The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers

Joanna Penn

Writing Craft and Creative Business

Episodes

Mentioned books

Apr 14, 2023 • 39min

Prolific Writing, Diversification, And Using Emerging Technologies With Joseph Nassise

If you want a long-term successful career as an author, you need to learn the craft and the business of writing. Joseph Nassise talks about his writing process, how he diversifies his business across different publishers, different products, and different technologies, as well as how he is embracing new options for his books. In the intro, Draft2Digital opens up Print for everyone; Future Today Institute Trends report; Microsoft introduces the AI-powered 365 Co-pilot; Google unveils generative AI tools; Ethical AI Publishing newsletter from Monica Leonelle. Plus, pictures from Wales on Instagram @jfpennauthor and Facebook @jfpennauthor; my new craft course on Writing Setting and Sense of Place; With a Demon's Eye on my store, and everywhere else. Today's show is sponsored by Ingram Spark, which I use to print and distribute my print-on-demand books to 40,000 retailers including independent bookstores, schools and universities, libraries, and more. It's your content—do more with it through IngramSpark.com. Joseph Nassise is the award-nominated New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than 50 books across horror, urban fantasy, supernatural thrillers, as well as epic fantasy and Arthurian mythos under other pen names. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes The story of how Joseph's first book became a success Deciding between the traditional or indie route for individual projects Diversification and creating multiple streams of income from your intellectual property StoryCraft — Tips for learning how to write a commercial novel and publish/sell it Why create NFT editions of your book The future of NFTs and how they will become normalized Using generative AI as part of your creative process You can find Joseph at JosephNassise.com Transcript of Interview with Joseph Nassise Joanna: Joseph Nassise is the award-nominated New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than 50 books across horror, urban fantasy, supernatural thrillers, as well as epic fantasy and Arthurian mythos under other pen names. So welcome to the show, Joe. Joseph: Thank you so much. Pleasure to be here. Joanna: Oh, I'm excited to talk with you. So first up— Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and publishing. Joseph: Okay, well, you know how superheroes have origin stories, I have a very strange writer origin story. I wrote my first novel in college to win a case of beer. I had finished reading something, a thriller by a fairly popular thriller writer at the time, and absolutely hated it. Apparently, I wouldn't shut up about it because my roommate bet me a case of bass ale that I couldn't write a book, never mind write one that was of decent quality. So you know, hey, gauntlet thrown down, challenge accepted. I worked nights in college for the security crew, and I sat in this little booth on the side of campus from midnight to 8 am. So I used that time to write my first novel. It went into a shoebox after I won my case of beer and sat in that shoebox for 11 years until after I'd gotten married. My wife found it when we moved into a new house, she asked to read it, thought it was pretty good, and convinced me to type it up because it had been written longhand on legal pads. And so we use this old brother word processor, and this was back in 2000, so ancient history these days, but I used this Brother word processor to print it up. We submitted it, a small press bought it, and then a few months later, Simon and Schuster came along and bought mass market rights and that kicked off my career. Interestingly, that book was the one that was nominated for my first time for the Bram Stoker award for first novel and for the International Horror Guild Award for first novel. So that really kicked things off for me. It was a great start from a really weird beginning. Joanna: Okay, that's crazy. Did you edit that book again to submit it to the publisher? I mean, it can't just have been the same draft that won the case of beer that got you Award nominations, a small press deal, and Simon and Schuster. Joseph: So I was very fortunate in having married a woman who is an exceptional editor. She went through it first and then we submitted it. And then by the time Pocket bought it, the paperback division of Simon and Schuster, I was fortunate to have as my editor, Amy Pierpont, who was the Executive Editor for the entire line. And she then again went through and edited it, and I learned a ton in that process. So I'm extremely fortunate to have both of those ladies in my life at the right time to o make this book a success. It certainly wasn't any skill on my part at that point. Joanna: That's just fascinating. Let's say to the listeners, don't expect that to happen with your beer novel! Joseph: Not common! Joanna: Not common, indeed. But tell us what happened from then. So this was 2000, I guess 2002ish maybe, the book came out. But I know you as an indie writer. Joseph: Yes. Joanna: So with your Heretic series, that's how I kind of know you. Tell us how you got into indie. Joseph: Sure. Heretic was actually the untitled second book in my Pocket Books contract. So that came out from Pocket Books in 2005. And then I couldn't sell the darn thing for about three years, and that wigged me out. I was like, okay, I'm not a one-hit wonder, I'm a two-hit wonder, but that's as far as I was going to get. So I kept trying to figure out my process and what worked for me. I ended up selling a trilogy overseas to Germany to a publisher called Droemer Knaur, and then that was bought by Tor, and those were my first hardbacks in the US. So I spent the first 10 years of my career with traditional publishing. Simon and Schuster, Tor Books, Gallery, Harper Voyager, I did number a series for a number of publishers. I did 10 books for Gold Eagle Harlequin. But that's when the Kindle came out, right around 2009, so I've been in the industry for almost a decade. And I found ebooks, as a technology, fascinating. And the idea that — We suddenly have this platform where we can put out the work that we want to write, when we want to write it, in the form that we want to put it out in, and not have to deal with gatekeepers and things of that nature. That to me was what I think of as a disruptive technology, and that was great. So I jumped full feet into that, and so I had this hybrid career where I continued to sell the New York, and I also do independent publishing. So when the rights to my Templar Chronicle Series, for which The Heretic was the first book, reverted back to me in 2010, I put those out and then continued the series as an indie writer. And so those books have sold more than a million copies worldwide, have done very well for me as an indie writer, where they didn't find the audience that I had hoped they would have found back as a traditional published work. So yeah, I've been doing both for a number of years now. And to me, diversification is one of the things you must do as an author these days. So that was the foundation for me, is keep writing traditional books and publish as many independent ones as I could. Joanna: So do you always submit new work to traditional publishing? Or do you have these two parallel things going on? Joseph: Two parallel things. I will definitely look and decide, okay, do I think this will work or not work as a traditionally published book? For me, I think of publishing as a business. I'm here to support myself and my family. So as crass as it may sound, money is key. And so I look at projects and decide, okay, where am I going to get the best return for my time and energy? And how will that work? So for example, I did an anthology project as an editor with Clive Barker, and my coeditor Del Howison. And we looked at Clive's novella, Cabal, and his movie, Nightbreed, and we picked up the story where Clive left off. We brought in a number of writers to tell the story of the Nightbreed as they disperse into the world at the end of the film Nightbreed. That's not a project that really would have worked as well as an indie project because traditional publishing, and obviously Clive's background and his popularity, that has the scope to reach a lot more readers through traditional publishing than it would, I think, through indie publishing. So we went that route with that particular project. You know, you mentioned the retelling of the Arthurian mythos. We took those and modernized them and made them modern urban fantasy, and turned it into a shared world with 10 writers. And that was the kind of project that just wasn't going to work as a traditionally published project. There's too many moving parts, timelines were not something that traditional publishing could handle, and so that was clearly an independent publishing work. So depending on the project, that's the way I try to figure out which is going to be the best avenue and then pursue that avenue with that particular project. Joanna: I love that attitude. And what's interesting is we were just chatting before we started recording, and you told me that you've also recently done an MFA, which kind of made me gulp. You've written all these books, you have decades of experience, and now you're going back to get an MFA. And I mean, many people who come out of MFAs are writing their first novel. Tell us, why do an MFA and what did you get out of it? Joseph: So it's definitely a bizarre experience, I'll say that. Initially, I decided I wanted to get an MFA because I wanted to have a backup for my current job as a writer, as a teacher of writing. Having insurance is always a very good thing for a writer and having a job that provides insurance is a good thing. My wife is a flight attendant, and she's been doing that job for more than 35 years at this point. At some point, she's going to want to retire. And so having this ability to be able to go out and say, okay, I'm going to get a job as a teacher teaching writing, that will provide insurance. You know, all that was just kind of smart moves in terms of life. So I decided, alright, I'm going to go get an MFA. I've gone through the process. I'm in my final thesis class at the moment. So I will graduate in May. And I have to say that it's been interesting because A, as you said, most of my fellow students haven't written a complete work, and I've written more than, well not just written, I've published more than 50 of them. So I didn't go into it expecting to learn a whole bunch, especially where MFA programs, Master of Fine Arts and Creative Writing, are focused so much on literary fiction, and I don't write literary fiction. Joanna: Did you have to for the course? Joseph: I did not, thankfully. I chose a course that allowed me to write commercial fiction. I wrote an urban fantasy novel for my thesis, which is right up my alley. That's what I've been writing for more than two decades now. So that was fun. I came out of the course saying it's a shame that there aren't courses of this type that teach the nitty gritty of writing commercial fiction, you know. I had attended a seminar at ASU, Arizona State University, not too long ago, and the instructor at the seminar was talking about how, as a literary writer, he will do 10 drafts of his novels, and he will throw the first nine away and each time start fresh. As a commercial novelist, I mean I wanted to stand up and scream. I thought that was the craziest thing I've ever heard. In the time it takes him to write one book, I will have written 10, and sold all 10, and made money from all 10. So it's definitely two different mindsets. So I did learn a lot about literary culture and literary fiction, but I came away with that feeling of, ‘oh, it would be better if there was something that could help people who want to write commercial novels in a commercial fashion.' So I got together with my buddy Tom Levine, who is a Random House author. He's done a number of books, both for Random House and Simon and Schuster, primarily in the YA culture. Then he went indie, just like I did, and has a hybrid career where he's been putting out indie books. We sat down and we designed a course that we're going to launch next month called StoryCraft. And it is totally focused on everything that wasn't in that MFA program that I wished was there for people to learn. And so we're going to take our 40 years of combined publishing experience, and put it all out there for anyone who wants to learn how to write a commercial novel, and then either publish or sell that novel depending on the route they want to take. Joanna: And that just sounds fascinating to me, and also that it's almost like you took that MFA course and then wrote all the other material that you actually think is what you need. But it's interesting, maybe you could give us a few tips, and also clarify commercial. Does commercial mean genre fiction, in this case? So, like you said, horror, urban fantasy, thrillers, epic fantasy, these are what many people consider genre fiction. So — What is commercial? And give us a few tips from StoryCraft on how to write it. Joseph: Sure, yes, I use commercial and genre fiction interchangeably. Thank you for pointing that out because that could have been very confusing for people who are listening. Anything, you know, mystery, thriller, romance, urban fantasy, fantasy, westerns, horror, or what have you, they're all genre fiction. They're all commercial fiction. They're not designed for college courses, or all that, although they should be. They're just designed for entertainment. To me, the primary goal of a writer is to take the reader on an emotional journey, and another word for that is to entertain them. And so it's all about writing books of that type. And that's what I've been doing for, what is this 2023, so for 23 years now. Some tips, here's one big one that I learned early in my career. So I have a kind of quirky way of writing, I don't write books in order. I will plot out an entire book, and then I will write whatever chapter strikes me as interesting that day when I sit down to write. So I might write chapter three, and then chapter 47, and then chapter eight, and then chapter one, and then chapter 23. And once I've done all the chapters, I build the bridges and connect them all. This drives editors crazy, but it works for me. When I started out, I tried to write a book a year, as they taught you back in the early 2000s. And I would write it in order, and I would write about a book a year because it would take me that long to write something, writing it in order. I don't know why, it's just like this block in my brain. I couldn't write well that way. The moment I gave myself permission to find a way that worked for me, and to write the way I wanted to write, my career changed. I went from writing one book a year, to writing four or five novels a year. Which was a good thing, because those were the days when I was writing books for the Rogue Angel series from Harlequin Gold Eagle, and we had a new book come out every two months. There were six of us writing for the series, and every 60 days a new book would hit in mass market paperback. So I had to be able to write multiple books a year. Being able to find that process, being able to trust what worked for me was the right thing to do was a huge change in my career. The other major thing that I would say to people is that understand that this is a business. You know, the days of writing for the sake of art, from a commercial standpoint, are over. If you want to write for art's sake, go write and be happy and put the manuscript back in your drawer and don't worry about it. But if you want to write for a living, if you want to write so that you make money from it and provide for your family and things of that nature, then you got to understand it's a business. Whether you're doing it through traditional publishing or whether you're doing it through independent publishing. You have to understand as many aspects of the business as you can. I mean, if you're traditional publishing, understand how they select books, understand how books are sold to the major chains. Understand the seasons of publishing, and why they do what they do when they do it. If you're independently published, you know as well as I do that it's not just about writing. It's about marketing, and promotion, and understanding things like finances and taxes, and all the fun stuff that comes along with being a businessman. If you do that, if you understand those things, your career will be that much better. Because, essentially, you're in control of it, and being in control of it and having those reins in hand, directing the horses the way you want them to go, is a huge part of it all. Joanna: It's so interesting. You mentioned diversification earlier. And obviously, this course is another example of one of your multiple streams of income. Can you tell us what are some of the ways that your business makes money in terms of, I mean, obviously, you've mentioned that some of the series are indie, some of them are traditional, you've got the course. On your website, I saw Shopify, Patreon, translations. I mean— Tell us about the other streams of your business. Joseph: Certainly. Kind of as a foundation, I don't think of my work as a book, I think of it as intellectual property. Here's a character, or a setting, or a story, that can be expanded in multiple directions. And so that's where I start. How many different directions can I take this particular work? So that looks at things like if I'm going to publish it in print, I'm going to publish it digitally as an eBook, I'm going to put out audiobooks. My work has been translated into seven different languages. So when I sell a book, I don't just look at the US market. Like I said, I've sold originals to Germany, I've sold originals to Italy, I've translated books from English and sold them to the Russian market and the Italian market and the Polish market and the Chinese market. These are all silos of opportunity where a writer can then earn more income, especially for work that's already been written. You only have to write the book once, but then you can sell it into a dozen different languages and get a payday every time you do that. So that's kind of the first set, what are my various formats that I can sell into? And NFT digital collectible editions of the books is the latest one of those silos that I'm currently working with. Then I'll also look at, okay, what are the products that I can build out from those books? I'm in the process of writing a Templar Chronicles role-playing game, so that'll be another avenue. I've sold comic book editions of my Templar Chronicles, so that was a third Avenue. I have a Shopify store, so I sell everything directly from my website. So if people don't want to deal with Amazon or any of the other various vendors, they can come direct to me, they'll get some decent pricing by the fact that they're doing that, they might get personalized signed editions, things of that nature. They'll get exclusive content that they can't get anywhere else from my Shopify store. So that's an avenue. The Patreon thing is a way of providing coaching advice and providing an inside look at my work before it hits the market. So if you want those kinds of perks, you want to see what's coming before it's all polished and spiffy and nice, well then come on over to the Patreon. Each of these things, again, like you said, they're silos of opportunity. They provide a means to reach fans in a new and different way. That holds true for merchandise as well. I sell T shirts, I sell sweatshirts. We're going to be doing a line of journals, all of these based on my various series and the various characters or settings that come in those series. So it's not just a book, it's a piece of an intellectual property. And I want to exploit that property as many times and in as many ways as I possibly can. Joanna: I love that. And we were talking before we started recording, and I was like, how have we not connected before? I feel like we think the same things about quite a lot. It's kind of crazy. I do you want to ask, you said “we” there— Are you a one-person business? Do you have a team? Do you use freelancers? Joseph: I tend to think of it as myself and my wife because she's my editor. So that's where the “we” comes from, or it's the royal “we.” I don't know. But I am primarily a one man, one woman team between my wife and I. I do work with other writers. I've collaborated with other writers. And some of my pen names are a result of that collaboration. So for instance, I've written a series called the HELLstalkers series with my buddy Jon Merz, who is famous for his Lawson Vampire series. And when we were casting about, it was hard to put both of our names on the covers. We tried that initially, that didn't work. So we came up with a pen name J.J. Anderson to write that series under. J is for Jon and Joe, J. J., John Joe, and Anderson was a name at the top of the alphabet that was easy to remember and would have the books be in a good position in the bookstore if we sold them in that fashion. So there's where a pen name came from. So I have worked with him. I've worked with Steve Sabol. I've worked with the 10 writers when we did the Vale Knights Series, which is a shared world series. So I've done a lot of collaborative work, but company-wise, it's just me and my wife. Joanna: I mean, we haven't really even touched on what you do for marketing. What do you do for marketing? And do you do all that yourself? Joseph: I do all of that myself. I do your typical Amazon ads and Facebook ads, and I try to connect with people on things like Twitter or LinkedIn to build that audience. I have a newsletter that has been running for a while, close to a decade now or something like that. And so again, that's all part of the work of not just being an independently published writer, but just being a writer these days. I mean, publishing companies do so very little once that book hits the market that you got to learn to do all those things yourself. So you wear a lot of hats. Joanna: And I guess for people listening, I mean, both of us, you've been doing this longer than me, but we have just learned these things over time, right? It's like, oh, look, here comes the Kindle. Let's learn how to get our books on that. It's not like we were born knowing all this stuff. You can learn it, it just takes time. Joseph: Yeah, time and focus. I think that's another key, is you need to focus on certain things and not on everything. Something comes along, it's like, okay, I want to pursue that. Like I'm not on TikTok because I don't know how to do that, I don't have a lot of time to figure out how to do that, I don't like being on camera. So I just kind of said, okay, that's one thing I'm not going to pursue. I'll take the time that I might have used to pursue that and learn how to do Facebook ads better or something along those lines. So yeah, you need to focus, you need to figure out what you want to utilize, and you can't possibly utilize everything. But you're right, you just learn it. Oh, I need to learn how to do this, I'm going to go learn how to do that and add that to my repertoire. Joanna: But talking of things that you have been learning about, you are probably one of the few authors consistently doing NFT editions. You mentioned NFT digital collectibles earlier. So I've also minted, but you've minted with book.io. So tell us like, I mean, I don't want us to go into all the technical background of blockchains and NFTs because I've done quite a lot of episodes on this now. Give your explanation of a digital collectible, and then tell us a bit about why you wanted to go this way. Joseph: Certainly. I've been collecting books, print books, for a long time. And one of the joys of collecting print books with the limited edition, or the lettered edition books where they only print so many. They're fancy, they've got ribbon bookmarks, and beautiful endpapers, and different from the addition you walk into, say Barnes and Noble, and buy on the shelf. And so the idea of having something that's collectible works for me personally. When this idea came along that, hey, you could do this digitally, in a way that provides potential value for your fans, that was something that I jumped all over. And you know, blockchain as a technology, I mean, there's a lot of key benefits, but the one for me for the reader is the fact that when you buy an NFT, you actually own the digital content you buy. Unlike say Amazon or Barnes and Noble or Kobo, where you are licensing the right to read that book. Buying an NFT with a book built into the NFT, which is what book.io does, gives them actual ownership of the digital content that they bought. And that was huge for me. My presentation on NFTs for authors if you want to know more Number two, you know, it allowed that collectible edition. And one of the things book.io currently specializes in is a collectible edition where they print so many copies, just like a collectible print edition, but each of those copies has a variant cover. You know, comics and variant covers, well now we have books with variant covers. And some of those covers are common, and some of those covers are ultra rare, which can create value for those particular editions. And so it's a way to go like, hey, you want to collect baseball cards your favorite teams? Well, how about collecting the books of your favorite authors. That was something that I thought was really cool, and I dived in with both feet. As you noticed, as you said, I've minted my books with Book.io. We did the first two as straight-up mints, and then everybody who held the first two was air-dropped the third book for free. So now they have three collectible variants of my most popular selling books at that time. Joanna: I love this. And I think what's interesting is the variant cover idea. When you were minting, I went and had a look, and it's always a bit like a lottery and you kind of clicked a mint, but you don't get to know what that variant cover is. Right? Joseph: Right. Right. And that's kind of the addicting part of it. It's like, okay, we know, there's 2500 editions available. And some of those have covers where there's 400 copies of that cover, and some of those covers, there's only a single copy of those covers. But when you mint, it's a random lottery. You don't know what book is going to land in your wallet until it actually lands and you open it up. So it's this easter egg kind of excitement. Oh, what am I going to get on Christmas morning kind of thing. And that, to me is fun. You know, I have a great time. I've minted books by authors that I like. And book.io also puts out public domain titles, but again, with that collectible edition with cover rarity. So I can get a copy of Oliver Twist, or I can get a copy of Journey to the Center of the Earth, with spectacular art that is of a collectible quality. And so that's been a lot of the fun involved in in doing this. Just yesterday, I came to an agreement with HarperCollins to do NFT editions of the first two books in my Great Undead War series. And so that's a big, big thing in the sense that, you know, okay, it's one thing for an indie author to go and do an NFT, but now to have a major publisher decide, yes, we see this as a viable means to reach a new audience or provide the book in a new way, and they're willing to partner to do that. It's going to be fun. Of all the books I've written in my career, the only two books that I do not control the rights to are the two books in the Great Undead War series, which was an alternate history, World War One series with zombies. HarperCollins still controls those rights. So in order for me to do an NFT, I had to go back to them and negotiate that this was a thing that was good for both of us. But we just came to the agreement to do that yesterday, and so I'm super excited to see where that goes. Joanna: That is interesting because I've talked on this show how I've talked with a lawyer about this, and I think there's going to be an issue around NFT editions because essentially they are an EPUB, or they're a PDF, or they're a Mobi, or they are whatever they are, they are digital. So if an author has signed a contract for digital rights, or eBook rights, or audiobook rights, they can't do an NFT. So presumably, you had to go back and say, look— I want the right back to do an NFT edition and make that an exception from digital. Is that kind of how it worked? Joseph: Yeah, what we did is we did an amendment to the initial contract. Because they still controlled the rights to the series, any final decision on what happens with that series is going to come from them. So I made the pitch to them, hey, we've been publishing this thing for so long, we've made X amount of money, but here's a new way of doing it. Let's reach a new audience. Let's revitalize this series. Because the series has been out since 2011, 2012. In publishing terms, that's forever. It is a new way to bring a new audience to the series. They didn't want to give the rights back to me. So I said, let's find a new way to exploit those rights. And so after a couple of months in negotiating, we finally came to an agreement on how we would do it. And so now we'll do that, and we'll both share in the profits from doing that. That'll hopefully help us reach a whole new audience. Book three is hanging in the wind, so maybe doing this and bringing in more audience finally gets HarperCollins to pick up book three, or I'll do I do it myself as a limited NFT edition or an independently published edition. Again, it's all about revitalizing that intellectual property and using it in a new way. Joanna: I think it's great that you're doing that because I feel like there's a blockage. I mean, obviously, there was the crypto crash last year, and then also, we'll come back to AI in a minute, but I feel like the NFT space kind of went off the boil a bit. I also feel that publishers looked at it and went, oh, that's interesting. And then they went, ‘oh too complicated.' And depending on the blockchain you mint on, and which currency, and of course, there's a lot of legal stuff around coins. So there's a lot to be worked out in this space. I guess what it seems we both agree on is that this is a really interesting thing. And the digital collectible, I also believe, will become a thing. It's just whether we will use the term NFT and what chains will shake out. So I feel like we're super early on this. How long do you think it will take before NFTs are more like ebooks in terms of mainstream adoption? Joseph: Well, here's the interesting thing. One of the things that attracted me to book.io, they just started their company last July. So you know, what's that? Eight, nine months, something like that. In the process, they've already minted 45 different books, they brought in millions of dollars, but they have also partnered with, first, Ingram Content Group, which as you know, is the largest distributor in the world. And then they also partnered with Bertelsmann, which again, is another huge media conglomerate. So if companies like that are putting their weight and their money behind this emerging technology, that made me sit up and say, hmm, let me take note of that. I know you've talked about this on your show before, but blockchain is one of those disruptive technologies. 10 years from now, it's going to be as commonplace as the internet is. And I'm old enough to remember when the internet first came around, and you'd get the dial up tone through your phone, and it was text only, there wasn't any images. And here we are today, we don't even think about it. I mean, we just use it. And blockchain is going to be the same way. So I think just like those publishers, who said, oh, I'm not going to get involved in eBooks, and then regretted it as soon as eBooks became popular, Blockchain works will be the same way. And so getting in on the front end, I think, is beneficial to both authors and publishers. And we see companies like book.io who are doing that. Now, obviously, they're not the only ones. I'm working with another company called The Quest of Evolution out of Portugal, and they're creating what they call collaborative crypto novels, where they'll bring in a writer, myself, they'll bring in an artist, and they'll bring in a musician. And they'll create this three part project, where the artist creates characters and character art, the writer will then create what they call spark verses or the beginnings of a story. And then those who come and buy the NFTs for that project, then get the right to continue the story for a certain length of words. So you become this collaborative process with the original writer, the architect to the story, the musician who provides the soundtrack, and the artist who provides the art that becomes the actual NFTs. And then this story continues as those NFTs are sold and resold and move through the secondary market. So this novel can grow and live in a collaborative format that is very different than anything that we have available today. So I think we'll see more use of the technology in that kind of creative fashion. And five years from now, they'll be making movies and television shows and books and all that through this kind of process. It's going to be fascinating. I totally agree with you. And I kind of think that it's more like architecture. You mentioned the internet, it's like, we don't need to know, the TCPIP protocols or whatever to use the internet. And I almost feel like people will be using blockchain stuff, but they won't even know. And they'll be using NFTs and they won't even know. So I think that's where it's going. I think it's very interesting what you're doing. Joanna: But let's return to AI because what you talked about earlier, 2500 different covers on a drop. And of course, you're not creating that many covers individually or paying individually for those covers, they are generated by an AI. Talk about how you're using generative AI in your work. Joseph: Sure. And a yes and a no to your statement there. When we did the first drop of The Heretic, there were 1200 different covers, 65 of those were single one-one covers, the others were pulls of a various cover, and books.io's in house artist did those for me. And he used AI to get the base image and then he uses Photoshop to tweak and make them clean in the way we want them. By the time we get to book three, I had learned enough about AI art to do those covers myself. And so I went in, same process that Billy used, in the sense that, alright, we'll use text prompting to get the basic images, and then I'll pull them into Photoshop and add my changes and alterations to get them just the way we want. So it's both a process where the AI is doing work, and it's also a process where a human is being involved in making changes or alterations to that image. AI as a concept is another one of those concepts that I find fascinating. I'm one of those people who can't draw stick figures straight. So being able to create art in a way that is new and different was fascinating for me. I know that there's pros and cons to AI art, and that's an argument that I think is going to go on for the next 10 years until, like anything else, it becomes commonplace. That was the same argument that came along when Photoshop was first put out. Oh, is that what we want to use for art? Well, yeah, it's become as secondary as anything else in life. I don't understand the math behind it all. But like you say, I use a toaster every morning and don't understand how that works either. So, you know, I can use this to do things. What it does, though, it provides a new, creative outlet for me to add to my intellectual property in a way that I haven't done before. So you and I were chatting before we got on about the Templar Chronicles tarot cards that I'm producing as digital collectible NFTs through the use of AI art to get the base image, and then I alter that art in Photoshop. And those are just digital collectibles, something to go along with my books, something like baseball cards that people can collect. And I'm doing the 22 Major Arcana cards from a tarot deck, and each image is either a character or a scene from one of the books in the Templar Chronicles that correlates to what that card represents. So for instance, the first card we did was the High Priestess. That tends to correlate to feminine energy. Within the Templar Chronicle series, you know, the main icon of feminine energy in the series is a character named Gabrielle Williams, the wife of the main hero of this series, Kate Williams. And she's not all that present in the first couple of books, but by the time we get to book four, and through what will eventually be book 12, she plays a major role. So being able to have something collectible that signifies her and her role in the series was just something fun and really interesting to do for me. And it gave me another creative outlet to approach this series, and this story, and what I'm trying to say with it. Joanna: I love how experimental you're being in all these different ways. And it's fun, isn't it? You've said this, that it's fun. I did wonder if you would also comment on generative AI in text. Which since like last November with ChatGPT and Sudowrite, authors are realizing that this is not just art, this is also words. So are you being experimental there? Or any thoughts on how this will shake out? Joseph: I'm being experimental, but for a reason that I never intended. So I got sick with COVID back in April of 2020, and I'm one of those people who has long COVID. I've been dealing with chronic fatigue, brain fog, and things of that nature ever since I got sick. And we're three years on now. And in the last two years, I've produced one novel, which is crazy because normally I produce four to five a year. So it really affected my ability to do my job. There was a time when I was very concerned that I wouldn't write another book, I was quite concerned that my days as an author were done. And so I fell into AI art because of that. It gave me a way to deal with my creativity that I didn't have to sit down and write 80,000 words on a given theme and stare at a blank page with my brain fog getting in the way all the time. As time has passed, I've gotten a little better. And I'm confident now that I will continue to be an author. Like I said, I just finished a book for my thesis, so I'm back in the swing of things. But when I was in the depths of it, I started experimenting with ChatGTP because I wanted to see, can I use the works I've already written and prompts to help get past what I was thinking of as writer's block as a result of the disease, or as a result of the virus. So I did some experiments, and I'm not sure how I feel about the results. Like I've managed to get various models to replicate the style I write in, but it doesn't have the life that my writing usually has. So then it's a question of, okay, take this and then edit it and see where that takes me. All of that, I'm still experimenting with. I don't think in, you know, the next month or two, it's going to radically change the way writers write. And I don't think it'll ever replace human-oriented writing, but it's certainly helpful. I mean, when it came time to write a sales page for my new course, I threw it into there and said, you know, let's see what they come up with and then I'll edit that. And so I think it has its uses. I think, again, it's a fascinating technology that has so many uses in so many walks of life, that we're just seeing the smallest little bit of it at this moment. But it's going to be one of those ubiquitous technologies that are just everywhere, and we won't think about it when it comes time to use it, just like we don't think about the internet, or we don't think about Googling something. 20 years ago, the idea that a computer will be able to go out and find us anything we need in a matter of seconds, we would have laughed. Now it's so commonplace, it's joined the common vernacular. So I think both AI art and AI text, and even the stuff they're doing with AI video, and sound, and music, and all that, it's all going to become new ways of doing things that will, like anything else, have pros and cons attached to them. Joanna: But you're excited, and you're going to try it out. Joseph: I'm going to make use of things here and there where I can, definitely, because I think that's what you do as an entrepreneur. You find new ways of doing things. You know, the first people who used Facebook to put up ads for their ebooks, that was revolutionary at the time. Now it's so commonplace that it's just like, yeah, that's what you do. And so I think this will end up being the same way, and I'll make use of it where I think it'll work. Joanna: Fantastic. Where can people find you and your books and also your course online? Joseph: So you can find me at my website, JosephNassise.com. That's N-A-S-S-I-S-E.com. That's where my Shopify store is. That's where my print books, my eBooks, I've got a blog where I talk about technology and things like AI art, and all that kind of stuff. So all that's there. If you're interested in the StoryCraft course that is coming, you can go to StoryCraftCourse.com, and there'll be a link there to sign up for our newsletter. We'll be announcing the launch of the course, it will probably take place next month. So join the newsletter to get notified of that, and we will give you some bonuses and some benefits. So I urge everybody to do that as well. Joanna: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Joe. That was great. Joseph: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.The post Prolific Writing, Diversification, And Using Emerging Technologies With Joseph Nassise first appeared on The Creative Penn.

