Podcast appearances and mentions of alex newton

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Best podcasts about alex newton

Latest podcast episodes about alex newton

The Self Publishing Show
SPS-424: What's the big deal about Romantasy? With Alex Newton

The Self Publishing Show

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 26, 2024 41:37


Join James and the numbers man, Alex Newton from K-lytics who digs beneath the Romantasy data and explains current trends

Mission Bestseller - Self-Publishing Strategien & Tipps
Die 28 besten Blogs und Podcasts für Selfpublishing-Autoren und Selfpublishing-Autorinnen

Mission Bestseller - Self-Publishing Strategien & Tipps

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 3, 2023 34:03


An Informationen mangelt es heute wahrlich nicht – das Internet ist voll von ihnen. Aus der Vielzahl der Informationen diejenigen auszuwählen, die dich als Selfpublishing-Autor, als Selfpublishing-Autorin wirklich weiterbringen, ist daher essentiell. Ich habe dir 2018 mit einer Zusammenstellung von nützlichen Blogs und Podcasts für Autorinnen und Autoren einen Teil der Arbeit abgenommen: https://mission-bestseller.com/blogs-und-podcasts-die-du-als-self-publishing-autorin-oder-autor-kennen-musst-188/ Mittlerweile sind 5 Jahre vergangen, manche der Blogs/Podcast sind nicht mehr aktiv, andere empfehle ich nicht mehr mit der gleichen Überzeugung weiter wie damals. Demgegenüber stehen die Blogs und Podcasts für Autoren und Autorinnen, die immer noch hochwertigen Inhalt liefern und viele neue Blumen haben zu blühen begonnen. Grund genug dir eine neue, aktuelle Auswahl an Informationsquellen für Selfpublishing-Autoren und Selfpublisherinnen zu präsentieren, die du kennen musst.

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Cleve Gaddis Real Estate Radio Show
Roofing Revelations with Expert Alex Newton

Cleve Gaddis Real Estate Radio Show

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 16, 2023 12:00


Welcome to another episode of GoGaddis Real Estate Radio, your trusted source for essential real estate knowledge and advice, ensuring your property transactions are smooth and informed. I'm Cleve Gaddis, your guide in the world of real estate. Segment Teaser: Today, we set our sights on one of the most critical elements of your home – the roof. It's the guardian of your abode, protecting it from the elements, and it's time we dive into the depths of roofing, its age, leaks, repairs, and when it's time to consider a full replacement. Our guide on this roofing journey is the seasoned expert, Alex Newton, Territory Manager with Fraser Roofing, LLC. We'll unravel the mysteries of roofing products and shingles, gaining insights into their variations and where architectural shingles find their place. Ever heard of "roof washing" or "soft washing"? Alex will enlighten us on these practices and why they matter for the health of your roof. Did you know modern shingles are equipped to fight off algae with copper granules? Some even boast a 50-year algae warranty, thanks to innovations like Scotchgard. Discover how these technologies protect your home. One common question many homeowners face is whether to repair or replace their roof. Alex will share Fraser Roofing's perspective and help you make an informed decision on what's best for your situation. We also tackle the often confusing world of roof insurance claims. What should homeowners do when their roof sustains damage? Alex shares his expert advice, making the process easier to navigate. Visit GoGaddisRadio.com to engage in our real estate conversations, ask questions, and share your ideas. Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast to stay updated with the latest trends and expert advice in the real estate arena. Your roof is a vital part of your home, and understanding its dynamics is essential. Join us for this in-depth exploration of roofs and ensure you're well-equipped to make informed decisions about your property. From shingles to roof claims, GoGaddis Real Estate Radio is your trusted partner in all things real estate. Host of GoGaddis Radio, Cleve Gaddis, has been a fixture in metro Atlanta real estate since 2000. He has served Atlanta since 1987 by helping thousands of buyers and sellers make smart decisions. As a Co-Team Leader of Modern Traditions Realty Group, he is able to help clients and real estate agents alike. He has the heart of a teacher and is passionate about helping listeners learn the ups and downs and the ins and outs of smart home buying and selling all throughout metro Atlanta. If you have a question for Cleve, click here : https://gogaddisradio.com/ask-a-question If you are looking to buy or sell your home with Cleve, click here : https://moderntraditionsrealty.net/contact If you are looking to join a real estate team, click here : https://moderntraditionsrealty.net/career-opportunity Vote for Modern Traditions Realty Group for Best Real Estate Team in Gwinnett County, click here: https://www.guidetogwinnett.com/best-of/vote/real-estate To register for our Holiday Extravaganza, click here: https://www.moderntraditionsrealty.com/holiday-extravaganza

SPA Girls Podcast
SPA Girls Podcast – EP417 – How To Correctly Select Your Amazon Categories – with Alex Newton

SPA Girls Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 10, 2023 75:10


Amazon has moved the furniture again! This episode, Alex will help explain Amazon's category changes, what they mean for authors, and how best to categorize your books now.

SPA Girls Podcast
SPA Girls Podcast – EP417 – How To Correctly Select Your Amazon Categories – with Alex Newton

SPA Girls Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 10, 2023 75:10


Amazon has moved the furniture again! This episode, Alex will help explain Amazon's category changes, what they mean for authors, and how best to categorize your books now.

Cleve Gaddis Real Estate Radio Show
Termite Letters and Bonds with Alex Newton of Northwest Exterminating

Cleve Gaddis Real Estate Radio Show

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 19, 2023 12:00


On this episode of the Go Gaddis Real Estate Radio Show, Cleve interviews exterminating expert, Alex Newton of Northwest Exterminating on the show to discuss termite bonds, termite letters, and their value to homeowners. Host of GoGaddis Radio, Cleve Gaddis, has been a fixture in metro Atlanta real estate since 2000. He has served Atlanta since 1987 by helping thousands of buyers and sellers make smart decisions. As a Co-Team Leader of Modern Traditions Realty Group, he is able to help clients and real estate agents alike. He has the heart of a teacher and is passionate about helping listeners learn the ups and downs and the ins and outs of smart home buying and selling all throughout metro Atlanta. If you have a question for Cleve, click here : https://gogaddisradio.com/ask-a-question If you are looking to buy or sell your home with Cleve, click here : https://moderntraditionsrealty.net/contact If you are looking to join a real estate team, click here : https://moderntraditionsrealty.net/career-opportunity

The MTPConnect Podcast
Navi Medical's Breakthrough Smart Catheter Delivering Better Care for Critically Ill Children

The MTPConnect Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 1, 2023 26:04


Tens of thousands of central venous catheters designed for adult bodies are inserted into the delicate veins of newborns in Australian intensive care settings every year for life-saving care. But positioning the catheter tip can be challenging and if not done correctly, can lead to dangerous complications for children who are already critically ill.  Navi Medical Technologies is developing the Neonav, an ECG tip location system to help guide clinicians during insertion of a central line, to get it right the first time and then to check it doesn't move. Navi's ‘smart catheter' was recently granted Breakthrough Device Designation by the FDA in mid-December 2022; and the company was awarded funding in MTPConnect's Clinical Translation and Commercialisation Medtech Program. And further clinical trials are due to start soon.Navi's Co-founders, CEO Alex Newton and Co-CFO Brad Bergmann, join host Caroline Duell to discuss how the idea of neonatologist Dr Christiane Theda has become a reality, the benefits of the FDA's medical device programs and tips on how to successfully grow a start-up and attract funding support. 

Cleve Gaddis Real Estate Radio Show
Interview with Alex Newton about Bed Bugs and How to Control Them

Cleve Gaddis Real Estate Radio Show

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 20, 2023 12:00


On this week's episode of Go Gaddis Real Estate Radio, Cleve has Alex Newton, Inspection Specialist at Northwest Exterminating on the show to discuss bed bugs. Cleve and Alex get into the weeds about everything you can do to avoid an infestation and get rid of them. Host of GoGaddis Radio, Cleve Gaddis, has been a fixture in metro Atlanta real estate since 2000. He has served Atlanta since 1987 by helping thousands of buyers and sellers make smart decisions. As a Co-Team Leader of Modern Traditions Realty Group, he is able to help clients and real estate agents alike. He has the heart of a teacher and is passionate about helping listeners learn the ups and downs and the ins and outs of smart home buying and selling all throughout metro Atlanta. If you have a question for Cleve, click here : https://gogaddisradio.com/ask-a-question If you are looking to buy or sell your home with Cleve, click here : https://www.moderntraditionsrealty.com/contact.html If you bought a home last year, don't forget to file your Homestead Exemption! https://www.moderntraditionsrealty.com/homestead-exemption If you are looking to join a real estate team, click here : https://www.moderntraditionsrealty.com/career-opportunity

Cleve Gaddis Real Estate Radio Show
Are you prepared for Winter Wildlife? Interview with Alex Newton of Northwest Exterminating

Cleve Gaddis Real Estate Radio Show

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 27, 2022 12:00


Are you Prepared for Winter Wildlife? Wildlife creatures are looking to your home for warmth, making it the perfect time to ensure your home has the proper preventive measures in place. Here is a Wildlife Prep Checklist: All gaps and holes are sealed Attic insulation is up to date Roof and siding are in good condition Crawl space is sealed to eliminate entry points Northwest's Wildlife Experts support your home through the exclusion and removal of wildlife such as raccoons, possums, squirrels, rats and more!

Cleve Gaddis Real Estate Radio Show
Alex Newton, Inspection Specialist with Northwest Exterminating: Are You Prepared for Fall Pests?

Cleve Gaddis Real Estate Radio Show

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 7, 2022 12:00


Today on Go Gaddis Real Estate Radio, we interview Alex Newton, Inspection Specialist with Northwest Exterminating to discuss, "Are You Prepared for Fall Pests?"

Cleve Gaddis Real Estate Radio Show
What Are Pantry Pests and How Do I Know if Have Them? ft. Alex Newton

Cleve Gaddis Real Estate Radio Show

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 12, 2022 12:00


I was joined by Alex Newton, Inspection Specialist with Northwest Exterminating, and we asked him: -Can you name a few of these pests that might be found in our pantries? -Do they cause real damage? -How do I know if I have pantry pests? -How do I get rid of them and prevent them from coming back?

Author Stories - Author Interviews, Writing Advice, Book Reviews
Using Data To Find Your Indie Success with Alex Newton Of K-lytics | Story Craft Cafe Episode 42

Author Stories - Author Interviews, Writing Advice, Book Reviews

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 22, 2022 56:01


As we continue our #indiesummmer coverage, we shift gears a little bit to talk to Alex Newton from K-lytics. While writing is most definitely an art, publishing is a business. Did you know that there are ways for you to find out exactly who your competition is, and how saturated a particular genre or sub genre is? Alex Newton has done just that and today he shares some of his wisdom with us. Whether you are an indie author, or have your sights set on a traditional publishing career, Alex has information that can help us all.  K-lytics

The Story Craft Cafe Podcast
Using Data To Find Your Indie Success with Alex Newton Of K-lytics | Story Craft Cafe Episode 42

The Story Craft Cafe Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 22, 2022 56:01


As we continue our #indiesummmer coverage, we shift gears a little bit to talk to Alex Newton from K-lytics. While writing is most definitely an art, publishing is a business. Did you know that there are ways for you to find out exactly who your competition is, and how saturated a particular genre or sub genre is? Alex Newton has done just that and today he shares some of his wisdom with us. Whether you are an indie author, or have your sights set on a traditional publishing career, Alex has information that can help us all.  K-lytics

Cleve Gaddis Real Estate Radio Show
7 Interesting Facts About Mosquitos

Cleve Gaddis Real Estate Radio Show

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 15, 2022 12:00


In this segment, I was joined by Alex Newton, Inspection Specialist with Northwest Exterminating, and he shared 7 Interesting Facts about Mosquitos.

Cleve Gaddis Real Estate Radio Show
Common Snakes Found In GA & Differences Between Them

Cleve Gaddis Real Estate Radio Show

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 4, 2022 12:00


In this segment, I am joined by Rob Bounds, Wildlife Branch Manager with Northwest Exterminating and Alex Newton, Inspection Specialist also with Northwest Exterminating to discuss: -What 4 Common Snakes are found in GA? Which are venomous/ non-venomous? -Where are Cottonmouths located in GA? -How do you tell the difference between a water snake and a cottonmouth? -Where are some of the common places snakes might be found around a home? -What is the first thing one should do if they find a snake in or around their home?

Cleve Gaddis Real Estate Radio Show
Can Bees Really Do Damage to Your Home? Are There Good Bees and Bad Bees?

Cleve Gaddis Real Estate Radio Show

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 6, 2022 12:00


In this segment, I am joined by Rob Bounds and Alex Newton from Northwest Exterminating to talk about how bees can damage your home and if there are good bees and bad bees.

Cleve Gaddis Real Estate Radio Show
Termite Talk With Alex Newton, Inspection Specialist at Northwest Exterminating

Cleve Gaddis Real Estate Radio Show

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 11, 2022 12:00


In this segment, I am joined by Alex Newton, Inspection Specialist at Northwest Exterminating, to talk about What is a Termite Bond? The difference between Repair/Retreat and Retreat only? Why is it important to have a termite inspection when buying a home? Who pays for it? What is a GA Wood Infestation report? Are Termite Bonds worth the cost? Are termites common in GA and why?

Behind the Sport
Alex Newton

Behind the Sport

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 15, 2022 77:03


An avid indoor karter, which we won't hold against him, he tried his hand at Sim Racing where he ended up on the radar of quite a few people in the WA Motorsport scene before finally stepping into an Excel, this week's guest celebrated what a lot of people perhaps may not celebrate .. a 7th position!

SEN Breakfast
Australian Institute of Sport director Alex Newton (23/12/21)

SEN Breakfast

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 22, 2021 9:44


How the federal government has granted the Olympic program the funding for a full four-year cycle and what it means for the athletes, why the national women's football team is at the top of the investment range, how they forecast whether sports such as surfing or skating will come into calculations late, and more.

SEN Breakfast
Summer Breakfast Full Show (23/12/21)

SEN Breakfast

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 22, 2021 117:26


The case for a three or four-day weekend, our Festivus grievances and an introduction to Surstromming, before Brendan Scott from WCG Backyard Cricket (39:50), the AFL players who will be 'like a new signing' for their clubs next season (53:20), Australian Institute of Sport director Alex Newton (1:19:38), Questions Without Notice (1:29:52), and Australian tennis player Daria Saville (1:44:17).

The Self Publishing Show
SPS-308: Foreign Market Opportunities for Authors - with Alex Newton

The Self Publishing Show

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 10, 2021 66:46


The pandemic shook up readers' buying habits. But how did it change the way we publish books around the world?

Mind Your Business for Authors
Self Publishing Market Trends October 2021

Mind Your Business for Authors

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 10, 2021 49:37


What's better than getting the latest update on the current publishing market trends? Learning about new categories to exploit on Amazon.But wait, there's more…Alex Newton drops knowledge on what's going on in Romance, Science Fiction, and Mystery, Thriller, Suspense.If you're serious about understanding how publishing works and the forces of supply and demand, then take the time to watch Alex present the most up-to-date intelligence on the KDP publishing market.His report includes ranking results, estimates of the Kindle payout pool, and so much more.https://k-lytics.com/

New Author Podcast
Episode 142 – You’ve Really Got Some Wallflowers PTSD!

New Author Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 20, 2021 47:38


The super siblings are back to talk about their writing process, their attempt to publish their next book and their current addictions. Learn how they are selling their existing books while working on the next book in their series. Other things that get mentioned are: Lindsay is back! She has book cover news. Perry Mason talk Are the Amazon ads working? Lindsay’s bedroom has turned into a movie theatre And she uses Ted some more! Links we talked about Alex Newton and K-Lytics Reports: Link Get Amelia’s Genre Sheet: Link And Listen to her Podcast: Link Other Links Esther Trosclair did our logo Caro Begin at gocreate.me did our websites Check out Caro’s Youtube Channel: Link Our podcast music was done at https://musicradiocreative.com/ Check out Jerry and Lindsay’s Amazing Editor: CB Moore Buy us a Coffee (Actually dinner at 20 Books Read more...

The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast
The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 125 – What is Deep POV and How Can it Help Your Story?

