Ep 125 Romance Powerhouse Alessandra Torre

AuthorBooksPencils&Lipstick podcast episode

Alessandra Torre is a  romance author and romantic suspense writer (under the name  A R Torre). She has over 20 books, with one made into a movie for PassionFlix. Alessandra has earned the USA Today’s best-seller list several times with mulitple books.

But Alessandra doesn’t keep her success to herself. She also wants to help other authors acheive what she’s been able to acheive, a passion that has led her to create INKERSCON, an annual conference where both experts in publishing and marketing as well as author gather to learn and network with each other. This year’s INKERSCON is in June in Dallas, TX and will be sold virtually as well.

Looking to join the Story Clarity Workshop? Click here

 

Transcript starts here.

Kat (00:14)

Welcome to the Pencils and Lipstick Podcast, a weekly podcast for writers.

Kat (00:20)

Grab a cup of coffee. Perhaps some paper and pen, and enjoy an interview with an author, a chat with a writing tool creator, perhaps a conversation with an editor or other publishing experts, as well as Cat thoughts on writing and her own creative journey.

Kat (00:36)

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry. Well, hopefully not actually cry, but you will probably learn something. And I hope you’ll be inspired to write because as I always say, you have a story. You should write it down. This is Pencils and Lipstick. Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 125 of the Pencils and Lipstick Podcast. I was going to say October. It is April 3. Yes, it is April 3. It’s not. It’s April 2. Oh, my gosh. Welcome, everyone, to the Pencils and Lipstick Pockets. It’s April 2, 2022. And we are on episode 125. Well, that was a wonky start to the show, but that’s all right. Today I have an amazing guest. You are going to absolutely love listening to her. Her name is Alessandra Tory. Yes. She is a romance writer and a romantic suspense writer. She knows a ton of stuff about indie publishing and traditionally publishing. And she has this great thing called Inkers Con pretty much every year, which I was really interested in because I find that to be, like, so amazingly, a lot of work to put together this conference. But I attended last year because, funny story, I found this ticket in my box, which then I later found the payment on my bill.

Kat (02:12)

So it wasn’t a gift. It was me. I had bought it probably on a whim, but I actually had a really good time attending. She has amazing speakers, lots of authors, but lots of people also who understand marketing and business. And that’s what we need as authors, right? Especially in the authors. And this year she gets to do it live again. So we talk about her writing journey, about her anchors Con journey, and about all the things in between. If you don’t follow Alessandra already, you really should. She’s been around since 2012, and she’s kind of in that group of indie writers who really got in on the ground floor of indie writing. And so in indie publishing, so they really understand the world. They’ve seen what has changed. So I think they have a really good bird’s eye view of what to go all in on and what might change in the near future. But I also love just how willing she is to learn new things. And we talk about that as well. You should head on over to her website and you should follow her, of course. Links are in the show notes.

Kat (03:25)

Her name is Alessandra Torre. It’s T-O-R-R-E. Even if you don’t read romance, she has a lot of really good advice for authors. I enjoy her good reads webinars that she does every once in a while. I don’t know how often she doesn’t, but that is definitely something to keep an eye out on. She’s really good on good reads and on how authors can utilize good reads and use it, like to the biggest benefit of selling books, which is what we all want to do. Correct? This past week, I have been working a lot on my stories. Like I told you last week, going back to really the heart of the stories, the heart of the characters. And amazingly enough, I had the opportunity to talk to a new writer who just sort of came and asked me, how do you have this idea for this person? What do I do with it? How do you go from idea and like scribbles to an actual book? And so it was really fun to be able to sit down with her, and we didn’t have tons of time, but to say, okay, you have this person. But what I would really recommend is going back to the very beginning of it.

Kat (04:43)

So what is it that you sort of want to talk about with this book? And she said, well, I kind of want to use some of my experience and some of my friends experience to say, like, what if all of the romance, Fumbles and Stumbles actually brought me to the point that she’s talking in her character’s voice of finally finding love in myself and being okay by myself? And I said, well, that’s awesome. You already have your wedding, right? And so we went through that’s a really great premise. I think that that makes an amazing book, if not series. And a lot of women would like to read that because you’re kind of going to go along the ride with this woman who is going to experience a lot of things. She’s going to go on dates. Her friends are going to go on dates. I hadn’t thought about it at the time. It kind of like Sex in the City, but really looking for yourself and seeing all these funny stories. And she is a Metropolis woman, modern woman. So she has all these stories compared to my boy and suburban mom life, friends getting together and finding true love.

Kat (05:56)

And then some of them divorcing. And she’s sort of on the sidelines and she’s like, I would love to put all these into a book. And I said, that’s awesome. But then I told her, what you really need to do, what I would recommend you do, which not everybody does, and I completely recognize that. But this is what has helped me with this new novel that I’m writing. And some of my short stories that I went back to you is sitting down and really looking at that character and finding the moment that has really defined their misbelief or their view of the world that has gone on to dictate how they respond to things in the world because the misbelief that we have. I am not enough. I am not cute enough. I don’t fit into the society mold. Even my parents didn’t think I was enough. I don’t think that I’m the marrying type or I am the type that a man will settle down with whatever she decides. Her misbelief is we don’t go around our lives psychoanalyzing ourselves and bringing that to the forefront. I did read a book recently where I think the writer had the idea correct.

Kat (07:18)

But like most of us, we have these ideas and sometimes we pull it off and sometimes we don’t. But I think one of the things that we do as we’re starting off writing, or maybe if we’re just not feeling the story, maybe that’s when it happens. Because her character would constantly talk about her misbelief, of how she recognized that because of her mom’s early onset Alzheimer’s, she had an issue with trusting people. She didn’t want to get too close because you could lose this person very early on and they could quite literally lose their minds and forget you. But in the book, in the story, she’s recognizing this within herself but then refusing to do anything about it. And that’s what I think is a little bit you have to really play with that delicately because we might recognize some of our misbeliefs, but there has to be a reason why we’re not facing them in that moment of recognition, especially in a book, because a book has an ending, whereas our lives don’t. So the reader is going to expect that when a character comes up against this wall or let’s say this mirror that shines back their misbelief in them and they’re kind of having this AHA moment, there has to be a reason for them to not grow from that the way that you can do it.

