S01E07: When stand outs strike

In this week’s episode, Samantha and Matilda try to strike the right balance of standing out, and fitting in when it comes to writing in their specific genres. 

By next week, Sam and Matilda will be diving into their author brand identities. 

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:

Fourth Wing tropes https://www.theauthorstack.com/p/fourth-wing-fantasy-eleven-tropes

7 Figure Fiction by T Taylor https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09FGZQV4D/

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 ads 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 their quit-the-day job dream.

If that sounds familiar, listen along for our mastery through Missteps Journey.

Each week, we cover a topic to help along the way, and this week's topic is going to be about standing out and fitting in.

But before we do that, we're going to kick off with our wins and whinges.

So, Matilda, what is your win slash whinge of the week?

I am going for just a win this week because we have had a great day.

I've just dropped my pen.

We've had a great day.

Every month, we meet for a long face-to-face session where we talk about the podcast, but also some in-depth things about our writing, planning, our big mastermind day.

We do all sorts of things, and we meet in the beautiful Museum of Science Industry in Manchester, which is a fantastic old building.

It's made of old railway warehouses, and it's enormous, and it's full of these really interesting interactive exhibits.

And my dad is now, he's recently retired, and he volunteers there once a week, and he's the one who told us that there's a secret, quiet area to meet in for free, where we could just sit and spread out and have our mastermind groups.

And my dad is also a photographer.

That's one of his big, he's always been into it, but it's his big retirement activity that he does a lot of work on.

He does lots of stock photography and really enjoys it.

And so I asked him to come in and take photographs of us.

I think we both needed some author photo redoes.

Mine is quite old, my dad did my original one, and it was a while ago now, maybe seven years old.

It's also not very on brand with my genre.

So that's also kind of touching what we're talking about today.

So he wanted those redoing, there's lots of nice backgrounds, beautiful old brick walls in the museum, as well as some interesting exhibits that kind of fit with my branding.

And then he also took some of us for the podcast.

So it was really fun.

He was very helpful.

He picked out lots of locations for us because they're every week and yeah, it was really nice to see something a bit different and to get those updated.

How about you?

Mine's the same, same win with our meeting, which I always find the most helpful.

I know that we do these podcasts every week and this is obviously very helpful, but meeting face to face is just like, it just makes things so much easier, but obviously like getting pictures taken as well, same.

I haven't had an updated picture for a long time and all of my pictures have just been selfies.

So it's nice to have somebody else, somebody else taking the pictures, even though I do do Chandler face.

Whenever a camera turns in my direction and my eye starts to kind of twitch and I forget how to smile.

It's always fun, but yeah, the fact that we've done that, across the list, I feel like it's a win, big win.

Very happy.

Yeah, and it's very on brand for like what we're trying to do with this group, it's just like, there's things that have been on my list for ages, such as redo my author photos, and just having another person do it, you know.

Obviously, I see him at it all the time.

I saw him yesterday.

Like we could have done this at any point.

So I think, but you don't, right?

You don't think, oh, I'll just organize that and find a good background and get the right outfit, because it's a lot of plava, has just everything to do with self-publishing.

Everything is like one thing explodes into 10 tasks.

This is not like that, but actually it's nice to do it with somebody else when you kind of got that responsibility to get it done for somebody else and with somebody else.

It makes it feel bizarrely easier.

I think it would seem to make people make it harder, but yeah, it feels a lot easier and it makes things much more doable.

So again, constant advocating for like, find somebody to do this with, do not go through this journey alone.

No, please don't.

Everyone find a buddy and hold on to them.

Mm-hmm.

So this week's topic, we're continuing with kind of an ongoing topic for a few weeks.

And this one really continues from last week.

So we were looking last week at niches, niches, how we figure out what that is.

And this week, we just wanted to make sure that we could figure out how we can kind of both fit into a niche.

So we wanna make sure we are fitting into that bit enough that it fits into also a wider genre or sub-genre that somebody would recognize.

And then how do we stand out enough to say that like, I have a really specific brand and this is who I am.

So how do we kind of combine those two?

And we have to come up with our plan this week to figure that out.

How have you got on with that?

Oh, I've come a long way in the last few days with that.

At the start of the year, I was looking at my comp authors and comp books just to try and figure out like where I sit within my genre and with like my contemporaries within the genre.

