September 11, 2026 • 26 mins
MzSassy the Author, is a romance writer who believes love should be intentional, passionate, and rooted in connection. Her stories center strong Black women, powerful relationships, and the families and friendships that shape us.
It's romance that feels real, layered, and emotionally satisfying in the right places. She writes romance rooted in connection, strength, and family stories where love shows up fully and stays.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/and-i-thought--3370626/support.
It's romance that feels real, layered, and emotionally satisfying in the right places. She writes romance rooted in connection, strength, and family stories where love shows up fully and stays.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/and-i-thought--3370626/support.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the writer's class. I'm going
with writer's class. And do you recognize I actually said
writer's class without having to be like, which one is
this again? Because you know I don't really love doing
the writer's class podcast. I like doing ladies' tales. I
love it. And I shouldn't admit it. I really shouldn't.
I just want to be in that field one day.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
I swear.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
I'm like, one day I'm going to be a producer
or a showrunner. But up until now. Up until then,
here I am. Yay!
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Anyway.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
You know, I write books, by the way, y'all. And
I need to introduce myself. I'm Wilnona. And there's normally
a Jade, but Jade is having a beer and eating
some wings. Do I look happy? Because these are the
best wings in town. She's like, I'm going to just
stop here so you can do the interview. It's like,
I didn't want wings. Anyway. We wrote books. Go figure.
(00:59):
We have other hobbies than eating wings. We write books.
There's And I Thought Divorce Was Bad, And I Thought
Being Grown Up Was Easy, If Only Our Media Memoir,
and First Foreign Coffee, Widow's Web, and Widow's Debt. And
you can get those books wherever you find audiobooks. And
then we, three of those, oh, wait, yep, that's the audiobooks.
The rest of our books are at www.andithoughtladies.com and there
(01:20):
are 29 of them now. At one point, I'm going
to stop writing. No, that's not happening. But it's a
lovely thought. Every time I start a book, I'm like,
this is it. This is it. And then I get
a book idea in the middle and I'm like, this
is going to the next one and the one after that.
That's it. That's it. But you're not here to hear
(01:40):
about me and talk about my wonderful books, because if
you were, it would just be an interview about me
interviewing myself. And honestly, I'd love that. But you wouldn't.
You're here to hear from our wonderful guests. Wonderful guests,
would you like to introduce yourself?
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Yes, my name is Miss Sassy, the author. I have
been writing for seven years now, and I recently just
published my 20th book, so I'm pretty excited about that.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
20 books!
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Oh my god!
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Okay, normally I would be like, let's talk about something else,
like favorite foods, but I'm getting right into it. 20 books?
What are they about?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Romance. I love romance. I love suspense. I love legacy.
I love Black legacy, family, friendships, all that great stuff.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
So legacy, obviously, because you did say 20 books. That's
a legacy within itself for you. Do we have the
same characters in all 20 books? Are we being introduced
to a family?
Speaker 2 (02:46):
So there, between the 20 books, you have about five
different series. So two of them are complete series. The
other ones are kind of ongoing and they'll extend outside
of that. But yeah, yeah, it spans over about five
series as of right now.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
What made you decide that you were going to write
a series instead of a standalone book?
Speaker 2 (03:08):
I think as a reader, I'm naturally nosy. As a writer,
I'm twice as nosy. So it's never enough for me
to write like the two main characters. It's like if
they have a best friend, I want the best friend story.
If they have a quirky coworker, I probably want their
story too. Brothers and sisters and cousins. I want all
of their stories. And so I think that what it
(03:29):
is is I'm just I'm nosy. And so one one
story about them.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
OK, that's great.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
That's cute. But what about the best friend? What about
the brother? You know what I'm saying? What about that
weird nosy neighbor down the street? If she deserves a story,
she may get one too. So yeah, that's what it is.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
How on earth did you come up with the characters
in the first place?
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Okay, so a lot of it is sporadic. I'll be
very honest. I did not plan on ever being an author.
So what I run into, I did not. What I
had was people in my head talking that wouldn't shut up.
So apparently they had something to say. And so this
is this is how that came about. And so I
guess you would say I'm an avid reader as well.
(04:18):
So maybe a combination of a bunch of different things
that I've read. I've always been a person that's been
like when I watch a movie. I can kind of
like a certain scene, I'm like, no, if I had
these characters, I would have done it this way, or
so-and-so would have said this, or so-and-so would have come back,
or she would have married this guy versus this one.
And you just end up creating your own story, you know,
(04:39):
based off of various situations that you may come across,
you know, movies, other books, TV shows, families, you know,
making decisions. You're like, you know, let's switch that narrative
up just a little bit, just a little bit for all.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
So, okay. The question I meant to ask was how
on earth did you market them? But then I just
got curious about the characters. So you have 20 books.
You have to find readership for all those 20 books.
What marketing tips can you give for people out there?
How do you find your readers?
Speaker 2 (05:16):
So the first thing I would say is find people
who read what you read. For the most part, I
write what I like. But even at that, I still
have people who read like certain authors that I read.
So I follow them. Certain genres I may want to
be in. I may follow that. That's like a start
off to anything. We want to find people. And after that,
(05:37):
just be consistent and be authentic. You know what I mean?
Whatever it is that you like or love about your book.
That's what you promote because it comes off in your quotes.
