Mindy: Welcome to Writer Writer Pants on Fire, where authors talk about things that never happened to people who don't exist. We also cover craft, the agent hunt, query trenches, publishing, industry, marketing and more. I'm your host, Mindy McGinnis. You can check out my books and social media at mindymcginnis dot com and make sure to visit the Writer Writer Pants on Fire blog for additional interviews, query critiques and more as well as full transcriptions of each podcast episode at WriterWriterPants on Fire.com. And don’t forget to check out the Writer, Writer, Pants on Fire Facebook page. Give me feedback, suggest topics you’d like to hear discussed, and let me know if there is someone you’d love to see as a guest.
Mindy: We are here with Brad Andalman who is one of the creators of Vellum which is a wonderful software. If you're a listener of the podcast, you know that I mention it often. I use it to format my books that I write underneath a pen name. And I also have Kate Karyus Quinn here, who is a fellow author and friend, who actually is the person that led me to Vellum. So Brad, Kate, thank you guys both for being here.
Brad: Thanks for having me.
Kate: Yes, thanks for having me, too. I'm so excited.
Mindy: Kate, since you are the person that actually came across Vellum first and led me to it... you've said before you downloaded it, and it was love at first use. So, why is that?
Kate: It was love at first use because it's just a wonderful program. It's super intuitive. It is incredibly easy to use. I was very concerned with formatting my own book and how I would do that. I know that publishers use an Adobe program that I don't know. I was, at that point, just barely trying to learn Photoshop and feeling super overwhelmed by it. I was nervous about formatting my own book and how I would make that happen. And it was my first indie book that I was publishing, so I was trying to learn all the things, all at once, and it was a bit overwhelming.
And when I came across indie authors talking about Vellum, I didn't really know what it was. I wasn't sure how hard it would be to use. I saw that there was a free trial, so I thought, "Well, it's totally worth trying it out and seeing how it goes." And it was so easy to use. Upload your eBook from Word, and it makes it look like a book. And it's beautiful, and there's all different things that you can sort of tweak and mess with. But so many of the things that I was nervous about doing... Thinking like, "Oh, I have to remember to do this with the front matter and the back matter." The front matter is your title, your copyright. All of that stuff, they have it all ready to go for you. So I didn't have to look up the copyright language. I just had to click that tab and it added it. It was amazing. And then just add my details into it. Same with the end page matter with acknowledgments. More than easy really, because it guides you and it really helps you make sure that you're getting all this stuff in there that you need.
Brad: We love hearing stories like that. That's one of the things we strive for. We want it to be fun and intuitive. We've been doing this a long time, but I never tire of hearing of those stories. Thanks.
Mindy: I also never get tired of hearing compliments on my own writing. So... Brad, how did you and your fellow Brad who began Vellum... How did you know that this was a need? How did you become aware that there was a market for software to help writers format their own books for self publishing and indie publishing?
Brad: We didn't really know, to be honest. Brad and I worked together before we started working on Vellum. We worked at Pixar for a while, but we knew that we wanted to write something ourselves. We had quit Pixar. We wanted to do something, and we wanted to do something that would help creatives... Basically to create professional software that would help creatives achieve their goals. We didn't know what that was, and there's only two of us who work on Vellum, and I'm named Brad. So is he. And Brad's wife, she was reading a ton of books on her Kindle. One of the books in the series was about to come out, and she was reading the author's blog and totally following the publishing process. And this person was like, "Oh, man. It would be out except for formatting. I've got to hire a formatter." She asked Brad, "What is this formatting thing? Why can't I read the book that I want to read?" And that started both of us down the path of "how hard is it to take your manuscript, make it look like a book, and publish it?" We dug a little bit into it and we're like, "This is actually harder than it should be." People are paying formatters all the time, and if they need to tweak it, they need to pay the formatter again to change their end matter. And it seemed like this was something we knew about.
