December 24, 2023 • 32 mins
Matty Dalrymple is the author of the Lizzy Ballard Thrillers; the Ann Kinnear Suspense Novels. She is a member of International Thriller Writers and Sisters in Crime. Matty also podcasts, on the publishing voyage as The Indy Author. She has written books on the business of short fiction & her articles have appeared in Writer’s Digest magazine
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(00:02):
Hello everyonell that black and you knowI'm keeping that part too, right,
Hello everyone, and welcome to theAnti Thought Podcast. You know, I
have started calling it by its actualname because people kept before I would call
it something else and people are like, I can never find it, and
I was like, because that's notthe name of the show, and so
(00:22):
they would be like, well,why don't you call it by its name?
And I'm like, it doesn't soundnearly as cool. And then I
thought about it, which is funnybecause you know, all that time during
COVID, I never thought about it. But after COVID, when you know,
I got real busy and had todo everything again, I went,
I should name it after the showthree years wasted and oh my god,
(00:50):
okay, back to being professional.That may that never be me. But
I'm one of the anti thought ladies, and the anti thought ladies right the
And I thought books go figure outof everything we could do writing books that
have the title, And I thoughthard to figure out why, but there
are end I thought divorce was bad, and I thought being grown up with
(01:11):
weez if only I were mere memoirmVerse, Foreign Coffee, Widtole's Web and
Widdle's debt, and if you're countingalone, that is six books, six
audiobooks, so you can get thoseaudiobooks wherever audiobooks are found. And there's
a jade that's not too far awayfrom all off of the off camera,
and she's like, don't forget tosay literary life guides. So our books
(01:32):
are literary life guides otherwise known asanthologies. Don't tell any want to say
anthologies. Yes, I said anthologieswhatever, Literary life guides is officially what
they are. And you can getthe rest of those twelve literary life guides
www dot and I thought ladies dotcom. And just in case you're not
doing math today, just you know, word sentences. Yeah, I'm sticking
(01:53):
with the word word sentences. Twelvebooks and six books equals eighteen books total.
I lied, we have two morebooks out, so it's twenty.
You can buy all of those twentybooks that the forementioned website. Okay,
that's enough of me chattering. AlthoughI am loving my narcissist self today with
the curls. Oh, because youknow me, I'll talk about me all
(02:15):
day and it'll be a great show, absolutely spectacular my narcissism. Must say
that. But you're here to hearabout our gad wonderful guest. Would you
like to introduce yourself? Sure?Thank you so much for the interview,
for the invitation, I am MattieDollarmple. I write the Ankneer suspense novels
and suspense shorts and the Luzzie BallardThrillers, and I also write speak podcast
(02:37):
and consult on the writing craft andthe publishing voyage as the indie author.
Okay, I'm wanted. I'm like, should I start with the writing,
but you know I'm gonna start withthe podcasts because Okay, I'm a sucker
for a podcast. Sorry. Ido like talking podcasts with other podcasters,
having a lot of conversations about podcasting. Oh food. Actually, just like,
(03:00):
what can you teach me about podcasting? As a well questioned, Yeah,
well, I collected everything that Iknew about podcasting in a book.
So I have a book called theIndie Author's Guide to Podcasting for Authors,
and I based it on now overtwo hundred episodes of the indiauthor podcast,
(03:20):
which is now a weekly podcast.And I started that in twenty sixteen largely
as an excuse to talk to otherpeople in my writer's group about their areas
of expertise. And then when Ileft my corporate job in twenty nineteen,
I was finally able to take itto a more regular schedule. It was
very sporadic before then. I wentbi weekly in twenty nineteen, and in
(03:42):
twenty twenty I went weekly. SoI just I think, just today I
put out episode two, sixteen toseventeen, one of those, and I
love it. I think podcasts area fantastic way of reaching people. As
I suspect you agree, considering youhave a podcast. And I collected what
I knew in that book, everythingfrom the most strategic advice basically should the
(04:05):
reader start a podcast? Because there'sthis anecdotal statistic out there that I was
never able to confirm. But thestatistic is that seventy percent of podcasts that
start never get past seven episodes,which I wasn't able to confirm, but
feels right to me. And youdon't want to put all that effort into
something if you can't really sustain it. So I ask some questions early in
(04:26):
the book to help people think aboutwhether a podcast is something they can sustain
right through too, you know,like how do you improve your lighting?
How do you improve your technical platforms, So I try to cover the whole
gamut of what people might wonder aboutpodcasts for authors. That is amazing.
I love the fact that you putall the knowledge together in one book.
(04:47):
That's just perfect. And I hadto know. I assume that your writing
group just absolutely adors the fact thatif they want to start it, it's
there, and then the expert behindit and they can ask questions. Yeah.
Well, it was nice to havethose excuses to talk to people about
topics like how to do an authorreading, or the benefits of co op
(05:09):
publishers, or how to reach mediaoutlets, and then kind of pay it
forward by providing them with some audioand video resources. So thank you for
having spent that time with me.Isn't it amazing how much you actually learn?
Like, yeah, people home andthen you're like I'm the host and
you're like, well, no,I'm the student. Yeah, exactly exactly.
(05:30):
I think the joke I make iseverybody can tell whatever I'm struggling within
my either writing or publishing life,because that's the topic that I'm going to
be finding a guest to talk about. Oh my god, I don't feel
so bad now. I'm like,am I a terrible person? Because every
time I want to know something,I'm like, you know what we should
do? Interview someone who does this. Yeah. I think that's a perfect
way to find guests. I mean, first you research and you do the
(05:53):
whole Google thing, and then youwrite get books and you're like, let
me interview someone who knows what they'redoing. Yeah, feel like you can
take it off from like just thebooks. Anyway. We have talked about
podcasts. We need to talk aboutyour books, madam. That's what we
need to talk about. Cool forthat. I always love to do that.
