Posted on April 13, 2023.
Many successful subscription authors make $100k+ per year with early access to their serial fiction. But how do we write great serial fiction? Let’s learn from Alana Albertson, an author with millions of story views online and #2 on Radish for over a year.
Six-Figure-Serials Course by Alana Albertson: https://www.authoralanaalbertson.com/work-with-me/
Get Your Subscriptions for Authors Summit 2023 Ticket for free: https://subscriptionsforauthors.com/the-subscriptions-for-authors-summit-2023/
#30 Episode Outline:
0:00:00 Introduction
0:02:00 Alana’s Origins
0:11:05 Alana’s Journey to Radish
0:17:05 From Indie Publishing to TV
0:20:27 Marketing As An Indie Author
0:22:50 Serial Fiction vs Novels
0:25:55 Reading As A Writer
0:28:01 Writing for TV
0:35:24 Advice for Upcoming Hybrid Author
0:39:43 Chapters in Romance vs Serial Fiction
0:43:41 The Rise of The Serial Fiction Podcast
0:50:51 Alana’s Final Advice
0:53:37 Conclusion
#30 Episode Transcript:
[00:00:00] Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Subscriptions for Authors podcast. So this podcast, our goal is to help you start and grow your subscription, build deeper connections with your readers, and build a business based off of recurring revenue. So hopefully you can go full-time as an author, or if you’re not full-time yet, that you can take your career to the next level.
That’s our goal. And serial fiction happens to be a way that a lot of authors are simultaneously building. But also finding new fans. In fact, many, many successful subscription authors found most of their audience in serial fiction and regularly write serial fiction. But we haven’t explicitly talked about serial fiction in a full episode on the podcast, and that’s why we decided to bring in Alana Albertson, who might just be one of the best real fiction writers in the world.
In fact, she was the number two author on radish for two years straight and is a number three bestselling author on Amazon. Alana Albertson is an [00:01:00] amazing, amazing author. She’s had novels traditionally published and that are now in the TV film world, which we touch on a little bit, and serials has a lot to do with it.
And. We also talk all about how you can write great serial fiction that hooks your readers and builds your fan base. Alana Robertson has a ton of experience in teaching authors about serial fiction through a six figure serials course. So I think this will be a great one cuz she has tons of insights for us and it is just an incredible person to chat with.
So we’re gonna get right into this podcast. I hope you all enjoy it.
[00:01:35] Michael Evans: amazing to have you on the podcast and talk all about one of your many expertises, which is serial fiction.
[00:01:42] Michael Evans: But before we get to that point, especially because subscriptions and serial fiction have so much overlap, I want to hear about what got you into writing fiction, what got you into being a full-time author? Because your origin story is very unique, but in a good way.
[00:01:55] Alana Albertson: Yeah, that’s like the weirdest question for me because I, when I hear all these [00:02:00] people, like I always wanted to be a writer and like they talk about how they were young and I think, you were a young writer.
[00:02:05] Alana Albertson: I never wanted to be a writer, so I’m like the, all I wanted to do was be a professional ballroom dancer. And I went to Stanford and I was an educator. So I focused on s a T bias. I worked at Fair Test in Cambridge. So all I cared about was like educational equity and, but I was an English major, so that’s oh, okay.
[00:02:23] Alana Albertson: But I’m half Mexican and so I really read at Stanford, I read a bunch of books on literature of passing. Of African American passing in the early 19 hundreds. And so that like really identified with me, but I never really saw myself in any type of fiction. And then I read, Ethereum Lit and Shakespeare and and I was like completely, honestly, I was a full-on literary snob, right?
[00:02:46] Alana Albertson: I didn’t read commercial fiction. I’d never read a romance. I was like, oh my gosh have you read? Yeah, no, it was bad. Like I was totally like, no. And so it was never on my radar. I was competing in ballroom dancing and I was running in. I went to [00:03:00] Harvard, I got my master’s in education.
[00:03:01] Alana Albertson: And I ended up, doing, s A T prep, GMAT prep, G R E prep, LSAT prep. I’m like this weirdo that loves standardized tests. And then I read this book called, do I have one here? No, it’s called Dirty Girl Social Club by Elisa Valdaz Rodriguez. And it was about six Latinas who lived in Boston and I was living in Boston and they were college educated and it was a Chiclet book and I was just, it was the first time I’d ever seen myself in a book ever.
[00:03:27] Alana Albertson: So this is my full representation matters, right? And so I was like, oh my gosh, like this is incredible. Cuz I only read books by Dead people from like I read Toto I was just, again, I was a super literary snob. And this book like just changed. I’d never read anything.
[00:03:43] Alana Albertson: I’d never read , like an airport book, a thriller, anything. So anyway, I totally stalked her. And I went to an author event and no, not an event. She had a fan event cuz I was, and I, people said, do you wanna write? Be like, I’m not a writer. Like I’m never gonna write. So anyway, blah, blah, blah.
[00:03:58] Alana Albertson: And so I started telling all these people, this [00:04:00] is before, so I’m 46, so this is I’m 20. Bar or five. And I was a competitive ballroom dancer, and this is before it was on Dancing With a Star. So nobody had heard of that. Everyone was like, you dance in a bar. I’m like, no, I do Wal, but no one knew what I was talking about.
[00:04:14] Alana Albertson: So I would start telling her all these and all the people, all these insane stories about people who now are on Dancing With the Stars in the ballroom community. And she was like, you should write a book. And I was like I don’t write, I would never write. She’s no. And she kept hounding me. So I went to another event with her.
[00:04:29] Alana Albertson: She had these chicot festivals and they were all Latina agents and editors and whatever. And I met an agent and, or I met a editor who’s still friend of mine now, and she was like, you should write. And I’m like, I just, I don’t write books or whatever. So anyway, I finally was like, okay. And I wrote the worst 50 pages, I just cringed.
[00:04:46] Alana Albertson: It’s so telling, and it was hard. I think part of the, and this isn’t like anot thing, but part of the Stanford Harvard thing, it’s like I had such high expectations and my writing was so awful. It was just so bad. And I was like, this is such a joke. [00:05:00] Like I cannot write it all.
[00:05:01] Alana Albertson: But randomly, Alisa sent it to her agent cuz she loved it and then the agent loved it, but I didn’t like that agent. And then I met my agent, who’s been my agent since 2008. Jill, Marcel, I’ve obsessed with her. I don’t know how she’s never dropped me, like she’s been my agent forever. But we shopped it as a chicklet book traditional and it didn’t sell.
[00:05:20] Alana Albertson: We had one offer from some like weird press and then we had one offer overseas cuz farm was big in in the uk. But it didn’t work out and I don’t know, it was just bad. So she was like, you should write it as a romance. And I was like, I’ve never read a romance in my life. So she sentenced me to a Danielle Steel and I was horrified.
[00:05:38] Alana Albertson: I was like, oh my gosh, I’m this literary snob. I don’t read this. This is like this. So I’m, do not read these type of books. Like I, everyone probably hates me on this podcast now, but I was just kinda conditioned. And you, even now, like at the Harvard Stanford alumni magazines, they’re like, Hey, have you ever written a real book?
[00:05:52] Alana Albertson: And I’m like yeah, I’ve, like I can write, 50 pages about a bird, also , but I want people to read my fiction. So anyway, . She told me to write a [00:06:00] romance and I read this romance, which I did not like, but it was set in Marin, where I’m from. So it was cool. And. I wrote this romance again.
[00:06:07] Alana Albertson: Horrible. It was totally awful. But I didn’t let her shop it cuz right at that time I had a bunch of friends. I joined rwa and because it’s me, I like became president of the Chiclet chapter and the president of the Contemporary Romance chapter and President of the YA chapter. And I had friends who were starting to indie publish, and so she wanted to shop it, but she wanted me to rewrite it and it wasn’t good.
[00:06:28] Alana Albertson: So she’s a hundred percent right in this scenario. I’m not. So I just, I published it and nobody bought it. I have it here, but it’s now rewritten. But this was my first horrific book. It was so bad. And so it’s a fat, a bong dancer and a marine.
[00:06:40] Alana Albertson: It’s awful. Anyway, , I do not read it and so it’s horrible.
