Successful Indie Publishing With Aileen Erin

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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.com and make sure to visit the Writer, Writer Pants On Fire blog for additional interviews, query critiques, and more at writerwriterpantsonfire.com

Mindy:             If the blog or podcast have been helpful to you or if you just enjoy listening, please consider donating. Visit writerwriterpantsonfire.com and click support the blog and podcast in the sidebar. Today's guest is Aileen Erin, who is half Irish, half Mexican and 100% nerd. From Star Wars to Star Trek. she geeks out on Tolkien's linguistics and has a severe fascination with the supernatural. Aileen has a BS in radio, TV and film from the University of Texas at Austin and an MFA in writing popular fiction from Seton Hill University. She lives with her husband and daughter in Los Angeles. Aileen joined me today to talk about how to maintain a reader's interest - and her own - while writing an eight book series,

Mindy:             So someone I know who is pretty much always right has told me that I should start telling some stories from my own life on the podcast. Because this person has been on multiple panels with me and she says that some of my stories should probably be used on the podcast. I'm going to try it out and if you would rather that I get right to you learning about the publishing industry, totally tell me. Otherwise I'm going to inform you about worm sex.

Mindy:             One of the things I do a lot is school visits. I've been talking about my first book, Not A Drop To Drink for eight years now, doing school visits and talking in front of age ranges anywhere from seventh graders to seniors. I usually don't go much lower than that, but there was one time when I was in a sixth grade classroom and I had been presenting for the entire day, eight periods on my feet the whole time, talking for 45 minutes nonstop about writing and publishing, and particularly my book, Not A Drop To Drink. And in the process of talking about Not A Drop To Drink, one of the stories I tell is about my own eardrum breaking, because somewhere in the book a character's eardrum breaks and I had to talk about the pain of that experience and how a person would deal with that in a world where there aren't any painkillers. And then I tell them, and this is true, that if your eardrum breaks, it grows back. Your eardrum will regenerate and about two weeks. But in the meantime you are deaf in that ear. You are deaf until your eardrum grows back.

Mindy:             It's a bizarre little thing and I always tell them it's just like earthworms. So when you've done a presentation a thousand times, usually you kind of do it rote. Your mind can kind of wander while you're doing it, which is typically what's going on with me. So my mind was wandering by the eighth time I had gone through my presentation on that day. I ended up talking about your eardrum breaking and regenerating and comparing it to a worm. If you were to cut a worm in half, which I don't encourage them to do, but if you were to cut a worm in half each section will go their separate ways, never to meet again. Which is how I usually phrase it But as my mind wandered and it was following what I was saying, I actually ended up thinking and saying, aloud, to a classroom of sixth graders, "but what if they did?"

Mindy:             "What if they met and they fell in love? What if they met and they fell in love and they had children? It's not even incest. It's me.-cest." At which point I realize I'm speaking out loud. Look up. See the teacher standing in the back of the room looking at me like - you have made it all day without talking about worm sex. What happened? I don't know, but I do know that as I was driving home, I couldn't stop thinking about it. I ended up going home Googling worm sex, and learning a lot. Also, first of all, it isn't true that if you cut a worm in half, that both sections regenerate. Only the section with the brain regenerates. The tail cannot grow a new brain. The brain can grow a new tail. So nobody needs to tweet me and tell me that I'm totally wrong about worm regeneration. However, I can tell you with conviction - don't Google worm sex.

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Mindy:             You are the author of the Alpha Girl Series an eight book series that began in 2013. So tell my listeners a little bit about how to maintain a storyline over that many books.

Aileen:             I think the key to maintaining a storyline over a larger series is all about making sure that the characters are still evolving, still developing. I've also changed up some of the POV for different books. I think that's also helped keep reader interest. Some of the side characters have taken over their own novels and stuff like that, so that's been really key in not only keeping the reader's interest but keeping my own sanity going through through eight books.

Mindy:             I was going to ask you that as a follow up. How do you keep yourself interested through eight books? And I love the idea of changing up the point of view because if you change the point of view, you change the story. If you see something from someone else's perspective, it comes off differently. So have you found that to be your experience then when you're working on a series that lasts for that long?

Aileen:             Yes, I really loved it doing the side characters. I originally did Bruja, that's from Tessa. It's the main character in the first three books. It's all from her point of view, but then I needed a little bit of a break, so Bruja from her cousin's point of view, and that really changed up how I saw the series and how I saw the world. It really expanded the world in a nice way and open up the possibility that then Tessa's best friend could have her own book and now another friend has their own book, Lunar Court Book Eight is, also dual POV, which is not something that I've done with any of the other books, but both characters in it that are going to fall in love and get together were big side characters from the series as a whole. So I was like, okay, they both deserve their own book, but this is actually just one story. So that was really fun for me to do. Some of them are witches, some of them are werewolves, some of them are fae. So kind of getting those different perspectives really keeps it fresh for me, which I think helps keep it fresh for the readers.

Mindy:             Personally, when I was a kid, I was always into the sidekicks. I always liked Robin more than Batman and so on and so forth. It just, it didn't matter what the show was or the book was. I was always interested in sidekicks and I wanted to know more about the sidekicks. So I think that that's really cool that you can go into the same world and expand the books and the world, but also at the same time you're shrinking it down more by focusing more intently on a character that before didn't have her own voice.

Aileen:             I used to be a big Buffy watcher when I was in high school. I love Buffy. I also wanted to know more about like Angel who eventually got his own show and then um, Willow. I wanted to know more about her and what she was doing with magic. And I always wondered what happened with Oz, who was a werewolf on the show who ended up leaving. I want to know more about what everybody else is doing too. So I get to do that in my own series, which is really, really fun.

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Mindy:             So you have a new series coming out. The first book is titled Off Planet. So tell us a little bit more about this series, the new one and do you plan for it to have as many books as your Alpha Girl series has?

Aileen:             Off Planet I started writing during my MFA. I had a really fun time world-building imagining a future earth and what it would look like, what would happen to the government and to corporations and their role in government. And I kind of really ran with that idea and I had a lot of fun writing this space opera. I have always planned on it to be shorter, three or four books I guess, depending on reader interest, maybe I'll expand it. I kind of want to keep it a little bit more contained so I can't decide if it's going to be three or four books yet. I'm in the middle of writing book too, so I'll have to see.

Mindy:             Sounds like you're more of a pantser than a planner. Is that true?

Aileen:             I'm a minimal planner. I'm like a plantser. I love Blake Snyder's Save The Cat, his little breakdown of story. So I do like 40 note cards and like 13 really basic ideas before I jump into the next. With my Alpha Girl series, I'm not really sure which book I'm going to do until I'm like towards the end of writing the current book that I'm on. I've got so many different side characters where I can go off and tell their different stories. In Off Planet Lorne and Maité, they're kind of so central to the story. I don't know if I would spin off and do the other ones, but I can't completely say that I wouldn't. So for their story, for Lorne and Maité, this story, I think it's like three or four books.

Mindy:             So you have dealt pretty deeply into urban fantasy, obviously with eight books in a series. And um, now Sci-Fi with three or, or four, is that where you're comfortable writing is in genre areas?

Aileen:             I'm more comfortable writing in genre areas cause that's what I like to read more. That's where my interests lie. Like write what you know, but I don't know anything about space travel. It's kind of more write what you love and that's kind of what I love. I always like a little, um, if I'm reading like a romance novel, I want it to have a hint of paranormal or Scifi or something or reading, YA, it's more likely that I'm reading something paranormal or Scifi or fantasy. I love epic fantasy. I hope to one day write an epic fantasy high fantasy series. So that's kind of in the backburner though.

Mindy:             I read widely, I love to read. I'll read pretty much anything. My writing then as you were saying, follows that vein. I will write anything because I will read anything. And you do tend to focus on the things that you love. I get frustrated as a reader and as a writer at how genre writing gets looked down upon often, not just from writers but also readers. Uh, you know, some readers would never touch a fantasy book or would never touch Sci-Fi because they think that that is just for fantasy readers, pr just for Sci-Fi readers and they're not dipping their toes into all of the different wells of books that are waiting around everywhere. So do you find that same experience that genre books don't seem to get the respect that non-genre writing does?

Aileen:             To some extent, yes. Genre tends to get a bad rap, not taken as seriously, I guess. I went to a genre fiction writing MFA. We talked a lot about genre fiction versus literary fiction. I kind of don't mind writing in genre. I think it's what's fun. I love it. I love the escapism of it. Somebody that reads only literary doesn't want to read my book, then I'm like, that's just not the book for them. Um, there's so many books out there, so many different kinds of readers out there, and if they like more literary stuff, then great. I'm glad that they're reading. I gravitate towards genre. I love genre. It's so fun

Mindy:             Being glad that they're reading. I'm with you on that. I've used to work in a high school in a library. We had drug dogs come through and one of our student's lockers pinged the dogs and they got upset and so they searched the locker and they did find drugs, but they also found a copy of 50 Shades of Grey and they brought it down to me for whatever reason and they put it on the counter and they're like, do you think it's appropriate for her to have this book? And I was like, oh, she had a book! Like I was just so happy.