It comes off if you do videos. All that excitement
and that enthusiasm or that suspense or that mystery or
even the frustration because some characters are extremely frustrated. They
do not do what you want them to do. You're
(05:59):
going to bring all of that into you. You can
bring all of that into your marketing as, you know,
if you decided to do a blog, if you decided
to do, you know, a newsletter, whatever it is, just
make it authentic. I think you're probably going to be good.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
When you said some characters don't do what you want
them to do, right? Just right now, I'm looking at
this character that I had a plan for, okay? And
it decided in book one, They decided in book one
they were going to do something else. And then I
was like, no, get back where I put you. And
it was like, no, no, no. I'm doing what I'm doing.
(06:39):
So I let it do it. I let it do it.
I did. And then in book two it got even better.
Now I'm in book three and I'm like, see, but
where do you end now?
Speaker 2 (06:51):
They may not. No, they may not. It's very much possible.
Your characters have the I have audacity to decide their
own fates. And I'll be like, lookie here, I'm the author.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Me, me.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
And they'll be like, it doesn't matter. I'm the character.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
So, you know, they say what authors are. Authors are
creatives who have A-type personalities. They love to control the
whole world so nothing goes afoot, nothing goes awry. And
whenever I hear that, I'm like, and where do you write?
I'm like, how do you write?
Speaker 2 (07:26):
I have no idea. They can't they can't be fiction
authors if they're saying that. I think if you do nonfiction,
maybe that might because it's more, you know, your key points, maybe.
I'm not sure. But as a fiction author, I don't
know if I know a single author yet who's had
a book that went exactly the way they thought from
beginning to end. Without a curveball, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
But I mean, they are huge. They outline almost the
dialogue and everything. So it goes exactly to plan. And
I'm like, I couldn't do that because they would be
full on revolts in my head. I'd have the French
Revolution living in my head.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
But then you have to ask them how many times
they rewrote that outline. So the outline that they did
might be what they stuck to. But the question is,
how many times did you rewrite that outline? And then
you may find that their original story, how they thought it,
was actually not a part of the outline.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
See, now I feel better as a person. Like, it's
not just me. Even you organize one, you might have
had to rewrite it a few times. All right, all right.
I'm doing this author thing, right? So you have the
name Miss Sassy, which you just lived up to with
how many times did you rewrite that outline? Because you
weren't going to let them skate. I love that. Thank
(08:44):
you for that. I'm asking from now on. And how
many times? Did you rewrite it? Okay, I thought so.
How did you pick Miss Sassy?
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Miss Sassy was my nickname before I ever started writing.
And so what made me settle on it, which is
so crazy, I had my name on Facebook and it
was like my name sassy queen or sassy girl something
like that into my last name right and so when
they first started these little mom groups on Facebook like
you know the soccer moms everything else they put your
name in it so the ladies and the moms were
(09:16):
calling me sassy they had been calling me that for
years and so my son finally got a high school
and one of the ladies comes over to me and
she's like I was looking for, it was like the
Booster Club or whatever. I was like, I'm looking for
your donation. We didn't see them to make sure you
got it because I know, you know, you contribute, you're
always here. And I was like, no, I'm sure I
did it within the first week. My name was the
second name on the list, but she did not know
(09:39):
my name. She was looking for Sassy. And ever since then,
I was like, you know what? It just happened to happen.
Like maybe a few months before I started writing, I
was like, I'm just going to do that because that's
what people know. So it just stuck. Okay.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Now, how did you start the Sassy Circles?
Speaker 2 (10:00):
The Sassy Circle is basically like a membership. So this
is everything with like all of my, like every scene
that you write, when you go through the editing process,
doesn't always make it.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Right.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
So when you mentioned the whole thing about marketing, this
is something else that people can do. Instead of deleting
those scenes completely, like you delete them from your manuscript,
they can't make it. They may not fully enhance the story,
but it might be a cute little scene. You keep that,
you know, you make it some bonus content to give
to your readers. So the Sassy Circle has my members
in there and they get all of the nitty gritty stuff.
They get the stuff that I've written in. And I
(10:33):
didn't put out. They get sometimes alternate endings. They get
alternate scenes. And it just gives them all these different
little tidbits into my writing process, a little bit more
of a deep dive into characters, furthering, continuing the storyline.
Because what I try not to do when I go
from one story to the next, especially if it's in
a series, is focus on the previous characters. You want
(10:54):
to have your new MMC and your new FMC to
be the focus. But sometimes you kind of want to
know when somebody's had a baby or it's a crazy
idea to baby shower or something happened at a birthday party.
And so I throw little things like that into the
Sassy Circle. And I also have a way for my
readers to have access to all of my books. So
if you like all the e-books, they're all in the
Sassy Circle. You can continue to read those so you
(11:15):
don't miss notifications and things like that. And so that's
how I started that. It was just to give my
readers a little bit of a bonus of things I
wouldn't put on social media.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
I really should go into, like, craft and stuff like that.
And how do you continue a book for 20 books?
Carrying a romance and all of that. I really should
go into the psychology of characters. U-Turn, I'm going a
different direction completely.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Book fairs. Do you do book fairs or do you not? So, yes.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Yes. So I went to one earlier this year. This
would have been I'm in Texas. This is in Dallas area.
This is really nice. It was pretty much all black authors.
A lot of them were like teachers. So it's pretty
cool to be in that space. A lot of a
lot of educators. But I still went because I have
all my stuff that people love. I love romance. Perfect.