Kat (08:51)

Because if you want the idea of the story to say that actually your main character didn’t grow is you’re going to have to have another character shine a light on the main character’s misbelief and then have the main character behave in the same way and shun that and turn away from the opportunity to look themselves in the mirror. But if you have a main character looking at themselves in the mirror and looking at their misbelief, it’s really hard to swallow for a reader that they’re not going to face up to that because, again, a book is finite and we expect this to sort of be a condensed version of life, of human life. And maybe you can get away with it once, but you certainly can’t get away with it four times. It’s not that it wasn’t a good enough book to read, but it didn’t make it. Therefore, then to the list of you have to read this book on my list. Okay. Of course, that has to do with a lot of things, but I think the characters that really stick with us are those characters that either face their misbeliefs in the mirror or when the mirror is held up to them by another character, they close their eyes and say no Booboo and run away with their hands over their ears.

Kat (10:14)

There is actually a really good book, Trinity. It’s about Northern Ireland. And one of the characters, the sister. Oh, man, you’re rooting for that sister to get out of her misbelief. They grew up very Catholic, so her misbelief is that sex is scary and it’s dirty and she doesn’t want anything to do with it. And her husband loves her and so he’s willing to not do anything with her. And now she’s so close at the end to changing her misbelief. And then in the story, she doesn’t. But the mirror is held up by her brother and she refuses to look herself in the eye. So it is possible to do that and it’s possible to do it well, that book has stayed with me for a long time, and it’s really on my book of must reads, but it’s almost like the other character has to do it. So I’m talking with her about this, about their misbelief. And then what I think is probably the greatest thing ever is writing out where that misbelief came from. And to me, it took a couple of times and I wrote a couple of different scenes, and it was so much fun to do that.

Kat (11:36)

I’m surprised in myself that it didn’t feel like a waste of time because I really like to move on with my books. Oh, look at all the things. Look how far I’m going. But I think that I really realized that I needed to go back. And now I have all of these scenes written out that are really fun. They really dig into this family that he comes from. And I was thinking the other day, these are going to be great extras to give out to people. I’m really excited about it. And that’s interesting because if you’re in this world, you hear for your newsletter give out deleted scene all this. And I’m like, I don’t have like full deleted scenes. I have like half a deleted scene, lots of half a deleted scene, or like a fully rewritten scene. Why would I give the scene that before it was rewritten? But I think things are clicking in my head of like, okay, this is like a deleted scene, like a scene that helps me as a writer but didn’t make it into the book and kind of was never going to make it in the book.

Kat (12:44)

Now I was listening to the I think it’s called I Wish I Had Known Then writing podcast. I’ll put the link in the show notes if you want to check it out. They were talking about characters. I think this is a little bit older show and they sound like they do what I had done previously and that they write to get to know their character. And that’s fine if it gets to that point. And one of my issues with this new book is that it wasn’t getting to that point. I wasn’t finding that character. I didn’t understand him. And so 40,000 words in if you don’t understand your character, you really should go back. And so what I told my friend is I would just recommend that you do it from the beginning, especially because she’s a full time worker, has a whole other job, and probably doesn’t want to spend three years writing a book. So we will continue to see how that is working for me. I do not guarantee that I won’t change my mind at some point in the future or for a different book. So if you are stumped a bit on your character, on your plot, on the story itself, it’s kind of falling flat.

Kat (14:08)

I am going to have a workshop on Saturday, April 30. It’s going to be virtual. I think you should come in and see what this method is in detail that I’ve been doing. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun. We’re going to have time to write, and I’m thinking about doing this quite often throughout the year. It will help me. It will help others. I really want to be able to articulate this better to people in a shorter amount of time. So I’m going to be presenting it a lot, and you might as well be there to help your story along. If you don’t have a story yet, that’s fine. You can start from the beginning and you don’t have to go back. You can come in with an idea of a person and just go from there and build it and then go home and write. So if you want to, you can sign up. The link is below. As a Patreon member, if you are a sponsor of the show, from $$3 to $5 to $10, I don’t even know anymore what’s on there, but it starts pretty low. You will find a discount code.

Kat (15:16)

I think it’s 50% off. So it’s up to you if you want to become a Patreon supporter and you can do it for one month just to get your discount pretty much. But come on, find out how. I have, you know, put this method to the test and I’ve really enjoyed it. I think it’ll be well worth 2 hours of your Saturday. And don’t worry if you can’t make it April, I will have another one, probably end of May, early June. So other than that, I’ve been focusing a lot on marketing and getting my other books out there. I want to keep drumming up some support for the other books because I do plan on writing the second book to Stepping across the Desert. I had no plan to make that a series whatsoever, but I really want to write Philip Dosa’s story that is Kristoff’s friend. So I pretty much have the background on that one right now. And I’m excited to start writing the story. And I think I could get it done this summer. So really I have to work on Tread story first. And then I’ll go to Dosage Story. And so that is the plan.

Kat (16:37)

I’ve been listening a lot to sell more books. The podcast. I think that’s Brian Towan’s podcast and the self publishing formula contest with Mark Dawson. I have just done a lot of newsletter swaps. So book funnel, story origin, book promotions, both sales and some giveaways. And I’m probably going to run some ads. I don’t know, I’m thinking about it. I’m digging into that a little bit more. As far as the writing community goes, we had Ross McMeekin in the group just recently. We are going to do workshops these coming months. We’re going to have an Instagram and brand expert because as authors, we need to know how to do how to use Instagram and to use Instagram well, we really need to understand how to build a brand and see ourselves as a brand. So that’s what we’re going to do. I am going to bring in a Pinterest expert specialist medicine is going to do a workshop with us on scenes. J Thorn is coming in in the fall to do a workshop with us. We have a lot of really great people. And then I’m sort of waiting on some concrete yeses, from other people.