Aileen:             Yes, they're reading fantastic. Who Cares? Exactly.

Mindy:             I was like, yeah, give that back to her. She is going to need that when she is in juvenile detention.

Aileen:             Oh yeah, yeah. I get a lot of emails from readers saying like, I hadn't really enjoyed reading in school. I didn't, I haven't been loving it, but now I've read your book and I'm back into reading and I love it. I'm like, that is the best compliment ever. I love it. Welcome to the world of magical books. I love it.

Mindy:             Coming up, urban fantasy is dead in traditional publishing, but a smart indie writer can make a decent living at it.

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Mindy:             When we talk about traditional publishing. that world kind of burned out on genre awhile ago with the vampire trend leading into an urban fantasy trend, and then just there was a conflagration. Everything was urban fantasy for so long and the traditional publishing world still hasn't recovered from that. They're still insisting that urban fantasy is dead. I have definitely heard whispers that maybe it's coming back, but I'm not seeing the rush for that genre yet, and I think it would be difficult to be querying with an urban fantasy right now. I don't think the traditional publishing gatekeepers are welcoming it yet. But your rankings, especially for Alpha Girl and the success that you've had with that series, which is urban fantasy, says that the readers are there, that they want it. So do you have any thoughts about that?

Aileen:             Yeah, I really don't think that agents and acquiring editors want to hear anything about vampires, werewolves, anything paranormal, urban fantasy, they're so sick and tired it. Which is why I did not ever even attempt to go traditional because back in 2013 when I was starting the Alpha Girl series and figuring out kind of in 2012 even figuring out what I was going to do with the series and this book that I had written in my MFA. I was going to RWA national convention and listening to different agents and editors talk about what they were wanting to hear, what they were needing, what they saw a market for and Twilight and all the movies had already come out. So they had seen so many manuscripts that were vampires and werewolves and teens, and they were like, if you send us one more of those books, I'm gonna vomit.

Aileen:             I can't read one. I don't like it. I don't want to read it. I'm tired of it. I was like, okay, that's all well and good, but there's this whole readership of people that hadn't been reading urban fantasy before. I had been reading urban fantasy for a while, but they hadn't been, and were introduced by Twilight and now this ravenous mob were wanting more urban fantasy, more werewolves, more vampires. The publishing powers that be just said, no, I don't want it. Well, what about all these people that were reading it? They didn't all of a sudden go away. That desire to read that kind of fiction didn't just disappear. I decided to do it my own way. I formulated a business plan, release schedule, researched indie. I got a distribution partner that would help push my books to retailers and help represent me a little bit.

Aileen:             I found it the case that there were so many bloggers, so many readers, so many fans of werewolves in particular and urban fantasy in general that I was pretty much welcomed into the space and I found a tremendous readership that slowly built over the course of the first three releases. By the time I hit the third I made the USA Today list. So I do think that there are a lot of readers out there that still want to read it, but it's interesting that like the gatekeepers kind of get tired of a genre and then just call it done. There's plenty more out there to be done with the genre and plenty of readers out there that actually still want that genre.

Mindy:             Twilight and everything that came after created monsters and they're still hungry. They want to read those books and there are people that that's all they want to read. And like we said earlier, that's fine. You read whatever you want to read and people like you are perfectly happy to write it and get it into their hands and you're rewarded for that. And I think it's wonderful. I myself have an urban fantasy that has been under my bed for 15 years because I'm just waiting for the traditional market to come back around to where they are welcoming it again and I do think that it will happen, but in the meantime I think there's a lot of opportunity out there for people like yourself that are writing what they love and you're going to give it to the readers that love it.

Aileen:             I think there's a market out there and it kind of opened me up to like a waiting audience that were ready for me and built the way so that now when I switch off to a different genre, they followed me over there and I did pretty well with that one. And then I'll grow that. And then um, I have like this audience and this fan base readership that is ready to read whatever I want to write, which is an amazing gift. Just by going in through urban fantasy, I was able to kind of like unlock a little door and get my foot in. I guess I'm against traditional a little bit. I'm like, you're not the boss of me. I'm gonna do what I want.

Mindy:             Yeah, and that's totally fine. That's totally fine. Obviously you've had tremendous success with it, so good for you. I personally am just terrified at the idea of setting up your own business plan, but let's talk about that for a little bit. You are the CEO of Ink Monster, which is your publisher, and I know a little bit from reading online about how the company came to be with your fellow authors. If you can tell the listeners a little bit about how Ink Monster came to be.

Aileen:             I finished my MFA. I had heard all this news about how nobody wanted anything that was urban fantasy, so I had this manuscript and I was like, well, I don't know what I'm going to do, But all the while I was in my MFA. I was researching publishing. I got Publishers Weekly, I got Writer's Digest. I was reading the emails that I got every week from Publishers Weekly about the latest in Indie and there was this big push of indie authors that were making it big, making a very, very good living by going and doing it themselves. So I started to put together an idea of how I would kind of go outside the box and I saw that there were a lot of indie authors that were not kind of dealing with the business side. If you're going to go indie you have to have the business locked down.

Aileen:             What's Your Business Plan? What's your structure? How are you going to break even? What are you going to spend on marketing? What's your release schedule? What you know, when are you going to do cover reveals? Who's going to do the covers? Are they gonna look good? Who's going to do the graphic design? What's your social media plan like? All of these like millions of things kind of create this bigger image that is your, your business and your branding. I got together with another author who has since left Ink Monster. She had a business background in marketing. So we got together and she was like, look, you have a lot of knowledge about the publishing industry. I have some about marketing, let's give it a go. So we got together, we kind of worked back and forth for about a year on our business plan before we entered into a deal with our distributor.

Aileen:             We gave them our business model, what we were planning, who our niche audience was going to be, how we were going to reach them, and they took a chance on us. That kind of evolved into what became Ink Monster. We added on some other authors for a little while and then my business partner left, started her own thing, and I've kind of weeded out a little bit of my authors because it ended up being so much time to develop other authors and it was taking away my writing time and kind of the reason why I decided to go into is because I love to write and I wanted to write whatever I wanted to write. I loved all that control. I wanted all that control of the covers and kind of the marketing and that kind of thing. I found myself to be a total control freak, but it is a lot of work. So it's not for everyone. Everything that you would want to publisher to do everything that you would expect them to do. You have to do that when you're indie.

Mindy:             So you're talking about getting a distributor and things like that. Is that to ensure that your book ends up on the shelves of bookstores like Barnes and Noble or chain?

Aileen:             At first I started with just digital distribution with Inscribed. They eventually got bought out by IPG. IPG does now handle my print. I went into a bigger print distribution to be in stores and Barnes and Nobles and stuff like that with Off Planet. I didn't do that with any of my Alpha Girl books. I'm such an e-reader. I've found most of my sales with the Alpha Girl books have been at least 90% e-readers. E-books, various devices. I'm giving print a try with Off Planet and we'll see how it goes, and if I keep doing that. They handle all of that. They also handle with e-books, they have weekly meetings with iBooks or I guess now Apple Books, Amazon get us good placement there or deals, kindle daily deals and stuff like that. We're allowed to like apply for those kinds of things. Having that person that has that connection that "in" with those retailers and can get you good placement and good spots, um, get you in banners and stuff like that. Those are the, the keys.

Mindy:             I'm interested in what you're saying about e-reading versus print. My own experience through talking with other authors, the Indie market readers are traditionally going to be e-readers and that is good news because that's less overhead for you. You don't have to worry about printing, you don't have to worry about buying the physical copies and flipping them. You don't have to worry about that overhead. So have you found that to be true then that it's the uh, the e-books is where your money is gonna come from?

Aileen:             Absolutely. Ebooks have been, I want to say more than 90% of my income. That's great because it is very low risk. I mean I don't even need anybody to make my files for me. It's no overhead for that print. For Off Planet there was, I, I had to buy a couple thousand copies of the print book, had to get them printed. That was like a whole rigmarole knowing my history of really selling well through E. I'm not sure how the print is going to pan out, but it's a Book One. So it's something to try for sure. So, and I am in Barnes and Noble and other bookstores throughout the US. I am always testing things and trying out new ways to advertise to market. New formatting and stuff like that. Being indie means I get to try all those kinds of things.

Mindy:             One of the things I noticed right away about your Alpha Girl series was the number of reviews that you have on Amazon. Um, and that's, that's a big factor. People look at that, they look at that number of reviews, whether they're good or bad, it's that number and they say, oh, people are reading this book. So how do you go about getting that amount of reviews?

Aileen:             We started out from the very beginning using Net Galley to send out arcs. For whatever reason, that first Becoming Alpha, my first book, I put it on NetGalley and we had to shut it down from NetGalley after just like three days because it had so many downloads. And that was really, really fantastic because we did get a lot of reviews from that first few days on NetGalley. From that we built our NetGalley email list. So, um, when you are on NetGalley, you're allowed to capture emails of those reviewers and those bloggers. So I have built an extensive list over the course of all these series. Anybody who has requested an InkMonster book, I can email all of them. "Hey, we have this new release here is your instant download code on NetGalley. You're pre-approved code, click on it, please download it and we'd love your review, you know, good, bad, whatever."