Here you go. Make your selection.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Right.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
And then last year I attended to I had one
in Detroit, which is my hometown. So I went home
and did an event there. And I had another one
in Houston, Texas. I did. Yes. Last year. And so
both of those were very profitable. They were great experiences.
They're a wonderful way to meet readers and authors and
get into that space. And I encourage anyone, if you
(12:35):
can get there and it's not going to, you know,
monetarily kill you, then by all means, you know, definitely
show up and, and be present in that space. And
you get a chance to fully immerse yourself with the
readers and then the authors as well. Cause you can
get a lot of feedback from authors, what they're doing,
how they're setting up their tables and they're set up.
I took a lot of feedback from what I did
(12:57):
because Detroit lead that was first into the Houston event, which, um,
Was that maybe three months later or something like that,
two or three months later? And it really helped with
presentation and everything else. And sometimes you have to just
see it, you know, and be there and be in
the mix and be in the moment. And so, yeah,
book fairs are good. I've done a local event here,
just like almost like a, I don't want to say
(13:18):
a flea market, but it's almost like a festival. And
I've set up once and done that. It was extremely hot.
So I probably won't do that again in the summertime.
But I tried it. I tried it. It was very hot.
Very hot. But yeah, I'm a firm believer in fairs
and events and things like that so people can physically
see you.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Yeah, you definitely have to have people see you. Love
your TikTok.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
So a lot of authors are afraid of social media.
Did you have any fear of social media? Oh, no.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
I didn't have a fear of it. It was more
of a, no, it wasn't a fear of it. It
was more of a confusion. The great thing about a pseudo,
I'll say this, the great thing about a pseudo is
I don't have to be mean. You get to see
Miss Sassy. And so Miss Sassy has, I love all
of my characters and their weirdness and I can put
things out. And it's not always my face. I have
(14:16):
very few videos where you actually see my face. I've
gotten more comfortable over the years. But a lot of
it is content about my books and my characters. Well,
I could flood y'all with that information with no problem.
Find a nice little song to go with it and bam,
here we go. And you don't see my face. It's
not me talking. It's not me having to give you
any pointers. It literally is everything is behind the scenes.
(14:38):
And so That part is great. I think that any author,
whether you use a pseudo or not, even having your name,
it's still an extension of you. And so you get
that opportunity to just kind of thrive in that space
and make sure you kind of like the separation of
church and state. That right there is a separate persona
(15:02):
than what you have, whether you use your real name
or not.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
I do enjoy being able to be like author me.
It's a blast. I love it. It's the most fun
I have all day. Although my TikTok is PBS. I'm
the PBS of the writing world. You come there if
you want to know like three tips for something or another.
Boring as all get out.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
It doesn't need boring. People need the tips. They need
the tips.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Yeah. It's growing. At least I shouldn't be mad. But
I keep looking at him like, I want to be cool.
I want to be this nerd. Okay, now we're going
back to how do you keep going for 20 books?
How do you keep the suspense and the romance alive
for your readers? When you look at that blank page,
(15:57):
it's the first thing you're like, ooh, how do I
get over this? I asked three questions. Go. What do
you want?
Speaker 2 (16:06):
So how do I keep going? Well, it hasn't been
hard because my mind is constantly coming up with something new.
So I have 20 books and I have about 50
in my head outside of those 20. So and another
thing that I that I do as well is I
don't necessarily have the same couple. So even though I'm
writing a series, it's because they're related. It's more of
(16:28):
them being connected. It's not the same couple going through
four or five books. I think that would drive me
crazy for authors who do it. Kudos to them and
the ones who do it. Well, hey, tap your hat off.
Like that is amazing. I that's not my talent. And
as they say, that's not my ministry. So it's not
always too hard to do. Like I said, I'm nosy.
(16:49):
So I'm writing the best friend of series. I just
finished that released my 20 books. My first book in
my 20th finished the series. These are seven best friends.
So these seven best friends met in college. I did
all seven of them. They call my seven giants. So
that wasn't that hard to really do for them because
it was seven guys. I know I'm going to do it.
I have a Turner family. It's like three brothers and
(17:13):
three best friends. I already know there's going to be
six of them that's going to be done. And then,
of course, there are spinoffs because it's not just them.
They have friends. A few of them have businesses. So,
of course, some of them will be business and office
romances that will extend from that, right? And so I
haven't ran into a blank page yet. That's only because
(17:34):
there's so much that I know is coming. I can't
answer the blank page because I don't have a blank
page that hasn't been once. And I lost the third question.
What was the third one? You have to give it
to me again. What was the third question? I forgot.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Yeah, I lost the third one too. Don't worry about it.
I have a whole new one now. I never said
I was good at this. I have a podcast. Never
said I was good at it.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
You're doing fine. You're doing fine.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
The next question that I wanted to ask was, where
do you see yourself going in the future with this?
Do you think you're going to branch out and try
to do, I don't know, I don't know. I'm going
to say something that we did with ours. We did
like a clothing line or whatever. Do you do something
with the books or are you staying as an author?
