S01E05: When platforms are power

In this week’s episode, Samantha and Matilda talk about the platforms that support their writing careers, from creating graphics and book covers, to how they format their books. 

By next week, Sam and Matilda will talk about their niches. What niches ARE, and how they plan on drilling down to find success! 

Where to find Sam and Matilda:

SAM IG: @sammowrimo

Website: www.samantha-cummings.com

Book to start with: The Deathless - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Deathless-Frances-June/dp/B0915V5L6F

Most recent book: Curse of the Wild (Moons & Magic Book 1) https://amzn.eu/d/fVXwW3j

MATILDA IG: @matildaswiftauthor

Website: MatildaSwift.com

Book to start with: https://books2read.com/TheSlayoftheLand (book #1 of The Heathervale Mysteries)

Most recent book: https://books2read.com/ButterLatethanNever (book #3 of The Slippery Spoon Mysteries)

Mentioned on the show:

Spa Girls 429 - How to Create Your Author Business Plan: https://www.selfpublishingauthorspodcast.com/spa-girls-ep-429-how-to-create-your-author-business-plan/

Novel Marketing Podcast - How to Use Goodreads to Promote your Book: https://www.authormedia.com/how-to-promote-books-goodreads/

Bookfunnel: https://bookfunnel.com/

Story Origin: https://storyoriginapp.com/

Prolific Works: https://www.prolificworks.com/

20BooksTo50k Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/20Booksto50k/

Mailerlite: https://www.mailerlite.com/

Mailchimp: https://mailchimp.com/

Draft2Digital: https://www.draft2digital.com/

Books2Read: https://books2read.com/

Vellum: https://vellum.pub/

Atticus: https://www.atticus.io/

Canva: https://www.canva.com/

Bookbrush: https://bookbrush.com/

Photopea: https://www.photopea.com/

Publisher Rocket: https://publisherrocket.com/

Dave Chesson’s Kindelpreneur: https://kindlepreneur.com/

Book Report: https://www.getbookreport.com/

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/

Wordpress: https://wordpress.org/

Bluehost: https://www.bluehost.com/

Joanna Penn website guide: https://www.thecreativepenn.com/website-email-help/

Squarespace: https://www.squarespace.com/

Clubhouse: https://www.clubhouse.com/

Transcript:

Welcome to your next step of the self-publishing mountain.

I'm Matilda Swift, author of Quintessentially British Cozy Mysteries.

And I'm Samantha Cummings, author of young adult books about magic, myths and monsters.

I've written the books, changed their covers, tweaked their blurbs, tried tools from a dozen ad courses, and I'm still not seeing success.

Now, we're working together to plot and plan our way from barely making ends meet to pulling in a living wage.

Join us on our journey where we'll be mastering the pen to snag that paycheck.

Hello, and welcome to Pen to Paycheck Authors podcast.

I'm Sam Cummings here with my co-host, Matilda Swift, and we're here to write our way to financial success.

We're two indie authors with over a dozen books between us, and still a long way to go towards the quit the day job dream.

If that sounds familiar, listen along to our Mastery Through Missteps journey.

Each week, we cover a topic to help along the way.

This week's topic is going to be resources and platforms.

But before we do that, let's do our wins and whinges of the week.

So Matilda, share with us, please, what are your wins and whinges.

I am all win this week.

For anyone watching the video, I am wearing a beautiful sort of buttercup yellow hoodie, which has the Pen to Paycheck Authors logo on there.

Beautifully designed by yourself.

It looks fantastic.

It feels very comfy.

I feel so professional.

So that's a big win.

I feel like a real pro.

The other thing is I made a reading nook in my house.

I think I mentioned that last week.

And this week, I added some finishing touches to it.

I turned a little plate rack.

This is what you might put as like a drying rack by your sink on its side.

Drove to the wall, made it a little kind of cute, rustic looking bookshelf for you to slot in books.

And then I also added an LED sign that says, do what you love with a big pink heart next to it.

And it lights up and I just sit in there and read by the light of that sign, listening to music from my childhood because I brought down all the CDs from my dad's attic.

They go with the hi-fi that's in there.

So it just is like the coziest, most self-indulgent nook.

So you've got a little bag hung on the wall, they build snacks.

I just want to live in there.

So that is my absolute big win.

And then my other one that will come on to a little bit more in a minute is that I did what I said I was going to do, and I actually made an author business plan.

Amazing.

It's pink and beautiful.

Comes from the Spa Girls.

If anyone's wanting to get this, it's a free resource provided by the Spa Girls, which is the Spa Girls podcast, SPA self-publishing, oh, self-publishing authors podcast.

It was episode 429, how to create your author business plan.

In it, they mentioned there are all sorts of free resources from Joanna Penn, if you Google Joanna Penn, Penn won the double N.

You can also find a business plan resources from her, but I really like the Spa Girls one, because it is A, pink and beautiful, and B, it really walks you through every single step that you need, and the podcast kind of talks you along with it, doesn't talk you through all the details, but keeps you company while you're doing it, and is very comprehensive without being overwhelming.

So I feel like I've really won everything this week.

Have you also had a winning week?

I have had a winning week.

I started my business plan.

I did not finish, but that's fine.

I'm still happy that I did that.

I also did good, grown up things, registered with HMRC, finally, which I've been putting off for a very long time.

International list is what's HMRC?

I don't know what it stands for, even though I've dealt with it my entire life.

It's like...

I'm gonna guess, and I'm pretty sure it's His Majesty's Revenue Collection, something like that.

Revenue and Customs.

Revenue and Customs.

Oh, for all those customs that we deal with, yes.

Yes, it's the tax company, the tax man.

Our tax governing body.

So I finally registered as self-employed, which I've been putting off for years.

And you don't have to do it in the UK until you reach a certain level.

So it's not that you've been a tax dodger, you have not been required to.

No, no, no, 100%.

You have to, they say you don't really have to do it unless you're earning over a thousand pounds in income.

And I have not, so I always put it off.