[00:06:44] Michael Evans: Don’t read my books. That’s the first line in marketing by,
[00:06:46] Alana Albertson: full run cringe, the full one. Like I can’t even, and so then I wrote , cause I used to do about ballet, so then I wrote some other weird book I wrote, which also nobody bought.
[00:06:57] Alana Albertson: It was a nutcracker retelling set in [00:07:00] Boston, but it’s there’s a serial killer in the Nutcracker, actually like this book. But anyway, so again, nobody about it. That’s cool. Yeah it was actually cool. I should probably rewrite it. And then I wrote like a YA book, which I never actually published, but I actually put it in a thing.
[00:07:12] Alana Albertson: So it says, actually no one can find this book. And so this is about a, it’s a picture do Eden Gray telling about this Mexican girl who’s an influencer. I’ll probably rewrite this one. This one I actually love. So all I cared about was that. So anyway, then I wrote this blurb, , but it’s like romance gold, right? But I was like, oh God, I had not written the book, but I wrote this blurb, which I’ll read to you. I’ll be honest with you, I’m no hero share. The media tries to brand.
[00:07:35] Alana Albertson: Every Navy Seal has some kind of Batman dressed in Cammies. There’s a line in Arcade. Superman is Man Steel. He is no match for Navy Seal. You’ve seen the movies were invincible and valuable. That night I just wanted to get laid. One night with an aruban who no strings attached. I picked her out of a lineup, wild, dark hair, long eyes, crack, smile.
[00:07:52] Alana Albertson: After I relaxed back on the creaky, stained caught thankful for the blissful experience that she gave me, I where I forgot the seconds of the faces of my [00:08:00] buddy who died because I made the wrong call. The tears of the children I couldn’t save in the eyes of the enemies I slaughtered during the last seconds of life.
[00:08:06] Alana Albertson: Before I left, her hazel eyes appeared in my soul, she whispered in a distinct California accent. My name is Annie Hamilton. I’m an American citizen. I was kidnapped on spring break five years ago. You’re my only hope. Please save me when desperate plea. This wasn’t a Hollywood blockbuster, New York Times best thriller.
[00:08:20] Alana Albertson: I knew there was no time for excuses, no margin for errors. I had to put on my cape and be her hero. So I wrote this blurb. I hadn’t written the. Whoa. Yeah, this was, yeah. Whoa. Oh my God.
[00:08:31] Michael Evans: Yeah. That’s
[00:08:32] Alana Albertson: a blurb. That’s, it was, wow. Literally like just a novel about my ex cheating on me. A hooker, right? So I was just like, oh, this is funny.
[00:08:39] Alana Albertson: But anyway, I went to sleep and I had not written the book. I just wrote that blurb. I’m like, Hey. And she’s what is that? I’m like, oh, I was just screwing around. And she put it on good reads and whatever. I went to sleep. Next thing we had 10,000 ads. I had literary agents calling me. People were like begging for this book back then.
[00:08:55] Alana Albertson: This is 2014. So again, I had released two books. I had released my stupid dancing book, which [00:09:00] nobody bought who wasn’t related to me. And the Nutcracker thing. And I was working on the YA book that I actually cared about. And I only wanted to be like, trad for the YA book, but, Anyway, that book went viral and back in 2014, bloggers were what made a break you.
[00:09:14] Alana Albertson: And so as ASEs, Maurice and totally booked all were like posting about it. And they were like, where’s this book? I’m like, I haven’t even written this book. This is just like a joke. So anyway, I wrote the book and I debuted in the store 74 like 74 and Amazon wide with 10,000 . So then I started writing. So that’s my story.
[00:09:34] Michael Evans: What a story. Wow. You got me on that blurb. I, yeah, I think I need to read that. I, that’s wow. I mean that, that’s it, right? That’s why it went viral. It hit a cord of people. Let’s now dive.
[00:09:44] Alana Albertson: I’ll tell you real quick why it went viral. The reason it went viral, I think, in my opinion, is at that point in the romance thing there had been a Navy Seal book that had just been released right before traditional, and the guy was awesome. Like he was like this nice guy and he had the girl was like a [00:10:00] single mother of seven and pregnant with her eighth kid and her husband died and he married her and he like left.
[00:10:05] Alana Albertson: And I’m not dissing the, I never even read the book, like I don’t like whatever, but like he left the sea, he lived in Texas and Seals can’t live in Texas. There’s only two bases. And he left the seals to open a pie shop. And so I said she’s obviously never met a Navy Seal cuz I had just been in this horrific relationship with these guys in San Diego.
[00:10:22] Alana Albertson: And that’s, so it was like the anti thing. So that was the beginning of the Dark Romance where at the time in romance, all these Navy Seals were like these nice sweet guys. And my guy was just this totaled jerk. He literally hired a hooker, but like he saved it. So it was like that twist in it.
[00:10:36] Alana Albertson: And so I think that’s what worked and that’s what we’re gonna talk about when we talk about serial fiction is whatever you expect the book to be, you flip it.
[00:10:44] Michael Evans: Okay. Wow. So I actually want to now ask you, you go from here to being on radish. So did this book itself, cause I know you’ve had many Books that you’ve written that done very well in Radish, and one of them was related to Navy Seals, but radish didn’t exist in 2014.
[00:10:57] Michael Evans: No, tell me your story with
[00:11:00]
[00:11:00] Alana Albertson: you. Yeah, so that book blew up and I was like, oh God, now I’m gonna be writing these forever and I don’t even wanna write this stuff, right? Because like when nothing gets to stop, I didn’t wanna write about seals. I just, didn’t want to. So then I wrote I think one of the questions I know for that other thing, someone said who’s your mentor?
[00:11:15] Alana Albertson: I met online Linda Barlow, who I had followed. She was this huge romance author, and she’s older than me. And I was like, oh my gosh, are you the Linda Barlow who won the Rita in 83 for falling? And so she and I over Facebook wrote Badass, another Navy Seal book, but it’s a stepbrother seal book.
[00:11:33] Alana Albertson: And so we wrote this over Facebook Messenger and we, it was a joke. So basically all these stepbrother books were good. And I’m like, let’s do a stepbrother seal. We literally wrote it in two weeks. And yeah it’s a ridiculous book. But anyway, so we wrote this book. and she’s the best writer ever.
[00:11:49] Alana Albertson: So in terms of a mentor, and I knew nothing about romance, so Invincible has a lot of issues that I fixed and rewrites, but she, I would write her this passage and she was like, okay, what’s your goal? Like just, total [00:12:00] masterclass in romance, she was like, if he’s a firefighter, she’s a arsonist.
[00:12:03] Alana Albertson: And that was like, oh, like mind blown, like just everything. And so we wrote this book over Facebook Messenger, we got a cover and we uploaded it and we didn’t even think any and Invincible had done well, and she was this huge author, traditional, but she hadn an indie publish. And so whatever, we just, again, within a week it blew up.
[00:12:20] Alana Albertson: And so this is all Yeah, pre radish. And within a week it blew up and we were in number three in the entire Amazon paid store and top. So it’s girl on the train. and Badass is right here. So we were number three in the entire store. Patterson. Yeah, so girl on the train?
[00:12:37] Alana Albertson: Blake Croach Pines. Wayward Pines Badass is Stepbrother Seal. James Patterson 14th Deadly Sin Memory man, David Balducci and Crow Halla by Michael Wallace. We just blew up and we had no idea what happened and we were just like, oh my God.
[00:12:52] Alana Albertson: So we were, and so then Amazon reached out to us and all this kind of stuff. So the book just did incredibly well. So that’s [00:13:00] 2015. And then in, and so in then 2016, I wrote a Beauty and the Beast retelling, which also did really well. I think it was 40 in the store. Okay. But around this time I was started getting restless and all my Indy books were really doing well.
[00:13:12] Alana Albertson: I was always in the top a hundred. And I was obsessed with Homeland, like obsessed with Homeland. Has, have you either of you seen home I know I talked to you about Homeland the other day back. Amazing. It’s about an episode Damian Lewis, binge it just incredible. But they do something in season two that was this twist that blew me away, blew me away.
