Episode 113: What You've Missed! Season One Recap
Watch now on YouTube!
Coming Friday May 16th on Spotify and Apple Podcasts!
We've covered so many amazing marketing topics for authors in first season of The Best of Book Marketing Podcast, from book blurbs and mindset hacks, to how to work with libraries and bookstores.
In this episode, we'll recap each episode to help you catch-up on topics you might have missed and highlight all the amazing expert guests who joined us live. Use it as your listening menu, then go dive in!
We’d love if you send us episode ideas or suggestions - Form here! Or even better comment on our new Substack!
Episode Resources
Free download from Lainey - Author Platform on a Budget
Books Mentioned
What We Give Away by Paulette Stout (releases February 4th, 2025)
In this compelling tale of self-discovery and romance, Leslie must navigate a world that demands she conform, while finding the courage to be true to herself and live her best life.
The Artist of Blackberry Grange by Paulette Kennedy
For a young caregiver in the Ozarks, an old house holds haunting memories in a ghostly novel about family secrets, sacrifice, and lost loves by the author of The Devil and Mrs. Davenport.
Full Disclosure: We are part of the Amazon affiliate program, which means Lainey earns a tiny commission (maybe enough for a coffeeif you buy something after clicking through from a link on this website.
Past Episode Sponsors
Lilian Sue is author of The Powerful Publicity Prescription, and owner of In Retrospect Writing Services. As a PR coach and publicist, Lilian empowers authors and creative entrepreneurs to gain the confidence to unlock the superpowers behind their stories, to push past limiting beliefs and learn the tools, resources and knowledge to launch successful PR campaigns.
Alida Winternheimer, author of The Story Works Guide to Writing series of craft books, is your guide to mastering the art of storytelling. She’s the brains behind Word Essential and Story Works. In addition to editing and coaching, Alida offers MFA-level writing workshops that focus on developing the writer while growing craft knowledge and skill.
12 Weeks to Book Launch Success
Lainey’s program to help authors successfully launch their book
Program Info - 12 Weeks to Book Launch Success.
Join the wait list for 12 Weeks to Book Launch Success
Join Lainey’s list for free book marketing tips and webinars
Note: next sections are mostly created by AI for your convenience - so please forgive any typos or inaccuracies!
Summary
Paulette Stout and Lainey Cameron recapped their first year of the Book Marketing podcast, highlighting key episodes and guest insights. They discussed the importance of community, the challenges of marketing controversial books, and the benefits of author newsletters. Paulette shared her experiences with book awards and the decision between corporate and indie publishing. Lainey emphasized the value of social proof and the practicalities of author newsletters. They also touched on the ethical use of AI in author marketing. The hosts encouraged listener feedback and reviews to guide future content.
Outline
Recapping the First Year of the Book Marketing Podcast
Paulette Stout and Lainey Cameron introduce the episode, highlighting it as a recap of their first year of episodes.
Paulette and Lainey discuss the excitement of looking back on the topics and guests covered in the past year.
Lainey mentions the long list of topics they didn't get to in the first year, indicating many good things still to come.
Paulette and Lainey thank their listeners for their flexibility and support.
Challenges and Decisions in Publishing
Paulette and Lainey discuss the challenges of seeking approval and the compromises involved in corporate publishing.
Lainey shares a conversation with an author who chose to self-publish a thriller to maintain control and avoid waiting on a traditional publisher's timeline.
Paulette reflects on her motivation for seeking traditional publishing and the validation she seeks.
Lainey mentions an episode with Camille Pagán about pivots in publishing and the flexibility in choosing publishing paths.
Author Community and Book Marketing Strategies
Paulette and Lainey discuss the importance of building community and networking with other authors.
They highlight the benefits of collaborating with other authors, such as newsletter swaps and co-speaking on panels.
Lainey shares insights from their episode with Paulette Kennedy on marketing books after launch, emphasizing the role of community and author events.
Paulette and Lainey talk about the importance of maximizing free resources and using tools like Canva and Book Brush to save money.
Book Awards and Their Strategic Purpose
Paulette and Lainey discuss the strategic purpose of book awards in marketing and the importance of social proof.
They emphasize that book awards can provide social proof and help authors gain credibility and visibility.
Lainey advises authors not to believe all claims of awareness value from book awards, except for a few notable exceptions.
Paulette and Lainey share tips on choosing the right categories for book awards and the importance of narrow categories for better chances of winning.
Building a Sustainable Career and Staying Motivated
Paulette and Lainey discuss the importance of building a sustainable career and staying motivated.
They highlight the practical advice from Tiffany Yates Martin on mindset hacks and staying motivated during challenging times.
Lainey emphasizes the importance of setting realistic goals and not minimizing your dreams.
Paulette and Lainey share their experiences with goal setting and the different approaches they take to setting and achieving goals.
Author Newsletters and Their Importance
Paulette and Lainey discuss the importance of author newsletters and the different platforms available for creating them.
They provide practical tips on building an author newsletter list, choosing an affordable email service provider, and measuring the success of a newsletter.
Lainey shares feedback from other authors who have found their episode on author newsletters to be very helpful.
Paulette and Lainey emphasize the control authors have over their newsletter audience and the importance of using this platform effectively.
Marketing Controversial Books
Paulette and Lainey discuss the challenges of marketing controversial books and the importance of being comfortable with the topic.
They share insights from their episode with Laura Drake, Sharon Duquette, and Paulette on dealing with controversial topics in their books.
Lainey highlights the importance of writing the book of your heart and not letting commercial viability dictate your content.
Paulette and Lainey emphasize the need to set realistic expectations and be prepared for the potential challenges of marketing controversial books.
AI in Author Marketing and Ethical Use
Paulette and Lainey discuss the potential of using AI in author marketing and the importance of staying true to your values.
They plan to address the ethical use of AI in a future episode, focusing on how authors can use AI tools without compromising their principles.
Paulette shares her experience with AI in her day-to-day work and the benefits it can bring to authors.
Lainey emphasizes the difference between using AI for ethical purposes and platforms that steal content, highlighting the importance of ethical AI use.
Listener Feedback and Future Topics
Paulette and Lainey encourage listeners to provide feedback and suggest topics for future episodes.
They highlight the importance of listener reviews on podcast platforms to help more authors discover the podcast.
Lainey shares the process of moving their podcast newsletter to Substack and the challenges they faced.
Paulette and Lainey express their commitment to serving the author community and providing valuable content in their future episodes.
Transcript
Paulette Stout 0:03
Hello everyone, and welcome to the Best of Book Marketing Podcast. I am Paulette Stout and Lainey Cameron is getting us live on Instagram while we are so excited to be with you. This is kind of like an in between Episode, as they say, because we just thought, you know, finishing our first year of episodes would be really great to recap that, but go back through all the amazing topics and guests we had and just refresh your memory on each one. If you're new to the part, if you're new to the podcast, welcome, and it will give you kind of a little bit of a road map for how to attack the episode, so you can go back and listen.
Lainey Cameron 0:36
Yay. This is exciting, and it's actually kind of fun for us too, just to look back on a whole year and realize how many interesting topics we've covered, and what y'all don't see behind the scenes is the long list of topics we didn't get to in the first year, which was only and so we have so many good things still to come.
