if yourYouTube channel wasn't doing
that good, it brought everythingelse down.
(43:31):
Youtube kind of judges everyvideo by its own merits, so it's
not your channel.
I mean.
I'm sure there's a little bitof algorithmic, whatever juju in
there that your channel historydoes affect the things.
But for the most part you knowone video can do very well
because it's a really good videoand people want to watch it and
(43:52):
the next video could do nothingbecause people don't want that
video.
So it could be that if you findthat when you're doing something
and it's not getting a lot ofviews or a lot of watch time.
It could be a number of things.
You have to kind of learn themetrics and what's going on
behind them a little bit tounderstand.
Well, I understand what I didwrong here, but it's usually the
(44:16):
same principle as with books is, if you're not making something
somebody wants to watch, thenit won't get watched and that's
and it's kind of annoying to saythat, because that means like
your baby isn't doing well andit's all my fault, you know, but
you know that's the way it is,unfortunately.
So you either have to stick tothat and say I'm just going to
(44:39):
have a very small dedicatedaudience, or I will find or I'll
create things for more peopleand try to funnel it down.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
So so I have a question Is there an element of
you know, like how we startedthis by saying part of the
reason you're doing the sidehustles is because you don't
write quickly?
Well, the whole premise ofwriting quickly is that you get
a bigger backlist more quicklyand, of course, every time you
(45:08):
release the book you get a boostand all that.
But there is something abouthaving more books that can help
attract more readers, like Idon't know if it's algorithms
taking more seriously, readerstaking more seriously.
There's a higher SEO becausethere's more different ways to
(45:29):
find you.
I don't know what all thereasons are, but is that the
same with YouTube?
Like if you just make one ortwo videos that they're probably
not going to do anything?
Is there is like a tippingpoint, like when you get to 30
videos, all of a sudden you'restarting to get a little more
bump, or how does that work?
Speaker 3 (45:47):
So there's a lot of breakdowns from people a lot
smarter than me who've looked athundreds of channels to see
what the patterns are, and itusually takes about 100 videos
to break out to get monetized.
That's like the golden thing ofhaving it.
And monetization means you have1000 subscribers and within one
(46:12):
365 day period you've gotten4000 watch hours of time.
There's a little bit of leewaybecause they've also done the
shorts, so that has a differentmetric.
So if you focus on shorts thenyou know it's a different amount
of views.
I can't remember how much it is.
I think it's like 3 millionviews within 90 days, which is
(46:33):
crazy numbers, but I don't knowhow you would accomplish that.
But some people can do it.
And then you know they alsohave a lower standard of
monetization, which is 500subscribers and 300,000 watch
hours, which I think the watchhours part is the harder part
than the 500.
But anyway, the point is isthat it does take a lot of
(46:58):
videos and part of it is justexperience, because a lot of the
videos you make at first arejust not going to be as good as
the videos you make later.
So some of it is learning andsome of it is just because
sometimes it takes some time forpeople to get to know you and
be familiar with you.
But, just like with publishing,sometimes you can make one or
(47:22):
two videos and explode withthousands of subscribers and
views because the video is justthat good or just that
interesting or compelling orclickable.
Speaker 1 (47:33):
Or somebody with a huge platform found it
interesting or compelling andshared it.
Speaker 2 (47:40):
And everybody.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
You know, that's the whole, that's the golden ticket,
right you?
Know if you can find thatinfluencer who's got this huge
audience.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
You get Reese Witherspoon to pick up your book
, you're going to do pretty well.
Speaker 3 (47:53):
Yeah, exactly, that's all it takes.
That's all it takes.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
Yeah, used to be Oprah, now it's Reese.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (48:01):
So, but a lot of what I do now is so.
I have a big evergreen contentphilosophy and I've had it for
years now is that most of thethings that I make my fiction,
you know my nonfiction, whichusually comes in block form.
I don't want it to be relevant,no matter when you see it.
(48:22):
So most of my YouTube videosare all evergreen.
It doesn't really matter whenyou see it, because they're
evergreen.
So it also builds into anotherstrategy of what do I do now
that I've made this thing?
How do I keep reusing it?
So after I make it you know Ihave a transcript of it.
You know I make a blog post outof it and I embed the video in
(48:44):
the blog post to just in casethey want to watch it.
But it becomes a blog postthat's on my website.
So I have the SEO from that.
You know people.
You know I look at my GoogleAnalytics and see people coming
through just from things likethat and some of them subscribe
to my mailing list and see mystories and you know, maybe they
buy my book.
You know I take those things andI have a really epic long right
(49:09):
now it's three years long of anauto responder on Mailerlight,
because I just make a bunch ofcontent and I think, well, you
know what this is evergreen.
I'm going to build an emailaround it and say, hey, I made
this thing, this is the thing Imade, check it out, let's talk.
Email me back and we'll talkabout it.
So my YouTube videos, which isa new thing, I've started
(49:32):
inserting that in there.
Just in case you know, I don'thave an update for a month.
They still get an email becausethis auto responder super long.
So you know, I just kind offind ways to reuse content in a
very efficient way and if youcreate a lot of evergreen
content, that works really wellfor that.
Speaker 1 (49:53):
So you ever take little clips and have you
started the TikTok craze.
Speaker 3 (49:58):
Mm.
Hmm, I do have a TikTok and Iwent to it kicking and screaming
, and it's only.
I only did it because I startedmaking YouTube videos, because
that's what I really wanted todo.
I wanted to try that and then Ithought, well, I mean I could
just cut the videos into acouple smaller pieces and then I
(50:21):
can put them on YouTube shorts.
And if I'm putting them onYouTube shorts, I may as well
put them on TikTok and and reelsor whatever.
And, funny enough, I put atzero effort into my TikTok.
I feel like saying this outloud makes makes me.
I feel like I'm not trying, butI just get follows there and
(50:44):
likes and whatnot and I'm nottrying.
That platform is so hyperfocused on what they do well,
which is short form content,that it kind of steers itself in
a very strange way.
It just knows how to find thepeople that are for you.
I don't know how they're doingit, but you know.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
I think it's illegal, whatever they're doing.
I don't think it's legal.
I'm just romantic there, butyou know.
Speaker 3 (51:11):
I don't spend time following people.
I'm not doing all the thingsthey say like, oh yeah, go
comment on things and beinvolved in the community.
No, I'm just putting it upthere.
That's all I'm doing.
It's just finding its people.
I don't know how they're doingthat kind of magic without you
doing.
Maybe it's because it's youngand you can still kind of get
(51:31):
somewhere without that.
But TikTok for shorts.
It does better than YouTubeshorts.
It does better than InstagramReels.
It just does its thing.
I don't even try there.
So if you were to try, I'm sureyou would do a lot better on
TikTok than I am.
And I'm not even trying.
My videos get hundreds of viewseasy without even trying.
(51:54):
I just put them on there, yeah.
Speaker 2 (51:58):
Well, I find that that's one of my big goals.
I think is so smart that you'redoing that.
I'm trying to emulate or pickup and do better is the cross
promotion I guess I'm going tocall it that of your content,
taking it and reusing it inmultiple ways, Right?
(52:19):
So I'm trying to start doingthat with the YouTube videos, so
like little clips of me readingthe book and then putting that
up on.
I'm not on TikTok yet We'll besoon, but not yet but I put it
up on Instagram, Reels andFacebook or whatever they call
them now and trying to reusethat and find new ways of taking
(52:43):
the same existing stuff on myimagery that I already have
created and not recreate thewheel every single time.
I want to do something new, butrather reuse all that.
I think it's so smart andsometimes for some of us whose
brain my brain just doesn'tnaturally make those connections
, I have to really work at itand have to really say, okay,
(53:05):
this can be used there and thereand there and there and there,
and let's do that.
So I think that's a great tipfor writers who want to be
efficient with their marketingand promotion time and
everything too.
It's just making sure you likeput it on the blog, you put it
on the social media platforms.
You reuse videos where you can.
(53:25):
All that stuff is just so key.
Speaker 3 (53:30):
I think one easy strategy to help you start to
see what you have is actuallytake an inventory of what you've
made and put in a spreadsheet.
I have a spreadsheet that showsall of my.
I have spreadsheets for all ofmy YouTube videos and for all of
my blog posts, or all my booksand like where they've been
(53:51):
licensed and whatnot.
When you start to look at whatyou've actually created and it's
like, oh man, oh, I've written200 blog posts in the past five
years.
I don't know how I did that infive years.
It's just kind of happened overtime.
But it's like oh well, what doI do with this?
Like, maybe I can repackagethis somehow.
(54:12):
Maybe when you start takinginventory of what you've
actually created and figuringout, oh well, you know what?
I could actually go back fiveyears and this is a month where
I just need to stop everythingand just write fiction for a
long time.
But people are waiting forsomething from me.
Oh, I'll just start recyclingthis content.
(54:33):
Like, oh, I wrote this fiveyears ago, check this out, it's
still good, still valid,especially if you're writing
that evergreen content.
