December 8, 2023 • 44 mins
In 2022, Elsa launched The Writer’s Tribe Talk Show, an audio & video podcast for authors & a line of author merchandise in her Writer’s Tribe Store with clothing and more for authors & aspiring authors. Elsa also created three lines of apparel, accessories, & home decor: EKS Store with show & first responder merchandise, iGoodhuman, and Very Sweary Stuff. As of 2022, she is the current Vice President of the Connecticut Authors & Publishers Association.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Oh everyone, and welcome to theladies. Nope, I lied, I
lied, I lied, I lied. I was about hit the Lady Cell
podcast. But unless my is myguest over here, a director, an
author, a star or a moviestar, and I just don't know it.
No, okay, never mind,So it's not the Lady's Sale podcast,
y'all. This is what happens whenyou have four if. I lied,
I lied, I lied, Ilied. I was about hit the
(00:22):
Lady Cell podcast. But unless myso apparently it is going to be the
anti thought podcast. There we go. Yeah, I think you know,
if you do one early at two, then it's the writing splast. This
one has to be, you know, the anti thought podcast. Let's keep
it a riginal with the floodship,y'all. Hi, I will know not
(00:44):
and I remember to introduce myself.I'm freaking excited about this, Like I
feel like professionalism came to visit andI'm kicking it out the door. Goodbye
professionalism. And I wrote books andit's kind of a wee thing. But
let's as my narcissism inside of meis being annoyed by that. I have
to tell at that other people wrotewith me. So I'm gonna go with,
I wrote books, okay there,and I thought the vorce was bad,
(01:07):
and I thought being grown up withCZ if only I were me and
me and Warren Verus Foreign coffee Whittles, web Wittles, debts, and those
books are only the audiobooks. Youcan get those audiobooks wherever you find audiobooks,
by the way, because Jade justreminded me that I have been not
saying this. Our books are literarylife GUIDs. Just in case you're out
there and you're like, you know, all I want is for Poechy too,
tell me what I should do withmy life. That's us, y'all.
(01:32):
Yeah, this place is like I'mgonna help you get their life.
Yeah. No, so I'm gonnago with we wrote books because you're not
gonna trust the space. Oh butyou're not here to hear about me,
go figure, because I could talkabout me all day and how cute I
am and less a little swish righthere loving it. You're here to hear
about our wonderful guests. Wonderful guests. Would you like to introduce yourself?
(01:53):
Well, sure I will, Helloeveryone, and thank you so much for
having me on. I am Elsahurt. I am also an author.
I'm also ironically a podcast host andand the one I'm always a little bit
embarrassed to say, I'm also asocial media content creator. To be more
(02:13):
specific, Yes, TikTok, Yes, I make a lot of stuff for
TikTok. I do a lot ofcomedy sketches and original social commentary type of
stuff. And yeah, so that'sthat's the baseline of what I do.
There's a whole bunch of other stuff. You and I talked beforehand here a
little bit about our ADHD and howwe like to do lots and lots of
(02:36):
different things, and I completely relate. But I won't go down the list,
okay, because Jade always stops mefrom going down the list. I
applaud anyone who wants to go downthe list. If you would like to
go down the list, go downthe list. I love it. I
love it. That is so kindof you. Yeah, you know what,
I'll kind of give you, likethis little brief timeline I started off.
(03:01):
So I'm fifty two, and soI call myself a late bloomer.
Thank you for making that face.I love you more than life for making
that face. When I said thatthat's what you're supposed to do people.
That's the face you make when awoman says that to you, Just so
we all know. But so,I'm a late bloomer in the creative arts.
(03:22):
I wrote my first book at ageforty two, and I thought it
was going to be a one anddone. I thought it was a little
children's book, and I thought,you know, okay, I just got
out of my system. I purgedit. I'm good. I'm good.
I don't feel the need to doit anymore. Within days, I was
like, no, I got towrite another one. Yeah, I got
to write another one. And abouttwenty five or so books later, I
(03:46):
decided, thanks to COVID, AndI kind of mean that in sincerity.
Barely do we ever say thank youto COVID for anything, right, But
I'm going to give a nod tothe COVID because it put that ridiculous app
TikTok in front of my face,and like, you know, thousands of
trapped in your homes, bored adults, we started taking over TikTok from from
(04:14):
all the little the little kids whooriginally dominated the platform, which I never
had even heard of it before,and I did what a lot of people
did. I started watching, andI'm watching videos and chuckling and going,
well, I'm never gonna make avideo. It's never gonna happen, and
then that turned into we'll just makeone, just one silly little video.
(04:34):
And you know, now, Idon't even I couldn't. I couldn't even
possibly tell you how many videos areon there and if anybody wants to see
them. I am the other Elsaon TikTok. And the reason I call
myself the other Elsa's because every timeI tell somebody my name is Elsa,
they go like Elsa from Frozen,and I always say, no, the
(04:56):
other Elsa. So that's why I'mthe other Elsa over there. But yeah,
that's I mean, that's been takingup a lot of time and energy
and taking me away from writing alittle bit. But I will get back.
I will get back to the writing. And oh okay, so I'm
supposed to be going down the lista little bit here, I stayed on
one track, the next thing,the next thing. I'm sorry, guys,
it's getting boring, isn't it.I'll try and spice it up here.
(05:18):
I can't. I'm not spicy.I'm sorry. I started so when
I started my writing journey, Ilove to jump face first into everything I
do, and I kind of flyby the seat of my pants, and
I generally never really have a plan, so I'm always fixing things as I
go along and going back and doingall of that stuff. And the whole
(05:43):
writing, publishing, and promoting processwas no different. Just flew by the
seat of my pants with that andit ended up pretty well, lots of
mistakes along the way. But oneof the greatest things part of that writing
journey was when I started doing thepromoting, you know, going to the
book events like the multi especially themulti author book signing events, meeting other
(06:08):
authors, and it was the firsttime that I'd gotten out of my little
bubble, because you know, youknow how it is writing, it's so
isolated. You're in your little bubble. You think you're the only one in
this world and nobody can relate toyou or understand you. And then you
find your tribe. You find allyour people who are like, yeah,
no, I feel exactly the sameway. Oh I'm having this trouble too,
(06:29):
or I had this struggle. Here'swhat you can do. And the
community was so embracing and helpful thatI felt very fortunate. And what do
you do when you feel fortunate andblessed? You want to pay it forward?
Do you want to pass it alongand help other people? And one
of the things that would happen alot during these book events is there was
always somebody more than one that wouldcome up and say, you know,
(06:53):
I've always wanted to write a book, but you know, there was always
the butt, always the thing holdingthem back. And for me, it
broke my heart because I was there. I had wanted to write a book
for twenty years and I was toochicken to do it or too unknowledgeable as
to how to go about it,and so I was like, okay,
so it's time to help some people. So that's one of the other things
(07:15):
that I get to do. Iget to help new and aspiring authors navigate
the path to authorship. That's ofcourse the name of my little program,
my little one on one coaching thing, And it's so great. It's so
cool to see somebody go from wantto be, you know, author,
to author to published author. Andjust just to be able to help somebody
(07:41):
do that and give them that senseof pride is huge. It's it's almost
in a way, it's almost betterthan writing your own books in a way,
which I still love doing. SoI just I just ran my mouth
so much. I'm sorry. Ineverally enjoyed it. I had fun.
I was like, hey, ify'all have born, I don't know what's
wrong with you. She's my gregaciousand almost effective with her energy. Man,
(08:07):
thank you? Yeah I said thatcorrectly, And I'm like, wait,
is that the word? Yeah,that's the word. That's we're affected
with our energy? Do you know? That is the most common author thing.
I think we we are such eloquentwriters, but when it comes time
to speak, I get so tonguetied. I'm always going, wait a
minute, is that the right word? Is that the word? I mean,
(08:28):
it's the most bizarre thing, isn'tit. Oh? This morning I
was reading what I have written andI was like, dang, yes,
that's a cool way to explain that. And then I was like, all
right, I'm getting on here todoing it. Oh no, no,
no, speaking is not my forte. Stop that immediately. So it is
so it is so nice to hearabout like it is so much fun to
(08:50):
help someone on their path to becomean author, and since I'm an narcissist,
I'm going to tell a story.Oh and you thought she was boring,
wait till you hear my story.Okay, So this was one time
we met someone in a bar becausethat's where we sell books the most of
our books, and they didn't knowwho we were. We told them who
we were, and then they werelike, oh, I'd like to write
(09:11):
a book. We said, shoulddefinitely write a book. We stayed in
touch. Do you know how manybooks he has? He has five books
now. And you know what I'mdoing right now. That's why I'm home
today is because I am writing abook with the guy we met in the
bar that wrote a book because wesaid you should write a book. I
love that. I think that's socool, it's so amazing, and I
think I just I really believe thatwe are put in the places that we
(09:35):
are for a reason. And youknow that was the reason, a reason
at least for you guys, beingwhere you were at the right time,
in the right place, and tobe able to help somebody else and to
you know, and to add toyour own journey, which is really cool.
I love it. I love it, I love I just love all
of the opportunities and the possibilities thatcome up, you know, seemingly randomly,
(09:58):
but you know, I always think, oh, there a design and
purpose for this. So it's prettydarn cool when when something happens and you're
like, I did not see thatcoming, but I'm really glad it happened.
