Posted on January 27, 2024.
What if I told you the old way of marketing books is dying and that a new way of marketing — fandom marketing — is on the rise? In this episode, Arielle shares with us advice on finding our stories true fans with the power of fandom.
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#53 Episode Transcript:
All right, I am outside a coffee shop currently and sharing with you an amazing episode of the podcast with Ariel Bailey. And it’s all about fandom marketing, really a new way of thinking about how to market your stories. But the thing is, this was recorded six months ago. Yes, it’s not a secret. We got a little bit behind editing some of our backlist episodes and we’re finally getting things back under control now.
But, but the funny thing is that So much has changed since we’ve recorded this podcast. The actual podcast itself is great, and you’re gonna love it. It’s actually a really long conversation. I was not expecting for us to hit it off so much, but after that, me and Ariel started talking, and Ariel was like, Hey, like, it seems like you’re really busy at 3, like, could you ever use help as, like, an executive assistant?
I’m like, you know, maybe not right now. And then she contacted me again a couple weeks later, and was like, are you sure? And I’m like, actually, I think, I think it would be great. Like, I think that would be awesome. Let’s do it. So. Ariel has now been instrumental on the Reign team. She helped actually design the genre system that we have, and has just been an incredible, incredible human being.
So, I love Ariel. I think you’re gonna love her too. She’s amazing. You’re gonna see a lot more of her on the podcast and around. And this is like, kind of like, where it all began. And oh my god, how much life has changed in the six months since we recorded. And when we look back, like, one year, from like, this July coming up in 2024 to July 2023, literally, like, it’s mind blowing how much life can change.
And it just started from this one conversation. Shows you the power of when you bring authors to the same room, what we can do when we work together. And we’re just lucky to have Ariel with us and I hope you enjoy this incredible conversation.
Ariel, today we’re going to be chatting all about marketing, but in a very unique and much needed way, because we’re going to be focusing on fandoms and fandom marketing for others, which. You did this amazing series in the Facebook group all about this, which for those who don’t know what I’m talking about now in terms of this awesome series in the Facebook group, why don’t you tell us about this series in the Facebook group, why you did it and how it’s gone so far, what it’s been about, because I’ve just been blown away being a participant of it.
So, I did it because for years now, and I think it’s probably been around seven years, but for sure the last five years, I have been working with authors in editing and in some marketing that increased to more marketing, and I keep seeing this gap. Now, I’m a millennial, so I grew up with the rise of Tumblr, and I grew up in the rise of fandom culture.
across the internet now. Obviously, fandom culture existed before, but the internet expanded in ways that it hadn’t been before. And the thing that I kept seeing authors not doing in their marketing, and it didn’t matter what they were writing, it didn’t matter where they were promoting whether they were on Kimmel Unlimited or not, whether they were running paid ads or not, one thing that I consistently saw most authors not do in their marketing is tap into the fandom experience for their books.
I talked about it some with friends, with clients. We used various methods and some client’s marketing and everything. But overall I kept seeing a very big lack of authors really understanding the reading experience from the side of fandoms or fans. Even if it wasn’t like an established fandom. a few fans, or readers who were very ripe for being converted to fans, sort of.
Which is a very artificial way to talk about it, but that potential just wasn’t being tapped. And it’s kind of been an ongoing act of frustration that I’ve tried to do things about before. Not like, it’s not the author’s fault in any way, it’s just it wasn’t being taught in traditional marketing.
That’s not how marketing is taught. They do not teach it from, like, the bottom up, they teach it from the top down. And it doesn’t work for fiction, in my experience. It doesn’t really promote authors having an organic marketing experience or an organic reader interaction experience, and so then the authors just wind up frustrated.
And they don’t know how to reach their readers, and the readers are kind of sitting on the other end going, I don’t really know if this author cares. About what they’re posting. Are they just spitting the words out? It’s very artificial. And that creates a lack of connection right there. Because when it’s all artificial, or when it feels artificial, even when it’s not actually artificial, Then you’re just kind of like, it’s like when you walk, It’s like when you walk into a room and you look at this table spread of food, And you’re kind of like, I think I should poke it, because I’m not sure it’s actually real.
And so it’s kind of like that. And that’s, that’s just, That’s just what started it, is. It’s the knowledge that there wasn’t much talk of the reader experience or fandom culture in fiction marketing advice. And that is something that I have been passionate about for a few years and haven’t gotten to see many other people talking about, so.
No, I think the insight that marketing for fiction works differently than pretty much anything. This is very valid because. We, a lot of times see even the sorts of business models that, you know, maybe e commerce players, whether it’s drop shipping or other sorts of e commerce, or just even more, like you said, traditional business and people trying to take those tactics and bring it on to publishing.
And there’s, and some of that works, there’s not nothing there, but trying to take all of it and make that your publishing marketing strategy. Can can run a run amok at some point. And I think that as the ecosystem has evolved, and as certain tactics have become, I don’t want to use the word overused, but certainly the sort of, it’s not as ever, not as much of a green field anymore, there’s, there’s certainly more happening.
There’s more more, more readers have been exposed to these certain tactics before that might be coming from other industries. It’s like, well, how do we take inspiration from, from other places and actually from a place that might be much more in touch With what we’re used to as fiction authors, which is fandom.
But when I hear that word and you talk about it, I immediately start to think, well, what, what is a fandom and what does it mean to like be a fan of something? Do you have any insight on that?
I saw a TikTok this morning actually that spoke directly to that and I’m going to paraphrase from that, but passion. Passion is at the core of every fandom, because it is people who share in an experience coming together and communicating that passion with other people who have the same passion, and it is that bond.
They literally bond over their passion for a story, which is exactly Reem’s tagline, right? Storytellers rule the world. And that’s just it. Stories are the lifeblood of humanity. And fandoms form because people have a shared passion for a specific story. They identify with characters, they want to live in that world, they find some kind of escape or therapy.
And so, that passion is what connects them all. And at its core, that is what a fandom is. It’s, it’s passion. Then you also get to talk about participatory communities, gift economy. And an entire language because it is a subculture, but at the core of fandom is passion.
So. Being a fan is someone who has enough passion that it cross, like, is there a passion threshold that makes me a fan and like, I only have a little bit of passion. So I’m not a fan. What, when does it, when is there a moment That as authors, we are searching for fans. When can we identify someone as a fan? What is what is that moment when they are, they are a fan?
That is such a great question, and I think it’s definitely, there’s a certain level of it that’s just individual for every author, but I would say there’s definitely a difference between I’m just a reader versus I’m a fan. Ooh, that’s a good example. So, Leigh Bardugo’s. Grishaverse. Grishaverse. I’m not sure which way it’s pronounced.
It’s the first trilogy, Alina Starkov’s trilogy. I’m not going to remember what it’s called. The Shadow and Bone trilogy, which is the name of the TV show. And then there’s the Crows duology, which might be a trilogy coming up. I think there was maybe a third book announced recently. And then there’s the Nikolai duology.
And all of these books together form the Grishaverse. I have read the Grishaverse. I think five books in the universe. I am not, I didn’t really personally like the first trilogy. It’s a little too formulaically YA for me, personally. I read the Nikolai duology, but I wasn’t super into it. The Crows duology, on the other hand, I am a fan of the Crows duology.
I am a casual reader of the Nikolai duology. Just because it doesn’t, I don’t identify with the characters as much. There were some good scenes, but the books felt too long to me. As a reader, I wasn’t very interested in the first trilogy. In fact, I skipped most of it. I casually read the last duology, but the Crows duology, that’s what I was a fan of.
To the point that I watched the TV show as soon as it came out. And as soon as season 2 hit, my partner and I watched it. I would say that the fan love, the difference between that and being a reader or a casual reader, is you are invested in the story. So like, when I’m just a casual reader, I might like the story, I might be interested in some of the characters, but to a certain degree I’m not emotionally invested in what happens to them.
I don’t care. That doesn’t mean the story’s bad, it just means it’s not for me. And I’m not emotionally invested in it to the point that I care about what happens to the characters, that I care about what happens to the story. So if I’m not emotionally invested in the story, I’m not really gonna care. I’m not really gonna care that the Wheel of Time TV show, I don’t really care.
Because that’s not something I’m personally a fan of. But the Shadow and Bone series, I have some strong opinions on season two. Because I’m emotionally invested in these characters. And I would say that that is the difference between being a reader or a casual reader and a fan. It’s that you are emotionally invested in what happens to these characters or in this story, this world, what happens after, what happened before.
That’s when you’re emotionally invested. And that’s when you are a fan. And I think authors can tell that because that’s when readers start to comment things like Oh no, don’t tell me you’re going to kill that character. We will never forgive you if you kill that character. Or, how could you do this to me?
How could you kill off this character right away? I’ve gotten that one. Comments like that. That show the depth of emotional investment. Or reviews that mention, you know, Hey, I really loved the way that this author dealt with grief. It really grabbed me by the throat. I’ve had that review. So, like, that’s actual personal experience.
I would say that’s when authors can start to tell that, oh, okay, these people don’t just like my story, they’re emotionally invested in it. They are, it matters to them what happens next. It matters to them what happens with these characters. And a side note there because I will say that that can, for many authors, create a bit of a problematic feedback loop or Maybe just a difficult one, problematic might be too strong of a word, where they then kind of struggle a little with okay, but this is what has to happen for the story.
Are fans going to hate me for that? And that can be a difficult thing to deal with. But, I would say above all, you can take your fans opinions into account, but stay true to the story that you’re telling. And try to have a strong idea going in of the story that you are telling. Because I think that is definitely, I mean, we’ve seen this happen in some very noted fandoms.
What happens when the people who are making the stories, and this tends to happen more in movies, like one fan of mine can name, where the creators are listening to the fans, but they’re Trying to please the fans, and then they’re like, they just kind of make a mess. And you don’t, you don’t want that to happen.