Mar 17, 2023 • 47min

Writing Fiction With Sudowrite With Leanne Leeds

We all use tools to help us improve our skills, and in this episode, Leanne Leeds explains how she uses the generative AI tool, Sudowrite, to write better books and serve her readership more effectively. In the intro, OpenAI launches GPT4, and how it can be used for accessibility with Be My Eyes. Other tools include ProWritingAid's Rephrase, and upcoming GrammarlyGo, plus keep up with the news on AI with Ben's Bites and/or The Algorithmic Bridge. You can find Sudowrite through my affiliate link at www.TheCreativePenn.com/sudowrite, and I also have a tutorial on how I use Sudowrite here. This podcast is sponsored by Written Word Media, which makes book marketing a breeze by offering quick, easy and effective ways for authors to promote their books. You can also subscribe to the Written Word Media email newsletter for book marketing tips. Leanne Leeds is the author of 27 novels across contemporary paranormal, fantasy and midlife cozy mystery. She also uses AI tools as part of her creative process, which is what we're talking about today. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes What is Sudowrite? Incorporating Sudowrite into your creative process Using AI tools to help improve certain aspects of your writing AI tools for beginners, and how to use them better Common objections to using AI tools Potential legal issues (or non-issues) around AI How AI will change how we market our books You can find Leanne Leeds at LeanneLeeds.com and her articles on Sudowrite tips at https://blog.sudowrite.com/ You can find Sudowrite through my affiliate link at www.TheCreativePenn.com/sudowrite, and I also have a tutorial on how I use Sudowrite here. Transcript of Interview with Leanne Leeds Joanna: Leanne Leeds is the author of 27 novels across contemporary paranormal, fantasy and midlife cozy mystery. She also uses AI tools as part of her creative process, which is what we're talking about today. So welcome, Leanne. Leanne: Hi, thank you for having me. Joanna: I'm excited to talk to you. But first up— Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and publishing. Leanne: So being a novel writer was something I always wanted to do. I think I stapled a story together when I was four. It was what I thought my life was going to be. When I went to college, I went to major in English with an option in writing. Unless you're going to be a teacher when you come out of college, there are very few ways to make money, so I found myself in IT. I started a web hosting company, sold it, then that company sold to another hosting company, until I was working for this corporate behemoth largest in the world. In which case, I became a director of a department, was told to fire everybody, and then got laid off myself. Joanna: So that's a real journey. Leanne: Right. In 2016, I kind of had this, I'm, you know, 45, I'm middle-aged, what do I do with my life now? I don't know where to go. And indie publishing came up on my radar, and I gave it a shot and was kind of okay at it. So that's how I wound up here. It's definitely my second act in life career. Joanna: Oh, that's great. So you found it in 2016 when you were laid off, basically. Leanne: Yes. Joanna: I think that's important because we're going to start talking about AI. Let's get into Sudowrite. You've been using Sudowrite since June 2021. So you had like five years of—and I was talking to someone else, like, what do we call this? Do we call this manual writing or human-only writing, but the time before AI? I don't know. How do you refer to it? Leanne: I refer to it all as writing. I don't feel like things changed a huge amount. So it's funny, I know that people definitely see it as different and I can understand why, but for me, it just feels like one long process. Things just kind of naturally change, and you discover, you know, I went from Grammarly, and then I used ProWritingAid, and then I used Sudowrite. So just pre and post AI, I guess. Joanna: I think that's interesting. In fact, for those listening, Grammarly and ProWritingAid are also AI-powered, and many people use those. So just for anyone who doesn't know— What is Sudowrite? And why did you decide to experiment with it? Leanne: So Sudowrite is a piece of software built on GPT-3, or GPT-3.5 some of it, which is a generative language writing — I don't even know the term, honestly. Joanna: A large language model. Leanne: There we go. See, you're much more well-versed in the technical stuff. It just works. I put some writing in and it gives you more writing, and that's how it works for me. But essentially, it's geared towards fiction writing and assisting fiction writers if you get stuck, if you need a description, if you need 20 descriptions to kind of get your brain going. If you need to rewrite something and you want to see different ways, it will help you do that. Joanna: And so why did you decide to get into it? Because obviously, you were writing books— Did you think this could just make things better? Leanne: I think because I was a corporate director and dealt with a lot of spreadsheets and a lot of data, I naturally geared towards seeing a lot of data to break free and move forward and make decisions. So I had a program that would search through ePubs. I could search for a phrase, “he looked,” and just kind of flip through all the author's books that I had to see how they said things in different ways, if I got stuck. You kind of quickly learned and doing that, that people say a lot of the things the same way, people phrase things simply, you don't always have to get really long, but it will sometimes just help me move. This seemed like a very natural progression to that. I wouldn't have to flip through 20 things, it would give me five that were naturally different. And so I kind of petitioned them to get in on the beta when they were first starting to show it off. Joanna: And then it's funny because I feel like I also got in at a similar time as you, but literally still the main thing I use it for is I highlight words like “underwater temple,” and I hit describe, and then I use the description stuff it pops up. For people listening, it pops up with all the sensory details and some metaphorical things. So that's literally how I use it. Can you explain how your creative writing process works now? Leanne: So, it's changed. When I first got it, I kind of pushed it to see how far can I use it, how far can I go. I was very public on Twitter with the first chapter or two, maybe three, of my third book in my third series, it's basically generated by Sudowrite. There's a button called “write,” and you can get it to write for you. I liked what it wrote, but I didn't like how I felt, and so I kind of backed up. I don't use it that way anymore. And actually, in the past two years, I've gravitated away from using it to write anything. I write, but I write differently. When I'm writing, I will not worry about fancy descriptors, fancy expressions, I will pretty much stick to kind of, quote, “boring writing.” He looked at her, she looked at him, he blinked, she kissed him. And then later during the editing, I will come back and expand those scenes out with Sudowrite or use description to weave different descriptors and expressions in to color the scene from, I guess, the scaffolding of the scene that I kind of put into place at first. Joanna: So going back to the very beginning. Do you use any other tools around ideas, like are you using ChatGPT? I mean Sudowrite has got lots of things in, like character stuff and plot stuff. So do you use anything around the ideation? Leanne: I don't use any of that. All of my characters are out of my head. I do use ChatGPT to give me specific suspects in the mystery. All of my books are cozy mystery, and I'll always know who I want to kill, generally, who did it, and how I'm going to weave it in with the standard cast, why they stumbled across it. But I will use ChatGPT to generate red herrings or generate different suspects to throw into the mix to kind of confuse everything until it all gets worked out. As far as actual characters in the book, the actual core characters, I've never used it. And I don't know why, it just never occurred to me. I never needed to, so I haven't. Joanna: I mean, I think it's interesting. So you said there's a button called “write,” which, you know, I've Sudowrite, I know about that. And you pressed it, but you didn't like how it made you feel. I think this is really interesting because you and I know, it's not 100% AI or 100% human. That's not what we're doing. It's not like you are now 100% AI. But where is the line? And this is the interesting question, isn't it? How far are other people going with what you've seen on Sudowrite? Because you do a lot of blog posts now for them, don't you? Leanne: I have. I think with AI, even in general and writing, there's a gamut of people using it a tiny bit, and using it way more than I would be comfortable with using. And I think it depends on how you feel about the technology, where your weaknesses are, and what you're trying to address with the technology. For me, I'm a dialogue-heavy writer. And you can definitely see before I used Sudowrite, that I did not describe things as well as I could have, maybe as well as I should have. I'm using the AI to address a weakness in my own writing, so that my readers have a better experience reading the book. And I'm trying to address problems that I didn't and couldn't evolve fast enough to fix, I guess. Joanna: It's interesting. You talk about weaknesses. For me, definitely, around sensory description have weaknesses around smell and sound. And so I particularly find those really, really useful. I'm really good at sense of place in terms of sight, I can see everything. I'm one of those writers who sees everything in their head. I'm terrible at dialogue. But smell and sound, I definitely fall down on, and the metaphor stuff I find amazing too. So I think exactly what you're saying. I mean, another thing I've noticed is— I think I'm becoming a better writer because it's almost like having a personal tutor around these things. Leanne: Yes. It's interesting to me that when I start a book, I'm using things quite a bit, as I'm in a new location, dealing with new buildings, new characters that have come on the scene. And I can look at each of the chapters and notice that I use Sudowrite less and less as I go towards the end of the book because I get familiar with what I have. I don't need it as much as I get further into the book, and I'm more familiar. I see what it does, and it helps me remember to do it instinctively. Joanna: Yes, I mean, a bit like ProWritingAid, we mentioned around editing. Every time I use it, I learn something about commas, I have to keep learning about commas because I'm so bad. I think I read one of your posts where you're actually writing within Sudowrite. Because what I do is I write in Scrivener, and then I copy and paste things into Sudowrite. So is that what you're doing now, actually writing within the tool? Leanne: No, I actually do not. I write within Scrivener as well, and I'm cutting and pasting. I actually have two monitors up, and so my center monitor has Scrivener and all my writing, and then the monitor to the left has basically my AI tabs, where I have ChatGPT and I have Sudowrite up and pinned in case I need it during a writing session. Joanna: I love that, “in case I need it.” I am also the same now. I have ChatGPT open during the day, and I also have Midjourney open during the day, for images if people don't know. Are there any other any other tools that you use? Leanne: I use Quillbot, it kind of cleans up a sentence. They have a mode to paraphrase sentences for fluency. And if I come across a sentence that has gotten like massively convoluted, sometimes I will drop it in there and just have it clean it up and pull it back. Joanna: That's interesting. I mean, you can do that on ChatGPT as well. You can say, “Please make this sentence make sense,” or something. Leanne: So the challenge that I have with ChatGPT is the consistency of the output. And I think that's why I love Sudowrite so much, because they tune it for me. And while I have some ability to customize, like, especially in rewrite, I love rewrites so much, and especially rewrite customizing, I almost don't use anything that they provide as a default. What Quillbot does is it fixes the sentence the same way. And I definitely don't want somebody reading my book and to suddenly have a sentence pop out that doesn't sound like me. And Sudowrite makes it sound like me, just by the way it functions. ChatGPT doesn't really, like I can get a good bland sentence, but it doesn't have that kind of fictional creative writing flair, to me, to my eye. Other people may do fine with it. I personally don't like it. Joanna: It's good for lists of things. Like I was trying to get a title, and I just couldn't get a good title. So I asked it for a list of titles using words around photography and demons and things like this. And it came up with like 50 different titles. And that just helped me with things. So I find it's really good for lists, or it's really good for fictional research. But I agree with you, I'm also like you, I don't just copy and paste finished paragraphs into my books (at the time of recording this). Leanne: Right. The thing with Quillbot is that it's going to clean up the sentence. I dial the creativity down all the way and just have it clean up what I've already written. So that's why I like it. Some of the AI stuff that's more open ended and more customized sometimes can get a little creative with its changing meaning or throwing things in, and I like it to be clean and to stay true to the way that I wrote it. Joanna: Absolutely. You mentioned how much you love Rewrite, so just explain what that function is. Leanne: So Rewrite is an aspect of Sudowrite, and you can have it rephrase anything that you've written. And they have some defaults. Right now they have more descriptive, show not tell, more inner conflict, more intense. I've used their show not tell, and I think it's wonderful. But I use customize a lot to change tense, if I accidentally write something and I throw a mix tense in there because I wasn't paying attention, it can smooth that out. It can rewrite an attitude. I love taking a paragraph, or a couple of paragraphs, where two characters are debating or arguing, and there's a little indication of how they feel, but I can ask it to add expressions on their faces. And it'll add these descriptive expressions on the characters' faces that really add to the scene. So yeah, I love rewrite. Rewrite is probably one of my favorite things. Joanna: And just to be clear, you're highlighting a passage, and then you're saying, for example, I've tried this and I've said, “rewrite to be more horror,” and then it will kind of add more sort of horror descriptions. Or, “rewrite this into first person,” for example, and then it will change the point of view. That's what you mean, isn't it? Leanne: Yes. Joanna: So that's just super useful. So I'm interested though, coming back to when you said you had two screens, my husband has two screens. And even though I worked in IT, I always find that people with two screens are technical. Now you said you're not technical, but you know, you pretty much are. So I wonder what you think about— If people literally have no technical ability, can they still Sudowrite? Leanne: Yes. It's definitely a new skill set. Prompting is a new skill set. This is a new thing that we're all doing. We're learning how to talk to computers and ask them nicely to do something that we already know in our head we want. And that's challenging, especially for a society that's used to click a button, do a thing. Sudowrite is set up very, very well to put some text in there, click a button, do a thing. It has a capability of doing so much more than that. You can twist it and try new things. And because it's a neural net, what it says it can do is not the limitation of the only thing it can do. So I think you absolutely can get started, and I think when you're comfortable, you have to start growing beyond the buttons, I guess. Especially with things like Sudowrite, where the buttons are great, and the buttons will help you, and you can instantly jump in and you can start getting help. But beyond the buttons I think is really where the brilliance starts to come in. Joanna: I like that, beyond the buttons. And yes, I totally agree. This is a skill set. And I feel like, well, let's say we've been doing this for 18 months, and there are lots of people who've just arrived now who are now discovering these tools, and they do not know really what's going on or how to use them or how to approach them. And so there's a lot of fear and anger and a lot of issues, I think, right now in the creative community. What are some of the objections that you've heard to using these tools? And what do you say to those objections? Leanne: So I think the number one objection that I've heard is surrounding the plagiarism issue, both with what went into what OpenAI did, and what they search for to build out and train the model, and the words coming out. How do you know that you're not inadvertently plagiarizing? I'm pretty comfortable with the latter, that it's a one-in-a-million chance that you would word-for-word plagiarize somebody just because of the way a predictive model works. It's really not functionally possible because it's not a database. It's predicting based on mathematical calculations what the next word will be. So I do run all my writing through a plagiarism checker just to make sure. Joanna: Me too. Yes, me too. Leanne: But I've never had it pop up. And anything that has popped up as potentially plagiarized is usually stuff I've written that's a very common turn of phrase. So that I'm not worried about the stuff coming in, I understand people's concern, I understand their fear. And to some extent, I understand their anger that this company that's now going to make millions of dollars, they have rifled through copywritten books to get an idea on how to write books. I understand that. I don't agree that it's copyright infringement. I've read the Google Authors Guild court case, where they search through books, and then use the database to do something. OpenAI, up until I think last year, was a nonprofit research laboratory. And there is, in the US at least, and I only know about the US, I'm not sure what the situation is in the UK and other countries. But in the US, you don't have to have a copyright owner's permission to use a book for research. Now, again, I'm not a lawyer, I could be wrong. There could be a court case and they're going to revisit it and they're going to change it. I'm not super crazy, frothing at the mouth about it. I'm perfectly willing to understand there's a difference, and something changes, and to change the way I'm doing things. But for right now, I am very comfortable with what they did to train the database and that what I'm doing is probably going to wind up being complete legal from beginning to end because the court cases and copyright stuff has said research is fine. Joanna: And more than that, like you said, you are not a lawyer, I'm not a lawyer, this is not legal advice at all. But I'll tell you who (probably) has the best lawyers in the world, and that's Microsoft. And Microsoft, if people don't know, Microsoft has a massive investment in OpenAI, and they are rolling out all of OpenAI's tools into Microsoft. So if you use Teams at work, if you use Microsoft Word to write your books, if you use PowerPoint, if you use all of these tools, including Bing search engine and all these things. So Microsoft, I can only imagine the legal team from Microsoft, what they did in order to do the investment in OpenAI. So yes, I'm with you. I feel like the legal team there has sorted it out. Now there are other cases, obviously, where they're going up against—and I'm thinking of Getty, particularly for images. But again, with that one, Getty's building their own AI out of their own copyright images. So none of these legal cases will shut down the technology, right? That's basically it. Leanne: And they go out of their way to say they're not trying to stop the technology. The technology is here, and none of these court cases are trying to make it go away. Joanna: Exactly. Okay. So you mentioned one of the issues people have is the plagiarism, what went in and what comes out. So we've dealt with that. Are there any other objections that you hear from authors about this? Leanne: I have heard it's cheating. Joanna: Yes, cheating. You're cheating! Leanne: That I'm cheating because I'm using something to help me get words for my books. And when I shared it with my readership on my mailing list, I did have a woman that's read me since book that wrote me back and said, well, “If you use it a little bit, just the way you said, that's fine. But if you use it any more than that, you're cheating.” I'm not sure where this concept comes from that we authors have only one way to do it. It has to be done one way, and it has to be done in the hardest, least supportive environment. Did we have to turn the heat up? Do we have to suffer? Do we really have to bleed on our keyboards? It just feels to me like there's this very antiquated idea of how little we can get help and what kind of help we can get. Nobody would tell you that you can't call up your author friend and go, “I have this paragraph, I cannot figure it out. Let me read it to you.” And have your author friend go, “Well, try saying it like this.” Nobody would say that that's a bad thing, or that it's something you shouldn't do, or it's cheating. But yet, if you're doing exactly that with a computer, somehow everybody gets really freaked out about it. And I have to admit, I don't really understand why that is because it's essentially the same action, it's just who you're asking that's slightly different. Joanna: Yes, and I mean, obviously painting, and photography, and then digital photography, and then Photoshop. This is a continuum of visual art. And there are just different categories, aren't there? And this is what I'm wondering, given that Microsoft is including, let's say, GPT 3.5, into MS Word, probably as we record this in the next couple of months. So will it be that just in the next couple of years that we won't even be talking about this? A bit like how we used to talk about self-publishing in a certain way, and now it's just accepted as a choice for an author to make. Will we just be using AI tools and not even discussing these things soon? Leanne: I would imagine there's always going to be somebody in the community that will always be discussing it. Joanna: I hope we're not! Leanne: I do. I think this is always going to bother a small contingent of people. But I know that when I started getting into this, the whole reason I did a section on my site of, “Hey, I'm using Sudowrite. I see absolutely nothing about it anywhere. Let me tell you what it was like for me.” Because literally, I saw nobody else talking about it. I was like, okay, either nobody's using this, or nobody's talking about it, or everybody's afraid to say something. So I'm going to say something. Now, there are hundreds of people in these groups. Like I'm shocked at some of the names that I'm seeing in some of the groups that I'm in talking about AI positively. ChatGPT changed the game, absolutely, in my opinion, changed the game. And it happened so fast, and I think it's going to continue. I think we're going to be talking about it, but I didn't think we're going to be talking about it in a couple of years with, “should we use it?” I think it's going to be, “how are you using it?” Because that's what the questions are. I'm getting many more questions with, how are you using it? And how can I use it to make some of my stuff better? As opposed to kind of the reaction I would get six months ago with, you're doing what with what? Joanna: Yes, I mean, I almost left the internet because of the amount of stuff I was getting around talking about this. I mean, it got really bad. But I feel like, as you said, ChatGPT has changed things. Probably because it's very easy to use, and you just go there and type something in, and there's no barrier to entry, especially because it's free. So you feel like, oh, look, and then the curiosity kicks in. And I think curiosity is what all of us who are trying to improve our processes, whether that's creative process, or business processes, that's what we want to do, isn't it? We want to improve and get better and create better books than we did before. Leanne: Right. My job is, as a writer, and as a commercial writer, is I have to serve my readership in the best way I know how, and I have to give them the best product that I know how to give them. If there is something that can do descriptions better than me, and it can do descriptions better than me, I feel like I owe it to my readership to use that to get them a better book than I, alone, can write without that support. Joanna: Absolutely. Now, it's interesting. So another objection, and I think an objection that's probably growing as people realize what you can do with these tools, is the speed at which people can do things. We're not just generating all the text, slapping a cover on, and publishing it on Kindle, but that is clearly going on. Or for example, I mean, people have always plagiarized and stolen and pirated, and all of this stuff. So AI just kind of puts that on steroids. So for example, someone messaged me and said, “Someone's taken this book, and they've used one of these tools to rewrite it with a different character name, change a few details, and then publish it.” Now, we've seen that happen in the community before AI, but that will now happen more with AI. What do you think about the potential for misuse? And do we just get on and just ignore that, or should we worry about that? Leanne: So I came into the internet when it was a baby. I worked for one of the first ISPs in the state of Texas. I was one of the first five people to sit and give technical support about how you get online. So, I'm old, and I've seen the internet grow. And at every stage of the internet, as things get open, and as things get more accessible, there's always a contingent that's going to exploit it for fast money. It's happened with everything. I don't want to run through like porn and this and that and the other, but it just always happens. It's happened with KDP since the beginning. There was, you know, first the indies are going to take over everything. Then there was, okay the indies are alright, but the book stuffers are horrible, and they're taking all the money there and they're generating. It's always going to happen. Yes, this has made it easier. It's another avenue for the scammers to exploit. It makes our job a little bit harder. It makes selling books a little bit harder. From my perspective, that's life, you can't stop progress or not progress, just because somebody's going to exploit something. From my perspective, it's really up to Amazon, with their millions of dollars, to get better at checking these things and trying to keep them out. Joanna: Yes, and as we've seen with all of these things, like this scam pops up, and then the hammer comes down, and that goes away, and probably some other innocent people are caught up in that. And then something else comes along and they get rid of that. It's a constant thing. It's the same with hacking in general, isn't it. There's always someone trying to exploit a problem and then someone who's trying to fix it. We want to be part of the good side, right? We're part of those wanting to use these things in responsible ways to enhance our own creative process, not infringe on anyone else. I mean, nobody listening to this is going to be doing that, but what I feel is that people are worried. So at the moment, for example, if I publish on Kindle, I'm up against something like 26 million books, which as you said, it's a challenge right now. But what if it's 26 billion in a couple of years because of AI generation? So what are you thinking in terms of being a writer who makes money with your books? You said you are a commercial writer, so you want to make money. What are you thinking around marketing? Are you going to change your marketing? What are you going to do to stand out, potentially? Leanne: It's a hard question because I'm the type of commercial writer that's just happy to have a career. I'm not chasing millions in the bank, I'm not hoping Hollywood comes calling and makes a Netflix special out of my books. I just want to entertain some people, and I want to be able to go to Disney World every few years, and then I'm good. So for me, marketing is a requirement. I have to put money into marketing my books. I have to deliver when I say I'm going to deliver. I have to listen to my readership to make sure that I'm delivering to them what they want to see. They have to be quality, they have to be edited. It's the same thing I've always done, and I don't think I'm going to do anything all that much different just because there might be a flood of rewritten books coming in. Joanna: Yes. One of my things I was thinking is that like, we're talking, audio only, these are our voices. Now, of course, you can voice synth, you can do an AI voice synth, but this is at least one more thing that makes us us. So do you think using either pictures, or if people aren't happy with pictures, using voice or video to kind of emphasize their humanity? Or even just at the back of the book, like an author's note about your life and that you're a human. And again, all of this can be faked— But I almost feel like it's another layer of doubling down on being human. Leanne: Yeah, I'm terrible at the marketing aspect, because they just don't like the, “buy my book, buy my book, buy my book,” kind of social media presence. So on my Facebook, I share silly, tangentially connected memes. On Instagram, I just started taking passages from my books and just dropping them into Midjourney and seeing what Midjourney thinks, which often is hilarious. On Twitter, I'm much more kind of, quote, “politically involved” in the discussion on AI and what's happening and paying attention. Then my mailing list goes out every Thursday, and so my folks know about restaurants that I've gone to, or you know, what inspired this scene in this book. And next week, we're starting to release Midjourney-interpreted character images. So I think people can differentiate themselves by being real. The one thing that ChatGPT does phenomenally is marketing copy. So your marketing copy is going to have to be on point to compete with everybody else that's getting their marketing copy from ChatGPT. It's incredible at it. Joanna: That's so right. And in fact, I said to someone the other day, they were like, “I would never use AI for my writing.” I'm like, well, don't then but use it for your sales description and your ad copy. Like, do you really want to write that? And then people were like, “Well, I might use it for that, but I'd never use it for fiction.” There's like a sliding scale. Leanne: I was talking to a friend that just absolutely swore that she would never use AI for anything. And then ChatGPT came out, and then she found out that people were using it to make free blurbs. And it seems to be like blurbs are like the universal thing. We're all writers, and we can write a 75,000-word novel, but try and come up with 200 elevator pitch points in a blurb, and all of us blank. Just everybody I know hates it. She found out she could get it free, could hit a button, and it was so much better than what she came up with. She was like done, she was sold. Joanna: I think it's like the entry drug, basically. It's ChatGPT for marketing copy. We're almost out of time. So I wondered like, it feels like the beginning of something. So you said you were around at the beginning of the internet. I feel like this is like 2007, a bit like the beginning of the iPhone when we were like, why would I need that? Or a few people were starting to use it, but we didn't really have a full mobile economy for even like a decade maybe. So this feels like the beginning years of this really taking off. So what are you excited about coming? What's on your wish list for what comes next in AI? Leanne: I don't even know that I have one. I actually think this is probably going to, in retrospect, be as kind of earth-shattering as the printing press invention. I really do believe that as it matures, and it gets better, and it gets tuned, we incorporate it more and more into our lives, we're going to be shocked that we ever did so many things without artificial intelligence. It's a very, very exciting time to be alive, in general, but definitely to be a writer. You can do so many things. I wish that people wouldn't have such a knee-jerk reaction to it because I really do believe that AI is going to help, especially with voices that haven't been heard. Like disabled folks that maybe can't sit and grind out a chapter, it's going to be easier for them to write and get their point across. I know my child has slight brain damage from an open heart surgery, and she's using Sudowrite to try and write a story which is something she's wanted to do for years and just couldn't sit to do. I think we're going to be amazed at where it takes us. I do think there's some ethical things still to be discussed, but I think in the end, in general, people are good, and we'll work it out, and it's going to be amazing. Joanna: Brilliant. I feel the same way. Where can people find you and your books and everything you do online? Leanne: So I am an Amazon-exclusive writer, like a lot of other paranormal cozy writers. So you can find my books on Amazon, and you can find everything about me at LeanneLeeds.com. Joanna: Brilliant. Thanks so much for your time, Leanne. That was great. Leanne: Thank you for having me. You can find Sudowrite through my affiliate link at www.TheCreativePenn.com/sudowrite, and I also have a tutorial on how I use Sudowrite here.The post Writing Fiction With Sudowrite With Leanne Leeds first appeared on The Creative Penn.