Well. I already mentioned one ofmy two nonfiction books. The other
(06:15):
non book I have is called Takingthe Short Tack Creating income and Connecting with
readers using short fiction. I cowrote that with Mark leslie LeFave of,
among other things, the Start Reflectionson Write and publishing podcasts. And in
addition to those two nonfiction books,I have nine soon to be ten fiction
books in two series. One isthe an Kenneer suspense Novels and one is
(06:39):
the Luzy Ballard Thrillers. The fourthLuzie Ballard book is coming out next month
in January twenty twenty seven, andthe common theme is what happens when an
extraordinary ability transforms an ordinary life,and so the extraordinary ability in the case
of Anne Caneer is that she cancommunicate with the dead, and that gets
her into all sorts of dicey situations. And Lizzie Ballard, who is a
(07:02):
young girl in at the beginning ofthe first book but is sixteen or seventeen
years old through most of the series, has a different extraordinary ability, which
I can't really tell because it wouldbe a bit of a spoiler for the
first book. But she also isliving in a world where everything's like the
lives we know, except one thingis tweaked. I like that about books
(07:24):
when everything is normal but they've justtweaked one thing. Isn't it a little
hard to pull off? Like I'vealways thought in my mind it was really
kind of hard to pull off.But on that, like I write poetry
for crying out loud, well,I think it. I think it all
depends on the execution, you know. I think that if you set up
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that one thing realistically in the contextof the rest of the world you're putting
the characters in, it can bedone. And I guess that you know,
if you if you took an extraordinaryability that was being able to fly
and you put it in the ordinaryworld, I think that would be hard
to pull off because it feels toodisconnected from the ordinary world. But I
(08:07):
think that if you take something thatdoes exist in the ordinary world and you
exaggerated, so you know, there'scertainly people I've spoken to many people like
at book clubs that I've been invitedto, who have had experiences where they
have had some interaction with spirits.You know, maybe a relative who's passed
on has visited them, and soit's not so completely out of the realm
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of our normal lives. It's justsort of kicked up a notch in order
to make it more immediate for thereader, more engaging for the reader.
That is great, Like I guessit would be easier than developing the entire
new world, like like to doin sci fi and fantasy. But like
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I've always like, when I readsci fi and fantasy, you start off
with this is a new world.But when you read something like that,
I'm always in awe on my howdoes this author like encapsulate the real world
that we're in in any social commentarythat they'd like to make and still still
make me be thoroughly fascinated with thisone unique fact, Like it just yeah,
(09:13):
I'm starting the whole building, wholeworld. That's what seems foreign to
me. So I think we allbring our strengths. Like if someone just
gave me a blank world slight andsaid start from scratch, I think I
would be stumped. So it justall depends on how your brain works,
I think. So. I thinkit's also amazing that, like either of
us, we make things out ofthin air. Now, what is your
(09:35):
process of making things out of thinair otherwise known as writing? Well,
for my excuse me, for myfirst book, which is called The Sense
of Death, I'm trying to seeif I have it. I wouldn't take
the time to pick a copy ofit up. But my first book is
the first book in the end Cannersuspense novels. It's called The Sense of
(09:56):
Death. And for for many yearsI had this scene in my head that
played out like I was watching amovie. It was about a woman who
goes to this old at the timeVictorian house in San Francisco and she's there
to do a job. She's thereon a professional engagement, and her reaction
(10:18):
to being at the house is sodramatic that she can't go in, and
she has an argument with her clientand the job that she is there to
do. It's an kaneer who cancommunicate with the dead. She has consulting
business that's run by her brother basedon that ability. All these details came
up a bit later, and she'sthere too with a client who's hired her
to walk through the house to seeif it's haunted, because this woman thinking
(10:39):
of buying the house, and shein fact, in this case, wants
to find a haunted house, soshe's hired and to help her find a
haunted house. And I just playedthat scene through in my brain over and
over and over and over again,like refining it each time, and eventually
it got to the point where Ijust felt like I needed to find out
what the rest of the story wasaround it. So I had to come
(11:01):
up with the story that led upto that moment and come up with a
story that led away from that moment, which was very, very inefficient.
I don't do that anymore as much, but oftentimes I am intrigued by topic
because there is this one scene thatI'm seeing very clearly in my mind like
a movie playing out. Okay,so it's not just like you know,
when you're writing a book, you'realways kind of by yourself with your own
(11:24):
head and you're writing the characters andyou're like anyone else right like this,
Okay, I heard me. Ithink the more I find out about the
more I have the opportunity to talkto writers about their writing process, the
more I realize that once you getinto the nuances, it is really different
for different people, really different.Like there's a lot of commonality, but
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a lot of times I'll talk topeople and I'll hear how they come up
with stories, and I'm like,really, and that works for it?
But yeah, that's how it worksfor me. I'm always amazed with the
characters that people come up with andthe nuances to their personality. Yeah,
because these people are so so believable. Okay, we have talked about the
(12:07):
books a bit, but I havethe jump ship and go ahead and talk
about you are an indie author.Yep. How did you choose being an
indie author? Because your book soundamazing? Did you try to do the
tradition you tried to knocking on allthe doors or did you just like I'm
jumping straight in. Yeah, Ipretty much jumped straight in. So I
wrote my first book. Actually,I just had my ten year anniversary of
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when my first book came out andwhen I was finishing up that book in
twenty twelve, in twenty thirteen,so I came out at the end of
twenty thirteen. And when I wasfinishing up that book, I went to
this writer's group that was the impetusfor my podcast, and there were a
couple of traditionally published writers there.So I started saying to them, well,
you know, what are you gettingout of your relationship with a traditional
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publisher. And although I didn't itwas a different world because not only did
I I really not know what wasgoing on on either side, I was
just asking people who did know fortheir opinion. And I didn't have it
worked out of quite this carefully.It took me many years to think about
it in this way. But whatI heard from them is that you get
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the A and the B from traditionalpublishers, so access in the sense that
certainly, at the time, ifI wanted to see my books on the
shelf and Barnes and Noble, Iwas much more likely to have that happen
if I want the traditional route andbragging rights, because it's super cool to
be able to say that your book'sbeen picked up by you know, however,
the Big Five, the Big Four, however many bigs there are at
the moment. But that in againstthat are the three or four c's of
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independent publishing, depending on how youcount them. So creativity, I never
have to be creative on someone else'sschedule. Control, I'm never going to
have a book cover. I hatecare, by which I mean that I
don't think any traditional public sure wouldstill be heavily promoting a book that was
ten years old. But I stillpromote my first book more so than any
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others because I'm hoping it will leadpeople into a series. And I have
I can take care of my backlistin a way that a traditional publisher would
not. And then I was sayingthis to a guest on a podcast,
and they said, and cash,because of course there are going to be
some people who are going to hit, you know, hit pay dirt and
get a highly lucrative, very generoustraditional publishing deal. But it's a small,
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small, small percentage. And sothe idea of earning a smaller amount
over the whole rest of my lifewas much more appealing to me than like
a big payday in an advance thatmight never even earn out. So yeah,
I pretty much picked Indy right fromthe get go. I'm I have
heard so many why ind why traditional? I have to say, this is
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the most organized Indie argument I haveever had. Are you on a debate
for this? Should? I knowyou? I've talked about this a lot.
Art is you can imagine that someonehas who has a podcast called the
indiauthor Podcast. I do talk aboutthis topic a lot, so I've had
a long time to refine my thethoughts behind it. I was like,
(15:18):
I was about to talk about mefor a second, I forgot as a
narcissist, this is not an interviewabout me. But I should ask that
on your show so I can bethe proper narcissis not joke me joking about
that. I noticed that one ofthe that you and oh my god,
I forgot his name and I wroteit down, like I literally wrote it
down. Hold on, let melook it up again. That Dale Al
(15:41):
Roberts. There we go. Iwas about to call him David Lee and
that that's so far off from thename that you guys talked about the forty
eight hour book. Yes, howdid that go? Well, we didn't
actually get into a ton of detailsabout it because that interview, which just
(16:02):
came out yesterday, I think,so you're really on top of things.