You do not want that to happen. And granted, again, that happens, tends to happen in movies where there’s like, 5, 000 people involved. Might be a slight exaggeration. But there’s a lot of people involved in the process. Whereas you, you are the author. It is your story, unless you are co authoring, or it’s a shared world, in which case, then it’s a little bit different.
But, try to have a strong idea of the story you’re telling, and stick to it.
is just one side note advice that I would add to that.
It’s, it’s huge advice and what it makes me think about is like, okay, So there’s this feedback loop between my creation process and my fans and hopefully my burgeoning fandom. That’s just the creation side of things. Now, how about the marketing side of things? What does phantom marketing look like?
So this is fascinating because basically we haven’t seen a lot of fandom marketing on the author’s side. There have been a few people, they’re mostly in extremely fandom heavy genres, so to speak. So like conservative, clean, fairytale fantasy tends to have a very, it’s a very specific niche and it tends to have a fandom Dark Romance is very specific in what they want from books, very specific in what they want from authors.
And so there are probably, I don’t know, 30 to 35 authors right now who are delivering that. And they have, actually, a very interesting ecosystem, fandom ecosystem. Otherwise, Dark Romance, like you hear people say all the time, Dark Romance sells for reasons, and it does. And one reason, like, there are a lot of reasons Dark Romance also, that’s a whole fascinating conversation on its own, but Dark Romance tends to have a very specific set of fans.
Who know exactly what they want. They share wrecks between each other. Because they all tend to know this is the kind of thing we want. One of my friends said it really well the other day. She’s actually in the group. Emma Savant and I were talking. We do brainstorm sessions and stuff. And in our brainstorm session the other day.
We were talking about how dark romance. The trigger warnings page, right? At the beginning of most dark romances. It is there as a trigger warning. It is also there because most dark romance fans. want to know that this book has those things in it. So it’s both a trigger warnings and a neon sign, right? And in that sense, right, that’s marketing to a fandom.
They know exactly what they want. They are here for this kind of content, this kind of content alone, and boy, you better deliver. And a lot of authors do, and they do so in amazing ways, including Amelia. So, aside from that though, the majority of fandom marketing, you have to look to movies and TV, specifically franchises.
So the Marvel franchise, which obviously started in comic books before moving into other media, that franchise has gotten very unwieldy, so it’s actually very difficult to talk about without huge generalizations now. You know, like, maybe six years ago, not quite so much. But Movie franchises market to fandoms.
That is how franchises survive. So like, how many movies do we know that came out and were talked about as being like part of a series or something like that and then the other movies never got made because the first one didn’t really take off. I think the Transformers fandom maybe for like one that maybe a lot of people might know recently.
They released a movie and someone was saying, hey, go watch it. One of my friends was saying, go watch it, go watch it, if you want more Transformers movies being made. So that they can see that there is a base here that they can market to. But, essentially, franchise marketing for movies and TV, they are marketing to a fandom.
They are marketing to people who want more of this specific kind of content. YA literature? YA literature grew out of fandoms, right? The later Harry Potter books, Twilight, The Mortal Instruments, Throne of Glass, like these were early hard hitters in the YA fandom. And then as soon as publishers woke up, to put it politely, to the fact that, hey, wait a minute, the, what people have been saying all along, that they’ve actually been wanting fantasy, wait, they’re actually reading it, wait, what?
We can make money off of this? Well, why aren’t we? That’s a really good question. And so the YA literature, Largely came about because of the fandom strength of Twilight, of the later Harry Potter books, of fanfiction. The massive amount of fanfiction that was being written. I mean, Cassandra Clare is most notably an author who started in fanfiction and moved to mainstream, and that’s a whole other conversation regarding Clare specifically.
But, there, she’s not the only one, right? Fifty Shades of Grey, obviously was based on a different Twilight fanfic and is also a Twilight fanfic itself. There’s specifically somebody on TikTok who talks a lot about books that are currently being published that are, that have roots in fanfiction. That the authors went, oh, hey, we really like this story.
If we change it enough to become its own intellectual property, we can publish it. And there’s several out there now that are Harry Potter fanfiction, Twilight fanfiction, Relo, Star Wars fanfiction. These are published romance novels.
So, to bring it back to the original question of where to look for, like, fandom marketing, it’s TV and movie franchise marketing. It’s YA literature the way, even YA literature the way it’s being published now, right? There’s more diversity than there ever has been before, but there’s still a large amount of, well, we’re not going to get that.
We’re not going to buy that. We’re not going to Sign you because it’s not what sells you have to have a recognizable pitch that they go Okay, because it matches this popular thing and this popular thing We think we’ll get enough pre orders off of you to sell it. Well that matches this thing matches this thing That’s based on fandoms that already exist
Yeah. Okay. No, I’m actually thinking, cause I’m, I’m listening here and I’m learning with you. And I’m like, huh, when you actually talk about phantom marketing, the publishing set sense versus the, let’s say TV and movie examples, there’s one striking difference in the examples that makes me want to ask you this question, which is. In the, in the movie examples, you know, I’m looking at Marvel, like a single franchise, like the Marvel genre is Marvel. Marvel has basically a monopoly on their sub genre, if we want to call it that, right? But we’ve seen, and actually I shouldn’t, that’s a little bit facetious, but not quite, because almost all superhero IP goes back to like two companies.
So it actually isn’t that facetious. I was, I was going to correct myself, but I’m like, no, no, that sounds about right. So. Then I think
about the book world and
the examples you gave, dark romance being a sort of fandom marketing. Okay, I’m with you. Then you gave the example of conservative, clean, fairy tale romance, I believe.
Did I get that right? Is that what you said exactly? Because I’m proud of myself for remembering that. Great, there’s a lot going on. I’m like, I’m with you.
Yeah
conservative, clean, fairy tales. We’ll just go with that. I may have missed an adjective in the subgenre and I’m sorry to authors writing that subgenre. But I’m just understanding here what’s going on. So, you said 35 authors, roughly, dozens of authors, let’s say, are writing in that genre, you know, reaching an audience.
Okay, is interesting because fandom in that context, the way that you described it in the book context, even in the YA context of Twilight’s fandom springing out PNR, or Harry Potter’s fandom largely Yes, springing out a lot more YA fiction in relation to schools and, you know, that sort of thing, but also you’ve seen urban fantasy come from the adults of Harry Potter, you know, who are now maybe not reading just YA, but interested in more of, More of this, more of that fandom in a different context, that’s, that’s making it seem like phantom marketing is a sort of like symbiotic ecosystem in which we have to collaborate as authors to make it work.
But am I thinking about this correctly? Am I mapping out these similar services? Right? Tell me I’m right. Tell me I’m wrong. Share with me your thoughts on that.
In a sense yes, so and it’s kind of it’s kind of a a twofold thing so on the one hand In order for a fandom to coalesce, you have to have a certain number of people, right? And sometimes it’s a tiny fandom and sometimes it’s a huge fandom. Star Wars, Star Trek, giant fandoms. They span just hundreds of thousands of fans.
So many things, like, multimedia type franchises, right? There’s books, there’s comic books, there’s movies, there’s TV shows, there’s everything. But then you have teeny tiny fandoms. One I just became aware of when I was on Tumblr the past week was There is a fandom for the movie, two movies now The Hitman’s Bodyguard.
I didn’t realize there was a fandom for this. Now, I’ve seen both movies, I enjoyed them I thought they were funny. But, I had no idea there was a fandom about this, right? What’s another one? Oh! So, like, four years ago, I went through an Australian TV show phase. And so I was watching, like, I watched like, four murder shows from Australia, and like, three or four action shows from Australia.
And there were a few of them that I really liked, but I didn’t really like the pairings of the characters who ended up in the end, or didn’t end up, or the shows ended before they could really go anywhere with like, the character relationships, right? So of course, I go looking on Archive of Our Own for fanfiction.
It’s there. Like, I know that in America, I don’t actually have a sense for how popular these shows were in Australia. And maybe they were hugely popular over there, and so that’s why these, these fandoms exist. But there are fandoms of some size for these shows that, one of them only ran for, I think, two seasons.
Fandoms, you can’t really quantify, like, you have to have this number of people to be a fandom, you have to have this number of people. It’s just a group of people passionately invested in a story. And in order for them to come together, you have to have kind of two things, or three things. You have to have the story, you have to have that certain number of people, that’s kind of like more than three or four.
And then you have to have a meeting place. the internet solves that for everyone, right? You can connect with fans from all over the world, no matter what their time zone, no matter what their language. Well, I mean, language sometimes presents certain barriers, but to a certain extent. Some of this stuff just crosses borders everywhere.
And, for authors, and we especially saw this about five years ago, when Kindle Unlimited, like, really took off, and it’s now kind of bombing in ways that the authors five years ago couldn’t have known was going to happen. And it’s affecting quite a few of them, a bunch of them have moved to Y, but basically what happened was someone put out a story, or they put out a collection of stories, and they went, Wait a minute.
There is potential here. There is a market for this. There are people who want these stories and For some things that wound up translating into a fandom for other genres not so much You’re not gonna find like hallmark romance books Clean contemporary romance books don’t tend to have fandoms the way that Disney romance stories do so like clean fairy tale fantasy romance has kind of like its own fandom and has very specific reasons that they are a fandom.
Most of these people tend to prefer reading clean instead of spicy. Dark Romance, the fandom for Dark Romance, it’s the exact opposite, right? They prefer to read spicy. Or whether they like reading across the spectrum of content. They like reading spicy, either way. So Clean Fairytale Fantasy Romance also has, a lot of times it can be handed to teenagers or preteens when you wouldn’t exactly hand them a dark romance, right?
Depending on their
Yeah.
So All Ages is a huge marketing tag for the Clean Fairytale Fantasy Romance people. They’re like, All Ages, you can hand this to your preteen, you can hand this to your, you know, to your grandma. If your grandma doesn’t like reading certain books.