The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later May 17, 2021 43:26


Do you want to make your characters and writing pop? There are some pro techniques to enhance a character and connect the reader with her/him. One of them is using Deep POV. Join us for a discussion on Deep POV. What is it? How do you do it? And when are there times you can purposefully not use it? We've got you covered in this episode! To check out the K-Lytics report we mentioned, head over to https://k-lytics.com/dap/a/?a=7419&p=k-lytics.com/epic-fantasy And you can check out our book Plot Development here: https://books2read.com/Plot-Development 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.  Narrator (3s): 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. And 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 on to the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt. Jesper (31s): Hello, I'm Jesper. This is episode 125 of The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast. And it's now time to discuss Deep point Of view, how we can Help you Story. I think that should be an interesting conversation, Autumn. Autumn (50s): I think so. I liked this one because you know what I like to put up the point of view, and this is like one of my favorite aspects of writing. And so we were just looking at what people liked as well on the, some of the pastor podcast episodes. And it seems like the ones that have to do with writing crafts are quite popular together with our very silly monthly ones where, where we just like go out on something as well. Those are my two favorite podcasts. So I'm with the listeners and I guess it means we have to do more of them. Right? Jesper (1m 22s): Probably we shouldn't do it like two or three times a month with it just to at least a half. I, that might be a bit too much, Autumn (1m 29s): but we can't have a whole, like there has to be a month dedicated to podcast in a room with nothing but a stupid tub, top 10 list. Jesper (1m 42s): All right. Maybe not, but we'll be fine, but how are things going on you and all of them. Autumn (1m 50s): I don't know if they are good as you know, but the listeners might not be as I just got back from a trip from seeing my parents, which I haven't been down to their house since like pre pandemic, of course, because we are a good little kids, but it was so nice and also so hard because they seem to have, like, it seems like everyone saying like the pandemic was like, what a century. They seem to age on way too much. On the last year, it was just terrifying. But you know, they take their naps and I got to spend some time with them and we went, we did go out, I got my first vaccinations, you know, 50%, 80% protected. I know it's a lot. So I have my next one scheduled. Autumn (2m 30s): And so we, we did go to work to do breweries and we went out just a little bit and then it could be a huge tide dinner or, you know, I'm a foodie yellow food. So I was making potstickers and Tom got gum, like Nike pronounce it Now, but I made it a coconut based supe. And it was just, honestly, it would be nice to go and visit your parents again after such a long while. Oh, it was eight drank too much beer drank too much wine, ate too much sugar. It's all of a good thing. It was a lot to like, exactly. You got to hang out with my folks. And they were definitely, they are definitely my, some of my favorite people on the planet. So it was really excellent. Autumn (3m 10s): And I got to see my nephew and he gave me, and I don't know if you saw the picture I shared on Instagram and Facebook, he gave me a 4k monitor, a 32 and just give it to monitor. So I, well, he wasn't using it and he does coding. He does, he was doing a little bit of a graphic design, but he's going more into coding. So it was like, I don't need for K to read code has got to monitor. I was like 24 inch side by side. He's good. But yeah, he didn't need this one anymore. And he knows I've been doing graphic design on my 13 inch Mac pro. And then it gives me this more as you put it, it was like, I could bring it to you, but it takes up my whole bag. Autumn (3m 51s): Wow. So I'm so excited. It was like the best late birthday present ever. It is fast. Spectacular. I have it. Yeah. I have to find a place to put it in our cabin Jesper (4m 4s): because it's too big for a table. Autumn (4m 7s): Yeah, exactly. It is. It is too big for a table. And so yeah, we were in, and we don't have a ton of wall space cause this captain has a ton of window. So like you don't get there or there are, so I can't wait though. And I already, yeah, I already was playing with a cover on it and going, Oh, I need to fix that. I couldn't even see it before. So, and it was a wonderful trip, Jesper (4m 30s): But we also have a trip that we went to visit my brother and his wife this past weekend, which is probably the first trip we've had in close to a year, I would say too to COVID-19 as well. And it was really nice. And the, the, the weather was good enough for us to sit outside a car, a couple of hours on the terrorist as well. So that was, that was good. Yeah. I like that. Yeah. But also over the past week, I've started watching a new show on Amazon prime. Have you watched the American gods? Autumn (5m 5s): Oh, no, I haven't. Not at all. I have seen it a little bit too. It, Jesper (5m 8s): I am only two episodes a season, but I would have to say, I mean, I avoided For, I don't know quite why, but for awhile I just felt like, know, it's not my thing. I don't want to watch it, but then I thought, yeah, okay, I'll give it a shot. And I started watching it. It's really good. I mean, after the first two episodes, so I'm like, Oh my God, I'm hooked. You know what? It's like, it delivers Autumn (5m 34s): Its kind of the way Jesper (5m 35s): That we liked to ride stores as well. Do you know? It it's very easy. You don't quite understand what's going on it. So it's kind of a bit of a mystery thing going on in there. Like, and, and the main character does not understand either. So he is trying to figure out what is going on here? Why are these people so weird? Did this? I think they are God, but they are behaving really weird and they can do all kinds of supernatural things, but it's not over done. Like is just small things. Like he flips a coin and every time it lands on heads, for example, just like every single time, just small stuff like that. And I still don't quite understand after two episodes of what they're trying to do and what does God actually wants the main character to do. Jesper (6m 15s): I don't know. And, and so that's the main character doesn't know either, but I like it. It is very intriguing and I want to watch more. Autumn (6m 28s): Oh cool. Well that's my husband has some trainings through may. Like he'll be gone half the month at two different times, so maybe I'll go check it out, but it sounds like it will keep me in touch with, Narrator (6m 38s): We can go on to the internet with The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast. Jesper (6m 43s): So back in episode 122, so that's not that long ago, but we had Alex Newton on from K Lytics and she had some great market research about the FANTASY Shamara and Alex were so incredibly kind afterwards that he should be at the latest detailed Fantasy market report with me. So I thought I would summarize the conclusions from that report here for everyone's benefit. Right. Autumn (7m 13s): Nice. Yeah, that sounds great. I can't wait to look at it when you summarize it and I know Jesper (7m 18s): You don't mind them. So I've picked out like what is like maybe eight, seven, eight different key points here that I thought I could just a waffle off here and hopefully be a bit helpful as well. Excellent. So first of all, after that, A romance in thrillers Fantasy remains the third highest selling Shamrock of The on the Amazon Kindle platforms. So, and during the first COVID-19 lockdown period, there was a very clear and very sharp drop in sales of APEC fantasy novels. Jesper (7m 58s): But the good news is that here in 2021 sales have been trending upwards again. So I don't know why people don't want to read Fantasy when they're on lock down, but I will hold it against them. I'll I'll have a grudge about that. Autumn (8m 14s): Yeah, I agree. I mean, seriously, you're stuck at home and maybe it's like too, like you can't go out and be in a fantasy world for a long time. Jesper (8m 23s): I would go. So the Epic Fantasy market is quite large. K Lytics measured around 800,000 a month in royalties being paid for Epic Fantasy. So that's pretty good. Mmm, wow. But it also shows actually there is in the top of the Epic FANTASY Shaundra, the competition is quite hard up there. So it means that it, it, it is a pretty good to write it in because there was a lot of readers, but to be on the bestseller lists and the two earn like on the top of the top of the chart, you have to sell a lot of books. Jesper (9m 12s): So it's not easy to get to the top of those lists, but, but at least there was a lot of readers. So I think that's good news. Autumn (9m 22s): Yeah. Yeah. That is good news. I mean even a small piece of a very big pie. It was a piece. It still tastes good. Yeah. Jesper (9m 30s): Maybe depending on what kind of pie it is. I guess I don't like Apple. Is that enough? It's true. I feel like most people like Apple. Yeah. Autumn (9m 40s): Well, you know, its kind of bland. Yeah. Well it, over here that there was a few States where they built cheddar cheese on top the top of the pie and I ain't touching that. Can Jesper (9m 50s): We do like a chocolate pie? Is that possible? Autumn (9m 54s): We Can do chocolate. I prefer coconut, but we can do a chocolate coconut and that'd be good. Yeah. Jesper (9m 59s): I don't think this is in Decatur or K Lytics report. So the next one and this one will interest you Autumn. So if one looks at the top 250 covers in the best seller list, then about half of them show symbols or scenery on the cover as opposed to any characters. Wow. Autumn (10m 26s): That's so interesting. It was surprising for me because me as a reader, I look at it and I'm like, eh, you know, what does it tell me about the Story? It's a pretty Fantasy picture, kind of interesting, but every time I've used a symbol picture as well. So I find it as interesting as well, Jesper (10m 43s): Because then it goes onto say that 23% of covers shows a male, usually like warrior type of character on the cover. Whereas 14% shows a female character. But the interesting part though, is that okay if you compare the sales rank between the books that has a female character on the cover, versus those that has a male character on the cover, the female covers actually tend to rank higher than the ones with a male Now. And I think that's a very interesting to know as, as well. 'cause if you look at the fact that there is 23% of the mails on the covers, you might go to the conclusion to say, Oh, well that means that it's better to have the males on the cover it, but actually it's the opposite. Jesper (11m 32s): It's better to have females. Autumn (11m 35s): Yeah. What do you need to have more, have more female cover? We have an Elvin female assessment. Yeah. Jesper (11m 43s): Got it. Autumn (11m 44s): Yeah. Well we can do, how can I put her into book one? Alright. We won't get in to cover a spectrum and other good Jesper (11m 52s): News for those who write military, that's a category on Amazon and hear the sales rank versus competition ratio is quite in your favor. So in other words, it's a pretty good category to publish your books in. So I think that's a good information to have if you're right. That kind of book. Autumn (12m 17s): Yeah. Yeah. Or if you're thinking of writing that down Jesper (12m 20s): Pricing, so $3, $3 99 and $4 99 is the most frequent price point among FA Epic fantasy books on Amazon. But the highest yielding price point is nine 99 followed by seven 99, which I think is pretty good news for us because we are planning to sell around six 99, seven, nine to nine or something like that. So that's pretty good. That is the highest, highest kneeling price point. Autumn (12m 52s): Yeah. That is really interesting. I'm surprised you think. Why do you think that counts box sites are those individually books? Jesper (12m 59s): I think it is. I think in part it has to do with the traditionally published books where the chart's more and there are, that's probably a school's to data in a bit, I guess M but what it does prove though, is the people who are willing to pay the higher price point for books a day. So if you make sure that your covers are indistinguishable from the traditional publishing, meaning that they look just as a professional, then there is, there should be no reason why people wouldn't want to buy it. And at six 99, seven 99 or something like that, even nine 99. I know we talked with the actually twice, I think, but way back when this podcast was a YouTube channel, we talked to Joseph Malick twice and he sells his, all his books are at nine 99. Jesper (13m 49s): So it's yeah, it's a possible, right. But anyway, three 99, four 99, that's the most frequent price points. So if you want to stay within the frame of what people are used to, then that's probably the price point to go for it, but we are going to sell out books a bit higher than that, but it's up to you. Of course. Autumn (14m 7s): Sounds exciting. And also Jesper (14m 10s): About two thirds of all the Epic fantasy books are outside Kindle unlimited. Autumn (14m 20s): Hm. Yeah. Interesting. So there's only a third that are in Kindle unlimited. Oh it's so that is, it makes me wonder if the people, if that's a smaller pool so that they are actually doing well, there's less competition. Or if readers just prefer to be outside of it, you know, there are wide, these books are, or why it's not a hundred a month. Jesper (14m 40s): I can only say got my gut feeling. Is that a, I think there is room to play in Kindle unlimited. If you put Epic FANTASY in there. I think, I think that you can get a new readers because there's not enough Epic fantasy books in Kindle unlimited. They want to read. So I think it's probably a pretty good place to place your books, but that is just my gut feeling. I don't have any data to back that up. So there is a ton more stuff in this report. So if you are curious, do you have listener? I should. Yes. Did you go and check out the full report is mighty helpful in order to understand what is working and what is trending in the Epic Fantasy market. Jesper (15m 23s): And I only gave you the highlights here. So we'll add a link in the show notes so that you can check it out yourself. The full report will cost you $37, but it is well, well worth it and on to perhaps a good place to stop is with a definition. Autumn (15m 47s): Why is it? Oh, that's all it's boring sometimes. You know, I think it was a very good way to start though. It's true. Well, it should be, it helps to clarify things, but yeah. So Deep point of view that has usually referring to a third person limited, which I think that sounds even more confusing point of view. So a third person is when you use, he, she, his, her, you know that tight, but rather than I, which is a first person and limited means not omniscience. You literally are like Writing along on the character. Scholder you can only see, hear, feel, touch what that character feels seasoned here is in touch. Autumn (16m 27s): So if someone has a running up to the character from behind the character is not going to see it, they're going to see what's in front of them, like their best friend standing up in throwing an X and thinking, Oh my God, why is he is trying to get out of my best friend or trying to kill me? Well, really throwing an ax at the, you know, the ogre coming up from behind. So those are the types of stories we're talking about. So if you write it in first person and your property, you are already limited and you are already sort of in a Deep point of view, your really grounded anchored into that character. So what we're doing is we're looking at anchoring the reader into a character, but using third-person now, why is a third person useful for Fantasy Writing? I know, you know this one, right? Jesper (17m 9s): Well actually, before getting that far, I was also thinking that, Oh, maybe I I've tried to prepare some examples just to a few prepare. I always plan things on them. Why do you keep pointing out things? Autumn (17m 29s): Yeah, because I think I just looked at the title of the day and said, Oh yeah, I'm good to know Jesper (17m 33s): This way. I plan things. It was just to try to give you a couple of examples of that. So maybe, maybe make it a bit more real, but basically you, so we are trying to, with the point of view, we are trying to sort of hit a style of writing where we immersed to read as much as possible into the point of view character. And I think it's basically like, if you imagine watching your favorite films or TV shows, you know, we are trying to mimic in the Writing that we only experience in CS and knows what the character knows a and thereby we are limiting the narrative, so to speak. Jesper (18m 19s): So I tried to make one of each, so an example where we have like a third person limited, like that's what most of us Fantasy authors normally. Right. And then another example with a Deep point of view. And I don't know how well I'm going to succeed here. So you'll have your own, my edit there anyway, Autumn. So you will have to edit stuff. Okay. This is the regular third person limited. Okay, ready? I need to do my voice storytelling my voice. I probably can't keep that up without a laughing. Okay, fine. Are you hurt the King's voice? Booming in the great hall, calling him in the way he had come to know signifying the King's anger. Jesper (19m 7s): What had he done wrong? Fi find out. I didn't know yet if a familiar unease ceased his stomach. Okay. So that was like third person limited, pretty standard regular. And now my attempt of a transforming the same scene into a Deep point of view. So, and now you are the editor here. Remember the penetrating force of the King's voice echo throughout the great hall. Find out, felt it in his bones. And as he had so many times before, what has he done wrong this time? Come here right now. Jesper (19m 47s): Shout at the King as if he was nothing but a laptop find out it felt the knot twisting and tightening in her stomach with every step toward the red faced man. Autumn (19m 60s): Yeah. That's perfect. Congratulations. I think that's fantastic. I think it's pretty obvious. Yeah. Jesper (20m 5s): Obvious. Which one is the most engaging, right? Autumn (20m 11s): Oh yeah. The second one that was just, I mean, you know, to me, it's so brilliant because you really, you feel it. It's not, you're not just being told what's is going on with the character or what he's thinking and feeling that you kind of, you feel it, you were like, Oh, the gut twisting, you know, the anxiety. It, it heightens to me like, if I'm thinking of it as an art terms, it's upping the contrast, your getting that really kind of gripping engagement, what you don't get with just regular sort of center or a third person limited. Yeah. You definitely don't get up. Jesper (20m 42s): All righty. You, you feel the blood boiling and all of that stuff right in that that's the way anger or the sadness or whatever the character feels that we feel it that's at least that's how I feel like Deep point of view, just bring so much more to the story. I actually learned what act in preparing, because yes, I do prepare for these episodes, all of them. But in preparing for this episode, I a, I actually learned that a star, this a Deep point of view Writing is actually only became popular in WRITING like 20 to 30 to 40 years ago. I didn't know that before or researching this. So that's that I find that quite interesting. Autumn (21m 26s): Yeah. I mean, before that, even if you look at Tolkin, it is technically omniscient, even though you're mostly staying with Frodo, but there are times token head hops because you know, no one else what other people are doing. They had more of a Narrator type of voice. Now we have more of a character. Yeah. Jesper (21m 46s): You told her why is that in the beginning? It is. It's much more akin to what you normally see in movies. And so on. I mean, I know of course you don't get under the skin of the characters in the movies, But, but watching the character's in a movie, you sorta get the feeling about their feelings. Right. So it's different from being told that The, then he went there and then he did this and, and so on. Autumn (22m 12s): Exactly. And it's, I mean, that's where you have those little tension. I think it really ups the tension to be in the point of view, even in movies, you had that moment where you might dwell on something like just the breathlessness or if a panting I have watched a movie recently were the whole seen was black. And you had just heard someone say breathing, that's a Deep point of view. So that is when you're just, everything is down to just that one little focus. And because it is so tension, field and emotion field, you really engage with the character. If the bad news is, if you hate the character, you really like, Oh, I don't think engage with this character. But if you like the character, if you were rooting for them, Oh, you are just like grip in the book or the Kindle. Jesper (22m 52s): Now I talk to my son. Well, so far away from what you were saying early on that, I completely forgot now. Autumn (23m 1s): Oh, well, why, why are there to see the author specifically writing in third person verses first person? Or what's the better angle that this is? What is the main mode? I do know there are some first-person stories out there, but majority of the authors are the right person. Jesper (23m 17s): You think the last part of it is because we like to have multiple point of view characters. And so when we write the third person limited, it, it allows us, for example, between chapter's to switch to another character. And then we are getting inside the head of that character. But if you were writing in the first person, you can see call every character. I then it would be pretty confusing for the reader who is I now? And then this is all of a sudden another person. So yeah, as you said, a fantasy novels do exist with a first person, but they are, they are pretty limited a that there is not that many of them, I think in the grand scheme of things. Yeah, Autumn (23m 55s): No, mostly urban fancy. Yeah. I think urban fantasy is mostly an AI-based Story, which surprises me. And even when I write from urban Fantasy and I always stick to a third person because I like characters that that's what Epic Fantasy I can think of Tolkien, how many doors and every one that was running her off onto this quest, all of the hobbits. I mean, there were so many characters. You could not write that in first person or he could do like, who are we here? What are we talking about? You know, I'm in small, I've got to just stick with a small, we're fine. Right? Jesper (24m 27s): Yeah. But I think as well for us, for this whole thing to actually work, you have to know your point of care, point of view characters really, really well, because otherwise you, you simply won't be able to write their personal point of view about what's going to happen. So yeah, there's a step. Autumn (24m 50s): Yeah. There is that you definitely its up and things, a notch because when you're in Deep point of view, everything comes as if it was from that character. So even your word choice, one of my examples is I had a character who hated her father. So every time I'm in her point of view, should, did she ever think of even her father, his father? No. She thought of him his first name as father. She would never say daddy or dad, because that is, you know, that's an emotional resonance. And so it is literally picking every choice your metaphors become from that character. So we should do that anyway, but you really have to do it with the point of view. Autumn (25m 30s): So you have a character that is a sailor. Is there gonna be thinking someone has a S their tents like taught the rigging? There are not going to have some things, you know, Oh, their stress, like a farmer or under the hot son. That's not what they are familiar with. You, you have to be very specific with every word choice so that you're just kind of pulling the reader in to this very narrow window of what it is like to live in. Yeah. Jesper (25m 51s): Not only that also in terms of the character's personal and motivations and the background of the character, or even, you know, like something happens and a character don't like it. Okay. So you need to know, well, the reason he doesn't like it, this because a so-and-so happened in the past and it brings back back bad memories and stuff like that sort of thing. You can not see it into the narrative unless you know it, so it puts more demand on you to have a new character creation process to really know them. Of course, a in the plotting guidebook, we wrote, we have a whole section that we'll talk you through this. We will put the link to that won in the show notes as well. Jesper (26m 32s): So, so if your interest that you can check it out at any rate, or whether you follow a guidebook all, or you do it by yourself, I think the main point is just that you really need to understand all those details about the, or otherwise it's going to be very hot. You can ride the point of view, but it's going to be very hard to do it well, unless you know those things. Autumn (26m 54s): Yes. And it does, it's going to take practice anyway. But yeah, and I think one of the other things is like you mentioned your, Your have this character reacts a certain way because of something that happened in the past, but not always jumping back into that flashback, or even explaining like acted, you know, aggressively or said, I don't want to hear about that being. And then he has, and then you'd do that character. He thinks about the time that blah, blah, blah, you don't do that. In the point of view, you don't go wander off into character thoughts either. You, you really it's picking and choosing what is going to be related to the reader slowly and over a time. And it should come out in the other dialogue or a, maybe you'll do a flashback later, or you'll have something else to explain why that reaction is. Autumn (27m 38s): You can allow that the reader to be a little bit like, Oh, well, I don't know why they did that. Exactly. But it's an obvious trait. Something triggered this emotion. And that is definitely one of the writing techniques to is that you actually get rid of things. Like he thought he wondered hee all those little verbs. It says the character is thinking that no one of these just do it. You have that thought, Oh yeah, you do this action. You don't think about doing it, right. Jesper (28m 4s): Yeah. At least some of what you said there. I think that that applies just as well to the third person limited you, you should try to not wander off into all these kinds of other explanations as well. And that's not specific to Deep point of view where so much I think it's yeah. It's, it's just good Writing. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Autumn (28m 27s): Yeah. Geez. You both said it. Yeah. Too funny. Jesper (28m 31s): But is there, I was just wondering, because you're being the editor here. So if, for example, let's say I'm being the listener here. Now I wrote, I wrote my first draft and now I'm sitting down and I want to edit it and I want to make sure it is Deep point of view. Well, enough if I can say it like that. So is there anything you would say, like, this is a sort of the check list or these other things that you should be top five things you should be looking for? Something like that. It is. Is there any, anything you do when you edit all of them too, to make sure that, that the product is well in or written well, and the point of view? Autumn (29m 21s): Absolutely. And I mean, the first one I think is taking out those things, like he thinks like, when she feels like if you had to sentence, like he, you know, if he feels a sweat of sweat beat on his forehead, no, you just go straight to sweat. What does it feel when a sweat runs down out of that hit right on his skin. Yes, exactly, exactly what you try to really imagine what it would feel like to do that. And you cut out those words that he feels, and he thinks, because those are actually create a little barrier between the character and the reader. And the whole point of the point of view is to just remove that barrier. And another thing is you often see people say like, he thinks about this, or he thinks that she is an idiot. Autumn (30m 8s): No, it would literally be like, she's an idiot. That would be the character thought you would start doing those little introductory phases because it is literally like journaling in third-person. You want it to seem like you were just totally seated in that. Yeah. Jesper (30m 22s): Yeah. I think that is exactly the key. Right? If you imagine yourself, when you're riding, if you imagine how I am inside the character, I wouldn't say to myself, I'm thinking, I would just think it right. Autumn (30m 35s): I know exactly. If you wouldn't write it in first person, you won't write it in a Deep point of view. And so, yeah, like I think about going to the grocery store now, don't you just go to the grocery store and that is how it works. And those are the important little clues. And even like I said, the Italian is a lot of ice. Sometimes get readers who will read back when I stuff it's like, well, this is a thought it should be an Italian as well. You don't have to do that at the point of view, it should come across very naturally. If you want to see some really good Deep point of view, go read some George RR Martin. He is an expert at really anchoring into a character's head and really feeling like that world comes alive through that character. Autumn (31m 18s): And that is, you know, you really make sure you dwell on the other senses, seeing what else is going on so that you have the thinking, the feeling of the touching, the tasting, all of those things are very much alive and nuanced throughout every single chapter. Yeah. Jesper (31m 34s): Yeah, absolutely. And I think actually, I don't know if, if, if, if you agree with me here, but I'm almost thinking like isn't a lot of this really a bit of just a mindset shift on your approach to Writing rather than it is like a new technique as such. That's, that's almost how I think about it. Autumn (31m 59s): I think it is. It is just realizing that the reason for this person is so spectacular is that you are really just with one character and you feel so connected with that character. And that's what gets you turning pages is because you want to see what happens to that character. So this was being able to do that exact same thing and those exact same emotional pools, but with multiple characters. And again, though, this is where you need to be careful or is that you then don't want to have 10 character's in your story. You want to keep it as limited as possible. And when it really becomes hard is when you switch to a character you don't like, or like the villain, you want to do the best you can to be that character, his voice, and show the world through their perspective. Autumn (32m 47s): And that's why it works so fantastic. When you have those gray characters that you have a good characters that have some bad falls and bad characters that had some really good ones that you can show that they are really doing all of the wrong things, but for the right reasons. And that's where it's so impactful. It, it makes the stories. I think the ones that are really linger with you after you closed the book are the ones that are written and Deep point of view because you just really can not get these characters out of your head. And when you're writing it, you really can't get these characters. Knowing that Jesper (33m 19s): That's also a challenge in the sense that we recently completed our first a reader magnet on a short story where the character, he is one of the Ember dwarves and I was setting, which means that the end, but wolfs are not very nice, you know, setting a no. And then the third thing is that as people know, I can actually be quite a challenge to write a character like that because he can come across as not being very nice. He's not very likable necessarily because that's the way he is. That's a part of their culture. Jesper (33m 59s): So it was a bit of a challenge to write it in a way whereby the Rita actually understands where the guy's coming from, you know, the, that they understand, like he's not doing these things or he doesn't view things this way because he wants to be evil or anything like that. It is just, that's the way he grew up. That's, that's part of his culture. And of course, Deep point of view is excellent at explaining those things. But at the same time, it's also a bit of a challenge to, to nuance it a bit so that it doesn't come across as well as to blatant, because it's quite easy to sort of say, like, you're saying, well, we use grocery shopping before. Jesper (34m 42s): Right. But, but if it was, you know, if it was something set Fantasy related, like it all peoples all humans, I hate to humans or whatever. Right. And then it's very easily to just say that and move on. But then you're also leaving the reader with the feeling like this is a complete idiot, this person, right. I don't like that, that character. So I guess is what I'm trying to say and what I'm talking to, what else is probably as well that you need to be a bit mindful about how you do it as well, too. So you can just do not end up coming across as it will assholes. Basically. You don't want that either, right? Autumn (35m 22s): No, no. I think that's a really important, I mean, if for some reason maybe this is, it speaks poorly of me, but I have often been able to get into my villains easier than a few other characters. I had one that was a politician and an extrovert, and he could just whip off these speeches and to get into his mind. Cool. I mean, it felt like it was a contortionist, but that's just what you're trying to put on this other person's skin and its even more. So you have to understand how they act, why they act, how they would see things and why do they care about the things they do, even if its completely different from you and you'd have to avoid explaining it from an outside perspective, like, Oh, humans are horrible and just go all out. Autumn (36m 6s): But most humans, you know, and then going into a rant about what's going on with humans, no, you have to be like humans, there's stupid meat sacks. You know, you have to, they're always carrying about things that yeah. You know, like money and whatever, and that's not what the door is square or whatever it is. You have to stick really deeply into that mindset of that character in that race. And you really, like you said, you really have to have all of that, figure it out to start writing. And even when I used to have to get to the Deep point of view, if the character was an already alive in my head, I would have to do some journaling. I would have to do some day before story is, I'd call it like the day before they ended up in the novel and I would write those in first person and I'd be like, Oh, you know, that's why this character is acting this way. Autumn (36m 49s): And that's why we are that way. When you start on page one, when they enter the story, you are like, you already have that figured out, you know, their mindset and you can kind of push yourself into it because you really do have to almost right a little bit before you start writing to really understand the character or go back and add it in when you edit, because that's the other thing to look for is going back and, you know, checking over all your work and seeing where that mindset could be better, where you can cut out words where you can really make sure it's coming from the character as a worldview and their lens of how the world works and what they're really aiming. You know? Jesper (37m 26s): Yeah. The thing that I find quite difficult with the point of view is for example, in the novel's we are currently riding, we have a, a goddess and when you are dealing with basically a deity, you know, some, somebody who is, who is just not all of our world and probably have motivations and drives that we don't even understand. They are. I, I really feel with her when writing her and I feel is very, very difficult to, to do other than basically more standard third person limited around her because I don't know how she feels. Autumn (38m 16s): No, but I think it in its own way, I think that's kind of exciting because with their person limited versus Deep point of view, so you have a character that's kind of unknowable and you just kind of change how they're being portrayed, especially because you know, if that character is maybe not a good point of view, but you hear it, see them more and dialogue, or even if you are in their mind, but its kind of less clear and less anchored that's you can do that purposefully to make this character seem more unknowable. And it's a very slight difference, but you can use these to your advantage. And I think that's sort of, what's cool about it is that you don't have to have every single character anchored in to your point of view. Autumn (38m 60s): If you have one that is more lofty, you can keep them out of it. And one of the neat things is, is if you are a misleading character and they are firmly believed that EI is going to happen and that is what they're aiming towards and that as maybe the lie they have been told, but they believe at a a hundred percent. And so the reader will believe at a a hundred percent all the while, you know, see you is what's gonna happen and you have this huge shift, it can be so much more dramatic and maybe you shouldn't delay it in light to your reader is, but it's so much fun to lie to your readers and Deep point of view. And it's believable because there's not that omniscient pull back where you are kind of like hinting at it. Autumn (39m 41s): The character is going full tilt towards believing. This is true. And they kind of get a carpet whipped out from under there. So yeah, Jesper (39m 49s): You can have some of those a bit like what the character didn't know was blah, blah, blah, that you sometimes see that in some, I think you all can do this as well. Sometimes. Like what Frodo didn't know at this point in time was out at the door. That kind of thing is no go in and Deep point of view. Autumn (40m 8s): No. And I think a lot of writer's think that, that his building the tension, But 2 million that is completely remove the emotion of right. It's maybe you would have, yeah. You have a little bit of curiosity, four. It, but it's so much more like get you a gasp when the character is just yanked a different direction that you didn't see coming. But when you hear like this lady's little clues, but what if he didn't know it was over on the Shire? Oh, you know that's, if you're just suddenly pulled out of the story, I don't know if that character's head and its just not as much fun. You can actually put the book down at that point and a lot going on. Yeah. Jesper (40m 41s): Yeah. I would say that a guy in conclusion, I think I would pose a challenge to the listener. You know, if, if you're never written in Deep point of view before, try it out, it doesn't have to be perfect. That's fine. But just try it out. Try to imagine yourself in the skin of the character and Right. What you feel, what you hear, what you see, what you teach or taste, what you can touch and that's, that's what you are allowed to. Right? Nothing else. You are not allowed to say. He didn't know this, that he didn't know that. Or explain this in that like you would normally you have to go with what the character knows and feels and tried to write a chapter like that and compare it to your other chapters. Jesper (41m 28s): And I almost want to say with certainty that you will find that it's, Autumn (41m 37s): You'll find, you'll find that you resonate with the character more. You'll find those more action. There is a lot less. Tell me a lot more sho and it'll just be like, you'll be like, wow, this is, this is pretty good. And if you don't come back and let us know what I want to see the difference because I firmly believed the point of view. Those are the stories that I love to read. And they're the ones I loved to write. And I think you'll find other readers react differently. If you show me what you wrote to someone else. Well, no matter what you think, if you show it to someone or a reader, see what they say, which one? So I don't know. Is there any like, did we miss some important elements here when it comes to the point of view a Autumn? Autumn (42m 20s): I don't think so. The line is going to readers. I had hopping. I was just like doing that. I would love misleading my readers. I have to admit it. And just that it's an important way of showing even your evil characters. It really is a useful technique. Or even if you then switch to a third person, limited for a, some characters that are much more unknowable, it can be really okay. So next Monday we actually are gonna talk about one of my favorite topics because we are going to talk about creating a magic system. Narrator (42m 54s): And 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 Autumn and Yesper on patrion.com/ Am. Writing Fantasy for as little as a dollar a month. You'll get awesome rewards and keep The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast, going to stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast
The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 122 – Latest Trends and Niches in the Fantasy Book Market (with Alex from K-lytics)

