Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Hi, and welcome to a time to thrill. It's me, your host, Amy Austin.
[00:00:07] Speaker B: Oh.
[00:00:08] Speaker A: To the ides of March. Welcome to the third month of the year. I can't believe we've moved that far.
I am excited to share with you the murders began. If you are subscribed to this podcast channel, then you will have heard the first and second episodes that Blake Harden Tatum recorded. If not, go back and listen to those. They're about five minutes each. They just were made to amuse us all. I'd actually love to record her entire podcast series, but there'd be too many spoilers. Maybe later, maybe as a bonus. Actually, I'll think about that. If you're interested in hearing the recordings of the other podcast episodes, let me know. Reviews above the murder began. Reviews help new readers find great books, and I want to share the continuing story of Nicole Long and the crazy Cleveland antics with as many readers as possible.
This month, I had the great pleasure of interviewing Anthea Sharp, who's also known as Lawson.
She. I'm trying to think when I met her, you know what?
[00:01:22] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:01:23] Speaker A: As we talk about in the podcast part of the year, she lives in the Pacific Northwest. And several years ago, maybe six, seven, eight years ago, we used to have these little mini, mini independent writer weekend conferences up north of here. So San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, and I believe we met at one of those. I actually remember meeting just. It was in a hotel, hotel ballroom.
[00:01:55] Speaker B: Or like conference room.
[00:01:56] Speaker A: So it's pretty generic, but it was probably Seattle or Portland. I remember all of it. I just don't remember the city outside of the room.
Anthea is great. She's great. She's great. As we talk about, she changes the trajectory of actually the Casey court series for longtime readers. The second book I wrote half before I had a kid and half when I. After I had these lofty ambitions that I would be able to write ransomed while I was pregnant. But halfway through the pregnancy, I got really heavily involved in nesting, painting, I don't know, just stuff now that doesn't seem important, but felt really important, but painting or having painting and, I don't know, buying, I don't know, fluffy furniture for a baby distracted me from finishing the book. So after my son was born, I finished the book. Kind of vague. I don't remember that era. But the beginning of the book wasn't my strongest opening. And when people were done reading, judged, which a lot of people read and liked, thousands and thousands, they wouldn't move on to ransomed. And just a year ago, we were at the beach retreat. Here we go again. And Anthea was there, and we were discussing beginnings of books. And I was telling her that the sales really dropped off. I didn't think the beginning of the book was strong. And she looked at me and she was like, you could just rewrite the.
[00:03:41] Speaker B: Beginning of the book.
[00:03:42] Speaker A: And so I did. So the book used to start with her saying, ga.
[00:03:48] Speaker B: I know.
[00:03:49] Speaker A: I remember those sounds echoed off her walls. And I changed it to, I think, farther into that scene or just how that begins. And it got people over the hump. And the sales of the second book and the subsequent books in the series increased monumentally. So that said, I'm very, very thankful to Anthea for her advice. She has been in the indie space for a long time, has a lot of great information. I should probably take all of her advice.
I should take a lot of advice from a lot of people that I don't. Don't we all.
But you'll have the opportunity to hear her story and our conversation. So without further ado, USA Today bestselling author Anthea Sharp, who also writes as Anthea Lawson.
[00:04:48] Speaker B: Hi, and welcome to a time to thrill.
[00:04:50] Speaker A: This is me, your host, Amy Austin.
[00:04:52] Speaker B: This month, I am speaking with one of my favorite people, Anthea Sharp. Hi.
[00:04:59] Speaker C: Hi.
[00:05:00] Speaker B: How are.
[00:05:03] Speaker C: I am just. I'm delighted to chat and catch up because it's been like a year, I think, since we talked, so this is great. Yeah.
[00:05:12] Speaker B: So I have. Well, first I'm going to ask you this question. Would you now consider yourself a digital nomad?
[00:05:19] Speaker C: Not 100%. Maybe a digital snowbird nomad. I don't know.
I'm stationary about nine months out of the year, or. Well, okay, maybe eight.
And then in the wintertime, I get out of the northwest. My husband and I travel pretty extensively to places where it's not raining all the time. And so during that part of the year, absolutely digitally, nomadding all over. But at home up in Washington state, I've got an actual desk and a solid Internet connection and do the thing.
[00:06:04] Speaker B: Okay. And was your daughter graduating from college the thing that prompted you to feel free to travel more?
[00:06:13] Speaker C: Actually, the daughter starting college was really. My husband and I looked at each other and he was, well, that's true.
One and done. And so the nest was feeling emptier. And we looked at each other and we were like, hey, you know what?
We can just go if we want to. He was working remotely since 2017, so pre Covid kind of stuff. And so we just structured it so that we could both go someplace and work. And it was super. We loved it. And 2019, we really went off the leash and we went to Europe and loved Portugal, spent time traveling around, and I was like, this is great. 2020, we are just going to be. The world is our cloister. We're going to travel everywhere. We're going to house it in New Zealand. This will.
So we still haven't quite got back to that point yet, but I'm not.
[00:07:19] Speaker B: Sure any of us have. Actually, I overdid it last year. I felt like I was on the loose. And then at some point, I looked at my son and I go, I think we overdid it. He goes, yeah, I don't want to be on a plane right now. And I go, I thought.
[00:07:37] Speaker C: There'S that thing of the revenge, staying up. Have you heard that term? It's like there's a japanese word for when you just stay up because you didn't get enough done during the day, or you were like, too. And you just stay up way too late, even though you know that tomorrow you is not going to be happy.
I think there's maybe a revenge, like travel, see the world, do all the things right.
[00:08:04] Speaker B: Yeah. It was a lot of pent up frustration because I realized this is the bizarre thing. I realized that 18 months, that 18 months, because I'd landed from Hawaii, maybe I'd gone to Houston. I don't know if you were there that year, like 2019, I'd gone to Houston. And then after that, I went to Hawaii and I'd landed, and that was the last flight I took. And in my head, I was going to be gone in like, a couple months. You know what I mean? A couple of months. And that 18 months was the longest time I've been off. I've been stationary, and I hadn't realized how much of the joy I get out of life was me having new scenery.
And La without anything to do is just a lot of.
[00:08:54] Speaker C: Empty roads. I mean, that was like, crazy thing.
[00:08:59] Speaker B: It was the bizarre thing I've ever seen. I thought about it because I spent an hour in traffic yesterday. It was the bizarrest thing I've ever seen. I was like, oh, I understand how this place could work without cars, but also, now there's nothing to do. And the fact that the weather is nice is not a sufficient reason to pay to live here.
Not cost of.
Yeah.
Where were you?
[00:09:28] Speaker C: We all had to get a little creative. No, you were in California. California, yeah.
We came down to support our kid as she was going to school and some of the things that my husband and I do, we were able to keep doing so on the side. We play irish music. I play this at all. And we like to play irish music sessions. So there's a group of musicians down here in southern California that we play with. And luckily, because of the southern California weather, we could keep getting together and play. And one of the members found this great big gazebo in a park, like, enormous, where we could all sit 6ft apart from each other easily, sometimes more, and play music, but still hear each other. Because of the acoustics of the gazebo were such that it wasn't like your sound just kind of dissipated. And so that helped keep us sane for a hunk of time. Okay.
