Podcast appearances and mentions of Adam Croft

Interview with Adam Croft of Convulse Records and Destiny Bond.Support the show

A chat with Adam Croft who is a very successful author of crime novels. His most recent series of books are situated in Rutland.

Convulse Records owner Adam Croft (who also drums in Destiny Bond) joins us for our first label profile episode. We talk to Adam about the eclectic DIY empire he's building with Convulse, his personal canon, the Denver hardcore scene, bands he wishes he could release music by, and more (including a preview of some unannounced Convulse material).  https://convulserecords.bandcamp.com/ Intro song: Militarie Gun - "Dislocate Me" Outro song: Rash - "Breeding" 

Adam Croft and Graham Bartlett bring you another episode of Partners in Crime while we eagerly await the return of Robert Daws.   Adam reveals he is now a big time superstar as he appears in both local media and on a menu, while he also mentions numerous times (again) he is going on holiday (again) next week.   Graham tells us about his night out at the Crime Writers Association Daggers awards, gives an insight into The Met being put into special measures after Adam found a BBC article on the subject, and we hear what it was like for Graham in his first week as a published crime writer.     Adam also talks about his first ever visit to an escape room. Did he get out in time? Have a listen to the podcast to find out.    ~ Moriarty ~   RECOMMENDATIONS The Poet by Michael Connelly bit.ly/MichCon  The Border by Don Winslow bit.ly/DonWins    July's Patreon FREE book of the month from Kobo is Valley of Lies by Michael Campling. bit.ly/ValleyOfLies To get this and a different one every month for FREE, become a patron here: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast Or just buy it here   Buy Partners In Crime merchandise here https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592091 Buy a 'Partners In Time' clock by clicking below! https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592683   Don't forget your exclusive Partners in Crime discounts through Kobo. Get 90% off your first purchase using the code CRIME22 at checkout. And you can also get 40% off all books using the code PARTNERS22 when you shop using this link: bit.ly/PartnersKobo If you'd like to support Partners in Crime and get early access to every episode — on video — plus lots of other goodies, head over to patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   CONTACT US Email: hello@partnersincrime.online Facebook: facebook.com/groups/crimefictionpodcast/ Twitter: twitter.com/crimeficpodcast Instagram: instagram.com/crimefictionpodcast/ Website: partnersincrime.online Patreon: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast

Adam Croft is joined again by Graham Bartlett on this episode of Partners in Crime. Graham tells us how crazy it has been during launch week for his new book Bad For Good, he reveals what not to do if you are driving a stolen car and the pair wonder what an episode co-hosted with Peter Shilton would be like. Adam has the shortlist for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, talks about an upcoming detective television show called The Whites which stars Ethan Hawke, and reveals more Kobo book recommendations. We also hear that Adam is going on yet another holiday (someone's doing well), while Graham reveals he was a late spurter.    ~ Moriarty ~   RECOMMENDATIONS The Heights by Louise Candlish bit.ly/LouiseCan  The House Across the Lake by Riley Sager bit.ly/RileySag (Pre-order)     June's Patreon FREE book of the month from Kobo is Where The Bodies Are Buried by A.S French. https://bit.ly/ASFrench To get this and a different one every month for FREE, become a patron here: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast Or just buy it here   Buy Partners In Crime merchandise here https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592091 Buy a 'Partners In Time' clock by clicking below! https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592683   Don't forget your exclusive Partners in Crime discounts through Kobo. Get 90% off your first purchase using the code CRIME22 at checkout. And you can also get 40% off all books using the code PARTNERS22 when you shop using this link: bit.ly/PartnersKobo If you'd like to support Partners in Crime and get early access to every episode — on video — plus lots of other goodies, head over to patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   CONTACT US Email: hello@partnersincrime.online Facebook: facebook.com/groups/crimefictionpodcast/ Twitter: twitter.com/crimeficpodcast Instagram: instagram.com/crimefictionpodcast/ Website: partnersincrime.online Patreon: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast

On this week's episode of Partners in Crime, Adam Croft is joined once again by Graham Bartlett, former detective superintendent of Sussex Police. Unsurprisingly, the subject of real life crime is discussed again, with Adam sparking things off by mentioning a Daily Mail article about knife crime. Also in the episode, we hear about the McIlvanney Prize longlist courtesy of CrimeReads, Adam mentions a crime related episode of Who Do You Think You Are featuring Richard Osman, while Graham tells us we should all be watching BBC crime drama Sherwood. Adam also has a look at a Daily Record article which reveals the first names of people most likely to be criminals. So have a listen to hear if you're on it. And no, I'm not. ~ Moriarty ~   RECOMMENDATIONS The Other People by C.J. Tudor bit.ly/CJtudor  The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy bit.ly/Jellroy  Bad For Good by Graham Bartlett  bit.ly/bad4good (Pre-order) Sherwood BBC television show   June's Patreon FREE book of the month from Kobo is Where The Bodies Are Buried by A.S French. https://bit.ly/ASFrench To get this and a different one every month for FREE, become a patron here: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast Or just buy it here   Buy Partners In Crime merchandise here https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592091 Buy a 'Partners In Time' clock by clicking below! https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592683   Don't forget your exclusive Partners in Crime discounts through Kobo. Get 90% off your first purchase using the code CRIME22 at checkout. And you can also get 40% off all books using the code PARTNERS22 when you shop using this link: bit.ly/PartnersKobo If you'd like to support Partners in Crime and get early access to every episode — on video — plus lots of other goodies, head over to patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   CONTACT US Email: hello@partnersincrime.online Facebook: facebook.com/groups/crimefictionpodcast/ Twitter: twitter.com/crimeficpodcast Instagram: instagram.com/crimefictionpodcast/ Website: partnersincrime.online Patreon: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast

  Adam Croft is joined by author and former police commander for Brighton and Hove, Graham Bartlett, on this week's episode of Partners in Crime.   The pair discuss Graham's debut novel Bad For Good, real police procedure versus dramatisation for books and television, and Graham gives us a frightening insight into the effects of real-life police funding cuts.   We also hear about the journey from fighting crime for real, to inventing fictional crime stories, while Adam takes us through a CrimeReads article looking at crime novels with a strong sense of place and inimitable atmosphere.   ~ Moriarty ~     RECOMMENDATIONS The Shadow Friend by Alex North https://bit.ly/ShadFriend  The Last Thing to Burn by Will Dean https://bit.ly/willdean  Bad For Good by Graham Bartlett (Pre-order) https://bit.ly/bad4good     June's Patreon FREE book of the month from Kobo is Where The Bodies Are Buried by A.S French. https://bit.ly/ASFrench To get this and a different one every month for FREE, become a patron here: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast Or just buy it here   Buy Partners In Crime merchandise here https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592091 Buy a 'Partners In Time' clock by clicking below! https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592683   Don't forget your exclusive Partners in Crime discounts through Kobo. Get 90% off your first purchase using the code CRIME22 at checkout. And you can also get 40% off all books using the code PARTNERS22 when you shop using this link: bit.ly/PartnersKobo If you'd like to support Partners in Crime and get early access to every episode — on video — plus lots of other goodies, head over to patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   CONTACT US Email: hello@partnersincrime.online Facebook: facebook.com/groups/crimefictionpodcast/ Twitter: twitter.com/crimeficpodcast Instagram: instagram.com/crimefictionpodcast/ Website: partnersincrime.online Patreon: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast

Adam Croft returns from his holiday with another solo episode of Partners in Crime.   We hear that he is very tanned, Bob is still away doing a proper job somewhere and there are some exciting changes coming to the podcast very soon.   In the crime stuff , Adam tells us about Gillian McAllister's new book, he goes through a CrimeReads article focusing on the most unforgettable female leads in crime fiction and also looks at their books of the month.   Amazingly, Adam doesn't mention his new book this time, but he does tell us about a couple of Kobo recommendations that you can see below.   ~ Moriarty ~     RECOMMENDATIONS Never Saw Me Coming by Vera Kurian https://bit.ly/VeraKur A Slow Fire Burning by Paula Hawkins https://bit.ly/paulahawk   June's Patreon FREE book of the month from Kobo is Where The Bodies Are Buried by A.S French. https://bit.ly/ASFrench To get this and a different one every month for FREE, become a patron here: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast Or just buy it here   Buy Partners In Crime merchandise here https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592091 Buy a 'Partners In Time' clock by clicking below! https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592683   Don't forget your exclusive Partners in Crime discounts through Kobo. Get 90% off your first purchase using the code CRIME22 at checkout. And you can also get 40% off all books using the code PARTNERS22 when you shop using this link: bit.ly/PartnersKobo If you'd like to support Partners in Crime and get early access to every episode — on video — plus lots of other goodies, head over to patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   CONTACT US Email: hello@partnersincrime.online Facebook: facebook.com/groups/crimefictionpodcast/ Twitter: twitter.com/crimeficpodcast Instagram: instagram.com/crimefictionpodcast/ Website: partnersincrime.online Patreon: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast

Adam Croft is here once again to save the day by doing episode 162 of Partners in Crime on his own while Bob is away rehearsing. That's the excuse he's given us anyway.   We hear about a Lynda La Plante Q&A in the New Statesman, the nine best fictional films and shows based on real-life crimes according to Collider, and Adam gives us this week's Kobo recommendations.    He also reads out some emails from listeners who are more than happy for Adam to present the podcast on his own. That's not to say they don't like Bob or that he waffles on a lot, but more of a compliment towards Adam. At least I think so anyway.    The links Adam mentioned in the episode are below, as is our email address; we'd love you to get in touch!    ~ Moriarty ~   True Confessions! 32 Bestselling Authors Pick the Best Mysteries and Thrillers of All Time: https://parade.com/1340532/michael-giltz/authors-pick-their-favorite-mystery-crime-thriller/    Lynda La Plante Q&A: “My Mastermind specialist subject? Serial killers” https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/qa/2022/04/lynda-la-plante-qa-my-mastermind-specialist-subject-serial-killers      RECOMMENDATIONS   Dark Game by Rachel Lynch https://bit.ly/rachl    The Way of All Flesh by Ambrose Parry https://bit.ly/AmbParry      April's Patreon FREE book(s) of the month from Kobo is The Slim Hardy Mystery Series Books 1-3 by Jack Benton. https://bit.ly/slimhardy To get this and a different one every month for FREE, become a patron here: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast Or just buy it here   Buy Partners In Crime merchandise here https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592091 Buy a 'Partners In Time' clock by clicking below! https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592683   Don't forget your exclusive Partners in Crime discounts through Kobo. Get 90% off your first purchase using the code CRIME22 at checkout. And you can also get 40% off all books using the code PARTNERS22 when you shop using this link: bit.ly/PartnersKobo If you'd like to support Partners in Crime and get early access to every episode — on video — plus lots of other goodies, head over to patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   CONTACT US Email: hello@partnersincrime.online Facebook: facebook.com/groups/crimefictionpodcast/ Twitter: twitter.com/crimeficpodcast Instagram: instagram.com/crimefictionpodcast/ Website: partnersincrime.online Patreon: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast

Great news everybody - It's time for episode 160 of Partners in Crime with Robert Daws and Adam Croft.   During this episode, we hear all about Adam's wonky settings, Bob struggles to pronounce things and the pair discuss a foot stool.   This is later interrupted by some crime fiction chat during which Bob talks about the potential problems with television and film adaptations, Adam discusses an Irish Times article investigating why there are so many Irish women crime writers and there are a number of book recommendations (see notes below).   Bonus chat this time includes precipitation, Adam's shiny head and the likely upcoming assassination of Bob.    ~ Moriarty ~     RECOMMENDATIONS   The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave https://bit.ly/KoboTLTHTM The Last House on Needless Street by Catriona Ward https://bit.ly/KoboTLHONS Reputation by Sarah Vaughan https://bit.ly/KoboReputation   March's Patreon FREE book of the month from Kobo is The Last Amen by C.C. Jameson https://bit.ly/TheLastAmen To get this book and a different one every month for FREE, become a patron here: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast Or buy it here   Buy Partners In Crime merchandise here https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592091 Buy a 'Partners In Time' clock by clicking below! https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592683   Don't forget your exclusive Partners in Crime discounts through Kobo. Get 90% off your first purchase using the code CRIME22 at checkout. And you can also get 40% off all books using the code PARTNERS22 when you shop using this link: bit.ly/PartnersKobo If you'd like to support Partners in Crime and get early access to every episode — on video — plus lots of other goodies, head over to patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   CONTACT US Email: hello@partnersincrime.online Facebook: facebook.com/groups/crimefictionpodcast/ Twitter: twitter.com/crimeficpodcast Instagram: instagram.com/crimefictionpodcast/ Website: partnersincrime.online Patreon: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast  

Adam Croft and Robert Daws return for episode 159 of Partners in Crime.   Bob explains he hasn't been able to watch much television or read any books since the last episode, but he doesn't let that hinder his contribution, as he recommends an audiobook and a true crime documentary. In fact, he manages to discuss the latter for a full eight minutes.   Meanwhile, our hosts discuss an article from The Herald, in which author James Oswald admits he questioned whether he could continue writing about the police, after their heavy-handed response to the Sarah Everard vigil, and Adam reveals some of the crime fiction stars already lined up to appear at the Theakston Old Peculiar Crime Writing Festival in the summer.   Bonus material this time includes an email from a listener who got in touch to share how much he loved the mattress content in the last episode, and will no doubt have been thrilled at Adam's revelation that he too has now purchased a new mattress. AND a bed.   ~ Moriarty ~     RECOMMENDATIONS   The Game by Scott Kershaw https://bit.ly/KershawTheGame (pre-order)   Devil's Advocate on Sky Documentaries   I Have Something to Tell You by Susan Lewis (Audiobook) https://bit.ly/SomethingAudio     March's Patreon FREE book of the month from Kobo is The Last Amen by C.C. Jameson https://bit.ly/TheLastAmen To get this book and a different one every month for FREE, become a patron here: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast Or buy it here     Buy Partners In Crime merchandise here https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592091 Buy a 'Partners In Time' clock by clicking below! https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592683   Don't forget your exclusive Partners in Crime discounts through Kobo. Get 90% off your first purchase using the code CRIME22 at checkout. And you can also get 40% off all books using the code PARTNERS22 when you shop using this link: bit.ly/PartnersKobo If you'd like to support Partners in Crime and get early access to every episode — on video — plus lots of other goodies, head over to patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   CONTACT US Email: hello@partnersincrime.online Facebook: facebook.com/groups/crimefictionpodcast/ Twitter: twitter.com/crimeficpodcast Instagram: instagram.com/crimefictionpodcast/ Website: partnersincrime.online Patreon: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast

The boys are back in the studio for the second week in a row. I know, amazing, eh? But don't worry, to keep that unprofessional vibe that you've grown to love going, the latest episode starring Adam Croft and Robert Daws is a couple of days late.   The weather chat returns this week as the pair give their respective opinions about snow, Bob is extremely impressed with his new mattress and Adam reveals he has short legs.   There is some crime stuff too. We hear about the upcoming debut novel from former Chief Superintendent Graham Bartlett, Adam gives his opinion on tv show The Tourist, while Bob recommends two programmes on Netflix.    ~ Moriarty ~     RECOMMENDATIONS   The Game by Scott Kershaw (pre-order)   The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window on Netflix   The Tinder Swindler also on Netflix     February's Patreon FREE book of the month from Kobo is Calculated Sabotage by K.T. Lee To get this book and a different one every month for FREE, become a patron here: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast Or buy it here     Buy Partners In Crime merchandise here https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592091 Buy a 'Partners In Time' clock by clicking below! https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592683     Don't forget your exclusive Partners in Crime discounts through Kobo. Get 90% off your first purchase using the code CRIME at checkout. And you can also get 40% off all books using the code PARTNERS when you shop using this link: bit.ly/PartnersKobo If you'd like to support Partners in Crime and get early access to every episode — on video — plus lots of other goodies, head over to patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   CONTACT US Email: hello@partnersincrime.online Facebook: facebook.com/groups/crimefictionpodcast/ Twitter: twitter.com/crimeficpodcast Instagram: instagram.com/crimefictionpodcast/ Website: partnersincrime.online Patreon: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast

After just over a month without your favourite crime fiction podcast, you can now rest easy as Adam Croft and Robert Daws return to your ears (and your eyes if you're a Patreon member). Partners in Crime is finally back.   In this latest episode, we hear Bob is having a go at dry January (Adam certainly isn't), a sea monster has been found in Rutland and Adam reveals he's got a new book on the way because he's getting a bit hard up.   The pair discuss an article from The Scotsman which reveals the rather controversial method a certain high-street shop uses for its book charts, Bob recommends a television show and Adam reads out an email from a listener asking the question, 'is Doctor Who a police procedural?'    Back on the subject of charts, we hear this very podcast is doing extremely well in that department, while Bob somehow gets on to the subject of having a prostate exam. Well, if that doesn't get you to listen....   ~ Moriarty ~     RECOMMENDATIONS   The Puppet Master TV show on Netflix Just Another Liar by Mandy Byatt   January's Patreon FREE book of the month from Kobo is Storm Deaths by Steve Orme To get this book and a different one every month for FREE, become a patron here: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast Or buy it here   Buy Partners In Crime merchandise here https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592091 Buy a 'Partners In Time' clock by clicking below! https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592683   Don't forget your exclusive Partners in Crime discounts through Kobo. Get 90% off your first purchase using the code CRIME at checkout. And you can also get 40% off all books using the code PARTNERS when you shop using this link: bit.ly/PartnersKobo If you'd like to support Partners in Crime and get early access to every episode — on video — plus lots of other goodies, head over to patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   CONTACT US Email: hello@partnersincrime.online Facebook: facebook.com/groups/crimefictionpodcast/ Twitter: twitter.com/crimeficpodcast Instagram: instagram.com/crimefictionpodcast/ Website: partnersincrime.online Patreon: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast  

It's that most wonderful time of the year again. Yep, it's the Partners in Crime Christmas Special with Robert Daws and Adam Croft.   So what's Christmassy about it? Well, viewers on Patreon will be able to see the amazing festively decorated studio, and Adam and Bob wearing Christmas hats (obviously). The episode also features a Christmas party (NOT a business meeting), at which Bob tries some non-alcoholic wine and refuses to eat parmesan cheese.   They do at some point get on to crime fiction stuff. Adam goes through a screenrant.com article looking at the top ten most common tropes in murder mystery movies, Bob recommends a Nell (not Neil) Pattison audiobook and we hear which celebrities have been writing crime novels.   Also in this week's episode we hear the outstanding Partners in Crime Christmas song (link to the video is below), Adam coughs a lot and Bob starts humming for no obvious reason.   ~ Moriarty ~   Partners in Crime - Boom Boom Boom Boom!! (I Want You (Back) In My Room (Which Used To Be A Garage)) https://youtu.be/hzKeIfdJpBs    RECOMMENDATIONS   The Chestnut Man  TV show on Netflix   Hide by Nell Pattison (Audiobook) https://www.kobo.com/en/audiobook/hide-29        December's Patreon FREE book of the month from Kobo is Circle of Bones by Malcolm Richards  https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/circle-of-bones-1 To get this book and a different one every month for free, become a patron at patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   Buy Partners In Crime merchandise here https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592091 Buy a 'Partners In Time' clock by clicking below! https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592683   Don't forget your exclusive Partners in Crime discounts through Kobo. Get 90% off your first purchase using the code CRIME at checkout. And you can also get 40% off all books using the code PARTNERS when you shop using this link: bit.ly/PartnersKobo If you'd like to support Partners in Crime and get early access to every episode — on video — plus lots of other goodies, head over to patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   CONTACT US Email: hello@partnersincrime.online Facebook: facebook.com/groups/crimefictionpodcast/ Twitter: twitter.com/crimeficpodcast Instagram: instagram.com/crimefictionpodcast/ Website: partnersincrime.online Patreon: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast  

Adam Croft and Robert Daws return for another installment of your favourite podcast, Partners in Crime.    In this episode, we hear that our hosts had very different Sundays. Bob had a lazy day sitting on the couch watching sport, while Adam had a busy one which involved getting boosted.    In crime fiction stuff, the pair discuss the exciting news that Mark Billingham's first new series in twenty years is on the way, Adam takes a look at an article in The Guardian which reveals the books we've been reading during lockdown and Bob goes through Laura Wilson's five best crime thrillers of 2021.   Also in the podcast, Adam announces the quite remarkable news of how many years this podcast has been going, while Bob, after watching his first ever Grand Prix, reveals he is now a Formula One expert.   ~ Moriarty ~     RECOMMENDATIONS   Landscapers  TV show on Sky Atlantic     December's Patreon FREE book of the month from Kobo is Circle of Bones by Malcolm Richards  https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/circle-of-bones-1   To get this book and a different one every month for free, become a patron at patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   Buy Partners In Crime merchandise here https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592091 Buy a 'Partners In Time' clock by clicking below! https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592683   Don't forget your exclusive Partners in Crime discounts through Kobo. Get 90% off your first purchase using the code CRIME at checkout. And you can also get 40% off all books using the code PARTNERS when you shop using this link: bit.ly/PartnersKobo If you'd like to support Partners in Crime and get early access to every episode — on video — plus lots of other goodies, head over to patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   CONTACT US Email: hello@partnersincrime.online Facebook: facebook.com/groups/crimefictionpodcast/ Twitter: twitter.com/crimeficpodcast Instagram: instagram.com/crimefictionpodcast/ Website: partnersincrime.online Patreon: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast    

The world's best podcast is finally back. And so is Mr Robert Daws. He's finally decided it's time to stop hanging around with Sir Ian McKellen and slum it with his partner in crime, Adam Croft.   In this episode, Adam reveals the shortlist for the 2021 An Post Irish Crime Fiction Book of the Year award, he goes through an interesting article on kottke.org looking at the ten rules of golden age detective fiction, while Bob recommends a French crime drama television show.   Bonus material this week includes Adam and Bob comparing Christmas trees, the pair chatting about how they have both been extremely busy for very different reasons and Adam tries to break his record for the amount of emails he can clear while Bob is talking. It's obviously a lot.    ~ Moriarty ~     RECOMMENDATIONS Stars and Spies by Christopher Andrew and Julius Green https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/stars-and-spies   Trust No One by L.J. Breedlove https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/trust-no-one-37   December's Patreon FREE book of the month from Kobo is Circle of Bones by Malcolm Richards  https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/circle-of-bones-1   To get this book and a different one every month for free, become a patron at patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   Buy Partners In Crime merchandise here https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592091 Buy a 'Partners In Time' clock by clicking below! https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592683   Don't forget your exclusive Partners in Crime discounts through Kobo. Get 90% off your first purchase using the code CRIME at checkout. And you can also get 40% off all books using the code PARTNERS when you shop using this link: bit.ly/PartnersKobo If you'd like to support Partners in Crime and get early access to every episode — on video — plus lots of other goodies, head over to patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   CONTACT US Email: hello@partnersincrime.online Facebook: facebook.com/groups/crimefictionpodcast/ Twitter: twitter.com/crimeficpodcast Instagram: instagram.com/crimefictionpodcast/ Website: partnersincrime.online Patreon: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast  

We are back with another episode about the gaming industry! In this episode, we will be talking to Adam Croft on video games audio design. As a Senior Dialogue Lead in Bungie, Adam helps the team create sounds in video games. Since this is a lesser-known topic, we start by explaining what is dialogue in video games. Furthermore, we discuss why it is important. We also go on and discuss what is the process of audio design for video games. As usual, we also cover topics such as the day in the life of the dialogue team. What are the necessary skills for people to get started in this field? Towards the end, Adam also shares some of the funny stores in his career over 15 years. //

I interview Adam Croft about his latest book in the Rutland crime series “In Cold Blood” and also review “A Slow Fire Burning” by Paula Hawkins, ”Yours Cheerfully” by A J Pearce, “Next Of Kin” by Kia Abdullah, “The Flight” by Julie Clark and a subscription book box unwrapping (back by high demand) by Secondhand Bookshelf. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

  In this week's podcast our hosts discuss the fact both have been pinged, how many antihistamines Bob has taken today and Adam reveals his new technique on how to spot an idiot. If that all sounds fascinating, then you should listen to the latest episode of Partners in Crime with Adam Croft and Robert Daws. Bob recommends a Lisa Stone audiobook, Adam reveals which legendary writer is the focus of this year's Montblanc Writers Edition pen and we hear that a blockbusting tv crime drama is coming to an end. The pair have a semi-serious chat about wearing masks, they have a bit of a moan about it being too hot and Adam horrifies Bob by telling him he's about to take his clothes off. ~ Moriarty ~   RECOMMENDATIONS   The Cottage (Audiobook) by Lisa Stone Narrated by Jessica Whittaker https://www.kobo.com/en/audiobook/the-cottage-30   July's Patreon FREE book of the month from Kobo is The Psychopath's Checklist by R A Forde https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/the-psychopath-s-checklist To get this book and a different one every month for free, become a patron at patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   Buy Partners In Crime merchandise here https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592091 Buy a 'Partners In Time' clock by clicking below! https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592683   Don't forget your exclusive Partners in Crime discounts through Kobo. Get 90% off your first purchase using the code CRIME at checkout. And you can also get 40% off all books using the code PARTNERS when you shop using this link: bit.ly/PartnersKobo If you'd like to support Partners in Crime and get early access to every episode — on video — plus lots of other goodies, head over to patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   CONTACT US Email: hello@partnersincrime.online Facebook: facebook.com/groups/crimefictionpodcast/ Twitter: twitter.com/crimeficpodcast Instagram: instagram.com/crimefictionpodcast/ Website: partnersincrime.online Patreon: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast

Is Bob a psychopath? Who is texting him during the podcast? And are our hosts any good at football punditry?   If you'd like to find out, listen to the latest episode of Partners in Crime with Adam Croft and Robert Daws.    Bob chats about two new true crime documentaries, Adam goes through the shortlist for this year's Bloody Scotland Scottish Crime Debut of the Year and we hear Antonio Banderas will be returning to television to play an Italian crime reporter in The Monster of Florence.   Adam has a look at a Bloomberg article which talks about how Netflix's Lupin pulled off the perfect heist (link below), while the pair discuss suitable middle-class snacks and drinks to have while watching football.    ~ Moriarty ~   BLOOMBERG ARTICLE https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-06-29/how-netflix-s-lupin-and-omar-sy-pulled-off-the-perfect-heist-show   RECOMMENDATIONS   Rabbit Hole by Mark Billingham https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/rabbit-hole-5   July's Patreon FREE book of the month from Kobo is The Psychopath's Checklist by R A Forde https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/the-psychopath-s-checklist To get this book and a different one every month for free, become a patron at patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   Buy Partners In Crime merchandise here https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592091 Buy a 'Partners In Time' clock by clicking below! https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592683   Don't forget your exclusive Partners in Crime discounts through Kobo. Get 90% off your first purchase using the code CRIME at checkout. And you can also get 40% off all books using the code PARTNERS when you shop using this link: bit.ly/PartnersKobo If you'd like to support Partners in Crime and get early access to every episode — on video — plus lots of other goodies, head over to patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   CONTACT US Email: hello@partnersincrime.online Facebook: facebook.com/groups/crimefictionpodcast/ Twitter: twitter.com/crimeficpodcast Instagram: instagram.com/crimefictionpodcast/ Website: partnersincrime.online Patreon: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast

Would you like to hear about Adam's new radio show? What has he bought himself as a birthday present? And is Bob any good at doing traffic reports?   If, for some reason you want to find out the answers, listen to the latest episode of Partners in Crime with Adam Croft and Robert Daws.    Bob tells us that we should all watch the new season of Lupin on Netflix, Adam recommends Imran Mahmood's second novel I Know What I Saw and we hear about new Channel 4 true crime tv show In the Footsteps of Killers.   Bob goes through the longlist for the McIlvanney Prize for Scottish crime writing, while Adam shocks us all by revealing he's been wearing a dress.    ~ Moriarty ~     RECOMMENDATIONS   The Maidens by Alex Michaelides https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/the-maidens-3 I Know What I Saw by Imran Mahmood https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/i-know-what-i-saw-5   June's Patreon FREE book of the month from Kobo is Death of a Painter by Matthew Ross https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/death-of-a-painter To get this book and a different one every month for free, become a patron at patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   Buy Partners In Crime merchandise here https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592091 Buy a 'Partners In Time' clock by clicking below! https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592683   Don't forget your exclusive Partners in Crime discounts through Kobo. Get 90% off your first purchase using the code CRIME at checkout. And you can also get 40% off all books using the code PARTNERS when you shop using this link: bit.ly/PartnersKobo If you'd like to support Partners in Crime and get early access to every episode — on video — plus lots of other goodies, head over to patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   CONTACT US Email: hello@partnersincrime.online Facebook: facebook.com/groups/crimefictionpodcast/ Twitter: twitter.com/crimeficpodcast Instagram: instagram.com/crimefictionpodcast/ Website: partnersincrime.online Patreon: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast  