The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 26, 2021 44:46


Do you want to sell more books, face less competition, and achieve a higher return on your publishing investments? K-lytics has the answers and this episode of the Am Writing Fantasy podcast, Jesper talk to the owner of K-lytics, Alex, to gain a better understanding of what K-lytics is and what the latest trends and niches are within the fantasy genre. Learn more about K-lytics here: https://k-lytics.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 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 a way of making a living from writing. Join two best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them. Now on to the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt. Jesper (30s): Hello, I'm Jesper. This is episode 122 of The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast. Autumn is taking a break today and instead of have a great guest for you. So I'm gonna talk to Alex Newton from K lyrics today and welcome to The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast, Alex. Alex (48s): Hello, and thanks a lot for having me. Jesper (51s): Yeah, it's a pleasure. I think I've heard you talk on so many podcasts now that your voice is almost feels familiar to me. Alex (59s): Oh, wow. I didn't, I didn't realize it would be that many, but you know yeah. The occasional conference or a webinar that has happened, it does happen. Jesper (1m 8s): Yeah. And also the nice videos you send out with K-lytics, the summarization videos. I've listened to you there are many times as well. That's the funny part, right? It's like the listener's who listens to podcasts. They also use to my, and Autumn's voice. Alex (1m 23s): Right. Yeah. I can imagine because as you say, what I do usually comes with video and voiceover to explain the things, because the numbers can be a very dry matter. So I I'll try it to make it palatable. And the best way I found was with the video and with a voice accompanying the, the graphs and the dry stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Jesper (1m 47s): And that's works really well. And we'll get into k-lytics in is just in a minute, but maybe just before we get that far, maybe you could share a bit about yourself. I believe you are on my side of the Atlantic for change. I normally always record, but somebody in the US, but you are in Switzerland, is that right? Alex (2m 5s): I am. I'm based in Switzerland Now. I I'm a native German. You know, I grew up in Germany. I had my professional life there as a management consultant. Although there, I basically worked all over the globe and, and some 10 years ago when my little daughter was born and, you know, I had the typical corporate executive type of life, 24 hours, seven days a week Comic-Con activity and living out of the suitcase, I thought, Hey, you know, something should change. And, and that was right in that. What was it called? Like the Kindle gold rush. You can almost say, so it was almost by coincidence. I got into, Hey, what's Amazon doing? And, and yeah, six years ago, I officially launched k-lytics, which by the way is simply Kindle and analytics, but I didn't want it to get into the trademark dispute on day one. Alex (2m 56s): So I dropped the k-lytics from the Kindle and here we are with K Lytics. So right now I have a, we've moved to Switzerland system one and a half years back and never looked back. So right now I'm, I'm very much running K Lytics amongst a couple of other things and, and enjoy my time here in this very nice little country that stands as a stronghold in so many aspects hear right in the middle of Europe. Jesper (3m 25s): Yeah. That's true. Yes. So you lived in Germany before then? Alex (3m 28s): Yes. Yes. I, I grew up in the Southwest of Germany and lived in Munich for many years and then near the stood guard area. So in the Southern area of Germany, yeah. Jesper (3m 39s): Oh, okay. Yeah. I like watching the Bayern Munich games on television Alex (3m 43s): Except last night. All right. So congratulations to Paris. Jesper (3m 50s): Yeah, I guess so. But yeah, you did touch a little bit on a slightly there, but maybe you can explain that, you know, a bit more to those who have, who have no idea what K Lytics is. Maybe you can put a bit more, let's say the baseline information into what is it. Alex (4m 11s): And in very simple terms, we tried to provide market research information to authors and publishers publishers to help them make better Publishing decisions is now that sounds very abstract, but if you're in an author, if you are saying the Fantasy on a world, and you decide about your next book project, or you are Writing already a, you know, your rights in the middle of a book project. And, and if you feel a little bit, mm, there is a market out there, or perhaps, you know, readers and potential buyers. So if you are not just writing for therapeutic reasons, or you have nothing else to do, but because you also want to make a living with your writing, you we'll have to face up to the fact that you run a business, right. Alex (4m 57s): In any business that gets into a new product or service. Usually we'll do some kind of market research on it. If it's only like talking to a couple of existing customers or in your case, existing readers, Hey, what are your, like, did this resonate with you and how we do this on the ground on a scale by basically looking at a hundreds of thousands of books, and there are sales ranks on Amazon. And by aggregating the data from those books over time, or by certain genres, or by certain categories, we can basically deduct what is trending, what is going on? What is going down, what is selling, what is selling, but what is already crowded, what is selling and perhaps not overly crowded. Alex (5m 46s): So we very much come into the game when people make decisions about that Publishing project. And later on, as, you know, things become very tactical in what category is, can I apply to my, what should be the pricing? If I do Epic Fantasy, you know, what are all the other Epic fantasy books are being priced at? Am I too high? Am I too low? And it can get very nitty-gritty in tactical than on the other side. But in essence, it is looking at what's out there in terms of data, aggregating it in an intelligible way and then packaging it so that not every author is a mathematician, obviously, so that you can make a very simple inclusions with you with the writing direction you take. Jesper (6m 32s): Yeah, no. I personally really like a K lyrics and, and the reports, but I am curious, you know, why, why did you start Kelly this in the first place? Because I, I, in the Kindle gold cross back then there was nothing like this. So was it just like you thought that, well, this is missing, so I'll try to do it, or, or what, what was the driver behind you creating Catalytics in the first place? Alex (6m 57s): It was almost a like half an accident that I ended up in the publishing world. Now I did start in my career in publishing, like literally 30 years back into a London based publishing company. And so there was some affinity with the publishing world, but at the point 10 years ago, when I started the first experiments, as you said, was a Kindle gold rush. And it was at that time when I looked at something, Hey, I want to work from home. So right now I'm clicking on all of those PayPal by button's. Is there anyway that others could click on mine? That was the out the, the, the onset. Alex (7m 37s): So I was looking into various markets, you know, fitness Market, online consulting, Market information products, you name it. And I almost, by coincidence, I can came across one of those famous, or I think by now more in famous, you know, get, are rich with Kindle types of courses for the $99, you know, or these types of things in. And at first it was, you know, I was more thinking about publishing rather than writing, but having been a corporate management consultant for twenty-five years and having been in boardrooms 25 years, you vary, you become a very conservative meaning. Alex (8m 18s): You know, I don't believe that. So you, you, you really tried to look at the facts and based decisions. On fact. So I started looking at Amazon sales ranks. I started to talk to people, Hey, if this whatever poly or a recipe books that everybody says is the thing, you know, if that has, I would say is to rank off 50,000 on Amazon, does it actually selling anything? And I found, I know its not selling anything, although everybody's saying, you know, you can get rich by, by uploading your grand grandmother is not even, Palio a recipe book, Polly-O breakfast, a recipe book. And at that point in time, I actually coined term, which I call to the present day, the polio breakfast recipes syndrome, meaning, you know, people tried to convince you that you can make money with some obscure, a nonfiction book upload to Kindle, which obviously is a total lie, but to the present day, but people are being sold courses, you know, to, to get into self publishing and make a living by uploading your knitting patterns and that sort of thing, which is obviously a complete nonsense. Alex (9m 23s): And so at that point in time, I started doing some, it's almost like data experiments with Amazon and I figured out, Hey, that works. And then I was in the one where on the Facebook group and start a chair. I remember my first K Lytics report was very plainly about the top 30 main Kindle category. So essentially it was looking at is romance selling more than sci-fi and fantasy and sci-fi and fantasy selling more than engineering and transportation Book. So, you know, it like super crude level and people tore it out of my hands and then ask, Hey, can you do this? Can you do this full sub categories? And then people start diving into sub sub categories and, and the rest is history. Alex (10m 8s): I think ever since 2015, we've been tracking more than 7,000 kids and a generous month in month out looking at hundreds of thousands of books. Jesper (10m 19s): Wow. Yeah, it's impressive. I mean, you must have quite some machine power to data scrape all that information. Right. Alex (10m 26s): Well, you know, it's not like a super large scale operation because first of all, you know, you don't want to, I think there can things to be said about, you know, to what extent can, and should you do automated visits on other websites? I know, I mean, in many industries you have it, you know, take hotel, price engines and all that stuff, but you know, it's a very, very small scale. So Amazon wouldn't even notice that. So, and, and also coming more from a data science point of view, you, you know, there is no value in just collecting data. The value comes with intelligent analysis of, and also the intelligence sampling, right? We look at books like seven days a month, like not every hour because also, you know, that would take bandwidths that also Amazon wouldn't be happy with. Alex (11m 10s): So we add more like a, you know, not like the occasional visitor, you know, but it's a, it's a, it's a very fine line between what is, what is ethical and what isn't right. And so we chose to do a very hands off type off the data operation that samples book's rather than as you term it scrape, you know, the, the, the Ammons on site every hour or, you know, which is not, not, not the type of business I want to get into. Jesper (11m 41s): No, no, that's fair. That's fair enough. And its always good to be a bit ethical about what you do. Although I think with Amazon, they have a scale that they know everybody and a lot of people who are scraping that data and I don't really think that to be honest, but, but its always good to have some ethical considerations. Yeah, Alex (11m 58s): Absolutely. And, and, and, and in the end of the day, you know, we were there with that humble data collection to basically help help their clients, you know, that, that feed their whole Publishing and engine. So a and a, and so far, you know, six years they've, they've never complained. I've never complained. And, and, and the people have people that have been happy. So I hope it stays that way. Jesper (12m 22s): No, that's perfect. So when it comes to the fantasy genre and that's sort of what we are all about here is also in the name of the Podcast because it is quite obvious, but considering the fantasy genre, I was hoping maybe you could share a bit about, you know, Latest data and your latest trends or sort of what you see when it comes to the FANTASY showing or what is trending and so on. I mean, first of all, Alex (12m 49s): Well, the good news is that, you know, out of those big JARAs on Kindle, I mean, you have romance has always number one full of by Mr. Thriller suspense, then you have a bit of non-fiction, but usually it's and Fantasy. And I apologize if I, if I some make a sum with science-fiction I know of many FANTASY all for the first time, how can, how can Amazon, how does Amazon dare put those in one bucket at the very top level already, which I know is not the case, but you know, a scifi and fantasy as, as one umbrella category is, is usually the third largest. And especially during the last 12 months have this crazy pandemic time, we've seen quite some changes and changes in read the behavior. Alex (13m 35s): And the good news they are is that overall people who have been looking for more, w we see categories that have to do with humor have been trending up. And if we see a very dark reads, you know, post-apocalyptic stuff is going down, but the, but the good news is anything that provided, say a, a, a good escapism for readers during these dire times has in essence benefited. And therefore, for example, in Fantasy overall, we saw a bit of a dip obviously about a year ago during the first log down periods. Like, because there are people who have been buying non-fiction books about how to bake bread, and it took a market share from some fiction, but, you know, very, very briefly after a brief period, we saw the, the overall Book market, obviously benefiting greatly from these dire times with a print book sales in the us, having grown, showing the highest growth rates in a decade with 8% growth. Alex (14m 37s): Amazon grew 25% in the Kindle select global fund. So the royalties paid two author. So I mean, 25%, that's huge. And one of the beneficiary JARAs was Fantasy. Overall, as one example, if you take Epic FANTASY as an example at which is probably like the general, epitomizing a bit of Fantasy as a, I wouldn't say cliche, but as an overarching theme, you know, why, what makes Fantasy the Epic side of the thing is obviously clearly position to provide an escapism. And that category on Amazon had been like, it, it sort of had a peak before, back in 2017 or 18 around that time and with all its fluctuations, you know, and it has then had a bit of a downward trend all the way into the start of 2020. Alex (15m 33s): And then after that brief dip, during the first blog down in it, it really shot up back again. And you see that these types of Fantasy markets are clearly benefited and we can, we can go and in, in Canmore, if you want, but on a, on a high level, you see that Fantasy Epic FANTASY, a very big Market, but also very high ceiling. So there, you can say it's a, it's a very grown up, very established mainstream Market on in the Kindle world. And then obviously you have these hundreds of when not hundreds, but, you know, a 10, 20 like big sub genres, you know, from Seoul to source a reaction and adventure game adaptations. Alex (16m 14s): And they tend to do pretty well on the Kindle platform. So especially over the last year, all the teen young adult driven type of Fantasy, we saw a lot of trends happening there. And if you want, we can, you know, I can take into the data here as we speak and, and looking into some of those. Jesper (16m 36s): Yeah, for sure. I, I think that would be very interesting because a part of it is, and that's what I liked with the K leader reports is also to do, to try to see, because at least for myself and, and Autumn, the stuff that we write, we, we are sort of settled in, in the Epic fantasy world. So, eh, I think the competition is probably pretty fierce there to be honest, but maybe you can contradict me, but, But I, I'm more thinking for, especially if you're sort of starting out and, and, you know, let's say you had decided that I liked to right Fantasy, but I actually like very many different types of Fantasy, then it could definitely also make sense to look into the catalytic reports and, and try to see, okay, is there some of these SOPs showed us where there was just less competition and it makes it a bit easier to get more sales, write it that way. Jesper (17m 29s): I think K-lytics, this is very useful apart from what you mentioned earlier as well, that even if you are established in something, you can use it to figure out what is the good price range for books, what is the average pricing and, and so on. So your position, your product's so to speak or your books correctly, but, ah, but yeah, please share more details, right. I mean, Alex (17m 51s): As you mentioned, it, a Epic, Epic fantasy, I think is a good example of, as you say, that there are established mainstream markets and just entering in there, you know, as a new comer could be a bit of an uphill battle. I mean, if you, if you look at the Epic Fantasy data, we did a study start of this year. That is one of the examples of a well, in my corporate world, we would say a very concentrated market, right? Where a few to determine, determine the bulk of the sales, you know, with obviously at the very top of the, the Brandon Sanderson, you know, crushing it with, with all his, his books and obviously the classics, the talkings and the Robert Georgians, the obviously George R. Alex (18m 39s): Martin and all the F the fan fiction, the, the, the spin offs, the jaw, the Abercrombie side of the world. And, and then already, even with some of the, you know, a big, big names or whatever, what was it like rubbing havin, you know, that there is a whole number of names were immediately, you see the books of their sales rank, you know? Yeah. You know, it, it's a tough market. Now, the good news for Epic Fenton, what good or bad news depends on the eye of the beholder is there while you have like Publishing companies that really dominate like Tor books, right. That, that sine on like everybody or a bid or the DAW, there, there is a couple of big outfits out there, but then you do have an increasing chair in the publishers, the, the typical, you know, author that wants to make use of the self publishing self publishing world and all the opportunities that come with it. Alex (19m 39s): And there, we do see a bit of like a balance between a traditionally published or with the specialized Epic FANTASY publishing houses and a couple of, you know, really good self-publishers that found that out a way into the game Now. But if you don't want to get head on with the brand and send the suns and of the world around, you will pose exactly the question you will pose exactly the question you posed, you know, are there opportunities out there in the overall fantasy world where it's perhaps a bit less competitive, less crowded, less established also. Alex (20m 21s): And, and I would clearly say yes, you know, I mean, especially if you, if you'd be able to also address some of the teen young adult readership, which is not necessarily teen young adult people, because obviously there's research that suggests that the bulk of the teen young adult fantasy books are actually not read necessarily by, by teens or young adults, but also adults. So they really have opportunities, you know, I mean, take the huge Market, take the huge Market of urban FANTASY is by now, it's also no longer a niche market, but that created a whole, a publishing self publishing sub empire, where it's really been about, well, what types of urban Fantasy do I do? Alex (21m 9s): Is it, you know, the, the, the leather clad chick that's running around with swords slang vampires at night and working at Starbucks by day, or am I going more into the Jim butcher type of world? And there, the data can, can give you hints. So for example, we saw a, what was it like a, almost like a five-year decline after the big hunger games hype was over, right. And with a pandemic we saw with many of the teens being sitting there at home, and after the homeschooling having to do something, there is perhaps the only so much Netflix who can watch you are only so many mobile devices available that they had to read books again, I don't know, but we saw a huge increase again in, in 17 young out adult FANTASY. Alex (21m 58s): Segment's for example, these I'm a bit dystopian type of a royalty novels. Kira cos I think it was primarily a driver, obviously there was also the hunger games sequel, but those were pride to a predominantly self-published authors who really took the whole segment segment up again. And if I just look at the, the, the data of, of over a year or, you know, paranormal Fantasy has, has, has found a bit of a, a return if you also off two years off having done well, but