IWriterly Talks Writing Sub-genre SFF, Hybrid Publishing and MORE!

hello everybody and now welcome to the opposite of what just happened on our randally's channel assuming you put yours out first i don't know anyway today i'm going to be talking with an authortuber something i have never done before about the process of establishing a brand getting published being a youtuber who does these things it's gonna be a blast how are you doing today i'm doing good thank you so much for having me and it's great to chat absolutely so just kind of getting is for the audience out of the way what would you say is like the five-minute pitch of who you are what you do and how you got to where you are sure so hello everyone my name is meg latorre i'm the host of the youtube channel iwriterly and essentially i create videos oh what happened i forgot to say your name i refer to you as iwriterly i am sorry about that someone in my youtube comments called me mrs iwriterly and i was like yeah and mrs i writerly that's great i love that um yes mario continue gordon oh good um so i'm the host of the youtube channel iwriterly you can call me mrs iwriterly if you want i create videos that talk about writing and publishing books essentially so i talk about self-publishing and traditional publishing i have literary agents come on my channel i've had editors come on my channel a lot of authors both traditionally and self-publish um successful authors kind of talk about their process and what they do so that's kind of me in a nutshell for my channel i formally worked at a literary agency so that's where my traditional publishing video experience comes in and i'm in the process of self-publishing my debut novel the cyborg tinker which is over my shoulder i always forget which direction which is that guy um and i'm publishing it through a company that i made so it's essentially self-publishing or indie publishing it and so that's where my self-publishing content comes from and so how did you necessarily get started doing all this yeah so i i think it was 2016 i was working full-time and i was also writing on the side so i was working in corporate and writing on the side and i was like i would like to learn how to traditionally publish my book and so i started digging into the world of twitter and i found out about literary agencies and so i did a ton of networking and eventually i applied to intern at a literary agency and then i interned for a few years and then i was promoted to what was titled literary agent apprentice which is sort of like the equivalent of like an associate agent and that you take on clients you pitch them their books to editors at publishing houses and then i worked with other agents who did that as well kind of in the training process and then um eventually i left the agenting world due to like personal reasons and i did talk about it i think in one of my youtube videos i think it was titled why i left agenting or what um what being an agent is really like something like that if you guys want to go check it out you certainly can um but i left the agency and then um i started my youtube channel around the same time um i was starting readily because i wanted it to be like a a resource for authors that i didn't have when i first started querying like a how to query a novel um what it's like working with a literary agent i wanted to answer some of those like general how-to's and then it kind of organically branched into self-publishing as my interests kind of shifted i suppose um and yeah and so it's kind of an educational resource that's branched into like an author platform sort of thing because now i have my own books coming out which is you know super exciting great transition there into your book but first i just want to say you had apprentice in your job title at one point yeah infinitely cool that's something i'm always jealous of when i hear it um fantasy nerd i suppose with the apprentice in my job title so your book itself i'm sure you know you have to have your five minute pitch down for pat uh but to my audience here what exactly is uh the book that you have crafted and put out yourself contrary to popular belief and i th theoretically you know because i worked on agency i should be good at pitching but i am not um so i have some notes and i'm gonna i'm gonna look at it but the short pitch for my book so it's called the cyborg tinkerer and it comes out november 17th 2020. but the short pitch is a circus competition a tinkerer tasked with removing the losing cyborgs implants who is she to protect when she falls for both the handsome ringleader and a beautiful acrobat i basically didn't want to follow any any genre rules for this book um which is part of the reason why i chose to self-publish it but it's an adult steampunk space opera romance and it's pretty steamy so if you guys don't like sex on the page don't read it it's not gonna be your thing um it's also an own voices novel um so i identify as bisexual my leading protagonist is also bisexual um so if you like action adventure with a hearty smattering of smutty scenes um an lgbtq plus representation a cyborg tinker might be your thing stingray steampunk is probably a new favorite title that is fantastic where did your inspiration for the novel specifically come from though how does the concept behind it come to you that is a good question and i don't know that i have ever one moment where i'm like aha this is where like a novel idea came from but i remember talking with one of my colleagues at a conference when i was working as a literary agent and they had mentioned something totally unrelated and all of a sudden i was like cyborg circus and i and that was like the first initial idea i wanted to create a cyborg circus and i'm a big wren fair renaissance fair steampunk nerd i do cosplays and stuff when you know we can all get together in person it's safe to do so um and so i was like i'm gonna make it a steampunk cyborg circus and then it kind of evolved from there then i was like who's gonna lead the story what is this actually about and um so it kind of evolved from there right now i'm planning for it to be a trilogy but we'll see what happens so many things have started as trilogies and ended up being