[00:10:35] Speaker B: That's so much more magical. I think my son was in fourth grade, which was not.
I was a little more tethered, so I just watched him on Zoom.
It's fascinating.
[00:10:52] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:10:54] Speaker B: There are questions I realize I've never asked you, and one of them is how I've asked you some of this because we've talked about. I remember we talked about it, like, last year at the beach. But what made you start writing historical? I know I asked you about your publication journey because I think I know everyone's. Because they're all different and kind of the same. You know what I mean? They're all different, but also kind of the same. But yeah, the era that we came of where the dead imprints. I was talking to somebody and they're like, what happened to that? I was like, you know, imprints come and go. That is so long. God, I can't.
[00:11:38] Speaker C: Right. It's funny, because I got a chance to listen to your interview with Delilah Marvell, who's just adore her. She and I were both. I think our pub date was just a couple months off from each other, and we were both bought by an imprint that was dying, which neither of us realized at the time.
We had the opportunity to get salty about that together several times, which was great, I think, I may admit. Yeah, I realized this.
[00:12:09] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay.
Up in Seattle or.
[00:12:14] Speaker C: Right? Yeah, definitely.
So, yeah, it was an interesting journey. And talk about your rose colored glasses, about publishing getting ripped off your face and then crushed underfoot until there's nothing but broken frames and residue of rose colored dust. Right.
[00:12:36] Speaker B: Dreams.
[00:12:37] Speaker C: So what got me started writing historicals. And that's how I started and broke in as Anthea Lawson, which is how you know me more. But I read some historicals, like, way back in the day, my best friend in middle school and I would sneak the harlequins off of her mom's shelves and read them secretly and put them back in, rearrange the book so it didn't look like anything was missing.
Well, they were Harlequin and this was way like back in the, they hadn't jumped at the super spicy trend yet. And so while it was like ho ho, there was lots of closed door fade to black ellipsis scenes.
And so they were entertaining. But I was like, wait, whatever.
[00:13:34] Speaker B: I have a question. I thought, okay, I read like one or two historical novels when I was like in the mid eighty s, like thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. Everybody has said to me that one of the reasons they read historical was that it was far spicier than the straight. Like the Harlequin contemporaries, which did not get spicy until they got blaze and all these other things, maybe like in 85, 87. But before then everything was closed door.
[00:14:03] Speaker C: I think we were, the regency were very closed door. And thinking back, I'm thinking her mom was not buying the things that were being published then. So these were things that were probably published back in the show. Very tame.
Yes. Barbara Cartland with her picture of wearing pearls and these two little white dogs on a bright pink chiffon like Shez lunge with wearing a pink.
That's not a romance writer.
[00:14:44] Speaker B: Yeah, she had a whole shop at the, yes.
[00:14:49] Speaker C: Oh, I'm sure. Yeah. So that's one that definitely stands out. And so at the time I was like, oh, it's very romantic. The Lord swoops in and saves the poor governess who's actually secretly the heiress in disguise. All of that.
[00:15:05] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:15:06] Speaker C: But I read them. I was done. I moved on. Give me ya fantasy anytime.
And then my kid was born and she was, let's say, a very leisurely meal taker. And so I would be sitting in the rocket chair nursing.
[00:15:28] Speaker B: I had one of those.
[00:15:29] Speaker C: An eternity, basically. I'm like, oh, God, it's been like an hour and a half. Are you not done yet? So then I figured out that I could, like, well, I could read during this time. So I just started reading a lot and going to the library and checking out books, and I found this book. I thought it was a fantasy, and it kind of had to do with this mythical island off the coast of Spain. And there was like kind of a greek God and goddess thing going on. And I was like, oh, that sounds interesting. Romantic elements which I've always, always, always read for in my books ever since way back in the day. Anne McCaffrey. Thank you. Romance. But so I read this book. And I was like, what am I reading?
This is spicy. This is fun. The women have agency. Like, oh, my Gosh, this is incredible. So I realized, oh, this is kind of historical romance, and, oh, how hath he changed in the intervening decades? So I went on a historical romance reading tear. Loved it, loved it. Loved what was happening in the books. The spice.
[00:16:48] Speaker B: Wait, so what was that first book?
[00:16:50] Speaker C: I wish I could remember. There was this whole series of the secret lost kingdom, and they had some powers, so they kept it shrouded in clouds. The island kingdom. But then some interlopers came in, but yet it was kind of regency set as well.
Now you have me wanting to go back and find it. And it was great. I was like, oh, please do. Yeah, I would count me on 100%, but that's still not writing, right? So I got a book.
Many, probably hundreds of books.
[00:17:27] Speaker B: No, but it's the thing that. The catalyst, I guess.
[00:17:29] Speaker C: Yeah, I got a book, and I was so excited about it. It was like the premise was she is a blue stalking working in her father's bookshop and wants nothing to do with marriage. And he's the rakish privateer who has heard there's a treasure map, like, hidden somewhere in the bookstore. So he's going to court her and get her to reveal the secrets, find the map, and jolt her and leave her crying. And I was like, oh, this is going to be great, this treasure hunt, and probably, like, adventures at sea.
I'm here for it. So I started reading, and I'm getting closer and closer to the end of the book, and they still haven't found the map, and they still haven't embarked on their treasure hunt adventure. And I'm like, I'm getting more and more worried as a reader because I'm like, there's not going to be time for this book that I'm envisioning in my head that this is going to be. And they get to the end, they find the treasure map. He says, I was using you. She says, I know, but I forgive you. Let's get married. And he hands the map off to his second in command and says, there's a treasure out there. Go find it. And I was just flung the book at the wall.
I was like, where's my adventure story? Where's my treasure? And Tessa Dare had not yet written her wonderful series, her debut series, where one of them is kind of that actual book that I was really hoping to.
So, anyway, I was disgusted by this one book whose author I will not name, but a longtime author. And I was like, I'm going to write the book that I wish this book was. So I think a lot of authors are like, they're just motivated by rage or despair to create the book that they wanted to read.
[00:19:27] Speaker B: Yes.
Well, why don't they? And then I find myself sitting in front of the keyboard.
[00:19:34] Speaker C: Yeah, funny about that. Yeah, exactly. So I'm like, I'm going to write an exciting pirateal sea journey book. And then I started, and I was like, oh, actually, there are a lot of days at sea in that era, and it's really boring.
This is not working. There's not enough.
Uh, I started brainstorming with my husband, whose name is Lawson, and we kind of started throwing out all these ideas, and what if it wasn't a treasure hunt? What if it was a botanical expedition? And what if they didn't go all the way across the Pacific or the Atlantic? What if they just kind of stayed in the Mediterranean? And we can get exotic if we go to the coast of North Africa, right? So we can get something different, something exciting, some cool plants and flowers that you don't find in England.
So we brainstormed, and then I wrote, and I wrote 25,000 words in, I think, two weeks. I was so excited, and I was like, look, read this. And he was like, I think I understand what you're trying to do here. And I was crushed. I was like, what do you mean? But he was able to say it really gently and in a way of like, you have a great, beautiful, brilliant story inside your head, and it's not coming out on paper. Right.
Which I think is the writer's journey, is to learn how do we use these weird little black and white marks on paper to create this full blown visionary dream inside someone else's head? Right.
[00:21:18] Speaker B: I'm still working on it.