We both are book lovers and geeks about book design, and so we thought, "Let's try this." And we wrote the first version, and at that point it was only eBooks. We noticed that it was too hard, and we thought we could make something easier. And we gave it a shot. Pretty soon we realized, "Oh, there's a market for this here." But before we released it, we did a little market research. But, you know, you don't know until, you know, really with this kind of thing. And then ever since then, we hear stories like Kate's. People find it. They find it really easy. This part of the process, we don't want authors to have to think about too much. We want it to be more fun than stressful or anxiety inducing. Since then, we've added print and continued to improve it as we go.
Kate: You said you want authors to be able to make changes down the road, and that was one of the things that I was really concerned about. I didn't want to pay somebody to format my book and then find a misspelling or decide I want to change the backmatter and have to pay somebody again. I hate doing that. I want to keep my money to myself. Also, just the hassle of having to reach out to somebody and to ask them, "Can you change this?" And then wait for them to send you the files back. And this just makes it so much easier. I have gone back to books so many times. Readers will send me, "Oh, I found a mistake." Or a lot of times I change my backmatter when I have a new book coming out, and I can't imagine if I had to go to somebody every time I needed to make those changes. It would make me insane.
Brad: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, even if you had the money and it didn't matter. Just the time, the turnaround, and formatters were booked out weeks or months in advance. I just want to update this link in my backmatter. It shouldn't take more than a couple of seconds.
Mindy: And I love that you were led to this space as a reader as well. And a fellow reader was like, "Hey, I don't understand this little corner of the world." Because readers and writers are occasionally, you know, a Venn diagram that cross, but not always. If you move in the traditional world, those readers are often surprised that it can take 18 months to two years for your book to go from a Word document to a book that is on a shelf in a bookstore. Of course, that's a very different process when you are an indie writer. And again, that's one of the reasons why Vellum is so great. Because, like Kate is saying, you can upload your manuscript and Vellum just kind of... I don't know the first thing about software. I am just... It's like a small religious miracle. Every time I upload something and it's just like, "Yep, I know where the chapters are." And it's like, "Yep, this is the title page." And it just... It knows. I'm just always astonished by it, and as Kate has also said, the ease of use. So you started this ten years ago. I'm really curious how many iterations of Vellum have there been?
Brad: I don't know how many iterations there have been. Vellum 1.0. It wouldn't be completely unfamiliar to people today, but it had the same sort of overall structure. But it's gone through so many changes since then, and version numbers are sort of meaningless. But we're at Vellum 3.43 today. Actually Vellum 3.45, sorry. And some of these are just like minor bug fixes, releases, or minor improvements. Sometimes Amazon will change something, and we need to respond quickly. Sometimes Apple will release a new operating system, and we'll need to update Vellum for that. And then other times, like our most recent bigger release, we introduced a lot of fun new features that we were excited about. So things like text messages and written notes. And major releases like Vellum 2.0 is where we introduced the ability to create print books. So generate PDF print interior that you can upload to Amazon or Ingram Spark or wherever you print on demand. And then Vellum 3.0 sort of introduced way more styles.
Kate: Vellum 3.0. All the extras that you added were amazing. I originally downloaded it and used it on a very old Mac, and we had to upgrade the operating system to be able to use Vellum. But eventually we got to the point where it was too old, and we couldn't update it anymore. I mean, this is an old Mac. And so I didn't get to have the upgrades anymore. I've always been a PC person because again, I'm cheap and PCs are cheap. But I had to buy a Mac book so I could get the new version of it. And specifically, I was working on a special edition hardcover for a Kickstarter, and I really wanted those new features. I just love them. It was so fun. Like you said, it's fun, and it's play. And it really is. I love clicking through all the different styles and the little ways you can tweak them. It was really cool to see all the different things that you can now do and all the more ways to customize and really make a book special.
Brad: It's hard because, again, there's only two of us, and we strive to support the last 3 or 4 operating systems that Apple releases. But yeah, we do hear from some people that they're running on an ancient Mac, but it's also also really fun for when those people write us, they're like, "Oh my gosh, I just bought a new Mac book, and it's screaming fast. And I get to use all the new features, and oh, what was I missing?"