paranormal, for example, the hole paranormal romance, paranormal Fantasy, I, that has peaked, I would say 2013, 14 ever since then, these waves are by the way, very long-term. Alex (22m 47s): When I talk about writing to market or looking at these, this data, there is not about a monthly fluctuations. That's about catching the wave that carries you. And your project is over obviously a period of years rather than, rather than months. So by and large, you know, a teen young adult, whether its Fantasy fairy tales, especially in the teen young adult world, if you are a bit flexible to also put a touch on romance, into It, selling extremely well, you know, failed romance, paranormal, Romans vampire romance. Now for many Fantasy rights, they will go like, Oh yeah, no, that's like, I have to like Roman. Alex (23m 27s): So it was like, okay, okay. Yes, I read you You. But for that reader who is looking for an escape, those vampires and that stuff, you know, or the whole thing happening in a complete fantasy world. And there, there is a world building going into it, perhaps not elaborate with maps and stuff. As you have in a tall Keaton type of a trilogy seven, 150 pages, I will tell you, God knows what, but to those who are in those jars, they make a good living with it. Partly, And, and there they are not obsessed with academic definition of what constitutes Fantasy and what doesn't, but basically looking at what do readers want and then almost from a menu. Alex (24m 13s): Okay. Best example I'd say currently is, I mean, we are about, I don't know what your age yeah. They asked by the way, we're sort of the same generation. So we know movies like the, the witches of Eastwick right. Which is a vast awake. Or then later in the, in the late nineties, there was that other one with, with, I think they call Kitman right? So you have, which is, you have Housewives who are in their spare time, which is now right now we have a book Market getting going where some authors who've been big name authors in general, such as women's fiction, paranormal romance, urban fantasy, all of these jars are getting very crowded and cozy mystery. Alex (25m 0s): Now they came together, they bended together and created something which is called paranormal women's fiction. They even gave it its own hashtag PWF. And if you look at it, it is Fantasy, you know, is a about, which is about w you know, that shadow whirled it's, it's bringing a cozy mystery. And so, especially what has been doing well in cozy mystery was paranormal cozy mystery, which is where they bring women's fiction into it because they target very specific. The authors themselves are usually like 45 and older. So they credibly you are right about all of these mid life problems. Alex (25m 40s): You know, kids go on to college or midlife depression, and, and why they have women cast that in a FANTASY, in an urban fantasy world. You no overcome their mid-life problems so that that's not a long monologue that I give here, but it it's just to put some flesh to the bone when it comes to reading the Market, looking at trends and Writing to Trends, but without bending yourself, that's the important thing, you know, with what are you good at? And you're Fantasy writing and how can you take it and twisted in a way that you can combine your love, passion and craft with some Market aspects of a trend, more than others. Alex (26m 23s): There is no guarantee for a success obviously, but I think the whole publishing business has where people do it in a professional way. It's very much become around the credo, this mantra of, of how do we increase the odds of success at at least if you can not guarantee success. Jesper (26m 43s): Yeah. And it's so true. If, one look at it, especially with Amazon, I mean, Amazon is probably, well, it's, it's a good and bad in the sense that for most authors is, at least at Amazon is like 90% of the income. And that is good in the sense that if you can make it work on Amazon, there was a good likelihood that you will also have some money from it, but on the, the bad side then yeah, you're completely reliant on, on Amazon, which is, that's a whole different conversation. And I don't like that too much, but let's leave that alone for now. But I think what this is really about to me is trying to find, not compromising with what you want to write. Jesper (27m 26s): I mean, because I don't think it works. If you start looking at a K latex report and say, Oh, I can see that this a is working really well and is trending. So I'm gonna write some books, that's your option. Right. And, but I don't like those kind of books. I don't read those kinds of books. A and I didn't really care about it, but I'm just going to write it because apparently that's sort of readers want, I don't think that works 'cause it will also come across in the story that you don't really like it. And if you don't read it to yourself as well, you probably don't even understand the tropes of it. So, so leave that alone. But I think what, I'm trying more to say it, and that's why I find that K Lytics is very useful. For example, when Autumn I, and I write out the books, I know that what you also said, ah, as well, that, you know, some sort of romance in the books, usually it works well and probably half, or if not more than half, I think of the readers of Fantasy in general, a woman. Jesper (28m 20s): So if you don't put any WOTSO, if everything is just a sword fighting and dragons and, and what not, well, that can still be a great story. But if you don't put any romance in there, which is the data in Caledon, it also tells you is something that people like to read. You are missing out some stuff that you were, you could gain, maybe a lot more readers because you have some hope. And so all of them, and I always put some romance sub-plots into our Epic Fantasy stories. There is always some romance going on in those stories. And its more like for me, it's one of those things where I'm okay with it. I, I, you know, I don't love the romance of plots as such. Jesper (29m 2s): It's not my thing, so to speak, but I don't mind either. So, so the question is more like, why wouldn't we put it in? I mean our Autumn likes it. So she is naturally bent to what is that? And she does those things really well. And that's of course the benefit I can enjoy that, the fact that I write books together with her so she can put her touch on those things. So that's great for me. But my point is just to say that you can look at something like K lyrics reports and you can pick out some pieces where you feel like these are Okay for me. You know, I, I don't mind them. I understand them enough that I feel like I can write at least a subplot concerning it and then put that into the books. And hopefully you will see somewhat more success rather than going down your tunnel vision way of, I only write this because this is the only thing that I like and every party that doesn't like that well, bad luck for them and Okay, fair enough for it. Jesper (29m 54s): That's what you want to do, but if you wanna get some money for it as well, maybe you need to think of a bit about what readers actually or looking for. Alex (30m 3s): Right. And, and I think you couldn't have put it in into a better way. And you, you mentioned a couple of elements there that that may be worth reiterating on the one is the love and passion for what you do. Like you say, if you don't love it to yourself, if you don't love Amish romance and you know, could imagine writing it for the next five years, then don't no matter how high it's trending. Right. And the, the other elements that you mentioned would be for me also Kraft Skil, I think there are a certain genres, a, you know, to write good sex scenes that are a steamy, but not pornographic. That that is a craft skill, you know, not every writer is able to do so and to do so. Alex (30m 47s): I wouldn't know where to begin. Well, you tell me, and, and then there is also the thing about knowledge, right? I mean, a even if you, you know, during the hype times off of a literature role-playing game, the lid RPG in game lit when a Spielberg took the whole thing into the mainstream movie theater, well, you had people, you know, quarrying quarrelling about Well is the, is, is in that lid, RPG novel is the scoring and the gaming element, like really genuine. And I'm, I mean, if, if you are not a gamer yourself, you know, the readership, the nerds, the geeks, you know, they, they can smell this from like 50 miles. Alex (31m 32s): So don't, don't get into it. So there is this, I always say, there's this passion factor and the knowledge that the craft skill factor and the, the knowledge factor, but we are all of these things coming into play. So, I mean, even Mozart, although he, I think at the end of the career that he was not so shining anymore, but you know, even the great artists and composers, a lot of them, they, they worked for money and they composed what was the royalty. I wanted to hear it, not just what they had in, in their inspiration and their inspiration. So it, it was pop music and at, at the point in time, so if you're in, in, in Epic Fantasy and let's, I don't know whether it were, it exists, but if you're a hardcore Epic FANTASY writers and, you know, its source and darkness and shadows, Well, it, it will be good to know that themes, like if you have in your title end book description, something around darkness, around shadows, about war battles or something around age ages, centuries, power, and magic, you know, these five strong words, you know, constitute like whatever 60, 70% of the royalties and, and books contain them. Alex (32m 43s): But if you say, no, I'm going to write about whatever the, the, the golden And dungeon and the stone, the chaos and cry. And, you know, these are all also, you think very strong, compelling words, but the royalties are a much lower. You get the idea so that there is certain things that at certain points in time seem to resonate with certain reader groups. And it's just by bringing the arts and sciences a bit together and say, Mmm, no problem. I, I have it a lot more amongst my romance writers because they can almost like on the fly as they write the story, they can say, well, my God, it, if everybody currently likes mountain man, you know, living in, in, in a cabin, in as opposed to the billionaire or a vice versa, they can very quickly change characters and, and move the book more into a direction that may not resonate well even too, or are they rewrite the whole book and the like, remarketed were you, you had whatever, five years of age, I always say, you know, when we were, we were young and watching black and white movies, you had, you had women wanting to be kissed by a millionaire's or, you know, in Marilyn Monroe and the time's today, they don't want to be kissed by millionaires. Alex (34m 4s): They want to be whipped by a billionaire. So you had this whole 50 shades of gray, pretty, pretty extreme staff. And, and that was like a never-ending story, but the market, it was getting very crowded in all of a sudden you had on Amazon, especially with the advertising restrictions on Amazon, on a very steamy content. You had a big surge also with the age group, probably have the typical Kindle device oner in any case clean and wholesome Romans was doing extremely well and was still more of a niche type of market. And all of a sudden, you know, we, we reported on over five years of the trend of clean and wholesome romance. Alex (34m 46s): And over time you found even some steamy authors rewrite there, a billionaire romance novels, there are 50 shades of gray it into more like, yeah, clean and wholesome, clean read Swede, Romans billionaire romance, 'cause it was simply less crowded and in high demand. And, and that is what I mean with like reading the market in a way where you don't bend yourself, but you just tried to increase the, as you put it also in the, the odds of success. Jesper (35m 18s): Yeah, exactly. And, and I think, and that's, that's basically where you can see you can, because it's let me rephrase that because it's really, really difficult to do that on your own. I mean, she just tried to go to Amazon and look through the, the different categories and tried to look at the top seller list and the different categories, but it's really, really difficult for you to ma to spot trends on your own because it's, it is so much data and it is so complicated that that's where I really see that Kayla Alex can help. Just a, I mean, I am You mostly of you and Kayla, it is like, it's an input. And then you, you need to unpack it yourself and say, okay, what of this can I use? Jesper (35m 59s): And is this something where I have some sort of Venn diagram overlap between what I like to write and what the market likes to read, and then I'll try to merge those two together and make it fit there. And then I think for me that that's the point of it. But before we get into the end of the conversation that I wanted to also give you a chance to explain a bit, what if one buys K Lytics or goes into clearly, what, what is it that you're getting in there? And what are the reports that you were sending out and so on? And, and maybe also a bit about what are the, I think you have some tears as well. If I remember correctly has been a while since I was in their, but maybe just a bit of the pricing tiers and so on, if you don't mind. Alex (36m 39s): No, no, no. Of course not. I mean, for those who are interested, basically, you know, we, we serve authors from the fledgling interested authors to, to publishing houses. So we have to provide, you know, different entry points into, into the products. So you can, we provide memberships and we provide single reports. Now within the, within Bose, the, the baseline for everything is the data that we collect and that we publish every month and an updated database. And what you basically can have is, is there are basically two big pillow's to the product. The one is a ready-made PDF report. Say there, there is a 70 page Epic Fantasy reports, 17 pages that comes with a video that completely dissects the Amazon available data on Epic Fantasy. Alex (37m 29s): So if you're only interested in like that one Jara, you can simply go to the KLA, the sharp at K high for analytics.com/shop purchase the Epic Fantasy report. And we'll keep you busy for a good week. I'd say, if you really want to absorb the data, look at the video and especially makes sense of it, of how does that fit with your writing. So that is one entry points. So you can choose what we call genre reports on the card. There's two types of them. Ones are like really going in depth on certain sub jars, such as Epic FANTASY. There are others. We have a more general scifi and fantasy report that are not as deep in the analysis, but they are much broader because they would comparatively look well, there is more than a, a a hundred PSI Phi and Fantasy categories, and they would do exactly like we discuss before, well, what his, what is trending hire? Alex (38m 19s): Is it urban FANTASY or is it a paranormal row? You know, is it is. So it looks at the category of data in a competitive way. So these are the types of John reports and you can buy them out a card, or if you are interested in more than one Jara, then we, the memberships, because the memberships give you access to basically a multiple reports at a time. And these, our monthly memberships, they come into tiers. One is premium. One has elite that lead to us to the highest tiers. And the difference between the two tiers has also actually a very simple, the highest tier a Gibbs gives you unrestricted access to everything. And one thing is all the reports. The other thing is though that database now also premium gives you the database, but the depth of the data you see premium basically would give you the data every month for about 420 down two sub category level. Alex (39m 13s): But if you want to get into also this really granular and detailed, you know, in which 10 categories shall I put my book's sort of thing, then the elite level comes handy because there are, we track 7,000 categories, you know, from the gardening and horticulture to the lowest level Fantasy category of that, that exists. So, so especially if you want to also look a bit what's happening across job has gotten because some authors are very open-minded, you know, they write, say a urban Fantasy, but they really, because they know the JARAs are more and more blended and they want to know what is going on in romance, what is going on in mystery so that they keep a bit of head off, you know, ah, you know, there is a certain thing emerging could that's come over into like the paranormal women's fiction example I gave earlier that is sort of the > of like four genre trends meeting in a certain suite spot and meaning at a certain target rate, a group. Alex (40m 13s): And that has what we do. So there is entry points from ala carte to membership's obviously we promote the membership's also price-wise 'cause, that is what keeps us afloat. And it gives us the continuity to provide this research, which we've now been doing for six years and hope, hopefully not too many more years to come. Jesper (40m 35s): Oh yeah, for sure. And I definitely like to support what you are doing because I, I do think it's a very, very helpful, and that is stuff that authors can not do on their own. Umm, and I definitely also SUPPORT the, the, the fact that membership levels who is wanting to keep the business going. So we know this ourselves with, with Patrion, for example, is also sort of a membership ship site for this podcast. So it's, it's the same thing, but at least I will say to the listeners here as well, that if, if you don't know, if, you know, with this data things sort of me, I would definitely recommend just start out, maybe buying one of the younger reports for, for Fantasy. Jesper (41m 16s): I did that as well, several years ago now, but, but I did this as well and it's not expensive at all. I can't remember now, Alex, I, but I, I think it was like 25, maybe Alex (41m 26s): It's $37 that are a report on them. And you get probably, you know, more than 70 pages of, of, of analysis all aggregated in a understandable way. So it it's, as you say it as a writer that you should, of course we know, especially as an indie writer, you have so many other business aspects to run as, you know, the marketing, the ad's, the newsletters, you know, there is already enough business stuff going on to then say on top of it, do you'd want to become a market research experts may not be your core competency. So we, we crunch the data on hundreds of thousands of books so that you don't have to, that is the very simple essence of it Jesper (42m 8s): Indeed, yes. So I will put a link to K Lytics in the show notes so any of your listeners who are interested to check it out a bit more than a follow that link and on the k-lytics website does a lot more information as well. Hopefully we touch the ball upon most of it, but there is explanations about what it is and what your getting inside of the report and, and all that stuff. So I want you to, to at least go check that one out. Thank you. And thank you so much for coming Alex, and speak to us out here and share a bit about all of this data crunching stuff. Alex (42m 44s): Was a pleasure and a, hey, also all the best with your, with your own podcast. You know, I think its great that we see also so many people in the, in the publishing world and in the self publishing world for that matter to collaborate, you know, and, and have these forums for our people can exchange. I thought, and it was the last, at least I'd say, you know, of course there is traditionally published WORST. There is a hybrid publishes, you know, who have in some areas they have their rights back. They want you to go go half and they are half traditional And they have the, you know, like hardcore self published is. And from what I've seen is, especially in that hyper, then self publishing part of the journey, I've seen people be so fast and picking up Trends in, in, in collaborating together that they are in some areas of the rebar pull parts of the market. Alex (43m 39s): But before the traditional publishers even know it exists as a market. So Andy, I think it's also things to these podcasts and forums like yours, where these thoughts are exchanged and transported to the community that, that make that happen. Jesper (43m 58s): Oh yeah. Yeah. I agree. But okay. Thank you so much for, for coming here, Alex. And next Monday I we'll have a Autumn back here and that we are going to do one of our monthly fun episodes where we are going to discuss the top 10 worst and scariest FANTASY world. Narrator (44m 16s): 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 Autumn and Jesper on patrieon.com/AmWritingFantasy for as little as a dollar a month, you'll get awesome rewards and keep The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast going. Stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast
The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 121 – Thoughts, Tips & Tricks, on ProWritingAid