Aileen:             And then we remind them because you can't post a review on Amazon before release day. So on release day we email everybody that we go through and download the list of who requested and got a copy of the newest release and we email that whole list saying, "Hey, you downloaded a copy of the book, today's release day. We would absolutely love and appreciate if you would post your review." And we provide links to every retailer and GoodReads. A lot of people take us up on that just by saying please and thank you. You get a lot of response from that.

Mindy:             That's incredibly smart. I love it. I'm listening and I'm taking notes.

Mindy:             Lastly, the Indie experience at BookCon and how to market without big publisher push behind you.

Mindy:             You had told me you just got back from BookCon. So what are those big events like when you're an Indie, what are your purposes when you go there? What are your goals and how do you go about achieving them?

Aileen:             This was the first time that I've done anything like this I have to say and it went so well, much better than any of my expectations. Um, I haven't been able to go because I have a three year old and my husband works in movies. So we're constantly on location, moving all over the place. But this time the timing worked out and I was able to go so I was super stoked. My main goal from going to BookCon was to gain new readers. Um, I took Off Planet with me. I took a hundred copies. I set up in my distributors booth. IPG has this giant booth with a thing hanging from the ceiling. I don't go and get my own separate little booth that's in the back. I am working out of theirs because I feel like that gives you a little bit of a boost.

Aileen:             I brought 100 copies just to give away and to sign just to gain new readers. I had a little stack of download codes for the first book and my Alpha Girl series as well and little mini books that are like almost index card size of Off Planet that I printed for anybody that wanted to take one for a friend. It's just a sample. It's got like five chapters in, it looks like a teeny, teeny tiny bitty baby book. It's cute. So I took those as well. And Ink Monster pins, enamel pins I just want to reach new readers. I've got this great fan base for my Alpha Girl series and a lot of them crossed over with me to read Off Planet, which is phenomenal and amazing because it's a totally different genre. But I knew that there was a lot more readers that I could reach.

Aileen:             So just by having that one person that's going to take my book, then might tell their friends, oh, I read this new book. And so then they'll tell their friends and they'll tell their friends. So that's kind of the goal. I didn't know how many people were gonna show up for my signing. You just never know with that, so I left and walked away. As soon as I got there, I saw one author that was doing a signing and it wasn't going so hot. So I walked away. I was not going to worry about it. I'm going to come back. So then I came back about 20 minutes later and there was this giant line. My reps were opening up all the boxes and like running around like crazy and I was like, what's happening? And they were like, there are so many people here for you.

Aileen:             I don't think we have enough books. I'm going to start handing them out and then telling the rest of them that they can go because your a hundred books are up. 15 minutes before the signing started, all the books were gone. Hopefully a lot of those readers were new to me. They hadn't read any of my books. A couple of them said they had read all of my Alpha Girl books, which I was like, fantastic. I'm so happy to have met you. And gave them an Off Planet book. Most of them are all new. So that's readership that's growing. And that was kind of my goal was to show some new readers some love and gain their attention.

Mindy:             And when it comes to something like that, when you're at an event and you're letting people know you're going to be signing, so you had a great turnout and I'm sure the distributor was helping to make sure that people were aware that you were giving away free books, but to have a line like that, that's really good. So what did you do to raise awareness of the fact that you would be there? That you were there at that time and you were giving away free books?

Aileen:             I posted on social media of course tagged the event, #BookCon and hashtagged it like crazy. I had been telling everybody across social media for a while that I was going to be there. I had a few people contact me ahead of time. I had zero expectations. I was like, it could be 10 people that show up and that's 10 readers, so that's great. I was also, I think printed in the handout and my distributor also printed all the signings that were going to happen at their booth in a little flyer. So they were handing that out and had my time on there. We had a sign printed, but it was, I think they put it up maybe an hour before. It wasn't like a ton. I guess they saw the cover, they liked the cover. A lot of people were asking me about the Latina main character. My mother is Mexican, so a lot of my series, both Off Planet and Alpha Girl has a lot of like Latin influences, so they were really interested in that. Somehow. All of those things I think work to my advantage and got me a really great turnout

Mindy:             And that's how marketing works. Sometimes you really don't know why it worked. You're just really glad it did.

Aileen:             Yeah, I kind of threw everything I could at it and then hopefully something sticks. Then you cross your fingers and like that's kind of marketing. You just try all the things.

Mindy:             So talking about marketing, you started in 2013 with your first Alpha Girl book, so are there things that you did in 2013 that worked that you don't think would work today?

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Aileen:             I don't know. I think everything that works then works today and I think there are actually more things that you can do now, In 2013 there weren't really Facebook ads, you couldn't do that. I use those now and get a lot of clicks through those. There's also Amazon ads here. Some people it works great for, but I actually don't get a great rate from the ads I spent on Amazon. There's not a lot of clicks. Not a lot of clicks to buy. You do get to see how many clicks lead to buys when you're doing an ad on Amazon, which is very interesting to see and you don't necessarily know that with your Facebook ads.

Aileen:             I feel like there's lots more ways to to reach a reader now. Lots more marketing that you can do with like Instagram, which I don't know if it was around back then or if it was, it was maybe newer, but now it's, Instagram is such a huge influencer on what people are buying and what people are interested in and so Bookstagram and that kind of thing didn't exist back then, but it does now. So there's all these different ways that you can reach a reader. So I think that's not, there's not anything that worked then and wouldn't work now. I think now you've just got so many more options and ways to reach them, which is fantastic.

Mindy:             I know from my own experience as a writer, that back when I was getting ready to prepub and people knew I had a book coming out that there was a lot more blogging going on, a lot more presence on blogs, a lot more readers for blogs and as a blogger - I have a blog that goes along with this podcast where I have interviews with published authors and feature, all kinds of different elements about publishing in the writing industry. I keep doing it, but my numbers are definitely not what they were like in 2011, 2012. That reading audience just really isn't there anymore. People want to smaller bites. They want the easily digestible social media posts. They don't want to sit and read your blog post. So do you still do blog tours or anything like that to promote newer books?

Aileen:             I still do blog tours. I almost only do them for the content that then I can repost it on social media. It's just creation of content, you know, by doing these interviews and by doing these blog posts. And I have something else that I can post about on social media. So I don't know that it, that blog tours though are fantastic. They're not the bang for the buck that they used to be, but I still do them just so that I have that kind of content and daily new kind of thing that I can do leading up to a launch. I can say, oh, I did this interview, I have this other piece of content. Oh, there's this other thing that you can look at. Um, so I'm not ever posting like buy my book, buy my book, buy my book, because nobody wants that like hard sale pitch in their feed.

Aileen:             I don't like it when somebody starts posting, buy my book, here's my book, here's my book. I would instantly unfollow, right? Hide. You know, I don't want to see that. I want to know more about like what they're doing, what their life is like, I want to know more about what their interviews are and that kind of thing. It's kind of changed a little bit. Blogs have kind of gone a little bit away, but you can still use that content as something else to post about that, will keep readers interested in knowing and seeing that there's a book coming out. Keep their curiosity piqued while you're trying to promote and not kind of be too pushy about your book.

Mindy:             Last thing I want to ask you about when it comes to marketing is newsletters. Everyone has been saying for years you need to have one, you need to have one and a lot of people don't, or if they do, they're not doing it right. I was not doing it right for a long time and finally one of my friends sent me down and was like, Mindy, you're not doing this right. Ended up going out and actually learning how to do a newsletter and how to do it well and I restructured everything. I did some research just like you're supposed to do for anything you want to be successful at. So tell me about your newsletter, how you use it and what you use it for.

Aileen:             I love the newsletter. Firm believer in it. I have different lists for my newsletter. Um, different people that I email. I have a separate like reviewer ones as I was talking about with the NetGalley list, which has helped get um, reviews early on in, in a release, which is key to getting it kind of kicked up in lists and bestseller lists. Those reviews really, really sell books. I can't tell you how many times I'm like, just put it on NetGalley. Get those emails, email them and say thank you for downloading. Please post a review. That's really key - keeping reader's attention to telling them like what's coming up, giving them a little peek into your personal life. Fun reasons to open the newsletter. I give them selective content. Put up a blog with like an excerpt for my newest book and only the people that open that newsletter will get the password exclusive content for the newsletter. Exclusive giveaways. Those kinds of things are really, really key for, for keeping those newsletter readers engaged and keep them opening and clicking. I'm kind of on the team - Yes, you need a newsletter. You should be getting emails, give them away, something for free to get their emails. Because once you have that reader and you have their information, you can keep them engaged, keep them interested.

Mindy:             Now that I know how to do them right. Yes, I agree.

Aileen:             Yeah. It takes a little bit of work and like trial and error. Oh, this one didn't open. Why not? What did I put in it that I put in the other one? So it's always like looking at it, being strategic with absolutely every marketing thing that you do. You have to be strategic with your releases, with your business, with your marketing, with your newsletters, everything. You have to be pretty strategic when you're doing it indie because nobody else is gonna do it for you.

Mindy:             Last thing, what are you working on now? I know it's probably, uh, more in your Off Planet series, but tell us what you can about that and where listeners can find you online.