Kate: Anyone out there is still using the 2.0 version. Oh my gosh. It is worth giving Apple all your money just to upgrade to three. It really is.
Mindy: One of the things that makes Vellum so easy to use, as Brad was saying... You generate files for every platform out there off of one project within Vellum. So, when you go to produce that file, you just click your boxes and it will spit out... Here's your file for Apple. Here's Kobo. Amazon, of course. And, as you said, Brad, Amazon in particular and I'm sure Apple also, those are constantly changing. As a person that moves outside of the software world but I need to have enough operating knowledge to be able to produce my own versions of those files... It's so wonderful because Vellum just does it. It just does everything. It's so amazing to me that it's that simple on the user end when I'm sure it is incredibly complex on your end.
Brad: Yeah. There's a lot behind the scenes that goes on to make it so simple. But yeah, as you mentioned, one of the guiding tenets of when we started was we didn't just want this to be a Amazon e-book creator or a Amazon print generator kind of thing. We did want to be able to support people who are both focused on Amazon but also who went wide. Because we also think that for indie authors that decision can change over time. We hear from authors who sell mostly to Amazon, but we also hear from authors who have a huge market share in Apple or Barnes and Noble or things like that. And we wanted to make sure that Vellum could be used by all of those people. All of those authors.
But you're right, behind the scenes, there's a lot that goes on in order to make sure that these books look good where readers read them. And for instance, Amazon applies this thing called enhanced typesetting, where they sort of take the epub that Vellum generates. They apply their own stuff to it, and so we need to account for that, you know. Apple's process is a little bit more straightforward, but again, they have different rendering display issues than Barnes and Noble. So one of the things that Vellum can do from this one, as you said, from this one Vellum file... When it generates something for Barnes and Noble, and Apple, and Amazon, those things are all subtly different. So they look the same when readers read them. When they purchase them through the app and they read them through the Apple books or on a Kindle, things like that. Staying on top of that is tricky. It's not like Amazon writes us and lets us know that these things are happening. So we're constantly testing and we always appreciate when authors reach out and let us know, "Hey, like this new thing happened," and we try to get on it as soon as we can.
Kate: Have you had a Sunday night where you're just, like, chilling at home, enjoying your weekend, and suddenly you realize something big has gone wrong and you have to rush over and start programming?
Brad: There has only been one time in ten years where we actually sort of had to pull an all nighter, and it thankfully it was not related to an Amazon change. We try to think a little bit ahead. So if we think that something's going to happen, we'll try to code in options so that it makes it easy for us to switch gears. If we think that Amazon is going this direction, we'll try to prepare for that in earlier versions of Vellum so that we can say, "Okay, you're hitting this? Try this." It's actually truly a nerdy story about why we had to spend up all night. It was basically the server that we use to host purchasing actually got cyber attacked. So we had to move all of our purchasing stuff overnight so that people could actually buy Vellum. One of the things, Kate, that you mentioned is that Vellum is free to use to try to format your book. We thought that was crucially important. We're also software users, and we hate having to buy something just to figure out if it's going to work for me. And so we like making Vellum free to use to format your book. Now, yes, you have to pay when it comes to generate the final files. We have a lot of users who just use Vellum, and some people even write their books in Vellum, and you can do all of that for free. But then when people are like, "okay, I've got to publish this weekend." If they couldn't actually purchase a license to generate, that was a problem. So we had to stay up all night to fix that.
Kate: That's good. So Amazon has not yet tried to ruin your life?
Brad: Oh, well, let's not get crazy.
Mindy: We all move in those circles. I'm sure we've all been hit on the head with a club by Amazon once or twice.
Ad: Create beautiful books with Vellum. Create ebooks for every platform with Vellum - Kindle, Kobo, Apple books and more. Each specialized file will guide readers to buy your next book in their store of choice. For print, choose your trim size and Vellum does the rest, giving you a professional result. Vellum 3.0 features 24 styles with 16 all new designs. Each one allows for multiple configurations, giving you a new world of options for your books. Add a rich background behind the beginning of every chapter. You can even set the mood with white text on a dark background. Vellum comes with six illustrated backgrounds ready to use in your book as well as a custom option where you provide your own. Also included in Vellum 3.0 - new options for fonts, TikTok for social media, size control for custom, ornamental breaks, and new trim sizes for your print books. Vellum: create beautiful books.