Sure. Yeah.
can have these out on the table.
In house, right? So these are certain markers that have drawn this fandom close together because they all want these things. For whatever reason that they initially came here, they want these things. And so authors keep writing to that because there’s still a market for it. The fans are still buying it.
They’re still in Facebook groups talking about it. They’re still Facebook groups is the main place for those fans, I think. Facebook groups and Discord. Dark Romance, you’ll find, you probably know better than me, but like, Bookstagram, TikTok I don’t see as many of them on Tumblr, but there are kind of some crossovers with some fanfiction groups on Tumblr, between Dark Romance and fanfiction.
But anyway, I would say,
it might initia You can’t know going into a story, like this is going to have fans. You can know there’s potential. I’ve written one that technically has a lot of potential. For a fandom coming together around it. And I think, and I don’t know if I’m going to pronounce their name correctly, Pia? Paya?
Rabanari? In the Facebook group, mentioned that there are some
And they mentioned that there are some things that a lot of fandoms I think the that’s what we’re going to do. Because there is something for everyone. Right. So. If you have a found family of, and I’m going to draw a little bit from personal experience here, found family, nine people, and they’re all different personalities, right?
You have the captain who takes care of the family. You have the linguist who is brilliant and intelligent and just kind of like the society girl, but smart. Not to say that society girls aren’t smart, that was not how that was supposed to come out. You have the science twins. You have the baby of the family.
You know, you have the assassin. Right? So, there’s someone for everyone. So fans come to this and they love the world, they love the adventures, but then they can gravitate towards a favorite character and latch onto that character and be emotionally invested in that character because it’s the one they’d like to marry, or it’s the one they want to be, or it’s the one most like them, and so they feel represented.
That’s why ensemble casts and Found family stories in particular, but ensemble casts. That’s why they tend to draw such huge fandoms. That’s why like to go into TV shows for an example, that’s why procedurals or Shows like NCIS or whatever tend to draw Some level of fandom because everyone has their favorite character.
Everyone has This one that they gravitate toward. And because they all more or less share the spotlight. This is super, super true of Star Trek, right, where it all began. It’s like, oh, well I’m more of a Kirk fan. Oh, I’m more of a Spock fan. I was five years old the first time my mother told me I did the Spock eyebrow raise.
So, for It’s followed me all my life. For a lot of readers, it’s not only do we want to live in this world, not only are we emotionally invested in these characters and this story, but they find one or two or three that they personally identify with or want to marry or are represented by. A Court of Thorns and Roses, and that entire fandom, same thing.
I recently saw TikTok where someone was saying, I can tell you something about your personality based on which Akatar character is your favorite. And, it was accurate. So, I think I got kind of rambly there, but fandoms come together when there is a market, there is a gap, or there is It’s a longing for the story that is being produced.
Clean Fairytale Fantasy Romance, it’s the people who are growing up loving Disney princesses but maybe want a little more depth or want a little more, you know, the Prince Charming doesn’t always save the princess or want to be able to just have more books like Disney movies that they can hand to their grandma or their sibling or their kid or whatever.
Dark romance? I mean, there is a long list of reasons why dark romance is popular and just one of them is people are feeling, a lot of the readers who read dark romance do so because finally, in something semi mainstream, they are feeling validated for thoughts and desires and feelings. And that is a huge reason dark romance is so popular.
Because it’s healing for some people. It’s like, wait a minute. We’re not being scoffed at for this, and we’re not being scorned for this thing. We, we can read this, and it’s fine.
no, that’s,
Sorry, I think I went a little bit rambling.
No! no, I’m, I’m digesting it and I’m thinking to myself, okay, I’m almost wondering, is it a world of like nested fandoms? Nested might not be the best word, but the way that you’re describing it, it’s almost as if not every, but many, many stories have, you know, we’ve always kind of genre genre is interesting because I’m thinking about genre in relation to what you’re talking about now, right?
Because you’re, you know, dark romances, you know, I think would largely be considered a sub genre at this point. In fact, actually, it’s, yeah. Well, it’s a subgenre with subgenres underneath it, right? So, you know, if romance is the
No!
above it all. Uh, right? There’s definitely a lot of subgenres of dark romance, but it’s a subgenre in and of itself, right? But dark romance is also a fandom. Interesting. And that makes sense, though, because I’m now going back to your definition of a fandom. And I’m also saying this to somewhat All the awesome insights you’re saying to people. So
a fandom, right, is composed of three things. Like one, a story, something to kind of come around to people and then three, a place.
And you’re right, not every genre has has fandoms in, in wide proliferation. Not every subgenre could just be considered a fandom. But you know, the sort of psychology behind this all, I think there is something there and what it got me thinking about was. You said a line that stuck with me because I’m like, oh, I wish, and I’m not even gonna bother asking this question, like, what’s the secret to making fans to my story? Like, do you have the secret formula? Like, I know, I know that doesn’t exist, but you said, like, not every story is going to have fans. That’s a brutal truth, but it’s true. Not every story will find fans. Maybe it will one day, but in every moment, if we were to take every story in the world right now, And go, do you have fans?
Do you have a fandom? Do you have a fandom? The answer would not be yes for every single story. And for some stories are either going to have a million person fandom. Some are going to have a hundred person fandom. Some are going to have a 10 person fandom and all of those are beautiful. All of those are huge accomplishments.
Okay. So to take this a step further. The stories in it of themselves, though, are still kind of built off fandoms, whether it has a fandom or not, like, like, it’s still somewhat, right? Like, you have the dark, dark romance fandom, and then you have underneath it, someone like a Katie Thomas or a Kay Webster, or if we’re going to go You know, maybe, honestly, Star Trek, you have, you know, military science fiction, you have, you know, spaceship science fiction, like a lot of these science fiction subgenres come off of it, and then you have all these now authors, like a J.
N. Chaney, a Craig Martel, I’m also naming names that probably people in the community will know too, so you’re naming all these things, right? It’s like, oh, okay, well, they each probably have, they each, there’s a big fandom, and then another fandom that came off of this, and then now their own individual fandoms, and then one day, you could see how there might be like, The Craig Martel fandom, and it gets me thinking about like a Margaret Atwood quote, which I love Margaret Atwood, but she had this quote that was like any group above a hundred people is going to have a schism, right?
Basically saying like, in this context, if there’s a fandom of a certain size, they’re going to break apart and a new fandom is going to form at some point, and then a new one, and a new one. Is, is this something that you see? Because if this is true, then this is kind of a way. To reimagine or reframe how we look at the publishing. I’m using quotes because market is a weird word.
absolutely it is something that I see, and it is something that authors can absolutely use to their advantage, if that’s, like that feels really artificial, but the psychology of it is exactly how new books get fandoms. So, When you have a large fandom, let’s say, Star Trek. So, if you’re just looking at the core shows, the original series, depending on how you see it, the animated series, but the original series, Deep Space Nine, Next Generation, Voyager, Enterprise, right?
So, those are the core shows. A lot of people consider those to be the core shows, and right up until like, what, four years ago or something like that, those are the main shows, right? So, people who come into Star Trek, you are going to have people who love one show over another. Right. For me I, it’s the 80s and 90s shows and the reasons that I love those shows translated to, I have seen probably 90 percent of all of the sci fi shows that got started in the late 1990s to the mid 2000s.
So like 1995 to 2005 plus Next Generation. So, like, Next Generation, Star Trek kicked this off, and then starting in, like, 1995, you had, like Babylon 5, you had Andromeda, you had Farscape, you had the Stargate shows, you know, like, all of these shows that have their own, like, most of them fit into this subgenre or this subgenre, like, this little niche within space opera or science fiction, right?
Farscape is more like adventure Stargate SG 1, well, all the Stargate shows are military sci fi. You know, like, some were more science fantasy than, like, straight up more science fiction. Like, that’s a, that’s a whole thing. Period. But, so the people who love, well, I like this show better because of these things.
It’s that because, right there, that starts the schisms. I like this better because, and sometimes it gets to a point where it gets super toxic. Star Wars fandom, anyone? Which Star Wars is my favorite, favorite story in the whole wide world. I have been in this fandom for a very long time. It’s not a bad thing, though.
That little because, that’s not a bad thing. So, if you come to Next Generation, right, and you love Next Generation, and your favorite relationship in Next Generation is the Captain and the Doctor. Right? Picard and Crusher. You For whatever reasons you love this particular pairing, you love a bunch of their storylines, you are probably, naturally going to seek out stories that have dynamics like that.
Because one thing that is pretty universal to most humans, not obviously completely universal, is that, Once you find the stories that feed you, that you particularly like, you are going to go after more of those. It’s like, neurodivergents describe it with dopamine, right? They, they don’t, their brains don’t produce enough dopamine on their own, so they’re constantly chasing the dopamine high.
That’s basically what it is for stories, right? You find a story that you like, you find a story that feeds you. Don’t hesitate to tell me I’m talking too fast. I know it’s the thing that we both do, but don’t hesitate to tell me to slow down. Because. Sometimes I need a reminder.
Oh,
I listened to everything on two X speeds. so,
you’re talking to the wrong guy. I’m like, right with you.
No! I turn a podcast on and that speed goes up.
Yes. It’s two X
speed for sure.
most humans, they tend to seek out the stories that feed them. And a lot of people, once they find the story that works for them, they chase that. It’s chasing a high, and that’s,
Yeah, no, no.
That can be a tricky way to put it, because that can, you know, that language can be a little bit problematic, but it is analogous to how that works.
So I am going to seek out stories like Star Wars that feed the things that I love about Star Wars, and hopefully feed the things that also disappointed me about something. And that’s, that’s true for most readers, right? Well, I liked this particular thing, so I’m going to go looking for this particular thing.
So fandoms come together around a thing, but then the schisms start when someone goes, but I like this because of this. And when it becomes like problematic and toxic, that’s when the arguments about, well, because I like this thing, this is better or this thing is better. And like, it gets problematic because then we can get into talks of, well, objectively this is not a good story because we can see these things didn’t work.