[00:13:32] Alana Albertson: And I was just like, oh my God, I don’t know how to write. This is what I wanna do. So I decided that I wanted to write a TV show. Of course I have zero connections with the TV industry and I had no idea what I was doing. So I didn’t, even though I was making all this money on these books, I was like, I wanna write a TV show.
[00:13:49] Alana Albertson: So I decide to write these seven deadly seals and I write ’em as novelas that are episodes. And so these are the original versions of them. So this is like episode [00:14:00] one. Episode two and it’s very, it is a romance, but it’s just incredibly messed up. And it’s more of a TV show.
[00:14:07] Alana Albertson: It’s a true serial season one, season two. So I wrote these and I started putting ’em out and and I’m like the worst writer ever in the sense that I would put one out and five years later I’d put, or like they put the other one out a year later, all my fans were like in huge cliff hangers or whatever.
[00:14:19] Alana Albertson: And I would put these out in between. I think the first one came out. Yeah, the first one came out before badass. So I would stagger them in between my big books and anyway, they were doing really well. And then I went to r w A in 2017 and I was speaking on a panel on six Figure Indies and Si who’s the founder of Radi.
[00:14:36] Alana Albertson: And he had graduated from Oxford. He was famous by bringing over the guy who sings Gangam style to his university. And he had done the startup and he had gone to Korea and seen all these people reading on apps. And he was like, what is that? That’s how he started radish. And he had gotten funding from Amy Tan, who’s lives in Marin, joy Luck Club, who is like my idol.
[00:14:55] Alana Albertson: And so I was really impressed by this guy. So anyway, he’s will you meet with me at 8:00 AM in [00:15:00] like Florida? And I’m like East Coast. I’m like, , like I’m still on California dime and whatever. So I meet him and he and I am at this point selling very well in Amazon. And this series is selling really well.
[00:15:11] Alana Albertson: They’re all out and they’re doing incredibly well. I’m making, at that point probably. Eight to 10,000 a month on that series alone. On Amazon. Cause it did really well. And so he goes, will you take all of these off and put it on radish? I’m like, are you insane? No. And no you’ve gotta be like, I’m making this much money, da.
[00:15:29] Alana Albertson: He’s please, we have this platform or we’re gonna do all this stuff. And I’m like, and I just sat there and this is why I really wanna talk to everyone about, new technology and the kind of new things. And especially with Ream is that I was like, look, I am an idiot. Cuz even though I was big, I didn’t self-publish till 2013 and some of the people that were huge and started in like 12 and whatever, and I was, but at that point I was writing, but I was like, oh, I’m only gonna go try and I’m an agent.
[00:15:53] Alana Albertson: And I was like, you’re gonna take a chance on him. And I literally pulled the books from Amazon and I sobbed. I was like, for sure [00:16:00] making the biggest mistake in my author career cuz I was like, I’m making money on this and I’m going on this app I’ve never heard of for this guy I’ve never heard of.
[00:16:08] Alana Albertson: And he starts uploading them. And at the time they had other huge authors on there that he had gotten, but they had book, they were putting their books up. They weren’t putting the serials up. So he’d like a send her to, and I think he had Kendall, I mean he had a bunch of huge authors, but I, mine was a true serial, mine is a television it’s like a thing.
[00:16:26] Alana Albertson: So he started uploading it and I just, it just blew up. And I, and they couldn’t even believe it. I was the number two on the app for two years until I stopped uploading. Cause I haven’t uploaded in two years. That’s another story too. I made so much money and I was so grateful that I did that.
[00:16:41] Alana Albertson: I took that chance on that new technology. So that’s my rabbit, that’s my serial story. That’s where we .
[00:16:47] Michael Evans: Yeah, no, that’s there’s so much to unpack in there. One, I’m just like curious, like what happens when Amazon reaches out to you when you get to the top of the store that feels like a.
[00:16:57] Michael Evans: Jeff coming in. What happens when Amazon [00:17:00] reaches out?
[00:17:00] Alana Albertson: So Amazon was amazing. I have a rep which having a rep is the best thing ever, and my original rep left. They promoted you at the same time. We were a stepbrother book, so they were like but we were outselling everyone, we were outselling these huge names. But what Amazon has always been amazing to me. I think the thing that was really hurtful for me is, at that time our book was selling so well. We’re better than all these books. And I would go to all these local bookstores and say, Hey, we used stock my book.
[00:17:28] Alana Albertson: Like we’ve sold 10,000 copies last week. Here’s a picture like, we’re out, it’s growing the train in us, right? We’re right here. And they refused to sell my book. And they were like, oh, it’s not a real book. And I was like, okay. Maybe, I’m sure Isec is an author, but Linda Barlow has 30 traditionally published books and she won a Rita and she won an RT Times and she’s probably one of the best living romance authors.
[00:17:48] Alana Albertson: We’re a legitimate book. We just, published it ourselves and we couldn’t get any traction. And so that was the first time that I considered going trad. And that’s what led it to me. Cuz even though I have this incredible [00:18:00] success and more importantly, not more importantly, but I was very financially lucrative.
[00:18:04] Alana Albertson: I felt at that time, that block that I couldn’t push my career to the next level. At more importantly, once I got obsessed with some deli seals, all I wanted to do was, I wanted this to be a television show. And I found this amazing thing, Amelia, you should do this. It’s sorry Michael. You can’t this’s only women, but it’s the best experience of my life.
[00:18:22] Alana Albertson: I went to Head Brook. I applied for this one week masters in TV writing program with the showrunner from Homeland, who I’m like a psycho stalker. They shouldn’t have let me in. Meredith and the showrunner of csi, and it was all women. They call it a retreat, but it’s like a rehab. They take your phone, you don’t have internet, you make your own fire.
[00:18:40] Alana Albertson: Like it’s literal. I thought I was gonna die out there. I was like, this is gonna be a horror novel. But she took the pilot I had written for seven Deadly Seals. I’d written a pilot and I, of course, I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know how to write a pilot, but I bought Final Draft and I wrote it and she rewrote it with me like, we work, shipped it.
[00:18:54] Alana Albertson: And it’s amazing. It’s so good. Not no props to me, like she’s a showrunner of Homeland. She [00:19:00] has an Emmy, but she rewrote my pilot. and I could not get it. So then I said, Hey, I have this pilot. I wrote it. It’s, it’s solid. It’s number two on Radish and has been for two years. It has millions of views.
[00:19:11] Alana Albertson: It has an 80% readthrough rate. I went to all these film agents, I said, can I get this read? Can someone read this so I can get into tv? And no, I couldn’t even get a meeting. All I wanted was them to at least read my pilot and say, Hey, you suck. You can’t write, go home. But no no one would even read it.
[00:19:26] Alana Albertson: They were like, no, you can’t. You’re indie. Oh, it’s Indian. I’m like, yeah, but radish and we’re this and that, and I’ve sold this many. No one would even take my meetings. And that was when I was like, I’m going tra to get a TV deal. And I ended up getting one. So it was this full manifest, like wishful thing.
[00:19:42] Michael Evans: Wow. No, that’s, it’s really sad. It’s still in the Hollywood space can be that way. I think it is shifting, but I do know a lot of the people who work in Hollywood I don’t even know if they’re fully aware. of what happens in the world of indie authors and just how much readers are [00:20:00] consuming books and how amazing these stories are, most importantly.
[00:20:03] Michael Evans: But I kind of wanna now talk about what makes your story so amazing because it sounds like from you, like you weren’t doing much marketing. Like I know, I don’t need to even tell you this. There’s a lot of authors spend a lot of money to be at the top of the Amazon store and Amazon ads and Facebook ads.
[00:20:17] Michael Evans: Nothing wrong with that, but it doesn’t sound like you had a six figure ad budget to be doing what you were doing. Not at all. I could
[00:20:22] Alana Albertson: be wrong. No, and that’s one thing I’ll never, like I teach Boss was I’ll never do ads or whatever. We did run some ads for Badass. I didn’t do any for Invincible or whatever, but we didn’t know what we were doing , in defense of everyone else.