Kat (18:02)

But we also have marketing every single Friday. We have brainstorming on the third Friday of every month. And as part of the creative writing community, you have full access to the creative writing sessions membership. So we have 80 hours of Sprints and co writing. Somebody told me the other day, I think I told you all that Sprints has a bad idea, like bad shadow to that word. So they are co writing sessions, however you want to say it. We get together, we set the timer, we write. We can see each other’s screens on Zoom, but we’re pretty much just writing. And we have about 40 hours a month. Yes, it’s a little insane, but we’re getting a lot done. So that is something that you need. If you need to get some writing done, you should sign up and Sprint with us. You get one week free. You can try it out and you can cancel before the week is up and say, no, I don’t like it, or yes, give me more, please. And we will be switching the schedule a little bit for the summer, probably adding a few more hours. And into the fall we’re going to add some evening hours.

Kat (19:21)

So we’re going to try to accommodate lots of people. If you want to get a hold of me, you can find me mostly on Instagram at Catcalldell, Author, Facebook at Catcalldellautor. I’m also trying to be on LinkedIn. More Pinterest, more Goodreads. You can find me everywhere. You can find my newsletter below. I have a writer’s newsletter and a Reader’s newsletter and you can head on over to Patreon. Compencilsic. If you want to become a sponsor of the show, you will get a shout out on the show, even with your book. If you are a writer, I will shout out the name of your book as well. And like I said, you get discounts to the workshops. If you are a sponsor of the show, a patron of the show and the patrons definitely help with the payment of the editing and the putting together of the podcast. But without further Ado and I do have to remind you to subscribe and like the show and share it with all the people that you know and love and who will love listening to the show. Links are below in the show Notes and without further Ado Here’s Alessandra Tory Alexandra Tory is the New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal best selling author.

Kat (20:47)

She’s written over 23 novels, and she also writes in romance and suspense as AR Tory. Her first book, Blindfolded Innocence, was a breakout romance hit, rising to the top of the ebook charts on Amazon, where it attracted the interest of major publishing houses. Less than twelve months later, Tory signed a second figure print deal, this time with Red Hook Hatched for the Deanna Mad and Searnetic suspense trilogy. So she is both traditionally and indie published, which we talked about in the interview. But what makes Alessandra Tory Richard is that she not only has success as a writer, but as someone who helps authors become successful. She has an author community on Facebook with over 200 members, and she’s also the founder of Inkerscon, an annual authors conference as a self publishing advocate Alexander universities and conventions and author groups. And today she is speaking to us at the Pencils and Lipstick podcast. So we go through her journey becoming a writer, how she got into it, her different genres that she writes, and how she got into becoming the founder of Inkerscon, the writers conference. I think you’re really going to enjoy this show. Hello, everyone.

Kat (22:17)

Welcome to another episode of the Pencils and Lipstick Podcast. I’m excited to have with me today, Alessandra Tory. Hello, Alexandra. How are you doing?

Alessandra (22:25)

I’m fantastic. Thank you so much for having me on.

Kat (22:27)

I’m excited to have you on. You are romance writer. You’re very successful in the field. So I’m excited to hear about your writing experience and a little thing you call Inkerscon, which is not little at all. But we’ll get to that in a little bit. But before we start, could you tell people a little bit just where you’re from and then we’ll get into your story?

Alessandra (22:50)

Absolutely. So I’m a Florida girl. I live inKey West, Florida, which is a small island, the very, very Southern tip of Florida. And I write, as you said, romance. I also write suspense under AR Tory. So I have two pin names, and I am both traditionally and self published. I used to always say that my biggest success was through self publishing. Even though I had multiple traditional publishing contracts, I’ve hit the New York Times with seven times all the self published titles. So that’s really My Heart and My Love. But I really can’t say that anymore because my recent traditional publish books have taken off. But I will say that I’m an Indian heart.

Kat (23:34)

As we’re talking about before. I think most authors straddle that sense. Like, we want a little published. We want to have the freedom of indie published. But it’s great to have that acknowledgement of traditionally published, too, because it still carries that weight. It does really think your book is good.

Alessandra (23:53)

I got into the business in 2012. That was when I published my book. And then indie publishing really had the stigma. And that stigma is still in certain circles you still have especially, like, strangers who know nothing about our industry will be like, oh, are you going to get a publisher one day? And they don’t realize that we can do it just as well or better on our own. But definitely 2012. There is that stigma. And I think as you and I were chatting beforehand, it’s always kind of a grassy, greener thing. Like, even if you’re rocking and rolling and doing awesome and you’re publishing, a lot of us are still you need to know your options. Right? So you’re always kind of just paying attention to the other side of the fence in the same traditional. I have a lot of traditionally published authors that are asking me about self publishing and that are making that transition to self publishing or becoming hybrid, which I love to see.

Kat (24:45)

Oh, that’s interesting. So you started ten years ago now?

Alessandra (24:49)

Yes.

Kat (24:50)

Wow. Okay. How did you start? What did you start? In romance or in suspense?

Alessandra (24:57)

Yes. So I started the summer of 2012. I had lost my job. I was in between jobs. I was trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life, and I was lucky. The job I worked for, that company sold. My husband was one of the owners of the company, so we had some money where I could do whatever I wanted to do. So I was trying to figure out, like, gosh, what have I always wanted to do in life? And writing was not what came to mind at all. I was thinking, oh, maybe I’ll go to law school. I don’t know why I think I watched Legally Blonde at one point and thought, like, law school, but I was not thinking writing at all because I didn’t think that I had any skill. Why would I think that I had skill writing? But I love to read, and I read nonstop. And my mom actually started to write a book with a co author. So I approached her. She was writing a book, and she was telling me about self publishing, and she was sending me some of her books on writing.