But subjectively, you can still like this story. I like, like, probably half a dozen stories that are terribly written stories, objectively. But I love them. Subjectively. The Last Two Seasons of BBC’s Merlin? Great example. But,
Fandoms, that, that little because right there. I love this thing because. That’s how the divisions begin, and sometimes they’re great divisions. That’s normal for a fandom to be like, Well, in the Star Trek fandom, we’re TOS people over here. Okay, great, fine, wonderful, but within that TOS group, you’re still going to have a lot of different mini groups that think these characters are the best, or these characters are the best, or whatever.
And, to relate that back to book marketing, those little, I like this particular thing, I like this particular thing, As readers chase that, as they go hunting for that, and they find it in this book, or that book, or this author’s series, or that author’s series, that is, in a sense, that’s the fandom spark right there.
Is there like, okay, I like this thing over here, I want more of this thing. But hey, I wonder if it comes in the flavor red. I’m going to try to find it in red. And then they go looking for this specific experience. And that is actually the core of comp titles and authors. Because it’s like, if you are looking for an experience like this thing right here, but maybe with this thing different.
Try this out. And so the way that fandoms divide like that and then subdivide and subdivide like, you know, a bacteria chart, which might be a little gross I guess, but the way that they divide like that is actually, for one thing it creates an incredibly rich tapestry of reading. Like, oh my gosh, there’s so many books in the world, there’s so many different kinds of readers, you can read a hundred different books.
And your top 100 are going to be different from this person’s top 100 even if 75 on them are the same.
Yeah.
And it’s those little, I like this thing because of this, but I personally want this thing a little bit different. Or I personally want more of this specific element. And as an author you can’t always write to that.
Fan fiction authors do tend to. Which is fascinating. Because if they already know this thing exists and they already, like, The discourse is out there. Hey, we loved this about this, but we really, really hated this. They can write something to fill that. And if you are active in the fanfiction community, you can also take a lot of those, like, gaps, so to speak, away for like, hey, I really want to write something that fills that, but I want, I want it to be original.
I want to, you know, I want it to be its own IP. And so I want to write something that fills these, that hits all of these specific Things but is also my original thing.
Yeah,
let’s actually,
you can’t really Go ahead
I was going to, let’s, let’s dive into that point though, just, just briefly a bit, bit deeper, because obviously we’ve been talking about fandom and the next, next word, when you talk about fiction and fandom, jam it together, you get fan fiction and fan fiction’s great. I love fan fiction. I’ve read plenty. But obviously if we’re talking to writers here who are looking to run their own subscriptions and monetize their own work, it should definitely be noted that legally fan fiction. It’s very problematic to, to monetize. In fact, I do strongly discourage it. I’m not a lawyer. I’m not giving you legal advice, but that is something I strongly discourage.
So if you’re looking to make a career as an author off of fan fiction. Directly monetizing that work is, is pretty much, pretty much not going to happen. So talking to authors who want to make a living off of their fiction, but want to use the power of fandoms. I think there’s an important thing to just, let’s just define it. What is fan fiction? And what is original fiction? And I know that it’s murking. We’re not lawyers, but I do think we need to share that because I don’t want people coming away from this podcast thinking I should go write a bunch of fan fiction tomorrow to blow up my, like my, my fiction career. You can write fan fiction, but you have to know what you’re, what you’re getting into.
Agree 100, 000 percent agree. So fanfiction is fiction written about somebody else’s IP or intellectual property If you write a Star Wars story, you are writing fanfiction if you write If you read a Craig Martel book, and then you go, Hmm, I would like to see these two characters kiss, so I’m going to write that in a scene.
You are writing fanfiction. Now, if you come up with a story that is about a dark lord, and the chosen one on the light side of some magical power, and they fall in love, and they have names that you made up, that you gave them, you put all the details into this world. There are a lot of similarities between that story and other stories, but it is your IP.
Now, if you have directly ripped or taken plot lines, character traits, like copied and pasted storylines, characters, etc. from Star Wars and put it into your story, then we get into the murky waters of plagiarism. And this is a super, super in depth conversation we could go into, but to sum up, I would say go look up Cassandra Clare’s plagiarism controversies because they’re kind of like a masterclass and like condensed masterclass on, oh, don’t do that.
If you’re writing fan fiction, don’t do that.
I think
I’ve mentioned this before on the podcast as well. The episode hasn’t released when we’re talking, but I’m going to recommend the book twice. Steel Like an Artist by Austin Kleon is a good book about doing this sort of thing tastefully. Because the truth is that if you were to take the broadest possible definition of fan fiction, basically, basically, everything is fan fiction. Right. But if we want to go into more of the legal and ethical definition of where is that boundary, which we will recognize is a gray area, then you’re certainly right with what you’re saying. And I’ll just draw one last analogy that I think will be helpful for people, because then this goes into the marketing aspect of things. Gatorade is a very popular sports drink. If you were to go, wow, you know, I like Gatorade. I would love to, I would love to build a business selling something like Gatorade. That, that’s, that first thought’s totally fine. I really love the, you know, taste of it. I love that it’s cold. I love that it makes me feel energized right in my body starting to get tired.
Okay. That’s great. That, and I love it. Okay. But then if you’re supposed to say like, I love specifically the blue raspberry one because of its specific flavor and whatever that thing is. Like, okay, that, that’s great too. But then if you take that and go, I’m just going to go use their same exact ingredients, their same exact formula and make my own sports drink and slap a different name on it, right?
You would get sued out of your mind very quickly because you directly took their intellectual property. But on the other hand. Gatorade doesn’t own blue raspberry energy drinks. You can start your own blue raspberry energy drink that has a different formula, right? Whatever that formula is. So the formula of your story needs to be different, but also here’s the kind of power to it. If Gatorade didn’t exist, but you want to start some sort of sports drink well there I go, I already said sports drink. If you just want to start a drink, but you don’t have an idea of who it’s for, or what need it has in their life, you start to get into this murky water where you’re like, I have, I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m just going to create a drink that I hope people drink. Which a lot of authors I feel like sometimes start that place in their storytelling, where it’s like, I’m just going to create a story that I like, you know, I like to drink it. But I have no idea anything else beyond that. And I think that’s where like this sort of fandom analysis can be really helpful.
But we’re going to take this next step, but before we get to this next section where we’re going to get even, we’re going to go, we’re going to go deeper in a fun way. I want to first ask you up to this point in the podcast, share with me three takeaways that I’m an author who just, just, I don’t even, I’ve not even written my next story yet. Right. I know that I want to write a story. I know that I want to do this. I love writing. And I might have specific stories I love, like I, my, my mind’s now buzzing. What is one, two, or maybe even three at most action steps that I can take utilizing all these learnings about fandom marketing up to this point to start thinking about the branding of my book, the positioning of it. Give me like three, one to three takeaways.
So number one, what are you the most passionate about? What are your favorite stories? So let’s say that your favorite story is Teen Wolf. Yeah. Because you like werewolf adventure stories about found family that right there that clip Werewolf adventure stories about found family or about a gang of teens You that’s your takeaway is like that’s why these are my favorite stories, right?
So I want to write a story I’m not really sure what I’m gonna write Okay, start with what are your favorite stories? Because what? Those stories light a fire inside you, right? And if you are actually looking to build a sustainable fiction career, you have got to be writing something that keeps the fire burning in you.
It is not going to work otherwise. And for illustrating this point, I’m going to point to Brandon Sanderson who tried writing to market back in college, did not work for him. The man has, I don’t know, like 20 published books. Now he has a 20 year, no, he’s got to have more than 20. I don’t even remember. He is, His career is just insane.
Like, trying to map that man’s career out is incredible. And like, five different masterclasses right there. But, you have to understand what kind of stories you like telling. And there is a huge, huge reason for this beyond just sustainability. Because, if you write the stories that you like telling, Your voice telling them is going to be better.
If you’re telling a story you don’t like telling, it is not, your voice is not going to be as good, and you are not going to be as passionate about telling the story, or making it good, or making it better, or learning how to tell it well, you’re just not going to be for a story that you don’t love. So, number one, find out what kind of stories light your fire.
And then, if you want inspiration beyond that, what stories exist that are like that one? So, taking the Teen Wolf analogy I know Paramount released a new series, I think it’s called Wolfpack, that was also based on a series from the, I think it was a book series from the 80s, but I could have that wrong.
I don’t remember, it’s been like months since I watched the trailer. That’s it for like TV that has like some very specific, but there are a bunch of books, especially on Kindle Unlimited, because there was a period of time in right to market urban fantasy, still kind of is, in some areas, where Wolfpack urban fantasy was just, I And it’s still a thing in dark romance.
So go looking for what stories already exist, like this one, because often what you will find is these are all great, but they don’t tell something that I’m getting an idea for telling. Or, that’s great, that’s great, that’s great, I should probably read that one, maybe read that one, definitely adding that one to my list.
You know what I’m not seeing? I’m not seeing this, or ooh, I am seeing these things, but I’m not seeing them take it one step further. I’m not seeing a werewolf retelling of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. Retellings and public domain stuff is also kind of a side note to the whole intellectual properties and fanfiction and everything.
There is a difference between retelling a classic story and fanfiction of it. But you know, so you’re researching werewolf books and you don’t see a werewolf retelling of Much Ado About Nothing, which would probably be hysterical, come to think of it. Or you don’t really see a werewolf Romeo and Juliet, like not over the top, completely Shakespearean drama.
I’m a Shakespeare lover, okay. Romeo and Juliet, right? So you’re like, oh, I found it. But then, three.
This, this one, this one’s kind of a little bit layered. But.