And evergreen content is hardbecause it has to be of some
substance that isn't temporary,but it's totally worth it,
because you always havesomething new and it can be
(54:54):
repackaged in so many differentways.
Speaker 1 (54:58):
My publisher with my first series was very this is
something I'm very grateful toher for, because that was
something that the editor, thepublisher, everybody there were
like no, take this out, this isgoing to date your book.
Take that, change this, takethis.
(55:19):
At least there was this.
Sometimes you want to get intowhat's new technology right now
is going to make this thrillerso cool.
Well, you know what?
It's not new technology halfthe time by the time the book is
published and it's definitelynot new technology by the time
the book's been out for threeyears and it makes you sound
antiquated because it's like,wow, ring Dorbell, stuff, new
technology?
(55:39):
No, it's not new, not anymore.
So I was very grateful for thatand I think your point about
using your content and lookingat your content that it's
brilliant, because we were justtalking about that, because
moving our website is forcing usto look at all these blog posts
(56:03):
and things we've been writingfor years and like what are we
going to do with them?
And we actually are quickguides that we wrote started by
us kind of taking groups of blogposts that all went together in
a category and then sayingthese could make a quick guide
if we just and then just kind ofrewrite them, smooth them out,
(56:25):
fill in the empty places.
You know we didn't talk aboutthis or that, so we had to write
a little bit more, but that iskind of what we did.
We turned blog posts into booksbecause you know we had all
this content and that is justvery smart.
You can also use them I'm notbeing a video person, but being
(56:48):
a writer, obviously just evenusing even chapters or segments
from books or old blog posts toreach out to other people who
are looking for content of youcan get published on you know a
big site, somebody else'swebsite, but that can be a great
way to get people to yourwriting and to what you're doing
(57:10):
.
You know, right, in fact,alessandra Torre, she's a
thriller.
She just started writingthrillers but she was primarily
in romance before.
But she had been writing likeshort, steamy stories for Cosmo
and when she launched her firstbut I you know I don't want to
(57:32):
tell her story, we have to haveher on someday but when she
launched her first novel, I meanit went crazy because she had
this whole Cosmo audience who'dbeen reading her short fiction
and were perfectly primed to gobuy a book from her, you know,
and that's just a fabulous, afabulous example of finding your
(57:55):
audience someplace else, likeyou're doing with YouTube, like
I think we get very funnelminded as writers.
Sometimes it's like, well, myaudience is on Amazon, barnes,
noble and Kobo, and it's like,well, actually you probably have
people who would love yourfiction in all kinds of places.
Speaker 3 (58:16):
Right, exactly, and especially we have a very good
niche that you know very wellthat it's very different.
You know, if you are, you knowa smart small town, you know a
fiction mystery writer, you knowthere are probably discords and
forums that talk about, youknow, small town issues like
(58:39):
restoration of buildings andstuff like that, and if you're,
if you like that and you can bea part of the community there
and you make content around that, and you also have fiction
books that focus on the thingsthat they love.
I mean, you kind of have tostart making a little bit out of
the box sometimes to find yourpeople, especially in genres of
(59:03):
fiction that are just verysaturated.
You know, I write epic fantasyand it's hard to break out an
epic fantasy because there's a,honestly, there's a lot of us
who write it, a lot of us, andthat makes it hard for anyone to
be seen.
It's also great because thereaders never run out of stuff
to read, which is, you know, Idon't have a problem with this,
(59:24):
I'm slow.
So, yeah, go read somebody elseand then come back.
But you know it's it's just.
You know you have to find yourway in and if you're not,
thinking creatively to find yourway in.
You know you're Kind of goingto hit the.
You know the glass ceiling asit works.
Speaker 1 (59:43):
So here's another funny one.
My dad follows this guy.
My dad is older and he's got alittle.
Anyway, my dad follows this guy.
He's a modern-day druid and heis got this blog that is been
going on for years and years.
He's fabulously Successful.
(01:00:03):
He's got his niche of all thesepeople who are like preppers.
They're ready for the end ofthe world, they're thinking
right stuff about how to get offthe grid and how to fool the
IRS and how to stockpile Food,and he's got all this stuff for
those people.
And guess what kind of fictionhe writes?
Apocalyptic fiction, guesswho's?
(01:00:24):
those his fiction to his blogreaders.
I mean it's like it's just kindof brilliant and I mean, who
knows, maybe he really really isa modern-day druid, he really
really does believe the world iscoming to an end and all of
that, or maybe he just kind ofwent.
Hmm, I'm just gonna reach awhole bunch of people who think
(01:00:46):
the way that this way that mycharacters think and you know,
do this thing, but exploitingyour niche in a A unique way is,
I mean, then you got to givekudos to that guy.
Speaker 3 (01:00:59):
That is a unique way takes you know, yeah, a lot of
it a lot of it kind of has to dowith Figuring out you know what
am I researching anyway?
Like how can I turn whatever Ihave to do to create what I make
into content, because you'redoing it anyway?
There's this one Guy he's verysuccessful on YouTube and I was
(01:01:22):
watching his little seminar andhe said his motto was turn the
camera on.
So this doesn't have to be forYouTube, it's.
It kind of kind of can beanything.
But his whole thing was likejust turn the camera on if
you're reading a book, just turnthe camera on and read it in
front of the camera and thenclose the book and just see what
(01:01:43):
you think.
You know, if you, you can turnevery part of your life into
content if you so choose.
You don't have to, and Iactually strongly recommend that
most people not do that.
Some people can do that andthat's your thing, do your thing
, but most people probablyshould not.
But you know, turning thecamera on is kind of the concept
(01:02:04):
of like you know what am Idoing anyway.
That's actually more compellingthan I think it is and I'm just
not taking advantage of it anda lot of the things that we
research as authors that wethink, oh, I mean it's going in
the book, whatever.
I mean, a lot of it is actuallykind of interesting and if you
can kind of present it in aninterest, interesting way, it
might actually attract people toyou and they might want to read
(01:02:28):
your book, if they know oh,this person is interesting and
they just taught me somethingreally cool in a really
interesting way, and I kind ofwant to read their books now.
Speaker 2 (01:02:37):
Yeah, yeah and and it's interesting to with that
too.
So, again going back to my, mybaby YouTube channel here, I've
actually started creating aplaylist of the videos of other
creators that I'm watching forresearch for the book that I'm
writing right now.
And yeah, I don't know if I've,I haven't even looked, I don't
(01:02:58):
know if I've even had any viewsor anything on the playlist or
anything like that.
But my, I have challenged.
My readers in my news are saidyeah, I've got this playlist.
Can you guess what the next,the theme of the next book, is
gonna be?
Because I don't actually knowyet, you know, and so kind of
drawing a little bit moreinterest and like, yeah, it's
(01:03:18):
not even me creating content,it's just me sharing content
that is relevant to my books.
And I don't know, maybe it'llwork, maybe it won't, but it's
easy and it's something I can do.
Maybe it'll share other, youknow, maybe that'll get a little
cross feed on the, thealgorithm gods, maybe not, I
have no idea, but it's somethingfor people to go look at if
(01:03:41):
they're interested and curiousand then, using that down the
road as I do, write thosesections and figure out exactly
how I'm using those mostlymythology, so how I'm using
those myths or those historicalstories.
The other one that's a lot onthat playlist is like the witch
trials and stuff like that.
So what I'm actually gonna pullfrom that and how I'm gonna use
(01:04:01):
it in the novel.
That's on my my plan foranother video that I can do and
just say, hey, look, yeah,here's the clip from this thing.
Like, look, think about this.
And then how I'm using that inthe story, because I take that
and twist it and turn it intosomething else.
So, absolutely so for all youlisteners out there, if you're
interested in Go check out myYouTube channel.
(01:04:22):
There you go, all right.
Well, we are, I believe, comingup on the hour, or maybe even
past the hour, I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 (01:04:28):
I forgot start timer, but Jim, just gonna have to
edit it down now.
Speaker 2 (01:04:41):
So I guess any final words, any final top tips,
last-minute things you want totell the audience there's no one
way to be successful as anauthor.
Speaker 3 (01:04:55):
You just have to find your own path, and Do you,
because you don't want to bemiserable doing this, because
this is a marathon, so you haveto find a way to do it in a way
that makes you happy, even ifthat means that you don't make a
ton of money at first.
You know, define the kind oflifestyle you want and go for it
(01:05:15):
.
Speaker 1 (01:05:17):
I.
We could pay him to say that,couldn't we?
That's perfect, jim.
So why don't you tell peoplewhere they can find More about
you your YouTube channel, yourbooks and all the things that
you do?
Speaker 3 (01:05:32):
Yeah, the easiest thing to do is just go to my
main website.
It connects to everything.
Jim will born calm J.
I am W I LB O.
You are in E dot com and, andit has all my links to my
YouTube.
I have blog posts there whichalso have, you know, my YouTube
videos embedded in them.
So if you see anything in theblog post like, oh, that's an
(01:05:54):
interesting topic, it might havea YouTube video attached to it.
And, of course, you can get onmy mailing list from there as
well.