Alessandra (25:54)

And I realized that there was this entire industry where someone could write a book and publish it on their own, and no one would ever have to know about it, and you wouldn’t have to send it off to New York and get rejection letters for three years. And I thought, I’m not doing anything right now. I read where El James was making, like, a million dollars a day. And I was like, you know, if I got 1% of that, I’d be like, set. So I thought, Why not? I’ll just write a book. I won’t tell a soul about it. I didn’t tell anyone, but my husband and I’ll just put it online. I’ll just see what happens. And that was what I did. I wrote a book. I wrote it. I read it twice. Sounded pretty good to me. I mean, in retrospect, it was horribly written and riddled with typos. But I thought, sounds good. I made my own cover. I stuck it on Kindle, and then I just kind of sat back and watched, and it did okay. So it was a sexy romance novel. That was another reason why I could not tell a soul about this book, because I know what I was thinking.

Alessandra (26:56)

I was thinking, oh, El James is definitely, like, dungeon it up in her house. And now I’m a total hypocrite because I’m writing all this sexy stuff. So I’m thinking people are going to think I’m doing all this stuff in my own life. So it was like, can’t tell anybody. And I was getting to the point where I was making, like, $20 a day on this book. And I thought, maybe, like, $1015 a day. But I thought if I wrote $10 and I was making ten or $15 a day, like, I wouldn’t have to go back to work. It could just be my job. I was making $38,000 a year in my job prior to that. And I was like, you know, maybe this could be a career for me. So I started thinking about a second book. And three months into my first book, we were about to leave town. And I’m sorry, I think you asked me a quick question.

Kat (27:47)

No, I love this. Go ahead.

Alessandra (27:49)

But we’re about to leave town for the weekend. And I said, I was looking at my book, this page on Amazon, which looks exactly the same. Ten years later, I haven’t changed the thing. I’m looking at my book page on Amazon, and I was like, I think I’ll write another book description. Like, I’ll just write a fresh description. So I jotted down a fresh book description. I didn’t even save the prior one. I just re uploaded it in Kendall. And we got in the car, and we drove to Memphis, which was like 7 hours away at the time as a new author, as many of you listening will know you like, obsessively check your sales rank and purchases. And so the minute we got to WiFi, this was back when I didn’t have, like, a cell phone WiFi. I checked my sales and I had had 100 sales in a six hour drive. And I was like, that’s crazy. Like there must be a glitch or something. I don’t know. So I went to dinner and came back and I had had 100 more sales when we were at dinner. And the next day I had like 600 sales the next day.

Alessandra (28:52)

And then all of a sudden I had 1000 sales a day. And then I started ranking in the top Amazon top 100. And I was having 20, 00, 30, 00 sales a day. And it was all because I changed that book description. And that is a lesson that I have carried with me for the past ten years is I didn’t realize how many people were clicking on my book page because I had a very provocative cover. I didn’t realize how many people were clicking on that book page. And the reviews were strong. I had good reviews, but that description was the missing piece. And it wasn’t when I fixed that, then my conversion went through the roof. And that really launched my entire career because at that point in time, then agents were calling me and it’s totally worth it. Yeah. I got a publishing deal. And then suddenly I had a six figure publishing deal in an agent and a publisher. And it was like, oh, I guess this is my new job with my family at this point because my life had suddenly, literally in the course of just two months, changed completely.

Kat (29:53)

Wow. Okay. So did they pick up that book or were they looking to pick up you writing a new one?

Alessandra (30:00)

So back in 2012, when indie books were going crazy, publishers didn’t really know what to do with us.

Kat (30:05)

Right.

Alessandra (30:06)

And they thought like, oh, if these Podunk authors who don’t know anything about anything, which granted, I did not know anything about anything. But there were a lot of really smart self published authors out there. But I was not one of them at that time. They were like, if they could get 50,000 sales, imagine what we could do with our system. So they were grabbing books that were hitting and doing well on Amazon, and then they’re offering these big six figure book deals, and then they were going to launch them in paperback and expecting them to take off. And they only did that for like a year and a half before they were just losing massive amounts of money.

 (30:45)

Okay.

Alessandra (30:45)

Because those books weren’t really converting. By the time we went through the traditional publishing cycle of six months or whatever, it was like people had already moved on to other titles. And so it wasn’t. So they bought that first book, which is blindfolded in a sense, in a two book deal. So they bought that in the sequel, which I hadn’t even planned on writing a sequel at that time. But suddenly it ended up being a trilogy. But I wasn’t planning on it being a sequel. And then with my third book, I did the same thing, the Girl in 60. I self published it and then six to nine months after it was out and it really didn’t even do that great. My agent was like, let’s pitch it. And we ended up selling that to hashet. But nowadays they won’t do that. They want new and I have a lot of authors come to me and they’re like, oh, this book has great reviews. It just hasn’t gotten visibility. I want to try to pitch it traditionally and they really aren’t interested in that and especially if it did not do well. Very rarely I do see them buy pre published books, but now it’s an oddity.

Kat (31:50)

Yeah, things have changed quite a bit. I think you along with a couple of other people who really hit in 20, 11, 20, 12. It was an amazing thing to have this Kindle where I mean, I was having I had babies in a rocking chair. I would have my Kindle and I would finish a book and I could go on to the next one because I had Unlimited. And so it was like a great moment for readers and for writers, I think. But then the industry has caught up on some things. So did you end up going back because you said you had Typos? Did you go back and fix those? But is it pretty much the same book as before?

Alessandra (32:32)

Yes. So some of my early reviews, I got dinged a few with one and two star reviews that were saying I needed editing at that point in time. I had earned enough where I knew I was going to get four $500, like at my next payment. So I did hire an editor and I didn’t know what I was doing. So it turned out I hired the equivalent of a proof reader, I think. But she did a very basic edit, caught five or six typos, but it still hadn’t been professionally edited or developmental edit or anything like that. So then when Harlequin bought the book, they did a professional edit, but they were really rushing it to books. And I was a brand new author. I’d never worked with an editor before. So looking back, it wasn’t a deep edit, but I don’t know if it wasn’t because of time frame or because of my own lack of knowledge at that point in time. It is hard for me to read that book now because I feel like it is amateurishly written and it’s that book that when people are like, oh, I started reading blindfolds in a sense.