Speaker 2 (18:21):
I definitely will stay as an author for sure. But
I do want to do an expansion through. I'm actually
working on it right now. It's a new series, a
new world. I'm creating a fiction town. It is a
black-owned town. There are some things in this black-owned town
that I actually would like to do an extension. So
I have one particular location that does aromas, perfumes, scents,
(18:47):
and things like that. I would love to extend that
outside of the book and actually create a perfume, a scent, lotions,
but it would be an extension of my town. So, yes. Yes. Yes,
for sure. But it would all be tied back into
the town, which is what I'm working on now. And
it's a lot of... It's a different creative space. And
(19:11):
so we'll see. I don't know how well I'm going
to do it, but we're just going to do it.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Yeah. Because we have a skincare line. Okay.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Nice. Nice.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
It's not something that we advertise or do often. My
clothing line, I'm always talking about. But the skincare line, yeah, we...
hooked up with some folks and we ended up doing
a skincare line for just us. So that was kind
of cool.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Awesome. Awesome. Okay.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
So we should definitely chat, but I love this idea
of this whole town. I'm in love with this. Yeah.
How are we, how is it working? Do you, are
you mapping it out?
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Oh yeah. It's already mapped out.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Or is it just in your head? You're like, okay,
I'm going to do this.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Mm-mm. Nope, it's already mapped out. It is going to
have five districts, kind of like think about like New
York City. It's made up of five boroughs. It has
five districts, makes up one big city. I've already tied
it into a couple of things in our history in
the United States to make it a little more believable,
coming down like about 116 years. and then bringing it
(20:14):
to current so that it still works out. But no,
it's already done. The characters are done. The outline for
the first book is finished. It's already done. Again, that
may change. But yeah, so the outline is already done.
It's already done. But no, I've been working on this
(20:36):
particular thing since 21. So this is five years in
the making. It's just now about to come into fruition.
But I've been working on this just off and on
here and there between all this stuff for five years. Yeah. Okay.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Five years in the making.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Good God. I remember when I made.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
A small town. That was in December.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
I got three books on.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Awesome. Awesome.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Keep going. You do it much better. I want to
read your books to see how someone professionally does it.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Well, let me tell you this. It may look professional now.
It didn't start off that way. I didn't have a
lot of help. There's nobody in my family who's like
an author. I have a lot of professionals, lawyers and
doctors and accountants and business professionals. So using the other
side of your brain, which comes to creativity, wasn't something
that I had any type of help in or guidance
(21:36):
so this is a this is a fumble it's stumbling
around to actually get there you know and it's for
me it works out fine because i'm like if you
really don't know where to start perfect just start you'll
figure it out eventually um you know if you if
you want it good enough.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
So you were saying that if you want it bad enough,
you'll figure it out.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Yes. Yes.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
You will.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
And that's anything. That's anything.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
So since you've done a lot of figuring out, obviously,
because you have 20 books and a whole town, let's
take five years to build. I cannot wait to live
in this town. My next question is, when do you
think you'll know you made it as an author? Have
you already had the moment that you're like, no, I've
made it?
Speaker 2 (22:38):
I think making it as an author is a, it's
a stepping process. You know, at first it was, can
I finish the book? That was a milestone just to
finish it. Getting it published. That was a milestone. Can
I finish it? Writing the second one, you know, starting
a different series, connecting the series. For me, it was
(22:58):
a major milestone to finish the series. It happened to
be 20 books in and there's so much stuff in
between it. But that was a milestone to even get
to 20 and finish the series.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Right.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
So I think as far as being successful, what different
what are your different levels of success? You know, if
it goes and it's monetary, well, how much do you
want to make? Okay, when you get there, that's your success.
For me, it was from one book to the next.
You know, it's every release, it's every completion. It's the
new characters. It's actually finding out what I want them
to do, become successful in these different, just these different stages, right?
(23:33):
So I think making it as an author can have
two different things. It's my perception of what making it
is and this perception of others. So there'll be some
people who was like, yeah, girl, you've made it because
you've got 20 books. You've been doing this for seven years.
I'm looking at somebody with 150 books. I'm doing it
for 14 years. So what, what, what that level looks like. So, um,
(23:55):
I'm not finished with my successful journey. I think my
biggest thing would be to be able to write everything
I can create and to the best of my ability
before my time is up. That would be successful to me,
leaving that as a legacy, my children and my grandchildren
to be able to continue, you know, what it is
I've already put together. And so I think that would
(24:16):
be successful. That's a lifetime goal. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Yeah. Well, I think that you have a successful legacy already,
but I feel like you already know this. So tell
everyone where we can find out more about you.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Yes, MsAssetAuthor.com, of course. You can just Google MsAssetAuthor and
you'll find me. That was one thing. All of my
handles are the same from TikTok to Facebook. I am
not on Twitter, although I have a Twitter. So you
are liable not to get a response from me. But
there is an account that's there. I'm just trying to
(24:54):
get into threads. It hasn't happened yet. Definitely more on Instagram,
TikTok and Facebook for sure.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
OK, well, everyone, check out Miss Sassy. And I feel
like if you get into book one, you'll need all
20 books. So just go ahead and preorder the whole set.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Right. She's wrapped up everything over there for her. Let
me wrap it up for me over here. I'm Winona.
I'm one of the And I Thought Ladies. And you
can find out everything that your ladies are doing at www.andithoughtladies.com.
When you go down to the bottom of the page,
you can find the three charities that we proudly support.
(25:31):
we ask that you support them too. It does not
have to be monetary. You know, you can give some hand,
you can give a hand and you'll actually build an
orphanage in Ethiopia. Or, you know, you could just give
them some wisdom. You may have accounting skills or, you know,
doctor or lawyer skills that they don't have. So call
them up, see if they need any of those resources.