still ongoing on book 10 right right so as someone who's been in and out of the publishing industry is it kind of like oh you've seen the meat being packed it's a little like that's why you're going this alternative route like what led you to go this route for being published that's a fair question and a lot of my viewers ask that they're like hey you have a lot of connections with agencies why didn't you go the traditional publishing route and it's a totally fair question for me um i i think and i tell authors this think about how you measure your goals and your success so what does success mean for you and for this particular book um there were a couple of reasons why i chose to self-publish so the first reason was the marketplace adult steampunk is a tough sell in traditional publishing right now so the market is constantly shifting and you know vampires are out vampires are back in they're out they're back end so i think you know the marketplace is constantly shifting and what people want so i could have sat on the book and waited for the market to shift um but you know i chose not to obviously another reason it was creative control i wanted a chance to have my hand like you know in the publishing process and to be able to have a say on things like the cover and um the the plot the uh the plot summary in the back of the book jacket and all that um another reason is higher royalties i'm a mom and i you know have a mortgage i live in a place where it's extremely high taxes and so i money was a factor into i i need to find a way to support my family so um you can make an upwards of 70 royalties on your ebooks depending on how you publish them and where you publish them so the average royalties for traditional publishing depending on the format and depending on the publisher it's extremely it's very varied and there's no one answer but i would say around 10 is pretty typical um so 70 to 10 big difference and then if you um that you sell the copies so i and i already had like a platform built in anyways my goal was to be a hybrid author meaning i published books both traditionally and both self-publish them and so for me it was just a matter of deciding which came first and what aligned with my goals um and my personal skill set you are at a position now where you've almost run the entire race you got copies of the book behind you you have a release date now looking back though at where you know advice you could give yourself back when this concept was still just getting formed what would you tell you so this is my first book right and i've spoken to a lot of authors and a lot of first-time authors have a really tough time with reviews and i would just tell myself be like don't even hop on goodreads like it's not even worth it have someone you trust go on goodreads get that reader feedback and i think it's good to know what readers are excited for especially if it's a series so if they're like i love this character you're like you do um it'd be really good to know that they like that character so i can include that character and or have like nice little nuggets in book two it's not to change what i am writing because i still have a vision for the book and the series but i think having that reader excitement and feedback and knowing what they're excited about there's ways that you can write for yourself and write for the reader if that makes sense but i think um for me i didn't know that going on goodreads was would hurt my creative process so i would have told my early like previous self like don't go on goodreads have someone else check it for you um and i would probably also really embrace the romance side of my story sooner i didn't i thought it was like a very like action-packed story and i realized later after getting my arc reviews and stuff in they're like this is a romance this is more like sarah j maas kind of um like kind of both faint like i guess for me sci-fi and romance but for sarah j maas is like the fantasy like half fantasy half romance so i think it would embrace the romance element a little bit more too how did that if you don't mind me asking how did that shift come about like were you did you outline it very stringently and then you just as you wrote it figured out oh this is how it's coming across or was it more of a creative direction that you just kind of flowed into the romance direction more i think it was like like in the process i flowed into it more um i went through many many drafts of this book so it's very different from where it started to where it finished um because i worked with critique partners and beta readers and then i worked with three editors before um you know shipping it off to arc reviewers so i think it kind of shifted into um the more romance than i anticipated and also i think as authors it's really tough for us if we're both the author and the publisher to be able to put a name onto our book and say hey this is what my book is about but if you have a publisher they can be like hey this is how we would market your book so i think as a self-publisher that is one thing that you learn along the way how to market your book most effectively and maybe i just was like i think this is this but i didn't have that objective stance on it that's okay yeah i i can see that it's it's interesting you brought up goodreads as a creative blocker almost at times and i i think that's something that i as a reviewer often think about like i never want to hurt an author that is never my goal uh sometimes i want to hurt their work but that's it it's never ever ever personal um yeah that's essentially a conversation i hope to have with more people on the other side of the aisle if i'm on the review side they're on the writer's side more in the future um but that's great great response and how uh if you don't mind me asking just another kind of tangent question here as you're kind of getting into these sub genres the labels that you're kind of putting on these did it ever guide your direction or was it just more you wrote and then you discovered the genres after the fact realistically what i wish i could go into and being like i'm going to write a fantasy and here's how i'm going to do it or i'm going to write a sci-fi and here's how i'm