Speaker 1 (01:06:01):
I'll keep you updated and and get on his three-year
auto-responder.
Speaker 3 (01:06:06):
No, right, right, I don't.
They don't know they're on athree-year auto-responder
because they know, they know,wow, that's, that's fabulous
never let a good, evergreenemail go to waste.
Just put it on a three-yearauto-responder.
That's it.
Speaker 1 (01:06:30):
Yeah, I've got a rethink my whole auto-responder
strategy after this conversation.
That would be an actually aninteresting topic to tackle one
day is auto-responders.
Maybe we have to do this again,jim.
Absolutely, that would be fun.
So, everybody listening.
I hope you enjoyed thisconversation.
(01:06:50):
I sure did.
My brain is kind of hurting nowwith all the ideas that are
going around in it, but if youneed clarity, don't forget to
stop by the author wheel.
Calm, it is still slash stuff.
As to you, ff, but that will bechanging.
So hurry up over there and youcan grab our Free course, our
(01:07:12):
free email course seven days toclarity, uncover your author
purpose.
And that course will lead youthrough a lot of the things we
were talking about todayUnderstanding why you do what
you do, your more motivations,what's gonna maybe scratch your
author edge, and also will helpyou write a mission statement
and tagline in just seven days.
(01:07:33):
Meanwhile, everybody, keep yourstories rolling.
Hi everyone and welcome to the Author Wheel
podcast.
I'm Greta Boris, usa TodayBestselling Mystery Thriller.
Author.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
And I'm Megan Haskell , award-winning fantasy
adventure author, and togetherwe are the Author Wheel.
So we are very excited.
Today we have a fantasticepisode because we are talking
with our podcast audio engineereditor.
I don't know what the actualtitle is.
We should probably ask him,oops.
Podcast producer, our podcastproducer yeah, that's probably
(00:30):
right Podcast producer JimWillward, and he was an amazing
guest, because one of the thingsthat we talked about and I
can't wait for you to hear thissection of the interview, but
was the idea of the side hustleand that not every author is a
full time author.
But they're still working.
(00:51):
They're still doing things inthe industry.
They're just doing it more as aside hustle with other streams
of income.
So really great conversation.
So stay tuned for that.
But first Greta, what's goingon?
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Well, I am really into playing the Facebook ads
these days, which is just likeI'm laughing at myself, because
it's something I've avoided fora very long time and been
terrified of, but I'm reallyhaving fun with them, so I made
a couple of images that lookreally Halloweeny which really
works good for the.
Mauritician series, because kindof a Halloweeny kind of a
(01:27):
series anyway, and one of thoseimages is actually doing pretty
well.
I'm going to double check on ittoday.
But we had a conversation witha future guest about learning to
like the marketing and see itas a creative outlet.
So I feel like I'm kind ofdoing that.
So that's really fun.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
I'm going to need you to teach me that stuff later.
I mean, I know you take theclass from Matthew Holmes, who
we had on the show, so if youhaven't listened to that episode
, guys, go out and listen to it.
It was fabulous and I'vethought about signing up for his
course.
I just haven't had the time todedicate to it yet.
But, that's something I got tolearn how to do.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Well, he has a new one coming out that is all about
selling your books direct.
Yeah, yeah so that willprobably be the one for you.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
For sure.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Yeah, so yeah.
And then on writing news, I'mstill on the home stretch of
splitting hairs.
I was really hoping that todayI'd be able to say I was done
with my first draft, but no, butI'm going to get that done
before a big family camping tripwhich is coming up and before
our trip to 20 books, to 50Kwhich is also coming up.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
Which I am so excited about.
This is the first.
I mean, I went to 20 books fiveyears ago-ish, before COVID,
and had a great time, and so I'mexcited to be able to go back
again this year.
I'm starting to make more of aneffort to get out and do more
conferences and shows and thingslike that.
So for all our listeners, wewill be there, and I want to
(03:06):
make sure that you join theAuthorWheel Group on Facebook,
because we haven't figured outour schedule yet.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
No.
Speaker 2 (03:15):
We do not know.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
And honestly, folks, I cannot think about it until
I'm actually in Vegas.
We're going to be footloose infancy phrase oh man, oh man,
it's going to be a special week.
Yes, well, it's going to be fun.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
But yeah, so make sure you join the group.
I will put the link in the shownotes and that's where we will,
once we figure it out, post ourschedule and where we're going
to be, which bar or where we'regoing to meet up.
So if you'd like to come meetup and chat, we'll be around and
you can find out all thatinformation there.
(03:52):
And in the meantime, actually,if you are planning on going, go
to the group, post in the notes, say, hey, I'm going.
In fact, let's make a Greta,let's make a post for that, like
a comment post, just so that weknow who we should be looking
for, and yeah, and then you cancomment on there and say, hey,
I'm going to be there, and thenwe'll make sure we get
(04:12):
everything together.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Yeah, because we'd love to meet you guys.
Really really love to meet you.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
For sure.
It's nice to know we're nottalking into the void sometimes.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
I know.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
Well, in my news, I only really have one other thing
to talk about, and that's thatI have been getting ready for
this week's special promo andI'm making Aetherbound free
through Sunday, october 29th.
So this is in advance ofHalloween and in advance of the
(04:46):
launch of book two titled AetherCross, which comes out
officially on all the platformsNovember 7th.
So if you're into a slightlyspooky contemporary fantasy, I
think you'll like this book.
It's actually it's got you knowdemons and it's got traveling
to the underworld and and andit's fun, it's got Tiki drinks
(05:08):
too.
So in fact, I like Can't beat.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
you can't beat the Tiki drinks.
I'm just saying Exactly exactly.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
And if you sign up for my list, I think well, there
, if you read the book you getlinks, you can sign up for my
list and you can download someof the recipes for the drinks.
Little little little secret,little secret Easter egg in
there.
But I do want to give thelittle pitch real quick and I
want to say that it's like SukiStackhouse meets Coyote Ugly and
(05:36):
a Laguna Beach Tiki Bar, butwith ancient gods and demons
instead of vampires.
And if you don't understandthose references, I don't know
if I can talk to you.
It might not be the series foryou If you don't might not be
the series for you I don't know,we'll see.
But you can grab it on yourfavorite digital bookstore or
direct from my website.
(05:56):
This week only for free,otherwise it's 499.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
There you go, there you go.
That's, that's wonderful.
So I guess we're moving on withthe show.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Yeah, let's get on with the show, and I am so
excited to have him on the show.
You guys are going to recognizehis smooth, dulcet tones, as
Greta says, because he isactually our sound engineer for
the podcast.
But I'll read his bio here realquick.
First, jim Wilborn is acreative at heart.
If he's not writing a novel,he's writing and recording a
(06:31):
song, or once again trying tolearn how to draw.
When he's not working on thenext project, he spends his free
time working on another project.
He totally has a life.
Jim lives in the deep Southwith his wife and son and does
not miss the snow at all.
So, jim, thank you so much forcoming on the show today.
We're excited to have you andactually have a little chat and
(06:53):
talk about all the things thatyou're doing.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Yeah, thank you for having me Of course, of course.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
So in your own words.
Why don't you tell us a littlebit more about yourself and how
you got into writing and whatyour journey has been like thus
far, thus far?
Speaker 3 (07:09):
So my journey is pretty generic.
I think you know I startedwriting when I was a lot younger
and stopped sometime in my lateteens and did something else
and then came back to it inadulthood and that's kind of the
short version.
The long version is more oflike I actually tried to self
(07:31):
publish my own book when I was11 or 12.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Oh my goodness, You're a prodigy.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
I wouldn't say prodigy, because that book was
awful.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
But I'm always prodigy Right.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
I've always been a DIY person.
You know, I've always wanted tobe the person who, if I could,
you know, do it myself, I woulddo it myself when it came to
creative projects.
So from there I moved intodoing a lot of like RPG work,
where I would email people backand forth, playing in a Star
(08:12):
Trek world where we wouldoperate a ship and we create
stories on the fly, kind of likea, like a D&D kind of thing.
But for Star Trek, which isreally love.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
Oh, I love that, that's cool that's.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
I mean, that's unique , that's taking.
Like you said, you're going todo it your own way, right?
So?
Speaker 3 (08:33):
I got a lot of storytelling experience doing
that.
And after I finished that and Iwent to school, I went to
school for music, actually, andfrom there I did some light
touring and played in bands andas I got a little older I
(08:54):
thought you know, that wholewriting thing is still something
I really want to do and Istarted researching it and
trying to figure out how do Ibreak in to the industry.
And amongst all my research andfiguring out how to write and
everything at least well, thistime around I found out about
(09:15):
self publishing and it was gameover from there, because as soon
as I found out that people arejust publishing stuff onto
Kindle without a publisher, Iwas well, that's obviously what
I'm going to do.
I'm not going to submit toanything.
I would never waste my time onthat.
Maybe that's the hubris in me,but that just seemed like a very
(09:37):
natural fit for me.
So that's why I ended up beingan indie author instead of
trying to push for a trad deal.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
So Gotcha Well you know, it's an interesting thing
like listening to your bio.