The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 19, 2021 43:26


Over the past few months Autumn and Jesper have tested out different types of writing software. Against AutoCrit and Fictionary, your hosts decided that ProWritingAid is the best one of them all. In this episode of the Am Writing Fantasy podcast, Autumn and Jesper (well, mostly Autumn), explains why ProWritingAid is such a great support tool for authors. Sprinkled in are tips and tricks, you can take away and apply in your own writing process. ProWritingAid can be found here: https://prowritingaid.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 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 on to the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt. Jesper (30s): Hello, I'm Jesper And I'm Autumn. This is episode 121 of The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast. I, and the over the past few months, we have been testing out some different types of writing software. We tried Fictionary AutoCrit and pro WRITING eight, and I think we've arrived at a favorite that we can talk about today. Autumn. Autumn (55s): Yes, I definitely have my favorite in there is actually I should mention that one or two features that I wish it had at one of the other ones sort of did. So, you know, maybe I'll do some, maybe I'll be able to convince the staff at the one of our top choice. They've had a few features. That's my wishlist. Jesper (1m 15s): Yeah. So we are going to deep dive a bit on ProWritingAid today and share our thoughts about it. And why are we? Well, I, I think it's not a secret that we like it very much. So we are going to talk about that and hopefully that will help some people, if they are not familiar with ProWritingAid already, then maybe they we'll be inclined to check that out. Or if they are already using pro Writing eight, maybe we are going to mention a few things they were not aware of. Autumn (1m 44s): Absolutely. Or at least may be some ways of using it that they hadn't considered. So I think it will be fun. I've definitely been using this tool heavily on some major novels. I feel like all I have been doing is editing I since January and that's okay. That means there was a lot of Writing in 2020, so that's all right, right. It's good to be pushing things out the door in Publishing. So that's exciting. Jesper (2m 19s): Its been Easter holidays here in, in Denmark, which means that a, I actually got quite some writing done on a book One. Yes you have been doing really well. Yeah. I am only seven chapters so away from the ending now, so that's pretty cool. Autumn (2m 34s): That is so cool. More editing. Jesper (2m 38s): You're never going to be done. It's just forever and going. Autumn (2m 42s): Oh this is my punishment. Like I think so, but yeah, yeah, yeah. You're just clocking right ahead. Well, I hope you had a good Easter as well as some time off or. Jesper (2m 55s): Yeah. Yeah. Well I do to the usual Corona stuff to there wasn't much we could do, but I got some Ikea furniture put together and we got rid of the bit of the, I think we are down to like five or six moving boxes after we moved, but everything else has not been unpacked. Yeah. That's amazing. Autumn (3m 16s): That's good. So that is really good. And that means that you can, hopefully now that it's turning towards spring ish, I would have hoped they're that you can actually go for walks on the beach are through town and not be worried about, you know, coming back to a new apartment full of boxes. Jesper (3m 31s): Yeah, that's true. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Autumn (3m 33s): And, and we've also started to allow soccer game now. So I'd been out refereeing, a couple of matches, which was nice to get started on again. So things are lightening up. No, you can't say lighting up. That sounds like we were putting on fire, but it's not getting better. That's exciting. And that's always an improvement. How about you? Oh, Goodlife my husband I'm was on top of things and he made an appointment for me to actually both of us to go get our coronavirus vaccine. So I'm very excited. And at the end of the month I, I might get to go down and see my parents and that's exciting. Autumn (4m 14s): So I'm looking forward to that. We have, we don't have kids, so we didn't have like an Easter where your high things, but we have our own traditions since we never did have children that we, I have a deal. I've got an in with the Easter bunny and he comes every year and gives me this nice little basket of all of my favorite things. I don't know how he knows, but then he hides Adams, everything. So everything is hidden. And I get to spend the morning sipping. My tea is sitting there like this watching for his Easter candy. And it's just one of my favorite holiday. He has a, he gets back though. Autumn (4m 55s): My tea delivery is brought by Easter, Easter Bunny's cousin is Jack and Jack likes to hide my tea delivery. So, you know, we each have our own issues with rabbits. Yeah. Jesper (5m 11s): All right. Okay. Autumn (5m 12s): Rabbits on a naughty, I guess. So we had an actual, a visitor That this year it was possibly an Easter raccoon. We had a raccoon outside of the cabin on Saturday night and he was adorable and just the big guys, he was a very healthy, feisty invasive right now, but he hasn't come back since then. Jesper (5m 36s): Oh wow. Yeah. Autumn (5m 37s): Yeah. Well that animal life I noticed as well, somebody in the Facebook group a and apologies, I forgot who it was, but I just noticed that somebody was a posting some stuff about, I think it was a, she that she almost died because she was, she got bit by a snake. Yeah. Jesper (5m 57s): And as she survived, she was Okay now, But it was just like sometimes when I hear stuff like that, it it's just so foreign for me here in Denmark. We, we don't have any thing, you know? Well, I think we have one snake that has some venom that can be, but there was only that one, a type here in this country and it it's not lethal. Oh, well, okay. If you are out in the middle of nowhere and you get bitten by it and you don't get to the hospital, I guess you could be lethal, but its not, it's not to bad. You have time to go to the hospital and everything as well. So it's not like instant re reacting, Venmo or anything like that. So I don't know that the whole thing about all those animals are not, well, it doesn't have to be posted it, but just because like you were mentioning like, Oh that that whole thing has just so foreign to me. Autumn (6m 45s): I mean, I think they don't know if you remember, if I told you that last year when we were walking to the, the main house on the property, We, I saw something running through the field and coming up towards us and I'm like, why is there a Shetland pony loose? I mean, I'm in Vermont, of course people would have ponies and that I'd be like, that's not a pony. That's a bear. That way. It was literally the biggest black bear I've seen outside of the Labrador we traveled, I slept next to Grizzly's have visited our camp site, but to be walking and Vermont, you know, I'm on my way to take a shower. My dog has like 50 feet ahead of me. And I'm like, yeah, it was cute. And I just happy. Autumn (7m 25s): My dog is very well behaved. And if you open, you do a hug thing and you call him, he comes running with ears back. It was a little tail wagging. So I was doing that. Well, I watching this bear run about 10 feet behind him and I'm like, okay. So yeah, there is. And then a few other ones a month later and we saw the female mother with two of her Cubs walked right by the front of the cabin. And so what, that was just amazing and I'm glad that it was inside of the camp because she would have had the third Cub going on with her. Jesper (7m 56s): Yeah, Autumn (7m 56s): Yeah. If I could sit inside and watch it and I know that I am safe, then I think that would be pretty cool. But honestly walking around like in the forest and knowing that that bear could suddenly pop up, like I know why as a dangerous person, I'm just not used to that kind of thing. And it's only one thing that frightens me and the forest and that's actually other humans, most animals is there. Fine. People are scary. Jesper (8m 21s): That Is true. Yeah. And, but that's also where we normally see and all the, some of the TV series, right. Is actually the humans that are the most scary ones to come across and not to some of these. Autumn (8m 34s): No, no, that's true. Narrator (8m 39s): A week on the internet with The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast., Autumn (8m 44s): So I was wondering that you noticed that the Facebook has announced that they're gonna, they're going to create a new Publishing platform. I haven't seen something and I noticed that the article, but I didn't go read the full thing. So no, you can feel the listener in as well as me. Yeah, Jesper (9m 2s): Well, yeah, kind of. I just thought that it was quite a significant news, so I just want it to share it. But I did actually write up a post for our patron supporters with my thoughts on this topic. So if people want to go into the details, then should I should just to go on to patron it and check out what I, she had there, but I just found it pretty interesting. And that's why I wanted to share it. And of course you can also do a search on the internet if you want to check it out yourself. But I think it's something to keep an eye on, but I'm not so convinced as of yet, which is what I explained on Patrion, but let's see where it goes. Jesper (9m 45s): At least I just want it to mention it so people can keep an eye on it. Autumn (9m 48s): Yeah. Well, you know how I feel about Facebook that yeah. Yeah. And I actually, I like Instagram, so that's kind of sad. I think I liked it better before Facebook bought it, but yeah, that's pretty much my, a theory on most things of Facebook is okay. That's a nice little moving on. Jesper (10m 9s): Yeah. Moving on. Okay. Well let's speaking of patron as well. We want to give a huge shout out to Brian men. Dunka I hope that's how you pronounce the names, but yeah. Bryan is our new newest patient and support us. So thank you so much, Brian. And then we could not keep The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast going if it wasn't for people like you. So thank you for that. Autumn (10m 36s): Yeah, definitely. Well, we love having you join us there and I mean, it's been good. It's been busy, even Dominic. I want to give a shout out to him who posted a link to us, unspecified spontaneously. And it's saying how much he was enjoying what he was learning on Patrion. So that's just, that's wonderful to know that you're really helping other authors and that's what we do over on Patriot and even more than we do in the Am Writing Fantasy Facebook group. So I would love to see other people. Do you have to sit there? Yeah, Jesper (11m 9s): Absolutely. Yeah. So those are the link in the show notes, if you are interested and there's all kinds of rewards that we offer over there as well. So, so, so I'll go and check that one out. But one more thing on M O O D is, and I almost felt like not sharing this one with a new term. Autumn (11m 30s): You really do have something else. Now what's up Please. I, how are you saying that? These for me? Jesper (11m 39s): Yeah, I did actually say yes and I loved to spring things on you in the middle of a podcast episode, but this one is actually gonna play in your favor. And that's why I want really to be shared with you because I feel like I'm playing cards into your hands that you can use laid on Against me. Autumn (11m 55s): And I don't like that. I love that. Please share it. It's my birthday this month. Come on. This is my present Please. Okay. So, okay. So let us stay present. And did you notice that the YouTube comments on Episode 119, where was she at the 10 WORST stories ever told, Oh, well let me guess I'm winning and by winning, please tell me I'm winning. So when we, just for the listener, when we are doing these alternating lists episodes where we sort of go a bit crazy and have a bit of fun with some random topic like we did in episode one 19, when we, she had those a 10 worst stories ever Told, we always a have a bit of a competition going on as well, where we try to best each other and see, you can build the best list, basically. Autumn (12m 45s): What are the best, worst lists? You know, the best worst lists. Yeah. Usually, And on that note, Dominick said, and this paints me so much to read out loud. So you are killing me, Dominick. They just don't post like this in these kinds of comments. You Dominic. So Dominic wrote quote, Oh, Oh my God. I'd have to psych myself up for this evening. She'll just send it to me. All of them tends to win. Yes. Pro on quote is what it says. Autumn temps to when, what is that? It wasn't even just that episode. Autumn (13m 24s): It was in general. What, Davidic your, thank you. You made my day. I owe you like a page or a review or something. Thank you. Jesper (13m 39s): Yeah. Well, no, I strongly strongly disagree with those YouTube comments like that. And I, I don't actually appreciate getting that kind of comments. Oh, I love it. That's just fantastic. I have a winning, I hate it. That I have a feel for this one is going to come back and bite me later. I don't like it now and now it's hanging There. It's the precedent. Has it been, can we move on? I don't feel like talking about this anymore. All right, lets get into editing Narrator (14m 9s): And on to today's topic. Jesper (14m 13s): Okay. So when we write together, I'm usually doing the first draft while you and shots of the editing Autumn. So pro Writing ADE is sort of your domain. Yeah. You did give me a virtual to have a providing aid before we invested in it. But the fact that I'm not doing the editing also means that I have a, not too much knowledge, is that what you are actually doing inside the stool? Well then I guess you're a role in today's podcast is letting me know if what I'm saying is clear and understandable and not gobbling, but yeah, it was right to ask the stupid questions today. Autumn (14m 57s): And It is, I, I, we started in January. So again, I had, we were planning on writing together. You were working, we were working on the novella And I was also finishing up my tainted face series and I wanted something to really enhance my editing. I mean, I think I do a pretty good job. I do several passes. We've talked about how we edit it before is that I do like a content edit and then I do like a word choice that I am doing really the fine tuning, you know, making sure everything looks good. And then I send it to the editor and I just wanted something a little bit more on that fine tuning. And so this was after the content edit were, I know all the subplots are good in general, everything. I think everything, I think it should be, there is there, but something before I said that to the editor and because of that, we looked at Fictionary we looked at AutoCrit and when I was looking at Fictionary, I think I suddenly thought I should check out for a Writing aid because I was a user with that when they were just mostly either or the like a little BB company. Autumn (15m 60s): Umm. And it was on my Google drive when they still had my full time job. And I was doing some editing like in Google drive all at work and in my lunch break and stuff like that. So I had a premium subscription at one time to ProWritingAid long time ago when I thought it was pretty impressive that what they do now, there are pretty awesome. So that's, that's sort of the background of what happened. Yeah, Jesper (16m 32s): Yeah, yeah indeed. And I just want it to inject as well that, because the other part of why we we're looking at these different software was also that we have been thinking that at some point in the future, we don't know when, but, and it could be years out. I don't know. But we have been thinking that at some point because the, the world, the fictional world, a, a, a fantasy world that we call it Elysium, the one that we created is so big and we created it so big on purpose because we were thinking that maybe at some point we would like to publish other authors who write in this setting as well. Jesper (17m 13s): So one of the initial drivers behind looking into all of this was actually that we were trying to see if we could find some sort of software that could help analyzing work. Meaning for example, let's say that we wanted to take on board a two or three authors or something like that. And we said, okay, we are, if anybody is interesting in us Publishing your work, which would also mean that we are advertising it and all of that stuff on your behalf, then M you know, send some, some of your work to us so we can see your writing. But the problem with that of course, would be that it means that we would have to sit there and REIT nine novels. Jesper (17m 57s): For example, we are at my reading speed, how will it take three years? So that's, that was not very good. So if we were trying to see that the Fictionary AutoCrit is that those were the two weeks we started with before Autumn thought of ProWritingAid. But when we were trying to see, can we use any of those tools to sort of like load in a manuscript and then get some sort of report from the software saying, what is the WRITING like, so that we want to, we, of course, do you want to read some of it, but we don't want to be forced to read entire novels. You know, it would be like in initial screening thing. So we, if it said already, or if the software were to assess, this is not a very good, and then why spend all the time reading It? Jesper (18m 43s): Whereas if the software says, this is really good, Oh, there's no problems with it. Then we could go in and read it. Right. So we were, we were looking for some sort of screening process. So, so it was just to put the whole thing in context, because I may be, some people will think that pro writing aid is not quite the same as AutoCrit and Fictionary, there is some overlap, but its not quite the same. So it was just to explain where we were coming from as well. They're right. How about it? Autumn (19m 8s): Yeah, I don't think so. There are all, I would say it's definitely worth checking out AutoCrit and Fictionary and they all have different things that they do. AutoCrit steam to be more towards editing. They had a lot of reports that were similar to ProWritingAid, but not quite as beefy. And then Fictionary had some really good tips on how to write better and develop your novel better. But actually it didn't get into a lot of the editing I aspects where pro writing aid has a really in depth editor. But besides that they have this wonderful overview that tells you, Hey, these are the areas, your strong in which I love that they started out with, these are the ones that you did well in. Autumn (19m 53s): And then they have ones where they kindly say, these are our areas you might want to look working on. And then you can go into each of those individual areas that they say you need to work on. And there is a sub report where you can just look it just that one and work on it and fix it. And I've developed 'cause I've done like what three or four devils already. And it's what March is pro writing aid and going through all of these Stories, I, I feel like I'm like totally an expert on which of these reports that I go through and I have my own little standard of running through them to see how things develop and what I liked to develop. And I have noticed actually some really cool corks, but depending on my characters that a few reports will actually show up different ways. Autumn (20m 40s): And so you can almost see the character's voice showing up in the report. So it's kind of, that's really fine tuned in a nuanced. When you notice, when you're noticing a software in AI going through something and saying this report, this metric has always reading this one, it's this character or you're like the herd. That's really funny, but the nice things that are really cool, it is really cool. And I could tell you what to report that is, but which ones I noticed, but there are definitely some reports there that I don't go into quite as much. And that's okay. I mean, everyone is going to look at things differently. Some of them, I just don't take the time and maybe they should spend more time on them, but I feel like I've already covered them later, but some of them we can get into some of the best reports. Autumn (21m 25s): And I know my favorite is I call it echoes and this is a phenomenon. I'm sure you've noticed this, that once you think of a word, you tend to use it two or three times really close. Like after you write it the first time, like you'll think of something really such a strange word. I don't want to pick out something, but you know, we would not pencil, but it would be like maybe a description and action and you'll end up using like thrust or pooled or glanced. Look, those words like that. And you'll look it, you know, reuse it like two sentences later and then you'll reuse it like six sentences later and that