The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers

Joanna Penn

Writing Craft and Creative Business

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Mar 7, 2022 • 59min

Draft2Digital Acquires Smashwords. The Opportunities Ahead For Wide Publishing With Mark Coker And Kevin Tumlinson

Smashwords was the original distribution service for indie authors and Mark Coker has been an advocate for wide publishing for over 14 years. Draft2Digital has been a fantastic service for indies over the last decade, moving into new markets, providing great tools, and helping authors sell more books. On Feb 8, 2022, Draft2Digital announced they were acquiring Smashwords. Mark Coker and his team would be joining Draft2Digital and the combined company would consolidate systems and processes, improving services for authors. In this discussion, I ask Mark Coker and Kevin Tumlinson about the acquisition and how it will impact indie authors who publish with either service, as well as discuss the opportunities ahead. Mark Coker is the founder and CEO of Smashwords, the original ebook publishing platform for Indies, established in 2008. Kevin Tumlinson is Director of Marketing and Public Relations at Draft2Digital, established in 2012. Both Mark and Kevin are also authors and they understand the author perspective when it comes to publishing. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes What the acquisition of Smashwords means for authors who publish on Smashwords — and what it means for those who publish on Draft2Digital Some of the concerns and how they will be addressed The implications of a company serving over 250,000 authors and how it shifts the power imbalance in publishing Why Mark was excited about the possibilities for authors when we met in 2010 (video here) and why things are even more exciting now Opportunities ahead for the bigger Draft2Digital You can contact Draft2Digital with any questions at support@Draft2Digital.com Transcript of the discussion Joanna: Mark Coker is the founder and CEO of Smashwords, the original ebook publishing platform for indies, established in 2008. Kevin Tumlinson is director of marketing and public relations at Draft2Digital, established in 2012. Both Mark and Kevin are also authors, and they understand the author perspective when it comes to publishing, and we've got some exciting things to talk about today. Welcome, Mark and Kevin. Mark: Hi, Joanna. Kevin: Hey, there. Joanna: Hey. It's good to have you both on the show. So, let's start with the news. Kevin, what has just happened or is happening? Kevin: You may or may not have heard by this point, but Draft2Digital is acquiring Smashwords as of March 1st, 2022. So, very big, very exciting news. We have been keeping our lips sealed for the past couple of months, but we are very excited to have that out there in the wild now. Mark: I'm really excited about this. I think that our two companies coming together that sprouted from the same seed. Both of our companies were founded by authors, for authors. We are an author-first company. We share common business models. Both of us chose the most difficult business model to pursue, and that's only making money when the authors make money. And both of our companies have managed to build profitable companies with this difficult business model, and we really fit well together. We both have the same attitude. We both believe that authors should be the center of the universe, that authors should have total control over their pricing, promotions, distribution. By joining together, we can do more together. We want the same thing for authors. And if you look at the last decade that Draft2Digital has been in business, we've created duplicative systems, systems that do the same thing, systems that can easily be merged together, well, maybe not easily, but they will be merged together, and that frees up engineering and development resources for us to develop new next-generation tools. So this is all about doing more for authors. Kevin: I have come to think of this: we're the peanut butter and jelly of the self-publishing world now. Which of us is peanut butter? I think Smashwords is the peanut butter, actually, because they're the foundation. They started it, delicious all on its own, and along came Draft2Digital just to sweeten the deal. So that's the way I perceive the whole thing. It's just all around going to be something really spectacular for the indie author community, self-publishing community, just because each company on its own had its strengths, had their weaknesses too. We're puzzle pieces, and we fit each other very well. I know everyone always thought of us as rivals, and in some sense we were, but we were sort of that friendly competition thing, where we were always just making each other better anyway. So, really, when you look back on it, it's sort of an inevitable journey to see this all come together. Joanna Yes. So inevitable, in fact, that when I found out, I wasn't surprised at all. And in fact, anyone I've talked to, everyone's like, ‘Yeah. Well, of course. That's kind of obvious.' I don't think anyone's been surprised. I do want to thank you both, and obviously, thank the company for that business model. I was there at the beginning as well, and I certainly appreciate the company, both companies, and now the same company, the approach to making money when authors make money. And obviously, some of the retailers do this too, when publishing direct, but there are a lot of companies that work things in a different business model, where you have to pay up front, or when you have to pay in different ways. So I think, to underscore that this business model is the hardest one, but equally is the one that benefits authors, and that underpins both companies. Let's talk about the ramifications for the authors who are currently in either system. Mark, what are the ramifications for people who publish on Smashwords? What are they going to see differently, and how are things going to change for them? Mark: I think it's important to understand that both of our companies have developed really cool tools for authors, self-serve tools, and some of these tools are unique to our platforms. Draft2Digital has stuff that we don't have. We have stuff that Draft2Digital doesn't have. Smashwords authors can look forward to new tools. They've got access now to D2D print, which I think is totally awesome and exciting. I think D2D print is going to be just as disruptive for print-on-demand as Smashwords was for ebook publishing 14 years ago. Draft2Digital has automated end matter, which is super powerful, in terms of saving the author time, and also driving sales of your other titles. So those are just a couple of the things. Split payments. If you participate in anthologies and box sets, it's now easier than ever to split those payments, and relieve the author from all the complicated tax accounting that comes at the end of the year. New payment options. Draft2Digital has a direct bank deposit option. That's something that Smashwords only offers to a very small percentage of our authors, typically the best sellers. So that's exciting. There are just so many incredible synergies. You just put all those synergies into a room and throw a rock at it, and you're going to hit something really cool. Our big challenge that we have going forward is that we have so many great ideas, and we really need to bring those ideas together, merge our product roadmaps, and really identify what we want to focus on first. But it's all about just delivering more to the authors. I think Smashwords authors and publishers are going to be thrilled by this. They're going to get access to simplified publishing tools. Both of our companies have different approaches. We've always had different approaches for how to design and create an ebook. The Smashwords approach gives the author total control, line-by-line styling and control within Microsoft Word. It's great for some authors, but it's also more difficult for the vast majority of authors. Draft2Digital's approach, which is based on templates, reliably produces beautiful books, and it's so much easier. For authors that prefer that method, great. For authors that prefer the Smashwords method, Draft2Digital wants to make that method available as well. It's all about giving authors choice, let them choose the tools that make the most sense for them, and it's a win-win for everyone. Joanna: Kevin, obviously, some people publish through Draft2Digital. What are the benefits that Draft2Digital authors are going to see with the acquisition of Smashwords? Kevin: Just off the top of my head, we're adding at least 12 more sales partners to the Draft2Digital list, if you will. So, that's all the bunch that Smashwords distributes to, that we didn't have relationships with before. So, that's coming in. The Smashwords store is the biggest, I think, and the thing that I like the most. People have asked us for a storefront for years. I only started working with Draft2Digital in 2016, and I've been asked at least a billion times when we're going to finally have our own retailer. What I love is the synergy that's happening between the two companies, because we have complementary products and offerings. And two of those, in particular, are Books2Read links, the universal book links that we provide, in conjunction with that Smashwords store. We have the author pages and book tabs and those sorts of things. I'm seeing these are the puzzle pieces that I want to see come together. I don't even have to look at the box to know what this is going to look like five years down the road. It's going to be an opportunity for authors to have complete control over how they reach their readers. We've got options now for direct sale. We've got options now for promotion, and those tools are growing. The combination of the two companies is just accelerating that. So, it's very exciting. Exciting is a word that we use a lot, by the way. You're going to hear us say that a lot. Mark: Yes. We're in search of new synonyms. Joanna: It is exciting. But, of course, there are challenges. I've obviously been looking in the Facebook groups, and hearing what some authors are saying, and I would say 98% of people are pretty enthusiastic about this, and can see the benefits, but there are some concerns that authors have. What are some of the concerns you've heard from authors, and how are you addressing those? Mark: We've heard a lot of concerns, and we're listening to those concerns. And all the concerns are valid. This is a big change for a lot of authors. There are a lot of authors who just feel like Smashwords is their store, it's their company. They feel like they have ownership in it. They supported it, they created it, and so there's that initial sense of fear of loss, that maybe what they love is going to go away. So there are concerns about that. There are a lot of authors who chose Smashwords for a certain reason. They looked at Draft2Digital, and Smashwords met their needs. And same thing with Draft2Digital. A lot of authors at Draft2Digital looked at Smashwords, we didn't meet their needs. So, that first group, just that dramatic change, the potential sense of loss. We've been in communication with everyone, to address those concerns. Probably some of the strongest concerns have come from the erotica community. Erotica has always been important to Smashwords. It's always been my view that if you want to support the entire indie community, you have to support the erotica community too. They're writing in an important category, that needs to be supported. It's a community that has faced years of persecution. It's a community where they try to publish by the rules, and then retailers just pull the rug out from underneath them, and eliminate their livelihoods. We've always stood by the erotica community, and worked to bring them into the mainstream, so that they have the respect and opportunities that they deserve. There's a lot of fear in the erotica community. And I've always been engaged with the community, and I reengaged with them as part of this, to listen to their concerns, and address their concerns, and I think Draft2Digital has done a great job of addressing their concerns. Kris Austin has been very clear that he views this community as important to the indie community, he views this category as important to readers, and it's a community that Draft2Digital wants to support. It's a community that Draft2Digital really couldn't support as we did in the past, because they didn't have the tools to do it. One of those really important tools is our erotica certification system that we created. Because, within the BISAC categorization scheme, which is what most retailers use, erotica is not clearly defined. There aren't granular categorizations for erotica, so you can't really identify what's in that erotica book. What taboo themes are in there? Because every single retailer, almost every single retailer, has a different policy on erotica. And they'll accept some taboo categories, but not others. And because there was that uncertainty among retailers of what was inside that book, it made it difficult for retailers to accept that content without knowing for sure what was in there. So we built a system that's based on trust. Authors tell us what's in their book. They certify that the different themes that are in either their erotica or their erotic romance, and then we trust the authors and the publishers that they're giving us accurate information, and then we use that information to determine what can go out to different retailers, so we can the retailers' policies. This gives the retailers the trust that they need to accept more of this content. Tor example, we distribute erotica into Scribd, which is one of the fastest-growing subscription outlets out there. I'm excited about the opportunity to make this certification system available to all Draft2Digital authors and publishers, so that they can gain increased distribution as well. Joanna: That's great. Kevin, from Draft2Digital's perspective, maybe you'd comment on that because… And I'm playing devil's advocate here. We are talking about 14 years, Mark, where you've controlled the company and controlled the things. Kevin, what does Draft2Digital see as a way that you're going to scale a lot of these programs that might have been more personal with Smashwords? How is this going to work going forward? How can you put people's mind at ease that Draft2Digital won't go hard on shutting down some of these other categories? Kevin: You probably know better than just about anyone that Draft2Digital is a technology company first. That's basically the roots of who we are. We are authors first, is the real way to put that, but we are a technology company at heart, and so is Smashwords. What this has done, by combining our two pools of talent, is give us an opportunity to step back from trying to create things that would be competitive with each other, and, as Mark put it very well, the duplicative effort of developing things that in parallel, we can turn that energy towards other technological and software developments that allow us to deal with problems like this. So, I think that the ‘trust the authors' perspective is still going to be valid for a very long time. The sort of self-regulating system is going to be valid for a long time. And, yes, we'll have some growing pains there, but that gives us the opportunity to dive in and say, ‘How are we going to solve that problem?' Which is what Draft2Digital has done all along. Every time someone comes to us with a major issue, we start thinking about it. We may not get a solution right away, but we do work on all this stuff in the background. I see that continuing, and I see it just improving, now that we have access to the stuff that Smashwords has managed to pioneer for us. I don't really see it as a challenge, honestly. Mark: Yeah, trust is a foundational element of this business. The entire industry is based on trust. Authors need to trust that we're going to look out for their intellectual property, that we're only going to partner with retailers that are able to respect their intellectual property, and respect their instructions. If they want the book taken down, that book goes down. The retailers need to trust that the distributors are supplying what we say we are, and we need to trust the authors that what they're giving us is what they say it is. I believe in trust first, but also verify. If any author or publisher squanders that trust, then we come down on them like a ton of bricks. Zero tolerance for that. Kevin: Right. You should also consider, as we move forward, Smashwords has their team, and that trust element is there, and that's how they've handled this more personal. We actually have a very large support team, and growing. In fact, we're hiring, by the way, if anybody listening would like to work for Draft2Digital, draft2digital.com/careers. We are hiring more customer support folks. We're continuing to grow, but we've been able to offer that kind of personable and personal service to the authors in the form of support already. We're already scaling up what's necessary here. We are already upgrading that just by default. So, there may take a moment for us to get everybody up to speed, and figure each other out and that sort of thing, but I absolutely have confidence that we're going to be able to continue what Mark and team have built over at Smashwords. Joanna: Fantastic. Right, so, both companies, or, now, the same company, have been very focused on wide publishing. I totally agree with you that the combined company, as Draft2Digital, will offer a lot more potential competition, let's face it, to the biggest company out there, which has asked authors to be exclusive a lot of the time. Now, Mark, you've been very focused on wide since day one, and well-known for being anti-exclusivity. What do you see as the growing potential of publishing wide, and why are authors still choosing exclusivity? Mark: I think the primary reason authors choose exclusivity is because Amazon is the dominant player in ebooks. They control access to the world's greatest, largest collection of readers. And