The 10 Things I Learned at SPS LIVE (and throughout my years as an Indie Author).
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TRANSCRIPT STARTS HERE:
Kat
Hello, everyone. This is Episode 189 of Pencils & Lipstick. And it is mid-July, and you have me today to talk to you a bit about what I learned at the self-publishing show. Now, that was about three weeks ago, but I’ve been traveling back and forth, and I’ve been organizing my thoughts about it. Plus we had a great interview last week with Jeff Elkins. And so as we’re halfway through summer, I thought that this would be a great time to pause and reflect a little bit. Now, I learned quite bit at the self-publishing show. I highly recommend if you can get a digital pass still, which I’m not sure that you can do. But if you can, a lot of the talks were really great. And what I enjoyed about it was that they weren’t just for people at the beginning of their career, because I am not at the beginning. I need some pick me up and encouragement because I feel like I’m past the beginning, not quite to the middle. I know a lot of stuff. I’ve been in it for a while, but I need to know more. It’s also for indie authors, so those of us who are not going the traditional route. And that’s needed because our marketing and our business and our writing is going to be focused differently because we are indie writers, because we are people who are entrepreneurs, we’re building our own business and we are directly getting our books to the readers. And we have more direct contact with our readers as well. And so things are different for us. We are not looking for agents, we are looking for readers more than anything. So it’s good to have a mix. It’s always good to learn from anyone. But specifically having a conference for indie writers, I think is a needed thing. So I learned quite a bit. There were lots of writers speakers there. There were lots of writers there as well. But I broke it down into 10 things, and so we’re going to go over them a little bit.
Kat
Now, number 10, we’re going to count down, is you cannot get past learning your craft. We need to learn our craft. And like we talked about last week with Jeff Elkins, aka the Dialogue Doctor, there’s always something more to learn. And you don’t need to be overwhelmed about that. You just need to know that and understand it and be okay with it. And we have little sprints on our marathon of being an indie author. So there was a great story at the conference of a woman, Britt Andrews, who claims that she didn’t really know what she was doing. She was in lockdown. She thought she’d write a book, had a lot of fun doing it, put it out there. And readers really loved her book. And then she wrote five more. Now, I would say that she must have just innate talent. And I would say that you, too, probably also have some talent because I don’t think that you would want to write if you didn’t. Now, just because we have talent doesn’t mean that we can’t get better. I always bring it back to there is no amazing artist out there, Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, everyone in all the arts, they learn from their masters. They always have a master. Opera singers are always training their voice, they have a trainer. Professional athletes, they have a coach, they have a trainer. Writers are no different. We need to take workshops. We need to reinvigorate our creativity and work on something else and challenge ourselves. Because as much as Britt Andrews found that success very quickly and with just one book and then was encouraged to write more, the majority of us are not going to have that rush to stardom and fame. And every other speaker that came to talk had spent years honing their in their craft. So they were either journalists or they were screenwriters or they were writers in some other sense, copywriters, whatever. And a lot of them had written five, six, seven, eight, nine books before they found the series that really catapulted them into the six or seven figures. So what I gleaned from that is we all have talent, but we always need to learn our craft.
Kat
The next one, number 9. Now, this might ruffle some feathers, and it kind of ruffles my feathers. If you don’t know, I am an eclectic writer. I have four books out there. One’s a novella, so two of them are historical. One is a speculative fiction and another is a contemporary family drama. But here’s the thing. We have to accept what sells, choose the genre that we’re willing to write in, and and learn that genre. Now, I know I am telling you this and you say, Kat, you haven’t chosen a genre, and I agree with you. The duology that’s coming out is a contemporary family drama. And I am going to add on to the historical romance as a series. So I am picking two genres, which is possible to do. You can do that, but just understand what sells. And so what I understand for myself is most likely the historical romance is going to sell more than the contemporary family drama. Now, especially because contemporary family drama, what is that genre? Come on. It’s easy to know what historical romance is, right? So I just need to accept that we need to know that the romance genre, as big as it is because it has so many different niches, has rabid fans and sells pretty easily. Much easier than thrillers, than mysteries, than contemporary family drama. Now, that’s not to say that you cannot make money with the other genres because there were many people on stage that were not just romance writers. There were thrillers, action, mystery, retelling of Greek mythology, lots and lots. I really loved how Mark Dawson brought a slew of different genres onto stage to show us that it’s possible.