Right. Yeah, I've talked aboutme, which is so sad.
I'm gonna stop that. So I'mgonna talk about you now. You said
(10:20):
that you had this ADHD and Ikind of admit I agree with you with
all the between the TikTok and andthe path of publishing and the path the
authorship and uh did I ever podcast? Yes? Yes, so I do
a podcast as well. Technically Iam not as uh, I'm not as
prolific as you are with it.I have two podcasts to your four.
(10:46):
You you have four? Right?Did you say? Have four podcasts among
all the other things that are areabsolutely amazing to me, So I have
to One of them is kind ofa little bit dormant right now. I
still do it, but not nearlyas much as the other. One.
One is for writers. It's theWriter's Tripe talk show and I interview.
It's mainly geared toward towards those newand aspiring authors. So it's kind of
(11:09):
like, so they can get practiceat being interviewed and they can use it
as a as a tool for theirmarketing, you know, so they can
say they can market themselves to biggerpodcasts and say, you know, listen,
here's here's a sample of me beinginterviewed. I don't sound or look
like a like a moron, youknow, I can present well and all
(11:31):
of those things. So, youknow, so I do that one and
then the other one is very youknow, very creatively. I'm being sarcastic
called the Elsa Kert Show, andyou know, I want I wanted to
be like super thoughtful and creative withthe name. No, not at all,
but yeah, so I do thatone. That one takes up a
bit more time. That's a weeklythat's a weekly podcast. And I just
(11:56):
took on a co host cause Iwas getting kind of bored just listening to
myself talk. I'm like, youknow what, I need somebody to talk
to now. So and that makesme nosy about you guys. Do you
do do you take turns interviewing peopleor do you do like conversation type.
I don't even know what I mean. Do you guys do your podcast together
(12:18):
together or or separately? Normally it'sonly a jade. But she hadn't been
here for a while. She starteda whole new business. Like she was
here at two o'clock. If youcaught the two o'clock interview, she was
here. She was the disembodied voicelike she was on the other one.
(12:39):
But back in the day, itwas the two of us. And now
I do a lot of interviews bymyself, but we also have the Ladystale
podcast, which was her baby,which is a narrative episodic podcast. But
then on top of it, wealso do interviews with people from Hollywood.
We have Meet Hollywood Monday and that'sanother interview. And then the Writer's Class,
(13:01):
which is we went we decided todo a deep dive into writing,
so we interview scholarly like PhD collegeprofessors, editors, that sort of thing.
And I lied there is another one. Oh, there's the Author reality
show where we got four authors togetherto fight it out every week. Whoa
(13:22):
for one traditional publishing contract? Wow? Oh that's cool, that's very very
cool. Yeah, Okay, soI know you're interviewing me, but I
have to ask See, you canask all these questions on your own podcast.
I would be happy to come on. I see, I know.
Now I gotta have you on mine. Absolutely, Yes, I know you're
super super busy, but I wouldlove that. But yeah, so do
(13:46):
you are you all completely traditionally publishedor a little bit of both or one
or the other? And do youboth in a way that I had a
three book contract with a New Yorkpublisher's kind of like my second my second
one out. I've been traditionally publishedsince I was ten. Oh boy wow.
(14:09):
Then I self published at twelve.And then okay, I'm I'm gonna
leave the long answer for your foryour podcast. Okay, fair enough,
fair enough? Yea, yeah,yeah, so we are now officially a
little bit of both. That's awesomebecause that's always the question that that people
always ask their like traditional publishing orself publishing, what's better? What's blah
(14:30):
blah blah? And you know,I'm the answer I always give is that
they both have their pros and conslike they both you know, and it's
it's a matter of you know,as far as traditional publishing, it's a
it's a matter in my mind ofhow important is it to you to be
called traditionally published, to be ableto say I'm traditionally published, you know,
(14:52):
and to a lot of people,a lot of authors, aspiring authors,
that's, you know, high onthe list of importance. That like,
I want to be able to saythat I'm traditionally published, And that
was on my mind for a periodof time. I got traditionally published,
same thing, a little bit ofboth. Actually I shouldn't say a little
bit primarily self published with some traditionalpublishing and for me, and I'm not
(15:18):
telling anybody else what they should door how they should feel about it.
For me, I did not likethe traditional publishing experience. And it turns
out here's what I found out aboutmyself that I in fifty two years,
I probably should have already known this, but I didn't. I'm a control
freak. I want all of thesay over my creative process, my book,
(15:43):
and what happened with the traditionally publishedbooks. They are the first two
books in my series, which isWelcome to Chance. As the series,
it's a small town saga. It'skind of like a soap opera basically,
and the first two books are witha traditional publishing company, a small publishing
house, and I read my contract. I understood this, but there's always
(16:10):
the butt. They had full sayover my book covers, and I really
thought I was fine with that becauseI figured, you know, they ask
you a lot of questions. Theyhave you do this whole thing of you
know, showing what you imagine thecharacters to look like, and you know,
I mean it's very very thorough,or it seems to be. And
(16:33):
when they came back with the covers, it was nothing like what I envisioned,
not even close. And of courseI addressed it. I said,
you know, this is this reallydoes not, in my mind represent what's
inside this book. The cover doesn'tmatch what's on the inside. And their
response is, well, we knowwhat sells, so we're going to this
(16:55):
is staying. And I had nosay that was it. And they're beautiful
covers, they're just not the rightcovers. So for me, that was
like the big clincher that, like, you know what, not not going
to do this again. You know, certainly you can negotiate and try and
rechain that that final say and allthat stuff. I have no idea you
(17:17):
know how likely that is to happen. But I'm sure if they want your
book enough, they'll they'll make thosecompromises. I didn't. I was just
excited to get traditionally published and tobe able to say I'm traditionally published.
But yeah, I love I love, love love self publishing. I love
the control. I find it always. I always find it absolutely hilarious when
author goes I cannot believe it.But I love self publishing. And I'm
(17:41):
like, we control an entire world, like people fond to things, how
they're going to say things, howthey feel, how they move. We
control multiple people's personalities, individual personalitiesand intricacies of that. And you're surprised
that you want to control your career, right, That is a perfect way
(18:03):
to put it to You're so right, Like why would come as a surprise
to you? Oh, it waslike I didn't have a choice because it
so I have no choice. Noone, no one goes you know what
I really want in my life?I publish what I need on my publishing
docket this year is narrative poetry thatexplains cocktail recipes or how to make a
(18:30):
business, or you know what I'msaying. No one goes back. I'm
looking for. They go, whatI can do that? And you're like,
well, if you publish me,you know, no, no,
no, no, just explain itto me. I don't need you.
You don't need that, right,Okay, So you have two podcasts and
then I've heard the names of twobooks, But what I have not heard
(18:52):
of the names of your self publishedOh sure? So so as uh as
I mentioned, the series that Ido is a sixth book series with a
seventh and absolute final. I'm likestomping my fist here. It's the final
one coming out maybe sometime next year, I'm thinking. But the series is
(19:12):
called Welcome to Chance. It's asmall town saga follows the lives of five
families, and it's over the coursebasically of like twenty years, or technically
the first the set the first sixis over the course of like eight years,
and then the last one is goingto be revisiting the town twenty years
later. And so I love thatseries with all my heart. I love
(19:37):
those characters. You know how itis to fall in love with your characters
and be so invested in them.So I actually can't wait to get back
to that town and revisit them.But yeah, so It's a May's Cafe.
There's six out right now, May'sCafe, Rosa Bel's Way, Georgie's
Secret, Grady's Promise, Featherhand's Song, and Coming Home. Yeah, I
(20:03):
can't believe I actually was able tojust remember all of them like that.
I'm so proud of myself right now. It's very exciting for me to have
a remember anything. And then Ihave a whole bunch of standalones, and
genre wise, they're a bit ofa mix. I have. There's like
a like a sweet contemporary romance,which is called The Writer's Romance. There's
(20:29):
one that's a little spicier called TheAwkward Woman's Guide to Divorce, Dating after
Divorce, And listen, I'm notsaying that anything is autobiographical in any way,
wink wink. There may be somesome stories in there that resonate well
with me but are relatable to anybodywho's gone through these experience. But yeah,
(20:53):
I always joke and I always saythat I kind of grew up with
my books. I started off writingsome children's books that I moved into young
adult, which is like the firstnovel. I'm gonna knock everything over if
I grab them and it'll be soembarrassing. But the first actual novel I
wrote was actually a young adult novelcalled Into the Everwood and it's like a
(21:18):
coming of age, modern day fairytale basically. And then I moved into
like contemporary women's fiction, and uh, and that was kind of where I
settled. That's kind of where Istayed in for the most part. But
who knows, you know, theADHD I'm gonna bounce around to wherever I
have grand babies. Now I havetwo grand babies and a third one on
(21:40):
the way, so I actually needto get back into writing some children's books
specifically for them. So yeah,that's that's it. But they're you know
the deal, they're They're all availableon Amazon there. You can get to
them through my website, which isElsa Kirt dot com. I'm all over
that, gosh darn social media.Uh, I'm it's the Elsa Kurt Show,
(22:03):
author, else A kurtwhere else.I'm on all of them. I'm
easy. I think I'm pretty easyto find if you just if you just
type in into the Google. Asmy mother would say, in the Google.