Kate: So, obviously you and Brad Two are often meeting and discussing what's coming down the road and thinking about troubleshooting. But, it's got to be more fun thinking about what new features you're going to add like we talked about for the new 3.0 release and all of those fun things. Is that the fun part, and how do you decide what you're going to do? Is it reader feedback? Do you talk to Brad Two's wife?
Brad: Features are really fun, and I think both of us really enjoy doing that the most. At the same time, your idea of a feature and our idea of a feature might be slightly different. For instance, workflow. Just improving those points. We strive for it to be very easy to use, but there are still things... We're like, Oh, doing this operation takes a little bit too many clicks. Or doing it like this could be improved. And that might not be as quote unquote feature-like as, you know, adding new text messages or things like that. But there's still a satisfaction to that that we both really enjoy. Even cleaning up some code so that it's going to be faster in the future to add new features is something we both take great pride in.
We talk constantly. We think about where we want to go for the year, for over five years, things like that. And obviously we have to be super flexible because again, Amazon can come in and change our immediate plans. We talk to one another about the state of the software. And we also keep track of everyone who writes us, and we log those requests in our database. And absolutely, if we get a ton of authors requesting these features, we're like, oh, that's going to move to the top of the list. I think the thing that I struggle with the most is I would rather improve Vellum than I would work on ads. And I'm sure for authors it's the same thing. Maybe writing your first draft is the most fun or maybe editing is the most fun. Rarely do I come across an author who is like, "I love promoting my book and spending time looking at AdWords." That's important to sell your book just as it's important for Vellum to get out there. But that's the hard time. We have to balance our desire to make Vellum better versus also our desire for Vellum to be used by as many people as who want to use it.
Mindy: Yeah, that is definitely a struggle. I think Kate and I can both say that when it comes to ads period, it is just such a mind bender to try to figure out what works, what doesn't work, what is sucking the money right out of your pocket? I also despise trying to figure out ads and how to get my material in front of people so that they even know it exists because Kate moves in the indie world more than I do. But I wasn't aware that Vellum was a thing. And then Kate was like, "Oh no, this is a thing, and you need to be aware of it." And as soon as I was, as you were saying, I downloaded the free aspects and I was using it. And I was like, "okay. This is a no brainer." And I went in and I immediately bought that version and man, I was so glad I did. And continue to be. I think it's so cool that if someone emails Vellum, they're emailing you. I mean, you spoke earlier about working with Amazon because they are so far flung, and Kate and I both have also had numerous headaches working with Amazon and just being transferred to 5 to 7 different people or departments on a single phone call. So it is really cool that you yourself as an individual and then one other individual... If you've got five, ten, 18, 20 authors that reach out to you and say, "Hey, we would love to be able to put text messages formatting into our books," you know that and you don't have to go share that at a department meeting.
Brad: We don't have to lobby for that. The marketing department doesn't have to lobby. The engineering department doesn't have to... You know, doesn't have to, like, talk with the advertising department. No, we were like, "hey, text messages. It's going to be a thing, and let's just do it." And we did. There's some really, really nice things about being a small, fast company. And it's fun for us too, because there's that personal aspect we get with answering all the emails. It's both staying in touch with our authors, but also, even though most people are writing because they don't know how to do something or they have a problem, still, it's really great to like make that connection. And people are truly appreciative of the help.
Kate: I'm curious. How did you guys come up with the designs for the 3.0? Because you have so many options, and it's so clear that there was a lot of thought that went into making sure that there were choices that looked good for sci fi authors that maybe leaned a little more paranormal. Others that felt literary or classic. Do you go to the bookstore and flip through books for ideas? Or did you consult with someone?