But yeah, I've finally done that just so it's done.

And I'm like setting myself up for success because I will make over a thousand pounds of income.

Absolutely.

So yeah, I'm super happy about that.

And I also set up a business account, a bank account.

So I'm gonna be doing all of my completely legal dealings through my business.

Like obviously my illegal dealings through my personal account.

Yeah, my business account is gonna be where everything goes in and comes out.

So I've got clear view of everything.

And I feel like a human being and not just like a troll that lives under a bridge with a laptop.

Yeah, with like some gold coins in your pocket, figuring out what to do with them.

I also, I'll continue the wins because I also started posting on the podcast Instagram account and telling people that the podcast was here.

And that's been really like, I've had both of us have had such good feedback from people about it.

So thank you to everybody who's listening and everyone who's given feedback.

It's very nice to like, to hear that people are like, oh, that's a great idea.

Thanks very much.

So that's on the back for us and high five.

Yeah, absolutely.

And if anyone's listening, do share the podcast, people that are in the same boat as you that want some more self-opening advice.

I've had really great feedback.

I put it in a Cozy Authors self, like Facebook group, that is for, in fact, something I'm going to mention later, a Clubhouse group, which I'm just making a note of to mention, because I forgot to mention that in my list of resources.

But yes, I put it in there, and Cozy Authors are all super nice.

So everyone just gave really positive, lovely feedback.

But we've had some great downloads.

And yeah, please do share the news, spread the info to anyone that you think might find it useful.

Okay, so we're now on to our topic of the week, which is one that I felt I knew loads about.

Like I wouldn't have to do out of preparation.

And then as soon as I sat down to like, start the process of recording this podcast, I realized I haven't read anything down and things like, oh, I forgot to mention Clubhouse.

There's a lot of stuff that we take for granted.

So we'll go on our topic for the week, which is platforms and resources, which I don't know if you like me, but I think a lot of them go unnoticed.

So it'd be a good time to kind of do a bit of reckoning and share some information, people who are maybe not using the same platforms we are, or just want some information on what other people are using.

Yes.

Who wants to go first really?

Because I feel like I have less.

Okay, so I'm just gonna put this out there to everybody who's listening.

Matilda is far more in the deep end when it comes to all of the stuff, I think.

And I'm very much still paddling in the kiddie pool for a lot of things.

So I know that I'm gonna have far less than Matilda.

Can I interrupt there then?

What do you think has previously stopped you finding out about platforms and other resources you're using?

My not wanting to spend money mentality and my head in the sand, my being a troll under a bridge with a laptop and gold coins mentality.

I do think it's a lot of work to find out about these things.

I think I...

It is.

You know, we've talked about before, like I am big on all the sort of learner intellectual strengths from CliftonStrengths.

I love learning about these things.

So I, and also as I mentioned before, I have a friend who is a very successful self-published author who I sat down, I took her to a very nice afternoon tea that I got given as a present.

And I just used the opportunity to bombard her with all my questions.

And she said, use this, don't use this, try this.

Here's X, Y and Z you can be doing.

And that felt like such a shortcut.

And I cannot imagine what it would be like to come into it without somebody to tell you all that.

So that's kind of what I'm hoping it will be useful today is if we go through things and it will be like a, I never know how to pronounce it.

What is it, primer or primer?

I think Americans say primer and I would say primer on tools that you can use or that it's worth you looking into and considering as a kind of relatively newer author.

Yes, so my first thing that I'm going to mention, which I actually didn't think about until like just the second is Facebook groups.

I think that being involved in Facebook groups is a fantastic resource.

Just things from finding other authors in your genre, finding readers of your genre and finding out like what they're reading and what they're into.

And also like, I think one that I didn't know about until another author friend told me about was Facebook groups to do like pre-made book covers.

Which up until that point, I didn't know that existed until my friend told me about it.

And then I was like, oh, okay.

How do you find Facebook groups that are useful?

I mostly, if I'm being honest, I've been like suggested once by friends.

And I also just kind of in the search bar in Facebook, type in like, obviously, I'm writing for young adults.

So I type in young adult writers, and then just see the suggested ones that come up.

And personally, I kind of look for groups that have got around 1000 to 2000 people in.

And maybe like a little bit more, but sometimes I found out the bigger groups are a bit too overwhelming, or there's kind of too much going on for me to keep up.

But you just have to find your own personal sweet spot of how much you want to be invested and how much time you want to spend and stuff.

So yeah, I think that Facebook groups are...

I think I tend to look at frequency of posting.

So I'm looking at like a group that is posting.

It tells you how many times I post a week.

If it's not posted last week, I'm not going to join.

It's not active enough to be worthwhile to be a member of.

Yeah, yes, you want to do somewhere where people are like Ariel, so.

Yeah, so I would say if you're brand new, want to just get started with, which is a really, really big group, is the 20 Books to 50K group.

Which I don't know if it's going to change its name at some point.

I think currently there's no plans to, but I know 20 Books to 50K as a brand has separated some things off.

So I can imagine at some point they will end up developing or changing in some direction.

But currently it's called 20 Books to 50K.

If you Google that, you can probably figure out what it's called if it ever changes name.

These things do go away sometimes.

There used to be KBoards, which was a really, really big forum online in the Writers Cafe.

It was called Kindle Boards for a while.

I think they got major change into KBoards.

It used to be really active in the beginning of self-publishing, and now you can still go on there, but it is really empty.

And these groups do change, but it's good to start with a big one.

People in there sometimes recommend smaller groups.

So 20 Books to 50K is a good one to start with.

It's, you can tell from the title, kind of what the mentality is.

So it might not be that it 100% fits with your idea of what you want to get out of publishing, but it's a good group to start with and to see what things are being mentioned often to at least give you an idea of, you know, what to pay attention to, whether you like or don't like it.

Yeah, you get equal amounts of enthusiastic feelings of joy and hope and mixed with the, oh my God, how would I ever compete or do what they're doing?

