S01E10: When consistency conquers all

In this week’s episode, Samantha and Matilda look at how consistency can make or break your branding!

By next week, Sam and Matilda will be discussing pen names vs personas.

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:

Skye Warren’s newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/skyewarren/the-branding-myth

The Black Heron podcast episode: https://youtu.be/n8ZUvXomrrw?si=vcDQW2R2uwIHOfH-

The No Stupid Questions podcast episode: https://youtu.be/7btH7kE_SEg?si=IZu64Nkw3g2o_jLh

The Cozy Mystery Clubhouse Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/cozymysteryclubhouse/

Authors mentioned: Lynn Morrison, Benedict Brown, Skye Warren, Tonya Kappes

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 Matilda Swift, here with my co-host, Sam Cummings, 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 for our mastery through missteps journey.

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

This week's topic is going to be branding consistency.

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

Sam, what have you got this week?

My win is that I have been reading through the next book in my Wolf series and getting quite far into it and enjoying the story, which is nice because I've not read it since I wrote it, like, legitimately.

I don't have many memories of what...

I know the general story, but I don't know the details.

And as much as it's, like, terribly written, the bare bones, like, the structure of it and the stuff that's there is good.

I've laughed out loud a few times to myself, which may be sad, but I find it funny.

So that's been going really well.

My whinge of the week is that I've fallen out of my routine of, like, working after work.

So my five to nine routine has shifted slightly, I think, because it's been a bit cold recently, so I've not wanted to come into my office because it's cold in here.

I could put the heating on, but I'm cheap.

So I have been sitting in the living room.

It takes you time to do it.

Then you have to wait and you're like, then you get out of wanting to do it.

Yes, I definitely have a winter problem I have at the moment.

Yeah, so every time I get home, like in January and most of February, I was getting home from work, coming straight to the office, sitting down and doing my writing and editing, and then going off and having dinner and stuff, and doing the rest of my night.

And for the last couple of weeks, I have not been coming in here, and I've just been working on the sofa, and that's like a no-brainer.

Terrible habit to have.

So I'm going to try and pull my socks up, as teachers used to say to us in primary school.

I'm going to try and get back into the office, like habit of coming into the office and doing the work.

How about you?

I'm sort of very, I got similar things, but it won't sound similar to start with.

So I think I'm only going to go for a win this week, and my win is alignment.

And I feel like I sort of talked about this last week, and that like, I think I was doing a lot of that authenticity and authenticity in both my author life and my real life.

And I think, I know when I'm thinking about the right things, when every part of my life starts to sync up in terms like all the podcasts I listen to have got episodes of the same thing I was just talking about, and all my friends are having the same conversation.

You know, I keep kind of delving into the same topics.

So I feel very aligned right now, and it's not all aligned in good ways.

So one of the ways is in fact, in terms of routine.

So I have a really good friend who lives in Hong Kong, and we talk over, in fact, we talk over Skype, because for some reason, it's the most consistently workable one for us too.

It feels like we're in the 90s, it's very exciting.

So we talk over Skype about once a month, and we're often talking about kind of ways to improve ourselves and ways to feel better about ourselves.

And one thing we're talking about this week that we're both struggling with is routines.

And that I think we both have had periods where, because we're quite similar in that we're both very driven at doing something outside of work.

So I do writing and he learns languages and to a phenomenal degree, he is very, very fluent in multiple languages.

And we both really care about pushing ourselves in all areas of our life in a way that feels enjoyable.

So I think we have seen times of our lives when it feels like, oh, I'm eating right, I'm thinking positive thoughts, I'm working hard, things go well in my day job, like I'm firing on all cylinders.

And we both had a piece of fin that way.

And then in the last couple of years, we have both absolutely let every single good routine and habit slide.

And I've kind of, I think we've both had little like sparks where it's like, okay, I can keep it going for a few days.

I've got it.

I found kind of like a keystone habit that makes everything go well.

And then it falls down again.

And so we're talking about that.

And then the No Seabird Questions podcast, which is, it's quite a good podcast.

It's from the Freakonomics group.

And it often has really seemingly simple, but thought provoking topics about kind of self-motivation and things like that.

The episode that was out today or yesterday was about routines.

And it was about, do we need routines?

And it was all about ways to get better routines if you need them.

And then we were talking last week about kind of a lot to do with, you know, thinking about branding and authenticity.

And then we're just talking right now before the podcast about sort of feeling overwhelmed and trying to figure out all the things at once.

And the Black Heron podcast, the one that Sasha Black does with Rachel Heron, and they do once a month, was basically all about that exact topic.

A really good episode, I want to say it's episode 18 or 19, but it's the one that was released quite recently.

So it would have been like the February or March one.

And it was a good episode.

So I'll put a link in the show notes to it.

It's a good podcast in general.

It's kind of like this one.

It's just two people talking about their progress in writing, but they're further down the journey than us.

And there was some really good updates, but both of them were really talking about kind of how to recognize and how to stop those times when you feel like you've lost all your control of what you can do.

And some of you like lost routines and like feeling overwhelmed, but like not even feeling overwhelmed, but like actually being overwhelmed, like having too much to do.

