Podcast appearances and mentions of Mercedes Lackey

The Blasters & Blades PodcastWe've got one of my favorite panel chats for you, mostly because it was my flavor of nerdiness. Thanks to a friend of the show, Bill Fawcett, we had on an amazing panel of guests to talk about alternative history. We had on legendary authors Mercedes Lackey, Steve SM Stirling and Harry Turtledove for this fun discussion. Is there a cooler panel to gather together for this topic? I can't think of one, that's for sure! We ranged far and wide, talking about so many things. I wish we could have gone on for hours, but they had to do things like sleeping and eating. Anyway, this was a fun interview, so check out this episode. Lend us your eyes and ears, you won't be sorry!! Today's Host: JR Handley (Author) (Grunt)We work for free, so if you wanna throw a few pennies our way there is a linked Buy Me A Coffee site where you can do so. Just mention the podcast in the comments when you donate, and I'll keep the sacred bean water boiling!Support the Show: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/AuthorJRHandleyOur LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/blastersandbladespodcastToday's SponsorOn Deadly Ground by Bayonet Books: https://www.amazon.com/Deadly-Ground-Heroic-Bayonet-Anthology-ebook/dp/B09GL5CYY4Coffee Brand Coffee AffiliateSupport the Show: https://coffeebrandcoffee.com/?ref=y4GWASiVorJZDbDiscount Code: PodcastGruntsCoupon Code Gets you 10% offFollow Bill Fawcett on social mediaBill's Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Bill-Fawcett/author/B000AP9HP4Bill's Website: https://bloodandarmor.com/Bill's Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bill.fawcett.946Follow Harry Turtledove on social mediaHarry's Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B000APWWZQHarry's BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/hntdove.bsky.socialHarry's GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/29479.Harry_TurtledoveFollow Mercedes Lackey on social mediaMercedes' Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Mercedes-Lackey/author/B000APZNR0Merecedes Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/b/contributor/mercedes-lackey/_/N-2khgMercedes' Website: https://www.mercedeslackey.com/Mercedes' Twitter: https://x.com/mercedeslackeyMercedes' Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MercedesLackey/Mercedes' Backer Kit: https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/zombie-orpheus-entertainment/mercedes-lackey-s-grandmaster-a-deluxe-valdemar-anthologyMercedes' GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8685.Mercedes_LackeyFollow Steve SM Stirling on social mediaSteve's Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/S.-M.-Stirling/author/B000AP5GTASteve's Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/b/contributor/s-m-stirling/_/N-2kldSteve's Website: https://smstirling.com/Steve's Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stephen.m.stirlingNominate books for the Dragon Awards: https://applyto.dragoncon.org/fan_awards/dc_fan_awards_signup.php#scifishenanigans #scifishenaniganspodcast #bbp #blastersandblades #blastersandbladespodcast #podcast #scifipodcast #fantasypodcast #scifi #fantasy #books #rpg #comics #fandom #literature #comedy #veteran #army #armyranger #ranger #scififan #redshirts #scifiworld #sciencefiction #scifidaily #scificoncept #podcastersofinstagram #scificons #podcastlife #podcastsofinstagram #scifibooks #awardwinningscifi #newepisode #podcastersofinstagram #podcastaddict #podcast #scifigeek #scifibook #sfv #scifivisionaries #firesidechat #chat #panel #fireside #religionquestion #coffee #tea #coffeeortea #BillFawcett #HarryTurtledove #MercedesLackey #SteveSMStirling #SMStirling #GunsOfTheSouth #GunsOfTheSouthByHarryTurtledove #SecretHistory #XFiles #AlternativeHistory #DanBrown #Yesterday #TheYiddishPolicemensUnion #MichaelChabon #LilithsLingerie #TheOathbound #TheOathboundByMercedesLackey #NantucketSeriesBySMStirling #NantucketSeries #DanceTrackByMercedesLackey #JethroTull #WarBand #WaarBand #MarcAlanEdelheit #Timeline191Series #Timeline191SeriesByHarryTurtledove #101StumblesInTheMarchOfHistory #UltimateGeneralsVol1

We talk about Final Days of Planet Earth. We had some audio issues on this one. Please forgive us. CWs for: misogyny, body horror. For the next show, we are reading the first seven chapters of Mercedes Lackey’s Magic’s Pawn. You can go to patreon.com/rangedtouch to support the show and access the bonus episode feed. The show… Continue reading Final Days of Planet Earth (2006)

We're returning to Valdemar with Magic's Promise, by Mercedes Lackey! In his second book, Vanyel is 12 years older but perhaps not wiser as he struggles to move past his lover Tylendel's tragic death. While attempting to find some rest at his family's home (and mostly just finding homophobia), Vanyel and his companion Yfandes are pulled into a mysterious royal murder in a neighboring kingdom. He is tasked with uncovering the truth from the terrified Tashir, one of the only survivors and the suspected (but unlikely) culprit. Vanyel mopes, gets very tired and hungry, and ultimately grows - and we cheer him on every step of the way.EPISODE MEDIACover artist Jody Lee - After a more thorough look at her body of work, I have realized that she in fact created THE MANY WATERS COVER we've been obsessed with since childhood as well as so many other absolute bangers. “This artist changed my life” - Madeleine HarnoisThe Oathbreakers album - here's a taste with Shadow Stalker. There's also a separate musical interpretation of her work by Paul Espinoza, which I mention in the ep - and probably even more out there! Send us your bardic interpretations!!MUSIC - Pippin the Hunchback and Thatched Villagers by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) - Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

In this 101st episode of Sonitotum with Matthew Wayne Selznick, the podcast about making stuff (mostly writing), finding success as we each define it for ourselves, and staying healthy and sane in the process… it’s a conversation with science fiction author AJ Super! AJ Super is the author of the Seven Stars Saga, a trilogy published by Aethon Books and Blackstone Audio. Writing full time, they devour fantasy and science fiction in every medium, and even experiment with writing and reading other speculative fiction now and again. They earned two Bachelors’ degrees from the University of Idaho in the Creative Writing and Theater programs, and they have been an author since they were old enough to write (and illustrate) a stapled-together ABC book, which is still packed away in a box of childhood memorabilia.  AJ is inspired by Ursula K. Le Guin, Anne McCaffery, Octavia E. Butler, Mercedes Lackey, and other amazing female science fiction and fantasy authors. They are active in several different writing communities and an SFWA member. They currently live in Idaho with their fuzz-brained kitties, supportive spouse, and a ridiculous collection of slippers. ~ from AJ Super’s official site Across this evergreen conversation we talk parental influence, everyone’s emo phase, writing for the ADHD reader, the negative consequences of a fast book release schedule, the ol’ planner / pantser dilemma, the meaning of art, emulating our literary heroes, maintaining a healthy creative (and life!) routine, and much, much more. This episode was recorded on May 28, 2024. The conversation with AJ Super was recorded on January 22, 2024. Links and Topics Mentioned in This Episode AJ Super’s publisher is Aethon Books. Their audiobooks come from Blackstone. Visit AJ Super’s Patreon page! A few non-genre authors come up in our discussion: Flannery O’Connor Raymond Carver Charles Bukowski In particular: Factotum, Love is a Dog from Hell, and The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over the Hills Ernest Hemingway F. Scott Fitzgerald and The Great Gatsby Sun Valley, Idaho, where Hemingway is buried. I bring up Julian May‘s work as an example of wonderful books that, due to changing social mores, may be overlooked today. Edgar Rice Burroughs and Sax Rhomer, too. That favorite James Baldwin quote of mine is mentioned via Octavia Butler’s (likely unintentional) paraphrase. Next episode: a solo update and news episode. Big thanks to my Multiversalists patron community, including J. C. Hutchins, Zoë Kohen Ley, Jim Lewinson, Amelia Bowen, Ted Leonhardt, and Charles Eugene Anderson! I’m incredibly grateful for the support of my patrons. If Sonitotum with Matthew Wayne Selznick brings you joy, become a patron! Every month net earnings from my Multiversalist patron memberships is at least $100, I will donate 10% to 826 National in support of literacy and creative writing advocacy for children. Let’s go! Patrons at the Bronze tier and above receive the uncut and unedited edition of every podcast episode, including this one, which has half an hour of extra content! This episode has extra content only available for patron members of the Multiversalists community! If you're a patron member at the Bronze level or above, please log in! Click here to learn more about the benefits of membership. This content is by Matthew Wayne Selznick and came from his website.

This week, host Anne-Marie Zanzal welcomes Dr. Roxy Manning and Sarah Peyton to the show. Dr. Manning is a clinical psychologist and a certified Centre for Nonviolent Communication trainer. She brings decades of experience to her work, interruping explicitly and implicitly oppressive attitudes and culture norms. Dr. Manning has provided consultation and training across the U.S. and internationally to businesses, non-profits, and government organizations wanting to move towards equitable and diverse workplace cultures. She also works as a psychologist in San Francisco serving the homeless and disenfranchised mentally ill populations. She is the author of "How to Have Anti-Racist Conversations: Embracing Our Full Humanity to Challenge White Supremacy," and co-author of the companion text written with Sarah Peyton "The Anti-Racist Heart: A Self-Compassion and Activism Handbook."Sarah Peyton is a certified trainer in non-violent communication and neuroscience educator who integrates brain science and resonant language to awaken and sustain self-compassion, particularly in the face of difficult issues like self-condemnation, self-disgust, and self-sabotage. She teaches and lectures internationally and is the author of the "Your Resonant Self" book series. She is Dr. Manning's co-author, as mentioned above.Tune in as Anne-Marie, Roxy and Sarah about anti-oppression, and anti-racism, compassion, connecting with others in a broken world, how to have hard conversations, and how to have non-violent communication.Find out more about Dr. Roxy Manning and her work on her website: https://roxannemanning.com/Learn more about Sarah Peyton and her work on her website: https://sarahpeyton.com/Dr. Manning's coming out song is " I Sing the Body Electric" from Fame. https://youtu.be/tG-wl2qqD7Y?si=xco-qyfPemNJQA_DSarah Peyton's 'power song' is Purple Rain by Prince. https://youtu.be/TvnYmWpD_T8?si=Y-n30GrnARjH13C2Books that have inspired Dr. Manning are the fantasy series by Mercedes Lackey: https://www.goodreads.com/series/list?id=8685.Mercedes_LackeyA book that has inspired Sarah Peyton is The Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice Miller. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4887.The_Drama_of_the_Gifted_ChildThis podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy

This week, host Anne-Marie Zanzal welcomes Dr. Roxy Manning and Sarah Peyton to the show. Dr. Manning is a clinical psychologist and a certified Centre for Nonviolent Communication trainer. She brings decades of experience to her work, interruping explicitly and implicitly oppressive attitudes and culture norms. Dr. Manning has provided consultation and training across the U.S. and internationally to businesses, non-profits, and government organizations wanting to move towards equitable and diverse workplace cultures. She also works as a psychologist in San Francisco serving the homeless and disenfranchised mentally ill populations. She is the author of "How to Have Anti-Racist Conversations: Embracing Our Full Humanity to Challenge White Supremacy," and co-author of the companion text written with Sarah Peyton "The Anti-Racist Heart: A Self-Compassion and Activism Handbook."Sarah Peyton is a certified trainer in non-violent communication and neuroscience educator who integrates brain science and resonant language to awaken and sustain self-compassion, particularly in the face of difficult issues like self-condemnation, self-disgust, and self-sabotage. She teaches and lectures internationally and is the author of the "Your Resonant Self" book series. She is Dr. Manning's co-author, as mentioned above.Tune in as Anne-Marie, Roxy and Sarah about anti-oppression, and anti-racism, compassion, connecting with others in a broken world, how to have hard conversations, and how to have non-violent communication.Find out more about Dr. Roxy Manning and her work on her website: https://roxannemanning.com/Learn more about Sarah Peyton and her work on her website: https://sarahpeyton.com/Dr. Manning's coming out song is " I Sing the Body Electric" from Fame. https://youtu.be/tG-wl2qqD7Y?si=xco-qyfPemNJQA_DSarah Peyton's 'power song' is Purple Rain by Prince. https://youtu.be/TvnYmWpD_T8?si=Y-n30GrnARjH13C2Books that have inspired Dr. Manning are the fantasy series by Mercedes Lackey: https://www.goodreads.com/series/list?id=8685.Mercedes_LackeyA book that has inspired Sarah Peyton is The Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice Miller. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4887.The_Drama_of_the_Gifted_ChildThis podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy

BefuddledPanda, little red book, and Soulution have a fun chat about the cozy cinderella retelling, The Fairy Godmother by Mercedes Lackey. Check out our chat with Mercedes Lackey here: https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/l7BhRJGBbFb Considering supporting The Legendarium on Patreon: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/legendarium⁠⁠⁠⁠ Reddit: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.reddit.com/r/thelegendarium/⁠⁠⁠⁠ Discord: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://discord.gg/FNcpuuA⁠⁠⁠⁠ Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠@GreenteamPod⁠⁠⁠

He's Vanyel, the whiniest teenager ever chosen for a top government position by a horse! He's Tylendel, doomed twin and bad decision maker! Forget it, Jake, it's Valdemar! This is the first in Mercedes Lackey's Last Herald Mage trilogy, Magic's Pawn - it is not a romance novel, there is no happy ending, there are only tears. The tears are, in fact, the point. It's the first book a young Sara ever read about love between two impossibly beautiful young men, plus it has omg horsies - so yes, I imprinted on it like a duckling. There are some pretty intense topics in this book - it's got really heavy suicidal ideation and suicide, it's got a bitchy horse-what-ain't-no-horse who also dies by suicide, it's got some bad family business and some pretty intense homophobia, it's got some Mystic Native tropes, and if you read the other books in the trilogy you're going to run into some truly traumatic sexual assault and incest. Whee! As promised, here's a write-up of Lackey's wild ride at Dragon Con in 1997! It really does involve a man who calls himself Pony White claiming he got attacked by ninjas. You gotta read the whole thing to get the whole story. From the same source, if you're dying to know what "filk" is, here's a pretty good explainer with examples.

Mark interviews the creative daughter/father team of Brigid Collins and Ron Collins about their collaborative writing. Prior to the interview, Mark shares a brief personal update, comments from recent episodes, and word about this episode's sponsor. You can learn more about how you can get your audiobooks distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway. In the interview, Mark, Brigid and Ron talk about: The last time they saw one another (Feb 2020, just prior to the world "shutting down" for the pandemic) Ron's entry into the world of professional speculative fiction writing in the mid 1990s Why Ron feels that non-fiction can be a lot of fun to write Ron's latest book On Creating (And Celebrating!) Characters Brigid growing up and being witness to the dedication her father Ron had for his pursuit of writing Singer, the first book Brigid wrote, which evolved into the four books of The Songbird River Chronicles in response to her father's prompting Brigid's appreciation of having good parents at all the various stages of her youth and adulthood The importance of being able to accept the other person's methods and style of writing as well as their ideas which can be totally different Learning one's own writing styles from engaging with the other person's work The incredible amount of fun that can happen with the right collaborations The logistics of how they co-author together, for both short stories as well as a newco-authored book project Finding the middle-ground between planning and discovery writing Merging the worlds of the fairie realm with the baseball world based on the idea of a baseball diamond being built on top of a fairie ring The fun of merging the tropes of these two types of worlds The way the split of writing has evolved and gotten more complicated as part of writing the next books in the series Leveraging Google doc and folders for the collaborations Using Draft2Digital's payment splitting option for publishing A collaboration that Ron is doing with his brother merging science fiction and the world of music Advice they would offer to writers interested in getting into writing collaborations And more...   After the interview Mark reflects on the "2+2 equally more than 4" awesomeness that can happen in a powerful collaboration. Links of Interest: Brigid's Website The Songbird River Chronicles (and more) Ron's Website On Creating (And Celebrating!) Characters Home Run Enchanted (Faires and Fastballs Book 1) Abridged (half-hour) Keynote on Embracing Technology for AuthorTube Writing Conference Unabridged FULL HOUR Keynote (Patreon link) Wine Country Writer's Festival EP 250 - Typewriters, Nature, and Fatherhood with E S Curry EP 314 - Defeating Writer's Block Using Penspyre EP 317 - Rambling Reflections from the Road - Part 2 EP 318 - Rambling Reflections from the Road - Part 3 Buy Mark a Coffee Patreon for Stark Reflections Best Book Ever Podcast Lovers Moon Podcast The Relaxed Author Buy eBook Direct Buy Audiobook Direct Publishing Pitfalls for Authors An Author's Guide to Working with Libraries & Bookstores Wide for the Win Mark's Canadian Werewolf Books This Time Around (Short Story) A Canadian Werewolf in New York Stowe Away (Novella) Fear and Longing in Los Angeles Fright Nights, Big City Lover's Moon Hex and the City The Canadian Mounted: A Trivia Guide to Planes, Trains and Automobiles Yippee Ki-Yay Motherf*cker: A Trivia Guide to Die Hard   Brigid Collins is a fantasy and science fiction writer living in Michigan with her wonderful wife and her irritating cats. (Just kidding, the cats are pretty wonderful, too.) Her fantasy series The Songbird River Chronicles and Winter's Consort, her fun middle grade hijinks series The Sugimori Sisters, and her dark fairy tale novella Thorn and Thimble are available wherever books are sold. Her short stories have appeared in Fiction River, Feyland Tales, and Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar anthologies. Ron Collins is a best-selling Science Fiction and Dark Fantasy author who writes across the spectrum of speculative fiction. With his daughter, Brigid, he edited the anthology Face the Strange. His short fiction has received a Writers of the Future prize. His short story “The White Game” was nominated for the Short Mystery Fiction Society's 2016 Derringer Award. He holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering and has worked to develop avionics systems, electronics, and information technology before chucking it all to write full-time.   The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

little red book and Kyptan enjoy the honor of interviewing Mercedes Lackey, author of over 140 books and the 38th Damon Knight Grand Master of science fiction and fantasy. They talk about raptor rehabilitation, convoluted writing estates, horses, hobbies, and of course Valdemar. Among the miscellaneous stories recommended in the episode are The World Well Lost and A Saucer of Loneliness, both by Theodore Sturgeon. Charles de Lint and Spider Robinson are also highly recced by Lackey for their expertise with short stories. Music: Galactic Damages by Jingle Punks Considering supporting The Legendarium on Patreon: ⁠https://www.patreon.com/legendarium⁠ Reddit: ⁠https://www.reddit.com/r/thelegendarium/⁠ Discord: ⁠https://discord.gg/FNcpuuA⁠ Twitter: ⁠@GreenteamPod⁠

So much good news! Telltale Games is making a game based on The Expanse! Season 2 trailer for Good Omens!Humble Bundle has Mercedes Lackey books. And we think it should stop being humble and admit it's awesome! Plus we check in on Fourth Wing. Turns out more people like it than you think.

The Fairy Godmother, Mercedes Lackey x Acts 10:9-16Originally aired 02-25-22 - Welcome to Bookwyrm Week, a week for all things fantasy literature!Your daily crossover of faith and fandom! Experience daily Biblical encouragement from nerdy Christian podcasters, bloggers and content creators. Join the Nerd of Godcast community at www.NOGSquad.com

We're heading back to Valdemar with Magic's Pawn, by Mercedes Lackey! This absolute doozy of an episode showed us that we could talk about this book for the rest of our lives. Vanyel and Tylendel's love story, revenge mission and subsequent Bad But Life-Changing Stuff are at turns stirring, sweet, cathartic and crushing. Tune up your mind speech and listen in - and let us know if you have a concrete internal monologue along the way.This episode was a listener request - thank you, Gyuri! If you'd like to request a book for us to cover, email us at dragonbabiespodcast@gmail.com.CW - Mentions of suicide. To reach the suicide hotline, call or text 988 (in the US).There is a wee bit of static on this episode, we will vanquish it next time (and are only recording separately for 4 more months thank god).MUSIC - Pippin the Hunchback and Thatched Villagers by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) - Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

David Fleming speaks with David Arkenstone once again. We heard from Arkenstone in December of 2022 when he was in the region with his Winter's Eve concert. He has under his belt, or is a part of 100 cd's – let alone his soundtrack work, and his music – especially those under his own name – are designed to take you places – real… or imagined. We'll hear about his music inspired by Middle Earth, as well as his soundtrack work – including for WORLD OF WARCRAFT. We'll also hear of collaborations with author Mercedes Lackey.

Our hosts discuss the Mercedes Lackey book series Heralds of Valdemar and Kit proves that any adaptation of this series requires the Jim Henson Creature Shop. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this episode of the bookies podcast we talk about the pros and cons of the Wizard of London by Mercedes Lackey.  

Special interview with Chris M. Barkley! Deep dive into the Mercedes Lackey gaff at SFWA conference and the Stephanie Burke incident at Balticon. Willem DaFoe parties it up with Carrie's aunt & uncle. WisCon is saved! We are "Suffwagettes!" (Thanks Henry Lien!)

We celebrate the career, works, and legacy of Mercedes Lackey; and Cobra by Timothy Zahn, Part 10. View the podcast in video form at https://www.baen.com/podcastfiles/mp3/video-baen-free-radio-hour-Mercedes-Lackey-Celebration-Cobra-part-11.mp4 and the Baen YouTube Channel.

Sharifah and guest Erica Ezeifedi discuss the Nebula Awards, Dracula Daily, some favorite mystery SFF, and more. Follow the podcast via RSS here, Apple Podcasts here, Spotify here. The show can also be found on Stitcher here. To get even more SF/F news and recs, sign up for our Swords and Spaceships newsletter! This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. News The Nebula Awards (and Mercedes Lackey's removal) Thor: Love and Thunder trailer [Deadline] How Dracula Daily Got So Big [Slate] Books Discussed Far From the Light of Heaven by Tade Thompson Murder in G Major/Gethsemane Brown Series by Alexia Gordon Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia Within These Wicked Walls by Lauren Blackwood Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Social Justice Friendly author Mercedes Lackey is cancelled for using the word "Colored" while giving a black author a glowing compliment. #NAACP #MercedesLackey #SFWA --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/v-radio/support

Exciting events for me today and this weekend - I get to interview Mercedes Lackey! - and more and extended thoughts on building an author platform, what's most important, and being aware of how others do it.The link to the blog post on author platforms is here https://blog.jeffekennedy.com/2022/05/18/the-one-thing-an-author-must-do-to-expand-their-platform/The Nebula Awards trailer is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21VKlslZIRoYou can register for the online Nebula Conference here (https://events.sfwa.org/).The audiobook of GREY MAGIC is here (https://www.audible.com/pd/Grey-Magic-Audiobook/B09Z77GHDL?source_code=AUDFPWS0223189MWT-BK-ACX0-307001&ref=acx_bty_BK_ACX0_307001_rh_us), BRIGHT FAMILIAR is here (https://www.audible.com/pd/Bright-Familiar-Audiobook/B09WSGFLXW?source_code=AUDFPWS0223189MWT-BK-ACX0-303113&ref=acx_bty_BK_ACX0_303113_rh_us) and DARK WIZARD is here (https://www.audible.com/pd/Dark-Wizard-Audiobook/B09QQRHTYZ?source_code=AUDFPWS0223189MWT-BK-ACX0-294201&ref=acx_bty_BK_ACX0_294201_rh_us).The Heirs of Magic series is here (https://jeffekennedy.com/series/heirs-of-magic). Preorder THE STORM PRINCESS AND THE RAVEN KING here (https://jeffekennedy.com/the-storm-princess-and-the-raven-king).The Sorcerous Moons series - now in KU! - is available here (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09YVVB82N).The form to preorder books for Apollycon is here (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScbs-nwq5cfOpk-5xzhz1mfUMycvaZ-bRdvmF0uN7--Ii9ioQ/viewform?vc=0&c=0&w=1&flr=0).You can order FIRE OF THE FROST here (https://jeffekennedy.com/fire-of-the-frost).If you want to support me and the podcast, click on the little heart or follow this link (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/jeffekennedy).You can watch this podcast on YouTube here https://youtu.be/BzYsostEIpQSign up for my newsletter here! (https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/r2y4b9)Support the show

With tramps like these, hoo boy, do things get real and stay there in a hurry as your humble hosts pop their clutches and tell Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon's Born to Run: A Novel of the SERRAted Edge to eat their dust! It's another novel of the urban fantastique, with an Irish pub described as "straight-edge", a couple battle scenes where you can really see the graph paper underneath the characters, and some of the most improbable radio playlists imaginable, and, as a novel of (sigh) the urban fantastique, one of us slides right off it and the other digs his eldritch fangs right into it. But not like that, the other way. NOTE: This novel, while mostly lighthearted, does traffic in material related to child sexual abuse and exploitation, in way reminiscent of a particularly tawdry episode of SVU. NOTE 2: Clsn now realizes he missed a good opportunity to pronounce it "elfs" throughout the episode and regrets the error. Recommendations: Upright Women Wanted, by Sarah Gailey Everything Everywhere All at Once Death Among the Undead, by Masahiro Imamura Seinfeld Bass Riff Variations Music: "Guinnesses" by MF DOOM (feat. 4Ize & Angelika "Shamrocks and Shenanigans" by House of Pain "Jesus Built My Hotrod (Redline/Whiteline Version" by Ministry

This episode we discuss Hunter by Mercedes Lackey. Spoilers are between the 1:08 – 1:52 minute marks. We do get critical on this book for its too perfect protagonist and discuss how this setting was very exciting for us and we wished the author dug deeper into the background story of this world. We also talk about times we were nervous about trying new things or experiences and end a little bit tipsy with our usual segments. Enjoy!

In this writing rehash of the Heralds of Valdemar series by Mercedes Lackey, Unice5656 attempts to introduce the idea of cool magical horses while Aetheo points out all the dystopian elements of the original story's system of governance and they end up with a story of creepy magical happy-land where magical horses subtly influence everyone to feel unnaturally positive about their country, and a main character who breaks through the rose tint.