So, but the good stuff, like the highlights that make you feel good and like you're on like a path where you can achieve things is fantastic.

Absolutely fantastic group.

Yeah, and you can search for a solution job if you've got one just by searching in there.

It's probably been answered before.

Mm-hmm.

One of, because most of my platforms are free with the option to buy like accounts and things, but as a cheapskate, I always go for the free versions.

I would say a bootstrapper maybe is a nicer way of thinking about it.

Yeah, I'm a cheapskate.

I'm a saver, is what I am.

I'm thrifty.

I love Canva, and I'm gonna list that as one of my most used platforms.

Yeah, it's on my list as well.

Absolutely love it.

What do you use it for?

For all sorts of social posts, coming up with, yeah, our logo.

Designing logos, I have made our logo on there.

Book covers or even, maybe not even like final book covers, but I love storyboarding book covers in Canva.

And like mood boards, I love doing a mood board.

So I tend to do a lot of mood boards and yeah, like book promo-y things.

Do you share those with readers, the mood boards?

Yes.

Yeah, so I do.

I tend to post them on socials and I put them in my emails as well.

So I love doing that.

I would say in connection to Canva, I use a website called Book Brush, which is where you can get mock-ups of your books done.

And I tend to, I've got a free account there.

You get a limited amount of things that you can generate and then I'll like then whack them into Canva and fancy them up.

And when you say mock-ups, do you use the 3D, like, e-books and paper books?

Yeah, and they do the really cool cover design.

The cover reveal is the word I'm looking for.

The cover reveal one's where it's like the book with paper on it and like a bit torn out, which you can see all over there when people are teasing their books and stuff.

And so that's a really cool one.

Yeah, that is what I use it for as well.

I feel like it's slightly, like, I think because I'm so used to Canva, I feel that book brushes sometimes slightly counterintuitive.

I'm like, I know this tool in here that's the other thing I want to do and I can't find which section it's under.

So it can be pressure, but it's so worth it.

Yeah.

I wouldn't call it junkie to its face though, because it's really trying hard and it's really got a great set of tools.

It's trying hard.

It's not happy to show you what's kind of free and not free.

It really wants you to figure it out by clicking.

So it's not very intuitive, but it does have the things you need mostly.

I would say like 90% of the time I get what I want.

And then if I can't access something, then I just take a book cover out, download it, work it over to Canva and finish off what I'm doing.

So, it's a good one.

I also, I'm going to mention this, although I know that this is kind of a privileged position, but I do have Photoshop.

Adobe is a very expensive tool to have, an expensive resource.

I get it through my day job, and I do put it to use.

So, I, yeah, I do like having Photoshop, but there are three versions that you can get online.

There's one called Photopia, which is basically exactly the same as Photoshop, and it's free.

Is that photo and then P-I-A, Photopia?

That's how I pronounce it.

I think it's P-E-A.

P-E-A, okay.

I don't know, I never know if I'm pronouncing things right, but that is a basic clone of Photoshop.

Free, very easy to use.

You can do everything that Photoshop can do.

It's just...

Is it browser based?

I feel like I've used it before and it is good.

It is browser based, yes.

Yeah.

Yeah, so I've used it before when I've been locked out.

I get locked out of all my accounts, so I'm just gonna put that out there.

I touch breaks.

So it's always nice to know there's an online version of something that you can use.

So if you don't want to pay for an Adobe Suite, Photopia is a very nice alternative.

What else, what else have I got here?

I'm, I'll list Trello as my, one of my most used.

Trello is a, like a planning tool, which is kind of like a pin body way to sort out your thoughts and stuff.

So I tend to use it to plan stories.

I know that other people plan stories in spreadsheets and things.

I like to use Trello boards.

There's another name for it.

Is it Kanban, Kanban boards?

Yeah.

Like the term.

I feel that's what you call it if you're a super professional.

So I use it for my day job.

Yeah.

Yes, a Kanban.

But I think a Kanban is like, is when it's set up in a very specific way.

And I think Kanbans, you move them along depending on their state.

So where they're like started, done, under, yeah.

Completed.

And I do tend to do that, yes, I use them at work, yeah.

So I love Trello.

And it's free, the free account is more than you possibly need.

Yeah.

100%.

I mean, I have run out of boards, but it's only because I set up boards for all sorts of things.

And then I'm like, well, I can delete this board because I actually don't need it.

So I just do all my planning on them.

It's fantastic.

Other free things.

Let's not forget email systems, MailChimp or MailerLite.

I use MailChimp.

And I'm really moving to-

Yes, I know.

I am moving to MailChimp.

I'm so shocked.

What?

I feel like it's because everybody moved like two years ago who had a paid account because MailChimp got so atrociously expensive paid accounts.

I still have the free account.

I feel like I don't know if anyone else is on MailChimp still.

Yeah, I have the free account.

I don't, I didn't move away from it because obviously I'm not paying, but also I just like, I have all of my automation set up and I have like, I just, it's such a big admin job to move over to MailerLite, but I am like 90% there.

So at the end of this month, I will be on MailerLite, but right now I'm MailChimp.

So if you're looking for a free account, it's good enough.

MailerLite is a nicer, a much nicer system to use.

But yeah, MailChimp's fine.

Yeah.

I think, I mean, I'm with MailerLite, I'm going to have to move inside MailerLite from the classic to the new, which I'm really looking forward to because you can't transfer your automations.

And again, I'm like, oh, I don't want to do that.

But actually I think it would be so useful because I've got so many janky old automations that I haven't looked at and that probably have some dead ends or they accidentally go in a circle or they refer to a book that isn't the right, or it's like brand new book and it was out two years ago.

So I have on my to-do list every month, I like review things like your automations, review websites, I don't do it.

And I haven't built in a way to do that.

So I feel like at least with Mail.lyte forcing me to do it, I am appreciative while resentful.

Yes.

And you just mentioned another thing that probably we should mention is websites.

So website is a resource, it's a platform that I think that you should have.

I know that there are people out there who believe that they don't need a website and I get it because it's an investment and it's a continuous investment.