going to do it because there's a very clear marketing path you have an established audience but for me i was like i want to write a book that i would want to read and so there's a lot of passion in that and that's a good thing and you can hopefully we'll see people can hopefully read that on the page because i was like i want to write this thing that i want to read and then things happen in the creative process that by the end of it i was like wait actually what is this um so i think some people are able to go into and say i'm going to write a fantasy novel and it's going to be this or i'm going to write a sci-fi novel that's going to be this so for me i think i was like it's like a sci-fi steampunk in space like like space fantasy i don't know so um i think yeah i just kind of went into it writing it and then labeled it later if that makes sense um so the next question i have for you here is you do a lot with the writing community you are seemingly from what i've seen maybe the most connected like youtuber i know within the industry you operate um how did that start out how did because i know i'm caught like people ask me how did you get this author now i want to ask you how did you get in touch with all these different people what was your process i don't know that i have like a single answer um i just i kind of i started out with the agency side of things right so i worked in the agency side of things and then i i think i'm like inherently curious like part of the reason why i love doing collabs and interviews is because i want to ask questions i'm really curious about and i love to like talk with people and i love to i just like to like talk with people i guess um so i started out with the agency side of things and then you know i youtube channels are kind of a great excuse to talk to people so you bring them on and you pick their brains and so i got to do that with a bunch of agents and then i did that with a couple traditionally published authors and then um i kind of shifted to talking to indie authors and then i was picking their brains and um that was part of the reason why i chose to self-publish because i was interviewing indie authors and i'm like you're making six figures a year and you're doing xyz and that's amazing um and so it you know kind of opened my mind and then i kept asking more questions and asking more questions and talking to people so i would say for anyone who wants to get really invested and say like the writing community online just don't be afraid to ask questions and put yourself out there like i put myself on there on twitter for years and then i kind of branch into like youtube but i think just constantly asking questions and um not being afraid to ask like um one of my dear friends jenna moresi is on this uh platform and i remember the first time like i think i had 3 000 subscribers at the time and i just reached out to her i was like hey would you like to do a collaboration and and she said yes and i was shocked and same thing with you when i reached out i was like i love your stuff you want to like chat um so i think it's just you know putting yourself out there you just never know what'll happen yeah and generally everyone i've met in this industry has been super nice and willing to talk uh so this is gonna be a rather strange question but i hope you don't mind how's talking with all these people who have been published or deep in the industry your confidence is a writer has it been you know are you more confident because you've talked to all these people who are like i did this than that and you go oh okay i can take away from that and learn or is it kind of for me it's almost chaotic because everyone has a different answer for everything so it's almost like i don't know which direction to go and there's all these different polls how has that affected you that's a really good question and i think this is going to be subjective based on the person so like another person in my position would probably react differently but for me i liked like basically having all these connections and asking all these questions so i like before i publish the cyborg tinkerer helped me decide how i wanted to publish it so i went to my ancient friends and i picked their brain and then i went to my indie author friends and i picked their brain and then you just kind of have to go with your gut so i would say sometimes it's confusing and you're like i don't know which direction to go in and other times they they give you a tip and you're like oh my gosh you help me avoid this roadblock thank you so much for me it's just been i i ask questions to people when i i'm hoping for an answer and then you just go with your god kind of at the end of the day yeah it's it's something where it's like i get so much feedback that's people not having the confidence to put pin to paper not they're typing so put finger to yes uh but it's it's to me it just seems like the number one thing is start and just go and then you'll you'll find it from there um but it's good to hear that i'm not the only one who feels like there's all these different ways and avenues and pieces of advice out there especially for writing process and i'm a big believer for writing process like a lot of times it's go with your gut right and you're like but what does that mean i'm the new kid on the block and so sometimes go with your gut you won't know how like what your gut instinct is or what to do or get that feeling until you've written several books and that at least that's what happened for me i wrote those first few first few books and people like uh go with your gut and i'm always like i don't know i don't know what i'm doing and then now that i've written like a number of books i've been writing books for about 10 years i now understand what that means go with your gut so it might just be a matter of gaining experience to be able to kind of discern through all the voices absolutely absolutely and i so this is going to bring me back around to the real star of the the interview here your book is coming out soon i'm excited for you because any time someone's getting covered i'm like yes so he says i'm sorry november what day 17th got you see i just now it's in people's heads more so