So, but that all sounds like negative things, but actually I really, really think it feels very positive to me when it feels like I'm not alone in a sort of negative space.

And I definitely got lots of friends I'm having really similar conversations with about like, I've got, I'm trying to fix a million things at once.

I'm trying to figure all that out.

And I feel like I'm struggling in this area or like, do you have any problems in the similar areas in terms of like, you know, could it be routines, could be small things, like I'm feeling unhealthy right now.

And everyone's just been like, yeah, me too.

I was like, okay, it's not just me.

And that feels like it's probably just the time of year.

We've gotten through new year and February.

And we've, everyone who's like, been really on it since the first day of January is probably now getting a little bit tired.

I would say it's like for me, I feel like the opposite in that like, I didn't get on it this year.

And I kept like trying to like rev the engine to get on it.

And it felt like I didn't get that.

I'd kick in a few months of feeling that.

And I think to some extent for me, it feels like a sort of post-pandemic thing of, I've sort of cobbled together enough fixes that my life looks quite similar to how it was before, but it's not feel the same way.

I feel like I'm having to very, very consciously do everything.

Yes, definitely.

I hate going on about post-pandemic life because I feel like everyone's really sick of talking about it as though it's over and done with.

But I don't, I just don't talk about it because I don't think other people want to acknowledge it.

But for me, I am still reeling.

I'm still like, I'm not over lockdown.

And I'm resuming, quote unquote, normal life.

I can't, I just feel really weird about it.

And yeah, I try not to talk about it because other people are just like, yeah, I mean, that was years ago.

To me, it was yesterday.

My concept of time is different to yours.

I would also say, I think some people are just more sensitive to those changes in themselves and the world around them than others.

So I think it, like I've made my life look a lot like it looked before in terms of what I do, my behaviors, my interactive people.

But it is taking me a lot more effort to make it look that way.

And I need to maybe go back and sort of think again about, I'm having to really consciously do every single thing rather than have some things on autopilot.

And I just cannot get my things back on autopilot.

And it is exhausting.

And I'm tired.

That's how I feel right now.

But I feel really glad that I'm not alone.

I feel really glad that I've got lots of friends and lots of things are coming into me that feel like there's a sort of synergy.

Maybe that's the word rather than like alignment.

There's a synergy and everything feels like it's working the same way.

So it feels fixable.

It feels like I'm doing the things, doing the right things to get this fixed.

Or not even fixed, to get this like, you know, changing.

Just working.

So yeah, so that is good.

And I have also been writing this week and loving it.

So that is great.

Just this week, I didn't get anything done during the week, which again is like, I'm really struggling to get back into my writing routine as well.

I write in the mornings before work and actually 5am is dark and cold.

It's a hard time to wake up in England in March.

It is not the time that I acknowledge.

No, it's not my fave.

But yes, I have done weekend writing and it's really fun.

And it's been really great and relevant to what we're talking about as well in terms of branding, because I'm kind of starting something new, having to make a lot of, again, conscious decisions, rather than if you're in the middle of a series where you haven't just continued stuff.

So it has been positive.

And again, alignment, synergy, everything.

It is definitely alignment.

So how did you get on when you were looking at slash exploring author branding and consistency?

How is that channeling you?

Yeah, I feel like I don't want to go first this week because...

So I'll give you a little bit of background.

I was like, you have to go first.

I know.

But I will go first and talk about a few things, but I think my thing is going to sound, the way I've approached it, is going to be not as productive as yours, and that we're going to hear yours and you've done the project.

So sort of mine is that a couple of weeks ago, I haven't done the thing.

Or even like last week, I haven't done the thing.

So I'm finding a lot of these...

I think it was both.

So I think a lot of these topics that we're setting up, I'm there when we're making them.

I'm there when we're writing down topics we should cover.

Often I'm suggesting these.

So it's not that the topics are wrong.

It's that I think that I'm often finding through trying to look at the topic that I actually need to look at something further back in the process or a bit deeper or just at a different level.

So I think all these kind of topics that we've set ourselves, when I start research and then I realize like, oh, that's the thing I really need to look into.

So that is useful, but I do I'm aware that like that is what I've done a few weeks in a row.

And to an extent, I actually did last week's topic.

I did this week's topic last week.

So I looked at like author consistency and how they do that.

And I listened back to last week's podcast.

And if I listen to the end part a couple of times, because trying to figure out like what I had said I would do and why I said I would do it.

And I said, oh, maybe I'll look at my own website and socials and figure out some sort of consistency.

And I sat down to do that.

I just felt like I wasn't getting anything out of it.

Because again, I know what my website looks like.

Not great.

I know what my socials look like.

Fine.

So I think in looking at those, it wasn't what I needed to do.

I think I needed to be more critical and make a business decision about those things.

And I only came to that looking at them again and looking at other people's.

So if we take a step back in the journey, earlier this week I got a message from another Cozy author who runs a really good clubhouse for Cozies.

We've got a great Facebook group for it as well.

I'll put a link into that if any Cozy authors are listening who are not involved.

So let me put Cozy Clubhouse.

It's great.

It's a chat for predominantly indie authors who are in this genre, and really interesting conversation.

And so some people that listen to the podcast, and Lynne who listens as well, sent me a link to Sky Warren's latest newsletter.