Alessandra (33:40)

I’m like, oh, okay. I would love to one day get the rights back, set book and rewrite it because I think the story is amazing. But if anyone listening has read that book, I’m sorry. And I read it with a crane of salt. Yeah.

Kat (34:05)

Well, that’s one of the things about having an art that is out in the world because you grow and you learn more. And it’s one of those things where a lot of people are kind of like, I don’t know. Desiree Holt actually told me that she went back and completely rewrote her first book because she was like, I had to. I had to go back and fix it.

Alessandra (34:30)

Okay. I’ve done it on multiple backlist titles. Now, all of my indie books I feel proud of and I’m happy with, but all of the ones that I was starting to be like, cringey on when people mentioned they read them. Like, that’s my sign. Like, I need to take them off. I need to rewrite them. And my writing has changed in some ways, in some ways not a great thing. I was on a private author chat the other day and we were talking about how when we go back and read our first stuff, it was so raw. Like, raw was the word three of us used. Like, we weren’t afraid. We would write really bold stuff. And I think with society and everything else we’ve gotten so worried about offending in 2012. Like, a hero would grab the hero in and shove her against the wall and she’d be like, no. I’d be like, yes. And now it’s like, Are you sure I can touch you? And she’s like, yes. And he’s like, I need that verbal consent. It’s a different environment, but we write differently and I think we are. I’m worried that my work is the more muted or diluted over time.

Kat (35:48)

I think in almost every genre that’s happened because I was talking with some other women’s fiction, and it’s that straight. All the questions are coming up as you’re writing, am I allowed to add this character? Are they allowed to do that? And what’s interesting to me as a reader, because I’m trying to think of the names of the books, but the best romance books are from the 70s and 80s. It’s all just steamy and just heart pounding. And I actually found one of them and saw a review of, I think, a younger millennial or maybe even younger, whatever that generation is. And they were just appalled and they were calling things up that I hadn’t even thought of. I didn’t thought to be offended by it. So it is a hard balance. But I don’t know. I don’t know how we would change that, honestly, because you still want to sell your books and the readers are the readers. So do you find writing suspense? You get to be a little bit different in your writing and pull out different themes.

Alessandra (36:58)

Yeah. So what’s interesting is when I sat down to write my first book. I wrote a romance, and I really wasn’t expecting to ever be a romance writer because I’d never read romance, and that was part of my problem. Early on, I actually feel it’s a good thing because I ended up writing very non formulaic and kind of out of the box romance. It wasn’t intentional. It’s because I didn’t read romance, and so I didn’t know how romance stories were supposed to be told. That is not what I would suggest. My big advice is often like, if you’re not a reader, that can be a problem and reading your genre. I always read suspense. That was really what I wanted to write in. But when my first book was a hit, and then I had a publishing deal, and then I had to write that sequel, and then all of a sudden I had tens of thousands of readers that were romance readers, which is why I have 22 romance novels for myself. But suspense is really it was like if I could get to the point where I was financially independent enough, where I could just write what want to write.

Alessandra (38:05)

And that was really what I wanted. And there’s so much more freedom in writing suspense because I can make the main character the bad guy okay, and I can kill off my main character, and who knows what the ending could be. It could be whatever I want it to be. Maybe the bad guy wins, maybe the bad guy doesn’t. But in romance, you really have to have certain elements if you want to be successful and if you want to have readers that are satisfied. And when you have that guaranteed ending, it can cause the route there to become very challenging, to keep it creative and to keep it so I really enjoyed the transition. I haven’t written a romance novel now in two years, but I will go back to it because I have grown to love romance, but I prefer writing suspense. I can’t remember what your question was.

Kat (39:00)

Just the difference of writing it. And was it difficult to start writing suspense because not always just because we read a genre is it easy. I don’t write it because it kind of freaks me out because you have to have so many elements. The reader needs to know that you’re not hiding things, but they also don’t want it to be obvious. It seems very complicated to me.

Alessandra (39:27)

It is. A lot of my romance novels have suspense in them just because when I would get bored, I would start killing off people. I was like, wooden doubt, throw a dead body into the room. So I had a lot of books there. My suspense plots have gotten progressively more intricate and complex. Okay. And I think if I had tried to write The Good Lie as a serial killer, almost police procedural, but it’s a psychological thriller. If I had tried to write that as my first suspense. I don’t think there’s any way I could have done it because there were so many moving pieces, but I’ve been able to ease into it. And as I’ve gone, it’s gotten progressively easier and I feel more confident in taking on different things. I don’t have the romance to fall back on. So in romance novels, that’s a tool you can use in a lot of things. Sex is a tool I can use in a lot of different ways. I can use it to add intimacy or to cause a couple to grow stronger. I can cause it to add problems, but there’s a lot of emotions that can be expressed anger, sadness with sex and a breakup sex when you take all that out.

Alessandra (40:49)

One of the most intimidating things for me was when I read The Ghost Writer, which was a women’s fiction psychological suspense, and it had a man and a woman and they were just friends. There was absolutely no romantic element, but they had to slowly become friends and trust each other. That was so hard for me to write because I didn’t know how to do that. I didn’t know how to authentically grow a friendship between opposing sex of differing ages and do it in a valid way without showing that intimacy physically as they would get closer. But it happened, and apparently I did it fine. But that was one of the most intimidating things for me when I look back at all of my novels.

