Writer's Block Workshop: Are You Done Yet?

This month, Heidi, Jagi, and I discussed process and progress on the way to advancing our projects. We also gave a progress check-in on the things we're working on.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
So today we're doing a workshop session.
We do these once a month, usually in the middle of the
month. Today is.
Are you done yet? It's the middle of the year.
Our program is kind of going over the course of the entire
year, going from ideation, beinga writer to finished product,

(00:20):
becoming an author, putting something into the marketplace.
Before we actually get into the conversation, let's say hello to
the folks that are Co hosting today.
Heidi, you're usually hosting but today just hanging out.

(00:40):
Do you want to give us a progress report?
You've got a lot to report, I feel like.
I will try. I may.
I'm there's a little bit of an issue going on here, so I
apologize. I have to shut the mic off.
Yeah, I'm trying to finish up this novella and I'm starting to
edit the larger work, which is the second book in the Song List

(01:05):
series. The novella is part of that
world, but it's sort of a prequel or a ancillary project.
I don't know what term you woulduse for it because you could
kind of, I mean on a top. Supplemental.
Supplemental. Sure.
OK, so I'm working on those two things.
I was playing around with covers.

(01:25):
That was kind of fun, and I'm probably going to start at some
point doing an audio book for the novella.
So these are the things I've allgot floating around right now.
I'm trying not to start anythingelse.
Yeah, fair, reasonable. But in the grand scheme of
things, since last month when wedid the workshop where we really

(01:49):
do these progress check insurance, you got your audio
book out. I feel like that is an important
thing to talk about. I.
Did I guess I did. It was last week so I I think I
got it out right. After you're over it now one
week passed and you're just I'm over it.
No, yeah, I do. I have it out.
It's up on Audible. It's I'm, I'm kind of in awe

(02:12):
that the whole that The thing isfinally done.
It was, it was quite a a circus for a lot of reasons.
So yeah, if anyone wants a code,a promo code, I can offer you
that. Also put it up in the nest.
All right, I will do that. In the meantime, Jaji, you are

(02:32):
Co hosting today. I think this is this is the
first time we've had you Co hosting or were you Co hosting
with us last week? This is the first time and
started as confusion. My font was too big and when I
made it small enough to see the button on the pop up, I'll get
the wrong thing. Well, you know, it's how it
goes. I understand, but now that
you've done it once, it's. Now I know now it now it will

(02:53):
never be a problem again. And that's the issue with the
first time that you do somethinghere on the workshop, we always
give a progress report. So tell us about report to us on
your progress. My progress is that I finished
the short story that I had planned out months ago, but

(03:13):
hadn't had a chance to write forFantastic Schools familiars.
So it was a short story about Lucky the Dragon, who is a
favorite among the characters from my series on his own having
to solve a problem among the other familiars at the at the
school. So I got to, you know, put
different familiars on stage. And the one of the fun parts

(03:35):
about it was that I'd had someone pay at a Kickstarter to
name a character, and he thoughthe was just naming a character
who would be mentioned. But it seemed to me unfair to
make him wait two years till I get back to that series.
So I thought I'd mention her in the short story.
Well, when I started writing theshort story, she ended up as a

(03:56):
major character. And since the guy was naming it
after his wife, he was just delighted with the story.
So I don't know what the other readers will think, but I, it
really was, you know, it it, it went over well with the
gentleman who who had paid for the character name.
So that was a lot of fun. I was glad to be able to do

(04:16):
that. And it will go into print as a
short story instead of waiting. I mean, I'll put her in the book
at some point too, but you know that this way he didn't have to
wait a long time. And when I got back to working
on my regular novel, I'm workingat the moment, so that was
joyful too. Very cool.
I'm glad to hear it. I feel like these workshops, you

(04:38):
know, in the middle of the monthare a good way of kind of
gauging how much we can get doneor looking back at what we did
get done or completed once a month.
I like them that way. Here's an interesting thing.
I'll give a progress check in aswell because I, you know, I'm,

(05:01):
I'm making progress. I'm doing things.
The audio book I had submitted for this month.
I all time bonehead plays. I was like, why is this taking
so long? I didn't realize for whatever
reason, all of a sudden they're like, Hey, they had emailed me.
Do you want to release a, a supplemental PDF with this

(05:26):
audiobook? No, I never do.
I never. I never do that for any of
these. Why are you holding this up for
this now? I not any of the others.
Has this occurred? And all of a sudden they're
like, we'll release this after after you get back to us.
And it's like, Oh my God, this was supposed to be out last
week. So hopefully tomorrow.

(05:47):
I messaged him yesterday and they told me I think 48 hours or
something. So it might even go live now,
you know, who knows? There can't possibly be that
much. It's a very short audio book.
So, you know, hopefully that'll that'll come along.
Also, Heidi has been having a listen to the audio book.

(06:11):
I'm preparing for next month's release.
It is a cover of a popular, well, maybe not so popular, but
of a known story from the past. Hey, JF, we got, we got a
request for you bring you up. So basically that is going to be
an audio drama production. I'm working on the cover design

(06:34):
for that. I'm working on the sound effects
for that right now. It's coming along.
It's a it's about 40 minutes. So it's, you know, in terms of
short stories, you know, it's there, it's in the wheelhouse.
Looking forward to getting that one out.
I, I'm, I like the story a lot. I am considering if maybe it

(07:00):
should be a narration only and audio drama release.
I really don't know if I'm goingto do that because it's 40
minutes, then you're looking at an hour and 20 minutes to do
both the tracks, You know, I don't know, kicking it around.
Finally, also trying to make some progress on the paperback

(07:28):
that I'll release this fall. So I'm about 25% done with the
layout on that. And you know, hopefully even
today I'll make a little progress on it while we're here
in this session. I try to use this stuff for
that, but in the meantime, JF you've come up, also Nicholas
and Tom, if you guys want to come up and talk.
These workshops are kind of progress report hangout

(07:50):
sessions. We do have a topic and we will
get into that shortly, but this is an open stage.
We hang out. JF you haven't been up in a
while and I feel like we're kindof lucky to have you, so maybe
give us a progress report. Sure.
Hey, sorry, I was chewing. I'm having lunch right now.

(08:13):
But hey, I am deep in the into writing my I'm writing a
historical. I don't know if I mentioned that
here. I'm writing a historical fiction
slash fantasy book about that involves Vlad the Impaler.

(08:33):
Very cool. And I'm about 16,000 words into
it. I'm on the 8th chapter which is
pretty good for me. It's the longest I've written to
date. It's because I'm, I'm usually, I

(08:54):
got my start as a, as a short story writer on Medium.
So this is by far the longest thing I've written.
And I've got a ways to go because there's still a lot of
action I've got to get to, whichis going to, it's going to play
into how the characters move forward and which will then, you

(09:18):
know, govern the action, taking it all the way to the end.
And it's interesting to delve into this by because I feel like
I have a little bit of latitude with love because there's
there's the historical stuff, but they're actually because it
was in the 1400s. There's not a ton of written.

(09:39):
Records. So it's.
Limited first source material. Exactly.
But it it actually because what a lot of the book deals with is
his relationship with his first wife, which we know almost
nothing about. I mean, there's even conjecture

(10:02):
on what her name was. Fertile ground, then.
Yeah, and I even picked her. I picked her name from it was
like mentioned in passing on like a Romanian tourism website.
And it was like, OK, that's thatsounds, you know, that sounds
good. It's but, but nobody knows very

(10:24):
much about her. So it's just kind of looking at
their relationship and how theirrelationship develops.
Cool. Yeah, I appreciate it.
You'll have to give us some check insurance along the way.
When are you planning to complete it?
Or do you not know or? I'm I'm a teacher so and during

(10:47):
the summer it's like, oh, you have the summer off, you can
write. Then it's like, no, I have I
have two children who have tons of activities and I'm kind of
running them here. They're thither and Yan along
with a bunch of other stuff thatwe tend to do other projects we
do during the summer. So I actually honestly have less

(11:09):
time in the summer to write thanmore so.
So I can't say definitively whenI'll be done.
I'm hoping to have it have at least the first draft finished
by the end of the year, maybe before, because I feel like the

(11:29):
last three or four chapters I'vewritten have come very quickly.
So I'm hoping that now that I'vekind of hit a hit a stride with
the way I think things are goingto progress, that it will it
will go faster. I dig it.
Very cool. Yeah, have to.

(11:49):
Like I said, keep us posted on progress.
And once it gets closer, you're looking for beta readers.
Obviously. Take advantage of the community.
Nicholas, you're up on stage. Oh yeah, no problem.
Hello. Yeah, that, that sounds
interesting. Glad the Impaler.
I love vampire stories, I love vampire versus werewolf stories.

(12:12):
I I have a story kind of outlined and I I hope that I can
get to it someday because I'm still not done with the project
I'm working on. Actually I saw this title of
this space. Are you done yet?
And I thought you were specifically sub tweeting me.