Mar 13, 2023 • 57min

Content For Everyone: Accessibility For Authors With Jeff Adams

Writers and readers are a diverse bunch, and we all want to do our best to make sure our content is accessible to all. But how do we do that when it seems like a huge (and time-consuming) challenge for an individual creator? Jeff Adams gives some tips for getting started. In the intro, making as marketing [Ryan Holiday]; Enter awards but make sure they are worthwhile [ALLi; Reedsy; BookAwardPro]; The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin. This podcast is sponsored by Kobo Writing Life, which helps authors self-publish and reach readers in global markets through the Kobo eco-system. You can also subscribe to the Kobo Writing Life podcast for interviews with successful indie authors. Jeff Adams is the author of YA thrillers and gay romance, as well as the co-host of The Big Gay Fiction Podcast with his husband and business partner, Will. Jeff's latest book is Content for Everyone, A Practical Guide for Creative Entrepreneurs to Produce Accessible and Usable Web Content, co-written with Michele Lucchini. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes Staying involved in the author community when you're not writing What is accessible content? Why is it important? How to address the associated cost of making content more accessible Using alternative text tags on images Improving link text to be more descriptive How screen readers process emojis and image text—and how to improve this Tips for improving accessibility of print books Publishing in multiple formats to improve accessibility You can find Jeff at JeffAdamsWrites.com, his podcast at BigGayFictionPodcast.com, and his latest book at ContentForEveryone.info Header image generated by Joanna Penn on Midjourney. Transcript of Interview with Jeff Adams Jeff: Jeff Adams is the author of YA thrillers and gay romance, as well as the co-host of The Big Gay Fiction Podcast with his husband and business partner, Will. Jeff's latest book is Content for Everyone, A Practical Guide for Creative Entrepreneurs to Produce Accessible and Usable Web Content, co-written with Michele Lucchini. So welcome back to the show, Jeff. Thank you, Joanna. It's so wonderful to be here. Joanna: Oh, yes. And of course, we met in person at Podcast Movement. And you were on the show with Will back in April 2020, which is a long time ago. Give us an update on what you've been up to since then, in terms of your books and the Big Gay Media Empire. Jeff: I aspire to it being an empire. Joanna: I love it. It sounds like a massive empire, like Big Gay Media. You know, it sounds like you should be doing TV shows and all kinds of things. Jeff: Definitely an aspirational thing there. The last couple of years since April 2020, I think like for so many creatives, and you hear it on the show all the time, it's like it's been a difficult span, with the pandemic and things just going on in the world. And the last novel I published was actually the same month I was on your show last. I've been doing some short stories, novellas that have been in anthologies, but the creative writing has really been kind of difficult. That said, we've kept going with the podcast, that's still going. We're in our eighth year now of Big Gay Fiction. Joanna: Oh, wow. Jeff: This nonfiction book, though, has seemed to spark my desire for fiction again. I feel those juices flowing. And it makes me think about what you talk about here sometimes, the way that you do fiction, and then you do a nonfiction. You kind of pivot back and forth, kind of have a palate-cleansing moment. I think I've maybe shooed away all the bad stuff, maybe, to let me refocus on fiction. Joanna: Although, that's interesting that you say that. I haven't written a full novel, either, since probably that year, or maybe 2021. I've mainly been making short stories, and I did a novella, as well. So how does that feel? Because I mean, you have a day job, and this book is partly to do with that. How has not producing much made you feel as a creator? Especially in the communities we're in where kind of rapid production, especially in romance, is kind of the thing. Jeff: I've been through a lot of feelings on that. Initially, it's like, why can't I continue to do what I've been doing for like the last 2,3,4 years before that? Because I'd gotten into a pace where I was doing 2,3,4 books in a calendar year, and then it kind of all fell apart what I was trying to do there. So there was a little bit of beating myself up, but then it was like, this is the best that I can do right now, and I have to take care of myself. Which I think I'm in a position to do, because I don't try to do this full time at the moment. I can't imagine the stress on somebody who was in the mindset that I was, but also has to pay the bills with their creative output at the same time. Joanna: I think that's so important. And I often try to bring it back to this as well, which is most authors do have a day job. And I guess one of the things in the indie community, or even with traditional publishing, is like, oh, to be a proper writer or whatever, you must be full-time. But that's not actually true. I mean, even I could say this podcast is like my day job. It brings me an income, it's not technically writing, although the transcripts are millions of words at this point. So you said, you know, the best I could do now. How many books do you have, though? You have quite a few. Jeff: It's quite a few. I mean, one of the things that I did through those years I wasn't writing was getting some stuff republished because I had gotten a whole bunch of rights back at the end of 2019 and the early part of 2020. So I did do some republishing, I did do some freshening of some things. So I think in total, I think right now, I think it's eight novels, and probably five or six short stories out there. Joanna: But this is a funny thing, right? Because you see, some authors are like, yeah, I have one book or three books or five books, and for some people, that is a whole career. So we have got to be a bit more gentle on ourselves. Jeff: Absolutely. I learned that for sure. Joanna: Well, that's good. I'm glad. What does the Big Gay Fiction podcast do for you and the business? Jeff: It definitely keeps the name out there. And we continue to put across like, “If you like the books we talked about on this show, we've written books you might also like.” So it still is that marketing element that it was even going back to when we started it when I was writing much more. It also lets us keep our networking into the community. Even if we're not working with other authors on like cross promoting books through our email lists or all those things that authors might gather up to do, even in this moment where I'm not writing, I'm still active in that author community through the podcast and promoting the genre, instead of just potentially dropping out entirely if we hadn't had the show, and then I'm not writing at the same time. So I feel like it's definitely helped to maintain that connection and network to the genre that we operate in. Joanna: And that's really good. I feel the same. I mean, I don't think we've actually spoken since when we spoke in April 2020. I mean, we're kind of aware of each other, and we email sometimes, and there's a sort of connection between community members which supports all of us. So yeah, I mean, I feel the same way with my show. Also, we don't know who's listening. We don't know who's listening to this. They may never have heard of the Big Gay Fiction Podcast, but now they have, and it is one of the best show names in the industry. I still love it. So we should probably talk about the book, which is this Content for Everyone. What is accessible content? Because it's one of those terms we've heard, we might not understand. And why is it important? And why do you care? Jeff: We could probably talk the next hour about that, but I'll bring it down to some key points. So if you think about the content that's out there on the web, and I think most of us think about engaging with content in the way that we personally do. And for most of us, it's engaging with it visually on our screen. We're probably navigating with a mouse or maybe a trackball or a trackpad, or whatever that is. If you're on a mobile device or a tablet, it's tap, and zoom, and pinch and whatnot. But if you think about people who need to use other methods to interact, perhaps they're blind and using a screen reader, there's going to be barriers to them potentially accessing your content because of how it's done. You could have somebody, certainly anybody who has hearing loss, transcripts for our shows are so important for them to be able to get the messages, understand what we're putting out on our shows. Similarly, captions for videos. Think about images. Images of text are used all the time in our industry. I think one of the things we see for authors right now that are so popular, are those square images with the book in the middle and all the arrows coming into the book cover, you know, talking about tropes and plot points and whatnot. So not only if people are blind, they're obviously going to need some other text, either in the alternative text or in the post itself to give us what's in the image. But then if they're low vision, and you've got bad color contrast in that image, people aren't able to connect with that. If somebody's dyslexic, and the font you've chosen is really curly and fancy, maybe they can't connect with that. Those are just some easy examples to talk about when we think about accessible content. It's important because everything is on the internet these days. And certainly for us independent authors, we rely on our websites, on the stores that we run, on social media, on our newsletters, to convey these messages. And if you think about the population that has some form of disability, you're talking over a billion people across the world. Roughly 20% to 25% of the population has a disability that is somehow reported. Whether it's because they're maybe getting disability from the government agency, it's recorded with their insurance, or maybe they filled it out on a survey form at some point. And that's just the people that are categorized as such. If you add things that are temporary, like somebody breaks their arm, they can't use their mouse, they need to navigate by keyboard. Something that's more situational. Think about somebody maybe holding an infant and can't get to their cell phone at the moment, they may ask one of the assistants on the phone to do the job. I won't say the name, lest one of them go off. Or somebody even episodic, with a migraine or an arthritis flare up and how that impacts how they deal with the world that day. Accessible content matters. And one callback I'll make to the episode that's just been out the week that we're talking, which is 675, you mentioned that report from Ben Evans. 5 billion people have a smartphone. And, you know, the pandemic remade eCommerce and the internet. More people are online, there's more people to access the content, so if your content is not accessible, then you're missing people. Joanna: Why do you, in particular, care about this? Jeff: It's been my day job. For the last more than a decade now I've worked for a company called UsableNet. UsableNet was founded as a company working in digital accessibility. And in particular, over the last six, seven years, I've been working closely with companies on their accessibility programs, and really looking at the broad range of things that go into digital accessibility, which is far more than we talk about in this book. Learning that, working with these companies, working with them on their content, it started with just me tying it back to my own websites. Like if I'm going to talk about this, I need to make them as accessible as I can, with my technical experience, which is pretty close to none outside of what I could do in those platforms. Because I can't manipulate, for example, my WordPress theme. I can only do the things that I can do within the content entry place itself. Then beyond trying to improve my own sites, you know, I see what my fellow podcasters, my fellow authors, others in the creative community, put out there. Once you know what not-accessible content is, it's really hard not to focus on it when you see it somewhere. It's like, oh, those colors, that's a problem. Oh, this link text, I wish that was something better for people, you know. And so, like, I want to help spread the word in a place where it's not talked about that much. It's talked so much, especially here in the US, because it's very litigious for ecommerce companies who aren't accessible. But there's so many more people to talk to about this, and to improve the internet for everybody. So it's become my thing in a way I never thought it would. I never thought I'd write a book about my day job, essentially. Joanna: Well, and we're going to get into some tips for what we can do in a bit more detail. But I am going to play devil's advocate, because one of the things that people think, so for example, I have always had a transcript on the show since the beginning. And at the beginning, I used to do it myself, and then I started paying humans, and then the AI tools came along, and then you still need them cleaning up, and blah, blah, blah. I've always done transcripts primarily for a business reason, which is SEO. And it's had the wonderful side effect of making the content accessible. And in fact, some people listening, they're not listening, they're reading the transcript. A lot of people do just read the transcript from my show. But the point being, I had a business reason, so over the years, I've invested. But I know a lot of podcasters, we both know podcasters, who do not do a transcript because it's either expensive financially, or expensive timewise if you try and do it yourself. The same way, if you say like an image on a blog, or a social media, like if I upload an image to Instagram, or an author listening goes, okay, I'm going to upload one of those images to Instagram or I'm going to upload an image every day. Do I make a halfhearted attempt to try and describe it? That's going to take me another minute or two, it's too long. Or like you say, captions on video. I have to hold my hand up and say I don't do captions because of the amount of time it takes, or I would have to outsource it. It's going to cost us time and possibly money to do this. So how can we address that? Because I'm pretty sure everyone wants to be the best we can be, right? But how do we get over that hump? Or do you have a principle we can approach that with? Jeff: There's a lot of ways to approach that. And I'm right there with you, like Big Gay Fiction, we started transcribing our interviews at Episode 180, because we didn't have the resource and the money coming in to do it. And we finally expanded to full episode transcripts probably about 50 to 75 episodes after that. Big Gay Author rarely had transcripts, because again, a monetary issue. You have to do the best that you can with what you have and decide the areas where you know that your audience will get a lot from it. For you, like you had the business case early on with the podcast for SEO purposes. And certainly it improves SEO because of all the words that are in the transcript. And really think about what your audience is going to need and the audience you might be missing because something's not there. I'll give you an example of something that's in the book actually. We interviewed a few people for the book to get different perspectives from people with different disabilities and where the barriers are problematic for them. So author EM Lindsey, they want and have tried to many times in the past to take courses, whether it's a craft course, an ads course, a marketing course. You know, the breadth of the things that are out there for authors to take to improve. They so often find that in live scenarios, captions aren't available, even if they are automated. They're not there to help because they have hearing loss. Often the replays don't have captions, and this is for something that somebody has paid for. Joanna: Can I just jump in there. Okay, so I have video courses— I don't have captions, but I always have transcripts. Is that not good enough? Jeff: The transcript definitely works because you are giving an alternative way for somebody who can't engage with the audio. So in that case, the transcript definitely works because then the information is still available to that person. That's just an example of you have to think about what your audience needs, what you can give them, what fits within the budget. Because I definitely understand that you can't do everything all the time. It's like almost any other decision that you make in your business. And here, it's just a matter of doing what you can to improve the experience for as much of your audience as you can. Progress over perfection It really dials back to something that we've mentioned in the book a couple of times about progress over perfection. Do something to start to improve, whether it's the images, whether it's captions, whether it's use of colors, whether it's how you do your link text. Whatever that is, think about the things that we present in the book, and then figure out how that maybe adapts to your business now, what you might adjust from your previously posted content, and what you'll do going forward into the future as well. Joanna: Yes, so images, for example. I probably spent the first five years of my internet life not even doing the alt text field, I mean, even for SEO, that's really bad. So can you just go into some specifics around images? And I still find this difficult. Like on Twitter, for example, you can type in some descriptive text, and I just find it really hard. The example you gave of the book with the arrows going onto it, can you tell us what we would tag that with? What text would we use? Jeff: Sure. So there are a couple places you can do this too, because you could also put it in the post itself, rather than the alt text, so that it's just there for anybody who needs it. They can get it from the image and get it from the post. But if you think about one of those arrow ones, you could say—and I actually built an example of this as one of the things that we have as one of the extras in the book. So Tracker Hacker by Jeff Adams is a YA thriller that includes hiding secrets, rescuing the dad, hacking into computer systems, on and on and on. So each of those things would have been the arrow, and then it just becomes a sentence whether it's in there as the alt text itself, or if it's even in the post, it restates what's in the image, but then it essentially makes the image into being decorative. So if nobody saw the image, for whatever reason, they still understand everything about the book because of what you've written in the post or in the alt text. Pilgrimage is a travel memoir by J.F. Penn. It contains solo walking tips, and features the camino de santiago, historic and spiritual places, midlife angst, and questions for you to consider. Joanna: But do you have to say, “with book cover showing person standing by a lake on a yellow background?” Jeff: Not necessarily because it likely doesn't matter. Joanna: I think that's what confuses me because you see some people doing it, and they're describing all the different things about the landscape that's on the book cover or something. And I think that's what makes it hard. It's almost like there are different rules for the different types of images. You're saying it's essentially making sure someone who can't see the picture gets the gist of what you're trying to say, not an exact description of the image. Jeff: Exactly, and it matters in context, as well. So the book cover on that image, on that promo image, the book cover itself probably doesn't matter. The key things are the title, the author, and what the plot points are. That's what's driving that promo image. If that cover sits on a cover artists website, then the alternative text is probably describing everything that's in the cover itself, the landscape, the lake, the colors, et cetera, because maybe it's up for sale as a premade cover. So somebody who maybe can't see it does need the additional information. So the context matters. And the high level kind of thing that I always say is, if you can't see that image, what do you, as the content creator, need me to get from it? And it probably isn't the detail on the book, but the promotional element of what you're doing that image for. Joanna: Yes, I can see that. I mean, I'm a very visual person, but actually I also have a lot of visual issues. So this is something I care very much about. So this is something that I do think about, and I just think I get wrong all the time. This is something I'm interested in learning more about. You mentioned link text a couple of times. Can you explain how to do that properly? Jeff: Before I get into link text, I want to say one more quick thing about images that I think a lot of people also don't know. Instagram and Facebook automatically write your alt text for you. Joanna: Oh, well that's handy. Twitter doesn't. Jeff: Twitter does not, thank goodness. Do not let Facebook and Instagram write your alt text because it will be wrong. If there's text in your image, and I'll use the idea of the arrow picture again, the promo image, it's going to read all the texts left to right. So it's not going to like figure out that the thing on the right side of the book is all one thing and the thing on the left side is all one thing. It's good to read straight across, no matter what. It's going to read all the text off your book as it goes through left to right, and it'll just flat be wrong and a bunch of garbage. So you should always be looking at what it's automatically generating for you and then writing your own so you don't end up with gibberish. Joanna: Right. So you upload an image on Facebook, and then the image will give you some options. And if you don't type it in, then it will just do that, basically. So you need to overtype it or something. Jeff: Yeah, definitely overtype it because it's always wrong. I've never seen good auto generated text on either platform. Joanna: Do you think this is going to get better, though? I mean, obviously, there are a lot of AI tools, and some of them are getting better. Will the auto-tools improve? Jeff: I'd like to think so. I think where AI will always struggle is to get the context concept, unless they're going to tie the AI to actually look at the text of the post to decide how to marry it to the image. I'd like to think that it'll get there though. AI, as you point out all the time, the things you were thinking were going to come in five or 10 years are here now. Yeah, so it's got to get better. It's just I don't know how it'll deal with generating the right context, but hopefully, it can at least get better at what's actually present in the image and parsing that information out better. Joanna: Okay, so what about link text? Improving link text Jeff: Link text. So I'm sure we see this all the time, where it's just “click here,” “buy now,” “buy this,” “add to cart,” “read more,” etc. People who use screen readers, for example, and other forms of assistive technology have the ability to pull up and review a list of links. The screen reader will just read out every link that's on the page, which can be really handy to jump to what you need. But if you are faced with a full page of click here, read more, add to cart, you have no idea where any of those links go off to. So create a good link text is something I hope that we could all start to do relatively easy. So instead of saying, “click here,” be more specific. You know, “click to Amazon to see Content for Everyone,” “Get Content for Everyone at my store.” It'll be longer link text, but it'll be more descriptive link text, which could also be good for even some people who have some cognitive disabilities, who might maybe have even short term memory loss, where seeing those very words as an underlying link text will go yes, that's what I need, even if I don't recall what might have been in the paragraph before it. It'll help everybody scan the page faster to find exactly the link they may want. As opposed to just seeing a bunch of “click here,” where they are going to have to actually read through everything else to see what each individually “click here” is within a context. Joanna: Yes, and it's funny, again— I think this is a practice that I started doing because of SEO —because Google links and all the SEO stuff, you need a descriptive link to make it rank better. So again, I think I fell into that for good business reasons. And now most of my site would be alright for that. Although I'm still guilty of it sometimes, for sure. Actually, I say that, in the show notes I'll say, maybe talking about this particular topic, and then I'll have the source in a bracket, and it will just say The Guardian or something like that. I don't include the whole headline because those show notes go into like Spotify and stuff like that. So it is difficult, isn't it, because we're kind of also designing our content for these different tools that read into it. Like Twitter, you only have a certain amount of words, so you have to change what you do in order to make that right. So it's tough, isn't it? Are there any other particular ones for authors, where you think this is something people could improve? Let's say not do wrong, but could improve? Jeff: Don't use emails that are all images. I mean based on what we talked about a moment ago with images, you can imagine if you've got an email full of images and no text. Joanna: Do people really do that? Jeff: People really do that. Yes, including big ecommerce companies do it all the time. And we keep telling them, please don't do that because there's going to be an entire segment of your population that is going to have no idea for any number of reasons. From color contrast, font choices, you're probably not loading up good alt text in your email forms all too often. And so all of that plays into it. And doing good link text in an email because certainly in an email if you're like listing a bunch of books, “blurb one, buy now,” “blurb two, buy now.” Be more specific about what books somebody is going to be able to buy now. Be careful with emoji use. Everybody loves their emojis. Joanna: I don't know what most of them mean. I literally use smiley face and thumbs up. That's about it. Jeff: That's good because those are often well-read. But you could find places where people will put an emoji between each word in a headline, for example. So if you use the emoji that is the smiley face with the stars in its eyes, you know the one I'm talking about? Joanna: Yes, it means like, surprise, or wow, or something like that, does it? Jeff: Well, a screen reader will read it out as starstruck. So imagine a headline that might be, “On sale now, 40% off.” And if you've got that emoji between each of them, it'll be something to the effect of, “on, star struck, sale, star struck, now, star struck, 40, star struck, percent, star struck, off.” Joanna: How annoying. Jeff: Exactly. And it can be trouble for cognitively disabled users too, trying to figure out what those words mean, with those emojis between them, what are the emojis meaning context, trying to parse the whole sentence. So just maybe put the star struck off at the end, so that it ends with that thing, but using it between each word can be problematic. And then if you're stringing a whole bunch of emojis together, you can't be sure that a screen reader is going to read out what you actually mean those to say. Joanna: Yeah, yeah, it's difficult, isn't it. I mean, again, we only have so much time to do things. And you did mention progress over perfection. Maybe the tip is: Just pick one thing to start doing better. So for me, I am definitely going to try and get better at text or describing my images because I know it's something that I do, but I don't do it very well. So I think I could get better at that. I mean, is that the way to do it? Like, don't try and do everything, because let's face it, we all have a lot of things to do. Jeff: Yes, it's really the best way to consider it. I would say, if I were to break things down, it's like, pick one or two things from the book and decide, I'm going to do, in your case, images better, maybe I'm going to do link text better. And when you get comfortable doing that, and it becomes just part of the process and the way you do things, maybe you go back and pick up another thing to start doing well, and start going forward. Look at your website too. Just look at your homepage, for example. Is your homepage meeting the requirements that we've laid out in the book? And if not, do you want to do a quick update there to make that better. Even like top level pages, maybe make those better. But definitely parse it all out, don't stop writing your book to go fix this. But start to understand it, see where you could start chipping away at it, and over time, it becomes a thing that you just do. You know, I don't do my alt text perfectly every time either because it's like, I'm just trying to post this right now. I know that I'm not supposed to do that, but as always, progress over perfection. Maybe I'll go back and fix it later, you know, if I'm on the run or something as I'm posting, or just flat forget it sometimes. Also, these platforms don't make it super easy to go do it. Twitter does, but Facebook and Instagram don't. Joanna: Just on the website thing, I mean, generally, the older your website is, the less accessible it is. A lot of the modern themes, on WordPress certainly, are mobile compatible. They scale depending on what kind of device you're on. I mean sometimes I'll click on a tweet that somebody has put out because I still use Twitter a lot. I'll click on a tweet on my phone, and I'll end up on someone's website that is sort of pre-2000, probably, and it's like a black background and it's tiny because it's not scaled to a mobile device. And so you have to pinch and try and scroll in. I mean, I find the white text on a black background is utterly ridiculous. Or like you mentioned about color stuff. It's not necessarily even that people are entirely blind, although obviously some people are, but for some people there's just other things going on, aren't there. Jeff: Do the best you can. I mean, it sounds like I'm saying don't do anything at all. But it's like, if you've got an older website, see how it can fit into your plan to upgrade your template, upgrade your platform, to move yourself into the 2023's. Yeah, you're right, there are companies and individuals who still have those pre-2000 websites that don't scale up on the phone. It's interesting you mentioned that dark background with white text doesn't work for you, because I actually operate in dark mode all the time. So even my Word document is black background with white text, it's just easier on my eyes. Joanna: That's so interesting. My husband does the same. And I'm not going to say anything about your age, but I feel like people who used to use computers back in the day when that's what they were. Is that where it comes from for you? Jeff: It's really only recently I've switched to this more dark mode setting because it was recommended to me actually by somebody I interviewed for the book. She operates in dark mode all the time. And she's like, give it a shot, you might actually like it. And then within a couple of weeks, I had it across all my devices. I think I spend so much time in front of a device or a screen, that it just does make it easier for me, I think from a brightness point of view and from a text sharpness point of view, for me to operate. It's something like 50% of people, 50 – 55% prefer dark mode on their devices for whatever reason. There's also a great statistic around captions that like 60 – 70% of people will have captions on if they're available because it's how they prefer to engage. Whether it's a TV show, something on YouTube, to have those on because it's a little bit more way for them to connect with the content. Joanna: Yes, and there's some crazy stat now that it's not just people of older category, it's a lot of young people prefer captions on Netflix and stuff like that. And it's interesting, because we've been watching a lot of Korean TV on Netflix, and of course it is all captioned. And it was so funny, I found myself saying to Jonathan, “Oh, can you turn it up a bit.” Even though we're watching the captions, I still want to hear the sound, I really like the Korean language. It's interesting, we've talked mainly, well entirely, really, about digital. But of course, we all do print books as well. So I've been doing large print for years now. For many years, I've been doing large print and sell a lot of large print romance because my mum writes more senior romance as Penny Appleton. What I found like personally, I'm almost 48, my eyes are going the other way, I'll pick up a book in a bookstore, like in a physical bookstore, and I'll open it and the text will be so tiny, presumably because of paper stock or cost of printing, and then I just put it straight down again. Or, for example, I used to buy Wired magazine in print, but what was happening is, again, they were using things like white text on the orange background and printing the font so small. Obviously I could get my glasses, but even with that, the contrast. And I just felt like these are being formatted by young people. You can see, but it's not an age thing is it. It's just a difference in in ability. What are your tips for accessibility for print books? Jeff: Definitely large print where you can. Like Content for Everyone, for me, is my first large print that I've done, and I will definitely be, as soon as I can get a little bit of bandwidth, going back to my other print books and creating the large print version of it. Because for those who want to read a physical book, I think the large print is good to have. Certainly, and I think this becomes easier like if you're doing something in Vellum or something to create these multiple formats, but to also pick a good font. You want to pick a font that is as accessible as possible. And those tend to be fonts like Times New Roman, Arial, Tahoma. You really want to look for the ones that have good character differentiation, and not like the ones where the uppercase I's and the lowercase l's and the 1's all look the same. To help people who are dyslexic be able to parse the letters and people with lower vision having an easier time to parse even in the large print format. So I think it's mostly about minding good fonts. And within the book, we actually talk about what the accessible fonts are, and I listed off a couple of them there. Joanna: What about italics? Jeff: Use italics judiciously and as you're supposed to. Don't do massive blocks of text in italic, for example. Like, don't have a four page flashback that you're doing in italic, for some reason. Joanna: People do that. Or they put the whole prologue in italics. And I'm sorry, I literally can't read it. Like, it's obviously not just me, but I find italics incredibly hard to read. And it's like, I just can't read that. So I will put the book down or send it back or whatever. Jeff: Yeah, you know, album names, TV shows, movies, those get italics because that's just the proper way to designate them, but don't do that with the whole prologue in italics. Use bold judiciously, and not whole big text blocks. Don't do whole blocks or whole big, large piece of text in capital letters, for example. Keep things left justified. I think sometimes people want to use the justified so it has the same endpoints left and right, but the variation that you can get between the words can be disruptive for some people. Don't do a lot of centered texts, big blocks of center text, because it's more of a cognitive drain and can be more difficult to fully understand something if you're having to move your eye to the beginning of where each of the lines happens to be. Joanna: The more we get into this, the more you realize this is just a huge deal. I mean, an audio obviously, this is primarily an audio podcast, having our books in audio format is something that we've been advocating a long time. But again, with the rise of AI narration, I think this will finally become something very accessible. I mean, that is the primary driving force, well, one of the driving forces behind it, is anyone should be able to listen to anything. For me, like I often say this like, I don't want to just listen to American men reading business books, for example. I would like to listen to British women or somebody else, and other people have other voices in their heads. So I think, again, the tools, because again, it's not affordable for people to do audiobooks a lot of the time, but this is another way we'll be able to use the tools to make things more accessible, I guess. Jeff: I'm such an advocate of being, much like you are, as wide as you can be, with as many products as you can be. And I think those two things connect to accessibility. When you consider, for example, by and large, statistically, people who are disabled are underemployed, so they're not employed to their full potential skill level, and they're underpaid. And they're underpaid, and they have other expenses to manage their health, potentially to get assistive technologies or other things to help them live their life. So they may not have the discretionary income that somebody else does. Having your books available in the library, in print, in eBook, in audio, brings the accessibility of that book to them. Because the library may be their primary source for books because they're not going to spend their discretionary funds, even on a KU membership, or an audiobook membership to get credits, because those can be pricey. And certainly, AI audiobooks do fill a price point because you're going to be able to offer those at a lower cost to the libraries, to individuals, rather than the more spendy, I think a standard audiobook price these days, not counting a credit, is at least in the $20 range, if not a little bit higher. Then the subscriptions to Audible or Spotify or whatever, those also cost money that somebody may not have as a discretionary fund. So the more wide and the more price points, I think the better. Joanna: Yes, and of course we can have our books in libraries, eBook, audio, and print as you said, that's all available to us now. So there's a lot we can do. And I hope that this interview has given people a lot of tips. If people want to find the book and everything else you do, where can people find you online? Jeff: So the book is at contentforeveryone.info. And if you want to pick up the book from my store, you can grab it at contentforeveryone.info/purchase. It is of course available wide, currently eBook and standard print and large print paperback, with an audiobook yet to come. My writing you can find at JeffAdamsWrites.com and podcast at BigGayFictionPodcast.com. Joanna: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Jeff. That was great. Jeff: Yeah, thank you so much.The post Content For Everyone: Accessibility For Authors With Jeff Adams first appeared on The Creative Penn.