Kat
But that does bring me to number 8, which is the question you really need to answer for yourself. Is this a hobby or is this a business? Now, for me, this is a business. I love writing. I am determined to push forward in it as a business. I have spent the last 18 months, about if not two years, really learning business. And I did this again in 2018, right after I published Stepping Across the Desert. I delved into my first level of learning business and learning entrepreneurship. And I learned a lot. And now I had to take it to the next level. I’m learning direct sales, I’m learning marketing, I’m learning, even better, how to make images and how to do ads. Is this a hobby or is this a business? For some people that I work with, it is a hobby and they honestly don’t care if they ever get published. And that’s okay. That is your choice to make. But you definitely have to make that choice. Now, I am going to assume that those of you who are listening are on my route and you want to make money with this. So we are going to choose business for the last seven points that we’re going to go over. So if it’s a business, you need to act like it’s in a business. You need to learn your marketing. You need to learn how to set up a website. You need to discipline yourself and have set hours in which you work on this business. You need to learn advertising. You need to learn how to write copy. You need to learn how to talk about your books. You need to be present on social media just like every other business. So you need to decide where you’re taking your business. The first step, choose one of them. If the first step is learning to be on social media talking about your book, do that. If your next step, let’s say, might be learning how to sell direct or it might be learning ads. I didn’t hear one person on stage actually say that ads were not important. And I know that hurts a lot of us. Now, ads are in acquired taste and they have to be learned. You cannot just boost posts. Several people have told me, do not do that, that’s a waste of money. You need to learn. You need to take a course. You can learn from a lot of people. You can learn from Mel Cooper and the Writing Wimes. You can learn from Steven Piper. You can learn from, I think, Russell Nolte also teaches them. You can learn from a lot of people. Oh, Brian Cohen does Amazon ads. And I’m talking Amazon and Facebook ads are the top ones. But as TikTok Shop comes in, man, they make tongue twisters, tiktok Shop comes in, that’s going to be a different ad. So you have the main ones, Amazon, Facebook, and then you have TikTok, you have Instagram. I mean, if you use your social media ad anyway, that’s two different levels, right? Kind of a professional ad and then your person-to-person ad. But if it is a business, if you want to make money from it, you need to understand it. You need to understand marketing, you need to understand your book. Yeah. You need to understand how to present yourself as a brand because then you are a brand. And set up your website and have all the good things, right?
Kat
Now, what I also took away, number 6, is that it is possible to make money from writing. And a lot of people will disagree with me on this one. It takes money to make money, right? So we’re talking about making a business. And there’s rarely a business out there that you don’t have to invest something into. You have to invest a lot of time because you can’t afford the bigger things, but you also have to invest money. There’s just no way around that. Even Britt Andrews, and look her up, guys, especially if you like paranormal normal romance. I think it’s like paranormal normal fantasy romance, I think is her niche now. But she had no money. Her story is she had no money, she had no job, she put ads on is up for two dollars a day. She was willing to make a sacrifice on her business, in her personal life for her business. So yeah, you can make money and work for her. I’m not going to make not saying that it will work for everyone that quickly, but it takes time. So it takes money. It does take money. You are going to have to invest some money. You are going to have to invest your time in order to make money. You are going to have to market the book. I know that a lot of us writers don’t like hearing that. You are going to have to become a marketer. You are going to have to learn. You’re going to have to learn business tactics. You’re going to have to learn how people make money. You’re going to have to learn to accept the fact that making money is not a bad thing. I know all of us artists want to just get our art out there. The way that the world works is they give you money in exchange for your book and you deserve it. And if you need to work on that mindset, I highly encourage you to work on that mindset. Tom Hanks does not do his movies for free. None of those actors out there. Taylor Swift does not sing concerts for free. People are paying hundreds, if not thousands of dollars to see her. She does not do it for free. Harry styles, you cannot name one person who is doing it for free, and you don’t have to do it for free either. But you have to learn how to market it, and you have to learn how to make the money. And it definitely takes perseverance. You can make money, but it’s going to take perseverance. And it’s going to, after you learn all of this. It’s going to take perseverance to keep up with it, to keep going, to remind yourself that it’s okay. And yeah, learning takes time. You just have to keep going. I have to say, ever since I… let’s see, 2017 I hit publish. So it’s been about six years since I have been published. And I was in it before that, learning how to do author newsletters. So it feels like a lot of years. I always say, 2015, I started really being serious about writing and starting my author newsletter and creating it as a business. And that’s when I decided I was going to go indie. So it’s taken me a while. I had little kids, we moved around a lot. It’s taken some perseverance, but it’s okay. I feel like you have two choices. You can quit or you can keep going. So that’s it.