authors publish to reach readers. So I totally understand the draw of Amazon exclusivity, because when you go exclusive, they give you special tools. They give you preferential discoverability. And that's difficult to say no to. But as I look ahead to the future, I think eventually that Amazon exclusivity is going to come into check. Government authorities here in the U.S. are investigating, not just Amazon, but all of big tech. Big tech is under scrutiny for some of the darker side of big tech, and everyone wants fair competition. That's all we want. All we've ever wanted is a level playing field. And I think that playing field is going to become more level as it becomes more obvious to government authorities and regulators that the current system's not working very well. When you have a monopolistic and monopsonistic control over a market, it does not allow other bright entrepreneurs to build businesses around the business of books. From day one at Smashwords, we've wanted to foster a diverse ecosystem of multiple booksellers. The more booksellers in the world, the more people who are spending their every waking hour thinking about, ‘How do I connect books with my customers? How do I connect books with readers?' That's what we want. That's how you promote greater opportunity for indie authors, and greater opportunity for readers to discover books that match their desires. Although we've seen a lot of unfair competition in the market over the last 14 years, I think that's going to change in the future, and that gives me great hope for optimism in what's possible, that I think we will see a broader, more diverse ecosystem. I look forward to Draft2Digital supporting new models for reaching readers. I look forward to that changing. When we were talking about merging, when Kris and I first started having conversations, Amazon didn't come into my mind at all. This wasn't about Amazon. I know a lot of authors are excited that suddenly there might be a counterbalance to Amazon. I don't really see it so much that way. I think what happens with Amazon is going to happen with Amazon. It's going to be between Amazon and regulators. And all we can do, joining together, is to show what an author-first publishing service looks like. It's the business that Smashwords has always pursued, Draft2Digital has always pursued. Joining together, we're going to do a better job of it, and it's just going to be all about authors, and I think, over time, authors are going to recognize that this is a publishing partner that's essential to your future as an author, a publishing partner that's looking out for you, and that has your best interests at heart. We're not looking to commoditize books. We're not looking to strip you of your profits. We're here to put profits in your pocket, because that's the only way we're going to make money. That's the only way we stay in business, is if our authors are successful using our service. Kevin: That, by the way, is exactly why the two companies were such a good fit, is because that is the underlying principle of both companies, is to make the authors as much money as possible. We like that business model so much that we bet the farm on it. We are entirely invested in the author. And we're going to continue to be, even more so now. And here's where Mark and I are different. Amazon came into my head instantly when we talked about the acquisition and merger because Amazon does have this stranglehold on the indie author community. For those of you who have podcasts and YouTube channels and things, and you're talking about this, I've seen them and heard them all by now. Everybody is very excited about that particular aspect of this, is that this is the first crack in the armor of Amazon, that we might actually be able to insert ourselves, and wedge that open, and finally get out from under the weight of this 900-pound gorilla that can't be avoided in this industry. I see this as an absolute win for all authors across board, not just indie authors. This is an also an opportunity for the small presses out there, for even major publishers. If they want to use us, we're here for you, folks. Mark: Yes. Kevin: Bring your stuff our way, and we will help you. I absolutely see this as the first shot over the bow of Amazon, really. Maybe that's dangerous talk. And I will accept responsibility for that, but I don't want to see Amazon go down. I don't want to see authors lose that as a venue. We all want to see the playing field leveled out, so that everybody stands a much better chance. Competition is good for everybody, right? We are in competition with Amazon as much as anyone else, but they also are one of our sales partners. So we want to support them. We just want to get through to them. ‘Hey, look, if you work with us, we all can make more money, be a better industry. But we know that you don't care as much about certain aspects of the business as we do, but we can all work together in that whole rising tide lifts all boats. That's perfect applicable to everything we're doing.' Mark: That's a really great point, Kevin. When we first became an ebook distributor, starting in 2009, my attitude was I want every retailer to be successful with our books. I want to help Amazon make more money. I want Barnes & Noble to make more money, Kobo, everybody. I want to work with every retailer, to help them make money off of indie ebooks, because that's how indies make money. This is all one big, positive, synergistic relationship. Let's work together as a community to grow the business of books. Joanna: I think, in terms of pushing wide publishing, it is difficult. It is easier to publish on one retailer, but the fact is that Draft2Digital also now makes it easy to publish on a lot of retailers and library systems and all of this type of stuff, and that's what we need as wide publishers, is we need easier access to that wider market. I'm totally with you. I think anything that makes it easier for authors to choose to go wide is a good thing, because it just takes down those barriers. And I'm, obviously, because I've been doing this so long, I upload to tons of different systems myself. Mark: I'm right there with you. Joanna: I've got about nearly 40 books now, and it just becomes more and more complicated over time. I'm personally looking forward to the simplified systems and tools and workflow that we can put in, because I only see this as possible as we have easier workflows. And also, the collective size of the number of authors that you now represent. Mark: It's 250,000 authors, a quarter-million authors, and 880,000 books. Joanna: Right. Several hundred thousand authors. The fact is, me, I'm, as an indie author, on my own, I have no power whatsoever. And then, of course, there are organizations like the Alliance of Independent Authors and things like that, who are trying to bring some power into the situation. Now Draft2Digital, by representing that many authors, and presumably, you guys advocate obviously for, well, author rights and author revenue and all of those things. I see some really good synergy, since we're using that word, in trying to redress the power imbalance with a lot of these relationships too. And you can only do that with numbers. It's just impossible any other way. What you now have brought together, it's another weight in that power balance, right? Kevin: Yes. I am interested in how do we work with ALLi and any other organizations that are for the authors' interests, to leverage all this? We did a live Q&A with Mark and Kris Austin, D2D's CEO. One of the things that came up was data. Data frightens some of us, but data is how we are going to change the tide. That's how we're going to shift everything in favor of the indie author. These two companies coming together, we now, as Mark put it, we have unprecedented access to data. No one else in the self-publishing world can possibly see as far as we can now. We're looking at ways to utilize that going forward. Now, there's some things we can never share publicly because of NDAs and things like that, but there's a great deal of information that can be publicly shared, can be used to help shape the general direction of what we're doing, where we're going. There's enough of that there that we, I believe, can make a very big difference, and it's going to benefit the authors directly and indirectly. We're already talking about doing some recurring state of the industry stuff. Mark Lefebvre is… I've talked to him already about us doing some content around that on a regular basis. So, going forward, I mean, it's not all going to happen at once. I wish it could, but going forward, I think authors are going to be very impressed by what we're able to do together, that we were only dreaming about when we were individual organizations. Mark: And one great way that we're going to be able to leverage this data is to help our retailers be more successful selling indie ebooks. Kevin: I tend to forget the retailers, Mark, and I'm glad you bring that up, because I'm always focused on the authors, but that is a very, very good point, is that we are also here for those retailers. Everyone wants to think of it as a big move to rise above that sort of thing. We need those retailers, of course, and we want them to succeed. I personally think we could single-handedly save Nook, personally. I would love for Barnes & Noble to reach out to us. Joanna: Go talk to James Daunt! Kevin: Yes. Exactly. Mark: To borrow Kevin's words, challenge accepted. Kevin: Challenge accepted. Mark: We want Barnes & Noble to be super successful. We want every retailer to be super successful, because that is in the indie author's best interest. That's in publishers' best interest. That's in readers' best interest, that we have this diverse ecosystem. Yes, we do have the power to help foster that in a way that we didn't before. It's possible now for a bright entrepreneur to come to us with a really compelling business model, and we can give them the critical mass to launch their business around our books. That's the critical mass that we have now. This isn't just hype. In the past, we've done that. We helped put Scribd on the map. When they signed their deal with Smashwords, overnight, they doubled the content that was available. I'm excited about the subscription model. And the subscription model does not work without indie content. So this is great. This is great for everyone. Joanna: For sure. Right. Well, we're almost out of time. I have one more question. Mark: We need three more hours! Joanna: I know. There's lots to talk about. Kevin: Thank you for tuning in for this first of a four-part series on the ‘Creative Penn' podcast! Joanna: I want to take us back first. Mark, you and I met in person in Brisbane, Australia, in 2010, when the indie world was new, and we were fresh-faced, and I'm going to link to the YouTube video in the show notes, but I'm also going to play a short clip now. “I think it's really important for authors to recognize that we're on the cusp of some really dramatic, wonderful change, and thanks to ebooks, and thanks to the internet, the opportunities for authors to reach readers has never been greater before.” (Mark Coker, 2010) Mark, you said that back in 2010. Let's look forward another decade. What are you excited about in the years ahead? Because you're staying with Draft2Digital, aren't you? You're not riding off into the sunset to the beach. You're staying. What are you excited about? Mark: I started the business with a mission, and I'm really proud of what we did do to execute on that mission. But the mission's not over. What I see now is an opportunity for me to continue to prosecute this same mission, because it's a mission that Draft2Digital shares. It's not like I'm trying to get Draft2Digital to do something that they don't want to do. It's something that both of our companies have always been committed to, and together, we can accomplish more. As we talked about, this is a really tough business to stay in business in, and by joining together, we will be stronger. We will have greater flexibility to invest in projects that maybe neither one of us could justify in the past. Rather than wasting millions of dollars building duplicative systems, we can put that money into new things. Also, since we're spreading out our investments over a larger base of authors, it means we can potentially do things that weren't justifiable for either one of our companies previously, but are now justifiable now. I'm really excited about how we can continue to prosecute the mission on behalf of indie authors, to place indie authors at the center of the universe, to make it possible for any reader anywhere in the world to access this wonderful, diverse content, indie content, so that what readers read is not determined by what publishers allow you to read. What you can read is only limited by the imagination of indie authors. And so, I'm just really excited about that. Joanna: Fantastic. Kevin, give us a glimpse. Obviously, there's a roadmap for the merger of the systems and the new tools and all of that. What do you see coming in the years ahead? Kevin: As our collective resources and tools start to combine, what I see is just spinoff innovation. There's so many things that we have, over the years, at Draft2Digital said, ‘It would be great if we could do this. We just need the development time,' and that sort of thing. A lot of that stuff is coming to us sort of wholly-formed because of Mark and his team. What I see now is the opportunity for us to build on those foundations, and create new stuff that people probably didn't even know they needed. There are certain needs that we have identified in the business, in the industry, that I think we're going to be able to address now. Over the next five years, tops, we're going to see some pretty impressive stuff come out of the works there. I want to add one quick thing, by the way. And it's kind of a zeitgeist thing, but Mark founded Smashwords back in 2008, which happens to coincide with when I released my first self-published book, which did go out via Smashwords, and whatever CreateSpace was back then, and Amazon's early version of KDP. All that stuff happened for me around that same time. At the first conference I ever met Mark, I actually thanked him for building the industry that was part of my journey, that was making me successful as an author. He scoffs and laughs, but I am… Joanna: He's the indie godfather! Kevin: I'm incredibly grateful to this guy for what he built here. And everything you see on this landscape started with Mark and Smashwords. Draft2Digital have worked hard to build something that is aimed at empowering authors, and helping them to reach whatever heights that they want to reach, but it all started back with Smashwords. So this merger is bigger than just the resources and tools we bring in. It's coming back around full circle to what the vision and dream that all of us had. I'm more excited about it than I can really express. You ask about the future, but the past is just as important in this. I do see us accelerating, and growing, and innovating going forward. I can't wait. There's more ideas than we have time and developers to put into effect. Mark: I appreciate that, Kevin. And I'd like to give a shout out to my old friend, Dan Poynter. Joanna: Oh, bless. I met Dan back in the day. Joanna Penn with Day Poynter, National Speakers Association Australia Convention, Gold Coast, Australia, 2010 Mark: I would like to think that what I've done with Smashwords was really a continuation of his mission. Dan was the first one out there popularizing self-publishing, and teaching writers how to think and act like a professional publisher. And he did that almost 40 years ago now. Dan was never able to realize his full vision because of some of the challenges involved in distribution. And the rise of ebooks, combined with self-publishing, helped realize Dan's vision, that every writer had the power to become a professional publisher. In many ways, this is all a continuation of Dan Poynter's vision. I'm really sad that he's gone. But from a very early time, he took me under his wing. He was a mentor to me, a supporter to what we were doing at Smashwords, and I think he saw that what we were trying to do was a continuation of what he started. So, kudos to Dan and his memory, because none of this would've been possible without Dan Poynter. Joanna: For those listening, Dan died in 2015. I met him in those early days, actually, at a speakers conference in Australia, and also thanked him for encouraging us all. What's so funny is now I'm sitting here thinking, ‘Oh, my goodness, I hope people talk about us like this one day when we're dead and gone.' But I hope that'll be a while until any of us get talked about as sort of founders. Mark: Yeah. Knock on wood, it will be a long time. Kevin: What I want is, ‘Remember Kevin Tumlinson when he died in, like, 2095? That guy was great.' Mark: Yes. Joanna: That guy was good. Brilliant. Well, we have to wrap it up now. If people want to reach out to you guys or the team, or they have some concerns about the acquisition and their place in things, where should they find out more information, and who should they contact? Kevin: As with all things, if you have questions about Draft2Digital, reach out to our support team at support@draft2digital.com. You can also find that link on the contact page at draft2digital.com. That is going to be your easiest and most straightforward way. And we have real-life humans waiting to answer all these questions. Mark: I'm happy for any writer in the world to contact me directly. My email today is mc@smashwords.com. Just please don't count on me as your personal technical support department, but I'm always happy to hear from indie authors, hear your concerns, and I'll try to point you in the right direction. Joanna: Brilliant. Well, thanks to you both, and look forward to another decade ahead of Draft2Digital. Thanks, guys. Mark: Let's do it. Kevin: Thank you. Mark: Thank you, Joanna.The post Draft2Digital Acquires Smashwords. The Opportunities Ahead For Wide Publishing With Mark Coker And Kevin Tumlinson first appeared on The Creative Penn.

