-with Emily A Myers
Emily A Myers is a romantic suspense and thriller author who lets us in our her book launching strategy this week. Her first novel, The Truth About Unspeakable Things, was short-listed for three Chanticleer International Book Awards in the year 2021 for romantic adventure, thriller, and women’s fiction.
Find Emily here, The Truth About Unspeakable Things here, and preorder Bound by the Unspeakable here.
Want to join the Story Clarity Workshop? Find out more information here.
Become a patron and get 50% off all workshops (this coming workshop and in the future!) Become a patron here.
Go to katcaldwell.com to become a member of the Creative Writing Sprints Membership or the Creative Writing Community!
TRANSCRIPT STARTS HERE:
Kat (00:14)
Welcome to the Pencils and Lipstick Podcast, a weekly podcast for writers. Grab a cup of coffee.
Perhaps some paper and pen and enjoy an interview with an author, a chat it 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. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry. Well, hopefully not actually cry. But you will probably learn something.
Kat (00:43)
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&Lipstick. Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Pencils&Lipstick Podcast. I’m Kat Caldwell, your hostess today. I have a great guest for you, so you don’t have to just listen to me. Go on and on. Did you listen to last week with Alexander Torre? I think you’ll really enjoy it if you missed it. She has been around in the business for over ten years now. She has quite a few books out there and she is the founder and the one who runs Inkerscon. And it’s a really great conference. I attended the digital one last year, especially if you’re a romance writer. But she gets on experts of all fields and actually a guest that is coming on next week to Pencils and Lipstick. Nick Thacker is going to be there in person in Dallas in June. If you’re looking for a writer’s conference, I recommend you check them out. There’s also a great one with self publishing formula with Mark Dawson in London, which I would prefer to go to.
Kat (02:00)
I would love to go to London. It’s not going to work out this year anyway. If you’re in London, you might or over in England or that side of the Atlantic, you might check that one out as well. I know Malcolm Cooper is having one. Oh, it’s so wonderful to have more writing in person. Things happening, isn’t it? So as I’m recording this, it is Saturday, April 9, and my nine year old turned nine today. It’s her golden birthday. And so I’ve been running around with lots of little third graders and having a great time looking for eggs and trying to keep the dog in the house. And it’s been really wet. But we were really lucky to not have any rain today, just really soggy lawn as they’re looking for their Easter eggs. So there’s that. But they had fun and that is most important. So today I have Emily Myers on. And what’s interesting about Emily and why I wanted to bring her on is that she is a relatively new author. She’s coming out with her second book, and I really wanted to see how a new author who was paying attention to the market was pulling out her books.
Kat (03:15)
There are so many different ideas out there. There’s rapid release and there’s writing tons of like twelve book series. And there’s lots of different ideas and lots of them work, you know, so you have to find what works for you. And I found it very interesting what works for her. I found it interesting how much she studied the market, which is very smart and not something that I did when I just pulled out my book in 2017. So I found it interesting how she approached it. She is coming out with one a year, which I think is an amazing plan. Pretty doable for most people. She’s taking time to launch it. She has a lot of different ideas that some of you might want to hear, different ways of promoting it that I haven’t heard from everyone. Let’s say not a lot of people are talking about this. So she talks with us today, and she’s also a thriller suspense writer. And I think it’s great that there are more females in that genre. I think her book sounds very interesting. So all the links will be in the Show Notes. As usual, you can check her out her link and her book will be in the Show Notes.
Kat (04:32)
So this episode is sponsored by my very first Story Clarity Workshop. It is going to be on April 30. Check out the link below. I am capping attendance. It is not free. It’s $30. We are going to spend 2 hours. We’re really going to dig into things. You are going to have full access to me to ask questions. We are going to help each other out, lift each other up, make sure that you really understand your character and the heart of your story so that when you sit back down again in May, you’re very excited to go forward in your story. If you feel stuck at all, if you feel like your character might be flat, if you have a new story idea and you want to sort of start from the beginning, I’m not going to teach you how to outline. I’m not going to teach you anything like that. It’s really about making sure you know who your character is and that it’s not that his or her misbelief or the thing that they’re striving for is not just kind of shallow or surface, that it’s deep enough to really get the reader and to really make them want to turn the pages.
Kat (05:44)
And when I say deep, it doesn’t mean that has to be some sort of literary piece of work. Your story can be fun, it can be lighthearted, it can be ya. It doesn’t have to be like, I don’t know, like a Kafka or something Virginia Wolf. But your characters, it’s not just that they’re relatable. It’s that they’re hooking the reader by how they’re reacting to the plot. If it’s pretty obvious or if they’re acting in a way that doesn’t make sense, it’s because you haven’t set up your character correctly or they’re behaving in a way that you have claimed that they wouldn’t sort of the opposite of what you’ve set up or you just haven’t dug enough. And we all know when we read those books where the author just sort of like has a plot point and they stick somebody in there and that person plods along the plot points and oh, it’s because he wants a million dollars or it’s because somebody will die if he doesn’t. And you’re like, well, why would somebody die? And the author is like, don’t ask those questions so you don’t want to be that person again, it doesn’t have to be eloquently written.