So Dale has been on my podcastseveral times, and so there's there are
communications that I make to the potpast podcast guests, and one of the
things I offer is that if theyhave a new book coming out, I
have another video series called What ILearned, and I ask authors two questions
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related to their latest book. Whatdid they learn that they would like to
share with their fellow writers and whatdid they learn that they would like to
share with their fellow readers. Andso Dale had actually wanted to talk about
how to write a book in fortyeight hours as part of What I Learned
series, So we didn't actually delveinto how to write a book for eight
(16:44):
hours as much as we might otherwisehave, other than just the fact that
it's a bizarre thought for someone whospend you know, mine to twelve months
writing a novel, or probably anequivalent amount of time writing a nonfiction book.
So but It's always super fun totalk with Dale. That was a
fun conversation. He has an amazingyou just make the amazing content. But
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I think I feel like most peopleknow that, especially we're in the authors.
We've run across it. Yeah,exactly. I was going to say
that, you know, like,I don't know if they still do it,
but Canada used to have the seventytwo hour Novel Contest, and I
used to do it every year.Really every what's that about? You really
write a novel in seventy two hoursof a complete and total novel in three
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days? Yikes? Turn it in? How how do you do? I
wrote, like, so every yearI would come out like I would be
like, oh, I want towrite a novel. I want to write
a novel. And then I waslike, screw it. You know,
I'll just wait for the three daycontests and I will just write my novel
then. And that was the novelfor the year. Well, that's very
impressive. That's something I could neverI wouldn't even I wouldn't even try.
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I was very familiar with it withthe characters, very familiar. I've been
writing with them since I was twelveyears old, So like that would help.
Yeah, it helps a lot becauseyou already know the setting, you
know the theme, you know exactlywhat they're going to say, what they're
going to do. And I meanbefore the seventy two hours get there,
you've thought about like pretty much thatyou have the mental outline in your head
and you just roll what comes out. Yeah, that comes out. And
(18:18):
when I'm done, I'm done.Yeah. I don't even do nano raimo.
So three days seems like insanity,but good for you. And they
offer publiced to offer a publishing contractso you could get like traditionally published at
the end, so you can putit into to like for a shot at
getting published. Yeah. Yeah,and people, so that was kind of
(18:41):
cool. Yeah, that is kindof cool. I'm wishing they would do
it in the United States. Iwould really appreciate watching these people. And
I think you'levise it because they televisedit like for two years in a row
in Canada. They should do it. I want to see it. I
want to see it very very badly. They do they actually show people writing
or is it televised like a wordceremony or what part is televised? Oh,
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it was like for two years itwas like televised on Canadian television where
those the authors that were selected setin like a library. They had like
you know, all the snacks andeverything and sleepy bags and they just wrote
a book. It's like survival orwhat a survivor. It's like the reality
TV show for writers exactly. Iwas like, this is amazing, y'all
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should bring this here, really,should bring this here. They just saying
they had like all this coffee.It was great. Like I of course,
I was like that year I wasat home rite writing and you have
to give proof like that it's donein seventy two hours. But as soon
as it was done, I watchedit and I went, oh, you
poor people, Oh yeah, dothat. It does sound horrible, Like
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I'm sure some people are would beenergized by that, but I just think
it sounds horrible. But that wouldhave I would have like writer's block for
three days, and then on dayfour I'd be like, oh, I
have a good idea. So Ican see that happening so many people.
Oh my goodness, I was goingto talk about me again, and I
was like no, no, no, no, but I am to say
(20:08):
one quick thing, and that isactually how one of the reasons that we
did the author reality show where weoffered the cut with the writer's contract at
the end, the publishing contract atthe end. And I want to tell
you all my authors, they hadfour weeks to present four different sections of
writing the book to like actual traditionalpublishing houses like small press, CEOs of
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small Press, and they were like, it was horrible. I don't know
how I got started and the writingevery week and it just takes over.
And I was like how, Andthen they explained it and I was like,
oh, so it's like writing abook in three days. Got it,
got weeks all right? Done withmy stories? That was the interesting
(20:59):
story. What was one of yourfavorite moments on on doing doing your podcast,
Like when you're talking to a guestor something, it was like the
favorite moment you've ever had. Ithink two favorite moments have been opportunities I've
had and I kind of has Ihate to mention any because this I could
say this about many, many,many of the episodes, but the two
(21:22):
that I was pop into my mindare that I'm a huge fan of Ben
Winters, so he wrote The LastPoliceman and Underground Airlines, Golden State,
The Quiet boy other books. Thesenames are escaping me at the moment,
and I love his books, andI invited him on the podcast and he
(21:44):
came on, so I got tochat, you know, chat with one
of my favorite authors. That wascalled the both Miss of Compelling Characters.
So we talked about how bad charactersare really only engaging if if there's a
glimmer of good in them, andgood characters are only engaging if they have
a dark side as well. Andthen the other one that was equally fun
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is that I wrote read a bookcalled s. It was written by the
co authors were jj Abrams, youknow of jj Abrams and Dubdorst, and
I loved the book. It wasone of these books. It was like
an experiential book in the sense thatit was a physical book that I mean,
(22:27):
you can't get it in the book, but I don't know why you'd
want to. And you'll understand whenI describe it. It's a book that
looks like a nineteen fifties hardcover bookwith like the embossed cover, and it
comes in like a nice slipcase andyou open it up and there's a like
stamps like it's been checked out oflibrary and then you start turning the pages,
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and in the margins of the bookare our message is written. And
so as you read through the notesand the margins, it's clear that one
person has taken the book out ofthe library and written a note, and
then someone else took the the libraryand wrote a response. And then it's
this whole conversation between these two asit turns out, like a college student
(23:11):
and a graduate student who are exchangingmessages. So there's the story in the
book which Doug Dorrist wrote, there'sthe story of the of the two people
who are talking in the margins,and then there's a third story that is
the translator, the ostensible translator ofthe book, who's making comments and footnotes
(23:34):
about the material that she's translated.And you'd like turn the page and there
would be a postcard stuck in itwith notes of it. It was fascinating,
and I got to talk to DougDorrist about that whole experience, and
it was so much fun to experiencethat book and then be able to talk
to the author about it. SoI think just those that opportunity a podcast
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gives you to talk to people thatyou probably would never ever and any other
circumstance get a chance to talk tohas really been, you know, some
of the highlights of my experience.I think that's the most fun of I
think that's the most fun about havinga show. Yes, you often you
said that you talk to people andyou're like, oh, here, you
know, this is how you canset up a podcast. Normally people go,
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oh, I have a book,what should I do next? On
look a podcast and they're like why. I'm like, because I feel like
it's a college course that you willnever ever ever get unless you do it.