And sometimes you don't see it as being important because you think people can just go to Amazon or something.

But I personally love going on other authors websites and seeing what they're doing and signing up to mailing lists and stuff.

So I love it.

And also I make and do websites as like for a living.

So I'm really into websites and I use Squarespace.

And I have used every kind of website you can imagine.

I've been on them all.

I've I've tweaked them all.

I've like done other people's websites and I just I like Squarespace personally.

Do you get your domain through Squarespace as well?

Yes.

Yeah, so it's all tied in, which is nice.

I've used Wix before, but I've done work on other people's websites, Wix, and I don't personally like Wix.

Obviously WordPress is like the one a lot of people use.

WordPress is a good one.

And I would say that I pull...

It's not easy, I would say, is the issue with WordPress.

WordPress is...

Unless you use it a lot, the operating system, the whole behind-the-scenes stuff is really complicated because they have their kind of...

Their wordpress.com stuff, which is like what most people are using, uses the exact same admin as wordpress.org, and that's like the more robust system, but it doesn't really translate back.

It just makes it overly complicated.

But if you know what you're doing...

If you're not aware, wordpress.com is meant to be the easier, sort of more drag-and-drop-y for anyone, wordpress.com.

And wordpress.org is meant to be, you can build it, you can really customise it quite a lot.

I would say they're both not widely user-friendly for someone who doesn't love tech or use some sort of stuff in their day-to-day job.

I've got.org and I think it puts me off doing changes because it's a lot of work.

Just to remember where things are again.

It's not actually, and I use wordpress.org in my day job.

I'm regularly in it.

I'm regularly in it, but it's just like, I think a lot of things we talk about recently, it's a lot of decision fatigue.

You have to think about it.

You have to look again at where it is.

It's not just like, oh, hop and do that.

But you only update it every couple of months.

So it's the drain that I don't really want.

Yeah.

Squarespace, I think.

What's the other one?

Shopify, I guess, if you're looking to...

Well, Squarespace has paid shop options as well.

But they're very easy to manage and have nice drag and drop elements.

The user interface is very friendly, very modern and very intuitive.

Everything is where you expect it to be.

So I really, really enjoy Squarespace.

I have got two or three websites that I look after on Squarespace.

And I think it's a nice one.

It's not too expensive.

I think I pay maybe 200, 250 a year.

And then my domain is like 16 pounds a year or something.

So if you look at it over, what kind of value it offers, I think it's a nice amount to pay for a year.

I'm happy with that.

Yeah, so websites.

Are you considering maybe moving to a different provider?

No, I can't.

I don't want to do the effort.

I definitely want to open up my website, but I think because I use wordpress.org in my daily life, I find it very manageable to make the changes.

And I just don't want to.

So I just need to like with everything this year, I'm trying to make myself better systems.

A lot of it is think there are a lot of things in self publishing that you maybe only do at publication time, or you maybe only do a couple times a year that you think you're going to remember and you don't remember.

So this year, one of my big projects is make myself some process charts and just follow those and stop having to relearn everything every time.

Yeah, so I will be sticking with WordPress, but I don't think it's the funnest part of what I do.

Yeah, that sucks.

But if you're going to stick with it on your head, be it.

Okay, I think my last thing, and this will definitely be a source of contention for you, is that I have Vellum, which is a formatting software.

And it's not free.

And it's not free, but it was a one payment deal.

So when I only have to pay for something once, I'm like, yeah, I can do that.

One payment, I can afford it.

Don't have to think about it again.

And it's funny because I don't actually really often format my own books because I've got a friend who I have got a formatter, and she tends to work on my books.

I just have it as like a backup for formatting my art, some things to send out to people because it's a lot quicker for me to be able to format my art.

Do you get the files from her, the formatting files, so you can edit stuff?

Or do you have to send her edits?

Yeah, I have to send her edits.

Yeah.

Because the main reason people get Vellum is because they don't want to have to update back matter with somebody, you have to pay for every time you do that.

So Vellum is very nice.

She does it for free.

Yeah, we do all have formatting friends, so some of them pay for matter, or they buy something like Vellum or Atticus.

I think it's the same job where you...

And when we say formatting, I mean turning what is your word file into whatever ebook format you need.

And I don't do that.

So I could talk about it a minute, but I might talk about it now.

So I use Drafted Digital, and Drafted Digital is a completely free tool, which you upload your manuscript, you upload your word file, you upload your cover, you've had to, in your word file, format certain things.

You've had to format your headers, you've had to, that's maybe the only thing you have to do.

Anyway, make sure your chapter headers have got chapter headers, that they're not just text.

And then it picks it up, and it knows to put them on certain pages.

It's got ebook version, it's got paperback version, I think it's even got a hardbook version.

So you just go through and you format each of those, and then it spits out the file that you need to put it into Amazon.

And the reason why I feel fine to do that for Cozy Mysteries is because it's not a highly visual type of ebook.

So it doesn't need a fancy chapter header, it just needs the number one at the top, and that's done.

It just doesn't need like a big capital fancy at the beginning of chapters.

It doesn't need style, like you don't notice it missing in the way that you would do in YA fantasy, for example.

So I would say, if I can remember that phrase where like, you cut your cloth to match your purse, wallet?

I don't know what the phrase is.

Something like that.

Yeah.

As in, I think a lot of people as a default will buy a program like Vellum, thinking they need it, and you absolutely don't need it.

I would say you flat don't need it.

And I think that is why it's contentious.

I think you absolutely don't need it.

I think it is a luxury that if your genre is more likely to have people who like some sort of visual elements in their books, that you should consider it as an add-on.

But I don't think you need it.

I think a lot of people act like you need it.

And you can make an incredibly easy, good-looking ebook paperback as well with Drafted Digital.

And it is such a good service.

I think for the majority of people, writers writing fiction or like Cozy Mysteries, for the majority of the genres, I think having a drop cap, having a chapter image or some little stylistic things throughout a book.