Lainey Cameron 0:54
And hi everybody, Lainey here, we're live on Instagram, Facebook and now on YouTube, and I am here with the biggest cup of coffee. I'm going to hold it up next to my head. It's head. It's almost head sized. It's a very large cup of coffee because it's only 8am in the morning for me, we did a slightly different time this time,
Paulette Stout 1:09
Yes, and thank you for being flexible with us. Thank you everyone who's listening live Kathryn and Beth and thank you because you know our life, we always talk about life getting lifey, and we just fit this podcast around our life, and that's so much of how we do our off the career choose. It just feels kind of appropriate to be frank about like, yeah, we're going to tape at different times, and we welcome you to join us whenever that happens.
Lainey Cameron 1:32
Yay. So I say, let's go and let's get going. We're going to cover each of the episodes that we've had during our 12 months. Talk a little bit about what stuck out for us on those episodes. Sometimes the things that end up being a conversation are not the topic of the episode. It's one of the things I've noticed is like, we get into these really interesting conversations, and it's not always obvious from the episode title. So Paulette, why don't you kick us off and tell me what's going on in your writer life? You don't have a chat within like two weeks.
Paulette Stout 1:58
I know it's been, it's been really busy lately. Work is very busy, so I've been trying to manage all the book stuff. It was really nice to wake up to a book award I got. I'm not sure I can only tape last if I've gotten two on what we give away. Shameless plug over my shoulder, I'm a finalist in one so I could still win the North Texas reader Choice Awards. That's really cool. I am kind of a, you know, third or quarter the way through rewriting my debut novel, lovely better. And it's kind of like reacquainting myself with an old friend, you know, it's, it's like so many of the sentences in my head, I almost predict what happens next, which is kind of cool that after all these years, I can still remember.
Paulette Stout 2:42
But I think that I'm my storytelling has improved, and I just really want to bring a better experience to all the readers. And then that's also making me reflect on my publishing path. I know in the past, I've talked about the next book that I want to write, and, you know, potentially querying that, whatever, and it's just kind of like the more I hear about, but I'm starting to call corporate publishing, because corporate publishing is mostly run by multinational corporations. It's that little visit people with spectacles like pondering literary greatness and like, do I want to dive in that pond?
Paulette Stout 3:16
So it's funny, because I was really pretty much resigned to doing that the next book, and now I'm kind of questioning some of the compromises I would have to make on the creativity and the book, and things that I put my books that my readers like that may be atypical for the genre that publishers might not like. So I'm still kind of grappling with that whole publishing passing for the next book, but it's not written, so I have time.
Lainey Cameron 3:38
I was having I'm not going to say the name, because I didn't ask for their permission, but I was having a conversation with an author yesterday who is multi time published with large publishers, who is also multi time indeed published, self published, and they have a book coming out that's a thriller.
Lainey Cameron 3:54
And this book, actually, I think, would get picked up. They've got an agent. This book would get picked up if they took it down the traditional publishing path, and we had a whole conversation where they said exactly what you're saying, that they could go down that path. It would probably get picked up, and they're not going to do it. They're going to self publish this book, because they want to keep the control and they don't want to wait on the timeline.
Paulette Stout 4:12
Yeah, so it's funny, because I was really, you know, I'm a person in my life who is just always seeking approval and doing, you know, just, it's just by nature, I'm just always trying to get approval from people. It's like I have trauma. I won't go into it, but this has made me think of what, what's my motivation for seeking that path? And I, you know, I did have business reasons for it, but I think there is that little piece of validation piece there, and that probably won't come so I have to just kind of like, think about my it's a great path, no matter what you choose, folks. So don't listen to this and think like, you know, we're not down on corporate publishing, but it's just something that everyone has a decision everyone needs to make for themselves. And also, like, on a book by book basis, like, what's right for that project?
Lainey Cameron 4:55
Right? And a little plug that I'm skipping ahead if you didn't listen to Camille's episode, Camille Pagan's episode, that's exactly what we talk about, is pivots in publishing, and when to pivot, and how to know whether it's right to pivot. And she talked about how this perception that like it's a one time decision, that you decide to go with big publishing, or you don't, you can't go back on that decision and change it later, is so not true, right? I mean, big publishing, she talks about this has picked up all these indie novelists recently who've done well. And so it's not a tall true, you know, the way it maybe was perceived to be, whether it ever was, 15 years ago, that if you go down the indie path, you can never go back and be big published. Quite the opposite. We're seeing a lot of people do both. And so, you know, there's pros and cons. We talk about them to both paths.
Lainey Cameron 5:39
Don't, don't get us wrong. We're not saying we're only ever going to indie. I'm actually I have one publisher I would like for my next book. In fact, I'll bridge into getting doing my update unless you didn't share. So I'm working on my second book. Still feels like it's been forever. I had two weeks there where I wasn't writing and I wasn't doing much other than lying on the on the couch, like grasping my face because I had pretty major wisdom tooth surgery. I still have a hole in my jaw, but it's much better. I will tell you if you're going into this at 52 years old or beyond, it is not like recovering from it in your 20s. So just heads up if anyone's considering doing it two weeks later, I can talk. I'm fine. I'm not on pain meds. So happy, happy. But it was two weeks that I just accepted that I was not going to be doing other stuff, and I cleared it off my calendar completely. And by the end of it, I was able to watch some TV shows and read some books. I read, where is it around here? I read the puzzle box by Danielle Trussoni. I read the whole of that book, fabulous, fabulous thriller set in Japan. Thoroughly recommend it. Um, but that's kind of what's going on in my life since the last one.
Lainey Cameron 6:38
But on my new book, I am getting into writing my blurb. I'm actually going to do my one on one session in July with Jesse, so I'm starting to work on it so it's ready for us to review in July. I am I haven't done the exact calculation, but I think like 65% through this revision, and I hope around the same time frame of July or August, I'll be able to send it out to beta readers. So I'm feeling really confident that book will be finished this year, and then I've got one big publisher I'm interested in, and otherwise I think I'm going to indie publish it. So So kind of working on how to do that, because it's not how we traditionally think about it. And I want to encourage people to say, you know, you know, the way we think about it. Well, you must get an agent, then you must query, then you must go out to all the big publishers, and then you look at other paths. I'm not doing that. I'll share as I get later on how it works out. But that's not how I'm approaching it, and I only have one publisher I want for this book, other than myself.
Lainey Cameron 7:27
So anyway, let's get into, oh, one more thing I did, the 30 day reel challenge in April, which is posting a real a day, so a video a day, a short video a day on Instagram for the full month. It's a challenge that's sponsored by a guy called Brock Johnson who does kind of Instagram marketing expertise and classes and stuff. And he gives you, like, a prompt every day, so you're not, like, starting from scratch, going, what do I pro What do I possibly post? So each day, you get a direct message saying, this is the prompt for today. You don't have to go with that prompt. Like many cases, I had something for the podcast that I wanted to do, so I'd use that, and then I'd save up the prompt and use a different day. But it just makes it easier. Just like writing prompts, if you don't have to just have a blank page, right and go like, Oh, what do I say? Right? Do note.
Lainey Cameron 8:15
I'll give you the Cliff Notes, because I actually just went through this with our Thursday writer night writer support group. I got way. And so two things changed over a month. I posted every day, and I don't necessarily post every day on my Instagram. So I posted 30 days of April every single day, including all the weekend days. I think normally I probably do four or five days, which is already plenty, okay? And I posted pretty much only reels, with the exception of maybe a couple of images that I flashed up along the way, but mostly all real. I posted 30 reels over 30 days. Okay, so I got way more views on my Instagram, way more my average month. I think I went back and looked I get eight to 10,000 views, and I got like almost 30,000 views on my Instagram. Yippee.