Kat (07:00)
Lots of books don’t use five dollar words and aren’t super strenuous to read, but they’re iconic and they’re those stories that stick with us. And if you want to write a story that sticks with you, you just need to be sure that your character is really going to be the right character for the plot that you have in mind. And I think that we can help each other out. I think by asking questions from the point of view of kind of a reader or somebody intrigued by the idea of your story, you can go home with the questions to answer and be like, okay, I can figure that out. I can answer this question in my writing, and it’s just going to make your story richer. All that to say, the Story Clarity workshop is on April 10. Slots are already filling up. I am going to cap it. I will have another one at the end of May, early June because I’m really excited about this method. I’m really excited about how much it has opened my brain to be able to write the stories quicker than I’ve been able to before. And I think that it will do that for you as well.
Kat (08:12)
And I really think it will help us all avoid the soggy middle. So check out the links in the show notes below. You will be directed to a landing page where you sign up. It will send you the emails where you can then read a little bit more about it and go directly to pay for it. $20 until the end of this week. And then the price goes up. And again, I told my newsletter this, but I’ll tell you this, it’s not free because I want us to be able to really work together. It’s not just me teaching, it’s us coming together as authors and helping each other out and encouraging each other and hearing what other people are working on. I think that helps our creativity. Okay, that sounds like a great book. Can’t wait to read it. I just think it really helps us if I have just a ton of people signing up for something for free. That’s not the intimate setting that I’m looking for here. So if you sign up for the creative writing community, you get to come into any of the workshops that you want included in the price.
Kat (09:19)
Monthly, it is $47 a month, so it’s kind of worth it. If that is the kind of workshop that you want to do. We will be doing a lot of workshopping in the creative community. People have asked for it, and so we’re going to do a lot more of that where we read some of our work and ask questions back and encourage each other on maybe how to make it better or what’s already great about it. So there’s already workshopping that happens in the creative writing community. We write 18 hours a week and we’re upping it to 20 soon. There’s a cowriting sessions where we get together on Zoom and say hello and then write. We have expert chats. We have weekly marketing chats for 2 hours where we talk about marketing ideas and how we can apply them to our book business. So if you’re missing out on these things, you shouldn’t miss out on them anymore. You should come on over and join us at the creative writing community. Nick Thacker is going to come in workshop with us. J Thorne is going to come workshop with us this year. Emma Descend is going to come workshop with us this year.
Kat (10:24)
We have some really great people coming in to talk to us, give us ideas, give us encouragement. We are all in need of that, aren’t we? So as far as life has been going, I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts lately because I’m driving a lot more lately because my kids are in volleyball and tennis and dance and I think it’s great. I’m actually very excited for them. My back is not super excited about it. And I wanted to take a minute to remind all the authors out there don’t fit all day long. Take care of your body. Take that minute. That half an hour, that hour to take a walk, to move. When you’re in the middle of a story that you’re excited about, you can really spend too much time in the chair. And even if you don’t have the ache that I have right now because I did something to my back, it’s just not good for us, right? We need to move. We need to stay active. We need to get our blood flowing and our heart pumping. I really like exercise, so it’s a little bit easier for me to say possibly, but I also think it’s a great time to be creative.
Kat (11:34)
Sometimes I listen to podcasts and sometimes I just put the earbuds in and I don’t listen to anything. I have the earbuds in there so that nobody talks me such an introvert, but it allows my brain to wander, thinking maybe of different stories, thinking of the story I’m working on, thinking of the things I need to do or the things I have accomplished. It gives that quiet time to my brain to maybe file things, maybe rest up itself. It doesn’t always have to be learning, right? I really encourage you to do that and there is actually a book about it. It’s called Rest and then some other long title afterwards. And I think the author’s name is Alex Su Yung. I’ll have the links in the show notes, but it’s all about how the greatest minds in our history took time to walk in silence and they took time to rest. And I think that’s an important thing for authors to do. And I feel you. I am right there in that boat of like, I got to get this done. I got to get another book out. Everyone else is getting another book out.
Kat (12:44)
Everyone’s releasing a book a corner. I got to get a book out. And we could go insane if we do that. So just remember, stand up, do some jumpy Jacks, take a walk. I really like walks. I think it’s really good for our brains to be a little bit in silence. Anyway, I’m also just continuing to work on what I’m calling. I don’t know what I’m calling it now. I think I’m calling it Tread Silently. That’s a very interesting, you know, title. I’m not sure that it will stick. This is going to be a duology. So right now I’m working on his story and his name is Tread. And let me know what you think about this, but I’m thinking that if it ever goes into audio, there’s going to be a whole lot of Tread set. And I’m starting to think that that might be annoying. So as much as I like the name Tread, I think I’m going to change it. Yeah, I think I am. Tread said, no, it rhymes. It rhymes. So I think I’m going to have to change it. I do like the name, but maybe another T name.
Kat (14:02)
If anybody has a nice T name and I can’t be like, I don’t want like Tyler or Travis. No, I want something different. Let me know. Go on over to my Instagram or my Facebook and let me know what your cool T names are. I can’t rhyme with said so his brother’s name is Talent. It’s got to be as cool as Talon. And then the second one is Scarlett Story. And I love the name Scarlett. So that’s going to be a duology. These are contemporary and they’re not romance. I’m really trying to find the genre. They are contemporary. And yeah, I don’t think I can tell you the other genre because I’m not really sure yet. There’s so many genres these days. I’m not sure that it would count as women’s fiction because it’s the point of view of man. I’m not sure how to look into those rules. So many rules, guys. So I’m working on his story and I’m really excited about it. What I’m excited about, too, is that I have a lot to give away to anybody who likes the story of kind of the background and little vignettes and short stories about him because of how much I worked on his character.