Aileen:             Right now I'm working on Off Balance, which is yes, the sequel to Off Planet, it's going to be dual POV. So I'm really excited about that getting more Lorne in there, which readers had been asking me for it. I love to listen to what my readers are wanting. There was a high demand for Lorne in the next book so I added him in. Um, so I'm having fun with that right now and I'm also working on Alpha Erased, which is book nine of the Alpha Girl series and going back to Tessa, but to keep it interesting, I'm putting her mate, it's dual POV so she's actually going to get kidnapped and her memory wiped and so it's going to be Dastien winning her back all over again. So it'll be pretty romantic. I'm excited about that one. And you can find me online at AileenErin.com Or on Facebook and Instagram.

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 www.writerwriterapantsonfire.com If the blog or podcast have been helpful to you, or if you just enjoy listening, please consider donating. Visit www.writerwriterpantsonfire.com and click support the blog and podcast in the sidebar.

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Exploring Themes of Motherhood & Sisterhood in Fiction with Gillian McAllister

Today's guest is Gillian McAllister, a British author best known for her bestselling debut novel Everything But The Truth. Her new US release, The Good Sister, is an electrifying novel about the unyielding bond between two sisters, which is severely tested when one of them is accused of the worst imaginable crime.

Gillian joined me to talk about how her background in law helps illuminate her fiction, writing for the American audience, and how she explores themes of motherhood and sisterhood in her thrillers.

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Mindy:             Welcome to Writer, Writer, Pants On Fire. Where authors talk about things that never happeend to people who don’t exist. We also talk 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 www.mindymcginnis.com and make sure to visit the Writer, Writer Pants On Fire blog for additional interviews, query critiques, and more, at www.writerwriterpantsonfire.com If the blog or podcast have been helpful to you or if you just enjoy listening, please consider donating. Visit www.writerwriterpantsonfire.com and click support the blog and podcast in the sidebar.

Mindy:             Today's guest is Gillian McAllister, a British author, best known for her best selling debut, Everything But The Truth. Her new US release, The Good Sister is an electrifying novel about the unyielding bond between two sisters, which is severely tested when one of them is accused of the worst imaginable crime. Gillian joined me today to talk about how her own background in law helps inform her fiction, writing for an American audience and how tapping into universal themes like motherhood and sisterhood were key to her newest release, The Good Sister.

Mindy:             Your new book is called The Good Sister. It is about a sister who has to question everything she thinks she knows about her sibling after the death of her child. So if you could talk a little bit just about what the book is about so listeners can get a feel for what kind of read they're looking at here.

Gillian:             Yes. So The Good Sister really is a character led family drama about two sisters, Martha, who is struggling to balance new brotherhood with being the CEO of a charity she's set up and Becky who she entrusts to look after the new baby while she has to work. Then the unthinkable happens and the book opens on the first day of Becky's trial for murder.

Mindy:             And you are also a trained lawyer, which I'm sure was incredibly helpful to you while writing this book.

Gillian:             Definitely I sort of was, although I wasn't a court lawyer, I was exposed to lots of different cases and I talked about them with lawyers and I was able to research things easily and I sort of know naturally the kind of language used in the law and in courtrooms. So yes, definitely it was a big help.

Mindy:             And when it comes to writing courtroom scenes, I know just because in one of my own novels I had written a courtroom scene that I thought was just riveting and it set my plot perfectly in the way things pan out, was exactly what I was going for. And then I shared it with a friend of mine who was also an author and a lawyer who was like, yeah, this is great for fiction. He's like, what you wrote would never actually fly in a real courtroom.

Mindy:             And the way you have your books set up is really smart structurally because we go back and forth between the past and some of the actions and the interactions between our characters and the actual courtroom scenes. So the vagaries of an actual court process can actually be really dry. A lot of the drama that we see on television and in movies and in books usually isn't the way it would actually go down. So if you could talk about that a little bit and how you kind of mediated the realities of a dry courtroom with the more tense and personal aspects of actual human interaction outside of the courtroom, for the purposes of your plot.

Gillian:             Like you say, for every minute of drama we see, there's hours of adjournments and juries falling asleep and witnesses not showing up. And although I wanted it to be authentic with no sort of shouted objections and no sort of pacing lawyers. In Britain, the courtroom is a little more sedate but no less dramatic. Um, and I think in toning that down, I let the human relationships come to the fore and really the novel structure where you go back to the past and you also get little vignettes of each witness that was born out of like you say, I, I didn't want to write a closed set book that only took place in a courtroom and was just reams and reams and reams of questions. So in The Good Sister, as each witness takes the stand, you get that own chapter in their own voice at the time, what they saw. So you're sort of taken out of the courtroom, via their memories.

Mindy:             And it works very well. I have to say there's a wonderful back and forth where the reader who doesn't know, of course, what actually happens on the day that the child passed away. Every chapter is leading you somewhere that you wouldn't expect, I would think.

Gillian:             Yes, I think that's right. I hope there are a few sort of twists and turns and the reader really is focused on whether or not Becky did it. That is the central question that the novel answers. But it definitely, there were all sorts of red herrings and you know, other suspects and all that that you would expect from a thriller as well as a character led drama.

Mindy:             So I want to talk just briefly about the fact that this is your first US release and because it does take place in a courtroom, and there are also other industries like health workers and people that are taking the stand that are speaking about things that they have noticed within the family. And it's not always using the same terminology that we use in the US and I noticed that as well in the courtroom scenes. You said yourself that in the British cart room that it's a little more restrained. The language is slightly different too. So I was just curious if you had any concerns about anything being lost in translation for a courtroom drama for a US audience.

Gillian:             Yeah, I mean I think when you're published internationally, you always hope your fiction will translate well. Whether that is in sort of a different kind of English languages, the States has from the UK or actual literal translations into other foreign countries. I know that Putnam, my publisher at Penguin have used a lot of proofreaders so hopefully they have all sort of, well I know that they will understand it and I think really The Good Sister deals with themes that are universal. So I mean the courtroom is fairly similar that you have witnesses who get cross examined, you have juries, you have the defendant standing there, you have, whether she would have been granted bail or not. There's so many similarities between the British and the American legal system and, but really The Good Sister deals with themes of sort of the price of forgiveness and sisterhood and motherhood. And I think those really are truly universal.

Mindy:             Absolutely. Yeah, they are. And I want to come back to motherhood, which you mentioned. I love how you portray motherhood and it's not all glowing skin and happiness. There are ugly parts to motherhood and you're drawing real women here, you're drawing the actual mother, but also a caretaker. And they're not always the picture of the idolized, happy, glowing mother that is so thrilled to be up at 3:00 AM holding their baby and staring into their face with great love. These are stressed women, these are modern women with modern concerns, but they are still the primary caretakers for an infant and an event and a toddler need constant care and support. So I really liked what you were doing, showing the stresses of motherhood and especially on a mother that is also working and trying to balance their lives. So if you could talk a little bit about that, what your goals were there, and also if you've had any, if you had any sort of concerns about portraying motherhood realistically.

Gillian:             I mean, yeah, I think I always want to write real characters and not a single one of my characters is without flaws. They may not all be completely likable, but it was important to me that they would be real. Like you say, it would be easy to write a novel where somebody loses a child where they were in the idle of motherhood and they were loving 100% every moment of it. But I observed my friends and family who have had children and it just isn't the case. Of course, real life is just more complicated than that.

Gillian:             And motherhood is, from what I can tell, being childless, it seems like a huge life upheaval and you suddenly have to prioritize somebody else when you've had maybe 30 years of prioritizing yourself. And I think it's both fascinating how sort of willingly people manage to do that. When to me it looks so difficult. Um, but also how complex their relationship it really is. And you've created another human and you've got that bond for life and there's nothing like it. So I really just wanted to use the crime as a vehicle to sort of explore that relationship and, and put pressure on it too.

Mindy:             And the other thing you did that I thought was interesting, isn that we're not looking at a cherubic little baby that's always perfect and easy to take care of. None of them are. And I really appreciated that. Like you were showing a colicky baby. You're showing, you know, up in the middle of the night with a baby that won't stop crying and you can't figure out why to the point that it's like, you know, you're, you're understanding why some women do snap. Why that caretaker role is very much as you're saying, putting someone else first. You are second if not last in the consideration.

Gillian:             Yes, totally. I noticed that that is a particular concern for women that some women feel that they do come last in the pecking order. Um, and you know, The Good Sister does definitely explore that hierarchy and that inequality that sometimes women do feel like the martyr of the family and you know, rightly so, in some circumstances. And it was important for me. I see so many crime novels where there is a family but the children just sort of run off, you know, off stage left during important plot moments.

Gillian:             And really The Good Sister is about Layla the baby, and so I wanted to portray her as, even though she was eight weeks, as fully rounded. And I don't know a single person who has a baby who just sleeps in the corner all the time. So I didn't want to write a book where that happened either.

Mindy:             Right, exactly. No, even the baby is a very real character, which is lovely. I want to ask about why the uh, main character, why did you have her as being the head of a nonprofit? I was curious about that choice for her employment.