(12:33):
Actually, no. I I.
I have a final draft completed and it's the third final draft
that I've completed Final Draft V3, and hopefully there's not
seven more of those versions. It can't be a final draft.
If there are three of them, it'sthe next draft.
Well, it says final draft dot dot doc X on my computer, so I

(12:56):
don't know what you make of that.
But yes, no, I get it. Yeah.
Seems like you made a typing error.
You know when you go through Amazon and you get like the
author's draft copies or whatever and they send a
paperback to your house and it says not for resale on it?
I have 11 of those on my shelf. Torturing yourself.

(13:18):
I just edit better when I have Aand read better when I have a
physical copy, and I continue tocomb through and find little
things here or there. Thankfully, at this point it's
down to very small things like should this be a comma or should
this be a period? You know, but this is Part 1 of
the trilogy. It will be delivered this year.
But no, unfortunately, Michael, I am not done yet.

(13:43):
That's how it goes. Here's the question for you,
because we had talked about this.
Do you believe that you will make a September release?
Because I'm sort of, you know, I'm trying to schedule out these
podcasts, buddy, and. Yes, yes, I I will release it on
September 22nd. It is a long expected part.

(14:03):
Hell or high waters? Is that what you're saying here?
Yeah, no, this, this last, this last read through that I did was
really there, there the, the number of markups I make each
time continue to shrink and I'm just, I'm powering through.
It's going to, it's going to, you know what it's going to be
the autumnal equinox or at the very latest, it's going to be

(14:23):
the the winter solstice. It's one of those two dates,
and. Three month difference.
Yeah, well, you know. OK.
Is what it is, but it's going tobe this year, I promise.
OK, I appreciate you keeping me honest with these sub tweets.
I didn't do it as as a matter offact, this is a redeploy of a

(14:47):
title that we used last year. We did this workshop technically
last year as well, so we're revisiting.
It was such a good name, such a good space that we got back into
it since we have all done our check insurance, you know, we've
ripped through some of this. Maybe let's get into the legit

(15:12):
conversation, the actual discussion we have planned for
today. As you know, we kind of stage a
little bit of a pre production meeting.
Jaji was part of that for the first time last Thursday and
we've got some notes and you know, I, I feel like we've done

(15:32):
the progress check in. We've we've all done that.
We're we're going to keep addressing some of that.
But the meat of the discussion today I think is really about
processing the work right, The drafting, the writing, the
editing. We can start anywhere.
I think, at least in terms of the notes that we had.

(15:57):
Where we kicked things off was really with outlining.
And I am an outliner, but my Co hosts are less interested in
outlining. So let's hear some of their
thoughts on it as opposition, orhow they will tastefully select

(16:18):
how to apply outlining as they choose.
Yes, I'll go 1st, and I've said this here before, but I'll say
it again. I'm very much in favor of
outlining if you can do it. And what I mean by that is it's
similar to a friend of mine. I once asked when I was in
college whether he thought I should be a writer, and he said

(16:41):
you shouldn't become a writer unless you can't do anything
else. And it took me a while to
realize it didn't mean that I was incapable of doing another
job. He meant that I couldn't stop
writing. But this is a similar type of
thing. If you can sit down and write an
outline and you keep writing, I think that is an ideal way to do
it because you have an idea of where you're going and your

(17:02):
ideas are coordinated and you'reless likely to mess up.
But I've just seen too many people sit down, start something
I really liked, make a full outline, and the moment the
outline's done, they stop. Their creative process freezes.
And it happened to me. And that's how I, I, I know
about this. I finished an outline of a book

(17:24):
I'd written 12 chapters of in 1992, and I did not work on it
again for several years. The only reason I went back to
it is friends kept saying, hey, what's going on with that story?
I really liked it and I had to tear up the outline from chapter
12 on and completely redo it, and I eventually realized that
it was because my creative process requires me to be

(17:48):
creating new things each chapterin order to make it interesting.
Or at least about halfway. I found once, like about a
halfway through the work, I could, I could outline in the
second-half as to where what I'dalready established was going.
And another, a friend of mine once said, oh, I do that
creative process you're talking about in the outlining part, and

(18:13):
I just write from there. And she had no trouble with an
outline. So my, my encouragement to new
writers or to anyone who's looking at it is to try the
outline, see if it works for you.
But if it doesn't, don't abandoned the process, the
project because your imaginationstops.
Just tear up the outline from wherever it feels organic to

(18:33):
move forward and try again. I mean, I, I think that's a
great point you make judging. It's like you can't if if you
you can outline and do it for sure, but don't let it entrap
you. I mean, that's really the thing.
So like for me, it's like I'll have an idea and I will start

(18:58):
writing in that idea and then I'll like I'll hit a wall and
I'll sit down and I'll like put together, you know, more of a
flow chart. I'm not a big fan of, you know,
using the Roman numerals and doing the outline like, you
know, they, they told you and forced you to do with your
essays and such. But I mean, it's just the idea
of structure. So for me, I'll do a flow chart

(19:19):
or something. It's like this happens and and
I'll put it in a box and then arrow and then this happens and
then this happens just to kind of get myself going forward.
It's not necessarily getting, you know, writing this all out
to the end, but just enough to go forward.
But I feel, you know, I mean, for me, it gets for me to sit
and spend all of my time puttingtogether, you know, you know,

(19:46):
your outline was like, we have this section and then this
paragraph is about this, you know, that the essay thing we
all learned in school, which is which is fine.
I mean, you, you need to kind ofbounce back and forth and
understand structure. But it just doesn't work for me
when I'm trying to be creative because I need the freedom to
like maybe go a different way. It's like, Hey, what's you know,

(20:08):
And if I if I've drawn it all out.
It gets in my way. And it's that exact thing you
were talking about where it freezes you.
It's like they write the outlineand they can't figure out how to
write the story to go with the outline.
And so I mean, now this is just one way of looking at it.
I mean, you can come at this however you want if sometimes

(20:31):
you need an outline. It depends on what you're doing
and it depends on on you and howyou work.
For me that you know, both Judgeand I think we have a similar
processes where we kind of have a plan and we kind of leave it
open. I think Michael, you're much
more structured when it comes tothis stuff.
I am also not writing things that are anywhere near as long.

(20:58):
So maybe there's an an element of that in the sense that you're
permitting yourself to meander alittle bit inside of the
creativity. For me, I am doing either either

(21:18):
short story stuff like blog entries or non fiction material
that's incredibly structured andand needs to be ordered.
And so looking at that through a, a very dictatorial sort of

(21:46):
platform, like an outline helps me to to keep on task.
And I also work in probably a very different way to where
again, I've mentioned this before, but I'm I'm a very non
linear writer. Even with the fiction, I'll
often write the last sentences or the last paragraph first, and

(22:10):
I'll write the opening close to 1st.
Sometimes first, you know? But I, I focus on those two
things and then the arc, you know, from point A to point B,
point Z, whichever 1 you like. And that itself, even I'll throw

(22:30):
in little bits and pieces of stuff and then I'm editing some
of that and I'm building up moreand more.
And then all of a sudden, you know, it's finally a draft has
materialized that the story is mostly there, if not all of the
material is there dialogue and window dressing and the rest.
And I do that really with everything, you know, whether

(22:51):
it's like video, audio, music, stuff, writing.
I just, I just kind of jump in and, and make touches on things
here and there and, and even yesterday, and Nick Nicholas
knows this because I commented on it last last night.

(23:13):
I worked on in very small amounts, a little bit of music
yesterday, a little bit for an essay and a little bit of
writing for the paperback that'll come out in the fall.
And like, I mean, very minimal things, like incredibly small.

(23:33):
I did a lot of other stuff, but those are the three things in
terms of like what I consider tobe legitimate writing that I got
done. And you know, there, there's a
larger outline structure that all that stuff is fitting into.
But if only a sentence strikes me at some given time, I'm going
to grab that sentence or I'm going to grab that melody and

(23:54):
I'm going to get it down and make sure that it's documented
because I don't want it. I don't want it to to get lost
in thought or in other activities that I'm engaged in.
So that's some, some of you know, my perspective on
outlining. If the other guys want to talk
about outlining, you know, feel free.
I don't, you know, maybe it's something you like, maybe it's

(24:16):
something you don't. Make another comment while we're
waiting for someone to step up. I, I think you may be right in
at least part about the length issue because I had something a
lot more like an outline for theshort story that was only, you
know, 20 pages or whatever, you know, a double space.
And in as far as serendipity between us here on the space, my

(24:37):
little short story just finishedinvolved Princess of
Transylvania and had a characternamed Tepee.
So it's the flat, the impaler spirit there.
It's funny how much overlap, thematic overlap there is today
in that regard. It's good to see.
Yeah. Nick JF, did you guys use

(24:57):
outlines? Do you have thoughts on
outlining? Are you anti outline anything
early? Well, I'm, I'm more of AI
definitely do better when I havea plan.
So I I don't necessarily write alike formal outline per SE.