Kat (15:17)
So I’m excited about that. And I’m excited that I am, once again, probably 25,000 words into it. And I write kind of long. I write about 80,000, sometimes 90,000. I think this one’s going to be about $80,000, so I’m not even halfway there. But I do think that it will be coming along and it will be out this year. What I do have to think about is when it’s going to come out. I want it to be rather close together, so you probably won’t see Tread Lightly. I like that title. Anyway. You won’t see this one in Scarlet until Scarlett is pretty much done, because I want it to come out within one quarter from each other. So three months apart, I’m also working on the kind of the sequel of Stepping Across the Desert. I’m going to work on Philip Doser’s character. I’m very excited about that one because I’m having it set partly in Spain. And if you know me, that Spain is my second home, my husband’s from there. We spend a lot of time there. I’m very excited to introduce you guys to the middle of Spain, a little town called Samora, and just the life there.
Kat (16:31)
So I’m excited about that. I’m going to be talking to a friend of ours who’s a history professor in Spain, and I’ll be talking to him this summer to make sure things are correct. And it will be set in 1835 between Spain and England. So before we get into the interview with Emily Myers, please subscribe to Pencils and Lipstick and give a review wherever you’re listening to this. I know there are tons of apps out there to listen on, but it really helps with all the algorithms and hello to all of you in Saudi Arabia who seem to be listening to the show. And if you’re Bots, hello to the Bots, if you’re real people, hey, I think it’s really cool. I’d love to hear about what kind of stories you guys are working on. So wherever you are, whatever you’re listening, whatever app you’re using to listen to this, if you would subscribe like give a review and share the podcast with anyone who is a writer or likes to listen to interviews with authors and writing experts, I think that they would enjoy the show. Be sure to check the Show Notes for any links.
Kat (17:45)
And of course you can find the transcript in the Show Notes as well. It’s always on pencilsandlipstick.com, all spelled out. If you want to become a patron and make sure that the show keeps going, head on over to Patreon. Compencils lipstick. And you can also support the show by using the affiliate links in the Show Notes. Most of the links, if they go to a product, a writing product or a book or affiliate links, just FYI you don’t pay any more. But I do get a little bit on my side to keep the show running. But now let’s listen to Emily Meyer about how she gets all of her books together, how she’s doing her book launch, what has changed since last year when she came out with her first book? I think you’re going to be really interested in what she has to say. She is a super cute Southern girl and I can’t wait for you guys to hear from her. Without further Ado, this is Emily Myers. My guest today is author Emily A. Myers. You can find her at Emilyamyers. It’s spelled Myers.com. Emily is an author of romantic suspense and thriller.
Kat (19:03)
Her book called The Truth About Unspeakable Things sounds pretty amazing. It was shortlisted for three Chan to Clear International Book Awards in 2021 for romantic adventure, thriller and women’s fiction. When not writing, Emily enjoys traveling, devour the latest Netflix series, and scouring the shelves of Sephora. Emily is super cute and has an incredible Instagram account, which we talk about in this episode. It was really fun to talk to Emily. She is just kind of starting out. She’s coming out with her second book, but I think that she’s done such a great job with launching and really studying the industry and then learning from maybe not mistakes, but curves that life and publishing through her along the way that I thought it would be fun to listen to her and see how you can apply what she has done to your own writing and launching of books. And because we’ve had quite a few authors who have been in the industry for about ten years, it’s nice to see what all of sort of the new people are doing. Right? Because if you’re new in the industry, you kind of feel like, wow, I didn’t publish in 2012.
Kat (20:15)
What do I do now? So I think that you’re really going to enjoy Emily’s interview. All of the links are in the show notes. You can start with her first novel, The Truth About Unspeakable Things, and on April 19, you can get the second one. But as she says, they’re not staying alone. So you definitely need to start with the first novel. Without further Ado, Here’s Emily. Hey, everybody. We are back with another episode of the Pencils and Lipstick podcast. And today I have with me Emily Myers. Hello, Emily. How are you doing today?
Emily (20:47)
I’m so good. I’m excited to be here.
Kat (20:49)
Well, I’m excited to have you. I was looking up your book yesterday, so we’re definitely going to talk about it because it’s very intriguing. But first, could you introduce yourself a little bit to the listeners?
Emily (21:01)
Yeah. Hi, everyone. I am a romantic thriller author. I published under my name Emily A. Myers. I would like to describe my books as kind of like romantic suspense meets true crime. It’s definitely more than a kind of typical romantic suspense novel. It has the crime and the investigation and a lot of that really intense thriller components. And yeah, I’m really active on Instagram. You can find me at Emily Myers, author. I spell Myers. M-Y-E-R-S. Yeah. Just check me out. Reach out. I’m happy to talk with you about marketing and social media and all the things I am self published, and so I love getting to be in the driver’s seat and take on the many roles of author and publisher.
Kat (21:54)
Yeah, that is so true. And it is many, many roles, sometimes more than we thought in the beginning. So your book, The Truth About Unspeakable Things, that’s the first one. And it was a finalist for the what is this Siba? I haven’t heard of this before.
Emily (22:14)
The Santa Clara International Book Awards.
Kat (22:17)
Wow.
Emily (22:18)
Yeah. And it’s for the Clue Award. It’s a finalist, and it’s actually a semi finalist in the Shadow Lane Award, which is for romance.
Kat (22:29)
Wow.
Emily (22:29)
Yeah. Those contests are still ongoing.
Kat (22:32)
That is so cool. That is really awesome. So it reads like a really fast paced thriller novel with some romance in there, of course. And it’s set in New Orleans. Are you from New Orleans or is that a city you’re familiar with?