Try to keep your ideas simple and just start writing. So this is actually a huge problem that I’ve had to overcome in my career, where I’m just like, Oh, but I can cram like all five of these things into this story. And my writing buddy and partner would just look at me and go, Ariel, that’s too many things for one book.
Stop. Just stop. And I would go through like three different versions of a story idea before it would be pared down to This is the base story. So, find your base story, but actually maybe a better, better point to that tip is find the one or two characters that you bond with as an author. Because stories are about people.
People connect to stories because they are about people. Yes, they’re also about concepts, like especially some of the sci fi of the 80s and stuff like that. You know, there’s, it’s more based on concepts, per se, than characters. I could argue that that’s one reason some of it hasn’t really stayed popular.
40 years later, but Innately people are going to connect to stories about people. So find out what your favorite stories are learn more about The other kinds of stories like that, which also has a separate tip that I I personally advocate reading as many different genres as you can get your hands on and Even think you might like because cross pollination is another thing I’m huge huge about we can’t really talk about that today because like that would Totally overwhelm this discussion, but read across your genre Do not only read inside your genre read horror read romance read Fantasy if at all possible if it doesn’t make you throw up or whatever because I know some people have really strong reaction to certain Genres, you’re not gonna find me reading most homework romances not because they’re inherently bad.
It’s just not my kind of thing I have read them though. So, find your story, the stories that make you passionate. Figure out what the other, learn about the other kinds of stories in that, that are adjacent to that, either type of story or genre of story. And then, get a character in your story that you just are in love with.
That you just, you would die for this character.
That makes it sound really easy, and I know sometimes it’s not. But,
No, it’s a great framework to, to, to get started with. And you know, what I found really interesting about what you said was. reading across your genre. And it made me think about actually two things that I’ve read recently. One was in a book I’ve. Already mentioned on this podcast, But,
it’s from John Truby.
It’s called the anatomy of genres to very good read. And in the end, he kind of offers his advice where he sees the future of fiction going, because he tries to break down kind of the, because behind a lot of the major genres that we see, he breaks down 14 major genres and list tons and tons of story
examples.
It’s a, it’s an incredible book. It’s I think 700 plus pages long, but I had a good time reading it. But one of the big takeaways I got from it was that. You really see these new fandoms, these breakout stories happen when you have a unique combination of genres, essentially almost this merging of fandoms.
Like if you’re able to, you don’t want to do too much with one story, that’s completely, completely true. But if you’re able to take inspiration from multiple places, like for instance, like what you’re seeing with, with Werewolf Pack and Dark Romance is totally. Totally a synergy of, of, of multiple sub genres coming into one, one clean, right?
One simple through line, right? But that one simple through line, there’s a lot of work going on there. A lot of places pulling inspiration from. And it reminded me of a really great book I’m reading now called Range. And it’s about why generalists will basically triumph in a specialized world. And I think that. If you become almost too specialized in your genre, you, you risk not being able to make the connections. The ultimately the emotional soulful connections across genres that drive these creative breakthroughs and as well, and a point that is made in the book increasingly is that work that is automated is increasingly niched down to one specific specialty. And if you, and the things that automations computers, people who are trying to hack their way into a genre, quote unquote, whatever you want to frame that as they’re never going to be able to combine things uniquely. Throughout genres in the way that you do and focus in on that specific thing that you love in your way So I actually think your third point was that really stuck home for me with a lot of stuff I’ve been reading lately and I’m like, yeah snap snap my fingers to that
So this is something my partner and I talk about a lot, cross pollination is something that we talk about all the time because that exact thing if you do not Read across a wide variety, and okay, it doesn’t have to be a super wide variety, but if you don’t experience a variety of stories, then you are going to be locked into one specific kind of storytelling, and you are going to risk, and in many cases I have seen this actually happen, although that is, you know, a little bit of a tricky thing to say, but blindness, right?
To where or like blinders, right, on a horse. When they’re pulling a wagon or whatever, they use blinders so that they aren’t scared by something coming up behind them, but. You risk having blinders on when you only read within your genre. This is why I will never, ever be a proponent of only reading in your genre.
Cross pollinate. Don’t just read the kinds of things that you know you’re gonna like. Read something you think you probably won’t like. Give it a shot anyway. Experience different genres. Experience different kinds of stories. If you are primarily a romance reader, try an adventure now and then. Try a mystery.
Try a horror, if it’s not going to creep you out. Because Storytelling patterns tend to be different across genres. That’s one of the things that delineates genre, right? Is this kind of pattern works here, this kind of pattern works here, this kind of pattern works here. By experiencing a variety of patterns, you don’t, it’s like how they say learning another language makes you understand yours in a different way.
It’s, it’s like that. If you experience a different pattern of storytelling, it makes you look at your pattern a completely different way, and you understand things about it that you wouldn’t necessarily have understood from inside of it, so to speak. So, cross pollinate the heck out of everything. Just one of the things that I don’t see a lot of, that I so want to write a book on this too RPGs.
So, Dungeons Dragons, Pathfinder, World of Darkness. Whatever both, you talked about this a little bit with the Proteus Effect, and video games. So whether it’s tabletop RPGs, or whether it’s MMORPGs, the kind of storytelling that you get to experience as a player in these games can hugely, hugely help authors when they are trying to connect with readers, like in how they are writing a story.
It’s like, here’s how a dungeon master is going to tell a story. So that his players experience it. Now, you are both the player side of storytelling and the dungeon master side of storytelling. But, if you think about it for a minute, from the perspective of, hey, if I was a dungeon master, writing this world, here’s what the players would need to know.
And then if I’m the player, and I know this about the world, this character is going to interact this way because they have high constitution and terrible intelligence. they have super high intelligence and terrible constitution. And, and just thinking about characters in a world like that, I have seen really change the game for a couple of people.
When they, just because they cross pollinate, just because they happen to play RPGs and write stories. Or, I ran an RPG once, a couple years ago. And The players came out of this RPG I had to cut it short so it was only like 5 weeks I think instead of like 8 weeks or something like that, but anyway, They came out of this RPG with a completely different view of a historical period than they had gone into it.
So this was specifically Regency England, it was kind of a Jane Austen sort of RPG, right? They went into this, having experienced it, most of them, not all, but most of them through Jane Austen books. and, like, derivatives of Jane Austen books, and that kind of thing. They came out of it with a completely different understanding, because you interact with the world differently as a player in an RPG than you do even writing it.
So two of the people in this group had written Regency stories before, and they came out of it better writers. They are doing amazing things now, and hopefully we’re gonna see a Vela series soon, and maybe even Ream. They were some of the first people I got to tell about Ream, and we were just so excited.
We had this whole session just exclaiming over how fantastic it was. So hopefully we’ll get to see this kind of thing on Ream soon as well, but Cross pollinating can help you not just as a writer, but in marketing so much because again, the core of RPGs, whether they’re online or tabletop, is stories.
They’re stories, still. They’re a different format, but it’s still stories. And in a sense, You are actually far more intertwined as the storyteller and the story partaker in an RPG. So it’s kind of like author fandom interaction can really take a lot from that, I think. Anyway.
No, I’m, I’m already thinking like, we, we should put out some sort of call to action. Hey, someone listens to this podcast, maybe you, you get to the post before I do. But you should, someone should make a post to the Facebook group, and maybe I’ll do it at some point soon, where this sort of, That could be a very fun thing to facilitate.
Playing RPGs within specific sub genres where you get, you know, five authors from specific sub genre writing together. They go, we’re going to role play as if we’re in this world and, and do an eight week RPG in it and just bring, it could be something fun to bring the community together, but also a great thing to help us learn.
So, I mean, if that’s anything at all that people would be interested just. just. let me know. That’s also, like, just as a, as a, just brief side note. RPGs are a very interesting benefit to offer for your readers in your subscription at a higher level. You could, like, make an RPG based off of your own world that your readers get to play, you know. Every quarter in your subscription, there could be like a new session of it, just like you would, yeah, I mean, if for people who are familiar with RPGs, you’ll, you’ll totally know what I’m saying, like, oh, wait, that’ll work. This is not a podcast for RPGs right now, but we could totally do a tangent on that.
But let, let’s let’s dive deeper on a question that I think is. Is a hard one, but it’s what I know you’ve thought a lot about, which is when we’re talking about all this stuff with fandoms and really the, the, marketing and the creation aspect of it. It seems like I have to think about fandom from the and think about the, the fandoms that I’m trying to go for. And the, because right immediately, once I start writing, like that is, that is my, because for writing, there has to be a, because how about the marketing end of things? Like, when we actually go out to, I understand the framing, the market positioning, but when we actually go to market the verb, how do we keep that fun?
Because I can see how phantom and creations, a very fun feedback loop, but keeping marketing fun, that’s the thing that we always. It’s always becomes this drag where we feel like we’re, just have to earlier you were talking about these tactics that they don’t always work for authors that we take from other industries.
Well, how do we get away from that? How do we, how do we keep this fun and effective?
That’s such a great question. And this is where it gets really, really tricky. Because we’re dealing with a lot of potentially sensitive factors. One of which is, and a bunch of the people mentioned this, In comments on one of the fandom posts, and I really want to write like a whole two or three posts on this at some point.
Because it was a point I didn’t get to make in the post and then they were bringing it up and I was like, Ah! I should have made that in the post!
Selling to people feels dirty for a lot of people. And part of that is the culture we’re in. Capitalist economy. But, part of that is because you are taking something very personal to you. And you are putting it out there into the wide, wide world. And you are saying, give me money for this thing I made.
That’s what it feels like to a lot of people. And that, when combined with the feelings of, wait a minute, who am I to say I even did this well enough for people to pay me. Like, excuse me, how dare I. The audacity. As well as, all of these other people are doing it so much better than me. And, to be honest, that’s.
That’s a point I, that took me a little while to understand that that was a struggle for, for some people because in essence that comes back to comparison and I’m not saying that that’s a bad thing, I’m saying that it is definitely a struggle because you are standing right here and I have to a certain degree, mine takes a little bit of it in form, I look at if someone’s doing something and I go okay, they’ve got that covered, so I don’t need to do that.