Feb 14, 2022 • 58min

Self-Publishing In Jamaica And The Caribbean And The Importance Of Diverse Voices With C. Ruth Taylor

The self-publishing movement is just getting started in Jamaica and the Caribbean islands, and authors are discovering they can tell their stories in their own way. C. Ruth Taylor talks about how she became an authorpreneur and why she believes in an indie-first, empowering ecosystem. In the intro, Draft2Digital acquires Smashwords [D2D; Mark Coker]; Impact of streaming on audiobook revenue and AI narration [Ask ALLi]; Stone of Fire and thoughts on your ‘writing age.' This podcast episode is sponsored by Kobo Writing Life, which helps authors self-publish and reach readers in global markets through the Kobo ecosystem. You can also subscribe to the Kobo Writing Life podcast for interviews with successful indie authors. C. Ruth Taylor is the author of over 20 nonfiction books and a leading Jamaican authorpreneur. She's also a publishing consultant, podcaster, course creator, and founder of Extra Mile Innovators. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes From writing to heal a broken heart to authorpreneur The rich literary tradition of Jamaica and the Caribbean diaspora The reading and publishing ecosystem in Jamaica Turning your books into multiple streams of income Creative marketing when you can't afford paid ads The importance of telling your story and valuing your experience You can find C. Ruth Taylor at extramileja.com and on Twitter @cameka12 Transcript of Interview with C. Ruth Taylor Joanna: C. Ruth Taylor is the author of over 20 nonfiction books and a leading Jamaican authorpreneur. She's also a publishing consultant, podcaster, course creator, and founder of Extra Mile Innovators. Welcome, Ruth. Ruth: Thank you, Joanna. It's good being here. Joanna: I'm excited to talk to you. First up, tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and publishing. Ruth: Oh, that's a good question. I'm going to give you the short version. I am from the island that has produced the fastest man and woman in the world. That's Usain Bolt and our own Elaine Thompson-Herah, and the island that has given birth to reggae music, Bob Marley. And guess what? The island that gave birth to James Bond. This is where Ian Fleming wrote James Bond, and that's the beautiful island of Jamaica. How I got into writing and publishing. Well, I've been a bookworm all my life. I'm an introvert, so I found it difficult to make friends, as a child, and teenager. And so books are my best friends, I would read two, three books per week, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Mills & Boon. And then I used to write poems. At a particular point in time, I would turn those into postcards and sell them. But in terms of writing and becoming an author, I did not see myself as an author. When I was finishing my first degree, the president of the seminary, Jamaica Theological Seminary, told me to do a particular graduate degree. And he said, ‘I want you to do this because I believe you can write.' And then a friend from Trinidad wrote in the year prospectus because I was applying to go to Yale, she said, ‘I look forward to seeing your books in the future,' but I didn't believe. Fast forward 10 years later, on the heels of a broken engagement in 2014, one of my mentors says writing is therapeutic. And then I remembered a quote from a note from a theologian from the UK, William Barclay. He said, ‘Endurance is not just the ability to bear a hard thing, but to turn it into glory.' I knew how I would turn my traumatic experience into glory. It would be through writing. And so within 11 days, I wrote almost 68,000 words and nine months later, the book was published. So that is how I got into writing and publishing. Joanna: Okay, so you started with poetry? So you have a degree in theology, do you? Ruth: Yes, I have two degrees in theology, just like you. Joanna: Well, I've only got one. So you've already beaten me there. But no, that's fascinating. The traumatic experience into therapy; was that a memoir? Ruth: It was a memoir, but I wasn't just writing about the trauma. I wanted to help others to be healed from broken relationships. I wanted to share some of the tips that I learned because I was still standing, I did not go crazy or something like that. Joanna: And then, a couple of things that you said, you turned your poems into postcards. So you were already thinking about business, even with poetry, which I think is quite rare. And now you help others through your businesses. When did you decide to be an authorpreneur? Ruth: Like most authors, I fell into the trap of thinking that my first book would make me a millionaire. Joanna: It didn't?! Ruth: It didn't. Because in my first experience, similar to you, I did a bulk run. I thought I could print 5,000 books and sell them in no time, but I didn't have the funds. And so I printed 1,200, and it took about a year to sell those books. I was transitioning from being a missionary into a full-time writing career, so I didn't have a job. Some months, I would sell 100 books or more, other months, nothing. I had to go back and get a part-time job. Then my eyes opened up that if I were to create products and services around my books, then I'd be able to create and generate income faster. So I did some business course, a coaching program with another friend who's an author, and I was able to match my part-time salary in a month or so. In 2018, July, I left my part-time job and dived full-time into authorpreneurship. So it's not about selling books for me. It's about using the book as a platform for transformation, and a tool for impact and income. Joanna: I love that. I think it's a very good business model for nonfiction writers, in particular. The book is almost like a business card. Is that mainly the type of writers you work with now is nonfiction writers? Ruth: Primarily nonfiction writers, but it's more a narrative nonfiction memoir. They're sharing their expertise and their experience. And then they're using that book now as a platform to launch a ministry or a business, that kind of thing. Joanna: That's fantastic. So you mentioned there that you're in Jamaica, too. And you did mention Ian Fleming. Tell us a bit more about the literary tradition of the Caribbean and also the Caribbean diaspora, those people who have left the Caribbean and might live in other places in the world. Ruth: That's a good question. The Caribbean has a long, rich tradition of storytelling. In fact, we have had four Nobel laureates and three of those are in literature, including Sir Derek Walcott from St. Lucia, V.S. Naipaul from Trinidad and Tobago, and in recent times, we've had Marlon James… Joanna: Oh, yeah. Ruth: … who won the Man Booker Prize, and he's living overseas. We've had Olive Senior who's a Jamaican living in Canada. So we've had a long, rich literary tradition. In school, we have story writing competitions, creative writing competitions from as young as five years old. And we have a number of literary festivals, you have the Bocas Lit Festival, the AFW in Montserrat, NIFCA in Barbados, and we have our own here in Jamaica, where we have this annual festival where persons participate and win awards. So it goes back a long, long, long time. But we still have more oral tradition. And more and more people need to write and publish their story, especially ordinary people doing extraordinary things because for a long time, those who've written, it's those who've had access to, it's more like maybe the elites. I want more and more ordinary Caribbean people to write because our history, our context, lends itself to rich resource. Even Marlon James, and others, they've won prizes for documenting Caribbean history or colonial history, our varied multicultural history, Afro Caribbean history, those kinds of things make for rich, storytelling material. Joanna: I think you're exactly right. And this is one of the exciting things, I think, about the internet. Being an indie author, you can write whatever story you like, set in whatever place you like. And you can, as you say, be a more of a normal person, as opposed to someone who might have access to a lot of education or a specific publishing tradition. I think you're exactly right there. Let's talk about it from the reader's perspective. And also, I guess, for authors, you mentioned you're a bookworm. I also read Nancy Drew, and the Hardy Boys and all that. How do people read or listen? Tell us a bit about that, so the listeners understand how it all works. What is the reading ecosystem like in the Caribbean? Ruth: If we love your work, we will get it in all formats that are available. So whether it's the e-book or the print, but I find that they're still a strong…what's the term there? Leaning. There's a strong leaning to print books. As much as we promote the e-books and say, get the pre-order or order e-books, people still are in love with print. But right now we are able to access and read books in all formats. We have quite a number of bookstores. But the bookstores very often, it's more for educational literature and things like that. And you have some of the small independent stores. So you have quite a number of those. But COVID has changed things. So those who were reluctant to go digital, now have to do that. Even our libraries, our national libraries, they're more now collecting digital works. So there is a shift taking place from the physical bookstore which is popular to now taking on digital. Joanna: And then if people want to buy print online, what online stores do they use for that? Ruth: The most popular bookstore in the world! Joanna: Is it the amazon.com store, the U.S. store? Ruth: Yes, the amazon.com. And for those in the diaspora, those in Canada, amazon.ca, but primarily Amazon, and then there are those I know who use Google Books. But primarily the dominant one, when Caribbean people think of publishing digitally, is Amazon. Joanna: I thought that would be true. Tell people a bit more about the geography of the region, because I feel like people lump everything together. It's like there are some islands. Jamaica is a big one. Tell us a bit more about the geography because I find it fascinating. Ruth: We're close to North America. So you find many of our islands close to Florida. And it's in the Greater Antilles portion there. So if you think of the U.S., if you think of even Trinidad is close to Venezuela, so it's right there. The Caribbean waters are close to North America. Joanna: I think the main thing is that there are lots of different islands. And obviously, each one has its own set of traditions and all of that. It's an interesting region. You have a stated goal as part of your business to make the Caribbean the home of indie publishing, which I love. Why do you think indie first publishing for the Caribbean? Ruth: I think a major part of that is that we don't have a lot of traditional publishers in the Caribbean, there are a few publishing houses. You have Nehesi, I think that one is out of St. Martin. You have Caribbean Reads out of St. Kitts, you had like Ian Randall, Longman, Arawak, but they tend to specialize more in educational materials. Persons who want to produce other kinds of books, there isn't enough traditional publishers. We don't have a lot of traditional publishing houses available. So very often, if persons want a traditional publishing deal, they have to go overseas. One of my friends, Dr. Sharma Taylor, she just wanted a two book traditional deal, but it is with a publishing company in the UK, Virago. So you find that access to publishing because traditional publishing was dominant, you didn't have much access to it. Even when traditional publishing was flourishing, Caribbean people, when they say ‘I want to publish a book,' they are looking to pay somebody to publish the book, when they say a publisher, it's somebody that they're paying. So we naturally think that way. I did a poll recently and I said, ‘Can you tell me of a Caribbean author who's won a traditional deal since 2015?' And very few persons could answer that, apart from some of the big names like Marlon James and others, who got those deals. The natural thing is, ‘I'm going to pay somebody to publish my book.' That's what we've been doing for many, many years, I want us to embrace that. Since we have the digital publishing revolution, to make that something that we are known for, just like we are known for sports, I want the Caribbean to be like the creative capital of the world, and just dominate this field. Joanna: I love that. I love your ambition, it's very, very good. But it's also we should say, I guess that Jamaica is part of the Commonwealth. Ruth: Yes. Joanna: So, when people sign traditional deals, it might well be for UK Commonwealth, and that includes a whole load of countries all over the world. In the bookstores, are you really seeing a lot of books published out of the UK? Ruth: I really cannot answer that because most of my purchase is online. But what I find in the bookstore is a lot of popular North American literature. So we have the T.D. Jakes or you would have like Nora Roberts or anybody who is a hit, the Stephen Kings and others. Those are the books that go in the bookstore. Because the bookstores want to make money, they're not going to carry books that have unknown authors that are just going to sit there. Joanna: Absolutely. You started your ‘Authorpreneur Secrets' podcast, which I've been on and also you have courses that help other authors, and you've been doing a lot of research around this. And obviously yourself, you have a lot of books. What are the biggest things you've learned about being an indie author? Ruth: Joanna, as I would say, in Jamaica, 'nuff work,' it is a lot of work. So there's more in it than you think. Sometimes authors think that because it's not a traditional publishing deal and process that may take 18 months, they think that they can just publish a book in two months. They rush the process, and that really irks me, it's a mistake that I made, but they underestimate, or we underestimate the amount of work that it takes and the fact that we need to take charge of or take responsibility for our publishing success. I find that it's a steep learning curve. Many persons are still not aware of what it is and what the process entails. Because they don't know that they fall for the scams, because we're willing to pay, we're willing to pay to market and a lot of stuff. So I find that is a major challenge, taking ownership and just understanding the nuts and bolts of it, we are far away from mastering this. Every week I get calls about it, from doctors, lawyers, you name it, they still don't understand independent publishing or self-publishing, and they're making a lot of mistakes. We all need a guide on this journey. Joanna: And we've all been there, right? Like you said at the beginning, you did the same mistakes, I made mistakes. We've all made the mistakes at the beginning. Is it just that the market for what the indie author ecosystem, I guess, in the Caribbean, is just very new? Are you one of the only people talking about this? Ruth: It's new, but I'm not the only person. My friend Narissa Golden from Montserrat, she was publishing independently from 1998. So I'm not the only one, but it is still like day one. We have other groups in Jamaica who are doing it. But I find that in Jamaica and other Caribbean islands, I find that it is still very, very new. So more education needs to take place, which is why I started the podcast. And now, I have a publishing school for teens, because we have writing clubs, but no publishing clubs. So it is still very much new to many of us. It's developing. And what I find is that we're not just doing it the traditional way, as in depending on book sales, we are using the books as a platform. That is part of our economic empowerment. Because after we sell the first 200 books, because of our economic challenges, we don't have the money to pump into Amazon ads and that kind of thing. So we do more creative marketing with our books and use it to open doors to get our message to the masses. Joanna: I think everyone is now going ‘What? What is this creative marketing?' Because a lot of people can't afford ads anymore. It's not just Caribbean authors, it's a lot of people. So I'm really interested in that. What type of creative marketing are you doing and encouraging others to do? Ruth: For me, marketing is easy because it is adding value to people. It is connecting with others and helping to serve and solve a problem while bringing visibility to that. All nonfiction books solve a problem. If you have an audience with a problem, and you have valuable information, then all you need to do is to try to reach them. What we do is to take the content out of the book and reach persons and we do events, so webinars, summits, and we have these gatherings like over the weekend. I was part of a farewell celebration, goodbye party for the former head of the Caribbean Graduate School of Theology. Within that forum were leaders and he asked me to pitch my book. It's a low content book, the legacy journal and talk about the fact that we need to write and publish more. So in giving him a gift of my books, I gave him three of my books, I was able now to pitch that. Through events and when your events are around your book, then you're marketing without even knowing it. The ‘Authorpreneur Secrets' podcast is a book podcast. The Caribbean Authorpreneur Summit is a summit based on my book ‘Authorpreneur Secrets.' So you just have to come up with ways to serve and reach the people, give them information. And then you just say, ‘By the way, I have a book.' Not saying it comes easy. Joanna: I do think that message of serving the audience is exactly right. And that's obviously what we do with this show. You mentioned earlier that you're an introvert, and you do summits and webinars and events and the podcast, you do YouTube videos. For people listening who feel like, as an introvert, they don't want to do a lot of this stuff, what would you say to them? Ruth: You can get somebody to try to help you. But you and I know about the power of email marketing, and the strategy of, for example, writing multiple books and having first free in the series. So if you have your website, that can be passively building your reader tribe, you have something to give away. You can focus on content marketing, with eBooks, and you can have somebody manage at least one social media page for you to put a post. One of my authors has a social media manager who does her Instagram and everything, she's not necessarily there. Seth Godin talks about the tribe, you want to get your first 1,000 true fans. So I would say build a community and it doesn't need for you to be in front of the audience to do that. Offer valuable information, giveaway, have a free book, first free in the series, or something of the sort, and then passively draw people to you and communicate with them via email using a newsletter and things like that. Joanna: Great. The tried-and-true methods, I think are good too. And this is what I find so funny. People will say, ‘Oh, I can't do ads, so I can't do marketing.' And I'm like, ‘Look, I have a book on marketing, How To Market a Book.' There are two pages on ads, there are 300 pages on everything else. It's like people forget these basics of marketing that actually underpin what most of us do for most of our work. Right? Ruth: Right. Because of how marketing has been pitched you think that it is paying for advertisement, it is putting out a trailer. I like what Tim Grahl says in terms of his definition for marketing, it is serving people and connecting with them, getting permission to connect with them, and being relentlessly helpful. If you think of being relentlessly helpful, and finding people to help, then you're automatically getting the word out there, and you personally don't have to do it. One of my authors, he didn't want to do the promotion for his book, and he's a pastor. He got some of the church members to form a group, and they did the promotion for him. So he only had to show up to his book launch and a couple of things. But he had a team, you have to have a team. Like you, I don't like the term self-publishing, because it's like it's all on you. There's an African proverb that says, if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together. Get at least one other person to work with you, and you'll be able to get it done. Joanna: Yes, of course, most of us have freelancers we work with, cover designers and editors and all of this kind of thing. You're exactly right. I wanted to also ask about the mindset, I guess, of Caribbean authors. As you said, it's kind of day one, it's the beginning and there's a lot of views as to how things are or how they used to be. What would you say to anyone listening? How would you encourage people listening who might be feeling the industry doesn't represent them, it might not be for them? Ruth: What I recommend is that you understand the power of a book. Because a book gives you authority. It gives you voice, it brings attention and awareness to a practical cause. It's a vehicle for your vision. What is your vision? And how could a book get that across? One of the things I want to emphasize is getting your story out. Your story is like a testimony, and someone's destiny is tied to your book, someone's deliverance, I would say, is tied to your book because I know what books have done for me. While there are challenges in the industry, focus on purpose and helping someone. I believe when you make this bigger than you and you have an objective, a goal, a purpose that is bigger than you, then you gain the courage to do the hard work. Because, as you said, in our interview, Joanna, the future is about diverse people, diverse stories from various parts of the world. And there are people waiting to hear from us. People find the Caribbean fascinating and the other thing is that you don't want your history and your culture, the experiences to die with you. So a large part of why I encourage people to write is for legacy building. There are books that have been written just like the Bible, hundreds of years ago, that are still impacting me. Your story might just be the story that connects with somebody and move them closer towards their destiny, you want the future generations to know about our rich history and tell it the right way. Because history is always told from the point of view of the conqueror. We need to tell our own stories, so I would say, get a larger vision, understand the power of a book, and get your feet wet. You don't have to be a writing genius. That's what editors are for and other persons. I had, for example, a 90-year-old who, her daughter and myself, we worked on her book and got her story out at 90 years old. And so many persons love that book. So think about it like that. Joanna: I think that's a really good message. And I feel, like you say, you don't have to be a writing genius. You can be a Jamaican author without being Marlon James, you know, winning the Booker Prize. Ruth: Yes. Joanna: In the same way I can be a British author without winning the Booker Prize. I think we've pretty much claimed him now because I think he lives here. Ruth: Yes, he's in the diaspora. Joanna: Yeah, he is. But I think it's also important because of course, you're in the Caribbean, but there are listeners listening all over the world. We have listeners, for example, in Papua New Guinea, and authors in Kenya, or in various countries in Southeast Asia, countries where perhaps in the same way, voices haven't been heard so much. So I think this is so important. And your story, whatever you want to tell, it doesn't have to be about the deep and meaningful side of things either, does it? It can just be a fun book or a romance, or a thriller, or a horror novel. I don't think I've read a horror novel by a Caribbean author unless…you could say Marlon James's book did have some horror elements. Are there many genre fiction writers in the Caribbean? Or do you think it's mainly focused on a lot of nonfiction at the moment? Ruth: It's a blend. It's really a blend, like my friend who just got the traditional deal. It's creative writing, it's fiction. So you have various kinds of books. It's not just nonfiction. I find especially like children's books, what I find is that those from the diaspora is as if they have nostalgia. They are constantly writing about life in the Caribbean, whether they put that in fiction, whether it's horror, whether it is any of the other genres. One of my friends wrote a novel about ‘In My Blood,' and it's really paranormal, that kind of thing, but she uses the Caribbean setting. And in that book, ‘The Diaspora' she speaks about Canada. Caribbean authors have a way of blending everything together. And our culture lends to that thing about you know, we call them ‘duppy' stories. We're always telling ghost stories. And so it's very rich. It's not one side. Because I specialize in non-fiction, doesn't mean that others are not writing those stories. In fact, there was a girl I can't remember her name, but her book, she won a movie deal, self-published, but it's that kind of blend we mix up all of those things. The spiritual is not necessarily divorced from the natural and so you have those blending in worlds. Joanna: In terms of marketing people's books globally. When I started writing and self-publishing, I was living in Australia, and there were 20 million people in Australia, obviously not all of them readers. And so I decided that my primary marketing activity would be to the U.S.A., because they have a lot of people and a lot of readers and a developed online market. So I have always primarily marketed in the U.S. Presumably, the Caribbean isn't a big enough area on its own to sustain much of a career in terms of sales. Should authors in the Caribbean be marketing to the U.S. or the Caribbean diaspora? Ruth: You're so correct, what I find is that they are tapping into U.S., UK, Canada, primarily. That is where the reach is, and it makes sense even back home most of our, what is it though, the funds that come back home, it's really from the diaspora, so a big part of our economic support, GDP, that kind of thing comes from people in the diaspora. So it makes sense to market to them. Again, like I say about that nostalgia, I'm helping an author and her book is about Don Quixote, and many of the books are based on life in the Caribbean, experience in the Caribbean. It makes sense to market to those wider markets, where you can have resonance. And just Jamaica alone, we have about 5 million Jamaicans living in the diaspora and our population is almost 3 million on the island. So it makes sense to market in those regions. Joanna: Absolutely. And you're so right about that nostalgia, it's very true. Even where I used to live in Clapham in London, which was right next to Brixton, and obviously, a lot of Caribbean culture, and a lot of talking about ‘back home,' even though some people were born in England, for example. So I think you're right, that kind of diasporas is a very good market. Ruth: Agreed. Joanna: Coming back to the theology at the beginning, because I think a lot of people of faith, and you've mentioned some of the people you work with, pastors and things like that, a lot of people of faith want to write books, either about their faith or not necessarily directly about their faith, but they want to represent their faith in some way. How do you encourage writers of faith to portray their work? Is it a specific market? Or do you want to be wider than that? Ruth: I love this question. What I encourage them to do, there's a thing in Jamaica, in Caribbean churches, when we have testimony time, there's all ears about what God has done in our lives. What I push is that you take the testimony from the four walls to the world. So your book could be about you as a Christian businessperson. But within that, you may have a single or two paragraphs that just captures your testimony of how you came to faith, or how your faith principles have helped you to overcome issues. And so that's the kind of blend I say, put your expertise there, and tell your story, and put it in there. But don't let it be, that it is, like the central focus. For example, with my own self, I have a book called Keys to Win at Life. It's about 100 problem-solving strategies, 100 Proverbs, and application of these success principles, and I only shared my testimony of coming to faith in two paragraphs, and yet somebody read that book and came to faith. So you have to have the wisdom to do that. Some of them write devotionals, and it's kind of like inspirational self-help, where the basis for the help, they have a biblical foundation. I can't find the right words. But it's not just preaching, preaching, preaching, you're telling real-life stories like giving a testimony, this is what I've been through. And this is how my faith has helped me whether in business, my career, my marriage, you name it, and these are the lessons learned. People are more open to that and they have a greater appetite for that. And so you get to tell what I call God stories. In a subtle way, you are evangelizing, and people will come to faith. Joanna: I think this is really important because again, it's so funny, you mentioned the testimony time. I've been to churches like this. And people will be happy to stand up and talk about how they came to faith or what God has done for them. And they can feel confident that their story is unique, and that people will listen to them. They might not listen for too long! Everyone has their story. And this is the same thing about writing a book. Everyone has their story. And it might be the same. It might be a romance, it might be a thriller, or whatever. It might be a nonfiction book about how they came to faith. But your story is the thing that matters. Yes, there might be millions of other books on the same topic. But your story, it hasn't been told yet. It's funny how people don't think about that in a different environment, isn't it? Yet they accept it in one environment and not in another. Ruth: I agree. I started a series called ‘Untold Stories' because of this. Very often we don't see the beauty and the abundance that is around us. And so you have others who come to our territory, and we don't understand our value and our worth. I think we're still suffering from ‘Europe is better, North America is better' because of colonialism. So there is still that ‘We're not good enough.' You undervalue your story, you undervalue your experience not understanding that sometimes, it is your story told in your voice that will resonate with other people who are just like you. They may hear it from 10 different sources, but because they can identify with you, they are more open to receive the truth that others are offering. But now, it's being told in a language they can understand by people who are familiar to them. I always say you need to tell your story, because each person's audience is different and your story will resonate with somebody that other people reading the same material, it wouldn't resonate with them. So we need to value our own stories and share them. There's beauty and abundance in our culture. There's beauty and abundance in your story. Scripturally we talk about, can anything good come out of Nazareth? I think very often the Caribbean, we see ourselves like a Nazareth. And we have to inherently believe in our ‘somebody-ness' and share that with the world. Joanna: I know that biblical quote, but I've been to Nazareth. I think Jamaica is a lot nicer! It's so funny because, you're right. A lot of British people, they dream of the Caribbean, during lock-down everyone just wants the Caribbean. So everyone wants to come to your home. One more question before we are out of time. You started a podcast, you started a YouTube channel, you are putting out a lot of content. And as I said, you put yourself on the screen, you put your voice out there. Have you learned anything that might help people who want to do those things, because I know there's a bit of a learning curve, isn't there? Has all that content creation been worth it for you? Ruth: It has been absolutely worth it. Books have opened doors for me. I've been invited to places I never dreamt. I'm on this podcast because I wrote a book. So I want to say that the world is waiting. When you understand the power of a book and what it will do for you, then you'll be able to get past the trepidation and the fear. Books transform not only other people's lives but your life. Let me just put just this little story in there. I went from a donor support missionary, depending on people's generosity to survive, to be able to make a full-time living and be self-supporting because I wrote a book. And I understood that if you're able to leverage the book, then you can create greater impact and income faster than even just selling the book. I've seen people, the impact the book has on them, when they read it, some of them cry. Some of them talk about the healing and the deliverance. I just want to say despite the challenges, there are people to help you, like I have my company, we're launching Bumblesparks by the time this comes out. Someone's deliverance or destiny is tied to your book. Don't keep them waiting. Write it now. Joanna: Where can people find you and everything you do online? Ruth: They can find me at Extra MILE, that's extramileja.com. Joanna: Fantastic. Thanks so much for your time Ruth, that was great. Ruth: Thank you for having me Joanna. It was a blast.The post Self-Publishing In Jamaica And The Caribbean And The Importance Of Diverse Voices With C. Ruth Taylor first appeared on The Creative Penn.