Yeah, I'm like, they're like, like, all the stuff that
should learned. I was like,just start off real simple and then learn.
You can learn that, but youcan also learn so many other things
in between. I mean, asyou said, like cant talk to your
(24:40):
favorite authors or your favorite screenwriters producersabout how did this work and honestly the
way it informs your own writing.Yeah, there's anything better. There must
be. I mean, you havebetter guests than we do, so I
(25:00):
think I'll guess they're good. They'rejust different. Like I've really been surprised.
I mean, I suppose I havebeen surprised in a negative way.
I can't think of any circumstances atthe moment. But I've certainly had spoken
to people where I was like,this is going to be a nice little
conversation and it was just fabulous.So you know, it's just super fun
(25:22):
to have that kind of opportunity.So what do you What advice would you
give any author that is thinking aboutdoing long standing series and going to have
a backliss? What is that?I? I think just never to lose
track of that. I think twothings that spring to mind. One is
(25:45):
I'm going to say something that Ievery first time author hears and nobody wants
to hear it, and I didn'twant to hear it when I was a
first time author. But it's truethat you're never going to make a living
on one book, you know,if if you do, it's like winning
the powerball. You know. Everyonce in a while I'll say that to
someone, will say, well whatabout so and so? And I was
(26:06):
like, yeah, but that's likethe powerball. You know, you don't
want to go to your financial plannerand say, you know what, my
retirement plan is the powerball? No, like, because you know, although
it's possible, it's not likely.And so I think that when you've written
your first book, then the mostimportant thing to do is write your second
book if you want to have itas a career as opposed to like a
(26:29):
project of your heart, which isalso perfectly fine, but it isn't going
to pay the markeage. So Ithink that in when you're early in your
author career, and if you thinkyou're going to be writing a series,
then I think writing the series isthe important thing. Like, just write
books until you have three or fouror five, and then really dive into
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the marketing and the promotion, andthen never forget those first books, because
with series, what you want todo is get people in early so they
can read through the whole thing,and that's most satisfying for them and most
financially beneficial for you if you coulddo that. Well againness, thank you
so much for that information, becauseI don't think I've ever asked about what
(27:11):
you should do with a backlist before, so this is no information for me.
Oh good, that might be becauseof the I mean, what's a
backlist of poetry for poetry? Ohyeah, yeah, poetry is a very
different beast, I'm sure, andone that I'm not I don't have a
lot of experience with myself, SoI don't know how that would translate into
(27:33):
the poetry world. I'm sure there'ssome truth to it, but I think
it would play out very differently,would be my guess. It's interesting.
Oh, So I wanted to askone question before I left, because this
actually would be the time I wouldwrap it up and call it quits.
But then I heard earlier that youhad a job at twenty nineteen and you
let it go, And I'm assumingit was for a creative career. If
(27:56):
it's not, just tell me I'mdead wrong. No, I was working.
So I worked as a project managerlargely in it for many, many
years, and I worked for QBC, and in twenty nineteen, they were
well leading up to twenty nineteen,even since then, they were doing a
lot of restructuring and they restructured thedepartment I was in. They eliminated the
(28:18):
job I had, and I hadan opportunity to apply for another job that
I didn't want, or take aseverance package. And I was like,
you know what, this is theeasiest position of my entire life. And
it was really great because it gaveme, it gave me some runway.
I mean, I don't want tobad mouth my corporate life because it gave
me many, many good things.And I'm not one of these people who
(28:38):
was like miserable her in her dayjob. But it was great to be
able to leave there with some witha package that gave me some runway and
be able to do writing and publishingand podcasting full time. I thought that
was the last question, you said, publishing. Can you tell us what
(28:59):
you about publishing? And then thatis the last question before we write this.
Well, I think I'll use thereference to having been a project manager
for many years, that there weremany lessons that I took from my years
managing it projects or facilities projects,or logistics projects, or the various projects
I managed, that I am nowable to apply to my publishing arm.
(29:23):
So I have an imprint called WilliamKingsfield Publishers, which was named and as
homage as an homage to my father, who was a short story writer.
He got some stories published back inthe fifties and Colliers and Cosmopolitan and some
other sort of prestigious magazines and yeah, so he would have been thrilled to
(29:45):
know that I was a full timewriter and publisher. So I named my
imprint after him, And yeah,I think that what I'll say about the
publishing businesses that indie authors have tobe willing to wear two hats. They
have to be able to wear theircreative hat. Maybe three hats, the
creative hat, the editorial hat,and then the business person hat. And
(30:07):
if you're looking to have a successfulindie author career, then you need to
be able to switch those three hatsoffice on an office needed. I completely
and totally agree, And I justwant to say that for anyone out there
who's made it all the way throughthis to this section of the interview,
it is so much fun switching hats. Yes, everyone goes, oh,
I just want to write, Butdo you know how much fun it is
(30:29):
to be like creative and marketing too, And do you know how much fun
it is to like do the businessside of book keeping. Like you got
to have the fun writing. Nowyou get to be imaginative about how you're
going to make people notice you're writing, and now you get to count your
money because you were creative in thefirst place. I think that is a
great, great perspective because I thinkyou're absolutely right. People think of that
(30:52):
as like the dredge work that youhave to do. And I love the
air brigging like the same enthusiasm forall three of those hats blast and a
half. But then again, thisis what I've wanted to do since I
was seven years old, so maybeit's just the blastom that half to me.
I want to thank you so muchfor being here today. Thank you
so much for the invitation. Canyou tell people where to find out more
about you and what's next for you? Yeah, if they want to learn
(31:18):
more about my fiction work, theycan go to mattidowarnful dot com and that's
Maddie with a why and at tY and uh what's going on there?
Is next month in January, myfourth Lucyballard thriller will be coming out.
And if they would like to findout more about my nonfiction platform, they
can go to the Indie author dotcom and that's Indie with A Y,
I N D Y. And Iwould love it if I could see some
of your listeners over at the authorpodcast. Okay, so y'all heard the
(31:42):
invitation. You know, we don'treally go like, oh, please do
that. He's gone over there andlisten to some Stubb. It's good.
Well, no one and I'm oneof the end I thought ladies and you
can find out everything that your ladiesare up to at www dot and I
thought to ladies dot com. Whileyou're there, go down to the middle
of the page, not the bottomof the page, but the middle of
the page, and you can seethe charities that we probably support. We
(32:05):
asked that to you take a littletime or maybe even just a little wisdom
and give that to them. Butif you can do that and give them
some finances, this is the endof the year, we're rounding up that
charity giving. We would thank youin advance for that. Remember that wisdom
is all around you if you're opento finding it and accepting it. So
peace in love you guys from Welmonaand the Missing Jade. Oh yeah,
thanks for listening.