(25:23):
And also because my writing timeis kind of catch as catch can.
What I've been doing a lot of lately is voice notes, where
I'll, I'll open notes on my phone and I'll hit hit the
microphone and do like speech totext and just, and just spew out
a whole bunch of ideas and go back to it later and say, oh, I

(25:46):
like this part. Yeah, I don't think I'm going to
do this, you know, And I'll, I'll throw them together into
the story, work them in. But I do have at least an
unwritten outline in my head. Like, I know what's going to
happen. It's just getting the characters
there. I know where the story is

(26:08):
headed. I mean, it's a little bit easier
because I'm working with historical events because there
are certain things that, you know, actually happened in
history. So it's like I've got to hit
those. I'm going to hit those beats
because I'm going to try to stayas close to the even though
there's, there are fantastical elements in the story, I am
going to try and stick to the atleast the historical timeline as

(26:29):
close as possible. But I I guess it's I'm kind of
what people refer to as a Lancer, where I'm not exactly a
pancer, but I'm a little looser than a plotter.
You know, I, I hear that. I don't think anyone is really

(26:54):
just either 1, you know what I mean?
I think we're all kind of a bit of both and you know, some of us
lean in One Direction more than the other, but I think you have
to be, you have to have sort of a combination.
I mean, and yeah, if you're you're doing, you're doing
Dracula, you're doing Blad, he, you know, obviously you've got

(27:17):
some historical stuff you need to stick to.
So I mean, you, you've got a scaffold sort of built in
already that you're working withand it's, you know, where you go
within that framework is kind ofthat's where, you know, that I
think the creativity happens to a certain extent.

(27:39):
And I think that, you know, I think it's, I don't think it
does anybody any favors to say Iam this or I am that.
It's like, you know, just just do what's working in the
scenario. I mean, sometimes maybe you need
to just write it all out and then, you know, write, write
like a, you know, the old school, like you're doing a
essay for school. Or sometimes you just need to

(28:03):
kind of free flow it. I mean it, I'm not a real big
fan of just saying this is how Ido it and I can only do it this
way. I mean, it changes.
I think the process is mutable. And I think the more work you do
and the more you practice your writing, the more you know, you,

(28:24):
you allow the process to develop.
You know, it evolves as you do it and you, you, you, you, you
evolved as well in terms of how you how you proceed, right.
So hey, Nick, what? What?
What's so hey. I heard you say that yeah, you

(28:46):
shouldn't, you shouldn't commit to I, I, I like it this way and
I only do it this way. However, I only like outlining
and I will only do it that way. Me personally, me personally, of
course, you got eventually right, right.
But no, I just, I think everybody's different.
It all depends on on what's yourstyle, what you, what you want

(29:07):
to read and what you want to write right.
Me personally, I love a good like story, plot structure,
characters. I have read some things,
however, where it's, it's reallyjust like poetry where somebody
is just like in a trance like state.

(29:27):
They're just painting beautiful words, beautiful sentences, and
there might not be a ton of structure to what's going on.
And that that's fine. I enjoyed those kind of things.
But me man, I love a good story with like a good setup, a good
climax. They say that when you're
telling jokes, it's all about the punchline and, and all of

(29:49):
this, the story of the joke is like a lead up to the punchline
in such that the punchline is delivered and it's like an
epiphany for the person who's reading it.
Man, I'm all about that in my fiction personally.
And so like for me, I need a really good outline, really good
structure. And then I start to fill it in
and even like the chapters, I'lloutline the chapters.

(30:12):
I know that like, OK, this, thischapter has to take place in the
broad scheme of the, the whole story.
And there's like, OK, now how doI want to set up this chapter?
I always personally start with the end in mind because that's
what I like to read. That's how I'm comfortable
writing. And but you know, like I said,
different strokes for different folks.
I have a lot of friends, you know, folks I've met through

(30:35):
Twitter who just have such a waywith words.
They're truly just like taking apaintbrush to the white piece of
paper and they can been sentences and they have a way
with words that I will never be able to touch.
And it's beautiful and I really appreciate what they write And
it's, it's just different. You know, it's like I say, it's
just, it's just different. I, I prefer, I prefer to read a

(30:56):
different style. I, I like everything, you know,
like I'm not a picky eater, but I have favorite meals kind of
thing. It's the same way with my
writing and my reading. And yes, I I'm I'm all for
finding what work for you and sticking with it personally.
I mentioned on a previous space that I took a class with Donald

(31:16):
Moss, who wrote writing the breakout novel, and he was a big
New York agent. So he's read thousands of books
that came in over the transom. And he said he he called it
organic writing and outlining. And he said he's the one who
said that for an organic writer,your first draft is your
outline. But he said he he got plenty of

(31:39):
good books from both types of writing, and often you couldn't
tell. So while there are people who
write kind of stream of consciousness and they're doing
it without an outline, a lot of people who are writing without
an outline are doing that organization also.
They just do it at a later stage.
My favorite description of writing, at least the way I see

(32:00):
the process, comes from Sir Terry Pratchett, who said that
it was like seeing mountain peaks, but wandering into the
mist between the mountains to find out what was there.
And I really think there's threetypes of writing up, two types.
We tend to divide it into two types.
And that does not to me reflect what I see in writers.

(32:22):
I think that the outliners are like the guys who wait till the
miss clears and they they can see the whole landscape.
The organic writers are guys whocan see the peaks.
They know the real main outline of their story, but they're
wandering in to discover part ofit as they go.
And the real pancers are guys who the whole thing is in the

(32:43):
mist, and they're not writing kind of organically with a kind
of a plot. They're just writing without
really knowing where they're going.
And I I've often not really likethe term pantsing because I
think it collapses those two types of writers who are quite
different from each other into one category.

(33:03):
I feel like we're we're transitioning things from
outlining into writing and drafting.
I feel like that's very organic in and of itself.
So let's consider more along those lines.
I myself will write. I'm a slow writer.

(33:23):
Takes me a long time, but I'll write and I'll edit little bits
as I'm jumping around. I'll catch stuff, you know,
because I'm moving around. So I'll see things maybe that I
didn't see before. We've talked about Grammarly.
Sometimes I'll, I'll make a run with that to to catch some
things. And then obviously for me, like

(33:47):
the final straw on the camel's back is the audio book
performance, which I do prior toreleasing a paperback or an
e-book. So I have that recording, but
it's basically like the final fine tooth comb of working
through these lines. Like, if I'm reading them and

(34:09):
they come out seeming a little clunky or I'm losing the
perspective on what is being narrated, then I feel that
readers or listeners will to, you know, no one's closer to the
work than ourselves. And that is also, in a sense,

(34:33):
how we put on blinders because we who are writing this stuff
are so intimately in tune with what's happening.
And it exists so ingrained in our mind that sometimes we don't
think about how to get it. Get some of those connections
that we are, that it seems so obvious to us onto the page.

(34:58):
So that's some of the way, you know, that I move from like
writing and drafting, the outlining I consider to be sort
of part of the drafting process as well into the editing and
processing the work. You know, how do you guys move

(35:18):
through some of those things? I said this before, I think
what, what I call what most people would call a first draft
is sort of really my outline in a way.
And I'm filling in blanks When Icome back through, it's like
they'll be, all the pieces are there, but I'll be finding
stuff. So I, I'm sort of, it's like a

(35:39):
combo for me. I sort of write really detailed
outlines that aren't really outlines, I guess is the best
way I could say it. But, you know, thousands of
words are not really outlines. But I mean, you know, you know,

(35:59):
I just agree that you you have to find the process that works
for you and you have to be willing.
And, you know, mine isn't necessarily going to work for
you. I think we're just sharing
ideas. But the thing I think it's
important too is, is, is the flexibility, immutability with,
you know, allowing that process to evolve and understanding your

(36:22):
own process, kind of understanding it is what it is
you do to be able to, you know, push yourself forward to get
things done. I think that's super important.
And I think, you know, discussions like this, it's
like, I didn't realize that that's what I do until fairly

(36:42):
recently, that I'm sort of just writing extent.
My first drafts are really sort of outlines and there's a lot to
fill in when I say that it's like, you know, a 20,000 word
outline is is still is is not really an outline, but it's also
not really a first draft. It's like a scaffold.
I mean, Jaji does the same thingsort of that I do, I think and

(37:05):
are are similar. So you pointed that out and that
was super useful. And I think probably the most
useful thing you can do is kind of figure out what it is that
you're doing and how to maximizeyour process.
You know, figure out how to the word I want, I want to say how

(37:26):
to work within your own process,how to get that, you know, to do
that more effectively when you start understanding what it is
you're doing. I would say that.
It's a good description. I used to often think of it as
when I was a kid, we have these overhead projectors in school

(37:47):
where they would lay down a clear piece of paper that had
like red and then one had green and one had blue.
And making a final picture that showed you like the, the
blueprint of the school or whatever it was with the, you
know, the libraries in red and the, you know, the hallways are
in blue or whatever it was. You know, I often think of
writing like that. It's like when I started, I just

(38:10):
would start with dialogue and base action.
Then I do a second write throughfor the descriptions and then
another one for for emotional stuff.
Now I've got it down so I could do everything but the emotions
the first time. But it to me it's like that.
It's like, OK, I'm going through.
I usually do it chapter by chapter and then I go, you know,

(38:31):
and I do that one several times and I go on.
But you know, you could do the whole thing or you do a little
part, but you know, I go throughand I get parts of it done and
then I go through and I get the next layer of that over overlay
thing. But I know some people like my
husband just does it all in his head and he does it all at once.
And you know, he almost never does any editing or changes at

(38:54):
all. So I really think, you know,
each of us are work in a different way.
And but I liked what you said, Heidi, about knowing it is when
I finally figured out this is how I work.
Now I can actually do things like like, it's OK to make this
first draft kind of light because I know I'll enjoy it
more if I get it done and then can go over it more carefully or

(39:17):
other things like that where youyou figured out something about
your process and now you can play to your process to make it
easier for you. And I think just freeing
yourself up from feeling like you have to do it the way
someone else is doing it really can help, you know, in in the
process of of getting the words on the page.