Feb 7, 2022 • 56min

Book Marketing Tips For The Long Term With John Kremer

John Kremer's 1001 Ways to Market Your Book was the first book I ever bought on marketing way back when I started self-publishing in 2008. He has revised it several times since and is still a prolific content creator around book marketing. I'm thrilled to discuss long-term book marketing for authors in this interview. In the intro, Best Book Promotion Sites for 2022 [David Gaughran]; Dean Koontz talks craft and publishing [Writers Ink]; Indie Authors and the Creator Economy [ALLi]; What to give up [SJ Pajonas]. Today's show is sponsored by Draft2Digital, where you can get free ebook formatting, free distribution to multiple stores, and a host of other benefits. Get your free Author Marketing Guide at www.draft2digital.com/penn John Kremer is the author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books, as well as other nonfiction titles, and founder of the Billion Book Initiative. Over the past 37 years, he has helped thousands of authors, including me, to sell more books. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes Why time in the market is so important Building relationships as the key to long-term book marketing Pitching vs attraction marketing How to decide what to focus on with marketing — because you can't do everything! Why we both love audio and podcasting for marketing How do you know when to give up on a particular way of marketing? Ideas for Substack email Streams of income from your book Take one marketing action a day — and keep going You can find John Kremer at BookMarketingBestsellers.com and on Twitter @JohnKremer Transcript of Interview with John Kremer Joanna: John Kremer is the author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books, as well as other nonfiction titles, and founder of the Billion Book Initiative. Over the past 37 years, he has helped thousands of authors, including me, to sell more books. Welcome, John. John: Thanks a lot, Joanna. Joanna: I'm so excited to talk to you. And you were one of the first people I learned about marketing from, back in 2008, when I self-published my first book. In case people don't know you, tell us a bit more about your writing and publishing background. John: I can't believe it took you 20 years to find me, since I've been publishing since 1984 or 1986, I forget which now. I think it was 1984 when I first started publishing, and writing about publishing and marketing books. So it's been a while. People find me when they are ready to do something. And that's what you hope will happen with your book, whichever kind of book you're publishing, you hope that when people are ready to find an entertaining read, they find your novel, or they're finding a book for their kids and they find your children's book. Your goal is to stay out there long enough that the people that need you or want you or hope to find you actually do find you. Joanna: Absolutely. We'll circle back to that, but just on your own writing journey, way back in 1984. Why did you get into publishing in the first place? What is it about the book industry that you love? John: I was writing books, and I wanted to get them out somehow. And so, at first, I was just pitching to different publishers, but you know how that goes with a lot of authors. It's like, if you're not well-known, the publisher doesn't pay attention to you. So I decide to self-publish, and then I found, well, gosh, there's nothing out there about how to get your books printed. Back when I started out, we didn't have print-on-demand. We didn't have Amazon. What we had is book printers that called themselves short-run book printers, which meant, ‘We'll print 10,000 copies for you,' when, as a poor starving artist, you don't want to print more than 500 or 1,000. So I created a directory of book printers. That was one of my first books, because I needed it. That's how a lot of us end up writing a book, is because we actually need the information. Joanna: That's amazing. So, you wrote that nonfiction book, and self-publishing back then, obviously, was just the print copies. 1001 Ways to Market Your Books is on its sixth edition, I think? John: Actually, it's on the seventh edition, the ‘Real World Edition.' Joanna: The ‘Real World Edition.' Oh, okay. Why did you call it the ‘Real World Edition?' John: Because, for the most part, I took out the information about marketing online, because the book would've been too big with all of that information. So I wrote a book about how to market in the real world. How to work with bookstores, how to get distribution, how to do publicity, how to get on TV or radio, get into magazines, things like that. I spent a lot of time actually writing about marketing in the real world. I was planning to do a follow-up book on marketing online, but the world has chased me around like a little rabbit or something, and I haven't gotten to it yet. I've done little pieces of it. But the reality is online marketing changes so quickly that you sometimes wonder whether or not it's worth writing a book like that. And quite honestly, I just haven't gotten to it yet. Joanna: It's interesting you say that, because there are a lot of things that change so fast, but some things stay the same. What has stayed the same since you wrote that first edition in terms of marketing principles, or overarching strategies? John: The key thing that you need to still do is connect with people that can help you. Connect with the distributors, the editors, the producers of TV shows, the bloggers, the podcasters, and so on. The one thing I did include in the ‘Real World Edition' was a step-by-step process of how to go about connecting with important people, either offline or online. There is a really core principle in the ‘Real World Edition,' that also does apply to online marketing, in a very, very core way, because your main job is still to connect with the people who already have the audience you want to reach. Joanna: As an introvert, and I know many of my listeners are introverts. Do you have any tips for those of us who are introverts and do not do phone calls? John: Basically, I recommend that you connect with people through email. That's something that even us shy introverts can do. You start by their social media, you start commenting on what they're writing about, what they're doing. You start to try to make some sort of connection. Then, at some point along that line, you actually send out an email to them. And again, as you said, you're an intro…or, I don't know if you're an introvert or you're just speaking for all the introverts of the world. Joanna: Oh, I definitely am. John: Because I don't feel that you are. But the thing is that you have to connect with people more than once. If you send out one email and you say, ‘Okay, I did my job of marketing my book. The world's going to come and find me and they're going to march and buy my book through some magic process that I don't know…' The reality is that that magic process doesn't exist unless you make it happen. So, you do have to, and you have to persist. You have to try to connect. If you don't connect the first time, you try again. You really have to be a little bit obnoxious. Joanna: Maybe persistent? John: And for the introverts in the world, you have to be a whole lot of obnoxious, more than you're comfortable with, to some extent, to connect with the people that you want to connect with. Now, the minute you connect with one person, it's almost like then the magic starts to happen. There is actually some magic that, if you connect with one top influencer, and they write about your book, chances are that other influencers follow that influencer, and they go, ‘Okay. If he's going to interview him on his podcast, I want him on my podcast.' And that kind of thing happens, and they start to reach out to you. But you have to get the doors open, and that means you gotta connect with at least several influencers that actually say, ‘Yes, I'd love to do something with you. I'd like to have you on my TV show. I'd like to write an article in a magazine, and feature your book.' Whatever it might be. ‘I'd like to do a podcast. I'll blog about you.' Whatever it might be, you know, something like that. It happens that people will reach out to you. I was reminded about you and your books because you advertise on Amazon, connecting with my name and my book. At least you show up there. Joanna: Yes, exactly. It's interesting, because I was going to say to you, so, I don't pitch. Over the last 15 years, I have barely pitched anyone. What I decided to do was go the attraction marketing route, which was build something where people come to me. That's basically what has happened with this podcast, is that people pitch me. So it's kind of the other way around, because I just hated that whole pitching thing. I guess that's another option, is the attraction marketing, the content marketing, building a blog or a podcast that bring people to you. John: Yes. And I do follow that very specifically. My bookmarketingbestsellers.com website has probably 1,000 articles on it now, trying to attract people to find out about me, things like that, then they connect with me and so on. Now, I knew about you for what? Since 2008, I presume, and…somehow it seems longer than that. Joanna: That's the world now! John: I knew about you, and then, for something I was doing…I was doing some research, and so I was looking to see who was advertising on my book page for 1001 Ways to Market Your Books. And I saw your books, and I saw you had a book about audio marketing for authors. And I was going, ‘Okay. That's something I'm working on right now.' I reached out to you to interview you. Your passive marketing worked in that way. But you're not really passive marketing when you're doing advertising on Amazon, which I think almost every author should do, especially an unknown author, because it's one way to get people to notice you. Joanna: Absolutely. And I should say on that, that I do pay a freelancer (at Reedsy) to manage my Amazon advertising, because I'm not so into all the data stuff myself. So, yes, I agree. Doing it is very important, but many authors struggle with those skills. Would that be another tip? Hire professionals to help you if you can't or don't want to do it yourself? John: Yes. Hire somebody. If you don't like doing that particular activity or you don't want to do it, or you don't have the time to do it, then hire somebody that can do it. But that costs some money. And for most authors, they have actually more time than money. But the neat thing about advertising on something like Amazon, or Facebook, or Google or wherever you might want to advertise, is that most online marketing, you can set a budget, even a small budget, $10 a week or $25 a week, and at least test the market and see if by advertising you make book sales, or you make connections, or in some way, it helps you move along in your goal to become a bestselling author. And you can actually target, like you do on Amazon. You target the people that are trying to find me, or my book. And as a result, they also find your book. And that's a beautiful tie-in. I really like creating relationships, whether it's in that passive way, through advertising on Amazon, or it's a more aggressive way, where you're trying to reach out to people. A lot of authors, as you say, are introvert, they love nothing better than to sit in their room and write books, and they don't want to be spending the time doing the marketing that, quite honestly, needs to be done. In some way, again, you can use your passive way, or the attractive model, which works sometimes, and sometimes doesn't work. But I think authors have to be a little bit more aggressive than they want to be. Joanna: I think the title of your book, 1001 Ways to Market Your Books, demonstrates how many options there are. And I feel like a lot of authors get overwhelmed with all the possibilities of what can be done, and perhaps what should be done. How does an author decide what to focus on and what to ignore, and to pick a handful of things that they can become good at? John: The criteria for what you do to market your book, I can give you some of the criteria. One is you have to be able to afford it. So, you're not going to probably hire a plane to fly over a beach and say, ‘Buy my book' or something like that, because that's expensive. You're probably not going to hire a $10,000 a month publicist. You have to work within your budget, whatever that is. The second thing, you have to have the time to do it. So, if there's something that takes an incredible amount of time, you're probably not going to do it. But there are things you can do that don't take a lot of time, and that's what you would try to do. Now, beyond that, you have to look at, ‘What connections do I have? Who do I know?' Because that's one criteria. Now, ideally, if you've been writing a book, you've found out about some of the other thought leaders in the area that you're writing about, whether it's a children's book author, or a novelist, or non-fiction. And so, you reach out to them if you can. But you try to make the connections early. Tim Ferris, when he did The 4-hour Workweek, he started by just connecting with internet marketers, because he thought internet marketers, they're lazy, so they'd like my book about working four hours a week. And they did. They fell in love with it. He went to a lot of internet marketing conferences, and he just went up to people and said, ‘How can I help you?' So he didn't say, ‘How can you help me?' He went in and said, ‘How can I help you?' He'd take people out for drinks or out to dinner, and he'd just talk to them, and talk about what he's working on in the conversation, he was mainly asking him about them and what they were doing and how they were working, but he also would mention what he was doing with his book. By the time he was ready to publish his book, he had several hundred internet marketers with big mailing lists, ready to talk about his book. It actually started selling so well that major media started going, ‘What is this book? Why is it selling?' And they'd reach out to him. He eventually, I think within the first couple weeks of his book being out, he had some major TV shows wanting to interview him. But it started with his online marketing and his connections with a lot of people that had big lists that they mailed out to. Joanna: You're right. I remember that. And Gary Vaynerchuk as well was just coming into his first book at that time. And, of course, both Tim and Gary are now absolutely huge in the online space and… John: Right. And have huge audiences and are top influencers on their own. Joanna: You said right at the beginning there, it's about also staying out there long enough that people notice what you do, or they eventually look for what you do. John: That's one reason that I actually say that you should think about marketing… If you love the book you wrote, spend three years marketing it. That doesn't mean you spend full-time marketing your book. You go out there and at least do one thing a day for that book for three years. You think it's something you do. You send out an email to somebody, you do a podcast episode, which you talked about it as being one of the passive ways to do things. Right now, that's what I'm writing about. I'm trying to teach people how to start up their own podcast, and how to get noticed through that podcast. Because a lot of authors, I tell them, ‘Do a podcast.' And they don't. Joanna: It is hard work. John: I'm creating a course through email, and I'm sending it out to them through my paid email newsletter on Substack. And what I do is I tell them, ‘Here's the first step. Here's what you have to do to set up your podcast. It's not that complicated.' And then I'm going to be teaching them how to syndicate that podcast, which you love, because it's passive. Once you create a podcast and you set up the syndication, all you have to do is create more episodes, because the syndication will take place automatically. And that's one of the really, really neat things about doing a podcast. You can have a podcast be on top 20 websites, like Apple Podcasts, and Google Play, and Spotify, and so on. You just syndicate them, and boom, every episode you do will show up on those platforms. And you don't have to necessarily do the marketing. People can discover your podcast through their favorite podcast listening tool. And for most people, that's iTunes, but Spotify is making a big, big push. Joanna: Actually, I think Spotify has overtaken Apple now, Apple Podcasts, in quite a few markets. [TechCrunch] John: Oh, wow. Joanna: I've certainly changed my listening to Spotify. And I think, just even more from what you're saying is that what has changed in even the last 18 months is the voice recognition is so good now. SEO (search engine optimization) for voice is really starting to work. When I'm interested in a topic, whereas I used to go on Google and search for an article, now I go on Spotify and I type in a title or something, like keywords, and then I find podcast episodes on that topic. So, I'm actually using Spotify as a search engine for audio. And they also feed in transcripts now. So, all of my whole transcripts go in, which, as you know, is very good for search engine optimization. So, you're exactly right. It's only getting better for audio. John: Well, and the thing is that Spotify, they're really, even now, today, still trying to build up their podcast listening audience, because they make a lot of money in the advertising versus within the podcast. It's become a major source of income for them, so they're actually trying to grow their podcasting platform. It's a great time to get in and to syndicate your podcast on iTunes and Spotify and other places. Because, even on Amazon, Audible is looking for more podcasts. Because to them, it's free content. Joanna: How do you feel about audio versus blogging? When I first started out and found you, it was start a blog, that's the way to get people to discover you. Is it now that the podcast is the new blog, or social media is the new blog, or does blogging and articles still have a purpose? John: They have a purpose because search engines can still discover you that way. But I think, for most authors, they'd be better off doing a podcast at this point. Audio is hot, and the neat thing is that with a podcast, you can also do a video version of your podcast, and put it up on YouTube and Vimeo, and a key source right now is Rumble. Rumble is sort of the free speech alternative. A lot of people think Rumble is just a political platform, but it isn't. The most popular videos on Rumble are about dogs. Joanna: Oh, wow. That's just like YouTube, the beginning days of YouTube, when everyone's like, ‘Oh, it's just, like, funny cat videos.' And now it's obviously not. John: Right. And the thing is that if I were starting off in video, just plain old video, my first choice would be Rumble because it's sort of like YouTube in its beginning days, when you could actually get discovered on YouTube. Nowadays, what do they do is something like a million videos a day, new ones, or something like that. So it's really competitive. Will people find you? They might, but in the old days, YouTube used to have this wonderful algorithm that if you played off of a popular video that was already on YouTube, they would discover your video as well. And it would be one of the top videos on the sidebar. That's no longer the case on YouTube. So often, I'll be searching for something on YouTube, I'll find one video, but I'll look at that one and all the other videos are totally unrelated to the video I'm watching. Joanna: They're probably paid ads or something. That video thing is what's kind of happening on TikTok, is people are relating videos and responding on videos. This does bring me to another point. You said that in the old days, which was classic because you could just mean last year at this point, when we, again, when I found you, MySpace was still around, which, of course, went the way of the Dodo. And some people say Facebook's maybe on its way out, and even Instagram, people moving to TikTok, and maybe blogs are gone, and blah, blah, blah. We just can't keep up with all this stuff. It is not practical for authors to just keep up. I'm not going anywhere near TikTok. Just not doing it. And I don't blog anymore. I'm focused on podcasting. How do we know when to let something go? Because it's almost like that sunk cost fallacy. It's like, ‘Oh, but I've been building my platform here or doing this for a decade. I just don't want to give it up.' How do we know when we need to give up one way of marketing and find another one? John: When it's not producing results is one of the best ways to know. If you're not selling books any longer through that particular platform or whatever you're doing, nobody's discovering you, nobody's emailing you, things like that, then you know that, ‘Okay. What I'm doing now isn't working.' I have a lot of friends that are in internet marketing, so I'm pretty in touch with people there, and one of the things they're telling me is that Facebook advertising isn't working anymore. Not like in the old days. Again, there was a time when you could run a Facebook ad and you could sell a thousand of almost anything. It was like you were reaching out then, the Facebook ads were reaching people. But that's not really happening now. Not in the same way that it was. I don't see as many ads when I go to visit Facebook as I used to. I'm not sure quite what Facebook is doing to make money, but I'm sure they're still making money. Even in Facebook, they're going more and more towards virtual spaces and Oculus and things like that. That will be a new frontier at some point, but I don't think there are very many authors who are selling books by tweeting. Twitter used to be a hot platform, but I don't hear about many authors who are actually selling books that way. Joanna: For me, Twitter comes back to what you talked about at the beginning, which is connection. Most of my author friends are people I met on Twitter. Many of my paid speaking engagements have come from Twitter. Because Twitter is my number one social platform, that's what I focused on since 2009 when I joined. So, for me, it's the top of my funnel. John: Hey, if it's still working, then you use it. I don't get any traffic from Twitter. I check my websites to see how people are coming to it. My top referral engine is the search engines. My second referral, and probably very close to being equal, and some days surpassing, is Pinterest. Joanna: That's interesting. I do use some Pinterest. Do you use it a lot, Pinterest? John: It depends on how you mean a lot. I pin probably three times a week. John: But if you know how to pin, if you know what to pin, you can get a lot of traffic through Pinterest. I created a course about Pinterest, ‘Real Fast Social Graphics,' that I partnered with Daniel Hall on. Most of the content is mine, but Daniel's got all the connections. I talked about connecting with people. I use Daniel for that, because he loves doing that part of the promotion, and I love creating the content. So it's a great partnership. Find a partnership like that for yourself. Somebody that loves doing some marketing aspect that you don't like to do, and you do the other part, and you guys work together, and you make a sale or something like that. I'm doing something now, coming up, I have a friend, Rudy Shur, he's a publisher at Square One Publishing. And he publishes a number of books on writing and marketing. So, he and I and a few other people are going to partner together to co-op market, market each other, market a book, put together a package, something like that. I think that's a great idea. I think all authors should be connecting with other authors, and doing some sort of co-op marketing where you help each other. Joanna: There are quite a lot of newsletter swaps, and blog tours, and that kind of thing. John: I don't think blog tours work anymore. Joanna: Oh, I'm glad you said that. I completely agree. John: I think a podcast tour could work. In other words, you connect with 5 or 10 key podcasts, people who are podcasting in your area, and I would probably approach those podcasters by first saying, ‘I'd like to interview you,' which is what I did with you, and then you said, ‘Well, I want to interview you.' Now, it doesn't always happen that they come out right away and say, ‘Well, let's interview each other.' But once you do an interview with somebody, let's say you interview them, and they had a great time, there's a very good chance that they're going to come back and say, ‘Hey, I want to interview you for my podcast.' Joanna: Yes. Again, that's about that connection. Coming to email, because I signed up for your Substack — https://bookmarketing.substack.com/ — and I feel like one of the principles that I guess we've often had with marketing is it's better to own your own email list, it's better to control your platform, and what if they change the terms and all this. What made you use Substack, and what's your email marketing principle at the moment? John: Subststack.com is a free platform. It doesn't cost anything. You can build up a list of 10,000 people, and they will email for you for free. So, it's a no-brainer to me, because they make their money when you upgrade people to a paid version of your newsletter. On Substack, I have a free newsletter that goes out to thousands of people, and that's free. At least a couple times a week, I'll send out something free. But then I also upgrade them to the paid version and in the paid version, that's where I'm teaching people a lot of the inside secrets that take a little bit longer to get into. So, if you want that inside secrets, if you want my course on how to use Substack to market your books, and how to use podcasting to market your books, you pay me. You sign up for the paid version of the newsletter. It's all run through Substack. The neat thing is that Substack, besides that email capability, and the paid version, which is like a membership site, they also offer podcasting. So you can do your podcasting on Substack, for free. No charge, and it's up and running, and you can syndicate it. They help you get connected with a number of top platforms. I think they do Apple Podcasts, and I think they do Spotify. I forget right now. I'm just working on that lesson now. But they help you connect with at least five of the top podcasting syndication services, the ones that will help get you the exposure you want. Substack, it's all free, because they make their money on taking a piece of the action when you upgrade people to your paid newsletter. And, everybody, I don't care what kind of author you are, whether it's fiction or whatever, there's always an opportunity to upgrade people to a paid version of your newsletter, where they get insider tips. Even if you're writing a novel, I guarantee you that if you're writing fiction and you have three or four books in that fiction series, there are people that are going to want to connect with you personally, and you can connect to them in an insider's club on Substack, where they pay you, say, $30 a year or $5 a month, something like that, and they get special emails from you. They get the opportunity to maybe meet you somewhere, or a Zoom session with you, or whatever it might be, that it's an upgrade. You can do this if you're writing memoirs, children's books, it doesn't matter. People want to make connections with you. The guy that wrote…I think it was Andy Weir. I think that was his name. Joanna: Yeah. Wrote The Martian. John: He started podcasting his book as he was writing it. He got 80,000 people listening to his podcast because he was writing his book, and he said, ‘Well, I'll just podcast it. I'll read it out as I'm writing it.' And he built up such an audience that they said, ‘Andy, you gotta write a book.' [Note from Joanna: Andy Weir blogged his book, not podcasted it. But the same principle applies!] Because at the time, he was just podcasting some thoughts and ideas, initially, and then he started writing the book and podcasting that. He built up the 80,000 readers. They all wanted his book when it was ready to come out. Joanna: Yes. He did really well. And a lot of people use Patreon, including me, which does email people who support you, and I put extra audio and things on there. It's interesting how many of these other options there are. I did want to ask you about this, because, of course, you have built essentially a non-fiction business around one key book, and then obviously, you have tons of other books, and products, and courses, and things. I wondered if you'd talk about what are these multiple streams of income. Because many people think, ‘Oh, I just have to make my income from book sales.' But that's not true, is it? John: The most successful authors don't make all their money just from book sales. They're making it by going out and speaking, and getting paid for speaking, if you're nonfiction. If they're fiction, they're probably selling the rights to their book to make a movie out of, like The Martian, or the kid's book series from the British author. Joanna: Harry Potter has his own theme park, for goodness sake. John: Well, I mean, she became a billionaire, not from selling books. She would've been a millionaire from selling books. She became a billionaire by selling the rights to the movies. And there's a lot of that you can do. Now, for a lot of authors, the best thing you could do is to create some sort of course built around your book. If you're a fiction author, people that read fiction, almost all of them dream at some point about writing a book themselves. So, if nothing else, if you're a fiction author, you could teach people how to publish and become successful with doing a fiction book. You did it. Joanna: That's true. John: You could just take them through the steps of what you did, in terms of marketing your book, and go from there. Children's book authors, the same way. Almost every adult that reads children's books dreams of writing one themselves. And almost everybody has a book inside them of some sort. That's one reason that part of my content that I do in some of my websites has nothing to do with marketing or books in general. It's just a way of attracting people to my website, so they can discover, because I believe almost everybody has a book inside them. So the world is my audience for how to market a book. Now, obviously, not everybody's going to be interested in that, but at some point, I think a lot of people really do dream of writing a book. And why not capture that as soon as you can? And the thing is that a lot of people have discovered my marketing information through the information that I share on… I have a sort of a hobby website called myincrediblewebsite.com. I started out that website just to use it as an example when I was doing a course on how to market online and how to create a website. So I created a website, I made videos about it. I called it ‘My Incredible Website.' Over time, I loved having it, because it's like my hobby website. Everything that doesn't fit into book marketing, I throw on that website. I have a whole section on how to pray, and I'm writing several books on that topic coming up. I share my other hobbies, like, I love TV series, so I actually have a whole set of pages on that website about where TV series are set. Are they in Texas? Are they in Missouri? Are they in Michigan? Things like that. It just fascinates me how people will create a TV series. They're built around a strange town in Washington state, or Oregon, or whatever. So I started collecting that information. I'm a packrat. Joanna: We're almost out of time, but I do want to ask you about this, because if anyone goes to your websites, they are absolutely packed with content. And as you've talked about, you learn something, and you turn it into an article, or a course, or another email, or a book, and even your hobbies, you're turning into other things. I'm the same. I started a second podcast, ‘Books and Travel,' because I love walking and travel and that kind of thing. We take something, we learn something, and we turn it into something else, like the kind of creative thing. I'm in awe of your productivity. How do you manage your time? And this is also a question about marketing. One of the things that people say is, ‘Well, how do I balance my time?' Do you have any productivity tips, since you are incredibly productive? John: I am, but that's just because I'm persistent. I'm actually ADHD in some way. I just jump from one thing to another. It's hard for me to stay focused sometimes and end up finishing a book. The key thing is, if you're going to do marketing, do at least one thing a day. If you do one thing a day, whether it's send out an email, do a podcast episode, get interviewed by somebody else, over time, that's 365 action items a year. If any of them are even targeted a little bit towards reaching out to the audience you want to reach out to, you're going to start to get noticed. Most authors give up marketing after about two weeks. And the thing is, is that you have to do something every day, for every book that you wrote and love. Ideally, at some point, you find somebody that's even better at marketing your books than you are. For me, that was Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen. They loved my book, ‘1001 Ways.' Jack actually has a video where he talks about putting my entire book up on the wall, basically the ideas, and then acting on them, and taking them down as he acted on those ideas. He did five things a day. Most of the time, it was being interviewed or something like that, or reaching out to people that could interview him, because, of course, Chicken Soup for the Soul was a wonderful interview subject because all he had to do is tell one of the stories and people would be bawling on the other side of the line. The first time I heard Jack and Mark speak and they told a story from Chicken Soup for the Soul, the first book, I had tears streaming down my face. I just let it out. It was such a moving story, and it did make me cry. Joanna: And look at that franchise now. That franchise is a juggernaut. John: They've actually, almost close to 800 million books, and I think they're moving up towards a billion. And the thing is that they did what they loved doing. And it was really interesting because they told me, ‘We sent it out to 250 publishers and they all rejected us.' The publishers believed that short stories don't sell. But what the publishers didn't understand is that book was backed by 100 professional speakers. And every one of those speakers had a stake in that book being a success. And boy, it wasn't just Jack and Mark marketing that book. It was 100 speakers, professional speakers, getting out there and saying, ‘This is an incredible book. You should buy it.' Joanna: Absolutely. Right. Well, we could talk all day, but we're out of time. Where can people find you and your books and courses and everything you do online? John: At bookmarketingbestsellers.com. Joanna: Brilliant. Thanks so much for your time, John. That was great. Thank you. John: Joanna, thank you.The post Book Marketing Tips For The Long Term With John Kremer first appeared on The Creative Penn.