The Fairy Godmother, Mercedes Lackey x Acts 10:9-16 Welcome to Bookwyrm Week, a week for all things fantasy literature! Your daily crossover of faith and fandom! Experience daily Biblical encouragement from nerdy Christian podcasters, bloggers and content creators. Join the Nerd of Godcast community at www.NOGSquad.com

In this “Cast we got the rare opportunity to speak with a Grand Master of the genre and holy crap was it fun. As a writer of well over 150 book Mercedes Lackey continues to have an amazing career, this year being named SWFA Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master (congratulations n stuff) as well as […]

The Heralds of Valdemar are the kingdom's ancient order of protectors. They are drawn from all across the land, from all walks of life, and at all ages--and all are Gifted with abilities beyond those of normal men and women. They are Mindspeakers, FarSeers, Empaths, ForeSeers, Firestarters, FarSpeakers, and more. These inborn talents--combined with training as emissaries, spies, judges, diplomats, scouts, counselors, warriors, and more--make them indispensable to their monarch and realm. Sought and Chosen by mysterious horse-like Companions, they are bonded for life to these telepathic, enigmatic creatures. The Heralds of Valdemar and their Companions ride circuit throughout the kingdom, protecting the peace and, when necessary, defending their land and monarchSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/houseofmysteryradio. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Magic’s Pawn by Mercedes Lackey Magic’s Pawn is the first book in The Last Herald-Mage Series written in 1989. Discussed this episode One of the first openly gay characters in science fiction/fantasy. Vanyel, the protagonist of the book is openly gay; but do to the marketing and era, you have to read the book in … Continue reading Ep077 – Magic’s Pawn by Mercedes Lackey →

About SFWA's Grand Master award, the politics of gender and of the MFA/writing workshop mystique, and how those things can be insular. Also general fangirling about Mercedes Lackey and why I love her books!You can find all of Mercedes Lackey's books here (https://www.mercedeslackey.com/bibliography-2/).You can order DARK WIZARD here (https://jeffekennedy.com/dark-wizard) and preorder FIRE OF THE FROST here (https://jeffekennedy.com/fire-of-the-frost).If you want to support me and the podcast, click on the little heart or follow this link (https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/jeffekennedy).You can watch this podcast on YouTube here (https://youtu.be/tr3JN3g9an8).First Cup of Coffee is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. You can find more outstanding podcasts to subscribe to at Frolic.media/podcasts!Support the show (http://paypal.me/jeffekennedy)

In this episode we had the pleasure of talking with local YA fantasy and romance writer C S Pacat about her latest novel Dark Rise, a fantasy epic set in 1800s London. Inspired by the works of JR Tolkein and Mercedes Lackey, this gripping tale of good and evil will challenge all your preconceptions of the fantasy genre. Tim speaks with Cat about her road to publication, her overnight success The Captive Prince and what drew her towards writing fantasy.  We also hear from our staff with these book reviews:Saving Missy by Beth MorreyThe Castaways by Lucy ClarkeWhile Justice Sleeps by Stacey AbramsShadow & Bone by Leigh BardugoThe Second Son by Loraine Peck

Sharifah and Jenn discuss adaptation news for Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar Universe, a hotel in space, an air date for the Lord of the Rings series, and talk about some current favorite reads from SF/F. Follow the podcast via RSS here, Apple Podcasts here, Spotify here. The show can also be found on Stitcher here. To get even more SF/F news and recs, sign up for our Swords and Spaceships newsletter! This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission. News Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar Universe being adapted for TV [Deadline] Air date for Amazon's Lord of the Rings series! [Tor.com] Jenn's piece on Lord of the Rings Fandom [Book Riot] Space hotel! [Entrepreneur] Tamsyn Muir's Locked Tomb is now a series, not a trilogy [Tor.com] Recommended read: What Is And Is Not Silkpunk [Book Riot] Books Discussed Sangu Mandanna's Celestial Trilogy (Spark of White Fire #1) Earthsinger Chronicles by L. Penelope (Song of Blood & Stone #1) Severance by Ling Ma Night of the Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We've had listeners ask SEVERAL times for us to talk about our books and writing... haven't we done that yet?!

This week's episode is sponsored by:   Escape to Britain and beyond without leaving your seat. Try Acorn TV free for 30 days, by going to Acorn dot TV and use my promo code knitmore. That's A-C-O-R-N dot T-V, code knitmore to get your first 30 days for free!     Carry your creativity with Erin Lane Bags! Whether you show your fiber fandom with the woolly wonder Sheepleverse, or dive into history with the Curiosities collection, our project bags, totes, and hook and needle organizers are at the ready to keep your hobby happy.   Go to HelloFresh dot com slash knitmore14 and use code knitmore14 for up to 14 free meals, including free shipping!         When was the last time your knitting yarn was a work of art? Infinite Twist produces one-of-a-kind semi-solid gradients featuring speckles, high-lights, low-lights, and gorgeous color transitions. From 700 y Giant Gradients to 200 y matching sock sets, Infinite Twist Gradients will hold your interest from cast on to bind off. See the currently available gradients at infinitetwist.com, or be the first to know when new colors are posted by signing up for our newsletter at infinitetwist.com/newsletter-signup       Have you ever had to frog because you forgot a step several rows back? Or lost your spot because you dropped your magnet board or lost track with your highlighter tape? Instead of wrestling with paper, use the knitCompanion app. It keeps you on track so you can knit more and frog less. knitCompanion works with ALL your patterns and is available for Apple, Android, and Kindle Fire Devices           Are you feeling dis-GRUNT-eled about your stash? Are you browsing Insta-HAM looking for knitting inspiration? Is color "kind of a PIG deal" in your life? Oink Pigments offers over one hundred forty PIG-ture perfect colorways to make you SQUEAL with delight.     For a limited time only, bring home the bacon with code KNITMORE and get fifteen percent off in-stock yarns and fibers at oinkpigments dot com. Shop soon, because these pigs will FLY!     On the Needles:(0:40) Genevieve taught her Bestie how to knit! She used Brittany Needles, and Liza Souza, Hardtwist, in Robins Egg/Elsa Blue.   Gigi is working on another pair of Vanilla is the new Black socks in some deep stash Regia silk. Genevieve is working on her Lisa Souza BFL "Spruce" colored Beanie Jasmin has finished the body, sleeves, pockets, and has blocked  Genevieve's Pantastic Hoodie in Oink Pigments Dapper “Give Peeps a Chance”. Gigi is almost finished with the Musselberg hat  by Ysolda with the blue January Year of Yarn color from Oink Pigments.    Genevieve wound Artful Yarns, Fable, color 96 from Jasmin's deeeeep stash for a Ripple Crop Top by Jessie Maed Designs. Genevieve wound Subito Farms, Estabrook in "Marigold". Jasmin has finished the increases on the body of her Theano test knit, and is almost at the ribbing. Gigi: wants to work on the sleeves of the Rocky coast cardigan   Gigi is working on a sock for Andrew, and has finished the gusset. In Stitches:(18:58)  Genevieve wore her Hearthstone, and her pink beanie she made herself Gigi:  A line skirt , Cal King quilt, Halloween quilt  Events:(21:18) Stash Dash is being hosted on  DISCORD  Jasmin has posted her Stash Dash spreadsheet here  2020 Summer Olympics will begin on Friday, July 23, 2021 Tour de Fleece in July (Sat, Jun 26, 2021 – Sun, Jul 18, 2021)  Bay Area Fiber Fair - JUNE 25 - SEPTEMBER 23, 2021 Fiberworld July 21-25! RHINEBECK! October 16-17 2021 Mother Knows Best:(25:25) You feel good when you wear your favorite clothes or clothes that you feel in love with. (From Genevieve)   Tour de Fleece(31:09) #PanatheKnit #TeamSasquatch: A little spinning for the Incredibles sweater set Lisa Souza Ultrafine Australian Merino Roving Blair Auclair's Ranch (Radicle Herbs) Different switch for the Device Jasmin wound bobbins of Lisa Souza, Superfine Australian Merino, “Squash Blossom”, “marionberry”, “emerald city” Jasmin wound bobbins of Merino Corriedale from Mary the Sheep Genevieve assisted with bobbin winding ( Detached and Attached) Gigi spun on her Turkish drop spindle   Knits in Space:(34:21) Book: Once Upon a Tale by Mercedes Lackey  And Sew On: (37:40) Gigi 4 more A line skirts, they are in various states of construction  Plan B for buying invisible zippers Jasmin wants to sew a button and buttonhole onto her friend's sweater.

This week's episode is sponsored by:       Carry your creativity with Erin Lane Bags! Whether you show your fiber fandom with the woolly wonder Sheepleverse, or dive into history with the Curiosities collection, our project bags, totes, and hook and needle organizers are at the ready to keep your hobby happy.   Go to HelloFresh dot com slash knitmore14 and use code knitmore14 for up to 14 free meals, including free shipping!         When was the last time your knitting yarn was a work of art? Infinite Twist produces one-of-a-kind semi-solid gradients featuring speckles, high-lights, low-lights, and gorgeous color transitions. From 700 y Giant Gradients to 200 y matching sock sets, Infinite Twist Gradients will hold your interest from cast on to bind off. See the currently available gradients at infinitetwist.com, or be the first to know when new colors are posted by signing up for our newsletter at infinitetwist.com/newsletter-signup       Have you ever had to frog because you forgot a step several rows back? Or lost your spot because you dropped your magnet board or lost track with your highlighter tape? Instead of wrestling with paper, use the knitCompanion app. It keeps you on track so you can knit more and frog less. knitCompanion works with ALL your patterns and is available for Apple, Android, and Kindle Fire Devices         Are you feeling dis-GRUNT-eled about your stash? Are you browsing Insta-HAM looking for knitting inspiration? Is color "kind of a PIG deal" in your life? Oink Pigments offers over one hundred forty PIG-ture perfect colorways to make you SQUEAL with delight.     For a limited time only, bring home the bacon with code KNITMORE and get fifteen percent off in-stock yarns and fibers at oinkpigments dot com. Shop soon, because these pigs will FLY!   On the Needles:(0:46) Genevieve wound Oink Pigments, Mystic DK, in Mother Knows Best for Jasmin Jasmin is past the armhole divide on the Nydia test knit for Vanessa Smith Designs, in Oink Pigments Mystic DK “Mother Knows Best” Gigi: working on Vanilla is the new Black  and she cast on another pair in some deep stash Regia silk    Jasmin has finished the body of Genevieve's Pantastic Hoodie in Oink Pigments Dapper “Give Peeps a Chance”, and finished the cap of the first sleeve. Genevieve wound Oink Pigments, Dapper, Tumbling Turquoise  Gigi finished the Musselberg hat  by Ysolda with the Emily Ocker cast on, in  Lolabean Yarn Co thunder and lightning.   Genevieve wound Subito Farms, Estabrook, in “Marigold” Jasmin is still plugging along down the body of her Theano test knit. Gigi: dug out the Rocky coast cardigan and is working on a sleeve   Genevieve wound Oink Pigments, Dapper, in "Dijon Vu” Genevieve is working on her Lisa Souza BFL "Spruce" colored Beanie Jasmin did some visible mending on a fast fashion favorite sweater for a friend  Katrinkles mending loom Gigi: cast on a sock for Andrew, finished the heel flap Gigi: not sure what she wants to make out of the Oink yarn, trying to knit as it comes in. Jasmin suggested Treppenviertel    In Stitches:(12:27)  Genevieve wore her pink Beanie Gigi: A line skirt , Cal King quilt, Halloween quilt  Jasmin wore her Rebound cowl, and the Flying Home Tank Events:(16:23) Stash Dash is being hosted on  DISCORD  Jasmin has posted her Stash Dash spreadsheet here  2020 Summer Olympics will begin on Friday, July 23, 2021 Tour de Fleece in July (Sat, Jun 26, 2021 – Sun, Jul 18, 2021)  Fiberworld July 21-25! RHINEBECK! October 16-17 2021 Mother Knows Best:(21:25) Knit with the seasons. Knit summer stuff in the summer, winter stuff in winter. Strapless bra      When Knitting Attacks:(27:34) Gigi: Rocky Coast cardigan  One ply of two ply yarn was torn, or chewed. Tour de Fleece(29:58) #PanatheKnit #TeamSasquatch: A little spinning for the Incredibles sweater set Lisa Souza Ultrafine Australian Merino Roving Blair Auclair's Ranch (Radicle Herbs) Different switch for the Device  Knits in Space:(32:44) Grocery run, Joanne's , Bar visit Book: Once Upon a Tale by Mercedes Lackey  And Sew On: (50:45) Gigi cut 3 more A line skirts, they are in various states of construction  Light  Sticker with measurements  When sewing attacks : Folded fabric for lining off the skirts and promptly cut the front on the selvage and cut the backs on the fold

Little Red Dot joins us to discuss Andre Norton's "Three Against the Witch World", Fate RPG, reading comics in the barber shop, Mars as Australia, Mercedes Lackey, the division between science fiction and fantasy, the gender spectrum, the gendered divisions of labor, Andre Norton's bravery, the love of war history, the D&D druid class, Kobold Press, and much more!

Maureen and Jane discuss their favorite writing technique -- the one tip that helped them evolve their writing in a new way. Also, they talk about early encounters with writers that made them want to become writers! Mercedes Lackey, Andre Norton, and Anne McCaffrey. Magical dragons! Telepathic horses!

I hope you enjoyed this first month of fantasy fiction podcasts! If you have any recommendations for upcoming episodes, feel free to reach out at jeanleesworld.com. My site not only has information about my own books, but interviews with other authors, analyses of fiction, and music to inspire your own writing. See you there! Cheers -JL

If one of your books, or series, aren't selling much, will it help to change the book cover, the book description (also known as the blurb), or will it be a lot of effort for nothing? In episode 103, Autumn share the results after she re-released one of her book series. Tune in to learn all the do's and don'ts. As promised here's the link to the free Self-Publishing Success course: https://ultimatefantasywritersguide.com/self-publishing-success/  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 onto the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt, and Jesper Schmidt. Jesper (30s): Hello, I'm Jesper, and I'm, Autumn. This is episode 103 of the Am Writing Fantasy podcast. Well, today, Autumn, you recently went through some renaming and rebranding of your books. So that's something we wanted to talk a bit about today. Autumn (48s): Yeah. I definitely have some reasons why you might want to do it some stats because you know, we like to provide that kind of information and things to watch out for that. I didn't think about the first part, but that we'll get to that. Right. You're in the middle of some big events going on. So how are you doing over there? Jesper (1m 11s): Oh, I'm good. I was, well, today has been one of these organization days. I was setting up some emails this morning to announce the VIP launch of the world building course that we talked about last week and I've just also just trying to get organized in general before I actually, tomorrow I take the rest of the week off because I'm going to move out of our house and into the apartment, as I've mentioned a few times. So if everything goes well by Friday, this week, we should be living in our new place by then. That's amazing. That'll be really exciting. And I hope it does go well because it'll be a lot of work, but it's so exciting. Jesper (1m 53s): Cause you've been working on this for like two years. So it's really, really cool. It's finally here. You're doing it. Yeah, it was actually in November two years ago that we first put the house up for sale. So it is just, just past two years since, since this whole journey started. So that's quite amazing. Amazing. Yeah. So we were actually thinking that if all goes well and we do move into the apartment and start living there by Friday, we did think about going because the apartment is much more centrally located than our house. So it's like I've said before, it's in the main city in this area. Jesper (2m 33s): So there are, that also means that there are restaurants around. So we actually thought about a Saturday going to this very nice sushi place that is, and we don't have to drive there. Now we can just walk, walk. Autumn (2m 46s): So that's pretty nice. That's going to be kind of cool. I might be a little envious because I lived in town when I first moved to where we are in Vermont and I didn't enjoy the noise. Cause it was only a second floor apartment and we're right at an inter big intersection. But you know, we could, especially, this was before COVID. So there was like Tuesday nights, if we walked down to one pub, there was always a group of fiddlers playing and doing a jam session together. And then there was a yeah, the bookstore. And if we decided we needed something else for dinner, there was a grocery store, a small one, a co-op that was within walking distance. So I do kind of miss that. So that is super cool. You're going to be living that close to everything. Jesper (3m 29s): Yeah. That's nice. And we are, yeah. As I said before, we are right next to the beach, so there's no like big, there's no big road right next to the buildings or anything like that. So that's quite nice. And we are on the fifth floor and there is because we have a corner apartment up there. It also means that there is only one wall against, you know, to watch a neighbor. There's nobody above us. And there there's only somebody below, so it should at least the person who rented it before us, that it was very, very quiet. And that's exactly what I like. So I hope that's true. Autumn (4m 8s): I hope so too. That's really awesome. Jesper (4m 13s): Yeah, but you've been extremely busy as well on UN Autumn (4m 16s): Yeah. Well we had some big plans to, you know, do some website rebuilding at am, writing fantasy. And I was going to rebuild the course website in January, except we've been building all these courses and it finally dawned on me. I needed to have the new website done before we made those live. So I've been, I'm doing an emergency website build over the weekend, but I promised myself that once I, I got that done, I would take two days off whenever it was because, Hey, when you're a full-time writer, what's Saturday, Saturday, it can be Thursday if you happen to get it done then. So I'll, I'll have my, my weekends. I usually try to do more Photoshopping and more fun things for me with other store on the computer. Autumn (5m 1s): I mean, it is almost December in Vermont. So that's kind of the Northern tier of the United States. And it's even today is cold. It is dark. I have all the lights on it is raining. So it's not like I'm going to go for a hike. I just want to go and do something else. But I did. I said after our last episode, even though this is now December when it's going to be released, but today is the last day of November. So it's the last day of nano right. Mo and you want to know my word count. Jesper (5m 37s): I did see your Facebook post about it. And I'm trying to remember now what it was, but I felt like it was something like 51,000 or something. If I remember correctly, I'm not sure. Autumn (5m 49s): Yeah. That's on the November 25th. I updated my word count to just over 52,000 words. So yeah, I finished it and I started on the 17th. It actually took me 19 days to get the 50,000 words. So I feel it considering it was my 23rd book. That's going to be published. I, I was hoping I could manage to get to it. So I was it's success and I've kept adding to it since then. So I'm almost at 60,000 words now for the month, today was busy and I haven't added in anything, but it'll be hovering just around 60,000 for my first nano. So I feel really good and I'm thinking it was fun. Autumn (6m 30s): And I do see there's been some emails and stuff from them about, you know, writing the end and I'm like, well, 50,000 words is not a fantasy. No, that's like halfway through a fantasy novel. So I'm thinking, Oh, you know what, maybe we need to think about doing like an am writing fantasy NaNoWriMo writing group. Cause you can have writing groups there that share tips and support. So I'm my, you know, that's a good question for listeners. I mean, is anyone else out there interested in having us or me lead a little nano right. Mo group writing group of maybe even at camp nano right. Autumn (7m 11s): Mow this summer. So, you know, comment, let us know if it's something that you think would be pretty cool and I can try to help you get your 50,000 words too. Jesper (7m 21s): Hmm. That's actually a pretty good idea. Yeah. Teaming up is always a good idea. And it has some accountability partners. Autumn (7m 29s): It has, especially when you get to some of the sticky parts that can really slow you down and you get frustrated and you sometimes just need someone to like really you out of it and get you on and keep going. Jesper (7m 41s): Yeah. Oh, we got the internet with the yam writing fantasy podcast. So I saw a post in the am writing fantasy Facebook group this morning. That quite made me smile Autumn (7m 54s): LA what's that? Oh, it's just a, Jesper (7m 58s): It's a small one, but it was quite nice. I thought it was like John was pointing out how once in a while a particular well-written turn of phrase is just sort of happens and pour it onto the page. And then he shared what he had just written here and it went like this quote. He looked at me then he's expression dripping with so much contempt. It likely stained the floor. That was quite good. Autumn (8m 27s): Good. I love it. When people share and have quotes and stuff on there, that is fantastic. I have to admit though, I've been smiling at Zane's comment from when we released the hundredth episode and he left a comment on a Patriot Patriot and for us. So I don't know if you remember that one, Jesper (8m 47s): Remind me, Autumn (8m 48s): Hey, he said that he was so excited that he had to go have a beer. And that one made me smile because I have had men grown men tell me that my writing made them cry, but I had yet to ever have someone telling me that something we had done ni paid them money to eat alcohol. So I thought that wasn't very successful way of toasting our hundredth episode that we released. And it was so much fun to do as well. Absolutely. Jesper (9m 19s): Yeah. There, there are all kinds of shenanigans going on in the Facebook group, but also some cool tips and tricks and advice that is shared every day. So if you're not a member yet just search for am writing fantasy in the group section of Facebook and then apply to become a member and we will let you in, there's not even a password. So it's true. You're very welcome. Autumn (9m 43s): Yeah. I don't think we even ask any like entry questions. So we're, we're really easy. We just just make you ask nicely and you get to come in and have a ton of fun in the Facebook group. And, and of course, and if you want to have even more fun, you can come over and join us on Patrion and, and there you get even more, more personal seizing, I guess, and tips and lots of fun as well. We do sometimes have some fun, some back and forth on there and some jokes. Jesper (10m 13s): So a lot of good places where you could join. So yeah. Get going. If you haven't done so already Narrator (10m 20s): And onto today's topic Jesper (10m 24s): Last week, I sort of took the reins on the podcast, but I think this week is probably your turn Autumn (10m 32s): This time, you get to pretend to be the interviewer and ask me how it went. Yeah. Jesper (10m 38s): And I can, I can try to chime in here and there with reflections and thoughts, but of course in full transparency, I have not gone through any rebranding of my own books, although I really should, but I haven't. So I don't have any personal experience to share, but I can try to pitch in where I feel that I have something to contribute with them. Autumn (10m 59s): That's fair enough. Well, I think it's a good thing to say that, you know, it's not, it's, it's not random who decides they want to rebrand a book. I remember Joanna Penn was the first one who introduced me to even the concept of it. Cause she rebranded, recovered and retitled a lot of her thriller sale series. And I was like, wow, that is when you see someone, you know, Joanna Penn's level, it's one thing to change your cover. But the change changer titles and you know, she was talking about, you know, making sure her readers knew this is a book you've already gotten. Don't worry about it. This is something, you know, this is, you've already read it. It's just a different title. It looks different. It's a different cover. So that is, is something that authors do, no matter what lever was, if you're a newbie or you've been doing this for 10 years or more, you might suddenly decide that something's not working in your marketing and what's not marketing, what's not working is, you know, the title, the actual physical title of your book or the series. Autumn (11m 59s): And not just the cover because yes, rebranding is is can just be the cover. And I have to admit, I think born of water, I have gone through four different covers. Changing a cover is honestly super easy, but of course I'm a graphic designer. So if I want to change my cover, I, I know what to do. I'm responsible for that. Cause I'm the one who messed it up the first place or decided that it changed. I mean the marketing market really has changed since like 2012 when I first released that book. Jesper (12m 31s): Yeah. And of course, as we've said before, do not design your own book cover unless you are experienced in book cover design and you know what you're doing to not design your own book cover. And I think I've said it multiple times in different podcast episodes, but I cannot say it enough because for whatever reason it keeps popping up. I see it on Facebook all the time people asking, is it, would it be okay if I designed my own cover? And sometimes I almost feel like jumping on this. I know, but then I think, okay, whatever, I can't keep saying the same thing all over and over again, but do not design your own book covers. Autumn (13m 9s): No, even if you have an art background book covers are more than an artistic expression, it is a marketing image. It is, you really need an advertising background and advertising courses and to then know how to look through the market and see what are the trends that you need to do, what need to match, what do you need to be different for? So I agree. Don't do it. I know when I look back at, when I first started doing book covers, I was like, Oh my goodness, they were horrible. And even now I think I could still do better, but I think that's just my issues as a, Oh gosh, I've been, I don't want to even mid hell. My, one of my first memories is literally when I was like three or four and I was drawing. So I've been doing this for a little while now. Autumn (13m 50s): I think, I think for decades I still have a lot to learn. Jesper (13m 56s): Yeah. But I think maybe a good place to start as well would be like asking the question. Why would you want to rebrand a