Kat (41:34)

Right. I think that’s really interesting because I’ve talked to a lot of writers and myself included. It sounds like you’ve written a few books and you come up against another story that you feel like you should know how to write, but all of a sudden you’re finding yourself learning a whole different way of writing. And I think that’s important to understand that you’re not alone as a writer. Like, sometimes you get a story and it stumps you for a while. Like, how am I going to get these people to do what I expect them to do and to learn a new, I guess, sort of skill in the writing maybe. Like, how do they do this in that genre? Which again, goes back to your advice, pick up a book in the genre and maybe read it more analytically, I guess, or see what you like about it. But it is interesting to think just because you’ve written even 22 books, if you pick up a new genre, it’s still going to be a new challenge, right?

Alessandra (42:32)

Absolutely. And I think they’re all like tools in our tool belt, and so it’s figuring out how to use those. And even if you are switching genres or whatever else, the story elements are the same. It’s just trying to figure out how you’re going to communicate that. And I do what you just said a lot of times if I’m stuck with that and I asked my readers I need some great stories that have a fantastic platonic relationship between a man and a woman and you’ll get suggestions. And then I read those and like you said, read them in an analytical fashion. And I’ll stop at 25% in and go, okay, do I feel like they’re close right now? No. And then why not? What is it that has indicated and what percentage of the scenes are happening between them? And are those mostly dialogue scenes or am I in one person’s point of view? And that’s another thing that you just learned with time of point of views and when to use differing point of views. I write majority of my stories and this is also not normal. But I write my main character in first person and then I write all my other characters in third person.

Alessandra (43:47)

And I did that early on. I did that with male point of views because I just didn’t know how to write from a first person mail point of view. And when I tried to, it was like I would get tied up and not mentally. Like I was like, gosh, why can’t I write this scene? This should be a simple scene. And I was like, okay, it’s because I don’t know how he’s thinking and I just don’t know how to talk in his voice. And it was just so much easier for me to write him in third person and I’d rather write him in third person. Well or okay, rather than write him poorly in first person. And that’s a crutch. I still lean on a lot.

Kat (44:21)

I like that. That’s an interesting way to write. I was thinking the other day of like, I went back to some books that I love as a reader just for enjoyment. I never, I guess, pay attention to the point of view, first person, third birth. Once it sucks you in, you read it back to don’t pay attention.

Alessandra (44:42)

That’s the thing stands out when it’s bad. Exactly.

Kat (44:47)

So that’s an interesting way to do it. I’ll have to see if I’ve read anything else. Not analytically clearly. I just allow myself to be affected. What I do want to talk to you about is you have quite a bit of success from the books. I’ve also seen that you have one in a movie. So that is pretty amazing. On Passion flicks.

Alessandra (45:08)

Yes. Hollywood Dart was produced in Cosh, I think like four years ago. Yes. By Passion flicks, which is a studio that only produces book adaptation, romance book adaptation.

Kat (45:20)

That’s really cool. Yeah, that’s really cool. So you have found quite a bit of success as a writer and yet you still have a passion to help writers find success, which I think is pretty amazing because a lot of times, I mean, for whatever reason, people don’t always do that. They’ll stick to their writing or whatever, who knows the reasons? But what are your reasons for wanting to also continue to help writers. You have a newsletter, you give out advice, you give out freebies, you have a conference. What is it that drives you to want to continue to help authors find that same success you have?

Alessandra (45:59)

So I started working with authors. I don’t really work with authors for the most part. I try to offer as many resources as possible. And as soon as you start to find success. Well, there were two factors. As soon as you start to find a lot of success, you start getting emails from authors and they’re asking, you know, for advice and they’re asking how you became successful and they’re asking that sort of thing. And I would put so much time into responding to these. And the problem is you’re responding to one person who may or may not take your advice that may or may not fit them. But I’m still not doing a great job, really the answering their question. What I needed to do to answer their question was spend like 6 hours talking through things. So there was that aspect of things. The other aspect was when I started in 2012, there was very few resources available and maybe they were there and I just didn’t know how to find them. But there weren’t the Facebook groups. There are now, there weren’t the YouTube videos. There are. Because self publishing was so new and traditional authors aren’t out there.

Alessandra (47:07)

You might be able to find things on craft, but as far as marketing and publishing books, there just wasn’t that information out there. So much of my early career was really performed by me. Like running in one direction until I hit a wall and then I would turn and run another direction. I was completely blind and I didn’t know what was working and what wasn’t working. And it was one of those things. It was like if I ever figured this out, like I want to help other authors with that also just a very lonely business. And it’s fun to be part of an author community to talk about authors. So with all of those things, when I first started with courses and it was like I created a course how to Write Your First Book. And that was really just because it was me putting everything I knew down on video and on the computer as deeply as I could. So if someone reached out to me instead of me just writing back a few paragraphs, I could have something that they can work through. And then it moved into and I started a Facebook group.

Alessandra (48:14)

And the Facebook group, which is Alexander Tory Inkers, is one of the joys of my life. Thankfully, it has avoided drama and it has avoided job negativity. Yes, but it’s just great. And everyone in that group knows there are so many people in that group that knows so much more than me. But it allows. Just searching the group or watching the threads can really teach someone, but it’s basically a group of people ask questions and people respond with feedback and answers. But it really gave back to me a lot because I do get burnt out on writing. So it’s nice be able to divide my time. I get as much out of it as I get into it, if not more. So it’s nice to be able to kind of switch to a different part of my brain. It also challenges me to learn more because I can’t talk about things intelligently unless I know them. And so I have to learn pretty much continually. And it’s really easy as authors for us to stop learning and just focus on our deadline and our real life and everything else. So it’s been for me a nice sanity maintainer because it does help me balance my life.

Alessandra (49:22)

And I’ve met just the coolest people.

Kat (49:26)

Right.

Alessandra (49:26)

But I normally wouldn’t have an opportunity I normally wouldn’t have an opportunity to talk to someone like you. So it’s been great in that regard.

Kat (49:33)

Yes, absolutely. I think you touch on something so important, too. Like, you keep learning because this industry is changing so quickly. Keep up with it.