First of all, I just want tomention that you and I have like
a surprising amount in common.
You we both lived inMassachusetts.
I'm also a musician.
I was raised by musicians.
It's like the thing I thought Iwas supposed to do.
And then segueing into booksand I also self published my
(10:08):
first book.
That was had a fabulous titleand there were good things about
it, but it's no longeravailable for purchase.
It's the wine and chocolateworkout.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
Yeah, I kind of want to read that.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Well, I got a couple copies.
I'll send you one, but but it'sinteresting how many creatives
have similar stories and the theidea about indie publishing,
like I like.
When you said you're sort of aDIY kind of person, I just
wonder, like, what is it thatmotivates us Like to do that,
(10:47):
like?
So Megan says it's becauseshe's a control freak what she
is a little bit.
I will.
I will go that For me.
I think the reason I did itinitially was because I'm just
impatient.
I don't want to wait for otherpeople until I did such a bad
job.
Then I went oh, I think maybe Ineed a publisher.
So then I did get a publisher.
(11:09):
But so what do you think thatcore motivation was that made
you go?
Oh, I will obviously do it thatway.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Um, I just, I don't know, I really don't know what
that is inside of me that makesme want to kind of I don't know,
I'm not good at being anemployee either Like I needed my
day job.
You know, I tried and plottedfor years to figure out how to
(11:39):
quit my day job and what can Ido, like what skills I need to
learn in order to Completelywork from home.
Like I just, I think, beingstuck in a system that I can't
turn or control, I mean, maybethat is it, it's, maybe it is
control, maybe it's just thatit's just your inner rebel.
(12:01):
Right, I want to be flexible.
I like to be able to turn onthe dime and try something new
and, you know, not be strictlybeholden to a certain way.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Can it be be have more agency in your life to more
freedom?
It's just interesting.
I it's like I threw thatquestion at you.
I'm sorry it wasn't on the listof questions, but you guys got
me thinking.
It's like what is it that?
Because now I'm really enjoyingin the publishing too, um, and
so it's just like interesting,what?
What is it that motivates usall?
(12:35):
But that's a maybe for aseparate podcast, though.
Um, so so.
But do tell us this what do youthink has been your greatest
roadblock to success, and andhow have you overcome it?
Are you still in the process ofovercoming it, or you know?
Give us some wisdom on that.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
So my biggest robot block to success is probably
speed.
I'm just a slow rider, um, andit's something that I feel that.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Yeah I, I'm just not very fast at all, Not at all,
not even a little bit fast.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
Um, you know, I, I write maybe 200 to 500 words a
day, maybe, um, and that's agood day for me.
You know, I, I put the wordsexactly where I want them.
I edit as I go and that's myday, um, and then I'm like wow,
that was, that was a whole lotof sentence crafting, you know,
(13:39):
because I don't, I do not writeand then go back and edit.
I mean, obviously I have tocopy, edit, but I, I say exactly
, I want to say it, exactly howI want to say it the first time
around, because I kind of don'twant to edit it beyond, like
commas and periods and you knowtypos.
Um, I kind of want to say itthe way I want to say it, and I
(14:01):
know that's not the mostefficient way to do it, but it
feels wrong to just leavesomething the way it is.
Um, and my brain just does notallow me to move forward without
having that in place.
Um, so in order to overcomethat, I've done several things.
Um, I've done several things.
(14:22):
First of all, I outline prettyextensively, because if I'm
doing that much editing whileI'm writing, I really need to
know where I'm going.
So I'm not also trying tofigure that out.
At the same time, I can kind ofjust craft each thing that I do
like it's and know thatwhatever I'm crafting is going
to fit in, and I don't have togo back and say, well, I have to
(14:45):
throw this all out now andoutside of that.
The other thing is that I justcreate more content that is not
directly the book and I thinkwhat it is is that I'm slow on
one particular project.
I kind of I need time and spaceto breathe on any individual
(15:09):
thing.
But if you give me threedifferent projects I can do, you
know, an hour on one thing, youknow two hours on another and
you know an hour or two onanother thing and not feel
exhausted at all.
I think it's jumping to adifferent bring space that helps
me stay.
You know creative.
So consequently, you know I doa lot of book reviews and I
(15:35):
write a lot of essays now andthat's kind of what keeps me,
kind of my little hack of alwayshaving something to show my
audience rather than just thenext book.
So that's.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
That's really interesting, and I think it's.
It's what's interesting too andI think this is a topic that
needs to be brought out more isthat everybody's brain works
differently, right.
So, so, yeah, like for a longtime it was, you got to write
fast, you got to put out, youknow, a book a month, or you got
maybe not, maybe that's alittle, even a little fast, but
(16:13):
some people were.
Or, you know, you got to, yougot to do this, you got to do
that thing, everybody's got todo the thing, but the got to do
the thing is actually not alwaysthe right thing for that person
and I so feel.
Exactly you know where you're atas far as, like, I don't
outline but I do write carefullyand cleanly so that usually
(16:38):
most of the time I don't have togo back and heavily edit the
story, you know, and that's kindof part of my process.
But but, yeah, being that slowwriter, you do have to find
other ways and switching things.
I mean, that's why part of thereason why I do the author wheel
as well, is because it's adifferent brain space than the
creativity of the story, whichis a different brain space than
(17:01):
the creativity of, for example,designing merch or coming up
with, you know, social mediaposts or other things too.
So like breaking up your dayinto chunks that you can use to
be moving lots of things forwardat different times is such a
great idea for some people.
(17:22):
For some people it won't work,but I, you know, I love that it
works for you and that you'vekind of figured out a process to
keep yourself rolling, as wesay.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
You know, what I don't think we've mentioned yet
is what genre do you?
Speaker 3 (17:37):
write Jim, I write epic fantasy, so I write epic
fantasy.
I dev edit epic fantasy forother writers and that's my
writing.
Portion of the day is eitherI'm writing for myself or I'm
debiting for another author.
I have a few other authors thatI work with and a lot of times
(18:00):
it's just, you know, getting ona call with them and just
working through, like you know,the scene.
It's missing some conflict.
You got to, you got to instillsome conflict in the scene, or,
you know, I'm stuck, I don'tknow what to do with these
characters.
Blah, blah, blah.
Well, let's go back and let'slook at, okay, where, where are
we in the last book?
(18:21):
Okay, let's look at thecharacter arc and where this is
this character need to go.
You know, and working throughthose things which actually I
feel like is one of my bigsuperpowers is even though I'm a
slow writer.
You know I do not run of ideaslike ever I can.
If somebody is like, oh, Idon't know what to do, it's like
well, have you tried this, haveyou tried this, have you tried
(18:41):
this, have you tried this?
And I can just rattle them off.
Usually, sometimes I'm having aslow day and it doesn't work
that way, but that's one of thethings that I love doing and
working with other people andfiguring out, you know, how to
move their story forward.
Speaker 1 (18:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
So, so sorry, Greta.
Before before we move on or askthe next question, let's give a
quick definition for the newwriters, who maybe don't know
what dev editing is.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
Yes, developmental editing, I said dev editing,
like everybody is supposed toknow my own little bit, well it
just shows how cool you areright.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
Like, because you're just like cool phrases and stuff
, right.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
I'm a dev editor.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Oh, there you go.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
Yes, but developmental editing is also
sometimes called content editing.
It's basically an editor wholooks at the story or the
content of whatever is beingwritten and edits for the
content, rather than you knowsyntax or the actual copy of the
(19:47):
story.
So you know, you work oncharacter arc, you work on the
plot, plot holes, you knowthings like that.
You know the flow, the, youknow the.
You know the drive pacing.
So that is what the debt betterspaces rather than oh, you know
you spelt this wrong or that'snot how you use a comma.
(20:08):
That's not really what theeditors do All right.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
So, greta, now you can ask your question.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
So actually, I was going to bring up this idea that
you mentioned about howeverybody's brains work
differently, because you knowwe're all into the Megan and I
are all into this clar, clarify,simplify, implement.
And part of the clarify pieceis really getting down into you,
like who you are, because, yes,it's a business.
(20:36):
Yes, writing novels is abusiness, but it's also creative
.
And I know there are peoplethat say, well, I've never had
writer's block.
I mean, yeah, I've never askeda dentist to see having dental
block, or a policeman if he'shaving ticket block.
Yeah, yeah, I get that.
In fact, I've said that.
However, it's different.
It is a different.
(20:57):
There's like a dentist doesn'thave to wake up in the morning
and go how am I going to fillthat tooth?
You know there's many differentways I could do it and maybe if
I was in Act One of the toothfilling process, I would just
start to you know, like theydon't do that, they like learn a
way to fill a tooth.
(21:19):
And maybe in every one of us,while there's a like, oh, that's
a little bit of a uniqueproblem, but otherwise it's
pretty much you do the samething.
And, having said so, I do thinkwriter's block is a thing, and I
think a lot of the time, thereason that we have it is
because we hear how somebodyelse does it and we think we
(21:40):
have to do it that way and ourbrains just have this complete
rebellion and don't want to doit.