book or series in the first place? Absolutely. I think that's, that's a good starting question. Autumn (14m 11s): It is. And I, again, because I just did this, I have the perfect case example. So I had a book and it is the next, it's the first book and the next series I planning on releasing in 20 early 20, 21. And when I came up with the cover, I don't know if we've read or the title. I don't think I listed, I don't think we recorded episode 37, which is how to title a book that we released. And it's full of really useful tips that you should do before you actually choose a name for your book. But I didn't do that because I don't think we had recorded it yet. And I do tend to go a lot with my gut instinct on things. And sometimes don't run marketing. It was so 20 early, I released this book in 2019 and I came up with the title, the light and the darkness, because it is a definitely a novel where the main character goes is living in a dark world. Autumn (15m 6s): And he finds something that inspires him. It's a little bit of light in the darkness of basically a fake post-apocalyptic novel is what I like to call it. So it's based on Fay and I chose a series name called the Calla Bray, which in Gaelic, it means dark time or dark epoch, which is great. But you don't have many people on this planet speak Gaelic. Not that many. No. I think it's less than half a percentage. So if I was trying to market to someone who speaks Gaelic, even though there's no other Gaelic in the book, well, no, there's some names, there are names and things that are, are a little bit Gaelic it's yeah, it was not a good marketing choice. Autumn (15m 47s): And I kind of knew that when I released it, but 2019 was a very, we we've had a podcast of episode. I'd get that one. But 2019 was a very hard year. For me. It was worse than 2020 in many ways, 2020, in some ways I've gotten my crap together and I feel much better as a person, despite the global pandemic, which is just crazy. But it goes to show what's going on outside. Doesn't mean what's going on in the inside. So 2019 was a bad year. I was just happy to get this book released. And I chose these things that if you have, when I finally sat down and looked at the marketing and wondering like, okay, I'm writing this book, I'm getting serious about marketing it. Autumn (16m 28s): And I'm doing some research and seeing, you know, getting some idea of how it's going to sell and how it's going to hit the marketplace. And so I do a Google or an Amazon search and a Google search for the light and the darkness. And I get a ton of self help books. I don't even get my own book. I mean, my own book is like back there and like the dose bleeds section that you're like, okay, it doesn't even exist. And you do a search for Callan, right. You know, there's no one who's going to know how to spell that. Nobody's going to search that. No, no, exactly. And I thought, you know what? This is a problem. This is a problem. It doesn't help the book. I want this book to do as well as I can make it possible. Autumn (17m 9s): And so I had to step back and I'd already recovered the book. I did a very basic symbol cover that I didn't like. And so I've already put in a much more dynamic cover that a lot of people have commented on. They really like it, but the title just doesn't do anything. And I finally sat down and said, you know what? I have to listen to podcast 37 and do some research and retitle it and do this seriously. And then figure out, you know, will this help. And I have some before and after stats on what choosing a new name meant for how this book is doing. And again, this is the only book in the series that is out yet. I, the rest of them, I haven't even put them on pre-order. Autumn (17m 51s): I'm hoping by the middle of December, I'll have my act together and have the pre-orders up for the rest of the series for next year. But right now it's just a standalone novella. It's sitting up there without the rest of it's the rest of its family that is coming. But so you're gonna have a question or Jesper (18m 11s): No. Well, I don't know question, but I was just thinking, because one thing is the title and the cover reflecting market trends, I guess, or reflecting the and market expectations, read expectations, that's sort of one thing. And, and usually that then translates into lack of sales. So that's sort of your, that's sort of the main driver behind rebranding, a book and a series. But at the same time, I was just thinking as well, that unless not necessarily thinking about your example here, but more in general, like, unless you completely missed the Mark. Jesper (18m 60s): I think one of the nice things with fantasy compared to many others, young writers is that the market trend, if we can call it that or read the expectations, they don't change that rapidly when it comes to fantasy, you know, we'll see, we continue to love dragons, right. Autumn (19m 19s): Brackets on the cover. It's a winner. So that doesn't yeah, Jesper (19m 26s): Yeah, yeah. But that I agree, but my poem was more like, it doesn't change that much where I think others, young writers are much more prone to stuff changing much more frequently in terms of what the trends are. So, so in those Sean Morris, the authors might need to keep much more finger on the pulse to say, Oh, go, okay. I need to change my covers now because they are one and a half year old and market trends have moved. Whereas I think for us, maybe you need to have a look at your covers every three, four years, but that's, that's probably more to do with that. The artwork can be made much more beautiful at a less cost. Jesper (20m 8s): So it might be worth updating your cover to just more beautiful pictures without really changing the cover, but more like just make them look a bit better. And so that they don't look outdated, whereas the actual imagery and stuff like that might be absolutely fine to keep as long as you refresh it, where some others young wrists, they might have to change all the imagery. So I think in that sense, we are a bit more lucky. Autumn (20m 37s): I think so too. And I think even our titles can stand usually the test of time. If you choose a proper title, it doesn't even matter. You know, sometimes someone's going to up something very similar, but the market can usually handle it. There's a lot of fantasy books and it helps to, I would say the biggest thing is to be clear, but clear in your titles and clear on what your story is about, but when it does come to the covers and the imagery, I mean, I still think of some of the covers that are, I mean, Mercedes Lackey. I literally the books that I remember reading those cover is the same as when I was reading it as a teenager, it's it doesn't need to be changed. It is an illustrated cover and it is still gorgeous, which I think is fantastic. Autumn (21m 20s): And so there's a lot, even though there's some trends that are current changing, like the colors and the magic right now are just absolutely amazing right now on eBooks. But if you could, if you still have a top end, more of a hand drawn image, that's still going to do amazingly well, because I think we're all still in love with, you know, picking up those books in the 1980s that remind us of those paperbacks that we loved as, as teenagers. You know, maybe the younger kids might not remember that, but I still think they see the trends and the what was there at the time, but it really, it isn't something you need to do every year. Autumn (22m 3s): It is probably if your book's not selling, it's not the first place I would start. But if you have an instinct that you titled your book, something very strange and hard to understand, like the light and the darkness. And it brings up a whole bunch of self-help books, which are not even the right and Shannara, that's not a good sign, but if you choose like you have an interesting world name, like Chronicles or something like that, you know, it's probably not the best title. That would be a better series title maybe than a single book title, but it's not horrible for the fantasy genre, but Jesper (22m 43s): Did you just make that up? I did pretty good. Quick copyright it, spell it. No, but it was more like coming up with that on top of your head that it was pretty good. Thank you. Lots of writing recently, 50,000, Autumn (23m 3s): Whereas apparently in November, but so I, I knew I had to retitle it and I did a lot of research and I ended up coming up with a dark Faye outcast because it fits, it's a face story. It's about a dark Fe he's kicked out. I mean, it's pretty much, you know, calling what is it? The pot calling the kettle black is the phrase. It fits the book. It's very blunt titling. It works on the keywords. And I went from Cal Ray for a serious name to the tainted Fe because at his perfect, I kind of wanted broken magic, but that's already been used. And I didn't feel like tangoing with the person who's already using that one, but no one has the tainted Fe already took it. Don't even try grabbed it already. Autumn (23m 46s): But so I did that and what I had been doing, I don't have a ton of marketing into it yet. Not till I get up my pre-order. So this is just looking at the stats of running book, funnel giveaways. And I have three books, all with signup pages that were created about the same day at the end of may. And that's two novellas and one that's a lead in for my current eight book series. And what I thought was interesting is to show you, if you are struggling with marketing and you really do think it is your title, the difference is at the time I changed the title for dark Faye out cast on October 14th. Autumn (24m 30s): And that day I had what would be considered a usual up rate for born to darkness, which is my one Novell. I had six people pick that up. I had three pickup people pick up born of water, which is the lead into my big series. Guess how many people? And usually I would have the same for the light and the darkness. I know the title of the light in the darkness I'd have maybe two or three as well. So on that first day, when I changed the title, a guest, how many downloads I had of that as a free book in just a random book funnel, you know, joint author promo. Hmm. Jesper (25m 4s): Well, it has to be positive because otherwise the point of changing it. So let me say 10, Autumn (25m 10s): No 55th. Okay. Jesper (25m 14s): That's that's a massive paints. It was. But, but the thing is also with your new title and your new series named it, is it speaks directly to the attended audience by saying exactly what it is. There is no doubt, you know, it is people, if you like reading face stories, this is your book, right? It is. So it's right there in your face. And, and that's, that's the whole point of it, right? It needs to be crystal clear so that there's no doubt. What is this about? Yes. That's the kind of book that you like, you will click, you'll pick it up if you don't like it, when you skim through, you'll just skip it and that's, and that's a good thing, right? So you can get the right readers and not random readers. Autumn (25m 53s): And that was what I think I, I saw at that point is, I mean, it had, it's a very strong cover with someone you can't quite see his face and he's holding some ruins or falling from his hand. So it's, it's, it's Fe it looks Fe has some ruins and things on it. It's kind of dark and brooding. And then with this title, it's just, I knew it was right. I knew it was right in the market. What's neat is that was not a one day thing. It went from maybe two to maybe four or five downloads a day to staying above 30 to 40 for over a month. And it just, it has stayed up there. So at this point, as of I checked on just yesterday on the 29th of November, you know, board of water, which is to me is it was my debut novel, but it's the one with the full two full series. Autumn (26m 41s): I mean, this is a ton of work in time. That's going into this book. So it's usually what I market and promote the most that's only sitting at just under 600, 600 downloads were born into darkness is almost the exact same, just a little bit less. So those two are pretty similar, almost a thousand downloads. So over, almost double for dark Fey outcast. And they were all created at the same time. And all of that, that extra 500 has come since October 14th. So in a month and a half, I've gotten almost 500 downloads and that's pretty good. That's really, I mean, one, it makes me excited because I'm about ready to release the rest of the series. So I'm like, Ooh, this is a good thing to discover. Autumn (27m 24s): So this is when you know, this is, I knew it was a bad title. This to me proves it. This is the proof positive of the power of a title that you need to really consider what you're taught early or not. You need to have a strong cover, but you need to have a strong title that is very clear. So that readers see it. There's no doubt it is. You have, what is it? Three seconds to convince a reader, to read your blurb and look at it. And I have to admit, I did update my blurb as well. Not much, just a little tweaking. I added another sentence or two to bring up a romance subplot that's in there. So that's all it took to double again to download, right? Cause I haven't put out advertising to it at all yet. Jesper (28m 6s): Yeah. The eye tracking analysis that was made on having people look at Amazon showed that it was six seconds before they clicked away in total. Right? So, so you have those six seconds where their eyes will always seek up to the top left corner first. And guess what's there, that's the cover on, if you think of the, a book page on Amazon, you'll have the CAPA, the cover at the top left-hand corner, that's where the eye goes first. Then they go to the title. Then they go to the blurb. And that movement of the eye that was tracked in this analysis, take six seconds. And within this D six seconds, they have decided either to buy it or to leave it. Jesper (28m 48s): So that means that you really have to deliver on all the notes, meaning that the cover has to be a hundred percent professional. For one, it has to be a hundred percent on brand speak a hundred percent to the intended audience that this is a book for me, the title needs to do the same thing. And then of course the, the blurb needs to close the deal. And only when all the three things are in place, will it convert as best as it can? I mean, I guess you could say, okay, if you have one of them slightly weaker than it could be, you can still have something that converts quite well, but it could be better. Autumn (29m 25s): Right? And that I think is the important thing. I mean, to me, the title, the old title was so weak that, I mean, I wasn't even seeing much in sales and I have seen sales since then my reader list goes and buys it every single time I send out a newsletter, which is kind of, I always like to do exactly. Like I had an increase in sales. Oh, that's why it's very exciting. But I will say something. We talked about all the positives, this is the thing, you know, the good things. This is why it's worth it because it's, if you don't see that kind of change. Oh my goodness. It was quite a lot of work because you don't realize all the places you have your book, unless you're maybe on Kindle unlimited, if you're wide, like I am and you are, and you are in book funnel and a distributor and Kobo and Google books and all of these places, book, funnel, story origin. Autumn (30m 23s): It seemed like every time I turned around, I'm like, Oh, I have to have that, that place too. I forgot about that file. It was a little bit of a nightmare. I have to say it took me some time Jesper (30m 34s): In tweet on Twitter and all kinds of, I mean, but, but this is exactly why, I mean, I know that I'm actually in the self puppets success course in one of the modules, I'm actually using my own cover as an example of what not to do, because it, it is. I mean, I explain all the details in the course about it. And I also say in the course that I really should change them. Right. But because of what you just mentioned is the reason why I have not done it because I just know it's a lot of work. I mean, yes, I could, you know, I could ask you very nicely to do a new cover for me. So it probably wouldn't even cost me any money, but just the amount of work that goes into one thing is uploading them to all those different places. Jesper (31m 20s): But then I have to hunt down, where is all the reoccurring social media posts I have going with this covered? And I didn't have to change if I change the title. I mentioned it in a million places in different, and then I have to go and change it. All those it's just like, nah, it's a lot of work. Right. I mean, and then of course you could say, well, it doesn't matter because what I would say, if somebody said what I just said to us in a Q and a session, like we run on, on patron once a month. Yeah. Slide wise to them would be, well, you have a very long career in front of you. So if it takes you one week now and you can benefit it from it, the next 20 years, it is well worth the effort. Jesper (32m 4s): That would be my response and advice. And I don't even do it myself. So yeah, it's double standards here. I know, but it's just like on the to-do list of things that I feel like it's gonna move the needle the most, for example, releasing our new courses and stuff like that. It is an important part of our business between you and me. Just as much as writing books. So from a revenue perspective, going back and updating that book series, there there's only three books in it. So the read-through, it's not massive amounts of money versus releasing new courses that is going to earn quite a lot more money. Jesper (32m 46s): It's just like, it's so far down the to-do list that it's not that it's not important, but it's just not as important, more important than others. And some of the other things. So, and I guess now I have it in this public success cost to explain as a bad example. So now it even serves a purpose. Autumn (33m 2s): So there you go. Well, I've always said we, we tend to live our life as an experiment so that other people don't have to, this is definitely the other side. I mean, again, it, it helped that the impetus for me was definitely that this is the next series I'm going to release. And for me, you know, till I take a weekend, which is usually my time and I decided to rename and rebrand my book because I can hire myself on the fly on the weekend to redo a new cover, which I already had to cover. That was positive. So it was literally just doing the research and coming up with the new name and then realizing that that meant a whole new website or web page on my site to go with a new series name. Autumn (33m 44s): Cause I read with my series on their own pages and updating marketing images, but you're right. I mean, there are a ton of marketing images. Like I have to made with the new title where I had probably 20 made before, because that's see, that's what I do for a hobby is marketing images. I'm really strange that way. It makes me happy, but I have tons of them with the old title, but now I only have a few that I go to because I just haven't made the time. I haven't made the time to make the new, the rest of this series covers yet. So I have not worried about Jesper (34m 18s): No, but yeah. Yeah. But you caught it early as well. Of course. I mean that, that was good. That made the amount of work less hours. But do you have any idea, you know, in terms of creating new covers, uploading everywhere, redoing slightly on the blurb and stuff too, do you know how much time do you think you spend in total on it? Autumn (34m 40s): I would say, okay. Ignoring the fact that I have a horrible internet. So anyone in the rural United States or rural Africa or Australia probably can relate to the internet speeds I suffer through off of cell phone, dial up. So ignoring that if it's just upload time, Amazon is the worst. If it's just a single book, it really it's maybe four hours. It really isn't bad because you've got to figure out where you're going and your own website, assuming you don't have to send it to someone else. If you can do it yourself and just upload it, maybe four hours max, once you have the new title and everything, and you redo your ebook files, you usually have to compress your new cover into it as well, as well as upload the new cover. Autumn (35m 25s): So it's uploading the new file and the new cover. But I had, I have to admit, I had a slight snafu with the amount of work that this caused me that I didn't think about when I first started doing it and really made me kick myself. And I will never probably change a book name or a series title again, unless I'm really no, I did a bad, bad job, which I trust you will make sure that I don't do that again. Testing you run all my covers, my, my titles by you after this. Well, I have even taken away that we have three, so maybe five fiction books. I have all of my books listed in all my other books. Autumn (36m 8s): So I have 15 books. I had 15 books or so I had to up date all the titles, but I also took the advantage of it. I updated my author photo, which I just had a new author photo taken because my husband's a photographer. So that was kind of, you know, I, I made him sit down, told him I wouldn't feed him again until he got it and took a photo of me look decent. And I updated my blur because where I, what I'm doing has changed. So I took some time to do a few, you know, make sure all of my links and stuff were going, but that, that literally between that, and really managing to get everything uploaded and that Amazon takes is a multi-step approach. And plus I updated all my paperbacks. Autumn (36m 50s): So we went from 15 to 30 book formats. I had to update, Oh yeah. Oh, that was, it literally took me a month, but I wasn't working on it continuously. I'd kind of come back to it. And the last one I did was Google play. And I have to admit that one was the fastest one to update. Oh yeah. So Amazon was the most painful, especially having to do the e-book and the paperback and with the upload speed. And then when you do the paperback, you have to go back into the paperback previewer. It doesn't let you go past that state. And it literally takes 10 to 15 minutes for the paperback previewer to open for me per book. Autumn (37m 29s): It was, yeah, that was the worst, the most painful part. So that was one of those things where it's like I said, I was never doing it again. Unless I had a virtual assistant where I could be like, here you go have fun. Here's my passwords. Jesper (37m 44s): No, that's true. And I've also seen sometimes people saying, well, once you do the cover, redo the covers and the titles won't that confuse your readers. But actually, I mean, unless you change the identification number on the store's like ACIN number on Amazon, for example, it doesn't matter because readers will not doubt they will. They can't download this the same ASEN number twice. So it is just easy like that. And then, well, maybe you could say that few people get confused, but, but then I would revert back to my advice to myself from a moment ago and say, well, who cares if a few people get confused during one week, if the book is up for the next 20 years. Jesper (38m 26s): So, Autumn (38m 28s): But it was, I mean, I changed the title on good reads. Again, you don't delete the old book, even on Amazon, you don't delete the old, you literally go in and change the title, except for the paperback. The paperback is assigned the ESPN that you get an Amazon is assigned to that title. So you, that you have to unpublish and then publish a new Virgin and ask Amazon to sync them. And they do it. And it was not a problem, but everything else do, you know, with eBooks and everything else do not delete the old one, you literally can go into Amazon, changed the title, change the name, and then, you know, it upload the new cover and everything's fine. Autumn (39m 9s): It sinks up good reads was the exact same way. I was worried on good reads that it wouldn't let me change the title, that it would see it as a whole new book. But no, it let me change the title. So now, if anyone goes in, they will see that it is the same book. It'll tell them they already purchased it or they already downloaded it. Unless of course they got it in somewhere else, like as a free promo. And now they went in and paid for it and they have the same book and then they might be a little annoyed, hopefully not. And it was definitely, yeah, it was worth it. I mean, it was, it was a good thing to do. And it was a definitely a lesson now that I can step other people through this. If they really feel like it's something they have to do. Jesper (39m 50s): Yeah. And it used to be so as well, that, that you could not update the title without on publishing it and publishing a new book on a, under a new AC number on Amazon. But, but as you say there, I think that's not the case. Autumn (40m 4s): No, it's not. You can change the title as much as you want. As long as it's under the EISA number, the ASI number, it is fine. You can change the title as much as you want and they don't complain and you can upload the book cover or the files, all that. It's just the paper. It's just, if you have an ESPN, if you have an ESPN, then you can not change the title. At that point, you will have to delete the old book or unpublish it and upload a whole new version. So that's, that is one of the drawbacks. Hey, we had a whole podcast episode, if you should be using free ISBNs so knowing that it was free from Amazon, I didn't even blink. I'm like, Oh, well that's a bummer. And I just, you know, recreated a new paperback version. Autumn (40m 45s): And then I had asked them to sync the two and it was not a problem. Jesper (40m 50s): No, indeed. So I think overall here, I mean the rather obvious lesson is that, well, get the branding right from the beginning Autumn (41m 2s): Book cover. That's a good cover image is not that big of a deal. You don't have to change the formats. It's not that hard. The title, especially if you have multiple books out to Hertz a little, get it right. The first time, listen to episode 37, it steps you through it brilliantly. Jesper (41m 22s): Yeah. And then you don't have to worry about the stuff if you just do it right. At least until not until some years later where you might want to update the cover design as we talked about, if it gets slightly dated or something, but also remember Autumn (41m 34s): That the self-publishing success course actually covers everything you need to know about covers titles and blurps. So all that is explained in last week's episode. So yeah, that's pretty easy. Absolutely. Go check it out, check out our past episodes. And yeah, my best advice is try to get it right the first time, but it's not the end of the world. It is entirely fixable. If you realize your series name is completely wrong or your yearbook title is completely wrong, you can, you can salvage that and maybe double, you know, your downloads or your sales just that easily. Yeah. And don't forget that the self-publishing success course is free. Autumn (42m 17s): I will add a link in the show notes from where you can grab this, this free course. So it's available for you. And then you might be able to avoid some of all this rebranding stuff that we've been discussing separately. So we hadn't come out with the course yet. So I hadn't watched it. It's definitely, it will get you straight and be all the help you need. So go check it out. Okay. Next Monday we are approaching the end of the year. So we will look forward and share some thoughts on this podcast for 2021. Narrator (42m 54s): 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.