My mother loves to ask the Googleeverything, like everything. Let me
ask the Google so yeah, ifyou ask the Google, as my mom
would say, she's gonna be somad that I just did that to her.
(22:26):
But yeah, you can find meeverywhere. It's like super easy.
Yeah, yeah, you can findher everywhere. I just did a quick
socius to be like, you know, let me make sure I have all
my up to date stuff, andit was so much stuff on Google.
I was like, the Google needsto be more selective. Oh yes,
yeah, Google needs to tone itdown a bit. You don't have to
be showing everybody every single thing.It's it's yeah, can they not?
(22:49):
So I think I'm going to askthe question that every author wants to know.
Well, there's three questions that thatevery author wants to know, but
I'm going to start with the onethat most of the people I know.
I want to know, how doyou make TikTok work for you? Because
this is three point one million views? Yes, yeah, it's yeah,
it's a little bonkers. So it'sa I think a lot of it is
(23:12):
trial and error as far as whatworks in your niche, what you're,
what you're, who you're aiming toreach. Really, and you know,
I think our instinct is to alwaysthink, well, I want to reach
everybody. I want everybody to seemy stuff. And that's not the answer.
You have to really have to likehone it down and get really specific
(23:33):
on who you're trying to reach.And that probably sounds counterproductive in some ways,
but I promise you it's not.It's it really will will help people
find you, the people that youwant to find you. The things I
say about TikTok uh Number one.Now, us authors, we're generally there's
(23:55):
a lot of extroverts. I don'twant to rule out the extroverts, but
there's a lot of introverts in ourlittle author community, and putting ourselves out
there is really really hard. Andif you're going to do it in this
lane on TikTok you have to haveto have to have a thick skin.
You gotta be tough, and youcan't take things personally because people are people.
(24:19):
People are people, and some ofthem are not very nice and they
will say not nice things just becausethey can, and that's unfortunate. But
you know, you can't take anythingpersonally, can't take anything hard. So
that would be like if somebody,if an author came to me and said,
he I think I want to doTikTok, tell me, you know,
give me kind of the low down. That's always the first thing I
(24:41):
tell them. You have to havea thick skin and you have to be
authentic, So that would be thenext thing. Be authentic, do what's
true to you. If you're notcomfortable sitting in front of the camera,
you know, and I know alot of people think that you have to
do like silly dances and all ofthese things. You don't have to do.
And you don't have to do thedances, you don't have to do
the challenges. You don't have todo any of that stuff. If you
(25:04):
want to just sit down and reada few pages from your book, you
know, every week or whatever.Consistency is key, keep doing, you
know, just keep posting, whichis exhaustive, I know to a lot
of people, like when you say, you know, somebody asked me,
how often do you post like onTikTok. Well, I make an average
(25:25):
of one to six videos a day, so I post almost every day.
I give myself a break usually Saturdayand Sunday, I take a little break,
especially Sunday that's the day of rest, so I take my break.
But yeah, the rest of theweek, I'm hitting it pretty hard.
And for me specifically because I wastechnically your question, You're like, how
(25:51):
to you know, because I haveright now? Oh boy, I think
the last look, I think Ihave about two hundred and six thousand followers
on I think that's right something aroundthere over on TikTok, and a lot
of the stuff that I do iscomedic sketches, social commentary. I do
(26:12):
you say, I keep up onyou know, what's going on in the
world, and I usually I tryand keep it kind of neutral. But
also and asking questions. That's abiggat. So no matter what you post,
really, if you're asking people toengage, ask them questions. And
so if you're if you're going onthere as solely as an author, you're
(26:32):
like, I don't want to dodances, I don't want to do skits
or any of these silly things thatyou're talking about, Elsa. I just
want to go on there and youknow, get people to know me,
to buy my books and do allof that stuff. It's it's a matter
of the consistency and and just postingthings that are relevant to you and sharing
(26:55):
it in unique interesting ways and andjust keep at it. Just keep doing
it. Yeah, I think that'slike the biggest advice. But yeah,
it's crazy. I think I thinkpeople who watch your show know that we
have talent managers. H So,like one of our talent manager friends came
to us and was like, Iwant to help you. You need to
(27:18):
get a bigger social media presence.And the first thing they said is post
every day at the same time.Don't like, if you're going to skip
two days, make sure that,like your audience knows from the get go,
is going to be Monday through Friday, that is it, and you
have to be there Monday through Friday. If you choose nine am, that's
when it's posted. Like this seemshard, No, thank you, Yeah,
(27:44):
I get it. I get it. It's easier for me to be
like every Friday, there's going tobe a video that was already pre recorded,
right right right, But you know, but that's actually yeah, that's
actually part of the beauty now toothough that you can like schedule out your
post you can. You can dothat now. So the only trick of
that for TikTok is you have toif you're going to schedule your posts,
(28:06):
you have to do it from yourlaptop or your desktop, whatever you're using.
You can't schedule them from your phone, at least not. I'm an
Android user, and everybody makes funof us, but I definitely can't do
it from there. Maybe iPhones youcan, I don't know, but I
know that you can schedule them fromyour computer, which is you know,
that's a lifesaver because I'll sit inthe morning and I'll schedule out posts for
all of my social media and theyjust they go out and I get to
(28:30):
go about my day and I'll popin and respond to comments. And that's
actually another big thing. When peopledo comment, you do like they say,
like respond to the first commenters,like the first five or ten commenters,
respond, acknowledge them, and theyend up And it's true. I
have people that have been with meessentially from the beginning, and you know,
(28:52):
they're always they're always faithfully. Youknow, they throw comment in and
I always make sure that I respondto them at the very least. And
yeah, and even start the conversation, throw a comment in to start it
and see what people say. Butyeah, definitely, people love to share
their thoughts and opinions, So Ithink that would be my biggest thing I
(29:14):
would say, like, if you'regoing to post a video, I did
this one time on Facebook, andmaybe this will help an author out there,
who's you know, struggling right now, just to get noticed out there.
I was struggling coming up with aname for my lead character. I
was torn between two names, andI put it out to to my following.
I said, all right, guys, I need your help. I
(29:36):
need you to pick the name ofmy character. And that post. This
is going back quite a while now, but that post went crazy. It
got so much response, especially incomparison to anything else that I had ever
posted, and and that was kindof like the light bulb moment, like,
okay, all right, people theywant to engage, they want to
give their opinion, they want totell you what they think. So yeah,
(30:00):
if you're gonna make videos, askthem something. If you're writing a
book right now, get on thereand ask them a question, like all
right, I need your help.And people, all of a sudden they
put on their superhero capes and they'relike, I'm ready to help. This
is all This is good information forme as well, and I'm sure it's
great information for everyone out there,because I think we get asked about TikTok
(30:22):
quite a bit at conferences, likewhat do you do for the TikTok?
And I'm like, we suck,that's what we do. And they're like,
you can't be that bad, andI'm like, it's an educational channels
of writing books. Yeah, oh, literally talking about writing books. But
(30:45):
anyway, I love it. Ilove how you've done, especially your your
comedia sketches are quite humorous. Thankyou for those. Thank you. Some
people don't think so I get peoplemad at me, but you know,
it's all in good fun. It'sall in good humor, and I don't
I don't, I don't care.I'm not a fan of a mean comedy.
(31:06):
Just just lighthearted stuff. You know. Some people don't like it,
though, and that's okay. Can'tbe everybody's cup of tea, right,
Nope, You're not a pizza everyoneexactly, exactly. Yes. So now
comes to the second question everyone lovesto know is how did you get your
literary agent in or publishing? Do? Yeah? So, I mine was
(31:30):
kind of goofy. To be honestwith you, I well, I guess
I shouldn't call it goofy. It'snot goofy. It was just kind of
a random thing. Somebody, anacquaintance on Facebook, I think it was,
had posted that she had gotten herpublishing contract and she was her first
one. She was very excited andshe put the name of the publishing company,
(31:53):
and I had just happened to juston a whim, I had already
So here's a funny fact. Thosefirst two books in that series that I
mentioned, I had actually already selfpublished them. They were already out,
and I looked up this publishing companyand they were looking for submissions, and
(32:17):
so they're not so I know youknow this, of course, but maybe
some of the people not watching.Unless you have a literary agent, you
can't submit your books as an author. You can't submit your books to the
big publishing houses. They won't evenlook at it. So smaller publishing houses,
a lot of them, you know, their websites will tell you if
they accept direct drawn of Blake onthe word direct submissions, and so this
(32:44):
one did. They accepted direct submission, So I did. I submitted the
first book or a portion thereof,with the caveat that just so you know
this was I actually have this published, already self published, and they responded
within hours with with a contract andsaid we want it, you know,
(33:05):
condition of course being that you takeit off of you know, I had
to pull it off of Amazon andunpublish it and and all of those things,
and and and that's what we did, and we went with it.