Lainey Cameron 8:54
Wait to hear the end of this, though. So I got more engagement. It tracked exactly with the views. So more views meant more people saw it. Meant more people engaged with my content, and I got more access to people who didn't already follow me. So normally, about 25% of the people who see my stuff and remember, it's not all reels, it's a mix. Normally, normally, 25% of the people who see my stuff are not people who already follow me. Okay, this time it was more than half were people who don't follow me. So I was definitely getting out to non followers. Here's the thing, 30 days of creating a video every day, I got no more new followers than a regular month if I'd posted every other day and I hadn't done all reels, and it's a hell of a lot more work. So didn't get more followers and I didn't get more clicks. Now you could argue, but Lainey, you were posting a mix of you know how to do marketing stuff. You were talking to authors. Maybe if you've been talking about your book and doing all about your book, it would have been different. Absolutely could be true. But isn't it interesting that even posting a real a day, even getting way, way, way more views and interactions, I didn't gain any followers compared to normal. I'm always slowly, slowly, tiny, slowly growing so. So lesson learned. I'll just share that I've said on the podcast in the past. In the actually, the email newsletter episode, I get as much interaction from sending one author newsletter as I do from 30 day 90 days of social media posts. And this kind of still proves that that same theory your author newsletter is or your sub stack is where it's at. So yeah, saying that, let's keep going.
Paulette Stout 10:21
Let's keep going. So episode 101, was our first one. We kind of introduced ourselves. And, you know, we talked about, you know, building book marketing plans, and, you know, misunderstanding the role of book marketing. And you know, the troubles with, you know, not doing things the right, you know, way. So that was a, it was a great it was a funny, because it often first episodes are just like, huh, this is my name and whatever, we actually kind of started talking about content, you know, and talking about book marketing in general. So it was a nice little introduction there,
Lainey Cameron 10:56
Yeah. And I think I took two things away from our first episode. I went back and kind of looked at the notes and the transcript, and as I thought about it, I was like, the first thing that I took away is that you and I had great chemistry, and it was a lot of fun to do, right? That was our very first episode. And so it's like, is this gonna work? Doing it with someone else? Is new for me, right? I've not mostly done, like, two of us on camera together, and we had some fun, like, we had to learn how to not talk over each other. Still a work in progress, we get so excited. I don't know if you all have noticed in the audience on the video version that now we raise our hands to try and manage who talks.
Lainey Cameron 11:30
But like we saw, like big takeaway for me from the first episode was our chemistry was going to work, and this was going to be a fun thing to do, and going back to reset it again and again, you have to pick which things to do in the universe and which things to do in marketing. Do the ones you enjoy, don't do the ones that are going to make you, like, want to tear your hair out. And then I think the conversation we got into on setting realistic expectations over time, and it's not all about the first book, I had so many people reach out to me, I think Beth, who's watching us live here, was one of them saying, like, oh, that really helped, like, take some of the pressure off. And I think I credit you totally. I don't think I definitely credit you totally for your bakery analogy palette. Oh yes, not originally yours, right?
Paulette Stout 12:10
It's not mine. I was looking into it, and I was trying to find out who it was. And I think in the notes I did say that, but it was basically the concept, if you'd missed the episode, you should go back and listen. But you know, when you go to a bakery, there's a big bakery case, and when you have one book, you're basically have an empty bakery case, except for one bakery. So you can't expect the same amount of customers and engagement as if you had a really full bakery case. There's lots to choose from. So I think it's just basically giving yourself grace to understand you're starting out. And it's, you know, writing is a long term endeavor, you know, for most of us who want to make, you know, kind of a consistent career out of it. And if you listen to this podcast, I wager you probably do.
Lainey Cameron 12:52
Yeah, and even like, advertising makes more sense. When you have more books, we'll talk a little bit more. We're actually got an advertising, Facebook advertising, one episode coming up, and I tell this to my class all the time, like, I think advertising is a great way to go, especially Amazon ads. But if you've only got one book, the economics of that are going to be really tricky. And if you've only got one book, and it's not a self published book, the economics are going to suck, because you're making so little per book that you're not going to be able to get, you know, maybe you're the exception one in a million. But in general, you're not going to be able to be able to get your advertising costs to make any sense and to be economically. You're going to lose more than you're going to make on ads if you're only making a tiny percentage of royalties.
Lainey Cameron 13:28
So I think the last thing I wrote down as a quick note for that first episode is I didn't come into this expecting, necessarily, that I was going to talk a lot about having a chronic health condition and having Crohn's disease. And I think it came up in that very first episode, in that context of that conversation, of like, see it as a long road, and you don't have to do everything at once. And I'm really glad I did share that from the very beginning, because I feel like it actually is relevant to my author career and who I am, and it's something that I hadn't talked about a ton in the past. Like, it will pop up small ways on my social media, but I don't major on it. And so it's actually been interesting for me to make that just like, to let it just be part of my story, because it is part of who I am. I just wasn't putting it front and center publicly before. And so that was kind of interesting for me in that first episode that it came up, and it kind of empowered me hearing the response from other people that they were glad I shared it, to be able to talk more about it in future episodes, if that makes any sense.
Paulette Stout 14:19
Yes. And thank you for sharing that, Lainey, and there are a lot of people who have chronic health conditions, and, you know, get down on themselves because, oh, I should be I should be doing this. I should be writing. I should be doing something when your body is just telling you not today. So you just need to kind of honor that. And so I really It means a lot that you are uncomfortable sharing that. And I think it probably helps a lot of people, you know, especially with those expectation settings, and you can't do everything. And do, you know, kind of lean into your body and listen, you know, yeah, and
Lainey Cameron 14:46
like, I'm on a learning journey that other people are teaching me things like, it never occurred to me because I'm like, you, I'm like, the A type personality that you get a goal and you go for it. And it never occurred to me until, like, last year, when someone was explaining to me that NaNoWriMo is a. List, because it basically assumes that every single day you are up and able to write a certain number of words. Well, if you have a chronic health condition, the thing you're living with is probably not having control of every day. And so setting a goal that says, I must write every single day the same like we say all the time. You know, button, chair, right? Every day, we may actually not be serving people who don't have control of their health when we say that. And I hadn't really thought about it that way, like I've had to learn myself to just grant myself the grace when it's not a good writing, like it's not a day I'm gonna be able to sit at my desk, and that's just life. But I never really thought about all these things we say to writers like, you know, must write every day, which make people who can't or who shouldn't, or who won't feel bad, and there is no you must write every day. That's that's just someone's perception, that someone's take.
Paulette Stout 15:43
I mean, just on a recent episode of the Creative Penn podcast, which I'm sure a lot of people listen to here, is she's like, I don't write every day, you know? And it's like, you know, she This is sound right in person. I think that hopefully listening to this podcast, you will come away with, there is no one white right way. There are lots of options. And then you need to pick what's right for you.
Lainey Cameron 16:02
She's, you know, we should get her on We should get,
Paulette Stout 16:06
I don't know if we could sure.
Lainey Cameron 16:08
I'll come up with a good topic.
Paulette Stout 16:11
Yes. So okay, so on to Episode 102, if you're ready. Lainey, um, we talked about how to market books after launch with Paulette Kennedy, who was fabulous, and her new book, The woman of black, I just bought it up. Her new book is out, and she is she writes paranormal women's fiction, and that you can't put down, or you think about it way after you finish it. So definitely go out and buy that book. The Artist of BlackBerry Grange. I can't wait to read it. So Paulette was on with us, and we had two pull out. So that was super interesting. How do we know which poet is supposed to be speaking at the same time? Which is something I don't usually encounter.