Do you know how well your books are selling? We mean really know? Without accurate sales and royalty data, you can't make accurate assessments on advertising, read-through rate, or how well that last giveaway did. Join us as we discuss some of our favorite book sales trackers and how exactly to use them. Check out the book sales trackers we mention in the episode! Book Report: https://www.getbookreport.com/ Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/ KDP Reports Beta: https://kdpreports.amazon.com/ BookTrakr: https://www.booktrakr.com/ Bundlerabbit: https://bundlerabbit.com/home/worlds Draft2Digital: https://www.draft2digital.com/ Abacus: https://publishdrive.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360026379074-Abacus-for-Co-Authors Drop us a suggestion for our question and answer show at https://www.amwritingfantasy.com/contact/ Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday.   SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST! Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review.   Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy. For as little as a dollar a month, you'll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going.  Read the full transcript below. (Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion). Narrator (2s): You're listening to the am. Writing fantasy podcast in today's publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need an literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing. Join two best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them now onto the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt, and Jesper Schmidt. Jesper (30s): Hello, I'm Jesper Autumn (31s): And I'm Autumn Jesper (33s): Is episode 129 of the Am Writing Fantasy podcast. And I think This should be an interesting episode because it's a topic which we haven't touched upon previously, as in ever, Autumn (49s): that's pretty good at 120 some episodes, and we have a topic that we've never even touched on. And that's that's I can't complain about that. Yeah. That's pretty good to talk about book sales, trackers and why it is helpful to be organized. Jesper (1m 8s): Autumn organized my own methodology with how you track your sales and also which tools are available to do so. So yes. Yeah. Maybe you will actually pick up some good points from this episode. Autumn. Autumn (1m 23s): I have, I have I'll have, you know, I use three different sales tractor trackers, and because of the limitation, it was more the organization stuff. Jesper (1m 34s): I just looked at your script file before this recording. So I know, I know what you mean. What do you mean when you say organized and what I mean when I say, well, you have a very high standard in the organization. I don't think I do too badly. I know where everything is in my household. I am the organized one. So let that terrify you. Oh my God. But how are things on your end? Oh, it's good. We finally are hitting look short sleeve. We're hitting warm weather. Wow. And we're going to be, it's actually dry. We need some rain. I already see like the stream is starting to dry up and that's so sad, but it is nice to have some like shorts, weather and t-shirt weather, no coats. Autumn (2m 19s): So that is nice. But yeah, we need some rain and we were in a drought last year and I think this year we we're already in a drought again. It's just kind of sad to see everything drying up. Well, it's supposed to be green. Yeah. Jesper (2m 34s): That's not good. That's not what you want. Autumn (2m 36s): No, no, but yeah, it was cause I was good at some things like, we're not, I'm not going to computers, but I have not figured out how to call rain yet, but I'll work on that. But maybe that's sort of one of the advanced level, phase skills that you haven't acquired yet. I think I just need to concentrate on it more and put out some more honey dishes or something. I'll figure it out. I'll keep working on it. Okay. Other things for you and your side of the Atlantic? Jesper (3m 7s): Well, this is one of those very, very busy weeks, but at least I did manage to finish up the plotting for book two in our new series. So that's pretty good. It's really exciting. Yes. I got to look over it and gave some feedback and we figured some most stuff out and yeah. Now you're ready to start writing. That is so exciting. Yeah. And you caught some good stuff in it as well. That needed to be beefed up and corrected a bit. So that was great. Yeah. That's why it's so awesome to work with someone else. You get to have someone looking over your shoulder going really, instead of hitting a plot hole, they pointed out before you yeah, right. Yeah. Indeed. Or just in some of the cases, it wasn't necessarily a pothole. Some of it was also just more just strengthening the logic behind things, you know, that it makes a bit more logical sense and so on. Jesper (3m 55s): So at least I might not be organized, but I'm very logical. That is a plus that you are absolutely, you're very good at that kind of thing. But I was also out refereeing this past weekend. Why experience really? So you hear that even though, you know, COVID well, in some places it's easing up in some places it's getting worse, but I mean, people are actually getting together and they can play sports now in Denmark and happy there should be happy behave, right? Yes. Well actually sort of by the final whistle we had the two teams almost fighting each other, so yeah, I was not too good. Jesper (4m 41s): So do you want a short story about what happened? Let's go since I don't see anything interesting going on in my life at the moment, that's your about yours? Well, because the weird thing is that I still don't quite understand it. Right. So yeah, so we were, we were three referees because this is, I can't translate it into an anti-American terms, but it's sort of like, it's not the pro levels, but it's sort of just below, slightly, not just below, but slightly below pro level. So they're, they're, they're not amateurs as such, but so they're pretty good, but they're not pros either. So it's somewhere in the middle. Right? So because of that level, then you are three referees. Jesper (5m 22s): You don't have like the main head referee and then you have two running the line. And in this match, I was, I was on the line, which means that you will, well, in my case, I was next to the, one of the benches and one of the coaches and the other linesman was on the other side with the other bends and the other coach and substitutes. And then all of a sudden, like there was probably like 10 minutes left. And then all of a sudden the coach on my side, he starts yelling and screaming and like five or six players sort of go Spisak as well, jumps up and screams. And I'm still, I don't what happened. And, and he's, he's yelling at me because I'm on his side, right on his side of the pitch show. Jesper (6m 5s): I'm, I'm sort of the one he, he needs to approach if he needs to say anything or if also just in general, w w if he wants to substitute, somebody has to get my permission to do it. And so on. So he, he, he addresses me and he starts shouting like, eh, we are not gonna, you know, accept this kind of behavior and screaming and shouting. And I, I still don't know what's happening. So I'm like, what? What's wrong? And he's scraped, well, the other bench over there, they, they calling, you know, calling racist names to our players and stuff like that. And that was like, really, what did he say? And I'm not going to say it here, but he's had some, he said that the other coach over there said some really nasty word that you just don't use. Jesper (6m 51s): I'm not going to repeat it here, but you can imagine. So I, and there is a linesman over there, another referee, right. So, but he's sort of going berserk. So I shout to him that he needs to sit down right now and then I'll take care of it. So, so he's, he does, he sits down and then I flag the main head coach or the main referee over. And I asked him, so what is going on? Because if it's true, what he's saying, you need to stop just showing some yellow and red cards now, because this it's not acceptable. If it's correct what he's saying, but I haven't heard anything because I'm on the other side of the pitch. So I don't know what they freaking out about. So he goes over and talks to the other linesmen, and then he comes back and save. Jesper (7m 34s): The other linesman, says that he's standing right next to the, to the coach over there. And he didn't say anything. And then I'm like, okay, then I don't understand. So why, why is six people freaking out at the same time? Nothing was said, I, I just can't make up the logic. And still, I can't make up the logic. So we never figured out what happened, but, but then 10 minutes later, we, the final whistle blows. And then they storm over to the other events and they almost have a fight over there. And, and, and so something must have happened. I mean, I, I just don't understand, but so why did the other linesmen not hear it? The other linesman was then he was a quite young guy. He was like 17 or something. Jesper (8m 14s): It was probably his third match or something. So he was when they stormed over there, very courageous, I guess, from him, he was, he started to try to put himself in the middle and push them apart. And I just went over there and winged him a wasted, come over here, just leave them alone. And we take our notebook and we make notes of who does what? So we can report it to the union. If somebody hits somebody, we know who hit who, so just don't get involved. Don't stand in the middle of it. Let them fight if they want to fight, but we just take notes of who does what, nobody hit anybody. They were yelling and shouting and pushing each other. But it's just like, yeah, it's weird. Right? When you, you don't even know what happened. I still don't understand. Jesper (8m 56s): Maybe people have been cooped up too long, but yeah, that just seems weird that something obviously sparked off some kind of anger and no one else heard it. Something came out of the void and only these six people, apparently there was a Fe coming or something. It wasn't me. I was, if I was in Denmark, I would have done something else that day, not riled up soccer players. Narrator (9m 24s): Oh, a week on the internet with the yam writing fantasy podcast. Jesper (9m 29s): I don't know if you noticed all of them, but the was a very, very funny post by Jason in the am, writing fantasy Facebook group that you notice that how she's had a few this last week. So no, which one was this one? He had, there was like an image. I I'm sure he got it from somewhere else. I at least I assume, but it was a comparison of Lord of the rings with the Teletubbies. So there was like, that was the images next to each other, like, like the Hobbit hole. And then the whole top piece with also has this grass await and then the characters, the hobbits, and then the four Teletubbies. And then there was the eye of Sauron and then the sun from Teletubbies where there's a face in the sun as well. Jesper (10m 13s): Right. Oh, that's fantastic. No, I totally missed that line. That, that doesn't surprise me about the group or Jason, who is one of our moderators. And he's obviously a very fun sort of moderator. Oh, I'm going to go find that one. Now that'll give me something to do when I get off. Yeah. It's very good. It's very good. I, yeah, it's just a lot of fun stuff going on in the Facebook group. So if, if you deal, isn't not having joined yet then just so it's 4:00 AM writing fantasy in the group section of Facebook, and then you will find us, but something else I wanted to mention as well, autumn, because we've been asking, we've been asked, I should say Radha. Jesper (10m 53s): We've been asked by some of our listeners to record an episode where we talk about our own group to publishing. Autumn (10m 60s): Yes. For summary. A lot of our fans, I think it was actually, one of them was on Facebook and the other one was a request like the same week on Patreon and saying, Hey, you've interviewed all these other people. You talk about, you know, how to write and this and that. You never talk about your own writing and like what books you have out and all of those things. And we're like, oh really? We haven't mentioned that good point a hundred and something episodes in and yeah, 129, this one is okay. Jesper (11m 35s): Yeah. Yeah, indeed. So I wanted to make a request to your listener because I don't really feel like making a podcast episode where I'm asking all them questions that I already know the answer to. And then I guess vice versa as well. I, it's probably not very exciting for autumn either. And I hope as you've probably pick up from these podcast episodes that we try to have fun with it. We enjoy doing it, but I don't want to record something about a topic that I don't enjoy. So what I want to do is that I want us to be answering your questions. Yes. So please, if there is anything you want us to, or you want to ask us about why we started writing, I don't know. Jesper (12m 21s): Some of the obstacles we've come found along the way or our collaboration, whatever, you know, then please send us your question. We've placed a link to the contact form on am, writing fantasy.com in the show notes. So you can just click there and just use the contact form to post your question. And then we will add them all together. And if we get enough of them, then we will record a podcast episodes asking or answering questions. Autumn (12m 52s): Sounds like, but we've done sort of something similar once, but we were, it was different questions. So this will be really fun. We already have a few coming in, so it'll be exciting to see what else we get. Jesper (13m 3s): Someone really gets something juicy. I never would have thought of asking you. That'd be really fun. Yeah. Yeah. Well maybe funny if it goes to you, that kind of question. I feel like I can ask the question, but, huh. Okay. Well, I'll start here. We should probably point out that what we're going to share is not an exhaustive list. There are definitely more options available out there to us north compared to the ones that we're going to mention here today. So if you think we have missed some important ones, then just leave us a comment. So everyone else also becomes aware of your suggestion. Autumn (13m 46s): Absolutely. And this is such a handy tool because if you are selling books on like Amazon and you go into just the regular dashboard where you're your KDP dashboard and you try to follow along with your books. I mean, I remember when you have one or two books, that's okay. But once you get a series, once you get a couple series, once I think I'm up to 20 something books, oh, freak. That it's just too hard. You need to use one of these ways of really tracking things and drilling down. Especially if you're going to run AMS ads, Facebook ads, you need to know how books are selling. You need to have a baseline. You need to know how things are going. You have to keep track. Autumn (14m 26s): See, I do know what I'm doing with these reports. Yeah. And I think it's also worth mentioning upfront here that if you're just starting out, this is probably not worth your time and effort to worry about right now. But I do still think it's probably good to listen in because then you are, you are aware of what you need to think about down the line. And I think that'll be helpful as well, even, even if you're just starting out. Yes. And if you are just starting out, there is actually a new feature on Amazon for KDP sales that we can mention that I think works just perfectly specific spiffy. If you're just starting out and want to have something better than the KDP dashboard report, which that little bar chart that's just blocked. Autumn (15m 13s): Just totally blessed. Yeah. I dunno. I don't have so much trouble with it, but I'll explain why once we get to the end of the episode, but I mean, why do we want to keep, or why do we want to track and keep some sort of organization around book sales will? Well, of course we all want to know how many books we're selling. That's sort of a no-brainer right. But I think what it also comes down to this stuff is really the time that it takes to collect the data, like you just touched upon and there are actually some services out there that will do this thing for you and then save you the time and effort, which you can then spend on writing and stuff. Jesper (15m 55s): So that's, that's pretty nice, right? Yeah. Yes. And I think it's so important. I know, even when I first started doing ads and stuff, you really need to take a baseline. You need to see how your ads are being successful. You're going to spend money on marketing, even if you're going to do like whether it's Amazon or an AMS ad through Facebook, or even just do a newsletter swap or, or sales swap where you're pointing them to a newer release or even doing something like a one-shot deal, like a free Booksy or bargain books. So you something like that or how heck BookBub, if you get one of those, you need to be able to track what before and after to see how effective it was because you're spending money and he told these things get expensive and you don't want to just be throwing money and actually find out you would have been doing better. Jesper (16m 40s): If you hadn't spent that money on ads, that would be really bad. Yeah. The other thing as well that you want, or the reason why you want to track it as well is so that you can start calculating read-through. Yes. We're not going to go into read through here and what it is and how to calculate it and all that. But if you're interested in that go all the way back to episode 53, I interviewed Adam Croft because he actually explained everything in episode 53 of the am writing fantasy podcast. So just go back there, listen to that one. If you want to know more about read-through but excellent keeping track of your sales will allow you to calculate your read-through, which is important. That's explained in episode 53. Autumn (17m 23s): Gosh, I don't even remember that one. That's really sad. I might have to go back and listen to it myself. That's a long time back. Yeah, it is. I do know Rhea throw though. Jesper (17m 33s): Yeah. Okay. So let's go through these and share our thoughts on them on, on what we have here. And we haven't necessarily used all of them ourselves. At least I haven't found the ones that I picked. All of them. We, well, I have better things to do than testing out tracking software, but I'm still gonna share some reflection on them though. So I don't know if I do want to start out daughter. Autumn (17m 55s): Sure. Do you want me to start? I have two that I'm not sure if they're on your list that are the two. Well, actually, like I said, I have three that I use and one of them is kind of cheating, but if I do what I like to cheat, I have to, we haven't even started the list yet. Jesper (18m 10s): And you already say you're cheating. Autumn (18m 11s): I am. I think it's fair because some people don't realize the features that are already available. And I think one of them is the new, there's a KDP report. That's in beta testing. I'm not well, you and I have discussed it. And I'm not sure if it's outside of the U S or it's just inside the us. No, I don't think I see it on my end. I don't think I see it. No. If, if you have access to it, when you go to your KDP dashboard and you go to the reports section, right at the top, it'll say, Hey, try out the new KDP dashboard or the KTP reports beta, and you can click on that. And it takes you to a much swankier KTP site that has like a nice side call 'em and actually showed you book pictures of like those sales and for that day and all these stats. Autumn (18m 57s): And yes. And so it's visually, it's so much better. It's much easier to see what's selling. It does when you go into your there's a royalty estimator there, which is fantastic. So you can really drill down and see how your books are selling by, you know, separating out your author names. If you have a pen name or other author names, uploaded the book, the format, a lot of the same stuff you see in a regular KDP dashboard. So that's fantastic. I think my only complaint and one of the big limitations I see with it is your choice for time periods to look at, or this month and last month, that's it? That might be just because it's in, it might be B beta. Autumn (19m 38s): I think they like that. Jesper (19m 40s): Yeah. I'm hoping it's just because it's in beta, but at the moment, it's like, no, Autumn (19m 44s): it looks so cool. It has this great information, great much nicer charts and graphs charts, and a lot more information than your regular dashboard or at least the same information. But normally you have to do the drop down menus and it's so time consuming, this is all click and visual. It's very nice. But yeah, that's the worst thing I could say about it is that it's just like, I look at it. I'm like this month, last month, that's it. And today, and that is it. So you're supposed to live in the present. Isn't that what you said? Yes. So I have to get my Zen going. Yes. Jesper (20m 19s): Don't worry about the past. Who cares? Autumn (20m 22s): Right. So if you want me to keep going my favorite one and the one I do use a lot and have for years, at least 2018, I don't know, maybe 2017, I've been using a book report. And so that is a fantastic one. It pulls the information from your KDP. So you actually have to give it permission to go into your Amazon files. And that one literally goes back to the day, uploaded your first book. So you can get your royalty is from forever. Even if you like just got it today, it'll pull the history. So you can see what you sold last year. You can narrow it down by book. It has reviews. Some of the features are it admits it's not a hundred percent up to date, but hopefully they'll maybe sync it a little bit better and it'll pull in reviews and your current book, ratings and rankings, all of those things are accessible through one dashboard. Autumn (21m 15s): The worst thing I can say is that it is only for Amazon books. And I think that's unfortunate. It is also kind of cool because it's alive click. So you see, so you see someone got a book and it says it was given away as a freebie because it lists freebies and sales and it gives you your royalty amount right there without you having to deduct or try to figure out what your royalties are. So you can click on that and it'll take you right to Amazon. So that's kind of cool. So you can go check on books really quickly. I sometimes forget that if you buy my paperback, you can get what my ebook for free. And I'm like, how'd they get that book for free? And you click on it. No, everything looks fine. Oh right. I have that set up. So you can get that for free. If you buy the paperback because seriously, I don't buy the paperback. You should get something besides obviously an awesome book that you can put on your shelf. Autumn (22m 0s): So I do love that. And I think book report is just a simple Chrome plugin, right? Jesper (22m 7s): It is, it is a Chrome plugin. I think there's an app for your phone as well. I can't remember now, but it is nice. And it's one of the cool things is it's a very informative, very, I think it tells you a lot, especially we're selling mostly on Amazon or you gotta run AMS ads. Autumn (22m 22s): It has a ton of information. And if you are selling less than a thousand dollars a month, it's free. And I think if you're over a thousand dollars, it's only like $10. It's, it's not 19. I couldn't remember what it, if it had gone up, but it's just not, if you're selling more than a thousand dollars 19, it's not that it's not a lot. I just, it's still, I just appreciate so much that it is really a very informative plugin, even if it is only KTP. I mean, that is usually even if you're wide, that is normally where most of your sales are coming from. And if you're running AMS ads, you need those specifically. So that it's free for under a thousand. Autumn (23m 1s): That's amazing. Jesper (23m 4s): Yeah. No, I quite like it as well. I've not used it myself, but I've seen it in use many times. The only thing I think is the downside. If you can call it that, it's the fact, like you mentioned that you have to lock into your KDP account. Otherwise it cannot collect the data, which I think is it's a bit, it usually you usually have to do it only once I've had problems. I have my Amazon on second level of validation. Of course, it's my books. Of course I have that like locked down tighter than anything. But so every once in a while they get out of sync and you have to click a button and then refresh it and it takes all of five seconds. It really isn't too bad, but yeah, it is giving a secondary app up, you know, they can go and read the, so you have to make sure you've got to trust this feature. Autumn (23m 48s): I agree with you there. Jesper (23m 51s): Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So I have a couple of will to go through. I wouldn't say that I'm cheating, but it goes into a bit of different territory as well, because I think there's more to this topic than, than just tracking sales. It is also about saving the time, which means that the, some other tools can actually do that for you as well. So I'm going to go through some of those as well. But the first one I wanted to mention is actually called book tracker, but it's T R a K book tracker. I'm like, yeah, that's a bit different way of spelling. Jesper (24m 31s): So this one will actually log into all of your accounts every day. So it doesn't matter if you are publishing via Amazon, Google, Kobo, drafted, digital, whatever. But book tracker will log into all the accounts and check your sales numbers every day. And then it compiles all the data and presents it to you in some pretty looking charts. And it also sends you like a daily email summary. So that's quite nice. There is some things that I don't like though. Really? Yeah, because when you go to book trackers website, if you want to start using it, they don't show what the cost is anywhere. Autumn (25m 13s): Oh. And that just feels wrong to me. I don't like it. You know what I mean? It's like, they're trying to hide something. Yeah. It's that, there's an old joke that says, well, if you have to ask what the price is, you can't afford it. Jesper (25m 27s): So well. Yeah. So I searched around quite a bit and I was unable to locate the pricing information from the website. Maybe it's somewhere hidden, but I, at least I could not find it, but I got through some other sources that mentioned that book tracker costs $5 per month. If you want to receive the daily emails and then $10 a month, if you want to also use it to track new reviews and it track your rankings and so on. So if it's $5 a dose of that. Yeah. I mean, if those prices are correct, which I'm not a hundred percent sure about, but if they are then the pricing is not too bad, but it just rubs me the wrong way that they don't show it on the website. Autumn (26m 7s): It should be clear. What, what does it cost? How could you have a 14 day free trial? Isn't that, that's sort of the thing, isn't it? Jesper (26m 16s): Yeah. Yeah. Correct. And then the other thing is cost that I don't like about this is the fact that, of course, for it, to be able to log into all your accounts every day to collect the data, it has to know all your passwords, which also I don't like, so there is that. Yeah, that is always an easy and I would say, oh, that was, that actually reminds me. Autumn (26m 37s): I did have a third one. So if you use a distributor, you're probably going to mention one, I use Smashwords and they have two different features in there. They have a daily sales that gives you your sales by all of the platforms they distribute, as well as books. You can also break that down really well. And they also have a, more of a historical, that's a much more cumbersome spreadsheet that you have to really like spreadsheets. And I don't like spreadsheets, that's your job. I don't go into that one much, but it actually tells you, you know, if you had sales, how much you had sales and if like Barnes and noble has gone ahead and paid Smashwords yet, or if they have not sent the money yet. So you can really get some nitty gritty, fine tune details with that. Autumn (27m 19s): So I have obviously been in there and looked at it and said, oh my God, this is scary. I ran away. But the daily sales chart, which again, you can back that up. I think 60 90 you can put in a day amount. So you can back it up really far and see like your spikes, where you were, things were happening. So that was one of the advantages of using a distributor. Obviously that doesn't give me my Amazon stuff, but it gives me everything else. And I will say that it is a very good and very up-to-date and from what I've seen, very accurate way of seeing where all my other sales. So I literally, if I wanted to, I go to two places, I can go to book report slash Amazon KDP and Smashwords, and I see those two and I know what I'm selling. Jesper (28m 3s): Right. Okay. So the next couple of ones that I have is a software that will get the job done, but it's not in its origin, really designed for book tracking in the sense that it's not as neat as book report, you know, book report is designed for that purpose alone. Whereas the stuff that I'm going to mention now will get the job done, but it's not what it was intended for in, in that sense. And the first one using software, Autumn (28m 32s): how dare you? Jesper (28m 34s): Yeah. I don't know. Autumn (28m 35s): I'm a rebel at heart. I knew I would rub off on you. Jesper (28m 43s): Yes. Well, at least I haven't started breaking things yet. So as long as I don't break software, then it's okay. We'll see. We'll talk about the first one I want to mention is BundleRabbit. And this is actually one of the tools that we were looking into as well considering using, but we steered away from it because to use Butler rabbit, you have to publish through Ponta rapid, and then it's basically sort of like draft to digital. So you, you use them as an aggregator and then they, they keep 10% of the royalties as part of the service fee for what they're doing. Jesper (29m 23s): Of course you don't have the concern about sharing your passport passwords anymore because you only access panto rabbit. And then they distribute to everybody else, including Amazon. So that's good. And the good news is as well that if you sell new books, it doesn't cost you anything because they only take 10% off the royalties. Right? So if you don't get paid royalties, there's nothing to take anything off. So you can actually sign up for it and start using it. And it's not an, unless you earn money, they don't earn any money. So that's quite nice. And you can definitely use punter rabbit to track all of your sales in one dashboard across all the retailers. Autumn (30m 2s): Wow. So that is a real advantage. Jesper (30m 4s): And it's probably how you can also use it to split payments between several different authors. That's also a very nice feature. And that was actually originally why we looked at it because, well, we have royalties to split, so we were looking at it. But then when it became apparent that then we have to publish through butter rabbit, then that's where I saw it said, no, I don't want to do that. But it's possible if you want to, if you don't mind that, then you can do that. And you can get all the tracking in that one dashboard, which is very nice. Autumn (30m 35s): That is, I'm curious though, since they distribute to Amazon, can you be choose KDP select and do like your, your free days? Or is it like just, just generic, Amazon KDP? Jesper (30m 49s): You can, it's a good question. I would think not, but that's a good question, actually. I don't know. No, because I was thinking, that's why, that's why, like, it's very similar to Smashwords. I think Smashwords can sell, send to Amazon if you want it. I believe. Or at least they were working on that at one time, but I never used that because not that I'm doing KDP select, but you don't have that option if you go through a distributor. Autumn (31m 17s): So no, you probably can't know because it is exclusive with Amazon and then you go through the KDP dashboard, at least that's my assumption, but maybe somebody will know and they can let us know in the comments, I guess, logically, if you're just doing KDP select, you don't need the rest of the link. So you would just go to KDP select. Jesper (31m 37s): Yeah, correct. Correct. I think that one through, but the, the nice thing with BundleRabbit as well and where it is different from draft to digital with system X, one, I'm going to touch upon the difference here is that you can also tell Bundlerabbit that this author here I have co-written with, and this author needs to get 50% of royalties and I need to get 50% and then Butler rabbit will split that automatically. Cool. So, so, so you don't have to do anything yourself in terms of splitting royalties with somebody else. So that is very nice, but of course they are going to eat those 20 10% off the top every time. So that's the, that's the payment. You have to give them to afford the service. Jesper (32m 19s): So, yeah, but then let's, let's move on to draft digital because this is basically exactly the same as bottler rabbit. I probably most listeners already know draft to digital and they also know that they also take 10% off the top as a part of the service draft to digital, as far as Autumn (32m 37s): I know, I think they have quite come out with a royalty share option as well. Just like bam, Butler rabbit. I think that they can do this nowadays as well. Jesper (32m 46s): I think they call it drafted digital worlds or something like that. Not a rip off of Kindle worlds at all. So I'm using Draft2Digital myself and not bundle rabbit. So yeah, I'll go out on a limb here and say they're probably extremely similar. Yeah. Those two services and drafted a digital, of course, if you don't, if you're not using it, they can get to Amazon as well. So again, you can get all your sales in one dashboard. Autumn (33m 17s): That's pretty cool. So, yeah. So I guess those are sort of like the three big distributors that kind of do it. Smashwords drafted digital and bundle rabbit. Yeah. And then the next one here is quite different, but again, it'll get the job done. Jesper (33m 36s): And this is one we actually used for a little while only. So this is Abacus and we only used it for a little while and I explain why in a moment, but it basically Abbott cost costs you 2, 2 99 a month per book with the first title is free forever. Okay. And what really drew us into using Abacus in the first place was because you, you're not only tracking your sales in that because, but also your costs. So for instance, let's say that you you're running BookBub ads or Facebook ads or something like that. Jesper (34m 16s): And especially when you're collaborating with somebody else and you need to pay royalties and split the royalties. Abacus is basic. Let's say, for example, let's say that I have paid for a cover design, for example, or something. And then the, I would have to deduct that cost from Autumn's royalty share because she needs to pay part of it. But I was the one who shelled out the money in the first place. So in Abacus, I would just add in the cost for the cover design. And I will just mark that this one was paid by me and then Abacus will automatically take out Autumn's part of the cost and subtract that from her royalties and even it out so that everybody gets to share out the royalties, but also pay their part of the cost. Jesper (35m 2s): So it is basically like more like an accountant system, to be honest than it is a pro book tracker service. But you can use it for book tracking because you have all your royalties for all of your books in there, and you have all your costs in one place as well. And it will tell you by the end, I would like it to be better in terms of actually generating a full like royalty report. I would like it to do that. It doesn't do that very well, but it will tell you, this author should get this amount of dollars and this author should get that amount of dollars. It will tell you that, but it's not a blank. It doesn't show you a pretty report about it though, which I think is a bit of a shame because thinking about the fact that you will probably most use Abacus, if you co author stuff, right. Jesper (35m 46s): And hence you would normally also need to send some sort of summary or something to the other author to show them, this is the royalties. These are the cost and this is the distribution of it. Right. So I would think if advocacy could generate a report like that, that would be incredibly useful, but they don't. Autumn (36m 5s): Yeah, I agree. That's sort of like the whole point is like you get all this data and you can sell someone like you only get this or you get this much royalties and they're like, I want to see the accounting. I mean, you kind of want to be able to show that to them indeed. Jesper (36m 19s): So there's no real good way of doing that in Abacus. So, but let me just get, get back to the point from before. Why did we then use Abacus for a short while and then stopped using it? Because again, and basically it is very neat in the sense that you download your KDP royalty report and then you upload it to Abacus just as it is from the download from Amazon, you don't do anything with it. You just automatically upload it to Abacus and Abacus automatically extract the data and automatically identifies the books and put the royalties into the different buckets. Okay. You had this book had this many ebook sales, this book had this many paperback sales and so on. So all of that happens automatically, which is very, very nice. Jesper (37m 2s): Yeah. But, and here's the big, but the huge spot independence, the downside is that all the non-Amazon platforms, let's say that you have a book where you show the copy on Kobo, for example, right. But you did not sale sale, a copy of the same book on Amazon in that particular month. I know in like Fata majority of the cases, that will never be the case because most of your sales will be on Amazon. But we have, we had an example where we did sell some books on Kobo that didn't sell in that month on Amazon. And the problem is that Abacus forces you to upload your KDP role, to report a step one in the process. Jesper (37m 47s): And that means that it populates the books that sold on Amazon. And then you can go into those books and you can add, okay, then I also sold for $400 on Kobo, or I had $50 of cost on Amazon ads on that book. And you can go in and add all that in. And then everything works fine. But if the book wasn't indicated KDP royalty report, it does not get populated in Abacus for that month. And there's no way of manually adding a book in Abacus for that month. So you start trouble. Yeah. And that's really annoying. And that's why I, in the end, I sort of said to autumn, I'm done with this stuff because it's basically not working. Jesper (38m 31s): Right. Because especially when you're co-authoring and you need to share royalty reports, you can't have, like, you told you sold for a hundred dollars on cobalt, but you have no where to show it. Right. That doesn't work. Right. Autumn (38m 42s): And you're like you said, it's probably unusual, but it does happen. It's possible for things to happen like that. And the fact that you can't manually add it, or I know you'd have to trick the spreadsheet and like use some last months data and it just would be messy. And that's really frustrating. And the last thing you want to do to me, the spreadsheets are frustrating enough. I just want it to be simple and it gets to dose in a second. Excellent. And I would say at first the price of 2 99, a book I'm like, oh, wow. But I guess if you're selling enough books, if that has less than 10% of the royalties for that book, that could be a good price. It could be high. It could be a little for you, but that's something to keep in mind is like all the other ones seem to be 10% of your sales. Autumn (39m 27s): So if you're selling more than what would be 2 99 a month, advocates might be cheaper or it might be three times as much. Jesper (39m 39s): Oh yeah. Yeah. For me, I think the other solutions are better if you, unless you really need a detailed accounting system where you can put in cost as well. Then I would say draft two digital or bundle rabbit is probably better if you're trying to split royalties with somebody else. But if you need the accounting system, advocacy is definitely usable, but just be mindful that you have this problem about the fact that if the book didn't sell on KDP and you're stuck for that month, which is stupid to me, but that's the way it's designed. At least maybe they changed the someday. I don't know. But I made sure to let them know when I canceled our accounts, that this was the reason. So whether they do something about it, I don't know, maybe it'll benefit some of the listeners one day when, when they change it. Jesper (40m 23s): I don't know. Okay. So two final other options. The first one very short here, you could, of course, if you can afford it to, I know this is probably for those who are quite further along, but if you can afford it, there's always the option of having a virtual assistant taking care of this stuff for you and just keeping track of the book sales and going into the dashboards, collect the data and summarize it for you. That's perfectly fine. Autumn (40m 52s): And definitely something you can get somebody to do, but yeah, let's leave that alone for now. Collaborate with someone like Jesper, who does it for you and it's fantastic. Jesper (41m 2s): Well, yeah, because that's the last, that's the last option? Well, that's called writing with me 200 people starting to wanting to call them. No, no, no. But what I wanted to say is the way that I do it now, which to me honestly, is the easiest and the best way of doing it. And I know miles will wear it here and not everybody will agree and that's okay. But just to share how I do it, because I've been through several of these different solutions, I've looked multiple different passports and try to figure out how to do it best because the thing is, I want to spend as little time as possible every month, collecting royalty reports and figuring out how much money I own to auto autumn and transfer the money to her. Jesper (41m 51s): Right. I, I don't want to spend too much time on it because that's time away from writing. And at the same time, I also need to produce a royalty report to autumn so that she can actually see that I'm not cheating her or something like that, that she could follow. But it's only fair, right? I mean, when you have money between people, you should also account for w how does that money go in and out of the accounts? So I need to do all of that every month and I need to do it as easy as possible. So what I ended up doing was that I set aside two full working days because that's how long it took me. But to, to basically build an Excel template, which has automated formulas to handle everything like currency conversions, revenue, cost, and cost management. Jesper (42m 42s): So basically it takes automatically. I just put in what the exchange rates are in the Excel sheet now. And it automatically starts calculating for each of the currency, how much that is in dollars. Nice, because I always paid autumn in dollars. So it automatically starts calculating that. And then what it does it then is as well that I plug in how much sales we have from each of the dashboards. So that's the, that's the, the time-consuming pot that I go into each of the online distributors, I download the roll to reports and I manually type it into the Excel sheet, like, okay, for this platform, we had this many sales and this amount of royalties, but then Excel automatically starts calculating converting it to dollars. Jesper (43m 29s): And when I then type in the cost, I have automated formulas that takes all the royalties and subtract all the costs and do the 50% royalty split between myself and autumn. So at the bottom of the sell sheet, it just tells me this year, this is the amount I need to transfer to autumn. And that's it. So it's actually pretty easy. And of course, I've made a show that I can just copy out all those calculations and put them into a document and send it to autumn. So the Roger report is actually the easiest part nowadays that takes like five minutes. So I would say all in all to do this once a month, I probably spent like 90 minutes, I would say to do the whole thing once a month. And that's not too bad. Jesper (44m 13s): It took some time in west investment upfront to spend two days playing around with, I mean, if you were like the world champion with Excel, you can probably do it much quicker, but I was playing around with it quite a lot to get the, all the formulas to work just like a one or two. So it took me two days, but that was a one time and time investment. Right. I don't have to do that again because now I have to template and I just plug into data every month and that's it. So to me, that is the best way of doing it. I don't have to spend, you know, some part of a revenue to some other tracking service, or I don't have to pay somebody some software somewhere transform nothing. Jesper (44m 56s): Yeah. I just collect the data, put them into my Excel sheet and boom, I'm done. So, yeah, it's 90 minutes a month. But on the other hand, there are limitations on these other software that we have mentioned anyway. So they don't do the full job. Most of them, anyway, a book report for example is wonderful, but it's only Amazon. Some of the other ones will tell you the royalties, but then you have to give them your past codes and they will take, take a fee or 10% and so on. So on. So yeah, that's my thoughts on that. I think that sounds fair. And especially like, if you, even if you want to use like bundle rabbit or something, but then you want to have like maybe the first book in a different series in KDP select, you now got to account, and it's also confusing. Autumn (45m 43s): And I definitely the, your self-made spreadsheet, which I noticed you haven't let me touch, which is probably not going to get anywhere near that accidentally erase. It always keep backups. That's the rule, but I think your spreadsheet works marvelously and it does what we need. And yeah, 90 minutes is a crunch, but at the same time, once a month for stuff, I mean, you run the AMS ads, you run a lot of the Facebook ads. So, you know, you're spending time doing that. It's part of the LA life of being an author is also the marketing part. So 90 months over an entire month, it's not so bad. Jesper (46m 25s): No, I don't think so. And we've of cost made sure to add links to everything we talked about in the show notes so that you can easily check out any of those solutions that you might be interested in, but I think that's it. And next Monday Autumn (46m 41s): We will be back to talk about actual writing. And this time we explore the emotional plus, what is it how to use Narrator (46m 51s): If you like, what you just heard. There's a few things you can do to support the, an writing fantasy podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join Autumn and Jesper on patreonn.com/amwriting fantasy for as little as a dollar a month, you'll get awesome rewards and keep the M writing fantasy podcast going, stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