Emily (22:48)
I am familiar. I’m from Louisiana, but I don’t live in New Orleans. But to me, New Orleans is the perfect setting for a book like this because it’s a beautiful city, historic, but it unfortunately also has a lot of crime. And so it’s kind of the perfect thing for an author.
Kat (23:08)
You can find so many intriguing things about that city. Yes. Is everything that’s in the book for the city? Are you one of those authors that really put in real places into the book, or did you sort of avoid that? Because I know there’s pros and cons to that.
Emily (23:26)
Yeah, I do a combination of both. So I love to include real places like Jackson Square, Tulane University. As mentioned, these are things that make the setting feel really real. But I also for some of my settings, I kind of take inspiration from real things, and then I make it even more what I would imagine because it’s fiction. I want it to be exciting for the reader. And so I actually found a record shop in New Orleans, which was the inspiration for Lucid Records, which is my kind of fictional creation in the book. And another note on creating that believable setting is whenever I was deciding what area of the city my character would live in, I did a lot of research on that about people her age and the type of job that she has, and also her mobility as far as driving in New Orleans is not really a great thing because of the parking. So most people will walk. And so I started to think about, okay, like, what area of New Orleans could you live in and have access to different restaurants and clubs and things that she would go to?
Emily (24:52)
That’s why I picked the Marine, which is a real neighborhood in New Orleans. And from there, everything else kind of came together of what she could actually realistically experience as someone living in the Marine.
Kat (25:06)
Oh, wow. I bet that brings a real more intensity and realness to that book because you’re not really just making something up. You’ve really looked at the map and made sure she can actually get there, which is kind of fun if you go visit the city after you read the book or if you live there, I guess.
Emily (25:24)
Yeah, I did the same thing for the second book. She actually ends up living in a different neighborhood in the second book. And so I did the same thing with looking at maps, and I picked it not only based on her life circumstances, but what are the really cool settings in New Orleans that I wanted to include in the book? And again, her walking. So I pick, like, a house location where she can easily walk to some of those really cool settings that I wanted to include.
Kat (25:54)
Yeah, that actually sounds really cool because one of the most disappointing things is when you go see a city that you’ve seen a movie and you’re like, that’s nowhere near this other place, and there’s no way you could get there in time. I don’t know. Maybe I’m just one of those weird fans that’s not real. So what got you into writing in the first place and then what led you to, like, romantic thriller? Because there’s a lot of pieces of thrillers.
Emily (26:19)
Oh, yeah. I was actually in the 8th grade. This was during the Twilight craze.
Kat (26:27)
Oh, yeah.
Emily (26:28)
So everyone was reading Twilight, and my books are not like Twilight, but I just really admired Stephanie Meyer for having a dream, a literal dream, and waking up the next morning and writing that scene down. And I was like, she was just this normal person, and she became such a huge success. And even though I don’t write the same types of books as her, why couldn’t that happen to me? And so I just kind of got inspired by her. And there’s so many things growing up when I was in high school, there’s so many things about being an author that I knew I wanted for my life. I wanted to be able to work from home and have the flexibility to be there for my family. And because that was something that my dad had, he had a job that allowed him that flexibility. And so it’s like I kind of combined what I love to do with the type of life that I wanted to live. And I’m like, yeah, I want to be an author. And as far as the romantic thriller genre, I just think that’s where my storytelling ability naturally goes, because even as like in the 8th grade, we had to write short stories.
Emily (27:45)
And looking back, I don’t have copies of those short stories. I wish I did. I know. But I can remember what they were about. And looking back on it, everything always had some romance, but it also had some suspense. I remember writing one that’s like a masquerade murder. It’s like a murder at a masquerade. And I wrote another one that was a Southern romance, but it also had death and murder and all that stuff in it. Growing up, I just had that. And when I read the truth about Unspeakable things, I did not have a plan at all. I just wrote whatever came to me. And it ended up being a combination of my favorite things, which is the suspense and the romance. And so I’ve just embraced it.
Kat (28:36)
Yeah, you might as well go with it. So you are of this generation that sort of you had this the opportunity to self publish was kind of already there. Right. So I talked to some authors who are probably 40 and above, and they just sort of like, fell into it because things were changing so much because you had the opportunity to see what it was. Did you research a lot of it beforehand because you knew that you wanted to be an author, or did you start writing first, or how did you navigate that world?
Emily (29:10)
That’s a really great question. When I was in high school, when I was 17, I wrote my first what I considered at that point a novel. It really wasn’t a full length novel by today’s standards. Back then, I just wanted to prove to myself that I could do this. Before I went to College, where I majored in English. And at that point, I did actually query agents. My dream was, even though self publishing was in existence, I still wanted to have a traditional book deal. And I wanted to walk into Barnes and Noble and see my book. It’s just what I wanted. But I went to College. I worked as a teacher for a few years. And when I finally came back to writing as an adult, I did do more research. As far before writing The Truth about Unspeakable Things, I actually thought I’d be doing a different book. I had attempted to write a different book, and at that point, I was considering self publishing or traditional publishing. And I attended a conference, and I actually met with an agent. And somewhere along the way, I just decided that I wanted to self publish because I like the control.
Emily (30:30)
I like that I’m able to get on social media and tell my readers that I have a book coming out and not have to wait two to three years in between each book launch because I have a book but no date. Yeah.
Kat (30:44)
When is this coming?
Emily (30:45)
I wanted the ability to be able to write more and put more books out and have more control over what I was doing.