If it's not a thing in your genre, don't pay for it.

Because you're paying for frills when people don't want frills.

For young adult books, obviously, my genre, people expect the fancy fonts, the scene breaks to have little illustrated things, or like tiny images that represent which character POV you're in and all that fun stuff.

So it was an investment that I was happy to make, but I wouldn't suggest it for everybody.

And the same for using a formatter.

I think a lot of people sense formatters, and I think especially that when they first start, because they think it's going to be really hard to do.

I think it used to be really hard to do.

It used to be incredibly tedious and difficult to do with a word document, and you would try it and make a mistake.

It's a bit like trying to put graphics, like images in a word document.

You would try it, and then instantly you move something, you would get absolutely messed up.

It's not like that anymore.

You use Drafted Digital, at least try it.

It's a great service that I sort of can't believe people give away for free.

So thank you, Drafted Digital.

We will wait for their check in the mail.

I mean, I will give them a check one day.

They are fantastic.

Yeah, they also, I mean, that's not what they really do, right?

What they really do is they distribute books.

But for free, they will also let you make your ebooks and paperback books with them.

The files that you need to upload to Amazon and the other platforms.

Well, that is a fantastic service.

So everybody go and quit an account and just get to formatting.

Yeah.

I think that's everything.

That's everything on your list.

Okay.

Yes, that's everything on my list.

I've got a really long list.

I thought today would be really short.

I had a feeling that your list would be a lot longer than mine.

It is, but I'm going to just zip through some of them because some of them are similar to what you've had or it's just worth mentioning and then people can look them up if they want to go and look into it.

I would say like you, I'm not willing to spend money on a product if I don't need it.

And I think there's enough products out there and enough courses out there, enough resources out there that want your money that you should be very careful about what you spend money on.

I think there's some things that I spent money on that I don't get enough use out of.

And on my to do list is things like make sure you find a way to get a better use out of this.

Just because it's maybe slightly difficult to use or I don't need to use it.

It's like if I had bought vellum, I wouldn't use it.

I wouldn't get the use out of it.

And yeah, what else people have?

What's the one that they do all their formatting in?

Like what they do all their, instead of word?

Scrivener.

Scrivener.

Yeah, again, if I had Scrivener, I probably wouldn't use it because I get frustrated.

I'd be like, I just use word.

It's easy enough.

So I think there are platforms and resources that lots of people use and lots of people really like that you don't need to use.

And I would say try all the free thing first before you think you have to do it.

So I was just going to say Scrivener will hold your things hostage because when they when they when they change to like what for me personally, they upgraded their systems and decided that my computer was no longer a viable option for them.

They basically cut me out and then told me that the only way to get my files was to find somebody basically with an account who could get them for me and send them because I could no longer access them.

And I'm sure I've got a few books that I have lost because of that.

So just I'm very wary of Scrivener and they're making them.

I've had great experiences with them as well.

I think people who love it really love it.

But yeah, I'm not with any of these things.

You don't own it.

I have Microsoft 365.

I no longer even own Word when it's gone, it's gone.

But I feel confident I could very easily get the files out again.

Everyone's got Word.

Whereas not everyone's got Scrivener.

It is, yeah, you're dealing with another possible obstacle in your path if something goes wrong.

Yes.

Yeah.

So I'll try and run through mine relatively quickly.

Some of them are similar to yours, but just I use like different things.

So I use MailerLite instead of Mailchimp, which I think a lot of people, there are lots and lots of other options out there.

I keep hearing flow desk around quite a lot that people are switching to because it's work to switch from the old MailerLite to new MailerLite, people are kind of taking that chance to re-evaluate things.

I am sticking with MailerLite.

I use it for work, so I'm very familiar with it.

I think the help desk is actually incredibly good.

The help staff there are really, really good.

I don't know, I would say part of it is because I think they're based in Europe, so they're often available at my times.

So I don't know, I think I may be emailing them at weird times of day, but yeah, anyway, they are excellent and they can resolve anything.

And they've got a lot of help resources online and the tools, like the actual builder is really simple and looks very good.

So yeah, I really like MailerLite.

It's not even that expensive as you grow.

It feels very reasonable as you get more and more subscribers if it doesn't hit a point like MailChimp changed to do because it came to be not really just for email people.

It wanted to be a broader product.

So as soon as you went up certain categories, it would just balloon in cost.

And it wasn't really a set of people who were self-publishing, whereas MailerLite is really inclusive.

You can definitely use it as a self-publish offer.

You can feel like if my mailing list is this size, I'm probably bringing this much money.

That means the cost for the package is reasonable.

So yeah, I love that.

One thing that I always sort of think of as being paired with it, they're integrated and I use them together is Book Funnel.

There's also Story Origin is another similar one that I have tried.

I found that Story Origin didn't have enough group promos that suited me.

So Book Funnel is a place where you put your book and it's a way that you can give your book away in a controlled manner.

So either you can have it completely unlisted and use it to send out ARCs, advance reader copies or even prize copies.

There's a few different ways you might want to use it and it tracks them very well.

Or you can have a free book on there.

So I have got my prequel developers on there, which I also have as paperback versions on Amazon, but I don't have the ebook versions on there because I am, in fact, they do have the ebook, but they're not in KDP.

That's what I was going to say.

I'm in KDP for the rest of my books, but not for those, so I can put them on here.

And I give them away.

I join group promos, which means other authors who have got similar audiences to mine, who will put a link in their newsletter saying, 60 free Cozy Mysteries this week.

And their readers love Cozy Mysteries.

They'll download them.

They'll then go on to read the other books in my series.

I have found it incredibly beneficial.

Some people, and I don't know if it's genre specific or just their experience, some people find it, or they experience it as building a big audience of people who are really owning nd of free books.

But I really for a long time didn't do anything else that was like marketing or advertising, and I made plenty of sales that way.

So Book Funnel is great.

People sign up.

You can click to say they have to nd to use that or they don't have to.

And then the email goes through to your list in male light.