Feb 4, 2022 • 1h 9min

The Creative Potential Of NFTs For Authors With J. Thorn And Joanna Penn

J. Thorn and I are both authors and passionate about helping writers find new ways to create, collaborate, reach fans, and make more money in the Creator Economy. We're also both excited about the creative and financial possibilities of emerging blockchain technology, including NFTs. J. Thorn and Joanna (J.F.) Penn in New Orleans, 2017 In this discussion, we cover: Explaining NFTs for non-technical people. Some metaphors that might help. Why are we so excited about NFTs? What are the benefits to authors and other Creators? Why resale of unique digital assets using smart contracts on a blockchain is such a radically new prospect for authors and the publishing industry — and why it could be so exciting for long-term creators who own and control their intellectual propertyWhat are some of the different kinds of NFTs that authors could use — both for fiction and non-fiction? How might AI-generative art and music play a part in that?Fractionalization of royalty rights and how this is emerging in the music industry through new platform, Royal, where the co-founder is an independent musician, 3LAU and knows what creators wantHow we envisage unique digital originals (NFTs) sitting alongside unique physical products like hand-bound books, or vinyl music, and other ideas for how this could introduce so many opportunities for authors to create more in their worldsSome of the companies emerging in the NFT for book space and our thoughts on what we want to see before we commit to a platform — since smart contracts can represent a long-term commitment.Open questions about the financial and tax implications of NFTs that we're still investigatingOur recommendations if you're interested in NFTs for books and blockchain [Please note: We are not financial or legal professionals, and this is not financial or legal advice. Just a discussion among enthusiastic authors learning along the way!] This podcast episode is supported by my wonderful Patrons at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn and by tips at BuyMeACoffee.com/thecreativepenn. You can find more futurist episodes, including more on NFTs and blockchain at www.TheCreativePenn.com/future. J. Thorn is a best-selling horror and dark fantasy writer, and he also writes non-fiction for authors. He's a podcaster at Writers, Ink, and The Author Success Mastermind, as well as an editor. J and I have co-written several books together, including Risen Gods, Co-Writing A Book, and American Demon Hunters: Sacrifice, the inaugural Authors On A Train event with Zach Bohannon and Lindsay Buroker. Joanna Penn writes non-fiction for authors and is an award-nominated, New York Times and USA Today bestselling thriller author as J.F.Penn. She’s also an award-winning podcaster, creative entrepreneur, and international professional speaker. Transcription of discussion Now, today, we're talking about NFTs, and in particular, what we want to see in a platform for NFT books that will help authors sell more books, make more money, provide value to readers, and build community. So welcome back to the show, J. J: Thanks, Joanna. I'm excited to be back. Joanna: I'm excited to talk to you. So you and I talk about this topic offline away from the mic. J: Yes, quite a bit. Joanna: I mean, amazingly, we actually have conversations away from a microphone. People might not believe it but we do. So let's start with the basics. How do you explain NFTs to a non-technical audience? J: Not well! But I just read something today that I think really crystallized it for me. An NFT is proof of ownership. That's all it is. It's a receipt. And I think when you frame it that way, things start to make a lot more sense. So it's not necessarily a physical object. It's not necessarily even a digital object. It's proof of ownership. Joanna: I think that's one good way of explaining it. I talk about it as like a box. A box that you can put stuff in, and we'll be talking about some of the examples of the stuff you can put in the box. But the NFT is essentially like the receipt showing you have access to the box, and then there are all the different kinds of things we can put in a box. I guess we should also say it is programmable in some way. So when you say a receipt, I might think in my mind, just a one-liner, which says, ‘I paid J some money and he edited my book,' or whatever. And that's like a one-liner. Whereas NFTs can contain, let's just use the word, smart contract which makes it more programmable, right? J: Yes. It's an immutable digital ledger that is spread across many different computers. We'll leave out the highly technical stuff. But the idea is with an NFT, from the time it's created or minted for its entire lifespan, you can track who's owned it and when by the address of the wallet of the owner. So yes, it's much more detailed than a single-line receipt, and it does contain the history of that particular NFT. Joanna: And then I guess we have to use the term blockchain. But, again, as we always say, you don't need to know how the internet works to use the internet. So you don't need to know all this technical stuff. It's the same with blockchain. I think what's most interesting at this point is NFTs can be on different blockchains. And the different blockchains have different properties associated with them. And I feel like some objections to blockchain technologies are because people have only heard of certain blockchains like Bitcoin. So what are some of the other blockchains that you've seen that you think are more interesting? J: Well, I think from an author's perspective, I'm not entirely interested in Bitcoin simply because Bitcoin is more like stored value. It's the digital equivalent to gold. So you can hold gold and it has value, and you can sell it. But people don't really use gold to pay for things. And in much the same way, they don't really use Bitcoin transactionally. So I think for me, the next big one is Ethereum or Eth. And that one is the biggest blockchain right now as far as transactions go, especially with NFTs. But there are certain other side chains and level twos. And again, don't worry about the terminology. But there are blockchains like Solana, Avalanche, Polkadot, and Tezos. These are all different blockchains with different currencies that are popping up and filling different niches in the blockchain world. Joanna: And that's where some of them are dealing with the carbon thing, and we'll come back on the environmental topic which I know some people just have it in their heads. So we'll come back on that one. And they also have different fees for different transactions. So all of this stuff is just evidence of growth in a new industry. But let's also be clear on what NFTs are NOT as it relates to intellectual property. J: Yes. I don't know if people are familiar with what happened with the ‘Dune' book, but it was auctioned, I believe, at Christie's. And the intention was SpiceDAO was going to turn it into an NFT project. And their assumption, incorrectly, was that they owned copyright, or that they owned the IP to create derivatives or to change it. And there was a great article on The Next Web that said that would be the equivalent of saying you bought a Jar Jar Binks toy and now you have the right to make a new ‘Star Wars' movie starring Jar Jar Binks. It doesn't work that way. And so really, you do not own the intellectual property, you cannot create in it or on it. Think of it more as a work of art. So if you go to a gallery and you purchase a painting, you own that painting but you don't own the intellectual property. Joanna: Just to put it on the book perspective, just on a really basic level, someone goes into a secondhand bookstore and they buy a secondhand copy of your book. So they own that book and they can resell that book, but they don't own the intellectual property of that book. They can't scan it, turn it into a Kindle book, and upload it onto Amazon and make money from it, or make a movie of it. So it's essentially exactly the same as the physical world as such, if they had bought a physical book, and then they just assumed they had this right to do stuff with it. So you also mentioned the DAO which we should just explain briefly. DAO stands for a decentralized autonomous organization. And I'm thinking about it as a collective of people who come together and you can, again, programmable ways of running an organization. Let's not go into that because I'm going to have a separate episode on DAOs. I think they're incredibly interesting from a legal and business perspective. But for now, we're gonna stick with NFTs. So just to be very clear, copyright is not assumed in an NFT unless that is specified. And of course, I had someone on the show last year who talked about the communities of authors who are trying to grant copyright within a community, a bit like the Kindle world, where the author who wrote in that got the copyright over their book within the world, but not over the whole world. [The Ownership Model with Jessica Artemisia in episode 561.] Does that make sense? J: It certainly does. That's a good way of explaining it. Joanna: So hopefully, that's given a bit of an overview and people who are new to this topic. Let's get into some more details. Why are you so excited about NFTs and blockchain for authors? And what are some of the benefits you can see in the years ahead? J: Yes. This is crazy stuff. I want to say, first of all, we are not tax professionals. We are not financial advisors. I'm barely scratching the surface of what Web 3 is. I'm an author who's really interested in this. So everything I'm going to say is not necessarily grounded in a ton of experience or research. It's my experience so far. And what I'm really excited about at the highest level, because of where I was in my life stage in the early to mid-'90s, I feel like I missed out on the internet. Like the internet boom, right? Like, if you think about what happened between, say, 1994 to 1999, there was an explosion of Web 1, starting to go into Web 2 with blogging and eventually, podcasting. And I was completely tied up in my day job and my family. And I knew what was happening but I wasn't really paying close attention to it. I wasn't participating in it. And this feels like that, and now I feel like I have the opportunity to participate. So I think on a very grand scale, I'm excited about a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I have strong suspicions and feelings that Web 3, crypto, blockchain, all the stuff we're talking about is going to radically transform our lives, whether or not we understand the technology, in much the same way the internet has. Joanna: Yes. Those of us in our mid-40s, 50s, started to hear really about the internet in the late 90s. I mean, I didn't get an email until I think '95, you know, an email address. When we're talking about Web 1, we're really talking about static websites where it's like, you can't do anything. It was just like the Yellow Pages online (if you remember the Yellow Pages!). Web 2 is the more interactive internet, blogging, podcasting, social media. I mean, what we're in now is still kind of the end-stage of Web 2, e-commerce, that type of thing on more interactive websites, creator, content, posted social media, that kind of thing. Web 3 is what we're seeing with the metaverse, blockchain, converging technologies with AI, different ways of doing things that will empower the creative economy. So what specifically for authors are you excited about in terms of, I guess, the creative or business potential of NFTs? J: I think you're correct in saying potential, that is the right word. So what I'm going to discuss is not necessarily something that we can start right now, although the technology's there. But what really has me excited about, specifically, NFTs for authors, is it's a paradigm shift. We are going to have the ability to sell directly to fans and readers to create communities directly without any sort of middle entity, without a marketplace. And I know we can do this now in selling direct, but I think here's the takeaway like, if this is all Greek to you or you don't understand what we're talking about, this is at its core where I think it's going to fundamentally change the way authors sell and do business is the digital resale. So with NFTs and with the way you can structure a smart contract, an author can get paid on the resale of anything, whether that's a physical book or a digital book. And if you think about that, you think about like, if you sell a paperback and someone who bought your paperback goes and sells it to a used bookstore, and someone else comes in and buys that book from the used bookstore, you as the author receive zero from that. But imagine, in perpetuity, you as the author receive 10% of that resell forever. I think that's just a radical idea that's going to completely change the way we do business. Joanna: Yes. And that's why I think so many people haven't got this yet because it hasn't happened before. The penny hasn't dropped. And the publishing industry and some of the things I've seen online from agents and publishers who… Well, I guess, this is another difference, right? You and I (and the listeners) are creators. We create Intellectual Property. We are the Creator Economy. And so everything we put out into the world with our name on it that we own the IP for, we get money for some kind of licensing on that. And it's all funded by what we actually make. Whereas people who work in the publishing industry, generally get a salary that is not related to the licensing of their own IP. So I feel like sometimes people aren't understanding this because they aren't actually creators. And I'm very excited about the same reason as you because resale opens up for the life of copyright. Okay, this is what's so exciting with a programmable smart contract. So I create an NFT now and someone buys it for, let's say, $250. And, you know, that's nice. But what then happens is they can resell that over time and I get a percentage of that resale. So they could sell it next year, and maybe because I'm such a prolific creator, the value has gone up. So maybe it's now worth $400 and I get 10% of that. So I get like 40 bucks, just turns up in my wallet. And then I do something and I manage to hit some list or I win an award, and suddenly the value of my IP is worth more. So my trading value on of my NFTs goes up too. And maybe I've created more limited editions of things. And so the value of my intellectual property suddenly just expands into this incredible realm. That's why I'm excited. J: Yes. It's funny you used that example of winning awards or having a breakout hit, where I was thinking like, I'll probably say something stupid or get arrested, and that'll make the value of mine go up. Joanna: Yeah, but there is that, you just don't know. I mean, the funny thing is I really feel like right now, this is fiction particularly. The fiction business model right now, I feel, is almost broken because the rise of subscription models for ebooks and digital audio are tending the income for fiction digital products down. It's sloping down. And so yes, sure there's print on demand. But many indies make far more with digital products for fiction, in particular. This doesn't count with nonfiction because nonfiction is, I think, far more resilient. And then you've got ads, the fact that we have to pay for ads. So I've been feeling for a while, like, frustrated that our business model just can't last another decade. But this to me feels like the pivot, it feels like with special editions — let's call them special digital editions NFTs — we are suddenly going to explode and expand the fiction possibilities and the fiction business model. Even with collaboration. Like you and I, right, we still have to fanny around with paying each other for various projects. You know, whereas if we had smart contracts, the money just arrives in your account, in your wallet automatically. So it opens up the potential for collaboration and so much more. J: Totally agree. And I think this is probably going to bridge into the conversation around NFTs in the nonfiction space. But I think there are some opportunities in fiction that can build upon habits and behaviors we already have, and leverage the power of the technology. So here's a very rudimentary example. Let's say that you as a fiction author offer a book club to your core readers. And let's say, you and 20 readers are going to get together and you're going to hold a book club meeting. And those people are coming to that because they're drawn to you, they want to support you. So imagine now that you sell an NFT that is your seat in this book club. And now you own that seat. And as time goes on, if you want to sell it to someone else, you can. And as you mentioned, if your stock as an author goes up, or if you become more in demand, or your time was more limited, the perceived value on that book club seat grows as well. So it's just one small example of the way I think NFTs have the potential to really change the way fiction authors sell and market too. Joanna: Well, let's get into that question then. So if the NFT unlocks a digital box of things, let's talk about those different things. So you just mentioned access to a book club through an NFT. Talk about that in your idea for nonfiction-based community and masterminds? J: Yes. So I'm currently in what I'm calling an NFT beta phase where I have a small subset of people within my author community who…they raised their hand and said they want to be part of this. And we don't have it all figured out yet, but we are in the middle of figuring out, okay, how can we create this subgroup, this smaller group that has access? One of the problems with NFTs right now is that the lingo and the tech bros who are talking about this stuff are using language that excludes the average person because they feel stupid, like, they don't know what they're talking about. That's always bothered me with technology and it's still here, but, you know, it's not that complicated. And having the ability to create access is different than buying a JPEG. So if you look at the news stories, all the news stories around, you know, ‘Someone paid $69 million for this JPEG, why would they do that?' And a JPEG is one type of NFT. It's probably the most popular one. But as you mentioned, if you think about it more as a digital box, you can put anything in there. Like Gary Vaynerchuk is doing really innovative stuff with his NFTs [Veefriends] that includes access to him, attendance at physical live events, and more. So the sky's the limit here as far as what you can put into that digital box. Joanna: Yes. So I guess what you're talking about there is the idea of a community coin which you and I are in some other kind of futurist communities around this, and if you buy one of these tokens or an NFT that can represent a ticket to something, then it gives you access. And I was talking to a friend of mine who is a coach. And he was kind of struggling to understand this potential for his business model. And I was telling him about the NFT smart contract doesn't have to be for the life of copyright. It doesn't have to be a product. We'll circle back to products in a minute. It can be a service, like you're saying, it could be access to a community. And I said to him, ‘Well, it could be access to six months coaching.' So someone buys the token upfront. But then I said, ‘What is awesome is this functionality called airdropping,' right? So you airdrop extra special things to anyone holding a token of yours. So maybe you've done a special audio that goes out to everyone holding your token, or maybe you've commissioned some art to go with your project, or maybe you just do something special which you can then airdrop to anyone holding one of your tokens. And we were talking about the benefits for your long-term kind of client maintenance and brand-building of being able to send something, it's like, ‘Surprise, here's an awesome extra for you,' or you know, a lesson on something if it's nonfiction, or if it's fiction, a bonus chapter or something. And then it arrives in people's wallet. And it almost, I don't want to say it replaces email, but it becomes this way to deliver surprising delightful things to an audience who have already invested in you. J: Absolutely. And as you mentioned, it doesn't have to be something that lasts forever. You can almost think of an NFT as an enhanced concert ticket. So let's say a musician wants to put on a show and much like on a Patreon or Kickstarter, they create several tiers of access, and you purchase the NFT for whatever level of access you want. And once you've purchased that NFT, everything else is controlled by the program. So you could scan the NFT, you could sell it to someone else, you could trade it, the NFT knows where you're supposed to be, and where you're not. And especially in a digital world, I can fully imagine NFTs or tokens of some kind replacing membership software. If your membership site can read the address in your wallet, knows you belong there, you're just in. You don't need a password. You don't need to register. It's all automated, and I think there's a lot of potential there too. Joanna: Yeah, absolutely. Well, let's talk about some of the other things you might do. So you're, obviously, incredibly great at communities. That's one of your superpowers, and it's not one of mine. And so I am far more interested in… I think even my dad's a visual artist. He was a sculptor and now he's a printmaker, and my brother's a photographer, and we come from a more of a visual arts family. And I am also starting to create art around my worlds with AI generation tools, which is a whole ‘nother podcast! But I feel like for me, the business model I'm interested in is what I mentioned before, which is creating NFTs of limited digital editions. So for example, with the short story, I just put out, Blood, Sweat, and Flame, which is set in the glassblowing world. That's just a short story, right? But the ideas I have for the NFTs I could do around that short story just opened the world up to other things. So a collaboration with an artist, or making my own art, for example, or creating a postscript on the story of what happened next, or collaborating with a glass artist to do a video. There's lots of things I can do to make a limited edition version of these books. Now, in my mind, these are all individually different. So I only see myself doing like three or five, or maybe even 10 individual NFTs for each book. And that would be like a collection. So the collection would be per book, and each one would be different. So even like, superfans might buy more than one because they love whatever it is that I've included. And then over time, my collections will grow and grow around the IP that I have in my universes. And to me, this is making me feel so much more creative because I've got so many ideas that suddenly become viable within this space. And I know lots of fiction authors who've already commissioned art and things like this that they could include in NFT. J: I wish I had more hours in the day, Joanna, because I'm like you. I can honestly say that the whole NFT craze of 2021 was the sole reason I started picking up my guitar again. I hadn't taken my guitar out of its case for years, and I started to see what was happening and I thought, ‘Wow, music is another great place.' So you mentioned the graphic arts, which is clearly a wonderful opportunity. And the same with the visual and the auditory arts. I think if you're a musician and you have the ability to create original music, you could tie that to your fiction to different stories. And I'm actively working on writing some music now that I think will tie into several things that I'm working on. And I don't need a major record label, I don't need to go through Spotify. These are things that my audience might be interested in, and I can sell directly to them. So I agree with you. I'm so excited. It's really restoked a lot of my creative fire outside of just the writing and publishing. Joanna: Awesome. I'm so happy to hear that. I hope people listening can hear our excitement. And I do feel like we're pretty, let's say, ‘mature' in the indie space. We've been around the block a few times in the indie world. And I think it can become a little bit sort of, ‘Yes, I know how to write a book now, I know how to sell a book, I know how to market a book, and I'll just do it again.' And yes, every book is interesting in its way. But there's so much more that we want to do with the ideas. And this finally gives us a chance to do it. So I do want to ask about another example, which you forwarded to me earlier, about royalty rights to songs. Now, this could also apply to books. So talk about this. J: This is fascinating. And I'm not surprised it's happening in the music industry because artists in that industry have been exploited for a long time. And I think they see Web 3.0 as an opportunity to gain back some of their rights and their IP and their revenue, quite frankly. NAS, big-time rapper, is selling royalty rights to two of his songs through NFTs. And this is on a platform called royal.io and it's brand new. So there's not much there yet. But just to give you a sense of what's possible. [Full article on NME here.]He's creating tokens around one song. He created three levels, the gold, the platinum, and the diamond. At the gold level, which is $50, so you pay $50 And you get access to his Discord and you get some sort of…he calls it a sweet chick secret menu. I don't know what that is but it must be valuable. Joanna: Sounds cool! J: Yeah. And you also get 0.143% ownership of his streaming royalties on that song. So when that song is played, you're going to share in that revenue. On the platinum level, it's $250 to buy in. You get everything with gold, plus you get exclusive merch, and in that you get the 0.857% of streaming royalties. And then the top tier of the diamond, you get everything for gold and platinum. You also get two VIP concert tickets, exclusive signed vinyl, a video conversation with him, and 2.14% of streaming royalties, and that package costs $5,000. So you can already see how artists are empowering…not only empowering their audience, they're bringing them along. And I think this is again, one of those fundamental differences. You're not only supporting the artists but you are benefiting from their success. Everybody wins in this situation. Joanna: There's a few things out of this. First of all, you've got baked in marketing for everyone who buys a token because everyone is incentivized to go stream NAS on whatever platform. And of course, as we know, if you send traffic and get more people streaming, the algorithms like it, and they bump you up. So if you get all those token holders streaming and telling their friends, ‘Hey, stream NAS this weekend at your party or whatever,' you get baked in marketing which is brilliant. Secondly, this is, I believe, is called fractionalization where you're essentially splitting this into micropayments, and this is exactly what we need in the publishing space. And just for something that people ask me all the time, I get so many emails, and I wanted to do this too with my first book, which is I want to give 10% of my profits to charity. How do I do that? This is one of those ways. You could put in your smart contract a 10% fraction that goes directly to a charity's digital wallet if they set one up, that's another way of looking at it. But I think that's amazing. I also love Royal, the CEO is 3LAU; I think you pronounce his name, Blau, 3-L-A-U. He is the one who got me into this. About a year ago, I heard him speak at a conference, online, obviously, because of the pandemic. And when he spoke about blockchain and music, I saw our future because he's a creator, he is an artist. And he's not well known as far as I know in the normal world. But he just ran with blockchain early, and the guy is just doing so well. And obviously now what he started, Royal, and this is probably going to be billions of dollars for him now because he's done the architecture for other musicians. So yeah, that's amazing, right? J: It is. And it's very easy to just say, ‘Okay, substitute a novel for song,' right? Like, we can take the same structure and this is what I'm working on right now, is I want to be able to fractionalize the royalties from my books, and I want to be able to give 0.5% or 1% to hundreds, you know…well, not hundreds, I can't do the math there. But I want to be able to fractionalize and give percentages or parts of percentages of royalties to readers because now they're incentivized to, as you said, market the book, and everybody wins. When the book sells, I make money and they make money. And it works all the way around. So the fact that this structure is already in place, that there are artists, creatives who are doing this, it's just a matter of time before it comes to us. And I can't wait for it. Joanna: I agree. And this is another kind of principle of Web 3, right? So you're rewarded for participation in a community. So whereas like at the moment, you're on Twitter, and I like, ‘Oh, you know, J's my friend, I really want to support him. I'll tweet here about his book or whatever.' And then that's helping in a way. In the future, we'll be able to help each other or support the creators we love by buying tokens, we support them, we also get a cut. So that's really amazing. There are now social networks on blockchain where you get rewarded for participation, and you get coins for what your participation is. There is obviously gaming, play to earn, I think it's called where you can play games on blockchain and earn coin, and there are people making full-time livings from this. [Check out this introductory article on Web 3 by Yaro Starak. It has examples of all these different kinds of participatory platforms.] So this is not the future anymore, is it? It's kind of right now. J: No, it's not. And I'm not a gamer so I don't know the world. But I do know that NFTs and tokenization of gaming is probably what's gonna be the gasoline on the fire here. Once the big companies get behind this, or once there are some indies who start understanding how blockchain works, because this is the kind of thing that's been happening with traditional currency for years. I mean, kids were, you know, in ‘Roblox' or ‘Minecraft,' or whatever you want to call it, they're going in there buying digital weapons and digital outfits, and this is already happening. So there's no stopping it. Joanna: Yes. And we should say, you mentioned there, big companies. I mean, Microsoft just bought a massive gaming company which you guys covered on the ‘Writers, Ink,' which was great. But also I've seen news articles that YouTube's looking at NFTs, Twitter is looking at incorporating NFTs. Facebook/Meta is looking at NFTs [Financial Times]. And when these big companies are looking at it, that's when it will go more mainstream. I mean, let's just be clear, I have not bought an NFT. I am excited as a creator. There is a creator I really love but his work has already like blown up massively. But you have bought one. Tell us