Did Adam have a good birthday? When is he going to organise a bbq? And are the rumours about Bob doing some actual work true?   To find out the answers, plus some other stuff, just listen to the latest episode of Partners in Crime with Robert Daws and Adam Croft.    Adam reveals who won the Specsavers Debut Crime Novel Award, we hear that The Crime Writers Association has appointed Elly Griffiths to the role of booksellers champion and Bob tells us all about BBC crime drama Time.   Our hosts have clearly been doing a fair bit of reading, as they recommend a good number of books (see below), while Patreon members get an exclusive look at Adam's jazzy shirt, which Bob seems to be rather jealous of.    ~ Moriarty ~     RECOMMENDATIONS   The Forever Home by Sue Watson https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/the-forever-home   The Ghost of Frédéric Chopin by Éric Faye https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/the-ghost-of-frederic-chopin-1   Down by the Water by Elle Connel Audiobook narrated by Natalie Pela https://www.kobo.com/en/audiobook/down-by-the-water-4   Left You Dead by Peter James https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/left-you-dead-1   June's Patreon FREE book of the month from Kobo is Death of a Painter by Matthew Ross https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/death-of-a-painter To get this book and a different one every month for free, become a patron at patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   Buy Partners In Crime merchandise here https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592091 Buy a 'Partners In Time' clock by clicking below! https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592683   Don't forget your exclusive Partners in Crime discounts through Kobo. Get 90% off your first purchase using the code CRIME at checkout. And you can also get 40% off all books using the code PARTNERS when you shop using this link: bit.ly/PartnersKobo If you'd like to support Partners in Crime and get early access to every episode — on video — plus lots of other goodies, head over to patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   CONTACT US Email: hello@partnersincrime.online Facebook: facebook.com/groups/crimefictionpodcast/ Twitter: twitter.com/crimeficpodcast Instagram: instagram.com/crimefictionpodcast/ Website: partnersincrime.online Patreon: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast  

Would you like to hear Adam shamelessly advertise his new book? What about how he got on receiving his Covid jab? Or for a change, perhaps you might be interested in Bob moaning about the weather?   If you like the sound of all that guff, then you're in the right place. Just listen to the latest episode of Partners in Crime with Robert Daws and Adam Croft. There's even some crime fiction chat.   Bob tells us we should all be watching ITV's Innocent, Adam has a look through a thebookseller.com article which names all those on the shortlist for this year's Indie Book Awards and the pair chat about how editors often don't get enough credit.   We hear about the new Angela Marsons book (see recommendations below), while Patreon members finally get to see our hosts back together again, including a first-look at Bobcam.    ~ Moriarty ~     RECOMMENDATIONS   Twister Lies by Angela Marsons https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/twisted-lies-9   Innocent ITV show https://www.itv.com/hub/innocent/2a4638   May's Patreon FREE book of the month from Kobo is The Concealers by Janet Pywell https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/the-concealers-5 To get this book and a different one every month for free, become a patron at patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   Buy Partners In Crime merchandise here https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592091 Buy a 'Partners In Time' clock by clicking below! https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592683   Don't forget your exclusive Partners in Crime discounts through Kobo. Get 90% off your first purchase using the code CRIME at checkout. And you can also get 40% off all books using the code PARTNERS when you shop using this link: bit.ly/PartnersKobo If you’d like to support Partners in Crime and get early access to every episode — on video — plus lots of other goodies, head over to patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   CONTACT US Email: hello@partnersincrime.online Facebook: facebook.com/groups/crimefictionpodcast/ Twitter: twitter.com/crimeficpodcast Instagram: instagram.com/crimefictionpodcast/ Website: partnersincrime.online Patreon: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast  

Are Adam and Bob looking forward to getting back together next week? Will Bob be impressed with Adam's gardening? And how is Bob feeling after his second Covid-19 jab?   To find out the answers, listen to the latest episode of Partners in Crime with Robert Daws and Adam Croft.   Adam goes through the longlist for the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year award, Bob talks about the re-opening of The Mousetrap in the West End at St Martin's Theatre and we hear about Left You Dead, the new book from Peter James.   Adam recommends a BBC programme called Inside No.9, while Bob reveals that he is currently on a diet. We look forward to seeing the results over the coming weeks.   ~ Moriarty ~     RECOMMENDATIONS   Her First Mistake by Carey Baldwin https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/her-first-mistake-1   Left You Dead by Peter James https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/left-you-dead-1   Inside No. 9 BBC TV show     May's Patreon FREE book of the month from Kobo is The Concealers by Janet Pywell https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/the-concealers-5 To get this book and a different one every month for free, become a patron at patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   Buy Partners In Crime merchandise here https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592091 Buy a 'Partners In Time' clock by clicking below! https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592683   Don't forget your exclusive Partners in Crime discounts through Kobo. Get 90% off your first purchase using the code CRIME at checkout. And you can also get 40% off all books using the code PARTNERS when you shop using this link: bit.ly/PartnersKobo If you’d like to support Partners in Crime and get early access to every episode — on video — plus lots of other goodies, head over to patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   CONTACT US Email: hello@partnersincrime.online Facebook: facebook.com/groups/crimefictionpodcast/ Twitter: twitter.com/crimeficpodcast Instagram: instagram.com/crimefictionpodcast/ Website: partnersincrime.online Patreon: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast  

Did Bob have a good birthday? How delicate is he feeling during this episode? And did Adam enjoy his first trip to the pub in months?   To find out the answers, listen to the latest episode of Partners in Crime with Robert Daws and Adam Croft.   Our hosts have an argument about the controversial last episode in the series of Line of Duty (see the notes below on how to avoid the spoilers), Bob talks about new American crime drama Mare of Easttown and Adam takes us through the winners of the 2021 Edgar Allan Poe Awards.   Bob recommends an Amanda Lees book, while thanks to a helpful podcast listener, Adam now knows what a water cooler looks like.   ~ Moriarty ~   *** The Line of Duty chat is between 05:00 and 19:45 - so skip this part to avoid spoilers. But don't forget to come back once you've watched it! ***   RECOMMENDATIONS   From Aconite to the Zodiac Killer: The Dictionary of Crime by Amanda Lees https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/from-aconite-to-the-zodiac-killer     May's Patreon FREE book of the month from Kobo is The Concealers by Janet Pywell https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/the-concealers-5 To get this book and a different one every month for free, become a patron at patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   Buy Partners In Crime merchandise here https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592091 Buy a 'Partners In Time' clock by clicking below! https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592683   Don't forget your exclusive Partners in Crime discounts through Kobo. Get 90% off your first purchase using the code CRIME at checkout. And you can also get 40% off all books using the code PARTNERS when you shop using this link: bit.ly/PartnersKobo If you’d like to support Partners in Crime and get early access to every episode — on video — plus lots of other goodies, head over to patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   CONTACT US Email: hello@partnersincrime.online Facebook: facebook.com/groups/crimefictionpodcast/ Twitter: twitter.com/crimeficpodcast Instagram: instagram.com/crimefictionpodcast/ Website: partnersincrime.online Patreon: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast  

Would you like to hear Bob complain about having long-covid? How about his excuse for causing the cancelation of last week's episode? Slight spoiler to the second question - he's claiming to be an actor or something.    To hear more made up rubbish like that and maybe some crime fiction chat, listen to the latest episode of Partners in Crime with Adam Croft and Robert Daws.   Bob mentions a review of the latest series of Line of Duty, which of course leads to a lengthy chat about the show, Adam goes through some of the nominations in the 2021 Crime Writers' Association Dagger awards longlist and also shows off the first printed copy of his new book In Cold Blood (see notes below how to pre-order).   Our hosts wish Ian Rankin a very happy birthday, while Bob provides slightly too much information about what he gets up to between podcast recordings.   ~ Moriarty ~     **To pre-order paperback copies of Adam's new book In Cold Blood, head to https://www.adamcroft.net/shop-local/ to see which independent retails are able to post out copies (marked with asterisk). Or if you're local, just pop in to any on the list.    RECOMMENDATIONS   The Guest House by David Mark https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/the-guest-house-4     May's Patreon FREE book of the month from Kobo is The Concealers by Janet Pywell https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/the-concealers-5 To get this book and a different one every month for free, become a patron at patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   Buy Partners In Crime merchandise here https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592091 Buy a 'Partners In Time' clock by clicking below! https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592683   Don't forget your exclusive Partners in Crime discounts through Kobo. Get 90% off your first purchase using the code CRIME at checkout. And you can also get 40% off all books using the code PARTNERS when you shop using this link: bit.ly/PartnersKobo If you’d like to support Partners in Crime and get early access to every episode — on video — plus lots of other goodies, head over to patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   CONTACT US Email: hello@partnersincrime.online Facebook: facebook.com/groups/crimefictionpodcast/ Twitter: twitter.com/crimeficpodcast Instagram: instagram.com/crimefictionpodcast/ Website: partnersincrime.online Patreon: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast  

Was Bob able drag himself inside from his sunbathing session to join Adam on this episode? What's his air drumming like? And what sort of texts does he receive from his co-host?    The rest of these notes are a bit of a spoiler to the first question, but to find out the answers to the rest, listen to the latest episode of Partners in Crime with Adam Croft and Robert Daws.   Talking of spoilers, Bob mentions an online Line of Duty script leak, but thankfully doesn't give anything away, Adam goes through a cbr.com list recommending new thriller tv shows and movies to watch in April and our hosts discuss an Independent article which reveals Lynda La Plante finds the dramatic licence of many other police dramas preposterous.   Bob recommends a Kotaro Isaka book and taking the podcast theme a bit too literally, he decides to kill off a former Partners in Crime guest. Thankfully, no-one told them and they are still alive.   ~ Moriarty ~     RECOMMENDATIONS   Bullet Train by Kotaro Isaka https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/bullet-train-2     April's Patreon FREE book of the month from Kobo is The Hashtag Killer by A.S. French https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/the-hashtag-killer To get this book and a different one every month for free, become a patron at patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   Buy Partners In Crime merchandise here https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592091 Buy a 'Partners In Time' clock by clicking below! https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592683   Don't forget your exclusive Partners in Crime discounts through Kobo. Get 90% off your first purchase using the code CRIME at checkout. And you can also get 40% off all books using the code PARTNERS when you shop using this link: bit.ly/PartnersKobo If you’d like to support Partners in Crime and get early access to every episode — on video — plus lots of other goodies, head over to patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   CONTACT US Email: hello@partnersincrime.online Facebook: facebook.com/groups/crimefictionpodcast/ Twitter: twitter.com/crimeficpodcast Instagram: instagram.com/crimefictionpodcast/ Website: partnersincrime.online Patreon: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast  

Does Bob like Gordon Ramsay? How is he coping with the return of winter? And why has Adam been in custody in Luton Police Station?    To find out the answers to these question and a whole lot more, listen to the latest episode of Partners in Crime with Adam Croft and Robert Daws.   Adam chats about a walesonline.co.uk article which looks at the real life crime stories that inspire Line of Duty, our hosts discuss Ian Rankin's prediction that crime writing is about to be dramatically overhauled and Bob mentions a new ITV programme called Agatha & Poirot: Partners in Crime. The solicitor's letter is in the post already.   Bob recommends and talks about the Netflix French mystery thriller series Lupin, while Adam reveals that he thinks real life is actually very boring.     ~ Moriarty ~     April's Patreon FREE book of the month from Kobo is The Hashtag Killer by A.S. French https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/the-hashtag-killer To get this book and a different one every month for free, become a patron at patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   Buy Partners In Crime merchandise here https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592091 Buy a 'Partners In Time' clock by clicking below! https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592683   Don't forget your exclusive Partners in Crime discounts through Kobo. Get 90% off your first purchase using the code CRIME at checkout. And you can also get 40% off all books using the code PARTNERS when you shop using this link: bit.ly/PartnersKobo If you’d like to support Partners in Crime and get early access to every episode — on video — plus lots of other goodies, head over to patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   CONTACT US Email: hello@partnersincrime.online Facebook: facebook.com/groups/crimefictionpodcast/ Twitter: twitter.com/crimeficpodcast Instagram: instagram.com/crimefictionpodcast/ Website: partnersincrime.online Patreon: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast  

What extravagant drink has Bob been sipping this week? Are Adam's gardening tips any good? And should our hosts start a spin-off weather podcast?    For all this 'amazing' content and loads more, listen to episode 136 of Partners in Crime with Adam Croft and Robert Daws.   We hear about a new upcoming ITV crime drama called Too Close, Adam reveals that Richard Osman's The Thursday Murder Club has passed one million copies sold and Bob recommends a Liane Moriarty book (I had to get that into the notes).   Adam chats about Patricia Cornwell bringing back Dr Kay Scarpetta in her 25th book Autopsy, while Bob makes a rather shocking revelation. He's got some friends.     ~ Moriarty ~     RECOMMENDATIONS   Sleep Well My Lady by Kwei Quartey Audiobook narrated by Robin Miles https://www.kobo.com/en/audiobook/sleep-well-my-lady-3   The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty  https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/the-husband-s-secret-5     April's Patreon FREE book of the month from Kobo is The Hashtag Killer by A.S. French https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/ebook/the-hashtag-killer To get this book and a different one every month for free, become a patron at patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   Buy Partners In Crime merchandise here https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592091 Buy a 'Partners In Time' clock by clicking below! https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592683   Don't forget your exclusive Partners in Crime discounts through Kobo. Get 90% off your first purchase using the code CRIME at checkout. And you can also get 40% off all books using the code PARTNERS when you shop using this link: bit.ly/PartnersKobo If you’d like to support Partners in Crime and get early access to every episode — on video — plus lots of other goodies, head over to patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   CONTACT US Email: hello@partnersincrime.online Facebook: facebook.com/groups/crimefictionpodcast/ Twitter: twitter.com/crimeficpodcast Instagram: instagram.com/crimefictionpodcast/ Website: partnersincrime.online Patreon: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast  

Have Adam and Bob had an exciting week? How many times will Peter James be mentioned in this episode? And just how funny is it when Adam keeps ruining Bob's pause for dramatic effect?    Listen to this week's episode of Partners in Crime with Adam Croft and Robert Daws to find out.   Adam chats about an Irish Times article on how US author Harlen Coben got on with writing his 33rd novel during a pandemic, Bob recommends an Alison Bruce book and we hear the fantastic news that the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival will be returning to Harrogate in the summer.    Adam mentions a Daily Record article which reveals the surprising inspiration for Peter May's new thriller The Night Gate, while Bob attempts to do a Del Boy impression. Cushty.     ~ Moriarty ~   RECOMMENDATIONS The Moment Before Impact by Alison Bruce https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/the-moment-before-impact    March's Patreon FREE book of the month from Kobo is The First Lie by Virginia King https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/the-first-lie-11 To get this book and a different one every month for free, become a patron at patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast There is also a prequel called Planting Pearls, which is free to all and can be found here: https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/planting-pearls-2   Buy Partners In Crime merchandise here https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592091 Buy a 'Partners In Time' clock by clicking below! https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592683   Don't forget your exclusive Partners in Crime discounts through Kobo. Get 90% off your first purchase using the code CRIME at checkout. And you can also get 40% off all books using the code PARTNERS when you shop using this link: bit.ly/PartnersKobo If you’d like to support Partners in Crime and get early access to every episode — on video — plus lots of other goodies, head over to patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   CONTACT US Email: hello@partnersincrime.online Facebook: facebook.com/groups/crimefictionpodcast/ Twitter: twitter.com/crimeficpodcast Instagram: instagram.com/crimefictionpodcast/ Website: partnersincrime.online Patreon: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast  

Would you like to know which Covid jab Bob got last week? Has he had enough coffee to get himself ready for the episode? And does Adam really look better by closing his blinds?   You can find out the answers in this week's episode of Partners in Crime with Adam Croft and Robert Daws.   Adam reveals how Ian Rankin upset some Scottish villagers, Bob has a look ahead to the upcoming ITV adaptation of Peter James' Roy Grace books and we hear why the same author is auctioning off his old desk.    Fed up of our hosts hardly ever talking about crime fiction, a Patreon member gets in touch to make her own book recommendation and Bob comes up with a brand new intro for the podcast. But is it better than the theme tune?     ~ Moriarty ~   RECOMMENDATIONS Blood Grove by Walter Mosley (audiobook narrated by Michael Boatman)  https://www.kobo.com/en/audiobook/blood-grove-3    March's Patreon FREE book of the month from Kobo is The First Lie by Virginia King https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/the-first-lie-11 To get this book and a different one every month for free, become a patron at patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast There is also a prequel called Planting Pearls, which is free to all and can be found here: https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/planting-pearls-2   Buy Partners In Crime merchandise here https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592091 Buy a 'Partners In Time' clock by clicking below! https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592683   Don't forget your exclusive Partners in Crime discounts through Kobo. Get 90% off your first purchase using the code CRIME at checkout. And you can also get 40% off all books using the code PARTNERS when you shop using this link: bit.ly/PartnersKobo If you’d like to support Partners in Crime and get early access to every episode — on video — plus lots of other goodies, head over to patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   CONTACT US Email: hello@partnersincrime.online Facebook: facebook.com/groups/crimefictionpodcast/ Twitter: twitter.com/crimeficpodcast Instagram: instagram.com/crimefictionpodcast/ Website: partnersincrime.online Patreon: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast  

Why is Bob running out of laptops? Will he stop fiddling with his phone and pay attention? And just how much are our hosts looking forward to being able to present the podcast from Adam's garden?   Find out in this week's episode of Partners in Crime with Adam Croft and Robert Daws.   Bob recommends we all go and listen to the podcast Obsessed With Line of Duty, Adam reveals how many people tuned in to Aberdeen's virtual crime writing festival Granite Noir and we hear all about another brilliant ITV crime drama. This week, it's McDonald & Dodds starring Tala Gouveia and Jason Watkins.    Adam discusses a list.co.uk article in which actor John Simm reveals that he hopes ITV adapt all seventeen of Peter James' Roy Grace books, while Bob provides some in-depth, expert football analysis. Well, he talks about something called 'soccer' and the lack of an 'audience' during lockdown.   ~ Moriarty ~     March's Patreon FREE book of the month from Kobo is The First Lie by Virginia King https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/the-first-lie-11 To get this book and a different one every month for free, become a patron at patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   Buy Partners In Crime merchandise here https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592091 Buy a 'Partners In Time' clock by clicking below! https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592683   Don't forget your exclusive Partners in Crime discounts through Kobo. Get 90% off your first purchase using the code CRIME at checkout. And you can also get 40% off all books using the code PARTNERS when you shop using this link: bit.ly/PartnersKobo If you’d like to support Partners in Crime and get early access to every episode — on video — plus lots of other goodies, head over to patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   CONTACT US Email: hello@partnersincrime.online Facebook: facebook.com/groups/crimefictionpodcast/ Twitter: twitter.com/crimeficpodcast Instagram: instagram.com/crimefictionpodcast/ Website: partnersincrime.online Patreon: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast  

Would you like to hear Adam's excuse to avoid Valentine's Day? Maybe you want to know if he took an opportunity to use his own NAME DROP ALERT button? Or perhaps you're interested in hearing about Bob's new weekly feature?   Well, you can hear it all in this week's episode of Partners in Crime with Adam Croft and Robert Daws.   Bob recommends ITV crime drama Unforgotten, Adam chats about why Silence of the Lambs is still terrifying years later and we hear about Scandinavia's top crime fiction locations to visit.   The pair discuss a Guardian article in which Val McDermid reveals how she survived in a male environment, while we discover that Adam actually has a friend. It's true, he even says hello to him.   ~ Moriarty ~     RECOMMENDATIONS   Daughters of Night by Laura Shepherd-Robinson https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/daughters-of-night     February's Patreon FREE book of the month from Kobo is The Widow by Will Patching https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/the-widow-42 To get this book and a different one every month for free, become a patron at patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   Buy Partners In Crime merchandise here https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592091 Buy a 'Partners In Time' clock by clicking below! https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592683   Don't forget your exclusive Partners in Crime discounts through Kobo. Get 90% off your first purchase using the code CRIME at checkout. And you can also get 40% off all books using the code PARTNERS when you shop using this link: bit.ly/PartnersKobo If you’d like to support Partners in Crime and get early access to every episode — on video — plus lots of other goodies, head over to patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   CONTACT US Email: hello@partnersincrime.online Facebook: facebook.com/groups/crimefictionpodcast/ Twitter: twitter.com/crimeficpodcast Instagram: instagram.com/crimefictionpodcast/ Website: partnersincrime.online Patreon: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast  

Would you like to hear — for the first time ever — Bob being told he's too quiet? What happens when Adam's son James decides to invade the studio? And why does he call his Daddy, Jupiter?   You can hear all this in the latest episode of Partners in Crime with Robert Daws and Adam Croft.   Bob chats about Netflix and ITV drama Marcella, which is now on its third season, Adam informs us of a new NBC true-crime series called The Thing About Pam starring Renée Zellweger and our hosts discuss a Sydney Morning Herald article on how — after Donald Trump — nothing is too fantastic for crime writers.   Bob recommends a Sarah Pearse book (see below), while the pair make post-lockdown plans to have a garden party and drinks with Patreon members. If that's not a reason to become a patron, I don't know what is.   ~ Moriarty ~     RECOMMENDATIONS   The Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/the-sanatorium-1     February's Patreon FREE book of the month from Kobo is The Widow by Will Patching https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/the-widow-42 To get this book and a different one every month for free, become a patron at patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   Buy Partners In Crime merchandise here https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592091 Buy a 'Partners In Time' clock by clicking below! https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592683   Don't forget your exclusive Partners in Crime discounts through Kobo. Get 90% off your first purchase using the code CRIME at checkout. And you can also get 40% off all books using the code PARTNERS when you shop using this link: bit.ly/PartnersKobo If you’d like to support Partners in Crime and get early access to every episode — on video — plus lots of other goodies, head over to patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   CONTACT US Email: hello@partnersincrime.online Facebook: facebook.com/groups/crimefictionpodcast/ Twitter: twitter.com/crimeficpodcast Instagram: instagram.com/crimefictionpodcast/ Website: partnersincrime.online Patreon: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast  

Would you like to hear Adam and Bob reminisce about the days of recording the podcast outside? How about Bob getting excited about his new ethernet cable? Or perhaps you'd prefer some discussion about the sort of tattoos our hosts should get? Well, you don't have to choose because it's all coming up in the latest episode of Partners in Crime with Robert Daws and Adam Croft.  Bob discusses an article in The Times Crime Club about publishers not talking to each other, resulting in messy release dates, Adam goes through Joanna Schaffhausen's ten most dynamic detective duos in crime fiction and we hear which books inspired the hit Netflix show Lupin. Our hosts let us know how they got on playing a new murder mystery card game (more details below), Bob finally recommends something available on Kobo and I improve the content massively by making two impressive cameo appearances during the episode. ~ Moriarty ~   RECOMMENDATIONS The Night Hawks by Elly Griffiths https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/the-night-hawks-2 Imposter (audio book) by LJ Ross https://www.kobo.com/en/audiobook/impostor-an-alexander-gregory-thriller-the-alexander-gregory-thrillers-book-1   Foul Play - The Murder Mystery Card Game To order, just head to: https://www.foulplaygame.co.uk/shop  Remember to use code partnersincrime to get your discount!   February's Patreon FREE book of the month from Kobo is The Widow by Will Patching https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/the-widow-42 To get this book and a different one every month for free, become a patron at patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   Buy Partners In Crime merchandise here https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592091 Buy a 'Partners In Time' clock by clicking below! https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592683   Don't forget your exclusive Partners in Crime discounts through Kobo. Get 90% off your first purchase using the code CRIME at checkout. And you can also get 40% off all books using the code PARTNERS when you shop using this link: bit.ly/PartnersKobo If you’d like to support Partners in Crime and get early access to every episode — on video — plus lots of other goodies, head over to patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   CONTACT US Email: hello@partnersincrime.online Facebook: facebook.com/groups/crimefictionpodcast/ Twitter: twitter.com/crimeficpodcast Instagram: instagram.com/crimefictionpodcast/ Website: partnersincrime.online Patreon: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast

Do you want to hear how Adam murdered a snowman? Where did he dispose of the body? And just how big is the audio delay between our hosts this week? To find out the answers to these questions and some interesting stuff too, listen to the latest episode of Partners in Crime with Robert Daws and Adam Croft. Bob chats about French crime TV series Spiral, which is back for one final season, Adam goes through the Mystery Writers of America 2021 Edgar Allan Poe Nominations and we hear who the top 50 authors are, based on sales performance. Adam tells us about a new murder mystery card game called Foul Play (see how to order it and get a discount in the notes below), while Bob recommends yet another book that you can't get on Kobo. ~ Moriarty ~   Foul Play - The Murder Mystery Card Game To order, just head to: https://www.foulplaygame.co.uk/shop  Remember to use code partnersincrime to get your discount!   January's Patreon FREE book of the month from Kobo is The Hana Du Rose Mysteries Box Set 1-4 by K T Bowes  https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/the-hana-du-rose-mysteries-boxed-set To get this book and a different one every month for free, become a patron at patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   Buy Partners In Crime merchandise here https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592091 Buy a 'Partners In Time' clock by clicking below! https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592683   Don't forget your exclusive Partners in Crime discounts through Kobo. Get 90% off your first purchase using the code CRIME at checkout. And you can also get 40% off all books using the code PARTNERS when you shop using this link: bit.ly/PartnersKobo If you’d like to support Partners in Crime and get early access to every episode — on video — plus lots of other goodies, head over to patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   CONTACT US Email: hello@partnersincrime.online Facebook: facebook.com/groups/crimefictionpodcast/ Twitter: twitter.com/crimeficpodcast Instagram: instagram.com/crimefictionpodcast/ Website: partnersincrime.online Patreon: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast

How many times will Bob freeze during this week's episode? How loud is his dog? And who are our host's favourite CNN presenters? To find out the answers to these questions and hear some occasional chat about crime fiction, listen to the latest episode of Partners in Crime with Robert Daws and Adam Croft. Adam tells us about an article in the Guardian on Patricia Highsmith during the week of what would have been her 100th birthday, Bob talks about a well-known Ira Levin book and the pair discuss how we're spoilt for choice with TV crime fiction dramas at the moment. Bob reveals that he loves to dance to the Partners in Crime theme tune, things get a bit political during the episode and Clara from Waitrose recommends a new tv show on Netflix. ~ Moriarty ~   RECOMMENDATIONS A Kiss Before Dying by Ira Levin https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/a-kiss-before-dying-6 All The President's Men by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/all-the-president-s-men Too Much and Never Enough by Mary L. Trump https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/too-much-and-never-enough-3   January's Patreon FREE book of the month from Kobo is The Hana Du Rose Mysteries Box Set 1-4 by K T Bowes  https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/the-hana-du-rose-mysteries-boxed-set To get this book and a different one every month for free, become a patron at patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   Buy Partners In Crime merchandise here https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592091 Buy a 'Partners In Time' clock by clicking below! https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592683   Don't forget your exclusive Partners in Crime discounts through Kobo. Get 90% off your first purchase using the code CRIME at checkout. And you can also get 40% off all books using the code PARTNERS when you shop using this link: bit.ly/PartnersKobo If you’d like to support Partners in Crime and get early access to every episode — on video — plus lots of other goodies, head over to patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   CONTACT US Email: hello@partnersincrime.online Facebook: facebook.com/groups/crimefictionpodcast/ Twitter: twitter.com/crimeficpodcast Instagram: instagram.com/crimefictionpodcast/ Website: partnersincrime.online Patreon: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast

Does Adam know how to use a phone box? Has Bob's family left him any internets for this week's episode? And is he finally learning how to use modern technology? To find out the answers, listen to the latest episode of Partners in Crime with Robert Daws and Adam Croft. Adam has a look at what type of crime reader you might be, we hear about a new ITV crime drama called The Pembrokeshire Murders and Bob recommends a Jane Harper novel. Viewers on Patreon can have a sneaky look at Bob's new microphone, Adam points out (a few times) that he is much younger than Bob, while the pair discuss plans for the fence at the bottom of Adam's garden. ~ Moriarty ~   RECOMMENDATIONS The Survivors by Jane Harper https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/the-survivors-40   The Pembrokeshire Murders on ITV   January's Patreon FREE book of the month from Kobo is The Hana Du Rose Mysteries Box Set 1-4 by K T Bowes  https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/the-hana-du-rose-mysteries-boxed-set To get this book and a different one every month for free, become a patron at patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   Buy Partners In Crime merchandise here https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592091 Buy a 'Partners In Time' clock by clicking below! https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592683   Don't forget your exclusive Partners in Crime discounts through Kobo. Get 90% off your first purchase using the code CRIME at checkout. And you can also get 40% off all books using the code PARTNERS when you shop using this link: bit.ly/PartnersKobo If you’d like to support Partners in Crime and get early access to every episode — on video — plus lots of other goodies, head over to patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   CONTACT US Email: hello@partnersincrime.online Facebook: facebook.com/groups/crimefictionpodcast/ Twitter: twitter.com/crimeficpodcast Instagram: instagram.com/crimefictionpodcast/ Website: partnersincrime.online Patreon: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast

Join Autumn and special guest Bryan Cohen to discuss AMS ads, book blurbs, and, oh yeah, the worst advertising mistake authors can make. Bryan is an expert on book blurbs and his free AMS ad challenges have helped thousands of authors learn the ropes of using Amazon ads. Does that mean AMS ads are hitting saturation? What might be the next big move for self-published authors to connect with readers? We discuss that and more! Check out Bryan's podcast the Sell More Books Show at https://sellmorebooksshow.com/. And learn more about Bryan on his website: http://bryancohen.com/. Join Bryan's January 2021 AMS challenge at https://bryancohen.lpages.co/january-amazon-ad-challenge-2021-ov4/ Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday.   SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST! Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review.   Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy. For as little as a dollar a month, you'll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going. Read the full transcript below. (Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion). Narrator (1s): You're listening to the am writing fantasy podcast in today's publishing landscape. You can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need a literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing. Join two best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them now onto the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt, and Jesper Schmidt. Autumn (30s): Welcome to the am. Writing Tennessee podcast. This is episode one Oh five I'm autumn. And today Yesper has the recording session off and I have with the very special guest instead author and entrepreneurial Brian Cohen. Whoa. Welcome to the writing fantasy podcast. Brian, Bryan (50s): Thank you, autumn. I appreciate you having me. We had some nice technical difficulties figuring this out, but I'm so glad we were able to make it work Autumn (1m 0s): Well. It's always nice working with someone who is probably, I mean, you do live webinars and all these other things. So I have a feeling you can roll with the technical difficulties very well. I wasn't worried. Hey, that's the nice thing is, is with modern technology. There's always a workaround. There's at least like three or four, so we figured it out and you're here and I'm so excited for you to join us today. So I know you through these amazing AFS ad challenges you run, but I had of course heard of your name way before the AMS ad challenges, because you were known as like a guru of book blurbs, but I know that's not even close to everything you've done. Autumn (1m 43s): So if you could introduce yourself, that would be fantastic. Bryan (1m 48s): Sure. Of course. Well, of late, the big thing that I I've been doing is I run these free courses that we, we talk about them as challenges, these free challenges about Amazon advertising. One of the, the, the strangest weirdest little advertising platform is Kindle author them. And it's our goal to try to just make it simpler, but it also try to make them not spend all of your money. And those are the five day Amazon ad profit challenges and, and I've been running them and I have a really good team behind them and it's a lot of fun, but originally I would say some people might know me from my podcast, the some more books show, some people might know me from the author copywriting agency. Bryan (2m 47s): I run best page forward. We write book descriptions and ad copy, and I'm an author myself having written multiple young adult scifi fantasy. Depends on it. Depends on where you're placing superheroes. Amazon has a category on both sides. Autumn (3m 6s): Oh, that's so is it like more techie? So it ends up in this Saifai side or if it's more magic it's on the fantasy side or is that, Oh, Hey, that's excellent. Bryan (3m 20s): But yeah, so I am not currently writing fantasy, but I have been in the state of M writing fantasy in, in the past. So hopefully I still qualify. Autumn (3m 32s): Oh, absolutely. And I mean, just for your expertise alone, I think it's fantastic. I, I said, I've done at least two or three of your AMS ad challenges and I learn something new every single time. They amazing. And so it's great to have you on here, but yeah, you, you get some of the fantasy mindset and the world-building and the powers and making rules so that people, you know, aren't going crazy and can do anything in their God. And that just makes it so less tense and fun. Yes, this is true. Well, I mean, there's so many things we could talk about. It was hard to choose even a focus other than I know, you know, I know you threw AMS at challenges, but you help authors so much with the marketing. Autumn (4m 19s): And I mean, market from the book, blurbs to the AMS ads, are you aware when authors market books with all your experience and all the people you've helped, what do you think is the number one thing authors do wrong when they're trying to get their book out there in the world? Bryan (4m 37s): Well, I think it has to start with, with the foundation of the book. The, I don't know who invented it, but I'll, I'll borrow it and not take credit for it. But writing the book with the marketing in mind is so key. When I, the first, I think I remember it being like conceptualized for me when a few years ago, when Adam Croft a very successful mystery and thriller author, he talks started talking about writing the hook, the, the, the first line of the book description, the thing that could be used on ads, the copy, as some people call it to write that before the book. Bryan (5m 28s): And I just thought, well, how smart is that? If you don't even have a good hook, if you don't even have something that would get people excited about it, chances are you're going to have a hard time getting people excited about your book. So I loved the idea of writing that, that big one-liner, even before the book. And I've heard of some people writing the book description for a book before they write the book. And I think that that is a thing that a lot of people get wrong is they write the book and then they do all the marketing stuff after. Bryan (6m 14s): But really you might want to start by doing some of the marketing work first to make sure you're writing a book that you're going to put so much effort into that, that there will actually be people who are interested in, Autumn (6m 30s): Right. Oh, I should say whew. Cause I, I definitely one of those people who I do write little descriptions before I start writing, and then I refer back to it. Cause that's, it's one thing to come up with an idea and develop it with a description or a hook, but then you have to make sure you actually pay attention to it. Not you're like halfway through the novel and go, Oh, that's not even close to what I'm doing. It kind of it's, it should guide you not be this exercise that you put aside and don't even think about until you're done. And then you realize you're completely off the rails. Bryan (7m 1s): Oh yeah, no, absolutely. I was working with a friend of mine who was trying to write the market and trend. It was a paranormal cozy mystery and she sent over the book description and I read it and I thought, you know, I don't think this is paranormal cozy. At least not the way the book descriptions written. And I check in with her, you definitely want to write in this genre. Right? She says, yes. And I said, all right, well, let me connect you with someone who writes a lot of paranormal cozy and she can give you opinions on what would need to change. Bryan (7m 43s): And certain like setting pieces and character motivations and tropes as they are often referred to changing those in that early stage of the game has now made her a huge, like on the edge of five figure author per month access. And it start. And obviously I'm not taking credit for that. She, she has written out 13 books in that series, but when you take a minute, take a breath, share it with some experts, share it with some people in that early, early stage, it could be worth a lot of money, but it could also just be worth like helping you to write the book you were meant to write. Bryan (8m 39s): Anyway, Autumn (8m 40s): That's true. Or even just drawing out some of the, the tidbits. I like the tropes, like you mentioned, like, well, did you consider this? This is popular right now, or that's been overdone. So stay away from it. It could save you months of writing to write something. You could've gone a different way. And it might've been a little bit better. I have to been I've recently did read Chris Fox's book right to market. And we had him on the podcast, but of course we didn't. We talked about Kickstarter and not his right to market books, but it's wonderful. Pretty cool. But I do really appreciate the idea. I think a lot of authors, you know, they hear that right to market and they think, Oh, you know, you're, you're taking away the, the, the fun of it, the innovation of it. Autumn (9m 27s): But it's not really that it's sort of looking at it from a business perspective, saying I'm going to spend this many months of my life and probably give up some things like family time. So I can do this. And I want to invest that wisely with something that I really would like to do well, at least as well as the best chance it has. Bryan (9m 46s): Yeah. I have an analogy that might help those. So I used to do improv comedy. Anyone who's ever been to an improv comedy show, you know, that they often take suggestions from the audience and like a word or I've, I've been to a show where they use a title of a musical, or they use a news story that they have to read out loud and then they, they will take that inspiration and they will use that to inspire them for a scene. You might think you get some weird suggestion. Of course, people are always trying to use potty words, whatever, but at least drinking on a Friday, Saturday night. Autumn (10m 33s): So just setting the idea there. Yeah, Bryan (10m 36s): Exactly. But you've got this word that you think, Oh, this might constrain me, but I have seen words and concepts and titles and news stories inspire incredible things. Even though you might think that word or that concept would constrain you, it it's really what you do with it. What you do within that framework. That is where the creative process happens. I mean, Shakespeare's plays are nearly all adaptations and they have stood the test of time, even though they weren't his original idea. Bryan (11m 21s): He took these concepts, these other plays, these stories, these pieces of history. And within that framework created something we're still talking about 400 plus years later. Autumn (11m 37s): That's a great analogy. And it really does bring it home. I agree with you. I had never considered it in terms of Shakespeare. And I only have this complete work sitting on my bookshelf and I've read most of them. So that's Oh yes, I, yeah. That's a whole different conversation, but that is fantastic. Bryan (11m 58s): That and the Shakespeare podcast. Autumn (12m 0s): Oh, excellent. I will see you there. As soon as we find it. Bryan (12m 5s): Great. Autumn (12m 6s): Send me the link. So that's wonderful. And that kind of develops too. So obviously, I mean, I already know you, you like to, you're so good at writing blurbs. You even teach in the AMS ads, challenges, you teach a little bit of blurb writing and how to hone them and refine them. And I have to admit, so it's a nice to hear that you, you, you think that they should be part of like the original story development, it leads so much into your marketing and that's where you grow it. And you've seen probably thousands of blurbs. I mean, what do you think authors get wrong the most when they're developing it? Because I love you have a very solid strategy of saying, you know, sentence one, sentence two. I have it like copy and pasted in my Scrivener file when I'm developing my blurb. Autumn (12m 50s): I just already have it copied there so I can look at it and develop mine. Yeah. I really am thrilled to have you here today. Bryan (12m 58s): Oh well, I'm, I am honored, but I think the thing people th that they struggle with is, is I think partly it's not getting themselves in the right mindset in the right framework. And you might hear some buzzing. I, I am in a hotel rooms, a fear just came on, but it is what it is when you are trying to fit in a blurb in the 30 or so minutes that you've allocated for yourself and not realizing that this is a piece of marketing. Bryan (13m 42s): This is a piece of poetry's someone whoever created, just do it. The slogan for Nike probably hammered on it for eight hours. I mean, you aren't necessarily going to be able to complete something that is going to make every reader who stumbles upon it excited unless you give it the time that is needed and the space and for it to be your creative time, not your well, I do my writing in the morning and I do my marketing after three o'clock when I'm half falling asleep, you need your creative time to work on this piece of the marketing, because that piece of the marketing is something that requires creativity. Autumn (14m 35s): Yes. So you'd definitely recommend probably coming back a couple of times, not, you know, you're 30 minutes and you're done and never look at it again. Bryan (14m 45s): Yes, definitely. Don't do that. You don't know if you have any typos, you should check. Oh. And share your blurb with your editor when you are writing the book, because then they will catch the mistakes that you don't catch yourself. Autumn (15m 4s): Yes. That's a very good point. And I definitely have seen some what looked like very well sounding blurbs online, but then yeah, you read them and you notice, you know, sometimes it's little things come as a periods, but sometimes it is a word wrong. You're like, Oh, I can always, always do a good deed and let your author know so that they can figure it out. Yeah. Bryan (15m 25s): You see something about a blurb, say something about a blurb. Autumn (15m 28s): Yes. That's a very good idea. Well, I mean, we've mentioned the AMS challenges you've run. So just, just in case there's an author out there who is not aware of AMS ads and what they are. Could you give a quick description of what they are and how did you come up with doing these challenges? Bryan (15m 49s): Oh, that's a great question. So Amazon ads, AMS ads, whatever you want to call them. These are the ads that you see on Amazon. When you're searching for a book, when you type something into the search bar, you'll often notice there's some ads at the top. There's some ads kind of interspersed in the search results. And then there's also some ads that show up on every page, every book page, there's a carousel. You'll see a little sponsored icon when you know the hat. Those are, those are the ads. And those ads are placed by publishers or other authors who are run through the Amazon advertising platform. Bryan (16m 36s): And they will bid what they want to spend per click. They say, I want to bid 40 cents per click. And then someone, if, if a reader clicks on the ad and then goes to check out your book page, you get charged for that click. So you would get charged 40 cents or a little bit less for someone to click onto that ad. And the goal of course is to bid low enough so that you're not paying so much per click because you could bid $5 per cent. I know people who've accidentally bid $5 and get $5 clicks. Bryan (17m 20s): Chances are, if your book is selling for $2 and 99 cents, that is not going to be a effective use of your money. No. Yeah. And so if that's part of the game is bidding low enough. The other part of the game is, and it goes back to the blurb. It goes to the cover. It goes to how well something has been written to market. You want to get a sale for as few number of clicks as possible. Because even if you're, if you're getting clicks for 10 cents, if it takes 40 clicks for someone to buy your book, well, then you're going to be paying $4 every time you sell a book. Bryan (18m 5s): And if your book's two 99, and then you're, you're not going to be making that money. So you play the game of getting as low as you can and still getting traction and making sure that your book converts with as few clicks as possible. I like to say about six to eight clicks. I used to say 10, but now I say six to eight clicks because some books are shorter. Some books are standalones and, and ten one sale for every 10 clicks. Sometimes isn't profitable. So about six to eight, especially if the books in Kindle unlimited six to eight clicks per sale is a good ratio for profitability and then trying to keep that bid low. Bryan (18m 59s): So that was the, just the answer to the first question, answer to the second question is I I've, I've been pretty fortunate to connect with a few people who have really had success running challenges. One of the first challenges I ever joined as a participant was a challenge called the simple green smoothies. Oh, I know. And I was very fortunate to be in a mastermind group, which is a group of entrepreneurs or group of people trying to use their smarts together. Bryan (19m 45s): So it's the master mind. And this, this group had one of the co-founders of the simple green smoothie challenge in it. And one of the things that her name is Jada Sellner. And one of the things I learned from her was that challenge for spending $0 on marketing brought in over a million people. Wow. Oh, that's amazing. Or challenges. Sound cool. Yeah. So seeing that challenge and seeing other challenges, I knew I really wanted to do one and it was just a matter of trying to figure out, well, what about Amazon ads? Bryan (20m 32s): Could we do a challenge about, and really, I think that the thing a lot of people struggle with is the creation of these ads. And so if we could provide as much support as possible, the right documentation, the right to help people get over every technical hurdle, mental hurdle, just like a glitch hurdle, Autumn (20m 60s): Time hurdle, just making the time for it. Yes. Bryan (21m 4s): And getting over all of those in a short period of time. I think that I thought that people would, would really take to it. And we've been very fortunate that word of mouth is good. We, we do spend a lot of money on marketing, our own thing. And, and now we're on our sixth one and it's been over 20,000 people have taken the challenges. Autumn (21m 30s): That's fantastic. And they are, they're a great motivational. I mean, if you, if you're tempted to do AMS ads and you just don't know where to start, or you're just, you know, you can go find all this research in different places and just not take the time to synthesize it. And you just put it in front of you and you give a deadline and you have people supporting you and commenting on your stuff and, you know, helping you out. It's like, it's a whirlwind, but you get through it. And you do finally, if it's, if there's some hurdle for you to start, you kind of get beyond it. The next thing you know, you're doing AMS ads and it's amazing and it's been a month. And then the, you know, the next challenge comes up and you have to join that one too, because you always have something new to learn. And it's like nano Ramo. Autumn (22m 10s): You know, you're, you're joining with a bunch of authors. And I see a lot of faces that I I've known. You know, I've been an author since 2012. So there's a lot of other writers I know, and you connect and you lose touch over time and then you reconnect and I've seen them in the challenge. So it's also been a great, like, Hey, how have you been doing, I haven't seen you for two years. So that's very, it's fun. It's a fun group that you do run and they're informative and helpful. Bryan (22m 37s): We, we really enjoy it. And, and I love fostering those connections. We need community more than ever right now. And so if I can play and my company and the people I work with can play a small role in providing some of that community. We are absolutely all for it. Autumn (22m 57s): No, I definitely think you do. And yes, 2020, especially we need our community a little bit more sympathetic and a few more extra arms to support us all this year. So with the AMS ads, do you think, I mean, you've noticed that, you know, your, your, the number of clicks, you've dropped it from 10 to six to eight. So do you think as well that there any keywords or genres that AMS ads might be getting saturated in? Is this something you're concerned about in the future? That, cause I noticed like Facebook ads, I had a golden age and now they're a lot harder to get traction on. Do you think the same thing will happen with the AMS ads? Bryan (23m 39s): I think it's very possible. I was at the 20, 1920 to 50 K conference and I was talking about ads and I mentioned that Amazon ads are under priced right now because a lot of people can and do make profit off it. And I didn't realize at first I was hearing a noise from the crowd and they were sh people were shushing me. They were like, there's Amazon ad reps in the, in the room. And I'm like, Oh, okay, sorry. Don't raise our prices. Come on to this point, they are still under priced and people can still make money off of them. Bryan (24m 20s): I think the very, very popular genres, your, your paranormal, your contemporary romance, those are going to be more saturated. There's no question. But one of the things that currently is true here in December, 2020, because things are always changing. But currently right now, because Amazon doesn't just focus on the price of your bid, but also on how relevant your book is, how similar your book is to the things you're targeting. Bryan (25m 4s): It's not just a care. I used to think that it was a ranking system and it was the first place as a $2 bid and second place as a dollar 80 in third place has a dollar 60. I used to think that I think it was Janet Margo, who can, who, who had worked with Amazon advertising and developing the platform. She was the one who I think was the first to inform me that actually you could have a 40 cent bid, 30 cent bid and be the first in the carousel. Oh, I didn't realize this. How is this possible? And it's because relevancy is such a huge factor. Bryan (25m 46s): If your book is so perfectly a coming of age fantasy, it's got the right cover. It's got the right title. People are clicking on it. People are buying it. The conversion rate is very good. And at the conversion rate, particularly from the ads is good. It's going to be higher up in the rankings than a book that isn't as well marketed. Autumn (26m 13s): It has a higher bid price. So that's interesting. Bryan (26m 17s): Right? So that's why you always want to target books that are very close to your own and you don't want to try more is not necessarily going to be better unless you can come up with more and more, very perfect targets. Autumn (26m 35s): Okay. Well, that's, that explains a lot of the strategies. Even you teach a refining the key words and finding the right books to target, because that's really the key to not spending a ton of money, but also getting your books seen. Bryan (26m 51s): Yes, exactly. Exactly. Autumn (26m 54s): Like I said, every time I talk to you, I learned more. So this is really, that's a good tip. Now I'm 30 thinking. Well, you do definitely. Oh, that's interesting. So you think, so, that's good to know that, you know, AMS has, are not saturated because they are working now and it's always important to find a way we've gone past the, you don't need to market. If you want your book seen, you basically need to market in some way, these years, 20, 20, 20, 21. It's, that's just the reality we're in we're now, you know, the book, big book publishers are, they're still out there, but there's enough indie authors that we're running this as a business that we've got to consider advertising anymore. Bryan (27m 36s): Yeah. It, it, I, I, you are an author since 2012. I started in 2010 and it used to be easier. Autumn (27m 44s): Yes. Oh my goodness. Yes. I refer to those early years as the wild West where, I mean, you could just dash up a book dash up a cover dash up, you know, something you wrote as a blurb and people would find it and buy it. And even if you did a five K Kendall, K you unlimited countdown, I mean, people would download it by the thousands because there was less than a million books, but it's a little Bryan (28m 12s): And thought that those books were paid. So your sales rank would be like, number one, afterwards, those, those were interesting times for funny glitches to be discovered that made some people very well. Autumn (28m 25s): Yes, it was good for them. I did not get on one of those glitches, but that's okay. I'm still doing it. I still love it. And I love helping other authors as well. I mean, it's just, it's half the community. I think this is one of the nicest communities you can find online or other authors. So it's just a really wonderful place to be. I agree. I agree so well, do you think though Amazon is always going to be the King either for finding books or the ads? I mean, do you think there's going to be eventually, maybe down the road another way for readers to discover authors? I know a lot of, as Amazon grows and they don't even give away how many books they now host on their platform and on their servers, it's, you know, people are saying eight and 9 million books easily. Autumn (29m 15s): What's going on. Do you think it's going to get too crowded? Is, is there going to be something else other than Amazon that readers will be able to find other authors or is it just going to be, you know, like really crowded beach we're in doing Scott, they're a little square and that's about it. Bryan (29m 31s): We've been, we've been waiting and hoping for someone to just come out of the gate and be the next Amazon. And there's definitely lots of smaller pockets of, of some people who are having some success on Kobo or Apple or Barnes and noble, but I'm most intrigued by people selling direct and what, I've, what I, I, I remember Michael Scott aro, who was, I believe his books were taken down from Amazon. Bryan (30m 20s): Amazon had said that there were some rules violated. I have no idea everything I consider allegedly until I see see some documentation on it, but from what I hear, and he was doing very, very well, top hundred, one of the top hundred authors on Amazon at the time and making a lot of money. A lot of it was from Kindle unlimited. A lot of it was from, from Amazon type sources of income. But from what I hear, he has used more of the crowdfunding and direct sales models based on a very, very large email list to just say, well, if Amazon won't have me, then I'm going to do it myself and Chris on your podcast talking about his very successful Kickstarter. Bryan (31m 21s): Now I know his was with his RPG connected to his world's IP, but it's still connected. I have a student who crowd funds his, his comic books. I mean, there is just so much opportunity to branch, into connecting more directly with the consumer. And there's so many benefits. I think Alex peer Alex Jonty, who has had some amazing posts on the 20 bucks to 50 K group, he's had months of 50 to $100,000 a month selling direct from his, I believe he, he uses a Shopify store and I could be wrong about that, but I know he does it direct. Bryan (32m 13s): And he, and, and, and Michael and, and Chris and folks who do have that more direct relationship via email, they have the ability to pivot when something doesn't work as well on Amazon. And I think there may come a reckoning in 2021, 2022, if something funky happens with Kindle unlimited or audible, or what have you, the folks who have primarily relied on Amazon, who do not at the same time, grow their email list and their fan base, they could be in trouble. Bryan (33m 3s): I think that it's a really good idea to not put all your eggs in one basket and to always be growing your base of people and connecting with them. Autumn (33m 14s): Oh, I love, I absolutely love that message personally, because I'm wide. And I actually do sell off my website. I mean, it's small. I have a small list and I have a compared to these people you're referring to these other authors, but it is good and readers. I think I've gotten very savvy. Some, I mean, a lot of readers are also authors a little bit, so they know what's going on. But yeah, I do have some readers who will always go to my website and buy my books directly from me, or they'll at least asking what's the difference. And I just, I think that's fantastic. They understand a lot more about the marketplace than I think a lot of people realize. And that's good because it is, it is important that they're seeing a value in our writing and they want to support authors and have them write more books because that's the only way that they'll get more books is by supporting, you know, their favorites. Autumn (34m 6s): So that's, that's really interesting. So I did want to know. So we got into the author and writing conversation. So with everything you're working right now on the next challenge, which I'll have to ask you in a couple of minutes when that's going to happen. But first, so you're an author too. How much time do you get to write with all of these other things you're juggling, you have your own business and you have these challenges and so much going on. Bryan (34m 38s): Well, it's funny, I'm I, I sit in the hotel today, right? My it's funny. It's like, I've done this a few times now and now my, my three-year-old daughter says, let's go to your hotel and like Autumn (34m 56s): The hotel Bryan (34m 57s): Room that we can walk to, but yeah, it's adorable. So I sitting here working on the slides for the upcoming challenge, and I look at my I'm typing into a Neo two and I look, all right, well, how much have I written today? How much have I written? Then it's like 6,800 words after 6:00 AM onwards. And I write plenty, but I have not had much chance to write books of late. And it's been a couple years. And I, and I do miss it. Bryan (35m 39s): I think that I I'm hoping to fit them in, in 2021. I'm, I'm hoping to squeeze some in, but I also know that if I don't, I it's okay. Because as I often am telling a lot of the people, a lot of the authors I work with find the thing that is, is providing the most value. Find the thing that is providing the most profit, whatever your goal is, find the thing that is most achieving that. And then focus a lot more on that. Like if you have, you know, three readers from this series, you never finished from like five years ago and you have three readers who keep asking, don't do the old, well, people keep asking about it. Bryan (36m 34s): No, not people, not my readers, three readers, keep asking about it. And if only 20 people bought that series in total five years ago, then no, that is not the thing you should be working on unless it provides something else for you because you need to be working on the most important thing. The one thing as the Gary Keller book says, you need to find the one thing and you need to focus on that because it is so easy to be pulled in a million different contradictory directions. Bryan (37m 16s): And right now, writing a book might be a fun middle of the year project for me. But for now it's like, this is the thing that helps the most people. My, my goal in authored is to be at the point where if 10,000 authors emailed me on the same day, needing help of all different varieties that my team and I could actually handle that to me, could support basically the entire community at scale all at the same time. Bryan (37m 58s): And that is a goal that's going to take a long time to get. But the challenge right now is the thing that best fulfills that goal. And so everything creative, every I used airline points, but this hotel was not, was not cheap. Anything I can do to help that goal, that one thing, goal, that top priority goal I'm going to do. And I think everyone listening should do the same thing. That was just Autumn (38m 36s): Brilliant. And I just, so you know, you are already doing a fantastic job because I know any question that gets asked, any question I've asked in the challenge group, you or someone from your team has gotten back to. And usually several people have gotten back to and given tips and help, and actually spent the time where I know I've been in other places and challenges and other groups where, you know, you just kind of sometimes hear crickets when you ask that hard question. And yes, you even helped me once on a Permafree you trying to figure out what, what bid price to put in by the way it worked. So thank you for that. Yes, it's very good. Autumn (39m 16s): So when is this challenge you're working on, when is it going to be ready? When are you going to do your next one? You're sitting number six, Bryan (39m 24s): Number six, it's coming up January 11th. So Monday, January 11th and, you know, kicking off 2021. And as per usual, it'll be five days of videos. They're, they're not all contiguous. So they kind of do bleed in to the following week and there is a video of zeros, so it really ends up being six. And so just block out that whole, January 11th to about the 20th and, and that'll be a good time to, to work on it. And I can absolutely autumn give you the link to it. You can check it out. Bryan (40m 5s): And I'll probably put a link@sellingforauthors.com powers last January. Now that I'm thinking about it. And then, yeah, I I'm, the more the merrier, we always try to have like several dozen people at any given time just available to answer anything and everything so that we can help people at scale. Yeah. Autumn (40m 30s): I, one of my favorite things about your challenge is that it is not, it's five. You call it five days, but then, you know, with the zero, it's a six, but you give a break. There's always, I used to think it's usually between three and four, but you let people catch up on their homework and I've had to use that for sure. And it makes it a little less stressful. You don't, you don't feel so before behind you, you're like, okay, I've got the weekend. I can do this now. So that's always been wonderful. Bryan (40m 58s): Yeah. I, I know I would want the same. So I'm glad that you, Autumn (41m 1s): I found it helpful. It is. You're very, very kind to the authors. You help in many ways. Well, yes. So that's perfect. Cause this is going out on December 29th. So just 12 days from when this is live, it'll be time and you'll be done with it and you will not be in a hotel room. I'm pretty sure that's correct. Okay. Yes. So where else can listeners find you other than we'll put the links in show notes as well? Of course. Bryan (41m 37s): Sure. Well, I, if you like podcasts, you can also listen to the sell more books, show podcasts. We just did episode 340 something. I think. So. Thank you. That's that's been going for, I guess, six and change years. So we're happy to always keep doing that. And if you haven't listened to in like a year got a new co-host H Claire Taylor, who was just fantastic and definitely that, that, that is aside from the challenges. That's another great place to hang out with me. Autumn (42m 19s): Excellent. Well, thank you again for the time. Is there anything you would like to any last words of advice you want to give to authors out there for whether they're thinking of blurbs or marketing or AMS? Just some last bit of hope as we end 2020 as this will be like one of the last days of the year when this is released, Bryan (42m 44s): It's very, very, very likely that 2021 is going to be better than 2020. So please, if you have not taken into account that 2020 was very hard. If you've not taken that into account with your writing productivity, and you said I had a bad year writing, or if your sales have been down and you say I had a bad year of sales, just give yourself a little bit of, you know, leeway, give yourself a little bit of wiggle room because it was a hard year, very, very challenging for a lot of people. Bryan (43m 26s): And you should not hold yourself to the same high standards of the past when a generationally bad year comes around. So please be kind to yourself. And in 2021, continue to be kind as you do everything you can to snap yourself out of any funk and go do the work you need to do to be as successful as you hope to become. Autumn (44m 1s): That is a wonderful advice for the end of, I love that. A generationally trying your, it was, it was a doozy. It's one we'll talk about for a long time to come. So many means. Yes. Thank you again so much for joining us, Brian. We appreciate it. And I look forward to seeing you in just under two weeks in the AMS edge challenge. Bryan (44m 25s): Thank you, Adam. I'll see you there. Autumn (44m 27s): Bye. Join us next week when Yesper will be back and we'll be sharing some 3 (44m 32s): Great book ideas that we don't think we'll ever get around to writing, but Hey, maybe they will inspire you. Narrator (44m 41s): If you like what you just heard. There's a few things you can do to support the am writing fantasy podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join Ottoman Yesper on patrion.com/and writing fantasy for as little as a dollar a month. You'll get awesome rewards and keep the M writing fantasy podcast going, stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

Did our podcast hosts remember to do an Audacity? Has Adam's new fridge arrived yet? And how nasal is Bob's voice?  To find out the answers to all of this and a whole lot more, listen to the latest episode of Partners in Crime with Adam Croft and Robert Daws. Adam reveals six destinations that every Agatha Christie fan should visit, Bob talks about a new Nordic noir television show based on the aforementioned author's Sven Hjerson and the pair discuss John le Carré after the sad news of his death. There's an exclusive first play of the Partners in Crime Christmas song, viewers on Patreon get to see Bob and Adam sporting some rather fetching Santa hats, while Adam reveals that he's got the lurgy. But IT'S NOT COVID. Honest.   ~ Moriarty ~   COMPETITION To enter the competition mentioned during the podcast to win a BRAND NEW KOBO NIA EREADER plus some great runner-up prizes, click on the following link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScFkG9Y4YcjmWSG9AVwcEv5IQPVKWEy0eL0ly1CG0cycbXkZA/viewform?gxids=7628   December's Patreon free book of the month from Kobo is In Her Image by Adam Croft  To get this book for free, become a patron at patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast We will have two free books for Patreon members in January!   Buy Partners In Crime merchandise here https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592091 Buy a 'Partners In Time' clock by clicking below! https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592683   Don't forget your exclusive Partners in Crime discounts through Kobo. Get 90% off your first purchase using the code CRIME at checkout. And you can also get 40% off all books using the code PARTNERS when you shop using this link: bit.ly/PartnersKobo If you’d like to support Partners in Crime and get early access to every episode — on video — plus lots of other goodies, head over to patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   CONTACT US Email: hello@partnersincrime.online Facebook: facebook.com/groups/crimefictionpodcast/ Twitter: twitter.com/crimeficpodcast Instagram: instagram.com/crimefictionpodcast/ Website: partnersincrime.online Patreon: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast

Will Adam's dodgy internet last for the duration of the episode? Will be Bob be able to work out if he's allowed to go for a 'business lunch' in the pub? And just how much coffee did he consume before recording this podcast?  To find out the answers, listen to the latest episode of Partners in Crime with Adam Croft and Robert Daws. Adam tells us about a German two-part crime drama being filmed in Scarborough, he reveals The Guardian's best crime and thrillers of 2020 and Bob chats about the upcoming eighth series of French police procedural television show Spiral. We hear how Ian Rankin plans to complete William McIlvanney’s final novel The Dark Remains, Adam informs us that Granite Noir will be fully online in 2021 and we hear a bit too much information about the bathing habits of one of our hosts.   ~ Moriarty ~   RECOMMENDATIONS   Cry Baby by Mark Billingham https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/cry-baby-20 The Catch by T.M. Logan https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/the-catch-30 Dark History of Holywood by Kieron Connolly https://www.kobo.com/en/ebook/dark-history-of-hollywood     Buy Partners In Crime merchandise here https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592091 Buy a 'Partners In Time' clock by clicking below! https://www.redbubble.com/shop/ap/52592683   Don't forget your exclusive Partners in Crime discounts through Kobo. Get 90% off your first purchase using the code CRIME at checkout. And you can also get 40% off all books using the code PARTNERS when you shop using this link: bit.ly/PartnersKobo If you’d like to support Partners in Crime and get early access to every episode — on video — plus lots of other goodies, head over to patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast   CONTACT US Email: hello@partnersincrime.online Facebook: facebook.com/groups/crimefictionpodcast/ Twitter: twitter.com/crimeficpodcast Instagram: instagram.com/crimefictionpodcast/ Website: partnersincrime.online Patreon: patreon.com/partnersincrimepodcast

Adam Croft ,international bestselling crime fiction & thriller author, talks about his new book, What Lies Beneath, (out 28th July 2020), the first in a new crime series set in the idyllic county of Rutland. In this wide ranging conversation, Adam provides an insight into what life is like as an author, gives some great tips on writing for budding authors and discusses his podcast, "Partners in Crime," which he hosts with fellow crime writer and actor Robert Daws.Find out more about Adam's books and podcast below; https://www.adamcroft.net/ , https://www.instagram.com/adamcroftbooks/ ,https://twitter.com/adamcroft ,https://www.facebook.com/adamcroftbooks ,https://www.adamcroft.net/vip-club/ ,http://partnersincrime.online/ ,https://twitter.com/CrimeFicPodcast  ,

In this last episode of 2019, Jesper talks to Adam Croft. Adam is one of the most successful indie authors in the world. Having sold more than two million books, he earns seven figures a year as an author. The concept of read-through is explained. We cover why it's important? How to calculate it? And how it could revolutionize the sales of your book series? As a special for the Am Writing Fantasy audience, Adam is offering a LIFE-TIME discount on 50% on ALL of his author courses. The discount code is AMWRITINGFANTASY and the courses can be found at: https://courses.indieauthormindset.com. Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday. SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST! Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy. For as little as a dollar a month, you'll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going. Read the full transcript below. (Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion). Narrator (2s): You're listening to the amwritingfantasy podcast. In today's publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need a literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing join to best selling authors who have self-published more than 20 books between them. Now onto the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt. Jesper (30s): Hello, I am Jesper and this is episode 53 of the amwritingfantasy podcast and today I've got something special for you while Adam is away because Adam Croft has agreed to join me today to discuss, read through. And while autumn and I have talked about the importance of writing in series before, we've never really covered, read through in more depth. So Adam and I are going to look into why it is important, how it could revolutionize your series sales and how to calculate it. So Adam is a seven figure author and assault more than 2 million books. He is one of the most successful indie authors in the world and he has been featured on BBC television and radio together with many other media outlets. So as you can here, we've got some real expert advice from you to uh, for this final podcast episode of 2019. So I think we're going to close out with a bang here. So welcome to the amwritingfantasy podcast Adam thank you very much for having me. Yeah, so I just said, you know, I said just set the, when people hear this, we actually at the 30th of December, but we are recording willing in advance and tie in advance of time and we only at the end of November at the moment. So I don't quite feel the Christmas spirit yet, but I don't know about you as well. Yeah. Happy new year to everybody. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. Adam (1m 59s): Yeah. I hope no major events happen in the next month that we're obviously not going to be able to reference. Jesper (2m 5s): No, exactly. Yeah, yeah. It's just here in in in Denmark or there was no snow yet, and it's just raining and it's, it's a bit like a, it's a bit like boring autumn weather, but, uh, yeah, not, not much of Christmas feeling yet, but hopefully it'll come over the next coming years. Adam (2m 21s): England is very much the same. Um, but in terms of the Christmas feeling, we're getting there. My son will be three in February. So yesterday we went to visit Santa and am. Yeah, we came home, put some Christmas music on and things like that. So you have to try and get into the spirit. We have to have to do a little bit earlier than we might otherwise because he's only small and he, he enjoys getting into it. But, um, yeah, Christmas spirit is, is growing here, I would say. Jesper (2m 47s): Yeah. Yeah. They've started decorating some of the shops here, but I have not seen any sensors around yet though. They've all been over here. That's why he's not made his way past that Mark. Yeah. Yeah. All right. But, uh, we're gonna talk some read through stuff here today, but I actually, I was thinking Adam am because I also saw the, the book, the nonfiction book you wrote, the indieauthormindset and I know that you always talk a lot about taking the longterm view on your author career rather than focusing on short term gains. And I really liked that because that's always what I advocate as well. But I think maybe when we're talking about read through, maybe it's relevant to just touch a bit on that because I think it's important that we don't get to to, you know, tie it up in how do I earn a lot of money, short term or kind of thinking isn't it? Adam (3m 47s): Yeah, definitely. I'm in route through is um, without a doubt a longterm thing to be considering. It's am but it is vice or for you know, a lot of reasons we will cover and it will give you some, some information, some statistics which will effectively um, inform your advertising and allow you to know straight away when you're looking at an ad, whether it's likely to be prophesying or not in the long term. Um, it is, yeah, it's very much tied into the kind of the analytical business side of things when you're looking at the longterm of publishing and it's about calculating really whether a dollar you spent a day is going to make you back, uh, you know, perhaps five, 10 times that over the course of months or even a couple of years. Jesper (4m 33s): Yeah, exactly. And and I think as well when we're talking about read too is also about four people, four people to go from reading your book one and onto reading the written at rest of the series. You need to put in the professionalism and do a good job in terms of making sure that the, each of the book, and especially of course that that book one is professional. So that is professionally edited. It has been through all the editing stages in terms of making sure that the plot is there and that there was a good story, does good character arcs and all that good stuff. But because out of without all of that, I mean if, uh, w I guess what I'm trying to say is that if people go into all the marketing and advertising space here with the mindset of, let me put out some quick books in a quick series here so that I can get some read through and I can earn some money, then I think they would be shooting yourself in the foot. Adam (5m 29s): It would. And I, I know a fair bit about that. I've been there myself. Um, I mean, I will say to people, yes, you, you do really need at least probably three books out in a series before you're going to start doing any heavy advertising or before you, you know, want to get anywhere near making a profit from that advertising anyway. There's nothing, nothing wrong with getting the name out there and finding those readers, but giving them something to read onto is absolutely vital. Um, and yeah, it, it is the case that you want that book obviously as you do with all your books to be the best they possibly can be. Um, I fell foul of that myself. I wrote my first book in my series, my main series him, well finished it in 2010 and that came out the first couple of days at 2011. Um, and I wrote the first book of my other series a few weeks later. So at that point I didn't really know how to write. I certainly didn't know how to publish. Um, this was in the early days of the Kindle over here, so it was very much hitting the hope. The books weren't great. They're still not brilliant. I mean I have revised them since, but I can't, you know, while I would like to do is rewrite them all from, from head to toe. But that's obviously not practical for a number of reasons. So yarn battling that myself. In fact, having fairly low read through, um, on that series because the first couple of books are just so poor. Jesper (6m 54s): Yeah. Autumn and I also discussed it at one point. I do not recall right now if it was on a podcast episode or if it was just in awe one of our personal conversations. But we did discuss at one point this dilemma of going back and rewriting a book one day. And also it's like, I guess you could say it also depends on how long the series is after that because is it really worth, because it will take quite a lot of effort and is that really worth it? I don't know. I guess, Adam (7m 21s): well this is a thing. I mean if you've gotten a long ongoing series, then I would say just carry on writing a series. Um, the new books that you write, the more of those you have out, we'll will flood out the poor ones earlier on. I think people expect a series to get better as it goes on and the writer's career to get better as it goes on. Um, and as you say, the amount of time it takes and the benefit that you might get from that. Um, I think it's probably the case that it's not worth doing major revisions. I mean if you go back and there are loads of typos and things and stuff that just doesn't make sense and is, um, is objectively poor am then by all means make some small tweaks. But I don't think major rewrites are good unless you've got, for example, a very tight trilogy or something like that where one really poor book is going to stand out quite clearly against the other two. Jesper (8m 11s): So maybe, maybe we actually, we should actually start out by defining what we mean when we say through Adam (8m 17s): yes, we can try. Um, I mean it is essentially the percentage of readers which will, um, read through your series or read through from one book to another. So, for example, if 100 people buy book one in my series and um, in a similar period of time, 25, we'll buy book two, then I can assume, and I underline and embolden that word, assume that, um, basically a quarter of people who've read book one or who at least who bought book one bread book too, you're not going to get figures that high for a number of reasons, which we'll go into later. But that would give you a read through percentage of 25%. Um, you'll read through all likely drop the further you get through a series mainly because more people will come in and book one and will not get as far as book too, then won't go as far as book three and so on. Um, but there are a lot of things that can influence readthrough is not necessarily the case that if you've got to read through a 2% or 5%, that doesn't mean that 95 or 98% of people didn't enjoy the book. Generally speaking, most people who buy the book won't even read it. I mean, I think we all can attest to the fact that the number of books we have on our Kindles or even on our bookcases is, um, infinitely more than the number we've ever read. So most people who buy the book won't read it. Um, people who do buy it, um, some of them won't enjoy it. Most of them probably will. And even those ones who do enjoy it won't necessarily automatically, and I kind of automaton robotic style, go and buy the second one, they might think, Oh yeah, I'll get the second one at some point and then forget about it. Or they might pop it onto their wishlist and never actually buy it or the doorbell might go while they're in the middle of doing it. So, you know, all of these things will contribute to effectively lowering your read rate. Um, and it, it doesn't matter so much what the read through rate is. It's not really about influencing that number. It's more at calculating it, finding out what it is, and then utilizing that, um, in your advertising and your marketing as a piece of information, which can actually be very helpful to you. Jesper (10m 43s): Yeah. And I was wondering while you were talking there, do you have any like guidelines or whatever we wanna call it on? So if people calculate their read through rate, I am, I don't know, we haven't really explained how to calculate it, but maybe we can come back to that in a second. But if they do calculate their read through rate, um, do we have any like, guidance or ideas about what, when can they consider like, okay, now I have a, a fairly good read through rate versus this is not good enough, for example. Or do you think it doesn't matter and you, you, you sort of benchmark against yourself more the most? Or what do you think Adam (11m 18s): exactly. I think you do benchmark against yourself. I think to a large extent it is what it is. It's not massively, um, influenceable to be honest with you, you can't really influence the readthrough rates too much other than writing a better book. And you know, as I said at the top of the show, we should be writing the best books we can anyway. So, you know, it, it, it's kind of kind of irrelevant really whether the read through rate is good or bad, there isn't anything that is good or is bad. Obviously the higher the better. But I wouldn't be alarmed if you calculate yours and find it coming out at sort of 2%, 5%. Um, you know, it's not the case. That's, that is a huge failure. It's going to make life more difficult for you of course. Um, because effectively if you're selling, um, a copy of book one and it's costing you more to advertise that than it is the royalty you're making on book one. That's not necessarily the end of the road because the logic is that a percentage of those people will then go and buy book two, book three, so on. If you've got a series of 10 books and if you know who that X percent of people will buy all 10 books, then you know that a sale of book one isn't just worth a sale of book one is worth the sale of book one plus X percent of sales of 10 books, if that makes sense. So it's about calculating the value of a reader rather than a sale and calculating a read through is about, um, getting that magical number of how likely that person who has bought that book is to become a reader of the series rather than just a purchaser of book one. Jesper (12m 55s): Yeah. And, and I think, at least from my perspective, I would say, and maybe that was what I was trying to get at us. Well I guess I would say that people shouldn't be scared when they calculate a number because it's going to be much lower than you think. Oh yeah. It's not like a be like, well 70% of people who read my book, one is going to read book two. It's, it's probably not like that. Adam (13m 15s): Yeah. I mean, 70% of people who bought it won't even read it. So mine like it and get to the end or their Kindle might crash or um, you know, we've all read books by authors that we've loved and we notice more they're in the series, but we still haven't gone out and bought them for whatever reasons. We've just forgotten or, you know, life gets in the way. And that's, that's generally, um, the biggest influence when it comes to books and buying books is that life gets in the way. Um, every time I put a new book up for pre-order for example, I, um, I'll put something in my, my readers group on Facebook's got a couple thousand people in that. Now I think, and I always put a quick straw poll out and say, in case you've not already bought the book, um, can I just ask why out of interest, you know, is it, is it priced too high? Does the blurb not sounded enticing? Am have you just not got around to it yet? Have you not seen any ads for it or anything like this? As it's the first you've heard of it and overwhelmingly 70, 80, 85% of the am results are that people say they just haven't got round to it yet despite me emailing four or five times or you know, putting things up on Facebook all the time. It, they just, people are busy, they put us in the back of their minds, they would do it at a later date. Um, and, and that's going to be a case when people have read your book and the only, I'm not just, they get to buy the next one, um, is a mention in the back of the book perhaps or your, your Kindle lawyer, Kobo or whatever it is popping up and saying, actually, do you know there's more books in this series? Would you like to grab them now? If they don't do it then, then they haven't got any more reminders. So you know that it's going to lower the read through rate anyway quite naturally. Jesper (14m 51s): Yeah, absolutely. And Adam (14m 52s): then as you say, they are of course, it's a very good idea to put that a link to the next book in the back of the first book so that they can go on straight to am to buy the next one if they like what they just read. And at least it's more likely at that point in time that they will do it right away because there they are right there on the page and the link is staring at them. So that's, of course that's a good trick. Um, but I would also say it, it's, it's, I think, I, I don't remember the exact number, but I read somewhere something like you had to have read, I don't know what, where it was like five, six, seven books, something like that of an author before you, before you actually start remembering the author's name. Yeah. So, yeah. So that's also what you're battling against. Here's the people just don't remember and e-readers have made that really difficult. Um, well, one area has made that really difficult and that our beloved Kindle, which, um, doesn't give you on the lock screen when your, your Kindle is locks and most of them don't show you, um, the book that you're reading. And then when you unlock your can look, go straight back to the text. So you can't remember the title, you can't remember the author. Um, some of them like I books am we'll show you the covers. Um, Kobo as well. When you lock your device, the, the front cover is the safe screen. Um, so some of them are better in that regard, but many of the Kindles, um, don't do that. And a lot of people, I, I'm forever getting emails from readers telling me that they loved my latest book X. And I think I've never heard of that book. Um, they're talking about characters of mind that their favorites and I'm thinking they're not mine and I'll, you know, I'll Google them or search on Amazon and find out who did write that and I'll go, Oh yeah, that was by so and so, wasn't it? Yeah. That they are, that was, that was a great series too. And, you know, try not make them feel too daft about it cause they have taken the time to email me after rule. Um, but yeah, it is phenomenal that people don't know the books they've read. We quite often remember the stories, we remember the characters. Um, but it can take a while. So remember the name of the author or at least the, the title of the books. So, um, yeah, again, this goes back into why creating a strong brand is so important. Um, and why when we're calculating, read through or trying to gain, read through and get rid of us through our series am I think there really does need to be a kind of a fresh approach that I'm not sure what it is yet, but it does need to take these things into account and recognize the fact that the am the world is, it is the ecosystem as it is. The technology as it is, um, kind of works against us in many ways. Jesper (17m 24s): Hmm. Yeah, absolutely. So maybe could you say maybe some words about how do people actually calculate this stuff then maybe, maybe, maybe that's a good thing to get into. Adam (17m 34s): Well, this is a difficult thing. Um, I mean I probably should give a few cautionary notes beforehand and it comes to calculating, read through. There are many things that can skew it and can cause some issues. And one of those is Permafree. Um, we mentioned how, you know, few people, sometimes we'll read through from one books to the other and if you've got one but which is permanently free, perhaps your first in series, um, that effect is going to be amplified massively because free books on the whole just don't get red. Um, people fill their Kindles with them. Um, you know, I've got hundreds of free books on my Kindle. I'm never going to get, get through to reading them all. It's just not gonna happen. But you see one, then you think, well, it's not costing me anything. I might as well grab it and then read it. One, I've got some time in the future and as we all know, um, most of us writers and creators are also procrastinators. We know very well that when we say we'll do something in the future, it's not going to get done. Um, so those books, laundry, you don't get read. The ones that do get read, a huge percentage of those am will be read by people who only get free books. They know they're on low incomes or don't believe you should pay for books or, or whatever the reason is. Um, they're just not going to go and buy book two because you know, for them, reading is a free thing and that's fine, I guess, but they're, they're not going become longterm readers of yours anyway. So this is why I'm, I'm, I'm kind of on the fence about free. Um, I think it can be helpful in some ways, in some big ways. And that's a, that's a, an episode for another time. Um, but things like that can really skew the data. Jesper (19m 10s): Yeah. Sorry for interrupting you, but I was just about to inject there because we actually did release a podcast episode like, I don't know, three, four or five episodes back or something like that about PERMA freeze because we also surveyed, um, a lot of our readers and we were asking them different kinds of questions. But what really came out as a conclusion from that? Is that what you just said? Basically because the book is free, people downloaded it ends up on the Kindle, they never read it again. So our conclusion out of that was actually that we don't think free books are any good anymore because it doesn't help. It's much better to get them to, because we also asked to read those questions about, so we, we ask them questions. If you have got a book for free, do you read it right away or at least right after the one you're currently reading or, or, or what most of them said no, they will get back to it at some point. Which means of course in translation they will never get back to it. No, Adam (20m 8s): it's free. Does have some uses. I don't think it's a longterm vulnerability. Um, I think, um, it's could for sometimes a quick burst of am visibility, you know, free books will get downloaded more, they'll get seen more, they'll get found more. Um, and also, I don't wanna go too far off piste here, but you can, um, if you've got audio, for example, um, with whisper sync add on enabled, then for example, I'm having a book free for a short period of time to get a BookBub featured deal, um, can actually reach you in a fair bit of cash in audio add on through whisper sync because a lot of audio listeners, when they've run out of there, they're free books for the month or they're included books for the month in their plan. Um, will download free or cheap Kindle books and then pay an extra couple of dollars for the audio add on. It's a much cheaper way of them doing that. So, um, yeah, there can be some cash we brought in there. But I digress. I like to read that derailing you. Sorry. Oh no, that's fine. It's am, it's a vital point of, of, of this Ray of vital part of calculating retreat, you know, accounting for all of these things. And you know, thinking in terms of being an indie publisher, nothing is a, is a satellite thing. Everything kind of influences each other. Um, and that does make calculating read through more difficult butts. Um, I'll try and break it down into its most basic parts. Um, it is radically oversimplifying it, but effectively, um, you want to take a period of time, which ideally, and this is where it becomes difficult again, um, gives each book a fair crack of the whip. So for example, if you're taking the last year, um, you've got a five book series and you're taking the last year, um, but book five is only been out for a month, then you're not going to have a full compliment of data there. Am you might just want to include the last month in, in that case. So you're essentially giving each book a similar amount of time on the market. Um, so you've got a fairly clean data. You also want to make sure that that period of time is as long as it can be to be fair so that you've got, um, the biggest amount of data you can then the data therefore should be truer. So effectively what you ought to do is look at, um, the number of downloads, um, a purchases that each book has had in that period of time and the amount of money at book has made in each period of time. Um, you're then calculating am for example, I did this in, um, in one of mine, I took am a fairly short time period. Um, I looked at my series and in that period, um, one book of book one sold 518 copies, book two sold 390 book through your 312, but for two 75 and book for a book, five to 40. So yeah, these are just kind of fairly random numbers, but you can see the numbers reduce each time. Of course, as readers drop off, they forget to buy the next book. They give up on the series, whatever it is. Um, and you're then calculating the percentage that read through, um, from one book to the next. So book two's download numbers are X percent of, but one's book threes are X percent of book twos or whatever. Then gets the end of the series your looking at the number who have got right through to the end compared to the number who have, uh, started the series and looking at what that percentage is, uh, of, of all readers, you know, what percentage got as far book five. Um, that's the reader you're looking for in a calculation that you're, you're, you're aiming for there. So say for example, you calculate that am 20% of your readers, for example, make the full way through a five book series. Um, you then want to calculate the value of that series. So you've got book one where you might have a royalty of a dollar and say books two, three, four, and five. You've got a royalty of $2 each. So somebody reading the whole way through the series would earn you $9, but 20% of people read their whole way through the series. So essentially somebody starting book one has a 20% chance of reading through the series and earning you $9. Um, and this time in the morning, I'm not going to try and work out what that is in my head. I think it's about $1 80, something like that. So, um, or is it, let's, let's work that one out. Um, so it's $1 80, so that's, um, Rita wouldn't actually be worth that $1 am to you. It actually be worth almost twice that. So when you're sending a, uh, you know, advertising a book and you're spending, I don't know, whatever it is on, on advertising that and you're not quite making a profit, in fact, you are, you've probably doubling your money in, you know, just using those numbers that I've, I've plucked completely out of nowhere. Um, so if you know that, that am read through sort of, that reader would earn you that a $1 80 for reading through the whole series, which is is, is pretty low. It's just a number that I F generated through inventing random ones. Let's face it. Um, then if you also know your conversion rate, um, which you can work out through some funky and manipulation of the Amazon ads, um, uh, dashboard for example, then you can work out what you can spend on an ad. So if you know that you make $1 80 for somebody who reads through the series, um, you know that 10% of people who hit your landing page will convert into a sale, your conversion rate is 10%, then you know that that scent, the scent of that $1 18 means that if you're spending less than 18 cents a click, you're likely to be making a profit across the series. Um, so essentially it's, it gives you that final piece of data, that final piece of information, um, that will enable you to make a calculation as to looking at an ad and knowing fairly instantly whether it's likely to be profitable and knowing what your benchmarks are for advertising and knowing that you've, you've got that ceiling there and as long as you spend under that, you am you'll be making a long term profit. That's it. I was going to say in shorts when that wasn't very short Jesper (26m 44s): at no, but I think the main point with with this read through and why it's important to do this in calculation here is because it increases the bar so to speak on how much you can spend on advertising your book. One because if you look at your book one in isolation and you tried to work out, okay, how much can I spend looking at my conversion rate to make sure that I get at least a, let's say a 1% return on investment or something like that. Then that number will be incredibly much lower on how much you can actually bit on your ads on Amazon for example, on Facebook or wherever you're advertising compared to when you take into account all the revenue you're going to get from the rest of the series. Then you can increase your ad spend and your bidding and basically making sure that you have a fair chance in your ads actually being served. Because if, if you only look at like a two 99, three 99 book one or whatever, or even let's say four 99 when you take away two royalties from that and you take away the conversion rate will will drop you down to let's say it and 10%. Then you are bidding so low to ensure a positive room at return on investment then that you add, I'll never going to get shown on Amazon anyway. Adam (28m 3s): That's right. Yeah. I mean I, I looked at, for example, my am, I just found my fingers there while you were talking rather than inventing ones. I thought I'd find the actual figures that I did. A couple book, one in my series at the moment is am at 99 cents and that's a price point on testing there. So I will learn probably about 25 cents, something like that. Um, then you 30 cents for a download of that book for sale of that book, which makes you think, well, actually that's not even worth advertising, but that's theories based on my read through rates. I've worked out what a, um, you know, a reader, a am that comes across is worth over the lifetime of their, their readership. So for example, I've worked out for each different vendor. Um, and I can see that, for example, a Kindle reader to me, um, in that series is worth six pounds 51. Um, a Kobo reader is worth seven pounds, 10 Apple reader is worth seven pounds 81. Um, so they're, they're actually, it's worth somewhere around the seven pound Mark. I'm a reader. So whereas it looks as if there's a 20 or 30 P royalty to be made there, that's, that's not the case. Actually getting somebody to, to read that series, it could be worth about seven or eight pounds to me. Um, and that's a, that's a massive, massive difference, um, from, from what you believe that reader is worth. Um, you know, we're not talking about being pennies out here. This is no thousands of percent higher, um, and will make a massive difference to the way that you do your marketing, your advertising. Um, of course you're not gonna see that seven or eight pounds possibly for a couple of years. Um, but that's a huge, huge, um, and with most businesses not making a profit in the first couple of years anyway. Um, I mean, I would happily talk away am a pound or two if I knew that it was gonna be making me back seven or eight a couple of years later. Jesper (29m 55s): Yeah, absolutely. And this is where I guess we can tie back to the beginning where we talked about that this is a long term view on, on things, right? It's not, it's not about making a quick buck or something. Um, and it takes, I mean, I don't, I don't know. I mean, I know some people can read a book really quickly, but for me it takes months and months and months just to read one book. So if I'm your reader, it'll take forever. Adam (30m 19s): Yes. And that's the thing. Now, everybody is different. Um, and there are so many different variables that go into this, which is why having the maximum amount of data we can is, is vital. Um, I mean, for example, if you're a new author, um, you might not have, um, the, the volume of sales and the amount of time behind you to be able to get clean data to calculate this, which is why I think calculating the read through is something that is best done. Um, the more, um, the more you go on, for example, it is something which is worth doing throughout your am author career. It's worth doing, you know, every few months. And just, um, you know, seeing, um, seeing what your, uh, you'll read through rate is at that point in time because it will change, the data will get cleaner. So it's well worth repeating the exercise. Jesper (31m 16s): Hmm. Yeah, for sure. I was just wondering as well, so when, or for those people who have their books in Kindle unlimited, I guess that will complicate matters a bit because you will have some people buying the book. You will have other people's pouring the book. Um, so we need to be a bit careful with calculating their, I guess, right? Adam (31m 39s): Yeah. Uh, yeah, kinda limited does um, does complicate things as well. Um, you'll read through rates will probably be higher, but the competition is also higher and your roti rate will be lower. Um, also doesn't help that the amount you get paid for page reads changes and drops, let's face it every month as well. So that does complicate things. The calculations there are a bit different and an even more complicated. I mean, things like this aren't, aren't difficult to get across in the medium of audio anyway. It, um, but um, yeah, there is am there is a little something I can do for your listeners to help out there, which we'll we'll cover at the end of the show I'm sure. Um, and yeah, even things like box sets can complicate things because you think, well, okay, somebody reading for example, if you've got a box set of books, one's a three. Is somebody reading book for coming from book three or are they coming from your box out of one to three? Um, also a lot of people read out of order. A very large number of people will read out of order. I'm for rather getting messages on Facebook and emails saying, Oh, I've read these three books of yours. Which one should I read next? I'm thinking what you've read books two, five and seven out of water. Um, so you don't have, I'm glad you've enjoyed them because that's frankly miraculous. You'd recommend that order. Um, but yeah, people, people do. And it doesn't matter how much you say this is the next book in the series or you have things plastered all over your website, all of your emails. I love your Facebook with all the books in order. Um, you know, people are people, they would just do whatever they want this to be honest with you. So, um, yeah, read through is, um, probably the, the line of best fit. I would say it's am is the best thing we have at the moment. Um, but when we're dealing with that amount of unpredictability and general human nature, we're never going to get something perfect butts. Um, you know, it, it's better than nothing. Um, which I know is not, um, the best sales message in the world. Jesper (33m 40s): No, but it's, it's, I think it's more about looking at the big picture here because if, if, if, with the example you were talking about early on, you know, if you know that you are earning like I mean seven, eight, $9 for for, uh, those people from, from one person starting the beginning of the series and when you're taking into account all the drop off and whatnot, you know, but okay, Rita is worth seven, eight, $9. It's, it's not about the seven or the eight or ninth. It's more about understanding the reigns of, OK, so it's, it's, it's around this level that I'm gonna earn. Uh, let's see. My, my Redis worth around this level of money. I mean, if it's 7.5 or 8.5, that's not going to rock the boat, but it at least it gives you indication on, okay, how much can I approximately bit and still end up profitable in the end? Maybe a couple of years later as you say, but, but I think that's the takeaway, right? That, that you need to, to think it longterm and ms an indicator rather than like an exact number. Adam (34m 41s): Exactly. Yeah. It's, it's going to be closer then you have beforehand, that's for sure. It's, um, you know, it's not going to be exact. It's not going to be foolproof. Um, but yeah, you will, you will be closer than you, you were otherwise. So it's definitely worth doing. Um, it can really give you, um, some, some excellent insight into what a reader might be worth, which otherwise we're just, we're just guessing. And as you say, the only number we've really got is the royalty that you get from that, um, specific, um, up front sale rather than am from looking at, um, you know, the, the, the whole bigger picture. Jesper (35m 26s): Yeah, exactly. So, I don't know. Adam is there any things we missed out? Oh, I forgot to ask you about when it comes to read through that as important to covid. I think so. Um, the only thing else I was to mention is the, Adam (35m 38s): um, as I say, difficult to am to get this through in in audio format. Um, but if it's something that's am listeners or sort of podcast are interested in, I do have a short course, um, on calculating read through, which I'm, I'm, I'm very happy to give your listeners I'm half price access to, um, as an exclusive deal for them. Jesper (36m 1s): That's great. Yeah. And I will put a link to am to that discount code or link a router in the show notes below. So, uh, for for you, dear listener, if you're interested in checking out Adam's costs on this, uh, you can get that very special amwritingfantasy podcast a discounter her by, by going from that link below. And I think Adam you said that it's not going to expire that link. Is that right? So people can just use it? Adam (36m 30s): Yeah, that'll be there forever. I think it's, um, uh, courses.indieauthormindset.com I think we get 50% off of all of the courses, but if you go for the, um, the, the read through one, I think the, uh, the code is am am amwritingfantasy am and that will mean that the course actually costs less than $25. So, um, yeah, it makes it makes it a great deal. Jesper (36m 53s): Oh yeah, absolutely. So I would say go and check that out and uh, we I know we just passed Christmas now, but maybe a late Christmas gift for yourself. Maybe that's an idea. Adam (37m 2s): Navy, Navy, you can use your Christmas money on it. Jesper (37m 7s): Yeah, yeah, for sure. All right. So I would say thanks a lot Adam for coming on to the amwritingfantasy podcast and share your views and thoughts and knowledge about read through to, to help our listeners to, to make their own series more profitable longterm. I thank you. It's been a pleasure. All right, thank you for listening throughout 2019 and have a very good new year's Eve tomorrow and we will see you in 20 Narrator (37m 39s): if you like what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support the amwritingfantasy podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join Adam and Yesper on patrion.com/amwritingfantasy for as little as a dollar a month. You'll get awesome rewards and keep the amwritingfantasy podcast going. Stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