[00:20:34] Alana Albertson: Back then there were less books. So of course anyone who published in 2014 2015 had it easier. But I didn’t even have a newsletter like I did, and so when I teach all my classes and I talked to authors, I’m like, do as they say and not as I do. I did everything wrong. If I was launching today, I would do stuff completely different.
[00:20:49] Alana Albertson: I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. I just literally put the books out and I hermit myself in and they sold. I didn’t pay. So a lot of people ask me like, oh how’d you promote radish? I didn’t like, [00:21:00] I know how to now if you’re on radish and I can tell you things you did, I did nothing.
[00:21:03] Alana Albertson: Like it just blew up. And. I think one of the things is that a lot of times I’ll see in these author groups, they talk everything and they’re like, this book isn’t working what I’m doing. And they fix the cover and they fix the blurb and they fix all this kind of stuff. And all of that is important.
[00:21:18] Alana Albertson: And I clearly, I had a good blurb and clearly I had good covers. But you gotta learn, you gotta write, and so my craft, I think I’m the world’s worst writer. E despite my success, like every time I read I’m like, oh gosh, why is anyone, but so I’m constantly working on my craft.
[00:21:32] Alana Albertson: I’m constantly taking writing classes. I take writing classes like Stanford Online I take with stagner like fellows, I literally am constantly working on my craft. And I’m not like, oh, I’m so awesome cuz I really don’t think that. But yeah, I didn’t do any of this stuff.
[00:21:45] Alana Albertson: I didn’t do any of that.
[00:21:46] Michael Evans: It’s hard because. I always find that it’s way easier to try and think about a hack oh, I just gotta change this cover and that’s it. Like it’s way easier to think about doing that cuz I’m saying this as like guilty as charge.
[00:21:58] Michael Evans: Like I did that [00:22:00] for years. I was like, okay, this isn’t working. Let me just try this new Facebook ad strategy or this new Amazon ad or this 99 cent promo and like it’s just gonna, it’s gonna click eventually and this algorithm’s gonna get me discovered and it’s gonna work. And I never really had the obsession around the craft that I should have.
[00:22:16] Michael Evans: I just wanted to write, but I never actually told myself the hard question, which is maybe you need to make your stories better for the specific audience you’re going for. So I’m guilty of charge, that’s, I’ve made that mistake plenty of times. But you obviously have this special focus on just writing the best stories.
[00:22:31] Michael Evans: And when it comes to that, specifically serial fiction, I wanna start with you’re mentioning things like a true serial. And what is a truce hero? What makes something serial fiction versus just a novel? How would you define that difference?
[00:22:45] Alana Albertson: Yeah. Absolutely. And so this is, so the number one thing I see with people on Radi or and wa Pav, they’re like, oh, I didn’t get this, or whatever, 99%.
[00:22:52] Alana Albertson: And first off, my back list is up on radish, right? And so I’m not like, oh, I don’t put my, so sure I will take one of my books like [00:23:00] Invincible and I will chop it up into little scenes and put it up. I want extra money just like everyone. Okay. However, that is not a se a serial. I crafted my serial a hundred percent differently from the get-go.
[00:23:11] Alana Albertson: I see it as a TV show. I did a lot of stuff with TV writing so I planned it as season one In, I did seven and that was just cause I called it seven deadly sin seals, which is sins, right? So I did 7 25 KK novellas. And then the way I look at it is each chapter is a scene, and then each novella is a Episode and then e that and then the Seven Wa were a season.
[00:23:37] Alana Albertson: So now because it’s romance and because it’s still book, I did do a Happily Ever After of couple one in season one, couple two in season two, couple three in season three. But all the characters from all the books are in Book one and are fully integrated. I knew the ending, I knew the cliffs, I knew everything.
[00:23:53] Alana Albertson: And I write to my cliffs. And you also end each chapter on the rising action, not on the resolution. So like in [00:24:00] romance, a lot of times I’ll be like, oh, and they cuddled up by the fire and no no. Like I wa if you, they cuddle back at the fire, you’re a reader is gonna cuddle by the fire and go to sleep, never end a chapter and they’re going to sleep.
[00:24:10] Alana Albertson: Never. I’m sure I, you can probably find one of my chapters under, I’m falling asleep, but do not do that. So I always end on a cliff, whether it’s like he says something and you don’t know the answer or whatever. So I structure it that you have to read the next chapter. So that’s one of the things I do.
[00:24:25] Alana Albertson: But anyway, there’s an overall. Series arc. There’s a season arc and then there’s episode arcs and each one, and I have it in this like system, and it was really from TV and it was really from Homeland. And I wrote this before I met Meredith Stein, and she’s I’m obsessed with her. It is so funny.
[00:24:42] Alana Albertson: We were supposed to be work shopping My thing. I’m like, can you explain to me Susan too white? But she’s ok. Like I was fully fangirling her. She was like, oh my gosh, I love you. But it was like, she should have gotten a restraining order. I was like, obsessed with her. But she was like three lines of dialogue no matter do you have the script here?
[00:24:56] Alana Albertson: I can show you guys a script. I don’t think it’s in my office, but , three lines of [00:25:00] dialogue. No more ever. And I was like, what? So then from now on all my books, I never do more than three lines of dialogue. And you’ll see a lot of authors both indie and trad, they’ll just go on these speeches.
[00:25:09] Alana Albertson: We don’t talk in speeches clearly. I’m talking in the speech right now for a podcast, but in general, you’re like, Hey, how are you? How’s the coffee? Oh, great. What do you do today? And so it, it really worked on my craft. And then I started reading. I read scripts and then when I watch tv, I watch it as a.
[00:25:27] Alana Albertson: As a watcher, which is like fun. And then I watch it as a writer, which is not fun. And I read as a writer, which is not fun, and it’s taken a lot of joy out of my writing. But on my reading, but I’ll watch TV and I’ll be like, why? Why did this end? What, why am I, do I wanna watch it?
[00:25:42] Alana Albertson: Do I wanna watch the next thing? If I don’t, why not? And so I go through all that emotional pain when I watch TVs. ,
[00:25:50] Emilia Rose: I actually feel the same way about reading. It’s really hard for me to read and find enjoyment anymore because I read a story and I’m like I don’t like this because I want something else to happen.
[00:25:59] Emilia Rose: [00:26:00] Or it’s not the way I would’ve written it, or it’s really good, but I’m just thinking way too much about how it’s structured , and it just takes the enjoyment out of it.
[00:26:10] Alana Albertson: Yeah. And prior Yeah, you too. I was this huge reader.
[00:26:13] Alana Albertson: I loved reading. That’s why I got into it. And I don’t, this sounds horrible. See all these people on I, I needle point now that’s my new theme because I can’t read for enjoyment. I want to, and I read my friend’s books. Yeah. And there’s books that are incredible. Even if the book is the best book, it is very difficult for me cuz I’m like, oh, I wonder why they did this.
[00:26:30] Alana Albertson: Oh gosh, I suck. Why do I even write? You know what I mean? I can’t separate you, you know, , it’s not about me. I’m supposed to like, enjoy the book, but I’m like, I can’t enjoy. The craft anymore. Yeah. I don’t, I, it’s very difficult for me to read. Now.
[00:26:44] Emilia Rose: I’m so glad you said that because I feel like a lot of people think that way too.
[00:26:48] Emilia Rose: Like a lot of authors, but everyone is always I love reading so much and I just can’t, I can never relate. And I Thank you. I’m used to like when I met my husband, before e-readers and he was stationed in Hawaii, [00:27:00] he was a Marine. I would bring two suitcases. There was no bookstore in Hawaii.
[00:27:04] Emilia Rose: And I would bring two book cases full of books because I would run out and then what was I gonna do? I would completely, and he would laugh. I would have like my actuals and I would have two extras and I would read ’em. And now when I go places I bring my needle point or I bring, it’s cuz I still read, but I, it’s not this like relaxing thing for me, it’s like a stressful experience.
[00:27:24] Emilia Rose: Right?
[00:27:24] Michael Evans: Yeah, it’s hard to turn off like the writer, author, storyteller mind and go into like reader zone. I know for me, I never used to read non-fiction, but that’s like basically 80 to 90% of what I read now, because don’t do that.