There are so many things to learn and know when you start off writing. But what are the things that trip up writers the most or cause the most detriment to a new author's career? Join us as we try to one-up each other for the worst mistake new authors make while doing our best to keep the show on track at the same time. Who do you think "won" the show? And don't forget, this is the last chance to submit YOUR questions for our 100th Episode Q&A podcast! Add your questions and audio file to the form at https://forms.gle/KDHdPnUB5A9cwViz7  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 joined two best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them now onto the show with your hosts Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt Jesper (30s): Hello Jesper Autumn (31s): and I'm Autumn. Jesper (33s): This is episode 98 of The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast. And today we are going to give You one of ours. Well, Let's call it the entertaining. There's a top 10 list where we are alternate by giving you five each. And the topic is Mistakes that amateur writers make, so this should be fun. All of them, it should be really fun. And I didn't want to see anything before we actually started the recording, but do you know how easy it was to come up with topics for this one? Autumn (1m 4s): We have 'em in video two as a starter kit. This kit has the ten reasons new authors fail. I may have changed. Jesper (1m 14s): And you needed, is that what you're saying? Autumn (1m 16s): No, I was, I was really proactive and I happened to have to come up with this list are about two or three years ago. Jesper (1m 25s): You, that sounds like cheating to me. Autumn (1m 27s): Would I might've edited the things around and will talk about it later. But how are things over in Denmark? I hear COVID spiking up a little bit again. Yeah, it is. It is getting a bit worse here as well, but yeah, I don't know. COVID is not an interesting job. Well, how are things otherwise you are still refereeing and everything. I'll take it and pass. And we'll Yeah that? We started to pack our stuff in boxes now and getting ready to move, buy the first week of December. Wow. We've got gotten very far yet, but I'm sure it will get there. Jesper (2m 9s): Will it, it will probably start to become even more stressful as time approaches, but yeah, there was nothing much to do about that other than get packing and I'll take it, try to take it hour with a sense of humor when you're like, where is Oh I pack that already. Where is that box? So that was already at the new apartment. Oh, well, I guess I'm not going to speed. Yeah. And even the police are quite busy because they are sorting through all of their old Lego to see what they want to sell and what they want to keep. So it was pretty busy with that as well. And they have a lot of Lego, so that was one of my favorite toys too, as a kid. So that's pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. And in between everything that I've sort of been working on the outline for our future reader, magnet, as you said, you said that to me today. Jesper (2m 55s): Yeah. I can't wait to look through that. I was two, it was right before we recording when I downloaded It. So I haven't even looked at it yet, but I will look at it this week. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I'm really looking forward to start writing some fiction again, it's been like, well, a long, long time this entire year, basically we have been focusing on our non-fiction stuff with the plodding guides that we've published earlier this year and the summer, or a slightly after summer. And then the causes that we've been really busy recording over the past few months. So it's just been a lot of nonfiction, which is great, but I am looking forward to writing some fiction. Again, I, that Autumn (3m 35s): I completely understand 'cause as you know what I mean, I'm full-time graphic artist and writer an Am Writing Fantasy or, and whatever else. And that's what I do. So I do, I have been sneaking in Writing, but I've recently I challenged myself because I I've created a publishing deadline and I really wanna release this series. I'm going to start releasing it and at the end of February, but that means to stay on track. I have to finish I'm on a book to out of three. I'd have to finish it by the end of October. And I am down two, a chapter a day. And I don't usually write quite that way. I can write that fast, but I have lots of other work to do too. So I usually don't give myself, I don't give myself to have much time, but I have been in, I've been keeping up with it and it's tough, but it's so it's also, so we're both task-oriented. Autumn (4m 26s): So to say that to cross off a whole chapter every single day for the last week has been like, Oh, this is so exciting. It's it's just four more and I will actually make the deadline. Now I have five days left at the month. I think I we'll do this. I, I think I will do it. I'll get pretty darn darn close. So I am feeling pretty good. And then I'm on to the final book of the series and I'm looking forward though, to writing our books together because we have been plotting for a year and this sounds so exciting and it'll be totally different. So I'm all about writing. The more I can write the better it is. So this will be exciting. Jesper (5m 4s): Yeah it? It, it, have you already edited the first book in to their, or is it, is it the first draft that you were done with now Autumn (5m 11s): And with the first draft I'm planning on editing in January for at least book one, I'm not going to edit all three of them. I want them all written, but I'll just edit the first one and get it. I'm going to, hopefully in December, get everything up as a preorder. And I, which means I'd have to do the cover is, and this is one of the first time, because my timeline is so tight that I'm actually so tempted to get someone else to do covers for me. But I know I'll probably break down one day in and just make my cover's. Yeah. I'll hire myself and schedule it like the best ideas probably. But yeah, it's a little bit of a crazy, but if 2021, I'm hoping to release a book every two months into different series and maybe a few stand-alones and plus we'll be writing with you. Autumn (5m 56s): And plus I've got little ghost writing thing on the side, and plus I'm back, I've been helping to new authors with their work. So I'm a little busy plus everyone and Am, Writing Fantasy and all the courses and all those students. And I'm up to 12 hours a day doing this, but I love it. And so much so that's, that's the most important thing, right? Is a bad day. Writing is better than a good day at my old office. So I love it here. Jesper (6m 27s): Oh, we can go on the internet with The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast so this one is the last reminder about the upcoming episode 100, which is going to be an ask us anything Episode. So we would love for you to submit your questions to me. Autumn (6m 44s): Yes. We're looking forward to it. And as we've mentioned, there's a link in the show notes. So you can go to a Google form and fill that out, and we'd really love it. If you shared an audio clip or a video, and you know, you don't have to record yourself. If you can record your feet to the window, we just went the audio file. We are not going to do anything else with it. So we just want to strip the audio and be able to have your voice on the podcast with us as you ask, Oh, or whatever crazy question you can come up with, we've already covered. I would love to hear more about you and the habits in New Zealand. So that would be on my list, but how are you going to ask about our books, our lives? Autumn (7m 27s): So say, you know, we probably might mention, I'll talk about my dog, but I think your kids are off the table. I think that's okay. Jesper (7m 35s): Okay. Well, you can ask us anything. It doesn't mean that we are going to answer anything or whatever you want me to ask for your free, and then we might edit a, whatever we feel like it will be gone that way, but that's the way it goes. So that's it, that's the power of the microphone. Autumn (7m 52s): You know, we could always come here. We can use, see the, the audio in and kind of, you know, learn to be polite, political and direct the question to whatever answer or we feel like a thing Jesper (8m 4s): Is it that was like, like the best of politicians that doesn't really Add. They don't answer the question that was asked. Autumn (8m 11s): You can always answer with an answer or with a question to ask you how to answer a question with a question and you know, it just keeps going on and on and on it. Jesper (8m 18s): Yeah, it will be. But otherwise I also feel like it's a, it's been a fairly Bishop of time in the Am Writing Fantasy Facebook group, or at least those new people joining all the time, which was awesome to see Autumn (8m 30s): It is. And it's been so active. I've missed out a little bit over the weekend, cause I was tied up with something else, but every time I go in there, there's always someone waiting to get in and I feel bad even in this only a couple hours, but its, we can keep up with them, but it's wonderful. Jesper (8m 48s): Absolutely. Yeah. And I think there is what I really like to be honest is that there was a lot of it and that not that there was a lot of engagement that is of course nice But but also that in general it is a very far in between that somebody sort of breaks the rules and Postlight self-promotion it happens so once in a while, but its actually pretty rare. It, most of the post are genuine like inspirational staff or asked for help or feedback or something like that. And there was always a lot of people pitching and I mean, I think we've got a past, a critical mass in the group in that there's always a lot of responses when people post Whitsett. Jesper (9m 28s): I like to see a Yeah Autumn (9m 30s): Right and some good responses Yeah there chatting You Hello Jesper (9m 35s): Yeah. 'cause if we go back like one and a half, two years as much as a bit more quiet in there. And I think there was just wasn't enough people, but we are sort of getting to a stage now where there's enough people in there where you're going to get a response or most, I wouldn't say guaranteed, but almost guaranteed. If you ask a question and there was, somebody will make a very insightful response for you. So, so that was great. Autumn (10m 1s): I don't know if you're on Facebook or if you're on Facebook, come join us on Am Writing Fantasy and a promise I'll try to get in there a little more often. 4 (10m 15s): All right. So Jesper (10m 19s): I think actually the first of all, at least when I look down at my list here, yes. I think I'd have to say for a start that the listeners probably know some of what I'm going to share already. I'm at least if there are a bit experienced with Writing, if they are all new to riding then maybe not. I don't know. Probably they are, the listener will know some of it, but they are all things, at least on my list here that can improve your writing and also help to make it read more professional. So I guess the listener can use our top 10 here as sort of a checklist to see if they are on track with everything. If they already know it, then they could sort of be happy with checking off and say, yeah, yeah, yeah, I have it under control. Jesper (11m 5s): Or you can also feel good at the things that you are maybe not doing in the sense that it will give you a few opportunities where you can approve upon your writing. Autumn (11m 15s): I actually all joking aside about the starter kit and actually is not joking. The second video really is 10 reasons new writers fail. But I thought about it. I almost sent you an email earlier today saying you should I focus on things? I see a lot of that new writers do as an editor and as a coach or should I focus on things that I think, or the most important that if you do, this is a really bad thing. So I actually decided in the end I came up with eight total and I combined them and merged, I merged my lists so that I had a tough time that our, I see fairly commonly and are pretty critical sort of like what you were saying, you, you really try to not do these. Autumn (12m 1s): The bottom three are more like, well they are probably, it's not that big of a mistake. You'll you'll you'll survive that one, but the other one's a little bit more painful. So those were, that's how I do differentiate it up on my list. I resist to be mailing you. I figured I could figure this out on my own. Jesper (12m 23s): Yeah. Okay, cool. Yeah. I've tried to rank mine in order as well, so that it goes from sort of the smallest stuff to the bigger picture. Autumn (12m 32s): Oh, okay. Sounds good. I think I did that and now I'm looking at it over very quickly going, did I do that? I think I did that. Yeah. I think I'm good. Okay. I'll stand with it. And if I change my mind is the end. Well it's because I didn't pay attention to my order as Jesper (12m 49s): A fan of nobody will know it, unless you say it Autumn (12m 51s): Out loud. So I get to like number three and go no that one's should have been for a hard head. Jesper (12m 58s): Yeah. And then maybe also in the end, maybe we can try to see if we can, so I have five, you have five and then maybe we can see if we can agree on one out of all of those 10. That is like the way Autumn (13m 12s): The first one. Okay. That sounds good. I will not be surprised. I bet we have overlap. So the reader as well, our listeners will have to forgive us if we don't quite have 10 because we psychologically just, Oh, come up with a similar thing. Jesper (13m 30s): Yeah. And if the listener, if you have listened to some PA a past episode where we are doing these lists, then you will know a part of the funniest to see how much overlap we actually have that. So we have not coordinated any of our five. I have five that I did an isolation and all of that at the same. Yes. So we'll see how much have a overlapping there is and how much we agree or, or maybe we can surprise each other who knows? Autumn (13m 54s): Hm, no. I'm thinking of overlap. No, not really. And I will be fun to see and I, maybe I will share my last three cars. One of them is very, very New that I I've noticed more of a trend of. So, you know, I've got that one in reserve and we'll see if you come up with it, but yeah, I will do my best to keep score Again but I'm ready whenever you are. If you want to start with your number five Mistakes that does make sense. Jesper (14m 25s): Okay. Okay. I'll make it go for it. So my number five it's well, actually the funny thing in my notes, I want one, two, three, four, or five, meaning that number five was the worst. A number one was the least worst. So now you want me to start with number five? It's like at the wrong thing. Right? So I'll do that. But not just the one that says number one in my notes, this is the number five engine. Autumn (14m 46s): So that's one difference. You have my number one is a horse. Right? Okay. So at this one is a small talk in dialogue that doesn't have any relevance to the story. So that will be something like, wow, it's Jesper (15m 4s): Really raining this morning. Autumn (15m 6s): Yes, it is really pouring down. No, yes, no. I got all wet coming here that this is not interesting Jesper (15m 14s): To the reader right now is just fill awards and you, you, Autumn (15m 16s): You need to avoid that kind of thing. Yeah. That's absolutely. I don't actually have that one on my list. So you did surprise me right off the bat. A very, very good. But I agree. I I've read a lot of dialog where you are, like, there has to be a point to this. There's a point to this right. There is please let there be a point to this and yeah, there was none. It could just be careful. They are indeed. Jesper (15m 41s): You mean? And I think, I can't remember which episode it was, but I do remember in the past that we've also talked about the fact that when you, as the writer put something on your face, Autumn (15m 51s): The reader will think, so Jesper (15m 53s): Is that this is here for an important reason. That's why I'm reading it. Otherwise you wouldn't be there. Right. And then if you have all this kind of talk about it. Yeah. It's really raining this morning and okay. Have a good day, see you later. And then they will, Autumn (16m 4s): Maybe that will be like, what was the part that you were really just, yeah. It makes me shake your head and you lose a little bit of love for the novel. So don't do that. That's that's a very good point. I'm impressed. All right. Thank you. So that's a good start for me then. And there was an American guy, but I don't know anyone's winning, but yes. Do you think you're doing great. All right. So my guess Jesper (16m 28s): It depends what I mean, if I surprised you or five times, then I'll say I'm winning, but if you're surprise me five times Autumn (16m 35s): Being score. Oh Hey, is that it does not sound fair. Who's making these rules. I don't not me. You know, even one of your kids, I think, you know, all right. So my number five is on expectations. I think it plays into the psychology and Author doubt, right? Or doubt so many authors, the new Author set expectations. So immensely high or vice versa. They said it's so incredibly low that they almost self sabotage. So it's, I think it's better to set a realistic that this is sort of hard work. Autumn (17m 18s): Book. One is hard. If you go into a book, one in love with it, but knowing this is going to be probably the hardest book you write and that you will get better and that it takes a series or several books to really learn the ropes and maybe feed all your hungry readers and gain a following. And then that's when you start making some waves, especially after you finished your first series. So I think very few brand new first time authors launch major careers with just one book. So I think I see those hopes and dreams that just writing this first one is going to be everything. And it really should be more like this is just a marathon. Autumn (17m 60s): This is just the stage one. And this is my learning curve. I knew of a very well known author who wants to joke that she was so glad she released her first book under a pen name, because then she could say that was not mine, but as you would prove so much. So that would be one of the Mistakes. I see so many new authors make that they just put too much pressure on themselves for a book won. Just write it. I learn from it. No you learned from it and don't make it an avalanche when it's just like a little puddle, right? Jesper (18m 34s): Hm. Yeah. Actually this morning I was listening to Joanna pen and you were saying how she was siting off another article, which I am sorry. I can't remember which one it was, but the point was that she had, she read my article in words, it was stated that The like breakaway novels, you know, in the past, sometimes people will write one novel and it would just take off. And the point of this article was that it's getting less and less frequent at that thing happens because we have this side of binge culture nowadays also, you know, the same thing with, with Netflix or HBO or whatever you are watching Hulu or whatever, you know, there's just, there's more a mentality or culture today where there was just a lot of options. Jesper (19m 21s): So you have a vast majority or, or, or, or a huge amount of stuff you can watch and, and you can see what you want to see. And, and, but it's not like one thing. And then every well, okay. So of course, sometimes there is a game of Thrones, so whatever, and then everybody we'll watch it. But in general, that's a very, very rare nowadays, you know, it's getting hot. If you're looking for, if you're setting your expectations for getting that lightning in a bottle, kind of normal, it it's not going to happen. I'm sorry. No, Autumn (19m 54s): Is that, it would be amazing if it did, but that's no way you should sell your hopes on. I've been really the best advices to do sort of what I'm doing. Now. You'd have to write all three books in a series before you release the first one, because then you can go back and write the first one again. So it's typically your fourth book that you've written in and it will be so much better and you will have learned so much and it will be so much better to release it and you can release the whole series. And you'll be that much further ahead because yeah. People like to finish things they like to binge. So just feed that and don't stress too much about book one, Jesper (20m 31s): Feed the monster to feed the monster. Yeah. Okay. So my next one here is a, it's pretty basic, pretty simple, to be honest and really quick, but it is important. Okay. And this one is about not including information in your Writing, you know, things like sound smells or what it feels like to touch the object that the character is holding and so on because this really helps to immerse the reader into the story. And you're writing just becomes much, much more engaging as a result. So when you are not including sensory information, that's really a tell tale of amateur. Jesper (21m 10s): Writing, Autumn (21m 11s): That's very true. So I love that one too. And I don't have that one, even though it is definitely it's actually in the starter kit, that is one of the one's that is listening to their, it's a very good, but I didn't include it in this one, but I, yeah, that's, that's sorta definitely a passion of mine. And I find that even when I'm writing currently, every once in a while, I'm like, I'm on the visuals. I'm stuck on visuals. If, if someone glazes at one more thing that I'm going to do screen, so you would need to, I mean, sometimes that's what editing is for, but yeah. Do your best to use all five senses, at least once in a chapter as a pretty good way of, you know, working at your writing, looking at your editing, it's a good goal. Autumn (21m 52s): Try it. And it will be improved. You're writing so much and improve your descriptions. You won't be repeating yourself because if something smells and then you'd see it, and when you touch it, those are all different senses in different descriptions and it will just make everything feel so alive. So I really like that one. Very good job. Hey, you're not winning though. Just to be clear, you're not winning well, I'm not sure. I agree. It will settle Jesper (22m 17s): It in the end. It depends on the score. I was Autumn (22m 20s): Worried that I went with a tried and true that I think has been true for so many new Authors and it was a huge, I don't know if it's a learning curve or just a right of passage. And that is losing steam in the middle of your first book or the book you're writing. And either you give up on it and go to the internet and to go to Facebook or Instagram and say how stuck you are or are you pick up a new story instead of finishing the one you're writing. And so then you just keep you're constantly in forever and writing your first novel, cause you haven't finished one yet and you just have to buckle down. I hate to say it is, I don't know what to do. Autumn (23m 0s): Well, there are a way of putting it, but you have to buckle down and keep going and stick it out. And at least Finnish one and may be published it and it will be better if you do that. Don't get, don't get lost in the muddy middle. It's so many authors don't get past that one point. Jesper (23m 18s): Yup. And that's also very true as it was also a good one. Yeah. Autumn (23m 22s): You were just saying that. I just feel like you're just saying that to make me feel better, do you? No, no, no. It is a good one. Okay. Jesper (23m 32s): Yeah, no doubt about it. I was just trying to So when I'm on number three, right now, there are a number of three were in the middle one middle one. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So I had a few examples on this one. Oh, excellent. I like Autumn (23m 46s): Examples. Jesper (23m 48s): Yeah. So this is about using the same sentence construction over and over again. So if you are, for example, Writing something like he walk to the door, he opened the door, he entered the room. Well, when I say it out like this, as you can already see how bad that sound's right. But if instead that you vary your sentences, then it will come across as much more professional. As an, as an example, if I use the sensory information that we just talked about a moment ago with the same Sentences that the census says that I just made an example of here and it could be something like he walked through the door, the handle felt cold in the Palm of his hand. Jesper (24m 33s): As you turned it on a foul smell, forced his way into his nostrils. As soon as he opened the door, wasn't that much, much better. Autumn (24m 41s): It's a very nice, much better in a great example of your number, your previous one. And this one that was that since I'm a numbers guy, that's very good. I like that. And it's almost like you listened to our recent podcast on don't start sentences with this word. All right. Jesper (25m 2s): Yes. That's true. Yes. I didn't even think about that. But now that you say that, yes, that's right. Autumn (25m 7s): And a fantastic example for that Podcast so if anyone else wants to have a fun, go will listen to that one as well. Jesper (25m 16s): Yeah. I can't remember what number it was, but yeah. You could find it in the, in the feet. You could just scroll through it and find the one that said something about don't start a sentence with his word or something like that, right? Autumn (25m 27s): Yeah. I think it was cold. Yeah, exactly. And it was a fairly recent, so it was not like you're going to go back months. So it should be just, you know, eight episodes back for her the most. So that's right. Yes. I agree. We have you covered that recently. So that's a very good example. So my line again is different. I can't, but this is like the most non overlap we've ever had with one of those lists. I don't know what's going on. This is a strange, I'm worried. We were not on the same way, like for once what's going on. So I don't know. I, I think somebody cheated. It's like, yes, you saw my list somehow. And actually we just screenshare. Autumn (26m 8s): So you might have been, you might have seen my list and you were like, I'm changing them all. All right. So my middle one, my number three is not making Writing a habit. So, so many new authors you'll see them talking about waiting for inspiration. And it's like waiting for a lightening to strike. You really have to be writing it. Maybe not as a job, everyone says it's a job as a career. It doesn't have to be, it could be a hobby don't you wanna spend time doing your hobbies, whether it's cross-stitching or hiking or a stamp collecting. I don't know. What, what do people do for hobbies eye, right? So don't feel need to know, but even if it's a hobby, you should spend time doing it and you should love it. Autumn (26m 52s): And it is, you should want to learn more about it and investigate it and talk about it and be really passionate. You know, that's why you do it. That's what you do with hobbies. But I often see, you know, Authors, you know, these or wait for inspiration or, and when they're not waiting for inspiration, maybe they are hanging out in an Author group or hanging out in an Instagram and they are not really learning the craft. And that's not that that's really a strange way to treat a hobby. Something that you wanted to do, you should actually be a little more investigative and you should take it. It feels like I said, no, I don't have to say seriously, because that takes the fun out of it. And writing it should have some joy as much as passion. And, and there are of course, the days where it doesn't and you do get up at four 30 in the morning and they get your word count for the day. Autumn (27m 32s): So you can go help somebody else that you have scheduled and get some formatting done. You know, those kind of days everyone has, those are there, they happened, but there should be loving in it as well. And something that really gets you excited. And so, you know, treated at at least as something like that, at least as serious as something you're passionate about and learn more about it. Jesper (27m 53s): Yeah. It's probably sometimes a bit of a procrastination tool as well. You know, the, the, I don't know, I don't have the inspiration right now. I think it's, it's just also, I won't say all the time and always because I'm sure that some people have good reasons or whatever they do, but a certain In and a lot of instances, or at least let me put it like that. I think it also is an excuse and why people are making the excuse. I can not judge that's up to them, but maybe they have a good reason. But at the end of the day, you know, if, if you want to make something with your writing, you have to write. I mean, I think it's the end of the day, the truth Autumn (28m 34s): You want to procrastinate, don't procrastinate on Facebook or Instagram, go to procrastinate by reading an article on how to write better. That's at least useful procrastination. Yeah. Jesper (28m 45s): So to some extent, but at the same time, you only learn to write by writing. So yeah. But okay, good. One Autumn (28m 53s): Oh, thank you. Well that, I feel a little bit better than that. Jesper (28m 59s): Yeah. I can't press it too much because then you might think that we were, the score has even as an actor, Autumn (29m 3s): You know, I'm feeling like it might be a pretty, even neither of us bet on how much overlap on this one. So I've really got two more to go to find out, you know, when you have any of the wonderful, maybe the number one, I'm going to bet number of one, but maybe not. We'll see. We'll see. So far, I like all your answers though, that they are the WRITING coach and editor and me is going on, but you're still not winning. Even if you've won my writing coach and editor hat, you you're still not winning. So that's just the way it goes. Jesper (29m 33s): Okay. Autumn (29m 35s): Well, we'll see, one sec. Okay. Jesper (29m 38s): So this is my number two, I guess. All right. So yeah, last week we talked about Author voice. So can you guess what I have as my number two of them, Autumn (29m 51s): Character development knows how to throw in a curve ball and nothing has been aligning today, so, okay. I'm fine. Author Voice Jesper (30m 3s): Yeah, it's about having too much. Author Voice Oh, interesting. Because I, I think the amateur writer can sometimes try to hot, to sound very professional. So as a consequence, they will start using too many analagist or a day too much ad, too much description and so on. And so on, you know, in an attempt to try to show off their creativity and, and the writing skills, it could also be maybe trying to much to sound like Tolkien or something like that. Or maybe another Fantasy Author that you are a door, but as a result, it just becomes too much. Jesper (30m 43s): So I'm just saying, don't write in a fashion that forces the reader to reread Sentences because it's so complicated. Then the structure, you know, the, the, the writing needs to flow smoothly and pleasantly, and not in a very abstract way that it's very difficult to get the meaning of what you're trying to say. So I think that's, yeah, that, that is a sign of an amateur writer. And, but of course, I also have to say, you can also turn this number two on its head and say, its also a problem not to have enough voice. Autumn (31m 15s): So if Jesper (31m 15s): The writing fields is a very formal and stilted, that's not good either. So it becomes really difficult to a few close to the character's in that case. So yeah, it is like a fine balance to walk a fine, but you know, developing an author voice. Is that something we covered in last week's episode? So go back to listen to episode 97, if you haven't done so already and, and all the details will be shared there, but I think all of the voice is important in both in not having too much of it, but also not having to lose it. Autumn (31m 48s): Yes. It's its sort of like the, the, the quote, you know, kill your darlings, you know, keep it out the flower LA flowery language and things like that. But I do like this one Cause yeah. You're right. Because it was something I often see in maybe I don't know, I even thought of it. So jeez, you surprise me again, but yeah, often. Yeah, she sounded so satisfied with, with a guy who I am stumping her this time, but yeah, they'll Authors they often do you try to write to impress? Now here's a question for you that I think I, I would say kind of pose to me recently, but that's probably within the last year and a half, because I remember these things for some strange reason. Autumn (32m 27s): But what about, how do you feel about using words that like when I do an editing or spellcheck, I get this error that's like even a knowledgeable audience may not be familiar with the block. Do you think all language should be, you know, simple? Or can you use some complicated words that may be some people are going to have to go check out the dictionary for you? Jesper (32m 53s): I would say the only places where I feel it as okay to use very complicated language is if it's because of the character, if the character is just the type of person who uses a very complicated language, then it is absolutely OK to do it. But then you need to do it in a way where the fact that you don't understand what he's saying is part of the gimmick, right? So it's not like he's sharing very important plot detail that you need to understand. And then nobody gets it. That's not going to work. They wouldn't like to kind of know, but if its part of he's that's his court that he is a bit weird and he talks very complicated, then that's absolutely fine. But in all other cases, I will say no, the, the, the, the writing has to flow smoothly. Jesper (33m 37s): And so did you don't get pulled out of it and I'd have to go and look at the dictionary to just understand what you read. I mean, it has to be a pleasant experience and it's not in place. It's not pleasant. If, if you almost feel like stupid, because I don't understand what it says and probably I should understand, but I don't. Right. And then you feel stupid as a reader. That's right. Autumn (33m 54s): That is a good, I don't know. I still, I know as a teenager, I mean, I'm talking about like one word out of every 10 chapters maybe is a new and unfamiliar words. That might be an advanced grammar of a dance language. But I think that's why I have such a big vocabulary is because I read like a voracious teenage, the sorceress just picked up a ton of words and I still love using them. There's so much fun. Do you use words like avarice and things like that or that, or, you know, I could just use green, but avarice has a fun sound to it. And if I ever have this published as a, an audio book, that's a cool sounding word, but yeah. Autumn (34m 36s): And not everyone might not know that one right off the top of their head. No, but I don't know. Jesper (34m 41s): I still think it depends a bit on what you're writing. I mean, if we are talking literary fiction versus a commercial fiction, right. Because if its commercial fiction is suppose to just be enjoyable, it's not supposed to teach you a new vocabulary. Right. But literary fiction, it could, it could be much, you, you could use more of those kinds of works in that case. So it, it, it, I think it depends on what your writing of course, but I'm always talking about commercial fiction. So that sort of my bias, Autumn (35m 10s): Well, I get it. I did grow up. I'm a Mercedes Lackey and, and rice Or and McCaffrey and stuff like that. So I, you know, so you could do it. I could do it too. That's my theory. Yeah. I know. I know. I've read a lot of them. Jesper (35m 23s): Yeah. And rise too. I don't think she uses complicated words. And to be honest, Autumn (35m 28s): Probably because you were an educational system might be a little bit better than ours, but don't tell anyone. I said that I'm not going to talk more about that. I could move on. So moving on to my number two is not building an audience as your right. So waiting until you released book one and expecting that lightning in the bottle, as you cleverly use a metaphor for So. Yeah, no, you know, it's, you don't want to spend too much time building an audience because you wanted to. Right. As I said, and the previous one, but you definitely need to have a plan, whether it's building your newsletter or just hanging out in readers groups, you want people following you on your journey and getting excited about what you're writing so that when you release a book one, you know, you gotta, you got a platform and some people who are excited to celebrate with you, that's really important. Autumn (36m 24s): And I do see still a lot of fathers are getting better and a lot of the authors are getting very savvy, but there's still so many new authors who write in that cliched, tiny dark room. And then they are merged with a fully finished novel. And there started to find out the rest of the house was empty. Jesper (36m 44s): I think I've worked out why all of this are so different. Autumn (36m 48s): No. Yeah, yeah. 'cause my life. Jesper (36m 51s): This is very much focused on the Writing itself, where you are a bit more focused on the, the mechanics of the business of Writing and also the mindset of Writing. And I think that's right. Autumn (37m 4s): Yeah, no, that's good. And it's the same way as you shuffle these together, you're getting a very kind of complete list from the technique to the business of it. So I guess it makes sense. Yeah. I'm glad I didn't send you that email because I might've changed my answers. And then the listeners wouldn't have had such an interesting experience, right? Jesper (37m 24s): Yeah, no, no, that's good. And that definitely building an audience that show it that's hugely important and yeah, we've talked multiple, multiple times and past. Episode also one of the Am Writing, Fantasy a YouTube channel. There's multiple videos there as well about building email lists and why its important. So I don't think we need to labor that more here, but it is just so incredibly important. So we cannot be said enough. Autumn (37m 47s): Absolutely. All right. So we're on to the last two or three Oh one, I suppose the last one, one each day. So yeah. Are number one worst mistake and wondering, well, it's still bee. No overlap. I can imagine. Jesper (38m 3s): So I have a feeling it will now because I think maybe yeah, unless you are as a Writing related, then it, there will probably be, you know, Autumn (38m 11s): Or it might be, you know, let's see what yours is. Okay. So there was, Jesper (38m 18s): So what I have on my list is a head hopping. So this is when you are in one character's head, you know, seeing what that person sees and hears and their character, you get the character's thoughts and so on. And then a sentence later, we are in another character's head. I read a book quite recently that from time to time has a tendency to do head hopping. And I'll just tell you it's really jarring, jarring and really good. Autumn (38m 45s): So I mean, Jesper (38m 48s): Moving from one point of view, character to another, between chapters is absolutely fine. You know, I do it, Autumn do it with our Martin, do it. All right. Autumn (38m 56s): So yeah. It's nothing wrong with that. I like that crowd that you mentioned Yeah but yeah, no, I agree. Head hopping when it's literally see sometimes it's between sentences in a much less paragraphs. All right. It is definitely one of my pet peeves. I remember reading a book once where it was a character looking across at someone shaking at a picnic blanket. And then the next sentence was the person shaking out the picnic blanket. And I was like, what is going on? I was lost and confused. And I think I might've stopped the book right there. Or at least I started skimming in just all of it. It got any better. And I think eventually it settled into one character. Autumn (39m 38s): And even then that was confusing. It's like, why did you choose that one? And not the person over there? So yeah. That's yeah, it is a better one. Jesper (39m 47s): You really have to learn to master the point of view stuff, because same thing, you know, if something is happening behind the character, the character can see it. So you can't describe what, what it looks like behind him because him or her, because you, if the character can see it, you can not describe it. That's just It and you can't just have to another character who can't see it because that's convenient. That's not, that's not a hobby. Autumn (40m 9s): Yes. That's not. Okay. You know, you have to solve the problem for the character who is head you're in and not some other way. Jesper (40m 16s): Yeah. I mean, if you want to do a change to another character within the same chapter between chapters, it's easy because then we have, we have a break and everybody knows, okay, now it could be a new character. If you wanna do it in the middle of this chapter, you can do that as well. But then you need to put in something like a, maybe a graphical cymbal in between paragraphs or some sort of break that sort of shows the reader that, Oh, okay, there is a change here and then you can move into another that's okay. But still, I would say, I prefer to do it between chapters and not in the middle of the chapter, but if you have to do it, then at least put in something in the, on the page itself that clearly shows that something is changing. Jesper (40m 55s): Right? Autumn (40m 56s): Yeah. And some kind of transitional break lines or something, but yeah. And even that, you know, then it's not an excuse to have five of those on a chapter. I mean more than one story too much yet. So don't jump more than three characters on one chapter, but it's a better look, read some George R. Martin. He does a fantastic job of staying in one character's point of view for an entire chapter and they flow. So Well and you get to know who the character, if you have whop, you don't really get to know the character well enough to care. And that's part of what is so important about writing. So that has an excellent number of one. Yeah. And I also wanna just tack on to that, that I think that Jesper (41m 37s): You also need to be mindful that this is a sort of stuff that agent's will notice, you know, so if you are trying to get traditionally published and they will probably be, not offer you a contract, if they see head hopping in your manuscript very bad, or even if you are self publishing, it will take a lot of time for the edits that you can clean up this stuff. So maybe you are edited, you don't mind doing So, but it's going to be there. Autumn (41m 57s): They do a lot of money. So yeah, I think you just, you need to get this under control. Definitely a high concur. And I think if I was doing the writing techniques, that would be my number one, but I always focused on something different, even though this is sort of a Writing technique. So my number one is writing the story with absolutely no plan for your first book. And it just thinking you are going to tackle your way through it and get there and not taking the time and realizing there's so much to learn in their story structure and character arcs the character arcs titled the plot. And so that made me develop it later. But seriously, if there's ever a book, what are you become a full time pants or not? Autumn (42m 39s): If there was ever a book to have a plan, have a plan for your first book, it'll be a lot less painful. Jesper (42m 47s): Oh, I feel this one though, because this was exactly where I ended up. I kind of put it, Autumn (42m 55s): This is what it is a nod to both of us because it is how I started my first debut novel as well. I, I, I got the chapter three, then the characters got lost. I think my chapter five, I was last, the characters were lost and I said, we need to structure. And I got a structure and I learn very quickly from there. But yeah, I think that it might be how they talk about what is the 99% of the people who start off writing a novel fail. This was probably the first hurdle as an author. You hit that point where you were like, I don't know what happens. The inspiration drives up. You just, you know, the character stopped talking to you. Autumn (43m 36s): Whatever happens. I love that joke that, you know, brighter has served the, when the characters, the writers block is one of the character stopped in your head, stopped talking to you. So this is a Yeah, this is what all of that happens. And you need to find a plan to get through that and to learn, to write well and to write your story. And yeah, it's your first cutting. Our first tooth as an author is to get through that. So go for it, get a plan. Yeah. And I could say, maybe you want to go to bed Jesper (44m 6s): Or whatever online platform you normally buy your books on. And then maybe you want to search for either Autumn's name or my name. And then Autumn (44m 15s): Yeah. And maybe you buy that and then maybe everything will be explained to you. That will definitely help. I mean, it is the worst case scenario. Just go to the Am Writing Fantasy blog and put in the story structure and you'll get a couple of articles that will kind get you to get you started and get you started. And then you can realize that maybe you should get the plotting book, Cause it? It would help you so much when you start a book too. And you were like, Oh, this is what it was supposed to be doing it just so we have, we truly had a list of 10. We did not overlap that at all. Oh no. So this is a tough one. How do we conclude? Which is the worst of them all? Autumn (44m 56s): I don't know. Cause there are all going to hurt you in some way or another hurt are writing here at the hurt, the story or telling or hurt your author career. Or if you do these, I don't know which ones do we need an independent judge. Maybe the listener should tell us, which is the worst one that could help us out when we do need the emotional journey. That that will be cool to see if anybody wants to tell us. And please do. I think, I would say that you are number one day might be the worst One. And my thinking is that if you can finish the first book because you sort of screwed whole thing up by not planning anything, then it doesn't matter about small talk in the dialog or a sentence structures, or even building email lists on. Autumn (45m 48s): Because if you don't have anything and you are never going to finish it because you sort of drive into the ditch then than maybe all of the other nine items. Yeah. It doesn't really matter too much. I don't know how I like that. I'll go with that. I could accept that because that makes me feel like I won. So. Okay. That's true. Actually, a change that, and this has been recorded and I think I'm editing this one. So Nope. Not changing. It sorry. Do you want me to change? Sort of edit this one of the new editor next week. Episode no, no, no, no. I'm good. I can fit this one in this week. I'm good. Okay. Well listen to, can you please let us know that you disagree with this conclusion and, and then pick another one? Autumn (46m 34s): Please all right. So I will honor the listeners comments and we will see which one they think is the worst and then will choose the champion. I don't know what we get to know. Okay. So next Monday we are going to talk about the self publishing landscape is a two lane to get into self publishing. Well, tune in next one, Narrator (46m 58s): 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 in 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.