We thank you in advance for that. Remember that wisdom
(25:52):
is all around you if you're opening to finding it
and accepting it. So peace and love you guys from
Wilona and the Missing Jade. Oh yeah. Thanks for listening.
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the writer's class. I'm going
with writer's class. And do you recognize I actually said
writer's class without having to be like, which one is
this again? Because you know I don't really love doing
the writer's class podcast. I like doing ladies' tales. I
love it. And I shouldn't admit it. I really shouldn't.
I just want to be in that field one day.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
I swear.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
I'm like, one day I'm going to be a producer
or a showrunner. But up until now. Up until then,
here I am. Yay!
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Anyway.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
You know, I write books, by the way, y'all. And
I need to introduce myself. I'm Wilnona. And there's normally
a Jade, but Jade is having a beer and eating
some wings. Do I look happy? Because these are the
best wings in town. She's like, I'm going to just
stop here so you can do the interview. It's like,
I didn't want wings. Anyway. We wrote books. Go figure.
(00:59):
We have other hobbies than eating wings. We write books.
There's And I Thought Divorce Was Bad, And I Thought
Being Grown Up Was Easy, If Only Our Media Memoir,
and First Foreign Coffee, Widow's Web, and Widow's Debt. And
you can get those books wherever you find audiobooks. And
then we, three of those, oh, wait, yep, that's the audiobooks.
The rest of our books are at www.andithoughtladies.com and there
(01:20):
are 29 of them now. At one point, I'm going
to stop writing. No, that's not happening. But it's a
lovely thought. Every time I start a book, I'm like,
this is it. This is it. And then I get
a book idea in the middle and I'm like, this
is going to the next one and the one after that.
That's it. That's it. But you're not here to hear
(01:40):
about me and talk about my wonderful books, because if
you were, it would just be an interview about me
interviewing myself. And honestly, I'd love that. But you wouldn't.
You're here to hear from our wonderful guests. Wonderful guests,
would you like to introduce yourself?
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Yes, my name is Miss Sassy, the author. I have
been writing for seven years now, and I recently just
published my 20th book, so I'm pretty excited about that.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
20 books!
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Oh my god!
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Okay, normally I would be like, let's talk about something else,
like favorite foods, but I'm getting right into it. 20 books?
What are they about?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Romance. I love romance. I love suspense. I love legacy.
I love Black legacy, family, friendships, all that great stuff.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
So legacy, obviously, because you did say 20 books. That's
a legacy within itself for you. Do we have the
same characters in all 20 books? Are we being introduced
to a family?
Speaker 2 (02:46):
So there, between the 20 books, you have about five
different series. So two of them are complete series. The
other ones are kind of ongoing and they'll extend outside
of that. But yeah, yeah, it spans over about five
series as of right now.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
What made you decide that you were going to write
a series instead of a standalone book?
Speaker 2 (03:08):
I think as a reader, I'm naturally nosy. As a writer,
I'm twice as nosy. So it's never enough for me
to write like the two main characters. It's like if
they have a best friend, I want the best friend story.
If they have a quirky coworker, I probably want their
story too. Brothers and sisters and cousins. I want all
of their stories. And so I think that what it
(03:29):
is is I'm just I'm nosy. And so one one
story about them.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
OK, that's great.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
That's cute. But what about the best friend? What about
the brother? You know what I'm saying? What about that
weird nosy neighbor down the street? If she deserves a story,
she may get one too. So yeah, that's what it is.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
How on earth did you come up with the characters
in the first place?
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Okay, so a lot of it is sporadic. I'll be
very honest. I did not plan on ever being an author.
So what I run into, I did not. What I
had was people in my head talking that wouldn't shut up.
So apparently they had something to say. And so this
is this is how that came about. And so I
guess you would say I'm an avid reader as well.
(04:18):
So maybe a combination of a bunch of different things
that I've read. I've always been a person that's been
like when I watch a movie. I can kind of
like a certain scene, I'm like, no, if I had
these characters, I would have done it this way, or
so-and-so would have said this, or so-and-so would have come back,
or she would have married this guy versus this one.
And you just end up creating your own story, you know,
(04:39):
based off of various situations that you may come across,
you know, movies, other books, TV shows, families, you know,
making decisions. You're like, you know, let's switch that narrative
up just a little bit, just a little bit for all.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
So, okay. The question I meant to ask was how
on earth did you market them? But then I just
got curious about the characters. So you have 20 books.
You have to find readership for all those 20 books.
What marketing tips can you give for people out there?
How do you find your readers?
Speaker 2 (05:16):
So the first thing I would say is find people
who read what you read. For the most part, I
write what I like. But even at that, I still
have people who read like certain authors that I read.
So I follow them. Certain genres I may want to
be in. I may follow that. That's like a start
off to anything. We want to find people. And after that,
(05:37):
just be consistent and be authentic. You know what I mean?
Whatever it is that you like or love about your book.
That's what you promote because it comes off in your quotes.
It comes off if you do videos. All that excitement
and that enthusiasm or that suspense or that mystery or
even the frustration because some characters are extremely frustrated. They
do not do what you want them to do. You're
(05:59):
going to bring all of that into you. You can
bring all of that into your marketing as, you know,
if you decided to do a blog, if you decided
to do, you know, a newsletter, whatever it is, just
make it authentic. I think you're probably going to be good.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
When you said some characters don't do what you want
them to do, right? Just right now, I'm looking at
this character that I had a plan for, okay? And
it decided in book one, They decided in book one
they were going to do something else. And then I
was like, no, get back where I put you. And
it was like, no, no, no. I'm doing what I'm doing.