just gets boring for the reader. That's why we have a thesaurus. Autumn (22m 8s): And it's hard though, when you're editing and especially in editing, editing your own work, it is so hard to find those words are used to read backwards. My entire manuscript backwards, just trying to find them other people would read it allowed because you hear it. It often can you catch up so much easier that way. So you have to do something to really see what's in front of you or are, you can run it through a ProWritingAid and look through the echoes. They have two different versions that it took me a second to do this, but they have word repeat, which looks at every single time you've used that word in the entire chapter. I, the beautiful thing about ProWritingAid is if you write in Scrivener, like we do it actually can open a and file and edit chapter by chapter in Scrivener. Autumn (22m 50s): So you don't need to have to like move your file into a different format or spit it out into word. Its just, I love having everything in one place. So it's so nice that it does that. And so I'm opening up my Scribner file and letting it run something you don't want to do the whole repeats, but echos just does when you use that word again within the next, so many words, like you can set it to whatever you want. 300, 500, a thousand of that's a little high, but depends on what you're writing. If you are doing a site to a scientific journal, you might want it really high. You might run at a really low. And that is definitely to me. The place to start is to see how many times we have reuse the same word. Autumn (23m 30s): And it's just like, even when I thought I was good and I was being paying so much attention too, you know, not reusing the word too many times. Oh no. When you run it through this echos check, you're just like, Oh my goodness. I am in love with this word. Look as fallback. WORST. I, I double check that one all the time because it seems like I always reuse that one way to many times. So I'm often running through and doing stuff There. Jesper (24m 5s): Yeah. Yeah. I can't say on top of my mind, which ones I, but I definitely noticed as well that even when I write the first draft, sometimes I, I noticed myself repeating the same word. So I do, I do as will pick up that you saw us and tries to try to even the first draft to try to use some different words just to not make it too painful for you. Autumn (24m 30s): I do have a painful on myself. It's just our tendency to do that as a writer is it's like we get these things stuck in our head and we just keep using the same word. And it's just so nice. Like I said, it's so hard to find it on your own and that it has this echo cheque is just so fantastic. It was one of my favorite once you run is where I usually start. And it is impressive how much that cleans up your Writing right off the get go. You're really forest it's nice. Cause highlights, not only where are you used it at? Like how many spaces do you use it? But then it comes up. If you'd click on it, you could come up with a thesaurus and you can see, you know, other options you can think about it. Autumn (25m 13s): And that's really, that's my most time consuming. Umm, so the terracing to it, that that is my most time-consuming edit in pro Writing rate ADE is running the Echo's cheque that can easily take a half an hour or more. Cause I'm really reading through it and pulling things out and trying to change, not just using the Taurus. Yeah. First chapter and that just using us the stories. But I tend to sometimes rearrange sentences and really try to really, really develop things a little bit better with this check. Jesper (25m 46s): And when you do that, so when you make changes, it changes inside the Scrivener file itself, correct? Autumn (25m 52s): Yes. Correct. And that is one of the nice thing. So when I then go back and open up, Scrivner all my changes, our there, as long as we hit save it and it does more new, if you didn't save it, it says, Hey, you didn't say this, but you do have to hit save. Its not like I'm I worked on a Mac. So when I get so used to like what I changed something, obviously I wanted to change it. If I changed it, I wouldn't have changed at all if I didn't need to change that. So max always save everything if you change it, but me and upper Writing it, you have to actually hit the safe. Right. And so Jesper (26m 23s): What are some of the other reports and in the software Autumn (26m 26s): From their I, the one I have noticed that actually have some nuances based on character's as well as my own author of voice is called stickie, which I think that it's just sound like a fun, have fun reports to run, But sticky sentences, our ones that you use a lot of filler words instead of the nouns and adjectives and verbs, the filler ones like the is, Oh, well actually yours is a verb, but you know, not even strong verbs. So when you have the sentence with a lot of those, its harder to comprehend for a reader. They are going to call us and they can be really short sentences, but usually they tend to be your longer sentences. And that's the one I've noticed that I have a few characters that do speak in a kind of wordy styles and those sticky, those were my sticky rating. Autumn (27m 13s): We'll be like 46%. And it does give you ranges of what is normal in writing. So I think Forti is usually the upper level. I tend to, if I hit 40, I'm really proud of myself, usually 42% like you, my low end, I tend to write short sentences, which is funny. And it gives you a sentence variation that it says like average sentence length. I think it was between 11 and 18 based on the genre I've chosen. And I tend to write like 10.2 sentence length, 10.2 words per sentence, as my seems to be my average or a 10.8, 11.2. But my sticky index has a really high. So every once in a while I have a sentence it's like 32 words, you know? Autumn (27m 55s): So, and it is, it is at least something that does give you, there is a whole report on length where it'll tell you your sentence length and it'll show you almost like an audit auditable, Audio graph, you know, the ups and downs. It will show you so you can see that you are really varying your sentences. These are important tools that it's happy. It's when I do, you know, read ProWritingAid eye, look at it and I'm like, Oh yeah, I've already got that good. So I tend to skip the length report unless I just feel like, you know, looking at fun squiggly graphs, but the sticky sentence, one is one where you get to sit down and you see the sentences. And then it's in this computer is saying, this might be confusing. This is going to make readers stall and you can go through and try to reduce those sentences and clean them up and move out some of the stuff. Autumn (28m 41s): Do you really need to have this description, the description and, and, and an, or, and can you break this into several sentences and clean it up? And that really does help. That will help your reader so much to no, Hey, this is really long sentence or this was a really, even a short sense that just is not clear. Or can you put it in a better noun? Can't you put it in a better verb, make this a little bit more concrete, less sticky sentence. And so that was a fantastic one. And from there I think, Jesper (29m 16s): Yeah, yeah, yeah. And quite a lot of these basically things that helps with the line by line editing. But I believe that, yeah. I mean, I don't think unless I'm wrong, but I don't think you are using it so much. But I do believe that ProWritingAid has some stuff that helps with short of character arcs on all the plotting elements and stuff like that. Autumn (29m 39s): Yeah. But it has a little bit, it has some later ones, it has reports on pacing. So you can see how many sentences, how many paragraphs you have that are slow. One thing I wish it did is it will tell you how many paragraphs you have that are slow, but it won't tell you out of how many paragraphs and the chapter I have a knot, it'll tell you sentences. Or like how many sentences you have, but not how many paragraphs. And I think it would be so cool. If it would tell you, you have like nine paragraphs out of 28 that are slow because then if you wanted to, you could make your own chart to see how that is graphing. But it does help to see like, is this a lull you can, you should know for yourself, like, Hey, I meant to write this chapter as a law or this one is a hurdle. Autumn (30m 26s): So it should be a lot more exciting. And you look at it and you're like, Oh, I only have four slowed paragraphs. Perfect. This is a hurdle. Or you lug it out and you open it up. And its like its 10 slow paragraphs that are full of like description and emotion. And its just really slow and you're like, Oh well that's okay. This is a lull. Or should it be, should I be reworking lists to make sure it's better? So that is one. And that it has one report. This is the only platform out of everything that we looked at that had to report that was on the census, that it actually looked through your text and pulled out how many times, how many words you use at fit each of the five senses. And that was fantastic. And that's where it Fictionary I thought was pretty cool. Autumn (31m 7s): It gave you some advice to always use all the senses, but you were supposed to fill in which words you were using, ProWritingAid says, Hey, you use 2%. So four words that were in a smell. And I think that is really cool. So with just one quick check, you can say like I hit all of the senses or it says you're missing one. You can be like, Oh gosh, I'd have to go back in and add in this one. So I think that's a fantastic report. It really gives you an idea of how you're doing on all using all the senses. You know, do you see only 50% is site and you didn't use any touch. This would be horrible. You need to go fix that. Jesper (31m 51s): Yeah. So in some degree or some sense, I guess you could say that if you are looking for some sort of software tool, when you are, let's say first starting out and you basically want to work more around story structure, character arcs, then Fictionary might be the better choice. But if you're looking for some software that can really help elevating you're writing and, and looking sense Instructure's structures, word choices, using a census and all of that stuff, then pro writing aid. Well, it, it, it is more powerful than Fictionary and, And I, I, I, and I also think the Fictionary is better than an AutoCrit. Jesper (32m 38s): So, so I think that's the thing is it's almost like AutoCrit then Fictionary and then ProWritingAid I, but, but that's of course looking at our own needs, but if you are like a completely new author, you want some help, some software help in terms of just structuring the story, then Fictionary might actually be better than ProWritingAid for your needs. Autumn (32m 58s): I agree. Yeah. The one thing I really enjoyed with Fictionary for the cause there was a free trial and I mean, if you want to go check it out, that's what I think it's really cool. It's got a 14 day free trial, the Fictionary and there's a 14 day free trial with ProWritingAid I, so you can't lose the fact. You can do both the same time and you use ProWritingAid I in Fictionary and then you are really doing some powerful writing at the same time. He probably could just focus on one or the other first though, but there are some really cool note features and Fictionary where it goes. And you want to know that, like it tells you to use a sentences and you can go click on the little question, Mark and explains why and what you're supposed to be doing. And I kind of like those notes at the time. Autumn (33m 39s): I was like, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But now when I'm in ProWritingAid of the one thing that I think it really isn't the gray that greatest, That, and I've actually sent out a question to the staff over there is I think the thesaurus is kind of the week. I also have a pro or a premium subscription to Grammarly and Grammarly is purely just fixing your sentences, the thesaurus period's, you know, those kind of things, the concrete changes. It doesn't give you any of the reports, a writing ProWritingAid. So I think ProWritingAid has more powerful, but Grammarly is the stories and understanding how you used the word in the sentence. Like if it, the word could be announced or a verb Grammarly, we will figure out what it is and give you some really amazing concrete suggestions for your thesaurus. Autumn (34m 30s): ProWritingAid I, 70% of the time, I think there's a word in there that's acceptable. Maybe less than that. Sometimes 40%. It depends on the word. Like I had, I had reuse shoulder or a few times and one of the F the suggestions, and this is the source was left. And like, how has left a good replacement for a shoulder? I just, that one sticks in my mind, but it's not usually that bad, but there are times where if you highlight the word one place, it will give you some suggestions and then you highlight it below. It won't have any suggestions. And I'm just, I don't like those in consistencies. I'm often either, either I know a better word myself, or I'm reworking the sentence and I'll just come up with something better or I'm going into, you know, Googling synonyms of another word. Autumn (35m 17s): And I've actually put in a, a S a T they don't have a ticket, but they have a way of putting in features that you suggestions. And so I put it in a suggestion where we can add in our own words into that, the source, because I am so sick of Googling the same words, because I can't remember that I used it in the previous chapter. And I know there is something better. So that's about it. The one place, I really think ProWritingAid, I does kind of fall flat that the source could be a lot more robust and, you know, if I could have anything I ever wanted, I would love to see them like do a next generation where it says, Hey, you use this word, like shoulder or a glance. So many times, why don't you try using a different body part? Autumn (35m 58s): Why don't you try? I would love to like, see, like the emotional side is Saurus if you've ever used that online or have that book, which we'll have to have it on my Kindle when they were doing, you know, edit. And I wish it would be like tied into pro writing aid where it says, Hey, this looks like it's an emotional Q, why don't you try this one? But in all honesty, that's what you pay an editor for. If you're paying for a really good editor, they should be picking this stuff up. I think it would be so cool to be like developing the AI too that level. But, you know that's a really big ask it. I know that I was basically like, I want you to like, program an editor into a pro writing it, but it would also be really cool if it could develop that much and be like, Hey, you're using an emotional Q, why don't you try something else here? Autumn (36m 47s): Hint, hint, you know? Jesper (36m 49s): Yeah, yeah. For sure on that. That would be cool. Yeah. I should also mention by the way that, and I do not remember the episode number, but you can go out and then you can go back and check if you, if you want. But we did interview the CEO of Fictionary and a past episode when she talked to Christina, I think she is called and she a, she talked a lot about, well, all the features within Fictionary. So it Fictionary is something you were interested in just to go back through the podcast feed and find the one where we are talking about Fictionary and then listening to that one as well. But I was also thinking Autumn. Mmm. So using a software can sometimes feel a bit overwhelming, meaning like, Okay, so I have all of this report's I've had all this stuff I can, I can get from the software, but maybe if you maybe would be useful for some people to just, if you sort of just boil down a bit about what would be the sort of steps that you would suggest, like do this and then do this, and then do this sort of a give or give some people a bit of a template for ProWritingAid basically. Autumn (38m 1s): Yeah, absolutely. And it's one of those things, no matter where you open it, it has this huge menu of reports across the top. And you can run an overview, always, especially if you're just getting familiar with the program and your not sure where to start or how your own writing is looking, run the overview report for us, because it'll get you oriented. It'll tell you where you are strong. Yay. I love that. They tell you what you are strong. It will give you some graphs. It it'll tell you, go focus on, you know, go look at these other individual reports. So, you know, that will give you a good starting point. Then at that point, the One report, I would say, never, ever, ever run. They have one that is basically All it'll run every single report that it does all at the same time. Autumn (38m 44s): And just highlight all of your texts. It is chaos. I mean, I am chaotic. I admit it, but this is chaos. This is so overwhelming. So just to skip that one. Yeah. And also skip repeats because those two will just make you feel like, Oh my God, I don't even know where to start with this. You will feel so overwhelmed. Just skip that, go to the Echo's, you know, do your overview, go to the echos, you know, to double check your length of your sentences, which is a good one. Run your sticky report below stickie, as cliche as that is a fantastic one. There was a report on dialogue. It'll tell you if you're using things consistently, there's also a consistency cheque, which is also really awesome. So you will tell you if your capitalizations are a consistent, like, are you M you know, mages, or do you have names that are your upper cases and sometimes lower casing. Autumn (39m 32s): It will get you to, you have fixed for that. You can go down and then do there's one for homonyms. I used to be horrible in homonyms have gotten better. I would say the homonym report that there is, it tells you every single word that is a potential homonym. It doesn't just look for ones you might have missed. You used that so that it might confuse you. Cause like if you, it will highlight or a cause, or it can be an, or it can be aura as in like a panel. So he'll say you might get yourself a little more overwhelmed with some of those reports. You've got to look at them in, take a minute. You know, there is some information that you can go online and see what they're about. Read those run, you know, the sensory, the pacing run all of those, but to each one individually in a kind of his set up in order that if you start on echoes and work your way to the right, just go in that sequence and then come back. Autumn (40m 25s): And there is a final one that I love to wrap up. Two final ones to wrap up with. And one is overused and its like echoes, but its totally different. It, it tells you if you simply used this word too many times as compared to previous WRITING, like I say, look so it'll tell you, Hey, you have started sentences with ING endings way to many times compared to publish Writing, go fix those. And then once you do your overused words, checked, go and run the regular grammar. That's the last step, which is actually the first report. So it's a live report, go fix everything there it tells you to do and then hit save. Autumn (41m 11s): And that chapter's done. Jesper (41m 13s): Yeah. So I think overall, if you are, I mean ProWritingAid should probably be a useful tool for almost everyone. I would say AutoCrit I would say Nope, just to skip that one. If you need to ask, if we set before, if you, if you are quite knew to writing and you need more of the structural help than probably check out, Fictionary maybe get both Fictionary and a pro Writing eight on trial versions and see which one you, you like the most. But I think it's probably safe to say that you are editing phase and you're writing will become better by using some of this software. Jesper (41m 58s): It's not, it's not just some, you know, nice thing to have it it's almost in the category of need to have, because it actually does make a big difference. It really does. I think my set, my chapters edited with pro writing aid are so much stronger than what I was doing before pro writing aid. I really think that the sentences and the echos and the checks that I'm doing through providing aid, I see an improvement. It's got an extra Polish that I could not have done on my own. Yeah. So that's something for, for you to check out, to sign up for a trial version of pro writing aid. Jesper (42m 39s): If you have an AE or if you are using already and to see what you, what you think of it. But other than that, then the next Monday, I'm hoping to have an interview for you with Alex Newton, from Kayla Tricks. And we are going to talk about what sells in the fantasy genre. Yeah. Narrator (42m 57s): 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 Autumn and Jesper on patreon.com/AmwritingFantasy. For as little as a dollar a month you'll get awesome rewards and keep The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast going. Stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