Mar 6, 2023 • 1h 3min

Writing And Investing For A Long Term Indie Author Career With Lindsay Buroker

What are the core fundamentals of a successful independent author business? How can you focus on writing, as well as sell more books, and stay healthy? Prolific fantasy author Lindsay Buroker shares her tips. In the intro, YouTube gets into audio-only podcasts; Seth Godin's book marketing for The Song of Significance; How to make more money than the average author [Ask ALLi]; Independent author income survey from ALLi; The Authors Guild updated their model contract with a new clause: No Generative AI Training Use. Plus, my photos from Washington D.C.; I'm on the Write Now with Scrivener Podcast; Pictures from signing hardbacks at Bookvault in Peterborough. Today's podcast sponsor is Findaway Voices, which gives you access to the world's largest network of audiobook sellers and everything you need to create and sell professional audiobooks. Take back your freedom. Choose your price, choose how you sell, choose how you distribute audio. Check it out at FindawayVoices.com. Lindsay Buroker is the author of over 100 books across epic fantasy, urban fantasy, science fiction, fantasy, romance, and more. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes How Lindsay's current business works, and how she's ready to pivot and is considering other things, like Kickstarter The core fundamentals for a long-term author business What changes and what stays the same Pros and cons of writing under a pen name Dealing with negative feedback Investing, and thinking about the future for our intellectual property You can find Lindsay at LindsayBuroker.com and listen to the backlist at https://6figureauthors.com/. Header image created by Joanna Penn on Midjourney. Transcript of Interview with Lindsay Buroker Joanna: Lindsay Buroker is the author of over 100 books across epic fantasy, urban fantasy, science fiction, fantasy, romance, and more. So welcome back to the show, Lindsay. Lindsay: Hey, thanks for having me. It's been a couple years. So we'll see what's going on. Joanna: It's so exciting to talk to you because lots of people miss you, and they miss the Six Figure Authors Podcast. I do. I used to listen to that show every week, whenever it was, and we have not heard your news for a while. So you did the last main episode of Six Figure Authors in April 2022, and did a surprise extra in October 2022, but give us an update. What does your book business look like now? And what have you been writing in the last year? Lindsay: I feel a little bad about that October episode because it was super doom and gloom. Joanna: It was really good. Lindsay: We're probably going to do another one, just pop into update. For my book business, I haven't changed a lot. I've slowed down a little bit, which it may not look like from the outside because the series I'm working on their shorter, like 80 – 90,000 words, which, compared to some of my epic fantasy stuff that's short. So I'm writing fewer words a day, I used to shoot for like 7,000 to 10,000. And now I'm just like, yeah, screw that, maybe 5,000. But because they're shorter books, I've still been publishing as much. I don't know if that will continue. I haven't made a lot of changes. I'm still launching new stuff into Kindle Unlimited. Things are still working pretty well for me, but I'm definitely keeping an eye on what's going on. You know, you were talking about selling direct and the people that are just doing other things, and Kickstarters, and I do have the Patreon. So I'm always ready. If I have to pivot, I want to be prepared. I might do a Kickstarter and try some stuff, regardless, but it's a lot of work as I think you've been talking about the Kickstarter you did. And until you actually know how much you're going to make from it, it's a bit of a question mark. Like if I'm not going to make more than I'm making a month from Amazon, do I really want to put all this extra work above and beyond what I usually do? So that's why I haven't done it yet. I am excited about all the things that people are doing now and all the ways you can make money from your books. It's pretty fun to watch all the various ways people succeed and contemplate trying some things myself. Joanna: Well, just on the Kickstarter, I mean, your social media posts are often just interesting things with dragons on them, right, like lamps and random stuff with dragons. And if you did a Kickstarter, you would have to do merchandise of some kind because everyone will want some kind of dragon thing. Lindsay: It's true. And I don't really have a go-to person for creating things like that for art, other than cover designs and such. So that's extra work, finding that. I think people want a hardback, like a signed hardback edition, which I'd be open to, but again, I haven't done it yet. Everything would be like the first time it'd be the hardest. And I'm sure you could become like Kris and Dean (WMG Publishing) doing their monthly Kickstarter, like the way I am releasing on Amazon, like, oh, it's no big deal, it's just another series. So I think it's just that first time that's got me hesitating a little bit because I know it will be a learning curve. I did do a Kickstarter like 10 years ago, so I do have some experience with it, but now I actually have fans. I had a few back then, like it worked out. It was good. Joanna: What did you make? Do you remember? What did you make on that? Lindsay: I was just funding my audiobooks, because early on, it cost quite a bit to have those done. And in those days, I was doing like free audiobooks, and gosh, I can't even remember, was ACX a thing? I feel like it might have been, but that was the only game in town. So audiobooks weren't profitable for me, but people wanted them. So I was funding a couple of those. I give away the audiobooks, but I also gave away sign paperbacks of this series. Those were very popular. So I had to sign all this stuff. Everybody wanted a custom message from one of the characters. And I'm like, of course, of course! So that was a lot of work. And I found out how much international shipping was the hard way. Like there weren't as many calculators and stuff to warn you back then that it was going to be $50 to ship a couple books to Australia. So I ended up doing okay, but it was definitely a lot of work. Joanna: Well, as we're recording this, I'm going to the printer next week, my books are printing right now, but things have definitely changed in terms of the technology. I'm kind of keeping this list at the moment of the new jobs that we need virtual assistants for. And I think running a Kickstarter campaign for authors, maybe Monica and Russell, in their group, they have people who are going to do this. But you would have a massive Kickstarter now, and you could actually hire someone to run it. I actually think that type of job is going to be an emergent one in the future because it's like a project manager role, really. There's so much to organize, and for people who actually can drive the back end of Kickstarter and the backer kit and all that, I think that's a real skill. I mean— Would you hire someone like that if you were going to do a Kickstarter? I mean, you wouldn't do all yourself. Lindsay: It's funny because I've actually asked someone, and she said yes. So I won't out her on this show because I don't know if she wants to be like, oh, that's going to be my new job, everybody's going to want me to run one, because I think they've done a couple of now. So I am keeping that in mind, I agree. Maybe you do it yourself the first time or with guidance so you kind of learn everything, but yeah, I could definitely see that just then you make a list, right. Here’s what I need done, and you hand it off to someone. I think there are more jobs that are going to be available for people that are willing to help, you know, there are already lots of author assistants, editing, cover art, but we are seeing more opportunities. You know, just like you don't want to manage your ads, maybe you don't want to manage your Kickstarter. And it does make sense for anyone that thinks they're going to make enough. Maybe you've already got an established fan base, and you're doing a new installment in a series that you know people will say yes because they already like it. In that case, you might know you're going to make enough to pay someone and make it worth their time. Joanna: It's interesting what changes. I feel like when we both went full-time, both of us it was 2011, wasn't it? Lindsay: It might have been 2012 for me by the time I was like, oh, I'm actually making more than the old day job. But I kind of had a year where I was sort of checked out on what I was doing before and really focused on writing. Joanna: I mean, and back then, there just wasn't the ecosystem for authors. There wasn't the technology that we have now. Like you said, I mean, Kickstarter was around back then, but it wasn't a place really for publishing and authors, whereas that's definitely really changed. Is there anything else that you're looking at now that you think, okay, maybe this is something more interesting, this is a way that I could do? I mean, the thing is, your business is running so well, like you said. When do you think you might just go, right, I need to pivot? Is it when the income drops? Lindsay: Right. Amazon, they've been cutting corners in this supposed recession we're having, or going to have. Amazon's been laying people off and cutting out some things. So I'm just watching like, well, let's see if they cut on KU or change the royalty rate or something. Hopefully not. But I always try to think, well, what would I do if that happened? I think I'll try some things regardless of whether that happens eventually, just, you know, it's kind of fun. You go through different phases where you're like, ‘I'm just tired, I can't do anything, like I can't handle anything else'. And other times when you have more energy, it sounds fun. I am also interested, like selling direct, I know is something you're doing a lot of and there are so many more tools now to make it easy. I think you have a Shopify store, [CreativePennBooks.com]like we didn't have that. I actually sold direct an early release of one of my Emperor's Edge books, my first series. I think it was like, between book five and six or something, there was a cliffhanger, and people really wanted the next one. So for $10, you could buy on my site for one weekend, you'd get the manuscript. I don't think it had been edited yet, and then you also get the eBook when it released. I had to do this with Pay Pal. And there was no BookFunnel, so I had to email them the documents. And I had to do it like when I saw the money come in. I remember, for whatever reason, I was at the US Open, the tennis thing in New York when I was doing this, because why wouldn't you be on vacation while you're trying to do something like this? And so I'm sitting there in the seats, watching Roger Federer, a new order came in, I have to email the eBooks to this person, and then hope they know how to sideload it. So that's come a long way. So I'm a little more interested now in selling direct that there are a lot more tools for that. Joanna: That's so funny. I was at Superstars in Colorado with Damon Courtney, and I introduced him to someone who had never heard of BookFunnel. And I was like, BookFunnel changed our lives! We used to have to direct people to download this Mobi file and then teach them how to sideload it. No one even uses the phrase ‘sideload' anymore. We're so old! Lindsay: I know, I don't even know how to do it anymore. Like my phone just opens up whatever, or I think most people's phones are like that now. So yeah, and then BookFunnel has their app. Joanna: I mean, remember the customer support. It's like, well, I didn't know how to get this on my Samsung granny tablet. And it's like, I'm sorry, I'll just give you your money back. Lindsay: I think I had like bookmarked a forum post from like smart eReader, one of those kinds of things, and I just directed people there. Maybe this will help you because I don't know anything about your device. Joanna: Exactly. So thank you, Damon from BookFunnel. And I did say to Damon, it's about time you came back on the show because there are just so many things now that BookFunnel does. Again, this is the other thing with you and I, right, so we've been doing this a long time, we both have our processes, and there are things we might not have revisited for a long time. So for me, one of the things I'm really questioning at the moment is social media. I think we even met on Twitter back in the day, and now it seems that Twitter is just spiraling the drain and I don't necessarily want to replace it, but I find myself going more into Facebook, for example. Or people are going into LinkedIn, which is kind of scary. Are there things that you're questioning or revisiting in your business? Is social media something you're questioning? Lindsay: Well, I've actually never successfully sold books on Twitter, so I don't really care. Everybody that was signing off, like, oh, I'm going to Mastodon. I'm like, have fun, see you later. I probably just will never leave Twitter or not check it as much, maybe. I didn't feel like, oh, I got to go replace this and find some way to sell books again. Facebook, on the other hand, has been a good way to sell books for me. It's number two, after my newsletter, when I post the links there. I think it's just that I have that demographic, that sort of mid-30s and up, that's more on Facebook. A lot of my characters are that age, so it makes sense. So that one works well, for me, and I like that, and I shouldn't like it maybe, but they separated your book profile page from your personal account. So I never have to log on to my personal account anymore, and I don't. I will once in a while, and there's a bunch of messages. I'm like, guys, I haven't posted on here since 2019, why are you sending me messages this way? I actually answer emails better than this thing. Yeah, I'm still quite active on the Facebook page. I'm happy that everybody that's done well with TikTok, that's awesome. Like I've been saying for years, like just wait, a new thing will come, like a new tactic, and you can get in early and use it. And people have. And I don't know what the next thing will be, but it's not really for me. I even gave it a shot. I hired a VA because it was very easy to hand that to someone because I didn't care. I didn't even have an account on there at the time. And nothing happened, she did it for like five months. It wasn't surprising to me because I think the people who I see on there are on there with their faces, and being funny, and doing little bits, and showing off their books. And I see why it works for them. If somebody does the book flip thing where they're just showing quotes is working for somebody else too, great, awesome. But I don't feel compelled to jump on every new thing. What I'm doing, like the core fundamental stuff, doesn't ever seem to change. Like maybe you try new things as they come along, and if something comes along that suits you, yay, I would be happy to. Like the next introvert social media thing… Yeah, I think that's an oxymoron. I'll be all over that. Joanna: Okay, so you said the ‘core fundamental things' there. What are those core fundamentals for your author business? Lindsay: So releasing series as a foundation. Every now and then I divert, and I do one offs or something that's not quite the same. Sometimes it works fabulously and launches a new series, sometimes it doesn't work. So having the series that I build with like an arc, and I know this doesn't work in every genre, romances have to have a new couple in each one, so they have to like make their town or something. You know, really create a setting that brings in the cohesiveness and gets people to want to stay in that setting. But it follows an arc, and in my case, I have to do like this slow-burn romance over the series. And there's like maybe a mystery of something that's going around in the background. So something that keeps people wanting to read book after book until it's complete. So I have that at the core. Then the marketing, no matter what I do, no matter what tactics change, I'm always trying to get people to try book one, and I often make book one free. So I've got the newsletter, and I've never gone into building a newsletter solely on throwing stuff out there and trying to get people to sign up in order to try something, which I know people have, worked fabulous for them, and awesome. I've always been like, here's the sign-up at the end of the book. Like at the end of the book, if you want the free prequel, or if you want the other POV, like here's the hero romantic lead that we never get to see in his head in the main series. If you want some scenes from his POV, sign up for the newsletter. And that works very well. I can tell which extra ones are super effective of those because people will email me because they couldn't get it. The technology is still not perfect, right? A lot of stuff goes through those spam folders and things. They're like, I need this. So I know that one was good because people care that they signed up for the newsletter and it never came. So that's at the core. I'm always trying to get more fans onto the newsletter. I'm not as good about it. I used to do something for every series. And now when you sign up, you get like 10 things. I figure some of that's good because it can get them interested in the series they haven't tried yet. So that's always at the core, whether it's spending money advertising book one or whether it's just a perma-free. With all my wide series that are in all the bookstores, I've got a book one free if it's five books or more. Since I've been releasing more into KU, those have fallen off, but they still are selling some, even though I may forget for a long time to try to get a BookBub. I don't get the BookBubs as much anymore, I have to say. My career is not dependent on BookBub in any way anymore. And it's not that I don't like them, they just don't like me as much anymore. Joanna: Yes, I mean, things have obviously changed. I found a blog post about the launch of my first novel back when it was called Pentecost in 2011. If people are interested, it's at thecreativepenn.com/firstnovel. And it's like there are all these posts about writing this novel and stuff. And that book launched at 340 in the whole Amazon.com store. This is before paid ads, this is before all of this stuff, right? And I was laughing going, gosh— How much effort does it take to launch a book into under 500 on the Amazon.com store now? I mean, it's just a completely different world, isn't it? Lindsay: Well, it's funny, because a lot of people are not happy that it's pay-to-play, right? You have to advertise probably to get any visibility on Amazon. And I'm like, well, when I started, there was no way to get visibility on Amazon, either, because there wasn't a way to advertise. And I did not have that experience. My books went out there and nobody bought them. And it wasn't until Book Three, like I managed to get a few sales. I still remember, thank you to the guy that runs the Fantasy Book Critic for reviewing one of my books. And I remember I got a bunch of sales on Smashwords from that. And it was like, yay! But it wasn't until I started putting stuff out for free, first, a short story, and later, I made Book One free when Book Three came out, that finally people started finding stuff. I will say, at least when I got started, the free list on Amazon was easier to find. And there was no Kindle Unlimited, so people that were budget conscious were definitely skimming through the free list to look for books. So things change, you know, but having that series, and at least for me, for fiction, is kind of core. And then you can figure out each year, there's some new way that you're going to try to sell that first book. Having that newsletter, continuing to build the fan base, of course, is the most reliable thing because those are all these people that are going to go out and buy your new book and support you. I'm thankful for them big time. I have a kind of quirky sense of humor. It's not for everyone, but the people that it's for, you know, I've had a lot of them say like, “Oh, you're my favorite author. I'm reading some other author now, but only because I'm waiting for your next book.” So it's good. It's hard to find your tribe, but over time, it's kind of cumulative. The efforts do pay off over time. Joanna: Yes, exactly. It is absolutely that. Now, before you mentioned phases of our careers and when we get bored with something, we try something new. So for example, a few years back, you created a new pen name, which you then outted, like it's not a secret pen name anymore. It was at the beginning, right. And you wrote more the steamy romance under that name. Looking back now, are you happy that you wrote under another name? Or has it just become more hassle than it's worth? As in you set up a second newsletter, you set up all that other stuff for another name. What are the pros and cons, I guess? What do you advise people now? Lindsay: I think it was worth it at the time. Like it was part of an experiment too. I wanted to see, like this was probably the end of 2014, like, can you still start from scratch and succeed? Because there were a lot of people saying you couldn't get started in 2014. And now people getting started like, ‘oh, I wish it was 2014.' So I don't regret it, but I actually probably will, I keep thinking about this, I need to get the covers redone, and I'll probably do Ruby Lionsdrake, that was the name, and Lindsay Buroker, and put them on my author page too. So people realize that, okay, these are something different, but they'll find them. I haven't done a new book for Ruby in probably like four years. So sales are like way fallen off, of course. Every now and then I mention, oh, by the way, I have these other books, and people are like, “you have a pen name?” And they'll go out and buy them. But if they can find them by searching me on Amazon, my regular name, I think, you know, because I still I thought they were good stories, most of them. There might have been a couple, you know, you get experimental. Like I have so much respect for romance authors that can keep writing basically the same formula, in that he and she get together and they have the same kind of sex. Joanna: I mean, some people do she and she, or he and he, or a whole tribe or the harem. Lindsay: But whatever you start doing, you have to do that thing, or your readers are like, I'm not interested in that, and it flops. You get kind of locked in with romance, I feel like. Whereas maybe some genres are a little more accepting of straying a little bit from exactly