Hello everyonell that black and you knowI'm keeping that part too, right,
Hello everyone, and welcome to theAnti Thought Podcast. You know, I
have started calling it by its actualname because people kept before I would call
it something else and people are like, I can never find it, and
I was like, because that's notthe name of the show, and so
(00:22):
they would be like, well,why don't you call it by its name?
And I'm like, it doesn't soundnearly as cool. And then I
thought about it, which is funnybecause you know, all that time during
COVID, I never thought about it. But after COVID, when you know,
I got real busy and had todo everything again, I went,
I should name it after the showthree years wasted and oh my god,
(00:50):
okay, back to being professional.That may that never be me. But
I'm one of the anti thought ladies, and the anti thought ladies right the
And I thought books go figure outof everything we could do writing books that
have the title, And I thoughthard to figure out why, but there
are end I thought divorce was bad, and I thought being grown up with
(01:11):
weez if only I were mere memoirmVerse, Foreign Coffee, Widtole's Web and
Widdle's debt, and if you're countingalone, that is six books, six
audiobooks, so you can get thoseaudiobooks wherever audiobooks are found. And there's
a jade that's not too far awayfrom all off of the off camera,
and she's like, don't forget tosay literary life guides. So our books
(01:32):
are literary life guides otherwise known asanthologies. Don't tell any want to say
anthologies. Yes, I said anthologieswhatever, Literary life guides is officially what
they are. And you can getthe rest of those twelve literary life guides
www dot and I thought ladies dotcom. And just in case you're not
doing math today, just you know, word sentences. Yeah, I'm sticking
(01:53):
with the word word sentences. Twelvebooks and six books equals eighteen books total.
I lied, we have two morebooks out, so it's twenty.
You can buy all of those twentybooks that the forementioned website. Okay,
that's enough of me chattering. AlthoughI am loving my narcissist self today with
the curls. Oh, because youknow me, I'll talk about me all
(02:15):
day and it'll be a great show, absolutely spectacular my narcissism. Must say
that. But you're here to hearabout our gad wonderful guest. Would you
like to introduce yourself? Sure?Thank you so much for the interview,
for the invitation, I am MattieDollarmple. I write the Ankneer suspense novels
and suspense shorts and the Luzzie BallardThrillers, and I also write speak podcast
(02:37):
and consult on the writing craft andthe publishing voyage as the indie author.
Okay, I'm wanted. I'm like, should I start with the writing,
but you know I'm gonna start withthe podcasts because Okay, I'm a sucker
for a podcast. Sorry. Ido like talking podcasts with other podcasters,
having a lot of conversations about podcasting. Oh food. Actually, just like,
(03:00):
what can you teach me about podcasting? As a well questioned, Yeah,
well, I collected everything that Iknew about podcasting in a book.
So I have a book called theIndie Author's Guide to Podcasting for Authors,
and I based it on now overtwo hundred episodes of the indiauthor podcast,
(03:20):
which is now a weekly podcast.And I started that in twenty sixteen largely
as an excuse to talk to otherpeople in my writer's group about their areas
of expertise. And then when Ileft my corporate job in twenty nineteen,
I was finally able to take itto a more regular schedule. It was
very sporadic before then. I wentbi weekly in twenty nineteen, and in
(03:42):
twenty twenty I went weekly. SoI just I think, just today I
put out episode two, sixteen toseventeen, one of those, and I
love it. I think podcasts area fantastic way of reaching people. As
I suspect you agree, considering youhave a podcast. And I collected what
I knew in that book, everythingfrom the most strategic advice basically should the
(04:05):
reader start a podcast? Because there'sthis anecdotal statistic out there that I was
never able to confirm. But thestatistic is that seventy percent of podcasts that
start never get past seven episodes,which I wasn't able to confirm, but
feels right to me. And youdon't want to put all that effort into
something if you can't really sustain it. So I ask some questions early in
(04:26):
the book to help people think aboutwhether a podcast is something they can sustain
right through too, you know,like how do you improve your lighting?
How do you improve your technical platforms, So I try to cover the whole
gamut of what people might wonder aboutpodcasts for authors. That is amazing.
I love the fact that you putall the knowledge together in one book.
(04:47):
That's just perfect. And I hadto know. I assume that your writing
group just absolutely adors the fact thatif they want to start it, it's
there, and then the expert behindit and they can ask questions. Yeah.
Well, it was nice to havethose excuses to talk to people about
topics like how to do an authorreading, or the benefits of co op
(05:09):
publishers, or how to reach mediaoutlets, and then kind of pay it
forward by providing them with some audioand video resources. So thank you for
having spent that time with me.Isn't it amazing how much you actually learn?
Like, yeah, people home andthen you're like I'm the host and
you're like, well, no,I'm the student. Yeah, exactly exactly.
(05:30):
I think the joke I make iseverybody can tell whatever I'm struggling within
my either writing or publishing life,because that's the topic that I'm going to
be finding a guest to talk about. Oh my god, I don't feel
so bad now. I'm like,am I a terrible person? Because every
time I want to know something,I'm like, you know what we should
do? Interview someone who does this. Yeah. I think that's a perfect
way to find guests. I mean, first you research and you do the
(05:53):
whole Google thing, and then youwrite get books and you're like, let
me interview someone who knows what they'redoing. Yeah, feel like you can
take it off from like just thebooks. Anyway. We have talked about
podcasts. We need to talk aboutyour books, madam. That's what we
need to talk about. Cool forthat. I always love to do that.
Well. I already mentioned one ofmy two nonfiction books. The other
(06:15):
non book I have is called Takingthe Short Tack Creating income and Connecting with
readers using short fiction. I cowrote that with Mark leslie LeFave of,
among other things, the Start Reflectionson Write and publishing podcasts. And in
addition to those two nonfiction books,I have nine soon to be ten fiction
books in two series. One isthe an Kenneer suspense Novels and one is
(06:39):
the Luzy Ballard Thrillers. The fourthLuzie Ballard book is coming out next month
in January twenty twenty seven, andthe common theme is what happens when an
extraordinary ability transforms an ordinary life,and so the extraordinary ability in the case
of Anne Caneer is that she cancommunicate with the dead, and that gets
her into all sorts of dicey situations. And Lizzie Ballard, who is a
(07:02):
young girl in at the beginning ofthe first book but is sixteen or seventeen
years old through most of the series, has a different extraordinary ability, which
I can't really tell because it wouldbe a bit of a spoiler for the
first book. But she also isliving in a world where everything's like the
lives we know, except one thingis tweaked. I like that about books
(07:24):
when everything is normal but they've justtweaked one thing. Isn't it a little
hard to pull off? Like I'vealways thought in my mind it was really
kind of hard to pull off.But on that, like I write poetry
for crying out loud, well,I think it. I think it all
depends on the execution, you know. I think that if you set up
(07:45):
that one thing realistically in the contextof the rest of the world you're putting
the characters in, it can bedone. And I guess that you know,
if you if you took an extraordinaryability that was being able to fly
and you put it in the ordinaryworld, I think that would be hard
to pull off because it feels toodisconnected from the ordinary world. But I
(08:07):
think that if you take something thatdoes exist in the ordinary world and you
exaggerated, so you know, there'scertainly people I've spoken to many people like
at book clubs that I've been invitedto, who have had experiences where they
have had some interaction with spirits.You know, maybe a relative who's passed
on has visited them, and soit's not so completely out of the realm
(08:31):
of our normal lives. It's justsort of kicked up a notch in order
to make it more immediate for thereader, more engaging for the reader.