Self Publishing Journeys
Christmas 2020 Review of the Year

Self Publishing Journeys

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 26, 2020 90:38


1) Bible Pathway Adventures product catalogue: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1W8-tlKcKdLLcFpxLlwNCH_zZvjI8O4so/view?usp=sharing 2) Ron Vitale's Estonia e-residency article: https://greatcareersphl.org/2020/09/06/embracing-the-digital-world-with-e-residency/ 3) Avoid losing book reviews - Alex Newton of K-Lytics: https://k-lytics.com/video-vault/amazon-link-anatomy-for-books/ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/paul-teague/message

Self Publishing Journeys
Christmas 2020 Review of the Year

Self Publishing Journeys

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 26, 2020 90:38


1) Bible Pathway Adventures product catalogue: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1W8-tlKcKdLLcFpxLlwNCH_zZvjI8O4so/view?usp=sharing 2) Ron Vitale's Estonia e-residency article: https://greatcareersphl.org/2020/09/06/embracing-the-digital-world-with-e-residency/ 3) Avoid losing book reviews - Alex Newton of K-Lytics: https://k-lytics.com/video-vault/amazon-link-anatomy-for-books/

MOVERS SHAKERS MAKERS
Ballet for the 21st Century - Ballet and Mental Health - The Survey Pt I

MOVERS SHAKERS MAKERS

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 22, 2020 60:08


Emma Lister and cohost Zoë Ashe-Browne released a 30 question survey about ballet dancers' mental health. They never expected the response it got--hundreds of classically trained dancers filled it out. This is obviously a topic we need to talk about!In this, the first episode of MOVERS SHAKERS MAKERS ballet mini-series, they reveal some of the statistics collected, the stories shared and speak candidly about what it all means. Special guests: Barry Drummond, Alex Newton, Shelby Williams—THE SURVEY—30 questions. Completed by over 400 trained ballet dancers. Graduated 2010-2020: 45% and pre1990-2010: 55% .*Below are only the results discussed in the podcast*SCHOOL LIFETo the best of my knowledge, my school had qualified, professional teachers:Strongly agree 51.69%Agree 37.3%Neither agree nor disagree 6.29%Disagree 3.6%Strongly disagree 1.12%I received a well rounded dance education. (Not an exhaustive list): injury prevention, professional development, physical maintenance, performance experience, access to counselling, nutrition, other dance forms, dance theory:Yes 52.36%Not sure 10.56%No 37.08%In ballet school I felt I could voice my concerns or questions:Strongly agree 3.37%Agree 15.96%Neither agree nor disagree 22.25%Disagree 35.06%Strongly disagree 23.37I experienced first-hand (either witnessed or personal experienced) verbal abuse from my ballet school staff: bad language, yelling (in anger, not above the music!), comment that made me feel uncomfortable, comment that made me feel bad about myself:Strongly agree 50.11%Agree 31.69%Neither agree nor disagree 5.17%Disagree 10.11%Strongly disagree 2.92%I experienced eating distress in school: guilt after eating, restricted calorie intake, purging, obsessive thoughts about weight, obsessive eating habits, extreme negative thoughts about body shape:I did not suffer from eating distress 18.88%I experienced sexually inappropriate behaviour from staff at my ballet school:Strongly agree 11.01%Agree 19.33%Neither agree nor disagree 10.34%Disagree 31.46%Strongly disagree 27.87%If you experienced sexually inappropriate, homophobic, sexist, racist behaviour, did you report it or talk about with another adult? Yes 12.97%No 58.54%Didn’t know who to report it to 28.48%PROFESSIONAL LIFEIn my career I have predominantly been under the care of professional, experienced staff:Strongly agree 16.97%Agree 40.43%Neither agree nor disagree 21.30%Disagree 18.77%Strongly disagree 2.53%I experienced verbal abuse from staff in my work place (examples as before):Strongly agree 38.04%Agree 35.14%Neither agree nor disagree 10.14%Disagree 11.96%Strong disagree 4.71I have a positive relationship with at least one member of staff where I work/recent long contract:Strongly agree 33.45%Agree 53.09%Neither agree nor disagree 8%Disagree 4%Strong disagree 1.45%I experienced eating distress in professional life (symptoms as before):I did not suffer from eating distress 22.26% I experienced sexually inappropriate behaviour from staff in my work place:Strongly agree 15.58%Agree 25.72%Neither agree nor disagree 13.04%Disagree 26.81%Strong disagree 18.84%I have access to professional help with my mental health through my employer/s:Strongly agree 4.35%Agree 12.32%Neither agree nor disagree 12.32%Disagree 35.51%Strong disagree 35.51%

The Story Studio Podcast - Writing, Storytelling, and Marketing Advice for Writers & Business

As powerful people are so fond of saying, “Knowledge is Power” and in the world of ebook publishing, Alex Newton’s K-Lytics is a powerful thing. Knowing the real numbers about […]

Manchester Football Social
Is it the right time for fans to be allowed back in to Premier League stadiums, is England v Wales a rivalry and West Brom in focus

Manchester Football Social

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 8, 2020 36:06


Premier League and EFL clubs are putting the pressure on the relevant authorities to allow fans back in to stadiums. But with coronavirus cases rising, is it the right time to open up grounds again? (Part 2, 17:41) Wales defender Ben Davies seems to think that there is a rivalry with England. But do England fans really care? (Part 3, 25:23) West Bromwich Albion are back in the big time but how will they get on? Baggies fan and podcaster Alex Newton joins us to chat.

Manchester Football Social
Is it the right time for fans to be allowed back in to Premier League stadiums, is England v Wales a rivalry and West Brom in focus

Manchester Football Social

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 8, 2020 36:06


Premier League and EFL clubs are putting the pressure on the relevant authorities to allow fans back in to stadiums. But with coronavirus cases rising, is it the right time to open up grounds again? (Part 2, 17:41) Wales defender Ben Davies seems to think that there is a rivalry with England. But do England fans really care? (Part 3, 25:23) West Bromwich Albion are back in the big time but how will they get on? Baggies fan and podcaster Alex Newton joins us to chat.

The Rebel Author Podcast
048 How to Use Data to Sell More Books with Alex Newton

The Rebel Author Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 1, 2020 76:57


This week's questions is: How do you use data in your writing business? Find out more about K-Lytics here:https://k-lytics.com Book recommendation of the week is: Intuitive Editing by Tiffany Yates Martin Kobo Amazon UK  Amazon USA Sign up for the The Anatomy of Prose: How to Breathe Life into Your Story, Characters and Sentences Webinar Listener Rebel of the Week is Jay Renee Lawrence If you'd like to be a Rebel of the week please do send in your story, it can be any kind of rebellion. You can email your rebel story to rebelauthorpodcast@gmail.com or tweet me @rebelauthorpod *** No new patrons this week, a huge thank you to all my current patrons, you help not only to keep the podcast running, you make me feel like what I do is worthwhile. If you'd like to support the show, and get early access to all the episodes as well as bonus content you can from as little as $2 a month by visiting: www.patreon.com/sachablack

The Self Publishing Show
SPS-236: COVID-19: How it Impacted the Indie Industry - with Alex Newton

The Self Publishing Show

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 24, 2020 41:53


K-Lytic's Alex Newton on how the coronavirus pandemic has impacted indie authors.

EFL Matters
Championship Final Day review - The best league in the world

EFL Matters

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 23, 2020 56:15


Sky Sports EFL reporter Jonathan Oakes is joined by presenter David Prutton and pundit Keith Andrews to discuss an incredible final day of the Championship, as Leeds lifted the trophy, West Brom secured promotion, Nottingham Forest dropped out of the top six and Luton and Barnsley secured safety in dramatic fashion.It was also a dramatic night for Brentford, who missed a golden chance to finish second, Cardiff who moved up to fifth and secured their play-off spot, Swansea managed a huge swing to pip Forest to sixth, and Wigan who were relegated in heartbreaking fashion after their 12-point deduction.We also hear from Nottingham Forest fan Scott Eley, Barnsley fan Joe Beardsall and West Brom fan Alex Newton on a remarkable night for their clubs - all in very different ways.They also look ahead to the play-offs, and the latest movements in the managerial merry-go-round in the Championship.

SPA Girls Podcast
SPA Girls Podcast – EP244 – Alex Newton From K-lytics

SPA Girls Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 17, 2020 72:59


Knowing as much as you can about your category, genre or sub-genre is vitally important if you're going to succeed as a self publisher, and Alex Newton is keen to help you with that. He's the creator of K-lytics (www.k-lytics.com) a website where you can get in-depth reports on various genres and sub-genres on Amazon that will help you find your niche, boost sales in your chosen genre, and basically give you the information you need to stand out in this crowded publishing space. In this episode Alex explains the reports and how to use them, talks about the Amazon environment and how it works, and also dishes the dirt on the romance genre, giving us some helpful tips along the way! This is a must listen episode!

SPA Girls Podcast
SPA Girls Podcast – EP244 – Alex Newton From K-lytics

SPA Girls Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 17, 2020 72:59


Knowing as much as you can about your category, genre or sub-genre is vitally important if you're going to succeed as a self publisher, and Alex Newton is keen to help you with that. He's the creator of K-lytics (www.k-lytics.com) a website where you can get in-depth reports on various genres and sub-genres on Amazon that will help you find your niche, boost sales in your chosen genre, and basically give you the information you need to stand out in this crowded publishing space. In this episode Alex explains the reports and how to use them, talks about the Amazon environment and how it works, and also dishes the dirt on the romance genre, giving us some helpful tips along the way! This is a must listen episode!