(06:39):
So I let it do it. I let it do it.
I did. And then in book two it got even better.
Now I'm in book three and I'm like, see, but
where do you end now?
Speaker 2 (06:51):
They may not. No, they may not. It's very much possible.
Your characters have the I have audacity to decide their
own fates. And I'll be like, lookie here, I'm the author.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Me, me.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
And they'll be like, it doesn't matter. I'm the character.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
So, you know, they say what authors are. Authors are
creatives who have A-type personalities. They love to control the
whole world so nothing goes afoot, nothing goes awry. And
whenever I hear that, I'm like, and where do you write?
I'm like, how do you write?
Speaker 2 (07:26):
I have no idea. They can't they can't be fiction
authors if they're saying that. I think if you do nonfiction,
maybe that might because it's more, you know, your key points, maybe.
I'm not sure. But as a fiction author, I don't
know if I know a single author yet who's had
a book that went exactly the way they thought from
beginning to end. Without a curveball, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
But I mean, they are huge. They outline almost the
dialogue and everything. So it goes exactly to plan. And
I'm like, I couldn't do that because they would be
full on revolts in my head. I'd have the French
Revolution living in my head.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
But then you have to ask them how many times
they rewrote that outline. So the outline that they did
might be what they stuck to. But the question is,
how many times did you rewrite that outline? And then
you may find that their original story, how they thought it,
was actually not a part of the outline.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
See, now I feel better as a person. Like, it's
not just me. Even you organize one, you might have
had to rewrite it a few times. All right, all right.
I'm doing this author thing, right? So you have the
name Miss Sassy, which you just lived up to with
how many times did you rewrite that outline? Because you
weren't going to let them skate. I love that. Thank
(08:44):
you for that. I'm asking from now on. And how
many times? Did you rewrite it? Okay, I thought so.
How did you pick Miss Sassy?
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Miss Sassy was my nickname before I ever started writing.
And so what made me settle on it, which is
so crazy, I had my name on Facebook and it
was like my name sassy queen or sassy girl something
like that into my last name right and so when
they first started these little mom groups on Facebook like
you know the soccer moms everything else they put your
name in it so the ladies and the moms were
(09:16):
calling me sassy they had been calling me that for
years and so my son finally got a high school
and one of the ladies comes over to me and
she's like I was looking for, it was like the
Booster Club or whatever. I was like, I'm looking for
your donation. We didn't see them to make sure you
got it because I know, you know, you contribute, you're
always here. And I was like, no, I'm sure I
did it within the first week. My name was the
second name on the list, but she did not know
(09:39):
my name. She was looking for Sassy. And ever since then,
I was like, you know what? It just happened to happen.
Like maybe a few months before I started writing, I
was like, I'm just going to do that because that's
what people know. So it just stuck. Okay.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Now, how did you start the Sassy Circles?
Speaker 2 (10:00):
The Sassy Circle is basically like a membership. So this
is everything with like all of my, like every scene
that you write, when you go through the editing process,
doesn't always make it.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
Right.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
So when you mentioned the whole thing about marketing, this
is something else that people can do. Instead of deleting
those scenes completely, like you delete them from your manuscript,
they can't make it. They may not fully enhance the story,
but it might be a cute little scene. You keep that,
you know, you make it some bonus content to give
to your readers. So the Sassy Circle has my members
in there and they get all of the nitty gritty stuff.
They get the stuff that I've written in. And I
(10:33):
didn't put out. They get sometimes alternate endings. They get
alternate scenes. And it just gives them all these different
little tidbits into my writing process, a little bit more
of a deep dive into characters, furthering, continuing the storyline.
Because what I try not to do when I go
from one story to the next, especially if it's in
a series, is focus on the previous characters. You want
(10:54):
to have your new MMC and your new FMC to
be the focus. But sometimes you kind of want to
know when somebody's had a baby or it's a crazy
idea to baby shower or something happened at a birthday party.
And so I throw little things like that into the
Sassy Circle. And I also have a way for my
readers to have access to all of my books. So
if you like all the e-books, they're all in the
Sassy Circle. You can continue to read those so you
(11:15):
don't miss notifications and things like that. And so that's
how I started that. It was just to give my
readers a little bit of a bonus of things I
wouldn't put on social media.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
I really should go into, like, craft and stuff like that.
And how do you continue a book for 20 books?
Carrying a romance and all of that. I really should
go into the psychology of characters. U-Turn, I'm going a
different direction completely.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Book fairs. Do you do book fairs or do you not? So, yes.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Yes. So I went to one earlier this year. This
would have been I'm in Texas. This is in Dallas area.
This is really nice. It was pretty much all black authors.
A lot of them were like teachers. So it's pretty
cool to be in that space. A lot of a
lot of educators. But I still went because I have
all my stuff that people love. I love romance. Perfect.
Here you go. Make your selection.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
Right.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
And then last year I attended to I had one
in Detroit, which is my hometown. So I went home
and did an event there. And I had another one
in Houston, Texas. I did. Yes. Last year. And so
both of those were very profitable. They were great experiences.