And I kind of dropped that ball because it seemed like a big task and I wasn't really there mindset-wise.

So I've re-picked that up this week to see what other people are doing and have come up with like a document that I'm working on, which I like to call my author Bible, to see like what everyone else is doing and what is expected of me for my genre.

So looking at tropes that people enjoy, but also looking at things that people don't enjoy.

So I have been trawling through reviews of books in my genre and looking at the negative reviews.

So I'm really sorry, but everyone's negative reviews have helped me greatly.

Because I think like learning-

But we talked earlier and saying like negative reviews are not objectively negative.

They are-

They're not, no.

And you really don't have to listen to all of them, especially like we said, people's opinions aren't always right.

It's just their opinion.

But by looking at quite a lot of them, there were a lot of trends that came out of the, well, of like the good reviews and the bad reviews, which has helped me to continuously narrow down on my niche and what the expectations are for my books.

So yeah, I feel like I have made a lot of headway in figuring out how to fit in by seeing like what everyone else is doing.

And then with standing out, again, this kind of ties in with what we were talking about last week with niches, niches, I was just gonna say both ways now, which is finding the things that I like and the things that I do well and making them my, like what I shout about about my books.

So yeah, like I've had a really successful week in, it really just all feels like mindset stuff still, even though I have got a document which I've written loads of stuff in.

It's more about like, I've really started to understand who I'm going to be going forwards.

Does that make sense?

Like, I'm very like such a floaty person, I just throw things, like I'm the person that throws spaghetti at walls and just sees what happens, but I feel like maybe I'm gonna be putting spaghetti in the bowl instead, like on purpose.

That's where my spaghetti is going.

Yeah.

Do you feel like it's been a process, like you had to spend time throwing spaghetti at the wall to figure out how spaghetti works?

Yeah, that's how I learn.

So that is definitely something that I've had to do.

And I know that there are some people who love to do all, like they like to get things right immediately off.

Like as soon as they start, they just know what they're doing, and they are very like, not narrow-minded, what's the word, just like really focused, and people can just do things off the bat.

They're great.

They know what they're doing.

I'm not that sort of person.

I'm such a scatterbrain.

I really have to learn from doing, and sometimes you have to learn from doing wrong.

Even though I have wasted a lot of years doing some wrong things, I do feel like those years haven't been wasted, because I wouldn't be where I am now if I hadn't gone through all that.

Yeah, I do feel like there's such negative language about it, and I use it myself, about myself, but saying things like scatterbrained and wasted years, it does really feel like, because you can see some people who started or seem to start from nothing and then became millionaires overnight, you think, okay, it's possible, and I am a hardworking, dedicated, smart person.

I'm creative, I could do that.

It's within my powers to do that.

But I think there's no point, there's no point kind of comparing yourself to somebody else.

So I think when we're looking at standing out, fitting in, it's not comparing yourself to somebody else and saying, how am I gonna copy their journey or their style?

You're not somebody else, you can't do that.

Oftentimes, it's not someone's first try.

Oftentimes, someone has done things you can't see, and there's no way for you to know that, and there's no point comparing yourself to that.

They might have a mentor that you don't know about.

They might have a lot of financial resources that you don't know about.

They might have a background in social media.

There's absolutely no point comparing yourself to somebody else.

I think all you're trying to do is make sure that you are being purposeful, deliberate, that you are kind of not, that you're not knowingly wasting time.

I think it's that, right?

I think that you're not, you can say, I'm working as hard as I can right now with the tools I've got, and that you happen to not have been born an expert in self-publishing.

It's not really your fault.

Yeah.

And I don't, I'm not angry at the steps that I've taken to get to where I am today.

Like I feel like I have, I appreciate every misstep, as well as every like, like good step.

That is how I learn, unfortunately.

Some people would think that I've taken a long time to get to where I am, but for me, it's just the right time.

Like it's just taken the time.

But maybe it's not unfortunate, I think is what I want to say is like, sometimes I think you can't get to a certain sort of creativity by going straight.

I know that a lot of people say in 20 books, like, and I'm sure it comes from other places as well, but you hear a lot in 20 books of like, there's a lot, there's many ways at the mountain.

Like there isn't one right way.