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Gillian:             Well it was born out of a plot problem really, which I spoke to a lot of my friends and my sister who has children and I said, what would compel you to leave an eight week old overnight? And they, they really said family emergencies. Some women may feel comfortable doing that and some not. But I wanted Martha to have an exceptional reason because I knew that her likability would be in question. And I, you know that rightly or wrongly because men do leave their children, generally speaking. I don't want to gender stereotype, but maybe they leave them earlier than than women do. Men might go away for a night earlier. And part of that is biological. I really wanted Martha to have a cast iron reason for doing so because I didn't want the reader to not side with her. So really that was born out of a crime writers plotting problem.

Gillian:             But then it opened up so many interesting questions about the greater good. And Martha's charity is dealing with children who are refugees and so they sort of arguably need her more than her own baby, or at least that's the way it works in Martha's hyper logical mind, although she obviously comes to regret it. And it actually sort of started a really interesting debate with myself about the morality of leaving your own child to care for other people's. Both Becky and Martha actually both do that.

Mindy:             And you're totally right about it being a likeability problem for your reader because you do have to have sympathy on the side of, of Martha in order for the book to work. And it is an unfortunate truth that in our society, a mother that is leaving her young child is automatically going to have a strike against her. She has to have a very good reason for doing that

Gillian:             In the same way that I turned the plot problem of the courtroom being kind of tedious in some ways into what I like best about the book - the witness vignettes - I have turned the plot problem of Martha's likability into something I explored and I actually, I began to address it in the text because I was thinking, well Scott was away that night too, which is Martha's husband. They both left the baby. But Martha is the culpable one in the eyes of society and the press and even the courtroom. And I actually then started to discuss that in the book because I just thought it was so interesting. I mean you see it all the time in the media, you know female sports people asked how, how they balance it with motherhood and men are much more rarely asked and that is something that women are beginning to question in the public eye, which is really brilliant. And it was sort of a way to explore that slight inequality that still exists.

Mindy:             Yes, it absolutely does. Which brings me to Becky who is the sister who is trying to find a way to support herself and the child that she has but having a hard time finding her own path and knowing what she wants. So in some ways you have the same struggle going on with Becky where there's a career need while also being a parent. Her child is older, she has a son, but there is that question again because she is a parent and because she is focused on her own career of likability and of course we have the title of the book, The Good Sister. The assumption is that Martha is the good sister. Becky is the one that has less of a positive trajectory. She doesn't have all of the elements of an upstanding comfortable sort of life that Martha has. So if you want to talk a little bit about that, about the squaring off of the two characters kind of against each other, the way it is used in the court, but then also how the title plays into that.

Gillian:   It was important for me to portray a kind of universal relationship and I think that the older in control, sensible sister versus the younger more volatile sister is such a universal thing and like not just in families but in romantic relationships. That sort of opposite pairing. Definitely. I see it all the time. That dynamic and I was really interested in, you know, if you've always known your younger sister had a little bit of a temper or she wasn't very good at holding a job down, how that looms really large when she's accused of a crime and all those fault lines in your relationship kind of become huge. And with The Good Sister I think. I mean ultimately that there is a strong thread of sibling rivalry running through the novel and I think each sister thinks the other is the good sister and in the conclusion they, I think they kind of come to a little bit of peace about that.

Mindy:             The book is about so many things dealing with female relationships, the sister relationship, the relationship of mothers and also of course they have their own mother who is now in a way torn. Becky is staying with her and Martha is having to kind of juggle that whole idea herself where there is this strain within their family. What do the parents believe? Do they think that Becky did it? Are they on Becky's like quote unquote side? And the parents are trying to have to walk this line between what they should and shouldn't say, what they can even talk about to their own children when there is a court and a media circus around their interpersonal relationships

Gillian:             The parents deserve their own novel don't they? It's such a fascinating kind of moral dilemma. Like what do you do if your child is accused of a crime but the victim is your other child? Um, and I think really they, they try and sort of play it even handedly between the two sisters. Even though part of Becky's bail conditions is that she resides with the parents. They don't take sides. But I think in doing so, both Becky and Martha find it frustrating. Um, but neither parent will kind of come down on one side. I don't know what the answer is in that situation. There is no right answer really. The family is sort of fractured and changed forever regardless of the outcome of the trial.

Mindy:             Things are going to pass in between people that that can't be unsaid and can't be forgotten. When you're in a situation like that, it would change you regardless of the outcome. When you don't know what the outcome will be, you're going to be reacting honestly yet guardedly. What a tricky, tricky situation.

Gillian:             No, exactly. And the parents don't know if Becky... Becky has no alternative explanation only that she didn't do it, which is not a very compelling defense. So I don't think they can do anything but wait and hope that the justice system will provide the truth, which it doesn't always. The justice system answers the question of whether there's enough evidence to convict, which is not the same as the truth.

Mindy:             Very fine distinction. So talk to me a little bit more about Becky. She's also divorced, correct?

Gillian:             She is separated, yes. She's not yet divorced. She's separated from her husband Mark. Yeah.

Mindy:             That plays into then her character, the public assumption in the way that she is read because she is in some ways kind of judged for that. She has a failed relationship. And then we have Martha, who of course is in a marriage- outwardly happy marriage. Again, it plays into the assumptions that people make about, especially women in a situation where they are separated or divorced or there is some sort of non harmonious romantic relationship. And even though the separation is amicable yet perception is that something has gone horribly wrong and that she, Becky is the one that carries the responsibility for that.

Gillian:             Yeah. I mean I think I wanted to probe the sort of notion that Martha really has it all. She's a CEO of a charity, so she's a working mother. She, she had a baby a couple of years into marriage. Um, she sort of did it all in the traditional way, whereas Becky got pregnant, I think she was 19. She'd just gone to university so she dropped out and then she's a single mom and she's never really held a job down. But actually if you look at who's happier - taking out the tragedy - Becky sort of says in in one of the flashback scenes where she's still with Mark when they were hanging the wallpaper in anticipation of their baby being born. She actually said, I shouldn't be happy at 19 and pregnant and dropped out of university, but I'm so happy with this man. And I think it's so interesting the sort of stories we tell ourselves about how our life has to appear to the outside world versus the messy truth with it and where you can be completely happy within chaos.

Mindy:             And chaos is a good word for Becky's life. I particularly like her opening scene where she is running around trying to acquire a particular print of fabric for a chair that is needed for a TV set and they need it tomorrow. And so she's running around just insanely trying to make things come together and she's stressed and she's upset and she's calling Martha and saying, I can't believe my life. It's ridiculous. But at the same time, even though she does end up leaving that life, she's kind of thriving on it. She does enjoy it to a degree. It just becomes too much.

Gillian:             Exactly. She, she thrives on adrenaline or drama if you, if you want to kind of be slightly more judgmental about it. But Becky would tell you that she's a failure and she, oh, she can't secure the right sets for her job and she needs Martha's support. But actually what Becky can't see is that she's so resourceful. She found the zebra print at 11 o'clock at night. She found the chair, she went home and covered it. And Becky's real problem of her own self esteem and her own self perception. And I think Becky's great if only Becky could see it. I have a lot of sympathy for that character. I think she's my favorite character I've ever written.

Mindy:             Yeah. Oh Becky is fascinating and so much fun to read about. I think what you're saying about the problem of self esteem is also true of Martha to a degree.

Gillian:             Yeah. And in some ways that's why the title, I think it's quite good because they both think the other is the good sister and neither of them can see that own qualities. And because they're so opposite, they wish they were the other. But if only they could sort of see that they're perfectly adequate themselves.

Mindy:             And that's kind of true of all women I would assume. I mean, unfortunately part of society, how this works is that we're always measuring ourselves against one another, be it a sibling or a friend or even an enemy. We're trying to figure out who is better looking, who is more successful, who has the more uh, attractive spouse or the more successful spouse, whose children are smarter. Like all of those things. We weigh those against one another and it all ends up being about you and whether you have succeeded or failed as a woman and a mother and a wife and all of the different hats that women have to wear.

Gillian:             Exactly. And particularly, you know, with the modern invention of social media, I think we do constantly compare our, our interior to peoples exterior, when actually it just, it makes us all kind of feel bad about ourselves really. So I was kind of, I was also writing about that like you know, comparison is the thief of joy and all of that.

Mindy:             Either we suffer by comparison or even if we are quote unquote winning at the comparison. I think especially as women because we're always taught to be nice and kind, we then judge ourselves for comparing in the first place.

Gillian:             There's no joy really in winning a competition that you've set up because you feel insecure. And I think the, the healthy mental health point to get to is the point where you just please yourself and when we talk about, you know, wanting to appear like you have it all or whatever, I think is like the kind of comeback to that is, well, in whose judgment? Because everybody will have a different idea of the perfect life and really you can only please yourself. That's definitely the way to wisdom whether or not any of us achieve that is another question.

Mindy:             Very true. All right. Anything lastly that you want to say about the book or anything related to the characters or your writing process for it?