Kat (30:53)
Right. And you have quite the cover. I like your title a lot. It’s very intriguing. And your cover is very intriguing. How did you come up with the title and what did you do with the coverage? Did you do it? Because aesthetically, your Instagram is pretty amazing. Is that something that you’re good at cover wise? How did you make those choices?
Emily (31:15)
Well, the title is something that came about while I was writing the book, so I basically never settle on a title until the book is done. It’ll start to kind of come about about halfway through when a theme is presenting itself, and then I settle on a title afterwards. And I do love my titles so much. As far as the cover, I did work with a cover designer for the cover, and I’m so glad that you love it.
Kat (31:48)
I do like it.
Emily (31:49)
Yeah. So I worked with a cover designer on it, and I think it’s pretty good. But I will say that I recently worked with a different cover designer, and I’m going to be releasing a, quote, special edition cover of The Truth About Unspeakable Things and bound by the unspeakable that’s going to be coming out on April 19 when the sequel to The Truth About Unspeakable Things is released. Those covers, I will say I kind of like more. Yeah. But as far as the branding on social media, I just took the cover and ran with it personally. You can kind of see my office in the background. I know the listeners won’t, but I like those dark colors and the moodiness. And so it was very easy for me to take the cover and kind of create a brand aesthetic around that.
Kat (32:44)
Yeah. And I mean, it fits the book, right? I mean, that’s one of the biggest things that sometimes authors don’t understand is that your book cover has to tell the reader what kind of book it is. And sometimes it might not be your favorite book style or whatever. And the greatest thing about being an indie author is you can change it. Right. Or you can come out with a special edition, but I think it definitely tells me there’s something darker. There’s something happening. Okay, let’s read further. Like, oh, there’s a door. What’s behind the door?
Emily (33:16)
Yeah.
Kat (33:18)
It is intriguing in that sense. And that’s what you need for them to then click and read further. Right. Because it needs to tell them it’s not a light and fluffy read.
Emily (33:29)
Exactly. A lot of my readers describe The Truth About Unspeakable Things as not for the faint of Heartwise.
Kat (33:41)
You want that fast paced, right? You need to keep going. Something’s happening. It’s like those dreams that you have as a kid where you don’t know what the monster looks like, but, you know, he’s there. You got to keep moving forward. So as you’ve mentioned that you sort of are more of a Panther than a plotter. Is that right?
Emily (34:03)
Well, with The Truth About Unspeakable Things, I thought I had a plan. Okay. And the book was actually going to be very different than what it ended up being. But then when I started to write within the first three paragraphs, my character makes a choice that completely changes the course of the book. And I just decided to go with it because even though I’m not like, I don’t read horror fiction, I’m a big fan of Stephen King and his writing advice, and he always says, don’t let slot get in the way of your story. Your characters just go with it. And so that’s what I did. And that’s something I continue to do. I will start off with an idea and a plan to get me started, but I don’t fight against my characters if they decide they’re going to go in a different direction.
Kat (34:56)
Yeah. Because sometimes I feel like when we overplan things, it all makes too much sense. And then it’s like our subconscious is like, yes, but this is so much more intriguing if you do this.
Emily (35:08)
That’s a really good point. About, like, when you think it through, it makes sense. But real life, we don’t get to think through everything that’s going to happen before it happens. So actually, in the second book, Bound by the Unspeakable, I noticed I have quite a few reversals where it’s like my main character thinks a certain thing and then she realizes she was wrong. But that’s actually okay because, I mean, that’s real.
Kat (35:36)
Yeah. They can’t know everything. That’s why we keep reading about them. We want them to not be perfect because we’re not perfect. It’ll make us feel bad about it. So that you have two books Bound by the Unspeakable, is that out, or is that the one coming out in April?
Emily (35:56)
Bound by the Unspeakable is the second one, and it comes out on April 19, and it picks up right after the Truth about Unspeakable things in. So you definitely want to read the Truth about Unspeakable things first.
Kat (36:10)
Okay. So they’re not standalone. You have to go sequentially. How long do you think this series will be?
Emily (36:17)
This is actually the end of Emma’s story, so it’s just to do it. I am actually starting to write a new series in May, and it’s kind of a spin off in a way because there are some characters introduced inbound by the Unspeakable which are going to be the main characters of this new series, and it will pick up after the events of Bound by the Unspeakable. So the things that happen in Bound by the Unspeakable will influence these characters in their own story, even though the new series will read as its own thing. You won’t have to read Unspeakable to understand what’s happening there. But for those who are reading, like all of my books, you will kind of get I think, I think it’ll be nice for you to come off of Bound by the Unspeakable and get to explore those characters more in their own series.
Kat (37:17)
Right. And did you always plan to do that, or was that sort of an idea that came as you started writing?
Emily (37:23)
No, I definitely didn’t plan to do that. After writing The Truth About Unspeakable Things, I actually wasn’t sure if I was going to write a sequel or not. So I originally wrote The Truth About Unspeakable Things as a standalone. And so it took me several months after it came out to realize, yes, there’s more story here. And in that several months, I had actually started thinking about a different story idea, which included the characters that actually found their way into Bound by the Unspeakable. So I had fallen in love with this other character that I really wanted to write. His name is Alistair, and so he ends up actually being a huge part of Found by the Unspeakable. So even though it’s Emma’s story, it’s also the beginning of his story. And I think I realized maybe as I was getting into the second half Found by the Unspeakable that I honestly wasn’t able to really develop Alistair in the way that I wanted to because it’s a first person point of view, and it’s told for Emma. And so that’s when I started to think, okay, this could be something more. There could be a series that deals with Alistair and his family.