We are in the thick of the holiday season, so what better time to talk about adding holidays to your fantasy story? Jesper and Autumn discuss the steps to make a holiday relevant to your world and story in this slightly more light-hearted episode. Expect laughter as well as some useful tips to add holidays and lots of holiday-induced tension to your WIP! Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday. SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST! Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy. For as little as a dollar a month, you'll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going. Read the full transcript below. (Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion). Narrator (2s): You're listening to the amwritingfantasy podcast in today's publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need a literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing join to best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them. Now onto the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt and YeJJsper Schmidt. Jesper (30s): Hello, I'm Jesper and I'm autumn. This is episode 52 of the amwritingfantasy podcast and since it's the 23rd of December as this episode releases, we decided to do something a little difference. It's sort of a Christmas special where we going to share how to create holidays for your fantasy setting. So I guess we could start out by saying Merry Christmas to everyone. But I have to say that feels a bit weird saying that now that we're recording this in the beginning of December, but I guess technically it is Christmas now, isn't it? Autumn (1m 5s): It is for everyone who's listening or at least very quick close. And I mean heck it after you'll, um, so after the solstice and Kwanza and Hanukkah and all of those holidays. So we're just in the thick of it now. At least when you're listening to this for us it's like unstressful early December as we're recording. So that's kind of funny. Yeah. I'm not quite into the Christmas mood yet. I don't know about you. Well you have to remember I just had a two foot snow storm today so I that's pretty Christmas. Yeah, I'd start beginning to at least look a lot like Christmas here. All the decorations are going up for everyone cause we're post post the Thanksgiving holiday in the U S and now here in the Northeast. We just got dumped with a huge store of that's lasted over 24 hours and it's still snowing and I think we're still expecting another foot tonight. So my poor dog is like, you see his ears and the tip of his tail of this? No, it's, it's really kind of sad cause he liked the snow was like he wants to avoid it. He's a November puppy and where he was, where we got him from a, she was a very small breed or a local place in Maine, and, uh, she had something going on in their yard, so she never let the puppies out. So the first time when we brought him home in January is this, like this little ball of fur that was like, you know, he fit into a shoe. He was so small. Uh, the first thing he experienced was Maine snow winter. He loved it. He acted, he has this Arctic Fox thing going on where you actually rears up and pounces like you see foxes and polar bears do. Yes. That is an instinct since he was a puppy. So he, he often, he'll hear something and there the snow, he's a current terrier, so he's sort of like these Toto and the wizard of Oz, except he's a little bit bigger and he's a redhead. He's gold. And so if you can imagine this little fuzzy mud like dog who, uh, they're bred, they're not toys, they're not, you know, or ornamental dogs. They're actually a working dog. One of the oldest breeds in existence where they're from Scotland older than Scotties and they were bred to get vermin, badgers and foxes out of Karnes, hence the cult carne terriers. So yes, he has his amazing hunting instinct and you let him out and he hears things under the snow and he does his little Fox pounds and tries to grab it and kill it cause that's what they do. But he, so he, uh, he loves snow. He will go and roll in it, uh, during our travels as we've been traveling and we were trying so hard to find him snow every month of the year. And we did pretty good. I think August we managed to find some, cause we're up in Alaska and there was some stuff in the passes. Uh, it's, it was kind of a challenge, but we tried to make sure he found snow and got a role in it and play in it and he was thrilled. Hmm. Nice. So how was your week? I mean, you're not getting two feet of snow, right? Jesper (4m 12s): No, no. Notice there was no snow here. There was a bit of rain today way. It was like a slight, slight, slight snowy is snow flakes coming down today, but it was more like half rain. So it does count. And w well we are down to like two degrees Celsius, so it's uh, it's getting cold and it's getting wintery. So, uh, but speaking of a puppy's am, we spent this past weekend at my brother's and his fiance's place and they actually have a puppy as well. So, uh, my, my boys, they, all our boys, they really, really liked it. I think it's the, the puppy is am is not used to people staying over. I think this was the first time that somebody stayed over for a weekend, uh, in his lifetime. So, uh, actually the Saturday morning, the puppy was kind of, it was so stressed out that it got sick. So we were growing up Saturday morning and stuff like that from all the attention. And you know, the puppy doesn't have any filters to, to stop playing. Right. So if somebody wants to play, just keeps playing, but it's still quite small, so it needs to rest. But it can't figure out how to rest. So it just falls over and sleeps. Yeah, well no, they had to carry it upstairs and put it into, into a room up there so we could sleep because as long as it was downstairs with the rest of it, it just wanted to play all the time. So, uh, yeah, so we've got a bit sick, but then, uh, yeah, it slept for half, half well parts of of Saturday and then they felt better again and then the boys got to play some more with the puppy dare. So they really enjoyed that. It was, it was a nice weekend. We, we enjoy going there and uh, my brother and his fiance that they're such hosts, you know, they go out of their way to make sure that you feel welcome every time you're there. So it's really nice. That sounds wonderful. That definitely sounds like a nice family visit. And hopefully your employees are satisfied with just visiting the puppy and not going to be bothering you for your own little canine companion. Yeah, they were already telling my wife when we were there. So I think maybe you should start considering getting a puppy or actually the oldest one of our dogs are boys actually started out differently. He was, he was trying to be sneaky, so he was asking my wife's stuff like, uh, don't you think it's cute? Don't you really like, it wouldn't be nice if you could pet it every day. Yeah. Good owes to him. He is pretty good. Yeah. He was trying to get her to say that she really liked it because of course you did, but, uh, we're not going to get a dark, but, uh, he was trying to ease, ease her into a saying that you wanted the dog too, but he didn't succeed. How are you guys am you know what he's coming from, huh? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, uh, but that's, I mean it was a very nice weekend. Um, but uh, Oh also, even though it's nice and relaxing and, and all that, you know, when you are out from your own house, and especially me, the older I get, if I don't sleep in my own bed at night, I get really tired. I F I have a trouble sleeping if I'm not in my own bed. So this morning, Monday morning here we are recording this Monday evening, but this morning I was very, very tired when I got up. But uh, but I still managed to get all the final stages of the character creation process done for our next fantasy series. So I'm pretty, I'm pretty psyched about that. Yes, I saw that shelf in my inbox. I was like, darn it. You know, I've got to get to looking at that. I even haven't opened it up yet today, but I will. Oh well maybe tonight after I make dinner and put everything away I'll take a peek and see what you created and I can't wait to give you feedback and start working on this a bit more. Yeah. I also cannot wait to get into the fiction writing again, although I guess we have to say we have quite a lot of bits and pieces to finish up with causes and nonfiction books before we get that far. But, but it's good to just make some progress in the background on, on the fiction stuff as well. Absolutely. I think sometimes the plotting is at least keeps it going, which is exciting and makes it still feel connected. Oh, we go on the internet with the amwritingfantasy podcast. Uh, so I posted a pretty interesting article on, on patron about writing in a noisy or a silent environment and, uh, I'm not gonna go into all the details so of that article there, but, uh, those on patron could of course read it, but among other things, um, except set that most people reach peak performance under moderate nice conditions like 70 dash a bills. Um, and that just happens to be roughly the equivalent to the chatter in a typical coffee shop or restaurant on a relatively busy day. So that was a bit interesting. But Sates come and really made me laugh because he said, well, uh, he cannot write during silence or while listening to music instead, he said the sound of politicians is usually perfect as meaningless back proud chatter. Autumn (9m 24s): That is really great. Yes. I guess, I don't know, streaming, um, you know, the U S government would really inspire me, but I guess it makes a good background babble. Jesper (9m 36s): Yeah. Meaningless chatter. That was, what do you call it? I thought it was real great. Autumn (9m 41s): Okay. And it's funny cause I enjoy the UK parliament compared to the U S they slam each other and shouting and all kinds of stuff. It's intense. It's, it's, I did not understand politics until actually I spent a year in England and it all made sense cause you know, it's the size of the a U S state, but it's a country and suddenly it's like, Oh this is how it all works. The U S is just too big and there don't get riled up or passionate, but Oh yeah, UK. Awesome. So I think I'd get end up getting caught up in the accents and everything else going on. If I was listening to that as my, my background noise, unfortunately. Yeah, I think I'll pass on that one. But I told him very funny. I thought it's very funny. I was really excited actually in the Facebook group that Arthur had posted a question on wanting to find a font that looked like a computer speaking because you know me and fonts. Yeah. I was just about to say Fonz, that's your thing. That is, I was like, Oh topographies. So I we there was some good suggestions but Oh, thank you Arthur for posting about fonts. It made my day. So I enjoyed that and I enjoyed the suggestions and that, you know, some people actually linked to a whole bunch of free fonts such, I'm Jesper (10m 59s): not going to go look at right this second. But it's very tempting. Yeah. But I guess with font you have to be really careful right in, in making sure that they are actually free to use also. Because one thing I think, unless I'm mistaken, you're, you're, you're an expert. He has a, correct me autumn if I'm wrong, but I think sometimes you can actually find funds that are free, but they're not free for commercial use. Right. So I think you need to be careful here, right? That, that even though you find it for you, you need to check that is a commercial free font before you start using it for a book. Autumn (11m 32s): Sometimes it's free for personal use or free for, you know, commercial use. You definitely, most of them come with a license and you just need to read that really quickly and make sure it is actually free to use like on a book cover and go with go with that. Or if it's free to use on, uh, on your book cover, but not free to use if you were making book covers to other people. Lots of layers and most people will answer them for you. And you know, you can always go to actually my favorite font resources called what the font. So there is a fabulous Sapporo to itch. It is WTF. So, uh, there's a fabulous forum on what the font am and people are fun experts in the us. It'll answer questions and they'll help you track down fonts, which I won't admit how many times I have done that. Um, they will help you figure out all that stuff. So if anyone has a question am I highly recommend what the thought as a very good resource. And plus it's fun to get to say that to other people. Although I, Jesper (12m 32s): I really don't know how they would police if you're using, uh, you know, a font that isn't allowed for commercial use. If you, let's say just you accidentally used it on your cover, I will don't know how they would police it. I, I don't, I don't imagine anybody sitting in going through all the covers on, on Amazon just to make sure. But, uh, of course anyway, we need to make sure we always complained with w with licenses and whatnot, but I'm just wondering how they would actually figure it out. Autumn (13m 0s): I think it would be the random chance of someone finding it and questioning it and then asking to see your license. Um, and cause obviously you could possibly be using it legally because you paid for the license, which is usually what happens. So I can't imagine the challenge. I don't make fonts. Um, I'd love to make a couple of fonts, but I can see the challenge for licensing that I think I just do it for myself or I just let it free for use and yeah, I wouldn't want to go there. Jesper (13m 29s): No. And I mean, how many times has it happened at anybody approached you to ask if you had the license for any of the funds are you currently using? Right. Never. Never. So, yeah, so I'm just wondering how that would all work. But yeah, who knows. Um, I should also mention that as we recording this episode, we just had the monthly Q and a, uh, we our patron supporters at the $5 here can get their questions answered, but there's a low, small rewards for those who support the amwritingfantasy podcast on patron. So head on over and check that one out if you please. And uh, there is a link in the show notes. I was about to say, I guess that's right, this time. Last time I called it the description field, but the, yeah, so check that one out. Uh, there was lots of good stuff or one patron. Yeah. So we thought it was very much on point to talk about holidays now that we are just the day before Christmas. That's right. So holiday is this, I don't know, may maybe, maybe some people find it a bit complicated or they make it a bit complicated. But to be honest, I think that the, the process we use autumn it's, it's simple. Autumn (14m 52s): I think so too. I mean, obviously I think there's some people who just immediately assume you're going to have all the same holidays that we have in this world, in your fantasy world, if you're not writing on earth or about earth or earthlings, I think you're pretty much free to come up with something new. And that to me is so much more fun. But yes. We we've developed or we've each done it on our own and then we've adopted the process together. That I think makes sense. It makes it easy and it's always, to me, it's fun. It's so much, it's a fun aspect of world building to be able to create a holiday. Okay. Jesper (15m 30s): Yeah. And, uh, the, the process that we've, we've developed together here for, for how to do it, it's actually going to form part of the am, uh, oil pulling course. Yeah. That we're going to, I was hesitating there because I was trying to think when I could say that that's going to be done, but I don't want to do that. Maybe sometimes in 2020 goal we've talked about a goal and we would love to have it out this summer, so the summer of 2020. So fingers crossed and kick us in the butt and that's still my goal. So we'll see if we can Autumn (16m 4s): that happened. Yeah. Jesper (16m 6s): Can't wait to get that course out. I truly think it's gonna help a lot of authors, uh, we with the, with the world building. Um, and it's, you're of course going to be a full step-by-step costs, but that it's going to take you through everything you need from, from basically building a fantasy world from scratch. But we are going to talk much more about that once we have something concrete. But for now, at least, we just sort of plucked out one topic from that course and that was, uh, about the holiday. So we could just talk you through how we do it and it is actually rather simple. Um, and I think where we start is by looking at the history of your world. So just like in the real world, he has autumn said, you know, usually our holidays are linked to something that happened in the past. Um, whether you believe in that happening or not is not, not really the point, but, uh, but if you look at your, the history for your fantasy world and then try to find some past event that people would be celebrating, then, uh, that's, that's the starting point. And you just have a bit of siren there. Yes. Maybe that was a, maybe that's inspiration for holiday or something. Oh, it could definitely be, it'd Autumn (17m 23s): be a inspiration for a very dramatic event. I know I've read some really good holidays in short stories, especially science fiction that were actually from huge like not necessarily terrorism events cause I don't wanna think about September 11th but a big event. I think if we had celebrated the Hindenburg exploding in the aftermath of that and you know there's things that Mark, you know, big dramatic and tragic events. Then of course there's ones that Mark maybe the birth of a mythical character or of course I like astronomy. So if you happen to have several moons and they come into conjunction with the sun and suddenly you have this amazing eclipse or you know like the changing of the times, like with the solstice that just happened on the 21st I definitely, I've always liked, I've always preferred the solstice and the Equinox is as big holidays because I am very scientific in, they're very visual and that works for me. I know when something happened and that we're at that point of the year where we just went through the longest day or the longest night, the shortest day, the darkest part of the year, and now every day is going to get lighter and brighter. That's so exciting for me. I can celebrate that when wholeheartedly, uh, no religion necessary. So that's one of the fun things I think that we're trying to say here about holidays is they don't have to be religious. Obviously if you do have gods are gods and you want to have some mythical events around their life and death or birth or something like that, you can have that sort of holiday but it can just be the birth of a great hero. It can. And it can also be like a past military Jesper (19m 3s): when you know, maybe it's celebrating the end of a war or at some point of famous battle happened and that's what people are celebrating. Or it could also be like purely scientific, like discovery items, you know? Or maybe maybe they found a new land on a at that date and that's what they're celebrating. Or somebody figured out how to muse use magic on that date. That's also pretty important, I guess, or discovery of an ancient race or artifact or something like that. I think that you can make basically pick anything. But I think that the important thing when you're picking something is that it's some, it's somehow re relevant maybe as a backstory to the story that you're telling so that it's, it's, it's within the confines of or within the frame of the story or that you're telling that it's relevant in one way or another. I think that's, that's the trick to try to pick something like that rather than something completely out on left field that doesn't really have any difference whatsoever. Autumn (20m 4s): So what do you mean? Like it fits the content of the story? Just about the people. Like do you mean it's because the character is an event, like the festivity and something happens or that the event itself, like the historic battle that actually ended in cause this event, um, is also related to something hidden in some kind of subplot that's bubbling up under the surface. And that people are actually discontent or this is actually taking place in the suppressed nation that lost and they want to, they're kind of celebrating with their teeth, gritted saying he, yay, we lost. Yeah. I mean it doesn't have to, it can of course be showed at the, the, the event is Jesper (20m 48s): actually something in the story is going to take place at that. And when they can of course be that. But what I actually meant by it was more like that it shows off parts of the world that is relevant for the story. So maybe as an example, um, so in our upcoming fantasy series, we have, the majors have actually trapped a, a doc God in like a prison cell. Uh, and the problem is that the cell needs to be charged because otherwise if it's a losing, it's am. If it's losing his power, then the dark God can escape. So the batteries run out. Yeah, exactly. Batteries running out basically. Molly's, yeah. So, so what we then have is that we have once a year they need to recharge these batteries. Uh, and there is like an event around doing that. So it's, it's like a holiday event where there's some soldiers are doing different activities in order to reach out to those batteries. So, so it's not really directly related to what the protectionists is experienced in the story, but it adds to explaining that, okay, there was a doc got imprisoned here and the need to chat the cells and it apparently is dangerous if the dark art gets out and all that. So it, it's sort of, it's, it's a nice way to build in frame or of world building elements without you having to go into actually, you know, explaining what this is about. And by the way, within that tower, there's a dock, God and blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, so by having an SSL vibration, you can make it pop off. What is it? It's part of action almost that you actually explaining parts of the background or, or for example also with the famous battles if that's what you want to do, you know, it could be in order to set up and explain to the reader that activities two nations where maybe the protectionists belongs to one of them. These two nation hate easier each other and potentially there was some wire it's going to break out or something because there was worse in the past. You know, so it could be something like that where where you're sort of layering in world building that supports the story but it doesn't have to be because it's directly related to the plot, but more it's, it's more like background information that you get an excuse to deliver background information. In other words, it's like a fantastic way of showing the reader something about the world instead of telling the reader about some backstory and pass. It's a fantastic way of, yeah, avoiding the info dump, which we've talked about in a different podcast. And instead dynamic right into showing an action in, you know, the reader or the is actually living through the event, which is much more exciting than hearing about some piece of archaic history. Exactly. Right. Yet. So I think, so once you've decided on an event, uh, then you need to ask yourself how important this holiday is. So, uh, we've, we've sort of specked it out on three different levels. So either you can say that it's a, it's a major event that if basically affects everyone in society. And if that's the case, you need to ask yourself, how long does this, uh, holiday last? Is it like days or weeks of celebration? Or what is am? And also does it require any special form of preparation? Or you could say that it's a minor event that owned, that affects a considerable number of people in this society, but it does not require much preparation. And it isn't like a notable investment for people to, to basically celebrate. Or thirdly, the holiday could merely be something trivial that maybe only last a few hours and most people don't even bother to participate. So, so that's sort of the next step to define how important is this, uh, to, to society. Autumn (24m 40s): I'm currently going for the Viking Yule log that has to burn for 12 days. So you cut down an entire tree. That is why the holiday I'm going for right now, but I didn't know what to celebrate that 12 days off of work because it is my holiday. Yeah, go arguing a good excuse. I could take my laptop and sneak it in the corner. It will be good. But, and I agree. I mean the other options. Yeah, you're right. So you can have something that maybe you just need to cook a special meal and go to the temple and leave it in front of your ancestors or you know, is it something where you basically need to sit down for five minutes and say a prayer? You mumble through it really quickly, know when you're done, Hey, let's get back to work. Jesper (25m 19s): Yeah. And basically the level of significance of the holiday is important because it allows you to determine, of course, both how widespread and common the holiday is, but also how time consuming it is. Because if it is an important holiday that that requires a lot of am preparation. Well, well now it's the 23rd of December, right? So you probably just been through all of it is it can be quite stressful to prepare for holidays and uh, you can, uh, you can put your character through the same, right? It's a good story trigger to maybe have some conflict between characters who was, and while they, they're arguing about some preparation work for the holiday or what to wear or what it may be. Right. So it, it's, it can be a good trigger for a bit of conflict. Autumn (26m 4s): Yeah. For some reason I'm visualizing the conflict between the one character who hasn't started their preparation yet and I'm the one who is going, what are you going to get it done by now? That might be because I'm the slacker in my family. So hopefully by the 23rd and we're recording this, I'll be ready for the upcoming holidays. Yeah, you'll never know. Dear reader, dear listener, uh, please check in and ask how I did. Jesper (26m 36s): Yeah. So, uh, so once you get that far, um, then you decide on one element that will Autumn (26m 44s): make this holiday stand out. So this could of course be like the type of clothing people wear. Maybe, well we just talked about like a special contest that, that that's sort of what we did with, with our upcoming fantasy world here. Um, or it could be, I don't know, ritual sayings, prayers. Maybe they eat something. Special that's what I was about to say. Cause you know, I'm a foodie, so yes, especially initially you had to prepare or you know, is there a procession that's always an interesting one that could be even play into not just a one day, but a multiple day. You have to go on a Trek to reach this temple and it takes three days and you have to do this as you pass this thing and this as you passed, you don't want to get too cumbersome and detailed, but you know, the more chance if this is really a huge aspect and an important part of your story, there's a lot of issues here that you can pull out and make some tension and drama. Especially if someone bumps over the, you know, one temple they're supposed to be, you know, worshiping at. That'd be me too. Yeah. I think that the key here is, and maybe this is the trip wire basically, because the key is to try to find something that isn't boring, right? I mean, yeah, I eman I mentioned clothing people wear, but if, if that's what you do, you know, may get something very unique and awesome clothing. There's not like, yeah, then they put on a blue apron over. It needs to be something. What you're going for is something that both, um, fits within the context of the culture that the character belongs to. But also at the same time, something that is remarkable and baby may, we'll just make the reader go, wow, this is awesome. Right. So you need to try harder bit here to, to come up with something that is special in one way or another. I mean a ritual saying a prayer. Yeah. That you could do that as well. But then try to figure out how can I make it something like where the, where the reader will say, okay, that's not a type of prayer I've seen before. You know, um, because otherwise it's just boring. Yeah. We'll sing around the Christmas tree. It's just boring. Yeah. You need something new, something more, much more exciting. And I mean, if you need inspiration, you Google some archaic, uh, you know, some different celebrations from around the world. Mayan Inca, go look at some of the native Americans and Polynesian islands and see what some of the costumes or the foods or what's going on there. Because it's really inspiring to see how other native cultures have celebrated over the years. Because it's really a lot of fun. And it may give you some ideas because this, if you're going to spend the time to show this to readers, you really want to bring out something that kind of is stands out that makes you go, Oh, this is important. Even if it's just, I mean, if it's a tiny little, you know, five minute ceremony and you just mentioned it in passing, again, it should have an importance in the story, but make sure that there's something else going on there as well. Jesper (29m 46s): Hmm. Yeah. So once you get to that stage, all those left to do is to give the holiday a really cool name. And uh, of course, if you create a name that for well, for example, it could be maybe a name of a person or place that the reader hasn't yet her off, that that could be a good way to add a bit of mystery to it and make the reader wonder what that might be about. But I think it's good to have a name that it's that some in some one way or another, I guess raises a question in the reader's mind that, that that's, that's a good name Autumn (30m 21s): that makes sense. Or at least makes them think that this is such an interesting, you know, holiday I've always liked a, the candle. Most the holiday in Celtic is envelope and I hear that one. I'm like, why is that exactly? It's like, wow, I don't know what it is, but I want to go celebrate it. Or of course, one of my favorite actual holidays, and that's coming up tomorrow as you're listening to this is you'll book a flood, which is the Icelandic tradition of reading a story on Christmas Eve. So yeah, you can easily find some amazing holidays, but it's the ones that are fun to say and kind of go, what is that? That that's kinda cool. You don't want to just make it something difficult to pronounce. Jesper (31m 2s): No. Yeah, that was exactly what I was about to say. I mean, it's not fine with cool names and because the same thing applies for when you're naming characters. Absolutely fine with cool names, but it has to be something that you need. Try to read it out loud yourself. And if you're stumbling over the words, then there's no good. It has to sort of flow quite quite well. Autumn (31m 22s): Yes. There's nothing wrong with naming something like the black candle miss or something. If it works in fits, whatever you're trying to evoke, that's fine. English isn't acceptable language and writing. Jesper (31m 36s): Yeah, but, but, but, but the thing is just to sometimes worse looks cool written, but then they are very difficult to pronounce or you might, the reader might be endowed on how you're supposed to pronounce it and, and there's nothing worse than the Rita actually stopping reading to start wondering how am I going to pronounce this word right. I mean then they've just, you just pulled them out of the story so that you don't want that to happen. Autumn (32m 1s): No, no. It should all flow pretty smoothly and you don't want them wondering, you want them maybe wondering a little bit of a peak history, you know, they wouldn't be curious about what's going on, not curious about how do you pronounce this and why the heck are you delving into this holiday and showing it to me at better half an important aspect to the story. So those are the key points. Jesper (32m 24s): Yeah, I agree. And then then of course, would holidays also think a bit wider in the sense that holiday is, are often shared across borders. So for example, if you have, you know, maybe two nations, uh, who are at war with each other than maybe the holidays one time a year where they actually have a momentary peace between them for that week that the holiday takes place or something. But, but just be mindful, at least that neighboring countries and even maybe even further widespread within your world, they holiday is to cross borders. So, um, so that's, that's important to think about, at least. Of course. That's what I've always loved. The stories of the Christmas Eve piece, Autumn (33m 11s): treaties that were made between front lines in the world war one and world war II. I think that's always a spectacular example of something that crosses boundaries and actually pauses a war. But of course you can also have opposing holidays where if someone thinks another country that there's already a lot of friction, maybe they don't quite celebrate it on the same day or the same way. And so if you're trying to build some tension, you can actually create tension through the use of holidays in your story as well. So that you know, two people from opposing cultures are either arguing about the day or that no, you can't use that spice or no, that's not how you prepare that. So you can always have some fun am if you need to add some arguments in there as well because goodness knows if anyone was celebrating Thanksgiving and you know his family traditions don't necessarily work all that well. When you're blending your family together, Jesper (34m 4s): it's always troubled, Autumn (34m 5s): right? In my world there always seems to be trouble. I don't know why that is. I should start focusing on peaceful times, but, uh, there's no one's gonna read that. Right? Jesper (34m 16s): Yeah. But, but I, I guess, I mean that's more or less so. I, I hope and I guess that you can see that it does not have to be complicated or time consuming to create a holiday for your fantasy setting. I think that the main thing is that you, that you find that hook that makes sense for the story you're telling and, and, and that fits with the world and the culture of the character. Um, and that might take a bit to figure out what is best. But as I said, up at the top, your world's history is a good starting point. So, uh, looking into that should probably give you inspiration of what to build. But, uh, but it does not have to be complicated and time consuming. Autumn (34m 59s): No, and I will go back to that. If you don't want to do the history and you have God's and do have religions and obviously with those you will probably be coming up with some sort of holiday and that does give you a lot more leniency. Like I said, it could be a God's birth and other things like that, but don't forget, you can foreshadow, you could have a holiday that they think in some future date, something big is going to happen on this date. So everyone gathers together and kind of insulation of this big event. So there's so many ways that you can bring a richness to your world and your characters of events that are going to happen and kind of tease out the nuances. Maybe it'll fit Jesper (35m 38s): with your world and how you're building things. And definitely though should somehow fit with your plot and something, something big is going to happen there. Yeah. So this was a bit of a lighthearted like world building, a episode for you here just before Christmas. So hopefully you got a bit of a inputs for your world building and how to create holidays for your own setting here. Uh, and next Monday I will be interviewing one of the biggest and most successful indie authors in the world. And that is Adam Croft. I'm so excited about this one. Yes, it's going to be awesome. And, uh, Adam will join the amwritingfantasy podcast and talk about read through and how it can revolt, revolutionize your book sales. So that's a holiday treat waiting for you next Monday. Narrator (36m 29s): If you like what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support the amwritingfantasy podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join autumn and Yesper on patrion.com/amwritingfantasy for as little as a dollar a month. You'll get awesome rewards and keep the amwritingfantasy podcast going. Stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