Lainey Cameron 16:50
We use AI to transcribe the episode, and it does not like the name Paulette, it gets it comes up. I've had 100 variants of Paulette that I had to like fix on the transcript.
Paulette Stout 17:01
Oh my god, that's so hilarious. So, yeah, but we always talk about, you know, book launch, book launch, book launch, but what happens after? You know, you know, Lainey books went out for a while. I have books the Forever 2021, and, like, what do you do with them? Like, afterwards? So it was, you know, a really great conversation about some of the tactics that you consider. And I think that one of the big things that we talked about with Paulette was the importance of community, you know, of building community and getting out there. And, you know, networking with authors, supporting other authors, and just being there and engaging.
Paulette Stout 17:31
And then, you know, when your book comes around, you know, then it gives opens up opportunities to collaborate. You know, do newsletter swaps, and you know, other you know, co speaking on panels that, you know, I've been invited by, you know, people to, kind of, oh, you know, I'm going to be selling at this bookstore. There's another table you want to come, you know, you just start hearing about more opportunities once you start engaging more in the author community. Yeah.
Lainey Cameron 17:55
And I thought that ended up kind of being the theme of that episode, was author community. I thought that was really interesting, because I thought that we would end up talking a lot about tactics that you do after brick lunch. But actually it kind of bridged into a conversation about longevity and the importance of playing the long game and building reader community. And even I remember we talked about the post launch slump, right? What happens after the launch? Like, mentally, that there's definitely something that happens for many people post less slump, so, slump, so, yeah, a good example of like we ended up getting into other topics beyond it. Should we go to number the third episode?
Paulette Stout 18:29
Absolutely, let's keep it moving. We how to post your book on a budget,
Lainey Cameron 18:36
Yeah, yeah, with less money, right? And I actually created a download for people, which was really interesting to me to do. It was actually Beth, who's watching us live here, who had asked the question of, if I want to do all of this, but I don't want to spend a bazillion dollars, how do I do it? And it challenged me to go think about it, and it made me change a lot of my perspectives on things that coming from big corporate before, you know, big corporate startup, so a lot of big corporate before. I was like, well, you must have an email at your domain name.
Lainey Cameron 19:06
And then I just sat back and I thought about it, like, what's wrong with LaineyCameronwrites@gmail.com it's not unprofessional. Tons of people have Gmail addresses. Why do you need a Why do you need a domain name when you need it for your author newsletter? But still, it was like, so if you're starting out and you're not yet published, no, you don't need to pay for domain name email. You could just use Gmail. And then, if you're starting out and you're not yet published, you could just put your domain name on your sub stack, and that could be your website if you wanted. So that's free.
Lainey Cameron 19:30
So there's a way to have, you know, email and a website at no cost as an author. And so it was fun for me to kind of challenge some of my own preconceptions that you must do all these corporate level things. Of you must have a website from the beginning, and you must have email, and you must have all these things. You know, I still believe you need an author newsletter or sub stack, but you could do sub stack for free. So that was kind of fun for me. What stuck out for you? What do you remember from that episode?
Paulette Stout 19:54
I remember things that I was trying to do was like maximizing free. So to your point, maximizing free. Versions maximizing, you know, you Canva has a free version. I think book brush has a few free version. There's lots of these software tools that can be really pricey when you get onto the paid version. I think there's even a a free version of book funnel. I can't remember. Don't hold me to that, but there's, there are beginner levels, you know, at all these things, including newsletter, you know, lists, if you if you're going to go that direction, that you can save money doing those things in your first starting out. Um, so maximizing free. I mean, I we, I ended up becoming, you know, kind of professional acquaintances with Marc les feuci, because I heard him on the creative pen. He said he gave free half hour consultations to authors. So I signed up for one. We ended up talking for an hour, and I went on this podcast, and then we've been like, he's not been on our podcast. It just like maximizing free was how that all happened. So, you know, especially if you have people that you wouldn't normally have access to, if they are giving, like, free camp whatever, you know, definitely try it
Lainey Cameron 20:57
And not feeling bad about that. I remember we got into a conversation on often, you feel like, if someone offers something for free or taking advantage, or, you know, I only consume the free stuff so, and I gave myself as an example, I put a lot of free things out there because I want to, because I want to help other authors, and very little of that translates into like someone who is then going to do a paid engagement with me. I don't do this podcast, right? We don't. You know this podcast costs money.
Lainey Cameron 21:21
So I just feel like sometimes authors feel a little bad about taking advantage of all the free stuff out there, and you shouldn't like do it take advantage of it all. If people chose to make it free, they did it for a reason, either because they want to get to know you, or they get joy from helping others at that simple or they're building a list for the future, for one day when you might be able to buy something paid from them. So don't worry about consuming all the free stuff. And the thing I remember also was, and I think you just touched on this palette, if you're paying for something, use all the features instead of going and getting a second thing. So like, an example would be Canva paid. Canva costs quite a lot of money, but, well, quite a lot of money. It's like 100 something dollars a year. But if you you know it's all relative to where you're coming from. But if you buy the paid Canva, you can set up an author website, and then for you don't have to go pay for Squarespace or Wix, you can just use Canva for it. So there you've got, like, something else that would have cost you two or 300 bucks for the year, that you can now just do as part of the service you already bought.
Lainey Cameron 22:16
So you know. And you can also do social media scheduling from Canva. So, like, you don't need to go buy a separate platform or get another platform, so use the features of the thing you are paying for, rather than paying for three different platforms.
Paulette Stout 22:28
Yes, especially and then, and then choosing ones that have robust features. Like, I don't know, we're not, like, getting paid by Canva here, but they also have, you know, AI image generation, you know, they've got, like, QR code creator, you know, they have, there's, like, a lot of little things that you might want to pay, you know, you go to get one and you have to pay for it. So if you do something like that and has multiple features, definitely it's a great way to go. The other piece, I think, was trading skills. It's not something that I do a ton of, but I know that other authors do in terms of, you know, I'm good at doing marketing graphics, and that person can edit our proofread for me, and you swap skills, you know, those types of things can also save you money with that kind of barter community going back to it. So those are just some of the highlights, and there were a lot more. So definitely, would encourage you to go back and listen to that episode.
Lainey Cameron 23:15
The last other one I had written down, just as our notes here, was, when should you spend money? Right? Like we also talked about, you know, you don't want to cheap, skate everything. And one of the places we, I remember we talked about in great detail, is your cover. Do not go cheap and get a shitty cover. You will regret it 100 times.
Paulette Stout 23:32
Yes, please, please people, I beg you, we're back. Even if you go to, like, 100 covers.com. They have really great covers. They've got ours that work with you, you know, pre made with tweaks, you know. So there's, there are great cover designers or cover trends or things that you do on a cover. You think it looks really good, and we can spot it like in a half a second, that it's a homemade cover. Then we think the book is a homemade book, you know, and it's just kind of rough around the edges. So do yourself a favor, and if you're going to invest in place, please invest in the cover
Lainey Cameron 24:02
And let us know if you'd like an episode on covers. That's one of the ones on our list for the future that we haven't got to yet. We're going to put a plug in at the end, but I'll say it now. We want your feedback on which episodes you think will be most valuable. We've got a whole list, but we've got Facebook ads coming up. We know we've had requests for Amazon ads. So we're going to work out how to who to who to invite? Who we think is the best expert on that? But yeah, covers is also on our list. So if there's ones that are hot topics for you, let us know.