[00:21:20] Speaker C: I guess I don't really know how.
Aren't we all right.
It's just like the endless journey to just telepathically get our stories across to readers.
[00:21:36] Speaker B: I think you have just hit upon the one thing.
[00:21:43] Speaker C: Yeah.
And that's why we're constantly working on our craft and constantly trying to push the limits and find ways to. Yeah, I love that. I think it's fascinating. That's one of the things I love about writing, is just, can I pull you into my dream vision world and hold you down, not let you go until you emerge gasping for air at the end? Having shared this sort of co creation of my words, putting pictures and characters and stories and emotions in your mind.
[00:22:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
You sound very poetic and amazing.
[00:22:29] Speaker C: Thank you. Well, so that was the one thing I had going for me. I wrote poems all through high school. I studied poetry. I did poetry in college. And so I was like, I understand words.
I just don't understand how to write a novel.
And I think you see that in different fields, too. There's journalists, there's a ton of attorneys who then become romance writers. Right?
I get words right for the attorney romance writers out there. There's so.
[00:23:13] Speaker B: Many.
[00:23:17] Speaker C: Right? And it's great. And I think it's what helps make romance writers as a whole just super powerful, honestly. Yes.
[00:23:27] Speaker B: Because we were just talking about the whole Spotify. Yes. It's one of the things that makes us savvy.
[00:23:35] Speaker C: Yeah.
And like, hey, you know what? Words are important. And if you're going to try some contractual shenanigans with writers, think again. Right?
[00:23:49] Speaker B: Yeah. It makes me feel bad for music artists, but that's a different question. So the first 25,000. So did you then go back?
[00:23:59] Speaker C: Well, yeah, I did. I was like, oh, I have this great idea, but obviously I'm not infecting you with my great vision. So I was like, I don't really understand how to write fiction, I guess. And he's like, oh, I've always wanted to learn how to write fiction, too.
I don't know. Clifton strength tree, he's number one learner. So he loves the process of just learning a new thing. And in his former life, he would do a job for about three years until he got really good at it, and then he'd be like, okay, I learned this. What's next? What's the new thing? He has three college degrees, a bachelor, master's, and a law degree. And he would love to stay in school forever. So he was like, oh, fiction, how does it work? What do we do? So for the next two years, we both just sort of devoured all the resources we could. I joined our wa, wonderful organization back in the day, and there was workshops, there was so much information sharing, there were so many helpful things. I went to the conferences, took all the classes, and then, yeah, we went back and rewrote those 1st 25,000 words.
And Lawson got involved, too. He was like, let's do this together. And previously, again, the music, we played music together, and we made albums together prior to writing a book. So we kind of already had a sense of how our creative processes work together.
And a lot of it's me saying, no, let's do it this way.
And then he's like, okay, but I'm actually subtly going to influence you in my direction. So it works.
Like, wait, how did I get over here? And he just smiles.
So, so I would, I would. I worked on the first chapter and then handed it to him, and then he'd kind of do his thing with it and he'd hand it back to me and then I'd work on a little more, refine it. And we did this.
We rewrote that book probably seven times in its entirety, sort of back and forthing it and learning really early about the importance of super clear communication.
So we'd brainstorm, and this is such a great sort of lesson as an author to take as well. So we'd brainstorm, and I'm really good at just getting words out. First draft. There we go. Whereas he would just like, if he was doing the drafting, he'd be like, I wrote this perfect paragraph. I'm like, that's what you did all week.
So, so I was the obvious good choice for drafting. And so we'd be like, okay, they're on the boat, they're going through the Mediterranean, they're having a meal, and the villain comes in who's inserted himself on the boat and into their party, and he says horrible, nasty things and wreaks havoc. And so I'm like, okay, I'm writing. So I write this great luncheon scene outdoors on the deck with all the beautiful blue sky overhead, the warm mediterranean breezes. And he was like, oh, no, I think it should be a dinner inside the boat.
And I'm like, oh, okay, well, yeah, convince me why? And he did, and I was like, okay, but just a really great point of like, if you tell someone and then they had a meal on the boat, it's like, you can't just say that because everyone's going to have their own idea in their head of what is a meal on the boat.
I think that process of really having to become very clear what are we describing and what are the details and how? Because we had to create that dream in each other's minds. I think that helped make that book really very strong.
[00:28:34] Speaker B: Okay, so I have two questions which are completely different questions.
Okay. Do you remember last year when we were discussing rewriting the beginning of books? Is this one of the books that you rewrote the beginning of later?
[00:28:50] Speaker C: No, I've always been. Well, I mean, kind of, yes. No, I think that particularly in the learning process, the book came out very different than those 1st 25,000 words that I wrote in a mad rush and that I learned through this process. And every book and story that I've written since then has confirmed that I'm a layerer. I'm a putter inner. So I'll kind of start with kind of a sketch, and then I'll circle back through and add. And add.
[00:29:28] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I do the same thing, but I do.
I do the same thing, but I limit myself to only going back a few pages because otherwise you end up with the, you know, the new writer problem where the first three chapters are, like, amazing, but they don't spend as much time layering in on, let's say, the last, whatever, 2015, whatever that is.
But I do the same thing. Well, so I will say that the first book I wrote, I probably rewrote it eight or nine times as well because I had such great ideas and I couldn't articulate them. It was maddening, but so maddening. I mean, it's fine, and it's sold a lot now, and it's fine, but that first couple of years, I just couldn't figure out. I read so many books, and I couldn't figure out how to write a book.
It was harder. I thought that if you read a lot of books and people describe it this way, then you sort of inherently get how stories are told, and it makes it easier to write books. But I actually don't know if that's true.
[00:30:40] Speaker C: I've heard that as well, and I think it gives you an intuitive grasp of story structure. Particularly, like, what you're describing is that you knew what wasn't working, right?
[00:30:57] Speaker B: Yes, but I didn't know what was working.
The corollary was right.
[00:31:02] Speaker C: But you were still, like.
You weren't like, oh, it's perfect. It's great. I'm going to publish this, right?
[00:31:13] Speaker B: No, it was so stilted, and I couldn't. Well, this is years ago. I couldn't figure out how to fix it myself. The craft books were not necessarily helpful. And what I thought at the time is that if I get this agent, we're not going to get into this to send it out. Then I'll have an editor who will see this gem in the rough and fix it, and maybe that would have worked in 1952, I don't know, but whatever. 92, 95.
[00:31:46] Speaker C: That's a good point, too, for people who are aspiring. Like, this idea that editors will actually edit your book for you. Okay. I have two friends who get amazing.
They're still trad pub, and they get amazing editorial letters, and they're, like, the only two people I know of who have ever had that happen?
[00:32:08] Speaker B: No. So I'll tell you, this is a complete aside. So I belong to an organization, which I'm now not going to name, that has been doing this editor series lately, which is fascinating because they're very established writers. And the editors, well, the way that conversation comes off, as if we're, like, 20 and have just woken up. So what is so interesting to me is the editors are pitching themselves as writers, editors. And that may be true. That may be true. I'm not saying that I don't know, because they edit so few books, and I haven't read any of the, I haven't read the before and after. But what is interesting is that in that vein, and they've said this, and one person, I think their imprint may not last.
Their books are not making a lot of money.