what they thought they signed up for. But yeah, I was like, oh, let's do a threesome in this book, why wouldn't you, and my readers were like, what? Joanna: Oh, we don't want that! Lindsay: Yeah, that was like the least well-rated. So I did it, I did a couple series with them, and then I was ready to go back to my main stuff. One of the reasons I had started it was because I felt like I might be publishing too often under my regular name because I started writing more quickly at that point. So that was another one of the reasons. I thought, well, I'll alternate. I'll do the pen name and then my regular name. But yeah, at this point, I'm like, nobody cares. They'll just catch up when they catch up, or some of them read a book a day, and they'll read it and be like, when's the next one coming out? So nobody seems to care as much. There was also a lot of negative, like people talking about, ‘oh, if you write fast, you must be just throwing out crap.' So that might have been in the back of my head too, like, oh, I shouldn't do more than a book every three or four months. Joanna: Are you over that now, do you think? Lindsay: Yeah, I just do whatever at this point. I think part of it is you get to a stage in your career, and also in your life, where you stop caring as much. You’re always going to have your detractors, right? And I just delete those emails these days. I used to feel you had to be really good and a good customer service person and write back some polite, well, thank you for sharing your opinion, I will take this into consideration. Now I'm like, delete. I don't have time, I don't have the bandwidth that I want to spend on responding to the critics. Joanna: Oh, I'm glad you said that. And people listening, I hope you can hear that we've been doing this for a while now, and I still have difficult days. Like today, I had a bit of a difficult day, I got a whole load of very negative comments on my blog. And my first response was, I was like, no, you're wrong, I want to argue with you. And then I was like, no, it's my blog. Delete, delete, delete. Lindsay: I know, there's a lot of blogs where they start to get more popular, and all of a sudden—well, not so much today, because who blogs anymore, right? Joanna: They are just show notes of the podcast. Lindsay: Yeah, they would just turn the comments off. And you're like, well, they got tired of dealing with it. So you can tell, you get more popular, and you probably get like 90 – 95% great feedback, love the books, you know, and then there's those couple. Joanna: And you only remember the difficult ones. So I went for a walk, and I was like, look, you think of all the people who are lovely and want this content, or whatever, this book or whatever, but it's the negative ones that are difficult to get out your head. I mean, I say things change, but are there any sort of things that you feel you haven't achieved? Like you've sold tons of books, you've made lots of cash. I mean— Are there things that you still want to achieve as an author? Lindsay: I will probably keep doing the same things, but I would still enjoy if somebody came and said like, hey, we'd like to do a movie, or a Netflix series, or something. And I know it'd be horrible because they're never true to the books. And all my fans would be like, oh, they're awful, the book was better, but I would enjoy it. That'd be kind of neat to have somebody make something. I think sort of fantasy and sci fi are really expensive to make, so I don't know what the odds are. Every now and then you hear somebody got picked up. And then will the movie ever get made? That's really rare, right? They'll option it, but not make it. So that would be fun, but it's not something that I can control. I'm not going to go knocking on doors and try to pitch my novel or hire someone to. That's not me. I'm very much, if they want it, they'll come to me and we'll talk. Joanna: I love this about you. I often use you as an example of a relaxed author who mainly focuses on writing. I mean, your main marketing is, like you said, releasing a series. And for you, that's like an eight-book series of over 120,000 words each or something. It's not like one of my series when they're like 60,000 words. So that's kind of one of the main things you've done. But you also said that you're writing less now, 5000 to 7000 words per day, as opposed to over sort of 10,000. Tell us how do you write. What is your writing process? And has that changed over time? Lindsay: Well, it's not very romantic, or what you imagine with writers, but I feel like I'm kind of a factory, I write my rough draft in maybe two or three weeks, do an editing pass, send it off to my beta readers, and then I start working on the next thing while they have it. And they'll send it back, and I do some tweaks and usually another quick editing pass, and send it to my editor, and get back to the other thing. By the time it's ready to go eventually to my typo hunters and Patreon and eventually out to Amazon for the exclusive stuff, I'm usually sending the next book off to the beta readers. So I just kind of keep cycling through, and maybe I take a few days off between projects here and there. I just keep things rolling along, and book cover artists and editors well in advance. I don't always know what they're going to get. Like the editor will be like, I wonder when I'm getting the summer? And I'm like, something, I'll keep you working. So they're very nice to be flexible with that stuff. As far as like ideas and sort of the process, this is one of the reasons I'm still writing a lot, is I still have like three or four ideas ahead that I want to get to. Like when I finish this series, I want to do this and this, and then I'm going to do a new sci fi. And so that's why I haven't really slowed down that much. And I figured someday, maybe, I don't know that I'll ever run out of ideas. I feel like some people are just like that. I try to mostly read other people's fiction in between my projects, because it gives me ideas. I'm just reading their story, and I'm like, oh, yeah, I would do that, but I would do it this way. And then I'm like, I should do that. Of course, I should write one like that. It's like, you're still working on another series, stop. You're not going to jump off right now and start that. I listen to nonfiction anytime, but for some reason, fiction, I just start reading somebody's book and I'm off on, ooh, this is what I want to do. So I have to be careful. Joanna: Do you still just sit down and type? Is that how you write? Or do you dictate? Lindsay: I do type. I have never gotten into dictation. I've tried it hiking, but my dogs have always been like, umm, no. I've always had like hunting breeds, I don't hunt, but they're that breed, and so they're always off. Like, I have to pay attention to them when I'm out there. Then there are so many errors when I've tried it that I'm like, what is this, when I tried to go back and do it. I think you just talked about this somewhere, you can do it on the nonfiction more easily than on the fiction. But I actually type pretty quickly, so I'm not sure, even if I got good at it. And then your voice gets tired. Like, I go to a conference or something and I'm dying after because I never have to talk to anyone as an introvert. Now and then you go out into the world and speak with people, but not like these long, extended things. So you end up having to kind of train your voice to be able to handle that much too. After so many years, I don't really think about the typing of the words, I'm just kind of seeing the story playing out in my head. And it makes for some interesting typos and stuff later. I tend to revert back to like the words I learned when I was younger, they're really drilled in there. And so if I learned something incorrectly, like which sheer to use, whether it's S-H-E-E-R, S-H-E-A-R. Yeah, my brain doesn't know that when I'm just writing the script for the story playing in my head. So I get a lot of errors. Thank goodness for my editors and beta readers. And every now and then they get some entertainment when I did not find the correct word or cannot remember. You know, ricocheted has two T's or is it one T? See, I can't even remember. Yeah, and who cares because we have editors, and we have ProWritingAid, and we have all of that. Joanna: Do you have a full-time editor and a full-time cover designer? Lindsay: Well, I think I give them enough work. Actually with my audiobook narrator I've joked like I paid her enough last year she could buy a new car. I mean, I know she pays her producer and stuff out of that too. Just like us, we have expenses beyond just the top line income we get. But I have people that I've been working with so long that they usually just make a slot for me every month, like my editor does. They're not full-time with me, but I definitely keep them busy. Joanna: For sure. And then just on health, I want to mention health because you said you're ‘a factory.' Lindsay: Is that not healthy, Joanna?! Joanna: It doesn't sound too healthy, Lindsay! How do you keep your factory-self healthy? Lindsay: Well, 5000 to 7000 words is about three hours of work, of solid work. You know as a writer you wander off often. so I'm not really working more than a normal day anymore. Like I used to early on because I was doing the writing, and the day job, and you're learning everything, and doing everything you can with marketing because just nothing's working in the beginning. It's just like, ah, how do I make this work? How do I sell books? Now it's more of a system, so I don't have to spend much time on the marketing side anymore. The writing is thing I enjoy the most, so it's less onerous. I actually get upset on days when like I have a couple appointments or something, and it's like, oh, I can't write, or it's going to be all broken up so it's just no good. I'm just not going to write that day. I love my days where I just don't have anything else to do and I can just have my laptop and get cozy with a dog under the blankets and work from an unergonomic position on the couch. Joanna: But you do walk with your dogs? Lindsay: I walk a lot. Like most of my health stuff is like from exercise. Like right now, my IT bands are all messed up. It's like, oh stop walking. The IT band is bad because I was running and walking so much I had plantar fasciitis, so I got a peloton and started riding, and like well, now I get the IT band thing from that. Joanna: You need a foam roller. Lindsay: I do all the things. I do all the trigger point and rolling and working on stuff. I do take breaks, but I find that a lot of times in the days where I'm trying to take off, I'm just like, oh, this stuff sucks. I'd rather be writing because usually you end up doing all your errands and things on your suppose it off day. I could be better about taking vacations though, but I always end up thinking about stuff. Like I said, once I start relaxing and reading somebody else's book, pretty soon I've got my phone out and I'm taking notes with ideas. So I'm not the best at that. Like I do try to have a good diet and exercise every day and make sure I'm not like sitting for hours and hours or anything like that. But I'm probably not the best model of work-life balance. You have to decide that, people have to decide that. Are you going to have work-life balance or are you going to be successful? Like, it's really rare for somebody that's really chill and just working a little bit when they feel motivated to also be successful and reach their financial goals. I guess we don't want to believe that, especially some generations don't want to believe that, but you have to pick. Like, which do you want? It's very rare for somebody to really get both. Joanna: I think that is a good tip. And I mean, I certainly have worked harder since I left my day job. Lindsay: Well, that's just it. I used to work like three hours a day when I was doing blogging and writing content. I made money from Amazon ads, or not Amazon, but Amazon affiliate programs and other affiliate programs and Google AdSense ads. And I used to work a lot less and play a lot more World of Warcraft. Joanna: You gave that up, didn't you? Lindsay: I had to give it up. I was too addicted. So I had to give it up to start finishing books. I actually used to work less, but I was less happy because I was writing about crap I didn't care that much about. Like, I was able to work from home, so that was cool, but it wasn't fulfilling writing. Like I really enjoyed that I can tell stories for a living now, but that's the trap. Once you're doing what you love, you never stop working. You want to just keep doing it. I talk about like retiring, I really just say, this my goal where I'll consider myself completely financially independent, and then I don't care about book sales and stuff, but I wouldn't stop writing. What else would you do? It's fun for you, and it helps other people. Like you get emails from people that are like, I'm having a really hard time, I just got through chemotherapy or lost somebody, and I really needed the laughs. So you feel like, oh, it's not just about me and how much money I can make, I'm actually helping people in a small way. Joanna: Yes, it's an escape from your life into a story. And I totally agree with you. I mean, you and I have also always been interested in money and finance and investing. And this is not any kind of investment advice, we're not financial advisors, blah, blah, blah, but both of us have always thought about that side of things. We've never just said, right, this is cashflow money. We have also tried to put money away in investments, in like property, and you've done more of that than me. So when we talk about retirement, I guess like you say, we're not talking about giving it all up, but we might change the amount of time on it. Would you even bother book marketing if you were financially independent? Lindsay: I'd probably do what I'm doing now, which is emailing the newsletter, maintaining the newsletter, and then throwing some money into Amazon ads. That's sort of in the last couple of years about all I've done for that stuff. Maybe I would write less, I probably would, but I don't know, we'll see. It’s not like I couldn't slow down now, but I haven't yet. Like I said, there are always like four things waiting in the wings that I want to work on. So, I don't know, it's hard to say. I always, as somebody, and I know you don't have kids either, and then I don't have siblings or anything like that, and I'm not married. So I've never had a safety net, so I've always been conscious of that and it's that's what's made me like okay, while the getting is good, get—whatever the saying is—while you can, make extra to put away for the future. In America, we have to Social Security, but it's pretty lame, so I don't want to depend on that. Joanna: I don't think you're going to need that! It's interesting because you're exactly right. I mean, this is another thing that's missing really in the community is dead indie author estate management, which is interesting. I was very interested that Justin Bieber, the Beeb, is one of the musicians who has sold his entire backlist. Now he's a young man, like he's in his 30s, I guess. So he's got the rest of his life, he can literally just say, well, it's day one, and I'm going to start all over again. So he sold his IP, and everything in the future, I guess is his again. What are your thoughts on licensing or even packaging up and selling your IP as a backlist? Or what are we going to do with dead indie authors like ourselves at some point? Lindsay: Yeah, it is a question mark. Like, obviously, in his case, he's super popular. So there's a lot of money there. In our case, I don't know, because there's so much content being put out right now. I don't know how many books that we're producing are going to really outlive us. You know, even when you look back in the 20th century, there were so few books that remained in print and became kind of perennial things that the publishers kept selling, or the estates did. I'm not saying it can't happen, especially if you've got somebody that would take over, maybe even keep publishing new titles under your name, like if you had a kid or something. But yeah, it's a little bit of a question mark when you don't have somebody. Like, right now, I'm just like, somebody's going to get my passwords and like they can do what they want. I don't want to say I don't care, but I'm maybe realistic in believing that. I see how much things drop off when I stopped publishing, and I'm like, well, if I stopped publishing for a year, or three or four years, how much can Amazon ads alone, or whatever, keep things going? And maybe there'd be some, but I don't know that it would be at such a level that it's worth having somebody full-time managing your estate. And I don't know, like, if somebody came and said, “Hey, I want to buy your backlist,” maybe I'd entertain that. I don't know that I've ever had a hit or been popular enough that that's going to happen. Joanna: I also think you were a very quiet success. Partly because you're an introvert and you don't particularly care or you don't want fame or attention. You'd rather just stay quiet where you are. But you're very successful. And I feel like at some point, a bit like these music industry people have been going around buying backlists, that's going to be the future. Especially if you think about how big publishing is, the Penguin Random House thing, they're not allowed to buy Simon and Schuster. I know a lot of indie authors who have had offers for their backlists. And most of them say no, because they know how much money they can make over the next few decades if things continue as they are. But given how fast you can write, like you said, if someone gave you a good offer for a chunk of cash, then I don't know, why not? Lindsay: Well, maybe, but would it be a good offer? Because publishers never want to give you very much. Joanna: It'd have to be a good offer. That's what I mean. I presume the Beeb got a decent offer. Lindsay: I would think so. I'm also like, I don't want a whole lot. Like, I'm just like, what would I do? You know, I just want to make sure I don't need anything in retirement, and that I don't have to like step down my standard of living. So that's one point. But I'm almost there now, so I'm like, what am I going to do with $10 million, or something? I'm like, well, I'll buy some more dividend stocks, I guess. I actually kind of geek out on that stuff. Right now, I'm planning, well, what charities do I leave stuff to eventually? And maybe you find a charity that they can manage your IP. Maybe there'll be more of an industry around this stuff going forward. Like, I feel like it's still hard to find somebody who can run your Amazon ads effectively. But things are evolving, maybe the AIs will run our estates, and they want to charge a fee. Joanna: Yeah, well, I mean, and again, totally another topic, but I have sort of postulated a blockchain where if you set things up right on blockchain and have smart contracts, that should just be able to go to whatever wallet you set up in the future. So it could be more automatic in the future than it is now. [Covered in my book, Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, and Virtual Worlds.] Whereas if you go to these agencies, they're literally manually still running all these reports and sending out money, but that's completely unrealistic for the future. I mean, so many interesting things have happened since we've known each other, and so much ahead. So just as we finish up now— Anything you're particularly excited about other than dividend stocks!? Lindsay: This is funny. This is actually why I watch your show because you're so positive. And I'm a bit of a glass-half-empty person, like I feel there's a lot of collective anxiety in the world right now about everything. So it's hard for me to pick, well, what's happening that's super exciting. Like I like that there are more tools, so especially new indie authors that don't have money for editor and cover designer, they're going to be able to go to whatever AI and go make me a cover, and it's going to be good enough. I guess I'm excited to, I don't know, be more introverted going forward and maybe eventually back off answering emails. I still like that, and the fans like it, so it's hard. I think you've tried to get away from answering emails at one point too. Joanna: It didn't work out really. Lindsay: Yeah, it's hard to find somebody. You know, the readers get so excited sometimes. Some of them are so excited when you answer them, and, you know, write something that says you read their email. So it's hard to want to just push that off on someone else. I think there are just more tools coming along, and it's going to be a lot easier to just sort of focus on the thing you like and that you're really good at. And like, I already do only auto ads, almost exclusively, for Amazon. And like, there's people that they're in there making their 5000 keywords. I'm like, well, if that's working for you, great. But honestly, I get charged more when I try to pick keywords than if I just let the auto ads run and give it a max bid. And it's doing pretty good, but I obviously don't have to worry too much about the budget. I find that if you're selling enough, you get organic sales too, so it kind of evens things out. If you're doing $5 a day or something, you're not going to get any charts, and you're not going to get any organic sales, so you have to be really careful about what you're spending. I'm seeing all this stuff improving and getting easier. So you no longer have to be a marketing major, as well as an author, and even managing the finances and everything gets easier. There are so many more tools these days for that stuff. So that's one thing, I guess I'm enjoying watching where things are going and finding more tools to help us. Joanna: Where can people find you and your books online? Lindsay: LindsayBuroker.com, I need to update that. Joanna: And you mentioned the Six Figure Authors might return again. Lindsay: Well, for like a one-off, I want to do something positive, like how to handle the recession in a happy way. Like how to keep the books selling. Because I am still seeing books are doing well. Maybe there are more KU reads right now than purchases, or maybe people who are wide are finding that their free stuff is doing better and there are a little fewer sales, but those times don't last. So just survive, and then we can thrive in the future. Joanna: Fantastic. well, we will look forward to that. Thank you so much for your time. It was lovely to talk. Lindsay: Thank you and happy writing everyone.The post Writing And Investing For A Long Term Indie Author Career With Lindsay Buroker first appeared on The Creative Penn.