Gillian:             Well, I just really hope people enjoy it. You know, I'm a UK bestseller and this is my American debut and it's, it's such a privilege to have an access to such a wide audience and I'm just, I'm thrilled and I really hope people enjoy it. And if they want to get in touch with me, I'm on Twitter as at GillianMAuthor and Instagram, actually as GillianMAuthor and on Facebook as Gillian McAllister, author.

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 www.writerwriterapantsonfire.com If the blog or podcast have been helpful to you, or if you just enjoy listening, please consider donating. Visit www.writerwriterpantsonfire.com and click support the blog and podcast in the sidebar.

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Loss Leaders & Pre-Order Campaigns with Lori Goldstein

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Mindy:             Welcome to Writer, Writer, Pants On Fire. Where authors talk, 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 www.mindymcginnis.com and make sure to visit the Writer, Writer Pants On Fire blog for additional interviews, query critiques, and more, at www.writerwriterpantsonfire.com If the blog or podcast have been helpful to you or if you just enjoy listening, please consider donating. Visit www.writerwriterpantsonfire.com and click support the blog and podcast in the sidebar. Today's guest is Lori Goldstein, former journalist and current author, an editor who has a bachelor's in journalism and previously worked for technology publications in the East Coast, Silicone Valley City of Boston. Laurie joined me today to talk about how the query process actually works, even though we all know how painful it is.

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Mindy:             Listeners are always curious about how my guests got their agent. So the query trenches are really tough place to be. But I've found through talking to writers over years and years that the majority of my guests on both the blog and the podcast found their agents by writing those cold queries. So what about you?

Lori:                 I am fitting writing with the majority of the people that you've talked to. Uh, I've been fortunate in my career to have two agents. I'm on my second agent right now and I found both of my agents through the query trenches. The first time it still was through the query trenches, but it wasn't for the book that became my first book, Becoming Jinn. I had written an adult book, many problems with it. One of those was I didn't know how to write a query and I was fortunate to get help from some writers online. People that were very generous on Twitter and offered to read my query and give feedback on it. And without their help, I probably wouldn't have gotten an agent because I really just had no idea how to put that query together. So when I was querying that first book that I had written, I'd finally gotten to the shape where I thought I could, could query it.

Lori:                 I wrote that query and I started to get hits on it. Unfortunately, no one offered representation on it, but the agent who became my first agent had really liked my writing, said very complimentary things and said, send me your next book. So I did, I finished Becoming Jinn and I wrote the query for it and I put it out there to, you know, a wide array of agents. And one of them was that first agent who requested my first book and she became my agent. There were other people in the mix, but we had a great connection. So then the next time when my agent and I mutually decided to part ways - she was no longer going to be representing kid lit, and I was continuing to write in the young adult genre - so I found myself needing another agent and I did it again through the query trenches.

Lori:                 By that point I had been fortunate to meet a lot of other published authors and speak with them about their agents and what they liked about them and not liked about them and I got many referrals from friends, which is always a great thing. And I think people think that's how you get an agent. You have to network, you have to do it that way. And I did send queries with referrals and I sent ones I would just call cold calls into the slush pile and the woman who became my agent was from the slush pile

Mindy:             And it's amazing to me that the slush, it works. People hate it. I understand why they hate it. I was there for 10 years. I know that when I was an aspiring writer and I would see published writers saying," don't knock the query process, it works. That's how I got my agent." I'm sitting there going, "well that's easy for you to say." I was querying for 10 years before I got an agent. It was a decade. I have four novels that I queried and were rejected continuously. A lot of that is because I didn't know how to write a query or a book. I would just become so angry and when I would see people saying "the query process works, you just have to do it right." And I'm like, well, I don't like you because you're successful. You know? And then now I find myself in that same position where I'm telling aspiring writers, look, I know it sucks, but the truth is that it does work.

Mindy:             Even though it feels like the doors are closed and the windows are shuttered and the curtains are drawn, you can get in there. You just have to write a good query. And I want everyone to know that when I say those things I say at as someone that was just tortured for 10 years in those query trenches, I mean I remember, I know what it's like and I'm still telling you that it does work. I got my agent through cold queries. I like what you're saying too about having referrals. It is a business where knowing people helps. Any business is that way, but you do not have to. I tell people, I am a farmer's daughter from a tiny town in Ohio. I did not know anyone. I had zero references. Yeah, I sent a cold query into the slush pile and I got an agent that sold my book to Harper Collins and now I am a full time writer and it is because I took the time to learn how to write a query and write it well. And I also like what you're saying about finding people online to help you with that. I was a member of and a moderator for a long time of a forum for aspiring writers called Agent Query Connect. It's not as active as it used to be, but 10 years ago that was a really great place to be. If you were looking for people, other aspiring writers, and also people a few rungs ahead of you on the ladder to help you with that query. So you mentioned Twitter. Were there any other places that you looked online for help with that query writing?

Lori:                 When I was querying, it was around the time of 2012 2013 and at that time we had some very unfortunate natural disasters. I believe that was Hurricane Sandy at that time and a couple of other things that happened. And what happens around these unfortunate incidents and still happens now is often there are auctions that writers get together and sometimes there are agents involved as well to raise money for, to help support the cause. And a lot of times people will give away critiques and query critiques. And that was something I remember being a part of my learning process, was participating in some of those auctions, donating some money, which was great. And then in return I was able to get feedback from other published writers as well as agents. And I made it a priority to get that feedback on my query because I knew that was where I really needed to get the right work done and I really needed it to shine, to represent the book in the best way. And that was a great resource for me and I know those kinds of things still exist

Mindy:             And follow agents, follow editors, follow published writers on Twitter. There is a lot of good advice out there. I mean Twitter can be a quagmire sometimes, but if you are active on Twitter you can find a lot of good advice on there. I also want to add that I do free query critiques on the Writer, Writer Pants On Fire blog every Saturday. It's called the Saturday Slash. Those are free, so if you want to check that out, go to writerwriterpantsonfire.com and click on editorial services and that will pop up and that is free. Coming up. Lori's first book series, writing loss leaders like prequel novellas and preorder campaigns. Are they worth it? Also creating swag that works.

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Mindy:             So let's talk about your first book that was Becoming Jinn. It is part of an urban fantasy series that deals with the magical world of Jinn. It was followed by a sequel and then a short story prequel. The short story is free and it's available as a download. When you are creating content like that, is that a strategic marketing choice and more importantly, does it work?

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Lori:                 It was absolutely a strategic marketing choice. I had seen other authors doing short stories. Sometimes they were part of preorder campaigns. Especially when you have a series and you have the sequel coming out to offer a short story in the world or maybe deleted content or something like that. I had seen a lot of other authors doing that at the time and I said, well, you know, I love these characters. I'd love to write more about them and why don't I do the same thing and create some extra bonus content. And it was something I could have just put on my website and pointed to. I decided with Macmillan's approval that we could make it a short story and have it as a Freebie online that people could download. Whether you're an existing fan of the series and you want more or you're kind of browsing through the free content on Amazon and come across this story and see if maybe it whets your appetite for the full series.

Lori:                 So that was definitely a marketing decision in order to write it. I had a lot of fun doing it. It was fun to return to the girls and put them a couple of years earlier. So it's set a couple of years before Becoming Jinn begins and I had a lot of fun doing it. Does it work? I don't think it works. I don't have hard numbers because you can't get hard numbers for ebooks. In this free category, at least in in my current situation, I can't get hard numbers for it. But I can see the Amazon rank and you can compare that to the book's rank and look at it that way. And also, you know, look at numbers on Goodreads and how many ads it has on Goodreads. So there are some metrics that you can kind of use and I don't think it gave a bump to the series. So that is the honest truth. I have met people at festivals or at book events asking if there was going to be another book in the Becoming Jinn world. And I said no, but there is this free little short story and they were excited to get, you know, another glimpse into the world. So for that purpose it's enticing readers to go back to the story world and read it when they're existing fans. But I do not see it as a way to garner new fans.

Mindy:             Well and that's something that we're all still looking for. That magical key that brings people in and grabs their attention and FREE makes people click. But the audience that you are attracting when you use the word FREE as an advertising or marketing ploy typically is not the audience that is going to shell out money for a book.

Lori:                 Yeah, exactly that that was some of the problems that some authors were finding by putting content on Wattpad, which I think is just a great resource for young writers and new writers and teen writers. I have an author friend who put in a complete story, a novel, you know, week by week uploaded chapters hoping that that was going to drive content to her existing books. And for the exact reason you said it did not, she had a lot of reads, but there was absolutely no correlation to the books that were published because if someone is looking to read in a certain way and a certain format and that format being free, it's not a good translation to purchasing a book. It doesn't mean it's not worthwhile. If you love doing it and you'd like to get different kinds of content out there that perhaps you wouldn't publish with your publisher. Strict marketing is much more involved and something to really be thinking about to understand what works and what doesn't.

Mindy:             It's very true. The free audience is out there and they are ravenous but they typically are not going to pay for their content. There is so much content out there, you can read for free for the rest of your life if you want to. But you know one thing that I have done - for my listeners, when you are talking about marketing and you have something that you're offering like that for free, it's called a loss leader - and what I have done is created a short story that is tied into my newsletter. And so if you sign up for my monthly newsletter, you get the free short story and that has boosted the newsletter subscriptions. So I'm accessing that free audience by offering them a short story and then they will get my newsletter and hopefully something in the newsletter will catch their attention, perhaps draw them into something more.