And I did not pipe up in any of these Zoom sessions. But what I wanted to say is, oh, I think I understand what you're trying to do in a global way, but what you really need to do is buy commercial books that can sell, that are already written. Well, you know what I mean. But I couldn't say that. So there are editors, I think, who want to aspire to that, but they're not finding commercial success with that model. And I have some questions as to why, but not that deeply. I'm not digging deep to find out why, but I do wonder about that. But anyway, back to your swashbuckling.
I guess my second question is, when did you know it was ready to be submitted? I think is what I want to say, because that sounds like a long process and not, apparently, it seems better than my process. Took me seven or eight tries. But what made you realize that this is good enough?
[00:34:03] Speaker C: I think when we started just changing one word, so Lawson would send me back a chapter, and I'd like tweak a couple of things, and then I'd send it back to him, and then he'd tweak the things that I just tweaked, and then he'd send it back. And then we're like, we're just going in circles here, right?
So we're like, this is as done as we can make it with our current craft level, right.
At some point, I think when I realized, oh, we're actually writing a real book, like, this is 100,000 words of historical romance, and this is a thing.
Yes, I'll join this romance writers of America association, which I did, and it was wonderful at the time and great for so many people's careers and then I'm like, well, I guess you enter it in contests, and you try and get an, uh. So that book finaled in the golden Heart contest, which was kind of a big deal back then, and got a lot. A lot of great feedback, contest feedback. And at that point, we're like, okay, well, then you find an agent. And that was, wow. We were on the query go round for a while, and it's funny what you don't know when you first start, right?
And, like, how you just mentioned, well, get a commercially viable book. Maybe that would do better for your imprint.
So at the time, I'd been reading a lot of historical romance, and I'm like, another duke in the ballrooms of London romance. I'm just so bored of, really. I love our idea of this botanical expedition to Tunisia, and it is swashbuckling. And there's even a little sideways call out to Indiana Jones in one of the, like, we'll do this whole series of exotic locale romances, and it'll be awesome. And it's so fresh and new and interesting. But when editors tell you we want something fresh and new and interesting, they actually don't mean that.
[00:36:27] Speaker B: Don't mean it. I was driving somewhere yesterday, I think maybe I was biking yesterday, and I was thinking to myself, I wish I understood the same but different 15 years ago or more at this point, because they kept saying something new, and I kept sending something new, and they kept publishing the same thing, and I didn't understand it. I get it now. I just wish I had gotten it then, because I was also convinced that this new, different thing, people would be like, oh, my God, I always wanted something new. And here it is.
Here we.
[00:37:10] Speaker C: You know, in retrospect, it's pretty shocking that that first book sold to New York, because the hero did not have a title until the very, very end.
It was based around a botanical expedition to North Africa, to a country that probably most people could not point to on a.
So it's kind of shocking, really, that it sold, but I think part of why it sold is because it was in really good shape, because we'd taken some of the contest feedback from the RWA contest and incorporated that it was a great way to get sort of outside eyes. So the book was really.
I mean, we didn't get any substantive editing whatsoever from the publishing house, which was kind of shocking. The rose colored glasses again.
But honestly, it didn't really need that much. It was a pretty well put together book.
I look back at, like, you, like, if only we'd known then don't bring some of the same sort of sense of adventure and excitement, but keep him in London. Make him hang out in the ballroom.
[00:38:37] Speaker B: I'm laughing, but I'm also sad about it, because now I remember. The reason I was thinking about this is because it's awards season in Los Angeles, right? And my inbox is full of screeners, and there's nothing but for your consideration. Posters and billboards everywhere you drive. And my son was doing tryouts, so I've been on the road way more than I would normally have been. And so I was looking at the screeners last night, and I was thinking about watching one. I honestly did not watch any of there's. Okay. So I met this guy at a gala, like a month ago, some awards gala, and he works for a newly formed nonprofit in Los Angeles whose goal is to get people to go to the movies.
And it was one of the most fascinating conversations I ever had, because there's a lot of mostly men sitting around in LA trying to figure out why they can't get people to go to the movies. And I feel like I could answer that. So what I want is something different, but I'm not actually sure that's even the answer. What I think people don't want is more of the same. I don't know if people need the 95th Marvel movie, but they are trying to figure out. I know, but it's fascinating till they want to figure out how to get people there. And personally, I think I have my own solution, but I don't know if that's even viable, although in the indie space it's worked. I think you need to give people way more options and then see what sticks, which is unfortunate in terms of artists, because then we're just thrown against a wall and hope for the best, like spaghetti. But I do think there's something to giving people different things, because the randomest things become very popular, like whether it's 50 shades or like, jojo Moyes. I mean, I don't know if you had said, or the fault in our stars, it's like we're going to talk about these people with illnesses or dying, and this is going to be the thing of the moment in a different sort of quirky don't.
But that's not the majority of things. So I feel personally, and I think this is actually shown in streaming.
Well, not more probably in streaming, but in. In streaming, they're like, we're just going to make a whole bunch of wackadoodle things and some of them, like, I don't know, orange is the new black or something. You're like, I didn't think I was going to watch this show about this woman who went to prison, but here we are.
But I wish that would continue. But it feels as if, as in any market, when it matures, people sort of solidify like cement, and they just want the same thing.
[00:41:11] Speaker C: And play it safe. And you know what? I think you said something really important and which was more of the same is what they don't want.
But something new is not the way to not say.
It's just a little semantic thing. They think saying, oh, give us something new means not more of the same. But that's not actually true, right? Not more of the same means really similar, direct descendant of these things that have been successful, but just with a slight twist.
[00:41:53] Speaker B: If you look at what comes out of any entertainment medium, that seems awfully hard to get people to rally around, not the gatekeepers, not the consumers. And it's fascinating to me that I feel like the answer could be seen if people sat around and talked about it in a serious way for 15 minutes. And yet when it comes out of the meat grinder of approval and marketing or whatever, we don't end up with that.
[00:42:21] Speaker C: Because then also there's the totally, like, well, this worked for us in the past. Let's just recycle it again. And that takes that certain kind of vision.
Like you said, the early days of streaming of, like, hey, this is, like, wide open. We could try and do anything.
All right. You were asking me about why, like, not writing as much historical romance. I've really pivoted much more strongly to my Anthea sharp pen name. And in the ya fantasy space, and fortunately, kind of in the romantic space, funny little portmanteau word there, because I've always loved romance in my stories, and I love writing fantasy. And so romantic fantasy is just a really natural fit. And the market is there right now. So that's what I'm doing. But also because the historicals, I also really didn't learn. It took me way too long to get it through my thick skull that, like, no, the exotic locales are actually not a selling point. So few of those books. And then I was like, oh, okay, you're right. What I really should do is write about musicians.
[00:43:38] Speaker B: No, it's a duke in a drawing room. Come on. But yes.
[00:43:45] Speaker C: So I wrote the music books, and that was the point at which my agent was like, how about, I don't think I'm going to shot this book around with this violin playing paganini hero, and I was like, well, how about we part ways then? Which was a good.
Just like I've always been just off on the not quite there fringes of historical romance and of course, my best selling novella. And I'm writing. All I'm doing right now with Anthea Lawson is writing a Christmas victorian novella. And I do that every year. And I'm really enjoying having these sort of shorter bits. And of course, the most popular ones are the ones that feature dukes. So I can embrace a duke for a novella. That's fine.