Feb 27, 2023 • 1h 5min

How To Build A Seven Figure Book Business Selling Direct To Readers With Pierre Jeanty

Write and publish what you want, get paid every day for your books, and control your customer data and relationships. It's possible if you sell direct, as Pierre Jeanty talks about in this interview. In the intro, the author income survey [ALLi]; publishing clauses to avoid [Writer Unboxed; Writer Beware]; copyright registration for AI-assisted comic Zarya of the Dawn [Process Mechanics]; tips for writing with AI [Self Publishing Show]; my Sudowrite tutorial. Today's show is sponsored by ProWritingAid, writing and editing software that goes way beyond just grammar and typo checking. With its detailed reports on how to improve your writing and integration with Scrivener, ProWritingAid will help you improve your book before you send it to an editor, agent or publisher. Check it out for free or get 25% off the premium edition at www.ProWritingAid.com/joanna Pierre Jeanty is a poet and inspirational author, publisher and entrepreneur. He specializes in selling through Shopify and teaches authors his methods through 7figurebookbusiness.com. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes How Pierre started selling direct early, and how sales on other stores like Amazon happen even when he focuses on selling to Shopify first The importance of changing your mindset Flipping the business model to selling direct first Changes in the indie zeitgeist with more authors wanting more independence Best ways to market your Shopify store Separating your store by brand and genre You can find Pierre Jeanty at PierreJeanty.com or 7figurebookbusiness.com Transcript of Interview with Pierre Jeanty Pierre: Pierre Jeanty is a poet and inspirational author, publisher and entrepreneur. He specializes in selling through Shopify, and teaches authors his methods through 7figurebookbusiness.com, which I can highly recommend, and I'm personally going through at the moment. So welcome, Pierre. Thank you. Thank you for having me, Joanna. Joanna: Oh, I'm so excited to talk to you. But first up— Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing. Pierre: That is an interesting story. So as an immigrant in the US, I came here in 2000. And after entering the States, I worked my way into going into college. In college, one of the things that I seemed to be more interested in was the language itself, but also into writing poetry. And diving into social media during that time, it was Myspace. So since then, I've had a hunger to actually play with words and use poetry. Around 2011, 2010, around that time, I was building out Twitter and becoming a Twitter influencer, and I started writing more inspirational content that I felt would help people. From there on, that's where I started with a book. And the rest is history. Joanna: The rest is history that people don't know! So you're going to have to take us on a bit. From 2011, that's more than a decade ago, so you put out your first poetry book. And look, I mean, people in the community even now would say, you write a poetry book and nothing's going to happen, right? I mean, maybe you could be an insta-poet or whatever. How did you take that forward from one poetry book over a decade ago to where you are now? Like, just give us some of the highlights. Pierre: Okay, so one thing, just to be clear, my first book did not get published until 2014. So 2011, I was thinking about the poetry book, but I had almost no direction. So it was no guidance whatsoever. So what I did instead was continue to build my influence, to where in 2011, I founded a brand name Gentlemanhood, in which the whole focus was to write content for men to help them express themselves and be better in relationships, because men tend to be not as vocal. Well, now we have that ability it seems, but that was the issue then. So in 2014, after having a successful blog, it was gentlemanhood.com. And it was mostly me writing about men and relationships, but different writers would join me. My audience actually started requesting that I put a book out. My first book, it was more pretty much structured however I wanted it to be. So it was me just having poems on one side, and on the other side, expressing detail in the kind of like the situation. What happened throughout that time, what sparked the poem, and so forth. And I wrote it in a way that I felt like my audience would receive it. So December 10, 2014, I published my first book, Unspoken Feelings of a Gentleman, and with the audience receiving it well. That was my first introduction to direct sale, to be honest, because I did not understand CreateSpace, Amazon KDP did not necessarily exist for print. So I created a WooCommerce shop, which was our old website, gentlemanhood.com. That's what I used to publish my first book where we had presales through email, and we had direct relationship, let's say, with the readers and the buyers. From there on, it was 2014, then mid-2015, I decided to—after going on tour, I have to mention that. But after going on my first tour, a lot of this book was for men, but a lot of women were reading it. So they requested that I do something for women. And I said I've never been a woman, but I can express the things that I've learned. And I wrote a poetry book titled To the Women I Once Loved, published it in 2015 September, around that time. And right after that, I pretty much took a pause. What really got me into becoming known in the poetry world and so forth, it was 2016. I spent the entire year trying to write Unspoken Feelings II, and I finished it in December, but right after that, I felt the urge to write a smaller book. First, it would be more receptive on Facebook because then Facebook had been a marketer first, Facebook had this issue with the textual. So my poems, I decided to condense them, make them a bit smaller. And a lot of the new audience I was creating, growing, wanted that. And there, I launched my first successful poetry book, which is Her. And since then, I've been almost nonstop, not as much as nonstop like fiction authors who tend to write countless words and publish a bunch of books consistently, but more than enough in a six month period. I stayed with the concept of publishing at least two books a year. Joanna: Hmm. Well, there are many things I love about what you've done. It's like you go against so many of, I want to call them ‘the myths of indie.' You know, back in the day, or there still are myths of traditional publishing. And the myths of indie have now grown up that you can't be successful as a poet. You can't be successful unless you write a book a month. You can't be successful if you don't focus on Amazon. So you've kind of gone against all these different things. And yet, I also love that you—I mean, I've looked at your poetry—and I love that you're both a poet and a marketer. So how do you feel like, for people listening, who are like, “I'm a poet,” or, “I'm a literary fiction author,” or “I'm someone who's not into marketing,” which let's face it, is a lot of authors. Did you have to learn how to be a marketer, as well as the creative side? How can people change their mindset around marketing and business, as well as focus on creativity? Pierre: I think one of the main things is to really, I guess the best way is to look at the purpose of your product. And being that I'm a marketer, and I'm doing direct sales, I always kind of refer to products, and by products, I mean books. So what makes it so much easier for me to market my books is that I know my ideal reader very well. I know what they're looking for. So when it comes to marketing, my idea of it is, I wrote this for you, and I'm going to do whatever it takes to get it over to you. So then marketing is no longer a task that is annoying, or a task that I would outsource to someone else. It became, to me, a challenge to find out how am I going to reach my reader because I'm really passionate about getting it over to my reader. Now, I have to say this, is that I've always been a marketer first, because even though my book, Her, is the most successful book that I've had. But my first book, Unspoken Feelings of a Gentleman, it climbed to the top thousands on Amazon, it's done well, a lot of celebrities actually had a few copies. What I leveraged off of during that time was using influencer marketing. So I've always been fascinated with social media and getting extremely early, which allowed me to understand the behavior for marketing. And to a point where, when I created my own product, I said, my goal was to learn what is the best way to utilize every skill set that I've picked up, up until that time, and get in front of the readers. So if you're having trouble, I mean trouble when it comes to bridging the two together, I always ask this question: What good—not what good, some people may be offended by that—but think about the effort that you've put behind creating an amazing book. And you know who you want to read it. You know how you want it to make them feel, how you want them to react and so forth. That's where now you have to take the extra step and say, “Well, I'm going to find those people because they exist, and I wrote it for them.” Joanna: I love that. Yes, you're very reader focused. Let's get into the direct sales, because you mentioned WooCommerce that you got into earlier, but now you focus on selling direct on Shopify. Why did you make that decision to go direct? Why Shopify? And what are the benefits for authors? Pierre: So why I went direct is a unique story to tell. So starting in 2017 when I released Her, it been successful, and it's still successful. With that, came me building a bunch of, not partnerships, but dealing with different people, to where I started being one of Ingram's top-selling authors, I started getting requests in different bookstores in different countries. So me having to build this as if I'm a traditional publisher, but building multiple relationships. One of the relationships or transactions I set up to happen for me in 2018, was that Target directly messaged me or inquired about putting our titles into their stores. And during that time, I have no way of making it happen, but I was doing extremely well with Ingram. And they were able to get it in the middle and help the deal take place. But with that came a few issues, to where Target had to return 15,000 books out of the 40,000. So for me, and this was a part I haven't shared as much, but I want to make sure I get it across to those who are interested, is that pretty much I was making okay money on Amazon, but it was taking too long. They had, I think, switched to being a 60-day payment cycle. And I had all of these partnerships with Ingram and different resellers that were also taken a while to get income to us. So what essentially happened is that I had 15,000 books, I needed a place to put them, and I could not figure it out. So that's when I started to dive into Shopify, because I had a marketer friend of mine who was selling via SamCart, and I was as well throughout that time. He started to say how well the ads were converting over to Shopify. That piqued my interest to me testing with my WooCommerce and seeing how much more robust, and just the tech was just so much better with Shopify that I moved over to running my house there. From there, I had Ingram ship all of my books. I started from having it at our office, which was a smaller office throughout that time, to creating a room. I have the video in 20Books of creating a room in our office with all the supplies and everything else. So when the remaining, the first time it was the first round, was we receive about 3,000 to 4000 books of the return. But when the remaining came we needed to find a storage. So that led to me figuring out how am I going to sell my books and picking Shopify. And also the motivation behind that had a lot to do with the fact that up until that time, I sold a lot of books, I was a best seller, I had achieved everything, I would say, which were great accolades when it comes to being an author. And I was still dealing with the fact that I did not have enough cash flow or income sitting because all of it had been reinvested in us. You know, it's taking forever, what it seems like, to receive money. Not only that, the year before, I had a book tour, and I although I was having over 1.2 million followers, I think, throughout that time on Facebook, and about 500,000 on Instagram, I could not get anyone to show up to my book tour. So we came to this realization that not only were we stuck with a bunch of books, but we did not have any customer data. Out of the small group of people who showed up to my book signings, they were still saying that, “Hey, some of us, we didn't see this until the day before. We did not know this was happening.” And I was posting on social media. So that led to where we are now, to where I decided to take control of my business. I decided to have a system that will pay me on a daily basis, and I decided to build with the idea of longevity. Also, I guess when it comes to the customer data, having a relationship with my reader, so when something is happening in my business, let's say a book signing, we can have access to them. Joanna: I love that. So just to recap, you said faster money, access to customer data, the control of the system, and that your ads convert really well with Shopify. And we're going to come back to some of these. I mean, these are all obvious things. Now, I feel like I've sold direct since day one. So since 2008, I've used all the old things that we all used to do in that time, but I've always had it as the last thing on my list. I've been like, ‘I'll try and sell on all these other places first,' and then yes, I have a direct store, but it was always the last thing. What you've done, and I guess Steve Pieper, Morgana Best, and there are some other people who've been talking about this, which is turning it upside down and selling direct first, and then for sure, put some stuff elsewhere, but focus on your direct store first. Now because I follow you, I did get one of your ads on Facebook, which says, “Unpopular opinion: self-publishing books on Amazon is a waste of time and money.” So I wondered— Could you comment on flipping the business model to direct first? But also, should we still publish on Amazon? Do you do that? And how can we change the order of our energy? Pierre: Oh, I love that. I wrote it, and I also had a copywriter who helped us write some of our ads. And one of the things of when I wrote this was that I wanted to really provoke people or get people to actually think outside the box right from the start. What is happening with this ad is that the exact response we were expecting is exactly what's happened. And some people who are really loyal to Amazon, they are upset, and they're like, “Oh, my god, this is lying. This is a scam.” That's what you're going to hear, period. Then there's the other group of people, where they're like, “Oh, there is a different way? There is something else outside of Amazon? Or is this something that can be done?” There are those making a bold statement like that that are those people who are going to be interested in looking deeper. And once you go down the path of research, this is where I've had more than enough people come to me and ask for help. Do we still use Amazon? Absolutely. One of the things that I'm big on is you prioritize your store, but you never take everything else out. So even for me, when we are going to publish a book, we publish it on my website first, and we send it to my email list first, but after that, after we make sure none of our direct audience is going to Amazon, what we do is then later, it becomes secondary, we add the books on Amazon. Now, after doing this for about four years or so, or past four years, something around there, but we realize that no matter what we do based on the marketing and everything, is mostly about 50% to 60% of our sales come directly to the shop, to Shopify. The rest are still people who are loyal to Amazon, who are used to shopping on Amazon, to people still going to the other retailers, and shopping there. What's beautiful about this system is that you do not have to prioritize Amazon or any of these other channels to get sales there, which is the concept I'm trying to get across. Forget Amazon, focus on your shop, and if you market effectively it'll spill into everything else. In May 2020, I became a USA Today best seller. I had no clue that that was happening. What I looked at was my Shopify dashboards, which that month it said that we sold 40,000 books, but the leftover from Amazon got me into the USA Today bestseller. We made a lot of money on Amazon and all the other areas. I think authors are so loyal to Amazon, and they don't realize that every time a transaction is made, Amazon gains a customer, Amazon gains data, Amazon just have a better relationship with them, the branding is strengthened depending on the experience, obviously. Versus if you say, I want to be in that position, and although I'm not going to get everyone, but if my focus is that, okay, I'm not competing against Amazon, but if I'm driving all my traffic to Amazon, I'm hurting myself because long term, you really don't have anything. And that's where I was at, to where after building for, you know, since 2014 up until 2018, I realized I had nothing. And I wouldn't say the time was necessarily wasted, but my energy and my investment, I did not get the best returns for it. Joanna: And again, I find this so interesting because when I came into indie sort of 2007 — and we're not Amazon bashing for people who are feeling angry — Amazon has been amazing for authors. What's happening in the zeitgeist is — back in 2007, it was traditional publishing was the only way to go, and then here's this other way. This other way was to reach readers directly by using the stores like Amazon and blah, blah, blah. So we were like, yeah, this is amazing. And you can start an email list, so you can reach some people if they sign up for your list. I almost feel like what you're talking about with selling direct is the next wave of what we do as an indie culture. It is about more independence, which is we're actually going to sell direct, we're actually going to get the customer data. And like you said, we can still have our books elsewhere. So it almost feels like a new wave. I wanted to ask you, are you feeling like things have changed? Like, is there a Zeitgeist thing going on? Because I really feel there is an energy that is moving towards this, in the same way that there was a sort of pro-indie energy back in the sort of 2010s. Are you feeling that more and more people are coming to you? Pierre: Yes, yes, that is the thing that I'm more excited about. And that is why I'm even teaching and pushing into this because I'm looking at it. When I started in 2018, I forced two of the author friends that I've had throughout that time to say, hey, trust me, we can build this. And they both reached seven figures that next year. And they both had the success that I've had. And what I took from that was, hey, if I could teach one or two authors, and I've seen how it helped them, maybe I can teach you more. Throughout that time, it seemed like almost no one wanted to listen. But I watched from mid 2021, and I think I spoke at 20BooksVegas towards the end of that year, to last year, seeing how many people are in my groups, how many people are talking about it in different groups, and to seeing how many sessions it had in like 20Books conference, which was the only author conference that I've been in. And it's amazing because a lot of people are realizing like, hey, I need to have control of my business, I need to have a business that is going to have longevity if I'm looking at this full-time author kind of angle, and just growth and scale. So now they're accepting the fact that they need to have their data. They can get more return when it comes to money, when it comes to royalty, you don't necessarily have to share 55% with Amazon. I feel like it is that we're starting to take our power back. And I love that I'm talking to new people on a consistent basis. And actually, Steve Pieper, which I recognized in 2018 when I was only selling on SamCart and testing Shopify. And now to see him back now getting into the space and teaching, and Morgana Best teaching, what's been great about it is that I don't want to be the only teacher. I know I've done it at scale to where we've done seven or close to $8 million, but my goal is like to tell authors, look— Once we rely on one system, we do not have as much control. It puts us in a position where one bad thing can really hurt us. And funny enough, interesting enough, not funny enough, is that Amazon, there have been numerous authors now who are finding issues with the title being pulled or getting suspended. And lastly, to even add this, is that authors now have a better opportunity to run better ads. And what I mean by that is that I think they're starting to be new ways for you to run Facebook, and Pinterest, Instagram ads, where you do send them to Amazon, and you kind of track them on the back end of Amazon. I'm not too much involved in Amazon to say I know exactly what the new tech is, but what was important for me to switch into this system is that every time I spent $100, I could see what it did. I could track better and make better decisions with that and so forth. This was extremely important to me, and should be extremely important to authors because now I could systemize everything that I'm doing and find a way to scale. I guess the short answer after the long explanation is that, yes, a lot of people are moving towards it. I'm seeing so many conversations. I am excited because I think authors, we should look at this like a business. And if we get over the hump of that it's a business, we could put ourselves in a better position. I love interacting with my supporters. I love creating for them. I love knowing my audience base a bit better. So, yes. Joanna: I'm glad you're excited. I am too. It's interesting because Morgana and you and Steve, you're all really different people. Super, super different people in really different niches. And I've talked to all of you now, which is great. That's why I really wanted to talk to you. And yeah, I mean, everyone's got some eBooks and some courses and they're all brilliant, like I'm doing all of them. And it's so interesting to me. Now, we're not going to get into technicalities of Shopify because that's just pointless on a podcast, but you have mentioned ads. And I think this is interesting, I mean you talk there, essentially you can optimize for conversions because you know what people are buying, rather than just optimize for clicks. But this is the question that people always send to me, which is: okay, so I set up my Shopify store, but how do I market to that store? So is it just a case of, well, pretty much everything except Amazon ads you can just direct to your store? What are the best ways to market your store? Pierre: Facebook ads. So what's interesting, not interesting, I keep saying that. But the thing that you mentioned about Steve and us being different, we are different, but I think we're bringing different pieces to the author world, per se, or the indie culture. I had a conversation with Morgana not too long ago, and I mentioned to her anytime I have someone that is on a basic level, a fiction author who wants to do something like Book Vault or POD and so forth, I point them to her. When it comes to me, I'm looking more at if you're looking to have fulfillment totally differently, or you're looking to scale. And my main focus is Facebook ads because I've spent over $4 – 5 million on the platform myself, and I've ran a marketing agency. I still have one, but now we help authors. And Morgana, you know, kind of our conversation was that, okay, now I have resources when it comes to ads. So I've never spoken to Steve, but my goal is not to come here in the industry and be competitive. You know, the one thing I've said to people is that I sell enough books, the high that I'm getting and the fun of it is seeing how it works in someone else's business, the different curves. So I'm teaching a bunch of fiction authors now, and it's totally different because I'm used to self-help and poetry. And with helping those, it's like now it's a new challenge, and I think it helps in the culture. When it comes to the best way to market, I'm always going to say Facebook ads, despite that there are ups and downs. I've been running ads since late 2014. So I've seen the platform change from Power Editor, I've seen how much smarter it has gotten. And seeing how well it works, I'm always going to recommend it because even now, we're using an Instagram shop, and the way after Facebook taking a hit with iOS 14, the way that it integrates so well and it feeds so well within each other is so seamless, that it's the best thing I've seen. I tried Pinterest, I've run thousands of dollars on ads on Pinterest. I've tried Amazon ads, and we're seeing that my Facebook ads are feeding Amazon when it comes to the traffic that I'm getting. Most of our Amazon traffic is actually coming from our Facebook ad. So the only thing we do is just set up retargeting ads, per se. And so when I look at ads as a whole, once you understand the system, it's beautiful. But it has to be where you optimize your store properly to see the success and why it's the best tool out there. But Facebook, hands down. It's the thing that I'm passionate about because part of me even teaching about direct sales, because I love teaching about Facebook ads, but I need to tell people, hey, you need to fix your shop first and everything else. So now we can talk about Facebook ads. Joanna: Yeah, well, basically I've got a whole list of improvements to make. Like because last year, I did my minimum viable store because I have a big backlist and I have a lot of formats. And it took me ages to set my store up because I had so many books. And then I was like, oh my goodness, and I look at your store and Steve's and Morgana's, and I'm like, every single one of those products needs more on there. Like you have all this social proof and even just a hand holding a physical book, like even just that type of thing. So what you said there, “optimize your store before you run ads,” I mean, that's the same on any platform, right? It feels like the obsession with marketing comes before sorting out the book. It's just common kind of everywhere. I did actually have a couple of questions for my own purposes. And I think this will help other people. So basically, I have different author names. I have Joanna Penn, my self-help for authors brand, and J.F. Penn is my fiction. I didn't want to set up more than one store because I thought, well, I want to send everyone to one store. So I set up CreativePennBooks.com, but now in listening to your stuff and everyone else's, I wonder if I made the right choice. What's your advice to authors around stores per author brand or genre? Pierre: For you, I would recommend that you separate the two, simply because they are two different audiences. Your readers are coming there to read, they are interested in the stories that you're telling, etc. Putting something like self-help for authors, yes, you may get authors that are readers, but putting something for indie authors there can kind of serve as a distraction or just laying the website with extra. What I'm big on is staying on brand, and not only that it's good for the shop, but it also helps your advertisers, especially with Facebook ads, Pixel, and now the shop and everything else, Facebook is leaning a lot on AI. And really the AI is kind of honing down to what is consistent in your ad account, what is consistent on your Shopify, and collecting all that data and finding the best way to find new readers. Now, if you are an author who writes in different fiction genres, you could easily categorize some of those because the reader can cross over when it comes to being, let's say, in the same type of reading, not necessarily genre. What I mean by that is that someone who's reading, let's say, romance fiction, you may think they're not interested in thrillers, but they're readers. They like novels, so they can switch over. So kind of one of the big things that I teach about is that you have to find out on the back end, using emails and utilizing your customer data, how to make the crossover, so you're sharp. If you have multiple genres, as long as they stay on the umbrella of fiction, it's perfectly fine. It's when you cross from nonfiction to fiction, or let's say you have nonfiction for divorce, and nonfiction for helping elderly, those are opposite ends. But when it comes to people reading stories, they tend to be on the same page. Something to add, even after saying that, is that part of what I'm seeing myself entering the landscape of this indie culture of teaching— I'm big on trying to teach people how to optimize your store and run better ads. Here's why store optimization is important. If you've gotten my book, and you realize, I don't know if you did, but there is a free course that comes with that. In the free course, I teach about competing on economics. The purpose of competing on economics is that when you start running ads through your shop, it can look like it's difficult to be profitable unless you do all of the things that you need on your shop and doing everything that you need on the back end, like your email, utilizing that data, it becomes hard to be profitable. So now, if you don't give your ads the best chance to optimize and very niche because as I was collecting data, I realized like, hey, you're big on selling romance items, then you're actually hurting yourself. Joanna: Yes, I think I wanted to build the store, and I talked to Morgana, and she had also said something similar, but I just decided what I was going to do was this. I do have your eBook, the free course and also the other course. And people listening will probably be thinking, ‘oh, my goodness, this is so much work.' It is a lot of work to get it set up and to understand it all. But equally, when I started online, I had to learn how to do certain things. And I feel very optimistic about learning all of this because I can see, like you mentioned longevity, I can see that this has a future potential where I won't have to work as hard. If I can figure it out, then it's more than just cash flow money. It's more like an investment in building my future business rather than just always running, running, running, content, content, content. So can you comment on too much work versus hope? Pierre: Yes, so it's kind of the job. So I did not even realize, and this is to tell you, once you invest and you build it, then it could run itself. I did not even realize that Shopify was actually something that people will run into problems with. Because when I first started creating this, I wrote the book and started teaching like the mindset, because it is going to be a mindset shift for authors to understand. Now, I'm building a book business and with business, I have product, I need cash flows, I have to market, I have to look at it differently than throwing it on Amazon, and then hoping something happens from running my Amazon ads, but not really seen all of the backends or the constant flow of things. The other part when it comes to that was that once you start—well, just the why I got into creating Shopify. It wasn't until I'm teaching a group and everyone's getting the ads and everyone's received the book, they're like, but we're stuck on Shopify. And then I'm like, well, no, you just upload the product and you do this or do that. I realized it's because my shop was built and set up in mid-2019. And since then, I haven't touched it. It wasn't until I started trying to teach Shopify in my Shopify Course that I'm like, oh my god, I have to go back and walk step by step. So what I'm currently working on right now is making sure where I nail down to a theme. So what is needed? What are the structures? And creating checklists. So it's trying to make it easier for authors. Now, to those who are going to feel overwhelmed, and going to see it's a lot of work, it can be a lot of work for an author who has a huge backlist. Part of all you need is that you need your main titles there, you need your shop to be as convenient as possible when it comes to the transaction, and once you have that, your store can be a work in progress. Advertising, I don't advise that you advertise to your shop. I don't advertise to Pierre Jeanty. I focus on advertising one title, my main title, and out of that we have a structure to sell everything else. So my most successful book is Her, but I have 13 books. Or probably more than 13, I'm not even counting anymore. So what I do is I run ads to Her because it's the most convenient, cheapest, and most consistent. And once you go to Her, obviously I get upsells, cross sales, then post-purchase upsells, which are selling the other books and other items. Then emails, we have flow setup, automated flows, we're selling the other products. So once you have one book, and you have everything set up for that book, now it's a process of taking your time to say, hey, what is the next series I want to put in there? And by then, you simplify the process to where, okay, I upload the book covers this way. The description, I transform over this way, etc. Where a lot of people fail is when they try to have everything done all at once, or everything done before ads. My biggest answer to that is always— Ads are the best way to find out what you need to fix on your shop. Because once you do have the first book, the main book, and you start running ads, and people are like, I can't find no review, or this is taking too long, etc., that's when you start to see, okay, what do I need to do? Or you're not profitable, you're like, okay, I need to sell more than one book, I need to bundle them up better. So, yes. Now in terms of the hope aspect, I can tell you, me having a simple shop in 2019 and just being able to market the way I want and was able to scale to where 2020 was my biggest year where we did 4 million in sales. I did not have everything fixed. The people that I'm teaching are light years ahead of me in terms of their starting point because I didn't know how to make sure my average order value, or you know, people spent way more money than just the $14 I've sold the books for. So it can be fixed, and you can sell and make a lot of money while you're fixing it. Joanna: That's so good. And to be honest, I feel hopeful, too, because I just feel like I can see what I've always wanted with the indie space, like what I wanted as an independent author when I left my job like more than a decade ago. I don't think the technology was ready, but it feels like we've got everything we need now. We can do fulfillment in all kinds of ways. So that's why I'm excited. So people listening, there's so much here that's exciting. I do have another question before we're almost out of time. So we talked about my two brands, which I will separate, but I also have this other random book. Now, because you do emotional books, so I have a memoir, it's called Pilgrimage. I just did a Kickstarter for it. So I finished the Kickstarter, and it's like a midlife memoir. It is about pilgrimages. I'm not a Christian, which makes it kind of difficult, but it's got religious elements. It is emotional. It's personal. It doesn't fit either of my brands. So when I was going through your stuff, I saw that in some cases, you were testing almost like a one-page landing page store. So I'm wondering like— I could just build my own store for Pilgrimage on its own, right? Pierre: Yes. So I have a student, who's also a client, and she has a book where it's about sobriety. And she's like, “This is not what I'm about, but it was a book that I wrote. What is the best way to do it?” And she's now focused on having it as a standalone where it has its own store, and the whole concept is about sobriety. When she sells it, she's not trying to mix it with her other author business and publishing business, but she just has it as a stand-alone. When it comes to you marketing anything that falls that you think your readers can cross over. So something like a memoir, some of the fiction readers that you have will read that because it's written by you. What I want authors to be clear, is that now you're not thinking about author brand niche down as much, it's more of thinking of author brand as how do I identify who I am, what type of writing that I do from the umbrella of nonfiction or fiction. Do I solve problems or tell stories? Once you have it under the umbrella, then you now get a chance to build real loyal fans because you're dealing with them direct, and you could sell anything else. So it's more of a separation between nonfiction and fiction. The other thing, what you mentioned that we do is that we try to have all sorts of traffic go to our Shopify because it helps our ad, but we don't sell directly to product pages in all cases. So I use an app named Zipify, where sometimes we create landing pages. The landing pages is dedicated to one book, is dedicated to the upsell. That's what I'm doing for one of the poetry book that is more around heartbreak and seems to be attracting divorce, an audience of women that are divorced. The reason I can do that, although is slightly different from Her, is that by the time they make the purchase and they fall into my email, they're segmented. So I know this is like a heavier heartbreak audience that this is the type of work they're looking for, versus Her, it's more empowerment and inspirational. Right now marketing a book named, Heal. Grow. Love, it's more inspiration, has nothing to do with relationships. And that's the control you can have when it comes to the back end. I have landing pages where I've used blog posts to sell products. I've used all of those different ways on my Shopify site. So now everything is still happening on Shopify. Joanna: That's great. I think for those people listening who are like me and have sort of a bigger backlist, multiple brands, multiple types of books, you probably just have to stop and think for longer and think of a strategy and think how you want to do it before you jump in. Like I feel like I probably should have done more strategic thinking. Also now, I know all of you and I'm going through the courses, I feel like I'm learning so much. So we're out of time, but— Tell us about The 7 Figure Book Business eBook and the course. Who is it suitable for? And where can people find it? Pierre: The 7 Figure Book, you could get it at 7figurebookbusiness.com/book. And even if you just go to 7figurebookbusiness.com, you will find it there. You'll be able to access the book there. And really, the people that I created it for is for those who are looking to get into direct, but not for the purpose of just going direct because of something that's happening. It's for those who are really serious about building something outside of Amazon and really building what I say, a book business. I say that in the book, where it's those trying to come out of the entrepreneur mindset to having a book business. Where again, it has longevity and way more to offer, in my eyes. Kind of the breakdown for those who are interested, let's say, or would be interested, is that the book itself will show you my success, but it breaks down the mindset and it simplifies how all of this happens. It's more of like, this is an ecommerce funnel, email funnel, and this is a traffic funnel, which has ads and how all of it work with each other. And it's for anyone really, truly who is interested in going direct but wants to take it seriously. The book also should encourage you, which is why it comes with a free course, to encourage you to map out these things because I lay out all the details. The course is almost where if you read the book, you could eventually launch yourself. The course is to walk you through and save you time, but it lays out the blueprint for you, so now you can go and strategize and see what is the best way to approach this. Joanna: And as I said, I highly recommend it. You're a great teacher. I love your positivity, that makes such a difference. So thank you so much for your time, Pierre. That was just fantastic. Pierre: Thank you so much for having me. It's an honor and a pleasure, and I'm excited to see how yours roll out and how all of this plays out for you.The post How To Build A Seven Figure Book Business Selling Direct To Readers With Pierre Jeanty first appeared on The Creative Penn.