Paulette Stout 24:28
Yes, I'm designing. I've got book covers on I've been the thing I'm finding with a lot of the cover designers are very shy, so every cover designer I've reached out to, it's like, yeah, comfortable coming on camera. So we're working on it, folks. We definitely will do a cover episode as soon as we can find a talented artist who's not afraid of a camera.
Lainey Cameron 24:48
Okay, should we go to Episode Four? Marketing by publishing path?
Paulette Stout 24:53
Yes. This is a really fun conversation, because we had authors. We had Allison Hammer on we had Michelle. Cox on Lainey and me, we all have, like, different approaches to publishing paths. So it's kind of like, what are, what are the options and considerations that are open to you when you have different publishing paths? We talk, you know, I'm an indie, so we, I kind of like talk about stuff that, that's what I know. But it was interesting hearing, you know, from Allison and child about, what are the things that happen when you're in, you know, hybrid or, you know, traditional publishing, corporate publishing paths, yeah.
Lainey Cameron 25:26
And it was a little bit of a reality check also on, you know, one of the things that I hate hearing is when I talk to someone about book marketing, and they say, I don't need Book Marketing. My publisher is going to do that for me. And I just like, I try to, like, take a deep breath, and then I'm like, Okay, there's only so much I can do to convince someone here. But, like, it drives me crazy, because it's like, oh, you're just going to be so disappointed you can't just delegate everything to your publisher. And I think Allison did a brilliant job of talking about what her publisher did and did not do for her, and she's because, you know, two big publishing has two of the biggest publishing houses, and so, yeah, I think the other thing I liked about that episode is it got us off this concept that I see authors do, which is I found a checklist on the internet, and it says I should do these 100 things to market my book.
Lainey Cameron 26:11
And the reality is, you do 100 things that's going to drive you completely crazy. And was that checklist even written for your publishing model, or was it written by a big publisher offer and you're an indie? Or was it written by an indie and you're a big publisher book and you're going to waste your time doing things that aren't relevant. So I think if you're trying to work out, what should I do for my model, or even, should I indie publish? That's a really good episode. That's going to give you a sense of the difference of what you get with a big publisher versus doing it yourself, for example, or with a small publisher.
Paulette Stout 26:37
Yes, for sure, that was a good thing. And the you know, and then it's also kind of reinforces, I think, some of the strengths in the weaknesses of the different publishing gaps. You can make an informed decision. So that's definitely a good episode. Anything else you want to cover there before we go on to Episode 105, Book Awards.
Lainey Cameron 26:53
I think it was interesting that certain themes have come up through all of our episodes. And one of them, you know, one of them has been, you don't have to do it all. There's been a few. One of them has been this idea that careers go back and forth across publishing models. And both Allison and especially Michelle was talking about this, that she's been in multiple different publishing models. And then it came up again in great detail in Camille's episode that we're going to talk about in a few minutes. And so I think this idea of like, it's not a one and done choice. The authors go back and forth from big publisher to indie and back to mid sized publisher, right? Like, that was a really interesting theme that keeps coming up again and again from the authors you talk to,
Paulette Stout 27:32
Right, and then, since the episode aired, you know, Alison and her co writing partner under Ali Brady, they ended up indie publishing a story. So, you know, that's like another dipping the toe in, what's it like, type of thing? And, you know, who knows what will follow for that writing duo. But it just, it just an example of, you know, we have choices as authors, so for sure. So episode 105, was on Bookawards, all things Book Awards. And Lainey and I, y'all, we got a lot so we know we're talking about Book Awards and but I think more importantly, we discussed the strategic purpose of Book Awards and in your marketing, you know, portfolio. So I think that was something that I think some people go into Book Awards for different reasons, but I think both of us look at it as a tool for marketing.
Lainey Cameron 28:21
Yeah, and I if I got one thing across in that episode, I hope it's that you shouldn't believe some of these big claims from these awards that say that they have all this awareness value, and it goes out in a newsletter to this many people, and that many people will hear about it with very few exceptions. The value of a Book Award is that you can use it in your marketing. It provides social proof someone else saying your work is of quality. But all of these awards that claim that, you know, they've got huge awareness value. In my, my experience, none of them have awareness value, with the exception of, like, the Women's Prize for print fiction in the UK, the Booker and the police, right, like, and maybe the Edgar actually, if you're in, like, the thriller space. But yeah, most of these do not have awareness value. Don't believe when they tell you they do,
Paulette Stout 29:06
But just despite that, you know, I think they still have value. I think that they can help you, not only in, you know, having marketing content for your social and for your community in your newsletter, I think it can also help, you know, give you some gravitas, if you're trying to, like, apply to programs or podcasts or, you know, other places where you have to kind of validate that you're a noteworthy person, that they should that should be listened to, or they should be, you know, invited on that radio show or that TV show or the podcast, or should invite you to do a guest article in their um, their magazine.
Lainey Cameron 29:41
Yeah. I mean, I talk to my class, and I've talked frequently here about the idea that you do want to invest in social proof. Is what I call it. Social proof is someone else talking about your work, right? So it could be reviews, it could be awards, it could be author endorsements. There's different ways to get it, but you want to invest first in social proof before you put any money on awareness. So, you know, Book Awards are a great form of social proof, and they're not as hard to win as you think they are. I think some people think they're so going to be impossible to win, and we should just not even try. And I would encourage you not, not to take that stance.
Paulette Stout 30:12
Yeah. I mean, if your book is quality, and there's a category for your book and that award, you know, I would encourage you to apply in the category that best supplies. So for instance, my book kind of straddles women's fiction and romance, and I've won in both categories. Um, it depends on the award, but you know, if they're if the award doesn't really have a category for, like, contemporary fiction, contemporary women's fiction, and you're going up against all the people who are writing, you know, literary or whatever, like, I just feel like my chances are less. You know, if they're attracting that audience, those judges are probably going to be inclined in that direction and not going to be more commercial. So, you know, those awards aren't ones that I typically apply for, um, although I did apply for the poster. So I'm just waiting for my award to come.
Lainey Cameron 30:56
Narrow categories are better. And the other thing when you go into a big, broad category. So let's say contemporary fiction is you don't know what the judges are using to decide what makes for the best contemporary fiction. So you're kind of like, just taking a you're buying a raffle ticket in that scenario, because you don't know. Like, do they want a fast paced novel? Do they want literary with lots of flowy analogies? Like, you have no clue. So you're much better choosing a much narrower category, you know, within women's fiction, within romantic women's fiction, within you know, romantic women's fiction dealing with social issues like the more narrow you can get, the better, because then your book is truly being compared to other similar books, not to completely different books, right?
Paulette Stout 31:35
So if you have memoir you know, you'll be on even keel versus someone that you're in a contemporary fiction category, right? With a memoir you know, or non fiction, or, you know, what have you. Yeah, so we are in our sponsor segment. Oh,
Lainey Cameron 31:49
no, no. We have one more episode six.
Paulette Stout 31:51
Oh, sorry, sorry, I skipped I skipped it. Sorry. Episode
Lainey Cameron 31:55
Six was all around back on this topic that kept coming up again, how to build a sustainable career. And that was, this was with one of my favorite people, Tiffany Yates Martin. She has a phenomenal blog, if you don't follow her blog so inspirational. She writes a lot about editing and writing, but she also writes a lot about the motivational piece of, how do you stay motivated? Like she's got some great articles on how to stay motivated during troubling times when you're getting distracted all over by everything happening on the news, slightly relevant right now to some of us, but Tiffany went through it was so good, kind of like mindset hacks you'll want to use.