And it's sort of like what wewere talking about earlier with
you know what makes a personwant to indie publish what you
know.
It's like we all have differentmotivations for things, and so
I just think it's kind ofbrilliant that you figured out
(22:00):
that you are a slow writer andthat you've embraced that, and
then we actually talked aboutthis very briefly before we got
on the call, which is what I'msegwaying into to help you
maintain some semblance ofpaying the bills, because you're
a slow writer.
You've done a bunch of otherthings, so what do you tell
(22:21):
listeners?
Get them like motivated to knowoh, I can do other things.
Well, like developmentalediting would be one, but share
some more with us.
Speaker 3 (22:30):
Yeah.
So this is the big secret,especially if you're a new
writer, is that most of us haveother gigs, like most of us
don't just write fiction ifyou're a fiction writer or it's
usually other things that we doto fill in the gaps of the money
that we need to survive,because it's just not the
(22:54):
easiest way to make a bunch ofmoney writing fiction especially
.
But you know that doesn't meanyou can't be fulfilled
creatively.
If you're not just writingfiction.
You can find ways to take whatyou love doing and kind of move
sideways.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
It also doesn't make you any less of a writer, just
to interrupt for one second,because, exactly like doing it,
you know as, and it can still bea business, it can still be
something that you're you'redoing for income and for a
career, but Doing other stuffdoesn't make you any less of a
writer.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
Right, right, exactly and amen.
No, I just say amen keep going,jim, there we go.
So For me, I decided, okay.
Once I realized that I was aslow writer, I thought, okay,
well, there are other thingsthat I learned how to do.
How can I make those thingsintersect with the things that I
(23:55):
love to do?
So I started with editingpodcasts for writers.
You know, and you know I ThinkI got my first podcast editing
job for writers Maybe back in2017, and since then I've just
taken on gigs here and there andthat led me to doing audiobooks
(24:18):
.
I've done audiobooks for severalauthors where, instead of me
actually doing the audiobook, Ido the hard part, and by hard
part I mean the tedious part ofgoing in and editing for breaths
, and you know cutting out allthe mistakes and you know
putting it all together andmoving it around.
Like the pacing of that is alittle often I'm not just a
(24:41):
little bit.
That is incredibly timeconsuming and very tedious.
But you know, coming from, youknow a place where I had
experience in audio engineering.
It's not difficult for me, it'smore of just you know you get
into a flow and you just startdoing it and just keep going and
hopefully, if it's a reallygood story, it's actually a
(25:01):
little bit enjoyable, so thatthat makes it fun too.
Um, and then from there, I alsowent into Some video editing as
well, as well as doing my ownvideos.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
So yeah, well, so I know you have done the audiobook
Production.
I'm gonna call it that.
I don't know if that's actuallythe right term or not, but the
audio production for GarrettRobinson, who is a great,
phenomenal, epic fantasy author.
I love him and so I know you'vedone his his audiobooks.
(25:34):
Is this a bigger part of youraudio engineering business or is
it mostly the podcast or kindof?
How do you break that down andwhat?
What does that look like as faras like your production
schedule?
Speaker 3 (25:47):
Right.
So audiobooks are a little morerandom, like Garrett is, I
think I I have.
Garrett is one of my maincustomers, but I don't know when
he's going to throw one at me.
So it'll be like you'll say, oh, I have a audiobook coming out
(26:10):
For you in three months and I'llbe like, alright, well, I will
make sure I have sometimescleared for you, because I love
working on this books.
Um, I also work with a audiobookcompany Called AB audio
services.
I think that's the title of it.
Hmm, I don't remember the exactname, but it's AB services, I
(26:31):
think.
Oh, this is embarrassing.
Anyway, the point is is thatthey have a bunch of audio
engineers and a bunch ofnarrators and I Put my name in
the hat for hey, if you needsomebody to hop in and clean up
a bunch of stuff for you lastminute, hit me up and I'll do
that.
And I basically Kind of getthese things and it's usually a
(26:53):
week or two out, but they'relike, oh, we need it a few weeks
from now and I say okay, andthen I fit it into my schedule
and clean it up for them andsend it back.
That and podcasts are kind ofhow I fill in my time outside of
writing and that it's.
It's a little chaotic Sometimes, not knowing exactly when a
(27:16):
project will fall on my lap, um,but usually they don't all land
at the same time and if they do, you know, most people are
pretty understanding if I say,well, I already have this other
project and it wait a few moreweeks, or can I do this other
thing first, because it's theykind of came to me first and
often they're fine with that,and If they're not fine with
(27:38):
that they will move on to thenext person.
You kind of have to be okaywith that, because you can't do
everything.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
So so I would guess that the podcast are a little
bit more steady because mostpeople are podcasting to a
schedule.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
Right, right it's.
It's a lot more regular.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
the podcast, yeah, and they're shorter too, so it's
probably easier to fit them inthe cracks.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
Absolutely.
Yeah, it's by, by a very largemile, the audiobooks you know
editing.
Let's say it's a 15 houraudiobook.
It takes me, you know, fourtimes longer than that to do the
audiobook.
Sometimes I, if it's withsomeone I'm more familiar with,
(28:21):
like Garrett, maybe it's alittle bit less Because I know
his voice very well in his setupand I know what he's going to
do and what he isn't going to do, especially, especially, even
with any narrator that I'mfamiliar with, not just Garrett.
If I get another job and it'swhat that narrator I'm familiar
with, I've gotten a little bitto the point where I can kind of
(28:43):
just look at that sound wavesand kind of tell what they're
saying as far as the sounds.
So I know what S's look like, Iknow what T's look like, I know
what B's look.
I knew I know these littlenuances in the sound waves and I
can kind of go through and justsay, oh, that's a breath, I
need to cut that out or that's abreath.
You know, I'll move it intothis track to make it a little
bit quieter.
You know, and you get into thisa little bit of a flow state
(29:08):
when you can work a little bitfaster than normal with somebody
that you're familiar with, butit takes a long time and it's
very tedious Sounds like it.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Yeah but that's why we hire you to do ours.
I.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Think Megan tried to do one or two.
I didn't even try.
Speaker 2 (29:27):
She tried, no, no it was a requirement from day one.
If we were gonna do this, I wasnot gonna do the yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Have you ever thought about narrating the audio?
Because, as we mentioned whenwe got on the dulcet tones, you
have a.
You have a really, really nicespeaking voice.
Have you ever thought aboutnarrating yourself?
Speaker 3 (29:49):
Um, I have thought about it, but I Don't know what.
I would narrow a way, narrow itwell see, I narrow.
Wait, I can't even pronounce itcorrectly.
I don't know exactly what Ishould do, but I thought about
narrating my own books, but Idon't think my voice is right
(30:10):
for epic fantasy.
So I mean, I really wish it wasthat make it very convenient.
Maybe I could do like a YAthing, something like that.
I don't know, but it's justnever something that I've
seriously considered.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Yeah, well, you know, what I'm really fascinated with
and some day I hope to getinvolved with, is I love how
some of the audio books areturning into almost like audio
theater and that's becoming athing where people are taking
their, their stories and andAlmost writing a screenplay
(30:45):
scripty kind of thing for themand turning them into more of an
audio theater where they've gotMore than one-way sector and
they've got sound effects andmaybe music coming in and out
and all that.
I just find that alsofascinating and they love it.
So if you ever get into thatjust like, let me know.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
I Mean it's something that I could pull off.
It's man, it's a.
It's a lot harder than just theaudio book because of all the
different elements and findingthe right sound effects or
creating them yourself and youknow, managing a bunch of other
talent, you know, with thedifferent Voice actors, and I
(31:23):
mean it can.
It's a lot more moving pieces.
So yeah.
I can imagine the productionfor that would be very expensive
.
I wonder how much you know the,the companies that do that,
Actually charge for that.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Plenty.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
I think.
I think.
I think most of them, and maybeI'm wrong, but I think most of
them, or many of them.
They're publishers, you'reright.
So they, they buy the rightsand and do it that way, rather
than having the authors Pay inadvance or do a royalty share or
whatever okay.
Yeah, yeah, it's a littledifferent, little different
(31:58):
model.
I'm more like, more like, yeah,audio book publisher.
Well, so let's transition then.
Now I want to hear more aboutyour YouTube channel because I
know and I love it.
I, your intro.
You're like this is gonna bejust what I want to do.
When I want to do it isBasically, which I love.
(32:20):
It's great Because I'm alsoactually starting a YouTube
channel.
I'm just reading chapters ofaether bound, but I'm just
getting started with that andyou've been doing this for a
while now.
So why don't you tell us alittle bit about how you got
into doing YouTube videos,starting your channel, and what
you've been doing and why?
Speaker 3 (32:42):
Mm-hmm, um, I think the reason I started Um Was a
big kick in the butt for me wasseeing Daniel Green.
I don't know if you've everheard of him.
He's a big booktuber onbooktube and he was talking
about the Braden SandersonKickstarter that changed the
world, um, and you this wholething.
(33:05):
He said something that reallyshook me.