So and then I kept Then Iwas able to retain the rights for the
rest of the series, which wasfor me, it was a better,
better thing. And they were great. They had the right of first refusal
(33:27):
and it worked out perfect. Butyeah, but that was how I got
my first one. I just Ijust reached out and took a chance on
it. And uh yeah, sounless unless somebody is dead set on on
the Big five, you know,no literary agent, I did, you
know, I went a little backand forth on that. Did I want
a literary agent? Did I wantto go through that? Because same process
(33:49):
you're sending queries, you know,it's queries, queries, queries, and
and that can be for a lotof people, that can be very disheartening
because you typically get a lot ofrejections before you get a maybe, or
before you ever even get a soand that's not to deter anyone from doing
that whatsoever. I'm not I'm notthe naysayer. I'm not the one that
says, don't do it, you'llregret it. No, do whatever whatever
(34:10):
you think you need to do tobe fulfilled. I'm going to add a
little bit of advice here, pleasefor my ten year old self. You
know, like whenever I got aCorey letter rejection, my parents would take
me out for ice cream and mmhmm. And the worse the rejection,
the more I got. So likeif it was like lot of times,
(34:31):
won't just wrote the word nope.So I got ice cream and cake.
If you're gonna go this route,as my friend who was an actress said,
the best way to prepare for beingan actor and getting that rejection in
the casting room is by being anauthor because they're meaner. I love that.
(34:52):
That's brilliant. I love that ifyou're going to know this traditional route
and you want the Big five,suggest you you figure out your treat mm
hmmm, because I love that.You're gonna need it. You're gonna need
it, man. It's all partof that thick skin that we have to
have, right, And it reallyis. And and I'll tell you what,
(35:14):
for anyone watching and listening, who'syou know at the beginning of this
journey or somewhere early in it,and they're getting discouraged and they're they're getting
you know, disappointed, and Godforbid considering quitting. First of all,
don't you dare do that? Uh. Second of all, there is nothing
greater than rejection. And I'll tellyou why. It teaches you how tough
(35:37):
you are, and it teaches youwhat you're made of. So and when
if you think like you're, ifyou're even if you're right now you're curled
up in a ball and rocking andand heartbroken that you got a rejection letter
or somebody told you that your worksucks or something awful, You're still here.
You're actually okay, like you're actuallyfine. And if that's the thing
(36:00):
that happened, that somebody didn't likeyou or didn't like what you did,
it's not the end of the world. You're you're okay, you know,
And there's gonna be somebody that does. I mean, you ever want to
pep yourself up, Just go downthe list of look at all of the
people who went through such horrible rejection, Oprah Winfrey, doctor Seuss, I
mean, the list is so long. There was the first New two names
(36:22):
that came to my mind, butthat list is so long. Stephen King
has a phenomenal story of his rejections, how he would put him on a
spike. He had like a railroadtie or not a tie, rare road
spike, I don't even know whatit's called. And he had it dug
into his bedroom wall. I thinkit was in every rejection letter back when
(36:43):
we were getting letters instead of emails, and he would just stack them up
on this spike, and you know, it was to the point where there
was no more space left on it, and to the point where I think
it was Carrie. I think itwas his book Carrie that he had actually
thrown in the garbage pail, likeliterally thrown it in the garbage pail,
and his wife took it out andsubmitted it and that was the one and
(37:04):
I was like a forty thousand dollarsadvance and the beginning of you know,
his incredible career. So just don'tbe discouraged. So that's all. Then
I'm going to put in a caveatwarning. So when you do meet that
one special author, like one ofmy favorite authors who she wrote a book,
turned it in and they went notfor me, but I know somebody
(37:30):
else. Actually I lied, that'sthe other author. That's my other favorite
author. That for me is forsomebody else. And now he has his
audio, like he has an amazingcareer. My favorite favorite author turned it
in, they loved it, andthey turned it into an audiobook and now
she's the best selling author. Firstthing she's ever written. Nine days.
(37:52):
Wow. Yeah, right, LikeI think, like the moral of the
story is, you know, punintended I get us, is that your
your worst moment might be your beststory at some point, so you know,
put it in your pocket and youknow, get ready to share it
because you're going to be you'll bedoing a victory lap, so you know
(38:14):
at some point you just have totrust that that's the case. So yeah,
as you can see, this iskind of my favorite thing. I
love to, you know, sneakopportunities to just encourage people to pursue,
you know, the things that theywant to pursue, whether it's writing or
anything else, doing that TikTok video, you know, whatever it is.
Life is too short to miss opportunities, exactly. I think you said,
(38:37):
like, oh, we could allblame COVID for understanding that. Now I
remember I was watching the show andthey were like, I know which hope.
I'm not going to say what itwas, but they was watching the
show and they were saying, whatCOVID has taught us right now is that
we do not have as much controlover our life as we thought we did.
And they give the example of like, can you imagine not knowing that
(38:59):
it is going to like rain tomorrow, like we always know the weather,
right right, a generalization of theweather. They're like a couple of you
know, a couple hundred years ago. They didn't know. It was just
absolutely surprising. You caught them off, but like down to that, we
know what's going to go happen inour life, most likely tomorrow. Yeah,
COVID was like, hey, youdon't have as much as you think,
(39:22):
and it makes you reevaluate. Grantedmy reevaluation was already in what I
was doing, so yeah, youknow, I mentioned the whole introvertism.
I am a hardcore introvert, soyou know, and they're like, stay
home, stay home. I waslike, ooo ah, you got me.
(39:43):
Wow, that's such a bover.Sorry, can't go anywhere, gotta
stay home. I'm sorry to makelight of COVID. I know, you
know, I know, but thatpart of it for someone like me and
anyone else like me with that introvertgene telling us to stay home was like
I was gonna do it anyway,so pretty much, and not to mention
(40:07):
like now the COVID is over,I'm still kind of doing it. So
yeah, oh my god, Sam, I work from home. Everything I
do from home, I mean it'syou know, I have to like mentally
psych myself up to go out anywhere, and now, you know, I
mean, they make it so easyto stay home. I got my groceries
delivered. I even have I've gotI get my milk. This is such
a weird, random thing to sayin an interview, but I get my
(40:30):
milk delivered from the from the milkman. It's actually called the milkman,
and they in the glass bottles andit's local and it's you know, I
mean, it's so silly. Ican't even I even know why I just
mentioned that is so dumb. Butyeah, the little things that that service
had gone away for the Yeah,and I refuse to date myself. I'm
(40:51):
just gonna say that I have anold town, so I'm not old.
The town is old for the service. There you go, well, like
when are you going away? Andthen he came back during COVID you were
like, I don't even drink milk. I'm lactose and tolerant, and I
was, and I signed up justto let let's see it come to my
house. It's so cool cool andgave it to my neighbors obviously. Oh
(41:15):
yeah, I know. Yeah,oh man, I love it. That's
so awesome. So okay, atthis at this point, I think it's
a lot of time to like prettymuch wrap this up, right, Yes,
ma'am, I think so. Huh, I know, authors, what
can I say? We could justtalk about this stuff all day long,
but yes, absolutely so. Canyou tell everyone where they can find your
(41:36):
books and also where they can listento the podcast? Thank you? Yes,
absolutely so everything. If the easiestthing to do probably is to go
to ELSA kirt dot com h EL s A k u r t dot
com. Uh, and that haseverything and you know more than you even
want to know, probably, butit has everything, all of my links,
my bio if you want to knowa little my background and where this
(42:00):
crazy chick came from and what herdeal is it's all in there and Amazon.
All of my books are on Amazon. Podcast is on all of the
podcasting sites. We do same thing, video and audio. So all of
your podcast listening apps, whether it'siTunes, Amazon, blah blah blah,
all those guys, you can findit on all of them. It's the
(42:21):
Elsa Kurt Show and also the Writer'sTripe Talk Show, and they're on YouTube
and gosh, I don't know whereelse. Probably other places too, but
definitely those ones. But yeah,elsakirt dot com. That's the easiest place
to find me. Okay, andif my website, if it will work
a little faster. I was goingto tell you, like what the latest
(42:42):
person was for the Writer's Trive talkShow. Oh yeah, I know.
I'm sorry. I'm actually drawing ablank because I'm awful. I have somebody,
Yes, thank you. Yes.Oh she was lovely, absolutely lovely.
Yeah, she's got some great booksout. She's just a wonderful.
Since she's another one, and againtalk about the writer community, she's another
(43:06):
one that helps aspiring authors too.So yeah, I mean there's so much
help out there for anybody doing whatwe do or wanting to do what we
do. I'm not gonna I'm notgonna lie like that was one of the
reasons that I asked stand with youin the first place, because I listened
to that interview and then I said, I gotta listen to some more,
and then I was like, oh, let me go look at it.
By the time when I finished lookingat stuff, I was like, all
(43:27):
right, look, I gotta sendthe email like I got it. I'm
so grateful you did. I'm sograteful you to. I love talking with
you. You are absolutely awesome andI'll be checking out more of your show
sharing it over to my stuff aswell. This was so much fun for
me. Thank you, Thank youso much for being here today. And
I'm gonna go ahead and wrap us. I don't know why I always say
us, because I used to Jadeeither being on my right or my left,
(43:51):
which feels weird because like, whenshe's here, she's like, got
so many funny things to say,and she stops me for saying ridiculous things.