So like that’s how my brain works. That’s not always true. Right? Sometimes it is. Sometimes, particularly in like non fiction or teaching or something, if someone else is doing it and doing it well, that’s great. If you can do something else, go do that and send people to this person for these specific things.
Right? I am not going to write a series on, I don’t even know. If somebody else is doing it better, I’m going to send them there. I’m not going to create, I’m going to take a recent example. I posted a couple days ago. A website that is gathering together a bunch of bookish artists from Instagram and making all of their information available for authors so that they can commission these artists for bookish artwork.
And that’s amazing and wonderful. My partner is an artist. Fantastic artist. So I’m immediately sending them this link. I’m not going to make a site for that kind of thing. Because someone’s already done it. The only The only reason that I would do something in that area is if this site goes down or if it becomes only available to like a certain number of people.
It only allows 30 bookish artists in, right? And then I’m like, well, but I’ve got these other 20 over here that are really good people who could really use the work. Then there’s a gap for me to fill, right? That works in like nonfiction and teaching areas. When it comes to fiction, there’s a certain level of no one can tell a story the way that you can.
That doesn’t mean, unfortunately, this is the harsh, brutal truth. That doesn’t mean there are going to be a lot of readers for your story. There might only be five. There might only be ten. That’s not a bad thing. There are still ten people that loved your story. That is huge. Especially in a world where stories are constantly competing.
Or feel like they are. They don’t have to. They can feel like they are because of the way that Amazon has programmed people, because of the way that the economy Up to this point has programmed people to create your economy works differently. You made a whole post about that, so I’m not going to go into that here.
Go read the post on room if you haven’t already. It’s fantastic. But no one can tell a story in quite the same way that you can. And so when it comes to marketing that contributes to making people feel A certain amount of struggle, because it’s like, but they’re already doing this over here. Annette Marie is already making a lot of money as an urban indie fantasy writer, and she has, like, five series out, two with co writers, and she has a Patreon that’s got a tier at 5 a month that she’s releasing one story a month to, and people are just gobbling it up.
Why would I write urban fantasy of this kind when she’s already doing it? Well, you’re not gonna do it like she is, are you? You’re going to tell your urban fantasy story. When it comes to marketing that, that’s where it gets tricky because You can sit here, and you can tell me about your story, but when it comes to, oh no I have to talk to other people about it, people I don’t know, then there’s a level of I’m going into a room full of strangers to talk about something very personal to me.
I am putting something that I made out here for judgment, and that’s when it becomes Emotionally very difficult. So, I will say that that is, that’s a huge part of, of Panda Marketing, just being hard, because with all of that right there, it can be difficult to access, okay, but this, this can help me.
because yo feel it doesn’t matter what it is it’s not going to help you or like people say the other day I’m just so boing watamod I gonna write? I actually have an answer for that which I’ll go to in a sec so between the massive perosnal struggle of but how do I tell It just feels dirty to sell to people.
As well as, which I am firmly on board with, the commercialization. I don’t approve, like, commercializing fandoms. It can feel like we’re talking about, okay, I’m gonna go in, I’m gonna figure it out, and then I’m just gonna manipulate people using this psychology to get them to buy my books. No, no, no, no, no, no.
That’s not what we’re saying. When it comes to understanding fandoms,
it’s tapping into the experience that you had as a writer. Because you wrote this book for you, right? Most of the time, like, there are people who write to market, specifically they write this book to this set of tropes, so that doesn’t always work for them. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t. But you wrote this story for you.
So how do you feel reading it? Do you read back over your own work at any point? Do you, like, after you’ve written the first draft and maybe even done revisions or whatever, do you ever sit down and read through your book just to get the story? If you don’t, I highly suggest doing this to anyone, because it can really be helpful, especially going forward, because you, you re find those emotional connections within yourself, right?
Oh, this worked really well. Oh, this doesn’t work really well. But not just from the author’s side of it, but from the reader’s side. And that can be complicated for some people because, and I know this was mentioned on a previous podcast, I can’t remember the name of the author who was being interviewed, but it was someone who Did super well on Radish and has now paused their stuff because they have a traditionally published IP that they’re working on That’s being optioned for a movie or TV deal.
I cannot remember their name. I’m sorry But it was in a previous subscriptions for author podcast and there was a little bit in there where she talked about reading as a writer and how it can be difficult to go back and read for pleasure because Everything that you see in books and movies and TV from then on is just like, Oh, that’s great.
That’s not so great. I could do that better. And I have definitely felt that. I have definitely been there. I’m still there. But if possible, if you can go back and you can reconnect with your story as a reader, as the person that you wrote your story for, and then you can take that and you can go, Oh, how would I want this story told to me?
in marketing. Marketing can and should be a story itself. So it shouldn’t just be, I am selling you this story that I made. It is, I am telling you a story through my marketing about these stories here. And that’s where fandom culture can really come in, or fandom inspiration, particularly from fan fiction.
Like, fanfiction prompt lists, or fanfiction challenges, and I want to do, I want to build like a whole library of this kind of thing that authors can just go to and take from. But essentially, if you market your story to people, by telling them a story, by telling them there’s this world that I love living in, which is what movie trailers do, essentially.
There’s, this is the experience that I had writing it. These are the things that I connected with. This is my favorite character for these reasons. This is what I love about the world for these reasons. If I could pick anywhere in this world that I would go, it would be here. Or for contemporary authors, who have a harder time doing that kind of thing, if they’re not writing, like, fantasy of any kind.
So it’s like, contemporary romance. It can be things like, you know, this location. Or, or, I would love to be friends with these characters for these reasons, or these are my favorites for these reasons, or this particular incident was actually sort of inspired by something that happened to me in real life.
Which is again, another long involved answer to, if you can tap into the experience that you felt emotionally writing this story, and you can tell this story through your marketing, and you can pull from the fun things that you see, Other authors doing, take inspiration from, I mean, the other fun things that you see authors doing or maybe fanfiction culture or maybe a movie premiere or something where the cast of Dungeons and Dragons, the new Dungeons and Dragons movie, played in a Dungeons and Dragons game before making the movie to get an understanding of what they were doing, which is just kind of like an out there example of like, You can take inspiration of fun things from anywhere and go, okay, I, I can do something with this, or I can, I can learn from this, or I can give my readers a similar experience in my marketing.
And that is like a super broad and general answer. And like, I can break that down into 50 different specific tips, but we do not have time for that today. I will try to do that in other ways.
No, no, no, it’s, it’s very, very helpful with, and there’s a thread that I keep picking up on because In the beginning, it was part of the conversation being like the sale, being the uncomfortable part. And then we get to kind of important point with that, which is if you were to ask authors, well, if I was just giving away everything I ever created for free. How would you feel about marketing it? A lot of people would be like, it feels better. It still might not feel comfortable, but it feels better, right? Because that exchange of monetary value, for some of us, can be, be challenging. But then there’s another layer to that. Never mind where we’re at, but about where our readers are at. Because we don’t want to treat our fans like money. I wrote an article about this recently and something I know you’d have touched on in your series in the Facebook group. So then comes the question. How do we monetize, because we do want to make money doing this. So how do we monetize our fandom in a way that, you know, is, is genuine, but also inclusive too, because our readers from all over the world, all different income backgrounds, all different life situations.
So how should we go about that?
Ooh,
that’s definitely a tricky question. And I think, I think that’s another one where it’s definitely going to be super individual for each person. For people who got their start in fanfiction and then transitioned to original fiction, I think there’s a certain level of support language that comes a little more naturally.
To people who come from fandom culture or fans and readers who are already coming from fandom culture. For others, it’s really tricky because there’s no one right answer. I think you start with, I’m gonna go back to the Taylor Swift thing that was mentioned in the article that you linked. Which is, you kind of have a baseline for a lot of,
for a certain level of effort you have a baseline, right? So, I wrote a book, I went through the editing process with it. I paid an editor. I paid a cover designer. I paid a formatter if you’re not good at those things. I pay, I pay people to do most of it. So, you have produced a product that
took skill. That took art. It, it, writing is an art. It is a craft. And if you put it in writing, The framework of like a craft, right? A glass blower. He has learned his trade. He has created these amazing pieces. His effort deserves some sort of recompense, to a certain degree, right? He has to pay for his materials, so there’s that.
But also, he is creating these things for your pleasure, for the decoration of your home, or whatever. You would like to take this thing home, and it is a trade between you and him. He needs to recoup part of his costs. As well as probably, you know, pay a mortgage or living costs, right? He needs to make a living as well as recoup his costs.
And you want this beautiful thing that he’s created. And so it is a trade. You give him money for this beautiful thing that he’s created, and he can in turn take that and go and buy more materials and pay the mortgage on his house and feed himself and then create more beautiful things for other people to enjoy.
And I think where the lines can get a little blurry in writing is where they always get blurry in any craft where it’s like, Well, do you honestly deserve to profit if you haven’t learned your craft all the way? And like, there’s, you are never going to learn the craft of writing all the way. Never. Ever.
None of us are. You are always going to be learning. You are always going to be improving. If you let yourself, like if you remain open minded, if you continue to grow and learn as much as possible, you are always going to be improving. You are always going to be changing things. Leaving pieces of yourself as a writer that you don’t want anymore.
Lord knows I have. Whew! I am not the writer. I wasn’t the teenager. And that’s a good thing. You are going to become better. You are going to become You’re going to come a little closer to mastering certain aspects. Will you ever be 100 percent perfect? I don’t think anyone ever gets there. I don’t think Stephen King’s there.