(39:41):
Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's that's really the
key to all of this. It's like you got to figure out
how you're going to get the workdone.
I mean, and that's what an outline is.
It's just figuring out what you're going to do.
And that's whatever the process is.
You have to figure it out. Yeah, I like everything you guys
are talking about. I also, you know, appreciate the

(40:02):
discussions to assess style, benefits, approaches, better
understanding of my process and my approach to writing through
the discussion here, you know. In addition to because this is,

(40:23):
this is a thematic space, the ones I host every other
Wednesday, that's very much morejust a free form discussion, you
know, whatever is on everybody'smind.
That's kind of what we talk about here.
We try to actually kind of target what is getting talked
about, which I think gives us not only a more narrow focused,

(40:48):
but the potential to be, you know, very in depth and thorough
about the conversation too. So oh gosh, you know, this is a
tech question here for everybody, you know.
What tools or strategies have helped you in the area of

(41:10):
outlining, writing, drafting, editing?
For me, you know, again, I've, Imentioned earlier, I use
Grammarly. They're not always correct.
You know, Jaji's talked on this before.
I use to some degree Obsidian, you know, not as much as I
probably should. I use printing it out and

(41:36):
actually physically working through the text in addition to
kind of digital, I use the read,so the audio equipment to, to
work on that stuff. And sometimes you find, and this
is literally happened with with projects where you're doing the

(42:01):
audio book read and all of a sudden you discover you're like,
no, actually this stuff has to move.
This stuff is fine, but it actually needs to move to a
different location in the story.Sometimes that happens.
Gosh, what other tools? Obviously, you know, notes app

(42:23):
huge for me, notes app. And then, you know, that's,
that's really the number one place where I start reading is
just notes because an idea comes, I track it in there and
then I start kind of building onit.
Heidi, I know you use Scrivener,but you know anybody who's using

(42:43):
any technology I didn't mentioned or wants to endorse
some of the technologies that I mentioned, feel free, raise your
hand, chime in. This is your chance.
Well, don't you call me out. I, I write in Scrivener.
I really love it because I can just put, you know, have a doc
in a folder and it, it's just the best way to put chapters and

(43:06):
if I have ideas or something, I can clop it into a folder and
everything. I'll be honest though, for like
if I'm sitting down and having that, that what's happening
next, you know, needing to do some sort of outlining.
My favorite tool is a piece of paper and a pen that I write
down with my hand. That to me is the best way to

(43:28):
kind of get it where I can just,I can create a flow chart.
It's very visual and it's very tactile and it works really well
for me. If I'm, if I'm doing flat out,
I'm going to say flow chart outline because it's, it's more,
I will do it more visually than just writing a list of boxes and
everything. This goes here, this goes here.

(43:50):
This needs to cut, you know, that sort of thing.
Doing it on a computer makes no sense to me.
I'm well, it's not that it doesn't make sense.
It's like I'm more focused on trying to figure out how to get
the computer program to work than just just writing it out on
a piece of paper, which I mean, I find to be really useful that

(44:11):
those are my two favorite texts.I've been using AI to, I've been
messing around with AI not for writing, but for like for
grammar checks and stuff like that.
Instead of using something like Grammarly, I'm seeing it like
ChatGPT how it does and it does pretty good.
And it also it's a it's a littlesmart.

(44:33):
I was, you know, feel free to disagree with me if anyone's
used it, but I think it's a little smarter in terms of being
able to grab nuance and being able to grab this your style of
writing. And I have to constantly shut it
down when it starts to try writing for me because I guess a
lot of people use these things to do their writing.
So I'm like, don't write for me.Just tell me what's

(44:56):
grammatically incorrect or tell me, you know what, what, what's
going on? You know, is there a redundancy
in a word? You know, there's things that
you do because we all have our little quirks that we that we do
at our writing. I used to notice that as an
editor, there are sort of everyone has like a, a

(45:17):
collection of things they do that are incorrect, just, I mean
grammatically incorrect specifically to be black and
white. And then sometimes there's
stylistic things that we grab onto that are that we have to
balance with, with stuff to makesure we're not overdoing it or

(45:40):
under doing it or, or whatever it is.
But so I found that the AI can be really helpful at grabbing
that stuff, more so than I've never really used Grammarly, but
I was using Pro Writing Aid and I still have it.
So it's kind of nice because it'll pull a dock out of
Scrivener so I can work directlyin the Scrivener dock and then

(46:02):
it's fixed in Scrivener. So that is a lot easier.
That sort of fluidity, being able to have it come into my
document is really nice so that I'm changing it all in one
place. But the problem I had with Pro
Writing Aid is it, even though it's sort of set up for writers

(46:24):
more so than say, I think Grammarly, which is more set up
for, you know, non creative writing.
Pro writing Aid is more directedat creative writing, but it's
still sort of pushes towards it,just it it's you know, it

(46:47):
doesn't acknowledge your tone, Iguess is the best way to put it.
It doesn't necessarily acknowledge your style, which I
found the AI is more capable of grasping that concept of your
particular style. And I so and, and basically

(47:08):
doing the same grammatical stuff.
And obviously this is not perfect.
It's still hallucinates sometimes and does weird things.
And you know, I won't let it work.
I won't let it. It wants to like take my
documents and edit it and hand it back to me.
And I don't, I'm not really comfortable with that because I
don't trust it enough to do that, to have to give it that

(47:30):
level of control. But I'm trying.
I'm sort of trying to work with it and I find it interesting.
I might pop some stuff back intoPro Writing Aid to see if
they've developed that program some more.
But these are, I don't know how interesting this is to anybody,
but these are things that I've messed around with.

(47:52):
Yeah. So I don't know what else.
What do you guys been doing? I want to just endorse the
reading out loud. I know Michael mentions this,
but I find it very useful. I used to read everything out
loud to my mom and when she leftus, like, you know, I said I was
going to go sit on a bench and read to her.

(48:13):
But I I never actually take the time to do that.
I wish I did, but I just read both my short story and a couple
scenes from my current novel to my husband.
And not only do you catch a lot of things like, you know, I use
this word twice in a row and it doesn't sound good, but I had
somehow lost 2 lines in two different places.

(48:34):
One line in two different placesout of my novel, and you know, I
wouldn't have seen it if I hadn't read it out loud until
about a year and a half ago. I wrote on Word 2000 and I miss
it so much. I love Word 2000.
There's only one thing in the modern world, Word, that I like
and it doesn't do a lot of things I wanted to do.

(48:57):
But you know, the the modern Windows just doesn't run it well
anymore. I started crashing all the time
and losing stuff and you can't do that.
So now I just write on the current version of Word, or
maybe the very previous version of Word.
I don't like it as much as I like the old one, but I used to

(49:18):
use Grammarly with Joy and it would just flag spelling and
very simple grammar issues like the punctuation which I needed
and I appreciated, but it's gotten I use the word
extraordinarily loosely smarter and it is much less useful than
it used to be. I think that's what they're

(49:40):
thinking or just essay writing. These are their two goals.
Creative writing is sort of a different beast and you just
have to be aware of that. But I will say every single it's
not just some writers, like every writer, everyone has their
quirks and you know, they're they're weird things that they

(50:02):
do that's you know, they're like, and I I saw this when I
was editing mag magazine editing.
We had columnist and I'd edit, you know, the same colonists
month after month, each one of them, you start realizing each
one of them has their stylistic quirks that are their style, but
also there's errors within it. So you have to clean it, you

(50:25):
know, you clean up, clean them up.
And it's like, I noticed like people have like there's like 3
or 4 grammatical errors that that, that any writer has that
they just consistently do. Like, like you're talking about
the run ONS or something. And it's sort of a stylistic
thing, but at the same time it'slike you got to clean it up, but
try and maintain their style. So I mean, that's what a human

(50:49):
editor does, Grammarly. None of you know, none of these
fixes are going to do that. They're not going to maintain
your style. They're just going to make it
generic. So that's where you have to
really be paying attention. And I think one of the key
things that anyone can do is know what your errors are, know
what your, what your quirks are.Again, it's like if you know