But anyway, Welnona one of theAnti thought Ladies. You can find
out everything that your ladies are upto at www dot Anti thought ladies dot
com. While you're there, godown to the middle of the page,
not the bottom of the page,but the middle of the page, and
you can see the three charities thatwe proudly support. We asked that you
(44:14):
consider giving them a little support aswell. That does not have to be
money, It can be time,resources, or knowledge. We thank you
in advance for this, and rememberthat wisdom is all around you if you're
open to finding it and accepting it. So peace in love you guys,
from Willnona in the Missing Jade
Oh everyone, and welcome to theladies. Nope, I lied, I
lied, I lied, I lied. I was about hit the Lady Cell
podcast. But unless my is myguest over here, a director, an
author, a star or a moviestar, and I just don't know it.
No, okay, never mind,So it's not the Lady's Sale podcast,
y'all. This is what happens whenyou have four if. I lied,
I lied, I lied, Ilied. I was about hit the
(00:22):
Lady Cell podcast. But unless myso apparently it is going to be the
anti thought podcast. There we go. Yeah, I think you know,
if you do one early at two, then it's the writing splast. This
one has to be, you know, the anti thought podcast. Let's keep
it a riginal with the floodship,y'all. Hi, I will know not
(00:44):
and I remember to introduce myself.I'm freaking excited about this, Like I
feel like professionalism came to visit andI'm kicking it out the door. Goodbye
professionalism. And I wrote books andit's kind of a wee thing. But
let's as my narcissism inside of meis being annoyed by that. I have
to tell at that other people wrotewith me. So I'm gonna go with,
I wrote books, okay there,and I thought the vorce was bad,
(01:07):
and I thought being grown up withCZ if only I were me and
me and Warren Verus Foreign coffee Whittles, web Wittles, debts, and those
books are only the audiobooks. Youcan get those audiobooks wherever you find audiobooks,
by the way, because Jade justreminded me that I have been not
saying this. Our books are literarylife GUIDs. Just in case you're out
there and you're like, you know, all I want is for Poechy too,
tell me what I should do withmy life. That's us, y'all.
(01:32):
Yeah, this place is like I'mgonna help you get their life.
Yeah. No, so I'm gonnago with we wrote books because you're not
gonna trust the space. Oh butyou're not here to hear about me,
go figure, because I could talkabout me all day and how cute I
am and less a little swish righthere loving it. You're here to hear
about our wonderful guests. Wonderful guests. Would you like to introduce yourself?
(01:53):
Well, sure I will, Helloeveryone, and thank you so much for
having me on. I am Elsahurt. I am also an author.
I'm also ironically a podcast host andand the one I'm always a little bit
embarrassed to say, I'm also asocial media content creator. To be more
(02:13):
specific, Yes, TikTok, Yes, I make a lot of stuff for
TikTok. I do a lot ofcomedy sketches and original social commentary type of
stuff. And yeah, so that'sthat's the baseline of what I do.
There's a whole bunch of other stuff. You and I talked beforehand here a
little bit about our ADHD and howwe like to do lots and lots of
(02:36):
different things, and I completely relate. But I won't go down the list,
okay, because Jade always stops mefrom going down the list. I
applaud anyone who wants to go downthe list. If you would like to
go down the list, go downthe list. I love it. I
love it. That is so kindof you. Yeah, you know what,
I'll kind of give you, likethis little brief timeline I started off.
(03:01):
So I'm fifty two, and soI call myself a late bloomer.
Thank you for making that face.I love you more than life for making
that face. When I said thatthat's what you're supposed to do people.
That's the face you make when awoman says that to you, Just so
we all know. But so,I'm a late bloomer in the creative arts.
(03:22):
I wrote my first book at ageforty two, and I thought it
was going to be a one anddone. I thought it was a little
children's book, and I thought,you know, okay, I just got
out of my system. I purgedit. I'm good. I'm good.
I don't feel the need to doit anymore. Within days, I was
like, no, I got towrite another one. Yeah, I got
to write another one. And abouttwenty five or so books later, I
(03:46):
decided, thanks to COVID, AndI kind of mean that in sincerity.
Barely do we ever say thank youto COVID for anything, right, But
I'm going to give a nod tothe COVID because it put that ridiculous app
TikTok in front of my face,and like, you know, thousands of
trapped in your homes, bored adults, we started taking over TikTok from from
(04:14):
all the little the little kids whooriginally dominated the platform, which I never
had even heard of it before,and I did what a lot of people
did. I started watching, andI'm watching videos and chuckling and going,
well, I'm never gonna make avideo. It's never gonna happen, and
then that turned into we'll just makeone, just one silly little video.
(04:34):
And you know, now, Idon't even I couldn't. I couldn't even
possibly tell you how many videos areon there and if anybody wants to see
them. I am the other Elsaon TikTok. And the reason I call
myself the other Elsa's because every timeI tell somebody my name is Elsa,
they go like Elsa from Frozen,and I always say, no, the
(04:56):
other Elsa. So that's why I'mthe other Elsa over there. But yeah,
that's I mean, that's been takingup a lot of time and energy
and taking me away from writing alittle bit. But I will get back.
I will get back to the writing. And oh okay, so I'm
supposed to be going down the lista little bit here, I stayed on
one track, the next thing,the next thing. I'm sorry, guys,
it's getting boring, isn't it.I'll try and spice it up here.
(05:18):
I can't. I'm not spicy.I'm sorry. I started so when
I started my writing journey, Ilove to jump face first into everything I
do, and I kind of flyby the seat of my pants, and
I generally never really have a plan, so I'm always fixing things as I
go along and going back and doingall of that stuff. And the whole
(05:43):
writing, publishing, and promoting processwas no different. Just flew by the
seat of my pants with that andit ended up pretty well, lots of
mistakes along the way. But oneof the greatest things part of that writing
journey was when I started doing thepromoting, you know, going to the
book events like the multi especially themulti author book signing events, meeting other
(06:08):
authors, and it was the firsttime that I'd gotten out of my little
bubble, because you know, youknow how it is writing, it's so
isolated. You're in your little bubble. You think you're the only one in
this world and nobody can relate toyou or understand you. And then you
find your tribe. You find allyour people who are like, yeah,
no, I feel exactly the sameway. Oh I'm having this trouble too,
(06:29):
or I had this struggle. Here'swhat you can do. And the
community was so embracing and helpful thatI felt very fortunate. And what do
you do when you feel fortunate andblessed? You want to pay it forward?
Do you want to pass it alongand help other people? And one
of the things that would happen alot during these book events is there was
always somebody more than one that wouldcome up and say, you know,
(06:53):
I've always wanted to write a book, but you know, there was always
the butt, always the thing holdingthem back. And for me, it
broke my heart because I was there. I had wanted to write a book
for twenty years and I was toochicken to do it or too unknowledgeable as
to how to go about it,and so I was like, okay,
so it's time to help some people. So that's one of the other things
(07:15):
that I get to do. Iget to help new and aspiring authors navigate
the path to authorship. That's ofcourse the name of my little program,
my little one on one coaching thing, And it's so great. It's so
cool to see somebody go from wantto be, you know, author,
to author to published author. Andjust just to be able to help somebody
(07:41):
do that and give them that senseof pride is huge. It's it's almost
in a way, it's almost betterthan writing your own books in a way,
which I still love doing. SoI just I just ran my mouth
so much. I'm sorry. Ineverally enjoyed it. I had fun.
I was like, hey, ify'all have born, I don't know what's
wrong with you. She's my gregaciousand almost effective with her energy. Man,
(08:07):
thank you? Yeah I said thatcorrectly, And I'm like, wait,
is that the word? Yeah,that's the word. That's we're affected
with our energy? Do you know? That is the most common author thing.
I think we we are such eloquentwriters, but when it comes time
to speak, I get so tonguetied. I'm always going, wait a
minute, is that the right word? Is that the word? I mean,
(08:28):
it's the most bizarre thing, isn'tit. Oh? This morning I
was reading what I have written andI was like, dang, yes,
that's a cool way to explain that. And then I was like, all
right, I'm getting on here todoing it. Oh no, no,
no, speaking is not my forte. Stop that immediately. So it is
so it is so nice to hearabout like it is so much fun to
(08:50):
help someone on their path to becomean author, and since I'm an narcissist,
I'm going to tell a story.Oh and you thought she was boring,
wait till you hear my story.Okay, So this was one time
we met someone in a bar becausethat's where we sell books the most of
our books, and they didn't knowwho we were. We told them who
we were, and then they werelike, oh, I'd like to write
(09:11):
a book. We said, shoulddefinitely write a book. We stayed in
touch. Do you know how manybooks he has? He has five books
now. And you know what I'mdoing right now. That's why I'm home
today is because I am writing abook with the guy we met in the
bar that wrote a book because wesaid you should write a book. I
love that. I think that's socool, it's so amazing, and I
think I just I really believe thatwe are put in the places that we
(09:35):
are for a reason. And youknow that was the reason, a reason
at least for you guys, beingwhere you were at the right time,
in the right place, and tobe able to help somebody else and to
you know, and to add toyour own journey, which is really cool.
I love it. I love it, I love I just love all
of the opportunities and the possibilities thatcome up, you know, seemingly randomly,
(09:58):
but you know, I always think, oh, there a design and
purpose for this. So it's prettydarn cool when when something happens and you're
like, I did not see thatcoming, but I'm really glad it happened.
Right. Yeah, I've talked aboutme, which is so sad.