Yeah, I think I've signed up to it and don't consistently read enough.

So Sky Warren is, you know, unsurprisingly, a romance author.

Because romance authors are the queens of everything.

In terms of like, branding and publishing everything.

So she had a really good newsletter this week that pretty much echoed what we said last week, actually.

All about kind of branding is your feeling.

But the article is a lot of times it's really nice to hear what you thought repeated back to you in different words.

And funnier.

I mean, she's not funnier than us, she's different funnier.

Yeah, she's not as funny as us.

Because I think we've established that we're the funniest.

Who could be?

So yeah, so I read this branding article and I was like, okay, yeah, so I do feel really solid, like branding is a feeling.

So I went to look at some different authors, socials, to try and get a sense of like, okay, how can I get the sense of cohesiveness in their brand?

What is it?

And in fact, I started with Skye's Instagram, which is great.

And I think looking at that, I was like, okay, so she's in fact very, she's quite a spicy romance author.

You know, I would say looking at it, like if you've seen like TikToks and spicy romance authors, think of that.

So very open the erotic language.

And I think that's a great thing we said before about like romance authors, that they're just like very, very open and embracing things that other people, I think, will feel a bit conscious of putting on social media.

So like really, really, they're forced to like absolutely lean into something and like make a big swing, which I think feels really great.

And it's easy to not do in other genres because you're putting in broadly acceptable, you know, socially acceptable things, like no more questions.

So you never have to make that decision of like what we're posting, is it okay to post?

Whereas romance authors, fantastic, like have to make that choice and make it really well.

So I looked at our socials.

I looked at a couple of other author socials, who again, I know I haven't looked at before.

So I looked at, I looked at Lynn Morrison, who is a Cozy Author.

I looked at Ben Browns, who is a very successful Cozy Author, has a great newsletter.

I looked at a couple of other, looked at Tonya Capp as well, who I've mentioned before.

I'm sure I make a note of these whilst I can put in the show notes.

So who is it about?

Thin Ben and Sky and Tonya.

So I'll put links into those.

It's worth looking at those.

And then when I was looking at them, I did get a really clear sense of people who had really strongly gone in for their branding.

And definitely like I would say Tonya and Sky.

I've got really clear sense of who is behind that, the feed you get from that.

And they have got very, very big follower numbers.

And as I was looking at that, I was trying to get a sense of which posts have got most engagement.

And really none of them was the end result.

So I have definitely found this an issue on Instagram.

It's like definitely engagement is dropping.

When I was looking at my posts recently, the most engagement I get is like it's mostly family and friends, which didn't use to be in the past.

And I've got like over a thousand followers, but Instagram doesn't show it to those people.

And even the people, I think Tony's got like 5,000 followers, Sky's got a lot of followers.

You know, even they are getting 50 likes per post.

It's crazy.

I don't know what's happened recently.

Yeah.

And so I think I was sort of trying to think of like Instagram.

Then I was like, oh, I shouldn't do Instagram then.

It's actually, it's not worth it at all.

And if I looked at it in kind of a business perspective, it's not worth it even slightly to anybody.

Right.

And really people are not looking for authors on Instagram.

You could just let it go.

And like so Ben Brown, Bennett Brown is a very successful Cozy Author.

Doesn't read on Instagram at all.

It has a very small number of followers, follows few people, doesn't post that often.

It isn't his main venue of communication.

He's got a fantastic email list, a fantastic newsletter.

And I was like, really, what I should do then is post more to my newsletter.

It's very time consuming, which is why I don't do it.

But I love writing a newsletter.

I definitely started with the promise of only posting once a month, but I know other people who started that way have said, click here if you want to sign up to an extra newsletter about these topics.

So I could easily add an extra newsletter in a month, and I would enjoy it, readers would enjoy it.

And I still felt when I think about that, I still felt like, oh, but I don't want to leave behind Instagram.

There's something I really like about it.

And I think what I really like about it is it feels to me like a testing ground for your brand.

So it feels like you get to very regularly make choices of what does my brand look like?

And I find the visuals of Instagram, the little tiny bit of text that goes with it, are like a really good short, clippy way to kind of say, this is my brand.

And I'm guessing that's why a lot of people do it as well, subconsciously, because no one's getting any business benefit on Instagram, right?

Like even big, successful authors, nothing is coming of it.

No one's looking at their posts.

No one's interacting.

So I think I haven't come down to an answer yet in terms of, like, looking at branding consistency.

Where I'm looking at at the moment is, like, just branding embodiments and, like, maybe what the purpose of the different venues in terms of branding consistency is.

So it's like Instagram feels like its purpose to authors is to test what your brand looks like and to try and articulate that regularly and briefly.

And that really the tried and true is the newsletter.

And I often repeat stuff from my newsletters on my Instagram and, like, vice versa.

And that maybe I want to reframe my brand as one that is doing more communication, direct communication with my readers, and that the way I do that is my newsletter, rather than thinking, I love my socials, I'll make my socials different.

That doesn't feel productive or useful to me.

So I'm still thinking about it and kind of what I want to do with it.

But when thinking about consistency, I have really thought about, like, actually I wanted to go back and do a real rethink on what my brand uses to communicate.