[00:44:45] Speaker B: You have highlighted for me all the creative struggles that there are in.
There's always this advice that sort of floats around. Write the book of your heart. But book of your heart and commercially viable are not necessarily the same thing. They could be, but not necessarily. So then I'll ask you, because you're talking about you and Delilah Marvel. I hadn't thought about that. But what made you pivot to indie? Or have the bravery to do that? Because, okay, so we're over a certain age, how can I say this kindly? And there are some authors who pivoted to indie and took to it like a duck took to water. There are some people who are mainly traditional. Stuck a toe in Indy, found it objectionable, and went back.
Went back to trad publishing. I don't ever say traditional. And the longer I've been around, the more I realized that. I don't know if it's two different kinds of personalities, two different kinds of people, different kinds of books, different kinds of experiences. I don't have that answer. But I find it.
You struck out in indie and you kept at it because there are a lot of people who've quit, which I didn't even see that coming, to be honest. People I know who said they would never quit, who quit?
What made you strike out on indie and then keep at it?
[00:46:13] Speaker C: Well, getting kicked to the curb by your publisher will definitely make you start looking for other options. Right? So after two books, your numbers aren't great. Yeah, you're like being nominated for prestigious awards like the Rita and getting great reviews, but you're not selling well enough. Your strange little quirky, exotic locale historicals. Shocking at first. So that was what, 2009? And I was really bummed about that. I was like, man, I really wanted to be an author. This was pretty cool. I've been a reader my whole life, and making the pivot over to being an author and creating worlds and boy, getting that fan mail or those reviews from people who are like, I loved your world. I was so immersed.
You get to be a little creative. God, right? A world builder.
But there was one other writing project that came across the board right about that time, which was we were invited into the mammoth Book of Regency romance and write a short story, or kind of a longer short story novella for the mammoth book of Regency romance. So, yeah, okay, did that. That was fun. Very hot and spicy little piece of regency.
And that came out in 2010. And at the time, the contract did not cover digital rights. So it was just the print rights or the only rights you sold. And I had some friends. Yeah, it was like they did not get the memo. Luckily for a lot of the authors who were in those projects, and I had a couple of friends, notably Jackie Barbossa was like, hey, there's this Kindle direct publishing thing and we have our digital rights. I'm going to put my short story up. I think she made a cover in, like, ms. Paint or something. I don't know.
[00:48:31] Speaker B: She told the story at OCC, but yeah.
[00:48:36] Speaker C: She put it up and it stole, like, gangbusters. And I was like, oh, my God, like, wait, what is going on here?
And I watched as more and more people were kind of pivoting.
Friends who had beaten themselves against the wall of traditional publishing, who were score pegs and they could not fit in that round hole, but they were phenomenal writers, had great series and started indie publishing and seeing huge success with all of their books that they were never able to sell to traditional publishing. And it was just the light bulb went on. And finally in 2011, finally it felt late at the time, I got that first mammoth book of Regency romance story, the piano tutor, up on Amazon, and it just, like, it took off because at the time, indies had the bottom of the pricing game sewn up and could outsell trad works so easily and also a 99 cent short story.
They weren't out there from trad pub at all, but there were people who are like, yeah, I want a little or d'oeuvre or whatever.
And so then that kind of just blew my mind. But I've always been willing to be an early adopter. I was in a band that uploaded our music to mb three way back in the early digital music days.
And so I was like, this could be like that. Maybe this could be a viable thing. And it was. And so I'm like, I'm going to keep doing this. But then I had my young adult fantasy and I shopped it around and I came very close to getting my dream agent on that. And she passed and I was like bummed for a while. And that was in early 2011. And then at the end of 2011, I was like, yay, I'm going to publish this book independently. That was my first Phalan book and never really looked back since that point.
[00:50:56] Speaker B: Okay, that's so fascinating. So what made you.
I was not an early adopter.
Okay. I think I did. The first indie book was maybe 2013, but not I knew about. I was in southern California and I knew Jackie Barposa. I wasn't unaware.
I was still clinging very hard to the fantasy. And the imprint that I was with had not yet imploded on its way, but not yet there.
Well, you know, they were sort of limping along and they were doing some really weird thing. You know what I mean? You're like, oh, you're really desperate. Okay, yeah, the late imprint, it's like late stage capital. Like late stage imprint.
Okay. So I went to meetings and people were indie pubbing and I just couldn't get my head around ebooks or indie or any of it. I had to go out and buy an iPad to figure out. I was like, well, what is this? I just couldn't put my fingers around. And I know people were downloading, reading on their desktop, and I was like, I'm never going to do this.
That doesn't even seem like a viable thing. And the Kindle was new and it hadn't yet taken off, so what made you adopt it? Versus this is probably a personality thing now that I say the question out loud, versus the rest of us who had the information and went home and were like, don't know about that.
[00:52:31] Speaker C: So I've always been like, before I started writing, was a musician, and you have to be scrappy and you have to be hungry, you've got to rustle up gigs and you've got to be like, okay, we're playing this strange little jazz club, and now we're playing a wedding where we're playing the processional music for the little dogs that are going down the aisle, and now we're going to guest appear on a friend's recording. You're constantly in there, just like working, working to get little scraps.
And I had an actual official job for like, maybe three years in my life. I was a barista and then a manager of a coffee shop.
I think you're right. Like you said, personality. So I've always been willing to be like, okay, let's get out there and see what we can find and the promise was there of digital. I didn't worry too much about who's reading my stories. How are they doing it? I was just like, I put my story on Amazon. It sold great, great. More of that.
[00:53:36] Speaker B: My God. You have no idea how I was so in the weeds.
I can't remember. Was it red Siren? I can't remember which one of the early publishers. And I went to the website, and I was like, so if I download this, how am I going to do it? And then how would anybody else do it?
When you said out loud you didn't care, I was so in the weeds on not understanding how consumers were going to consume it that I didn't feel comfortable doing it. And at that point, I don't think I was writing fast enough. Although I had a couple of books under the bed, I don't think I was writing fast enough.
I couldn't even think that way. I appreciate.
Oh, for all of you early doctors, I really appreciate that. Oh, my God. Speaking of which. So then I have a different question for you, which is completely different.
Do you think of yourself as an early adopter of the Kickstarter model for authors?
[00:54:27] Speaker C: So I am going to digress and talk about the wonder that is Becca Sime, right?
[00:54:36] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:54:36] Speaker C: So Becca Sime has.
Has worked on all of these wonderful ways that authors can kind of figure out what their strengths are, what they're good at, who they are, what kind of approach to take in publishing.
And she has this whole idea of these personality types. So this is not the Clifton strengths. This is the trailblazers, the drafters, the followers, the islands. I can't remember them all, necessarily. And there are people who are trailblazers. That is not me. Trailblazers are the ones that get out there and labor through the snow.
Maybe if we slug this way, we'll get somewhere interesting, right?
[00:55:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:55:25] Speaker C: I feel bad for them.
Yes. And so that's a drafter. Or, like, the person who's coasting behind the guy on the bike, and then the other guy's like, oh, thank you for making my way easier.
And what the drafters do is they watch the trailblazers and see if what they're doing works.