There are so many things to learn when you're first starting out as an author. It's not only about the craft of writing, but also marketing, cover design, editing, and so much more. Where should you start? In this episode of the Am Writing Fantasy podcast, Autumn and Jesper share the top advice they wished someone had told them when they first started out. Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday. SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST! Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy. For as little as a dollar a month, you'll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going. Read the full transcript below. (Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion). Narrator (2s): You're listening to the amwritingfantasy podcast. In today's publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need in literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing join to best selling authors who have self-published more than 20 books between them. Now onto the show with your hosts, Autumn Bert and Jesper Schmidt. Jesper (30s): Hello, I am Jesper and I am autumn. This is episode 51 of the amwritingfantasy podcast and we are going to share the three best pieces of advice about writing. I wish somebody had told us when we first started, so that's probably going to be quite good. I think it'd be quite good. Autumn (50s): And I honestly had a hard time just coming up with three. I came up with five in the end, but we'll see. I will see if I could narrow it down. Wow. Five. Okay, cool. That's good. So how has your week been a, it's been good. Jesper (1m 10s): I've been good. Uh, we were out am bowling, bowling, bowling last this past weekend. Uh, well, technically my, uh, my oldest son had his birthday like two months ago. I suppose you could say that's a bit late too in my doubt. His classmates better late than never, right? Autumn (1m 30s): I guess. Well, I guess as long as he doesn't mind, got to celebrate it maybe twice. I Jesper (1m 39s): but it went well. Uh, I'm, I'm not really very good at bowling to be honest. So yeah, I think all the kids played first for like one and a half hour. And then the last hour we adults joined it and I started throwing the two first. Paul's in the gutter. So I had to, I had to claim that the sun blinded me and the wind stirred me and of course all of this was inside and whatnot. So the kits look quite skeptically or be able to just shook their heads, like my lame excuses. But, uh, but it was fun, uh, although too, well, at the end the youngest got quite upset because he lost. Uh, but yeah, but you know, he, he's the one who always also plays football and he's very, very competitive. So I had to explain to him, because when we first started, you can get these kid barriers on onto the goddess so that the ball doesn't go into the gutter. Right. And then when we started out, I asked him, I asked him if he wanted that to kids, Barry. And he said, no, no, no, no, no, no. He didn't absolutely not want a kid, Barry. And I said, okay, fine. So he played half of the first game or first frame or where, I'm not sure what it's called in bowling, but half of the first game basically he played without the kids. Uh, barrier on which of course some of the balls ended up in the garden while the other ones were playing. It just hit the, and then they always got a bit of pins knocked over. Right. So, but he didn't get that. So, and then halfway through the first game, then we put on the barrier for him as well. And then the kids he was playing against was that they were three years older than him. And by the end of the game he came in two points after number four, something like 15 points after number one, which is pretty amazing in my shoe. And I tried to explain to him that, you know, you played extremely well. These kids are much older than you and you more or less all those tight, you know, two pins. That's like, it's luck. It's just luck. Nothing else. You could have gotten fourth place against somebody who's three years older than you. That's amazing. But I would say it took quite a while before he felt just a little covid. Autumn (3m 52s): He sounds like he's quite the competitor. You're going to have fun with him. Yes. Yes. He's very competitive. That is so sweet though. Yeah, and that's actually, so that teaches me something, I never thought about what countries have bowling or even where it originated, but, Oh, I dunno. I dunno either. But Hey, we have both have bowling in common. That's kind of cool. Yeah, I'm really bad at it. It was, there was a bowling alley really close to my high school and so that was literally one of our gym classes. And it was never my favorite thing. But Hey, it got us out of school and we've got to walk down the road and um, played a love. Oh did you know at least twice a semester. Uh, it's never something, something that I've gone like you know, after school and hung out at the bowling alley, I'd actually rather play pool. I love pool. Yeah, me too. Always. We're, we're in the bowling alley. When I was younger I always convinced somebody to people with means that money we're going to have so much fun when we finally ended up on the same continent, it's going to be past that. How, how was she a week autumn Oh it's been going well. You know we've been doing so talking and it's funny cause I am driving a bit more commuting and it was funny. I know you dictate your novels, that's how you do your writing and I've never done that before so I'm suddenly thinking I want to try this out. So I know you and I have been sharing some dictation tips and software and things we use. It almost makes me think that maybe this is like a potential podcast issue. I know other people have tackled it, but you know, give me some time to see if this is gonna work for me. And I think we might have to am see if it changes how fast I can write or find, get my brain to wrap around. Not seeing the words in front of me. Cause I know recently, uh, some of the last novels I'd write, I would hit a snag and I would jump ahead and write that and then I'd come back and write the filler spaces in between. I'm like, that's not gonna work. It's DyKnow. So I've got to wrap my head around it and give it a try, but I'm kind of excited to give it I. Everyone who's does it says that they can get much more written if they did. Yeah. It goes a lot faster than, than writing of, obviously you can, you can speak a lot faster than you can ever type. So if your mind is organized, yeah, you have to get your mind organized so that it's like, yeah, you know what you're going to say and where it's going and yeah, Jesper (6m 14s): and funny enough, funny enough, it ties back to the plotting stuff like that. Cause I would not be able to do the dictation. Well okay. I could I guess, but I wouldn't be very efficient at it if I did not, if we did not do all the flooding upfront. So I knew exactly what's going to happen in the chapter before I even start. Um, and then it's, it's of course you need to dictate all the customers and, and all the new paragraph and open quote, close quote, all that you need to get used to saying all of that, which of course you are, you're not used to that when you're typing. And so that's one thing. And then I think the other thing at least for me is, is to keep the flow going. So, for example, if you, if you, let's say the character comes to a castle or something and then you can't quite just on the fly to make up what the castle looked like, then I usually just like open brackets and then I say, Autumn (7m 6s): great, cool description of castle, close brackets, and then they just move on because it's so cheating. No works. Right. Because I keep the flow going and, and the, the main point for me at that stage when you're dictating is just to get the story onto the page. And when you're doing the editing, you can always add in nice descriptor Jesper (7m 24s): and all that, but you don't have to on the fly, dare try to figure out a cool description because even if you did, likelihood is that it's going to be cliche. It's going to be what comes to the top of your mind, which is not going to be the best description you can come up with. So some, yeah, I do. I do that quite a lot sometimes. So just add in that, yeah, sort of placeholder to add this or add that here. Autumn (7m 47s): Oh, that's at least a good tip. So yeah, that's a good another tip you hadn't given me before. So I will keep that in mind as I get going that even if I have to just be like skip this area, they'd put this in and then put a note, Oh, put this in the area you skipped. Am that is what editing is for. So, but just be neat to see if I can get this rough draft out because it's in my head. I tend to be a little looser in my plotting when I'm on my own, but I have it outlined pretty well and I know what happens at each of the chapters and I think as long as I keep myself organized and it might be good am I organize my brain a little bit better, so I'm going to give it a whirl and see how it works. And I'm just starting out with some really cheap actually free stuff. Software I already have. So we'll see how it was and it, that's a good place to start. Yeah, free is always a good place to start. If I like it, I'm going to get into what you have suggested. And like I said, maybe there's a podcast in this some point. Yeah, maybe, I mean, uh, for the listener, maybe, you know, dealers know, if, if, if a dictation is something that you're interested in us talking about on a, on a future episode, then let us know, you know, and uh, that we'll certainly consider it on the internet with the amwritingfantasy. Podcast so I went in this morning autumn into the Facebook group because I thought I better start approving some people because I just over the last week, it's just been crazy. There's so many new people joining all the time, but there was new, uh, notifications popping up for people and it's awesome. But, so I went in there this morning and look at, already beat me to it. Everybody, he does that to me too. And I like, I'm going to go in there and no, well, I guess I'll go read through some comments and see what looks been doing because he's such an awesome moderator. So I, I honestly, I don't know how we would cope without his assistance. It's amazing. I mean I, well I, well at least people would be waiting quite a long while to be admitted into the group if it wasn't for him. So again, I know we said it before, but huge thank you to very much appreciate his help keeping. It's nice because it's not so much keeping the group wrangled, it's just letting people in the door because happily the group is pretty good as far as not doing posts that they should. So for the most fun, yeah, there's a lot of activity in there. It feels like it's really picked up. You know what people are posting a lot, which is very nice to see and they are commenting a lot on other people's questions and it's, it's amazing. I really, really like it. It is getting to a good place. I got lost in Jason's post about how many times a Milky male character can cry in a novel and if the gender should really matter. I know is, I figured you would see that one too. Yeah, that was the one I noticed as well. When I looked at it, I had over 27 comments already in us just looking through them and they're good. They're really funny and they're insightful and I just like some of them, I don't know which ones were your favorites. Um, but I know there was one that, I mean the core that it's it. It's the reason that the person is crying, the main character is crying and not the gender. And I just love seeing that where it's such a good place in fantasy where you can have your male character cry. Yeah. A I was actually also a thinking about that one and I was thinking maybe we should just add our own short reflection here on, on that question. Uh, autumn but, but may, may, maybe that was your reflection. You, you agree with that comment or did you have do something else to ponder about? No, I just think I'm definitely I. There was an example in there too about a female character who was trying to cook everyone dinner and her pot wasn't big enough and she just sat down and cried into her brother came and fixed it for her and how just that is not right. That is, that is a stereotype and I thought, you know, it had both arguments of this is a stereotype that you should do and these are examples of reasons you should do it. But I agree it's, I don't want to see personally if I'm reading something, I don't want to see a weepy, weepy character, be it male or female, but I've had female characters cry. I've had male characters cry. And I do think the core is the reason, you know, if it is impactful enough, if it is painful enough or happy enough to stuff, forget there's happy tears, that crying is fine. And you know, we do it as people and emotionally it should be in your novel too. Jesper (12m 17s): Yeah. Uh, I think so too. Well, if the question is how many times they care to can cry, I don't really think you can answer that question because it all depends on context and why he's crying as, as autumn have just been talking about. Uh, I would say even though if you have good reasons for the character to be crying, if it's like every second chapter, then it's gonna be really annoying, really fast. Autumn (12m 44s): Male or female, I would be dropping a book probably. Yeah. Jesper (12m 48s): I mean the Rita does have to like the character and root for them and nobody roots for somebody who cries all the time, even if there's a good reason for it. We do want to see characters take action. We want them to sort of own up to the problems and do something about it. Not sit there and cry about it. He, uh, I mean, so I would say there was a line somewhere and I cannot define that line for you, so you have to do it yourself. But, but there is a line somewhere whereby you could do it too much, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with a male character crying. If there's a good reason for it, um, as long as it doesn't happen, happen too often, then at the same thing applies to a female character. There was no real difference between the two in this case. Autumn (13m 31s): No, absolutely. And I agree. It's, it's, to me it's almost, should be not a crying out of frustration because they can't solve a problem but crying because of a loss of something heartfelt. Um, yeah, just crying because you're frustrated at throwing up your hands in the air and you can't handle it. Don't avoid that one. Jesper (13m 50s): No. Exactly. Yeah. So questions like this one is what you can ask in the amwritingfantasy Facebook group and you will get all of these different, a competent reflections and responses and all that. So I think it is really a really, really awesome group of fellow fantasy authors. So if you have not yet joined the amwritingfantasy Facebook group, just go to Facebook and the search by amwritingfantasy and the group section, then you will find us. Oh, so autumn you have five different things to share about the best pieces of advice. Uh, I have three, but I was thinking that maybe we should, uh, try to alternate a bit so that we are moving up through the ranks one by one rather than just giving five and three in a row. And I must admit that I'm very excited to hear yours because actually I I don't think we've really talked about this sort of stuff before, even between us. No, and I remember when Autumn (14m 52s): we came up with the topic for this one, you kind of got excited like, Oh, that's a good idea. So I think so too. And I feel so organized. You know, I usually, you know, I come in with a little bit of background information but kind of wigglies things where you're the most organized one. But I have a list lower than yours this time. So do you want to start with, um, yeah, no, I think we should work from the bottom and okay. If you do your number five and you're number four, then I'll do three and then year number three and two. Okay. So I will do my first two since I came up with five cheated. I did, I couldn't help it when I start. This is why I started writing courses. I just have so much advice and so much trial by fire that I want to share with other authors. So I just can't contain myself. So I ended up with five. But one of the things, I think one of the first things I saw when I was a new author, I was on Twitter and meeting other authors is everyone was complaining about marketing and marketing takes them away from writing and marketing blog, marketing hub, you know, hate, hate, hate, hate on marketing. And I wish someone had just pulled me aside at some point and said, you know, marketing is often just sharing what you love about your book. What is it that gets you excited about your book? That is really the essence of marketing. So you should actually love it as well because you're sharing your most passionate parts of the earth story and your storytelling. It's just finding a way of doing that. And you know, whether it's social media and of course there's always buying advertising, but that's, you know, if you hate taking five minutes to buy advertising, I'm so sorry it's only five minutes, but the other marketing be it blog posts or social posts. It's, it's really just sharing what you love about your story. So don't hate it. You should love it because it's part of what you love about your story and then number. Yeah. But no, but I think that's, it is a good point. Um, I'm just wondering how, how did you, how did you get to that stage? Because one thing is say is to say don't hate it, just love it because it, yeah, fine, but I still hate it, you know? If you're in that frame of mind, how did you transition into actually wrapping your mind around, actually this is something I do like, I think like pairing it down there was just a certain point where, you know, yes, it's not writing but it is 100% something. Equally, if you're going to be doing this as a business, you're going to be marketing and you should probably never do any I. If you don't love something, people do know it. You, if you're just spamming it, throwing up close that you don't really care about and not crafting something. I'd rather see two really good posts in a week, then two every single day that are crap. And I think that when people start realizing that, you know what, it makes a difference to really put some time and effort and love into making these posts be they blog posts or you know, I love Instagram so we've already been there. So hanging on an Instagram and seeing something that someone really did love rather than something they threw up really quickly cause I felt like I had to do something for marketing today and their books have to sell more and they just, you just feel that kind of desperate energy and it was standing back and saying, you know, this is, what do you do? How do you make this difference? And I think that's where I adjusted plus I. I wrote a booklet on am 50 blog posts, so topics to get your writing about your story and writing that I realized how many of the ideas I came up with where because I wanted to share something I loved about my story and it started when you start realizing that you love writing and you love these characters and you love everything you do and you know you get a writer talking, you can't get them to shut up. You should love marketing. It's all about sharing what you love and try to do it in concise soundbites that you don't overwhelm the person you're trying to tell. Jesper (18m 47s): But it also sounds like you're saying that it's a matter of not, could we call it like being too ambitious about it? You know, like, like you said that now that I have, I have to do some a new blog posts every day. No, but rather try to scale down the ambitions and then say, okay, let me do whatever I can feel that I have to time for I that I can cope, you know, rata one really, really good blog post once a week rather than a shitty one. Autumn (19m 15s): Yes, I think so too. It definitely comes down to once you realized it, so it should be something you love and you shouldn't be driving yourself crazy trying to get all of them done, you know, make time to do one or two good ones a week rather than something every single day. It's, yeah, that's part of it. Definitely. All right. And so the other one, number four by other add on was uh, just a reminder to tell people to always, right, because you love it. I think as you take on your writing journey, you learned so much. You learn about how to write, how to run a writing business, you know, tips on how to make sure you're writing a story that people, you know, readers are going to buy that you, so you end up writing stuff that maybe you think it's going to sell. And sometimes you lose the perspective that you actually enjoy writing. And she'd be writing characters you enjoy in a story you enjoy. It's so easy to kind of get lost and start just writing stuff that to do it, to make money. Um, and so it does a business and you have to look at that. But if you're not loving it, you know, step back and think about it. If you're no longer enjoying it, because most of us come to this because we have a story you want to tell him. We love writing and I've seen writers as they progress and tr even, I've done it a little bit, you start doing it more as a business and you might lose a little bit of that soul. So don't forget to still love what you're writing. Jesper (20m 40s): Especially nowadays, there is a, a lot of chalk in the author community about releasing more books and read them fast. And I, I, I don't remember actually to be honest, if we've talked about this in more detail in a past episode, maybe we have, but I, I feel that it's, it's, it's like a road to hell that we only, because people are going to get burned out because of it. That they're trying to keep up a pace that is absolutely crazy and you lose your passion and you've got to get stressed out. And at some point, maybe you can keep up the pace for two years and you're going to release 15 novels in two years or something, but then you're going to burn out. And then what was the point? There was no passion in it either. I mean, I don't know. I would rather say I release, let's say, let's say we release two or three books a year and those books are passion projects. It's because we like it. Um, and it's at a pace where we can sustain it longterm. But of course as autumn set, I think as well that there is a point to be made about that it is a business. So if what you love to write is something that nobody likes to read, then yeah, I mean, right. Those books once in a while, but you have to then sprinkle in some books that is more like what the market wants to read, right? So you could write like, let's say you write two books for the market and then you write one book for you. You could do it like that, but, but I don't know. I know it's a bit of a tangent here, but, but I just think that it's important to you. You cannot just write passion if nobody wants to read your passion. Yeah. Unless you want to just doing it for a hobby, then of course it's fine. But, and I think that's the key is that, yeah, if you're going to do it as a business, you have to pay attention to trends and some of the, you know, we've both done research on the top selling books and what are the commonalities? And so you know that data, but hopefully you can weave that into a story you really want to tell. Because if you're just writing something that you know, five years ago, you would've totally cringed if you had read it. Oh, you think about that? What a little bit before you write it maybe or give it a try but don't tie yourself to it. Yeah. All right, well what's your number three? Yeah, that was a tangent. Okay, so my number three is, I wish somebody had told me when I was done with the first book and I had to create a cover for it and I had to write a book description that creating a cover on writing a book description is just not something you'd just go Willy nilly about. You know, I mean the book description we talked about last week, so I'll have to labor that point much here, but, but maybe with the cover because, and this is probably something that I'm not in a low alone in Oh, I was not alone in this boat of thinking that when I'm, I need a cover for my book now that it's done and I need something that just looks awesome. Yeah. So I'll get some somebody and then I'll say, I'll tell the, you know, somebody who knows covid the science because I did do that luckily enough to do it on my own, which you should never ever, ever, ever, ever do. But, uh, I did get somebody who knew what they were doing to do it, but, but I, I dictated to them what sort of cover I wanted and I went for something that I want to look really pretty. And of course the coven D does need to look good. So that's not what I'm trying to say. But the job of the cover is to convey the sugar to the reader. And my cover does not conveyed a younger to the reader. So it's, it's a big mistake. And if, if I just, you know, researched it a bit or try to understand that well covered assign, I guess there must be some sort of logic or idea behind why covers looked at the way they look at me and I could have avoided that. Um, that mistake I made and I had to, I have to regret Lee admit that I still haven't gone back and corrected it because I've been way, way too busy with all kinds of stuff and I know that's a lame excuse and I know I'm not doing what I preached the people shouldn't be doing. I should go back and correct it, but then I have to update it a million different places and I have so much to do. I still haven't gotten to that point on my to do list and I don't know why as since I made the book book Permafree it, it gets downloaded quite a lot anyway, so it I don't know. I don't have a burning platform that it hurts me enough that I, I want to spend time on it above something else, but I really wish I had known that when I started out to be on, Autumn (25m 31s): no, I think that's a good point. A lot of new authors, you know, I see some that come in so market savvy. I just want to be like, where did you learn this? Because even I didn't know that at first, but you know, I started back in 2012 where you could literally just scribble something on a as a cover and toss it up and people would go and buy it and download it because there was just, there were so many less books now on the competition. Whew. It's cutthroat in a good cover and a great description. But like you said, we just covered that the last episode, so that's fine. But yeah, it's definitely very, very true. And yeah, you, you know, you don't want to get me going on covers and cover design. That's the other hat I wear. And there's a whole psychology and subconscious reading that goes into even the fonts. Um, yeah. And the colors and the mood. And I just had a discussion with someone. I'm doing a cover for, uh, angel wings. Do we want them lifted, which is more positive versus down, which is more dark and yeah, don't get me going on the symbolism that's hidden in covers that you read in just seconds. Your mind picks it up, makes a judgment based on your, your entire novel in just, just a few seconds. So those covers, there's a reason they're complicated. Yeah, there is a reason why, Jesper (26m 55s): eh, an Epic fantasy cover looks usually the way it looks. I mean if you for for the listener here, if you go to Amazon for example, there's a top 100 in Epic fantasy for example, and have a look at those covers in the top 100 and you will start to see some patterns there. And it's for a reason and dose out of sort of things that you want to emulate in your own cover now that copying any of it, but you want to pick out what are the common threats throughout these covers in my sub category on Amazon. And then you want to use those things in your own cover rather than coming up with this amazing, beautiful picture that you think is look so good then nobody has ever seen it before. No, but that's true. But there's a reason why nobody ever saw it before. It's because it's not going to sell it. Autumn (27m 43s): They're not going to do a genre it is or anything about your story, they'll be like, huh, yeah, exactly. So yeah, that was my number three. I like that. Number three. So my number three, now that I'm up to three, uh, is again sort of on marketing, but it's, I wish someone had pulled me aside and to, when you're trying to figure out how to market and how to sell books, especially as a newbie, I wish someone had just said, don't worry about all this other stuff. Focus on creating a strong interaction with your fans, which you know, mailing lists, good reads is also a fantastic way of like meeting fans and talking to them instead of, you know, do that over posting on social media or Facebook groups or just post that you send out to the world and you hope someone will find. It's really, it's the comments, it's the interactions, it's your mailing list, building up relationships. They're getting your super fans that I think will end up benefiting you in the long run. So much more than having a great social media platform. So I wish someone had really talked about that. Cause I know there was a point where I had been working on I think book three and I hadn't really started book Fauria and I wasn't even sure I did actually a whole series of between three and four because they're technically two separate chill at is even though the same character, same world, but totally different story arcs. So I took a break and I didn't even email my mailing lists for a well. I let it kind of languish and I saw a big hit in sales and especially between books four and five. It took me a while. I'd mentioned that the last episode, but five had the most complicated plot that I changed my entire plotting technique when to Scribner. And so it took longer than even my usual to get it out. And I let a lot of things drop and I really saw that hit between book four and five. The sales weren't quite as there and I really blame that on me taking time as well as me not telling my readers lots going on and not being really communicative. Jesper (29m 42s): So don't lose your fans, don't lose your super fans. Stay in touch with them somehow. Yeah. Communicating is is important. Um, and I guess especially, I mean, if a PR linking back, a looping back to what we just talked about, if you're one of those people who are putting out a new book every month, which by the way, some people do, um, then it's probably less important because you're going to communicate with them anyway. I sending them a new release every month, but, uh, but if you're like the rest of us human beings are not vampires and uh, or AI secretly. Yeah. Then, uh, yeah, then I think it's a good point autumn to make sure that you communicate with your readers and keep the interaction going in, in the, in the low times, in between books. Absolutely. What's your number two? Well, I know this one is probably a bit cliche and say one way or another, but still my number two thing that I wish somebody had told me and, uh, it's also something that you and I have said over and over and over again on this podcast. Autumn so I dunno if you can guess what it is. We've also talked about it on past YouTube videos and the in one of the, some of the older ones. Oh shoot. There's so much we've covered now. Yeah, I know. Just telling me I can hit you a bit that it's, you actually just said that a bit in what you said in your number three just before, uh, so that as long as you do with the series, uh, the email list, the email list. All right. Yeah, I mean, thank God I did create a mean email list as soon as I started out. So I did not make that mistake and I'm really glad about that because I had picked up that much that I needed to have, uh, have a, an email list. So I did create that from the get go, which, which is good. So I was off to a good start there, but I just did not put very much effort into actually building the list. Uh, I mean I did a little, uh, but the majority of all my focus went to advertising for selling books and not really building the list. So when I, whenever I had some money to spend to reinvest into my business, I usually spent them on a sales ads rather than list-building ads. And, uh, I, I think I, I really wish somebody had told me back then that, uh, you should always prefer a new email subscriber over sale because the email subscriber that gives you a possibility to, to, you know, build a relationship with that person and then make them invested in what you're doing. And that's a million times more valuable than a $5 sale. And I just did not have that focus back then. And uh, yeah, I really, really regret that. I think am I always appreciated the business model that basically a returning customer, it's so much more important and where are you going to make most of your money rather that one than Autumn (32m 40s): a onetime sale. And so that's sort of what we're saying is if you have a mailing list and someone you can contact and is excited about what you're writing and is ready to buy the next book where you know, invested in the next series. That means so much more than, you know, the one, you know, doing a sale or a download and sending money to some of the advertisers for that. So I agree. That is actually a really good number two. Yeah. Yeah. We did talk a lot more about email list building back in episode six of this podcast. So if, uh, if what I just said triggered you in any way than the, I recommend going back and listening to today's episode if you missed it. Yeah. And my number to actually kind of relates to a recent podcast episode as well. Okay. I don't know if you can guess which one, but actually I mentioned that when we were talking earlier. So my number two is that I wish when someone was talking about, you know, the show don't tell and all of those things, if they had just mentioned that, um, just just focus on one emotion or one description, poor paragraph or sentence. I see a lot of new authors who are told, you know, show emotions, don't tell them and they throw in like facial expressions. Um, so they're like squinting or flailing, you know, they often have ends in there. Like the character brunches, their brows and frowns and you know, all these little suggestions. It's like, okay, you just just focus on one, bring out one emotion. I remember reading one where I was just like, I don't know what's going on here. There are so many emotions listed, so many actions. And I could not fathom at the, I was at the point where I'm like, I just want the author to tell me what the character is supposed to be feeling cause I don't get it. So I think, yeah, I think when I was really learning and it was so easy to get overwhelmed with how to show emotions and even descriptions, you start layering in this and this and this and becomes an info dump before you realize it and you don't want to do that. So that interview you just had with CS last Lakin is um, fantastic if you yeah. If you have questions on like how to really convey emotions, uh, well go back and listen to that cause it really helps look at emotional the art, the sources for writers because that is something I think is really being strong with that, especially as a new author is going to do you worlds of wonder. And like I said, I remember just reading someone else's work and just being so confused because they were talking about all these physical symptoms of emotions and I didn't have a clue what this character was supposed to be feeling or thinking or just what right over my head. So yeah, I don't know. I don't recall the exact episode number, but it's probably something like 49 maybe or something like that around that in any way. So go back and find that episode if you want. But I think Jesper (35m 39s): the gist of what you're saying in your, in your learning, number two, their guests, it's just writing is hard. It's difficult. And when you're starting out it's incredibly difficult because you don't know if you're doing it well or not. No, it's very true. And I think, I think most authors go through a phase where they learn a lot and it becomes a lot harder that eventually they just kind of have to put some of that aside and just right again and then use it on their rough draft. Because you can also learn so much that you prevent yourself from writing cause you know you should be doing it better. So don't do that either. No. True. And work with an editor who knows what they're doing on. Feel free to post some writing in the amwritingfantasy Facebook group and ask other people for some comments and what not. But also be careful not to listen too much to what other people are saying when you, especially when you're first starting because it's so easy to get derailed about, Oh, this person told me to do like this and that, but then that person over there told me to do this and do what I really had a lot of benefit from when I first started out. What I found like a, a what? It's not a writing partner because he did not do any writing, but he was like a sound board for me. So he's like for you really? Yeah, kind of it, you know, he was very experienced with writing. So what I would do is I would send him one chapter at a time and then he would come and on it and I would go back and I would rewrite the chapter and I think I wrote that chapter one like 15 times or something before he said, okay, you're ready to write chapter two now and so forth. And I went like that for at least six months and made almost no progress. Um, but I, at least for me, I think it worked very well that I had one person I had to listen to because if I had to listen to 15 different writers giving me advice about this and that, I would be immensely confused because when you're first starting out, you don't know what's right or wrong. You don't know if a, if an advice is good or bad. And sometimes I think we've set this before as well. Writing is also an art form, so there is no right or wrong, it's not like math that you can say two plus two is four and if you get five then it's not right. It's not like that. So there's also some, there's a lot of gray area in this and just because some Arthur tells you that you should be doing it like this, well that might be, he saw Hearst preference and that might be in his or her voice, but it might not align to how you actually doing your storytelling. So yeah. Yeah, it's difficult and you just have to write a lot to be honest. And then find, find a few people you trust and listen to Dan advice, uh, and, and just write and write and write and write and write. Agreed. We've got to the top of the list. We're at the top of the list. So what is your number one? I know we're on my lumber one, huh? It's my turn. I think so. Autumn (38m 37s): So my number one piece of advice I wish someone had told me when I first started out was right a series and release it close together. What I read my debut novel, born of water. I just wanted to write the story and I think I kind of had a dangling out there that it was going to be a serious, but I mean, I didn't even have a serious name. I didn't have a name for book two. I didn't really have the character arcs. I mean, it's amazing how much differently I plot now. Now I have not only the book names, I have the overall arcs. I know what's in each book. I kind of have it all mapped out and I did not do that when I had book one and one. It's it's if you're going to do that, it helps. So that way you can tie your books together. It's a much more interesting series and when you write a series itself cells, I remember what I finally released the last book in the trilogy book. Three sales went through the roof because it was complete at that point and yeah, I wish someone had told me that. I think it's so much more exciting to go ahead and get everything written, get it released to get the whole series out. People are much more excited. Your much more excited and I just, it didn't, yeah, it didn't realize it when I wrote book one and I had to do a lot of like scratching my head and change my cover cause I didn't have the series title in there anywhere because I just had it up out as a standalone more or less than it. It really isn't a standalone. So if you're going to write a series, if you're going to write a book, you really consider writing a series. It's better for sales, it'll get you excited. And if you're going to do it, just have all that stuff figured out from the get go. It'll, it'll save you so much headache later. Jesper (40m 15s): Yeah, we have am we have mentioned this last week as well, but, uh, between Christmas and new years, we have, uh, one of the biggest indie authors in the world coming onto the podcast called Adam Croft. And he's actually going to talk about just what autumn said and why it is so important to, uh, to write in series and what difference it makes. So you're gonna hear a lot more about that in the past. We also had Lindsay Perro onto the pet co asked you also talked about it. So yeah, there is a lot of advice out there and just take the word for it. Uh, you need to write it. Autumn (40m 45s): Very good. Okay, so that was my top one. What is yours? Oh yeah. So my, it's funny because I think this one actually goes Jesper (40m 54s): exactly the opposite of one of your past. Yeah. Because when I first started out, I, I, somebody had told me to spend more time writing and less time marketing because that's true. Yeah. My problem is that I I love the marketing part. I think opposite most of the authors, like you said in one of your past one you said that nobody wants to do with the marketing, but I'm one of those, I want to do them. So it would make me inclined to spend a lot of time learning about the marketing platforms, how to do, make the ads as optimal as possible, split testing and all that stuff, uh, increasing conversion rates and so forth and so forth. So I ended up spending quite a lot of time doing that. Uh, also when I just had one book out, which is pointless, you know, let's wait till you have the series. Yeah, I, yeah, I would say probably when you have like three to five books out, then you can start playing around with advertising. But until that point, it's really not that much worth of your time. You can do the list building apps and do that. As I said in my, in my number to a lesson, um, I wish I had spent more time list building so you can do that for sure as soon as you have, even before you have one book out. But, but sales ads, it's like it's a waste of time. And if I just focused more time on writing instead of doing ads all the time, I think I could probably have a lot of more books out by now. Autumn (42m 22s): Yeah. Yeah. I think you are a little unusual as an author that way, but there are other authors who are good with the spreadsheets who are doing this, you know, from the beginning. Um, the sales, if it's not a business, in their minds, at least the sales are a validation. And so it's easy to focus on doing that when you know you're, you're still new and you people are going to discover you and right now it's really hard to get discovered. And so yeah, you could be spending a lot of time and money on something when it might help to get the whole book yet. I think for you know at least the two series one series done, but you know a little bit more under your belt because, Oh my goodness. I will say one last piece of things to be aware of. I remember once talking to a Twitter, a very author had been doing it for 20 plus years. I can't remember how many books she had. Out and she said she was so happy that her debut novel was under a different pen name because now she doesn't have to even pretend she knows what any, you know what that book is about. And I won't say I feel that way quite that way about my debut novel, but when I see what book one versus my 16th book that I just really use looks like. Yeah, my writing has changed a lot. So to keep just keep writing and do you remember you will improve and at some point you'll look back going, I was so hung up on advertising book one and marketing book one and just having written one book and now look at everything I have and how much I've changed. And now I want to hide book one a little bit, Jesper (43m 50s): but that's okay. Yeah. So the next episode is coming out right before Christmas. And uh, we decided we wanted to do something a little different for you. Yeah. So we're gonna we want it to give it a bit of a Christmas feeling to it. So we are going to talk about how you are going to create a holiday for your fantasy worlds. So it's world building time and I'm already looking forward to it. Yay. Narrator (44m 23s): If you like what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support the amwritingfantasy podcast. Please tell a fellow author the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join autumn and Yesper on patrion.com/amwritingfantasy for as little as a dollar a month. You'll get awesome rewards and keep the amwritingfantasy podcast going. Stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