[00:27:38] Alana Albertson: You tell the habits and I read that because I can read it and I’m trying to get something, but I can’t read fi.
[00:27:43] Alana Albertson: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:27:44] Michael Evans: I do better with tv, but I think that’s also, cuz I don’t I have never ridden serials. I want to read and write serials and that might come, so TV is still relaxing for me, but I bet that’ll change one bit.
[00:27:56] Alana Albertson: Let me go into that real quick. So after the serial thing and whatever, and, I was still [00:28:00] releasing books, but I felt really blocked by the fact that.
[00:28:03] Alana Albertson: again. If someone read my pilot, which was edited by Meredith, so it was incredible. Like I wrote it and it sucked. I read it now I’m like, it’s so good. And it’s 80% hurt cuz she literally rewrote the full thing when we were at in Hedge Brook. And it’s amazing. I was really bitter and I was like, a lot of the author advice, which I agree, they’ll be like, cuz the biggest mistake I’ve made as an author is a genre hop.
[00:28:23] Alana Albertson: I’m like, oh look, A serial, oh look, a romcom, oh look this. And, readers want the same thing consistently, and that’s how you’re growing your brand. And so all that advice is write your next book and just, stay in your lane and whatever. And I was like, I wanna be in somebody else’s lane.
[00:28:36] Alana Albertson: Like I was like I saw crazy rich Asian. And it was like a religious experience for me and I was like, this is so incredible and it’s a romance. I was like sobbing in the theater. People are like, okay, what’s wrong with this girl? It’s a . And I was like, this is what I wanna write. And so I emailed my agent, who again, this has been my agent since 2008.
[00:28:56] Alana Albertson: This is 2020. And she never dropped me. She kept saying, Hey, do you wanna send me a book? I’m like, [00:29:00] no, cuz I was making too much indie. And I was like, I’m writing crazy rich Mexicans. And I wrote the 50 pages overnight and I sent it to her. And we had four trad deals. Four traditional deals o offers the next day.
[00:29:11] Alana Albertson: And then she published it in Publishers Weekly when we signed. And then we had three offers for producers. And then one of them though was a film agent with William Morris, and then she shopped it, and then we had five authors. But then one dropped out, two movies, two tv, and then I’m optioned for TV and stream restricted up.
[00:29:31] Alana Albertson: And I can’t give details on that publicly. But it’s happening. But the only reason I went trad was because I indie authors are just as sound to the Strat authors in the authors create incredible work, but there are barriers. And immediately from being tra all of a sudden I got invited to the Tucson Literary Festival and the alumni magazine started talking.
[00:29:50] Alana Albertson: And whereas before that I was like, Hey, do you remember me? Like I, I think Stanford magazine. . They had written something about trashing Nora Roberts and I wrote them like this three page letter that [00:30:00] they published about so it was just this thing. But the reason I went tra was cuz I wanted this film TV opportunity.
[00:30:07] Alana Albertson: That is what I did. And it luckily , happened. It’s killed my career cause I’m no longer allowed to publish what outside of certain things. I’m under two contracts, both with my traditional publisher, but also with the producers for my television show. So that’s why people are like, I, my poor readers, they’re like, I left them hanging at the halfway through season two of seven Deadly Seals.
[00:30:28] Alana Albertson: It’s all written. And if you look at my comments, radish, they’re like, we hate this girl. She’s a liar. Like she said, she can publish better trade books out. I’m under three book contract. I legally can’t publish. But I did this for the sole reason that. And I made more indie, so I did this for the sole reason of this fantasy life that I wanted.
[00:30:47] Michael Evans: Yeah, I, first of all, congratulations. It’s gonna be amazing and wherever and whenever it comes out on television, I look forward to watching it from a place of enjoyment. Rather than writer analyzing
[00:30:57] Alana Albertson: can come over, I’m having a huge launch party at my [00:31:00] house with all the all the people.
[00:31:01] Alana Albertson: So yeah. Oh, that would be fun. Oh my gosh, that sounds so fun. Fun. Yeah. In San Diego. So hopefully
[00:31:06] Michael Evans: give an excuse to come out to California. I like to say that California’s a kind of place I’d like to live part-time, but maybe not not full-time. But that’s just me. But I love it out there.
[00:31:16] Michael Evans: It’s awesome. No, I love that. You say a few interesting things here because I immediately am thinking about. Your readers, and I know you have a big Instagram, how are you and are you still maintaining a relationship with them? Are you, cuz a lot of authors will talk about, there’s social media and how should I use social media as an author and it looks like you can’t publish books right now, but I’m sure you’re still using social media.
[00:31:39] Michael Evans: So how have you approached that during this. Period.
[00:31:42] Alana Albertson: Yes. So that’s a great question. And I feel I’m I have not done a good job of it. So I was super active on my Instagram. That was my thing. While I was indie, there was a time I was a influencer and Amazon and other publishing companies would pay me up to a thousand dollars a post.
[00:31:55] Alana Albertson: If you can scr you scroll way back on my Instagram, you’ll see paid pro promos from [00:32:00] different books. Publishers were sending it to me. And it was great. And then when this happened, I have so much immense guilt because I feel bad that I’ve left them hanging. And there were other books and so I had pre-orders that I had to cancel.
[00:32:11] Alana Albertson: And I don’t think readers, so we talk about this divide as authors. We know the difference between indie and trad, but readers don’t get it. So they really think like I’m a, like psychopathic liar or something. I don’t know, because I’m like, I literally can’t publish. They’re like, that doesn’t make sense.
[00:32:25] Alana Albertson: You publish this book. I’m like that’s under the contract and this isn’t, and I’m not allowed to do it. And so it’s they feel betrayed, especially the Southern Deadly Seals people. And so what I should have done is done it or Definitely started a Patreon or now Ream, so I could publish it there.
[00:32:38] Alana Albertson: However, when I signed the contract, I wasn’t thinking about that. Cause I’m an idiot. So I don’t have an exclusion for that. So I am actually, that’s what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to get permission to go on ream. I, cuz the books are, I can’t put the book out. Three months before, three months after, and then there’s windows that I can, but then they make me do all this other stuff.
[00:32:58] Alana Albertson: So it’s and don’t I, I’m not trashing [00:33:00] trad amazing, but it’s a totally different thing. And it’s very hard to make a living as a traditional published author. But my, I have so many friends indies who make a living Indies, and so my tra friends are like lawyers and they’re all these incredible people and they write at night because they take your advance.
[00:33:15] Alana Albertson: And I had a massive advance I think it was called, the publisher’s thing, they called very good Ava. It was like a high six figure advance. But they split it over 12 payments over. I was supposed to have a book coming out every year, and it was like over five years.
[00:33:28] Alana Albertson: So there’s no way. But now I can live off my back list and I can promote it, but I have not done it. I don’t have a Facebook group. I have one, but I never post, I rarely post on social media anymore. I do send out my newsletter, but I have not done so I assume my fans are gonna abandon me or whatever.
[00:33:45] Alana Albertson: At some point I’ll come back, but I’m a hundred percent on their side. If I was the reader I would hate me. But it was a choice I made and yeah. So don’t beat me. . Interact with your fans, have arre continue to publish. I just, I need an exclusion in my contract
[00:33:59] Michael Evans: we can talk about [00:34:00] that off air.
[00:34:00] Michael Evans: I think one, one thing just in general that I will share, this is not legal advice, but law is an act of boundary making and it’s all about who considers what is in which category. So there’s always ways to create new worlds new definitions. It’s fiction authors, we are pretty good at spinning narratives, but regardless
[00:34:19] Alana Albertson: of that the contract, there are a lot of things where it’s like my book was supposed to be out in a reasonable period of time.
[00:34:24] Alana Albertson: They’ve delayed my book. The second book Kiss Mi Amor, which isn’t coming out till July was supposed to be out in November. I can definitely argue, hey, like I’m allowed to publish. And so they’re saying paper delay, like it’s all the stuff, but I’ve written the books on my contract and so Yeah, I hear you.
[00:34:38] Alana Albertson: I agree. We’ll work it out. But
[00:34:40] Michael Evans: yeah. No, I think, it’s great for people to hear, I think your experience with Indie than tra because I know plenty of authors right now who are indie and I think traditional publishers are moving a bit more into wanting to work, especially in the romance genre with authors who are doing really well.