how are you going about promoting your book though so you're not doing this traditional route i mean you have this whole brand around your book as i hope too similar to be in a similar situation similar soon words are hard and i'm curious how have you found the ability to promote your book utilize your platform utilize your connections to really amp it up there that is a good question and i would say for me what i've done with the cyborg tinker it's been primarily content marketing through youtube so i post weekly videos about writing and book publishing as i mentioned before and i mention my book at the beginning and at the end of my videos and one of the things that i've been doing with that is um a pre-order giveaway so essentially if you have a longer pre-order which was my strategy for this particular release there you don't get the immediate gratification as the consumer if you purchase something you're like uh it's coming in eventually and especially if it's like a new kid me is my first book i don't necessarily have like a reader following yet um so you give them an incentive to purchase something now and they are entered to like win a prize so i talk about that in my videos and then more recently i've been trying to post more content specific or rather more content that is specifically targeting my target audience so folks who love to read science fiction and fantasy and romance and those video things like how to write sex scenes um a favorite and least favorite uh trope so that could be romance tropes sci-fi tropes fantasy tropes whatever i'm also active on like twitter and instagram and i have like a newsletter list i tried doing the old school marketing stuff because i was like this is my first rodeo let me just see what works for me and i found that um and this is something a lot of i i see this in my youtube comments a lot of people try doing like the local newspapers and the magazines and for me i reached out and did all the things with event that like i'm a local author but i found the roi so return on investment was terrible it was not worth it um local bookstores also didn't have a good roi for me and it could just be that this is all happening in the middle of like a pandemic and stuff um and then i've done a lot of guest speaking on podcasts youtube channels other platforms things like that and selfishly i just like to do it to connect with people but it's also been good marketing and stuff too and then the last thing you can do both traditional publishing and self-publishing is paid advertising so i haven't um dipped my toes into paid advertising yet as far as indie strategies they don't a lot of the experts don't recommend that you advertise on your first book until you have a big backlist so um once you have a big backlist you advertise book one and then hopefully you get that read through throughout the series so um one day i hope to advertise on places like amazon and bookbub and maybe like facebook and instagram too i'm terrified because i've heard the return on investment of that kind of marketing is great but i'm terrified as everyone hears it's great then it will be less great because then it'll become a flooded market but i mean it's it'd be lying to deny that people like you have a huge you and me have huge advantage over most people because we can say hey you know how you subscribe to my channel 200 000 people or whatever well buy this book now too do it you like me you'll like it yeah probably won't but you know it's it's an undeniable advantage yeah so i i enjoy i really appreciate the candid answer there because i know it's kind of sometimes strange to talk about marketing you're doing behind the scenes but i think it's also very useful uh to get out there and so what are you this is something i'll ask everybody and i need to know what are you currently reading that is a good question and i'm always intimidated to give that answer because i feel like you're so well read um but i'm currently on a bit of a romance kick i'm reading it or i've been reading the wicked villain series by katie robert i've also been reading the poppy war by rf kong i'm not sure if i'm saying her last name right and the power of hades by eliza rain and rose wilson and then i recently finished dark dawn by jay kristoff i think that was like the third book in the never nate chronicles i read like 20 books at once sorry i used to be that way but i had to cut it down i was like because i read so many books like i need to focus because i wait no gandalf's not in witcher damn it yeah yeah how did you like dark dawn i actually got curious about that one i really really liked it overall i thought that um i felt like the first two books were really really fast paced with everything that was happening so there's a couple of moments where things slowed down and you got to enjoy the moment and there was like a couple of really intense battle sequences the ending was bittersweet and but jay kristoff had said as much on like social media and stuff so i kind of anticipated a bittersweet ending but i thought it was an engaging read he broke my heart a little bit though so again a bittersweet thing fair enough fair enough and um i would just like for you to take a moment to self-promote i'll be sure to have pre-order links i'll have a link to your channel you said you're on twitter instagram i imagine are you tick talking is are we tick talking no no not a tick duck okay so i'll have all those links down below but uh so you have the cyborg tinker coming on november 6th 17th i'm dyslexic it's all good 17th november 17th yeah and i look forward to it and there will i imagine be a review here on the channel i think i have that on my tbr so yes there will be awesome awesome and thank you so much for coming by meg yeah thank you so much for having me i really appreciate it and now the fake goodbye because we always talk afterwards because that's how interviews work goodbye

Channel: Daniel Greene

Views: 20,837

Rating: 4.9424262 out of 5

Keywords: iwritterly, daniel greene, scifi fantasy subgenres, writing scifi fantasy, self pub, self publication, booktube, authortube

Id: 4LaDQB2W1eA

Length: 21min 46sec (1306 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 21 2020