12 snips

Feb 24, 2023 • 1h 10min

The Tsunami Of Crap, Misinformation, And Responsible Use Of AI With Tim Boucher

After many years of people saying, “AI can never be creative, AI could never write fiction (i.e. make things up), it's now evident that the generative AI tools make a lot up — and we need to be aware of the potential ramifications. How can we use the tools to achieve our creative purpose in an ethical manner, and understand that we need to curate, edit, and take responsibility for any usage? How can we educate ourselves and others on the way these AI models work? Tim Boucher and I have a challenging, wide-ranging discussion in this interview. In the intro, I comment on ‘A concerning trend of AI-generated submissions' to short story market, Clarkesworld, and the ‘tsunami of crap' all over again [JA Konrath], and how we can use AI tools in a responsible manner. Today's show is sponsored by my wonderful patrons who fund my brain so I have time to think about and discuss these futurist topics impacting authors. If you support the show, you also get the extra monthly patron-only Q&A audio. You can support the show at www.patreon.com/thecreativepenn Tim Boucher is a hyperrealist AI artist and writer specializing in questionable alternative realities. He's worked professionally in content moderation policy, and counter-disinformation efforts on behalf of a major web platform, a blockchain protocol. And he has advised nonprofits and governments on related issues You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes How Tim started writing and publishing, and why he decided to experiment with AI tools for images and words Misinformation by humans and AI hallucinations, how we need to fact check , edit, curate, and manage outputs — and how these can be used in fiction Tim's AI-collaborative creative process and the tools he uses for words and images Labeling and ethical use of AI [see the Alliance of Independent Authors guidelines here] Why Tim uses Gumroad to sell direct and doesn't publish on Amazon How authors need to engage with the technology, experiment, and learn to stand out in an ever-increasingly crowded market You can find Tim at TimBoucher.ca and his books at LostBooks.gumroad.com Header image created by Joanna Penn on Midjourney. Introduction: Addressing the flood of AI-generated content/books In this introductory section, I want to talk about some of the news items that have arisen this week, and that fit into this episode very well. From the headlines this week, “Sci-fi publisher Clarkesworld halts pitches amid deluge of AI-generated stories.” [The Guardian] and “Hundreds of AI-written books flood Amazon.” [The Independent]. I’m not sure why people are surprised about this, and of course, this will only increase. But as ever, the headlines are clickbait and we need to have a more nuanced approach. Yes, there will be scammers, spammers, pirates, get-rich-quick schemes and plagiarisers using these tools to mass produce crap and publish it quickly. But that is nothing new. People who do this kind of thing have always done this kind of thing. Everything I have ever written, recorded, or produced in every format has been plagiarised, pirated, stolen, and republished elsewhere. I used to try and stop it, and I still do make an effort when someone literally steals everything— but it takes up too much time to try and stop it all, so I focus on creating value for my true audience — all of you. This happens to me, and I am a (mostly) unknown author in a tiny corner of the internet. The most famous books, blogs, films, music, etc, get pirated the moment they emerge, or even before release if leaked. Humans are the problem, but of course, AI technology enables this to be done at scale — which makes it more of a problem. But again, this is nothing new. Have you checked your email spam folder lately? Are you aware of how much content farm crap the Google algorithm filters out when you search? Do you know how much content moderation there already is on the internet? Are you aware of all the scams that go on even just in our little author corner of the internet? Check Writer Beware for years of them, most of them prior to generative AI. Do you know how many times Amazon has been ‘flooded’ with spam books? Have a look at David Gaughran’s blog for a glimpse [Scammers break the Kindle store from 2017, Kindle Unlimited: A Cheater Magnet from 2021, and a whole load more.] On The Guardian UK in 2018, Fake books sold on Amazon could be used for money laundering; and in 2019, Plagiarism, book-stuffing, click farms … the rotten side of self-publishing. Because yes, we’ve heard this all before. “The tsunami of crap” all over again Back in 2011, JA Konrath, one of the early and most successful indie authors, wrote a blog post entitled, ‘The tsunami of crap.’ “Some people believe the ease of self-publishing means that millions of wannabe writers will flood the market with their crummy ebooks, and the good authors will get lost in the morass, and then family values will go unprotected and the economy will collapse and the world will crash into the sun and puppies and kittens by the truckload will die horrible, screaming deaths. Or something like that.” I remember that time well. I spent way too much time and effort trying to prove that an author could be serious about the writing craft and the business — and that professionally self-publishing, being an independent author, was a valid creative choice, and for many, a sensible business choice. Yes, there was — and still is — a tsunami of crap, but don’t lump us all together. It is more nuanced than that. Eventually, we stopped talking about it and just got on with writing books and reaching readers. The success of the indie author movement attracted more authors, and now, over a decade later, the ‘stigma’ of self-publishing is — almost — gone. In fact, we are collectively a huge chunk of the book market. As Michael Tamblyn, CEO of Kobo said at Frankfurt Book Fair in October 2022, “One in four books that we sell in English is a self-published title, which means that effectively for us self-publishing is like having a whole other Penguin Random House sitting out in the market that no one sees. It’s like the dark matter of publishing.” So the stigma may be gone for indie authors, but now it seems we might have to go through the same situation all over again with AI tools. Because the situation is similar. There ARE a load of crap self-published books, as there are a load of crap traditionally published books, and as per Sturgeon’s Law, 90% of everything is crap. Have you changed your mind about self-publishing in the last decade? Are there other technologies you’ve changed your mind about? So yes, there will be a ton of crap AI-generated books. But readers aren’t stupid As JA Konrath said in his original article, “Readers don't care if some moron uploads his ten-years-in-the-making opus “Me and My Boogers: A Love Story.” They’ll be able to avoid it just by looking at the crummy cover art, the poor description, and the handful of one star reviews.” The same is true of the masses of AI books generated in one second or less which are flooding the store. As with every other flood of crap content, Amazon/Google/Meta, etc will crack down and those books will be culled, the ‘authors’ penalized, etc. Inevitably, some ‘real’ authors will get crushed by the hammer, but they will appeal and be reinstated. There will also be regulation, safety guidelines, legal shifts, and guardrails added to the technology in the coming months and years as things develop. For example, we had Microsoft Bing’s Sidney for just a few weird days, and now they have added guard-rails to stop it getting too creative. [The Verge] Like fire, electricity, and the internet in general, ‘AI’ is both a tool and a weapon. It is our job to engage and help shape it for the better — because it is not going away and the usage and applications of AI will only increase and accelerate. Compare the internet of 2003 with the internet of 2023. The impact of AI will be much greater than this. Read AI 2041: Ten Visions For Our Future – Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Qiufan for a glimpse of the possibilities. So what about Clarkesworld and other smaller companies (agents/publishers/journals etc)? Every company and publication will need to apply filters of some kind. I am a one-person business, and I already use a premium paid spam filter and a premium paid Contact form on my blog, because I get hit by hundreds of spam comments and messages per day. These types of filter products will emerge for spam AI content and that will help somewhat. There may also need to be a submission fee, even just 1c/1p, to submit to a magazine, or an award, to join an organization, or even to publish on Amazon. Some say that would prevent marginalized writers submitting, but there could also be a fund set up that people could apply for so that isn’t an issue. Some say that’s against the spirit of these free submissions but times have changed, technology has changed, and business practices need to change, too. Back to JA Konrath’s blog post, he ends with, “If you're really worried about readers being subjected to crap, here's what you can do: DON'T WRITE CRAP.” So now we come to the authors who love to write and create and who want to reach readers — and who want to use technology to help them do that. Use AI tools responsibly to create great art and run a better creative business There are ‘real’ human authors right now using AI tools to create better books and to run a better business. I am one of them, which is not a surprise to regular listeners as I have been talking about AI since 2016, and I wrote a book about the potential impact in 2020. Usage of AI tools is a continuum and we all sit at different places along the spectrum. We are already a diverse group and each person is using the tools in a different way. Some only use AI tools for generating sales descriptions or ad copy. Others are using it to generate finished words and images, then editing and shaping those according to their creative direction, as Tim Boucher does in the following interview. I have been writing for publication since 2005. I first self-published in 2008, and every year since, I have learned about and used new tools that help me improve my craft, write better books and run a better creative business. I embraced blogging and selling ‘ebooks’ (PDFs back then) before the international Kindle and the iPhone made mobile and e-reading popular. I started podcasting in 2009, way before it went mainstream. I jumped on YouTube and Twitter, and used print on demand for print books, and later used paid ads, and then tools like Vellum and ProWritingAid as they emerged — and many more. The tools I use now in 2023 are almost completely different to the ones I used in 2005 when I started out — and many of the tools I use now are AI-assisted. If you use Grammarly or ProWritingAid, or you use Amazon, Meta (Facebook), TikTok, Twitter, or Google for social media, search, publishing or shopping, you are AI-assisted. In the next few months, if you use Microsoft Word, you will be AI-assisted [The Verge]. So please, let’s distinguish between humans who will spam and scam and plagiarize and want to get rick quick, and those of us who are genuine writers who use AI tools as a collaborator/brainstorming partner/marketing assistant etc to help us create what we want to, in our voice, with our creative direction, and to reach readers with our books. I remember being attacked for my publishing choices back in the ‘tsunami of crap’ days, and this feels like that time all over again. The fear, vitriol and personal attacks make me just as upset, and make me want to stop talking about this stuff in public because I am just another human, wanting to make my art, wanting to reach readers, and wanting to make a creative living. But back then, I felt so excited and energized and empowered by my choice to self-publish that I wanted to share my lessons learned with others. And I feel the same way now. In fact, I am more excited about the years ahead. I am having so much fun using the tools, and I am filling my journals with ideas sparked by these emerging technologies. I love this stuff! I’ve been saying for years that this is the most exciting time to be an author, and once again, I stand behind that. What a brilliant time to be a creator! I hope it doesn’t take a decade for this to shake out, but in the meantime — as I did 15 years ago — I will keep writing the best books I can for my readers, and continue to make a living as a full-time author entrepreneur, and I will use tools to help me do that. We are in the very early days of “AI in everything,” and as such, it is a chaotic time. But these tools are not going away, so you have to decide how much you want to engage. Personally, I try to come at everything with an attitude of curiosity and playfulness. I spend a lot of time laughing and giggling with ChatGPT in particular, it’s like my inner 2-year-old come to life which is a lot of fun! You must find your own way. Here are more resources to explore further: Ethical guidelines for AI usage from the Alliance of Independent Authors My backlist episodes on AI and the future of publishing Book: Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, and Virtual Worlds: The Impact of Converging Technologies on Authors and the Publishing Industry The AI-Assisted Author course (includes aspects of ethics, copyright, bias etc) I haven’t covered the copyright side here, as I covered some of the current legal cases in the intro to episode 670, my last AI show on AI-generated art with Oliver Altair, and I have an intellectual property lawyer coming on the show soon to talk more specifically about that. Thanks again to my patrons who support episodes like this, and if you have questions to ask me about this or anything else, please join me at patreon.com/thecreativepenn or if you found this useful, you can Buy Me A Coffee. Right, let’s get into the interview with Tim and continue the challenging conversation! Transcript of the interview with Tim Boucher Joanna PennTim Boucher is a hyperrealist AI artist and writer specializing in questionable alternative realities. He's worked professionally in content moderation policy, and counter-disinformation efforts on behalf of a major web platform, a blockchain protocol. And he has advised nonprofits and governments on related issues. Welcome to the show, Tim. Tim BoucherThank you. Thanks for having me. Joanna PennOh, I'm excited to talk to you. but first up, Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and publishing. Tim BoucherSure, well, I'd like to say that I'm living the American dream of becoming a Canadian. So I was born in the United States, but I've been up here now since 2011. And now I'm a dual citizen. I've always been interested in writing, I think the more recent place that I started to really do it again, a lot was in 2020, just before the pandemic, I started working on a novel called The Lost Direction. And that got me really excited again, about this idea that I could just be a writer. I could try to do that and try to make that work. It's not yet my full-time thing, of course, and that's the genesis of a lot of this other work that has come out after. Joanna Penn Tell us more about the lost Books project, What is it? And why did you create it? Tim BoucherWell, it's really just kind of my personal imprint that I use for some print books and a bunch of ebooks. but I've looked around a lot at publishing and professionally in self-publishing, and I like to kind of do things the way that I want to do them and not have to compromise about the direction of the work. So making my own kind of imprint or press made more sense to me and then trying to pursue publishing through another avenue. Lost Books, it's primarily right now, my current project is doing AI Assisted writing. but that's not the only kind of writing that I've done. As I said, the original book that I started with was all just normal manual writing, I don't know what we call that now, just regular writing, but Joanna PennI like that ‘manual writing,' but that sounds like handwriting, so you would just be just a normal writer with no AI assistance. Tim BoucherRight, because in 2020, or whatever, this was in its infancy, and arguably it still is. but it was kind of only over the last six months or seven months that I got really into the AI side of things. The tools started to improve, they started to be more available. And there started to be image generation tools that were really exciting, like DALL-E and Stable Diffusion. And I've always been an artist as well as a writer, so having the opportunity to mix images and texts, I think, finally gave me the ability to produce a lot of things quickly that I've had, that I'd had stored up for a long time. Because, like writing, to draw things by hand or to paint or even do things digitally, it's really time-consuming. So this has been a way for me to express all of these things that have been locked up for a long time. Joanna PennWhat is the genre of Lost Books and also is The Last Direction different to these other books you've produced? Tim BoucherThe Last Direction is pretty much just like a straight-up epic fantasy. And then there were some follow-ons to that one of which was called The Quatria Conspiracy. So that's sort of a, a very tongue-in-cheek take on the world of the original book, The Last Direction, proposing that it's not just a fictional story, proposing that there was a hypothetical ancient civilization called Quatria, that the whole thing is based on and that it's been covered up. So from that I kind of had this idea of pursuing the presentation of my fantasy world, within the context of conspiracy fiction, it's a kind of switching it a bit to a pulp science fiction world where it's heavy on the world building. It's heavy on alternate realities, sort of the uncanny valley between AI and humans. And this word hyperreality has come up a lot for me, where it's this sort of postmodern idea that fact and fiction get blended together. And I really took that idea and run with it. And AI tools have been really helpful in that regard. Yeah, Joanna PennSo when you first pitched me, I went to your store, and I was like, ‘whoa, this guy is creating AI generated books that are full of conspiracy theories.' And it made me worried because one of the problems that we're now seeing with these AI tools is they are not facts, that they make stuff up and for us as fiction writers, this is brilliant, but also, you've worked in misinformation. Of course, someone's conspiracy theory is someone else's truth. Right? So how do you feel about this line between misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theory? Tim BoucherYeah, I mean, it's one of the things that I want to talk about with my writing, one of the conversations that I want to generate. And I've had a little bit of success with this. One of the first AI books that I put out was called Mysterious Antarctica, and it again, it follows this theory that there was this lost civilization and that they were in Antarctica, and that I used DALL-E to create images that were supposedly like people discovering artifacts, buildings and stuff in Antarctica in the 1950s. From that, I got contacted for a couple of somewhat big fact checkers, because other people took my content out of its original context, and repurposed it on Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, all over the place, posting it as though it's a real historical thing. And I got fact check requests from Reuters, and from France 24. There was another one. So it showed me that the way that these things travel, you might start with one intent, but then other people sort of grab on to it, and they kind of twist it, and it changes. But this is the nature of stories and storytelling in general. And something I saw working in disinformation is these alternative models of how stories are told, and stories are transmitted from person to person. And they get distorted and changed over time. This, to me, seems like a very kind of modern take on folklore and mythology. And there are good things and bad things about that. There are risks when you take a chance like that as an artist and create something and present it in a certain way that people won't take it in the way that you meant it that they might distort it and look at it in another way, but I tried to mitigate that somewhat by I tried to only focus on sort of, I want to say fun conspiracies, things that are low harm potential. I don't want to do anything that's against people or against groups, or that's too controversial or creepy. I tried to keep things that are more on the light side, like it would be fun if there was a lost civilization discovered in Antarctica. What I've seen is that people are excited about this kind of way of looking at the world that it's like, what's maybe possible, you know, what's maybe true in opening up that kind of speculation, and then also being able to talk freely about like. The problems around these technologies, like you said, they hallucinate facts, and they just say things that are wrong, or that are offensive, and that there needs to be that human layer on top of it, too. And that's one of the things that I'm happy about having these organizations ask me for a fact check. I want to be able to say What I'm doing and why and start these conversations. Joanna PennJust to explain to the listeners, I said no to you, I don't want to talk about misinformation. And then you replied and kind of re-educated me on this. And actually, and now I agree with you. And we're having this conversation because actually, we want to tell people, that there there is this myth of misinformation and what I mean, what's crazy, is it's not just the machine, it's also the humans. Humans are spreading misinformation. Humans seem to love these stories. I mean, when you talked about Antarctica, I mean, I've read HP Lovecraft At the Mountains of Madness, and ancient civilizations, these stories, like you mentioned, myths, these are kind of part of our human mythos, and so they spread. To me, the biggest thing that we should be doing is educating people about how to discover what is really true. And we have to behave in a different way. We can't just assume that what we search for, or what we create, or what we use with these tools is correct. And so it's almost like we need to educate people to go deeper than we're used to. And even with, like with Google. Google's going to implement its Lambda model. But perhaps we shouldn't be trusting Google anyway. I mean, I think we've realized that over the years, so I totally agree with you about this education of everyone about what we can trust and what we can't — and that includes humans, right? Tim BoucherPeople criticize AI technologies, because they can be “confidently wrong,” but that's exactly what humans can do, too. So the same problems that humans create are the same ones we're seeing in artificial intelligence, but they're amplified because the technologies can scale and that's where risk starts to set in when something can be rapidly created and distributed and millions of people can see it in a short time. Joanna PennSo what did Reuters say when you replied, look, this is fiction? Tim BoucherI mean, they just published my comments for the most part, and there wasn't a lot back and forth on that particular point. It's interesting, I think there's an issue with the fact checks that if you're somebody that you've gone really deep into some of this alternative conspiracy stuff, sometimes a fact check has the opposite of its intended effect. And it's something I saw just in the world of moderation. And the world of working with nonprofits and stuff is that even a well-intentioned fact check can sometimes backfire. And then some people can take that as proof of a cover-up. So it's hard to communicate that thing. What you have to communicate instead is the tools for people to find the answer and be able to trust that they're going to try to apply them. And that's kind of what I'm hoping to do is to be able to provoke that reaction, like, I see when people take my images and copy them and other places. And then people will come in and say, ‘Oh, that's fake. And here's why.' I liked that people are coming in, and they're just applying their critical thinking on the spot, sharing it with other people, and starting those conversations, because maybe those people wouldn't be reached by a conventional fact check. but having this provocation helps to inoculate a bit against, I hope, some of the worst elements of that stuff. Joanna PennThere's lots to unpack there. I did want to come back to one of your blog posts where you were talking about creating these books, you say we invert, basically, you're “embracing the flaws of AI, writing the poor coherence, the inability to track narrative arcs, the tendency to invent facts, we want to recognize these artifacts as a feature, not a bug,” [Tim's blog]. I really, I really love that. And I say that to people about AI audio. We're not trying to make it human. Once it is so like humans, we can't distinguish, that's probably more of a worry. Talk more about the flaws of AI. Do you think they will disappear? Tim BoucherI mean, I think they're going to disappear. What we're seeing now is like the 1980s or 1990s of computing that, like we'd have these like primitive graphics, and that it would take a super long time to download over your connection, your modem. And I think coming generations of technology, it's going to just go faster and faster. but to me, like, one of the things that is sort of the ideal purpose of an artist is to interrogate the technologies that they use to create and what I mean by that is that you don't just passively use them, you actively use them, you question them, you try to push them to the edges and to the limits. And you document that process of here's what I found when I went out exploring with this technology, and some of its good and some of its bad. And here are the questions that it makes me want to ask it to find the answers to. And I think it's really important for artists to get involved in these kinds of new technologies, because there's a real risk of having a preponderance of only the engineering mindset. Joanna PennTech bros! Tim BoucherRight, you know, I'm someone that I've worked a lot in technology and platforms and everything. but when I look at job listings, it's always for engineers. And it's like, I get it, that's the bread and butter of these technologies. but it can lead to lopsided ways of thinking about the human impacts of technology. So I really encourage like artists and writers, anybody creative to get into these tools and become experts in them, like, take them apart, bit by bit and make your own tools make your own variations. Because when you become an expert, you can have a seat at the table in the conversation and the development of the technologies and you can help to steer it in a good direction. When you become an expert. And you have this firsthand experience, it's much more powerful than just sort of having a theoretical knowledge of it. Joanna PennIt's funny. I mean, obviously, I've been talking about this for years now. And I'm not I mean, I'm reasonably au-fait with technical things, but I'm not a programmer, and I'm not an engineer, for sure, but my feeling on this now is that let's assume that AI is going to get better and better — barring some big disasters, things will get better and better. First of all, I agree with you, we should engage with these things, but equally, the AI tools ingest human artistic work so it will learn. Someone emailed me yesterday, and they're like, Oh, I asked ChatGPT to roleplay as Joanna Penn and asked it to give me a pep talk about my writing. Author tip: Ask Chat GPT to give you an encouraging pep talk channeling @thecreativepenn – So warm and upbeat and practical. I feel better already!! #ChatGPT #authorlife #amwriting #WritingCommunity— Enni Amanda (@EnniAuthor) February 20, 2023 And I said, ‘that's fantastic, send me the screenshots' and it was like ChatGPT was me. I love that. I have no issue with that at all. But it was funny, because I kind of think, well, it's ingested all of me and I'm pretty positive. I mean, some of my fiction stories can be quite dark, but I have to believe that the machine will ingest all the happy things as well as all the sad things and all the beautiful art as well as all the terrible art and that it hopefully will come up on the side of beauty and goodness and all those things. Although, I mean, there's always a dark side right, but part of me thinks that again, we're in such early days that it is only the technical people who are trying it, and a very few artists and writers and whatever, but that very soon this will be in everything, and people will be engaging with it, I guess in a more natural way, rather than trying to talk to the technical people. Tim BoucherI still come across these barriers sometimes that I'm not an engineer, but I've gotten fairly technically savvy about certain things. but there's kind of like levels of involvement in some of these things like that I still haven't crossed, like, when people link to like a Google collab notebook, I close out the tab, like, I don't want to get to the point of having to become a programmer to do the next level of stuff, but I think there are people that that's their skill set. And that's their interest who might not be programmers, but they might be able to make a real impact on that. So I think it's worth it for them. There's a story that I like about the actor and director Buster Keaton when he first was presented with a movie camera. He took it home, or he took it to the hotel or whatever. And he took it apart piece by piece and figured out how everything worked, and then reassembled it and then kind of went from there. So I think that's a really great way to approach tools and just like openly trying to discover them and experiment. And there's room for reluctance, because I understand that there are issues that need to be resolved. but don't let reluctance stop you from learning, from becoming educated, and gaining experience. Joanna PennI totally agree. I get a lot of comments, obviously, and emails and things, and I'm absolutely fine if someone has a reasonably educated view that is different from mine. What I object to is someone who has not even looked at any of these tools, like someone who's not even gone to ChatGPT and tried anything, and then is just saying how awful everything is. So just coming back to you being very open, and you have a blog where you share a lot of your process as well around this. And I kind of dug into that. And I'm the same. I just had a blog post about my AI-assisted process for With A Demon's Eye, and I just list everything I used in terms of AI from images to text. I was part of the ethical AI guidelines with the Alliance of Independent Authors. And one of the things that we're recommending is labeling. So I label, my AI-narrated audiobooks have a little badge on them. I have this statement of AI usage in my books. I've been doing that. And what's so interesting is I've been criticized for using AI, and then I've been criticized for telling people that I'm using AI. Tim BoucherRight? So it's hard to win. Joanna PennYeah, it is hard to win. One cannot win. But personally, I'm staying on the side of labeling even just to be aware of myself, like in 10 years' time, will I look back and say, well, it's interesting that I was labeling things, because clearly at the time, it was hard to know what was the right thing to do. What are your thoughts on labeling and ethical and responsible usage of AI? Tim BoucherI think labeling is a really