Alessandra (49:45)

Yeah. A year ago, I would not be taking a class on TikTok ads. I wouldn’t be. And there’s so many things I still don’t know. I mean, I just learned about deep point of view, which I might have been using it without knowing it, but I just learned that phrase and about it in the last two years. So there’s so much. And now when I read a book that’s not deep point of view, I’m like, oh, my gosh, I can’t believe this author is not writing deep point of view. I was reading a John Grisham book and I was picking him apart. Like you said, it’s continual. It can be really overwhelming, actually, for a lot of new authors. That’s one of the bad things. But you really just got to do the best you can. And so many new authors are like, I’ll never catch up. I’ll never do this. It’s like we didn’t have any of this. You are already so far ahead of so many other authors because there are a lot of authors that really have no idea even what they don’t know. I mean, just if you know what you don’t know, you’re already a step ahead.

Kat (50:47)

True. I mean, there’s pros and cons to starting now and starting then, but now you have access. I remember looking for I would come back on and off between the babies and looking for Editors. Like, it was pretty much ridersdydress.com.

Alessandra (51:03)

Not Craigslist, but basically Craigslist asking if somebody was an editor. And it was like, first one I found, I used because I didn’t have an option and you didn’t know.

Kat (51:15)

And now there’s like seven types of Editors and you’re like, oh, I did not know that. It’s good. It’s good that we have people who are willing to teach us and to keep up with us. Honestly, I don’t think we can all keep up with everything. That’s why there are specific people that I follow. You’re great at Good Reads and you have great ideas in your newsletters. And I just think as authors, it’s really important to find those people and follow them. Because you can’t keep up with everything. No, but how did you come up with the idea of Inkers Con? And it sounds like a crazy endeavor to put together a live writing conference. That sounds like a lot of work.

Alessandra (51:55)

Yeah. Anchors. So if you’re listening. Inkers Con is an annual writing conference. Now we’ve expanded and we have different free events, webinars and things like that year round. But the gist of Inkers Connor is the annual authors conference available in person in Dallas or online. And I was creating my online courses, and so I have them in writing, marketing, and publishing. And it was really me realizing how little I actually knew. There were so many areas that I just didn’t know a lot. And I could make a video about maybe, I don’t know, Facebook ads, but really, I’m not the best person to teach that. Like, the best person to teach that is the Facebook ads expert who I love, Mallory Cooper, but there’s a ton of them out there. Yeah, she’s fantastic. So it was really like, okay, that is sort of like if I got all of the smartest people together and had them each speak on their topic and it was not going to be an in person conference. It was going to be had them each to go on their topic and we were to record them professionally, and then I could put together, like a course of all of these people kind of the thought.

Alessandra (53:07)

So then I was looking at the logistics of flying everybody into the same place so we could be consistent with the video and everything else. And then it was like, it seems crazy to have all these awesome people together and not let readers or not let authors be there also. So I talked to my sister, who’s our conference head, and we were like, what do we think about just doing a conference? But we wanted to also have the online component. Okay. And she was like, let’s do it. And so that was basically how the live conference is really just it’s a byproduct of putting it together for a digital event. And at the time this is back in 2019, you had, like, Summits, which were very sales driven and just different. I don’t know. It’s just a slightly different feel. And you had in person conferences, but you didn’t have something that was both nowadays because of COVID. Like, so many conferences are going virtual. But back in 2019, when we launched, nobody was doing it. It was like we were the only one out there in that sea, which really gave us a leg up when Covet happened because we had everything already in place for the day.

Alessandra (54:17)

So we have the Live conference, which is in Dallas, and we have four main focuses, marketing, business, advertising, and writing 24 classes. And then we film everything happening, not the social events, but everything by a team of videographers and then package it. And then we launch it for the Digital attendees three weeks later or I’m sorry, it’s not three weeks later. It’s like five or six weeks later for the Digital attendees. And then we have three weeks of digital events that are happening as part of that digital. And I think you’ve attended the Digital conference in the past, and then they have access for six years. We used to do it for a year, and then attendees were like, my access is expiring. Can I have it for longer? All right, three years. And it was like, why are we limited to three years? We’ll do six, and probably eventually we’ll just do ten or 20 years. But I don’t know where the world is going to be in six years.

Kat (55:15)

Yeah. At some point they just need to go to the new one because.

Alessandra (55:20)

Crash classes are forever. Pretty much marketing, advertising, yes.

Kat (55:27)

So is it mostly for romance writers or is it a wide audience?

Alessandra (55:31)

No, it’s wide. And that was really important to me in the beginning because I am romance in suspense, and we already had a ton of fantastic romance conferences, and there are a ton of fantastic. But I wanted to also I know how we market our books in the romance world and all of the bubbles that I’m in with other authors of romance. But I want to know about someone who’s killing it in urban fantasy and what they’re trying because it’s like two different worlds. And we don’t really talk to each other. We don’t share Facebook groups. Typically, we don’t share marketing. So I really wanted to learn from the other industries, both their secrets in craft and the way that they construct stories, but also really in their marketing, what they’re doing and to kind of open up those lines of communication. So it’s all adult fiction. We don’t have children’s books. We don’t do middle grades, though I’m sure a middle grade person would do it. And we do have some traditionally published authors who attend, but we’re really built for indie authors.

Kat (56:33)

Yeah. So what would then be the difference between attending Live? I don’t know. I’m sure it gives it especially coming out of College. It’d be nice to see people’s faces. Yeah.

Alessandra (56:44)

But what are the benefits of one versus the live? You always get digital access, so if you’re live, you don’t have to choose between the two. You get both. But live is more expensive. You have to go to Dallas. Live is great if you’re ready to kind of rejoin and you feel comfortable interacting with other people in the post covert situation, but it’s great. And Jamie Albright, who’s an author friend of mine, she was staying on Clubhouse the other day. She’s like, when she signed up for a lot of digital things and she just never watches the classes. She’s like, I’ll sign up, I have good intentions, but I don’t do it. She’s like, I need to be there. I need to have my butt in a seat. I need it, or else I’m not going to watch it. And so she’s like, she is only doing in person from now on. Like, she made a decision. So there are some people like that. The other thing which digital conferences were lacking for a long time was that chatting in the hall in between the classes, grabbing when you’re in line to get coffee, talking to the author behind you, the chance to meet in person with Amazon reps or book club reps or that sort of thing.