And it's not like the fastest way is the best way.

The fastest way is just one way.

And it looks the best because it looks like they have reached the summit first, but like maybe they didn't enjoy anything about the journey.

And maybe they dropped dead from exhaustion five minutes later.

That we all have a sense of what a goal is, like to climb some mountain or to be successful in full time or whatever.

Does not mean that the people who do it the fastest are doing it the best.

You, I think standing out and fitting in is a good discussion topic to kind of think about that in terms of it, because oftentimes, you know, if you're wanting to be maybe too focused and straight up the mountain, you can just try and fit in.

And I think that can be a bit soul destroying.

You can just say, who is making big money this year?

How do I do exactly what they did?

To an extent that is often not creative at all.

Like you will see incredibly similar covers come out to someone very popular.

You'll see similar titles.

You'll see their names slightly recombined.

It's like, what is the point of that?

You know, it's not theft, but it's not what we're here to do.

But then I think those people are, you know, really different to people that listen to this podcast.

And I think we all would agree that it's not what most people who are interested in writing here to do.

But then you can see like, oh, maybe I should do something like that because people are having success doing that copy.

And you can feel that temptation, but yeah.

But you want to be yourself.

Like I would rather, and I've always had said this like, and I think when I first said I didn't really mean it, and now I think I do really mean it.

I would rather it took 40 years to have a success that I want.

And that it felt good and that I felt like I had earned it and that it was exactly where I want it.

And it took one year to have something that looked like that and wasn't real.

Yes.

And I think I've seen a lot of people in my writing circles this week, talking about like feeling run down and demotivated and demoralized and all the bad words because their books aren't selling at the moment.

And there's like this huge trend of, particularly in fantasy, the spicy fantasy books are coming out.

And one of my friends, I don't know if she is gonna listen to this.

So I'm sorry, I'm not airing your dirty laundry.

I won't name names, but she has suggested that like, maybe she makes her next book more spicy because it fits in with the trend.

Because out of sheer frustration, she is like looking at other people's success and thinking like, why I deserve the same success, but like the flash in the pan that is spicy books is what might get me more sales.

I think everyone's had that thought, right?

It's like someone doing something similar to me and making a lot more money.

I could do something like that.

But it doesn't feel authentic to her and it wouldn't feel authentic to me.

I mean, for young adults, it's like not really something that I can really do and I wouldn't want to.

But yeah, I would, the idea of writing to a trend, I said this before in our meeting, there's like writing to trends and then there's writing, I can't remember what my exact wording was, but basically-

To market, we're looking at trends versus market.

Yeah, writing to market, yes, exactly.

So trends come and go, the market remains.

So like I know I want to write for market.

So my genre and what genre expectations are, but I don't want to write to trends because for me personally, it would be soul destroying.

And that's just me.

So as much as I could fit in more if I wanted to and I have my way into these places that I think is where all the money is, I don't think that would make me happy.

I'd rather take 40 years to stand out on my own, create my own readership and my own genre wins that people would look at me and be like, oh, I want to do what she's doing.

I would rather that took me 40 years and to feel the satisfaction of staying true to myself.

I don't think we can see it.

I think this is what I've been thinking of with, yeah, this is what I've been thinking of in terms of standing out and fitting in is, I'm thinking about a new series, to talk about this quite a bit.

I'm thinking about a new series and part of it came out of wanting to really be more deliberate about it.

So the very first series that I wrote, the Heathervale Mysteries, it was very accidentally quite to market, but not to market.

Just because I've read a lot of mysteries and I happened to be from England and have been, I like love small English villages.

I love cake.

I love crafts.

I basically am a walking cozy mystery.

You don't love murder.

I mean, I think a murder is around every corner.

I feel like people mention this increasingly, the more I write mysteries, like it's definitely increasing in me, but I have always been like, what could be happening?

So, yes.

So I think I am a natural cozy mystery writer.

So the very first series that I wrote, I did not think enough about it.

And I think it's not not to market, but it's hard to market it, which is like two different use of the word market.

But yeah, by which I mean, it's just, it's hard to, it's not a one click buy.

You know, people aren't seeing it and thinking, that's exactly what I'm looking for.

People who read it give great reviews and it's got, you know, good reviews in general.