Emily (38:50)
And then I kind of spent a couple of months, January, February of this year thinking about, how will I do that? Is it really worth doing? And then I kept coming back to the idea, I’ve been in love with this character for so long. This is the time to write his story.
Kat (39:07)
Yeah. The nice thing about that is you’re not really starting over. You’ve kind of developed a backstory for him already, so some of the work’s already done. So you just have to go forward.
Emily (39:18)
I’m so excited to write this new series. Right now. I have plans to do three books with Alistair and something that I’m going to change up. It’s going to be a dual point of view, so it’ll have Alistair, and also it will have a female protagonist, which I think, again, I think the romance part of the romantic thriller genre will be better conveyed in having that dual point of view. And I also hope if that first kind of installment does well to write a duet or a trilogy with his sister Sophia, which is another character that’s introduced and Bound by the Unspeakable. So I have plans, and I’m really hoping that they pan out.
Kat (40:05)
Yeah. I think like a lot of writers, you have all these plans. All you need is the time to write it. You just need the words to come. So Bound by the Unspeakable comes out on April 19. What have you done? And sort of maybe what have you learned as you launched your first book and now you’re going into launching your second book? Could you share with us a little bit about how you did book launching and what went well, what didn’t go well? Because this is all sometimes things go well. Sometimes they don’t go well. Sometimes there’s surprises. I don’t know.
Emily (40:38)
Well, with The Truth About Unspeakable Things, I actually worked with a company. Right. Published sell. And so they basically, I feel, yeah, they assist self published authors. So you’re still self publishing. You still own all of your rights. It’s not a hybrid press, but it’s kind of like you pay them to assist you with your launch or your marketing. And so I worked with them, and I would say that the launch of The Truth About Unspeakable Things was a pretty good success, considering, like, three months before the book came out. I did not have an Instagram. I had zero followers.
Kat (41:13)
Oh, wow.
Emily (41:14)
Yeah. So we grew my Instagram to about 800 followers by the time the first book in three months. In three months.
Kat (41:24)
Holy cow.
Emily (41:25)
Yes. And I would say, like, the biggest thing that we did that had the biggest payoff was we did an art campaign. So we did a book funnel and net galley. We put the book out there. We got tons of early readers. And that helped me to actually realize that I had positioned the book wrong because I originally had it positioned as a women’s fiction novel. Women’s fiction, robot. And on paper, it fit into that genre. It’s written by a female. It has a female protagonist. It deals with a kind of a female conflict in that the protagonist is sexually assaulted. And so it fits on paper. But those readers were expecting something different. They were expecting it to be. I mean, I still think that it’s an emotional book because of the subject matter, but it’s a lot more than that. It is suspenseful and it has the investigation and the crime in it, which they weren’t expecting and they didn’t like. There were some people who said, this book is entertaining, but I’m not sure if it should be. So that’s when I made the decision to change the way that I was positioning the book, I changed the genre of the book.
Emily (42:46)
I did not change the cover. I did not change the content of the book. And since then, it has been like a 180. The majority of the reviews are positive. And so that was something the art campaign is the thing that I recommend the most because it will allow you to see how your book is being perceived, which may actually be different than what you perceive it as.
Kat (43:07)
That’s really interesting. So how did it work with the feedback when you’re doing that? So it was before it was published publicly, right. That you were doing all this. So how did you receive that feedback? Was it reviews that were going to be published whether you liked it or not, or was it private feedback?
Emily (43:26)
Those reviews are reviews that are published on Goodreads and they are still available to this day.
Kat (43:32)
They’ll always be.
Emily (43:33)
Yeah. And some of them are on Amazon as well. So the early feedback came before it was published. So they all posted those reviews on Goodreads and Net galley if it was for the Net galley listing. And so I was just kind of keeping up with that. The people that I was working with told me, don’t read the reviews. And I was like, no, I’m going to read the reviews.
Kat (43:55)
It was helpful. In your case, though.
Emily (43:57)
It was it was extremely helpful. And I think I guess a tidbit for authors would be, especially when you’re just starting out and you don’t really know how your work is going to be perceived, even if it hurts. Read the reviews because you will learn so much from it. Repositioning. It allowed that novel to be a success. And it also gave me the clarity of what I wanted to do with my future books.
Kat (44:24)
Right?
(44:24)
Yeah.
Emily (44:25)
And for Bound by the Unspeakable, I did do an art campaign. But I would say the other thing worth mentioning is that both with my first book and my second book to accept that it’s not going to be perfect on launch day. So even though I did the art campaign and I’ve also done an art campaign for Bound by the Unspeakable, I’m going to be launching with probably 20 or less reviews, 50 or less reviews. You’re not going to come out of the gate with hundreds of reviews unless you have 10,000 followers who’s going to buy the book on day one and review it in a weekend. And that’s okay because those reviews will steadily come in in the months after launch. And so that’s what I’m preparing myself for now is knowing that even though I ran a two month long art campaign, I’m probably not going to have a ton of reviews on launch day. But that’s okay because everything will come in in the month after.