(51:11):
those, then you can work around them and you can use them to
sort of, I mean, there's, there's sort of stylistic things
in a way, but if you know what they are, you can use them more
stylistically to kind of remove the, the, the grammatical
errors. So this is something to
consider. I know one mistake I make is the

(51:33):
punctuation at the end of dialogue, and it's not because I
don't know what it is. I know exactly what it's
supposed to be. It's because as I'm writing come
here, she said, or come here, she ran down the road.
I haven't decided which one of those it's going to be.
So I, you know, whether there's a comma at the end or period, I
often mess up because when I getto the end of the dialogue, I

(51:55):
haven't decided yet what, you know, what's going to follow
And, and therefore I put the wrong thing.
But little things like that, youknow, it's really annoying for
all my editors because it's, it's just, you know, an annoying
thing they think I should be able to, to get right.
But as you say, if you catch yourself with these things, then
you try to remember when you do,you know, when you're doing a
read through. OK, I got to check the dialogue

(52:17):
and make sure that I'm not, you know, imposing on my editor by
making too many mistakes of thistime.
All fair, all reasonable points.And I think that it's, it's
funny that we went sort of from the technology side of things
into the advanced stages of editing there almost naturally

(52:43):
starting to think about the finished product, the end result
of all this work that you've done and considering tools for
publishing, which again, you know, depending on your format
or what you're doing, similarities, overlaps, but have

(53:07):
to be considered these things. Let's at least start with
formatting and design, right? For me, when it comes to
formatting and design, I'm using, I'm using Garage Band for
audio. I'm using Pages for the ebooks
and the paperbacks. I am using GIMP for design in

(53:35):
terms of like covers and stuff. Now some of these are programs
that come with Mac OS. Some of them are more intuitive
than others. GIMP is not an intuitive
program. It took me a while to sort it
out in fact. Funny thing there was when it,

(53:56):
when I first started using it, there was a version I think that
it didn't like the chips that I had, so I had to go download the
other version of the program. That's just, you know, not
totally unheard of, but at the same time it's just kind of
service that stuff a little morereadily would be my thinking on

(54:20):
it. In terms of audio, you know, I
try to keep it as simple as possible.
I have a collection of presets that I use that I, that I kind
of run through even for book design.
This is maybe there's some good,maybe there's some bad, but like

(54:42):
formatting, there's some templates that I use, but at the
same time, every time I use one of those templates, it means
that the book I'm going to release is going to be following
the same kind of style guide. Sometimes that's good, sometimes
it's not. And also it's going to be

(55:03):
restricted to the same size as aprevious book.
Now for like trade paperback size, you know, that's fine.
But there's some things I think about occasionally where I'm
like, man, it would be nice to make this a different sized
book. And it kind of starts with the
formatting side of things. What are you guys doing for

(55:25):
formatting? It reminds me for some reason
that when I was with Tor, they switched from mass market to
trade paper because they decidedthat they just, the way the
finances were working, they're making more money with the trade
paper than the mass market at that time do with the price

(55:46):
paper and other things. But they switched in the middle
of my series. So my series had two mass market
books and the third book came out in trade paper.
So there it's impossible to match them and people complain
about that and there was nothingI could do but.
Can you tell us some of the specific differences between

(56:06):
trade paperback and mass market?So mass market means the short
one that we used to think of as a paperback.
And they're, they're a little, they're like, I don't know,
maybe I, I don't remember the exact size, but they're the kind
that we call the paperback in the past.
Trade paper is the slightly taller one.

(56:27):
Maybe they're not. Maybe it's 1-6 inches.
The other is 9 inch. And the trade paper often, like
I, my very first job in publishing, I worked as an
intern for Blue Jay Books, whichwas a New York publisher that
was publishing trade paperback, science fiction.
And the trade paperback at that time was thought to be elegant.
It was like not as expensive as a hardback, but it's similar in

(56:51):
size and shape to a hardback. He said.
The prints a little bigger, it'sa little nicer looking and the
binding was often a little better.
So the mass market were short and they tended to emphasize
quick and easy and cheap. And those are the ones that the
bookstores were allowed to RIP the covers off and they still do

(57:11):
the RIP the covers off and throwthem out rather than send them
back because back then it was was too expensive to ship them
back. And so those were the, you know,
but what happened was when paperbecame more expensive, the trade
paper ones, because they look a lot like hard covers.

(57:35):
They could charge, let's say $15.00 for a trade paperback and
someone would think it was OK. But people were used to spending
like 2 to 6 bucks for a mass market.
And so when the mass market became about, let's say 8 to
$10, customers started wanting to buy the more elegant $15 one

(57:58):
rather than $10 on what they thought was a $6 book.
So the published, a lot of the publishers switched.
They, they thought, OK, we're, you know, we're, we're just
going to offer a slightly better, slightly larger product.
And it looks it's still thought to be more elegant.
So just like that 6 to 9 size oreven a little bit bigger than

(58:22):
that 6 inch by 9 inch. So, so that that was the idea.
And I mean, it makes sense. I just happened to be the
victim. I don't know anyone else that
happened to like, like the otherseries I'm familiar with.
They, they either finished the series in the same format or
they redid it or something like that.
But so that that's, you know, thing to think about is, you

(58:45):
know, if, if your book does makeit into a library or bookstore,
you know what, what kind of shape and size do you want it to
be? And nowadays they say there's a
lot more profit in hardcovers because people charge a lot more
for the hardcovers, but they don't actually cost as much more
for the, the person making them at the moment.

(59:08):
So I I know a number of small press that try to emphasize
hardcovers because they can makea much higher profit margin off
of them. Sure seems reasonable.
Rachel has hung out. I don't think you've been to a
workshop session before, so hereis at least the outside of it.

(59:30):
Tell us about your progress, what you've been working on, how
things are going, and maybe how you've been.
Oh, you want me to go now? Yeah.
Oh, OK. Thank you.
Thank you so much for the warm welcome.
I don't want to cut off Heidi for what she was talking.
About we're OK, we're going to get back to that, but go ahead.

(59:51):
Thank you so much. Honestly I'm so focused on
client work. My business is bad Redhead media
and what I do is help authors with book marketing and social
media. And a year ago I was so slow was
my slowest year in business since 2011 and this year is my
busiest. So I literally have had no time

(01:00:14):
for the creative writing that I love to do and poetry and all
that, but I have been. Posting on sub stack every
single week and that has been for almost three years now.
Yeah. Not to derail into that because
I we are on marketing and promotion, which you are a you

(01:00:39):
know, that's, that's kind of your focal point.
It is. It is specifically for books in
general. Or do you think you're looking
at? Really.
Let's talk about books and publishing particularly.
OK, any certain aspect or? Well, this is a, this is a topic

(01:01:03):
in regards to tools for publishing.
And then as it comes up, it's kind of maybe think about
release. I would say, you know, Joggy or
Heidi kind of chime in and and we'll spin the conversation.
Well, I would say any advice anyone has about what we should

(01:01:23):
be doing to reach readers is always welcome.
Right. For well, from my perspective, I
think it all depends on where your reader demographic hangs
out. So I see a lot of people will
tell, especially I have a lot ofolder clients.
I'm 61, so most of my clients tend to be my age or older.

(01:01:45):
My oldest client is 88. So if they're on social media at
all, they're on Facebook. And that makes sense because
it's an older demographic anyway.
But also the majority, somethinglike, I think it's anywhere
between 70 and 80% of the world's population has Facebook.

(01:02:06):
That's insane, right? So if you're writing something
like memoir, literary, historical.
That's not a true statement. I mean, it's just I'm going to
call that out. That's 70 and 80% of the world
does not have Facebook, OK? That's literally impossible.
There's like 8 billion people onthe planet just like there.

(01:02:29):
There's not 6 billion users of Facebook, just to clarify.
So there's over 2 billion, there's over 2 billion users of
Facebook. But like in China, you can't
even log on to Facebook. I know, I know.
So they say that it's 40% of theworld's population, which

(01:02:50):
translates to three-point O 7 billion active monthly users
according to demand sage. So you're right, I was, I was
off for Internet users and social media users.
Facebook represents about 60% ofall social media users
worldwide. This is just on the Derma Sage
site or sorry, Demand Sage site.Regardless, I think it's

(01:03:13):
important to look at where your audience hangs out.
If you tend to write erotica, romance, fantasy, romanticy,
Tiktok and Instagram are amazingbecause they tend to trend
younger anyway. But don't forget about Twitter.
Of course, Blue Sky is brand new.

(01:03:34):
It's very, very reader and author friendly.
My only concern there so far is that it's not indexed by Google.
So it'll show that you have an account, but it won't show like
what your posts are. Whereas that will come up in if
you are on Facebook or X and youknow X is still important book.