[00:34:57] Michael Evans: And I’m curious for you if there’s [00:35:00] anything, looking back outside of, maybe you would’ve maybe gotten an exclusion on the contract or something like being able to post on Ring. But is there anything else as you made this switch to being a hybrid author, I’ll use that term, that you would maybe tell other authors who are considering a switch or who also have gotten approached because.
[00:35:17] Michael Evans: That’s definitely becoming more and more
[00:35:19] Alana Albertson: of a thing. Absolutely. So number one, I would not have taken any contract if it wasn’t huge. So actually, Mo and Mont Lake offered to me, and I sobbed when I turned them down because they were like, we’ll promote your back list. And I’m like, but I love, but the reason I felt like I’d already achieved that success on Amazon with badass.
[00:35:36] Alana Albertson: And so I was looking to get into print, into tv into bookstores and like those type of events. So that’s why I I wanted to go with a, big five just for distribution. But here’s the thing, there’s this delusion that I think a lot of authors think that, oh, okay, let’s say you’re doing, let’s say you’re a mildly successful indie, like you’re just making some or whatever.
[00:35:56] Alana Albertson: I would never sign a trad deal unless I had a huge advance. And I think [00:36:00] my advance was pretty big. And even then I made more indie. So I’m fully honest with that. You have to look obviously at your family, situation and what you can do. If I didn’t have my back list or anything, then I would definitely have to have gone back to tutoring GMAT to support the lifestyle, my expenses based on what I was making indie versus what I was doing now, because indie you can just be like, Hey, like I’m gonna write this book and publish it and market it, do whatever.
[00:36:23] Alana Albertson: And I could guarantee a level of income with indie that I knew that I could get, even if a book was a flop. Like I would know like how to do it and spike it and everything like that. You just can’t do with tra So trad is amazing for all these different opportunities, but it’s a different thing if your goal is to support yourself financially and not, and full-time. I’d say it’s Very hard trad, unless you’re one of the top authors. And I do not consider myself a top author trad. I do think once the TV show comes out, that’ll change. But I have a few friends who are top, like New York time, best sellers and whatever and they’re fine. There, but indie author, being an indie author, you can [00:37:00] support yourself multiple ways.
[00:37:01] Alana Albertson: Subscription services, radish, wide, everything like that. There’s constant different ways that you can market and tread you’re losing control for so much stuff. So one of the ideas I had for tra, so my book Ramona and Julietta, which is the one that’s gonna be the TV show was the series.
[00:37:15] Alana Albertson: So they’re deciding if the book two will be second season or a separate show, but that’s another story. But it’s the, these kids, right? So their parents, his father met stole his mother’s fish taco recipe in Baja in the seventies. And then he meets her, he is just a gentrifying guy, and he meets this girl and she’s a seated table taqueria chef, and they kiss the next day he’s buying her entire block and turning this historically Mexican neighborhood in Taco Valley of Starbucks and all this stuff.
[00:37:41] Alana Albertson: So anyway, I have this idea as an indie author, I’m like, okay. So I just was bored last night and I wrote a hundred page, so like a, I think it was like 25,000 pro prologue of when the parents met, right? And their love story and. Yeah. And I’m like, so we can put it, we can release it.
[00:37:57] Alana Albertson: We’re gonna put it on, we can do a book web for it. It’ll [00:38:00] funnel. This is a million. I wrote everyone into the book and they’re like, we’re not gonna do that. I’m like, what do you mean we’re not gonna do that? I already have it all planned out, so I already wrote it. We just get a cover and we do it, and we release it.
[00:38:08] Alana Albertson: And they’re like, we’re not gonna do that. I’m like, we, you have to do that. And the entire thing. And you’ll see reviews. They’re like, oh, I wanted to happen, know what happened with the parents? And I’m like, I wrote it. It’s sitting here. It’s on my computer. I wrote it last night. They were like, no.
[00:38:19] Alana Albertson: And so it’s it’s so frustrating. And I love my tra team. I love them. I love my editor. I love my agent, but I’m like, whatcha talking about this is, do it. And we have all these pre-orders. Like this is one book Bub like, and I it’s unfathomable to me. But yeah, you have zero control. So I was like, okay.
[00:38:35] Alana Albertson: So anyway, I have a hundred k I have a prologue for the book that is just on my computer that I can’t,
[00:38:41] Michael Evans: That doesn’t sound very fun. Yeah, I wish I could help you with that situation. But when it comes to your serial fiction, when it comes to maybe more specific insights around, we’re talking about subscription services, indie authors, being able to make money in different ways.
[00:38:55] Michael Evans: Obviously a very common thing that many people listening to this are already doing or wanna do [00:39:00] is offer early access to their stories chaptered by chapter and inside of subscription service, and then share it elsewhere on serial fiction platforms and have that whole funnel that brings new fans in.
[00:39:12] Michael Evans: Superfans come pay you monthly. And that, that can be a great business model for people. But obviously that, that still comes down to writing great serial fiction and. I’m curious when it comes to the actual, we’ll start with the length of chapters. What have you found is a good length in romance and if you’re familiar with other genres, I know you obviously are much more familiar with Romance, what would you say, , how does that vary in terms of serial fiction? In terms of the Chapter
[00:39:38] Alana Albertson: link thing I wanna say, which what you said about bringing in, I was talking to Milia about this yesterday. The most important thing with any of this and what if I was releasing today. Radish got big by Rob.
[00:39:47] Alana Albertson: The, everyone look him up at Wattpad, they pretty much built their model about him. And so he was like huge on Wattpad. And Si who’s the c e O of Radish was like do you wanna get paid? So he would put his chapters on wpa, say if you wanna read it, [00:40:00] earlier. So he was, again, the number one on radish.
[00:40:01] Alana Albertson: I was number two. And he would then say, Hey, if you wanna read it early, you go and pay it radish, right? And so that is how they built the model. At towards the end, he was making 8,000 in an episode I was making around five to six an episode, right? Per episode every time I do it. Okay. So initially I would say the answer to your question is the ideal chapter length when I write books is always 2000 words.
[00:40:23] Alana Albertson: Always. However, if I’m on radish, I do the minimum because I wanna get paid more. And that sounds bad, but whatever. So first season I didn’t, I just actually put the way I did. , but for, since I wrote third season when I was already on radish, which isn’t up, sorry fans, it’s not up. But they’re all around the minimum length because I’m getting, I’m paid and monetized that way.
[00:40:45] Alana Albertson: If I was launching today, and this is what everyone wants to know, so it’s always cuz people will say, which I agree. Oh, she was bash sure she was great in radish in 2017. Radish sucks now or this is whatever. Yeah. So that’s true. And the industry’s always changing. So KU one it was, is we [00:41:00] got paid.
[00:41:01] Alana Albertson: Borrow. So it didn’t matter about the word count. So you know, at 25 I would get a dollar 25 versus a book. It made more sense for me to write smaller. And then KU two, we would start writing bigger books. So I would write super long books because then we got paid by pages. If I was launching today with a subscription model, this is exactly what I would do.
[00:41:18] Alana Albertson: And this is something Emilia has Adan. And I think that the top things, you have to have a funnel. This is a business thing, which is why I wanna do the funnel for my track book, but nobody will let me. But that’s like beside the point. So I would put chapters, I would put clean, and I hate the word clean.
[00:41:35] Alana Albertson: I would put non-sexy chapters up on wattpad to build my following. This is me, like random, not Alana author, brand new, zero platform, no newsletter. Nobody knows me. I would put stuff on Wattpad, I would start building a following. I would use all their hashtags, I would do all that kind of stuff. And then I would slowly invite people to Patreon to get early access and.
[00:41:57] Alana Albertson: The sexy scenes, right? So this works for [00:42:00] romance, right? Now if I was sci-fi or mystery and I was not doing something with a kind of, you. Sexual content, then I would say, oh, bonus scenes or action scenes or whatever. So the exclusivity exclusivity is behind the table, right? And so anyway, this is your funnel.