There is a LOT of writing advice and tips out there. Some of it is great, but there are a few that drive us crazy! Why would you ever tell an author that? Join us as we share the bits of writing advice that have us gripping our keyboards with white knuckles of rage. 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 onto the show with your hosts Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt Jesper (30s): Hello I am Jesper Autumn (31s): and I Am Autumn Jesper (34s): This is Episode and 93 of The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast and there are loads of well meaning, and also pretty good writing advice out there. But there are also those that we just a, well, wait, and we are going to share 10 shots, examples today, and a, well, hopefully, I guess, cause we eat, we split this up. We each came up with five, but knowing us, we could have like, I expect at least two to overlap that as my guests, umm, there's a chance that it could be all fine, but hopefully we're gonna vintage hopefully were going to manage or at least eight pieces have a unique Advice if not 10, we'll see. Jesper (1m 16s): We'll see. But we tried to prepare 10 examples or at least, and hopefully, and the process will also menage to, well I guess deep on some of the, shall we say less strong Advice that exists out there. Autumn (1m 30s): I think that'd be fantastic. And it will be a ton of fun to hear what you find is the worst Advice yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm looking forward to get into this. Yes, but at first, so I haven't talked to you for a week. How are things over on the other side of the Atlantic? Jesper (1m 48s): It sounds good. It's good to have it. It's another one of those a are coming out of a busy weekend and I know that happens, which we were often, it feels like, but a Saturday, my, my oldest son had friends over for his birthday party. Oh excellent. He's turning 12. So you can almost guess what activity they have planned for this party can tell you if your boys, they all only boys for the birthday party and turning 12, they are, there's almost the only one thing they can do. Autumn (2m 21s): All right. You see, I'm not around 12 year old boys. So I I claim total ignorance. Jesper (2m 29s): It was a, they were just playing computer. So everybody brought their own computers and then they just sit there for eight hours in play computer. Righty that that's in there mind that's a potty, you know, I think the older people don't understand. Yeah. I was gonna say, are you like playing through the internet connection? Autumn (2m 51s): You were already playing with your friend's what's the matter is three in the same room. I then your next to each other. You, you are not. Jesper (3m 0s): So that's a huge difference apparently. Right? I can't wrap my and I live in this era and I can't wrap my brain around the things people do. So this is not a good sign. I always knew I was born in the wrong time period. Yeah, I think we were. Yeah. And I, on Sunday I was out to at a soccer tournament with my youngest, but actually then in the afternoon, a, our oldest actually start to feel pretty bad if you know, you know, he had a sore throat yesterday. Jesper (3m 32s): Oh Dan This. Yeah. And this morning he felt the, a bit constricted in his breathing So yeah. So we, as opposed to have another birthday party for our family and friends for this coming weekend. So I called the doctor this morning and we basically booked a COVID-19 test for him. So he's gonna get tested tomorrow. Oh, I don't think it's the coronavirus. I don't think so. I think it's just like normal falled flue kind of thing. Jesper (4m 2s): I, I think, but I don't know a, so we better be in the safe side. So we going to get him tested tomorrow. Yeah. Autumn (4m 9s): Well fingers crossed for him. Jesper (4m 11s): Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully it'll be okay. Autumn (4m 15s): Poor thing. Jesper (4m 17s): Yeah. Yeah. That's not good. So he's just been home. Today's he's been watching you tube for 11 hours to do. And I, when I was out like asking him, but some point don't even want me to do something else. So could you maybe read the book or something? She was like, what? Autumn (4m 35s): Well it's like, well, I just can't imagine. I mean, I was alone for what, three and a half weeks and I barely watched an hour of Netflix a day. So I guess I just do have been working at the time. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. How about getting stuff done? That was fantastic. I cranked up some big things on are to do lists. I'm not completely a day for sure. Yeah. But all the fun and games our over my husband came home yesterday. So he's doing his darndest to make sure my life is much more distracted, open a good way in a good way. Autumn (5m 12s): As long as the job of all spouses. Oh, we haven't seen each other for three and a half week. So it was like, you'd just get into something. And he like mentions, you know, once you get your attention, you just start writing a sentence. And I was like, Oh, what did y'all look read? Oh yeah, we should just put this stuff away for a couple of days than just talk. And that will be good. Yeah. Jesper (5m 29s): Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's always a bit weird. And I think at, at least I'd mentioned it to you before, but I don't remember if we talked about it on the podcast as well, but you know, my, my wife is from Finland. So when she goes back to Finland, once in a while, it's always like the first couple of days is like, Oh yeah, great. You, you can do all this stuff then you just want to do for yourself and what not that, but then like three or four days into it, it always feels a bit like a, this is a bit boring now. Yeah. Autumn (5m 55s): Right. That's what I think since, while probably since we in moved in together, this was the longest I have been alone in 20 years. Umm, so there was definitely some, like I had to find my pace again and find out what it's like to be me again at lone. And once I did, I was fine until you know about dinnertime. That's my weakness where they went to the talk to somebody. So yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. He was definitely into this and I'm happy to have a company again. Jesper (6m 28s): Yeah. And I'm sure the dog was happy that he returned as well. Autumn (6m 31s): He was so happy. He almost dissolved into a smaller versions of themselves. That's a weird thing about you are trying to imagine, what is this like inside the dog's mind, right? You don't understand that this person we'll come back. You know, probably a doc just thinks that he, he disappeared. They was like, there was like, I saw a light in the sh in the forest yesterday. It was probably UFO and it took, it just never kind of come pack and just know it thrilled. Jesper (7m 0s): If I only could explain this to my owner, she doesn't get it. She's like nothing happened to me. He could be busy too Narrator (7m 13s): A week on the internet with The Am Writing Fantasy Podcast. Jesper (7m 19s): So I mentioned it a few episodes back, but our very special giveaway on Patreon has gone life today. So excited. I always love when we have these little special things because well, one, they make us do something a little bit different and challenging, but it's just fun. It's such a great group over there. It is indeed. And we've decided to give away a golden ticket too. The wealth building course that we are just about done with now a so that means that there will be a chance to win completely free access to the wealth building course. Jesper (7m 55s): And it's such a cool chorus, which I can say because I just finished building it on Saturday. So know it's over to you to look through it, but it will, it's just so beautiful. So in depth it is an amazing story that's for sure. And it covers so much wood putting it together. I'm like, I can see why this took us about two years to put together, coz it is just so in depth So yeah. A golden ticket. It is this, this is really phenomenal golden ticket. That's not the only thing because we are going to also do something for everyone who joined us because that's just, we are yeah. Jesper (8m 32s): The first of all, the, the golden ticket, we'll actually give you an exclusive VIP, early access to the cost. So that's pretty neat already. But yeah. So what M says to him, because we, we will only draw one winner for the golden ticket. So yeah. We just felt like that's, that's a bit sad for everybody else. And what about the existing patrons supporters? Autumn (8m 57s): They do. We want to give something to them as well. Jesper (9m 1s): Exactly. And so we came up with the idea of doing a, well, we have a quite short or are we where we talk about a webinar or are prerecording it, but it's going to be a special event just for everyone who is on Patreon. Autumn (9m 19s): Yeah. We decided to name it the reader's journey. And a, this is basically how are we using paid advertising to warm up the audience over several different steps. I don't know if I would call this stuff that we are doing here, like in new thing, but it's definitely a bit of a different way of thinking about paid advertising. So its like putting your ads into a system and having, and have a plan about what you are advertising and when you are doing it and Y and we're going to share all of that in this exclusive either it's going to be a prerecorded like cost module on it, or its going to be a webinar, which we were recorded. Autumn (10m 3s): One of the To at least But, we're going to make this available to everybody who signs up to support us on Patrion before the 19th of October, that is 2020 in case you're listening to this much later, but you have to sign up before the 19th of October to get the stuff. And of course all existing patron supporters will get it automatically. So if that sounds good to you, you can just follow the link two Patrion in this show notes here and its only going to cost your dollar a month. Autumn (10m 35s): Actually. I will say that it's a pretty damn cheap cos module. Yeah. That you can get your hands on. There Jesper (10m 42s): It is. It's a very cool advertising system. So it's definitely worth a dollar or at least an Oh my goodness. For a dollar or you could potentially when the world building course So, especially with the special exclusive access, that's going to be very limited anyway. So it's, it's a really great deal. Autumn (10m 59s): Yeah, I think so. All right. What else is on the end? Jesper (11m 4s): Have you seen so many people have enjoyed it in the Am Writing Fantasy group? I don't think we've could M we've been able to keep up with the, of, you know, Autumn (11m 13s): I'm actually, I, I have to admit that I am struggling a bit to keep up a, in the sense of costs I could just go into every day, but it's like, I feel like I approve eight to 10 people and then four hours later, there's another path sitting desk. It's a lot, it's a, its difficult to keep up at eight. It's a good problem to have this. It's not complaining at all. It's it's nice that a lot of people want to join the, the Am Writing Fantasy Facebook group. So I really like it. But at the same time it's is keeping us busy. That's it? Jesper (11m 43s): The people in it is so funny, you know, it gets caught waiting. We're sorry. It's just, wow. There's been so many, but the conversations, I mean just one of the recent ones could have plucky, a teenager defeat you're big, bad, and you know, there's fun things and that's already got 27 comments and that's only two hours old. So yeah, there are just kind of having fun. And of course there's lots of encouragement and support and this as well as the fun post. So I just love it over there, but yeah. Aye between sleep and work and you know, eating, I'm not over there as much as needed and Luke thank goodness our moderator is got our backs because it does seem that way. Jesper (12m 24s): Oh yeah. Autumn (12m 27s): Yeah. It's a, it's a very lively, an active group. So, but we do, we do keep the entry sort of that we have to approve people for Join. We do keep that in April. Of course I D well, if we wanted to make it easy on ourselves, we could just disable that and let everybody join, but we don't want to do that because we want to keep it pretty moderated in the group as well. And we do like to do a nice, welcome message to everybody who joins us when they come in. Autumn (12m 58s): So we try to keep it very moderated and making sure that we don't see all the, well, we do see some, sometimes the post about self promotion, but we delete them pretty quickly. Yeah. Jesper (13m 10s): This is a group for chatting about writing and the problems of being a writer, not promoting her books. Autumn (13m 22s): It seems that listeners have liked in the past when we've done our alternating lists or, and so I think like we set at the top of the episode, I think we should try to do the same thing here today. All right. Jesper (13m 34s): I think that sounds good. And that was kind of prepared. So I did mine in one. Don't know if you could call it an ascending or descending order, but from what does it bug? What I don't think is quite as bad to what I think is some of the Advice it drives me crazy. So I dunno if you have yours in that order. Yeah. I've done the same thing. See I yeah. That's what we're going to have some overlapping. It's just the way booth. Yeah. Autumn (13m 57s): Yeah. Well, yeah. I must admit I'm a bit curious if we do have overlapping or not, but the last few times in the past, when we had done these kind of episodes, we have had quite a lot of overlap, but I don't know. Lets see, let's see if, if this might be the one Jesper (14m 16s): To break the mold, I don't know. Okay. Well let's say it know. Autumn (14m 19s): Yeah. So if we cover five week and a, if a cover five hours and then maybe well, if we can, maybe we can say when we cover each of them, maybe we can say a bit about, you know, give a bit of justification on why we chose the, the ones we did. Jesper (14m 36s): Oh yes. I hope so. Because I have to explain some of them. I know I have a specific reasons why they might be good advice, but there's parts of it that I just think are bad. So we'll have to see how, who we are, how much we overlap. I still I'm going with two I'm thinking at least do have ours. We'll have a laugh, but we'll see. Autumn (14m 56s): Okay. I will guess one day. Yeah. Jesper (15m 2s): We'll both be wrong. Don't worry. All right. Do you want to start? Yeah, Autumn (15m 7s): But yeah. Yeah, but I actually, yeah, I will. But I was also thinking that maybe at the end of it, maybe we should try. So at the end of it, we've heard all 10. Maybe some of them overlapping, I don't know, but maybe we should then try to agree on one that we like from our combined list of 10 items can jointly agree on this is the one we hate the most. Jesper (15m 32s): Okay. That'd be fine. And just to be sure, I actually wrote down my favorite piece of advice if we have to end on a better note and instead I'm really bad advice. Oh that's good. Yes. That, that would be a fun one. All right. So we might have to end on a favorite advice note. So there are, there are definitely some things not to ignore. Autumn (15m 54s): Right. Okay. Good, good, good. Yes. I was not being positive in my preparation. It didn't at all. So I only have negative ones. Yeah. Jesper (16m 1s): You'll have to think of a goal you will have. Do you have, I'm probably about 15, 20 minutes to come up with one piece of positive Advice I ah, now I should have warned you. Autumn (16m 16s): Where would the fund be in that? It's a much monitors, so much fun. It's more fun to see him. Yeah. Are you squirm and, and scrape for, to try to find something? Yeah, that's right. Jesper (16m 25s): You'll be doing some quick Googling while M I'm giving my, Autumn (16m 30s): My bed and then, or I'll let you go first and then I'll agree with you. Jesper (16m 36s): Oh, that's not fair, but you could probably do that. Autumn (16m 42s): Okay. So you wanna hear my number? Fine. Yeah. Jesper (16m 45s): Let's I want to hear your number five. Okay. So yeah. Autumn (16m 49s): Number five is read everything. You can get your hands on. Read a lot. Jesper (16m 55s): Oh, that's a good one. Autumn (16m 58s): Yeah. But you know, I do agree. That is good to read and you will become a better rider from reading a lot. I do agree with that, but I also believe that it matters what you're reading. I mean, why would you read a romance novel when you want to write Fantasy all right. I mean, but yeah, the, okay. The smarty pants out there will then say, well, it we'll broaden your horizon and then you will learn new things. Yeah. Jesper (17m 27s): Blah, blah, blah, blah. Good respect romance subplots. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, Autumn (17m 32s): Exactly. And, but honestly I couldn't care less. I want to read what I enjoy reading and then of course you could also say, well then you become very biased to the trucks and so on. So we'll see. Jesper (17m 46s): Can you explain it? I don't take so, you know, I'm probably a very fine Autumn (17m 50s): Tuned understanding of the . That's what I good. And what, I don't see the harm of that. And no one said either that I should go off to copy exactly what I've read either. So I still have to be creative with the stories that I'm going to tell, but that advice that I can only develop as a rider, as a writer or if I read outside my own I just don't do agree with that. Advice I mean, terrible, terrible. Advice Jesper (18m 17s): Right. I agree with you. I did not list this one, but I nearly did. And its basically for me what you said, but also because it doesn't say read good books are, you know, I guess I think that even if you read it within your genre, maybe it doesn't hurt to occasionally read a book that you're like, Oh my goodness, I can't believe someone's self publish. This are published this or it got published because it's just so old, you know, trophy or whatever, or the writing is not stellar, but it really helps the read some really good books by the master's, you know, read Some Neil Gaiman is something really, something really gripping so that you learn from the experts. Jesper (18m 58s): So I don't think I've, you know, you sometimes go in and you just pick up something on Amazon and because do you wanna read it? And it's just like, Whoa, don't just read this. You've got to feed yourself. So you've got to eat the salads, you know, you've got to use the healthy stuff. Don't just eat the sugar. So I definitely agree with you in it. If we had made a list of six, it, this one would have been on mine, but I didn't do it. So, so far we're not overlapping. So yeah, when I know what my number five is, I do, right? Jesper (19m 27s): My leased of the worst. I don't know if right. What inspires you that vice gets under my skin and in some ways, I mean, I agree with it. Definitely. If you should love, absolutely loved the story you were writing. It should fire you up. It should be, I mean, perfectly, it should be the book that you searched for your whole life and you've just really want to read it. But I think too many people misconstrue this one to me that they should only write one inspired or that when the story starts to bog down because you know, you know, when you're writing 80 a hundred thousand words or has a series, you know, a 300 to 400,000 words, it's going to bog down and then they switched to a new project that inspires the more and that doesn't work if you're going to actually, you know, right. Jesper (20m 17s): I think Writing, you know, maybe it should inspire you, but the Advice is not specific enough and eventually writing as not going to inspire you. And you just could have to sit your butt down and write it or you're never going to finish this book. So that's why they Advice drives me crazy. Right. Autumn (20m 35s): Yeah. I was just about to add a well, a variation of that one activity to my list, but I didn't, but a, but I could just add that one here. I guess my number six, if I had, because the variation that was about to add was the write. What do you know? Advice, I hate that. That's what we do. I have to ride what I know I am coming up with a fictional stories. You are. I mean, and I don't know how magic work in real life either. Autumn (21m 5s): So how can I Jesper (21m 6s): Exactly, I will say nothing more on that one. I have no comment. Okay. Fair enough. Okay. So you want none before I went number four? Yeah. Autumn (21m 19s): Okay. My number four is actually won that we sort of touched upon in the more recent Episode 91 of the Podcast here. Oh really? Oh yeah. Because we talked about daily word count in that episode. Jesper (21m 33s): Right? So let me get that right every day. Yeah. Autumn (21m 38s): It is basically the Advice that I hate when, when I hear or if you want to be a rider, you have to write every day. I mean, what the beep I think we explained the detail in our different viewpoints in, in Episode 91. So I'm not going to go into all of that again here, but this Advice did it make it onto my list, nevertheless, because I think it is extremely counterproductive to tell someone that they have to right. Every single day. Now you don't know. Autumn (22m 9s): Yeah. I mean, like I said, in episode 91, I think you should be making progress most days of the week, at least this could also be plotting or planning the story. It doesn't have to be actual Writing or maybe you are doing a bit of work on, on your author business. I mean, of course you have to be mindful that you aren't using something like world-building as a procrastination Tune I know what it is so tempting. I know. I know know, but you don't want to get stressed out by the fact that you have to write everyday, but of course you, you can come up with excuses for yourself not to right. Autumn (22m 45s): Either. So, you know, make progress, work on your novel or your author business, but yeah, don't leave. Let them take over your life. I think that's what we said in episode nine. Do you want as well? Oh yeah. Jesper (22m 56s): Can we, did we, you said, you know, you have to have some balance and know that you have, you know, a life and family and other things other than writing, especially when you are trying to balance Writing with a career or, and a family and you have some time that you set it aside to being an author, whether its plotting or researching or something, but yeah, a big shot of the story is progressing in some form in your life, but it might not always be writing every single day. I have to agree with you, right. Autumn (23m 25s): If this one is on your list as well then yeah. Jesper (23m 28s): Oh actually it's not. So you wanna know my number of four of them. Autumn (23m 33s): Yes, please. Jesper (23m 35s): Well, it's what you had just said. Write what you know, so it does, it's not a true overlap because that was the number six. But yeah, I basically said same thing. I mean, this is what we write as Fantasy. So how can, you know, what it feels like to be a dragon or a weasel or an El For how you know, how to use magic or B a vampire. So I think the fact that we use our imaginations and the fact we don't limit ourselves to what we know allows us to create amazing ideas and stories. And I think our genre is, is often considered like escape Fantasy I do you know, it's basically we want there's something in this world that is bothering us or troubling us. Jesper (24m 14s): And so we write about other worlds and other possibilities and that's sorta what a lot of readers or looking for. I mean, there is also now urban fantasy that as a huge chunk of the market, but it still a different version of this reality. It might be set in modern times are the city. I just watched this show that was set in modern times with the parallel universe. So it's, its still a different version of what we have and if we didn't expand our minds and do the things we don't no, but would like to see happen and ask those questions. Jesper (24m 45s): Those things wouldn't exist. So whenever someone tells me, write what you know, and I'm like, well I know I don't like I've got to something else. Autumn (24m 55s): No, I don't like what you just said. No, but I would even say if we look beyond Fantasy, you know, if you were writing, I don't know, lets say a romance or a thriller or whatever. I still don't understand the Advice of right. What do you know? So why is it that you can only So okay. If, well, I think at least last time I checked I'm a male. Yeah. Jesper (25m 24s): So why can I, Autumn (25m 26s): Why could I not write female characters for example? Or why could a woman not ride a male character? Its why do you have to box yourself into, this is the kind of things that I know about. So that's what I need two, right? Yeah. Why I I just don't get it right. Jesper (25m 42s): Aye. A hundred percent agree. And I think, I mean, I think I heard this advice even all the way back in high school and even then I'm just like, but if I were stuck to what I know, which is what lived growing up in small, rural Christian, Pennsylvania I'm bored or I don't, I don't want to box myself into this. I want so much more, you know, I want Hogwarts. So yeah. I know. I think its just really bad advice. So if anyone ever tells you that, just look at them and be like, I'm so sorry for you, then move on. Autumn (26m 17s): Yeah. And I would even say to the listener, you know, if, if you, if you want the stand, what this is, why this Advice is about it. And if you sort of understand the arguments about why its important, then please let us know, you know, comment on something. Because I know I would like to understand what the behind the line logic is of this advice because I just don't get it. And maybe I'm just thick and that's fine. But then please explain it to me so I could get it because I wanted to understand it's Jesper (26m 44s): Because I mean, it's not just You it's both of us. We were like, is this the ones No alright, so can you, this is your number three. Autumn (26m 54s): Well, I actually saw George RR Martin giving this advice on his website. I don't know if it's still on this website, but I noticed it at some point and I don't like, yeah. Jesper (27m 5s): Oh my goodness. Something from Georgia or a Martin, you don't like he, then Autumn (27m 11s): I know I'm walking on thin ice. You know, this is what I like to do. Right. I always put myself in situations where I don't know what's going to come back in my face. Jesper (27m 23s): If you're going to hear about this one from some readers or listeners. Definitely. Yeah Autumn (27m 27s): P but the Advice is so he said, quote, don't start writing a novel start with a short story and quote. And I believe he also went on to state that if you start out trying to write a novel or a series, it is like wanting to climb Mount Everest from day one. And I honestly don't feel that this is Advice is helpful to at all. Jesper (27m 52s): I agree Autumn (27m 54s): If one wants to write short stories than by all means. That's great. But why in the world, should you force yourself to write a source store? If you don't want too, if you find enjoyment from a short story is you probably don't even read short stories. I would guess then why would you do so I don't get it. Jesper (28m 12s): It honestly, because I do you think you and I both started with novel's we just dove head online. I mean, I started with a trilogy. That's not even published in the sitting in some boldly drawers somewhere. Yeah. But you know, when I did switch to short stories, you know, I can whip off 120,000 words, not a problem, but to do 10,000. Oh that's hard. That's really hard. I mean, some people were a marathon. Runner's some people are our sprinters. If you are a marathon, what are under your not going to be a good sprinter. Jesper (28m 43s): So don't beat yourself up for not being a sprinter. If you are designed to right. 500,000 words, go for it. It at the end, is it Autumn (28m 52s): Day you should write something that you are excited about writing and as well, I think I would say that writing a short story is not exactly the same thing as Writing a full length novel, like you were saying a marathon versus a sprinting. They are right? Yeah. I mean Sure a lot of the same knowledge and skills that you will learn from writing short stories. You can transfer all when to a novel Writing but it's still not exactly the same thing. I know. I mean, it's, it's, it's so stupid. It's like you don't stop writing a romance novel to learn how to write a fences. Autumn (29m 24s): You know what I mean? Jesper (29m 24s): Who makes no sense? What would you do that that's very true. It's you should. Yeah. I mean, I remember feeling overwhelmed. I started my first book and I realized that I wanted to make it a trilogy. I'm thinking, Oh my goodness should really be starting off as a trilogy. It turned out fine. It fine, challenged yourself. If you, what you want to write is a trilogy. Make that your goal do it. It doesn't matter if you're a newbie or you know, you have written 20 books. Go for it. Autumn (29m 53s): Yeah, I did too. The same thing, I started out with a trilogy and of course I had to rewrite book one like three times, but yeah, Jesper (29m 59s): But you know, we got there. Yeah. Autumn (30m 1s): But, but who cares? I mean, that's what I wanted to ride. And that was what I was excited about. And if you're not excited about it, you're not gonna keep up the momentum and the drive to get through it all because there's a lot of work. And you only realize that once you start writing and I know our listeners know all of this already. Right. But if, if you think, think that, okay. Do you also are Martin said that I should write 25 short stories before they do anything else? Jesper (30m 25s): No. You're gonna kill yourself. Even before you get to the stuff you wanted to ride. Yeah. I would be so boring. I've been tortured. These are interesting, but they are not my cup of tea. I mean, I'd rather write a novel. I'd rather right. A trilogy. Yeah. Autumn (30m 40s): So that, wasn't a, my number three, Jesper (30m 42s): A that's a good one. That one wasn't on my list. So, so far, Autumn (30m 46s): Thank you so far. I'm closer to be right at that. The only one. Jesper (30m 49s): Oh, you know, let's see. Okay. So my number three is to get an idea of what dialogue sounds like, listen to conversations around you. I just, I hate that piece of advice. My I every time I hear and I'm like, just no, just don't listen to this. Advice because you don't have ever listened to people around you. They make no sense when they talk. They are referring to things you have no clue about. There are usually like, you know, short catchphrases and filler words and tons of filler words and wandering pointless conversations. Jesper (31m 25s): And that's not dialog in a novel. And so don't do that. Every word in your novel should have her purpose is a special dialogue. It's in his writing. It's not a chat with your BFF. So, you know, don't listen to this. Advice if you want to learn to write dialogue, read some really good dialog has to go back to read. Greek plays like plays, have fantastic dialogue. Read those. Don't listen to people at a cafe. They, they are not going to teach you anything about dialogue except maybe what not to do. Autumn (31m 56s): Yeah. I think probably the only thing I would say you could pick up there is maybe not dialogue input, but more like the different way people speak. You could tell, you could get a bit of inspiration for different kinds of voices. And so that part may be helpful. But other, I would also say that it's a ton more helpfully. If you just made a list of your characters and then you sort of said, okay, how do this person reacts when they are, when they are stressed out, when they're happy, when they are angry and, and you just write down, how do they react? Autumn (32m 31s): And then making sure you have something different than all the boxes, that's a hundred times more helpful in terms of building very, a dialogue and, and having a character sound different from one another versus the listening to people in the cafe. Jesper (32m 48s): All right. So I don't have, that was on my list. I'm on my goodness. Oh and less. We have the next two. I am totally wrong. Oh, all right. Well that's to say, so what is your number to, Autumn (33m 1s): Yeah. And I don't think you have this one on your list. Autumn either of, you probably didn't expect it either. Jesper (33m 8s): Oh, this is good. This has gotta be a good one then, right? Autumn (33m 11s): Yeah. Yeah. So we're getting into the top two spots now. So we have to increase the seriousness, the items on the, yeah. Jesper (33m 21s): I should've brought the music along. We have a little tension music playing. Yeah. Autumn (33m 23s): Sorry. I guess we should have a, like a drum world. It is show don't tell them that they expect that. Huh? Jesper (33m 32s): Nope. Nope. Did not expect that one at, Oh, darn it. Now Autumn (33m 37s): At, I mean, when you show us, instead of telling it does make for a much more engaging and immersive reading experience for Sure right. So I'm fully on board with that and I'm, I'm not contradicting at all that show instead of Tel is important. And it is from that point of view. Good advice. But yet it is not good advice, I guess that requires some. Yeah. Jesper (34m 0s): Yeah. If you want to hear your explanation on this one. Autumn (34m 4s): Yeah. Well, the thing is that this Advice is thrown around so often that you can almost get obsessed about how to perfectly show rather than tell. And there is just no such thing as the perfect rider No and there are also times in the novel way. This is actually okay. Tell me you don't have to show all the time. And I think above all, don't get obsessed about how to do it correctly. Autumn (34m 36s): You know, I think especially this one Advice show, don't tell that's one of those things that you put on your list of things that you want to improve over time, because it is not something that you are going to grasp or internalize very quickly. I don't know. I just feel like this particular piece of writing advice often becomes a stumbling block. And because you're start obsessing about how important it is, because it is important in the sense, like I said before, right? Autumn (35m 10s): It does bring forth more engaging and immersive reading experiences. So it is extremely important. But if you get too obsessed about it, especially in the beginning, you are going to end up in a 200 edits, have your manuscript's and your not gonna get anywhere. Right. And I am sure that this happens all the time. And for that reason, I had to put it on the list even though in, in that is good Jesper (35m 38s): Advice right now, I won't disagree with you. And I have nothing more to say on it right now, so, Oh yeah. That's fine. So do you want to know my number to, yes. Alright. So my number two is just right, which is sort of like the one you had mentioned before, right? Every day, if it's a little different and I won't say I hate it a hundred percent just that you need to grow out of it quickly. Cause you and I are both plotters and I think at a minimum, even pantsers coz I mean, I know I started as a pantser and I still have a little bit of pants or a tendency I've been more of a hybrid. Jesper (36m 15s): You should take a look at story structure and make very quick outline of your goals, your themes, your characters, your seven stages or a plot development. And if you'd just write just vomit, word's onto a page, or you can end up with such a mess and that, and you don't even know if its editing or its not a good story telling and you don't know Y and that can be just as frustrating as not Writing. So that's where I have just write. I just think its, you know, if he's the only way you could get into Writing and you have something driving you and you want to right, but then you need to learn to develop your story structure. Jesper (36m 51s): You need to learn to deploy. You need to learn to develop the format of what makes a great story. And you're not going to get that. If you just spend your time writing and word vomiting. Oh word vomiting. No okay. Fair enough. Okay. So are we, are we down to number one? Oh geeze. All right. I'm ready. And what is your number one? Autumn (37m 18s): I have to say that it wasn't easy to figure out which one should be born the first place spot in this bat list of things. Jesper (37m 25s): How was he in? That were different. I knew that was the first one I wrote down. Okay. This is my number one pet peeve. So right now, Autumn (37m 33s): Right. I felt like I had to really think about it because it didn't only have to be a common Writing Advice that? I hate it also had to be one that I hated more than all of the other. Jesper (37m 43s): Yes. So yeah, this was fun. Autumn (37m 47s): Sort of gone. And I got hung up on this one when I first started out writing. Oh, because you basically hear it everywhere. Okay. I think it's like all, most the Holy grail of coming Writing Advice because it claims to fix your writing and make everything wonderful. Jesper (38m 5s): Oh, I have to hear this one. What is this? Yeah. Autumn (38m 12s): I'm talking about the Advice to remove all your Advice. Jesper (38m 16s): Oh, that one. I ignored that one so fast that I don't even think it exists. Autumn (38m 23s): All right. Well that's good. Good on you then, because I think that good writers do you use at verbs? And I honestly believe that they do have a place as well. I mean, of course it has to be done moderation and you do need to be careful not overusing the adverbs, but as long as you can find a way to walk that line, you know, please don't do what I did. And when I first started out with my first manuscript, you know, I have come across this Advice so I did a search in my manuscript once I was done and basically start searching for adverbs with the aim to change them all to something else. Autumn (39m 3s): And it is really not a very productive use of your time. And its, it's not like you are writing will get elevated to a godlike state is afterward. Jesper (39m 15s): But in fact you might lose something by doing that. Yeah. Autumn (39m 18s): Yes. So yeah, I think I would just wanna say, you know, cut yourself some Slack. Okay. You know, don't, don't get too hung up on this stuff here and I dunno just because it, it gave me such a headache when I first started out. So that's what I put on. Number one. Yeah. Jesper (39m 36s): Yeah. You know how I got over that one? Because I hear that one too. I was taking a novel writing class as an adult education class after work. And it was one of the first things they told me was, but then there was someone else who was doing their manuscript. They are reading and they have used an advert that I had used had gotten torn apart four and there were praised for it, but I kind of set what the bleep I went home and this was a mixed class So I and I was one of the few Fantasy writers. Jesper (40m 8s): They are almost everyone else was doing memoirs. And so I pulled out a whole, my favorite Fantasy right. So there is a lot of kilos when I think I even had George RR Martin because of the game of Thrones, the first book has been out that long. So I had that one on my shelf. I had Mercedes Lackey, all of them and I photocopied a full chapter and I went through and I highlighted all of the advertar and adverbs. I underlined all the adjectives and then I calculated the average per page. And I said, screw you all are, the average was three to five per page. Jesper (40m 39s): I'm doing to just do that. And you can just take your advice and shove it. So that's why that Advice doesn't bother me anymore for one, Autumn (40m 48s): I think good on you. And secondly, that it was so much smarter than what I did. Jesper (40m 55s): Right? I mean, when you get me riled asked my husband, actually, you don't ask him. You don't want, when you don't want those stories, public's never asked him, but all right. But yeah, that one did really drive me crazy, but it's been so long and I kind of literally torched it in my brain, but I think I talked to actually forgotten that one and I have to admit if I went back, I probably would add to my list. If I had seven, my seventh, one way, way back would have been to always use said as a dialogue tag, I hate that. Jesper (41m 28s): Right. Especially for FANTASY WRITING it's just, it doesn't apply. We use a lot more issues. That might be it in certain genres, but it does not work in Fantasy Writing but that's not my number one. Do you want to know what my number one is? What is your number one? It show don't tell me. Oh no. Okay. But you know what I wrote? Yeah. Autumn (41m 51s): Then in my show, don't tell, I was sure that Autumn is not going to have this one on my list. Jesper (41m 56s): Well, that is my number one pet peeve. And I think it's sort of, because I just didn't, it was sort of like the Admiral thing. I just didn't quite understand it and understand what it meant. She would be like show don't tell it, show don't tell show. Don't tell him what does that mean? What does that actually mean? Fine. Give me a definition of that. And it is actually good advice. Like you said it is. It's when it's explained it's a good advice, but it's also incredibly misleading because even though it says, you know, if your character's angry, don't tell your reader's I angry. Jesper (42m 28s): You wanted to show that she is angry by throwing things and speaking loudly and doing actions and that in that way, it is a very good advice, like you said, but there are times, like you said, when your writing, you do tell if a character is moving across country and nothing happens, you don't tell your reader about it. You just sum it up in like two sentences. You, you, you know, when and where they were here, they got to here and the journey. Perfect. And there is a total current trend. Have I see a lot with new riders that they feel they have to show up every minute, have a character as a life that you can not tell you anything about that character. Jesper (43m 7s): You can't skip time. And I really don't care about learning about how someone brushes their teeth, unless it's important to the story. So there are times when you're writing, you tell and I've been doing a lot of editing recently. So I just seems like I keep coming across these painfully detailed scenes that are shown of characters, doing things. And when you finally finished the story, you're like, she just, just cut that, wrap it up. Jesper (43m 38s): They got ready for work. There you go. That's the whole morning routine. So yeah, that's my current pet peeve. Sorry. So we have one, which means your right. You're the one who guess we'd have one the same so that you were in this one. I dunno what you wanted, but you will do it. Autumn (43m 57s): I wanted the honor of being right? Jesper (43m 59s): Yeah, it feels good. All right. Well this one we way to feeling better, actually. I humbly valuable to you. You are correct in Episode. Now you're going to forget which one we are doing. 93. You are, Autumn (44m 11s): It took almost a hundred episodes before. Right? Jesper (44m 16s): That's pretty good. Actually one out of my control. So it's not too bad. Yeah. Yeah. Autumn (44m 20s): Maybe once we get close to her episode, 200 and not get another one. Right. Jesper (44m 23s): All right. We'll get it. Autumn (44m 27s): Yeah. But I guess it's well from a conclusion, point of view, I guess since the only one we both Jesper (44m 32s): Had on the list, then I guess that's the one we jointly hate the most in isn't it? Yes. I think so. I think that is definitely, probably are our joint a painful one. Like I said, I probably would have agreed with you in the adverbs, except that I I thoroughly kicked that one in the butt early. Yeah. That was cool. Should have done the same thing I ever did a blog post about it and shared my results because I was so angry. I should have red that one. Then you should have asked if we'd found each other's sooner or you might have been hilarious, but so do you want to know? Jesper (45m 9s): I actually have two pieces of writing Advice and then I have a quote. I did my homework. You should be so as well, what happened? It only took almost a hundred hours. So that's what I did homework. Umm, alright. So I actually have two pieces of favorite Advice if you wanted to hear them. Yes, please. The first one is you can edit a blank page and I do appreciate that on you. Every time I feel like my writing is going poorly or whatever is going on, I just remind myself, it doesn't matter. Jesper (45m 42s): I need to just write it. I need to push through whatever stumbling block I have because you can't edit something that doesn't exist. So you just need to write it and then you can go back and fix it. So that was definitely one of my heartfelt once. But one of my most absolutely favorite ones that I kept pasted on my WRITING space is paint. What, the words you leave on written because I, to me that's symbolizes the magic of Writing and the magic have reading is that were only half half of the spell and the other half as the reader. Jesper (46m 14s): So you have to leave room for the reader to take what you're writing and construct parts of it for themselves. And that's what makes a story magical to me. So that one is definitely my favorite piece of writing advice is to paint what, the words that you leave unwritten or an unsaid. I love that won it. Can't top that high can end with a lovely quote. That is kind of a fun summary to all of the pieces of advice that we just have given, but it would be good or bad. Jesper (46m 45s): OK. Yeah. And this is from Michael Moorcock. He says ignore all pro offered rules and create your own suitable for what you want to say. Narrator (46m 57s): Right. Jesper (46m 58s): All right. So next Monday we're going to discuss if there is a particular word that you need to stop starting sentences to with that almost sounded like Common Writing Advice We HATE Narrator (47m 9s): 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.