Kat (45:28)
Right. And I wouldn’t even say I think some of us are really hard on ourselves because we’re alone. You are launching it. You might be working with people, but technically, as a writer, you’re launching this book. It’s kind of your baby. I can see an author being very disappointed in the money that they spent and then you’re flipping it around. But really, because you read those reviews, it became a finalist for Steve because otherwise you wouldn’t have put it in a suspense thriller contest like award. So it would have continued on as the women’s fiction. And the worst thing that you can do is throw money at a marketing campaign that’s hitting the wrong readers because that is what you don’t want at all. And part of it is people will pick up a free book and maybe they won’t like it, but you don’t want to be spending money on targeting that person who wants, I don’t know, a sweet women’s fiction I don’t know. Women’s fiction is so general and broad, too. It’s kind of hard. Yeah. But if they’re not looking for that book, their reviews are going to reflect that, and then it’s not going to take off.
Kat (46:37)
Like you said, it’s actually worth learning that and changing your marketing strategy. Yes. And changing how you write the next book will be influenced. Okay. If I like writing this, like you said, embrace it. Keep going. Yeah. I love that.
(46:53)
Okay.
Kat (46:53)
So that is definitely something to learn to take the good out of every moment. Right. Because we’re going to make mistakes along the way. I know my first book I put up as historical fiction until another author is like, just embrace the romance. Just call it a historical you’re going to get more readers. And I was like, all right, I will do it. And she was right. It takes some movement. Right. So this one comes out on April 19, and then you’re going to start writing. So you definitely you start a book and you finish it and then you start another book. Is that kind of how you go or do you write as you’re launching?
Emily (47:36)
I do not try to manage the publishing and the writing at the same time.
Kat (47:41)
That’s smart.
Emily (47:42)
Yeah. I mean, who knows? Maybe that’ll change in the future. But as it stands now for my new series, I think what I’m going to do is write all three books back to back and then rapid release all three of them, like within a month of each other. So it’ll be longer. It’ll be maybe closer to a year and a half before those books come out. But when they do come out, they’re going to come out right after the other. It’ll be a complete series, which I can then market as a complete package. Actually, today is the one year anniversary of me publishing the first book.
Kat (48:25)
Right.
Emily (48:25)
So it’s been a challenge in a way, to launch a sequel a year later. Even though it’s very common with traditionally published books for self publishing. It’s a little different because you have to re reach out to all of those people that reviewed the first book while also hopefully bringing in new readers. And it’s harder to do that with a sequel than with the first book. And so that’s why I’m thinking I’m going to write the complete series and then run the art campaign for all three books at the same time and then rapid release all three books.
Kat (49:06)
Right. Honestly, in the end, all we can do is try one thing and try another thing. We are a little bit bound by these indie authors that seem to be so prolific. I don’t know how they do it, and they just come out with book after book after book after last time. But some of us need time together, and some of them have been in the game for so long that they have a team so they can continue writing, and their launch goes perfectly. So how have you done the Arc reader? Do you have a newsletter? Do you have people sign on there? Do you pretty much go through that Gallery or what? Have you maybe changed or adjusted on that?
Emily (49:47)
For the second book bound by the Unspeakable, I actually did not do a Net galley listing. There was something about how you had to create an account. I think it cost a lot more money than I was expecting to get set up, and so I just decided not to. I may end up working again with NetGalley in the future because I feel like those reviewers are probably more consistent with actually posting reviews than what I found with the reviewers from Book Funnel, because with my Arc for the first book, I had a lot more of those early reviews than I do with this book. And Bound by the Unspeakable, I did Book Funnel, and I also did Book Sprout because I saw a lot of thriller authors having those reviews that said they received it through Book Sprout. And so I did that. And I’m not going to be working with them again in the future just simply because I only got ten downloads. Whereas with Book Funnel, I had like 200 downloads. Right.
Kat (50:55)
It’s just part of the process. Right. You have to find where your readers are, where are they hanging out, and who’s willing to be part of the Arc team because you do want people who will not only read the book but write a review.
Emily (51:08)
Absolutely. So I have it posted on Book Funnel, which is the primary Arc link that I’ll promote, and I’ll send it out to my newsletter. I’ll post it on Instagram like I’ll have it linked in my bio where they’re able to easily download that. Yeah. And then actually I reach out to reviewers who have a certain number of followers. And if they have really good engagement, I’ll send out what’s called an influencer package so they’ll get a paper back and some other like, Bookish Goodies. And I’m actually sending those out for Bound by the Unspeakable this week. So there’s a lot of those big reviewers who won’t even necessarily look at a book if they’re not going to get a paper back because they’ve got 10,000 plus followers. And they know that their posts are valuable because they’re going to attract hundreds, if not over 1000 potential readers. And so with those people, I do probably like 20 or less of those packages just for budget purposes, but I think that that’s a really good way to get a lot of excitement surrounding your book.
Kat (52:28)
Okay. And is that something that’s new to this book that you’re trying?
Emily (52:32)
I actually did that with the first book as well, but I was more picky with who I am sending to with the second book. With the first book, not only was I kind of reaching out to people. But the team that I was working with was reaching out to people. Okay. I think with this go around with it just being me, I was able to kind of say to myself, like, okay, I’m only going to reach out to people with a certain number of followers, people who I think have the amount of engagement that it would be worth sending them a paper back. And I also didn’t advertise that I was doing that. I just reached out to people directly. Whereas with the first book, we put out a couple of posts about reach out to us if you want an influencer box. Well, who doesn’t want a free influencer box?
Kat (53:25)
Yeah, that was smart of you to sort of hand pick the people because you can end up spending a lot of money. And then if there’s no follow up, if they don’t post anything, there isn’t a whole lot you could probably do except scratch them off the list next time. But the money is gone at that point. That’s a really interesting strategy. I haven’t heard of that, but I think I’ll be writing it down. That’s a good idea. So as far as social media goes, have you seen that it’s worth it? You didn’t have an Instagram before, and now you have a really nice Instagram. I’m very jealous.