It just isn't a book that people are thinking, ah, I must look at this and like tell my friends about it straight away.

And then my second series was quite similar.

I was like, I think we talked about this last week of, I thought, I really want to write a shorter series because quite often goes the shorter.

And also I want to be able to write more books a year and kind of be able to move a bit faster.

And I thought that would maybe be a bit, to be able to alternate those long and short would kind of help me mix it up a bit.

And that's as far as I thought.

And I did not think what's to market.

So again, I would say in fact, they're further from the market.

They are really a cross of like Cozy Mystery and detective fiction, which it turns out you cannot market that.

So then I thought, I really, really want to rise in the market, but not to trend and not to formula.

Like something that people will see and think I know exactly what that is and it's exactly what I'm looking for.

And so to try and combat that being to cookie cutter, I spent some time thinking about my butter list, which if anyone has read the T.

Taylor seven figure fantasy, I think it's called, though I constantly forget the name of that because it's never quite the name I think it is, but I'm pretty sure it's seven figure fantasy.

Yeah, so I look at it all the time.

I think it's like seven figure fiction for fantasy or something.

There's definitely fiction in there.

Who knows?

You know what, it will be in the show notes.

Yeah, I look at it all the time.

It is just not quite the title that sticks in my head because also it's not about fantasy, the genre.

No.

And it's not really about being seven figure author.

It's just what's slightly for trade arises.

The title does not reflect what the book is.

I can see why it's named that way, but which is a good lesson in titling.

I can see why it's named that way and it makes you click on it, right?

That's great branding.

It's very distinctive.

Currently the cover is like a bright yellow book.

And it is, if you even just Google like Butter Writers Taylor, you'll probably find it because it's very well known.

But it is really good at kind of distilling how to just think about what makes your book desirable.

And it has a lot of romance content in there because I think romance is much easier to see what makes somebody be like yes versus no, because romance readers are incredibly specific about their tropes.

So a romance reader might want enemies to lovers, but they don't want, I don't know, like no age gap stuff.

Just like this specific romance tropes.

There aren't that specific cozy tropes that you'll never read this one, I'll definitely read this one.

I love how people are so passionate about it.

So it's really the same romance.

And the book, The Seven Figure of Fantasy, might be called that, is really about kind of looking at slightly more detailed and nuanced parts of that.

I'm like, what is a thing for you that when you see it in a film, when you look at it in a TV show or read it in a book, you will instantly be like, yes, I cannot resist.

And for me, it's a bookshop.

Anything set in a bookshop, even if I am very aware it's bad, like I can look at it and be like, that's awful.

It's like going to be, it's gonna make me hate myself watching it.

I will watch it.

And I cannot resist.

And there are other things like that that I really enjoy.

Like I get a real sort of like thrill in your stomach, like butterflies in your stomach at the idea of it.

That is your butter list.

It's like anything that belongs on that.

And you will love writing that.

I love just the idea of writing something set in a bookshop.

My new series set in bookshops and I am so unreasonably excited about it.

It's just the smells, the sights.

They're like, yeah, all the vocabulary.

I love everything about it.

And like just thinking about it.

And like the same for baking and Christmas absolutely love Christmas.

I'm not putting Christmas in the series because it's too many things.

It's too hard to put together.

But I've got a lot of things in the series that are like things that are butter to me.

And they don't necessarily have to be in the whole series, the whole book.

So one thing I'm doing when I plan the first book is like going through and really thinking about the butter.

So that for me is how I'm going to stand out, is by like making this my passion project, like putting in things that I absolutely adore.

And so when people read my books, they know, this book is just a real visceral, pleasurable experience.

It is joy on every page.

And it will be things that are joyful to me.

So they'll be kind of things that belong to my branding.

So things like there will be a small English village.

There will be lots of cake.

Those are things that you get in all my books.

There will be a slightly sassy best friend or maybe a very sassy best friend, which I love.

There will be, you know, some like curvy women, great jazz sense, like things that I love that you get in all my books.

I want to just really make sure I'm foregrounding those.

So that is how I'm going to stand out.

Those things can all belong in a cozy mystery.

Many of them are common in cozy mysteries.

Some of them have a slight slant on that I really love, but I'm going to fit it in by saying, okay, I've got an enormously long butter list.