I don’t think Neil Gaiman’s there. And maybe that’s harassing you, but The point is that you are going to continue improving, and so that’s the talk of how do I accept money for these things? As a creator, what do I deserve? That gets really tricky, obviously, but
to a certain degree, if you are looking to build a career in this, What you want to deliver to your fans is art. You are giving them a story that you have crafted. It is a craft. You have created something in this craft that you have learned. And in return for this, your readers and your fans help you pay your mortgage, put food on the table, afford some extras, you know, whatever it is for you.
Your, the time and the effort and the energy that you put into this, the materials that you put into this. Especially, sometimes that makes it easier for authors to think of like, Well, I spent 2, 000 editing this book. I spent another 500 on formatting. You know, like, whatever. That’s 2, 500 that I need to recoup if I sell this many copies of the book.
But it is a really, really tricky discussion because it is easier to think about it like, well, but if I just give them that, then they can support me if they want to.
If you do that, and this is a really tricky thing to say, if you do that
You can contribute to the expectation that all of the beautiful things in life are going to be free. And they’re not. Everything has a cost. And that’s not always a bad cost. It’s not always a cost that everyone can pay. But for the people who can pay that cost, they are giving you a tangible symbol of what this thing is worth to them.
That’s often money, because it’s the easiest language to communicate that in our economy. But then when it comes to fans who cannot give you that, they can give you other things. They can give you recommendations. They can talk about your books to other people. They can make fan art, or post pretty pictures of your books, or something like that, right?
They are not always going to use the same currency to show you the value of your work. But that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be setting a common currency on it for people to tell you what it’s worth or give you what it’s worth, right? And then, then, then we get into the realm of, okay, but I want to include these fans who cannot contribute monetarily.
I want to give them these things too. You can do that, carefully, because you don’t, you don’t want to be seen as playing favorites.
But every now and then, if you do a giveaway, You can set the terms as this is for people who don’t have book two and would like it. This is for people who want to afford my books. Okay, I wouldn’t actually put this one on language. But, this is for this group of people. This, this, I want to include the people who can’t always contribute monetarily.
I want to I’m giving you a gift card, maybe they use it to buy your books, maybe they use it to buy an essential off their Amazon list, you know that’s the kind of inclusivity that you as an author can take steps toward. And then obviously as fans create and continue to foster their atmosphere of giving, like Christopher Hopper’s fans.
You will sometimes see people just doing this thing for someone else, or this thing for someone else, or this thing for someone else, because, hey, I wish you could have this too, and I can give you this. Pay it forward. So I don’t know if that answered the question, but
No, I think, I think what makes subscription specifically interesting in this context is because you can have multiple tiers that allow fans support you at multiple levels, but you’re not forcing them into any tier. So a fan can choose if, if, if their currency, like you said, the transacting in money is a very easy way to show your support and how you value things.
So if they, if they value 100 a month, they can do that. But it. You have to set a floor somewhere, right? And we usually recommend 5 a hire month. So setting, setting a floor is, is important because it does set an expectation that that work isn’t worth nothing, but what you’re highlighting on the, on the gift economy aspect of things, I think is also very important because there are ways that you can have your fans gift memberships to other fans.
You know, what, one way to do it is to have people fill out an anonymous form. And. Kind of submit their interest and, hey, it would be nice to be a, it would be nice to be gifted a membership if, if I’m not able to, to join right now. And you’re probably gonna have more demand than you will have people who are able to gift, but
then you could do that sort of thing.
Or if fans in your community already have organic relationships with one another. They’ve already bonded over your work. They might know when someone’s in a tough place and be able to step up themselves. So, there’s a lot to that and very, very good, very good conversation there. I now want to want to touch on.
I want to add just one footnote to that, because
Yeah, yeah.
one thing, there’s one thing that you can also do, that can make it easier for fans who want to support you but can’t support you with money, is make a post, and Like, once Ream offers the ability to, like, pin posts or make it, like a free book on your tier, or put it in a prominent place on your social media, whether it’s like a story highlight or something like that, make a post for fans explaining how they can support you without money.
So I’ve seen these posts a bunch on, like, Instagram and stuff, and they usually are some combination of things like, like my posts, save my posts. Subscribe. Like you see that at the end of YouTube channels too, right? Like subscribe, ring the bell, et cetera. And I always encourage authors who have like a serial subscription on place or a serial story on places like Vela to use their author notes to do this too, because people like to be, I know some of us do like to actually be reminded that there are ways that we can do this, but put a list of.
You know, request my book at your local library. A lot of libraries are way more open now to getting an Indie Fiction than they used to be. You can do this online. You can do it in person. A lot of libraries have a form you can fill out. I’m, I don’t think the Libby app has a place for that. I think you actually have to go to like your library’s website or something like that.
But there’s usually a place in person at a library or in an ebook app. I will die on the Hill if libraries need to be protected and kept going because, oh my gosh, do they have it. And getting Your favorite author’s book into a library? Amazing. You, you vastly increase the range potential. Because people can just like browse the shelves and they go, Ooh, this one looks interesting.
There’s no risk to borrowing from a library. So they can test out your favorite author’s book, And they might love it. And you might get, your favorite author might get 15 new fans, Because their book was in your local library. Like, massive, massive support there. Just like a list of that kind of thing.
Share new releases, like share special sale posts, that kind of thing. If you have a post just listing all these kinds of things, then I can make a list. It’ll probably be a few days because I have a really big editing project I’m working on this week. But, just basically compiling a bunch of these things.
If you have a post like that, that can be huge for fans who want to support you and can’t through money. So like, absolutely have that somewhere.
No, I love
it. That’s, I think that’s an awesome, awesome reminder for people and a great way to to make someone feel good because it actually makes someone feel good when they support you. That’s the thing. When someone cares about you, they feel good supporting someone. That’s something that goes across. I’m sure you feel that when you walk into maybe it’s a local restaurant, maybe a local indie bookstore, right? These types of types of businesses that we Find some sort of value in and belonging for any reason when they find find a reader finds belonging in your work They’re gonna want to support you even if it’s not in the traditional way that we like to think about it There’s still ways to get creative now This brings me to a question being being inclusive in our marketing and monetization with readers When we also give advice to authors in our marketing, some, it’s usually based off of the prevailing assumption that we’re talking to a neuro, neurotypical audience. I want to ask you, what would be your advice to a fan of marketing, but really just marketing in general for neurodivergent authors?
do not try to do it the way everyone else is telling you to do it. Just don’t. You’re not going to be able to. Don’t try to force yourself to do it. Good lord. That’s the first thing. But, maybe the most important thing, I would say, is you know your brain, probably, better than anyone else does. Like, all of us are, you know, on a journey and there’s self awareness that comes at certain points that just doesn’t exist at other points.
No one told. I neurodivergent until earlier this year. You would have thought that’s something I would have figured out by now, especially given the number of Neurodivergent friends I have. Nope. Don’t set yourself up for failure by doing things. And actually, I would say this to neurotypicals too, but especially Neurodivergents.
Work with your brain, right? So, ADHD just for example, right?
It’s really hard to make a schedule and say, I am going to need 12 posts for my Instagram next month. I should make sure that they’re all written by the 20th of this month. Some people can work like that. I can’t. A lot of people cannot. Especially someone who struggles with like ADHD. It’s like, nope.
You’re either, okay, I’m going to write 50 posts today. Or it is not happening at all. And you scribble them up at the last minute and you throw them up on Instagram. That’s fine. There is nothing wrong with that. At all. And a lot of traditional content marketing strategies will tell you there is something wrong with it.
They will tell you that you have to do it this way. You have to set it all up beforehand. You don’t. The world’s not going to crumble if you don’t. It hasn’t yet. I get a little bit attitude y about that just because I have seen so many people struggle with the kind of traditional stuff. And I’m just sitting here like, what in the name of sanity?
That’s a neuro that, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. The world’s not going to end tomorrow if you don’t do it exactly the way this marketer told you to. You have got to find what works for you. For a lot of ADHD authors, serial fiction coming back around was a godsend, so to speak. Because, or an amazing thing, in your favor, whatever.
Because it gave them stimulus. They have to get the episode ready to upload by this date or it’s not going to be live. So, and it’s shorter. They don’t have to, they’re not staring at a screen going, Oh, I’ve got to write 60, 000 words for this book to be done. They’re staring at a screen going, I need 600 words.
I need 1, 000 words. This was so much easier for them because it broke things down into smaller steps, but it gave them goals that they absolutely had to meet if they were going to keep this thing going and their passion for that thing. Kept them going through those steps. And so it was like break the goals into mini goals and not in the neurotypical way Make it a sort of life or death thing where they actually feel like they have to get this thing done Maybe one of the most common like ADHD things about cleaning the house is right You the house gets cleaned in the five minutes before your friend comes over
Yeah.
and that is It’s true for a lot of ADHD people.
I know But in that case like, you know, your brain works like that So, try to figure out a way that you can do your marketing like that. If you, also, also, when you are in the mood for a thing and you can do it, do it then. Don’t put it off. Do not put it off. It’s not going to get done. So, if you can, as in you work from home, and you’re working on an editing project this day, but And this is not actually a personal experience because I don’t actually have ADHD, but this is your daily work.
But, oh, you’re struck with the inspiration for five Instagram posts about your upcoming release. If you can pause that day’s job, do it. Write the posts. They’ll sit there. If you remember them, set yourself a reminder or whatever, whatever tool you use to keep yourself reminded. Do it when the mood is there.
Try to create a work pattern for yourself that works. And sometimes that means it isn’t a pattern, right? It’s, Ooh, I write when the mood is on me to write. I do the Instagram stuff when the mood is on me to do the Instagram stuff. I’m going to do one TikTok here and one TikTok here and then, Oh, 15 TikToks got filmed today because I was in the mood.
That’s great. Go with that. It’s so much easier to work with your brain on that kind of stuff, especially for neurodivergent. Then it is to try to force yourself into a pattern that is not going to work for you and probably never has. There’s not a lot of, like, talk out there right now on, okay, this particular pattern might work for you if you are autistic, and like, autism itself is just such a huge spectrum that like you can’t even really, in some cases, try to be like, hey, if you are this, this will work for you, because it’s just such a huge spectrum, but talk to other people.