They're a wonderful way to meet readers and authors and
get into that space. And I encourage anyone, if you
(12:35):
can get there and it's not going to, you know,
monetarily kill you, then by all means, you know, definitely
show up and, and be present in that space. And
you get a chance to fully immerse yourself with the
readers and then the authors as well. Cause you can
get a lot of feedback from authors, what they're doing,
how they're setting up their tables and they're set up.
I took a lot of feedback from what I did
(12:57):
because Detroit lead that was first into the Houston event, which, um,
Was that maybe three months later or something like that,
two or three months later? And it really helped with
presentation and everything else. And sometimes you have to just
see it, you know, and be there and be in
the mix and be in the moment. And so, yeah,
book fairs are good. I've done a local event here,
just like almost like a, I don't want to say
(13:18):
a flea market, but it's almost like a festival. And
I've set up once and done that. It was extremely hot.
So I probably won't do that again in the summertime.
But I tried it. I tried it. It was very hot.
Very hot. But yeah, I'm a firm believer in fairs
and events and things like that so people can physically
see you.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Yeah, you definitely have to have people see you. Love
your TikTok.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
So a lot of authors are afraid of social media.
Did you have any fear of social media? Oh, no.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
I didn't have a fear of it. It was more
of a, no, it wasn't a fear of it. It
was more of a confusion. The great thing about a pseudo,
I'll say this, the great thing about a pseudo is
I don't have to be mean. You get to see
Miss Sassy. And so Miss Sassy has, I love all
of my characters and their weirdness and I can put
things out. And it's not always my face. I have
(14:16):
very few videos where you actually see my face. I've
gotten more comfortable over the years. But a lot of
it is content about my books and my characters. Well,
I could flood y'all with that information with no problem.
Find a nice little song to go with it and bam,
here we go. And you don't see my face. It's
not me talking. It's not me having to give you
any pointers. It literally is everything is behind the scenes.
(14:38):
And so That part is great. I think that any author,
whether you use a pseudo or not, even having your name,
it's still an extension of you. And so you get
that opportunity to just kind of thrive in that space
and make sure you kind of like the separation of
church and state. That right there is a separate persona
(15:02):
than what you have, whether you use your real name
or not.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
I do enjoy being able to be like author me.
It's a blast. I love it. It's the most fun
I have all day. Although my TikTok is PBS. I'm
the PBS of the writing world. You come there if
you want to know like three tips for something or another.
Boring as all get out.
Speaker 2 (15:29):
It doesn't need boring. People need the tips. They need
the tips.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Yeah. It's growing. At least I shouldn't be mad. But
I keep looking at him like, I want to be cool.
I want to be this nerd. Okay, now we're going
back to how do you keep going for 20 books?
How do you keep the suspense and the romance alive
for your readers? When you look at that blank page,
(15:57):
it's the first thing you're like, ooh, how do I
get over this? I asked three questions. Go. What do
you want?
Speaker 2 (16:06):
So how do I keep going? Well, it hasn't been
hard because my mind is constantly coming up with something new.
So I have 20 books and I have about 50
in my head outside of those 20. So and another
thing that I that I do as well is I
don't necessarily have the same couple. So even though I'm
writing a series, it's because they're related. It's more of
(16:28):
them being connected. It's not the same couple going through
four or five books. I think that would drive me
crazy for authors who do it. Kudos to them and
the ones who do it. Well, hey, tap your hat off.
Like that is amazing. I that's not my talent. And
as they say, that's not my ministry. So it's not
always too hard to do. Like I said, I'm nosy.
(16:49):
So I'm writing the best friend of series. I just
finished that released my 20 books. My first book in
my 20th finished the series. These are seven best friends.
So these seven best friends met in college. I did
all seven of them. They call my seven giants. So
that wasn't that hard to really do for them because
it was seven guys. I know I'm going to do it.
I have a Turner family. It's like three brothers and
(17:13):
three best friends. I already know there's going to be
six of them that's going to be done. And then,
of course, there are spinoffs because it's not just them.
They have friends. A few of them have businesses. So,
of course, some of them will be business and office
romances that will extend from that, right? And so I
haven't ran into a blank page yet. That's only because
(17:34):
there's so much that I know is coming. I can't
answer the blank page because I don't have a blank
page that hasn't been once. And I lost the third question.
What was the third one? You have to give it
to me again. What was the third question? I forgot.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Yeah, I lost the third one too. Don't worry about it.
I have a whole new one now. I never said
I was good at this. I have a podcast. Never
said I was good at it.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
You're doing fine. You're doing fine.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
The next question that I wanted to ask was, where
do you see yourself going in the future with this?
Do you think you're going to branch out and try
to do, I don't know, I don't know. I'm going
to say something that we did with ours. We did
like a clothing line or whatever. Do you do something
with the books or are you staying as an author?
Speaker 2 (18:21):
I definitely will stay as an author for sure. But
I do want to do an expansion through. I'm actually
working on it right now. It's a new series, a
new world. I'm creating a fiction town. It is a
black-owned town. There are some things in this black-owned town
that I actually would like to do an extension. So
I have one particular location that does aromas, perfumes, scents,
(18:47):
and things like that. I would love to extend that
outside of the book and actually create a perfume, a scent, lotions,
but it would be an extension of my town. So, yes. Yes. Yes,
for sure. But it would all be tied back into
the town, which is what I'm working on now. And
it's a lot of... It's a different creative space. And
(19:11):
so we'll see. I don't know how well I'm going
to do it, but we're just going to do it.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Yeah. Because we have a skincare line. Okay.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Nice. Nice.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
It's not something that we advertise or do often. My
clothing line, I'm always talking about. But the skincare line, yeah, we...
hooked up with some folks and we ended up doing
a skincare line for just us. So that was kind
of cool.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Awesome. Awesome. Okay.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
So we should definitely chat, but I love this idea
of this whole town. I'm in love with this. Yeah.