Yes, I think that's a really good I mean, and that does come under consistency.

That's like a big thing is what do you consistently use to talk to your readers?

And I do think that every platform has a completely different purpose.

Facebook has a different purpose.

Your mailing list has a different purpose.

Instagram has a different purpose.

TikTok, completely different.

None of these things should be used in the same way.

And I'm really bad for this posting.

I'll post an Instagram post and I just directly, I've linked it to Facebook, so it just goes straight through to Facebook.

It's not a great business thing to do because the things that I post on Instagram don't hit the same.

I've got completely different followers on both socials.

I just do it because I'm lazy.

Busy.

You're busy.

Yeah, I'm busy.

Busy slash lazy.

So definitely consistency does have to be framed in how are you consistently using the platforms that you have access to.

I don't think that's the wrong way to look at it.

I think it's a very smart thing to do, is to go and have a look.

I didn't really look at other people when I was looking at consistency, because I know that other people are far more consistent than me in how they present their brand.

And from looking at people the week before, I've already had a good feeling, a good sense of how brand works for other authors.

So in my look at consistency, I've written like pages here, so I will try and like figure out my own writing and try and read this, so it doesn't sound like I'm reading something.

But I, because I've been focusing so much on my branding, in how it looks and like the name that I publish under, because I'm going to be changing that at some point this year, which we'll talk about next week, that's, I feel like that is only like a small part of my brand consistency.

Because after I read that article that you just talked about, this guy, Warren Warren.

Yes.

It was like, like you say, like having somebody say what we'd already said, but in a slightly different way, kind of opened, it's just so much easier having someone say it to you sometimes.

So I read it and I was like, yes, makes sense, makes sense.

Yes, yes, yes.

So I just started to think about what am I already consistent in?

What do I already do that is good?

Because I'm just trying to build on what I already do.

I'm not trying to like completely reinvent myself.

Let me just see where...

Well, I'm just going to mention about the Skywarren article, she was very much talking about like, your brand is what you already do, and it's what you do in your writing.

Like you will have repeated like scenes even or repeated actions.

I had a thing today where I wrote a scene where it was, the end of a chapter is an alarm sounding and the beginning of a chapter is, or it's a siren, it's not a siren or an alarm, it's someone's life alert.

We talked about this the other day and I just added a bit to it.

And I was re-reading that today.

I was thinking, I'm sure this sounds familiar.

I've done this before and I have done it before.

Because I've done it before, it's like an alarm sounds and it's someone's watch going off.

Like a watch reminder.

And reading that Skyrim article made me think like, oh, I sort of wondered, should I take that out or change it?

But it's like, I do like it when you kind of have...

It's a motif.

Yeah, like things that you think, oh, that's a middlesworth thing.

And I have a number of things like that.

I mean, every single character in every book that I write is addicted to coffee because I'm addicted to coffee.

So literally, I talk about coffee a lot in books.

And sometimes I think, maybe this character isn't going to want to drink a lot of coffee, but they do.

And that's just like, I'm happy with that.

And I'm sure that there were other things, even like turns of phrases, just the way that we talk and the way that we write is very personal.

And it should, I think, without realizing you are automatically creating a brand with that.

And after reading that, the article, it made me feel better that I hope I don't have to work so hard to define my brand because my brand is my writing.

Yeah, which definitely when I was saying last week, like I had restarted writing after a while and felt like, oh, this is a Matilda Swift book.

And I had sort of felt disappointed, like I hadn't suddenly become a superstar, amazing world's best author of some sort of incomparable genius.

But I had stayed with Matilda Swift and that is also a positive thing.

And there are things like stylistic tricks that I just do over and over again that I sometimes feel a bit conscious of.

It's like, you know what, that is my brand and I'm just going to love it.

Yeah, same.

I mean, I'm always describing trees and always the sky and the weather.

Because for me, it's such a huge part of my story.

I do often think like, how many times can I describe the sun in the sky?

And turns out every time.

That is really interesting because I think I've never mentioned the sun.

Oh God, I'm always talking about the sky and sun setting and sun rising.

And like the storm clouds and forever.

Like every scene is like, right, well, but what's the weather like today?

But that's how they discovered who Elena Ferrante really is, right?

It's like someone analyzed, like literally analyzed the techniques of writing that someone had used.

This is the same as other person.

Yeah, so I think that that's a really nice thing to realize.

Because I never realized that I am the brand.

It's me.

Hi, I'm the brand.

It's me, yeah.

Okay, so what's in your copious notes?

Yeah, so in my copious notes, I'll start with socials because like you were saying, like socials is just, it's just such a blah place at the moment.

I just, I'm using it for completely different things.

And I realized, and I said this last week, I think that for a long time, I was using Instagram as a place to find other writers.

Because it just, you just kind of got pulled into certain circles when you're on socials.

And I thought, oh, I should be using Instagram to find my group because everyone wants to find their group.

Everyone wants to find like a cool gang to be a part of.

But like at the end of last year, I realized that that was really stupid.

Like, and I have met some nice, I've connected with some nice writers on Instagram.

It's great.

Same with TikTok.

But it's such a wasted thing to do when you could be test using it as a test ground.