Do women authors face unique challenges? Autumn and special guest, Alexa Bigwarfe, delve into this topic as well as ways to support women authors. Alexa is a USA Today bestselling author, runs Write, Publish, Sell and is the organizer of the Women in Publishing Summit. This episode has tips not just for women, but for anyone who is busy or feels too overwhelmed to tackle dreams such as writing. Check out the Women in Publishing Summit which runs from March 2 - 8. Registration starts at FREE! Check it out at https://womeninpublishingsummit.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 (0s): You're listening to the amwritingfantasy podcast. In today's publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need in literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing join to best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them. Now onto the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt. Autumn (29s): Hello, I'm autumn and this is episode 61 of the amwritingfantasy podcast and the women have taken over today. Yes, for is a way, and so today we instead have author and organizer Alexa Bigwarfe and she is joining me for a discussion on the hurdles facing women authors. So hello Alexa welcome to the podcast. Alexa (51s): Hi, thank you so much for having me. I'm so happy you could join us today. And actually right now I'm over in Vermont and it's a beautiful sunny day, so thank you for being inside and, uh, hanging out with me. Absolutely. Well, I'm in South Carolina where it's normally beautiful and sunny, but today it's overcast and gross, so Autumn (1m 13s): that worked out for you then. It's great. Fantastic. And so I have a little introduction so that people can listening can get and feel of for who you are. And so we'll just get that out of the way till we can free up the discussion. So Alexa you are a wife, a mother of three, a dog owner, which I'm going to have to ask what kind of dog and an advocate for those without a voice. You are passionate about advocating for women's and children's rights and discusses these topics on your podcast, which is the same name as a series you've written lose the Cape. So you're also a USA today bestselling author and you're an editor and publisher of lose the Cape anthology series sunshine after the storm, a survival guide for the grieving mother. Ditch the fear and just write it and many other books. And if all of that isn't enough, you also run and organize the women in publishing summit every year, which I took part last year and loved it and I can't wait to it for it to be this year. And you also run the write publish sell website, which is dedicated to helping authors. So I don't know how you fit all of that. And really Alexa (2m 22s): I don't sleep much is my standard answer on that one. Autumn (2m 26s): I understand. I know when I first started writing and people asked how I found time to do it, I would look at them straight with a dead pan face and say, I'm a vampire, I'm gonna start using that one. That's a much better answer. Oh, you know, it throws them off. Like they were kind of like, are you serious? Alexa (2m 44s): I love it. Well, you know, now that my three children are all in school for seven hours a day like it or six, seven hours, however long they're gone, um, it makes a big difference and I'm able to cram a lot more in. My husband swears that multi multitasking is impossible and that is just one of the many differences between men and women because I think women can run circles around men and doing multiple things at the same time. Autumn (3m 10s): I highly agree, which is so like I said, it'd be so much fun for taking over the podcast today, we'll probably, you know, solve all the problems of the world. While all smell disgusting, you know. Right. That's right. That's right. Excellent. Well, I'm so happy to have you here and I have to say, so I'm a dog lover too. Um, my, I have a current terrier who is like a giant golden version of Toto. So what kind of dog do you have? Alexa (3m 33s): Dog Mia is a, she's definitely a mix of a yellow lab and something else that could be picked could be bulldog, could be all kinds of combinations. She's a mutt. She was a rescue, so we don't know what she is fully, but she is truly the sweetest dog we've ever come across. And she's a gentle giant. We love her. Autumn (3m 54s): Yeah, that's just, I absolutely adore dogs. And that was actually sort of how I ended up with my husband. He had the cutest dog. Oh my God. So I fell in love with a dog, kept the boys. It's worked out Alexa (4m 6s): well. There you go. So there is some truth to be told to men getting puppies and taking them for walks in the park if they're looking to pick up chicks. Huh? Autumn (4m 13s): Yeah. So we're already giving dating tips to anyone out there listening. Yes. If you are trying to get together with someone, a really cute dog or a wonder, Alexa (4m 22s): well you know, being a writer can be such a life of solitude that maybe maybe we do need to throw out some tips for social interaction from time to time. Autumn (4m 33s): That's like she probably, we could get away with a podcast of like writing or dating tips for writers because we're all introverts, so we're like, I know sometimes if my husband didn't be like, are we eating today? Are you doing anything other than taking your laptop somewhere of like, Oh you are here. I didn't know you were in the house. Alexa (4m 50s): Exactly. I did the same thing though with my three children. It's generally not a good thing. So we have a rule that when I'm working they're only allowed to come bother me if one of them is bleeding or, or really like truly needs my help. It can't be an argument over which television Joe they can watch. So Autumn (5m 9s): yeah, I saw a reverse am blog article once, which I wish I could find it again. If anyone is listening and knows of this one, it was a family's interpretation of a mother's writing, a writer, mother's hand signals, and you know, she would hold up the one finger which to her about one minute and the family is like, okay, give her five. If she holds up two fingers, it's like give her 10 not two minutes. And if she gives you a full stop, it means do not fricking bothering me right now. She is on a roll. Go leave the house and come back into. That is so true. It's just like there's what we think we got going on and then there's what the rest of the world realizes. We really mean when we say no, not now. Oh my gosh. So yes, if anyone knows of it, please send it to me. I've lost the link and it just cracked me up whenever I read it. It was fantastic. But anyway, so I'm so excited to have you here and I love that you're a USA today bestselling author. You have so much information and so many things that you're doing, but how did you start out? When were you, when were you a newbie and how did you start writing Alexa (6m 16s): well, it's kind of a sad story, so I'm sorry to bring anybody down here. Um, I actually, I wanted this, so the first part, it's not so sad. I've wanted to write since I was a little girl. I mean I started writing my name all over my grandparents couches and walls as soon as I could hold a pen, right. Which, uh, they were not very happy. But um, um, so I I self, I self illustrated and wrote my first book at the age of six called my unicorn. My mother threw it away at some point in time, so tears, no, but I always wanted to write and I'm one of those kids who if you go back and look through my stuff from like middle school and high school, like I have stories upon stories that I started but never quite finished. I have like index cards of, of I, I one of those title people. So I would just daydream titles for day is, you know, cause I had like 700 titles of books and stories, you know. But um, somewhere along the line, uh, my dad was the mill in the military. We moved overseas. I totally fell in love with am overseas stuff and I wound up majoring in international studies and then eventually I went into the air force. Um, so I was doing, I was in air force intelligence officer and I did for for a decade. I did technical writing and briefs and really, uh, really honed my writing, my writing and speaking skills through that career. And then writing um, some counter terrorism, uh, briefings and things like that for the state of South Carolina after I left the military. It's a very interesting career. Very, very interesting. I loved what I did. Um, like I said, 10 years total time working for the air force and for the state of South Carolina and doing really, really cool things and writing a lot of emergency plans and all this kind of stuff, grant writing, all of that dry boring stuff. But it trained me very well in technical writing and am I decided to, it was, it was hard working in counter terrorism and by that point in time we had two small children. So I decided to stay at home and um, be a stay at home mom because I thought that would be easier. Um, it was not, we decided to have our third child cause my husband and I are both the third of four children and we were like, we can't stop before we get to number three obviously. Um, and when we, I went in for my first ultrasound and they found out that there were two. So we had number three and 4:00 AM together. But a long, long story short, um, the babies were identical twins. They had, they suffered from a syndrome called twin to twin transfusion syndrome, which is very, very deadly if not treated. It was very scary and we thought both babies were going to die. We went through a lot of, lot of stuff, a lot of hospitalizations and they were born 10 weeks early. And, um, Caris, my surviving twin was one pound 10 ounces and she spent, yeah, she was a little bitty. She lo fighter, she spent three months in the NICU and her sister, Catherine, um, just had entirely too many, uh, issues. And she only stayed with us for two days before she was, it was very sad. So in that time frame, there's obviously a lot of stuff going on. And I started blogging as a way to deal with grief and anger and just shock and awareness to tell other people about this syndrome that I felt my doctors were so poorly educated on. And, you know, all these things. So I took the blogging and, um, really found a space and place for not only helping other grieving mothers, but for helping people who didn't know how to deal with grieving mothers. Like what might be the most common search term is still to this day, eight years later, uh, what do I say to someone who's just lost a baby? So I started writing on those topics and um, and I decided that I wanted to do more. By that point in time, I had am really gotten into a big community of other bloggers and writers on grief. And so I reached out to a bunch of people that I knew who, who were, who were doing things, either they were setting up organizations to support grieving families where they were blogging about it or they were doing all these different things. And I invited, um, I think it's 34 of us total. So I reached out to all these people and ask them to be a part of this project that I wanted to do, which was a book called sunshine after the storm, a survival guide for the grieving mother. And it's basically like, Oh yeah, it was. So, it was a really healing project for me. So part of my mission across the years has been using writing as a tool to heal and how no matter what genre, whether it's a children's book or a nonfiction book or even a fiction book, like there's so many ways that you can use your writing to work through things in your own life to heal to all of those things. So, yeah. So I became an accidental publisher basically because, you know, I just, I fell in love with the process and wanted to learn everything I could possibly learn about publishing. And then we started the lose the Cape series, which is our guide for am for moms. Cause I was still raising children. So we did that and like, so now I've got more books coming out and people are coming to me, what are you doing? How are you doing this? I want to write a book. How do I do it? Yeah. So right. Publish sell was born. Autumn (11m 44s): That is amazing. So yes, I mean basically from almost before you started putting the words that became your published novel on paper, you've been helping other on their journey from the get go. Right? Alexa (11m 55s): Yeah. So, so yeah, through the, through the blogging and then through am basically kind of, so some people who were also writing on grief came to me first. And this is when I realized that that there was an opportunity for me to really help a lot of other people is because they came to me and they were like, Hey, I don't know how to get my book a formatted and I don't know how to do this and I don't know how to do that. So it started off with me just kind of helping out my friends in the green area who wanted to write and publish books too. And then, you know, word caught on. I started realizing that I, well, first of all being a stay at home mom, but just never quite worked out for me. I, I wanted to be doing more like constantly. So I knew I didn't want to leave my kids though I still wanted that flexibility of being able to be home with them. And so I was looking for opportunities and at this time, like this is when like digital, the digital world was just blowing up. I mean, so all this stuff is happening, eBooks coming out, you know, all these, all these big transitions. So I was able to start looking at maybe I could be a blogger and make money through blogging. Maybe I could do this, maybe I could do that. And so I just built my business from the ground up, doing a lot of different things. And, and um, eventually as I was working with these different writers, I realized that I didn't want to just help them prepare their book for publication. Like I wanted to be a publisher. So I took on that role and we have am, Kat, biggie press and purple butterfly press and Chrysalis press, which are nonfiction, basically hybrid press, a children's book, hybrid press. And then Chrysalis is our traditional publishing house. But we have, we had a slow down, we took on way too much, way too fast. So we have stopped submissions for all of those for a while because now I'm focusing on the women and publishing summit Autumn (13m 43s): I know, I can't wait til we talk about that, but before we do, I want to, so what do you think I get into, what do you think are the differences between a woman author and our account? Our male counterparts because I know I've definitely seen some differences and it's interesting. It's so it's kinda fun to open up that conversation and maybe some guys will get some perspective into, you know, helping their struggling female partners who want to be writers too. There's so many different Alexa (14m 9s): is across the board from the way that we tackle our projects to our mindset issues. Like when guys in general, this is all generalizations of course, but generally speaking, when a dude decides he's going to do something, he sits down and he does it. If a guy decides I'm gonna write a vampire paranormal, romance, Blab, blah, blah, shape shifter, you know, whatever. Throughout all your, I'm not a fantasy writer, so I do Autumn (14m 37s): you're doing really good. This might make these next book. Alexa (14m 42s): I decided I'm going to sit down and write it. Generally speaking, I'm not saying that they don't have fears and challenges in that, but they sit down and they do it. Whereas a woman were like, well, do I know enough? I don't have an MFA. I've never taken a writing class. Can I do this or are people gonna laugh at me? What are they going to do? Like who am I? Like all these things just start going through our minds as women. So we have issues from there, you know, just in terms of can I do this, will I do this? But then I mean there's like a thousand other things women whether you're a mother or not, women tend to be the ones who take on the roles of caretakers, caregivers, planners, organizers. So we're doing all the things in our lives. We're the ones who generally speaking, again, nobody threw rotten tomatoes at me. And you know what, there is a shift going on like my husband now is a stay at home dad, so I can't, you know, stay at home dads slash he works part time in my business now. But um, but, but you know, so, so I know that men are doing all these things as well. But generally speaking, like we just, we approach things differently. We have different things that hold us back. We have different things that hold us back in the world. Like the, if you, every once in a while I see the article come up about how many women had to um, use mail pen names because that's the only way they could sell sell books, you know, so, so there are not only internal things that stop us from moving forward. There are still very definite external things happening in our world that, that keep women from having the same level of success. And I'm not one of those, you know, door bang feminists, like men need to die, all that kind of stuff that you see that you see some people on the far extreme side. But I what I do, but I do see, I do see some challenges that women have to face and especially marginalized voices, women of color, women in any type of super minority type thing. You know, there, there's a lot of challenges still out there. So you know, it Autumn (16m 45s): no. Yeah, I totally agree. Cause I know like I think my F the first question I often hear when female authors asking themselves is when can I find the time? Because I agree. It seems like every woman author I know is even myself, I don't have kids. We decided not to a long time ago before we even got together, so it worked out. But it's still, I'm the primary cook, you know, I tend to do the primary organizational things that he does the primary and be like maintenance things and he's putting them in. But you're right, it's like, I'm going to go and I'm going to go do this now and then it'll be done and then I'm going to go and do this now. And for me it's like, well, I've got to juggle this. I gotta deal with this. I've got to get this done today at blah, blah, blah. You know, it's like I have 16 balls in the air and I'm like, can I throw out the 17th if it's a pedo of size? But it means, I'm sorry. No, go ahead. Yeah. Do it's exhau. It's, I really think we struggle with trying to hold it all together and carve out that time for ourselves. It's Alexa (17m 41s): very unusual, um, from the men that I see in my life again. So I'm just using my little am snapshot of the world here. It's very to see a guy when I see them want to do something to stop and think, now, wait a minute, what am I going to get the laundry done and when am I going to get food and do I have a menu plan and do I have, you know, no. They're like, okay, I'm going to join the hockey team and I'm going to go play hockey or I'm going to write a book or I'm gonna, you know, learn how to play the guitar or go hang out with friends or go, you know, that's they, they just, they do. And some women just do two and it's a L it's a thing that I'm having to teach myself actually, is that it's, if I have to focus on whatever it is, that is my priority and if it is my priority, then I have to be willing to let other things slide. It's okay if we eat leftovers for two days in a row. My kids don't think so, but I'm okay feeding them. It's okay to order from time to time. It's okay to let them watch movies as well. I write on a Saturday afternoon, you know, so, Autumn (18m 45s): Oh, I love that. No, I, I totally agree and I think that's we. I love your lose. Lose the Cape series. I hadn't seen it until I was looking up stuff, but it's so true. We all think we have to do it all. We have to do it and I've learned even in my life to be much more advocating too. I think that's one thing. Guys are really good at saying, I am doing this and they stayed at, they go and do it and if they don't get something done or if someone else has to pick up the Slack wherever the chips fall, they just go and do it and women. We tend to be like, how can I fit that in where if it's something we're passionate about, sometimes you just have to say, I am doing this and you're either going to have to help or it is not going to happen because I am doing this and it's so scary. Sometimes we'd switch with you in a relationship where you're the one who tends to pick up the other half of everything. But yeah, sometimes you just have to do it. And even am I've hit 45 now and I'm still learning. Alexa (19m 39s): Okay. That's really funny. If you've been in a relationship with somebody for a long time when you're like, Nope, I'm not doing that anymore. Sorry. You've got to do the grocery shopping. You've got, you know, it's funny, as we shift roles a little bit now, this is a recent change for us. So we are still very much in the figuring it all out phase of him being the primary house person and you know, it's still in my nature to like stop work. It's like look at the clock and be like, Oh my gosh, it's six o'clock we have to eat dinner and I somebody, somebody's got to cook it. So it must be me. So you know, I've had to stop and say, you know what, he knows where the food is, you know, and tell him like, Hey, it's six o'clock I'm not ready to stop yet. I have deadlines, I need you to make dinner. And you know, we're getting better at it. But it is, yeah, it's a, it's a challenge. Autumn (20m 28s): It is. I mean, I've been with my husband, we've known each other 20 years this year and we've been married 18 and so agreed. We've, I mean for any relationship to last that long, it goes through a lot of changes. There's a saying that may you have, um, I think it's one merit, one spouse in many marriages, in other words, stay with the same person, but your marriage shifts and changes and it's a, it's a wonderful terminology saying, you know what? Nothing is ever the same. Everything keeps changing. You're both going to change. And yes, I've seen that. Definitely as we've grown from our twenties to our thirties and now we're the hitting our forties. And it is just interesting to see the dynamics change in me learning to be much more of an advocate and him learning to he's, I still think guys, sometimes they cannot, if you do not tell them by the way this needs to be done, they don't really figure it out. But maybe that's just all the guys I go with my life. He's like, okay, the thing sitting in the front in the middle of the room. Yes, there's some general truth to that, but I do feel, so I started reading with fantasy. Um, it was definitely, you know, it is my genre, it's what I'm passionate about. But I always felt very fortunate because the first author I picked up was ed McCaffrey. So a woman. My next favorite was Mercedes Lackey. My favorite book was written by Terry Wendling and I've always loved Margaret Weis. This is like from the day I started reading fantasy and fell in love with it. I've had these Paragon women's, I didn't start with, um, Tolkin or you know, all the guys I started with the women and I've always, I didn't realize it at the time as a young girl, I always joked that my mother never believed in women's lib and I think she just didn't know what to do with me. When I started getting my boys, she's kinda like, I don't know where you came from. She wanted a, a daughter would have kids and stay near home and a son who would go off and conquer the world. And she got a son that stayed home and had kids and a daughter who wanted to go off and conquer the world. So she got what she wanted just in the wrong genders. And I'm fine with that. And she's learning. But it's always, I've always seen all these very wonderful Ursula Kayla Gwyn. I mean all these wonderful, I can ramble off all these women named, but you're right. So many genres women authors have either hidden, their names are using, sit at pseudonyms or initials. And I do still see that with the young authors I work with. Uh, it's becoming more rare, which is really exciting. But even like, I think two years ago I had someone say, you know, I don't want, I don't want my first name, you know, Joanna or something. I want to use my initials cause I don't want them to know I'm a woman. I was like, wow, that's still out there. Alexa (23m 11s): And, um, the, I I pretty sure, no, I'm just pulling this out of nowhere like most people do with statistics, but, um, I'm fairly certain it was still as late as 2018, maybe even the 2019 report that showed that book sales by either, um, male names or books by men. We're outperforming books by women authors like tremendously. So Autumn (23m 36s): it would not surprise me any of that. But I know I've seen it with Alexa (23m 43s): Apple years. I don't know if that has shifted, um, since since the me too movement really. I mean a lot of things have really, really taken a different turn since then. And that was a very, very well-timed, uh, movement to happen actually because it happened right as I was getting ready to launch my first womeninpublishingsummit three years ago. So that's amazing. I was like, sweet. The rest of the world is on the same page as me. Autumn (24m 13s): That's right. We were ready for something specific, a space for women to be able to help each other. And I think for so if we're as long as week, stay away from undermining each other when you, but authors are so good at not looking at other authors as competition. And I think women authors can be so helpful and supportive of each other even more so than you know, many other areas in places I've been in, other things I've done and seen super true. Alexa (24m 39s): And the fiction side, like I have seen fiction authors really band together really well. I love to see the authors cross-promote each other. I mean, I think everybody's smart enough to know that you ha that it works with people in your own genre. Like it's hard to cross promote someone who's writing something that your audience doesn't want to read. But, um, I think I, I've seen some really great partnerships on the fiction side. I think the w the nonfiction side is still a little bit different and I think it's because I want to say something that's probably, I'm, I'm glad you have a fiction audience, so hopefully there's not a lot of nonfiction. Autumn (25m 14s): So there'll be kind, everyone be kind NonFiction's Alexa (25m 17s): aren't like that. Okay. The word I will choose to use is a day in and day out authors like fiction writers. This is what you want to do every day, all day, all the time. You write your books, you read your books and all this kind of stuff. But a lot of nonfiction authors, unless they're in a series like unless they do autobiographies of all the presidents or something like that, where it is truly their thing, like a nonfiction author often has a, a particular subject that they focus on and they write books as part of a bigger thing, right? Like I was writing my lose the Cape books as part of a bigger community for mothers. Um, I was writing my S my grief books as part of a bigger thing. Like I didn't come on thinking I'm going to write a 25 part series on, you know, grieving weathers. So, so I think what I see sometimes is that not, not, uh, not that they don't want to help each other, but they don't, they haven't been raised to realize that they're not competition raised in their genre, if you know what I mean. So, um, it's not the case at all in the grieving mothers community. Like everybody is 100% supportive of each other. We share all each other's stuff. We do everything that we can. But in some other industries I think you see people get very nervous about competition and that's um, kind of another one of the things that we take on is letting people know that, um, the, you know, the expression with, with a rising tide, we all ships rise, you know, so it's, it's w if you're helping other women, if you're helping other people in your genre, if you're helping promote other, and the reason I came to form this opinion just to let you know, is that because I saw it in action, I reached out to my network and I said, I have an author that's publishing a book on X, Y, Z. um, we would love for you to be part of her launch team and advanced reader team. And the, and the answer that we got back was, I can't do that. I have a book that's coming out. It's on a similar topic. The books were not similar at all. Like, I mean they were in the similar genre, but like in terms of the key takeaways of the book. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. So the key takeaways and everything were different enough that, and the audiences would have been different enough but yet enough the same to support each other, you know? And it really, it really made me think that there's still a lot of people who don't maybe don't realize like how much better we do when we're helping each other. Um, so anyway, sorry, that was a long tangent. That really is, I just, I just want to put that out there to say that like they're really, it really, you made the comment that there is not a lot of competition in books and I really truly agree that there is not competition in books. And the reason I say that is because I'm a voracious reader and I know my reading habits and I right now am on a huge world war two bad-ass females kit. Right? Right. Any stories of women who just did incredible crap in world war II is on my, I will read everything out there. I don't care if the storylines are similar, I don't care. Like I want to read it all. And I think that's how many readers are, would they, they want everything. Right. So by being able to share about other writers who write in similar, similar types of things, you're able to say, Hey, I don't have anything new for you, but if you like my stuff, you're going to love these books and keep them entertained until your next one comes out. Right. Autumn (28m 56s): All right. Uh, yeah. Especially, yeah, when books take you over a year sometimes to write if not longer, especially nonfiction, if you're researching can take you so long and yeah, it's better to support each other than, you know, pretend like no one else exists in everyone's waiting with baited breath just for your book. And even like no Alexa (29m 19s): could be considered a very competitive, a cookbook for example. Like, if you've got two people rating vegan cookbooks, well I can tell you that I like a variety of recipes and I like a variety. Like I just, cause I buy one vegan cookbook doesn't mean I'll never buy another one again. You should see my cook. Autumn (29m 37s): Exactly. It's ridiculous. Yeah. I, I think, uh, the internet and being able to Google recipes is become one of my favorite things about the writers. Your day may have come. No, but there's still something really nice about that big book with the big pictures that you can put on your counter and look at why you're, but anyway, we digress and you don't have to worry about them battery dying or getting like flour. Alexa (30m 4s): Exactly. But, but back to the idea of like this, this community, um, the real reason behind the women and publishing summit was, um, I was like I told you once I decided I was doing this thing, I wanted to learn everything in the world that I could about publishing. So my writing summit is one of many summits that are out there that happen all the time for writers, publishers, authors, you know, marketing, book, marketing, all these things are happening all the time. So I'm, I'm attending as many of them as I can and learning from as many people, but I was noticing like on the panels and the presentations, one, there was very little female representation. So for like, yeah, for like every five guys there was like one girl and then um, the number of minorities was almost nonexistent in some of the ones that I was looking at. So, Autumn (30m 55s): and your pro, your, you know, I didn't really think about it, but yeah, you're right. I most of the ones I'm very, very, very white and very, um, at least the people, maybe the attendees are a lot of women out there, but you're right, a lot of the panels and stuff don't seem to always include. So I reached out Alexa (31m 12s): do the one that I was attending at that particular time and I was like, Hey, where are the ladies? Was like, I follow a lot of women in the publishing world. And I know that there's some women doing some fantastic things with writing and publishing and book marketing and editing and I'm like, I don't see them in your thing. And he was just like, oops, we'll work on that for the future. It's been three years since then and I haven't really seen an increase, but that's okay because I filled the gap with my own annual all summit but women and people that identify as women. Autumn (31m 48s): That is so wonderful. And so you started, this will be your third year coming up. Correct. And it's coming up just around the corner. So this, we're recording this early, but this'll be released at the end of February and the next summit is March. Then you can register for free, Alexa (32m 4s): free at women and publishing, summit.com am Autumn (32m 9s): and I'll have that in the show notes so people can follow the little things. A lot of fun. Alexa (32m 13s): What I decided to do with it was I was like, okay, so this is cool. We started out our conversation with talking about how women are different. So one of the things that's going to make this and that does make this thing different is that we talk about the things that make women different. Like we don't specifically say in an interview. So what makes you different as a woman writer, Autumn (32m 32s): but we do, we talk about my process that Alexa (32m 37s): are applicable to women and men. If you have men in your audience, they're still gonna learn a ton of information because the knowledge base is incredible, but we're not afraid to talk about things like, well how did you schedule it around having three children and this and that, or what was it like when you're, you know, if you're doing this and that or you know, what are the challenges, the mindset challenges that you deal with? Because we do have different mindset challenges and well, you know, marketing strategies that work better for, for women because we are afraid to just say I'm doing this and go for it or not all of us. Again, you know, these are just common things that pop up are we talk about topics that are like really, really, really unique to women in most cases. Like trauma, sexual trauma, and, um, the, the need for our stories to be heard. And, um, and what it's like to be a minority minority or what is like to be a transgender am women yeah, I guess he is. He is now a man that are transgender, um, participant from the first year. So, you know, we, we did deep, it all relates to publishing or relates to writing or do the things related to the production and publishing of a book. But from this, from the viewpoint of being, you know, the, the woman's viewpoint on things. Autumn (34m 1s): It sounds, I know. And I know it's a wonderful summit and I, like I said, I was, uh, took part as a participant last year. This year I get to be on a panel and so excited. But yes, I love it. Writing tips. So that'll be fantastic. But it's just a, it's a wonderful dynamic and I agree. I love the fact that guys can attend. So like if there's a single father out there who's struggling to make everything juggle and also wants to write or has had past trauma because goodness knows between PTSD and there's so many things the me too movement is letting guys know that they can show this side of themselves as well. So it is a very inclusive and welcoming summit where if you have questions that just everyone seems to gloss over and a lot of, Oh we just do it, you know, go get it done. So the next step just go to the next step. And they don't deal with the emotional hurdles that are underneath or between those steps. This is a great place to get those like answered it without being embarrassed. And I figured out how to juggle it all and keep going and still get up the next day and keep them away Alexa (35m 3s): real. It's a very professional conference, but we get really real and um, you know, and some of them, some of them are just straight up teaching and knowledge and information and you're now going to find that touchy feely side to it because we want people to know, you know, this is how you market a book. This is how you build your email list. This is how you find an editor. This is how you make sure you're not getting screwed over by an editor. This is the important things. And so the way we've organized it is the five days we have day one is like the big picture stuff. Why, if you're just thinking about writing a book am why you might want to do it. It's, it's more like inspiration and that the types of things that we were just talking about, those would, we definitely hit on a day one marginalized voices and how we feel and you know, all those types of things. We dig right into it. And then, um, or over the course of the next four days, we hit things like all the tools that you need. Not all of them obviously cause there's a bit Jillian Brazilian. But the main things like editing tips, editing, production tips, getting your book formatted, am how you distribute your book, all of these types of things. We talk about marketing a lot, lots and lots and lots of great marketing stuff. Um, and then, uh, the day five this year, we've changed it up a little bit in day five is all about the business of being an author. So if you're struggling, yeah, if you're struggling with things like I don't think we have anybody talking about taxes this year. I may put my, uh, I may put the one from last year and as a replay just cause it was great information. But you know, just knowing these things, like now you're writing books with the hope to sell like you're a business owner. Own it. Autumn (36m 43s): Oh wait, stop wondering if you're truly an author and own your business and do it. That's a, that's a very good tip to anyone listening who has a book out there. Alexa (36m 55s): Stinks. And, and, uh, you know, we want to write we have our passion, we're doing these things. And it stinks to have to sit and say, okay, now I have to go through all my receipts and log my expenses and you know, gather up my data and all this stuff. But there's some really, really, really important things that authors don't know that they need to know. Like if you are selling your book directly from your website, you better check in with your, your local state to find out if you have to have a retail license so that you don't get, cause yeah. Cause I mean that they might cost 25 to $50 to get registered as a retail license, but if you get, they're cracking down harder and harder on digital stuff. So if you get fined for not doing things properly, it's going to be worse for you. You know? Um, and just as a side note, if anybody's panicking about it, if you just put links through to like Amazon or iBooks or anything like that, you're not the retailer. They are. So you don't have to worry about that kind of stuff. They collect taxes, they do all of that stuff. But if you actually have a Shopify store or a PayPal button and you are actually selling books directly from your website that you then, you know, distribute and all that kind of stuff, you do do need to check in and see what, what kind of protections you need to have, what kind of paperwork you need to have, all of that kind of stuff. So that's just one little tip there that's totally off the topic. But it's important. And this is something that I learned along the way and I was like that's really scary cause I'm telling people all the time to sell their books on their website to make more money and not have to worry about, you know, Amazon or whatever. And um, I might be getting them in trouble if they don't know the rest of the story. Autumn (38m 35s): Do Alexa (38m 36s): that's, I mean that's a huge nugget that I don't think anyone else has really ever been mentioning cause you're right, I've even heard like, you know, sell signed copies, do this on your website. But that's perfect because that's a little lovely little teaser tips. So if people want to go enjoy this summit that's the type of information you're going to find there. And that's why it's really fantastic to join this one because it is information that there might be other ones out there, but I think yours has a different feel and a different vibe and different topics that you might not hear in many other channels. So it's really exciting. I'm looking out for each other, we're looking out for each other and we're making sure that we don't make mistakes that are costly. Autumn (39m 16s): Yes. And I, again, I think that's what women are amazingly good at. We help each other out and make sure that, you know, we keep each other safe and supported and you know, we're also very welcoming. So for anyone else who's looking for support, we like to open our arms and you know, make sure they're doing okay too. Well, is there any other tips? Anything else you want to tell us about the conference? Like I said, I will put it in the show notes and it's coming up on March 2nd and you said registration is free on the website. Alexa (39m 45s): We have am three tiers so you can register for free and you can come each day. You have to, you do have to register to receive the links, you'll get the links each day. Um, and we dropped like between five and eight videos every day that are available for 24 hours. And then they go away at 10:00 AM the next morning. And, um, if you, if you're like, I cannot sit in front of my computer all day long, every day, you could buy just those videos for $47 and watch them whenever you want. Or you can upgrade to am or we're calling the full conference pass. And that includes all the videos. We have some workshops that are only available to the conference pass holders. We have a, um, a private community where we do additional workshops and training, not only the week of the summit, but throughout the entire year. Um, we've got bonuses from all the speakers and sponsors. So it's, it's really, if you, if you get that prior to the summit starting, so if you hear this at the end of February and register, it's on only $67, it's going to increase in price as time goes. But um, and it's just, it's another opportunity for us to take, um, what we have going on and to continue it between at the conference so that we're not just dishing out stuff that first week of March, but all the way through. And by the way, the reason we chose the first week in March, March is women's history month. And the last day of the week of the first week of, of March is always international woman's day. So on the eighth we'll have Brooke Warner who is the CEO of, she writes press and she is the author of am right on sisters. And she does a lot of talking about this particular topic, like the, the challenges that females face in the publishing industry and why it's so important to share our stories and why it's so important to band together. So she's going to be our closing keynote and I am pumped up about that. Autumn (41m 33s): Great. Yeah. Awesome. I can't wait. So, yeah. Well fantastic. I am so happy that you joined me on here and we've got to talk about those. And I mean I could still think of topics that I think women face just, you know, I don't think we're so good at making sure we toot our own horn and tell people that, you know, like you're a USA today bestselling author. I don't think that was even first in your biography or so. It was kind of buried in there and I think that's typical of us. So, Hey, we all have things to we need to remember about ourselves, but thank you so much for joining us and I really appreciate the time and I count to see you're here. Some of my listeners, uh, over at the conference and like I said, I will be participating in a panel for tips. So I'm looking forward to seeing something, make sure you use the link that, um, the item's going to send out cause that's a better link. For that's a better link. Alright. Sounds good. Yes, I will have that am posted up there on the show notes. Yes, I think that's right. You did send me one and yes. Disclaimer, we're always honest. I think that is an affiliate link. I want to be able to reward you for sending your community, so make sure you go through her affiliate link. Well, thank you and I had even forgotten that we got those as speakers, but Hey, that's so cool. Thank you. Alright, well again, I can't wait to see everyone at the conference. I can't wait to see quote unquote see you at the conference. Alexa and thank you again. It's been a blast. Yes. Thank you for tuning in next week. Yes. For we'll be back and we'll have another exciting new episode and hope you will join us. Then Narrator (43m 22s): if you like what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support the amwritingfantasy podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join autumn and Yesper on patrion.com/amwritingfantasy for as little as a dollar a month. You'll get awesome rewards and keep the amwritingfantasy podcast going. Stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