How are we, how is it working? Do you, are
you mapping it out?
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Oh yeah. It's already mapped out.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Or is it just in your head? You're like, okay,
I'm going to do this.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Mm-mm. Nope, it's already mapped out. It is going to
have five districts, kind of like think about like New
York City. It's made up of five boroughs. It has
five districts, makes up one big city. I've already tied
it into a couple of things in our history in
the United States to make it a little more believable,
coming down like about 116 years. and then bringing it
(20:14):
to current so that it still works out. But no,
it's already done. The characters are done. The outline for
the first book is finished. It's already done. Again, that
may change. But yeah, so the outline is already done.
It's already done. But no, I've been working on this
(20:36):
particular thing since 21. So this is five years in
the making. It's just now about to come into fruition.
But I've been working on this just off and on
here and there between all this stuff for five years. Yeah. Okay.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Five years in the making.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Good God. I remember when I made.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
A small town. That was in December.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
I got three books on.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
Awesome. Awesome.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Keep going. You do it much better. I want to
read your books to see how someone professionally does it.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
Well, let me tell you this. It may look professional now.
It didn't start off that way. I didn't have a
lot of help. There's nobody in my family who's like
an author. I have a lot of professionals, lawyers and
doctors and accountants and business professionals. So using the other
side of your brain, which comes to creativity, wasn't something
that I had any type of help in or guidance
(21:36):
so this is a this is a fumble it's stumbling
around to actually get there you know and it's for
me it works out fine because i'm like if you
really don't know where to start perfect just start you'll
figure it out eventually um you know if you if
you want it good enough.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
So you were saying that if you want it bad enough,
you'll figure it out.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Yes. Yes.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
You will.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
And that's anything. That's anything.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
So since you've done a lot of figuring out, obviously,
because you have 20 books and a whole town, let's
take five years to build. I cannot wait to live
in this town. My next question is, when do you
think you'll know you made it as an author? Have
you already had the moment that you're like, no, I've
made it?
Speaker 2 (22:38):
I think making it as an author is a, it's
a stepping process. You know, at first it was, can
I finish the book? That was a milestone just to
finish it. Getting it published. That was a milestone. Can
I finish it? Writing the second one, you know, starting
a different series, connecting the series. For me, it was
(22:58):
a major milestone to finish the series. It happened to
be 20 books in and there's so much stuff in
between it. But that was a milestone to even get
to 20 and finish the series.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Right.
Speaker 2 (23:08):
So I think as far as being successful, what different
what are your different levels of success? You know, if
it goes and it's monetary, well, how much do you
want to make? Okay, when you get there, that's your success.
For me, it was from one book to the next.
You know, it's every release, it's every completion. It's the
new characters. It's actually finding out what I want them
to do, become successful in these different, just these different stages, right?
(23:33):
So I think making it as an author can have
two different things. It's my perception of what making it
is and this perception of others. So there'll be some
people who was like, yeah, girl, you've made it because
you've got 20 books. You've been doing this for seven years.
I'm looking at somebody with 150 books. I'm doing it
for 14 years. So what, what, what that level looks like. So, um,
(23:55):
I'm not finished with my successful journey. I think my
biggest thing would be to be able to write everything
I can create and to the best of my ability
before my time is up. That would be successful to me,
leaving that as a legacy, my children and my grandchildren
to be able to continue, you know, what it is
I've already put together. And so I think that would
(24:16):
be successful. That's a lifetime goal. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Yeah. Well, I think that you have a successful legacy already,
but I feel like you already know this. So tell
everyone where we can find out more about you.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Yes, MsAssetAuthor.com, of course. You can just Google MsAssetAuthor and
you'll find me. That was one thing. All of my
handles are the same from TikTok to Facebook. I am
not on Twitter, although I have a Twitter. So you
are liable not to get a response from me. But
there is an account that's there. I'm just trying to
(24:54):
get into threads. It hasn't happened yet. Definitely more on Instagram,
TikTok and Facebook for sure.
Speaker 1 (24:59):
OK, well, everyone, check out Miss Sassy. And I feel
like if you get into book one, you'll need all
20 books. So just go ahead and preorder the whole set.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Right. She's wrapped up everything over there for her. Let
me wrap it up for me over here. I'm Winona.
I'm one of the And I Thought Ladies. And you
can find out everything that your ladies are doing at www.andithoughtladies.com.
When you go down to the bottom of the page,
you can find the three charities that we proudly support.
(25:31):
we ask that you support them too. It does not
have to be monetary. You know, you can give some hand,
you can give a hand and you'll actually build an
orphanage in Ethiopia. Or, you know, you could just give
them some wisdom. You may have accounting skills or, you know,
doctor or lawyer skills that they don't have. So call
them up, see if they need any of those resources.
We thank you in advance for that. Remember that wisdom
(25:52):
is all around you if you're opening to finding it
and accepting it. So peace and love you guys from
Wilona and the Missing Jade. Oh yeah. Thanks for listening.
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