And if it does, then they're like, great, count me in. So I think that was true with indie publishing. Like, I wasn't first out the gate. I wasn't Jackie Barbossa, but I saw her success, and I was, okay, this, obviously, this works. Sign me up.
And I didn't need to wait a super long time for that. And similarly, with Kickstarter, I feel like I saw some people be really successful. My friends, Thorne Coil, they had a campaign at the end of 2021 that did really well for their fiction. And I was like, oh, my gosh, I could do that. I think Thorne did it. I could do it. Thorne doesn't have a huge ass following is a good, solid midlist author. Right? And I was like, that could be me too. And so starting in 2022, I was like, kickstarter is on my horizon and I'm going to do it. I'm going to make it happen. And then I was very fortunate that my very first Kickstarter for Fantasy Omnibus, I decided to run that Kickstarter in March of 2022.
That happened to be the month that Brandon Sanderson launched his campaign that ended up making $42 million.
[00:57:17] Speaker B: Okay, speaking of, yeah, okay.
[00:57:23] Speaker C: That kind of exploded Kickstarter onto writers radars.
I was very fortunate.
As we both know, in this industry, luck and timing are huge.
You have to do the work. You have to position yourself. But you could get, or you could not get a ton of different was I was there on the platform when Brandon Sanderson brought, I think, like several hundred thousand new people into Kickstarter, and I got some splashover from that. And my campaign did, it didn't make 42 million, right.
But it funded over $7,000 for a backlist omnibus that was very basic. It was a pod. It wasn't like all the fancy bells and whistles special editions that you see now. And I was like, oh, okay, this is going to work.
[00:58:28] Speaker B: Wow. Because I remember you saying this to me and like, I heard the other thing. I was like, that's fascinating.
I can't.
Yeah, that's a different conversation. It was just, I watched you and I was like, this is utterly fascinating. I saw you in person. You're like, no, this worked. And you brought the books. And I was like, this is like, I admire that. I will only say that I admire that. I admire it so much. And actually, one of the things, okay, so I usually do this at the top of the podcast, and I completely space because I usually thank people for certain things they did. And the thing that I thank you the most for, and it's actually changed the trajectory of one of my book series, was that I rewrote the beginning of a book.
So we were sitting, I think, at the beach, always at the beach, and I was complaining about, it's book two. I was pregnant. I remember I was pregnant when I wrote it. So there's some brain fog there I wrote the first half, and then I had a baby, and then I wrote the second half.
But I remember, let me just say it's the second in a series. It was not selling. People would buy book one, they would not buy book two. Sometimes people would continue on and buy the rest, but not enough people even at $0.99, even with a couple of book bubs. And I was like, it was killing me. And I knew the problem was the beginning. The first sentence was ga. I remember this. And she was like, I don't know, this is awful. And you sat next to me and you're like, you know, you could just rewrite it. I'm sorry, what did you just say?
I think even had it rerecorded recently, the audio. And I was like, I'm sorry, what did you say? And you're like, you could just rewrite it. And I was like, oh, so literally, I went home right after I saw you and I rewrote it. I had another bookbub feature deal because I was like, let me try it out. You want a bigger audience. And rather than 5000 downloads, it had like 40,000. And the follow on sales lasted like six months instead of six days. And I was like, oh.
[01:00:45] Speaker C: I'm so glad.
[01:00:46] Speaker B: But I think I emailed you because it was such an easy solution because my, and I've actually, I talked to Becky's mom about this, and one of the things she and I had talked about is that people don't have, when you read authors, you do not expect book one to be as good as book 23. And while that's true because of the way readers come to us now, I mean, it's not on a shelf or it doesn't disappear off the shelf. And they meet you. And then I have to go dig through the library, dig through a used bookstore because they meet you new to them. In that context, rewriting that made the biggest difference in my income, doubled my income in 2023. You have no idea. It changed things. So maybe more is more than doubles, like a 70% increase, to be frank. But it changed things so drastically that I was like, so I do want to thank you for that. And also the 70% increase and I'm taking myself on a vacation. But it really made.
[01:01:47] Speaker C: I love that. I love hearing that it made a difference.
[01:01:50] Speaker B: But your willingness, because I think you asked me, like, I don't even know what you asked me. It was some open ended question, and I was like, this is the problem I'm having.
It made such a difference. And I appreciate not so much a trailblazer, but whatever you would attribute that sort of idea of, well, try this, because all I had tried was different marketing, different advertising, different cover, and not fixed. And literally, honestly, it wasn't even all of chapter one. It was literally the first three pages of chapter one changed everything. The reviews went from, like, three stars to five.
It was mind boggling. And I'm going to actually do it with another book. I just haven't sat down to do it. So I have a free romance that people download constantly. Do not read the series. People love books four and five, not so much that one. And I was talking to Marina Maddox. We were just talking about her, and I was like, I think I'm going to do the anthea thing and just rewrite the first chapter and solve my other problem, rather than being mad every time I go into KDP and go, why are they downloading one but not two?
But I want to thank you that, because the way you think about the industry is so much different than the way I think about the industry. But your approach has been successful beyond yourself.
[01:03:16] Speaker C: Well, I love hearing that. One of the other things that I really love is being able to not be an island as a writer and to help each other out and to bounce ideas around.
I am glowing. I'm so happy to hear that. That worked. So back around to Becca sime. Right? And Clifton strengths. I am, number one, strategic, which means my brain is like, wow, let's try this. Oh, okay, maybe not so much. Let's do that. Let's do this.
Followed hard on the heels by adaptability. And so that's kind of a super strength combo.
[01:04:00] Speaker B: That's good. I don't have those minor is input and learner. So I could just sit in all down a rabbit hole all day.
[01:04:07] Speaker C: But I love that how this is why we have writer friends, right? That one thing that the person says that's like, oh, light, perfect.
[01:04:22] Speaker B: Let me ask this, because one of the things I have noticed is that you. Well, this is well known, I guess. I actually have no idea how many people are in the group. But you did start a Facebook group assisting authors with Kickstarters, and then you also wrote a book and other materials. I don't know how to get into that, to help authors do that. What prompts that? Because they're okay. So the thing I love about women in this industry is that they're very helpful. I've not found the same of men, and maybe they're helpful to each other. I don't know.
But what possessed you to put that hand out in terms of helping people? Because you've been so open and so amazing. And I know that you do consulting now for money, which is always good, but what made you think to yourself, look at what I've done with Kickstarter. Let me help other people.
[01:05:14] Speaker C: So I'm going to attribute that to a couple things. One is that early culture of RWA where you helped each other, that was just the culture. It's like there was no question, and people shared information and celebrated each other's victories. So definitely that.
Definitely one of my top five strengths of connectedness. Right? Also positivity, because you couldn't tell that I'm a positive person.
So all of those things, and I haven't gotten where I am without the help of a lot of other people.
And I love to be able to turn around and give a hand. And honestly, there might have been a little bit of self interest in there, because building the Kickstarter book ecosystem helps all the authors who are there, because every new author who does a Kickstarter brings some of their audience to the platform. And now it grows, and now we have a growing and more and more robust ecosystem.
But mostly I just love seeing people succeed.