He said you know, a lot ofauthors are just not willing to
do crazy things in order to getnoticed, and he's he also writes
now to Daniel Green and he hasa huge YouTube audience.
(33:27):
And he said you know, I gainedthis huge audience, you know,
putting in the work every day onYouTube.
And yeah, I mean a lot ofpeople will say that I have an
advantage by that, but it's notlike I didn't work hard for this
audience.
So I thought, you know what alot of authors are a little
camera shy, you know, maybe I,maybe I'll just do it.
(33:48):
And then I came To therealization that I kind of don't
want to be a booktuber, atleast in the conventional sense.
I mean, I enjoy booktubers,watching them, I like knowing
what they read and theirthoughts about books and all of
that, and I and I love bookhauls and seeing book hauls, but
(34:09):
it just didn't fill mecreatively creating that content
.
So I kind of had to come to therealization that I want to do
something different in thatspace.
So I had a few correct, alittle bit of criteria.
A the channel needed to helpbuild into my overall model,
(34:31):
which is Really selling books.
You know, if it didn't help mesell books, it didn't make sense
.
So I couldn't play video games.
You know I couldn't do a makeupchannel.
You know it had to be aboutbooks.
I mean, I'm sure there's cleverways to do that and get that.
You know traffic, but I neededto attract epic fantasy fans.
The second thing was it neededto be reader focused, because I
(34:56):
could make a whole lot ofcontent about writer focused
things, but that's going toattract the wrong people and not
that those people might notread my books.
I kind of just want to attractreaders Instead of writers, who
are also readers, whichhopefully I attract them to.
So with those two things inmind and me not wanting to do
(35:18):
the typical book to content, Ithought, okay, what can I do?
That basically leaves me withnothing, right?
So I thought, well, there arenot a whole lot of channels on
YouTube that talk about.
You know the stuff that writerskind of think about, but from a
(35:39):
reader approachable way Um, likethe history of the genre.
You know how Certain thingswork inside of not like the
themes of a story and how theyinteract.
And you know all the stuff thatyou learned in your high school
or maybe College lit class thatyou kind of didn't want to
(36:00):
learn, maybe because they madeyou write a, read a boring book,
and You're like, ah, I don'tlike this because I don't like
reading this book, so this isnot interesting to me.
But when you start bringing itout from a fantasy novel that
you really love or sci-fi novelthat you really love or whatever
genre genre you're really into,that stuff becomes interesting
(36:21):
again and I wanted to Find waysto show fantasy fans that yeah,
I mean, all that stuff applieshere and it makes the books even
richer if you appreciate themfrom this angle as well.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
I saw your one that was on the, I think, was like on
how horror Intersects withfantasy or something, and I
don't read.
So I mean, I have, of course,everybody's read Lord of the
Rings and Then all that.
I've read some epic fantasy,but it's a really famous stuff,
but it's not the genre that Igravitate to.
(36:56):
But you know, yeah, if I have aguilty pleasure, it is horror,
and not slash or horror, but thelike, the true creepy,
thoughtful type of horror, andso I saw your.
Your post on that and how youwere talking even about some
fairy tales.
I don't know I loved it.
(37:17):
I was just I was really into it.
I was like this is Because Ithink it is fun too for people
to realize, nostalgic Lee, thata lot of the stuff they read
when they were a kid really doeshave like horror overtones or
fantasy overtones or Mysteryover.
You know what I mean, that thecrossover from some of that
nostalgia stuff and I don't know.
(37:40):
I found it really fascinating.
So I like your YouTube channel.
I think it very interesting.
Speaker 3 (37:45):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
I hope other readers like it as well well and I think
it's a really good point andthat that you can apply all that
stuff that they applied toclassic literature in high
school or whatever.
You can apply that toWell-written genre fiction,
(38:07):
whatever genre.
It is right.
Like there are still themes inPretty.
You know most books like sureyou get the.
You get books that are just youknow, plot, plot, plot, action,
action, action and and maybethe character doesn't grow or
change all that much over thebook and they're still fun to
read, right.
But you can also get reallyjust deep.
You know thrillers or deepfantasy where they have layers
(38:32):
of History from you know otherliterature as well as themes and
then you get the character arcsand they're off.
I mean, just because we writegenre doesn't mean we're not
literary.
That's my point.
Because we write genre doesn'tmean we're not literary.
You know it's, it's.
(38:52):
So I love that your channel isbringing that out and bringing
that to the forefront and, Ithink, legitimizing in readers
minds that it's okay.
It doesn't have to be a guiltypleasure to read this stuff, to
read genre romance too, like itdoesn't have to be a guilty
pleasure.
It can be actually very, youknow, deep storytelling and very
(39:17):
inspirational and motivationalas well, so I love that you're
doing that.
I think it's a great space tobe in the market.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
Genre fiction.
I just read an article on thisand I'm really bad with
remembering dates so I wastrying to Google it really
quickly.
But genre fiction wasn't even athing, like nobody ever called
it that.
It was just fiction.
There was fiction and there wasnonfiction.
And you know, nowadays we lookback and we go, oh, you know,
(39:45):
pride and prejudice, that's ofthis really a romance, but back
then it was just a book, and youknow so.
Or Frankenstein now we look atthat as horror, but when Mary
Shelley wrote it it was just abook.
And so I do think that some ofthe current prejudice against
the idea of genre fiction isreally kind of silly.
(40:06):
And I also think that nottracing back the roots of what
you love to some of its original, that everything did cross over
back then.
There's so many things crossedover back then and you know,
like Gothic romance was kind ofa crossover of Horror in romance
(40:27):
, bet or thriller in romance.
So I don't know today.
I guess my whole point is I'mgetting long winded here that we
do, we forget the roots ofthings and we get, we start
parsing things so much and thenwe get prejudice against oh,
she's just a genre writer.
Well, so are you.
I don't know what you're right,but whatever it is, it is a
genre.
So there you go, and everybodylistening.
(40:50):
Go to Jim's YouTube channel andyou will learn the roots of
these things and be a bettereducated reader.
That's my, that's my littlesoapbox.
I'm getting off of it right now.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
All right, so yeah, so I guess.
So for YouTube.
I think that's we kind ofcovered everything there.
I mean, do you have any tipsfor those of us who are just
starting to try and exploreYouTube for fiction?
Speaker 3 (41:21):
So, again, like I said, it's make sure you're
tracking the right people.
So make sure you.
That means having kind of anintentional idea of who your
ideal viewer is and how theyintersect with your ideal reader
, you know.
So are they the same person orhow much do they cross over if
(41:43):
they're not the same person?
And if they aren't the sameperson, you know, are you doing
this just for fun, just a, youknow, fulfill, a creative edge,
which is totally valid?
Or are you doing this tosomehow funnel?
You know it's part of yourfunnel, a funnel of your sales
funnel?
If it is, then you have tofigure out how to make your
(42:05):
reader and that person closer tobeing the same person.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
So you mean you have to clarify your purpose.
Speaker 3 (42:14):
Mm.
Yeah, I think you do.
I think you do yes.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
And a plan.
Speaker 3 (42:26):
Yeah, it's kind of funny how that it always comes
back to that, doesn't it?
Another?
big thing that I would say thata lot of people talk about is,
you know the dreaded A word, thealgorithm.
And a big part of that is justunderstanding that, and YouTube
says this themselves.
(42:47):
And the more you start to thinkin this way, the more helpful
it is is that the algorithm isjust the audience.
The algorithm suggests theaudience.
If they do not like what you'remaking, then YouTube won't show
it to anybody.
So if you make good content andyou package it well with a
(43:11):
thumbnail and a title that'sattractive, it's going to do
better than something that isn'twell produced or isn't well put
together or isn't well packaged.
Same thing with books, samething with YouTube.
And it used to be that if yourYouTube channel wasn't doing
that good, it brought everythingelse down.
(43:31):
Youtube kind of judges everyvideo by its own merits, so it's
not your channel.
I mean.
I'm sure there's a little bitof algorithmic, whatever juju in
there that your channel historydoes affect the things.
But for the most part you knowone video can do very well
because it's a really good videoand people want to watch it and
(43:52):
the next video could do nothingbecause people don't want that
video.
So it could be that if you findthat when you're doing something
and it's not getting a lot ofviews or a lot of watch time.
It could be a number of things.
You have to kind of learn themetrics and what's going on
behind them a little bit tounderstand.
Well, I understand what I didwrong here, but it's usually the
(44:16):
same principle as with books is, if you're not making something
somebody wants to watch, thenit won't get watched and that's
and it's kind of annoying to saythat, because that means like
your baby isn't doing well andit's all my fault, you know, but
you know that's the way it is,unfortunately.
So you either have to stick tothat and say I'm just going to
(44:39):
have a very small dedicatedaudience, or I will find or I'll
create things for more peopleand try to funnel it down.
Speaker 1 (44:47):
So so I have a question Is there an element of
you know, like how we startedthis by saying part of the
reason you're doing the sidehustles is because you don't
write quickly?
Well, the whole premise ofwriting quickly is that you get
a bigger backlist more quicklyand, of course, every time you
(45:08):
release the book you get a boostand all that.