And ever since I realized that I started using it more as a place to try and to show who I am and just be consistent, like be more consistent in, in trying to show my personality because my personality is a big part of my books and my interests and things, like lots of various interests.

And also just like test out different ways to describe my books, like try out different blurbs and catch a little phrases and sayings and see what quotes work well.

So that is how I'm going to try and use socials going forward is just being a bit more, just like enjoy it, make it, make it fun.

And try and keep the consistency in terms of when I'm posting because the algorithm likes that.

But more just like the consistency of like the way that I'm addressing people, the way that I'm, what I'm posting.

Like I said, again, like I've got my three pillars of content.

I'm just going to focus on those, be consistent with that and try and enjoy it.

Because it should be, there should be parts of being a writer that are fun.

Like the majority of it should be fun.

And yeah, so I'm definitely going to be more consistent in enjoying socials because I think that comes through.

I do see a few people using their Instagram and threads as well, I guess, which is like a new thing.

And they are writers who complain a lot about anything and everything.

And I find it, I don't want to say anything to them, but I find it, like they're using it wrong.

It really puts me off as a reader.

I just think, oh, yeah, I don't want to be in their world because it sounds negative.

That's it, because you're trying to invite people into your world and the world you create.

So you have to be the hostess and be all nice and stuff.

So I mean, particularly for like Cozy Mysteries, you don't want to come across as a nasty person.

And I don't want people to look at me and think like her books are not going to be great if she's got a bad attitude.

So this is completely false.

I'm an awful person, but I'm just pretending to be nice.

That's not true.

It's not true.

I have met you face to face.

Surrounded by many screaming children in half time in the museum.

And where we meet, I think if you can maintain a positive demeanour in that, you're good all the way through.

Right.

So what else on my list?

Sorry, I'll just look to the next page.

I don't know why I did it like this.

Consistent with...

Right.

This is a big thing.

And this will come up more next week, but I will touch on it because I feel like if you talk about consistency, this is like key to it.

Is writing and sticking to your genre and not jumping around genres and creating a brand identity and persona and just everything that people can look at and know exactly what to expect.

And I didn't do that.

So when I started, I don't want to tell the whole story because it will be long and boring.

But when I started self publishing, it wasn't because I thought I was going to be a full time writer.

It was because it had always been a dream of mine and I was scared to tell people.

So I wrote a book and published it under a pen name and didn't tell anybody that I'd done it.

I told very few people.

And then I continued to do that and then at some point, I stopped being embarrassed or scared to tell people.

And now, and I jumped around genres because I didn't think people were looking at me.

But now people are looking at me.

It's like what they don't know what to expect.

And I have read this in reviews of some of my books, people saying, I didn't really like this one.

I much preferred her other book and it was a completely different genre.

So instantly like that reader doesn't know what to expect from me and didn't like my main genre.

And so isn't really a real reader.

And I've wasted their time and it's not like a good, it's not going to be a good relationship.

They're not going to enjoy every book that I put out because it's not the book that they read that was a different genre.

So this, later this year, I'm phasing out my other genres and just sticking to my young adults.

And I'm going to change pen name and my branding and I'm separating.

And then I will be able to just completely lean into the persona, the business that I want to be running.

And people will then be able to see, okay, well, this is her now.

I can expect all these things that she's been promising for the last two books, three books, because the next one will be coming out soon.

It'll be really obvious to people.

And I think that that is, I think it's great that some people can jump around genres and it doesn't bother them, it doesn't affect their readers or reviews or sales.

But I have not had that.

And it's my own fault.

I don't think it's your fault.

I think it depends very much on kind of what we were talking about earlier.

How much of your writing style is your branding?

And how much your writing style carry across between different genres?

So you think sometimes you're writing in near enough genres, you might have quite a strong voice in your writing, and then that would carry across enough that people would like both, even if it's not always their genre.

Yeah, so I think like Stephen King, for example, he writes horror, but he also writes other things.

He did write under a pen name for some non-horror things, but actually they're kind of still creepy and weird, so they sort of belong under that, and he now just publishes just under Stephen King.

And I think even, I would say I don't particularly like horror as a genre, but I really, as a teenager, started reading his books and just really liked his voice.

And so I kind of feel like I would read anything Stephen King liked and I would know the voice I would get and kind of the homey feel you would get from reading a book from him.

Like I would read, I was going to say read romance by him.

I maybe wouldn't read romance by Stephen King.

I would read a fair few different genres.

Misery?

Is it misery or romance?

I mean, it's an unusual romance.

Yeah, so I would read a fair few different genres from him because I'm not reading it for the genre when I read a Stephen King book.

Obviously, he's going to be famous, so you get away with it from that.

So I think it's not that you can't jump genres.

I think it's that it takes a lot of reader trust to do it.

And if you're thinking, you build up that trust.

But the actual style does not prevent you doing that.

Yeah, I do have to say, I do think that my style is similar.

My characters are varying ages, so my middle grade office is a young character.

I have an urban fantasy, they are much older.

And my young adults are teenagers.

So the way that they speak and the actions that they take and what they're doing is obviously very different.

But I find that my style is still very similar.

I can tell.

I can tell I've written them.

I think you can tell I've written them.