That is great, Like I guessit would be easier than developing the entire
new world, like like to doin sci fi and fantasy. But like
(08:52):
I've always like, when I readsci fi and fantasy, you start off
with this is a new world.But when you read something like that,
I'm always in awe on my howdoes this author like encapsulate the real world
that we're in in any social commentarythat they'd like to make and still still
make me be thoroughly fascinated with thisone unique fact, Like it just yeah,
(09:13):
I'm starting the whole building, wholeworld. That's what seems foreign to
me. So I think we allbring our strengths. Like if someone just
gave me a blank world slight andsaid start from scratch, I think I
would be stumped. So it justall depends on how your brain works,
I think. So. I thinkit's also amazing that, like either of
us, we make things out ofthin air. Now, what is your
(09:35):
process of making things out of thinair otherwise known as writing? Well,
for my excuse me, for myfirst book, which is called The Sense
of Death, I'm trying to seeif I have it. I wouldn't take
the time to pick a copy ofit up. But my first book is
the first book in the end Cannersuspense novels. It's called The Sense of
(09:56):
Death. And for for many yearsI had this scene in my head that
played out like I was watching amovie. It was about a woman who
goes to this old at the timeVictorian house in San Francisco and she's there
to do a job. She's thereon a professional engagement, and her reaction
(10:18):
to being at the house is sodramatic that she can't go in, and
she has an argument with her clientand the job that she is there to
do. It's an kaneer who cancommunicate with the dead. She has consulting
business that's run by her brother basedon that ability. All these details came
up a bit later, and she'sthere too with a client who's hired her
to walk through the house to seeif it's haunted, because this woman thinking
(10:39):
of buying the house, and shein fact, in this case, wants
to find a haunted house, soshe's hired and to help her find a
haunted house. And I just playedthat scene through in my brain over and
over and over and over again,like refining it each time, and eventually
it got to the point where Ijust felt like I needed to find out
what the rest of the story wasaround it. So I had to come
(11:01):
up with the story that led upto that moment and come up with a
story that led away from that moment, which was very, very inefficient.
I don't do that anymore as much, but oftentimes I am intrigued by topic
because there is this one scene thatI'm seeing very clearly in my mind like
a movie playing out. Okay,so it's not just like you know,
when you're writing a book, you'realways kind of by yourself with your own
(11:24):
head and you're writing the characters andyou're like anyone else right like this,
Okay, I heard me. Ithink the more I find out about the
more I have the opportunity to talkto writers about their writing process, the
more I realize that once you getinto the nuances, it is really different
for different people, really different.Like there's a lot of commonality, but
(11:46):
a lot of times I'll talk topeople and I'll hear how they come up
with stories, and I'm like,really, and that works for it?
But yeah, that's how it worksfor me. I'm always amazed with the
characters that people come up with andthe nuances to their personality. Yeah,
because these people are so so believable. Okay, we have talked about the
(12:07):
books a bit, but I havethe jump ship and go ahead and talk
about you are an indie author.Yep. How did you choose being an
indie author? Because your book soundamazing? Did you try to do the
tradition you tried to knocking on allthe doors or did you just like I'm
jumping straight in. Yeah, Ipretty much jumped straight in. So I
wrote my first book. Actually,I just had my ten year anniversary of
(12:31):
when my first book came out andwhen I was finishing up that book in
twenty twelve, in twenty thirteen,so I came out at the end of
twenty thirteen. And when I wasfinishing up that book, I went to
this writer's group that was the impetusfor my podcast, and there were a
couple of traditionally published writers there.So I started saying to them, well,
you know, what are you gettingout of your relationship with a traditional
(12:54):
publisher. And although I didn't itwas a different world because not only did
I I really not know what wasgoing on on either side, I was
just asking people who did know fortheir opinion. And I didn't have it
worked out of quite this carefully.It took me many years to think about
it in this way. But whatI heard from them is that you get
(13:15):
the A and the B from traditionalpublishers, so access in the sense that
certainly, at the time, ifI wanted to see my books on the
shelf and Barnes and Noble, Iwas much more likely to have that happen
if I want the traditional route andbragging rights, because it's super cool to
be able to say that your book'sbeen picked up by you know, however,
the Big Five, the Big Four, however many bigs there are at
the moment. But that in againstthat are the three or four c's of
(13:43):
independent publishing, depending on how youcount them. So creativity, I never
have to be creative on someone else'sschedule. Control, I'm never going to
have a book cover. I hatecare, by which I mean that I
don't think any traditional public sure wouldstill be heavily promoting a book that was
ten years old. But I stillpromote my first book more so than any
(14:07):
others because I'm hoping it will leadpeople into a series. And I have
I can take care of my backlistin a way that a traditional publisher would
not. And then I was sayingthis to a guest on a podcast,
and they said, and cash,because of course there are going to be
some people who are going to hit, you know, hit pay dirt and
get a highly lucrative, very generoustraditional publishing deal. But it's a small,
(14:28):
small, small percentage. And sothe idea of earning a smaller amount
over the whole rest of my lifewas much more appealing to me than like
a big payday in an advance thatmight never even earn out. So yeah,
I pretty much picked Indy right fromthe get go. I'm I have
heard so many why ind why traditional? I have to say, this is
(14:54):
the most organized Indie argument I haveever had. Are you on a debate
for this? Should? I knowyou? I've talked about this a lot.
Art is you can imagine that someonehas who has a podcast called the
indiauthor Podcast. I do talk aboutthis topic a lot, so I've had
a long time to refine my thethoughts behind it. I was like,
(15:18):
I was about to talk about mefor a second, I forgot as a
narcissist, this is not an interviewabout me. But I should ask that
on your show so I can bethe proper narcissis not joke me joking about
that. I noticed that one ofthe that you and oh my god,
I forgot his name and I wroteit down, like I literally wrote it
down. Hold on, let melook it up again. That Dale Al
(15:41):
Roberts. There we go. Iwas about to call him David Lee and
that that's so far off from thename that you guys talked about the forty
eight hour book. Yes, howdid that go? Well, we didn't
actually get into a ton of detailsabout it because that interview, which just
(16:02):
came out yesterday, I think,so you're really on top of things.