about that. J: I've purchased a few NFTs but the one I'm really excited about is called ZIGGURAT. And the ZIGGURAT was created by Mike Shinoda of Linkin Park. And he calls it a generative mixtape. So what he did is he created, I think it was 8,000 or 9,000 NFTs. And what he did was, they're a combination of a profile picture style graphic and music. And he created different characteristics, different variables. So everything from hair color to eye color to facial expressions. On the music track, there were 10 or 15 different drum beats, different melodies, different instrumentation. So he created all of these core building blocks, so to speak, of both the graphic image and the audio. And then he fed that into an AI. And the AI then kicked out 8,000 unique NFTs. So no two are the same. Now they might share certain attributes, but every single one of those is unique. And when I heard about this, I just thought that sounds like the coolest thing ever. And I went, and on the day it dropped it sold out instantly. It's on the Tezos blockchain. So I ended up buying one of the secondary market. I think the original minting, it was the equivalent of about $75. And when I bought it, it was maybe $110, so it cost me a little bit more. But I have one now. And it's so creative and it's so unique. And I thought if I'm going to get into the space, I need to know what it feels like to be a fan, to be a consumer. So I kind of got that experience and it was really fun. And people are tired of hearing me talk about it because I share it everywhere, but it was a great example of being super creative and using the technology in a way that hadn't been done before. Joanna: And it's funny because you talked about it, I was like, ‘Oh yeah, I used to listen to Linkin Park back in the day, put them on the Spotify playlist, revisiting like, '90s when I used to listen to these things.' So I think it's really interesting. And what you've done there is you're a fan of the music, you know that creator. I mean, he has name recognition amongst certain people, obviously, but you're a fan. So that's a great example. That generative mixtape idea, I actually did a one-hour tutorial on how to do that at the weekend. And it was for the visual ones. And I mean, I'm not a programmer, but this guy really kind of took it from even if you don't know programming you can do this. And this is kind of a sub-question though because I've been into AI generative work for a while now and words, as well as images, and you're talking about music there, but you were not that much of a fan of AI art generation a year ago. So has that changed? J: No, it hasn't. I knew you were gonna put me on the spot on this, I was prepared. This might be semantics and maybe I just need to get over myself, but I think the difference here is that Mike didn't use AI to create the components, he used it to assemble them. Joanna: But that's what I do, I assemble. I put the input in and I assemble what comes out. So yes, I think it is semantics. For example, it's been going around in the art space, the WOMBO Dream app. Rachael Herron put some of her pictures. Get the app or get it on your desktop. And what I'm doing with that is I'm creating like word clouds separately from my novels. And then you create images with AI from a string of words. So you enter the words and then it outputs a unique image based on your words. So your words will always be different to my words. And, essentially they're going to have a minting button soon. AI Generative art created by words from J.F. Penn's Stone of Fire and Wombo Dream app, Jan 2022 J: Of course. Joanna: I love this idea that I can take my words and turn them into visual art. And in the same way, there's obviously now AI generative music which is another art form. So I mean, this is a sub-topic. We're going to come back on this sub-topic, I think. But that's just on a practical level. For someone to create 9,000, 10,000 individual NFTs, you have to have some help. J: Yes. Joanna: Because I said before if I do 3 or 5 or 10 because I'm going to individually make them, which is different. I can assemble those separately. I don't need an AI to help me create them. So I think people have to consider what kind of collections they want to do, what kind of audience they're looking for. I mean, you wouldn't do 10,000 community tokens, would you, I guess? J: No. And I mean, even going back to Royal, like, there were only…I think there were only a total of 750 tokens, 760 tokens total. So yeah, it doesn't have to be a crypto punks or a massive collection, you can make one of ones. And I think that's more of what you're talking about. Joanna: Yes. And I think, again, that's because I guess what I've seen my dad do as a visual artist. And it's so funny. And one of my phrases for this year is “more digital, more physical.” So as in, I want to get more into all this digital stuff but I also want to do more physical stuff. So I did a bookbinding course years ago, but I'm going on another one. I want to make physical products too. I want to make limited edition physical products. And then on my JFPenn.com redesigned website, which I'm going to do later this year, it will have limited editions as a page. And on that page, it will have limited physical editions and limited NFT editions. That's how I want to educate people. J: I love that. And I'm thinking along the same lines with music and thinking of doing the digital files, obviously, but maybe a limited press vinyl, or a limited number of CDs. And so in the physical world, as well as in the digital world. Joanna: There you go. And I hope…that kind of crosses the gap, doesn't it? These are limited editions. But equally with those physical products, once they're sold, they're gone. J: Right. Joanna: They are gone. So you're never gonna get any more money for that. But I just like the idea. I think that's cool. Okay, anything else on any ideas? So look, and this is just off the top of our heads and we haven't even started yet. I mean, you can put video in, you can do audio, obviously, I'm going to do scans of my hand edits. I love the partnership idea with other artists. In the past, we've obviously done written products together like Risen Gods, but you can do an NFT for an audio-only product, like a private conversation between Joanna Penn and J. Thorne. There are lots of things you can do that people will be interested in if they're in your community, I guess. J: Absolutely. And as we said with the whole smart contract thing, it doesn't require us finagling around and doing all the accounting. In the smart contract, we put ourselves as co-creators and our percentages, and then anytime that sells, it just ends up in our wallet. Joanna: Yeah. So I guess both of us are…I mean, you're more heavily into the music space, I'm probably more heavily into the art space. But we're watching these communities who are ahead of us like, they're ahead of publishing. And music's always like two to five years ahead, would you say? J: It feels that way. Joanna: So I would say we've probably got at least another year before we get a platform that works for authors. Well, let's talk about platforms. Okay. So everyone's now really excited now — if they haven't turned off already! J: The people who are here are loving it, though! Joanna: They are like, ‘Yeah, tell us more. Tell us more. How can I do one?' Okay, so hold up, hold your horses. We're recording this on the 26th of January, 2022. We're going to probably do another one of these in a couple of months, right? J: It will all change. Joanna: It'll all change. But the principles should remain. So there are different companies emerging with different business models for NFTs in publishing. And I do see some early adopters jumping in. I've had some people on my podcast like Creatokia and Bookchain. I've got some meetings with some other people. You've had some meetings with some other people. There's already like 10 on my list already. What are your thoughts on any companies you want to mention and anything that you've seen is particularly interesting? J: Well, the one I want to mention, and I'll be fully transparent and say that I'm a moderator on their Discord server, so I'm not getting compensated monetarily, but I'm definitely interested in what they're doing, is bookcoin.com. Out of all of the NFT book sites that are popping up, I'm most intrigued by Book Coin, and for a number of reasons. If you go to bookcoin.com, I think their messaging is crystal clear, and they're trying to carve out a market. And right now, what their value proposition is, “own a quote, a character, or a chapter from your favorite book.” And their first drop is going to be next month in February of 2022. And it's gonna be Mark Manson's book and a New York Times' bestseller. Joanna: We should say that is ‘The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F***,' which I'm sure everyone's heard of. It was one of the first to use that language in a book title, and then everyone did it. J: Yes. And it was massive and is massively successful. Mark Manson just finished working with Will Smith on a memoir. But anyway, the Book Coin guys, they have Alan Watts and Alan Watts collection coming up after the Mark Manson drop. Joanna: I don't know who that is. J: Yeah. He's a sort of 20th-century philosopher type, I guess would be the best way to describe him. But I think what Book Coin is doing is they're starting with name recognition. They're starting with authors that everyone knows as a way to bridge that gap. And I think that's an approach I really like because until they have a platform that's mature and developed, and that readers feel comfortable going to, indies or self-publishers have no hope of getting any discoverability. So I'm really interested in Book Coin. And as I said, I'm working for them as a moderator because I really believe in what they're doing. And that first drop comes next month. So I think things are gonna start rolling pretty fast there. Joanna: Okay, that's interesting. Now, Creatokia who I had on the podcast in episode 583, I've been talking to them about things and they're working with a lot of the publishing industry. They're a German company and they're very well known for their work in digital audio and ebooks within Europe. So what's interesting about Creatokia, I guess is because their company is Bookwire, they have a reputation in the publishing industry. They're also German and the EU has rules around crypto, around finances, around tax, I mean, the EU has a lot more stringent stuff. So why I'm interested in them is because I feel like they're going to do it in the right way. We can't get into it because we don't know ourselves, like, we have lots of questions. What are the financial implications? What are these for tax? Are they a product? Are they a service? Are they an asset? How does the tax work on the first sale? How does it work on the resale? There are things we don't know yet which is why I'm kind of holding off. So Creatokia is definitely looking at all these things. I also had Bookchain on last year, Simon-Pierre Marion in episode 538, they're out of Canada. They're on the Ethereum blockchain and they're looking more at the infrastructure side, as in not really a marketplace. And then there's some other ones that we're both looking at. I'll put a list in the show notes for this episode of the companies that I know about right now. And over time, there were going to be more of them. BookchainPublicaCreatokiaSoltypeReadlBookcoinBookvoltsCryptoversalBooksPageDAO I mean, we're waiting for one because there's no specific company that's ready. When I upload an NFT, I'm essentially creating a smart contract, that could last for a very long time. So it has to be right. It has to be automated. I have to know what it means financially. This is like signing a contract for the life of copyright if that's your…you know, if you haven't term-limited your NFT. So that's why I have some hesitation. What about you? J: Same. I had intended on minting an NFT by now, but the platforms just aren't ready yet. And like you said, there are just too many unanswered questions. I have one friend who has a marketplace on the Solana blockchain and I had a great conversation with him. But even he still isn't sure about a lot of this. I think this goes back to… I'm making a broad generalization here, but it'll make a point. You mentioned earlier that we are much more interested as creators because we're the ones creating the IP. I feel like some of the people who are building the marketplaces or building the infrastructure, they don't see that same risk because they're not putting their IP out there. They're getting paid to build it. And in some of these conversations I've had, there's this sort of, ‘Oh, yeah, we'll figure that out.' And I'm like, ‘No, we need to figure that out first.' Like, we can't just put stuff up there and figure it out later. But again, if you're not risking your own IP, then I can see why they have that perspective. So I think that's a general thing that's causing me some hesitation across the board right now. Joanna: You're exactly right. It has to be a creator. I mean, that's why I love what 3LAU's doing with Royal because he'd like programmed all this stuff for his own website around being able to mint directly from his website. And like, he's put in the years of doing this as a creator. And he knows like with this fractionalization for NAS, he knows what musicians want because he is one. This is the discussion I've also had with people, it's look, this is me, you're essentially taking a piece of me and you're just gonna say, ‘Oh, yeah, we'll figure that out later.' It's like, ‘No, I value my IP way more.' So as of January, February '22, we don't feel like there's a site that's got everything we need yet. But equally, don't sign a contract that essentially gives a publisher “all formats existing now, or to be created for the life of copyright.” J: No, I would not agree to any of those clauses! Joanna: No, because basically, what we're talking about it is essentially a new format, it is a digital limited edition or a special edition. I reckon publishers will fight over the definition of ebooks as well. But definitely don't sign a clause that means you can't do this because it's really not clear how it's going to shake out. So what else do we want when it comes to an NFT platform for books? J: I think there's another angle to this that I think is being overlooked right now, and that is the reader experience or the collector experience. Rightfully so, most of these marketplaces, even the ones we're talking about, they're focusing on people who are into crypto and people who are NFT collectors. But that's not how you're going to get the mainstream over there. And the fact that the default community tool is Discord is problematic, in my opinion. And I told that to the Book Coin guys, I said, ‘Hey, you know, Discord is great if you want to gather NFT collectors, but your average author and reader have no idea what Discord is.' And so that's a barrier right there. So I think there's a lack of focus on what the experience is for a reader as opposed to an NFT collector because I think those are two different archetypes. Joanna: I totally agree. And in fact, you and I have even talked about, do we need an NFT for books-specific marketplace? As in, could we just use a marketplace that's designed for something else? But equally, like I went on OpenSea, and they don't allow an EPUB. So that kind of meant that you couldn't do it with just directly like on OpenSea which is a marketplace. But although what will happen is there will inevitably be multiple companies, we're not saying that one of these will turn out to be the Amazon of Web 3, I mean, I'm sure they hope they will be. But I actually think they'll be multiple marketplaces like there are for art and music, and all of this type of thing. But because of the way blockchain is structured, and they give us sort of cross-chain development that's going on, you should be able to resell on other marketplaces anyway, right? J: Absolutely. And I think too like this also gets to the core of what we're talking about here. Like OpenSea won't allow an EPUB, I'm guessing they allow a PDF. Well, what hardcore reader wants to read a PDF? Nobody, right? They want the physical copy. They want the book in their hand, or they want a file that they can sideload or put onto a device and read. Reading on a PDF is one of the worst experiences of anything. And if you don't know that, and you're thinking, ‘Well, we're going to make an NFTs and we're going to deliver PDFs,' well, who wants those? Joanna: Yeah. I totally agree. We want a marketplace that's easy to navigate, easy to use. I also want flexibility on terms of my smart contract. What I've seen when I've dived into some of the terms and conditions on multiple of these sites, I've had a look, is that they're going with a standard smart contract that we've set up already. So if you click mint, then it just executes a standard contract with one wallet. So you can only have one wallet for your whole kind of user. And think about that as like a equivalent of a PayPal account, for example, so you can only use one. Whereas, I want flexibility on the terms of the NFT, the duration of the NFT smart contract, and I want to be able to split between different wallets so that we can do collaboration. People are saying, ‘Oh, well, we can add that in later.' But the fact is if I create something with a smart contract, that's it. It's set on the blockchain and maybe that's 20 years or something, or life of copyright, like, that sets it in stone. And therefore, like any other contract, it means I can't use that again. J: Exactly. And that's why we're saying like, we need some of this figured out now. It's not a wait, we'll figure it out later. I agree, though. And I think too, it's important to recognize that the whole thing with Web 3 is it's decentralized. I don't think there's going to be a single website like an Amazon for book NFTS. I think there are going to be dozens and they might splinter according to genre, they could splinter according to style. I don't know, I'm totally guessing. But I don't think there will be just one, which makes it all the more important to have some of that cross-chain operability. Because otherwise, what you don't want to get into is a situation where if I use a real-world example like, I'm only selling this NFT in France and you can only pay it with a euro. And that's it. Like if you want to buy this product in England, you can't because it's only available in France. And that's the analogy I think of with these different blockchains if there's not some sort of omnichain, or way to transact across them. Joanna: Yes. And I guess we should say is that we're really moving into a point where the smart people who are into this stuff are building the architecture of what this will turn into. So I almost feel like we're seeing what we want and I absolutely expect it will come. I remember, years ago, the Kindle first came out in America, and I was like, ‘Hey, I want that. Excuse me, I'm in Australia. Can I have that, please?' And they're like, ‘No, we're not doing that.' And then they opened up the KDP to Americans. And again, I'm like, ‘Hey, can I have that?' And then for years, we didn't have pre-orders, do you remember? J: Yes. Joanna: We didn't have pre-orders for maybe six years of my indie career, and I was like, ‘I just want pre-orders, please, let us have pre-orders. What is the big deal with this?' And then eventually, we got pre-orders and. Like, all these things do happen. It's just a matter of when they happen. So I think we're saying, we're not going to wait forever until everything is sorted out, but I'm not doing a drop until at least the financial like, is it a product or is it an asset? This is kind of a basic question. J: Right. Like, I need to be able to answer to my accountant come tax time. So those are some core questions that need to be answered. And I'm a bit baffled because I'm like, doesn't somebody know? Like, there are literally trillions of dollars being exchanged in crypto, like, doesn't somebody know? Like what about, you know, these whales that are buying millions of dollars worth of NFTs? Like, are they paying sales tax, or who is? Joanna: Well, it is very complicated. I was actually reading an article in the ‘Financial Times' today about Switzerland because people are like, ‘Oh, it'll never go mainstream.' And I'm like, ‘It's Switzerland, it's the banking capital of the world.' And Switzerland's a real crypto hub. And they're looking at all these questions. So I think that this is either going to be regulated or banned per market, right? So I think we're gonna see this by jurisdiction. But of course, the amusing thing about it is, how do you even know what jurisdiction you have to pay tax and what some jurisdiction? But you don't know where the wallet holder is, and your wallet could be…you know, who knows where it is. We understand the problems with this. But equally, I think we're seeing this in a long-term perspective, right? I'm seeing it really, as the next 30 plus years of my career. The fundamentals of what will underpin my business model. J: Yeah. There might be some people who are plugging their ears right now and don't want to hear this, but this is going to be our business for the coming decades. It's going to operate on this basic technological infrastructure, whether you like it or not. And I think we're all going to be in a better situation if we're thinking about and learning about this stuff now, as opposed to putting our heads in the sand and pretending like it's not coming. Joanna: Absolutely. So a couple of things you've mentioned, Discord Server. Now, I just hate that phrase even. It's just terrible. I mean, the word server is just incredibly technical, whereas actually, it's not like a server, it's like a chat room, isn't it really? J: It's like a Slack group in that there are different channels. I hate Discord. I hate it. I'm only in them because that's where these communities are existing for the people in this space right now. And again, like I don't want to belabor the point, but like, your typical average author or reader doesn't even know what Discord is. And it's a terrible place to build a community. Joanna: And not even that, it's like I didn't join the Discord thing until really only the last six weeks, even though I'd already bought some tokens because I was like, ‘I do not need another thing in my life.' J: Yes. Joanna: I don't want to have another thing to check, like, I really don't. And I think this is what people feel even if they don't mind the technical side, they're like, ‘I don't want something else.' And so, I think that's interesting. I will give a shout-out to Cryptoversal Books and I'll link in the show notes, they have a Facebook group for Cryptoversal. Now, they're a new platform. They're looking at what they want to do, but kudos to them for starting a Facebook group and inviting discussion, and sharing things, and answering questions. So I'm going to link to that in the notes because I'm in that group. And I'm actually enjoying it more than the Discord because I feel like, I know how to use a Facebook group. Whereas the Discord, I go in and it's like, ‘Oh,' I just don't like it. So I think you're right. I think that's going to be difficult. If this is all so exciting, why are people still so overwhelmingly negative about NFTs and blockchain? What resistance are you seeing in your community, and anything we can do about it? J: From my perspective, I think it's just good old-fashioned fear. I don't think it's more complicated than that, you know. People don't understand the terminology. They don't necessarily understand the technology, I still don't understand how cryptocurrency works, and like writing to the block, and proof of stake like, I don't get all that either. But there's a legitimate and valid concern that like, I don't understand this and that in two clicks of a button, I could end up losing all this money. The media plays stories about people who lost their seed phrase for their wallet, or such and such got hacked and stole X number of Bitcoin. It's no different than what happens in fiat, in the regular banking world and online, but like, it's scary stuff. And I think until there are some places where this Web 3 infrastructure is invisible, and people are just on it, sort of like PayPal. I don't know if you remember when online banking was first becoming a thing. Again, this would have been early to mid-2000s. All the same arguments were there. ‘Someone's going to break into my account, they're going to take all my money, I'm not ever buying anything online, someone will steal my credit card number.' And now we all transact online without giving it a second thought. So I think we're eventually going to get there, but it's those same basic fears that I'm hearing now that I heard 20 years ago. Joanna: I totally agree. And I also think the gatekeepers, the controllers, are invested in the old ways. Going back to Royal again, I imagine some people are not that happy that Royal's happening because if musicians just go straight to Royal, essentially you're crowdfunding and sharing in your royalties, I mean, that cuts out a heck of a lot of people in the supply chain of music to fans. And the same will happen with books. And obviously, we've seen one stage of that with independent publishing. But the misinformation that we see about indie, and you know, listeners, I'm sure you've seen the misinformation, I still get it all the time. Like, ‘Oh, all self-published books are just crap. They're all really terrible and low quality.' I mean, we still get this stuff after, what, 15 years!? J: Yes. Joanna: And it's like, yeah, but you know what, if that's the story you want to believe, then that's fine. You don't have to do anything about it. And I feel like this area, if you spend a bit of time delving a bit deeper into it, and as we talked about, hopefully we'll have another conversation in a couple of months or something, and we'll just keep talking about this, and hopefully be able to shed some light on it. We have to come back to the environmental concerns because I promised that before. So people always say, ‘Oh, but NFTs and blockchain are destroying the planet.' So what's your answer? J: Then stop using email. Because email uses way more resources than crypto does. That's a bit of a flippant answer and I don't mean to be facetious with it. But in all honesty, yes, there are concerns about environmental impacts. They are real. That is mostly on Ethereum. There are many, many smart people working hard to fix that. Ethereum's energy usage will go down 99.95% We have some blockchains like Solana and Tezos and Avalanche that will have very low gas fees, if any. So I think that is a problem that will go away, and it shouldn't be something that keeps you from learning about it now. As I said, you could take any slice of modern living, and you could find an egregious environmental impact from anything, whether from online streaming to email to social media, if you tally it up, the environmental impact from all those, I think they would be far greater than crypto. Joanna: And as you said, there are new blockchains that have a different structure that takes less energy, but also Ethereum is looking to redesign itself to have less of a carbon footprint. So I think people are definitely trying to solve all of the problems of environmental impact, not just with blockchain, but with everything else that we do. If you just do some googling around environmental concerns and blockchain, you're going to find lots of detailed information about how that's going to change. If listeners want to take any action from this, what do you advise? J: The minimal action I would advise would be to click on some of the links in your show notes, and just start taking a look at some of these websites and marketplaces. And just reading them over, looking at what's on there, and getting familiar with what they are and what they're offering. And if you want to go one baby step further, maybe it's not a baby step, but purchase an NFT. I think that you will learn so much about what they are, and the perceived value, and communities that can go along with them if you buy one. So if you have any intention of creating your own NFT, then buying one would definitely be a smart thing to do. Joanna: You could just, on social media, have a look at some hashtags. Like on Instagram, I follow #darkNFT. Obviously, I would be doing that! And just some amazing art being created. And I mean, yes, that's visual art. But Instagram is a visual kind of platform. Then what you can do is click through to create websites and see what people are doing. We're creators, we create intellectual property, and we license it, and we please readers with it. But we also make a living and we have a business. So both of us see this as the next phase really, the next phase in what is a very, very exciting time. And I guess circling right back to when we talked about, is this like 1997 all over again? Well, the internet didn't become the e-commerce and everything we do in 1997. It wasn't even in 2007. I think 2007 when the iPhone launched and when the Kindle launched. And it took at least another five years. So 2012, definitely things were starting to kick off. That's really when the early ebooks stuff was happening. 2014 podcasting started to make a ton of money. And I obviously started in 2009. I feel like these things sometimes take a decade. But remember, this isn't year one of blockchain. J and I surprisingly, are not on the forefront of blockchain! J: No. I listened to the Kevin Rose podcast today, and his guest was talking about the “good old days” of blockchain in 2018. And I was like, ‘Wow, this is moving fast.' Joanna: Well, yes. So in fact, Simon-Pierre from Bookchain talked about this, is that his business plan was always a decade. And I think he started in 2015. So he's really seeing it to sort of 2025 as when that becomes like, totally mainstream. A bit like…you mentioned PayPal. Like PayPal, we didn't have PayPal in 2007, right? But we… J: No, I don't think so. Joanna: Well, I don't think I did. But then by 2017, we all did stuff with PayPal. And you and I pay each other with PayPal. So I mean, this is the thing, I mean, in terms of what I think the action, same as you, is listen to things, listen to podcasts. I've had a look at some of the books, and they are out of date within five minutes. J: Yeah. There's maybe one I would recommend. The NFT Handbook: How to Create, Sell and Buy Non-Fungible Tokens by Matt Fortnow and Terry QuHarrison. There was a lot of useful stuff in there because it was more about the behavioral aspects of the NFT role as opposed to the technical ones. Joanna: Okay. That's great. Thank you. Right, so where can people find you, and your books, and everything you do online? J: Yeah. Easiest thing to do is to go to theauthorlife.com. Joanna: Brilliant. Thanks so much for your time, J. J: Thanks for having me back, Joanna. Joanna: Right. Stop.The post The Creative Potential Of NFTs For Authors With J. Thorn And Joanna Penn first appeared on The Creative Penn.