I'm looking at some comp authors.

And when I was first planning this series, I had a really, really, really convoluted concept of what was going to happen.

It was like layer after layer of like, okay, I want to fit in this, this thing that I love.

So she needs to start here.

And then to do something, she needs to go and leave her hometown and do this thing.

And then she fails and she quickly comes back and then she is in trouble.

And it was just like impossible.

It was horrible.

And so taking a bit of time to think, okay, I need to fit in.

I need to say, like, I meet all the expectations of Cozy.

And then I can stand out.

So I need to take some stuff out, or like think about how to reorder it.

Or in fact, some of it I've just put in as backstory and think I can do a prequel.

In fact, I need to do a prequel novella.

So like, don't put everything in the first two pages.

Yeah, that was really helpful to think about.

So coming at it from this from the standing out point and then pulling back was actually much more enjoyable than what I think a lot of people do is they come out from the fitting in point of like, what are my comporters doing?

Who can I be copying right now?

And then how can I add something that shows I'm not quite copying?

So that was really good for me.

And just making sure is focusing on this standing out versus fitting in has been a great way to like, give me some ever something of a reality check.

So I am not just doing what I've done in my previous series of like jumping in with not just both feet, but like both feet, head first even, like diving in, throwing away all the like safety equipment.

Don't look back.

Don't read the warning signs.

Yes.

Yes.

So just thinking about, yeah, thinking about fitting in has been really helpful.

And just using that to, you know, if you ever do like a writing prompt in like a writing group, sometimes constraints can be really helpful.

They really help you judge what belongs in something, and they help you consider something a bit more closely.

And I think that's maybe a good way to think about fitting in.

It's like, it's just a constraint on your writing that will in the long run help you make your reader more satisfied.

Well, like in most things, and this is something that me and my boyfriend talk about a lot, because we are really into films.

And we talk a lot about scripts and screenplays and things.

And one of the things that we always love to talk about, so I'll bring this up here, is that you really have to know the rules of the genre in order to break them.

So you really need to figure out how you can fit in to know where you can stand out.

Like you have to have that balance, because otherwise, if you don't know what your constraints are, you can't work with it.

You have to try and figure out how you're going to flow into and move around within it.

Yeah, it's interesting.

I just had a friend.

It definitely does, yeah.

I just had a friend.

So I watched Saltburn recently and really love Saltburn.

And it really captured an experience, because I am very much the same age and have a similar educational background as the writer of it.

So I also went to Cambridge around the same time as her.

And I had another friend who did the same.

And we were both very much the, let's say, the main character of the story of like the person who comes from a not fancy, poor school background, does not live in a mansion, and goes and is kind of like, has your eyes open in a way which is both good and bad.

So I really wanted him to watch it to kind of see the experience.

But he's very into like dissecting things and understanding narrative and stuff.

There's really nothing to talk about it, but he's not a writer.

So we were both saying kind of that both love Saltburn.

Really loved it because it's so capturing experience we both have.

We both have had.

And the first half of the movie is exactly the story of something we experienced taken to a fictional place.

And then the second half of the story is a whole different story.

And so it really felt like I could have watched two different movies.

Like there were two different movies put together.

And I love both of them.

But I think, you know, and it was such an interesting film that like kept everyone talking, kept us talking a lot.

But it did really feel like I would have loved it more had it slightly more stuck to my expectation of like either been more of the first film taken to the end or the second film more earned from the beginning.

And that was a really good example of standing out and fitting in, because it did do both those things.

I think it just didn't fit in.

It was like a hair off.

And no criticism because I absolutely loved it.

Like fine, you've got to take a big swing and it paid off fantastically.

But I think you do feel this look of like...

Sometimes it does.

Yeah, yeah.

I think you do feel this look of like, you know, it could have been slightly more foreshadowing in the beginning.

Like I could have expected things to happen slightly more in the beginning and found it more satisfying.

But, okay.

At some point, we should talk about reading with a critical eye.

And like, are watching things with a critical eye because I feel like that would be a really fun thing to talk about.

Yeah.

And in fact, I know Saturday Black does that a lot.

So I think there's, I think it can be really, really helpful.

I think not enough authors do it.

Just looking at things, thinking why someone's done what they did.

I did a master in creative writing, which I would not necessarily ever want to do.