(01:03:55):
Twitter is still a very important hashtag.
And the reason I like still being on X is because it index
is it it is indexed by Google. So I would say look and kind of
look around and see if you're not sure where to start, look at
alternative or comps, comparative literature, see what

(01:04:17):
where they're hanging out, what are they doing?
And honestly, just figure out what you like and what you don't
like. If you don't like TikTok, then
don't make yourself be there. Just remember that may be a
portion of write or sorry of readers that you're not going to
reach otherwise because they're not going to be.
I'm done with that. So hopefully that helps.

(01:04:38):
Yeah, I had a question for you, actually a follow up on that.
So have you used threads at all?Yes.
Well, here's what's interesting is if you open threads from your
Instagram account, they kind of just say, hey, do you want an
account? And boom, you have one.
I do like now that you can run ads on not only Facebook and

(01:05:01):
Instagram, but Threads as well. If you go into the Facebook ads
module, it has grown significantly.
And I think because it's a Meta product, it was immediately
indexed by Google because of their agreement.
Excuse me, you are limited on space.
You can only have 500 charactershashtags.
Really more than here. I'm sorry.

(01:05:23):
It's more than here. Also the hashtag thing.
What you don't have in terms of hashtagging, you do have.
There are like topics, you can select topics on there.
Yeah, It's worth seeing what's trending and then seeing if what
you're talking about is going tofit that.
But I also like that you can nowincorporate threads into the

(01:05:46):
social media management tools like Hootsuite and Buffer or
Loomly or whatever. And even Blue Sky is now
available on some of them as well.
So if you use a scheduler, I think it's worth it.
I don't spend a lot of time on Threads, but I'll go in every
couple days. It's not like Twitter, Facebook,
which I'm constantly getting pained because those are the

(01:06:08):
more active platforms and I'm managing like 70 accounts over
different clients and everything.
So I have to figure out what where is best to spend my time,
but I do. I'm glad you asked that,
Michael, because I do think thatThreads has potential.
A lot of people who left Twitterended up over there.
Sure. Do you have any insight on So I

(01:06:32):
I took a click testing class at one point and I was able to make
rather effective ads. It's by effective you mean that
people clicked on them and some of them bought the book.
But it was only when I got to the end of the class that it
said it's going to take 12 to $20.00 for every click.
Well, that's not, you know, the people who were making money at

(01:06:56):
this were the ones who had eightand more books in a series.
You know, 12 to 2 bucks is not going to make money for you when
you're, when you're trying to sell, you know, $6 books.
I just wondered if you had any advice on decreasing that
amount. Of money.
Insane. I mean, usually I aim for

(01:07:17):
nothing more than $0.30 per click.
So I would look at whether it gets complicated.
I don't have an easy answer for you.
Are you boosting a post or are you creating an original ad in
the ad module? Maybe go back through and see
how much were you spending per day versus per click and then

(01:07:40):
find out how that was adding up for you.
And then also, you know, I'm sure you learned about AB
testing, try a couple different versions.
I kind of like now that's. What the class was about, it
was, it was a really clever way of doing, I'll describe it
really quickly in case anybody ever wants to do this.
You, it was really brilliant. You start by picking your

(01:08:02):
audience and you try to go broadand then you just put up a
statement about your book or pictures and, and you put on
like a dozen, a dozen quotes or,or statements about it, a dozen
pictures. And then once you pick up which
ones people have clicked on, at this point you're not even
saying anything, you're just testing.

(01:08:24):
You then make your ads out of the pictures and the statements
that got the most attention fromyour potential market.
And so by the time you get an actual ad, you have, you know, a
picture and a statement and thenyou've put them together and
you've tested them and then you add your text.
The whole thing was very cleverly done.
And the result was that you could, you know, produce.

(01:08:47):
You just threw out any statementor picture that wasn't getting
the attention you wanted. So it produced a good, a nice
ad. And as I said, I could, I could
break even. I could get enough sales that it
paid for the ads. I couldn't get to the point
where I was getting enough salesto make money above what I was

(01:09:07):
paying for the ads. So I gave it up for the time
being. I figure if we get to the point
I have more books out, like my husband's working on a 12 book
series, it might be worth it at that point, you know, to try
again. Or if I ever put my writing
class videos available and they were like, you know, 60 bucks
for the whole course or something, it might be worth it.
But I couldn't get it to work for, you know, just selling a

(01:09:30):
couple of books because the bookprice was just lower than the
conversion price. And as I said, when I got to the
end of the class, they listed 12to $20 as what they across the
board tended to spend on this process when they were doing
ads. So it wasn't, it wasn't just me.
If I'd seen that at the beginning, I probably wouldn't

(01:09:51):
have taken the class. Yeah, I try to spend.
I mean, I have some ads, for example, with my sub stacks,
I'll only do a dollar a day, pretty cheap, but I'm running it
only for a week. And if I see that it's doing
really well, then I'll bump it to like 2 or $3 a day, which is

(01:10:11):
a really nice way to see where the traffic's coming from.
I do recommend using a cert, a free tool like book linker.
If you have Amazon Associates asyou do, you can actually add
that that part of that code to everything you share and then
you make a few little pennies off of stuff.
But I think if you can track that and see where the clicks

(01:10:34):
are coming from and where they're going to, I wish Amazon
or Barnes and Noble, etcetera, they tell us how many sales
we've made, but they don't give us it came from Facebook.
That's what we don't know. That's all very hush hush.
So by tracking your clicks. I use Genius link Book linker is
free. Genius link is their paid

(01:10:56):
product. It's like 5 bucks a month.
I track everything. I track book sales, I track blog
posts, I track newsletters, I track giveaway clicks because I
want the information that they're they generally don't
give you, which is very specific.
Where did it come from and whereto end up?

(01:11:17):
So refers and destinations. That's really important
information and that can tell you then OK, I'm getting, you
know, 80% of my clips are comingfrom Facebook then yeah, I
should continue to hang out on Facebook and also grow that and
also run ads, maybe create a group, maybe do a live.
There's so many options now of things you can do, So that's.

(01:11:42):
Yeah, I'm into it. I think that optimizing ads is,
is kind of a perpetual discussion because it's always
evolving. As soon as you figure something
out, then the ad networks are going to shift the ground

(01:12:02):
underneath of you to continue tomake more money.
And I mean, if you're into gamification and stuff like
that, that as soon as you buy anad, you're already you're
basically investing when it comes to like the digital domain

(01:12:25):
on the web. As soon as you buy an ad, you're
already investing for them to basically gamify against you,
unfortunately, yeah. I mean, always good to test
things out. There was a woman who had a good

(01:12:45):
method for advertising on Twitter about a year ago.
I don't see her ads now. So maybe she's kind of exhausted
the well on that one. But it, it, it was converting
for her well, and she was basically getting getting click

(01:13:12):
throughs and she was bidding forthem at the cheapest price you
could, which was just unbelievably low.
All the same. Let's while while everybody's
still here, let's talk about resources or communities for

(01:13:34):
writers and authors to participate in that can help
them understand the tools for ublishing in regards to
formatting and design, marketingand promotion.
I can comment on this. It's interesting I got a

(01:13:55):
question the other day on my substack from a guy who said OK
I've converted everything to a word doc but I'm having trouble
uploading it to Amazon. And I was like my dude very nice
but you can't just upload a worddoc to Amazon right?
You have to format it. So a lot of people use vellum
dot pub which is they have a free option.

(01:14:17):
A good friend of mine used that to format her book and it then
you can choose the voice that itreads it back to you and her
memoir. It's called Mom Search for
Meaning. It's by Doctor Melissa Monroe
and she said that she went aheadand had Vellum read her book to
her, which is very tragic. It's about the loss of her

(01:14:41):
youngest daughter, Alice to basically SIDS.
And so she had it read the book back to her in Snoop Dogg voice.
And she was like, that was the only way I got through this.
This horrific experience was finally be able to put my book
in. She didn't release an audio

(01:15:02):
version with Snoop Dogg's voice,obviously, but using Vellum
helped her really make it into an actual book that she could
then upload to Amazon. So I think people have to
realize that there is formattinginvolved.
They may not know how to do it and you can hire people.

(01:15:22):
I don't do that, but there are people who are very good at it.
So I would, I would look at the process.
If you're unfamiliar with how itall works, at least, you know,
go to Amazon and look up just how do I upload a book?
What are the, what you know, what's the process?
What are all the marketing options?
And then you'll, you know, do that research and then you'll be

(01:15:44):
more informed. If you decide to hire someone,
you'll know better what you're looking for.
Yeah, I hire somebody. In fact, I just connected Heidi
to to the typesetter who does mystuff.
He's a fan of mine. He's read my books over and over
and over again. So it's really great because
he'll notice if something's out of place.