Have you ever thought about sharing the writing on a book or short story with a collaboration partner? Autumn and Jesper discuss not only tips on why authors team up but also layout steps on how to find someone to write with, including how they ended up as writing and business partners (which is quite a story!). There are definitely some hurdles to navigate when and if you decide to write with someone, including just if a writing partner will fit your style and expectations. Check out the FREE Ultimate Fantasy Writer's Starter Kit that Autumn mentioned in the episode at http://ultimatefantasywritersguide.com/starter-kit/. Tune in for new episodes EVERY single Monday. SUPPORT THE AM WRITING FANTASY PODCAST! Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. Join us at www.patreon.com/AmWritingFantasy. For as little as a dollar a month, you'll get awesome rewards and keep the Am Writing Fantasy podcast going. Read the full transcript below. (Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion). Narrator (2s): You're listening to the amwritingfantasy podcast. In today's publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need a literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing join to best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them. Now onto the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt. Jesper (30s): Hello, I am Jesper and I'm Autumn. This is episode 58 of the amwritingfantasy podcast and we're going to talk about collaboration with other authors today just like a autumn and I write books together and we're probably not going to touch much upon the actual ins and outs of how we write together, but the listener, if you want to know more about that, then just let us know and we can make that a future topic for another episode. But today we keeping it, we sort of taking a step back and William steps investigate why you might want to consider collaborating with another author, but then also unpack the crucial question of how do you actually find someone to collaborate with. If that's what you want to do. So it's a, it's a pretty packed episode today, so hopefully that explanation sets things up correctly. But uh, yeah, I think that's it. Autumn isn't it? Autumn (1m 29s): I think so. It's sort of the broad picture of you and if someone wants to know the ins and outs of what it's really like to collaborate closely with another author, especially one who's on the other side of an ocean, uh, we can touch on that one in the future. Yeah, indeed. So how have you been? Oh, you know, my life, it's always a bit of an adventure. I think that's just going to have to be like my slogan. Maybe they'll have it, put it on my toe. Tombstone, I always joke that I wanted am my obituary to say, um, where my tombstone to say to be continued. I always seem to have something else going, but it looks like I love my apartment that way. I've been staying in since, uh, November, but I think the time here is coming to an end. It's a little expensive and it's in town, it's noisy. And we just got this lead on this little tiny cabin in the woods. So I'm kind of really hopeful that this ends up working for us. And then we'll have a chance to move into this great cabin. Jesper (2m 31s): Yeah, you're used to not having too much space, so I guess it's not too bad. Autumn (2m 36s): Yeah, it's am. It's tiny. It's like it's kind of a tiny house, tiny cabin. But I'm so looking forward to not hearing traffic and just as a stream running in front of it and there'll be birds and you can just hear the wind in the leaves and yeah, I'm keeping my fingers crossed. This all works out. Jesper (2m 54s): Yeah. The, those parts that you mentioned there about not, not hearing traffic and birds and whatnot don't pop sounds quite good to be, but I think this, the size of the place would drive me bonkers. I have to admit, I've never, I've never had hopes of living in a tiny house or a tiny cabin. I even, the one Adam and I had built was, you know, it was like 450 square feet downstairs, 500 square feet. So two floors of that. That's a thousand square feet. That's a lot of room for two people. But this is more on the 100 to 150 square feet sits scale and it'll be, we keep talking, we can always write a book about our experience. That is true. But on the other hand, of course you don't have to kids like we do it, I'll place you. So that helps a bit. Yeah. It's just a very small packable dog. We should be also been, how was your week? Um, I, I've, I've, I've been good or I'm, I'm starting to feel good again. So it's an injury. Yeah, it's about, about three weeks back. Uh, I was taking the tress out in the morning and the surface was slippery out there and of course I didn't notice, so I actually fail. And then I landed right on top of my wrist. So am it's like three weeks back and it's only just now that it, it starts to feel normal again. So it, it, I, I guess as we get older it takes longer to heal. It is. And I know, is there anything more tragic to a writer than injuring your wrist, even though you do do dictation. So I guess, but yeah, a lot of typing that you do. I do a lot of typing as well. Yeah. And, and it was really annoying because the same day when I failed, we were going to host, uh, our youngest kid's birthday party at the swimming pool and I, well we, so we had a lot of kids coming in and what, I was not going to swim myself anyway, so, so that didn't matter. But you know, we were small, like keeping an eye on them or whatnot. But when I fail, of course it did hurt, but it wasn't that bad, you know, it was just like, ow that hurts. And then you sort of keep going. So we went to the swimming pool and it was already hurting in the locker room a bit. But then after a while, wow. After we've been there, so I think probably a couple of hours had passed since I fail. I just couldn't move my, either my hand or my fingers anymore at that point. So it was just like, yeah, it just hurt like crazy. So that was no good. Well, I'm glad it's getting better. That sounds horrible. And I'm trying to visualize trying not to visualize the idea of wrangling a whole bunch of young children who are old enough to be running around, but not old enough to be really responsible at a swimming party. Yeah. But it works. And you usually people listening to what I say, I know I'm, I'm a referee as well, so I'm used to, I'm used to telling people what I want them to do and usually they listen to the voice of am, you know, Autumn (5m 58s): you better listen to me or else that could be useful. Jesper (6m 1s): Yeah, of course. Yeah. I dunno. But also maybe on a different note, I wanted to mention that last night I finished the last episode of the witches. Autumn (6m 13s): Oh, we just finished washing that too. What did you think the entire season, just this first season one? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I'm curious too. What do you think then? Um, it's funny, I read a review recently and they had only watched the first half and I highly agree with that review of the first half that I was not getting into Gerald's am character at all. I didn't like his deep voice where he was like always in a monitored, in the Husky distant character, especially compared to what I've learned since then about the story in the books. But uh, Yetta for when she got involved and they finally linked up those two storylines. Oh, it was a blast. It was really fun and I enjoyed it. So I was, I didn't realize we were on the last episode and I went to play another one. I'm like, no. So it was good enough that I was like, wait, I'm not done with it yet. I was ready to continue. So I won't say it's my favorite episode or show ever, but I at least started getting engaged. What did you think? Compounded. Jesper (7m 22s): Okay. Now I'd say it's a bit funny because I feel like it was almost like a roller coaster ride in in the sense that the first three episode really did not help me at all. It almost had this kind of feeling of, okay, now we're going to a hundred new monster kind of thing. You know that, and I was a bit afraid, is this just going to be an entire season where each episode is just a new kind of monster that we are hunting because I don't feel like that's not what I want to. I like when there was a story arc that goes across every single episode, but not like each episode is just like a single entity almost like I, I don't, I don't like that. So I was a bit concerned about that, but then when we got to episode for it became a lot better. And then I started like, okay, this is, this is really good. But then again, towards the end of it, I felt like maybe it was the last two episodes, but they started doing all these time jumps between the past and depressing. Yeah. And because you couldn't see any difference on the characters, whether we were in the past or in the present. It happened quite often that I got confused about where are we now in the story is just a pass or is a depressant. And it took away some of the enjoyment for me to be on it. Autumn (8m 32s): Yeah, I agree. When I think I sat up when they finally, when you finally realized that, Oh, all this other, there was this one actually two timelines, whether they're all past being put against this third character who is, I guess it's present or their future. And suddenly you realize that and you're like, Whoa, wait, you, they could have done a lot more, they could have something Jesper (8m 56s): filmed it differently, different color, different lighting, I don't know, but just something. Yeah, just just make it clear that now we're on a different timeline. Right. There was something there and I think the books are a little bit different that they're based on am and then there's a huge role playing game that is spun off of it. And so I don't know if any of that carries through, but I am that was, I did get a little bit annoyed at that. I'm like, that was kind of, yeah. Not the best plotting that, not the best way of demonstrating that there's a different timeline going on. Yeah. Yeah, indeed. And I, I think I would say I definitely recommend people giving it a try. And I don't know. I hope I'm not going to get an angry mob after me now, but I, but I, I picked up that the, uh, the Witcher was the most watched show on Netflix in all of 2019. And keep in mind, it was only released right before the end of the year. So it's been watched so much that you won't believe it. And, uh, I don't know, in my view, that speaks more about the, which your brand than it does about the quality of this TV show, to be honest. So I hope not. So nobody's going to keep yourself. We're saying that, but, but that's, that's how I feel weak on the internet with the amwritingfantasy podcast. So there was a post on the amwritingfantasy Facebook group that really caught my attention. Yeah. I'm, I'm not going to share the name of the person posting it here because I haven't asked the person if they were okay with that. So I'm not gonna do that. But, uh, but I think that the post touched upon a concern that I believe that many Sharon, it, uh, that's why I wanted to bring it up here as well. So it goes like this, the post that quote, is anyone disheartened by the over-saturation of the market? I find I get a little depressed when I see all those authors dropping book after book series after series and doing well too. No hate on their business. It's just makes me feel like when I finally finished one of my little projects, it's not going to have a chance in hell. So I shortened that post a bit, to be honest. There was a bit more, but uh, but uh, I don't know. What are your thoughts about that? Autumn I think that's, that's something a lot of people feel probably or think, Oh, I think so. I can't imagine being a new author right now cause I'm uh, you know as a, I've been doing this since 2012 and so I've gotten a sh don't tell anyone. I actually just released a book 16, which was one with my husband that, and he and I had been working on for a year and a half. We finally just kind of snuck that one out the tour. But I make this as excited as I am about that. It is a challenge to, to publish. When I first started, you know, there was, I don't think there's even 2 million eBooks on Amazon and I don't even know. You Autumn (11m 54s): can't, it's hard to find out how many books are there now. And it's, it's just, it's beyond competitive. I keep saying eventually something will have to be done that Amazon's going to not be able to keep. I mean, can you imagine the servers to store all these books if nothing's ever pulled off? I don't know what's going to happen in the future and it's so tough and tight out there. So yeah, I feel, I feel that is a longstanding author is one with lots of books and with one that's still hard to be visible. Jesper (12m 27s): Yeah. There was a, another person who posted a response, which I think sort of hit the nail on the head. It, it was a quote from Craig Martel am and Craig Martel said, eh, it's a rising tide lift. A rising tide lifts all boats. Readers read a book far faster than we can write them. If those books are successful than your books can be successful. So long as you have equal quality of cover blurb, story and marketing, you can't expect to compete unless you make the same effort as the successful authors. It's a real job. That's what Craig, Marcelo said. Yeah, I think it is true. You know that there are far more far more readers out there, then we can write books for our sales. So, so that is certainly true. But on the other hand, it is also true what you just said in the days where you could just upload a book on Amazon and is expected to sell that. That's, that's, that's gone. It's not gonna happen. So I perfectly understand the concern raised by that initial question there. Um, but yeah, I don't know. I do think it's, it is a matter of putting out professional work. Absolutely. And also you need to view your author Korea as a longterm plate. Yeah, yeah. I fully get the fact that one you, once you put out that what you're one, one little project as it was mentioned, that that's not going to move the needle much for you at all. Um, and yeah, as autumn just said, putting up 16 books that didn't happen in six months, Ida. Right. It takes years, lot of years and sometimes a lot of help. You and I write together, I read my husband, Hey this, this sounds like a little bit about this episode maybe, but yes. Oh yeah, that's true. But just, no, and it's just building the audience. It takes time. Um, and it takes years and, and if, if you look at it long term, then I think maybe you will get less disheartened because if you look at it like, okay, I'm going to release this book and I wanted to compete and I want to earn, let's just say a lot of money for lack of better term of, of, of mentioning it, but I want to and a lot of money, uh, and I'm going read this one book and I'm going to compete against all these authors who have like six different series with three books into the meats and whatnot. Then of course you're going to get this heart and, and, and, but I, I think it's important not to think about it like that, but more look at like, this is a longterm thing. And at some point I will also have six series with three books in them. Um, but while I'm working to get there, I'll make sure to put up professional work with professional covers. Uh, the best blurbs they can be. And I'll learn how to market the books and then I'll sort of do it one brick at a time. I think that's, that's how you need to look at it. And we are going to talk a lot more about that in the self publishing success course that we have on our to do list for 2020. Autumn (15m 23s): And I'm going to jump in with, cause you just did a fantastic segue into a comment I just received. It might've been late in December, but it was sort of about professional writing and uh, someone who from the amwritingfantasy fantasy Facebook group actually texted me, emailed me through Facebook messenger that said I wanted to thank you for the ultimatefantasywritersguide starter kit I've looked up hundreds of people who help new writers, but yours by far is the best. I'm going to have my daughter watch them. Thank you for an honest explanation on how to get started. And so obviously they've just met snuck much because I love knowing that, you know, we've helped, this is going to give it to his daughter, but Hey, you know, you just mentioned, you know, write quality books and we actually have a starter kit that is 100% free. So edit it helps you get started on the right footing. So if anyone is out there, we can get you a link and you can go work on the starter kit and hopefully get you going on that first brick in your, your wonderful castle you're building. Jesper (16m 30s): Yeah. Maybe you can make a note autumn to uh, to put the link in the show notes so people can just click through there. Um, and maybe, maybe I should mention as well that the self public success costs that we're going to put out, that's going to be free to, we're just too nice and we inserted, I think that's the right word. It's probably true too. But if you, if you don't want to miss that one, then I recommend going to a amwritingfantasy.com or use that link in the am in the show notes that uh, hopefully autumn we'll put in there because then you'll get onto our email list and then you will not miss it when we release this free course as well later this year. And uh, that way also in the meantime we'll send you some writing and marketing tips on the emails. So that's nice and easy and uh, yeah, just uh, get on that list. There collaborations. So autumn I have a lot of notes on collaboration. Autumn (17m 34s): That's fantastic. You are the note taker. I am the a pantser and so that's sort of why we're good at collaborating I think cause we put up, we accent each other, but let's, we'll start with yours and I will add in and continue to grow on your ideas. Jesper (17m 53s): All right. Yeah. So I was actually thinking that maybe we could sort of take, take the conversation in three different steps. So step number one could be just to talk a bit about why you would even want to collaborate with somebody else. I think that's a, that's probably a good starting point is, um, and I have a few notes here and then of course you can add to it, uh, as well. Uh, but my first point about collaborating was basically, well, you're splitting your workload and you're also splitting the cost involved in publishing. Obviously the downside is that you also have to split the rent years, but, but, but, but at least it eases off the workload. And especially like we, we know that a lot of authors are working day jobs as well. Um, so that, that's very common. Um, and in that case it is nice to have somebody else to share the workload with. Um, especially, and maybe, you know, if you're not as crazy as we are where we are both writing fiction books and doing nonfiction Ray to stuff like this podcast for the authors, then you can write books twice as fast. In our case, we can't because we also have all this other stuff to do, but at least that's how it works. Yeah. Um, and also rather than actually writing together, when we were talking collaboration, we should also mention that it could also be that you just want an accountability partner or like a critique partner. Um, and we're not talking about using ghost writers yet, but, but more somebody like you work very closely with one person. You might eat SPI writing your own books, but, but you just am hold each other accountable or help each other writing better books or whatever it may be that that is of course another option I did. I don't know, that's a bit of a, a side note, but I wanted to mention it anyway. Autumn (19m 47s): Makes sense. I think unless you have more to add. But I think one of my big things for collaboration is one writing does tend to be very lonely, very isolating. It's something you spend a lot of time in your head. And by having someone to share that with, one gets you like, Oh there's more to life than you know, sitting there and thinking about stuff. But it gets you through the writer's blocks better. I think the inspiration and sometimes the ideas generated by talking to someone else, it gets your excitement going, your enthusiasm going you, you go over the levels, the little hurdles and stuff in your own writing career, um, cause someone's encouraging you or you're just getting both so excited about doing stuff that you know, someone else is there to make sure that you don't fall flat on your face. So that's one of my things that, you know, collaboration, especially if you have a lot of self writer doubts, it's fantastic to join with someone else who can kind of talk you off the ledge and make sure you keep going and don't doubt yourself a corner where you're not writing as well as maybe like inspire. Like I said, sometimes bouncing ideas off of someone else, even if you end up in a completely different direction, they might've given you at least the idea of a completely different direction and your ideas can really grow and blossom. Jesper (21m 5s): Yeah, I agree. And I, and I think also at least what we've seen is that am you are our ideas or be it world building our plot ideas or whatever it may be. It, I feel like it becomes better because compared to what I could just do on my own, because you have somebody to bounce ideas off and especially if you, if you compliment each other's weak spots, then it just becomes a lot better. Um, and I think that that is Autumn (21m 36s): real big wind that you're going to get from, from collaboration. As you know, especially authors who use beta readers, this is sort of what they're using them for. For looking for those plot holes. This is doing it even sooner and in a different way. And the result, especially except you're working with like another professional, someone else who really knows the jargon, knows the plots, knows how to really build a story. Uh, what you end up with is it's not one plus one equals two. It's more like one plus one is equaling three to five. You getting a better game. Jesper (22m 8s): Hmm. Yeah. And it's actually more common than, than, than you might think that too. Collaboration between authors. So I just looked up before recording just to give you some, some more, let's say famous famous examples. Uh, so I had a few I could mention here. So Neil Gaiman and Terry practice row together. Um, so did Steven King and Peter Straub. And in fantasy we have Anne McCaffrey wrote with the Mercedes Lackey and Marion Zimmer, Bradley and then the where we will known, uh, James Patterson, probably one of the world's best known authors. He also collaborates, uh, he does all the plotting himself and then he delivers a very detailed outline at the maybe 60 to 80 pages as far as I could gather from the, uh, the research I did on the internet. But it looks like an outline of 60 to 80 pages is what he delivers to the people who, who write with him. And then he has a very intense back and forth conversations with the authors, uh, for writing the book. So if you look up James Patterson on, um, uh, on, on Amazon, you'll also see that a lot of his books says James Patterson on it. And then it says with, and then there was another author named that's because he collaborates and has other people, um, writing his books as well. So it's not just some crazy stuff that we're talking about. A lot of the famous people do this as well. So before we get into how do we actually find someone to collaborate with, I was that maybe you could just share a bit about, uh, how, how does it feel to collaborate with somebody else, you know, uh, uh, either than what we just talked about, why you will want to do it. But what are the upsides and downsides? Maybe we could, we have a few, few other things we could add here and what, what it's more like what should people be mindful about, I guess. Autumn (24m 10s): Well that makes sense. Yeah, that's very true. So I, yeah, I guess you have to be well to play well with others. I mean am I think everyone has that experience. Maybe in high school where you had to collaborate with somebody on a am term paper or something or project partners on, maybe it didn't go well. So I think there's that interfere that you're gonna end up collaborating and it's going to be a huge issue. And um, I don't know. I found, I guess if you find the right person, it's, that's not necessary at all. I always have introduced to you, yes. Part of people when I talk about, um, what we do together, that it's like, you know, ending up with am the perfect, uh, term partner pilot project partner because you always like do a 120%. So it's very, very useful. It's fantastic when someone's always making you feel like you're not doing enough and you were usually the person who was doing it all. So those are the good things to the benefits that you can, you know, you're not going it alone, that you're going to actually be able to share a workload and share inspiration and yeah, it leads to maybe sharing the profits, but hopefully it's going to be a better situation than when you're struggling and doing it alone because, Hey, even if the book doesn't sell, you can talk to each other and maybe share the tasks of getting it to sell better. So it's not, it's a much friendlier and welcoming kind of feeling instead of always feeling like crap, now what do I do? Yeah, Jesper (25m 44s): yeah. I would also, I feel it intensely gratifying to, to, to work with us. We're a lot autumn because it's, it's, it's just a lot different than when you're doing all everything or all by yourself. You know you have also just the fact that, I mean if we go to the real bedrock of it, you know, you know you have somebody who understand the ins and outs of, of life as a writer, right. And and you have somebody who she has your calls and you can, you can work together to achieve them and that that's, I don't know, it's just, it's different than doing everything by yourself. And of course you can go on to am what, what may be Facebook groups or whatever to build a network with other authors and that's all great. But, but it's still different compared to having somebody who she asked your specific goal and you're both working towards achieving those that that's, that's very different than, than talking to a more general author community, so to speak. No, that makes sense. That's very true. Yeah. I think the only downside I can think of it, it just plays off a bit of what you said as well, that you have to collaborate well with others. But it's more like, to me there was a, there's a big thing to consider in terms of if, if you have trouble compromising and taking other people's input to hot and maybe, except that what you find is an excellent idea. Somebody else might think, uh, that all your collaboration partner might think that, that that's not quite what I like and if some people are prefers to have a day away, let's put it like that. And, uh, if you're one of the persons who prefer to have it your way, then it just becomes really difficult to collaborate with somebody else because you have to reach some compromises. That's, that's just, uh, the name of, of the collaboration game man, because we could, uh, we could call it that. So, um, let's move on to the next section here. And, uh, that was more about how do you find somebody to collaborate with and yeah, that I sort of have a whole list of things here in terms of, uh, how to find somebody. I actually, I, I put it into 10 steps, so I thought that was the easiest way to do it. Autumn (28m 10s): Okay. Well, I like 10 steps. Seems very fair to let's go ahead and see. I'll see what I can add to your steps. Jesper (28m 20s): Yeah. But I was almost thinking be before I get into this, uh, into these 10 steps, because these 10 steps are sort of very, I don't, I don't think mechanical is the right way to put it, but it is very much like, okay, I want to find somebody to collaborate with, give me a checklist and then I start, I start building to watch that. Right? That's sort of the, that's how the 10 steps are built. So, but why I want to start at different places because there is a lot of ways organically to find somebody to collaborate with like am very true. And maybe maybe you could share a bit autumn about how you and I started to collaborating because that was certainly not intentional and, and I just want to, I just want the listeners to understand first that, uh, before I go into these very mechanical steps that there are other ways than what I'm talking about here in a second. Autumn (29m 14s): Yeah. You can be the crazy pantser. That's me. Um, but it's true. I think, well, I think the first thing is understanding the feeling that no matter what you do, if you're going to collaborate with someone, unless there's someone you've known for a very long time, it's always going to feel like a risk and almost like asking somebody out in the date. So that's okay. Just embraced that. But, uh, for us, I mean I have, I had known for a little while on Twitter and we had collaborated am on your fantasy map. I book I believe, cause I'd done some world building. And so we kind of started talking about world building, but it was peripheral and I was also on your email list. So we emailed a bit once in a while. Yes, that's right. So we kind of knew what each other was doing. Um, and I had just released the ultimatefantasywritersguide as a course and I had the amwritingfantasy platform and it was starting to grow and I was honestly hiking and on this 10 mile hike, um, I was thinking, I need help. I felt like this was growing and I couldn't do as much as I needed to. I couldn't be everywhere. And I was thinking about people I knew who seemed to have their stuff together. And I knew you had a YouTube channel and you were, you had books and you were promoting things. And I'm like, yeah, I'm going to reach out to you and see, um, if you wanted to help out on, basically it was just the website. It was with my idea was like, Hey, you want to co-run this website with me? And so out of the blue I sent you an email and know what you're going to get. You kind of said, ah, can you clarify this a bit? I have some ideas. And I'm like, Oh, send me your ideas and you sent me like a business plan. They're like, well crap, that is, so here we are two years later running a podcast. Yeah, yeah. I think it's uh, yeah, I was just about to say three years, but actually I lost count. I think that, yeah, it does it better. I think we're into our third year if you want to count those two plus years. Yeah, nevermind. So there is that way of creating collaborative collaboration where you can cold call somebody that you think is, you know, doing a good job and say, Hey, you want to try this out and see how it goes. And that's what we did. We started small, we started with little things and we've each year, each month and at this rate it seems like it's a tweet. Can we keep building on what we're doing? Yes. Yeah. Now we, we sort of have a fully fledged company running here almost again. Yeah, it's really exciting. It's, it's 2020 is going to be groundbreaking or friendly, maybe finally getting above the ground. So it's really exciting. Yeah. Jesper (32m 8s): Okay, good. So, so I just wanted to am that story to be out there as well because, so that people can hear that there are lots of ways to do this stuff. But I really tried in preparation of this episode to think hard about how would I go about it if I, let's say you listen to this podcast and I, I, and I am assuming here that your goal is to make a living from writing in my Tim steps. But let's just assume that that's your goal. And from listening to this podcast, you're thinking, actually, I think I would like to try that out, but how do I it? So I thought I sat down and I really thought about how would I do it if I knew that that was what I wanted, but I didn't have any context to anybody. I didn't know how to get started. So, so that's what I laid out in, in 10 steps here. Okay. And, uh, I think, feel free to interrupt me on along the way he autumn because otherwise it's going to be a long monologue. I'll keep you paced. Alright, so step number one, uh, first step is, of course, you need to start building a list of, uh, author names that writes in the same shop as you. And that's not too hot. Uh, you know, you can, you can go to Amazon. They, these authors will probably appear in your also bots or you can just find them by going to the category section on Amazon. You know, if you're writing Epic fantasy go to Epic fantasy and start writing down names of authors who are releasing books. Um, that will give you a long list of course. So you need to stop somewhere, try, try to try to uh, build quite a good list there. Uh, then I would go and I would check if they have a decent social media following and if they are active, actively posting anything on their social media platforms. Uh, so this doesn't mean that you have to go in after any big names at all because often it's actually better to find somebody who's slightly smaller because then both of you will be equally motivated to building a career. Right? So if somebody is too big, then it's not, but try to find somebody who has, this has a decent following. So did you know that they are actively doing stuff and they are, they active in the market and so that, that gives you a pretty good list of authors. Hopefully you will be able to delete some of the names off the list just based off that. But so you still have a pretty long list here at step number two. So the next thing to check is whether or not these candidates are able to finish any levels. So you want to find someone who's am yeah. You know, productive. Yes. Because the worst thing is that a lot of people like to want, I want to write books, but they never finished anything. And that's not the partner you want to work with, especially in that, again, as I am assuming that you want to build a career from it. So you want somebody who can finish novels. So I'm not saying that you have to find somebody who have published 20 novels, uh, to be a good candidate. Not at all. But if they at least have a few books to their name, maybe you can find the let's say three at a minimum on, on Amazon to their name, right. Then you know, okay, they know how to finish a book. Uh, and you also know by then that they have some experience writing, which is also a good thing. Yes, definitely. Um, yeah, and they also, of course, having published books, they will also know what's involved in publishing and uh, you're not also not accidentally ending up with a mentor instead of a collaboration partner because that's what you're looking for here. So, um, that I think that's important. Uh, and then also here in step number two, I would also check if there is a decent number of reviews on those books. So again, I'm not saying that there has to be a ton. Let's just say, did you want these 10 reviews on those books? And the average rating should be fairly good as well. So let's say about for that gives you some starting evidence, at least at this author candidate on your list here. The person knows how to finish book. They know how to, they know how to market themselves at least a bit because they have a social media following, somewhat of a social media following, I should say. Um, and uh, they, they are able to produce novelty that readers enjoy because of the, uh, uh, about for average on the reviews. Right too. So that's a pretty good starting point, isn't it? That's a good way of, you know, you're looking for someone who's productive, knows what they're doing, um, can get the job done, understands the marketing and is also writing, you know, something quality so that, you know, if kind of, you know, hit your horse, hit your car to a horse, you want to get one that's, you know, got to run the whole race. Yeah. So next one is number three. So now you have, uh, still still probably a pretty long candidate list. Uh, that shouldn't be hundreds of people on this list, but, but let's say the, you've, let's say you, you're down at like 20 or something just to make up a number. So let's say you have 20 author names on the list now where all the step one and two criteria has been met. So you go to these 20 people's websites and then I would make sure that I find the websites looking professional. Uh, and that's something that was just slapped together. Very good. Uh, because, um, if this author is looking to build a career, there should be a sign up form on their website indicating that the person is building an email list. So if you either find somebody whose website looks and amateurish or there is no signups to any email list and you delete those names off the list. No, I agree. That's a very good point. So they kind of have that am yeah. Professional level that hopefully if you're trying to do this professionally, you're looking for as well. Yeah. So whatever you have left on the list, you now join these people's email lists and then you look down, well, yeah, kind of, but, but what you're looking for is one that you want to see if they are actually sending out emails. Uh, so do they have an autoresponder going that sends out emails, soda, so that they actually contacting people who sign up. And also the other part is of course you want to start getting impression of this person who, who are they? What are they writing about? And you know, just like a general impression. So that's step number four. So number five is then building on, on that. So you need to start corresponding by replying to these emails. And just like we said early on, you and I did this a bit in the beginning as well. I did. Now I'm starting to wonder if, if you had this plan the whole time. I remember you were the one reaching out to me. And I can't even say that even if you hated me, it, it, it just popped in my head. But I would, uh, I would start replying to the emails now, uh, at this stage, um, because this should allow you to reduce your list of candidates further because there will be some of them where you just feel like you connect better with this person. Then what? Then versus somebody else. Don't reply back, you know, they just ha, or an empty vaults over them. Yeah. So that's a very good indication. So see what kind of messages you can reply. And this is, it's really not meant as you're trying to manipulate them into doing anything. You're just trying to have genuine conversation with them to get a feel about this person and that sort of understand this person. I sort of have a good chemistry with that, that that's what you're doing. And then you should look to reduce your, your list to like a shortlist. Now let's say you want to get down to five candidates at this point. So cross out all the names where you feel like this doesn't really work for me or eh, yeah. Yes. Autumn said if they're not replying at all. So at this stage you have five left and uh, you can now just email them and say, uh, you know, Hey, I've replied to a few. Uh, you should not say email them. That's what I'm trying to stay. Just say, Hey, I apply, apply to fewer of your emails, so now let, let's collaborate. But that's not what you're not going to do, right, because that's not gonna work. Um, B, besides also at this stage, you don't even know if you like the story telling style or their writing style. So what I would do now, um, since now you have a more manageable list of only five people on it, step number six would be the that you go and read a novel that they've written. So you download a one of their novels from Amazon, the first industries probably, uh, or whatever. If it's standalone, that's fine to download that and you am you read the novels and that will probably allow you to remove one or two more names off the list where it just feels like, I, I don't like this way of telling stories or this is not how I like to do. Right. So get rid of those. I would always get me, I'd probably end up with somebody who writes in first person and I just can't do that. So it's a really good indicator. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. So step number seven is then asking, so a lot depends on how much are and also how well your email correspondence has been going already. So, but in general, I wouldn't simply ask if they want to collaborate. That's not gonna work. And uh, I don't know who, who knows? Just because you like one of their books, that doesn't mean that you will be a good match to work together. Right. So furthermore, I would say that this other author might not even have considered that they should be working with somebody else. So at direct ask, like that will probably either end in a decline or they will, they aren't they, let's say they accept and then you end up with a collaboration partner where you might like their light a writing style, but, but then when you get into it, you find out that their work mentality is just not matching yours. So then you have an issue. So how do we get around? So I think, yeah, so, so how'd you get around that? Is that I think it's best to start small. So when you reach out to them, so mentioned which of their books it was that you just read and especially important mentioned why you like their book and also make sure that you left a review of the book on Amazon or any other platforms where it might be published on so that you can basically tell them, so I read you a book title, blah, blah, blah, blah. I really liked it, uh, because of blah, blah, blah, blah. And I have left a review on all the different platforms for you. And then you can proceed from there in that email to basically the next section of the email. You can proceed to offer the person something valuable. Um, so it has to be something that is easy for them to say yes to. So it could be that you offer them to share their book to your email list because you really liked it. So, even if you have a small list that that might work, or maybe you have a blog or something and you can offer the Dem an author interview, you know, anything that gets their author name, eh, some exposure that they wouldn't have gotten otherwise, that that's sort of the asset you're aiming for. So you can be creative about it. Uh, but, but that's what you're looking for. So that's the ask here in step number seven. So if we then move on to step number eight, now you basically got a foot in the door. So where you might have shared that book with your own email list or maybe you did the author interview when you posted that on your blog or whatever it may be. So you have some sort of connection with this person by now, or these persons I should say, because you're probably doing it with several different people. So where you go from here becomes a question of how to build the relationship. So it all will depend on the email conversations you've had so far and perhaps you need to email back and forth a bit more before you go any further. But where you want to get to is to slowly familiarize yourself, um, with this author's work, with the aim to work on something smaller, collaborating, something smaller together. I like that. Uh, so step number eight is basically just about trying to sort of expand upon the relationship a bit so that you feel comfortable that you could, uh, work together on something small. I like that. So sort of like a short story or just something small. Yeah. So that, that's basically step number nine. So we're getting towards the end now. So step number nine is basically, um, to figure out if this person's Workman tality fits well with us. And the only way to do that is to work on something together. So as you said, a short story collection, for example, could be a good idea. But again, make sure that you make it really easy to say yes. So if you offer for example, to say, if you say, okay, I will handle all the publishing, I will handle all the splitting of the revenue and all that. Eh, let's say troublesome stuff that you are the author might be thinking of, Oh my God, I don't have time to do all that. If you offer to do all of that, then it becomes an easy sale. And if it's only like a short story collection, I mean there's not much at at, at risk for the other author here anyway. So. So they probably won't mind trusting you with doing the revenue splitting even if it, because it's going to be minor anyway. Yeah. So you'll then, let's say you, you go with this, you couldn't be creative and think of other ways as well, but, but I think the short stories is a good way because it doesn't take too much time either. Um, so you then work together on this and stuff and you will figure out whether or not you are actually working well together. Um, and if you do, then hopefully by this stage you will have narrowed down your list of candidates down to basically only one, right? So at this point you need to find out, okay, we are working well together and all the different steps be before this step was successful as well. So he is basically the point where you can then start saying a maybe would it be Ida for us to collaborate together on a for level or even a series if you want to pitch that, really want to take a bite out. Yeah. If you're gonna play a dangerous like, like autumn does, then that's what he can do. Jumping into the fire from the frying pan and not knowing where I'm going. Yeah. But that then my step number 10 is basically, so of course, uh, at number nine there will be a yes or no. And then of course if you get a no, and that was one of the other people on the list that you also did a short story with that you really liked and you can move on to that person. Um, I know that sounds a bit horrible. It sounds like you're shopping for people, but uh, but if you really want to collaborate with somebody, did somebody, and it doesn't happen organically for you to find somebody, then this is a way to do it. Um, but we are missing step 10. Yes. So what does top 10 yeah, so step 10, now you've already found somebody you want to collaborate with am but before you stopped any like large scale collaboration on full series or something like that, I would say at this step 10 if you have low got into the agreement to say, yeah, I could be interested in collaborating on a full novel, uh, oil, even that series, then I would make sure to have a meeting with that person. Um, and there I would say it doesn't have to be a face to face meeting, but it should be a video quality so that you can see each other. You could be Skype or zoom or something like, uh, I think, uh, no, actually I think back in the day a autumn I think, Autumn (48m 27s): yeah. Say we still have not been on the same continent. So am I was close, I was in London and you're over in Copenhagen but we didn't quite made up that time. So yeah, we still haven't met. So then we've been together doing this for two plus years. Jesper (48m 44s): Yeah, exactly. But yeah, you use Skype or zoom or whatever, but the key is that you get to talk with each other while you can see each other and then the purpose of that meeting will be that you need to align what it is that you want to achieve and basically sort of you lay out, okay these are my goals and the other person lays out the, these are my goals and you want to see that there was a match. I'd sorta the one person doesn't say, well I would actually like to collaborate on a series and uh, I don't really mind if it takes us 10 years because I have a lot of other stuff that I actually do. But you are wanting to build a career. So you are saying, well I was hoping we could do it in one DMX album. Right. Then you have an issue. So it's much better to get that out of the way before you get started. And, uh, and I think that's 10 steps Autumn (49m 31s): I like that. That's definitely very true. And I definitely thought the, where you're mentioning, you know, not just coming at blurting out, well you collaborate with me because I hadn't really thought of it too. You said that. But I've actually had two people prior to starting to collaborate with you who kind of came out of the blue and like, Hey, I like what you do when you do this with me. And I was like, uh, no. I think it gets a gut reaction. It's like, I don't know who you are and I don't know if I really want to share what I'm working on, but Jesper (49m 59s): we've built this up gradually to where we're writing novels together. It's not, it wasn't our first step. No, no, indeed. It was not. Uh, we, we started out with the amwritingfantasy stuff. For we had a lot of plans from the get go with that. But like the, but the fiction collaboration was something that came later on in the process. But I, I, and I think I understand why the gut reaction is to say no if somebody just reaches out coat like that because honestly, I mean I, I would, I would do same thing because there are trainings in hopes that there is there some private, but yeah, but that's the one thing. But I think the other thing that I was thinking about was more like it's a big, big time investment. Right? And you don't want to go in and say okay to something or yes to something that is a huge time investment. Unless you know that this is a person. That one I liked the person, no, I know that they are professional and three, I know that they, they, they have a good work, work ethic, that master's mind and we have the same kind of goals. I mean if you kind of tick all of those boxes, you're going to shoot, you have a huge time investment on your hand that you'll just end up figuring out later on that, okay, we don't have a medicine and you wasted that Autumn (51m 14s): ton of time. Right. Yeah. Tell me, you could have been writing but I mean yeah, to give perspective, you and I meet every week for two hours plus we send each other a ton of emails through the week. Uh, we've gotten to the point where we can, you know, build stuff via email. But we also, we still have our time talking to each other every week. And of course we're doing that with a podcast, but that's if we added up those hours, the amount of time we spend talking to each other. Yeah, it's a very, this is a very serious relationship. You've got to get along with your partner and also want to clarify like when we talk about, you know, work well together, sometimes that's everything from, you know, plotting character building. You have. Yeah, I'm a bit more of a pantser, but you know, to work together, you've got to be able to mold that into something that you collaborate with and build something together and figuring out how you're going to write, you know, it was one person writing first and the other one's adding things. Are you both, you know, swapping manuscripts back and forth so that you're building it as you go or one person has a character and one has the other character. You've got to figure all that out for yourself. And if you can't, that's a pretty good indication that this might not work out. Jesper (52m 27s): Yeah, I think that's true. And actually, I just thought of one more thing. Uh, I know we were running a bit long or does episode here, but uh, uh, but one thing not to forget, uh, maybe to finish off with here, but if you do want to collaborate with somebody else, you are going to have money between you. So you need to make sure that you create a contract that sets the terms and conditions for your cooperation. Because basically what you're doing is that you're running a company together and, and uh, a company cannot be run on the basis of trust. Well it can, as long as you're good friends and everything is nice and dandy, but, uh, in a minute it's not nice and dandy. Yeah. But it just happens, you know, companies breaks up and people go into disagreements about this and that. And I just have to say that, you know, agreeing on the details about, for example, how to exit the contract, how to split money or whatever it be. It's a million times easier to agree on those details while you're good friends. Because once you're not anymore, it's going to be a nightmare to try to sort it out. It is. Or even if it's not a friendship dissolving, but a health issue or a family issue or something, Autumn (53m 39s): someone's got to step back cause they're not going to have the mental capacity, the mental time and energy to be able to say, you're right, let's figure this out for next three hours. So it gonna be like, no, I'm busy. This is why I'm leaving. So yes, figure that out beforehand. That way you know, who's, you know, holding the cart and hopefully whatever happens, you know, life does go on. You can't ever say it's going to be the same. And especially with, you know me is to your crazy partner so that's why we have a contract. But it's good because then we're always on the same page and we can just refer back to it and we know where we're going. Jesper (54m 15s): Yeah. And the, and that, there was no reason to debate or discuss something because you did that upfront. So everything all is clear for both parties. There was no reason to end up in a misunderstandings and stuff like that. So it just keeps things nice and clean. And I know a bar, a contract sounds really boring, but you have to put it in place. I agree. So next Monday we have a topic which has come up over and over and over again. And that is about, uh, how to, to Narrator (54m 44s): use dictation. If you like what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support the amwritingfantasy podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join Autumn and Jesper on patreon.com/amwritingfantasy for as little as a dollar a month. You'll get awesome rewards and keep the amwritingfantasy podcast going. Stay safe out there and see you next Monday.