Alessandra (57:54)

So all of those aspects are typically better at a live conference right now. That being said, one of our most popular parts of the digital conference is roundtables, which is any attendee can start a live video discussion your options, whether you want to turn on your camera on a certain topic. And we had almost 100 of them last year. Over 40 were videotaped so that other people could watch the replays later on, but they could be on anything, whether it’s like urban fantasy characters or, I don’t know, list segments or whatever. So that interaction. Some people join the digital conference and all they did was sit in round tables for 8 hours a day for those three weeks. It was insane. I was amazed at how much activity there was in those round tables. And we are doing those round tables at the live event. But that sort of interaction is why most authors who do go to live conferences, like the live event, because they want that meet and greet and that interaction. But there are a lot of authors like me, truly, honestly, if I could never leave my house, I would never leave my house.

Alessandra (59:01)

I love being at home and I do not like traveling. So I go to Anchors, obviously, because I need to be there and because it is one of the greatest weeks of my entire year, every year. But if I was just an author and I had the option of staying at home versus traveling. And granted, I have a family and a lot of obligations that I should be in town for. But the digital access is a lot easier for, especially if you’re in New Zealand.

Kat (59:33)

Yeah. And I have to say, like your digital conference last year, and I attended a lot during it. I’m curious about how people would set it up, but yours was really amazing because of the round tables, which I hadn’t seen. Maybe somebody else did it, but I personally hadn’t seen it because it really gave you the feeling that you were there with someone and that you weren’t alone because otherwise you’re on Zoom for a lot of conferences and you’re just listening and your mind wanders. But taking like, Mel Cooper’s, she did book Blurb last year. And then, like, going to around talking about it really fixing people remember things that you don’t remember, just people. And it’s a good collaboration tool. So when you’re swapping newsletters or books or whatever blog posts, whatever people do in all their different genres, it’s a great way to make contact with those authors. So you guys did a really great job. So if anyone either can’t attend or for covert or whatever, it really is a different digital conference than most of them.

Alessandra (01:00:47)

I really appreciate you saying that. Thank you. And we still have growing pain. So last year’s, first year, we opened round tables to unlimited size. It used to be where we’re limited 20 the prior year. And on day one of Roundtables, they launched and they immediately filled out, which is the same thing that was happening here for. And someone was like, why can’t we just have them? What is the reason to limit it to 20 people? And the beauty of us, like, our small team is we like, let’s have a discussion. And it was like, you know what? We’ll open it up and let’s see how it goes. And it was great that we did because the logistics, I mean, people were getting so frustrated. It was like a lottery. Like, if you weren’t there when a round Hill was posted, you didn’t get a seat. And people were grabbing seats. Even if they couldn’t get in, we weren’t sure if they’d be able to make it. And it’s just wild. And next year, next year, we’ll have a more seamless Zoom process, too. Sure.

Kat (01:01:46)

We all learn, right. But your team is very responsive. You guys never seem stressed. I don’t know if you’re aware.

Alessandra (01:01:58)

It was easy. Yeah, everything’s working.

Kat (01:02:01)

That’s why I think you guys are amazing for even doing it. We will definitely have links in the show. Notes for Anchors Con this year. It’s June 3 through the fifth, correct?

Alessandra (01:02:12)

Yes. The live events, the third through the fifth in Dallas Plano, Texas, which is a suburb of Dallas. And then digital launches like the middle of July, July 16, I think something.

Kat (01:02:23)

Okay, well, we’ll have a link to that for everyone to find information about it. But where can people find you? Where do you hang out? Mostly it sounds like you have a Facebook group. Where can they find you? And all the things that you have to offer.

Alessandra (01:02:35)

All of the stuff. Yes. Alexander Inquiries is the Facebook group. I’d love to have you join there. I think we have, like, over 20,000 authors as part of that group. And then if you’re interested in getting my emails, it’s Alessantretory Inc. In k.com, and there will be, like, a subscribe button that pops up somewhere but if you sign up there you can get the hopefully helpful stuff that I sent out.

Kat (01:03:02)

Very helpful stuff. Very helpful stuff. And you can find Alessandra Tory’s books and AR Tory, right.

Alessandra (01:03:09)

That is your suspect. Yeah.

Kat (01:03:12)

All of the platforms.

Alessandra (01:03:14)

Yes. Most of my books are in Ku my is Amazon publishing so most of my stuff in Ku but I also have stuff wide in both genres. So if you’re wide or Ku, I got you covered.

Kat (01:03:29)

Yes. And she has over 20 books.

Alessandra (01:03:31)

Just don’t read.

Kat (01:03:35)

Until she can get it back.

Alessandra (01:03:37)

If you’re an author and you’re interested, the ghost writer is my best book for authors. The author is the main character and so yeah, authors like the ghost rider.

Kat (01:03:46)

Oh, good. I’ll have that in the show notes as well. Thank you so much, Alessandra for coming and I really enjoyed talking with you.

Alessandra (01:03:52)

I had a great time. Thank you so much for having me.

Kat (01:04:09)

Hey, you’re still listening since you are could you do me a favor and head over to the app that you’re listening to this episode on and hit the subscribe button and then rate and review the show. It would really help the pencils Olympic podcast get out into the world and if you’re enjoying the podcast, well then there might be more people out there who would enjoy it as well. If you want to find out more about me, you can head over to catcaldwell.com. I have my story over there. My books, my interactive journals, my one on one coaching information and information on my creative writing community membership group. If you’re looking to write a book or you are a writer and you just want to find out more about how to write, how to publish, how to format, how to market and all the things that go into being an author these days. Check out the membership group. There is a 14 three day trial that you can try it out. Get into the masterminds find out all the goodies that we are talking about in the group. I would love to see you there.