Who are neurodivergent. Ask them if there’s any tricks that they’ve learned to it. I know we have at least three, no at least four authors in the group who have both autism and ADHD. My partner’s one of them. .
We also have a subgroup for neurodivergent authors with and
subscriptions led by Anna McCluskey. She’s amazing.
and yeah, yeah, that, that group is. I believe it’s NeuroDivergent Subscription Authors. I believe that’s exactly what it’s called. It’s on Facebook. I’ll make sure to link it down in the comment, but no, they’re doing an awesome job leading it and It’s a great space to go specifically if you know, I get it being in a big Facebook group now it’s like do I want to ask this specific question that You don’t have to, but also another thing to note too is that if you have a specific question as well we allow anonymous posting in the Facebook group.
So you can always make a post anonymous. Don’t feel weird about that. There, there are definitely things that you might want to ask that you don’t want people to know if it’s you and that’s wholly appropriate. But, and I relate to a lot of what you’re saying. I was surprised when you said you didn’t have ADHD cause I’m like, Oh, you’re speaking like you definitely understand it.
Cause that’s, that’s how I have to work with almost everything I do. I’m very bad at keeping a set schedule I I don’t really even try I just have like one or two things that I’ll try and force myself to like hyper obsess about the week and like it just gets done like crazy and deadlines for me. more crucial the better are when I’m like super productive. And it works and subscriptions are nice because like one, you get the feedback from fans as you’re creating. So you get that sort of feedback loop. And two, when you have someone not just Ready to read your book, but they’re paying for it. Right. It’s like, Ooh, I got to get this done. You know, this has to happen. And, and that might sound stressful for a lot of authors listening who might like, this would not work that that sort of thinking would be like, no, but for someone like me, that’s like, Oh my God, like I’m going to do this. Cause this will help me. So I totally get what you’re saying. And I think in general, what’s nice about kind of breaking free from the traditional marketing. Mindset for indie authors and authors in general is that there’s actually so many different ways that you can You can make it work for you, but it comes down to having that self awareness first and then putting it into action And knowing where to go to to learn from others who might be on a similar journey So it’s great to hear that you have a lot of neurodivergent authors around you I think that’s actually very helpful being someone who, what, who is neurodivergent yourself, because you have people to go who can relate to what’s going on, you know, as an author and as a human being, because a lot of people who are neurodivergent also might have family members who are like, first of all, I’m not an author.
Second of all, I’m not neurodivergent. So you’re not getting any help from me. And it’s challenging. So I think that’s all really good advice. The last thing I want to ask you about is just the difference in some of your marketing advice between an author who’s just getting started, some of that, those action steps, versus how an author who is more established can utilize fandom marketing.
I’m going to talk to the authors more established first. Once you are more established, the fun part is that you can, over time, you gather a lot of data to help you figure out the future, right? The more that you do, the more data you collect. The more stories you write, the more you understand how you write, usually.
The more you understand how you write, the better you understand writing as a craft, the better you get, etc, etc, etc. And marketing works the same way. But it also means that you have a greater amount of, like, information to pull from, right? Because you’ve tried this thing, and you’ve tried this thing, and you’ve tried this thing, and you’ve tried this thing, and you know this works, and you know this works, and you know that doesn’t work.
And so you get to, once you are more produ getting more back, you know, like once you’re once you have a thousand people, or you’re making a thousand dollars a month or something, you can you have the luxury of focusing on the parts that you like the best and you also and this is I Am a huge huge proponent of if you can if you can find somebody you work well with and you have the money When you are, you know at a certain level hire other people to help you with the stuff.
You’re not good at because This doesn’t just help you, it helps them. And this is the thing, this is the TikTok that like inspired one of the posts the other day, because I was watching this person, this marketer, adult marketer. And he was saying that he’s not good at the creative crafty stuff, but the people who work for him or that he works with.
What he’s good at is selling that stuff to people. And so this creates a symbiotic relationship. That means these people get to do what they’re good at, the creating part, and they don’t have to do the stuff they’re bad at, which is the forward facing marketing stuff. And he gets to do the stuff he’s good at, which is the forward facing marketing stuff, and doesn’t have to, you know, do the stuff that he’s maybe not as good at or not as enthusiastic about.
And so once you get to a higher level as an author, You can do that. If you want to, you can be like, Ooh, you can try to find people that you can create a team with. And I know a lot of authors do. I think Amelia herself has a bit of a team around her. I think maybe. I can’t remember who. There was something mentioned in a post at some point.
Amelia does.
often,
Amelia does.
so her and authors like Willow Winter, right? They have people who do. A lot of the, like the social media posting, right? Or maybe they take care of this specific aspect of book publishing. So like, they’re the people who come over and do the formatting. Or they help pack merch boxes or something like that, right?
So once you are at a higher tier, not only do you get to focus on the stuff that you especially like, and especially find fun, and that you especially connect with, as long as it’s, you know You’re not completely going, okay, well this thing doesn’t work very well for my fans, but I like it best So it’s the only kind of marketing I’m gonna be doing.
You’re gonna lose your fans to a certain extent, right? But you do get to refine your marketing and you do get to focus most on the parts that you’re good at or that you like doing or that are the most fun for you and You have the chance to not just farm out the other stuff so to speak But to create a symbiotic relationship with someone else who is good at that thing and who needs a job or wants a job.
And that’s one of the beauties of that way of doing it. Because not only are you getting to deliver these things to your fans, but other people are involved. And it is a collaborative effort at putting these things into the hands of fans. And so that’s That’s what I would say for like the higher end if you’re, you know, bringing in 1, 000 a month or 3, 000 a month or something like that.
Lower end is where it gets harder, a little bit, but it doesn’t have to be intimidating. I would say, and I know because I’ve been there, most content marketing is not designed for fiction. Okay, I’m doing something to change that. But most content marketing calendars and lists of things you can post because they’re geared toward a different audience.
Works for that audience, doesn’t work for fiction. As a, as an author who’s just starting out, you, there’s going to be more trial and error. Try things. Don’t be afraid to try new things if something’s not working for you. And do not ever be afraid, if possible, please. I know some of you have had bad experiences before, that makes it harder.
But don’t be afraid to ask for help. Because for every author out there who is going to be, err, I’m trying to find a nice way to say this. Difficult, and refuse you, and reject you. And I know, because I’ve had friends that’s happened to. They went to another author for help, and the other person was rude.
For every author that’s like that, there’s someone like us. There’s someone in the ring group who will be like, hey, actually, I can help you with that. I can give you advice on that. If you don’t know what to post fanfiction prompts, challenges, bookstagram challenges. I’m, I’m just gonna create like an entire freakin list of like prompts that are pulled just from bookstagram challenges.
Cause boy, there’s been a lot over the years that had some really good ideas that I saved. But like, as a beginner author, to get really specific, I would say, don’t try to do it all. Try to focus on one thing at a time. So whatever this, whatever your fiction platform is, and like one thing Discovery Avenue at a time, and this isn’t going to work for everyone.
Like, some people can go right in and they can create this fantastic funnel and like, be right off the bat. Others can’t. And if you can’t, there’s no shame in that. Let’s normalize that you might feel lost. You might feel like you have no idea what you’re doing. Or that even if you have a slight idea of what you’re doing, you think you’re too boring.
You think that you can’t do this thing because you’re not good enough or because no one’s going to listen.
We all started somewhere. We all started scribbling in a notebook or in a blank document on a computer, okay? We all started somewhere. Neil Gaiman started somewhere. Stephen King started like that. Diana Wynne Jones started like that. J. R. R. Tolkien died like that, incidentally. He still had tons of unfinished stuff in his study.
To sum up, I would say for beginning authors, focus on one thing at a time. Don’t try to do it all. Focus on one, fiction discovery platform is what I would call it, so Wattpad or Royal Road Velo or something like that. Like those are all serial platforms and you don’t have to, Maybe it’s Kindle Unlimited, maybe it’s, it’s just Amazon, whatever.
One place where people can go to start reading your stories. And then one place where you can be interacting with them. Because a lot of times it’s not going to be the same platform. Sometimes it is. Wattpad can work like that. Radishcan2 Vela probably. Again, those are all serial examples. If you’re doing a more traditional avenue like Kindle Unlimited, you should probably have some other kind of interaction avenue.
Because there’s, there’s not going to be interaction there. So just focus on one thing at a time. Don’t be afraid to ask for advice. Don’t be afraid to try new things and
look at what other authors like you are doing. And that can sometimes be tricky because authors can feel like you’re trying to copy them or steal their stuff. You can copyright. certain kinds of stories. You can’t really copyright ideas. I mean, I always advocate asking for permission. If you think someone might be bothered by you taking an idea, ask,
All right everyone, uh, closing out this episode here. Normally we do like a more official outro on the episode, but unfortunately the audio got really really messed up. So I’m here to tell you that if you want to follow more from Arielle, I’ll link her Ream down below called The Writer’s Alchemist. I’ll also link her Facebook group and website.
You can find all that. You can also find links that if you want to join the next cohort of the Six Figure Scription Author Accelerator. Arielle is actually the person who leads it, so You get office hours from me, it’s taught by me and Amelia, you get office hours from Amelia, but Ariel actually leads it and organizes all of it, makes sure it’s a really smooth experience, so if you want more of Ariel, the six year subscription author accelerator is a great place to go to not only get more of her, but more of us, and get the ultimate experience with how to start and grow your subscription.
So the next cohort is coming up soon, you can find the link to join the waitlist in the description below, but in the meantime, I hope everyone has an amazing rest of their day, means a lot that you watched this episode all the way to the end because this was quite a long one, and. I hope you all have an amazing time, and as always, don’t forget, don’t forget, storytellers rule the world.