But I don't feel like I'm winning any favors with people by doing them.

And I've been feeling that for a while.

It's just not helping me out in any way.

So I just want to get on track and have people know every book that comes out is going to be of a particular style and filled with coffee, talk and trees.

And sunsets.

Always talking about sunsets.

So yes, I just need to...

I'm really excited to just be more consistent.

And I feel like over the past few weeks talking about branding and things, I started as a huge transformer, I was all different shapes and stuff, and I'm finally molding into the right shape.

That's a terrible, terrible analogy in my head.

That's how I feel.

Yeah, so then this brings me to the part where it was all about writing.

The style of your writing is your brand.

So I feel really confident in the style of my writing as being part of my brand.

And even though this is the first year where I've decided to take it really seriously and try and be a career author, I can't wait to get to a point where people can expect books released at the same time every year or within the same times every year.

I'm really looking forward to that, having that kind of process, which is what we've been building and working on for months, processes and promises and all the fun stuff.

So I'm super looking forward to getting to that point in my career where I can make a promise and deliver a book when people expect it.

And people are excited and they know, like, oh, around this time, Sam's going to release the next book in this series.

Huzzah.

Yeah, I think that's something we haven't talked about at all, actually, is about release schedule consistency.

Yeah.

And I definitely read a lot of advice saying, like, oh, it's maybe better to release less, no, fewer books, but more consistently.

That's really hard to do when you're a newer author, because you don't necessarily know how long things take, and you don't know what your response is when life throws something in your way.

And you're trying to get on the full books a year train.

So you think, oh, I'll just keep pushing it.

Maybe this year I get on the full books a year train.

I don't want to say I'm a two book a year author if I haven't tried it.

I'd definitely be trying to get on the full books a year train.

I think really I'm a three book a year author.

I don't know.

Really I'd like to do two books a year, I think.

Oh, yes.

Because I really like...

Currently I'm writing my book.

The book I'm writing is I'm doing it at half speed.

So I would normally try and do 10,000 words a week.

And I would beat myself up if I weren't doing that.

And I'm currently trying to do 10,000 words in the first...

in two weeks, the last two weeks of March.

But that is the first 10,000 words of the book.

And it's of a new series.

I'm trying to be slow deliberately.

But the being slow is really enjoyable.

And finding myself thinking about and putting things in that I maybe would not have done if I had rushed.

I definitely have a feeling of more haste, less speed sometimes in writing.

And I think I do better going slower and having fewer edits.

But I really struggle then to get to a stage of really schedule consistency.

Quite often if I can, I try and release something around my birthday.

Between October, it's going to release my very first full length novel as my birthday.

It's a nice, I can remember when that is.

It's a nice date to always try and release something on.

So I've had a couple of years where I've done something on that date.

I'm going to try and put out the first book in my new series on that date this year.

But I would like to have that and, you know, three other books a year.

That just feels, it feels impossible right now.

Right now, yeah, 100%, because we're working at nine to five.

So that is a very big ask to expect people who are effectively working two jobs.

If you're lucky, I've basically got three jobs.

I could probably count something as my fourth job.

So I'm always forever doing stuff.

I would love to do four books a year.

I just think that that would be a magical, perfect life of constantly producing, creating.

And I can see it all in my mind.

I could see the process, but I don't think I'm anywhere near there.

And I would be happy to start with two books a year.

And for the next two years, I have a two book a year plan.

And I'm okay with that.

I do feel like four books a year is only feasible if you're writing in series, because once you're in a series, the entry speed to a new book is much lower than the entry speed to a new book in a new series.

Because you're often picking up threads you've laid down already, and the characters are not new.

And you kind of know where you can fudge stuff, right?

You can leave a bit undescribed and think, I'll come and do that in the edit.

I'll figure out what they said there.

And I'll know what sort...

I feel like I can trust those characters to have done this by the time I get to the end.

That makes me think, and this isn't something to do with this really, but as a writing process, would you write a whole series in one go?

Would you write all the books before you released?

I don't know.

I've gone round and round about rapid release before, so that's definitely a big piece of advice, one piece of advice, like write three books in rapid release.

But then the other argument against that is you can't keep up consistently, so don't do that, because you're saying it's half-fuck for authors, half-fuck for readers feeling disappointed in you.

I would like to, like I'm currently, so I'm currently writing book one of a new series that isn't going to be released until October.

By then, I think I should have book two mostly done, and I will set them up so that books one, two and three release slightly faster than the rest of the series.

But I don't know if that's the right thing to do.

I don't know if the better thing to do would be to space them out more consistently.

Because right now, I'm not going to release anything for ages.

I released a book in November, and I'm not going to release a book for essentially the best part of a year.

I have got a novella that I can release on Amazon.

But actually, I think I'm meant to be releasing right now, and I've done a thing about.

It's not really a release.

It's like it's a free pre-corne novella, which I think, again, there's kind of two arguments about, like, should you put it on Amazon or not?

I have a free pre-corne novella to my other series that does quite well, and I think it is nice to have an entry point, and some people are just not going to join your newsletter.

So I think I'm going to put it on Amazon.

I don't think there's a downside to it for me.