Lainey Cameron 32:30
She talked a lot about the content of her new book called The intuitive author, which I thoroughly recommend. And I just I liked that she takes such kind of a practical approach, not just to the how do you write what you intended to write and get it on the page. But also, how do you sustain your career and stay motivated and stay resilient over time in the face of the reality of a roller coaster and rejection that is just part of writer life. So I don't know if there's anything that stuck out to you in that one. Colette, um,
Paulette Stout 32:56
I think it was more about, you know, it's like, it's okay, it's okay to be not okay. You know, it's okay to kind of just embrace who you are and go on your own path, and, you know, stay centered on what you need. You know, it just like, I definitely recommend the book, The intuitive author. It, you know, it was very it kind of left me thinking, you know, gave me a lot to think about. So definitely recommend giving that a listen and giving the book a lesson.
Lainey Cameron 33:25
Yeah. And I liked the focus on goals as well, or, or rather, and Camille went to the same place with her episode, like, really thinking about what you want out of this, right? And measuring your progress against that, not against other people and what they want. And like, what you're in this for is different to what someone else is in it for, and it's so easy to get caught up in this like brighter jealousy thing, which we get into a lot in Camille's episode. So sponsor segment. So we've had two sponsors so far. And first, I just want to say a huge thank you to both of our sponsors to date. Why do we have sponsors? Well, we have costs associated with this podcast.
Lainey Cameron 34:01
We have a website that goes with the podcast, that has a cost to it. We have an email newsletter that comes out, if you're not on it, you definitely join it, and that has a cost associated with it. We have a domain name and that has a cost associated with it. So I spent somewhere between, I want to say, three to $500 a year just on those things. And so the sponsors help defray that for us, it doesn't cover all of it, but it helps defray some of that cost for us. So I do want to say a huge thank you to our two sponsors. We've said this many times, we will not bring anyone on as a sponsor that we are not 100% convinced is a great partner, is legitimate, is someone you can trust offers a service that you are going to enjoy and appreciate and feel like it was valuable. So we do encourage sponsors. We would love some new sponsors. We've not been very good at actually going out and inviting people. Just kind of happens. But if you might be interested in being a sponsor for the podcast in our second year here, for some of our second year for a few months, let us know, and let me just say a couple of words of.
Lainey Cameron 35:00
Our two sponsors who are fabulous. Our first was Lillian Sue. And Lillian Sue is a publicist, but she offers a lot of really interesting things. She has and I say that because I know I and palette, we're not big fans of the dump $15,000 cross your fingers and trust us, method of publicity, which very often results in, gosh, why did I trust you? And so, and even good publicists, they can't guarantee results, and they'll tell you that, right? They'll they'll be honest. Yeah, if they say they're guaranteeing results, I'd probably walk away, because they're suspicious, because they can't Okay, so even great public says cannot guarantee your results, they don't have control.
Lainey Cameron 35:39
So I like what Lillian does, because the first thing she has is, she has a book. It's called the powerful publicity prescription, and it basically teaches you how to do your own PR, so you don't have to hire a publicist. Here's what you need to know in order to do your own PR. So great start there. Great book, thoroughly recommended. The other thing she does is, she does coaching by the hour, or in small packages, where she'll help you with a piece of your publicity plan. So if you want to work at how to research the right people and build your list, or you want to work out how to hone your story, she's doing some workshops and some consults right now around honing your story, how to use your personal life story as the hook for media, which is kind of interesting.
Lainey Cameron 36:16
So those are things that like, instead of give me 15 grand and cross your fingers. She's like, No, let me help you. Well, you need help, and let's keep it more affordable. And so that's one of the reasons I felt very confident bringing her in as a sponsor. I've worked with her. She teaches some pieces of my class for me as well in the publicity space. So fabulous, fabulous. Recommend to go check her out. Lillian sue you can find her, and we'll put the links in the in the episode page.
Lainey Cameron 36:39
And then the other person we've had is Alida Winterheimer has been another fabulous sponsor for us on the craft side. So leaders, not on the marketing side. She's on the craft side. And she offers um MFA level courses.
Lainey Cameron 36:52
She offers workshops, really kind of advanced marketing craft work where you can and she is a three time push, three time Pushcart Prize nominee. She has been a notable and best American essays page turner award winner. I mean, this is someone who knows what she's talking about when she talks about the craft of writing, and she just brings so much great energy.
Lainey Cameron 37:13
She has her own podcast called The Story Works Podcast, which I encourage you to check out. It's fabulous. Story works round table, just fabulous. And she offers a series of writing workshops and craft workshops that are really kind of at that advanced level for authors who are looking to expand and deepen their skills, not at the beginner level of like, you know, how do I write a novel? And there's a lot of beginner level stuff out there, but I find it's actually hard to pick the right advanced stuff. And so definitely Alita winter and Heimer, I would recommend to go check her out. So there you go. There's a little blurb.
Paulette Stout 37:47
And then a little just another for Alida podcast, that's where I worked, round table. It's just really, she just has this easy, breezy way of interviewing people that makes the content really appealing. So if you're looking for a really good craft, listen her and Mary Catherine, her co-host. They, you know, they have a really nice podcast over there, so check that out.
Paulette Stout 38:12
Alrighty, episode 107, y'all author newsletters. So we go over a comic the nuts and that's some bullets of author newsletters from all different angles. From like, what do you have them? Should you have them? Should you not? What do you put into them? What platforms you choose? You know, how do you build a list? Like, all the things. And, you know, Lainey has made it super clear, I think I made it super clear that we, we think that newsletters are an important place to have. They are the one place where you have control over your audience, you no one can take that away from you.
Paulette Stout 38:43
The algorithms can change on, you know, social or Amazon or whatever. But like these are your peeps. You have them, and you can kind of curate the audience that you want. So I think that this is a really great episode for you to go back and listen to the entire thing, because there's so much practical hands on tips there, from choosing an affordable, you know, e list server, you know, mine's a little expensive, but there's some features I want, and I'm not willing to compromise on those. So, like, I have to go on the higher tier.
Paulette Stout 39:10
But there's lots of, you know, more affordable ways to do this, and there's lots of different platforms, you know, from sub stack, like Lainey said before, to, you know, mailer light, to Mail Chimp, you know, and, you know, we just feel like it's a really important tool in your box of marketing platform.
Lainey Cameron 39:29
And this episode, I think, was the most practical of all our episodes to date, we really do get into like statistics and how to know if your newsletter is working, and what platform should you use, what are your options, and how often should you send it? Really, really practical. I've had a lot of great feedback on that. And I know several author friends have told me that they keep sending people to that particular episode as kind of like, you don't know what to do with your newsletter. Go listen to this one. Go, go. I love when people tell me that they're referring people to our podcast as a key source of like, how to learn about something. Yeah.
Paulette Stout 40:00
Yeah, I think this one and the awards episodes are just two things that people struggle with, like, do I do Book Awards? Do I do a newsletter? What do I do with it? And I think those two episodes for sure, and especially the author newsletter episode was basically, you can write it down and use it, so definitely a good use of your time in the author newsletter space. And
Lainey Cameron 40:18
then the next one after that was, I'm gonna say our funniest episode today. So this is the one with Mark Leslie LeFevre and oh my goodness, Lafave. Sorry, the Fave sorry, French versus Canadian Lafave.
Paulette Stout 40:36
So I say Lafave.