So it's fantastic.

It's not very expensive.

And again, the support team there is wonderful.

Like they are incredibly supportive.

They also help read a lot.

So it means a lot to be able to send out an email and say, get these free books.

If you've got a problem, the Book Funnel people will help you rather than.

I'm so sorry.

I don't know how Book Funnel works.

I can't get the book for you.

The technical capacity is beyond me.

You don't have to say that.

You don't have to think about it.

Book Funnel people are incredibly helpful.

But yes, likewise, there is story origin.

There is also prolific work.

So there's two other sites you can consider.

I think they both have free versions.

But for me, I have really found Book Funnel to be the most suitable to my genre and the use I put it to.

But worth having a look at all of them.

Then I have mentioned Draft to Digital.

You mentioned Canva and Book Brush, both of which are on my list.

Another thing that's on my list is Books to Read.

And that is two with a two.

And Books to Read is really good because I'm a UK based author, but most of my audience is based in the US, but not all of them.

And in Books to Read, what you do is you put in your book link, I put in Amazon because that's where I have my book, so I don't have many where else, but you can just put in a link and it will find your book elsewhere as well.

You can put in the ISBN, it will find your book wherever it is.

It collates all of the links that you have into a universal link.

So you can just put this link and you can personalise it.

So I have links that are just the title of my book, so it will be, the link is like books to read forward slash the sleigh of the land, my first book.

I can put that anywhere, so I link that in my newsletter.

When someone clicks on it, it either takes them to a little landing page, which says like, pick your platform, Amazon, Kobo, wherever you are, pick your country and then it will know like UK, US.

And it can remember the settings.

But the first time it goes through, you have to click that.

But it helps you put one link in and know it's going to take everyone to where they belong, rather than saying, I think everyone's in the US, let me put just the US Amazon link in.

Not everyone wants Amazon, not everyone wants the US only.

Bookstreet is great.

Also free.

They are fantastic, is a great service, very, very easy and it remembers all of your links.

You can log in and find them all.

I think it's actually made by the Drafted Digital People, if I remember correctly.

Both of them have got a 2 for the TO, it's the number 2.

So I would guess that is correct.

My other platform is KDP.

So if, yeah, I think it's worth thinking of KDP as a resource rather than just like people kind of mix up the terms Amazon and KDP.

Also worth, I think, just thinking and making sure you've got the right kind of pages open.

So there is like the KDP home where you put all your books.

There is the KDP reports where you get all your information out.

So there are various tools that come out of being KDP.

Sort of similarly, I also have Book Report, which is free up to a certain level, which I can't remember what it is.

But Book Report, it gives you a lot of the same information as the KDP reports.

But you can process it much more easily over time, so it gives you nice pie charts.

You can look at countries' formats.

You can look at which books sell more and which ones sell more in different, yeah, in different places.

It's a nice way of looking at things trend over time.

So I would recommend Book Report.

It is, as far as I'm aware, just run by one guy who was, again, very good support.

I think that is the overriding theme of companies that work well in self-publishing spaces.

You have to give good support, because we are not tech users.

I have recently stumped him.

Oh no.

I'm just leaving him alone for a bit.

I think this is probably a you problem there, right?

Just link back to your...

It's a 100% me problem.

My aversion to technology, or technology is aversion to me, which is what I said to him.

I don't think this is a Book Report problem.

I think this is a Sam problem.

I'm going to wait till next week, but then I'm going to email him again.

It's a great way to build a relationship with someone.

Exactly.

And he's very personable.

Yes.

But yes, a Book Report is a great thing to just...

And all you have to do is link and authorise it to access your KDP, and it accesses the information from there in a different format.

Another thing that I have that is sort of connected to KDP, it used to be called KDP Rockets.

It's now changed its name to Publisher Rockets, if you hit either of those, it's the same product.

This is a product that I have that I do not use enough.

It is on my list of, somewhere to do list, of make or use of Publisher Rockets.

I bought it because, I bought it before I re-needed it.

At some point, it's going to go to a subscription model, they've been quite open about that.

But when I bought it, it was just a single fee, and it was a forever fee.

So I was like, I'll just buy it now because I know at some point I'll want it.

It's great for competitor research.

It's great for keyword research, and I don't do enough of either of those.

So it's got category info.

You can look by country, look up books in it, and it gives you loads of information.

You can look up a competitor book and see what categories it's listed under.

You can look up people and see their ranking.

Tons of information you can look up.

It's great.

It does almost too much for me right now, and I just need to make better use of it.

So worth looking up and worth finding out if you think it's useful to you.

Publish a rocket.

I believe it's by the same people that make Atticus, is that correct?

Yes.

By Dave Chesson, right?

Yes.

Yeah.

Worth just going on Dave Chesson's website because he's got loads of information on there.

He constantly gives away free resources, free information.

He's very up especially on keywords and categories.

Really knows as soon as those change, go to Dave Chesson's website and find out what he's telling you to do about it.

Subscribe to the emails and you will get such good information sent directly to you.

He does a great job, very inclusive, and you really get a lot of value from being involved in some way in what he's doing.

I'd just like to say as well for the next 23 hours, this probably won't help people because we're not going to publish this till Wednesday, but it's currently only $97 for a lifetime license, so.

I think that's pretty much what I wanted to say.

I think there are relatively regular sales on it.

So I would say, take a time that you think is likely to be a sale in the US, like maybe Independence Day or Vegas Giving and I guess probably a sale on around there.

Yeah.

But yeah, I think I don't get enough value out of it.

I think that's a me problem, not a Dave Chesson and Publisher Rocket problem.

Other things on my list.

I've got Goodreads, which, oh, in fact, no, I'm going to put another one down with Goodreads.

I'm going to do Goodreads and Bookbub together.

So Goodreads and Bookbub are both places that you should just make sure you are listing your book, that the listings are correct for audio books, that when you change the cover, you change it on both of those.

People do not like to have the wrong cover on Goodreads.

They are very particular about it.