I kept it off for a while thinking, maybe I'll see how it goes, see if it's wildly successful, the game of the newsletter, but it's not, and it's also for my smaller series, so I'm not fussed.

So yeah, I've got a book to put out this year, so it won't look like my kind of reschedule is completely blank, like I've dropped off the face of the planet.

But essentially I'm going to best part of the year without releasing something because I'm starting a new series and because I had really burned out everything in my back catalogue, everything I've stored up to kind of keep on a vaguely speedy schedule last year.

So yeah, so I would rather get to consistency and I'd rather always have a book, I'd rather be a book ahead if I can't be, just because then you've also got a bit of leeway if life gets in the way.

Yes, I am unfortunately like four books ahead, which I say unfortunately because it means that I know that I have two years of work ahead of me, like already planned.

And that to me is horrible.

What do you think, already planned?

Like, what do you mean?

Like, are they written?

They're all written.

Yeah, all of my books, all my books for the next couple of years are written and just waiting for edits.

I feel like this is like a mind blowing.

You've got four books just sat on your hard drive.

Like, what are you waiting for?

Why not publish now?

Because they all need editing.

Because I basically, four years before I started publishing, I was doing NaNoWriMo.

And for the books that I wrote for NaNoWriMo, they were all full length, young adult books that I love.

And I still love them and they still have legs.

And now it's like, now I'm releasing them.

So I've got like, I was writing the series as like NaNoWriMo projects.

And now I just have like, all the first drafts on my hard drive.

Are they very messy?

Like, is it six months worth of editing for each book?

No, they're not six months of editing.

I'll probably say, maybe.

I don't know.

100%.

Because I am like a two week edit person.

Yeah, I'm definitely not a two week edit person.

I am at least a few months.

But that is actually part of, and I feel like this is like tagging on to this podcast.

So this is a different podcast.

But I'm still trying to figure out my writing and editing times in this new mindset of being a real author.

So the next couple of years is just like an experiment.

I have the work and I have the work ethic.

So I know that I'll be okay, but it's definitely going to be a...

I'm logging my times for things and seeing what works.

And it'll help me figure out my future.

Yeah, I think that's really helpful.

I've definitely gone through periods of trying to think like, can I write messier as a first draft?

Can I write faster messier as a first draft?

And then spend more time on edits and do more rounds of edits.

And the answer is like, that feels to me incredibly demoralizing because I end up just throwing huge amounts of content away or being so attached to it because it's been for so long, but I can't throw it away.

So the process that works best for me is just to like, write relatively slowly on a first draft.

Because like 10,000 words a week is not really that much considering how much time I put into it, but I am doing a lot of going back over previous words.

So I am, even though I would say I only do one round of edits, like real edits, like I would do a proof, sort of two quick proofing rounds.

This is a podcast for the future.

Yeah, yeah.

I can't wait to talk about our processes because we have such different processes.

Yeah.

Completely different.

But I do think I would like to try a different process.

I think I would.

I would really like to be, in theory, faster, but not on the expense of ruining my process.

But yeah, I think release consistency is a really hard one, and it's maybe an impossible thing to get right as an even vaguely newish author.

Like, I think you have to be years in to have got, you know, enough.

Yes.

Enough time.

Enough time.

And also enough excitement from your readers and stuff to feel like you're fulfilling their desires.

Because that all feeds into it as well.

Like, if you know that you've got people who are excited to read your next book, then that would definitely help with your whole scheduling because you know that they're waiting for it.

And when you don't have that, the demand...

I work so much better on a time...

If I know that I've got a time frame, if I know that I've got a deadline, I mean, yes, I'll leave it to the last minute, but it makes me work harder in a shorter amount of time.

Yeah, it gives me something to work towards and I can't wait for that time where people are asking me, when's the next book out?

I can't wait for that.

I definitely think a big thing that I'm trying to do this year is acting as though that is true already.

And I don't really feel like I've got a good enough sense of how to get there, but that is where I want to get.

I'm really...

Yeah, I think I mentioned before, I've done Sophie Hanna's Dream Author program, and she is a big fan of like, just act as if you will achieve your dream goal.

Like if you knew for certain, like a hundred percent certain you're going to achieve your dream goal, like what would be the steps looking back that you would have taken to get there?

And she's also a big fan of like the be do have.

So like be a successful author, like act as if you are that person, and then do the things that that person would do, and you have that success.

And it's not original to her, it's like a very common coaching way of looking at things.

But I do think the people I know who seem both happiest and most successful are like medium delusional in a great way.

And I think...

As the internet says, delulu is the solulu.

Yeah, I think it is.

I think the more I think about it, the people who I know are, who genuinely get the things that it's set out to get, they set ludicrous goals that like everyone else is sort of laughing behind their hands at.

They set insane goals, and then they check if it's going to happen, and then it does happen, and everyone else is like, how?

How do you possibly do that?

That seems criminal.

Let's not say the M word, but I do have the M word in my mind a lot.

Like you do have to manifest things.

It might not be magic, but it certainly is Einstein's theory of creating your own reality by the power of your own thoughts.

If Einstein believed it, who am I?

Einstein was kind of crazy though.

I think he believed in manifesting.

Yeah, he was completely about manifesting.

Just pictured him with one of those big Hydra flasks.