I'm gonna stop that. So I'mgonna talk about you now. You said
(10:20):
that you had this ADHD and Ikind of admit I agree with you with
all the between the TikTok and andthe path of publishing and the path the
authorship and uh did I ever podcast? Yes? Yes, so I do
a podcast as well. Technically Iam not as uh, I'm not as
prolific as you are with it.I have two podcasts to your four.
(10:46):
You you have four? Right?Did you say? Have four podcasts among
all the other things that are areabsolutely amazing to me, So I have
to One of them is kind ofa little bit dormant right now. I
still do it, but not nearlyas much as the other. One.
One is for writers. It's theWriter's Tripe talk show and I interview.
It's mainly geared toward towards those newand aspiring authors. So it's kind of
(11:09):
like, so they can get practiceat being interviewed and they can use it
as a as a tool for theirmarketing, you know, so they can
say they can market themselves to biggerpodcasts and say, you know, listen,
here's here's a sample of me beinginterviewed. I don't sound or look
like a like a moron, youknow, I can present well and all
(11:31):
of those things. So, youknow, so I do that one and
then the other one is very youknow, very creatively. I'm being sarcastic
called the Elsa Kert Show, andyou know, I want I wanted to
be like super thoughtful and creative withthe name. No, not at all,
but yeah, so I do thatone. That one takes up a
bit more time. That's a weeklythat's a weekly podcast. And I just
(11:56):
took on a co host cause Iwas getting kind of bored just listening to
myself talk. I'm like, youknow what, I need somebody to talk
to now. So and that makesme nosy about you guys. Do you
do do you take turns interviewing peopleor do you do like conversation type.
I don't even know what I mean. Do you guys do your podcast together
(12:18):
together or or separately? Normally it'sonly a jade. But she hadn't been
here for a while. She starteda whole new business. Like she was
here at two o'clock. If youcaught the two o'clock interview, she was
here. She was the disembodied voicelike she was on the other one.
(12:39):
But back in the day, itwas the two of us. And now
I do a lot of interviews bymyself, but we also have the Ladystale
podcast, which was her baby,which is a narrative episodic podcast. But
then on top of it, wealso do interviews with people from Hollywood.
We have Meet Hollywood Monday and that'sanother interview. And then the Writer's Class,
(13:01):
which is we went we decided todo a deep dive into writing,
so we interview scholarly like PhD collegeprofessors, editors, that sort of thing.
And I lied there is another one. Oh, there's the Author reality
show where we got four authors togetherto fight it out every week. Whoa
(13:22):
for one traditional publishing contract? Wow? Oh that's cool, that's very very
cool. Yeah, Okay, soI know you're interviewing me, but I
have to ask See, you canask all these questions on your own podcast.
I would be happy to come on. I see, I know.
Now I gotta have you on mine. Absolutely, Yes, I know you're
super super busy, but I wouldlove that. But yeah, so do
(13:46):
you are you all completely traditionally publishedor a little bit of both or one
or the other? And do youboth in a way that I had a
three book contract with a New Yorkpublisher's kind of like my second my second
one out. I've been traditionally publishedsince I was ten. Oh boy wow.
(14:09):
Then I self published at twelve.And then okay, I'm I'm gonna
leave the long answer for your foryour podcast. Okay, fair enough,
fair enough? Yea, yeah,yeah, so we are now officially a
little bit of both. That's awesomebecause that's always the question that that people
always ask their like traditional publishing orself publishing, what's better? What's blah
(14:30):
blah blah? And you know,I'm the answer I always give is that
they both have their pros and conslike they both you know, and it's
it's a matter of you know,as far as traditional publishing, it's a
it's a matter in my mind ofhow important is it to you to be
called traditionally published, to be ableto say I'm traditionally published, you know,
(14:52):
and to a lot of people,a lot of authors, aspiring authors,
that's, you know, high onthe list of importance. That like,
I want to be able to saythat I'm traditionally published, And that
was on my mind for a periodof time. I got traditionally published,
same thing, a little bit ofboth. Actually I shouldn't say a little
bit primarily self published with some traditionalpublishing and for me, and I'm not
(15:18):
telling anybody else what they should door how they should feel about it.
For me, I did not likethe traditional publishing experience. And it turns
out here's what I found out aboutmyself that I in fifty two years,
I probably should have already known this, but I didn't. I'm a control
freak. I want all of thesay over my creative process, my book,
(15:43):
and what happened with the traditionally publishedbooks. They are the first two
books in my series, which isWelcome to Chance. As the series,
it's a small town saga. It'skind of like a soap opera basically,
and the first two books are witha traditional publishing company, a small publishing
house, and I read my contract. I understood this, but there's always
(16:10):
the butt. They had full sayover my book covers, and I really
thought I was fine with that becauseI figured, you know, they ask
you a lot of questions. Theyhave you do this whole thing of you
know, showing what you imagine thecharacters to look like, and you know,
I mean it's very very thorough,or it seems to be. And
(16:33):
when they came back with the covers, it was nothing like what I envisioned,
not even close. And of courseI addressed it. I said,
you know, this is this reallydoes not, in my mind represent what's
inside this book. The cover doesn'tmatch what's on the inside. And their
response is, well, we knowwhat sells, so we're going to this
(16:55):
is staying. And I had nosay that was it. And they're beautiful
covers, they're just not the rightcovers. So for me, that was
like the big clincher that, like, you know what, not not going
to do this again. You know, certainly you can negotiate and try and
rechain that that final say and allthat stuff. I have no idea you
(17:17):
know how likely that is to happen. But I'm sure if they want your
book enough, they'll they'll make thosecompromises. I didn't. I was just
excited to get traditionally published and tobe able to say I'm traditionally published.
But yeah, I love I love, love love self publishing. I love
the control. I find it always. I always find it absolutely hilarious when
author goes I cannot believe it.But I love self publishing. And I'm
(17:41):
like, we control an entire world, like people fond to things, how
they're going to say things, howthey feel, how they move. We
control multiple people's personalities, individual personalitiesand intricacies of that. And you're surprised
that you want to control your career, right, That is a perfect way
(18:03):
to put it to You're so right, Like why would come as a surprise
to you? Oh, it waslike I didn't have a choice because it
so I have no choice. Noone, no one goes you know what
I really want in my life?I publish what I need on my publishing
docket this year is narrative poetry thatexplains cocktail recipes or how to make a
(18:30):
business, or you know what I'msaying. No one goes back. I'm
looking for. They go, whatI can do that? And you're like,
well, if you publish me,you know, no, no,
no, no, just explain itto me. I don't need you.
You don't need that, right,Okay, So you have two podcasts and
then I've heard the names of twobooks, But what I have not heard
(18:52):
of the names of your self publishedOh sure? So so as uh as
I mentioned, the series that Ido is a sixth book series with a
seventh and absolute final. I'm likestomping my fist here. It's the final
one coming out maybe sometime next year, I'm thinking. But the series is
(19:12):
called Welcome to Chance. It's asmall town saga follows the lives of five
families, and it's over the coursebasically of like twenty years, or technically
the first the set the first sixis over the course of like eight years,
and then the last one is goingto be revisiting the town twenty years
later. And so I love thatseries with all my heart. I love
(19:37):
those characters. You know how itis to fall in love with your characters
and be so invested in them.So I actually can't wait to get back
to that town and revisit them.But yeah, so It's a May's Cafe.
There's six out right now, May'sCafe, Rosa Bel's Way, Georgie's
Secret, Grady's Promise, Featherhand's Song, and Coming Home. Yeah, I
(20:03):
can't believe I actually was able tojust remember all of them like that.
I'm so proud of myself right now. It's very exciting for me to have
a remember anything. And then Ihave a whole bunch of standalones, and
genre wise, they're a bit ofa mix. I have. There's like
a like a sweet contemporary romance,which is called The Writer's Romance. There's
(20:29):
one that's a little spicier called TheAwkward Woman's Guide to Divorce, Dating after
Divorce, And listen, I'm notsaying that anything is autobiographical in any way,
wink wink. There may be somesome stories in there that resonate well
with me but are relatable to anybodywho's gone through these experience. But yeah,
(20:53):
I always joke and I always saythat I kind of grew up with
my books. I started off writingsome children's books that I moved into young
adult, which is like the firstnovel. I'm gonna knock everything over if
I grab them and it'll be soembarrassing. But the first actual novel I
wrote was actually a young adult novelcalled Into the Everwood and it's like a
(21:18):
coming of age, modern day fairytale basically. And then I moved into
like contemporary women's fiction, and uh, and that was kind of where I
settled. That's kind of where Istayed in for the most part. But
who knows, you know, theADHD I'm gonna bounce around to wherever I
have grand babies. Now I havetwo grand babies and a third one on
(21:40):
the way, so I actually needto get back into writing some children's books
specifically for them. So yeah,that's that's it. But they're you know
the deal, they're They're all availableon Amazon there. You can get to
them through my website, which isElsa Kirt dot com. I'm all over
that, gosh darn social media.Uh, I'm it's the Elsa Kurt Show,
(22:03):
author, else A kurtwhere else.I'm on all of them. I'm
easy. I think I'm pretty easyto find if you just if you just
type in into the Google. Asmy mother would say, in the Google.
My mother loves to ask the Googleeverything, like everything. Let me
ask the Google so yeah, ifyou ask the Google, as my mom
would say, she's gonna be somad that I just did that to her.