Jan 31, 2022 • 41min

Episode 600: Thoughts On Writing Craft, Publishing, Marketing, Mindset, And The Author Business With Joanna Penn

Welcome to episode 600! I’m doing a solo show today, answering some questions from my recent podcast survey that cover the different aspects of the author life. From episode 1 in March 2009 to episode 600 (Jan 2022) How do you balance the artist/writer/creative side with the pragmatic business and marketing side of being an author? How do you improve your writing craft, both as a beginner and also as a later stage writer? What services and tools do you use right now for writing and publishing? What are you doing for marketing fiction and non-fiction now and how has that changed over time? It feels like an impossible job to stand out in such a crowded marketplace with millions of other books, as well as TV and film, games, music and other entertainment options. How do you deal with the mindset of feeling like it’s all pointless sometimes? What are the different streams of income that you have right now from your author business — and how would you like that to change over the next few years? Questions for you as we head toward episode 700 From episode 1 to episode 600 I recorded episode 1 in March 2009 when I lived in Ipswich, just outside Brisbane, Australia. I phoned up a bestselling author on a landline, put it on speakerphone, and held an MP3 recorder next to the phone. With some of my early books in 2009 (no longer available in those editions!) At the time, I worked as an IT consultant specializing in accounts payable within an SAP implementation for an international mining company. I had a couple of non-fiction books out and a few people on my email list. The international Kindle hadn’t yet launched, print-on-demand was only just emerging as a viable option, there were no digital audiobooks — and there was certainly no empowered indie author movement as we have it today. Back then, self-publishing was mainly done by professional speakers and business-people who had their own distribution channels. Otherwise, it was considered ‘vanity press,’ and certainly not a viable business option for an author. 2009 really was before the dawn of the Creator Economy — which just shows you how things change over time! In 2009, I had no author friends, and I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I saw podcasting as a way to connect with writers and somehow market my books. I had a one-page business plan on my wall for The Creative Penn with all the different ways I could make money based around my writing. I absolutely intended to leave my job and run a profitable business as an author, but I had no idea what lay ahead. I was just enthusiastic to get started! I created this business plan in March 2009 I started making some money and left my job a few years later in 2011 to focus on the business. I started making six figures in 2015, and then quickly surpassed my old salary with a multi-six-figure annual income, which I’ve sustained since then. You can read and listen to more of my historical lessons learned at TheCreativePenn.com/timeline Almost 13 years after that original episode, The Creative Penn Podcast has now been downloaded over 6.4 million times across 227 countries, with the top countries being US, UK, Australia, Canada, and Germany. Most episodes get between 9000 – 16,000 downloads per episode, varying by the popularity of the topic, rather than the author, which I think is really key. You don’t have to be a “big name” author to be a great guest on a podcast. You just have to offer valuable content to the audience of the show. The podcast has many functions in my creative business. I still love talking to people and having conversations about interesting things, which you have seen develop in my future of creativity series of interviews over the last few years. It also connects me with the authors in the community, and many of my friends in real life are people I met on Twitter, invited on my podcast, and then eventually met in person. I met Orna Ross on Twitter years before we met in real life and became friends — and she started the Alliance of Independent Authors. The podcast is also important for my business income. I have consistent corporate sponsors of the podcast including Kobo Writing Life, Draft2Digital, Ingram Spark, FindawayVoices, and ProWritingAid; as well as occasional sponsors like PublisherRocket and ScribeCount — all of which I use personally as part of my author business. I also have 727 wonderful Patrons on Patreon who support the show every month financially and emotionally, and many others have bought me a coffee. [www.buymeacoffee.com/thecreativepenn]. I also talk about my ongoing writing process and promote my own books, both fiction and non-fiction, and I direct you to useful things with my affiliate links, which many of you visit. Thank you for using my links! And of course, if you want to know more about how a podcast works from the technical, craft, and business angles, check out my book, Audio for Authors: Audiobooks, Podcasting, and Voice Technologies. This podcast is still one of the most important aspects of my creative and business life. I consider it part of my body of work. I enjoy being a curator of news and although I was feeling burned out for a bit, as I outlined in my 2021 round-up, I now feel rejuvenated in my mission of empowering authors with the knowledge they need to thrive, especially as we move toward web 3 and what it might mean for creators over the next few years. Let’s get into the questions, which I’ve put together from a selection to represent every stage of the writer life. How do you balance the artist/writer/creative side with the pragmatic business and marketing side of being an author? This is a challenge for every author, and it’s a constant balancing act. No matter whether you’re indie, or traditionally published, there are parts of the author ‘job’ that involve business and marketing tasks. You cannot do without them if you want to sell books and be a successful creative professional. I love business and I think it’s incredibly creative. We turn our ideas into books that exist in the world — amazing! And making money with my art means I can make more art! If you don’t feel that way about business (yet), then you need to change your attitude. If you embrace the business and marketing side, you will be more successful, whatever that means to you. [Check out my books, How to Make a Living with Your Writing, Business for Authors, and Productivity for Authors for more detail on mindset and practicalities.] In terms of balance, I essentially split my day. Weekday mornings, or anything up to about 2 pm are usually for creative work — which includes first draft writing, editing, research and noodling ideas, recording and editing audiobooks, and also things like this solo show, which is essentially a piece of writing — as I write before I record for these solo shows, and I also write the introduction for every interview show. Podcasting for me originates in the written word! Weekday afternoons are for business and marketing tasks — which include podcast interviews, either for my show or appearing on others; business meetings; email scheduling and replies; scheduling and managing ads; accounting and tax things; organizing research trips; social media (which is a tiny, tiny part of my life now, barely even 15-20 mins a day). Want more tips? Check out Productivity for Authors I usually work at the weekends, too — but mostly, just an hour or so each day to stay on top of email and business things, as they are relentless! I will also go on longer research trips for my fiction, and also on business conferences to either speak or learn, and then the usual schedule goes out the window! I used to have a similar split when I had a day job between 2006 – 2011. I’d get up at 5 am and write, then go to work, and in the evenings, I worked on the podcast/blog/social media/learning the craft and the business, and everything else. Inevitably, it’s a bit like a see-saw (which I think some Americans call it a teeter-totter which I always find hilarious!). If you stand in the middle and try to stay balanced, inevitably things shift one way and then you have to change your focus to either side. Sometimes I drop everything and just finish writing or editing a book. Other times, I have multiple days of marketing and business in a row. It depends on the stage of each project. The good news is that over time, you learn more about your personality (see episode 572 on Strengths for Writers) and what works best for you, plus new tools for writers are developed all the time that help save time and effort. Plus, as you make more money, you can invest in freelancers to help you. Thank you to Alexandra Amor, my virtual assistant now for many years! We’re both introverts, so even though we email sometimes multiple times in a work day, we’ve only spoken on Skype a few times and never met in person. Maybe one day! Thanks also to Jane Dixon Smith, my cover designer, who knows me so well now, she pretty much nails every cover first time. I have other freelancers for other things, but those two have been with me for years. In terms of practicalities, I use Google Calendar to schedule everything — including my writing time. I block out meetings with myself to write, and turn up as I would to any other professional meeting. The reality is that there is never enough time to do everything, you just have to make time for what’s important for you. How do you improve your writing craft, both as a beginner and also as a later stage writer? This is a great question and it gets to the heart of why being an author can be a long-term career. With every book we write, we learn something new, so if you keep stretching yourself, you can keep learning new skills, which keeps the process fresh and interesting. Of course, you can only do that if you write more books. So that’s the first tip! Don’t spend years working on the same book, re-editing over and over again and making endless changes. Sure, you should finish the book and work with a professional editor to make it the best it can be. But then write another one, and another, and another, and you will learn something different every time. I like writing in cafes The best-loved writers — and the ones making the most money — are often the ones who have a huge backlist and many decades of writing behind them. In the indie world, they are definitely the ones with more books. Sure, there are outliers, but generally, if you want to improve your writing craft, then write more, work with professional editors to improve your work, publish, and move onto the next book. You also need to read a lot and invest in your education. Over the years, I’ve been to a LOT of literary festivals, I’ve paid for courses on writing craft, both in person and online; and I still go on craft courses (although mainly online these days.) I’ve read hundreds of writing craft books, and many thousands of books that I read for pleasure — and of course, I learn from them too. I read for at least an hour every day, and listen to audiobooks as well, and I have a reading slot in my weekend for more books. I read 3—5 books a week in different formats and I spend a large proportion of my disposable income on books! I love books!!!!!!!! If you want to win a literary prize, I recommend volunteering as a preliminary judge if you’re part of genre fiction organizations, as you can learn a lot from speed-reading and seeing what kind of books make long lists and short lists of awards. Buy and read the winners and short-listed books and try to figure out what set them apart. You might want to use different editors over time, especially if you change genres. As your writing matures, you will find you can move to a different level with some targeted feedback on your work. For fiction, check out Stages of a Fiction Writer by Dean Wesley Smith. It can be brutal, but it seriously helps you target what you need to focus on! What services and tools do you use right now for writing and publishing? I have a list of everything, including links to editors and book cover designers at www.TheCreativePenn.com/tools, but here’s an overview. I write in Scrivener. I love it and have used it since book 2. Once I have a finished draft, I print it and hand edit, then put those changes back into Scrivener. I open the Scrivener project in ProWritingAid and go through edits according to their suggestions (of which I make about 90% of the recommendations). I print and hand edit once again, but this is usually the only other full edit I do. I export the file to MS Word and import into Vellum, where I format the book. This is particularly important for non-fiction as the formatting is so important for how the book flows. [Vellum is Mac-only. Check out other book formatting options here.] I send the MS Word manuscript to my editor and/or proofreader, depending on what book it is. I have different freelancers for different projects. I make the changes directly into Vellum. I export to Word and run it through ProWritingAid one last time, make the final changes to Vellum and then export for publication. I decide on categories and keywords with PublisherRocket and format the HTML with Kindlepreneur’s free formatting tool. I currently publish ebooks direct to Amazon KDP, Kobo Writing Life, and Apple Books, and then I use Draft2Digital and PublishDrive for other stores. (I’m grandfathered into PublishDrive’s previous business model). I use KDP Print and Ingram Spark for paperback, hardback, and large print editions. I use ACX for Audible and Findaway Voices for all other stories. I am predominantly wide for my books, with a few in KU. I also sell direct for ebook and audiobook at payhip.com/thecreativepenn and I have a tutorial on selling direct if you’re interested in doing that, too. In terms of keeping track of links, I use Books2Read.com which has recently been improved with different kinds of print links, and also Payhip, so I’m just getting all those updated. Some new indie authors might think this takes a lot of work, but I’ve done it all so many times now, it doesn’t take long. Just a few hours to publish once everything is ready. Publishing is easy — writing and marketing are the challenge! What are you doing for marketing fiction and non-fiction now and how has that changed over time? For Joanna Penn and my books for authors, my website gets a lot of traffic based on several thousand articles and podcasts posted since 2008. I have my Author Blueprint which gets dozens of sign-ups daily and that’s been my call-to-action since day 1, although of course, I update the Blueprint every few months. I actually just did it last week. I have The Creative Penn Podcast, of course, and that’s brought people into the ecosystem for years now, and the call-to-action is the Blueprint again. I have a series of non-fiction books with specific author-related metadata, and I now pay a freelander (hired through Reedsy) to manage my Amazon Ads for non-fiction. The books are available in all formats and I narrated most of the audiobooks. I occasionally do Facebook Ads, but not often. For social media, I have Twitter @thecreativepenn which I started in 2009 and I use Buffer to schedule tweets from my content and also other blogs. But social media really is a tiny part of my author life now. And that’s basically it for non-fiction — and except for ads, it’s the same as I have been doing for over a decade. It’s still content marketing 101. Put useful/interesting/entertaining/inspirational content out for free, attract people to your ecosystem — and especially to your email list — and eventually, they might buy something. It still works and it’s the foundation of my business. For my thriller, dark fantasy, and crime fiction as J.F. Penn, I mostly publish books in series, and I’ve just used free first in series, or limited deal promotions on first in series over and over for years. Content marketing for fiction is having books (or short stories/novellas) for free that attract people to your other paid books. [I have a course on Content Marketing for Fiction if you want more details.] I have my email list at JFPenn.com/free and for social media, I have Instagram @jfpennauthor and Facebook @jfpennauthor but that is mainly for photos, and book launches. I also have my Books and Travel Podcast and blog, which does attract some readers for my fiction, but mainly I love doing it for inspiration, and at some point, I will publish my travel memoir pilgrimage series. I have two books in draft and potentially another one by the end of 2022, so I need to get going on those. So, it’s interesting to consider that even though there are new marketing tactics all the time, the principles remain the same. Write great books (preferably in some kind of series) that appeal to a certain type of reader — and understand who that is. Set up and maintain an email list that you own and control, so regardless of what happens to the publishing companies, you will always be able to sell books Find a form of ongoing content marketing that you can sustain for the long term. For me, that’s podcasting for non-fiction (and previously blogging); and also using free first in series for fiction — and attract readers into your ecosystem (and email list) If you have the time and budget to get into paid ads, find ones that work for you and use those to boost your sales (but this usually works best with you have a decent number of books, and usually in a series). Your sustainable marketing might be TikTok videos, or press releases for media appearances, or live events, or Instagram reels, or targeted ads, or whatever else you can sustain for the long term, and the tactics will keep changing. But the focus is always bringing people back into your ecosystem, so you can grow and maintain that relationship over time. Time in the market matters — for book sales, marketing, brand building, community, all of it. One reason this podcast continues to attract and retain an audience is because I have been at it for so long. I’ve changed the format and content as I have changed, and I share my personal journey along the way — and of course, that changes every week! Click for more ideas on book marketing It feels like an impossible job to stand out in such a crowded marketplace with millions of other books, as well as TV and film, games, music and other entertainment options. How do you deal with the mindset of feeling like it’s all pointless sometimes? I know it’s hard, and we all have days like that! If you’re starting out, it’s very frustrating to hear that you need to build a backlist if you want to be successful. I remember hearing it from Dean Wesley Smith and Kris Rusch, and Bob Mayer back in the day and getting annoyed. The early indie superstars like J.A. Konrath, Bella Andre, and Barbara Freethy came out of traditional publishing with a ton of books that they got the rights back for. Back in 2008, when I started, I had nothing — and back then, we didn’t have the marketing options we have now. So yes, there’s more competition now, but there are also so many more oppportunity. The global market has grown so there are more readers every day, the tools we have now save so much time and effort, the marketing possibilities are online and endless. So really, it’s about changing your attitude. Measure your life by what you create. Joanna Penn, letterpress, August 2021 I measure my life by what I create, and I love writing and creating, so I want to do that regardless. Even if I got the huge movie deal and never had to work again, I would still write (and probably podcast!) I also want to reach readers with my fiction, and other authors and readers with my non-fiction, so I just keep putting my creations out in the world in different ways and trust that the right people will find them. And here we are, all these years later, and it works. It still works. Create for the joy of creating, then put your work into the world — consistently, for years — and find a way to reach readers that you can maintain — consistently, for years — and things will happen. They might not be what you expect, but things will happen! What are the different streams of income that you have right now — and how would you like that to change over the next few years? Right now, I have income from book sales in multiple formats on multiple platforms and also licensing revenue from foreign rights — and I’m always open to licensing deals. Just email me I also have podcast income from corporate sponsorship and income from Patrons at Patreon and BuyMeACoffee. Plus, I also have affiliate income from the tools and services that I recommend, which are always companies I use myself in some way and essentially stake my reputation on. I have course sales — check out my courses at www.TheCreativePenn.com/learn. I used to have speaking income, but that is almost down to zero now, as I do some speaking events, but very few. In terms of changing things, I have a path forward in my head, but it will take a few years to execute. I want to make everything evergreen, but that will mean dialing back the income from courses and also from this podcast and any non-fiction that needs new editions every few years. It means writing more fiction and short stories, and evergreen non-fiction, and streamlining my backlist, so that the reader journey is an easy route through series and able to be automated with email autoresponders. I want to ramp up book sales and increase licensing revenue, and as we move into Web 3, I have a lot of ideas for more things I want to create. Listen to episode 601 for more on this! I’ve also focused on my investments over the last seven years (which I talked about on the Choose FI podcast in their episode 181, and in episode 469 on FIRE for Authors with Brad Barrett.) [Note: I’m not a financial advisor. This is not financial advice! Here’s my list of recommended money books.] The Financial Independence model has an accumulation phase (where you buy assets) and then a distribution phase when you live off the income generated by those assets. The author business model can have the same kind of approach. You create your intellectual property assets, then by licensing them in different ways, you receive income from those assets, hopefully for the term of copyright (50-70 years after the death of the author, depending on the jurisdiction.) My plan is to keep creating new intellectual property, license it, and streamline the marketing more effectively, so I can focus more of my time on the creation side — and also spend more time traveling, walking, doing book research trips, having fun with Jonathan and my family, and generally LIVING! Following my curiosity, J.F. Penn book research trip, Lisbon 2019 — featured in Tree of Life I hope to be much further in that direction by episode 700 — and hopefully, by then, the pandemic will be over and we can all get back into the world again. So to end episode 600, I want to ask you a few questions, as I did at the end of episode 500. What were you doing in March 2009 when I started this show? What did your writing situation look like then? What writing goals have you achieved in the almost 13 years since then? If you haven’t achieved the goals you wanted, then why not? Were they the wrong goals? Or do you need to refocus? What lessons have you learned along the way? What do you want to achieve by episode 700, which should be around January 2024? THANK YOU! Thank you for listening and sharing the podcast with author friends and on social media. Thanks for buying my books and products and those of my guests. Thanks for supporting me by being a patron, or buying me (virtual) coffee, or using my affiliate links, or heading over to the corporate sponsor websites. Thanks for leaving reviews on the podcast apps. Thanks for tweeting me @thecreativepenn with your thoughts and pictures of where you listen, and for leaving comments on the show notes or the YouTube channel, or emailing me with how the podcast has helped you. Thank you. I wouldn’t continue this show unless you, the author community, still found it useful. My recent survey, and my wonderful patrons, have told me that it continues to be useful, even in a far more crowded author podcast space than it was when I started out. So, I’m committing to episode 700, Creatives! I don’t know what the coming two years will bring, but I’ll keep sharing the journey, and I hope you’ll come along for the ride! I’d love to hear your thoughts on this episode. Please leave a comment or tweet me @thecreativepenn or you can email me through the Contact page. Happy writing and I’ll see you next time.The post Episode 600: Thoughts On Writing Craft, Publishing, Marketing, Mindset, And The Author Business With Joanna Penn first appeared on The Creative Penn.

Jan 24, 2022 • 57min

Take Back Your Book: An Author’s Guide to Rights Reversion and Publishing on Your Terms With Katlyn Duncan