It was interesting at the time that I did it.

And I got some good experiences from it, but I don't think it's necessary at all.

But I did learn a really good experience of taking a paragraph on a book and really like copying the sentence structure, the like type of word choice, and just word by word, figuring out the effect and the impact of everything you're putting on the page.

So I think we could talk a lot about kind of different ways to learn tools by reading, and like we learn tools on your own, which I think can be really valuable, and a lot of fun.

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Yeah, I'd love to do that.

In the future.

One more thing I think on this topic, but I think, did you have anything else to talk about on the idea of standing out and fitting in?

No, I think that I feel like I covered off all of my thoughts and feelings on it.

Mm-hmm.

I think the only other thing that came up today, and we were kind of chatting about this beforehand, was something that someone mentioned in a clubhouse group that I'm in for authors.

It's really good, actually, to just join a group of different authors talking about things that they've seen in the news or what's interesting.

So it brings together lots of surprising different topics.

It's a little bit like if we had 50 different people on this podcast, all just being like, you know what I heard today?

It wouldn't be a great podcast, but it's a good daily chat.

But in that one thing that came up that's kind of relevant to today is when Iron Flame came out, everybody was obsessed with it.

And everything I heard was, it's not my genre, but, and it was usually, it's not my genre, but I absolutely could not resist picking it up.

And it was an expensive book, right?

It was a full price e-book from the beginning.

There's no discounts.

It was like, I would never normally spend, what if I was $11.99 on a book?

I would never normally read books in this genre, and I could not resist it.

And I read the beginning of it, and it was so gripping.

I didn't buy the full book because, because I, I've got my, my to read list is enormous.

I was like, I cannot get sucked in by this, but I so wanted to.

Um, yeah, I, I mean, I sort of now talk about it, do want to read it.

No, okay.

But it's a really good example of standing out and fitting in because you really think I know exactly what genre this is.

I know what's going to happen even in the end.

I can tell already everything that's coming.

And I'm sure there's gonna be some twists and turns, but like I have got a very, very good understanding of like my experience I'm going to get from this.

It felt very safe and comforting in that way.

But it also stood out in that it just felt like crackling with life.

Like really, it was so exciting.

Just the feeling of like everything is happening.

Everything is at its A game.

And there's a really good article that was recommended in this Clubhouse group.

That's how I got onto this.

From Author Stack.

It's called 11 Tropes in 3 Pages.

And it's someone going through, and in fact reading a story with kind of a critical eye, and looking at the tropes that have been put in.

And when you look at it, it looks incredibly intentional, and I'm sure it is incredibly intentional.

I'm just like, how to hook a reader?

It's like a masterclass in how to hook a reader.

And it's just like taking tropes, butter, whatever you want to call them, things that are irresistible to readers.

There's a parent-child conflict.

There's siblings helping each other.

There's an impossible battle.

There's magical forces overpowering you.

There's everything crammed in that you just think, what's going to happen next?

I can't resist.

Do you really want to read that book?

I need to read this book.

I know it has been on my list for a long time and I just, the same, my reading list is already so big.

I just can't throw myself into another series, but I probably will at some point this year.

Yeah.

I think the thing about that is, is that they're so seamlessly blended together.

They don't feel like I am writing a trope.

They feel like this is very organic.

And it is a great example of standing out and fitting in because these are all tropes.

I've seen every single one a dozen times.

I've seen them in combination.

I've seen them in really, really similar books to this.

It was just that it's done really well and done in a way that does not feel like I am checkboxing a list of tropes.

So that is a great example of someone who is standing out and fitting in and doing it really well.

I can't wait to read that article.

Yeah, it was really interesting.

And it's what you think.

It's just someone going through the trope list, but it's a great way of just somebody dissecting a book.

And it's within the section you can read on the look inside.

So a great easy way for you to do some analysis.

I'll link to it in the show notes.

But yes, I think this is an ongoing journey for both of us.

But I think an important thing to keep front of mind is figuring out how am I giving the reader what they want while also giving them me.

Yeah, yes, very well put.

So for next week's topic, we're going to continue with these focused podcasts on branding and being.

And we're going to be talking about writing to our brand guidelines.

So do you already have thoughts on this?

I am about to start this new series next month.