[00:42:14] Alana Albertson: You need a funnel for your entire business. I read this one book recently by this author, and it was so good, better than anything I’ve ever written. Horrible cover. Not a good blurb. And I, she was like, I’m like, yeah, your book’s better than anything I ever written. No one knows about your book.
[00:42:27] Alana Albertson: Oh da. If people don’t know about your book, they’re not gonna find it. Back in the day, in 2013 and 14 when I released, you would just, there weren’t that many books, so sure you would see it. Same on radish. Same on Wattpad. You have to have some type of marketing and wattpad, you can go into the forums, you can talk to people and you’re not just, it’s same with social media.
[00:42:44] Alana Albertson: You’re not my book. No, you’re literally interacting in this community and you’re being part of it and then you’re slowly sharing it and anyway, you’re creating your funnel and you’re getting over there. So anyway, long answer to that 2000 words is ideal, but if I’m on ratification, I’m monitoring it, is that I do the bare minimum [00:43:00] cause I wanna get paid for the next chapters to 800.
[00:43:02] Michael Evans: I think that’s great and I think it’s very important for people to have. These funnels. it’s essential to be able to do that. I know, especially in progression, fantasy and what rpg, like wattpad might not be the place for you, but Royal Road probably is a good place.
[00:43:14] Michael Evans: Absolutely. To go and discover those new fans. So this was probably a place out there for you even if we have comic book creators listening, I see comic book creators posting panels onto Twitter and especially Instagram and carousels and being able to have each image be a new kind of carousel, do really well.
[00:43:29] Michael Evans: And I’m curious for you actually. What is your take on the rise of serial fiction podcast? Love how love audio, serial
[00:43:36] Alana Albertson: fiction. So mine is in a podcast also, and so I put it not just in audio, but I put it on a podcast based on, there is another author who did it, Scott something, and that’s how he got a big deal.
[00:43:47] Alana Albertson: He went tried by putting it so all the different types of media that TikTok doing that with it, that is incredible. You’re reaching readers. Here’s the key though. Your readers are different. I was always under this delusion, so once I was huge on radish, I was like,[00:44:00] this is, one, one of my author failures and I have plenty of them.
[00:44:03] Alana Albertson: Not all of my books have been successes, but I was huge on radish. And so then I like released some book, which I thought was good on Amazon. I didn’t do ads, whatever. And it didn’t do that well. And I was so shocked because. I just thought I was this like really big, but radi, there’s zero crossover in my world from radish or whatever.
[00:44:21] Alana Albertson: There might be more with a Patreon versus Amazon but. You have your audio readers are not. One of the other things I really teach, I have a newsletter class, and I’m like really obsessed with active campaign and I funnel all my readers. So I have who my audio readers are, who my radish readers are, and I send them different stuff.
[00:44:39] Alana Albertson: And and this is marketing and understanding your customer, right? So the person who’s listening to the podcast says, awesome. And you might get people that then maybe you’re funneling them into your audiobooks and not necessarily into your room unless you have audio on there.
[00:44:50] Alana Albertson: So there’s all these different things, but , some people listen and they go and they walk like their dog or whatever, or they’re working out and that’s when they’re [00:45:00] listening to fiction. Some people read while they’re waiting to pick up their kids. Some people only read at the airport, so it’s another thing, delusional fantasy, when Ramon came. I thought, so I have 97% of my sales from Ramon and I’ve sold 11,000 copies are print. Okay. My pre-life, so my indie books I know is exact opposite, are 97% e-book, 3% print. So the p this book and why they price the ebook. 9 99, the Prince 1299, no one’s stupid enough to spend 9 99 on an ebook, right?
[00:45:30] Alana Albertson: So I had this delusional fantasy also that people would read my back list, right? Like I teach this back list bootcamp class also. And I was like, oh, they’re all gonna read it. But I get all these reviews on Ramon. I just read this debut book for this author. She’s so amazing. Can’t read for a second book.
[00:45:45] Alana Albertson: I’m like, I got 31. Go to Amazon, fine, but they won’t even touch my e-books. And I’m like, cuz they’re like, I read books that like, are like real books and real bookstores and the rest of mine aren’t. And I’m like, oh yeah, have this book and no one cares. No one will even read it.
[00:45:59] Alana Albertson: So your readers are [00:46:00] different. They’re not in a monolith and they have different reading habits and you have to understand that to market to them.
[00:46:05] Michael Evans: Yeah. That’s really, I know that it’s hard to actually get a grip on that behavior. Horrible. Understand . Yeah. I mean I actually, am a bit surprised too that, but I guess that’s exactly where they’re coming from. Your sales are not really even coming from people buying necessarily the print book on Amazon.
[00:46:23] Michael Evans: They’re literally going to the indie bookstore. Absolutely. Or the local, maybe Barnes and Noble and then they’re going there, get, getting your latest book, but there’s no, the rest of your back list isn’t there. Because obviously there’s like we’ve been talking about maybe some dating that goes on that’s really dumb business move on their part because imagine if they add your back list of 30 books there that people could then go to the person who runs the store and be like, Hey, , I’m interested in the new Alana of book.
[00:46:46] Michael Evans: Like where are her other books? Are there other books? Yeah, we carry 30 of ’em. They don’t choose to do that.
[00:46:51] Alana Albertson: They carry none then they don’t want to cuz they don’t wanna support Amazon. That’s why you ha you have to, and you can’t even reach ’em, cuz they don’t know.
[00:46:58] Alana Albertson: And this doesn’t, like [00:47:00] for book two, which I don’t even have an arc for yet, it says other book by Alana Albertson. Ramona and Heta, which is why I passive aggressively in my bio wrote author of 31 books. So hopefully someone will be like, oh, where are those other 31 books? , she’s written yeah.
[00:47:13] Alana Albertson: Under, oh it has written 30 romance novels. That’s what I said that yeah, they’re they don’t look. But the other thing that’s really important, even if Forget trad cuz that’s specific to me or hybrid authors. I teach this back list bootcamp classes, so I have a super fan. So she was like, She loved one of my most recent books and she kept talking about and talking about it and she would write me on Messenger and then I said something like, I’m like, oh, it’s like Shane and who’s the guy in badass who’s my number one book?
[00:47:38] Alana Albertson: And she was like, who? And I’m like, Shane, like the hero from Badass, like my bestselling book. She’s oh, I never heard of it. I’m like, you are my super fan. Like you didn’t, the minute you fell in love with my one book, read my 30 back book. And she didn’t. And so that’s when I started thinking, okay, I have fully failed as an author cuz this is my biggest fan.
[00:47:56] Alana Albertson: She doesn’t know about it. So now I send out weekly to my newsletter list, [00:48:00] Hey, this is a book I released four years ago. This is what it is about because I’m under this delusional assumption that someone reads my book and they read my back list. That doesn’t even happen in the indie world.
[00:48:09] Alana Albertson: You have to constantly market your old book. And because the, yeah, the only good thing about me not being allowed to release for the two year, for the past two years kill me. It’s horrible. Is that I’ve learned to market my back list. Cuz I was like, I never marketed my back list. This was my income. I would release four books a year.
[00:48:25] Alana Albertson: Or some novels or three and two Novelas or whatever, which were my cereals. And I would release ’em. Then he’d top a hundred and I’d make money and I would move on with my life. I never promoted my back list unless it was like first of my series and a new book was coming out and that, and I would get a book.
[00:48:39] Alana Albertson: But besides that, I didn’t do anything. And now I’m like I take my 30 books, I have 52 weeks and I chart it. I’m like, okay, this week I have to promote this stupid book. And I go through it because no one’s heard of these books. These books are still good. They’re a product. You have to divorce yourself from the book and emotionally detach yourself and say, okay, I have 31 products and I need to be promoting them at all [00:49:00] times.
[00:49:00] Alana Albertson: Or, stagger them so people know about ’em because people forget. .
[00:49:03] Emilia Rose: Yeah, I completely agree. We actually started like a automation for my back list this year. And we, we do one a month just because I do an email every week for my front list. And I was looking on Amazon, I guess like the day after the automation was released and I didn’t even know the automation was released and I was like, oh my gosh, why am I getting so many sales for this backless book that I’ve never gotten this many sales on before?