Six Figure Authors
SFA 039 – Trends on Amazon, New Opportunities, and How CoVid-19 Is Affecting Ebook Sales with Alex Newton

Six Figure Authors

Play Episode Listen Later May 21, 2020 84:41


Our guest this week is Alex Newton, the mastermind behind K-Lytics, a market intelligence service that monitors close to 100,000 Amazon titles each month to help publishers of fiction and non-fiction spot trends, identify opportunities,…Continue ReadingSFA 039 – Trends on Amazon, New Opportunities, and How CoVid-19 Is Affecting Ebook Sales with Alex Newton

Novel Marketing
COVID-19 Kindle Stats: Genre Winners and Losers

Novel Marketing

Play Episode Listen Later May 11, 2020 42:57


How has COVID-19 impacted the Kindle ebook market? Alex Newton answers based on the data. The post COVID-19 Kindle Stats: Genre Winners and Losers appeared first on Author Media.

Book Marketing Mentors
BM218: How To Find the Best Book Market Opportunities

Book Marketing Mentors

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 29, 2020 29:01


What does it take to find the best book market opportunities? Listen as book market researcher, Alex Newton shares power secrets to help you get an unfair advantage over your competitors. In this week's powerful podcast episode "How To Find the Best Book Market Opportunities" you will discover ... Why authors should pay attention to market data and what data to pay attention to. Which categories of non-fiction books have soared as a result of the current situation How to find the best categories on Amazon to list your book Why being a bestselling author won't make rich and famous  What's your best currency converter as a non-fiction author Why you should pay attention to the audiobook market Uncommon commonsense mistakes to avoid And a whole lot more... Want support and creative ideas for marketing you, your book, and your business, come join us every Friday at 1:55pm ET.  Zoom link to join: https://zoom.us/j/225639850​​ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Novel Marketing
State of the Kindle 2020

Novel Marketing

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 17, 2020 43:23


Learn about Kindle ebook trends in 2020 with Alex Newton of K-lytics. The post State of the Kindle 2020 appeared first on Author Media.

Take on Board
Getting the new Australian Modern Slavery laws and other human rights issues on the board agenda with Alex Newton - Episode 24

Take on Board

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 10, 2019 28:05


Today on the Take on Board podcast, Helga talks with Alex Newton.Helga and Alex talk discuss human rights and business and what directors need to know and what to ask.Alex is a lawyer and specialist in business and human rights. She consults with corporations, governments, and non-governmental organizations on a wide range of matters relating to responsible business, human rights, anti discrimination, Public Policy and Governance.She's previously worked as director and executive in Australia's department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. And before that in the United Nations Secretary General's strategic planning unit in New York.Think of this episode as a probono lesson on the new modern slavery laws and their implications for governance and your boards - Helga sure does!Contact Alex or find out more about her:https://alexnewton.com.au/Resources that Alex mentions:The Business of Human Rights by Alex Newton - https://bit.ly/2s4r09sFOR MORE INFORMATION:Join the Take on Board community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/TakeOnBoard/Follow along on Twitter: @TakeOnBoardHelga’s Board Kickstarter and Board Accelerator programs: https://www.helgasvendsen.com.au/eventsFor more information about Helga Svendsen: https://www.helgasvendsen.com.au/Interested in working with Helga? https://www.helgasvendsen.com.au/workwithmeTo contact Helga: helga@helgasvendsen.com.au

Tungsten Originals
37: The Unsung Heroes of Filmmaking w/ Editor Alex Newton

Tungsten Originals

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 29, 2019 83:06


Editor Alex Newton joined us to discuss his journey into professional editing, the most daunting projects he's worked on, and what he's learned along the way. Links below: Alex Newton Website (http://www.alexanderfnewton.com/) Tungsten: Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/tungstenoriginals/) Twitter (https://twitter.com/tngstenoriginal) Website (https://www.tungstenoriginals.com/) Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/tungstenoriginals) Merch (https://www.etsy.com/shop/tungstenoriginals) West: Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/westlikethedirection/) Twitter (https://twitter.com/westgivens) Website (https://www.westgivens.com/) NOTE: There was an issue uploading the original file, so this is a quick re-upload of the episode. Sorry about that!

Disruptor, Tales From the Edges of Publishing
Cracking the Amazon Code: How One Man Tamed the Giant

Disruptor, Tales From the Edges of Publishing

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 9, 2019 25:11


Using publicly available data, Alex Newton has developed algorithms that predict which books will sell on Amazon -- and which won't.  Find out how a mild mannered numbers guy has become the "Amazon psychic" and is helping writers and publishers succeed in the world's largest bookstore. Links: K-Lytics - http://k-lytics.com/

The Self Publishing Show
SPS-162: Writing to Market: Using Big Data to Find Your Niche - with Alex Newton

The Self Publishing Show

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 8, 2019 60:35


K-Lytics' Alex Newton explains how purposefully crunching numbers and analysing data can help indie authors find the most profitable reader niche for their books.

Become a Writer Today
Alex Newton of K-Lytics On Selling More Non-Fiction Books

Become a Writer Today

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 3, 2019 22:13


Alexander Niehues (aka Alex Newton) worked as a senior management consultant in the corporate world for 20 years before quitting his career to work at home in Stuttgart and founding K-lytics.In this podcast episode, Newton explains: How to use analytics to sell more books Why he relies on outsourcing and contractors What non-fiction authors can do to earn more money The types of books that sell a lot on Amazon todayAnd lots more.--- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/becomeawritertoday/messageSupport the show (https://becomeawritertoday.com/join)

Christian Publishing Show
007 – The State of The Christian Fiction Kindle Market with Alex Newton

Christian Publishing Show

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 18, 2018 30:31


Today we are going to talk about one of my favorite topics, data! Alex Newton, the CEO and Founder of K-Lytics.com a leading market research resource for authors and publishers or put in terms we care about his company and expertise helps authors sell more books, face less competition, and get a bigger return on the […] The post 007 – The State of The Christian Fiction Kindle Market with Alex Newton appeared first on Christian Publishing Show.

Christian Publishing Show
007 – The State of The Christian Fiction Kindle Market with Alex Newton

Christian Publishing Show

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 18, 2018 30:31


Today we are going to talk about one of my favorite topics, data! Alex Newton, the CEO and Founder of K-Lytics.com a leading market research resource for authors and publishers or put in terms we care about his company and expertise helps authors sell more books, face less competition, and get a bigger return on the […] The post 007 – The State of The Christian Fiction Kindle Market with Alex Newton appeared first on Christian Publishing Show.

The Boing Cast
We're Back! Season Preview and Kit Competition(The BoingCast 18-19: Episode 1)

The Boing Cast

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 2, 2018 43:41


New season? Check. New theme song? Check. Streamlined panel? Check. The BoingCast is back, and we're better than ever! As Albion embark on their Championship adventure, Josh Bland is joined by Alex Newton to discuss WBA's summer, preview the season at large and announce an exciting competition.

Science Fiction & Fantasy Marketing Podcast
SFFMP 190: Analyzing the Amazon Store to Help Your Books Perform Better with Alex from K-Lytics

Science Fiction & Fantasy Marketing Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 17, 2018


This week, we were joined by data cruncher Alex Newton who runs the K-Lytics (i.e. Kindle Analytics) service for authors and publishers. He’s been taking a look at trends in Science Fiction and Fantasy this summer, so we invited him on to talk about the findings of his latest report. He also gave us some great information on the Amazon

The Boing Cast
"The BoingCast" Episode 40: Tottenham Joy, Relegation Woes, Darren Moore Debated

The Boing Cast

Play Episode Listen Later May 10, 2018 34:17


On a bumper edition of the podcast, Josh Bland, Alex Newton and Nathan Carr reflect on Albion's inevitable relegation with surprising pride after another wonderful performance from Darren Moore's Baggies against Tottenham on Saturday. Should Moore get the job full time? What is the emotional tenor amongst fans after our relegation? And just who out of Thomas Gaardsoe and Youssuf Mulumbu would the panel rather marry? All of this and more on this week's BoingCast.

Novel Marketing
136 – How to Use K-lytics To Sell More Kindle eBooks

Novel Marketing

Play Episode Listen Later May 8, 2018 31:35


The more you understand how readers find,  and how and why they buy books on Amazon, the more books you’re going to sell. And to help us dive deep into the subject is today’s guest, Alex Newton, the CEO and Founder of K-Lytics.com The post 136 – How to Use K-lytics To Sell More Kindle eBooks appeared first on Author Media.

The Boing Cast
"The BoingCast" Episode 36: New Technical Director, Safe Standing, Manchester United and Swansea

The Boing Cast

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 13, 2018 34:15


This week on the show, Josh Bland is joined by Alex Newton to discuss the sudden overhaul at the top of football operations at the club. On top of the chat on the new Technical Director, the panel chat Swansea, Manchester United, safe standing and Nathan phones in live from Bolton to give his belated thoughts on Pardew's dismissal.

The Boing Cast
"The BoingCast" Episode 35: Pardew Out, Big Dave In!

The Boing Cast

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 5, 2018 33:48


Finally, after weeks of disgrace on and off the pitch, Alan Pardew has been sacked as West Bromwich Albion. With so much going on at the club this week, Josh Bland is joined by Alex Newton on the panel, and the gruesome twosome get their teeth sunk into the biggest week of Albion news since taxi-gate!

The Boing Cast
"The BoingCast" Episode 19: Liverpool (A) and Man United (H) Preview, Swansea Blues, Quiz Scandal

The Boing Cast

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 12, 2017 34:15


On this week's show, Josh Bland, Alex Newton and Nathan Carr reflect on a turgid game at the Liberty Stadium on Saturday and look ahead to the knee-trembling prospect of Manchester United and Liverpool in the coming days. Also this week, what font is Alan Pardew's favourite, and scandal during guess the player.

The Boing Cast
"The BoingCast" Episode 16: Pulis Sacked, New Feature, Tottenham (A) Preview

The Boing Cast

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 23, 2017 35:05


It's finally happened! Tony Pulis has been sacked as manager of West Bromwich Albion! This week, Josh Bland, Alex Newton and Nathan Carr discuss Pulis' legacy, potential replacements, and look ahead to our tricky test at Spurs. Also this week, Nathan Carr debuts a new quiz segment on the pod!

The Boing Cast
"The BoingCast" Episode 12: Man City (H) Preview, Pulis Under Pressure, Outlandish Prediction!

The Boing Cast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 26, 2017 33:54


This week on the BoingCast, Josh Bland, Alex Newton and Nathan Carr scrutinise the future of Tony Pulis after a shocking performance at St. Mary's. Also on the show, the panel discuss knee-trembling prospect of Manchester City and Josh sends Alex into a rage with his predictions!

The Boing Cast
"The BoingCast" Episode 10: International Week Review, Nacer Chadli debate, Leicester (A) Preview

The Boing Cast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 12, 2017 30:44


Josh Bland is joined by Alex Newton and Nathan Carr to discuss all Albion related happenings. On this week's show, the gang look back at a dramatic International week for some of Albion's star men, the future of Nacer Chadli is discussed and there is a preview of our vital trip to the King Power Stadium on Monday night, all whilst Josh fights off a rapidly flooding bathroom!

The Boing Cast
"The BoingCast" Episode 09: Watford Reaction, Pulisball, Return of Nathan Carr

The Boing Cast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 5, 2017 31:50


After nine weeks, the third member of the BoingCast finally returns! Nathan Carr is back, this week joining Josh Bland and Read West Brom's Alex Newton to chat Watford disappointment, Pulis' tactics and to reflect back on our season as a whole.

The Boing Cast
"The BoingCast" Episode 08: Watford (H) Preview, Arsenal Review, Gareth Barry and Darren Fletcher

The Boing Cast

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 28, 2017 29:20


This week, Josh Bland and Alex Newton reflect on a frustrating loss away at Arsenal, look ahead to a crucial clash against high-flying Watford, and give a scathing critique of a certain Premier League referee. Also this week, chat on Gareth Barry and Darren Fletcher, as well as news of a new signing to the podcast!

The Boing Cast
"The BoingCast" Episode 07: Arsenal (A) Preview, Manchester City and West Ham Review

The Boing Cast

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 21, 2017 31:01


This week, Josh Bland and Alex Newton talk our bore draw with West Ham and our disappointing but heartening cup exit to Manchester City. Also this week, a preview of the upcoming fixture at Arsenal, and super Slaven Bilic gets some special admiration.

The Boing Cast
"The BoingCast" Episode 06: West Ham (H) Preview, Brighton defeat, Bland Out?!

The Boing Cast

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 13, 2017 29:04


This week on the BoingCast, Josh Bland and Read West Brom's Alex Newton deconstruct what has been an awful 7 days for the Baggies. The pair reflect on the loss at the Amex, look ahead to our fixture against under pressure West Ham, and a dissenting BoingCast favourite has Josh's position under threat!

The Boing Cast
"The BoingCast" Episode 05: Brighton (A) Preview, International Heroes, Competition Winner!

The Boing Cast

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 7, 2017 22:24


After Albion's international superstars did the business over the weekend, Josh Bland and Read West Brom's Alex Newton review the cream of the World Cup Qualifying break. Also this week, there is a preview of the Albion derby at the Amex, and the winner of our shirt competition is announced!

The Boing Cast
"The BoingCast" Episode 04: Transfer Special, Stoke Review, Win A Shirt!

The Boing Cast

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 2, 2017 33:51


What a week to be a Baggie! After the transfer window slammed shut on Thursday night, Josh Bland and Read West Brom's Alex Newton sat down to mull over what has been a very successful summer of business for the Albion. Also on this week's pod, there are some choice words for Mark Hughes after "lawn gate" last weekend, and you have the chance to win an Albion shirt!

The Boing Cast
"The BoingCast" Episode 03: Stoke (H) Preview, Burnley/Accrington victories, Transfer Talk

The Boing Cast

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 24, 2017 32:51


What a week for the Albion! It's three wins from a possible three so far for Tony Pulis' Baggies! Josh Bland and Alex Newton reflect back on what has been a hugely productive week for West Brom, and chat about our two impressive wins in the North West. Also on the pod, the return of everybody's least favourite pantomime villain Saido Berahino is previewed, and all transfer news is covered.

The Boing Cast
"The BoingCast" Episode 02: Burnley (A) Preview, Bournemouth victory, Gareth Barry, Unexpected News

The Boing Cast

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 17, 2017 30:54


Josh Bland and Alex Newton reflect fondly on Albion's impressive opening weekend win against Bournemouth, weigh up our new signing Gareth Barry and look ahead to an intimidating clash with Burnley. Also this week, Josh and Alex are rock by some huge transfer news mid-way through the recording!

The Boing Cast
"The BoingCast" Episode 01: Bournemouth (H), Season Preview, Competition

The Boing Cast

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 11, 2017 32:35


The BoingCast is back! Josh Bland and Alex Newton sit down to chat about transfers, Pulis, Megson, Bournemouth and the upcoming season at large. Plus, details of a free to enter competition are released.

Begin Self-Publishing Podcast
Ep 105: The Latest on the Kindle Store with Alex Newton

Begin Self-Publishing Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 26, 2017 32:38


In this episode I talk again to Alex Newton of K-Lytics about what is happening in the Amazon Kindle Store in terms of what categories are doing well and badly. You can find full show notes at http://beginselfpublishing.com/latest-kindle-store

amazon kindle kindle store alex newton k lytics amazon kindle store
The Smarty Pants Book Marketing Podcast
Episode 47 - How To Find Your Book's Best Market Before You Publish

The Smarty Pants Book Marketing Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later May 20, 2017 42:29


In this episode K-Lytics founder Alex Newton shows authors how to make sure your book will succeed before it's published. Show Notes and Links:  -How is K-Lytics different from other keyword-type tools out there? -How you can know if your book has the potential to sell before you publish it. -How to pick the right genre and sub-genre for your book's success? -What kinds of meta data will help you sell more books? -Why your marketing budget can dictate what genre your book belongs in. -If you're considering writing in a new genre, what should you do to insure that your books will reach those readers? Click here to see how K-Lytics works for authors. Watch the video.  Check out the genre market research reports that K-Lytics offers to authors. There are two pages so make sure you click "Older posts" to see all the reports. The preorder for Chris' new book, The Newbie's Guide To Sell More Books With Less Marketing will be available this week. Make sure you get an email notification so you don't miss the 99-cent preorder. Sign up for a notification here. If you have a question or comment about this episode be sure and post it on the podcast page of our website at https://cksyme.com/episode47. Let's get the conversation started!

Begin Self-Publishing Podcast
What’s New on Amazon with Alex Newton

Begin Self-Publishing Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 5, 2016 33:09


In this episode I talk again to Alex Newton from the firm K-Lytics about the trends he has recently seen in the Amazon eBook market. His company K-Lytics scans the Amazon charts and looks for the number of books, their prices and how they rank relatively. In this way he can work out what areas are the easiest to chart in and which are the areas with the most potential sales and least competition. The post What’s New on Amazon with Alex Newton appeared first on Begin Self-Publishing.

amazon amazon ebook alex newton k lytics begin self publishing
Write 2B Read: Writing, Self Publishing and Book Marketing for Fiction and Non-Fiction Writers and Authors

Alex Newton (aka Niehues) is CEO and Founder of K-lytics.com, the leading Kindle market research service on the net. Alex brings more than 20 years of experience in publishing, data analytics and management consulting to the table. Today, we talk about his company K-lytics, publishing trends, and how he made the transition from a "traditional career" to online entrepreneurship. We also discuss how one can predict if the book will sell or not before even starting writing it.Click to view: show page on Awesound

Crypto Talks
How to Know if Your Book Will Sell or Not

Crypto Talks

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 7, 2015 40:26


Alex Newton (aka Niehues) is CEO and Founder of K-lytics.com, the leading Kindle market research service on the net. Alex brings more than 20 years of experience in publishing, data analytics and management consulting to the table. Today, we talk about his company K-lytics, publishing trends, and how he made the transition from a "traditional career" to online entrepreneurship. We also discuss how one can predict if the book will sell or not before even starting writing it.