So Dale has been on my podcastseveral times, and so there's there are
communications that I make to the potpast podcast guests, and one of the
things I offer is that if theyhave a new book coming out, I
have another video series called What ILearned, and I ask authors two questions
(16:23):
related to their latest book. Whatdid they learn that they would like to
share with their fellow writers and whatdid they learn that they would like to
share with their fellow readers. Andso Dale had actually wanted to talk about
how to write a book in fortyeight hours as part of What I Learned
series, So we didn't actually delveinto how to write a book for eight
(16:44):
hours as much as we might otherwisehave, other than just the fact that
it's a bizarre thought for someone whospend you know, mine to twelve months
writing a novel, or probably anequivalent amount of time writing a nonfiction book.
So but It's always super fun totalk with Dale. That was a
fun conversation. He has an amazingyou just make the amazing content. But
(17:07):
I think I feel like most peopleknow that, especially we're in the authors.
We've run across it. Yeah,exactly. I was going to say
that, you know, like,I don't know if they still do it,
but Canada used to have the seventytwo hour Novel Contest, and I
used to do it every year.Really every what's that about? You really
write a novel in seventy two hoursof a complete and total novel in three
(17:29):
days? Yikes? Turn it in? How how do you do? I
wrote, like, so every yearI would come out like I would be
like, oh, I want towrite a novel. I want to write
a novel. And then I waslike, screw it. You know,
I'll just wait for the three daycontests and I will just write my novel
then. And that was the novelfor the year. Well, that's very
impressive. That's something I could neverI wouldn't even I wouldn't even try.
(17:52):
I was very familiar with it withthe characters, very familiar. I've been
writing with them since I was twelveyears old, So like that would help.
Yeah, it helps a lot becauseyou already know the setting, you
know the theme, you know exactlywhat they're going to say, what they're
going to do. And I meanbefore the seventy two hours get there,
you've thought about like pretty much thatyou have the mental outline in your head
and you just roll what comes out. Yeah, that comes out. And
(18:18):
when I'm done, I'm done.Yeah. I don't even do nano raimo.
So three days seems like insanity,but good for you. And they
offer publiced to offer a publishing contractso you could get like traditionally published at
the end, so you can putit into to like for a shot at
getting published. Yeah. Yeah,and people, so that was kind of
(18:41):
cool. Yeah, that is kindof cool. I'm wishing they would do
it in the United States. Iwould really appreciate watching these people. And
I think you'levise it because they televisedit like for two years in a row
in Canada. They should do it. I want to see it. I
want to see it very very badly. They do they actually show people writing
or is it televised like a wordceremony or what part is televised? Oh,
(19:02):
it was like for two years itwas like televised on Canadian television where
those the authors that were selected setin like a library. They had like
you know, all the snacks andeverything and sleepy bags and they just wrote
a book. It's like survival orwhat a survivor. It's like the reality
TV show for writers exactly. Iwas like, this is amazing, y'all
(19:25):
should bring this here, really,should bring this here. They just saying
they had like all this coffee.It was great. Like I of course,
I was like that year I wasat home rite writing and you have
to give proof like that it's donein seventy two hours. But as soon
as it was done, I watchedit and I went, oh, you
poor people, Oh yeah, dothat. It does sound horrible, Like
(19:47):
I'm sure some people are would beenergized by that, but I just think
it sounds horrible. But that wouldhave I would have like writer's block for
three days, and then on dayfour I'd be like, oh, I
have a good idea. So Ican see that happening so many people.
Oh my goodness, I was goingto talk about me again, and I
was like no, no, no, no, but I am to say
(20:08):
one quick thing, and that isactually how one of the reasons that we
did the author reality show where weoffered the cut with the writer's contract at
the end, the publishing contract atthe end. And I want to tell
you all my authors, they hadfour weeks to present four different sections of
writing the book to like actual traditionalpublishing houses like small press, CEOs of
(20:33):
small Press, and they were like, it was horrible. I don't know
how I got started and the writingevery week and it just takes over.
And I was like how, Andthen they explained it and I was like,
oh, so it's like writing abook in three days. Got it,
got weeks all right? Done withmy stories? That was the interesting
(20:59):
story. What was one of yourfavorite moments on on doing doing your podcast,
Like when you're talking to a guestor something, it was like the
favorite moment you've ever had. Ithink two favorite moments have been opportunities I've
had and I kind of has Ihate to mention any because this I could
say this about many, many,many of the episodes, but the two
(21:22):
that I was pop into my mindare that I'm a huge fan of Ben
Winters, so he wrote The LastPoliceman and Underground Airlines, Golden State,
The Quiet boy other books. Thesenames are escaping me at the moment,
and I love his books, andI invited him on the podcast and he
(21:44):
came on, so I got tochat, you know, chat with one
of my favorite authors. That wascalled the both Miss of Compelling Characters.
So we talked about how bad charactersare really only engaging if if there's a
glimmer of good in them, andgood characters are only engaging if they have
a dark side as well. Andthen the other one that was equally fun
(22:07):
is that I wrote read a bookcalled s. It was written by the
co authors were jj Abrams, youknow of jj Abrams and Dubdorst, and
I loved the book. It wasone of these books. It was like
an experiential book in the sense thatit was a physical book that I mean,
(22:27):
you can't get it in the book, but I don't know why you'd
want to. And you'll understand whenI describe it. It's a book that
looks like a nineteen fifties hardcover bookwith like the embossed cover, and it
comes in like a nice slipcase andyou open it up and there's a like
stamps like it's been checked out oflibrary and then you start turning the pages,
(22:48):
and in the margins of the bookare our message is written. And
so as you read through the notesand the margins, it's clear that one
person has taken the book out ofthe library and written a note, and
then someone else took the the libraryand wrote a response. And then it's
this whole conversation between these two asit turns out, like a college student
(23:11):
and a graduate student who are exchangingmessages. So there's the story in the
book which Doug Dorrist wrote, there'sthe story of the of the two people
who are talking in the margins,and then there's a third story that is
the translator, the ostensible translator ofthe book, who's making comments and footnotes
(23:34):
about the material that she's translated.And you'd like turn the page and there
would be a postcard stuck in itwith notes of it. It was fascinating,
and I got to talk to DougDorrist about that whole experience, and
it was so much fun to experiencethat book and then be able to talk
to the author about it. SoI think just those that opportunity a podcast
(23:57):
gives you to talk to people thatyou probably would never ever and any other
circumstance get a chance to talk tohas really been, you know, some
of the highlights of my experience.I think that's the most fun of I
think that's the most fun about havinga show. Yes, you often you
said that you talk to people andyou're like, oh, here, you
know, this is how you canset up a podcast. Normally people go,
(24:18):
oh, I have a book,what should I do next? On
look a podcast and they're like why. I'm like, because I feel like
it's a college course that you willnever ever ever get unless you do it.