And the writing process that really works for me that I found through trial and error is to write the first 10,000 words and then stop for a while.

Sometimes I'll do it for months on end, depending on how my schedule is going, alternating books.

But this one I'm intending to do a couple of weeks.

I'm really trying to get into this new series.

So write the first 10,000 words, see how that goes, and then come back with a very fresh set of eyes and edit.

And not necessarily do a huge amount of editing on it, but if needed, I can do a complete restart or I can just make myself some notes on what to change and then go from there and figure out am I standing out for it enough.

So before then, I really want to make sure that I've got an incredibly clear set of notes on what I'm going to put in in terms of the butter and make sure that I know that my butter fits to my branding.

So I think brand guidelines for me feels a little bit strict in terms of, you know, part of my day job I work in publishing and we have like style guides, writing guides, and those are really, really strict of like which spellings you can use.

They can be like what word choice you use in certain situations.

So I think for me, I want to make sure that brand guidelines feels quite broad, maybe not like not incredibly specific.

So feel really broad and make sure I'm understanding that I've got, you know, several things, such as English, you know, culinary, quirky, sassy, like making sure I'm fitting all those things in and find a way to make myself some sort of, not a checklist, that's not what I want, but some sort of thing to check against that I am meeting those requirements.

And that is hard to figure out what it is without writing myself what is going to feel like a very strict document that is like I've had for work.

I don't want to have that.

So I think for me, I want to figure out what do brand guidelines look like and how do I make sure I'm meeting them without feeling like it's a constraint.

How about you?

Yeah, I think that's a good way to look at it is because I similarly work in marketing and I have brand guidelines for the company that I work for, which is all about fonts, colors.

And the distance the logo is from the edge.

That was literally just about to say that, the space around the logo, all the good stuff, which is very, and they're very like, you've got to be on it or like people say his fits.

But I think for writers, brand guidelines aren't like, the term brand guidelines is very misleading.

I don't know what better term.

We came up with ourselves for this.

I know, but I know that there must be a better term, but brand guidelines, it does cover it, but I feel like we also might be able to figure out a better term for it.

That might be this week's plan.

Yeah, I think that one of my tasks this week is coming up with my butter list.

So I think that will all fit in really well with me.

I think it's just a case of for me figuring out what my necessary requirements are for writing, which is my butter, the things that make me really passionate about a project, and then also having the rules that I know I have to stick to for my genre and trying to find a way to...

maybe I'll be percentage based, maybe I'll do 50-50, or maybe I'll do 30 of this, and mix and match what I come up with.

I don't know what it looks like, but yeah, I'm excited.

Yeah, I think it would help to have something that covers not just this series or this book, it is you as a whole, which I think I have never considered having before, and I think I will find it really useful.

I don't know what...

Yeah, I do think part of this week's show should be finding a better name for it, because I don't think Brangadon is it, even though we did write that down ourselves.

But that's because of our day job backgrounds.

So step one, think of a new term.

Step two, create it.

Yeah, step three, profit.

Yeah, I'm just looking, sorry, just looking at my board that I've got all of my post-its and stuff stuck on, because I know that one of my sheets of paper has some words and stuff that I came up with that I wanted to stick to.

So I think that's going to probably come out as well, some sort of visual...

I'll do a presentation.

Nicholas Cage can move, and I'll put something there.

Yeah, yeah.

I think as well, you're very good on the visual side of things.

Maybe from your web background, I was naturally thinking about brand guidelines, including things like cover and fonts and social media and websites, whereas I often just think of it as the words inside the book, and that is too limiting.

Brand guidelines should cover everything.

So are you thinking about spicy fantasy?

How are you going to convey that?

Are you using reds?

Are you using slightly risky cover images?

I don't know.

I don't know what spicy fantasy is, and I really don't want to know.

It's not my genre.

You nailed it.

But yes, so I think that I really want to think comprehensively, so I think that's maybe where the branding guidelines comes in as being a useful idea of thinking about it.

Not just being words on a page.

It is, who are you being overall, and how are you being that person?

Yes.

Big question.

So we will talk about that in possibly a long episode next week.

Yeah.

Yes.

Well, thank you very much for listening, everybody.

And thank you for joining me, Matilda.

And we will see everyone next week.

Goodbye.

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