Kat
Number 5, find a cohort of writers, find people who write, whether it’s online or in person. Emma Dhesi and I finally got to meet in-person, but we’ve known each other online since 2019. And we just click. There are people that you just click with. Stacy Juba is another one. We just just click. We have the same goals. We’re not the same person, right? But when you just understand people and you just click with them and it’s easy to talk to them, you need to find people who are writers that you can talk to because you’re going to need feedback. You’re going to need feedback on your writing, on your marketing, on your social media. You need to bounce ideas off of people, and writers are going to have a different idea on your ideas than non-writers. So they’re going to have a different take on it. They’re going to, as Emma Dhesi told me a couple of times during the conference, no Kat, that’s a shiny penny because she knows me enough where my eyes get real big. I think we were a little bit listening to a talk on translations and she was like, no Kat, that’s a shiny penny. First, you need to finish your books. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You also need them to encourage you. You need encouragement. You need to see people like Rachel McLean and Britt Andrews. You need to see that it’s possible. You need to be around people like that to just receive encouragement and say, You know what? They’re doing it. I can do it, too. They can also encourage you. Most writers are great people. They understand where other writers are and they understand what it feels like to be in that spot. Most writers are really great people and they’re willing to encourage you. Find the those people. You need a cohort. You need other writers.
Kat
Number 4 is yes, you need to edit. This question was asked of Britt Andrews. This question was asked of somebody else, I can’t remember who, and every single person was, yes, you do. You need to edit. You need to proofread. You need to edit. You need to have beta reads. And I think it was Britt Andrews that said it the best. She said, you know what? Your readers deserve a close to perfect product. They are giving you money, they deserve a quality product. So you need to make sure that it is as good a product as you can get it. And that goes back to the investment, right? You are treating this as a business and it’s going to take some investment. It’s going to take some money to invest. It’s going to take some time to invest. Of course, the more you learn about your craft, the less editing you’ll need. So it feeds back into you. But yes, you do need to edit. Yes, you do need to proofread. And I’ll just tell you, as I’m going through the beta reading process for Bended Loyalty, yes, I got it edited. Yes, I fixed the edits. Then I ran it through ProWritingAid, okay? And still, there are typos that we are finding that my awesome beta readers are finding. So yes, you need to edit. Yes, you need to proofread. I know that that’s hard for a lot of us, and a lot of people are going through hard times. But again, going back to number 5, if you find a cohort of writers, they can help you. You guys can exchange out services. You can proofread for each other. You can take books about grammar. You can learn grammar. You can figure out where your comma should go. But, yeah, you can exchange services for each other. You can beta read for each other. You can developmental edit for each other. As long as you guys are learning story structure alongside of each other, you should be able to help each other out. And then you sell that book and you write the next one. And of course, it’s going to be better. And then you make a little bit more money. And then maybe then you find a professional editor and you learn something else and you make an even better book the next time around.
Kat
Number 3, take care of your newsletter subscribers and your fans. Even Rachel McLean, she’s a crime mystery writer. She was talking about getting on Tamela Brooks courses and learning, taking her newsletters up another level. And that just reminded me that even somebody who is doing really well, she’s making six figures, if not seven figures, she knows that there’s more she can do for her fans and for her newsletter subscribers. So don’t forget about them. And especially as an indie author, you need to curate this list and treat them well. Treat them like people who have just exchanged money for your book because they have. Give them fun things, give them maybe personal lives, maybe record videos for them, maybe write short stories for them, but really treat them well because they are going to be your fans. And the greatest thing about being an indie author is that you have really close access to your fans if you want. And the more access you give your fans to you, the more fan-like they’ll be. Does that make sense? They just readers love that. They love being close to you. If they love your work, they want to hear from you. They want to know more about you. So really take care of them.