(22:26):
But yeah, you can find meeverywhere. It's like super easy.
Yeah, yeah, you can findher everywhere. I just did a quick
socius to be like, you know, let me make sure I have all
my up to date stuff, andit was so much stuff on Google.
I was like, the Google needsto be more selective. Oh yes,
yeah, Google needs to tone itdown a bit. You don't have to
be showing everybody every single thing.It's it's yeah, can they not?
(22:49):
So I think I'm going to askthe question that every author wants to know.
Well, there's three questions that thatevery author wants to know, but
I'm going to start with the onethat most of the people I know.
I want to know, how doyou make TikTok work for you? Because
this is three point one million views? Yes, yeah, it's yeah,
it's a little bonkers. So it'sa I think a lot of it is
(23:12):
trial and error as far as whatworks in your niche, what you're,
what you're, who you're aiming toreach. Really, and you know,
I think our instinct is to alwaysthink, well, I want to reach
everybody. I want everybody to seemy stuff. And that's not the answer.
You have to really have to likehone it down and get really specific
(23:33):
on who you're trying to reach.And that probably sounds counterproductive in some ways,
but I promise you it's not.It's it really will will help people
find you, the people that youwant to find you. The things I
say about TikTok uh Number one.Now, us authors, we're generally there's
(23:55):
a lot of extroverts. I don'twant to rule out the extroverts, but
there's a lot of introverts in ourlittle author community, and putting ourselves out
there is really really hard. Andif you're going to do it in this
lane on TikTok you have to haveto have to have a thick skin.
You gotta be tough, and youcan't take things personally because people are people.
(24:19):
People are people, and some ofthem are not very nice and they
will say not nice things just becausethey can, and that's unfortunate. But
you know, you can't take anythingpersonally, can't take anything hard. So
that would be like if somebody,if an author came to me and said,
he I think I want to doTikTok, tell me, you know,
give me kind of the low down. That's always the first thing I
(24:41):
tell them. You have to havea thick skin and you have to be
authentic, So that would be thenext thing. Be authentic, do what's
true to you. If you're notcomfortable sitting in front of the camera,
you know, and I know alot of people think that you have to
do like silly dances and all ofthese things. You don't have to do.
And you don't have to do thedances, you don't have to do
the challenges. You don't have todo any of that stuff. If you
(25:04):
want to just sit down and reada few pages from your book, you
know, every week or whatever.Consistency is key, keep doing, you
know, just keep posting, whichis exhaustive, I know to a lot
of people, like when you say, you know, somebody asked me,
how often do you post like onTikTok. Well, I make an average
(25:25):
of one to six videos a day, so I post almost every day.
I give myself a break usually Saturdayand Sunday, I take a little break,
especially Sunday that's the day of rest, so I take my break.
But yeah, the rest of theweek, I'm hitting it pretty hard.
And for me specifically because I wastechnically your question, You're like, how
(25:51):
to you know, because I haveright now? Oh boy, I think
the last look, I think Ihave about two hundred and six thousand followers
on I think that's right something aroundthere over on TikTok, and a lot
of the stuff that I do iscomedic sketches, social commentary. I do
(26:12):
you say, I keep up onyou know, what's going on in the
world, and I usually I tryand keep it kind of neutral. But
also and asking questions. That's abiggat. So no matter what you post,
really, if you're asking people toengage, ask them questions. And
so if you're if you're going onthere as solely as an author, you're
(26:32):
like, I don't want to dodances, I don't want to do skits
or any of these silly things thatyou're talking about, Elsa. I just
want to go on there and youknow, get people to know me,
to buy my books and do allof that stuff. It's it's a matter
of the consistency and and just postingthings that are relevant to you and sharing
(26:55):
it in unique interesting ways and andjust keep at it. Just keep doing
it. Yeah, I think that'slike the biggest advice. But yeah,
it's crazy. I think I thinkpeople who watch your show know that we
have talent managers. H So,like one of our talent manager friends came
to us and was like, Iwant to help you. You need to
(27:18):
get a bigger social media presence.And the first thing they said is post
every day at the same time.Don't like, if you're going to skip
two days, make sure that,like your audience knows from the get go,
is going to be Monday through Friday, that is it, and you
have to be there Monday through Friday. If you choose nine am, that's
when it's posted. Like this seemshard, No, thank you, Yeah,
(27:44):
I get it. I get it. It's easier for me to be
like every Friday, there's going tobe a video that was already pre recorded,
right right right, But you know, but that's actually yeah, that's
actually part of the beauty now toothough that you can like schedule out your
post you can. You can dothat now. So the only trick of
that for TikTok is you have toif you're going to schedule your posts,
(28:06):
you have to do it from yourlaptop or your desktop, whatever you're using.
You can't schedule them from your phone, at least not. I'm an
Android user, and everybody makes funof us, but I definitely can't do
it from there. Maybe iPhones youcan, I don't know, but I
know that you can schedule them fromyour computer, which is you know,
that's a lifesaver because I'll sit inthe morning and I'll schedule out posts for
all of my social media and theyjust they go out and I get to
(28:30):
go about my day and I'll popin and respond to comments. And that's
actually another big thing. When peopledo comment, you do like they say,
like respond to the first commenters,like the first five or ten commenters,
respond, acknowledge them, and theyend up And it's true. I
have people that have been with meessentially from the beginning, and you know,
(28:52):
they're always they're always faithfully. Youknow, they throw comment in and
I always make sure that I respondto them at the very least. And
yeah, and even start the conversation, throw a comment in to start it
and see what people say. Butyeah, definitely, people love to share
their thoughts and opinions, So Ithink that would be my biggest thing I
(29:14):
would say, like, if you'regoing to post a video, I did
this one time on Facebook, andmaybe this will help an author out there,
who's you know, struggling right now, just to get noticed out there.
I was struggling coming up with aname for my lead character. I
was torn between two names, andI put it out to to my following.
I said, all right, guys, I need your help. I
(29:36):
need you to pick the name ofmy character. And that post. This
is going back quite a while now, but that post went crazy. It
got so much response, especially incomparison to anything else that I had ever
posted, and and that was kindof like the light bulb moment, like,
okay, all right, people theywant to engage, they want to
give their opinion, they want totell you what they think. So yeah,
(30:00):
if you're gonna make videos, askthem something. If you're writing a
book right now, get on thereand ask them a question, like all
right, I need your help.And people, all of a sudden they
put on their superhero capes and they'relike, I'm ready to help. This
is all This is good information forme as well, and I'm sure it's
great information for everyone out there,because I think we get asked about TikTok
(30:22):
quite a bit at conferences, likewhat do you do for the TikTok?
And I'm like, we suck,that's what we do. And they're like,
you can't be that bad, andI'm like, it's an educational channels
of writing books. Yeah, oh, literally talking about writing books. But
(30:45):
anyway, I love it. Ilove how you've done, especially your your
comedia sketches are quite humorous. Thankyou for those. Thank you. Some
people don't think so I get peoplemad at me, but you know,
it's all in good fun. It'sall in good humor, and I don't
I don't, I don't care.I'm not a fan of a mean comedy.
(31:06):
Just just lighthearted stuff. You know. Some people don't like it,
though, and that's okay. Can'tbe everybody's cup of tea, right,
Nope, You're not a pizza everyoneexactly, exactly. Yes. So now
comes to the second question everyone lovesto know is how did you get your
literary agent in or publishing? Do? Yeah? So, I mine was
(31:30):
kind of goofy. To be honestwith you, I well, I guess
I shouldn't call it goofy. It'snot goofy. It was just kind of
a random thing. Somebody, anacquaintance on Facebook, I think it was,
had posted that she had gotten herpublishing contract and she was her first
one. She was very excited andshe put the name of the publishing company,
(31:53):
and I had just happened to juston a whim, I had already
So here's a funny fact. Thosefirst two books in that series that I
mentioned, I had actually already selfpublished them. They were already out,
and I looked up this publishing companyand they were looking for submissions, and
(32:17):
so they're not so I know youknow this, of course, but maybe
some of the people not watching.Unless you have a literary agent, you
can't submit your books as an author. You can't submit your books to the
big publishing houses. They won't evenlook at it. So smaller publishing houses,
a lot of them, you know, their websites will tell you if
they accept direct drawn of Blake onthe word direct submissions, and so this
(32:44):
one did. They accepted direct submission, So I did. I submitted the
first book or a portion thereof,with the caveat that just so you know
this was I actually have this published, already self published, and they responded
within hours with with a contract andsaid we want it, you know,
(33:05):
condition of course being that you takeit off of you know, I had
to pull it off of Amazon andunpublish it and and all of those things,
and and and that's what we did, and we went with it.
So and then I kept Then Iwas able to retain the rights for the
rest of the series, which wasfor me, it was a better,
better thing. And they were great. They had the right of first refusal
(33:27):
and it worked out perfect. Butyeah, but that was how I got
my first one. I just Ijust reached out and took a chance on
it. And uh yeah, sounless unless somebody is dead set on on
the Big five, you know,no literary agent, I did, you
know, I went a little backand forth on that. Did I want
a literary agent? Did I wantto go through that? Because same process
(33:49):
you're sending queries, you know,it's queries, queries, queries, and
and that can be for a lotof people, that can be very disheartening
because you typically get a lot ofrejections before you get a maybe, or
before you ever even get a soand that's not to deter anyone from doing
that whatsoever. I'm not I'm notthe naysayer. I'm not the one that
says, don't do it, you'llregret it. No, do whatever whatever
(34:10):
you think you need to do tobe fulfilled. I'm going to add a
little bit of advice here, pleasefor my ten year old self. You
know, like whenever I got aCorey letter rejection, my parents would take
me out for ice cream and mmhmm. And the worse the rejection,
the more I got. So likeif it was like lot of times,
(34:31):
won't just wrote the word nope.So I got ice cream and cake.