Did you know that after your book cover, your book's description is the most important tool for selling your book? It's true! And in this episode of the Am Writing Fantasy podcast, we break down not only how important a good book description is, but how to create one for your book! For more info and tips on how to write a book description, check out Jesper's book at https://www.jesperschmidt.com/books/how-to-write-a-fantasy-book-description/ Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday. SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST! Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy. For as little as a dollar a month, you'll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going. Read the full transcript below. (Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion). Narrator (2s): You're listening to the amwritingfantasy podcast. In today's publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need in literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing join to best selling authors who have self-published more than 20 books between them. Now onto the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt. Jesper (30s): Hello, I'm Jesper and I'm autumn. This is episode 50 of the M writing fantasy podcast and we are going to discuss the book description and some also call it the blurb. It's basically what you write on the back of your book and S a sales description on sites like Amazon. So we're going to discuss what makes for a good book description how'd you write one con, which can convert to sales and that's all coming up on this episode. Excellent. I can't wait because this is so important to your book sales and interesting readers, but yeah, we'll get there. Autumn (1m 7s): But first we have some news. So you had quite the week. I understand. Yes. For. Jesper (1m 14s): Yeah. I don't think that our listeners want to hear any of the details because I've just been sick with the stomach flu for several days and then it was not a pleasant experience. And and the details I will spare you Autumn (1m 27s): does not sound like fun. I mean, that definitely puts a dent in everything. I mean, it's like a full stop when you're truly, truly sick and in bed, so I'm glad you're feeling better. Yeah, Jesper (1m 39s): much better now. Yeah, I was, I was in bed for three days with, with 40 degrees fever, so you can, you can imagine now that I'm feeling better and I got back to my work and whatnot. There's just a ton of things that I'm behind on now, but that's the name of the game. Autumn (1m 53s): It is a it. Yeah. It's always seems like I know you and I know us and we always have our to do list that we'll never see the bottom of because we're always adding new things and so you not working on something for a few days and must have looked like a mountain grew. Jesper (2m 8s): Yes, exactly. Yeah, I've been, I would say today, uh, uh, my time, we're recording this in the evening, so, so all day today I've been really busy trying to catch up on stuff, but I think I have some stuff I need to catch up on tomorrow as well. But for the most part I'm quite pleased with the progress I made today. So I got a lot done today, so that's good. Autumn (2m 32s): That's very good. Now for me, I mean I was told you I was maybe struggling with a little bit of a cold. I had a small fever, nothing like you had, but I think my computer is like cursed right now. Honestly, I've never had one of those weeks where like you try to go do something simple and whatever you try to do either needs updated just isn't working right. You gotta reboot, you've got to reload. It just seems like everything I've tried to touch on my computer this week has been fighting me, so I'm, I'm about ready to toss it out the window even though of course I can't cause I kind of need it. Oh, it has been. Maybe a computer has the stomach flu as well. I think I might be at least, I know it's not a virus, but it might have the stomach flu and even my Wacom tablet. So you know, they do a lot of graphic design. You know, I go and work on something a couple of days ago I go to go back to it and first Photoshop didn't work. Uh, the new update complete. I can't open a file that was nearly finished, this really big full paperback rep and Photoshop open it. So two hours later, my entire time to work on it, I finally managed, just said to heck with it and reverted to the former addition of Photoshop and it would open. And then, so at least I got it as far as opening. But then I go to work on a new cover today and my Wacom tablet, my, that I use for drawling isn't working. Every time I go to touch it with the pen, it goes to the upper left corner of my screen and I'm like, I could touch it. But every time I use the pen it zooms off. Some lie. So after some research that I finally decided it was probably the drivers and updated those. So I am ready to work again, but I'll get back to that later tonight. I see, Jesper (4m 25s): Oh my God, this is what like one thing, you know that I cannot stand. It's like all also, you know, if my, if my computer is not working or something like that, it's like I feel like what should, what should I say? Like, like the carpenter who was trying to do some carpentry and then his tools are not working as well. It's just like, it just has to work. I don't want to fix tools. They just have to work. They're there to serve me and I hated when they don't work. Autumn (4m 53s): Absolutely. And it seems like, like, you know, especially for something creative, you're in the mind or like thinking about it that you want to sit down to write and like, you know, you either don't have paper or your Scrivener isn't working or something silly like that. And it's just like, it kills the energy that you have going that you want to give to whatever you're working on. And so yeah, that's I think part of the frustration too. You're just who wants to spend two hours trying to figure out a Photoshop update when they could be drawing and making happy pictures. So that was my week. Writing fantasy Jesper (5m 34s): so this is a sort of a bit of old news by now I guess I'm not old, but it's like a month old I would say. Uh, but I, I post a some, some details about it last week on, on Patrion, uh, because we have now got the ability to place Amazon ads in the Amazon UK and the Amazon German stores. That's right. So that's pretty cool. I mean, technically you could do it before, but you needed an Amazon advantage account, which was pretty damn difficult to get. I tried like three times applying for it myself and I never got one because you're not supposed to it w it was sort of like a work around of the system if you like. So I never got in there, but now they have officially opened soda. You can actually place Amazon ads in DC, in the Yukon German stall by at the KDP dashboard itself. So I started testing out that and playing around with it somewhat. So that's pretty good actually. Um, I've started to see uptakes sales in the UK where it was very difficult to sell something before because if you can't advertise, we all know how you, how you drown in the, in the sea of books. So, uh, Oh easily. Yeah. So it has helped a lot. Um, but I will say for those who's going to test this stuff out, uh, be careful of the currency differences please because, uh, if you are betting like let's say 50 cents in the U S that don't put 50 cent into the UK store because then it's 50, you know, it takes pounds. Join no, not 50 pounds, but yeah, but it's, it's all, all of a sudden a pound's currency. Right? So zero dot five is a lot more than zero dot five in the U S store. Yes. So at the same thing for the Germans sort of start as Euro. So that's a 50 cent Euro and not 50 cents USD. So be careful. Otherwise you will pay a lot of money to Amazon all of a sudden. Autumn (7m 28s): That's a very good tip. I'll have to remember that. I haven't tried that out, but I do need to beef up my advertising. Again, I'm trying to revamp, thinking outside the box on marketing because like you said, so many people are doing the exact same thing. And I just, I'm always hitting that wall going, what is next? What is new? What is no one else doing? And well, when I figured it out and get it working, I'll certainly let you know for now, I later, everybody will be doing it too. Maybe I won't let anyone know. Maybe I'll just let you know or maybe just start listening. I don't know. We'll figure that one out. But I am bound and determined. If we find something new and innovative because there's gotta be something else, it can work because, Oh my gosh, Amazon is so saturated. Jesper (8m 13s): Yeah. But to be honest, I think finding something new, it is difficult. Um, I think it might be more about just being better at the ass and everybody else so that you just learn how to do it. Even better. I mean, Amazon ads, it might not be the best example because that's like uploading keywords and doing some bidding. So, but at least if you're doing something like Facebook apps, there is a lot of different, very insisted you can, you sort of apply to ads in terms of how you're targeting and how you're placing the ads and all that stuff. So I think there you can learn how to do it really well and, and then make, basically make a difference in. And we have some, uh, wealthy, this is way too early, talk about that, but I can never help herself. But we have some stuff that we already have prepared and developed for three costs that we're going to do in 2020, but I can almost say with certainty that is not going to be ready until after someone next year. But in there, we actually gonna, um, give you the possibility to, uh, to get your hands on an ad tracker that we use or I use so far, but it's for also used for our books. Um, and it's gonna it will, well, I already wrote it, so I know it's, it's, it's explaining all the best practices and how to do it, how to target, how to, where to place your ads, how to think about your ad copy and, and everything is India. So we're going to give you that your PO, the possibility for, for you to get a hand of that in the last half of 20, 20. Uh, and of course if anything changes, I will of course updated as well. Um, but yeah, and then once we get that to you, then everybody will start doing that. Then I'll need to figure out. Autumn (10m 6s): But that's all they new. But that's all right. It is really such a cool sheet. So I mean, I was excited when I saw that and I need to get into using it and get my, like I said, my marketing tamed, but it's really excellent. Yeah. Um, so basically, yeah, that was some stuff I posted about on, on Patrion, uh, last week. And, um, I think if, if you want the listener to get some exclusive posts like that one that I mentioned here together with writing tips that autumn post regularly as well. We also have early access to the podcast episodes, dedicated Q and a sessions and much, much more than a checkout amwritingfantasy on patron. Jesper (10m 48s): There was a link in the show notes down below. So I just have to say that there was a lot of work that goes into producing these podcasts episodes every week. So if you do find them valuable, you know, as little as a dollar a month, we'll really make sure too that we keep the lights on here. So, so consider that please. Autumn (11m 7s): Yeah. And we appreciate it. And especially though not just the patronage and getting some, you know, that dollar a month. But I know like Jay Zaid had once again mentioned that he, uh, he really liked the one reason podcasts where I mentioned that even though I hear in my forties, I just discovered this awesome purple beauty Berry that I didn't know exist, that there's actually a plant that has purple berries and I love purple. So it really connected home with him that, you know, even the most experienced character in his story is not going to know everything about the world or everything that's going on. And I thought that was really cool cause one I helped another writer and two, it's, it's so true. It's another perspective just because you have a knowledgeable character that they're not going to know everything and it's so much fun to get to talk writing and help each other out and you know, get new perspectives. And we do that all on Patreon so it's kind of fun. I hope you join us there. Jesper (12m 10s): Oh, so book description actually one of my quiet, it's a topic I quite liked, but I used to hate, I guess I could put like that. That's true. Autumn (12m 20s): It's one you have to grow to love. And I see so many authors, you know, complaining about writing them and I have to admit that I used to complain to like, how do you boil 105 hundred and 20,000 words down to, you know, ideally you something around 500 but I know for me, I really conquered these when I wrote the 11 short stories that would into the beginning of the prequel to my dystopian a series and I decided to reach release all 11 individually and I think I was really getting excited about this and so excited I had the covers and then I realized, Oh my goodness. And it means I need 11 blurbs. I love it that the rest of the series to right. What was I doing? And so that's when I just changed my tune and got much more scientific and much more organized about how to write this and you, yeah, I know you like this. You have a whole book on book descriptions. Jesper (13m 21s): Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. We're going to put that in description field. Austria. Sorry, that was my old YouTube eh habit coming up there in the show notes. I mean we can't put that on the show notes. Two years of YouTube thing. I guess we can forgive you. Yeah. Uh, but, but I don't know. Maybe it's because writing a book description it's a bit, maybe people think a bit about it. S S writing ad copy almost. You know, so we used to putting together this wonderfully beautiful constructed word words in, in a full fantasy novel and all of a sudden we have to do ad copy in 200 words. It's like, well we don't want to do that. You know, may, maybe that's part of part of why people don't like it. I'm not, I'm not sure. I mean if I think back originally was not because I did not like it do to the ad copy aspect of it. I think it's more like I just didn't understand how to do it in a way that it would not read like at either a very boring ad copy or it would be like almost like a summary of what the book is about. And that's not the point either. So, and I, I think I just didn't know how to do it. Autumn (14m 33s): That's very true. And it's so often you can see the ones who, you know, didn't put in the time, we weren't really sure what they're doing. And even, I know for you and I both, we've updated ours and kept changing and evolving it as, you know, as we learn and sometimes the comments that people leave and we will get into that as we talk about how do book descriptions, they can change what you focus on because sometimes readers will find things in your book that you didn't know you put there and it's what they love and it's the best hook to put into your blurb. Jesper (15m 3s): Hmm. Yeah. I think when it comes to book description should know, we just cannot ignore this, that there is a business aspect of being an author and a no, we've said it before, but it bears repeating, you know, you have to sell books and whether we like it or not though the, the, the book description it's just a crucial factor when a reader decides to buy your book or if they just decide to ignore it. Tha that's really where the book description needs to do its job. Autumn (15m 33s): I agree. I mean usually it's really a stage thing. So the often see your book cover and it makes them curious enough that they're going to go read your description and if the description does not make them the blur, make them curious enough to go get a sample. If not outright buy it, then that's where you're going to lose them. So this is the second most serious part of, you know, trying to sell your book. Jesper (15m 58s): Yeah, I mean because the cover will not sell the book alone. The cover will get people to click on it and say, okay, that looks interesting. And then I should just say it in the book. Description is the one that needs to close the deal. It's sort of like, like the catchy teaser or something like, like for a movie trailer or something like that. You know, it's, it's the movie trailer that gets us into the theater and buy the ticket. Right. But, but the movie poster is the one that makes us go and check out that movie trailer. Right. So it's sort of the same journey that we were going through here when, when we're selling books. So I think that's, it's just, it's really important. Autumn (16m 37s): Definitely. And so I know we both have am cause I, I happened to have edited and formatted, uh, your book description book so I'm very intimately familiar with it. But I've also, I think before we started working together, I had written a very small pamphlet, a little worksheet on how to do them. And we have very similar processes, which go figure that's how we teamed up in the first place. Yeah. So I know we both have a theory like how many paragraphs in which ones, you know, what each one is supposed to do. And that really helps you focus on what needs to happen in your book. Description so for the opening, what is the first thing that readers see potential readers see? What do you like to have on top? Jesper (17m 23s): Yeah, I mean at the top. So I have five steps to write a great blurb and am that at the top. You, you basically you, well maybe I should just say the five steps first. So you have what I call the tech line. The second one is character introduction, the third one is inciting incident and fourth is escalate tension. And number five if is dire straights and call to action. So we can go through, through them in a bit more detail here, but, but at the top is the tech line. And um, I think probably one of the most, I don't know if I can call it famous, but one of the best examples of a killer tech line. It was one that, um, Adam Croft group. So Adam Croft is a seven figure othen, probably one of the biggest indie authors in the world. And and by the way, we are going to have him here on the amwritingfantasy podcast between Christmas and new year's, like a special treat. So that's going to be awesome. Yeah, that's a little present to everyone. Yes. A bit of a Christmas present. Um, but with his book, uh, her last her last tomorrow, he wrote the tech line that went like this, could you murder your wife to save your daughter? You know, that's the kind of thing that entice readers to buy a book. That's like what, okay, I need to read what that is about. Right. That's, it's an incredibly effective way to catch people's attention. And um, and I, I, because I think the other part that you need to be mindful this about that not everybody will, will, you know, browse for you book on the laptop or something. And so not or not, depending on what device you're using to actually browse the books you pop description might not really show up except for the tech line. So it's important that what is on top there is really, really eye-catching. Oh yeah. So that it doesn't get the clip and then people are allowed to just like, okay, I've got a half a sentence of something that doesn't make any sense to me. Autumn (19m 25s): No. And I love your example had it was a co, it's a full sentence. It's a question, but a lot of them are often just phrases and those work too. Like some of the ones I've found that I just, when you read them, you could almost start thinking, Oh my gosh, I could write a book about this. Uh, Royal assassin, a fallen princess friends, enemies bound by prophecy. There's so much into these. Another one that I've always really liked is heirloom of forbidden magic. A corrupt sourcer who seeks to rule. You're starting to see some key components, but they kind of give you the tingles. A really good tagline makes you go, it kind of perks you up and you're like, Ooh, what's that? And you kind of read the next line. And so that's what I think is so cool there. They're fantastic. Once you figured out your tagline, you're going to post this everywhere. It's going to be your tweets, it's going to be your Instagram, it's going to be what you put actually for now, if you go to my website, all of my books, I used to have the book description like next to the picture of the book and then he, then the bio links and stuff like that. People don't like to see that many words. Now I literally have pared that down to just the tagline. No description so I have the tagline, the picture of my books, and then the links to go get it. That's, that's how important it is. It should sell the book basically on its own. That's what, like I said, you'd been marketing images this, you're kind of put the tagline. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I mean, I guess just to cement the point to how, how important it is, because I know that, uh, Mark Dawson, who was another seven figure in the author, he actually surveyed more than 10,000 readers and he asked them what triggered each person to read his book? Jesper (21m 8s): Was it, he's covered, he's reviewed his book title and so forth and so forth. And what you learned out of that survey was that almost five times as many readers picked up, he spoke because of the book description as opposed to getting enticed by the cover. So you see that just, it just thrives home. The point that it is incredibly important, the book description is, and I, and I really don't, honestly, I don't think that most people understand that. You know, most, most authors thinks it's something like, yeah, I'll just, I'll put something together there and then slam up there. Ghosts. I think that's how most authors approach it and it's a huge mistake. I agree. And it definitely takes some practice to get the right one and it, even when you think you have the right one, you don't. That's what your mailing lists other authors. Autumn (21m 53s): Cool. Ask them, I mean post in our amwritingfantasy Facebook group, that is a fantastic way to get an idea of how your blurb is working and some, you know, feedback on what you might need to tweak. Yeah, yeah. I usually say right, 15 different variations of the tech line and it'd be, it has to be short, catchy and memorable. Jesper (22m 14s): And then just as the autumn is saying, than my usual advice is that once you have nailed it down to your own three favorites, then start posting those and ask other people's opinions, ask them to vote for their favorites and then maybe the winner will not be the one that you expect. But uh, but if you get enough people voting on it and giving your opinion on it, then yeah, you should probably follow what people are saying. But I guess the one caveat to that is that make sure you are asking people who actually read fantasy yes, that's true. Don't ask your mother and your uncle and whatnot what they think is best because unless they read fantasy already, then their opinion matters. Nothing. Exactly. And make sure you ask the people who are actually going to not only read fantasy but give you an opinion. Autumn (23m 1s): Not like everything you do is wonderful at year. Oh yeah. That part as well. So, okay, so let's move on to step number two. After the tagline. You said it's what you have, the character introduction is how you put it. Yeah. So this is where we need to introduce the character. Jesper (23m 21s): And uh, this is actually where the, where the book description begins because technically the tech line is just a teaser. So now here in step two, this is where the actual book description Texas beginning, and it's usually a short paragraph and it should appeal to general, like human emotions and desires. So it should be exciting and not like, you know, Frodo is a habit of 33 years old and he lives in a place called the Shire blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, we don't want to read that. So it should be something exciting, but, but we do need to introduce the character as the first thing because the character is what the readers need to identify with. And that's why they should care about reading this book. Exactly. And I think it's one of the things I like to put in. Autumn (24m 6s): So you're S E this is where you're trying to figure out, you know, you go with your main character, this is who you're going to feature and highlight and do something that's going to hook the reader, catch their emotions so that they kind of want to know what's going on without giving too much away. But you know, for me, when I was doing this the first time, I have am for main characters in my first novel and my debut because I'm just sadistic and I wrote this, I, I, we, I think I counted once. How many, uh, how many characters I have by the end of book six. And I'm not nearly as good as game of Thrones, but I ha yeah, if you don't read fantasy and you try to get through mine and you don't like multiple characters are going to be like, what the heck is going on? So choosing the one main character is really hard. But I definitely learned as I grew and developed as an author that you need to pick one at the most two. And this is not the time to feature how clever you are at naming places, people, things, creatures. Literally you don't want to throw too many new weird things that people don't understand unless they've read six of your books. So pick your main character, choose the name and everything else should be her best friend. Her enemy. Stick to keeping just one name because the more weird words you throw out there sticking points and the reader's going to be like, they don't know, they don't care. There's no, they're not going to be overwhelmed by how cool you can name things are going to be like, Oh my gosh, that's a whole book going to be like looking up a thesaurus to try to figure out what's going on. So that's my biggest advice when you're doing the character thing is just, you know, awesome place names. I'm glad you can come up with them, but when you get to the description cut them out, you just want to focus on one thing and you want what the reader to focus on. Not the names, but that emotional pool of something really important. Jesper (26m 5s): Yeah, I think that's serious that you just mentioned. I think that was the one where where you emailed, when would you got to bake book six and you said, what the hell am I doing? Why? Why did I include this many characters? Now I have to complete all these acts and we were really frustrated with yourself. It wasn't, that's actually why I switched to Scrivener. I was writing book number five out of the six and I realized the plots or so complicated the subplots you have that many characters do. Autumn (26m 31s): How many subplots I was juggling. I said to heck with it and I went from pages to Scribner like that and my book plotting has never been better. Yeah, I, I don't think it's on on writing, but it was somewhere where I read one time that Stephen King also had a problem that he, all of a sudden you had way too many characters in the book and he had no idea what to do. Jesper (26m 53s): So, so he just blew the whole thing up and killed most of them. And then that was salt. Yes. This is a total tangent, but I read a great, a great men today that said, yes, I have too many characters. I'm thinking of killing up, killing off a few of them that should really spice up my autobiography. Yeah. So okay, there's writers writing humorous. Autumn (27m 15s): So I have a few examples of ways of, you know, things I think are pretty interesting. So on a planet far from earth, descendants of a maroon space, Tyler's fight a decades long war skies, shy scholar Victoria knows nothing of this conflict and felt pirates kidnapped her to sell her to the sadistic tyrant behind it. And so you know, those are getting on you. You were trying to find a way of giving some, a little bit of a setting, a little bit of an emotion, some kind of nuance of who the character is without throwing out, you know, they could have send it out the name with a plan that they could've sent out. So many other things that name of the places woman was living, but you just want to have the only real name is your main character. And then trying to find some ways of, you know, you know, emotions she's been kidnapped. Do you kind of draw in the reader to keep going to the next part emptied and the next part is inciting incident. Um, so that's probably sounds familiar to most of you I would think. Jesper (28m 22s): But, uh, so the, the inciting incident from a blip, blip perspective. So that should be a big revelation. Eh, I don't know. It could be like Frodo receiving the ring or somebody who's on the run or perhaps something happens that no one expected, you know, the, the trick is just to ensure that it relates to the character somehow. So it's not like in a far off land a BIC, a atomic bomb exploded. I don't know why that would happen in a fantasy novel, but just came to, but it has to, I mean, unless it's because, uh, like, uh, radiation will come to the character in 24 hours or what do I know? You know, unless it's something that affects the character, then it doesn't qualify as an inciting incident. From a blog perspective. It has to be effecting the character. And again, you're probably looking at something like only a paragraph long or something like that. Nothing more. Yes. And I like to say about this. So I mean this is one where you can actually use your inciting incident from the novel. Autumn (29m 24s): So if you've, if you use the plotting, if you use even just the seven stages in your crafting the blurb, you and I, we've talked about this, I tend to actually sort of develop a theme in almost a rough blurb before I start writing cause I kind of know what I'm writing. It's a good way of building out the whole novel outline. So this one, it helps to use your inside the incident. I know a lot of authors who they feel like they're writing this blurb and what they're trying to put in here is actually the climax. And that's too far along your, that's way too much information. You just, your goal as you're writing your description is to get the reader to get through that first couple of chapters of your novels just until that's where they're going to sell that they're going to be so hooked on the character. And what's happening that they don't care. There'll be like, there'll be surprised by what's coming in the climax as well. So this really is when you're writing your description, you're kind of only focusing on that first third if he'd been that much of your novel. So really this might be the inciting incident that you know, the reader is going to get to in the first chapter, two, three chapters. So they're going to get to this incident pretty quickly. But that's very satisfying for them because they kind of like go, Oh, this is what this, you know, this is why there, they read the description and they go by the novel. So they wanted to have that solution. But by the time they get to that resolution of what they read, the description for they're already so invested in the book. They read another a hundred thousand words, not a problem. Yeah. That's should be the aim. And then the next book in the next book. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, because the next one is escalate tension. Jesper (31m 2s): So I think that that builds on what you just said as well because it's more about finding like that next beat that directly affects the protectionist after the inciting incident. So you're basically, I don't think it would be correct to say that you are building like a short like mini mini story in the, in the blurb because that's not quite what you're doing but, but it builds upon itself. So you have a tag line, which when people read it, it should prompt them to say, okay, that's interesting. Let me read a bit more than, than if they read the next paragraph would, was to coach introduction and say, okay, that sounds interesting. I read a bit more. And then the inciting incident stopped to pull them in and then you get to escalate tension, which then just builds on what came before. So it's more like you, you keep them reading and you're sucking them into basically drive them down the funnel until they get to the next step. Step number five, um, where you are trying to make the sales basically. So that's, that's the underlying idea. And I know that sounds simple, but it's absolutely not, is not and for this one. Autumn (32m 9s): This is the part that it's actually useful to ask questions and you want to show clear stakes. You know, this is where you can say will they survive, will you know or will they be defeated? These are the ones where you're asking those questions. And so if you are following like the seven steps of story structure, this is sort of those initial openings of the reaction phase where the character is reeling, they're questioning, you know, they want to go back to to what would their life life was like before or they don't. But you're of asking those questions. That character is basically dealing with right after the inciting incident in the story. So this is where you want to look for those sorts of emotions to pull out. And these are, like I said, this is a great question, great place to actually ask questions. Don't answer them. Let them sit there so that the reader is like, well, will they survive? They want to. You want to capture that little like, Oh my gosh, what's going on? How will they, how will they get out of this little event that you've, you've already drank the reader on to this tiny little 500 word story that you're writing? Yeah, I think for me, I, I need to be a am I view at least we need to be a bit careful here because escalate tension, that step, you need to be really careful that you're not jumping into step number five, which is dire straits because basically in step number five, you have the low point. Jesper (33m 37s): And this is where, this is the part where you can stop asking, you know, the question is how, not necessarily that you write this question but at least get the reader to ask the question in their own mind. You know, how are they going to survive this stuff? And if you already put that too much in the escalate tension step, then your blurb is gonna run out of steam into last crucial part. So you need to be really careful on how to balance it. Um, so basically you could almost view escalate tension like the bridge between the inciting incident and then the low point, maybe towards the end of the novel. So it's like what, what sits in between there that you can sort of build the tension with. So think of it like you are pushing the person reading the blurb from the inciting incident and towards like the disaster point of the novel that, that, that is going to prompt them to say, okay, nobody can survive this. And if you can get them to say that, then they will pick up the book. Because then I wanted to understand how in the world is this going to work? Autumn (34m 39s): Absolutely. Until, yeah, that's a great lead into the final paragraph. Yeah. So, so obviously you're not trying to, with dire straits, you are not trying to reveal the ending of your novel in any way or give away any twist or surprises that stuff. The point, right. So as we already said, it's, it's a teaser. Jesper (34m 60s): It's like the movie trailer. Uh, and if you think back on the movie trailers you hate the most, it's the ones that where you can sort of see what's going to happen that that's really bad. So you don't want to do that or where they take all the good scenes of the entire movie and put it in the movie trailer and like you can just watch that and skip the movie. So yeah, so the, yeah, exactly. So the idea is just to leave the reader wondering how in the world is to here, we're gonna make this, just leave them there. And then once you have left them down that fictional cliff there, you let them hang there and then you give them the cultural action. And basically culture action could be something as simple as the LA last line, just reading buy the book today or something like that. And it sounds stupid because you would think that, well, if they are sitting there, they've clicked the cover, they are on the book page, maybe on Amazon and they're reading through the entire book, aren't they're there because they want to buy the book? Yes. And most of them will probably be, but studies have shown though that a direct cultural action, like by the book today, it does increase the conversion rate. So there's no reason not to leverage that fact and just write that those few words at the end of it and, and, and just, you know, convert a few more sales. Join I mean, why not, right, exactly. I've always thought that was funny. It's was like, well wait, you there on Amazon reading the blurb and you have to tell them to go buy it. But it makes a big difference to get them emotionally hooked so that they go and press that, you know, by now or download a sample. Autumn (36m 27s): Now it really does help. And I also say there's am sometimes I like to include something called the emotional cell, which comes right after dire straights. And that's where if you happen to have some really good reviews or awards or just something else that kind of builds up like what fans are calling the new great Epic fantasy, you know, pick it up today. It doesn't hurt to have, if you have something else to put in there that's kind of an emotional sell to get them to really get excited, kind of validate you as an author or your book from other people's perspectives. They're saying, Oh yes, this is a very good book. So if you've got a a review quote or something else or an award, something you could put in there, it can really helps to ferment, Hey, this is a great book, and then tell them go get it and they will run off and go buy it. Jesper (37m 15s): Yeah, it's, it's that social proof and, and I will also say if you, let's, let's say that you release the book like five years ago and in the meantime it have accumulated maybe, I dunno, whatever hundreds of years. Let's just say that. Then don't feel too shy to to go back and update your review and just add that stuff into the, to the cultural action section here. Last autumn is saying, you know, just say like hundreds of 5.4 4.5 star reviews on Amazon or whatever. You know, just at that one line at the end there just to increase the conversion rates because at the end of the day, every single sale caps absolutely selling books. It's not like, uh, it's, it's not uploading and then the sales were just tick U U unique to convert everybody. Autumn (38m 3s): You can get to land on that landing page. Absolutely. And I will say too that there is sometimes you'll see blurbs on Amazon that go past the call to action and keep going. And I know some people really wonder about those and that's partially because Amazon and other places give you over a thousand words to put into your review. And I think, I forget who it is, I'm almost thinking of this 5,000 words. That's a lot of words and you don't have to fill it, you don't have to use it all. But there are people who know the algorithms and they know the times that they can put in their keywords fantasy blah, blah, blah. They're going to rank higher. So there is sometimes a, you know, you can have a question and answer session or an interview. I've seen those things after the call to action and I, I'm kind of ambivalent about that. I don't know how you feel about it. Jesper, I know why they're doing it. They're usually doing it to hit all the key words they need to rank higher on Amazon, but it can kind of dilute everything that came above it. Jesper (39m 7s): Yeah. In my view, you need to be really careful. You're not diluting the blurb. The blurb needs to read well and it needs to be a good blurb and stand on its own. Uh, and the Amazon algorithms are getting so smart that they actually index and read the blurb anyway. So I think you were stuffing is one of the, well, it's the old days advice. It's still good to have keywords of course, but, but then if you write a really good blurb that talks about what the book is about and it's an Epic fantasy or whatever, you know, and you're going to have the keywords there anyway. So just stuffing more and it's not going to help. Actually. I maybe from an algorithm perspective you might get a few more keywords in, but from a really friendly perspective you're going to lose. Right. So I don't know. I won't say that it cannot be done, but you really need to be careful with what you're doing if that's what you're trying to do. And I think it's just more safe not to try to be clever like that. Autumn (40m 8s): Yeah, I agree. I think that's a good way of looking at it. How you said it. It's something that used to be done. Keyword stuffing. I think we've moved beyond that. And I think if readers don't realize what it is, I just think that yeah, it's diluting it. So it's probably not current best practice, but you still see it done. But, and maybe you've done it so you might need to go back and Hey, update your burp blurbs. It doesn't hurt to double check. You know, your blurbs after even a couple of years as your book ages and see, you know, make sure that it still sounds as good. And like I said, sometimes if you read your readers' comments, you'll find some new new things to add. And that's always a good thing. So you might be able to update your blurb and make it more exciting. And maybe you pick up a few more readers. Yeah, that's the cool thing about being an indie author. It's so easy to do these updates. Uh, it, you know, you can always go in, you can upload a new blurb on, on your book and it, it takes like 10 minutes, you know, it's so incredibly easy. And in all the days that was, would have been impossible, but nowadays is so incredibly easy. Jesper (41m 11s): So, you know, if your blurb is not working, if it's not converting Ville and all this stuff, you know, try to write a new one and to do something differently within. And of course, if, if you need help, uh, then, uh, as we set up on the top, uh, I actually wrote an entire step by step guide on how to write not only just a blurb, but actually a fantasy book description. So it's specifically focusing on fantasy book descriptions and uh, allow the link in the, in the show notes for that. And uh, it comes with a lot of examples. It tells you exactly what to do step-by-step. It also has a, a bonus chapter on a nonfiction blurbs. So for those of you who might be looking at writing nonfiction like autumn and I do a then am, there is a bonus chapter on, on what to focus on for nonfiction perhaps as well. So next Monday we are going to share the three pieces of advice that we wish we had received when we first started out. Yay. Narrator (42m 14s): If you like what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support the amwritingfantasy podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join autumn and Yesper on patrion.com/amwritingfantasy for as little as a dollar a month. You'll get awesome rewards and keep the amwritingfantasy podcast going. Stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

Welcome to the first official episode of the Rebel Author Podcast where I talk to Adam Croft about all things indie author mindset, wide marketing and a sprinkling of banter. The post 001 – The Indie Author Mindset with Adam Croft appeared first on SACHA BLACK.

Want to hear how a world-wide bestselling author got to where he is today?  Join us as we talk to UK crime novelist Adam Croft about his writing career, including how he generates his ideas, how he writes, and how he creates those amazing hooks that he's so well known for. (No, really, would you murder your wife to save your daughter? And what would happen if you were married to a serial killer?)  He also discusses the mindset shift he had to have before he could become a bestselling author and why he believes the best way to be successful as an Indie is by having a long term, organic, business-minded view of publishing.  We loved talking to him for his sensible, rational view of publishing, and also for his smooth British accent...and you will too! 

My guest today is Adam Croft. With more than a million books sold to date, he is is one of the most successful independently published authors in the world. His psychological thrillers include the hugely successful Her Last Tomorrow and Tell Me I'm Wrong, and his Knight & Culverhouse crime thriller series has sold more than […]