[00:49:30] Emilia Rose: And then I like go into the automation. I’m like, oh, it’s cause we just promoted it. And so yeah, people like don’t know exact biggest fans. Yeah, no, I, so I’m just saying
[00:49:41] Alana Albertson: I have an automation, I did the same thing. I put one of my. Books, I think it was Doggy Style. It’s my, I’ve run a dog rescue.
[00:49:47] Alana Albertson: It’s one of my favorite books, and I forgot that I did the automation and I’m like, did someone mention it on TikTok? Cause I know my baseline sales book get a say or two, like nothing. And also I was like, sold so many of them.
[00:49:59] Alana Albertson: And I’m like, [00:50:00] oh, my thing went out. And I’m like, why am I not am I shy about promoting my books? No your suit, your fans wanna know it, but yeah you can’t forget about your past books
[00:50:08] Michael Evans: yeah. That’s a really important one. Remember? Cuz it, yeah.
[00:50:12] Michael Evans: People when they stop reading a book, like most of the time they go on like they might wanna read another book, but they’ve gotta go on with their life first. And that in that break, there’s this whole time where you can miss them. They don’t always read The back matter that you have, or click on those links if they’re in eBooks.
[00:50:27] Michael Evans: Yeah, no, that’s really good insights. The last thing I have, the last question I have, which is, what would be your advice on some of the mistakes you made in your career? And if you could go back, maybe that you wouldn’t do differently, but you would tell someone else to do differently. I know you’ve highlighted a few things, but is there anything else you haven’t mentioned that you just wanna bring up?
[00:50:46] Alana Albertson: I did everything wrong. I shouldn’t even have a career. I shouldn’t be on your, but I literally did but I didn’t know what it was doing and I think now there’s and at least. When I did it, it was kinda like the wild west and people were doing it and whatever. So there’s so many, there’s so many great resources.
[00:50:59] Alana Albertson: Obviously [00:51:00] your podcast, YouTube, I’m probably gonna start a YouTube channel soon. You really need to listen to what’s happening A lot. I hear a lot of kind of like statements like, oh, my book’s super different than anything Ever’s been written. Now if you know anything about Triad Publishing, they want the exact same thing, but slightly different, right?
[00:51:15] Alana Albertson: So you need to see what type of books you’re selling. One of the best things I did in my career, I’m gonna go to the worst in a second, but one of the best things I did to in my career I never wanna say I follow trends, I want, I wanna set them right, but like I knew stepbrothers were coming up big more in the erotica world.
[00:51:29] Alana Albertson: So we made a full length novel out of that I’m working on a monster romance right now because I think that’s the next thing. I, reverse harem or whatever, so you wanna watch with selling, you don’t wanna copy, you wanna have your own voice, your own spin on it.
[00:51:41] Alana Albertson: But number one, you need to watch the market like number two. And though I said I constantly did my own thing, which worked out well for me, the biggest failure, the reason I don’t think some people know, and I, when I think of the top romance authors and some of them who started at my time, what they did very well, which I completely miserably failed at, is, I [00:52:00] wrote a paranormal and then I wrote a military’s romantic suspense, and then I wrote a contemporary romance, and then I wrote a.
[00:52:06] Alana Albertson: Serial. And then I wrote a rom-com I was all over the place. And that , your reader has an expectation and they want the same thing but different. They wanna feel something. They wanna know. Every time I read an Emilia book, like I feel this thing, right? And the thing is, I’ve completely failed my readers in terms of consistency.
[00:52:23] Alana Albertson: Right now it’s not my fault cause my tried contact, I promise. But prior to that it was a hundred percent my fault and I own that. So what I would do right now, yes, I would a hundred percent have a subscription because you control that. You control those names, you control everything. So I would do that.
[00:52:38] Alana Albertson: The other thing I would do is I would not release one book unless I had and this isn’t my theory, this was Liliana Hartz, I think she said it at a conference years ago. You have two in the whole three on deck. So basically I wouldn’t really, if I’m this brand new baby author, I would have three books written.
[00:52:53] Alana Albertson: I know that’s painful cause you just wanna get that book out. But then Pete, you have nowhere to send your authors. So I would write three books and I would [00:53:00] release ’em a month apart and rapid release while I’m working on those two. So day, year one, I would have five books out and then I would keep going and I would be consistent.
[00:53:08] Alana Albertson: Now that doesn’t mean you can’t do some of the cool things that I did in terms of okay, wanna do a trad book or whatever, but I would consistently serve my reader what they wanted and I fully failed in that. I have complete, the only time reason I’m ever gonna finish a series is cuz I’m under this legal contract to for trad because I am already like, oh look, the other thing, like I’m full on A D, do not want to, stay in that.
[00:53:29] Alana Albertson: But that is my failure and don’t be me.
[00:53:32] Michael Evans: I think a lot of people would love to have experienced things you have, but I think it’s very humble in you saying that we all have different paths and that maybe trying to emulate anyone’s path isn’t always the best idea. But I think you gave some great insights. And the last thing is I’d love.
[00:53:46] Michael Evans: where people can find you. Let us know where authors can keep in touch. I know you create a lot of things that help authors, so
[00:53:52] Alana Albertson: where can we find, yeah, so I’m on Instagram. I do respond. I have an email. I offer courses also. I have I think five classes [00:54:00] on newsletter back list, serial fiction breakout book, which is really one about craft.
[00:54:04] Alana Albertson: That’s the only one that the serial class talks about craft too, but the breakout one really does and an Instagram class. And and I do that. I know a lot of people do classes. Like I got my master’s in education from Harvard, I used to be a teacher. It’s a passion of mine to actually, teach and, give back and then, affordable options.
[00:54:20] Alana Albertson: Again, there’s so many great things on YouTube. I do plan to start a YouTube channel also. But . Yeah,
[00:54:25] Michael Evans: no, it’s amazing. That’s amazing. Definitely check it out. The link will be in the description. Everyone listening. And Alana, we had an amazing time chatting with you today. That’s a good time.
[00:54:33] Michael Evans: Thank you so much for being here, and I hope everyone had a great time listening.
All right, so I hope y’all enjoyed this podcast. If you’re watching the video version, you probably noticed my eye looks weird. I’ve had pink eyes, so my eye is swollen. Uh, if you made it to the end of the audio version, you just learned a new fact about me. It’s going away. I’m, I’m okay. It’s slowly getting better.
But thank you for listening to this episode of the podcast. I love Alana. She’s an amazing human, and we’re very lucky that we had her time [00:55:00] today. I also wanna just share with you that we have a big event coming up. Very big event. It’s called the Subscriptions for Authors Summit. You might wonder why I waited till the end of the podcast to share this.
I wanna make sure the people who are most excited about it, the people who are most involved, hear about it first. So if you listen to the end of the podcast, you’re part of the Cool Author Club, you’re part of the Awesome Author Club, we’ll have to come up with a a name for the people who listen to this section of the podcast.
When most of y’all have stopped listening, y’all are the Warriors and y’all are gonna be rewarded by getting an invite to the first ever virtual. But live Subscriptions for Authors Summit. It’s a three day conference taking place from May 5th to May 7th. This is totally free, and you could sign up the link in the description and get your ticket to attend.
It’s gonna be a really fun time. We have amazing speakers like Christopher Hopper re, Spartan speaking. We have Kate Webster, we have Rodney b Smith. We’re gonna be highlighting topics all the way from serial fiction. [00:56:00] How authors in Kin Unlimited have been able to grow a solid subscription fan base where their fans pay them directly every month.
I’m so, so excited. A lot of work has gone into this and we wanted to announce it when it was pretty much finalized. We wanted to share with you like pretty much a finalized schedule, pretty much finalized event lineup cuz one, I wasn’t sure if we could pull this off because we just started like getting the idea probably in early March.
But a lot of work went it into last month. The teams rallied the troops. And as a community, we’ve come together to create what I think will be a truly, truly special event in publishing. And if you’re a subscription author, will be the event to be at. So I hope to see you there, and in the meantime, I hope everyone listening has a happy time writing.
And don’t forget storytellers Rule the World.