But there is something abouthaving more books that can help
attract more readers, like Idon't know if it's algorithms
taking more seriously, readerstaking more seriously.
There's a higher SEO becausethere's more different ways to
(45:29):
find you.
I don't know what all thereasons are, but is that the
same with YouTube?
Like if you just make one ortwo videos that they're probably
not going to do anything?
Is there is like a tippingpoint, like when you get to 30
videos, all of a sudden you'restarting to get a little more
bump, or how does that work?
Speaker 3 (45:47):
So there's a lot of breakdowns from people a lot
smarter than me who've looked athundreds of channels to see
what the patterns are, and itusually takes about 100 videos
to break out to get monetized.
That's like the golden thing ofhaving it.
And monetization means you have1000 subscribers and within one
(46:12):
365 day period you've gotten4000 watch hours of time.
There's a little bit of leewaybecause they've also done the
shorts, so that has a differentmetric.
So if you focus on shorts thenyou know it's a different amount
of views.
I can't remember how much it is.
I think it's like 3 millionviews within 90 days, which is
(46:33):
crazy numbers, but I don't knowhow you would accomplish that.
But some people can do it.
And then you know they alsohave a lower standard of
monetization, which is 500subscribers and 300,000 watch
hours, which I think the watchhours part is the harder part
than the 500.
But anyway, the point is isthat it does take a lot of
(46:58):
videos and part of it is justexperience, because a lot of the
videos you make at first arejust not going to be as good as
the videos you make later.
So some of it is learning andsome of it is just because
sometimes it takes some time forpeople to get to know you and
be familiar with you.
But, just like with publishing,sometimes you can make one or
(47:22):
two videos and explode withthousands of subscribers and
views because the video is justthat good or just that
interesting or compelling orclickable.
Speaker 1 (47:33):
Or somebody with a huge platform found it
interesting or compelling andshared it.
Speaker 2 (47:40):
And everybody.
Speaker 1 (47:41):
You know, that's the whole, that's the golden ticket,
right you?
Know if you can find thatinfluencer who's got this huge
audience.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
You get Reese Witherspoon to pick up your book
, you're going to do pretty well.
Speaker 3 (47:53):
Yeah, exactly, that's all it takes.
That's all it takes.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
Yeah, used to be Oprah, now it's Reese.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (48:01):
So, but a lot of what I do now is so.
I have a big evergreen contentphilosophy and I've had it for
years now is that most of thethings that I make my fiction,
you know my nonfiction, whichusually comes in block form.
I don't want it to be relevant,no matter when you see it.
(48:22):
So most of my YouTube videosare all evergreen.
It doesn't really matter whenyou see it, because they're
evergreen.
So it also builds into anotherstrategy of what do I do now
that I've made this thing?
How do I keep reusing it?
So after I make it you know Ihave a transcript of it.
You know I make a blog post outof it and I embed the video in
(48:44):
the blog post to just in casethey want to watch it.
But it becomes a blog postthat's on my website.
So I have the SEO from that.
You know people.
You know I look at my GoogleAnalytics and see people coming
through just from things likethat and some of them subscribe
to my mailing list and see mystories and you know, maybe they
buy my book.
You know I take those things andI have a really epic long right
(49:09):
now it's three years long of anauto responder on Mailerlight,
because I just make a bunch ofcontent and I think, well, you
know what this is evergreen.
I'm going to build an emailaround it and say, hey, I made
this thing, this is the thing Imade, check it out, let's talk.
Email me back and we'll talkabout it.
So my YouTube videos, which isa new thing, I've started
(49:32):
inserting that in there.
Just in case you know, I don'thave an update for a month.
They still get an email becausethis auto responder super long.
So you know, I just kind offind ways to reuse content in a
very efficient way and if youcreate a lot of evergreen
content, that works really wellfor that.
Speaker 1 (49:53):
So you ever take little clips and have you
started the TikTok craze.
Speaker 3 (49:58):
Mm.
Hmm, I do have a TikTok and Iwent to it kicking and screaming
, and it's only.
I only did it because I startedmaking YouTube videos, because
that's what I really wanted todo.
I wanted to try that and then Ithought, well, I mean I could
just cut the videos into acouple smaller pieces and then I
(50:21):
can put them on YouTube shorts.
And if I'm putting them onYouTube shorts, I may as well
put them on TikTok and and reelsor whatever.
And, funny enough, I put atzero effort into my TikTok.
I feel like saying this outloud makes makes me.
I feel like I'm not trying, butI just get follows there and
(50:44):
likes and whatnot and I'm nottrying.
That platform is so hyperfocused on what they do well,
which is short form content,that it kind of steers itself in
a very strange way.
It just knows how to find thepeople that are for you.
I don't know how they're doingit, but you know.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
I think it's illegal, whatever they're doing.
I don't think it's legal.
I'm just romantic there, butyou know.
Speaker 3 (51:11):
I don't spend time following people.
I'm not doing all the thingsthey say like, oh yeah, go
comment on things and beinvolved in the community.
No, I'm just putting it upthere.
That's all I'm doing.
It's just finding its people.
I don't know how they're doingthat kind of magic without you
doing.
Maybe it's because it's youngand you can still kind of get
(51:31):
somewhere without that.
But TikTok for shorts.
It does better than YouTubeshorts.
It does better than InstagramReels.
It just does its thing.
I don't even try there.
So if you were to try, I'm sureyou would do a lot better on
TikTok than I am.
And I'm not even trying.
My videos get hundreds of viewseasy without even trying.
(51:54):
I just put them on there, yeah.
Speaker 2 (51:58):
Well, I find that that's one of my big goals.
I think is so smart that you'redoing that.
I'm trying to emulate or pickup and do better is the cross
promotion I guess I'm going tocall it that of your content,
taking it and reusing it inmultiple ways, Right?
(52:19):
So I'm trying to start doingthat with the YouTube videos, so
like little clips of me readingthe book and then putting that
up on.
I'm not on TikTok yet We'll besoon, but not yet but I put it
up on Instagram, Reels andFacebook or whatever they call
them now and trying to reusethat and find new ways of taking
(52:43):
the same existing stuff on myimagery that I already have
created and not recreate thewheel every single time.
I want to do something new, butrather reuse all that.
I think it's so smart andsometimes for some of us whose
brain my brain just doesn'tnaturally make those connections
, I have to really work at itand have to really say, okay,
(53:05):
this can be used there and thereand there and there and there,
and let's do that.
So I think that's a great tipfor writers who want to be
efficient with their marketingand promotion time and
everything too.
It's just making sure you likeput it on the blog, you put it
on the social media platforms.
You reuse videos where you can.
(53:25):
All that stuff is just so key.
Speaker 3 (53:30):
I think one easy strategy to help you start to
see what you have is actuallytake an inventory of what you've
made and put in a spreadsheet.
I have a spreadsheet that showsall of my.
I have spreadsheets for all ofmy YouTube videos and for all of
my blog posts, or all my booksand like where they've been
(53:51):
licensed and whatnot.
When you start to look at whatyou've actually created and it's
like, oh man, oh, I've written200 blog posts in the past five
years.
I don't know how I did that infive years.
It's just kind of happened overtime.
But it's like oh well, what doI do with this?
Like, maybe I can repackagethis somehow.
(54:12):
Maybe when you start takinginventory of what you've
actually created and figuringout, oh well, you know what?
I could actually go back fiveyears and this is a month where
I just need to stop everythingand just write fiction for a
long time.
But people are waiting forsomething from me.
Oh, I'll just start recyclingthis content.
(54:33):
Like, oh, I wrote this fiveyears ago, check this out, it's
still good, still valid,especially if you're writing
that evergreen content.
And evergreen content is hardbecause it has to be of some
substance that isn't temporary,but it's totally worth it,
because you always havesomething new and it can be
(54:54):
repackaged in so many differentways.
Speaker 1 (54:58):
My publisher with my first series was very this is
something I'm very grateful toher for, because that was
something that the editor, thepublisher, everybody there were
like no, take this out, this isgoing to date your book.
Take that, change this, takethis.
(55:19):
At least there was this.
Sometimes you want to get intowhat's new technology right now
is going to make this thrillerso cool.
Well, you know what?
It's not new technology halfthe time by the time the book is
published and it's definitelynot new technology by the time
the book's been out for threeyears and it makes you sound
antiquated because it's like,wow, ring Dorbell, stuff, new
technology?
(55:39):
No, it's not new, not anymore.
So I was very grateful for thatand I think your point about
using your content and lookingat your content that it's
brilliant, because we were justtalking about that, because
moving our website is forcing usto look at all these blog posts
(56:03):
and things we've been writingfor years and like what are we
going to do with them?
And we actually are quickguides that we wrote started by
us kind of taking groups of blogposts that all went together in
a category and then sayingthese could make a quick guide
if we just and then just kind ofrewrite them, smooth them out,
(56:25):
fill in the empty places.
You know we didn't talk aboutthis or that, so we had to write
a little bit more, but that iskind of what we did.