I have received complaints because I put up a sort of a placeholder cover before I put up a cover on a pre-order occasionally, and it will feed through to Goodreads.

And if you don't correct it, people say, oh, it's a shame the right cover isn't here.

Yes.

And it's great.

It's a social platform for like engaging with something you love.

You want it to look correct.

The downside I find of Goodreads is you can't really update your own stuff.

So once you've put stuff on, you can't change your author name, and you can't often change your book information without contacting their support team to do it for you.

So that's my only downside, and something that I'm just living with.

I think I joined Goodreads long enough ago that they had different settings people joined a while ago.

So I can change quite a lot.

I can change my covers.

And I know some people cannot.

I can add a book.

I can change things about books, but a lot of people cannot.

And basically the tool for that is showing one of the author Facebook groups that Sam mentioned and asking there, is anybody a Goodreads librarian?

Can you please help me?

Because that's what they call themselves.

We can make changes.

Yeah, that's a very, very good show.

The librarians at Goodreads, they're volunteers, and they are very helpful.

They're in the Goodreads forum.

You can access them and ask them for help.

But if you can be friendly with someone who is a Goodreads librarian, that I know would be a long way to getting things fixed for you.

Yeah.

But I think a lot of authors try and ignore Goodreads because they have heard bad things about it in some genres.

It can be a bit of a toxic place looking at reviews.

People get very concerned when they see a one-star review and they think, oh, it's a one-star review.

Sometimes people on Goodreads, I don't know if it's true, but I hear it a lot.

They will one-star something as a way to say, I want to read this.

And they come back and they look at their one-star reviews and they know what they want to read.

No idea if that's true.

I've heard it often, but also I don't really care.

I think generally Goodreads is not for authors.

It's for readers.

That's what you hear a lot.

Reviews are not for authors.

They're for readers.

Your job in interacting with Goodreads, if you only want one job, is just to make sure your listings are correct.

That is what you can do for readers.

It can be helpful if you are not going to be upset by it.

There's no point in upsetting yourself.

You're not going to be upset by it.

It's worth looking at the reviews on there to see are consistent things coming up.

I think it's worth knowing that Goodreads reviews are lower than Amazon reviews because it's a social network.

You're reviewing things for your friends, and people can be very honest on that.

So you often find it is a good start point lower.

The people that use Goodreads use it in a way that's completely different than people who review books on Amazon.

It is a completely different beast, and you just have to accept that.

Yeah.

If you want to listen to a good episode about it, Novel Marketing, the podcast, which I think is hosted by Thomas Underset Jr.

So Novel Marketing had an episode quite a while ago.

It was called How to Use Goodreads to Promote Your Book.

It's a recent one.

If you just search Goodreads on their feed, you'll find a few Goodreads posts, because Goodreads changes every so often.

And they used to have quite different...

They often change their regulations about Goodreads giveaways.

So I know in that episode, he referenced this one that he did a year earlier and said, if you listen to this, make sure that you don't listen to the information of the previous one, because it's now out of date.

But that one I think is worth listening to if you think you want to make more use of Goodreads.

I don't right now, but I do feel like I...

Again, Cozy Mysteries readers are quite nice, so I don't think they're very negative, but I know for some genres they really are, and people just don't read it, because who needs that negativity?

Bookbub is also sort of a place where people will somewhat interact in the way they do in Goodreads, but not so much.

But they will follow people they will like and the way they've read things, so when you publish a book, Goodreads sends out a free alert to your people who follow you.

Just slam it nd does if you've got followers there.

It's a little bit of a pain to try and encourage people to follow you in 17 different places, but it kind of gives them options.

So I have my Bookbub in the footer of my email, the like little social button, the same for Goodreads.

Yeah, I think people often think of Bookbub as just a place to try to get a very expensive book promo.

You can also do advertising there, but it is also worth just making sure your information is up to date on there and just claim your author profile.

That's definitely the minimum minimum you have to do on both Goodreads and Bookbub, claim your author profile.

I've still got several things, I'll go very fast.

Like Sam uses Trello, I love Notion and I use Notion for organizing everything.

It's more fluid and it has more different types of templates.

So I think it is worth trying out Trello and Notion as ways to store information, as ways to find your books.

Both are great.

Both have fantastic free options and lots of online templates.

Clubhouse I mentioned earlier, offhand.

Clubhouse became big just before the pandemic.

I don't really know what inspired it to exist because there wasn't a hole for it.

I'm not sure I would use it if other people didn't use it that I know, but it is useful.

Clubhouse is, and it sounds sort of crazy, it's a bit like old CB radio channels.

Someone will set up a room, and it's like a Zoom room, but anyone can hop in.

There are some that are private, you have to approve to join, I think.

But anyone can hop in.

You have to be invited up to speak in most rooms, that's a setting.

You can put your hand up to speak.

There are great clubhouse rooms for authors.

I think it can be tricky to find them.

I think I only really do it because I know friends from going to self-publishing show who do it and found some great groups.

And I meet it with people that I know in real life.

And they are very good.

I'm in one that is just for cozies, and that's great to be in that room where we talk about often just general self-publishing things, but with a cozy twist, so it feels very relevant.

It feels worth an hour of my time once a week, so listen to that.

There's also a great daily one that is just for self-published authors, and you will recognize a lot of the names in there of very successful, well-known authors, but also people who are just on day one.

And you see the same people in there.

They talk about things that are news.

So if you see an update such as the updates at the moment with all the DMARC email authorization, people discuss that so you know what's coming up, you know where to find more resources.

It's a great sharing platform.

I would say you can join Clubhouse and just search for maybe somebody in your genre.

Ideally, you would know a friend who could kind of show you the groups to join, but also if you search on Facebook, most Clubhouse groups also have a Facebook group because it's quite hard to share information in the chat and in any kind of permanent way.

So both the groups I'm in have Facebook associated groups.

If you maybe just search Clubhouse Authors Facebook, you might find something.

It has been surprisingly useful, and I find it weird, but helpful.