[01:06:33] Speaker B: No, I love that about you, because I help people individually, but I never think about it in any grand word, to be honest. Like, if people call me, the whole input learner thing means I can answer their question off the top of my head because I have a recitation of facts about you. Maggie Marr, I think is, number one, strategic. But I think what I appreciate about the two of you is that you implement what you do. Do you know, I just take an information and then just hold it vessel.
And I don't.
[01:07:11] Speaker C: I know some things.
[01:07:14] Speaker B: I know so many things, but I don't implement it now. I'm going to actually think about that. That's going to be like my thought process for tonight because there's no implementation. Like, if you ask me, people call me all the time and ask me questions and they answer and they go, I love to be able to call you and ask you, like, random questions and you have an immediate answer. Somebody asked me about plates the other day, and I was like, these are the best brands of plates. And she was like, I knew you would know this. And I thought, why do I know this?
[01:07:39] Speaker C: How do you even know?
[01:07:41] Speaker B: But I have no thought until just this moment maybe I should write a strategic guide on how to get the best plates.
Somebody asked me about sheets recently, or somebody asked me about. I told you off, Mike. Somebody asked me about book writing and I will answer all the questions, I will have all the information, but I have never thought about implementing all of it. Okay.
[01:08:05] Speaker C: Yeah. So I wanted to get back to just the Kickstarter group.
So the fact that I've been helped a lot in my author career by other authors, so I started the group. And really my original idea for the Kickstarter for authors group on Facebook was I'd seen that the way that authors that people were promoting their Kickstarters on Kickstarter was to cross promote with other creators with similar projects on Kickstarter. And I was like, oh, you know what? So if this is the best way to get your project out there to new people who would pledge for it, is this kind of cross promotion? There should be a Facebook group where people can say, hey, this is my project. Let's swap. Let's cross promote.
And I was also super jazzed and so excited about, oh, my project did. So, like, I can hardly wait to go on Facebook and find the author groups where everyone's like talking about Kickstarter and they weren't there.
So I was like, well, I guess I'll start one, but I'll start this cross promotion one. And the first day, like 100 people asked to join. And one of the things that I asked in the questions was, what's your Kickstarter? URL. Have you run a Kickstarter campaign? And there was like 99% of the people were like, no, but I'm really interested in finding out more. And I was like, oh, this is not going to be a cross promotion group. This is going to be a group where people find out about Kickstarter.
So I went with the reality and there's actually two groups. There's the much bigger Kickstarter for authors group, which is getting up to about 3800 members, I think, at this point.
[01:10:00] Speaker B: Okay.
[01:10:04] Speaker C: And then the smaller cross promotion one which you can join once you have a Kickstarter. And then I was like, okay, I want this to be a group that's really warm and supportive, where people are freely sharing information, where we're just all lifting each other up. And so I've just really tried to make that the culture of the Facebook group in some small way.
[01:10:28] Speaker B: So I will say that I think you've succeeded today. I feel like I logged in today and you were talking about, and I already forgot the term, the page in the book that you're going to sign, that you're going to send back, that's going to be bound in the tip in. Tip in. Sorry, I read it and I was like, never heard this before. And it went right over my head.
[01:10:50] Speaker C: Something in, yeah, exactly. A tip in. Yeah. So I didn't know what a tip in was either until the whole Kickstarter special edition, things started happening. And then people are talking about, oh yeah, you can get the printer to send you pages that you autograph and then send back. And I'd only heard of that in conjunction with the big fancy book boxes because I've had a couple of author friends in there and they're like, yeah, they're sending me the pages, I'm going to sign them and then send back and then they get bound in the book. And I was like, oh, well, that makes sense because then the author doesn't have to have 1000 books arrive at their house and then they're signing each one.
But then to realize that, oh yeah, this is something I could do with my current special edition project.
And again, I get excited. I want to share stuff with people. Right? So it's like, hey, you guys, look, this is a thing. What do you, yeah.
[01:11:52] Speaker B: Okay, so I will ask this. Well, okay, I have two questions before we wrap up. The first is, what do you think of, how do I describe this?
You know, how we were talking about like Jackie Barbosa and the original cover. And this is true of like Deborah Holland and other people. I know the original covers did not take up all of the, it was not what it is today. I'm seeing the same with Kickstarter, where two years ago it was an expanded audience for, well, in my, some backlist things, some front listings to sweeten the deal, and now it is some very beautiful, elaborate hardcover, special edition, hand painted, whatever stuff.
But what do you think of that shift in, because part of me likes the idea, because some of the stuff is so pretty, but part of me thinks it makes it harder.
If you look in the group, there's a lot of conversation about fulfillment and shipping and putting these beautiful things together is more difficult than putting a simple thing together. But what do you think about that change or that shift in how some authors are running Kickstarters and offering their wares, as it were?
[01:13:11] Speaker C: So it really is very analogous to the early days of indie, right, where it's like you could succeed by just putting something only marginally better than what was there before, right?
Or if your price was right or something, you could have just terrible covers. Oh, I think of some of my first covers and then indies are very good at realizing, oh, wait, we could do this better.
Indie authors as a group, and definitely the romance authors are savvy, smart, really good at seeing what's going on and tooling it up and making. Pretty soon the books looked as good or better than tradpub books. Right.
And same thing as Kickstarter, like two years ago. Yeah, there were campaigns succeeding that probably would not succeed today because they just don't have that extra flair. And a lot of it's just right down to the super basics, like, can you write a compelling title and subtitle? So the authors kind of have an advantage there, right?
Words is what we do, hopefully.
And then with the graphics, a lot of indies have seen a lot of great graphics or work with graphic designers and are able to put together a very appealing looking campaign. That said, though, there's absolutely still a place for your kind of not super fancy, super bells and whistles kind of campaign. There's room on Kickstarter for all kinds of really fun, smaller, quirky projects. And I do worry that people see like, oh, the special edition campaign that funded $50,000, I'm never going to be able to do something like that. So Kickstarter is not for me, and that's not true.
One of my projects last year was a paperback edition of a short story collection.
It was not a huge, fancy, special thing, and it still did just fine. And there were plenty of people who were like, yeah, this sounds good. I'll buy this romantic fantasy short story collection that's only out in.
That's fast. There's room. There's room for.
[01:15:43] Speaker B: Yeah, that's fascinating because Marina and I were looking at, and I'm not going to remember who it is, so don't ask me, some author. It was romance, and she funded, I want to say it was like $400,000 in the first 25 seconds. And I think I texted her and we're like, okay, so maybe that ship has sailed, because it's not going to be.
That's a lot.
And it was lovely. It was like ten books. And if you put them all back to back, the covers made a beautiful thing and decolled edge or whatever it was. Plus, like a special audio recording and a box made of silk. I don't know, it was a lot. And a, it looked like a lot of fulfillment. It looked like a full time fulfillment job, but b, it felt unachievable.
[01:16:28] Speaker C: And if you're not at that point, there's people who are doing really well, who have done fancy edition book boxes for their fans. For years. So they're already in that space and they know how to make it work. So again, apples and oranges.
Don't think that the beauty of Kickstarter is that you can succeed and you can be financially successful with a very small project.
Interestingly, rolling back around to historical romance, historical romance and contemporary romance, unless you have a huge following, are not genres that do particularly well on Kickstarter, weirdly enough.