Your Hosts: Brandon, Mary Robinette, Dan, and Howard, with special guest Mercedes Lackey NaNoWriMo 2018 is half-way over today. Are you stuck? Do you need to get unstuck? Mercedes Lackey joined us at GenCon Indy back in 2017 to talk about writer's block, and how it's very likely a symptom of something else. In this episode we discuss the interpretation of those symptoms, and how we go about solving the root problems.

Fantasy and speculative fiction is the topic of the day! Austin and Amanda throw around some loose definitions, give examples of their favorite queer fantasy (send Amanda more gaslamp manuscripts!). and writing fantasy with romance in it vs writing romance in a fantasy setting. They answer some questions from Twitter and wonder why people bother to transplant real-life oppression into fantastical settings. Austin and Amanda are big nerds who cry at *Lord of the Rings*, call out *Mass Effect Andromeda*, and demand more gay elves.

Mercedes Lackey joins Brandon, Mary, and Howard to field listener questions at GenCon Indy.

With the Metis communicator hidden in CCCP HQ, can Vickie crack it--and if she does, will Metis answer when the heroes call? Written by Mercedes Lackey and Cody Martin. Read by Veronica Giguere.

With the aid of Vickie in her role as Overwatch, John Murdock travels to the wilds outside Kansas City and infiltrates a Thulian stronghold. Written by Mercedes Lackey and Cody Martin. Read by Veronica Giguere.

Djinni's temper has often cost him dearly in the past.  But now, it will cost Vickie everything. Written by Mercedes Lackey and Dennis Lee. Read by Veronica Giguere.

For Djinni, it's all broken glass and the attempt to take back what was said. Written by Mercedes Lackey and Dennis Lee. Read by Veronica Giguere.

Vickie and Djinni uncover secrets about each other that will change everything. Written by Mercedes Lackey and Dennis Lee. Read by Veronica Giguere.