We turned blog posts into booksbecause you know we had all
this content and that is justvery smart.
You can also use them I'm notbeing a video person, but being
(56:48):
a writer, obviously just evenusing even chapters or segments
from books or old blog posts toreach out to other people who
are looking for content of youcan get published on you know a
big site, somebody else'swebsite, but that can be a great
way to get people to yourwriting and to what you're doing
(57:10):
.
You know, right, in fact,alessandra Torre, she's a
thriller.
She just started writingthrillers but she was primarily
in romance before.
But she had been writing likeshort, steamy stories for Cosmo
and when she launched her firstbut I you know I don't want to
(57:32):
tell her story, we have to haveher on someday but when she
launched her first novel, I meanit went crazy because she had
this whole Cosmo audience who'dbeen reading her short fiction
and were perfectly primed to gobuy a book from her, you know,
and that's just a fabulous, afabulous example of finding your
(57:55):
audience someplace else, likeyou're doing with YouTube, like
I think we get very funnelminded as writers.
Sometimes it's like, well, myaudience is on Amazon, barnes,
noble and Kobo, and it's like,well, actually you probably have
people who would love yourfiction in all kinds of places.
Speaker 3 (58:16):
Right, exactly, and especially we have a very good
niche that you know very wellthat it's very different.
You know, if you are, you knowa smart small town, you know a
fiction mystery writer, you knowthere are probably discords and
forums that talk about, youknow, small town issues like
(58:39):
restoration of buildings andstuff like that, and if you're,
if you like that and you can bea part of the community there
and you make content around that, and you also have fiction
books that focus on the thingsthat they love.
I mean, you kind of have tostart making a little bit out of
the box sometimes to find yourpeople, especially in genres of
(59:03):
fiction that are just verysaturated.
You know, I write epic fantasyand it's hard to break out an
epic fantasy because there's a,honestly, there's a lot of us
who write it, a lot of us, andthat makes it hard for anyone to
be seen.
It's also great because thereaders never run out of stuff
to read, which is, you know, Idon't have a problem with this,
(59:24):
I'm slow.
So, yeah, go read somebody elseand then come back.
But you know it's it's just.
You know you have to find yourway in and if you're not,
thinking creatively to find yourway in.
You know you're Kind of goingto hit the.
You know the glass ceiling asit works.
Speaker 1 (59:43):
So here's another funny one.
My dad follows this guy.
My dad is older and he's got alittle.
Anyway, my dad follows this guy.
He's a modern-day druid and heis got this blog that is been
going on for years and years.
He's fabulously Successful.
(01:00:03):
He's got his niche of all thesepeople who are like preppers.
They're ready for the end ofthe world, they're thinking
right stuff about how to get offthe grid and how to fool the
IRS and how to stockpile Food,and he's got all this stuff for
those people.
And guess what kind of fictionhe writes?
Apocalyptic fiction, guesswho's?
(01:00:24):
those his fiction to his blogreaders.
I mean it's like it's just kindof brilliant and I mean, who
knows, maybe he really really isa modern-day druid, he really
really does believe the world iscoming to an end and all of
that, or maybe he just kind ofwent.
Hmm, I'm just gonna reach awhole bunch of people who think
(01:00:46):
the way that this way that mycharacters think and you know,
do this thing, but exploitingyour niche in a A unique way is,
I mean, then you got to givekudos to that guy.
Speaker 3 (01:00:59):
That is a unique way takes you know, yeah, a lot of
it a lot of it kind of has to dowith Figuring out you know what
am I researching anyway?
Like how can I turn whatever Ihave to do to create what I make
into content, because you'redoing it anyway?
There's this one Guy he's verysuccessful on YouTube and I was
(01:01:22):
watching his little seminar andhe said his motto was turn the
camera on.
So this doesn't have to be forYouTube, it's.
It kind of kind of can beanything.
But his whole thing was likejust turn the camera on if
you're reading a book, just turnthe camera on and read it in
front of the camera and thenclose the book and just see what
(01:01:43):
you think.
You know, if you, you can turnevery part of your life into
content if you so choose.
You don't have to, and Iactually strongly recommend that
most people not do that.
Some people can do that andthat's your thing, do your thing
, but most people probablyshould not.
But you know, turning thecamera on is kind of the concept
(01:02:04):
of like you know what am Idoing anyway.
That's actually more compellingthan I think it is and I'm just
not taking advantage of it anda lot of the things that we
research as authors that wethink, oh, I mean it's going in
the book, whatever.
I mean, a lot of it is actuallykind of interesting and if you
can kind of present it in aninterest, interesting way, it
might actually attract people toyou and they might want to read
(01:02:28):
your book, if they know oh,this person is interesting and
they just taught me somethingreally cool in a really
interesting way, and I kind ofwant to read their books now.
Speaker 2 (01:02:37):
Yeah, yeah and and it's interesting to with that
too.
So, again going back to my, mybaby YouTube channel here, I've
actually started creating aplaylist of the videos of other
creators that I'm watching forresearch for the book that I'm
writing right now.
And yeah, I don't know if I've,I haven't even looked, I don't
(01:02:58):
know if I've even had any viewsor anything on the playlist or
anything like that.
But my, I have challenged.
My readers in my news are saidyeah, I've got this playlist.
Can you guess what the next,the theme of the next book, is
gonna be?
Because I don't actually knowyet, you know, and so kind of
drawing a little bit moreinterest and like, yeah, it's
(01:03:18):
not even me creating content,it's just me sharing content
that is relevant to my books.
And I don't know, maybe it'llwork, maybe it won't, but it's
easy and it's something I can do.
Maybe it'll share other, youknow, maybe that'll get a little
cross feed on the, thealgorithm gods, maybe not, I
have no idea, but it's somethingfor people to go look at if
(01:03:41):
they're interested and curiousand then, using that down the
road as I do, write thosesections and figure out exactly
how I'm using those mostlymythology, so how I'm using
those myths or those historicalstories.
The other one that's a lot onthat playlist is like the witch
trials and stuff like that.
So what I'm actually gonna pullfrom that and how I'm gonna use
(01:04:01):
it in the novel.
That's on my my plan foranother video that I can do and
just say, hey, look, yeah,here's the clip from this thing.
Like, look, think about this.
And then how I'm using that inthe story, because I take that
and twist it and turn it intosomething else.
So, absolutely so for all youlisteners out there, if you're
interested in Go check out myYouTube channel.
(01:04:22):
There you go, all right.
Well, we are, I believe, comingup on the hour, or maybe even
past the hour, I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 (01:04:28):
I forgot start timer, but Jim, just gonna have to
edit it down now.
Speaker 2 (01:04:41):
So I guess any final words, any final top tips,
last-minute things you want totell the audience there's no one
way to be successful as anauthor.
Speaker 3 (01:04:55):
You just have to find your own path, and Do you,
because you don't want to bemiserable doing this, because
this is a marathon, so you haveto find a way to do it in a way
that makes you happy, even ifthat means that you don't make a
ton of money at first.
You know, define the kind oflifestyle you want and go for it
(01:05:15):
.
Speaker 1 (01:05:17):
I.
We could pay him to say that,couldn't we?
That's perfect, jim.
So why don't you tell peoplewhere they can find More about
you your YouTube channel, yourbooks and all the things that
you do?
Speaker 3 (01:05:32):
Yeah, the easiest thing to do is just go to my
main website.
It connects to everything.
Jim will born calm J.
I am W I LB O.
You are in E dot com and, andit has all my links to my
YouTube.
I have blog posts there whichalso have, you know, my YouTube
videos embedded in them.
So if you see anything in theblog post like, oh, that's an
(01:05:54):
interesting topic, it might havea YouTube video attached to it.
And, of course, you can get onmy mailing list from there as
well.
Speaker 1 (01:06:01):
I'll keep you updated and and get on his three-year
auto-responder.
Speaker 3 (01:06:06):
No, right, right, I don't.
They don't know they're on athree-year auto-responder
because they know, they know,wow, that's, that's fabulous
never let a good, evergreenemail go to waste.
Just put it on a three-yearauto-responder.
That's it.
Speaker 1 (01:06:30):
Yeah, I've got a rethink my whole auto-responder
strategy after this conversation.
That would be an actually aninteresting topic to tackle one
day is auto-responders.
Maybe we have to do this again,jim.
Absolutely, that would be fun.
So, everybody listening.
I hope you enjoyed thisconversation.
(01:06:50):
I sure did.
My brain is kind of hurting nowwith all the ideas that are
going around in it, but if youneed clarity, don't forget to
stop by the author wheel.
Calm, it is still slash stuff.
As to you, ff, but that will bechanging.
So hurry up over there and youcan grab our Free course, our
(01:07:12):
free email course seven days toclarity, uncover your author
purpose.
And that course will lead youthrough a lot of the things we
were talking about todayUnderstanding why you do what
you do, your more motivations,what's gonna maybe scratch your
author edge, and also will helpyou write a mission statement
and tagline in just seven days.
(01:07:33):
Meanwhile, everybody, keep yourstories rolling.
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