Yeah, I'm like, they're like, like, all the stuff that
should learned. I was like,just start off real simple and then learn.
You can learn that, but youcan also learn so many other things
in between. I mean, asyou said, like cant talk to your
(24:40):
favorite authors or your favorite screenwriters producersabout how did this work and honestly the
way it informs your own writing.Yeah, there's anything better. There must
be. I mean, you havebetter guests than we do, so I
(25:00):
think I'll guess they're good. They'rejust different. Like I've really been surprised.
I mean, I suppose I havebeen surprised in a negative way.
I can't think of any circumstances atthe moment. But I've certainly had spoken
to people where I was like,this is going to be a nice little
conversation and it was just fabulous.So you know, it's just super fun
(25:22):
to have that kind of opportunity.So what do you What advice would you
give any author that is thinking aboutdoing long standing series and going to have
a backliss? What is that?I? I think just never to lose
track of that. I think twothings that spring to mind. One is
(25:45):
I'm going to say something that Ievery first time author hears and nobody wants
to hear it, and I didn'twant to hear it when I was a
first time author. But it's truethat you're never going to make a living
on one book, you know,if if you do, it's like winning
the powerball. You know. Everyonce in a while I'll say that to
someone, will say, well whatabout so and so? And I was
(26:06):
like, yeah, but that's likethe powerball. You know, you don't
want to go to your financial plannerand say, you know what, my
retirement plan is the powerball? No, like, because you know, although
it's possible, it's not likely.And so I think that when you've written
your first book, then the mostimportant thing to do is write your second
book if you want to have itas a career as opposed to like a
(26:29):
project of your heart, which isalso perfectly fine, but it isn't going
to pay the markeage. So Ithink that in when you're early in your
author career, and if you thinkyou're going to be writing a series,
then I think writing the series isthe important thing. Like, just write
books until you have three or fouror five, and then really dive into
(26:49):
the marketing and the promotion, andthen never forget those first books, because
with series, what you want todo is get people in early so they
can read through the whole thing,and that's most satisfying for them and most
financially beneficial for you if you coulddo that. Well againness, thank you
so much for that information, becauseI don't think I've ever asked about what
(27:11):
you should do with a backlist before, so this is no information for me.
Oh good, that might be becauseof the I mean, what's a
backlist of poetry for poetry? Ohyeah, yeah, poetry is a very
different beast, I'm sure, andone that I'm not I don't have a
lot of experience with myself, SoI don't know how that would translate into
(27:33):
the poetry world. I'm sure there'ssome truth to it, but I think
it would play out very differently,would be my guess. It's interesting.
Oh, So I wanted to askone question before I left, because this
actually would be the time I wouldwrap it up and call it quits.
But then I heard earlier that youhad a job at twenty nineteen and you
let it go, And I'm assumingit was for a creative career. If
(27:56):
it's not, just tell me I'mdead wrong. No, I was working.
So I worked as a project managerlargely in it for many, many
years, and I worked for QBC, and in twenty nineteen, they were
well leading up to twenty nineteen,even since then, they were doing a
lot of restructuring and they restructured thedepartment I was in. They eliminated the
(28:18):
job I had, and I hadan opportunity to apply for another job that
I didn't want, or take aseverance package. And I was like,
you know what, this is theeasiest position of my entire life. And
it was really great because it gaveme, it gave me some runway.
I mean, I don't want tobad mouth my corporate life because it gave
me many, many good things.And I'm not one of these people who
(28:38):
was like miserable her in her dayjob. But it was great to be
able to leave there with some witha package that gave me some runway and
be able to do writing and publishingand podcasting full time. I thought that
was the last question, you said, publishing. Can you tell us what
(28:59):
you about publishing? And then thatis the last question before we write this.
Well, I think I'll use thereference to having been a project manager
for many years, that there weremany lessons that I took from my years
managing it projects or facilities projects,or logistics projects, or the various projects
I managed, that I am nowable to apply to my publishing arm.
(29:23):
So I have an imprint called WilliamKingsfield Publishers, which was named and as
homage as an homage to my father, who was a short story writer.
He got some stories published back inthe fifties and Colliers and Cosmopolitan and some
other sort of prestigious magazines and yeah, so he would have been thrilled to
(29:45):
know that I was a full timewriter and publisher. So I named my
imprint after him, And yeah,I think that what I'll say about the
publishing businesses that indie authors have tobe willing to wear two hats. They
have to be able to wear theircreative hat. Maybe three hats, the
creative hat, the editorial hat,and then the business person hat. And
(30:07):
if you're looking to have a successfulindie author career, then you need to
be able to switch those three hatsoffice on an office needed. I completely
and totally agree, And I justwant to say that for anyone out there
who's made it all the way throughthis to this section of the interview,
it is so much fun switching hats. Yes, everyone goes, oh,
I just want to write, Butdo you know how much fun it is
(30:29):
to be like creative and marketing too, And do you know how much fun
it is to like do the businessside of book keeping. Like you got
to have the fun writing. Nowyou get to be imaginative about how you're
going to make people notice you're writing, and now you get to count your
money because you were creative in thefirst place. I think that is a
great, great perspective because I thinkyou're absolutely right. People think of that
(30:52):
as like the dredge work that youhave to do. And I love the
air brigging like the same enthusiasm forall three of those hats blast and a
half. But then again, thisis what I've wanted to do since I
was seven years old, so maybeit's just the blastom that half to me.
I want to thank you so muchfor being here today. Thank you
so much for the invitation. Canyou tell people where to find out more
about you and what's next for you? Yeah, if they want to learn
(31:18):
more about my fiction work, theycan go to mattidowarnful dot com and that's
Maddie with a why and at tY and uh what's going on there?
Is next month in January, myfourth Lucyballard thriller will be coming out.
And if they would like to findout more about my nonfiction platform, they
can go to the Indie author dotcom and that's Indie with A Y,
I N D Y. And Iwould love it if I could see some
of your listeners over at the authorpodcast. Okay, so y'all heard the
(31:42):
invitation. You know, we don'treally go like, oh, please do
that. He's gone over there andlisten to some Stubb. It's good.
Well, no one and I'm oneof the end I thought ladies and you
can find out everything that your ladiesare up to at www dot and I
thought to ladies dot com. Whileyou're there, go down to the middle
of the page, not the bottomof the page, but the middle of
the page, and you can seethe charities that we probably support. We
(32:05):
asked that to you take a littletime or maybe even just a little wisdom
and give that to them. Butif you can do that and give them
some finances, this is the endof the year, we're rounding up that
charity giving. We would thank youin advance for that. Remember that wisdom
is all around you if you're opento finding it and accepting it. So
peace in love you guys from Welmonaand the Missing Jade. Oh yeah,
thanks for listening.
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