I'm down to my last two-ish things.

So two that go together are, I use wordpress.org and it's hosted on Bluehost.

The reason for that is because that's what Joanna Penn does, and Joanna Penn knows everything, so I just do what she does.

And if you just Google, how to set up a website, Joanna Penn, that's Penn with a double N.

She has a whole page just talking you through it.

I think she might have taken down her main page talking you through it, in fact, because I think the theme that I use, that she used to use, is now no longer supported or being updated, so she thinks she uses something different.

But I'm sure you'll be able to find something on her site about setting up a website.

I found it really intimidating to figure out hosting, and I still am not entirely sure I know what hosting is, or how I own a domain, or why it cost me so much money.

I have slightly more techie friends that I send things to when I'm stuck.

But, yeah, all you have to do is just find an author that you trust and follow what they did, because otherwise, again, just like we said last week, you don't become a social media marketing expert, or two weeks ago.

You also don't want to become a website expert.

Just pick the one that suits your needs and that is easy enough and you will update it yourself.

Again, this is one where, like formatting, I would not farm out, because you have to pay for every update.

It is worth finding a site that you can manage yourself, because you will add books regularly to it.

The last thing on my list is Ads for Authors, the Ads for Authors course, which I put on because it is something that I use fairly regularly.

Huge amount of information on there.

It was very expensive.

The information, I think, is a wealth of information.

I would not recommend everybody signs up to it at any point early in what they're doing.

There are cheaper and earlier courses even in the same company.

So there's the one-on-one course, I think it's called Launchpad Now, that they do.

But I have found it useful, and I think I would have never set up Facebook ads without it.

And I go to the SPS conference every year, and I love it, and it's kind of linked to people that set that up.

So that is my very long list of things that I use.

And I would say most of them are free, because the reason why I thought I wouldn't have so much work on it is because when I made my beautiful pink business plan, I wrote down a list of things that I pay for, and it was quite short.

So I was like, oh, I don't really use many resources, but obviously I do.

It is very useful to talk about all of them, because over the next few weeks, we're doing lots of things about branding and the ways in which we are present as authors.

And we will keep mentioning these platforms over and over again, and it will be really hard for somebody who is kind of coming in at the new around to does not know what Book Funnel is, does not know what Book Report is, what Book Brush is, what Canva is.

So just having like a listen through on this and a listen to and just start googling from that, like just see what is this other similar products.

You know, you can always Google the name of something and then similar and it will bring up tons of listing.

So just good to have a place to start rather than just getting a couple years down the line and thinking, I keep reading about Book Funnel, it's too late to ask what it is, and I don't really know now, should I have it?

Not sending you out here.

It's fine, everyone listening, I am the bad seed.

I'm here to show you.

I'm like, they're what not to do.

But that's fine.

I don't mind being a lesson.

But then you have, you know, published books without it.

Like you can do whatever you want.

It's a lesson in like, you can go about it anyway you want to.

Yeah, I think it's just, I think this is a hard mountain to climb.

You know, I've just listed off over a dozen platforms that I use very regularly, that I had to figure out how to use, that I have to remember different passwords for, that I have to remember where to click in each one of them every time.

And it feels exhausting and it is more exhausting to have to actually find those things from scratch without knowing anybody.

So hopefully this has helped people at least get a, you know, foot on the ladder with knowing what these things are.

Well, I think we can wrap that up.

I'm so sorry, that's such a short episode.

I know.

Next week's topic, we are diving into the focused podcast on branding and being.

So we're going to be talking about our niches, niches, niches, however you want to say it.

Yeah, so we're going to be really like diving into our niches where we kind of have done a little bit of work on this before we started in the podcast.

So what are your thoughts right now on that?

Yeah, my thought is definitely how do you pronounce niche or niche?

I think the English pronunciation is niche, but I do really like, you know, there's so many fun slogans and stuff about my ______, and people do say like, niches get riches.

And I do love that.

It makes you feel really cool.

Yes.

You don't want to say niches get riches.

Yeah, that sounds weird.

Also, I think niches sounds a bit more like, sharp and to the point.

So I think I'm going to say niche, because it was like you niche down, you can't really niche down.

It sounds a bit fussy.

I niche down, but that's fine.

We are two sides of the same coin.

Yes.

So I think this is going to be really useful because we, this is the first topic that I think we really got into together.

And it's one where we thought, bye next week.

Let's have worked out our niche, our niche.

And that was the first time we realized like, oh, we are starting too big with things.

So I think it will be useful to come and kind of review where we're up to and what we found hard about the process of figuring out our niches and where we're at right now and what we need to do next.

Rather than have somebody listen to the painstaking journey of us thinking, oh, I've made a mistake.

I need to go back 10 steps.

So hopefully it will be useful.

Have you got any other thoughts to add to that?

No, I think because I kind of it's been I've been mulling over it for like a good few months.

I'm just excited to get back to it because you pick so many things up when you're doing like planning and mindset stuff.

And then you can't carry them all at once.

So it's on a post it on my board niches.

And so I'm so happy that I'll be able to take that off, like, and just like actually finish what I started.

Yeah, I think it's useful for us to come back to it because I think we had a lot of thoughts about like, what is niche?

What is branding?

And then kind of what is our what are we writing?

Like, I think we brought up a lot of existential questions that we've had to step away from and really think about.

And hopefully now we come back, it is all crystallized magic in our minds and we will know.

100% Yeah, so I'm looking forward to that next week.

So by next week, I think if we can just come with a review of what we've done so far, where we want to go next, that's kind of what I'm aiming for.

Yes.

Excellent.

I just have to write down notes when they come to my head.

Yes.

I'm really looking forward to it.

I think it's going to be a really good podcast next week.

So thank you very much for everyone who's listening.

Welcome to what is now going to be the live updates.

So we're posting every Wednesday, and we will see you then.

Farewell.

You've been listening to Pen to Paycheck Authors.

Stay tuned for our next episode, and don't forget to subscribe to learn how to write your way to financial success.