Emily (54:05)
Yeah. So I actually created, like, an author Facebook page whenever I started doing writing professionally. And that was about two years before my first book came out. And honestly, I spent a lot of money in Facebook ads trying to get followers that the Facebook algorithm doesn’t even show my post to, even if they follow me. So Facebook is something that I’ve learned is really just for the people who personally know me, like my friends and family who the Facebook algorithm actually shows my post, too. And so as I mentioned, I did promote the Arc on Instagram, but I didn’t promote it on Facebook because I don’t want the people who are going to buy a copy of my book to download it for free. Whereas with Instagram, it truly is book reviewers and other authors who follow you and those hashtags. And yeah, I think it was pretty easy to gain a following on Instagram because there’s a lot of follow trains. And I think that you can never follow too many bookish accounts. And so I think people are really generous with following each other back. And there’s just a really great book community on Instagram.
Emily (55:26)
And I love it. And I think the reason that my Instagram is pretty good is because I just genuinely enjoy interacting on Instagram, and I use Tailwind to schedule my post in advance, so I’m able to plan out a month’s worth of content in a day, and then I just have that automatically shared, and then I’ll post my kind of in the moment updates as they come. And that allows me to keep the brand aesthetic that I like. And I recently got on TikTok, and I’m not I’m going to ask you about TikTok.
Kat (56:11)
How do you feel about it?
Emily (56:12)
I’m not loving it. I mainly got on TikTok like, yes, for the author stuff. But what I find is, like, I don’t even really see a lot of author posts. Like, I see a ton of random stuff on there, and I’m not really interested in seeing that. I wanted to look at the cat videos, and I can’t even find the cat videos.
Kat (56:34)
I can’t find them. Where are they? I’m actually not able to because of my husband’s job beyond there. But whenever I’ve seen it, I was like, this will just waste all my time.
Emily (56:46)
Yeah. And it’s like if it was something that I enjoyed looking at, I could waste a lot of time looking at that. But I think that the videos that you see are so mixed up. It’s like a book video, and it’s a random guy dancing. And then I put out maybe like six or seven TikTok videos, which are basically just things that I was creating for Instagram anyway. And I thought most of them have 500 views, but that doesn’t translate to followers. I have less than ten followers. So it’s just not something that I see myself. To me, it feels a lot like Facebook to where you might get hundreds of Facebook followers, but that doesn’t actually translate to engagement. The same 20 or 30 people are the ones that are interacting with your Facebook post. And that’s kind of the vibe that I’m getting from TikTok, right?
Kat (57:44)
Yeah. And in the end, running the businesses, you got to find where the people who will buy your book, you can’t keep selling to the same 20 people, the same book. I think social media is constantly changing, and we’re always looking for something else. But really going where you like to spend your time is probably the best because I think maybe viewers will see that. And I just don’t know. I feel like every time I have to make some sort of real I take forever, and I’m too old to be doing all those dances, but I’m sure they’ll come up with something soon enough. I need a filter to answer. Let’s see. So where can people find you? I do see here if people are interested in being maybe part of your next art team, or maybe they are a female in romantic thriller. I have a feeling you guys, women might write it less. I don’t know, maybe that’s just my bias, but that might be kind of cool, like female thriller writers, because most thriller writers I’ve talked to are male.
Emily (58:51)
Yeah.
Kat (58:52)
So if they want to follow you on your newsletter, that’s probably the best place to go to your email. That’s your email to your website.
Emily (59:00)
Yeah. So on my website, Emilyamyers.com, there is a newsletter sign up. But I would say Instagram at Emily Myers, author is where I’m the most active. And if you look at the link in my bio, it actually links to a bunch of different things. And from there, you’ll see the specific button where you can click to join my Arc pool or my beta reader pool. And so that basically, if you want to join the Arc pool, that puts you on a list that I will. Then I’ll reach out to you via email when I have a new Arc that’s available. And if you want to join the beta pool, that’s basically like, I’ll reach out to you via email when I have a new book that’s ready for feedback. Not necessarily a review, but feedback while I’m still in the revision process.
(59:51)
Okay.
Emily (59:52)
And that’s one of those things where if I have something that needs feedback but it doesn’t work with your schedule, then don’t worry about it. You’re just basically agreeing to be notified.
Kat (01:00:01)
Okay.
Emily (01:00:02)
And yeah, I have some other things on there. I do put out a newsletter. I’m more active with the newsletter during a time like now when I’m launching a book. I don’t send out a ton of emails in between book launches, but you can subscribe. And so, yeah, if you really want to keep up with me and see what’s really happening, Instagram is the place for that.
Kat (01:00:23)
Instagram is the place to go.
Kat (01:00:24)
Okay, cool.
Kat (01:00:25)
And I like that idea of just sort of like putting your name in the pool. I’m here. And if it works with your schedule, you can do that. And just for listeners, beta readers are people who are willing to read a book that might not be completely finished yet. Some things might change. So it’s giving just like make sure that her eyes are still blue at the end of the book. Make sure that I did that. Right. Well, thank you so much, Emily. We’ll have to have you on again when you have that next series out. And we’ll want to hear all about your writing process on Alistair and dual point of view, because that’s a little bit different, too. So we’ll definitely have you on again someday.
Emily (01:01:04)
Thank you so much.
Kat (01:01:19)
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 Pencil 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 Catcallbl.com. I have my story over there, my books, my interactive journals, my oneonone 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’ve 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.