Lainey Cameron 40:38
We should honor people's pronunciation. So Mark Leslie just had us, like, cracking up. There were moments where polite and I, like, actually editing the audio of this. I had to cut out little pieces of the laughter because it went on for like 30 seconds where we couldn't stop laughing.
Paulette Stout 40:54
He's just, he's just an amazing, amazing man. He's so giving. He is so supportive of authors. He is out there. If you're not familiar with him, please go look up his, you know, books for authors, especially how to work with bookstores and libraries, which was the topic of this episode. And you know he, you know he's worked on the publishing side. He's worked at publishing houses, he's worked at, you know, Cobo, and now, you know he's at draft digital now, so he is in the buyer kind of space on the publishing side. So there's great insights for what are the concerns? What are they looking for, and how can we as authors better navigate that space?
Paulette Stout 41:29
You know, I ended up having some good conversation with my local bookseller in terms of, you know, should I be buying my book, my book, books from you when I go tabling, when I go out to events and things. So we had a good thing. It didn't end up working out for me, because the cost was just a little prohibitive with what I could get myself versus what they were charging me for the books. But you know, if that's something that's a concern for you, and if you want your books showing up and book scan, those are the types of relationships with your local booksellers that you know could be beneficial for you.
Lainey Cameron 41:55
Yeah, I just thought that, again, was so practical. His book is fabulous, and he really went into a lot of the ideas on like, how do you even as an indie, even as a small publisher author, where you're not taking returns, where you're not giving that massive discount, that big publisher books are, how do you build relationships with bookstores and libraries and make your book available? And he gets really innovative ideas that I had never heard of before, and how to do that, like what you were just saying. So yeah, if you're not an expert on bookstores and libraries, which I certainly wasn't, and I think most of our listeners aren't, this one is definitely worth your time to go listen to,
Paulette Stout 42:28
yes, for sure. Episode 109, goal setting. Lainey, okay, so
Lainey Cameron 42:35
this was our January episode, and in addition to talking about how life is lifey, which we're still going to make T shirts it's coming, or merch. We talked about how we set goals, and it was really interesting to me how differently Paulette and I approach it, right? We're different people with different goals, with different life everything.
Lainey Cameron 42:53
And so I thought it was very interesting for us to have a conversation about the different ways of setting goals. And one of the things that I talked about is that we're going to move the podcast newsletter to sub stack. Has anyone noticed that we haven't done it yet? I believe that and hashtag life is lifey between my mom being in the hospital and wisdom tooth surgery. That one was one of the I'm ditching it off the site. It's not brain surgery, and nobody dies if it happens in May instead of February. And so the cool thing is, I am actually fairly far down that path, and I think that this episode will be the first one that we actually put up on our sub stack and promote on our new sub stack. So watch this coming soon. Um, anything else on that goal setting? One, it was a fun conversation. Um, yeah,
Paulette Stout 43:36
I just this one thing because I just to speak to what you were saying. You know, I am, you know, little bit unreasonable in my goal setting. Like, I come in with this huge list of like, eight things, and then each thing is sub bullets, like, 123, and some of, like, you know, Roman numerals, you know, it's like a little a lot. And, you know, Lainey came in with, like, two or three, I think she added one during the call. So it's like, there's no one right way to do goal setting. So I just wanted to reinforce that point again, and just to Beth's comment, yes, she wants life. Gets life beyond a mug. We will definitely, I'm thinking mugs and T shirts. So I was laying in bed this morning, yeah, I was like, in bed this morning thinking of design. So I think I'm actually gonna, I'm, I'm gonna put that as a goal, talking about goals
Lainey Cameron 44:21
As I as I saw Beth's comment, life gets lifey on one side of the mug and on the other side, and it's okay. Yes. So the next episode, our 10th episode. We're getting dead to the finish line here 12 so far, other than this one, our 10th episode was the one we've referenced a couple of times about navigating author career change and career pivots with Camille pagan and I loved this episode. She had so many good things. We got into a whole conversation about jealousy and writer jealousy, which was not the direction I expected the episode to go, but it was so. Valuable to me. And then the other thing Camille talked about a lot was how our brains get in the way of what we actually want as a defense mechanism to prevent us from being disappointed.
Lainey Cameron 45:10
We're so afraid of being disappointed, even not not knowing it, subconsciously, that we don't dare say the thing we actually want or go after it, and we minimize our goals and minimize our dreams. And so that really encouraged me that episode, to kind of step out of that and say, no, what do I really want? And how do I go after that, and not minimize it and kind of shrink it down, shrink my goals down to what I think might be the reality of what's possible. Because your point is, if you do that, then you're never going to get the big dream. And I think she's right about that. So I don't know what did you think of that episode.
Paulette Stout 45:41
Yeah, I think it's that the jealousy thing really struck a chord for me, because it's something that, you know, frankly, I struggle with a lot. I'm just a very competitive person, and, you know, it's, no matter what I do, it's never enough, you know. So that's something I struggle with. And I thought it was so profound when she was saying how the jealousy was actually good. And I was like, wait, what you know? And she was like, basically, it's showing you a path towards what you want.
Paulette Stout 46:05
Like, it's showing you if that's something that is, if you're seeing something that someone else has, or a situation, and that you want that for yourself, that's a goal. You've just created a goal for yourself to work towards that. And that was just such a positive reframing of something that I, like, I view as really a negative, like, character or flaw in myself.
Lainey Cameron 46:24
Yeah, like, jealousy is telling you what maybe you actually want, and maybe you've been minimizing that thing and not allowing yourself to dream it. And maybe that jealousy is little poke that says, hey, flat, maybe that is for you after all.
Paulette Stout 46:38
Yes, exactly.
Lainey Cameron 46:41
11. Episode, 11 book blurbs, making an I love Jesse so much.
Paulette Stout 46:49
I like, like, my session with Jesse is Wednesday. Like, so excited. Like, I was like, in the middle of the episode. Y'all like, I was, like signing up with Jesse in the middle of the episode, because she is just so impressive. She's completely, you know, she gave a lot of information which were free, frankly, like in this episode. So definitely go listen to if you are struggling with book verbs, what to put in, how to handle trigger warnings, how long it should be, how to handle your which characters you focus on and what plot tropes I mean, she she really was very gracious with the amount of information she shared. Um, given that she has, like, a paid service for this when I still went out and signed up, so
Lainey Cameron 47:29
me too, both signed up, though, and, and you can't say enough talking about Jesse Cunniffe. So for those who are not familiar, Jesse can if her company is Book Blurb Magic, and she has a course where you can learn to write your book blurb, and she also has one on one consult, so she'll write it for you. She's got different ways.
Lainey Cameron 47:46
We're both doing the one on one consult, where you write your blurb, and then you take it to her, and she helps you get it to be go from good to brilliant. And so yeah, she's she gives so much information away. She shared her whole framework for kind of paragraph one, paragraph two, paragraph three, brilliant. I actually went and took her class, her online class. It's not that much after that. And now I'm also going to go do the one on one consult. So I'm consuming it all. Yeah,
Paulette Stout 48:09
I'm going to see, like, after, you know, I was kind of like, well, if we finish quick, can I do it to have a lunch? She's like, No, which is another lesson for us as business people. Like, honor your time, you know, have your boundaries and don't give yourself away for free. I think sometimes, with me especially, I'm like, seeking approval. I'm doing stuff for free, and I'm, you know, jumping into chats and author forums. I'm like, I guess I could be charging for that, you know. So, um, you know, honoring your time is, is a, you know, have a lot of respect for that.