(01:16:06):
But I have another friend who for everything that's not my own
books, like for the anthologies I work on and my husband's
stuff, he does it. It's for either 25 or 100 bucks
depending on whether it's something for my husband who he
really likes or something for someone else, but he they all
use vellum. Interesting, I've never used

(01:16:27):
Vellum before. It's an online platform or it's
downloadable stand alone software.
I'm not sure, I only know there's a there's a free and a
professional one. When I was working for Super
Versive Press we use the Jason used the professional 1 but a

(01:16:48):
lot of the guys that I work withnow just the free one.
Interesting. Yeah, I think basically in
general, getting to something print ready, I mean there's just
like a you can start anywhere and and get get there.

(01:17:08):
I think it kind of comes down tolike what is user friendly for
whatever platform OS you have orwhatever your capabilities are.
How do you use as Indesign? I use Pages and I use Kindle
create for the ebooks and stuff.You know, again, that's a free

(01:17:31):
program and there's a lot of different options inside of
there just for for layout and the rest in terms of e-books at
the very least. And you know, they have 4
different options inside of thattoo, which they kind of
breakdown along the lines of experience and not necessarily

(01:17:53):
genre so much, but like format of style.
I guess maybe you would say likethere's a graphic novel comic
book formatting choice or there's like children's book
choice, or there's APDF 1 to onetranslation of APDF or there's

(01:18:16):
reflowable, which is great for all text.
I would say, you know, if, if you're doing Amazon, kind of
getting familiar with that program is probably the way to
go. And it's super easy to use and
it's $0.00. Now the other side of it is that

(01:18:38):
is not going to be what you're going to need for paperbacks and
hardbacks. So that's a thing to have to
consider is that like if you aretrying to do these different
formats, then you have to lay out and basically produce the

(01:19:00):
formatting file for each one of those.
Now paperback and hardback with Amazon I believe is the same.
If I haven't done a hardback this year, I will.
They're the same. They're basically the same
thing, but. Cover design is different,
right? No, no, not really.
I mean you size it just slightlydifferently.

(01:19:20):
So it is different. Basically, use the exact same
thing. Right.
But you have to. You have to create a.
You have to create a second filefor it.
Yeah. But it it's really, if you have
it already designed for the paperback, it's really, you
know, not much of an effort. You just tweak it, just ever so
slightly. Yeah, but they do require a

(01:19:43):
separate file for your hardback cover.
Yeah, OK, yeah. And I mean you can use the.
Slightly different, no edges to it, just a tiny little bit
different and works on the on the 2.
Yeah, I mean you can use like for the interior, the cover, I
think. It has to be just slightly
different, but the interior could be exactly the same as the

(01:20:04):
paperback. That was my understanding.
Interiors, it's actually pretty simple to do It's, it's the, the
differences between the, the e-book.
If you're, if you're doing reflowable, which if you're
doing a novel, you pretty much want to do reflowable for an
e-book because people like feel change the font size and
everything. And that's, that's different

(01:20:25):
than just putting up APDF, whichyou can do for hardcover and
paperback, which is pretty straightforward.
I use Adobe, I'm like an Adobe creative Suite person and I,
because I did that when I was inpublishing and I, it's kind of
my, my go to and I understand it, but it's a, if you haven't,
you know, been trained in it, it's a, it's really difficult

(01:20:49):
and I wouldn't, I wouldn't suggest going there first.
It's just that that's my background and that's the main
reason I use it. But I mean, ultimately, it does
give you a lot more flexibility than these other programs, but
it's hard to use. It's a real high learning curve.
Adobe, you're saying, is high learning.
Curve I think. So I think in design is if.

(01:21:11):
You don't. Know what you're doing.
I mean, I got trained in it. So I mean, and it honestly, it
hasn't changed that much in like20 years because I hadn't used
it for a while. I would say, yeah, Indesign,
yeah, a little more involved, I would say like then Photoshop,
for example. And I would say it's probably a

(01:21:34):
little bit more involved than using Word to a degree, because
you can really get very, really into the into the weeds on
control. Like it, it's a very powerful
program in that sense. But you're going to pay a
monthly fee and also if you don't have the needs that you

(01:22:00):
might think for Indesign, I'll be honest with you, paying for
Indesign to do a textbook or even minimal graphics laid into
a book is just massive overkill and not necessary.
Well, for me I'm using the wholeCreative Suite, so I'm using.

(01:22:25):
I'm using Adobe edition for audiobooks, I'm using Photoshop,
I'm using Illustrator, I'm using, I'm using Indesign.
It's, I mean, I get what you're saying it, it, it gives me
flexibility going forward if I want to do more complicated
things, but I'm using this wholesuite of, of things.

(01:22:46):
I've got a, you know, including sometimes I'll, I've even used
Premiere to do some stuff. So I mean, it's not just in
design that you're paying for and they give you a discount for
the suite. And but I hear you.
It's like, you know, it's just, it's just where do you want to
put your money? Not an Adobe.
But you don't want to put it there.

(01:23:07):
I, you know, it's for me, like Isaid, with my kind of how I've
learned to do these things, it'salmost easier for me to do that
than to do it. I understand it.
And so it just makes sense to methan to do it in Word.
So like I can lay out like the novella I've got.
So it took, I had to put together templates and

(01:23:29):
everything for my novel, which is out that's like 400 pages.
Once I had them together, I could throw it together.
So now when I threw the novella into Indesign, it took me an
afternoon to lay out 140 page book.
So I mean, that's that's the thing.
I mean, you just have to decide because I could just flop it
into the the master pages and the templates I've set up.

(01:23:52):
So it's just, you just have to decide where you want to put
your time and your money. For me, it just makes sense
because it's my background. I wouldn't recommend people jump
into Indesign unless you're going to get thoroughly trained
in it because it is not. It is not the easiest program to
use. It really isn't, and it's not

(01:24:12):
necessarily intuitive. We all know how to use Word and
these other programs are really designed for people who are
writers more. It's just I have a designed side
background where I was doing magazine layout for a decade.
So I mean, it's that's why I never really recommend it.
It's just what I do because of my weird background.

(01:24:34):
So I'll just throw that out there.
First, hello to the new people of come on. 2nd, I really think
what you just said about time isone of the keys I've thought
many times about getting into using Vella myself because you
know, you really want to keep the money down when you're
putting these things out. But I look at it and I go, OK, I

(01:24:56):
I'm good at this program, I'm good at this program.
I have only this amount of time.I have my family and I'm trying
to write and anytime I spend into another part of the process
that I don't already know is time.
I'm not writing, so I'm trying to juggle between, you know, I'd

(01:25:17):
love to be able to do the whole thing from beginning to end.
I, I do every other part of it and you know, maybe I just have
to let some things go and concentrate on, on the part that
I really need to get done. Fair.
The trade off here in addition to time is the the money side of

(01:25:38):
it where any time that you're incurring cost for publishing,
you then are basically you got to put those costs up against
what you are intending to recoup.
So that that's something I thinkpeople should be considered of.
And given that most books out inthe world don't recoup their

(01:26:07):
cost from large publishers or even at the indie side of
things, keeping your costs down one way or another is giving you
a shorter path to potential profitability with your books.

(01:26:31):
That's my thinking on it. Heidi, I like what you said.
I think that's so important as authors, but also as as business
people. If you don't think of yourself
as a business person, as a writer, then you need to rethink
that. So the point really is know what
you're good at and what you're not good at.

(01:26:51):
Either try to learn or hire someone to help you.
I know like I'm not into graphicdesign, Photoshop, any Indesign,
any of that stuff. Canva even confuses me and
everyone says it's so easy, but I'm that's not my strength.

(01:27:12):
So I have hired people who do those things for me so that I
can focus on the things that I'mreally good at.
So I love what you said there, Heidi.
I think that's just so importantfor us to realize, and it's OK,
we don't. I remember we don't have to be
good at everything. When I first started out in this
or in the 20 tens around that time, one of the gals who was

(01:27:35):
like a mentor to a bunch of us new indie writers, we were in a
group, said you have to learn toformat.
And I said, no, I don't, I don'thave to do anything.
I'm an adult, don't tell me whatI have to do.
But I knew it would not. It's like doing math for me.
So I think that anyway, I'll just end there.
But I think that's so important.And also you don't, you can go

(01:27:58):
to places like Reed Z or indie author Ali or IDP, whatever it's
called. There's an indie reader to find
places that are vetted and then you can say, OK, I'm not taking
a chance. If I pay this person, you know,
100 bucks to format my book, I should get a formatted book out

(01:28:20):
of it. So just do that due diligence
before you hire somebody. But I don't think I don't think
we should feel bad that we're not good at something and that
it's OK to hire somebody if we can afford it.
I mean, yeah, I mean, this is the point.
And it's why I don't really say,oh, I use Indesign, you should
all do that. It's like, I don't think that's

(01:28:41):
a good idea. I mean, it's just that I had the
background, which I said like 20times.
But yeah, you're absolutely right.
You have to pick and choose yourbattles, especially for those of
us who are indie, because they're so, I mean, you, you're
basically in a scenario where you're in charge of everything.
And so you have to decide what, what you're going to, what

(01:29:04):
you're going to hand off and youknow, and how much you can
afford to hand off is the other thing.
You have to budget it. You know, you can, you can spend
a small fortune putting out an indie book and it'll, it'll be
gorgeous and you may never make your money back and you may not
care. You may just want to have done
it. And that's fine.
I mean, as long as you're realistic about that.