Mindy:             Or at the very least, I use the newsletter to advertise when I have a kindle daily deal or a 99 cent offer on one of my books, whatever the case may be. And maybe some of that audience will translate into a dollar 99 deal or something like that. Something else that I want to add is that when we're talking about marketing, a lot of people use giveaways to drive adding people, or getting people to sign up for things like a mailing list or subscribing to a podcast or a blog. I have found that when you do a giveaway, you are getting the same audience. You're getting that free audience. So you might get a sudden glut of followers on Twitter or additions to your mailing list, but they're just there for that free whatever you're giving away. And then over time they're going to trickle away from you.

Mindy:             So they're going to unfollow you on Twitter, so that they can follow you again with the same account when you have the next giveaway. So it's actually not benefiting you at all. And then the other thing, especially with a mailing list, once you reach a certain level of subscribers you are paying, I use MailerLite. I just switched over from MailChimp and I started using MailerLite. And right now I've got room for about, I think maybe 500 or a thousand more before I get bumped up and I have to pay a higher rate because my subscriber list is decent size. It's about 1500 right now. But I did a giveaway a very large giveaway twice in this past year. I did one in December with another group, a large group of YA writers and then I did one in March with a group of Sci-Fi and fantasy writers and I got a ridiculous amount, something like 2,500 new subscribers each time.

Mindy:             It was insane. And then the next time I sent out a newsletter I had like a thousand people unsubscribe, as soon as the news letter went out and then people forget. I mean that's the other thing, they forget that they signed up. So I would send out a newsletter and then I would get the stats on my site, people were marking it as spam. People were marking it as "I didn't sign up for this". And it's like, no, you did. You just don't remember doing it. And now I've got like a flag on my account that I'm a spammer. So it's something that I have definitely rethought about how I want to market and who I want to market to when you're working with giveaways because you are attracting a pretty large audience there that may or may not actually be interested in what you have to say.

Mindy:             They just want what you're giving away. And when you are paying for their email information through a service like MailerLite, you're paying to have them on your list. You don't want to be paying people that aren't ever going to open your emails, are going to unsubscribe immediately or are going to mark you as a spammer because they forgot they signed up. It's such a difficult tight rope to walk because you want to grow that list really fast and giveaways are a great way to do it, but it may not be the most actual productive way for a healthy and interactive list.

Lori:                 I agree and I think the one problem is, even in the time that I've started - you know before publication, through publication and awaiting my next book being out - the the market of authors and especially the market of authors promoting themselves on social media and on Twitter and on Instagram, I feel like has grown exponentially and early on doing a preorder campaign or doing a giveaway, you seem to be engaging more real readers or bloggers or people who really had an interest in the books. And with the proliferation of more people entering and more people marketing this way, that has gotten worse for the author in being able to promote to their actual readers through giveaways and through promotions and retweet and follow kind of things. I feel like it's very different now than it was back in 2014 or 2015

Mindy:             Very, I used to host a giveaway every Friday on my blog. I would have a giveaway. The entrants would be just like you're saying, follow me Twitter, subscribe to me on Youtube, you know, all those things. And I would get like a healthy, it didn't really matter what the book was, I would get healthy entry numbers and now it's like 14 or 20. So many people doing it that you've got to have a book that everybody wants. Like you have to have the eighth Harry Potter book, You know, cause it's like you gotta be giving away something that people are going to beat each other over the head for. Or you have to be part of a large group giveaway where somebody is going to be receiving 15 books, you know, something like that in order to actually get attention. You're also totally right about preorder campaigns.

Mindy:             I started doing some, just to kind of experiment. I think I got maybe 12. I mean it was just, it wasn't worth it. It's just not worth the effort that you put into it, the organization, everything that you do. There's so much free content and there's so many extra special bonus lists and things that you can be a part of that it's so hard to make your voice heard in the echo chamber anyway. The amount of effort you're going to put into something like a preorder campaign or a giveaway, it's going to get lost and it's not going to be worth your time. That's my current opinion.

Lori:                 I agree. And I'm actually in the middle of a preorder campaign right now for, for my new book, Screen Queens. I did a preorder with Becoming Jinn. That was quite successful and it was a lot of work. It was a giveaway of gift cards. It was a reader and writer preorder campaign. So if you're a reader, you could be entered to win gift cards to various places. If you were a writer, you were able to enter it and you automatically got either a query or a first page critique if you preorder it. And then I picked one person and I did a full manuscript critique. So that was a lot of time to put together and quite some time after the fact, because I, I forget my exact numbers, but between the two, I know I had at least 125 preorders and there were probably split equally between the editing and the gift card giveaway.

Lori:                 And so that was a lot of work after the fact for me to edit all these queries, first pages and then a full manuscript critique for free. That's something that I don't even know if would still work now. I didn't have the time to kind of do that kind of promotion again and my preorder campaign now, it's just started. My expectations are reasonable along the lines of what you're saying. But I think the benefit for me at least is, it was content to put in my newsletter and my newsletter is made up of readers and librarians and teachers who signed up that I've met at places. But it's also a lot of family friends, older acquaintances who wanted to be updated on my books and my book going on. But they're not actually that active on social media. So they needed a way to be aware of that, I have a new book coming out and so that was content for my newsletter to kind of reach that segment that will want to hear from me and will want to know I have a new book. So it was a combination of let me run the preorder campaign, get it out there, but also have content and have a way of reaching a segment of audience that I don't have another way to reach. So depending on where you are, you can evaluate if something like that is worth it. Or you just do the newsletter announcement without the preorder campaign attached that that's a way to do that as well.

Mindy:             That's super smart. I'm impressed. Back to your Becoming Jinn preorder giveaway, you said you mentioned you were giving gift cards away to readers. How much money were you investing then in gift cards?

Lori:                 You know, I, I should have looked back on it. I don't remember specifically. I think I had a variety of a couple of in like the 15 and $25 and I think my biggest one was a hundred so it was certainly probably $200.

Mindy:             Wow. So you had not only your time with the critiquing, but you also had quite a bit of your own money wrapped up in the preorder campaign.

Lori:                 Yes, definitely. It did help with my preorders. The question is how many of those people would have preordered without the giveaway. I don't know. That's something we'll never know. So it's a decision that each author has to make.

Mindy:             Marketing's a pot shot.

Lori:                 It really is. And you know, what works for one book might not work for another. One thing I did want to say that was actually a helpful marketing tool that again, was not used as much early on when I did it with Becoming Jinn and I've seen it a bit more now. First chapter booklet. And a lot of times publishers are putting these together for their biggest lead titles. They'll put a little package together. It's like, oh, like a pamphlet. Sometimes they're smaller size of the first chapter or the first couple of chapters of a book that they send either to bookstores or they have out for promotional purposes. And I created one with the designer of the first chapter of Becoming Jinn. The first chapter had a good first page and it ended on a nice little cliffhanger at the end of the first chapter. Chapter one was about eight pages when it was laid out.

Lori:                 It had the cover on the front and information about me and, and blurbs and things on the back. And that was something I paid for. It is not an inexpensive item of swag, if that's what you want to call it. But I found that was one of my most successful marketing efforts. I had gone to a lot of festivals. I did a lot of bookstores, I did a lot of events with fellow authors that we had books coming out at the same time. And you're sitting there at a table and someone might be buying the book of the author next to you, but they're not buying yours. And you know they may only have money to buy one book that day but they're interested in yours. Or maybe they just don't think your book is interesting for them. When you have the chance to hand them something that has actual content, not just a bookmark but they can take that home, read through and you might entice people who ordinarily weren't going to buy your book.

Lori:                 I've even been at festivals where I handed it out at a, at a table and someone comes back later that they read the first chapter and they wanted to buy the book. So that's a tool that I feel like was actually worthwhile to do and to spend the money on.

Mindy:             That's a good tip. I like it. I've never done that myself, but I've seen a lot of people do it. Maybe I'll try that for my next one. I like the Idea. You mentioned Screen Queens, which is your next release. It is pitched as a teen girls invade Silicon Valley story. So what made you interested in telling this type of tail?

Lori:                 I have to say probably the first thing is that I am married to a huge tech lover, so he infuses that into my life, whether it's appliances that turn on and off, a voice activated or the latest new device or gadget that he wants. The side benefit of that is when I have computer problems, he's always around to fix them.

Lori:                 So it's a good thing that he's this into tech and this tech savvy. I kind of developed my own interest in in the tech world and one of my favorite podcasts to listen to aside from yours is called Startup. It detailed starting a podcasting company. It was very meta, but the second season of that podcast was about three women starting a dating app and it followed them from the time that they were coming up with the idea, through launching it, through going to what's called YC, which is a technology incubator, very, very coveted place to go. And it followed their whole process to the unfortunate end of the company dissolving and the founders leaving. Listening to that podcast really affected me because these women put so much into this and what they were finding when they reach the stage where they were going after funding was offers of funding offers to invest in their company and take this app that they've been building to, to the next level often came with an invitation to drinks or dinner and these were things that they were talking about openly on this podcast, their male counterparts in the tech field were not experiencing these same things.