[01:17:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:17:10] Speaker C: So Kickstarter backers like the quirky, the weird, the fantastical, anything with paranormal or fantasy elements is going to do much better than just sort of your plain old vanilla whatever.
So I know this, and I've been watching for a while, again, the drafter letting the trailblazers go out there and break trail and historical romance on Kickstarter. But I do do my little victorian Christmas historical novellas, and I had one that was long enough, and I'd been meaning to put it into print for a while, and I was like, you know, I'm just going to do a little Kickstarter and put this into print as a paperback. And I positioned it as what we used to call mass market, which is now apparently dainty paperback.
[01:18:04] Speaker B: Yes.
[01:18:08] Speaker C: I know. I'm like, you mean just like a book.
So I set up a campaign for a little dainty back edition paperback of the Duke's Christmas Duke, see, and that, I think, funded at $1,400, is by far my smallest Kickstarter to date. But it was a book that I wanted to create and get the paperback out there anyway. It was already written, and so it was just a win win. I was able to make the paperback get some money in my pocket. It's out there now on retailers and at my direct store, and it just helped me bring the book to life and make the project. And I wasn't thinking, oh, I want to make $10,000 off of this. I want to make 100,000. I knew that that was not what that project was going to do.
I count it absolutely as a success.
[01:19:05] Speaker B: Okay, so then I feel like we have just totally circled back because it sounds like Kickstarter is speaking of the quirky, different thing. It may be the little bit of different in the same world. So it sounds like the people, the ecosystem there is a little bit more accepting of something different and indie. I'm not saying this. Readers of indie have proven that there's a much wider world out there than publishers still maybe believe.
But that's interesting. So then Kickstarter is no different than, in some ways, than some of the things that indies have done, which is finding the audience who wants your swash, buckling botanical whatever it is, finding the people who want that. There may not be 23 million, but 23,000 would be just fine.
[01:19:57] Speaker C: 100%, 230 will.
It's like that 1000 true fans kind of thing, right?
The people on Kickstarter are amazing. The backers, the people who support projects are like, yes, absolutely, I will pay you $5 for your ebook, no problem. How about eight? Yes. I want to lay down $200 for your entire backlist. And I've never read you before.
And so you can succeed by just reaching a small number of people. If you set your campaign up in such a way that it's appealing to.
[01:20:40] Speaker B: Those people, it is fascinating. And you're making me rethink the conversation we had a year ago about this very thing because it was on my list of things to do and then, I don't know, something else happened. So let me ask you this.
How can we say this? If you look back at your writing career as a whole, is there one theme that you think that comes through your books, like across genre, across names or whatever that comes through?
[01:21:09] Speaker C: Yeah. And people have talked about that for a while, right?
In certain writing circles, like, you end up writing your core story over and over again, your thing.
And for me it really is that love is essential.
And usually that's romantic love. That's usually the connection with someone else. But I've also written my Darkwood trilogy has very strong love stories, but it's also a retelling of Snow White and rose red fairy tale, which is two sisters.
And I had a lot of fun just sort of playing with family. And what is the love for family? And what is it when you have friction and tension, but ultimately really want what's best for the other person? Like you have their best interests at heart and you're willing to make sacrifices for them. And most of my books have that through line in there.
[01:22:16] Speaker B: Was that intentional in the beginning at all? Because it sounds like you're a more intentional writer than most.
[01:22:24] Speaker C: No, I'm not, though. I'm a complete and utter pantser.
[01:22:29] Speaker B: But it sounds so thoughtful. I'm a pantser and I charge.
[01:22:36] Speaker C: Well, luckily my husband, who also has high intellect as well as learner and input, we talk about these things a lot and he's really helped kind of be a mirror to my process and my career and help make things more surface that just kind of bubble along in the back of my brain. And it's also something I just notice in my writing over and over. I'm like, well, here we are again with the sacrifice for love once more.
[01:23:09] Speaker B: I will only say, because I will have to change this. So I do a lot of thinking while working out because it's the only time I'm not doing something. You know what I mean? Not reading or doing something and taking in information.
And I was biking over the weekend, and I was thinking about the twist that's going to be in the thriller I'm writing now. And I was like, oh, I think I've already done, like, four books ago. I think I already did that. So now I have to really come up with something new, but it let me know that my mind goes down the same path, and I know that. I'm sure that you've learned this from writing. Like, if I walk away in the layering process, sometimes I go back where I've already layered in, and I'll start at, let's say, a page earlier or something, and I will just layer in the same thing that I wrote later. You know what I'm like? I'm like, I already did that.
[01:24:02] Speaker C: I do the exact same thing I have done, like, and sometimes it's just like a couple of sentences earlier, and then I'm like, oh, wait, look.
[01:24:14] Speaker B: So, on the one hand, it drove me crazy when I first realized it, but on the other hand, it was so reassuring to know that if I didn't get the thought down that minute because the pot bubbled over, the kid walked in the room, the dog needed to walk, that it would come later, and there was no reason to worry about it.
[01:24:35] Speaker C: I think that's sort of the beauty of being an experienced author, right? Is like, that we do discover that our words are not these precious little darling gems. Like, yeah, your computer crashed and you lost all of that work. Whatever. You can rewrite it, and it'll be as good or better than what you had before, right?
[01:24:57] Speaker B: Absolutely.
Oh, my God. Absolutely.
Okay, so let me say this. So, in the show notes, I will include, how can I say this? Your social media information and for you, Kickstarter information, which is different than every single other person I've interviewed. But I do. A, I'm so glad that we're in the same time zone, and b, I want to thank you so, so much for taking the time to speak with me today.
I don't know why I find authors in their process and utterly, utterly fascinating, and you're no different. Plus, the bonus of increasing my income by 70% is no small feat.
So you have no idea year over year, it was startled.
[01:25:50] Speaker C: Have you heard about Kickstarter?
[01:25:54] Speaker B: Because there are ways for me to expand what I'm doing, but some days you get up and you think, I'm just going to write a book because I know how to do that so much. But again, Anthea Sharp, I want to thank you so, so much for doing this. And I want to thank you for actually for all the stuff that you do inspiring other writers to think expansively about career options. I'll say that.
[01:26:20] Speaker C: Well, thank. I just, I loved getting to chat with you and explore all of these ideas, and I miss seeing you this year, and it was just great to hang out in a virtual space and just talk about all the things because there are so many and it's just great to connect with you. So thank you.
[01:26:40] Speaker B: You too as well. Thank you so much.
[01:26:45] Speaker A: This has been a time to thrill with me, your host, author, Amy Austin. If you enjoyed today's episode, I hope you share rate and leave a five star review on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. It will help others find and enjoy my conversations with brilliant women creators. Also, please hit the subscribe button on your podcast app. In addition to hosting this podcast, I'm the author of the Nicole Long series of legal thrillers. The first four books in Nicole long series are now live. You can download, outcry, witness major crimes without consent, and the murders began to your e reader. Right now I'm also the author of the Casey Court series of legal thrillers. These titles are available wherever books are sold, your local library, and also an audiobook. My next book, his last Mistress, is available for pre order wherever you get your books. You can also follow me on Instagram and Facebook at legal thriller author. You can find me on TikTok at social thriller author. You can also find this podcast on Facebook at a time to thrill. Thanks for listening and I'll be back with you soon with more great.
