Sean Platt and I reunite to talk about the state of publishing, where and why this whole thing began, and where the future of authoring seems to be going.
Speaking of connecting with readers... I resisted TikTok for the longest time. I just felt intuitively it wouldn't work for me. But when I launched a dark romance pen name, I figured TikTok was the place for it. Most people who are "killing it" on the platform have gathered huge numbers of followers, get thousands of views on their posts, and sell books like hotcakes through TikTok shop. None of those things apply to me. Many of my posts only get 100 views. I've gathered 340 followers in 5 months. BUT... I am making connections with readers one-to-one there. I engage with other people's posts, we get chatting, and then they buy my books and review them and share them with their followers. A brick-and-mortar bookstore in the US asked me if they could stock my books, which they now do. I've connected with narrators who offer their services to me free of charge just because we've connected personally. These things NEVER happened for me under my original pen name. I am in KU and my page reads are crazy. I've always been wide before. I'm doing everything differently and it's working. I kind of love that I'm using KU and TikTok in unusual ways and it's actually really successful. When the alignment is right, magic happens.
I love this! TikTok is one place where I'd assume the culture is faster-faster and more-more (although that's a guess; I've continued to resist), and I love that you're making it work one person at a time. That's what I'm trying to do with this book and especially the "Artisan University" thingy I'm doing with the Kickstarter for it ... trying to get authors seeking out the value that's still to be found in small, unexplored places.
"...if Stephen King was on acid when he wrote The Dark Tower..."
I'm a huge King fan AND I'm ankle deep in Unicorn Western, so this had me snort-laughing.
I also snort-laughed at the fun reference to Charlie Brown missing the football in Unicorn Western. SO much fun! Glad you guys went against the tide with this one.
I don't think we're capable of going WITH the tide, so you're welcome! What Sean and I didn't get around to mentioning was that every time we tried to "sell out" as an experiment in seeing if we could hit the mainstream (like Invasion), we immediately STOPPED being mainstream by the second book ... if it even took that long. I just can't write normal. Can't!
Yeah, that's fair. In our defense, I think that what you saw in us was enthusiasm more than bandwagon-jumping, but again ... fair. It was an interesting intellectual puzzle to us: a "can we solve this thing ... because if we can, we might be able to have what we have now, but better." There was definitely a lot of tactical thinking. I felt it was intriguing to poke the many unexplored aspects of self-pub (unknown at the time, anyway) and see what was there, but there were many times that we'd "see what was there" and not have any interest in actually doing it.
I'm going to push back against the idea of the books being far down the list, though -- at least from my own perspective. I'm pretty damn stubborn about writing what I want to write and not writing stuff I don't want to write, so for me the books were ALWAYS first. I was looking for ways to market and sell what I had, but never to contort "what I had" into "what the market wanted." Create first, then find out how to sell. If I believed otherwise, my catalog would be a hell of a lot different (and more homogenous, and more on-market) today. As things stand, very little of what I have is algorithmically friendly, so if I was putting books last, I sure did a shit job of getting any benefit out of it.
What YEAR is it?!?
Awwww I love seeing you two together again! The reunion show!
Well hello, 2012! I have so missed these conversations. Super freaking inspirational.
Kinda like seeing a childhood friend after decades apart... I'm not crying you are crying.
Speaking of connecting with readers... I resisted TikTok for the longest time. I just felt intuitively it wouldn't work for me. But when I launched a dark romance pen name, I figured TikTok was the place for it. Most people who are "killing it" on the platform have gathered huge numbers of followers, get thousands of views on their posts, and sell books like hotcakes through TikTok shop. None of those things apply to me. Many of my posts only get 100 views. I've gathered 340 followers in 5 months. BUT... I am making connections with readers one-to-one there. I engage with other people's posts, we get chatting, and then they buy my books and review them and share them with their followers. A brick-and-mortar bookstore in the US asked me if they could stock my books, which they now do. I've connected with narrators who offer their services to me free of charge just because we've connected personally. These things NEVER happened for me under my original pen name. I am in KU and my page reads are crazy. I've always been wide before. I'm doing everything differently and it's working. I kind of love that I'm using KU and TikTok in unusual ways and it's actually really successful. When the alignment is right, magic happens.
I love this! TikTok is one place where I'd assume the culture is faster-faster and more-more (although that's a guess; I've continued to resist), and I love that you're making it work one person at a time. That's what I'm trying to do with this book and especially the "Artisan University" thingy I'm doing with the Kickstarter for it ... trying to get authors seeking out the value that's still to be found in small, unexplored places.
Awwww, it just occurred to me how much I was missing those good old SPP ramblings. Feels like it's been forever.
You rock! Looking forward to my copy of Artisan Author... glad to support your KS
Thank you, Toby! I'm excited about this one.
Gosh, it’s so great to see you guys yakking again! Love it! TY!
This is such a consistent response that we're going to do a single "reunion" show of SPP soon. Stay tuned!
Woah! All riiiiiight, yeah! 👍 🚀⚔️
Nice and interesting conversation as usual with you guys.
"...if Stephen King was on acid when he wrote The Dark Tower..."
I'm a huge King fan AND I'm ankle deep in Unicorn Western, so this had me snort-laughing.
I also snort-laughed at the fun reference to Charlie Brown missing the football in Unicorn Western. SO much fun! Glad you guys went against the tide with this one.
I don't think we're capable of going WITH the tide, so you're welcome! What Sean and I didn't get around to mentioning was that every time we tried to "sell out" as an experiment in seeing if we could hit the mainstream (like Invasion), we immediately STOPPED being mainstream by the second book ... if it even took that long. I just can't write normal. Can't!
Good! Don't! :)
It's so good seeing you guys together again.
Excellent! I’m looking forward to watching this very soon!
Speaking of SPP OGs ...
Those were good times. Not only was the show very informative but you guys were also very entertaining. :-)
Yeah, that's fair. In our defense, I think that what you saw in us was enthusiasm more than bandwagon-jumping, but again ... fair. It was an interesting intellectual puzzle to us: a "can we solve this thing ... because if we can, we might be able to have what we have now, but better." There was definitely a lot of tactical thinking. I felt it was intriguing to poke the many unexplored aspects of self-pub (unknown at the time, anyway) and see what was there, but there were many times that we'd "see what was there" and not have any interest in actually doing it.
I'm going to push back against the idea of the books being far down the list, though -- at least from my own perspective. I'm pretty damn stubborn about writing what I want to write and not writing stuff I don't want to write, so for me the books were ALWAYS first. I was looking for ways to market and sell what I had, but never to contort "what I had" into "what the market wanted." Create first, then find out how to sell. If I believed otherwise, my catalog would be a hell of a lot different (and more homogenous, and more on-market) today. As things stand, very little of what I have is algorithmically friendly, so if I was putting books last, I sure did a shit job of getting any benefit out of it.
Thank you! I think so too. Or at least, I hope so ...