Lainey Cameron 48:37
And then our 12th episode, last one of the first year. This is number 13, and now we're moving on to Season Two. Episode year two was all around how to market controversial books, and this was a fun conversation. We had Laura Drake, who writes both romance and women's fiction. We had Sharon Dukett, who has had a memoir and now following that with a thriller. We have Paulette, who's written a whole series of books that are fabulous to hit on controversial issues, novels and romantic and it was such a good conversation. And I hadn't even thought about the fact that my first book was also controversial. And so it was great. Such a cool conversation about like, do you do trigger warnings or not? I think you'll be surprised if you haven't listened to the episode to hear that several of the authors on this actually, I think three out of four of us said, No, you don't need to do a trigger warning if you do everything else right, which is interesting. And we talked about kind of what's worked for them, for you, palette and anything else that stuck out in that last episode for you.
Paulette Stout 49:39
I think it's also just for me, also about dealing with, you know, getting ready to market a book like that. You know, getting comfortable talking about something that's a controversial topic. You have to feel comfortable about it yourself. And it can be sometimes difficult to imagine yourself putting it out in the world. And people reading it and having opinions and wanting to talk about it, but if you're doing it, you need to put yourself in that space. You need to be able to confidently talk about your story. And I remember with my first book, it was, you know, is peaking in the bedroom.
Paulette Stout 50:11
It was very biographical, and it was just, you know, hard to talk about it at the beginning, but like the more you talk about it, the easier it comes. And you should have your elevator pitched no matter what you write about, even if it's a controversial thing, what are you going to do about it? And then also just setting some realistic expectations around, you know, sales and audience, and it may just take you a little bit longer to find your people, if you're kind of, you know, pushing the edges a bit because, you know, not everyone likes that, but doesn't mean that there aren't readers out there for you
Lainey Cameron 50:42
And completely agree, completely agree, and and I just thought there was so many interesting insights also on like, write the book of your heart and don't let like commercial viability. Like Laura made some brilliant points on this, that some of the book she's written were not about writing a best seller or selling 1000s of copies. They were about a book that she wanted to see in the world, and she wrote it and put it out there. And, yeah, sure, it'd be nice if it became a best seller, but if that wasn't your goal with the book, don't write the book from your you know, first off, don't step away from writing the book of your heart. But also, don't write the book of your heart and then, like, beat the poor book up because it turns out not to be a commercial best seller, because that wasn't why you wrote it.
Lainey Cameron 51:22
And so, like, I thought that was really interesting conversation, because not everything is about numbers and money. Right at the end of the day, sometimes we're doing this because it's our passion, and we want to put something in the world, and it's going to live beyond ourselves.
Paulette Stout 51:35
Yeah, it's funny, because, like so many of us, when we are writing our first books, we're like, if I could just finish this book and put on, put it out into the world, and one person reads, and I'll be so happy. And then you get that, and then you're like, shifting the goal posts, you know.
Lainey Cameron 51:53
And author jealousy, I saw someone else.
Paulette Stout 51:56
Yes, exactly right. You know, little green eyed monster. So just remember that when you're writing, especially with these, you know, my books are, you know, I've, I've found success, but it is not the same to sex as maybe I would have had if I had chosen something way less controversial. It's gonna be frank.
Lainey Cameron 52:14
And so we made it to the end. That was our 12th episode, and the thing we wanted to wrap up with is actually two things. One is, if you like the podcast, the biggest favor you can do for us is go write a review. And this is like a book review, in that we don't need you to write an essay. Just go to either Apple podcasts or Spotify or YouTube.
Lainey Cameron 52:34
If you don't follow us on YouTube, follow us on YouTube, go to Apple podcasts or Spotify. Just give us some stars. If you want to write one line that says it's useful to you, perfect. Don't need an essay. But that helps us a ton, because just like with book reviews, when you have more book reviews on Amazon, they're more likely to promote your book. Same thing on the podcast platforms, more reviews mean more people see the podcast. Mean we help more authors. So that would be my first please, please, if you enjoy it and it's being valuable to to us, it will take you less than five minutes to go to wherever you're watching us. Either subscribe on YouTube, write a quick one liner on Apple podcast or Spotify.
Lainey Cameron 53:07
And then the second thing I want to say is we love topics. We love requests. Many of the topics we've chosen, chosen chosen are based on requests I see on Instagram that Saleema Ishq who is absolutely fabulous. I love her to death. I might recommend her for the future. She writes thrillers. Saleema actually is saying yes to a cover episode. She's like, yes, cover episode all the way. Let's do it so there's one feedback, and it's on the list.
Paulette Stout 53:31
All right. I'll get on that, Seleema.
Lainey Cameron 53:34
But yeah, tell us what you want to hear. Like I said, we've got Facebook ads coming up. We are trying to work out the right person for Amazon ads.
Paulette Stout 53:41
I know I gotta request that. Fingers crossed, folks. Yay. So,
Lainey Cameron 53:44
So are here any other topics we've been thinking about Paulette that you want to throw into the universe for anyone?
Paulette Stout 53:49
People don't hate me. I think we're gonna have an up and coming episode on AI and how you can use it as an author while staying true to your values. I really feel like it's a tool for us, and I hope you'll give the episode a chance, because I think that there's a lot of really good things that you can tap into to kind of begin using AI in your process and in your marketing.
Paulette Stout 54:17
So it's not anything to be afraid of. I know there's, it's a very passionate topic, and I'm up to my eyeballs in AI every day at work, and it's just something that's on my mind a lot. So Lainey and I will kind of scope out that episode, but we'll probably be doing one on working AI into your product,
Lainey Cameron 54:33
Like ethical AI, because authors the unethical side of AI. But let's get to the ethical side, and where you can use it with confidence and feel okay. And we use a lot of AI with the podcast. The transcript for this podcast is created using AI. Believe me, I don't sit there and write it out. The videos for this podcast, we have lots of things we use AI for, but we're starting with our own intellectual property. And I think there's a huge difference between stealing someone's writing or using a platform that stole someone's writing.
Lainey Cameron 55:00
And ethically using AI. So I think that's a brilliant, brilliant topic. And then just going to say, if you have ideas for us, there are two ways that you can get us ideas. I will take this one on, because Paulette has a full time job. You can message me on any of the platforms. So whether that's the podcast, social media, on Instagram, on Tiktok, we have a Tiktok. On Facebook, you can email me, you can email the podcast.
Lainey Cameron 55:23
You can put a comment on any of our episode pages. So feel free to reach out to me directly. This is Lainey Cameron talking. There is also a form on the episode page, on the website, and in the episode description for this episode, where you can just go to the forum and say, I want to hear such and such. So lots of easy ways, send me a DM, send me an email, put it in the form, whatever works for you.
Paulette Stout 55:44
And I'm on social way too much, so you can email me, do whatever you're more comfortable with, just let us know what you want, and we'll do our best to serve you, because we really view this, this show, as like a service to the author community.
Paulette Stout 55:53
Like Lainey said, we're not getting rich off this. Y'all, we're you know, this is not a this is not a buddy. This is a buddy losing endeavor, but it brings us both such joy, and we hope that you find value in it too. And we'll come back and watch our next episode on Facebook advertising,
Lainey Cameron 56:09
Which will be this month in May. So we got two episodes in May, this one and another one coming on Facebook ads
Paulette Stout 56:15
So we will see you next time. Thank you everyone for watching. Thanks so much. You.