How can you take back your rights when publishing conditions change? How can you make sure you sign contracts that make it easier for rights reversion in the future? Katlyn Duncan talks about these things and more. In the intro, the splits in indie publishing [Kris Writes]; Burnout and Writer's Block [6 Figure Authors]; Publisher Rocket now has audio data; Blood, Sweat, and Flame, my glassblowing short story; Atomic Habits and the threat of boredom. This podcast is sponsored by Kobo Writing Life, which helps authors self-publish and reach readers in global markets through the Kobo eco-system. You can also subscribe to the Kobo Writing Life podcast for interviews with successful indie authors. Katlyn Duncan is the author of women's fiction, YA, thrillers, and nonfiction under several pen names as well as a ghostwriter of over 40 novels. Today, we're talking about Take Back Your Book: An Author's Guide to Rights Reversion and Publishing on Your Own Terms. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes What is rights reversion and why is it so important to consider — even before you sign a contract (or upload a book as an indie)?Clauses to watch out for in publishing contracts — and how to make sure you can get your rights backHow to approach a publisher for rights reversionWhat you actually get back when rights are reverted (i.e. it's not your cover or layout)What to do once your rights are reverted — and why you should stop and think about the long term before re-publishingWhat if you're embarrassed or ashamed that it didn't work out with a publisher? You can find Katlyn Duncan at KatlynDuncan.com and on Twitter @katlyn_duncan Transcript of Interview with Katlyn Duncan Joanna: Katlyn Duncan is the author of women's fiction, YA, thrillers, and nonfiction under several pen names as well as a ghostwriter of over 40 novels. Today, we're talking about Take Back Your Book: An Author's Guide to Rights Reversion and Publishing on Your Own Terms. Welcome, Katlyn. Katlyn: Thank you so much for having me, Joanna. Joanna: I'm excited to talk about this topic. It is a fantastic book, so much in it. Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and publishing. Katlyn: Absolutely. So I am one of those authors who had that storyteller bug from day one. As a child, I tended to focus a lot more on movies and television. I was very much into acting and screenwriting. And as much as my family has always supported my hobbies, I was encouraged to get a ‘real job.' I was really good at math and science. So I went to school for forensic science. I didn't really do a lot of reading or writing when I hit my college years. After I graduated, there was that big YA boom with Twilight and all these fantasy books and I started following these authors on Twitter. And I realized that a lot of them had full-time jobs. See, I was always of the mindset that writing had to be a full-time job, so I never thought I could really do it for myself while I had a job. So after that I had the bug hit me again and I was so excited and this time I went to novels because I was really inspired by all of these authors who were working and also writing. YA wasn't a thing when I was a child at that age. I started writing my own YA books and I wrote in the mornings and the evenings, and I participated in NaNoWriMo for many years, and then in 2012, I submitted my first book to Karina UK. It was a new digital-first imprint with Harlequin and they were taking unagented submission. So I am an author who's never had an agent. I submitted and I actually got a deal for a trilogy and then the rest is history at that point. Joanna: Well, it's interesting too that you said you had a day job. What was your day job? Katlyn: I actually worked in a fertility laboratory for many years. Joanna: Oh, wow. And you have a background in forensic science. Have you used that science background in your writing at all? Katlyn: I think I use more of the mindset of fertility, but as I'm going into thrillers and everything, I find that absolute love for solving cases and solving mysteries is definitely starting to come back. So I definitely use that in my writing. Joanna: And then also being a ghostwriter with so many novels, how did you get into that as well? Katlyn: When I had my child, I was home for a bit. I was very lucky to be able to stay home. And after about three months, I really wanted to start writing again. I was in between contracts at that moment and a friend of mine was talking about how she was a ghostwriter and I was like, ‘Oh, what's that?' And I got into it. Then I mostly worked on upwork.com. It's a freelance website. I started off with very poor-paying jobs, but they were very generous with five-star reviews. And so I was able to build myself up to that point and then I had for about a couple of years, I had two consistent clients and then I also did work with a packaging company as well. In 2019, I really wanted to just write my own books. I was heading back into working full-time outside of writing. So that's where I ended up and I had a lot of fun with it and I learned so much. But definitely, right now, I've just been leaning on writing my own books. Joanna: It's always interesting to hear from ghostwriters as well. I think so many people don't understand how big a part of the industry it actually is. And like you mentioned, book packaging companies. I don't have any issue with any of these business models and of course, the book packagers come up with an idea, then they find someone to write it. I know some people who write stuff in that kind of model and it's interesting. It's work for hire, like you said, you were at home and you wanted some work and so that worked for you. But to the book, Take Back Your Book, so why write this book? In your publishing experience, why did you want to write Take Back Your Book? Katlyn: Rights reversion came out of a need to figure it out for myself. When I was about to have my rights reverted or I was talking to a couple of friends about it when my books had been out for a little while, I did some research on what authors do after reversion and I really couldn't find any information outside of blog posts, but they were years past and it was mostly about the process of rights reversion. So I found my way through the process. I leaned a lot on self-publishing models because obviously once your book is reverted, usually I would say 99% of the time, you cannot get another publishing deal with that book. So I definitely leaned a lot on the self-publishing model with that and then it's one of those lightning bolt moments with this book specifically that I was like, ‘Why don't I just write a book for other people?' Because I had spoken to a lot of authors who were going through the process or had been through the process and no one was really talking about it. And I was like, ‘Well, why don't I just write something out? I've done YouTube for a couple of years, so I'm used to giving that sort of non-fiction publishing advice.' And so I just figured I would write about my journey and in the hopes that maybe it would help someone else if they were in a situation where they're like, ‘Okay. I can get my book rights reverted. What do I do now?' Joanna: Fantastic. So before we get into the detail, we should just say this is not legal advice. We are not attorneys, or lawyers, or agents, or anyone with any qualifications in this area. So this is just our opinion and experience through learning this area. I just wanted to make that very clear upfront. So let's get into it. You've mentioned rights reversion, but we should probably define it. What is rights reversion and/or when rights are reverted? Katlyn: This is just my experience as an author. So, again, I would always advise someone to talk to a lawyer or an agent about this stuff. Rights reversion is a clause in a literary contract that allows authors to work with their publisher to regain some or all of their book rights after certain conditions are met. So this can vary widely when it comes to different contracts. For instance, the clause may read seven years after publication, if this work is selling less than 250 units over the last three royalty periods, the author has the opportunity to ask for those book rights back. Joanna: I just want to make it clear also, for many indie authors, we also sign contracts when we agree to terms and conditions. So rights reversion also applies if you are an independent author. For example, ACX has their seven years exclusivity contract which many authors have signed. I signed because they were the only option seven years ago and now I'm going through getting those rights back from ACX Exclusive in order to go wide. And even on a smaller scale, the Kindle Unlimited 90-day period, that is essentially a contract of exclusivity for 90 days and if you don't uncheck the checkbox, you stay in there. So I think there are lots of different ways that rights can be reverted now. It can be automatic like the KU checkbox, but generally, you actually have to ask for reversion, don't you? Katlyn: Yes. And that can be as simple as a letter or an email. My experience is that it was all digital. It was all over email because my publisher's in the UK and I just stated the terms of the contract and I asked for the book rights back and they gave me, so far, my debut trilogy back. Joanna: Right. And obviously, you've talked to a lot of people about this. We both know authors who've done this. Is it always that simple or are there often problems? Katlyn: I have not experienced any problems. One of the authors that I did interview for the book did experience a bit of a problem. And I have heard horror stories of authors having to hire lawyers to deal with this and publishers not getting back to them. I would say the majority of the time it's pretty simple, but there are those instances and that's always why I advise authors to really, really consider all the options when they are signing contracts. Joanna: Yes. And I think that's important. It's best to sort it out upfront before you sign a contract because otherwise it can be a lot more difficult later in the process and you might have signed away things. You mentioned there before a clause that might be in a contract. Are there any other clauses to look out for or to add if they're not there? Katlyn: I've had four contracts total with this publisher and the first two contracts, I took on my own. I was very naive in that sense where I just figured, ‘Oh, this is a boilerplate contract. Here. Let me sign it.' After that, I did hire lawyers for each of the other ones and really the clause that they focused on a lot was the option clause. That basically gives your publisher that you're working with the first look at your next project. So this is where a publisher can, like in the worst-case scenario, not allow you to publish outside of their imprint ever again, but that's usually not the norm. When it comes to option causes, I always talk to other authors who ask me questions about, so try to make them as narrow as possible in terms of genre, timeline, and submission. So when it comes to genre, if you're writing, say adult thrillers, you may want to narrow that language a little bit to say, ‘You have the option to read my next adult thriller.' If you want to go off and write women's fiction or middle-grade books or anything like that, you're not beholden to the publisher for that. In terms of the timeline, sometimes there is not a timeline specified and sometimes there is. I always advise to try to have a narrow window of time. So say you don't want them to consider the book for two years because then you can't do anything with that book for two years until they say yes or no. I would recommend the smaller the window, the better. And then when it comes to submission, that's more of talking about what to submit. Some publishers may request a full manuscript submitted versus a proposal and sample chapters. I would always try to get the second option of just the proposal and the sample chapters if you can because personally, I never really liked the idea of drafting an entire novel without the promise of getting it sold. So if you can't get that removed… I know it's very difficult to get that clause removed just based on experience I've had in speaking with other authors. I would just try to narrow it as much as you can in those terms. Joanna: Yes. And so that's the option clause, but I think even just the basic clauses around what they are going to publish. In terms of the format, we're not signing “all formats existing now and to be invented,” which is a clause. And also by territory. So it will be much easier to get things back if you don't sign bad contracts to begin with. You mentioned 250 units sold. It's much easier to sell 250 units across the whole world versus say the USA or the UK or in or Australia, for example. So specifying the country where they're publishing can really help because then you can prove things more easily. And then also the time limits for either the whole contract or if they don't exercise the rights. For example, we have a lot of authors who've signed away audiobook rights and then the publisher hasn't made the audiobook. So if you have something in there that says the publisher has the audiobook rights for two years and if they don't make the audiobook, the rights revert, for example. Those things that are controlling the scope of what they've licensed. Katlyn: Exactly. And in terms of rights reversion too, I have only really focused on asking for all of the book rights back at once, but I've heard success stories of agents and authors asking for, like you said, audiobooks after two years and they were granted because say the ebook and the paperback we're selling really well but the author wanted to go out and sell rights for their audiobook. I've seen that happen as well. Joanna: Absolutely. So, yes, be aware of what you're signing upfront. And then so an author has signed a contract like you, they've licensed the books, they want to get out of it. You mentioned sending an email and then maybe getting a lawyer or attorney letter if necessary. Are there any other steps that people need to do in order to progress their rights reversion? Katlyn: You're sort of at their mercy at that point once you send that letter out, just getting it to the publisher and trying to exercise that time limit, that's usually set within the reversion clause. So say they have 90 days to consider your request, make sure you follow up in 90 days. You can do that probably solo for a little bit, but when it comes to escalating it a little bit if they're not getting back to you or unwilling, definitely look into a lawyer. And as always, if you have an agent, that would be the first person to go to. Joanna: Yes. Although, of course, we have to remember that a lot of agents get their money from working with publishers. So agents do have certain vested interests in things that an author might have a different view on. So it's always important to decide on your own career choices. I think you're exactly right about following up in terms of, if no one responds, you set a reminder on your calendar or whatever to just keep following up; be the squeaky wheel. Katlyn: Exactly. You're in every right to be asking for this. So if you were a year in the contract and it states seven years, I wouldn't follow up about rights reversion. But if it's been 7, 8, 9 years and you want your book rights back and they're not selling it anymore, you really have to step forward and try to get these rights back for yourself so that this book doesn't have to die on the shelves, you can take control over it. Joanna: How does an author know that they actually have their rights back and what does that reversion include? Katlyn: That letter or email has really been that touchpoint when it comes to determining if you have the rights back. Be sure, if you get one, save it. I know there's instances of some authors who have tried to republish on Amazon and Amazon may say, ‘You don't own the rights to this.' They need proof. So make sure you always have that proof available to you for that. I would say just having that evidence is really all you need as far as my knowledge. Joanna: Yes. That's a really good point because an author might have an email from a publisher that says, ‘Your rights are reverted for this book,' and then they go onto Amazon, or whatever, or Kobo, or Apple, and there's the book because the rights department is completely separate to the publishing department. So then, of course, you can't republish that book until it's been taken down. So it's not just the email necessarily. You might also have to keep following up and actually get it removed, for example. That might also happen. It takes time for these things to disappear off the various stores, doesn't it? Katlyn: It does. And actually, I did run into that. One of my books was still available Apple Books months after and that is one of the mistakes that I made when it came to going through this process, was that I didn't check all of the links because once it was down from Amazon, I checked like one or two places and it was down. So I definitely would recommend going to…it may be tedious, but all of the places that your book was sold before and making sure it's down because they're still technically making money off your book if they're still up under their publishing house. Joanna: Absolutely. So going back to when you get your rights back, I get a lot of emails from people who don't necessarily understand what it actually means. What do authors have the rights to? Katlyn: Once the rights are reverted, you have the right to take that work and publish it on your own. You basically can do anything you want with it. You can publish it for sale, you can put it on your website. You can do anything like that once the rights are reverted back to you. Joanna: Right. But it doesn't include the cover, it doesn't include the format, that type of thing. Katlyn: No. In most, at least the ones that I've signed and I've spoken to some authors, the contracts, they do have a sub-clause for reversion that is production files. So those are basically the final files before the book goes up for sale. The publisher has those. In my experience, I've only seen my book through copy edits. I have not seen it after proof and I have not seen it with formatting. They usually give you the option to purchase those production files and so you can ask afterwards how much that would be and determine whether or not that's in your budget. I personally did not purchase mine back. The price for them was just a bit too high and I wanted to save a lot of my money for editing. So I basically had to go back to the last version of the book that I had and re-edit it in a sense. And since it had been over eight years since I had published it, I did want to go in there and edit it as well. When it comes to covers, some authors actually have had their covers given to them whether or not they were just given or they had to pay for it similar to production files. If you absolutely love your cover, you can ask your publisher for that. But I didn't get any of my covers back. I didn't want them. It had been so many years since publishing and market trends change and everything. So I would recommend probably starting from scratch with that if you're not so super excited about your cover and it's not too much to probably purchase back from the publisher. Joanna: I agree with you. I think most people want to do a re-edit and we should call that maybe a light touch. Some people get obsessed with rewriting, but I think we're at least going back through, even to things like updating the author bio and the bits where you list your other books and back matter and all of that type of thing. Definitely a read-through, plus, let's face it, the culture has changed. I've been reading a few short stories recently that were published 15 years ago and the culture has very much changed. And some of these stories, I'm like, ‘You would not put that out now.' Or you would change things. I think it's a really good idea. And on the cover, as you mentioned, that a publisher might give an author the cover, but where is the copyright for the artwork, for example. And that to me is very worrying. What if you republish that book and it does super, super well, and then you get an offer from a merchandising company or something like that? You wouldn't have the right contracts in place to actually be able to use that cover. So I would agree with you, I think re-editing, reformatting, getting new cover design. And also, it's a new edition, right? So you want to put a new cover on it. Katlyn: Right. Joanna: What happens next? So let's say we've edited, we've got another cover, we've reformatted. What do we need to do next? What else do we need to look out for? Katlyn: If you have everything ready to go, the process that I went through is I wanted to determine upfront whether or not I wanted to go wide or exclusive with Amazon. I had to look at my plans long-term, like through more of a long-term lens. With traditional publishing, it's very, very front-list focused. What's the next thing coming out? But now, having my books back, it's opened up so many doors for me, so I can do whatever I want with the rest of my books, forever. So I definitely would recommend thinking about each book individually and seeing how you want to market it, how you want to publish it. On top of that too, just another tip that I thought of with republishing is that with a lot of promotions they look at reviews, the amount of reviews you have, and one thing you can do with republishing your book, is make sure you save your ASIN number, that's the Amazon book number and…or the ASIN number's included. You can actually ask Amazon once your book is republished again, to add those reviews back from the original edition, which I found very interesting. So when I republished my first reverted book, I had a lot of nice reviews already there from previously. Joanna: That's good. Did you just go through to KDP help or something? Katlyn: I went through Author Central and they were able to link the reviews from the old edition to the new one. I would caution that if this was a book that you're really not proud of and then you did a lot of editing, do you want those reviews, if they were like mostly negative or mostly lukewarm? That's something that authors can take into consideration, but definitely try to save that number from when your publisher published the book so that you're able to link them once you republish. Joanna: And because obviously, emails go out automatically on various services when an author publishes a new book, but this isn't a new book and your readers might have already read it. Do you put a notice in the description that this is not a new book? What do you do to let people know it's a republication? Katlyn: I put it right in my description. I said that this was a book originally published in 2013 of the same name. I would say that if you changed your title, that you probably would want to of put some sort of note either in the description or in the beginning of the book just so that maybe people don't think you're trying to trick them into buying the book again if it hasn't changed. I think if it's changed significantly, that's really up to you, whether or not you want to give that sort of warning, especially too, if you end up using a pen name and you just want to put the book out again under that pen name. Joanna: That's a good point, actually. So you mean you've published it with a publisher with one name and now you're going to republish it under another name? Katlyn: Yes. Joanna: Right. Okay. That's interesting. Katlyn: Yeah. I did that with mine. I was one of those authors who published so many different genres under my name. And so as I came to this, getting my young adult books back, I wanted to start fresh and separate them. It's Katlyn Duncan versus Katie Duncan, but I didn't want to trick anyone or make them feel like I tricked them. So I did put a little one-liner in the description. So hopefully no one feels like I was trying to do that. Joanna: To be honest, a lot of people might want to do that if they're coming back into their career. I know so many authors all who've done it the other way, who've been published under pen names and now want to put it under their real name as such. How's it working for you having multiple brands? Because I know a lot of people question whether it's worth the hassle like different websites or different email. Do you have any issues with managing two brands? Katlyn: It's just two for now. This was something that I really considered for a while. I pulled out the pros and cons list, but also too, it's really bothered me over the years that I didn't have separate adult and young adult personas. So you can go all in, you can do everything separate if you have the time. That's probably ‘the best way to do it.' But everything is on my one website. So it all just tracks back to that. I do have a separate Instagram that I started more recently for the Katie Duncan versus Katlyn Duncan. I wanted to pull that audience on their own because I do have a YouTube channel under my name and the nonfiction book and my adult books, I wanted to have them under Katlyn Duncan and then Katie Duncan for all my YA stuff moving forward. Joanna: It's interesting because so much of this rights reversion stuff, you actually have to think about what you want the future to look like this time. It's not just a case of, ‘Rights are back, upload file.' Katlyn: Right. And I'm sure there are people that do that if they're very happy with everything, but I took it as an opportunity to start over, in a sense, and just doing the things that I wanted to do based on my years of knowledge. When I started off, I didn't know much about the publishing industry. And it looked so different too in 2012. So yeah, I took it as an opportunity. I would recommend if you do have this opportunity, just think about some things that you would do differently or things that you weren't happy about and just move forward from there. Joanna: Yes. And I'd also encourage people, if you have a lot of books, yes, it might take a lot of effort to get these rights back, but the money you could potentially make with more books. If it's only one or two, then great, but I know people who've gone back and got 20 or 30 books and then putting those out, yes, again, it might it be some work to get those published, but then you control them, you can do box sets, which most traditional publishers don't do and there's just so many things you can do, right? Katlyn: Yes. So many things. And it's just amazing now with self-publishing. It's as much as traditional publishers can do, we can do it as well. Joanna: Are you all in as an indie now? Katlyn: I'm all in. Just with writing this book and reflecting on my career, I'm in it for me and I just want to take part in this awesome community. The authors that I got to know are so great in terms of sharing and everything like that. I'm not saying that traditional authors are not. Please don't misunderstand me, but I like the idea of sharing and having that backlist mindset because we spend so long writing our books and then for them to just be like, ‘Okay. Your publishing season's over, let's move on to the next.' And then the other ones are forgotten, which doesn't really make so to an author because our books are our books and they're our babies. And so my mindset is 100% indie right now and I think it would have to be a very, very good deal for me to go back to trad. Joanna: It's interesting because, of course, your mindset, you said things are quite different to 2012 and your mindset there, you're very empowered now, you know what you are doing. But I do feel, with rights reversion, that many authors feel disappointed. They might be embarrassed, some even ashamed that things didn't work out with their publisher because some authors are like, ‘Oh, it's my fault that I didn't sell enough books, and therefore, this book isn't good enough and there's no point in getting the rights reverted because how would it sell next time?' What would you say to authors who don't feel empowered and have these negative thoughts around rights reversion? Katlyn: First of all, I would say you're 100% not alone. I felt that way for a very long time, to be honest. We put a lot of ourselves into our books and then you get with a publisher and you hope that they will fulfill their end of the deal for much longer than probably we understand and then if the book doesn't sell or it's not selling later, it's absolutely devastating. I was definitely in that dark place for a little bit. But as I expanded my network of author friends I realized that this wasn't something that is isolated to that one person, it happens to all of us, and talking about these things with other authors and talking about the good and the bad is very important. At the end of the day, we're in charge of how our careers pan out. So we want to make sure that we are educated in that sense of knowing the industry and what the things you can and cannot do. So I would definitely recommend doing your research about the industry and making sure that you have enough people to talk to about all of these things. Joanna: That's why I'm really glad you wrote this book. There are lots of books on rights now, but I think rights reversion is a very specific thing and you've got some great steps in there. It's very practical. So I do recommend it. And it's becoming much more common because authors are becoming more empowered, but equally, what we've seen in the pandemic and the switch to publishers may be starting to appreciate their backlist, it might be becoming harder for some people to get their intellectual property back. Have you seen anything change in the last 18 months or so? Katlyn: I've seen a positive change, as you mentioned, with people talking about things, but I think that because so many people are speaking out, because so many authors are becoming more empowered, I think the trad industry may catch up to that too. I'm sure they're doing their due diligence as well. They are a business, so that they want to keep authors as much as they can because they're in the business of selling books too. But I would just say the biggest change I've seen is very much authors speaking out and talking to each other and helping each other out. Joanna: Exactly. And also, you can find recommendations for attorneys and lawyers, and people to help take it up a notch. I think that's the other thing; go into it as a gentle email, ask nicely, know your rights, know what you've signed, all of that. And then you might have to go up this ladder of taking it to in a more serious way and certain wording and certain emails and that type of thing. It's almost like an escalating way to get your rights back, but certainly starting with a nice email. And this is why I think just going back to it, it's that contract that you sign at the beginning. If you sign a good contract, then it shouldn't be difficult. Many people signed contracts years ago and didn't really know what they signed. Katlyn: Yes. And also too, as I said, I did hire lawyers in the past, but I was the one to negotiate. And there is that nice thing you say and then it gets escalated and you have to determine whether or not what you really want, if a particular clause, you want changed or a royalty structure or anything like that. You have to figure out what your sticking point is and be prepared sometimes to walk away with some of these contracts if you don't feel comfortable signing it or you are really sticking in about something. It's scary, but definitely be prepared to walk away if you need to. Joanna: And that goes for agent contracts too. I was just thinking of, at one point I was offered a contract with an agency and it said we will take 15% of sale of all books published under your name regardless of whether they are self-published or not because we believe we are building your brand. So we get a percentage of all your books. Katlyn: That's crazy. Joanna: I know. And I'm not going to give any names, obviously, with this pretty high-profile agency with some pretty famous clients. It was one of those situations where I thought, ‘Well, I could be the next big-name author if this is what this agency can do.' On the other hand, I'd already been working for like eight years building up my author brand. And I was like, ‘I don't think I can do that.' Just hand over everything to do with my author name. Thinking about it now, maybe I could have started a new author name or something with them, but it's funny, these things come up and as you say, you have to try and take that empowered sense. Even if you're not feeling very empowered, you have to think, ‘I am worth something. Can I negotiate this contract or what should I do?' Really think long-term. Katlyn: Absolutely. And that's one of the things that's really shifted. As I said, I befriended a lot of self-published authors, a lot of indie authors, and it just seems like the world has opened up so much because it's like, no, you don't just write this book and then it gets forgotten. You can do as many things as you want with it. And you have to look very much long term in that sense with your book and not just okay, ‘When is the book going to launch? Okay. When is the next book going to come out?' Type of thing. Joanna: Oh, good. Well, that's very encouraging and I highly recommend your book Take Back Your Book. Where can people find you and everything you do you online? Katlyn: My main hub, the easiest is my website at katlynduncan.com, K-AT-L-Y-N-D-U-N-C-A-N.com. And my YouTube channel and all my socials are on there and all of my books are wide. I also sell on Payhip, thanks to you, Joanna, for talking about that so much. So I do sell direct through my website and that's really my go-to now when I buy books from you and other authors. I try to see if they sell on their website. So yeah, that's where you can find me mostly, is on my website. Joanna: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Katlyn. That was great. Katlyn: Thank you.The post Take Back Your Book: An Author’s Guide to Rights Reversion and Publishing on Your Terms With Katlyn Duncan first appeared on The Creative Penn.

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