Kat
Now, this goes into number 2, find the correct readers. Do not go out there and just grab every reader out there. I’m a very eclectic reader, and yet I don’t read horror and I don’t read paranormal romance. At least for now, it doesn’t interest me. You don’t want me on your list because I’m going to take up space from somebody who loves that. Find the right readers. David Gochran has a great book about this, and I’m pretty sure it’s free, if not maybe a couple of dollars. You want not just anyone on your list. When you’re swapping your newsletter and you’re entering promotions, you want to make sure your book is in the right genre, that it’s finding the right readers, and you want to find the readers who love what you’re writing, and you want to really curate that list. You are going to spend too much money on the email servers if you have 10,000 readers that maybe half of them read what you write. Numbers mean nothing if they don’t read your work, if they are not going to buy the next book. So really take your time to understand where to find those readers and how. Talk to other authors in your genre, go to workshops in your genre, attend conferences in your genre, find other people to swap with, the writers. Find the promotions that are for your genre, find the correct readers.
Kat
Number 1, this will surprise nobody, write. Write, write, and write some more. Now, some of us have more time than others. So I will say, if time is an issue, which I feel like it is for everyone, learn another way to write faster. And I’m not saying that you have to write super fast. You don’t have to put five books out a year. Certainly, I am not encouraging you to burn out. That’s not good at all. But one thing, and this is me putting a mirror up to myself, focus on your writing, really try to focus on the story that you want to write and write it and get it out into the world and then write another one. One really great idea was to write short stories around the book that you have, whether you have a standalone or you have a series. There’s probably more that you could say about the world that you just built. So once you’re done with your book, I would encourage you to write a short story and your readers will love it. In fact, it’ll be a great data point for you to put at the back of the book, see who finished it, and then who clicks and puts their email in there to download that free short story with whatever character, side character that you decide to write it with. But overall, you need to write. Now, Britt Andrews found some success with her first book, but she probably would not have sustained that success had she not written more books. Because her fans were rabid. They wanted more. They loved her characters. They still love her characters. They want more of them. So if she had just said, well, that was just a standalone, and I don’t really want to write anymore, she would have had a really great year financially, but it probably would have eventually gone off. So if we’re going to treat this like a business, just like any other business, you need another product at some point. I’m not going to say that you need X amount of books a year. That is up to you to decide. I’m trying to go faster. I’m trying to learn dictation. I’m trying to learn different things in order to use my time more wisely so that I can get more books out. I made a conscious decision to bring the duology out at the same time. So that’s taking a little bit longer. Yes, I’m much slower than I want to be. So this is me talking to myself here. But in the end, what you have to do is write.
Kat
I know that we all want to get to the five, six, seven figures next year. And of course, it’s going to be possible for some of you to do that. But you can also look at it long term. A business takes time, it takes investment, and pretty soon it will start earning money. Most businesses don’t earn a ton of money the first few years. They really have to keep going in order to really make a net income. You have to write. This will help you learn your craft, which is the very first one I talked about, number 10. It will help you grow. It will help feed your fans, your newsletter subscribers. Writing, writing, writing is what is going to get you to where you want to be.
Kat
There were a couple of other things that I learned. I’m going to be making shorter videos and they will be on Instagram or TikTok. I know. I’m going to TikTok, you all. If you’re on Instagram, follow me @KatCaldwell.Author. On TikTok, it’s KatCaldwell. I’ll probably put you put these links in the show notes.
Kat
I highly encourage you to attend a conference if you can. I know not everyone likes flying to London. I got a really cheap ticket, went over there. I paid for it with my back, but that’s okay. If you can get a digital ticket, I would highly encourage you to do it. It was a really great conference. There are other great conferences as well all throughout the year. I know for marketing wise, Book Brush is doing a conference in August, which is all digital. So you might check that one out as well. But I just want to encourage you guys, it was great to see that indie publishing is not dead, that people are making money, that you just need to persevere. You need to look at this as a business, that you are a brand and you just need to keep writing.
Kat
If you guys have any questions or you need encouragement or you just want to know something about me, you can find me on Instagram, @KatCaldwell.Author on TikTok, on Facebook. You can find me at KatCaldwell.com. You can join my newsletters there. There’s lots of links in the show notes. I would be glad to encourage you guys in this endeavor that we’re all on, this journey that we’re taking together. Our roads are going parallel and maybe crossing at some point, but it is a great time to be an indie author. It really, truly is.