good and positive thing because it gives people an idea of what to expect. If you're writing in a genre, you want to also label what your genre is, because people might not like that genre. So I think of it as a sort of a subcategory of whatever your genre is already. But it's tricky because when people ask for labeling of content, they don't always know what it is that their objective is. If you find out that something is AI-assisted or AI-generated, what does that tell you? It says different things to different people. And it's not necessarily clear what we should expect from that. And it's tricky, too, because a lot of AI writing right now is hybrid-human and AI collaboration more than just purely AI-generated. At a micro level, it becomes really difficult to say like, well, this part of it was written by AI, this part was written by me like how do we do that? Technically, as writers or within products that help us as writers that use AI? So there are a lot of unanswered questions there that I'm interested in because I like tech products, and I like to try to figure them out. One thing I've thought about a lot is could we have sort of a simple markup or markdown way to within a text label, which parts are the AI-generated parts? One of the things I've landed on is there's a historical mark of punctuation or the editor mark, I guess more called the obelus I'm not even sure how you pronounce it, but it's shaped in different forms. It's shaped like a division sign. Sometimes it's shaped more like a percent sign. And I think what it was originally used for was in analysis of Homeric texts that people would mark on the side of the manuscript or whatever using this symbol, whether or not if they thought a part of the text was maybe invented that it wasn't actually true to Homer's original tale. So there is a historical precedent for taking texts and marking them up to say this part is questionable, this part, we're not sure of the origin of it. So I think there's something there that can be explored of, of how can we do that and apply that at a really micro level within texts at an in line. So I think that things like that, writers who have their own perspective and who have historical knowledge of analysis of texts, they're going to have a lot to contribute that an engineer might not know about. So that's another reason for people to get involved. I think some of the other ethical issues I tend to think of, partly because of my professional background is in risk and analyzing risk, and then figuring out what do we need to do to reduce or to eliminate risks? So I tend to think of things like internet technologies in terms of harms. Is there a harm to specific a specific person or to a specific group of people? Can you identify who they would be? And what would be the harm? How harmful might it be? What is the likelihood? And things like that? And then that gives me a more concrete framework from which to decide about? Who is impacted? And how much and why and is it really something that I want to engage in or not? So I think something I'm seeing from artists and from writers who are hesitant to get into AI stuff is that I think people are waiting for ethical issues to be worked out over time. And I think that's a legitimate position. but I also think that if you're waiting for things to become perfect, and for all the possible problems to go away, you're gonna be waiting a really long time, and you're gonna miss out on being part of the conversation to develop it in a good and ethical direction. Joanna PennFor sure. I mean, on that, the ethical things, I mean, we even right now, as we record this, there's been all these articles about Roald Dahl, the children's author, I don't know if you've seen these about how his children's books are being rewritten to remove or anything considered offensive by a modern sensitivity reader. [The Guardian.] And I grew up reading Roald Dahl. I'm in my late 40s now, and I still remember them very well. And they were brilliantly offensive, and I loved that as a kid, you know? And so there's a lot of hand-wringing over this. Every generation has its own different decision on what is ethical and what is right. So as you said, it will never stop. but I want to come back to that mark up in the text. That's definitely not what I meant by labeling, because personally, you mentioned hybrid writing earlier — that's how I'm using AI. It's in a very hybrid way. There is no way at the moment with my writing process, I would label like, oh, this particular word is from AI.” Tim Boucher: Oh, no, that would be too much. Joanna Penn: Some people use it a lot more but what I also think is we will edit, so it is much easier to label an AI editor, an AI narrated audiobook, because that is it's final output. Like my book cover for With A Demon's Eye, that image is generated by Midjourney. So that's easy, but I think text is hard. Then coming back on harm. What is the harm? So let's come back to someone using ChatGPT to generate texts in the ‘voice' of Joanna Penn. Some people would not find that acceptable. Some people would say you should not be using my name in a prompt. I'm delighted, but for some people that will indicate harm. You can go on to ChatGPT, you can say “write a blog post in the style of Joanna Penn about seven tips for first-time authors.” Like literally go and do that now, and you could publish it under your name. Now, does that harm me? Where is the harm there? What do you think? Tim BoucherI mean, I think that has to be on an individual basis for creators because it's going to be a different limit for each person. I think there are risks there around the right of publicity of using someone's name or their likeness. Or some people argue that style should be covered under that if it isn't already. I'm not sure exactly the technicalities, and then there's also the risk of impersonation, I guess that someone could use your name and then post something and then make it look like you posted something that it wasn't you I think it's just got to be figured out for each person. Joanna PennBut copyright law is not per person. Copyright law is copyright law. So basically, the biggest question that is outstanding at the moment is are these bots trained on copyright data? And clearly, in some cases they are. Copyright protects the expression of the idea, not the idea itself, so style is not covered. Right? People already every day, take my blog posts and repost them on their own websites, even though that's a breach of copyright. So this is difficult. I mean, coming back on ethics: One of my ethical rules is: do not use someone else's name in a prompt whether that's art or text or whatever. Tim BoucherMe too. I totally agree on that. I don't want to create work in the style of someone else. I want to create work in my own style or find a new style. I don't want to just go into Stable Diffusion, or DALL-E or Midjourney, or whatever, and say, make something like this person. What's the next level? I always want to know, like, where it's going, what's gonna happen next. One thing I've seen, that's, I think, a bit problematic in some of the products that are, like third-party user interfaces. For some of these tools, if you apply a filter and some of those products, it will automatically use an artist's name, and it might not be super apparent that's being added to the prompt, but it is. And I think that's kind of like a fishy area that I don't really like. I would rather just be more in control of the prompt itself and not try to imitate someone else and try to take it in a new direction. So I definitely agree with you. Joanna PennSo even though I said I'm not bothered about it, in general, it is not something that I think we should be doing. Because as soon as you use someone's name in a prompt, you know that machine is calling up whatever it has around that person, whether it as you said, whether it's visual art, whether it's music, whether it's written work. If the work is in the public domain, then I don't have a problem. So for example, I have said to ChatGPT, rewrite this in the style of HP Lovecraft. But then taking someone like Lovecraft, well known as racist and misogynist, all these awful things, but his writing was amazing, well, then obviously, I'm going to edit that and if anything comes up that is offensive in our generation, then I'm going to edit it. So yeah, we're agreeing on this, right? Tim Boucher: Yeah, absolutely. Joanna Penn: Okay, so let's talk about some of the other things. So let's come back to your actual generation process. What AI tools are you using for your books and covers? Tim BoucherI use a variety of tools. And for this reason, that also we were talking about, like the ability to track which parts were made by AI, it gets really difficult because I mix tools so much, that it's just hard to between like jumping between different tabs and stuff, as I go through a text that it's hard to figure out which part was written by which tool or which part was written by me. So I agree that there's a need to label it at a higher level. But the tools that I use, in general. There's a website called TextSynth.com, that let you use a bunch of different open-source models like GPT J, and there's another one GPT Neo X and fair sec, I'm not sure how you pronounce that, but all of those are open-source text generation models, and they're accessible through that site. And the way that that one works is you enter a bunch of sentences or, or however much text you have, and the AI tries to complete it. And then you can raise the temperature setting on this, which I like to do when I want to get like a curveball. And it starts to become much more weird and much more like AI feeling the text. So I'll use that sometimes. I've been using verb.ai a lot, I think you use Sudowrite. Joanna PennYes, I have tried verb.ai. And as you're talking I mean, people are like, Oh, my goodness, I haven't heard of that one. There are literally hundreds of these. Tim BoucherThere's a lot, yeah. But verb.AI I've liked because it's kind of straightforward. You just have your text area where you're writing and editing. And then they use forward slash commands, like you might have seen in Slack, or I guess probably Discord uses those too. You can use like a describe command, and then you can say ahat you want to describe or continue command, and then there's like a reword option and you can tell it like reword, but change it to be more whatever. So I've used that one a lot. And I like it because according to the CEO who I spoke with, they use not only GPT 3, or maybe even 3.5, but they also combine it with some other sources, which I think are ai 21 and some proprietary texts that they use as corpus. So that one's nice because it's just like a simple editing environment. And it's relatively quick and it's I find that the text has a kind of unique and different flavor than what I've seen in some other tools. I've also used a lot, character.ai, I really like them, you can go and within just like a few seconds you generate a character, describe what it is, and then you can converse with them. You can have it be a character in your book or your story, and then you could also have it be a historical figure or some secondary figure. I've used that that site a lot to work on, like press releases, or to work on like more of the short expository writing that goes on around promoting a book, which I feel that I'm less good at or less confident in. And that does a really good job because like I can have a dialogue with this tool that I say what I want, and then like reconfigure it to ask me some questions. And it's not recreating everything from scratch. It's not coming up with the most creative things ever, but this act of like the dialogue, it lets you to get somewhere that you wouldn't have gotten if you hadn't engaged in that. So it's really good for that. ChatGPT is similar in that way. It has kind of a different focus, though. It's almost to me not as much meant to be a chatbot. I don't go and ask ChatGPT what it thinks about things, you know? Joanna PennIt's helped me rewrite sales descriptions to make them more like a best-selling thriller. Tim BoucherAnd I think it does a great job at that kind of stuff. but I found that using ChatGPT for like, more of the creative writing side of stuff. It's a little bit flat sometimes. Joanna PennThough again, we're speaking on the 20th of February 2023, and just before we got on the phone and article, I just saw an article [Silicon Republic] saying that they're going to in their advanced paid service for ChatGPT, they're going to allow you to configure what you want the service to do and change the guard rails. I got on ChatGPT the very day they launched it, like that the morning I was on it. And what I was able to do around darker fiction stuff, like even guns, right? I write thrillers, there are guns, whatever people's ethics are, that is in the thriller genre. And so I was like, wow, this is great. And then within a couple of days, you are not allowed to talk about guns, right? The service has got more and more restricted. Because they're having to shut down this and shut down that but then people are like, well, what if I have conservative politics? Or what if I am someone who wants to write about guns? Or what if I am someone who wants to write about Marxism? What they're saying is, you'll be able to configure the guardrails (presumably within reason) in the future. So I'm hopeful that it will mean I can get back to what it was at the beginning. We shall see of course. Tim BoucherNo, I agree about a lot of that. And I think the thing for me that I found the most annoying as a fiction writer is like, I'll be like, Okay, write a science fiction thing about this. And then it will be like, Oh, as a large language model, I'm not able to do that, blah, blah, blah. Joanna PennYou have to say, “Pretend you are an author, or we're role-playing where you're an author.” You have to like trick it. Tim BoucherAnd I totally understand OpenAI's perspective in that they've got now I think, like 100 million users or something. And it's really hard to satisfy the needs of that many people through a single tool with a sort of a single configuration. And I think we've seen how that plays out. Everybody wants something different from it. So I think that's going to be a good direction, we'll see how it gets deployed. Going back to the tools. I use DALL-E a lot for images, I think that their images have like a kind of a luminous quality. To me, there's something about just like the colors on the light that I like, when you get into certain aspects of it. I've used Stable Diffusion quite a lot to use, specifically playgroundai.com because they let you generate a bunch of images for free or there are paid tiers. And most of the time I start with my text first, I start with the title. I have sort of like a few different formats of titles that I use. I haven't mentioned this earlier in the podcast, but I am up to like 67 titles now that are AI-assisted. Joanna PennHow long have you been creating? Tim BoucherI started on August 4, 2022, so it's a rate of about 10 a month, a little bit less. I should stipulate that like, those are not full-length books, generally they're between 2000 and 5000 words and they include between 40 and 100 images. Joanna PennAre you doing this all day, every day or have you also created some kind of program that is just doing it for you? Tim BoucherNo, I'm just like a voluminous writer. I'm very productive. And I'm pretty efficient. And I've really nailed down a workflow that just lets me operate fast. And to some degree, it's a formula. but a lot of genre writing becomes a formula. When you have a formula, there comes a lot of freedom, because you know what you need to hit in the overall structure in your writing, and then you're free to explore all this other stuff around that. So having sort of a structure, a workflow, a formula that I can rely on and fall back on, has helped me to build exponentially what I would do just manually before. What does your AI-assisted workflow look like? But my workflow in general, I start with the title, and I generate maybe a sentence or two about what this volume is going to be about. And then I'll just go and start writing it in verb.ai or another tool, and then I'll pop in between different tools and have things get expanded or changed and add another element. And then once I've kind of reached all the stuff that I wanted to reach in that volume, I will go and I'll do my image generations. And then I save those locally. And I put them into Adobe Lightroom, which is a really great product that I think few people know about fairly for this use for managing large sets of images and being able to kind of quickly go through and pare down out of all the image generations that I did into the golden set that's going to fit best with this title on this topic and the vibe, the mood and everything. And then from there, I go into Vellum, which is my favorite ebook writing and publishing application by far. Really simple, really fast, very beautiful results, almost no problems ever with it. So I really love them. And I'll put everything into short chapters, and then I mix the images into the text and I try to have sometimes the images are reflecting the contents of the text, and sometimes they're like really clashing about it like, it will have sort of a different visual story or like a complimentary visual story that sort of like highlights and expands on what's being presented in the text. I should also probably note that structurally, ahat I'm doing as a writer is, it's really a lot of world-building and lore. I have like very few deep characterizations, you know, like, sometimes books, like there's just not even a character, it's more like an encyclopedia entry about this fictional thing. And this is something that a rich precedent of that I think especially in like, mid-century sci-fi, of having like Dune, or the Foundation books that a chapter will start with like an excerpt from a fictional encyclopedia. So that's a structure that I play on a lot. And it lets me incorporate, like I said before, these like flawed factual statements, or these like inconsistencies, and just present them as they are, and not try to dress them up. I think if you're doing other kinds of writing, and you're using AI, you might end up being more frustrated than then my use, because it does have a hard time keeping track of characters and in keeping track of narrative arcs like tools like verb.ai and, to some extent, some other ones are, they're trying to solve that, but none of them have quite landed on how to do that. Joanna PennThey're getting there, though, like Sudowrite now is basically you keep a little side note with things, and then that gets incorporated into the next chapter. But coming back on the speed. I can hear people who are listening, they're still on “67 books since August.” !!!! Let's just be really brutal. People will say AI-assisted books are a ‘tsunami of crap.' This used to be thrown at self-published authors back in the day. We were told that self-publishing is a tsunami of crap that will drown out real books, real authors. [JA Konrath, 2011.] Now, I think this is like 2007 all over again, this is a tsunami of crap, the quality is bad. There'll be no real books, no real artists anymore, it will just be awful, and it will kill off real authors, etc, etc. So what do you say about that? I mean, inevitably, you've talked about making 67 books. They could be the very top end of literature, but still the ability to make them that fast means we are going to have an explosion of content like we've never had before. So what are your thoughts on this issue of quality and tsunami of crap? What can authors do to make good art and also to stand out in a very, very crowded market? Tim BoucherYeah. I mean, I tend to follow this prediction by a journalist named Nina Schick. She has a generative AI newsletter on substack that's worth following too. She predicts that within a couple of years, 90% of content on the internet will be aI generated. Honestly, I think it might be higher than that. Just because of the sheer fact that AI can do it much faster than people and even myself, like, I'm not using some program automated to automate the whole workflow. I'm just like using tools and then piecing things together. And I think eventually people are going to automate the whole workflow. And it's going to be more of a single button press. And I think that's, in some ways, that's bad, but in some ways, like if the content that's generated is good, what's the major issue? But of course, not all the content that's generated like that is going to be good. Joanna PennWell, the major issue is that we all find it hard enough to make a living selling books now when there are already something like 21 million books on the Kindle Store. How will it work when there are 21 billion? Or how are people going to find my Shopify store? So marketing and making money with your books is the problem. But let's leave aside the quality discussion because that is in the eye of the beholder. And I totally agree with you, I think within a very short time, you will be able to press a button and output a thriller, or a romance according to whatever rules you like, but how are you thinking about this? How are you building an audience? How are you marketing? How do you think we can stand out? Tim BoucherI mean, I think, like, writing manually in this mode, as we said, like, I don't think that's going go away. People want to do that, and people want to read that. So I think there's room for everything in the future that I imagined my ideal vision that's like that, if people want that they can get that if they want things that are more AI-generated, or that are like custom-tailored to their specific interests or whatever, like, they'll be able to get that too. And I think there are going to be issues about like, how do you position yourself within that market? And I think that's where becoming an expert in how the tools work is going to be to your advantage. There's also an Alan Moore quote that I remember, I think he was talking about V for Vendetta, like his comic book, the original vision versus like, how it was transformed into a movie. And he said, look, the comic books still exists, it's always going to exist in that form. And the movie is this other thing. And people can take it in, in the way that they take it. but he didn't see that conflict between the movie replacing the comic book, because it's still there. It's still available. But I agree that marketing books is one of the hardest things that I've ever done. Joanna PennBecause also, you don't sell on Amazon, do you? Tim BoucherNo, I sell only on gumroad.com, which is probably weird to people. But just briefly, Amazon has such a controlling influence sometimes in my life. I'm always buying things on Amazon, that I feel creatively, I don't want them to control my creative output. There's something creepy about that. For me, if I'm wearing like Amazon sweatpants, and watching Amazon shows, and they own all my books, that feels kind of dystopian to me. There are so few corporations that that control so much of publishing, I think that's a really negative thing. So I think that being more DIY, even than Amazon, and carving out these alternative ways to sell it, it can be one way to differentiate yourself too, because you can't go on Amazon to get my books, you have to go through Gumroad. And when you do, I know exactly how much Gumroad is going to take, they're going to take 10%. And I also know that if you buy a book, I'll get your email address, like I'm not. So far I'm not using those and I'm not doing a newsletter or anything like that to promote. but I can see like, if someone bought a book, I can see like how many books they bought, like I have a lot of people who they come back after buying one book, and they'll buy like six more, they'll buy 10 more, I have one person who's bought like over 30 titles out of 67. Joanna PennWas that Mr Tinfoil hat?! Tim BoucherWell, you know, their interpretation is, I'm sure it's going to be different than mine, but I don't want to also enforce a single interpretation of the work either. But I think there's there's a benefit to having greater control over not just the tools of production, but also the distribution. Joanna PennI mean, I obviously talked about selling direct all the time, but still, the question remains, how do you get people to find your Gumroad store? Tim BoucherRight? So because my work is like a blend of fact and fiction that rides on this edge of science fiction and conspiracy, like, I will post things to want to Reddit or my Medium accounts. Those are really the only two social media sites that I use anymore. And from there, people go and they read the pitch page, and if they're interested, they buy it. I'm doing pretty well compared to how I was doing when I was just trying to promote an epic fantasy novel. Promoting an epic fantasy novel is really hard. And if I had known that before, maybe I would have been more disillusioned before going in but it's part of why I've modulated my approach. It's part of why I got into this idea of the hyperreal storytelling devices and just framing things in different ways and letting people make their own decisions about what's real and what's not. One of the things that's ironic is that my original fantasy book, The Last Direction, it's sold far fewer than any of the other follow-ups about like the conspiracy framing of it of the Quatria conspiracy, or the Mysterious Antarctica book like that has sold so many more. Joanna PennBut Mysterious Antarctica, or Mysterious Egypt or Mysterious whatever, that's the kind of thing I buy for my research, It's fun, even though it's fake, and I read books for ideas. We could talk forever, but I feel like we're almost out of time. Before you go, we've talked about a lot of things that are difficult, a lot of things that are challenging for people, but where do you think things are going? Because I really do think we're in the super, super early days of all this. It feels like 2007, this kind of iPhone moment when we were like, What do we do with that? Who needs a phone like that? And this is like now. So what's it going to be like in the next 15 years? What are you excited about? Obviously, not 15 years away, but what are you excited about? What do you think's going to be happening? Tim BoucherI mean, one of the things that I'm most excited about is like, Okay, I want to reach 100 volumes, and I'm like, feverishly trying to work towards 100. I calculated that it's going to be like maybe another three and a half months if I'm lucky and I can keep up the speed. What I'm excited about is, is eventually having another AI layer that can come in, it can ingest all my books and it can make like a map of all of my universe, or multiverse, or whatever. And it can say these are all the relations between all the entities and the characters and the places. And here's a timeline of events, and then it can reference the different sources. And then you could even like highlight, like, okay, there's a conflict between how this is described here and how this is described there. And I think like, once I can reach that level where I can put the work in there and then get these like next-level interpretations and representations, there's going to be like a whole new layer of storytelling, that's going to be really exciting. And it just seems like an inevitability that that will happen. And I've already seen, there's a tool called file chat, that you can upload your documents to it. And then you can sort of like conversationally query the contents of the documents. So I think that's not going to be a super long way away, kind of what I'm describing. Joanna PennI agree. And I mean, we talked about the problems of discoverability, but actually an AI over layer that can go actually find something for me, that can actually find me fiction that I would love regardless of where that might be, I think that'd be brilliant. Because it feels like at this point in time, the Amazon algorithm is broken, or is gamed by ads or whatever. And I feel as a reader what's so crazy as a reader for the last couple of years, really, I've found books in new ways. I've gone back to bestseller lists, or I've gone back to physical bookstores, because I feel like the ad model has changed things and that the recommendations I get are not good enough. So I want a better AI to recommend me books. Tim BoucherI have the same problem with music on Spotify that like, because I listened to something a few times. Now Spotify is convinced forever that this is my favorite thing. And I only want to listen to that from now on, and it gets very distorted the recommendations. And it makes me feel that like, now I don't even like the things that I like before because like Spotify is just forcing me on it. And I contrast that to a decade or two decades ago when I was younger. And like when my main source of new music and movies and books and stuff was from my friends, like people who I hung out with in real life, that would be like, Oh, you're gonna love this, check this out. And to me, that human element is never gonna go away, but I think like you said that over time as the AI is approved, we'll get better recommendations and better ability to find the things that we're going to love and that are going to change your life. And I think one solution for writers is to be super, extremely niche. Because like, as those recommendations improve, it's going to be easier for people who follow that very super specific niche to find you. Joanna PennYes, so a combination of exciting times and difficult times. I said to Jonathan, my husband the other day, I just love being alive right now. It's so exciting. Using the surfing the wave analogy. We're kind of wobbling on these boards. We don't know what's under the water, but it's really exciting at the same time. You feel excited and terrified, but yeah, this is amazing. Let's go! Tim BoucherYeah, yeah, let's go! Joanna Penn So where can people find you and your books online? Tim BoucherYeah, so the books themselves are at Lostbooks.gumroad.com or you can go to LostBooks.ca. Also, I run a personal blog, and I've rediscovered my love for just being able to be true to my vision of something and not having to worry about how it appears on a platform. I just get to write it myself. So if you want to see that stuff, you can go to TimBoucher.ca. And I talk about process and the technologies of AI and how artists need to have a strong role. So if you're interested in that stuff, go there. Joanna PennFantastic. well, thanks so much for your time, Tim. That was great.The post The Tsunami Of Crap, Misinformation, And Responsible Use Of AI With Tim Boucher first appeared on The Creative Penn.

The AI-powered Podcast Player

Save insights by tapping your headphones, chat with episodes, discover the best highlights - and more!

Get the app

The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers

Episodes

Mentioned books

How To Use ProWritingAid To Improve Your Writing With Chris Banks

Writing Nature Memoir With Merryn Glover

Legal Aspects Of Generative AI And Copyright With Kathryn Goldman

Lessons Learned And Tips From Pilgrimage, My First Kickstarter Campaign

Prolific Writing, Diversification, And Using Emerging Technologies With Joseph Nassise

Writing Fiction With Sudowrite With Leanne Leeds

Content For Everyone: Accessibility For Authors With Jeff Adams

Writing And Investing For A Long Term Indie Author Career With Lindsay Buroker

How To Build A Seven Figure Book Business Selling Direct To Readers With Pierre Jeanty

The Tsunami Of Crap, Misinformation, And Responsible Use Of AI With Tim Boucher

The AI-powered Podcast Player