Lori:                 So that was one of the things that really kind of stuck in my mind as I was thinking about what I would like to write and kind of the the story I'd like to tell, the message I'd like to tell, and translating that down to an audience for young adults. It got me really thinking about my own experiences with science and math and technology and I was always the English major. I loved English and writing and down through high school. Junior high science and math were never my strong suit. But as I thought about it, what's interesting is that was okay with my parents. It was never expected that I would do great in math or science. When my SAT scores came and they were very low on that side, but sky high on English, that was okay and I never was encouraged nor had the confidence to kind of pursue anything like that.

Lori:                 Yet now as an adult kind of into this tech world and learning a little coding on my own to do my website or things like that, I realize it's something I probably would have been interested in. If I had either the encouragement or the confidence to pursue that. So all of this kind of was swarming in my head and came out in these three girls who have very different backgrounds but are all very much into tech, into coding and into wanting to create a new app or a new business or found something that is going to have a significant effect on the world that we live in now, which is obviously very tech driven. So that's kind of how what influenced me putting this story together.

Mindy:             That's fascinating. I love what you're saying about the inferred sexism of course in technology. Also in, of course, we all know the gaming world and math. My father, he is a farmer. We're ninth generation farmers over here, but he did teach math for a period of time in the 70s when he graduated from college. He graduated with a degree in mathematics education and he did teach math for quite a while and then ended up just deciding that farming was where he fit best and has of course been doing that for his entire life. And that's not a profession that you ever retire from. I can tell you that. It's so interesting to me now as an adult because I struggle with math. I'm just, it's just not there for me. You're talking about the tests, like your graduation tests and all those things and, and I was the same.

Mindy:             It's like I was happy to pass my math ones, you know, and everything else, would be like, yeah, you're ready to go to college. As an adult, I look back at my dad helping me with my math homework and just being like, Mindy, you can do this. You can do this. Like never ever referring to my gender as being an impediment. Never ever inferring that there was a reason why I couldn't. I can appreciate that so much now as an adult because it's like he was, you know, a teacher in the 70s it wasn't exactly the least sexist time. You know, that was never anything. He never ever referred to my gender being an issue in my math capabilities.

Lori:                 Good for your dad.

Mindy:             Yeah. He's a good guy. I love the title Screen Queens.

Lori:                 It's great and I can't take credit for it. There was a period of about two months of my editor and I going back and forth with ideas and list them and nothing was hitting. There was a couple, we floated Girls Club for a little while because a play on the idea of Boys Club. And as we were kind of talking about that and I was testing it out on the, on some friends, girls teens, the age of who will be reading the book and they had no idea what we were talking about and I realize that's not translating. I just don't know anymore. The team at RazorBill got together and had several meetings to come up with a title, so I give them all the credit for it. They worked hard and they came up with something great.

Mindy:             I find it encouraging that teens today don't know what Boys Club means. That's awesome. You were talking before about your giveaway and your preorder campaign for Becoming Jinn and how you offered editing services. That is something that you offer still through your website. You have a background in journalism and you have been an instructor at Grub Street in Boston. So all of that obviously boosts your editing credentials. So tell us a little bit about the services that you offer and where listeners can go to find that.

Lori:                 I've kind of come 100% full circle, and one of the things I love to do most is help people with their queries. I have worked as an intern at a small local children's publisher in the Boston area, and through that I was reading the slush, that was part of my job and I saw a lot of the same mistakes I would make in queries and things that could have been done better. Combined with working as a Pitch Wars mentor, the big contest, Pitch Wars, I was a mentor for three years, and over the course of that, I have read, and I'm not exaggerating, 500 queries. I've given feedback on almost all of them because as I'm mentoring Pitch Wars I said, if I'm going to do this, I want to help people like people helped me. And so I would give feedback on everybody's query.

Lori:                 So through that I've really kind of gotten this down of like what a query needs to do and more importantly what a query shouldn't do. So query editing has become one of my favorite things to do and I offer what I call a submissions package. That's your query, your synopsis and your first page to kind of get those things that get right in front of the agent right away in the best shape possible. And because I think it's important to grow and not just get feedback once because you don't know if you've implemented it in a way that is working. So I always offer two passes on that. So you get an edit on each of those pieces twice. So you get to see if the way you reworked it is resonating. That's one of my favorite things to do. The submission package. And I also do manuscript editing for all genres, including adults. I just finished a spy thriller. I've done several memoirs and I do copy editing, line editing or big picture editing. If somebody wants all three, I do all three and I have packages for each of those and that's right on my website at www.LoriGoldsteinbooks.com editing services.

Mindy:             That is awesome, especially the submissions package offering. That is incredible.

Lori:                 It's great and people, they love the fact that they get to see if what they've done works and I will say by the time we get to the that final second pass, people are well on their way to having like a great query. It's great to see people be able to hone in on really what their story is about, just by asking a few key targeted questions. No matter how many queries you read, if you read success stories online and you read queries on Writer's Digest, I believe has queries that have gotten agents, it's hard to apply it to your own story because we're so close to our own stories and talking about what are the stakes and consequences that really must come through in a query. You know them in your head and they're not translating to the page, but when somebody from the outside is pointing that out, you can see it and you can get to it in a way that would be really hard to do on your own.

Mindy:             Absolutely. It's called manuscript blindness and it is the truth. Putting together a new website for myself, I've been going back through my appearances and my guest posts and my interviews that I've done all over the internet. I will see an interview or a guest post that I did in 2013 and there's a typo like in the first line and I'm like, oh my God. You know, and it's so hilarious to me because I had read it so many times in 2013 that I didn't see it. And in 2019 I go back and I'm like, boom, oh my God, there's a typo in the first line. Sometimes you need either space or the long period of time to be able to get the distance, to actually see the words. And then also of course just fresh eyes, fresh eyes. If you don't want to wait six years to make sure you got it right, just you know, fresh eyes. Hire Lori.

Lori:                 Fresh eyes are really important. Another tip that one of my journalism professors had said was when you're trying to do that final edit on something, read it backwards. So then you're reading every word individually for itself and your brain has this tendency to insert missing words or you know, go over that Typo that you couldn't see. But if you read it backwards, you've tricked your brain into looking at it a different way and you'll often find the mistakes that way. So it's hard to read a full manuscript that way, but you can definitely do it with a query letter.

Mindy:             I have heard that before that that's a copy-editing trick to read it backwards and it'll really help you catch those little mistakes. I'm working right now on putting together just a little a loss leader to get people to sign up to follow the blog. I'm putting together a little quick printable of, you know, how to write a synopsis. I was just kind of scrolling through StoryFix and looking at some of the information that they had out there and there was a typo in highly trafficked article - Beat Sheet 101 - writing up a beat sheet and explaining what a beat sheet is and using bulleted points. And then it said "your bulleted points once you begin to flush them out will quickly become a synopsis." But it said "it will quicky become a synopsis." They didn't mean quickie. That's not what they mean. It just, the particular font that they were using, that the lower case "l" was just lost and I wouldn't have seen it if I hadn't been, I highlighted the paragraph, you know, like to copy it so that I could post and then of course credit them, because I copied and pasted it and went into a different font. I saw it right away and I was like, oh my gosh, look at that. So I've heard that. That's another trick too that you can, if you change the font, it can help you see things.

Lori:                 Definitely a trick. And you can also do it if you, if you have a device, a tablet or a kindle or something. I always read my manuscript in different format, so I read it on screen, I read it printed and I read it on my kindle. And you'll see things each way that you wouldn't have seen in another format.

Mindy:             Yup, that's absolutely true. Last question, tell us about what is up next for you. What are you working on and tell us also where listeners can find you online.

Lori:                 I'm working on my next young adult novel that I cannot say all that much about, but I am on deadline for it. So that probably tells you a little something that is going to happen with it, but I cannot really give details. It follows in the same vein of the idea of Screen Queens of capturing something that is timely, putting it into the world of young adults. I get to use some of my journalism background, and we were looking at politics and the intersection with the media, social media and journalism, what journalism isn't, what journal journalism is becoming. So that's kind of the little, the little nugget, but I can't share details as of yet, hopefully soon. So my website, which I just redid it, so go check it out and let me know what you think, is www.LoriGoldsteinbooks.com and I am most often these days on Instagram. Was a huge lover of Twitter and I still enjoy the format, but with less time I'm finally, I only have time to really focus on one. So while I can be found on Twitter, not as often. Instagram @LoriGoldsteinBooks is where I am and I think it's partly when you're so in this world of words you need a break and the visual break of of Instagram, whether it's posting my own pictures or reviewing the people I follow is actually a nice mental break to go into a different kind of creative world that I'm really kind of enjoying lately.

Mindy:             That's very cool. That's a wonderful way to think of it. I like that a lot.

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 www.writerwriterapantsonfire.com If the blog or podcast have been helpful to you, or if you just enjoy listening, please consider donating. Visit www.writerwriterpantsonfire.com and click support the blog and podcast in the sidebar.

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