Brad: Well, thank you for that. Yeah. Brad did basically all of the design for all of those styles. We get the inspiration in a variety of places. A lot of going to the bookstore. Going to the library. As I mentioned earlier, we're both avid readers. A lot of people ask, "Oh, are you writers?" It's like, "No, actually. We don't have pen names or secretly publishing books."
When we first released Vellum, we had sort of eight styles that we thought covered a wide range, and some that we thought were more flexible, and some that we thought were more specific genre wise. But when we released 3.0, we really spent a long time, like you said, trying to think about what genres did we want to cover. At the same time, we didn't want them to be so specific they could only be used by that genre. What we would do is we'd push a design to a certain place and then we'd sort of scale it back to make it a little bit more wide ranging. We think that book design is really, really important. It's one of the reasons why Vellum is structured the way it is. It's like we have specific designs that people can choose from. Within those designs, you can further configure. You can change your heading style. Or you can change your first paragraph style. But these are like really buttoned down designs too, because if you go too far afield from some of these things, it starts not to look good. And one of the things we want is we want Vellum books to look great. And we also want to take that design burden off of the author and put it onto us. We do a lot of research, and then we do a lot of playing in the app to scale it back so that we think it can apply not just to one specific book about a fantasy book that's about dragons, but we could pull it back to something that maybe applies more generally to fantasy or more generally to paranormal.
Kate: Professional is absolutely the word. Especially as an indie author, you really want your books to be taken seriously and not to be seen as amateur. And especially the earlier version of Vellum that I used at the beginning... I put in my manuscript, and it just gave me these books that were so clean and so professional. And that was with me really not doing a whole lot except making sure that my chapters were there and making sure I had my backmatter... Definitely toggle through the headings and things just to play with them, but it was really simple and that sort of clean design aesthetic is so important.
Mindy: Yeah, I agree. I actually had a very emotional moment with Vellum. I had written a manuscript a long time ago. I think I was in college when I started writing it. So I was maybe 20 years old, and I wrote this book that as a published author in the traditional world does not fit my brand at all. Never has. Never will. Kate had said to me, "Just publish it underneath your pen name. There's no reason not to." And I was thinking to myself, "Well, yes. She's correct. So I'm going to do that." And I had this manuscript that I had updated and rewritten and worked with for actually 20 years at that point.
And it's interesting, you were talking about upgrading your software all the time. Funny story. The characters in my manuscript were initially having big conversations, and a large part of the plot came about through a conversation over AOL Instant Messenger. That needs changed. So I had just been constantly going in and updating it - technology, slang, all the different things - for over 20 years and kept thinking maybe someday. This book. Kate said, "You really need to just self publish it under your pen name." I had been working with Kate on other things, and we had been working together using Vellum. And I had never used it for my own stuff specifically. I uploaded that book into Vellum. Chose all of my fonts and the styles. I looked at the front page and there's my title. And it has my pen name, but it says by someone kind of like you. Chapter one. And there's my first line that I wrote 20 years ago, and it was just like emotional for me because it actually got to be a book. And honestly, I would have never taken that step. I would have never done that if I didn't have Vellum, because now I have an e-book version. I have a print version. And, you know, I had it printed, and I sent my author copies to myself. And I actually was more, I think, moved by that than I have been over receiving some of my traditional books. Just because that manuscript had been set aside for so long. And to actually just be like, "You know what? All I have to do is upload this Word document, and it's a book."
Brad: I mean, that's a great story. I love that, that this thing had been sort of in the back of your mind for 20 years. We often hear that when people first look in the preview pane and see the drop cap and see the style applied, that it is emotional. It stops being a manuscript, and it becomes a book. And I'll be honest, I don't think that when we wrote Vellum, we thought that that would be the case. It was just like, Well, of course we have to have a preview. Like, how else are you going to see what it looks like? Make the editing pane the editing pane, and the preview can change according to the device or the font size. The very, very first time that people sort of like can envision it being an actual book as opposed to just an idea on the blank Word page.
Kate: I actually have a request for a tweak to the preview on my wish list.
Brad: Uh huh.