If you're gonna go this route,as my friend who was an actress said,
the best way to prepare for beingan actor and getting that rejection in
the casting room is by being anauthor because they're meaner. I love that.
(34:52):
That's brilliant. I love that ifyou're going to know this traditional route
and you want the Big five,suggest you you figure out your treat mm
hmmm, because I love that.You're gonna need it. You're gonna need
it, man. It's all partof that thick skin that we have to
have, right, And it reallyis. And and I'll tell you what,
(35:14):
for anyone watching and listening, who'syou know at the beginning of this
journey or somewhere early in it,and they're getting discouraged and they're they're getting
you know, disappointed, and Godforbid considering quitting. First of all,
don't you dare do that? Uh. Second of all, there is nothing
greater than rejection. And I'll tellyou why. It teaches you how tough
(35:37):
you are, and it teaches youwhat you're made of. So and when
if you think like you're, ifyou're even if you're right now you're curled
up in a ball and rocking andand heartbroken that you got a rejection letter
or somebody told you that your worksucks or something awful, You're still here.
You're actually okay, like you're actuallyfine. And if that's the thing
(36:00):
that happened, that somebody didn't likeyou or didn't like what you did,
it's not the end of the world. You're you're okay, you know,
And there's gonna be somebody that does. I mean, you ever want to
pep yourself up, Just go downthe list of look at all of the
people who went through such horrible rejection, Oprah Winfrey, doctor Seuss, I
mean, the list is so long. There was the first New two names
(36:22):
that came to my mind, butthat list is so long. Stephen King
has a phenomenal story of his rejections, how he would put him on a
spike. He had like a railroadtie or not a tie, rare road
spike, I don't even know whatit's called. And he had it dug
into his bedroom wall. I thinkit was in every rejection letter back when
(36:43):
we were getting letters instead of emails, and he would just stack them up
on this spike, and you know, it was to the point where there
was no more space left on it, and to the point where I think
it was Carrie. I think itwas his book Carrie that he had actually
thrown in the garbage pail, likeliterally thrown it in the garbage pail,
and his wife took it out andsubmitted it and that was the one and
(37:04):
I was like a forty thousand dollarsadvance and the beginning of you know,
his incredible career. So just don'tbe discouraged. So that's all. Then
I'm going to put in a caveatwarning. So when you do meet that
one special author, like one ofmy favorite authors who she wrote a book,
turned it in and they went notfor me, but I know somebody
(37:30):
else. Actually I lied, that'sthe other author. That's my other favorite
author. That for me is forsomebody else. And now he has his
audio, like he has an amazingcareer. My favorite favorite author turned it
in, they loved it, andthey turned it into an audiobook and now
she's the best selling author. Firstthing she's ever written. Nine days.
(37:52):
Wow. Yeah, right, LikeI think, like the moral of the
story is, you know, punintended I get us, is that your
your worst moment might be your beststory at some point, so you know,
put it in your pocket and youknow, get ready to share it
because you're going to be you'll bedoing a victory lap, so you know
(38:14):
at some point you just have totrust that that's the case. So yeah,
as you can see, this iskind of my favorite thing. I
love to, you know, sneakopportunities to just encourage people to pursue,
you know, the things that theywant to pursue, whether it's writing or
anything else, doing that TikTok video, you know, whatever it is.
Life is too short to miss opportunities, exactly. I think you said,
(38:37):
like, oh, we could allblame COVID for understanding that. Now I
remember I was watching the show andthey were like, I know which hope.
I'm not going to say what itwas, but they was watching the
show and they were saying, whatCOVID has taught us right now is that
we do not have as much controlover our life as we thought we did.
And they give the example of like, can you imagine not knowing that
(38:59):
it is going to like rain tomorrow, like we always know the weather,
right right, a generalization of theweather. They're like a couple of you
know, a couple hundred years ago. They didn't know. It was just
absolutely surprising. You caught them off, but like down to that, we
know what's going to go happen inour life, most likely tomorrow. Yeah,
COVID was like, hey, youdon't have as much as you think,
(39:22):
and it makes you reevaluate. Grantedmy reevaluation was already in what I
was doing, so yeah, youknow, I mentioned the whole introvertism.
I am a hardcore introvert, soyou know, and they're like, stay
home, stay home. I waslike, ooo ah, you got me.
(39:43):
Wow, that's such a bover.Sorry, can't go anywhere, gotta
stay home. I'm sorry to makelight of COVID. I know, you
know, I know, but thatpart of it for someone like me and
anyone else like me with that introvertgene telling us to stay home was like
I was gonna do it anyway,so pretty much, and not to mention
(40:07):
like now the COVID is over,I'm still kind of doing it. So
yeah, oh my god, Sam, I work from home. Everything I
do from home, I mean it'syou know, I have to like mentally
psych myself up to go out anywhere, and now, you know, I
mean, they make it so easyto stay home. I got my groceries
delivered. I even have I've gotI get my milk. This is such
a weird, random thing to sayin an interview, but I get my
(40:30):
milk delivered from the from the milkman. It's actually called the milkman,
and they in the glass bottles andit's local and it's you know, I
mean, it's so silly. Ican't even I even know why I just
mentioned that is so dumb. Butyeah, the little things that that service
had gone away for the Yeah,and I refuse to date myself. I'm
(40:51):
just gonna say that I have anold town, so I'm not old.
The town is old for the service. There you go, well, like
when are you going away? Andthen he came back during COVID you were
like, I don't even drink milk. I'm lactose and tolerant, and I
was, and I signed up justto let let's see it come to my
house. It's so cool cool andgave it to my neighbors obviously. Oh
(41:15):
yeah, I know. Yeah,oh man, I love it. That's
so awesome. So okay, atthis at this point, I think it's
a lot of time to like prettymuch wrap this up, right, Yes,
ma'am, I think so. Huh, I know, authors, what
can I say? We could justtalk about this stuff all day long,
but yes, absolutely so. Canyou tell everyone where they can find your
(41:36):
books and also where they can listento the podcast? Thank you? Yes,
absolutely so everything. If the easiestthing to do probably is to go
to ELSA kirt dot com h EL s A k u r t dot
com. Uh, and that haseverything and you know more than you even
want to know, probably, butit has everything, all of my links,
my bio if you want to knowa little my background and where this
(42:00):
crazy chick came from and what herdeal is it's all in there and Amazon.
All of my books are on Amazon. Podcast is on all of the
podcasting sites. We do same thing, video and audio. So all of
your podcast listening apps, whether it'siTunes, Amazon, blah blah blah,
all those guys, you can findit on all of them. It's the
(42:21):
Elsa Kurt Show and also the Writer'sTripe Talk Show, and they're on YouTube
and gosh, I don't know whereelse. Probably other places too, but
definitely those ones. But yeah,elsakirt dot com. That's the easiest place
to find me. Okay, andif my website, if it will work
a little faster. I was goingto tell you, like what the latest
(42:42):
person was for the Writer's Trive talkShow. Oh yeah, I know.
I'm sorry. I'm actually drawing ablank because I'm awful. I have somebody,
Yes, thank you. Yes.Oh she was lovely, absolutely lovely.
Yeah, she's got some great booksout. She's just a wonderful.
Since she's another one, and againtalk about the writer community, she's another
(43:06):
one that helps aspiring authors too.So yeah, I mean there's so much
help out there for anybody doing whatwe do or wanting to do what we
do. I'm not gonna I'm notgonna lie like that was one of the
reasons that I asked stand with youin the first place, because I listened
to that interview and then I said, I gotta listen to some more,
and then I was like, oh, let me go look at it.
By the time when I finished lookingat stuff, I was like, all
(43:27):
right, look, I gotta sendthe email like I got it. I'm
so grateful you did. I'm sograteful you to. I love talking with
you. You are absolutely awesome andI'll be checking out more of your show
sharing it over to my stuff aswell. This was so much fun for
me. Thank you, Thank youso much for being here today. And
I'm gonna go ahead and wrap us. I don't know why I always say
us, because I used to Jadeeither being on my right or my left,
(43:51):
which feels weird because like, whenshe's here, she's like, got
so many funny things to say,and she stops me for saying ridiculous things.
But anyway, Welnona one of theAnti thought Ladies. You can find
out everything that your ladies are upto at www dot Anti thought ladies dot
com. While you're there, godown to the middle of the page,
not the bottom of the page,but the middle of the page, and
you can see the three charities thatwe proudly support. We asked that you
(44:14):
consider giving them a little support aswell. That does not have to be
money, It can be time,resources, or knowledge. We thank you
in advance for this, and rememberthat wisdom is all around you if you're
open to finding it and accepting it. So peace in love you guys,
from Willnona in the Missing Jade
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