(01:29:28):
But you're, you know, I think most of us would like to have
some level of, of success. Would have, would have, would
like. To have readers.
So I mean, I think the layout stuff, I mean, it's, it's
important to a point, but reallyit's just about clarity.
It's like, can someone comfortably read the book?
Is the font large enough? Is there enough white space on

(01:29:51):
the page? I mean, it's very simple really.
And I think that we get lost in the weeds.
If you can do Canva or vellum orwhatever, it's fine.
I mean, even the KDP stuff, the KDP create, I believe where you
put in the e-book. I mean, it puts together a
perfectly readable book. And ultimately, I mean, it's

(01:30:14):
nice if we can make everything pretty.
And you know, I, I like designing covers and making them
all pretty and everything. But The thing is, you know, you,
you really have to focus on the story.
I mean, that's the main thing that you're doing.
All this other stuff is just sort of dressing and it's, and
we like it. I mean it, it's easier to market

(01:30:36):
something with a pretty cover and if it looks professionally
done, people respond to it. But for the most part, you know,
it's just it. It doesn't have to be this
monstrous thing that you do. It doesn't have to like get in
your way. You know, it's like you said,
it's like, I'm just not going todo this layout.
It's I'm going to have someone else do it.
It's just not going to be the thing I do.

(01:30:58):
And you know, that's totally reasonable.
You have to pick your battles. I think, you know, it's a really
good point to make, Rachel, because it can get overwhelming.
It's just like putting to, it's like we started out this
discussion talking about how outlines can get us too bogged
down and we never start writing.Well, it's like if you try and
do all of the stuff and not handsome of it off, you'll, you're

(01:31:22):
going to get too bogged down andyou'll never finish your story.
You'll never do the writing. You have to think of it that
way. I don't know.
What do you guys think? I think you're right.
And I mean, I think it applies, you know, across the board.
When I was editing, you know, I was working for a small press

(01:31:43):
and it closed. So now I'm editing some of the
same people that I had been friends with and working with.
And it was very frustrating because on one hand, I knew that
what I was doing was helping improve their story a lot, but I
knew that even with that, most of them were not going to make
back any money on it just because of the way the marketing
and the setup is, You know? So I was charging almost nothing

(01:32:08):
for editing because, you know, Iwas like, you know, in a fair
world, I'd be charging a lot forthis.
In fact, occasionally somebody has paid me quite a bit for it.
But we, you know, if we go out, we get a good cover, we get a
good editor. We, you know, we do our best on,
we get it formatted perfectly. And a lot of the writers I was
working with, you know, never, never made more than $100, you

(01:32:32):
know, so it's hard to, it was hard for me to charge them.
I want to say one thing about that.
When I was working with the small press, you know, people
who are not writers don't understand the finances of
what's going on right now. I wanted to write a letter to

(01:32:52):
give out to people that came in that explained that a lot of
indie books only made about 10 bucks, and that $100 was
actually quite astonishing. And that, well, some of them
went on to make a lot of money. A lot of them didn't because I
thought it was unfair to authorscoming in who had no idea what
the situation was. And I kept seeing authors with

(01:33:13):
Cindy, with small Press, being really disappointed when the
reality hit. When the checks came, I asked
around on Facebook with some writing groups and some editing
groups and stuff, and everybody said to me, oh, if a publisher
gave me that letter, I wouldn't go with them.
And I was like, isn't it? Isn't it fair to tell people

(01:33:37):
what the current situation was? Oh, no, no, I expect the
publisher to, to make my book the one that gets to 1000 or
something. And it just seems so unfair to
me. You know, that, that attitude
where it was like, you know, I wanted to be honest with my
writers and, and they, they thought that was a really bad
idea. I'm going to out myself a little
bit because I used to hang out on Clubhouse with, you know, a

(01:34:03):
writing and publishing group there.
And as much as I liked the discussion and I always try to
make it very focused on the realities of it, I, I only had
two books out when I was doing that and I was working on my 3rd

(01:34:25):
at the time. And the thing there was the
folks that ran that group were basically selling services to
authors, first time authors, newauthors, basically like editing
promo, social media service and kind of like launch day party

(01:34:50):
kind of thing, which was fine, you know, whatever.
But I think, you know, in general, there are a lot of
these sort of entities that are predatory on authors that don't
know, writers that don't know the the situation as they're
getting into becoming an author.And they're willing to stack up

(01:35:13):
all of this cost against a writer to sell service and say,
you know, this is how you need to do it.
You need to do all these things so you're official and you can
do you can you have access to all this other stuff and it
doesn't matter at all because inthe grand scheme of things,
you've now just made your costs so high that gosh, a massive

(01:35:39):
number of these authors are justnever going to even get into the
realm of discussion in terms of profitability.
Unfortunately, we are currently entering our last five minutes
for today. So I wanted to say this before

(01:36:01):
because we had people hanging out and I would love for you
have had time to come up and talk.
Unfortunately, we're going to get into the wrap up phase for
today. All that said, we do the
writer's block every Tuesday here on Twitter, typically more

(01:36:26):
thematic. Once a month we do this workshop
discussion and you know, hopefully it's been valuable.
Hopefully we've covered some things that are even interesting
or engaging to listen to. So for today, you know, any
closing thoughts from the three ladies on stage?

(01:36:47):
I would say if you have a something you want to say, keep
it to a minute for me please. Well, you know, I think it's
been a great discussion. I, I did finish something.
I finished my audio book. I'll throw that out there.
It's in the pill somewhere. If anyone would like, you know,

(01:37:10):
since you're in here, if anyone would like promo code which
gives you free access to it, DM me.
I'm happy to share, that's all Iwill say.
Thanks for bringing me up here Michael and I'll I have this on
my schedule now so hopefully I'll make make it more often.

(01:37:31):
My only other thought that I just noticed that's pretty new
ish is you can now, if you have an e-book on Amazon, if you go
into your KDP, you can create anAI reading voice.
It's very clearly labeled that this is being read by AI, but
it's free for you to create thatfile.

(01:37:53):
And there's no coding or formatting on our part.
So I just want to let people know that's an additional
opportunity you may be unaware of with regard to creating
audiobooks. And it's, it's absolutely free.
So I was really excited to learnabout it.
I've started transitioning some books over to that and I've

(01:38:14):
probably sold about 50 copies ofone of my memoir poetry books
for called Broken People. So it's interesting.
It's an additional revenue stream.
I I don't think we're going to make a huge amount of money on
this, but for people like ourselves who are indie authors

(01:38:35):
and we don't have a publishing house behind us, it's a really
good option. We actually did mention it last
week. Now here's there's a catch on
that is that that locks you in. You can't necessarily use that
production outside of KDP. Correct.

(01:38:55):
Joggy thoughts? Any closing comments for today
I. Enjoyed it very much and I
learned a lot and I asked to know some narrators if anybody's
on PCX and everyone needs one. Happy to try to throw work their
way. Yeah, we're right here.

(01:39:15):
Yeah. Anyway, thanks everybody.
Yeah, thank you. Appreciate you coming up and Co
hosting first time give her a round of applause for the
parenting and execution. So before we close up above in
the nest, there's a handful of things you might want to get a
look at in the sense of things you don't know about.

(01:39:39):
So the previous session work workshop session from last month
is up on all your favorite podcasting platforms.
Also, once a month I put out a an article on sub stack.
We talked about it earlier, but we'll mention it again.
There's an article over on my sub stack on writing.
You know the one of the number one topics writers write about

(01:40:03):
is writing to other writers. And I'm doing it too.
You can go read, you could subscribe, you could get that
dropped into your inbox once a month at no charge.
Additionally, I have a couple ofpoll questions up there and
they're open for one more day. So if you would be so kind as to
vote in these things so I can better understand the landscape

(01:40:27):
out there. I'm revamping my Patreon and
relaunching it. I've started posting on there
again. It's been a number of years.
I haven't used it in practically6 years.
I think it's been a long time getting that going again.
Also, if you are familiar with Roku, let me know if you have

(01:40:48):
Roku, If you are aware of the streaming platform Film Z vote
on that. And then finally the Film 3
space I Co host with Chris Hackett this week.
We want all hands on deck for protesting.
Basically, someone is trying to trademark through the Copyright

(01:41:12):
Office the term Film 3, which has been a communal term.
This woman is trying to snork itup and make it her private
property. We want to stop that, and you
should too. So come and talk about it with
us on Thursday at the same time.As for today, this has gone

(01:41:36):
well. Oh, actually, hold on just a
second. The July Grand Sumo tournament
started on Sunday. Very contentious.
All sorts of, you know, interesting going as on in the
upper ranks. You can catch all of the daily

(01:41:57):
action on NHK World available onthe web or through your
streaming devices, but we'll wrap it up here for today.
I do appreciate you hanging out,and we'll talk again before too
long.