Kate: I was making a hardcover meant to be a special edition, and I really wanted to see the preview with both pages side by side. Even when you output it as a PDF, you see them stacked on top of each other. And so I actually ended up screenshotting the two separate pages and then cutting them out and pasting them into Photoshop so I could see them side by side. But before I did that I was clicking every button I could. And is there a way to do this? And I just can't figure it out. But I decided there wasn't.
Brad: So in Vellum, there is not a way to see it side by side yet. We've gotten that sug a few times. It's something we're definitely considering. It would make vellum fairly wide. There's some stuff to think about there, and you probably only want it for maybe the first page of the chapter. Who knows? Anyhow. There's a lot of stuff to think about there. However, what we usually recommend, which I think will be way easier than what you described is... We just recommend generating your PDF, and then opening it in your max preview app and going into two pages mode. And that will show it side by side.
Kate: I'm not surprised that I took the long way around to get there. Making easy things difficult.
Brad: When you don't know that it exists.
Kate: I just saw this in an ebook I was reading, and I thought it was so cool. I read The Scholomance series by Naomi Novik. It's an amazing series. It's a trilogy. It's so good. And I think it was book two that I was reading. I was noticing when I flipped to the beginning of a chapter, for the chapter header, they had some sort of design, and it would flash and change colors. And it was so cool. I think I even took a picture for my Instagram because I was like, "What is this magic? And how are they doing this?"
Brad: That's interesting. We do know that there are some times where Amazon works with authors who are selling a lot to allow a sort of a fancier version that they might not allow for just the rest of us.
Kate: This is a best selling series. So it's... Big deal.
Brad: There are things that are fairly frustrating. Uploading the epub to Amazon. They still don't support transparent images, let alone animated images. The technology has been around for years and years and years. They just don't support it through their self publisher network. So as soon as Amazon supports that kind of stuff, we're happy to jump on it. I'll dig into it. I've pulled up her books.
Mindy: So Kate has her wish list. Brad, you know, because we exchanged emails that I had been really looking for the text message exchanges, and that was introduced in 2022.
Brad: Yeah, we've gotten a lot of good response to text messages. There's been a lot of fun. It's such an important part of how we communicate these days that it just makes sense.
Mindy: And some of the things that you introduced or adapted in 2022, Kate already mentioned. The heading backgrounds. Introducing new headings for all kinds of different genres. Easier box set construction, which is actually really important to both Kate and I. Creating a box set file can make you a little bit nauseous.
Brad: Yeah.
Mindy: Custom headers and footers so that the chapter and the page number can look however the author is looking for. You can export it back out of Vellum and into Word if you would like to. So those are all the different things that you guys brought about in 2022. What are you looking for and what can people expect? New elements that you're planning on or that might be coming up?
Brad: We tend to be fairly tight lipped. You know, we don't love to give specific answers, super specific answers. Because as we mentioned earlier, things can change, and we don't want to say things are coming in April 7th and then Amazon or Apple does something and we were delayed. But one of the things that we're focused on right now, in the short term, we're focused a little bit more on workflow. Even though it's been lovely to hear that like, "Oh, it's vellum. It's so easy to use." There are a few pain points, a few things that we want to do that we think we can make even easier. So we've got a few things coming down the pipeline soon-ish that we hope will make authors, the time they spend in vellum, even more fun. Even more efficient.
Mindy: Last thing. Brad, why don't you let listeners know where they can find Vellum and download that free trial?
Brad: Thank you. You can go to vellum.pub and if you have a Mac you can download Vellum. And like we said before, you can use it totally for free until it comes time to publish your files. And at that point you purchase a Vellum license and within seconds you can generate all the files that you need to publish your ebook or print edition.
Mindy: Writer Writer Pants on Fire is produced by Mindy McGinnis. Music by Jack Korbel. Don't forget to check out the blog for additional interviews, writing advice and publication tips at Writer Writer Pants on Fire dot com. If the blog or podcast have been helpful to you or if you just enjoy listening, please consider donating. Visit Writer Writer Pants on Fire dot com and click “support the blog and podcast” in the sidebar.