Oh gosh, he's got a Stanley Cup, yeah, for sure.

Yeah, because one of those big things.

Good for him.

Yeah, but I do think...

Did he date Marilyn Monroe or someone?

That wasn't him.

No.

No, but I think if they lived the same time, maybe he'd go for it.

I don't know.

Yeah, he lived in his own reality.

So yes, I think manifesting has got a bad name and I think there is a strong benefit.

Oh gosh, there's a big something over my head flying around.

Sorry.

Yeah, I think there's a strong benefit.

In fact, there's maybe no downside apart from the fact that other people are laughing at you, which who cares, to being willfully delusional, like intentionally delusional.

So that is what I want to do this year, is act as if some people are desperate for my new series.

It's going to be the series that they're going to be in love with.

Because that is about a great thing about Sky Warren's social media.

It's like looking at that, she's like unapologetically in love with her own work.

She's like, as all rumors are, there's a high in a great like way, like they'll put quotes from her own work as though it's like literary gold.

And I was like, oh, gosh, I would never.

I try and do that.

I try and do that with mine.

I try and find quotes to put in social media stuff.

And nothing that I write is that, is that I can't delude myself into thinking my book has quotes.

But I think that is tricky.

Like, obviously, romance is much easier because you get these really short, short, like sexy quotes.

And so I was trying to think today, and I didn't come up with that, so I haven't really talked about it.

I was trying to think, what is the mystery equivalent of that?

And the site form of the mystery equivalent is like, it's the kind of long, slow teasing out of the answers, which is like harder to write a short quote.

But I am writing culinary cozy, and so I've got a lot of food descriptions in there.

So I'm just wondering if I can deliberately make sure I'm writing things in there that would make better quotable food descriptions.

Marketing starts when you're planning the book, as I recently learned when I listened to a Sasha Black podcast about writing a series.

And one of the things that they talked about was the fact that they will try and come up with those marketable scenes before they start writing the book because they know those scenes will be good fodder for social media.

And it's just, again, like one of those things, when somebody else says it, it makes so much sense.

Why am I so dumb?

But I think it feels, it does feel, that's the way our writing society is set up.

Like the writing is one thing, the publishing is another thing.

But as a self-publisher, you have to think about both.

And in fact, you have to.

You are given the rare and golden opportunity to think about both at the same time.

You are, like, your own marketing department gets to be like, can you include this in the book?

And like, yeah, absolutely I can.

I've got you, girl.

Yeah, there needs to be a steamy kiss here.

Yeah, there needs to be like a really snappy comeback or a really scathing insult that you can then share on social media and people will love it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think that is why I can do that more.

I think if I'm saying like eccentricity is one of my key kind of emotional pillars is I love writing an eccentric character, but I don't think I do it in a quotable way.

You know, I think they're often sort of long, comedy descriptions over several pages that sort of drop in and out, but I can think more deliberately about like, how could I put this in in a way that would make it easier to show people like, this is what you're getting, come on in for this.

And it does feel uncomfortable to think like, oh, I'm going to seed in social media content.

But what you're really doing is like saying, this is a way in which I can tell people this is what you want.

You will love this.

Well, it's like when you're, when they come up with the trailers for movies and they put the particular scenes and lines in the trailers, so you know exactly what is going to happen in the film.

Don't want to talk about trailers right now, because I have a very strong feelings.

But yeah, they put in, there was particular, you know, an action film is going to have somebody saying something like, well, get to the chopper or, and just something really specific and dumb.

But on genre.

Is going to tell you, yeah, completely on genre.

And they've been doing, movies have been doing that for years.

So now that we're in charge of our own movies in our head.

Oh, it's like writing the trailer into your script.

Write the trailer into the book.

Epiphany.

Yeah, okay, that's a good epiphany for today.

So we need a little sound effect.

What the trailer would be.

We'll figure that out.

I'll look for something.

Just for now though, I'll just say epiphany.

Fireworks.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think in fact today, this has been a much more productive talk than I really had thought it was going to be, because I really felt a bit like I'd unpicked things rather than sewing things up.

But I think unpicked in a good way and in a way that leads really well into next week.

So do you have anything else to say on this topic?

I just wrote myself a nice paragraph at the end of my notes to say like, I'm so close to being consistent with my brand.

That's where I'll end it.

In the best way.

So for next week's topic, we're continuing our series on re-branding and relaunching.

We're talking about pen names versus personas.

This is how tired it was this week for me through three attempts to write the word persona because I kept spelling it like persona, like the P-A-S at the beginning.

So I'm already saying my answer probably not a lot, but do you have any thoughts on this already?

Yeah, I think that we came up with this because I mentioned at some point when we were coming up with topics for the podcast that I am phasing out Francis June as a pen name, and I'm going to start publishing under my own name because everybody knows me as Sam, and nobody knows me as Francis June.

We'll talk about it next week.

So yeah, it's going to be a really good week for me this week, thinking about this, because I really need to put some thought into my pen name and what my future holds on a personal level.

Yeah, I think the only thing that I've got so far kind of in mind about it is something I was thinking about while doing this week's research is like, I want to be consistent.

I want to be meeting these pillars of emotional kind of branding.

So I'm kind of coming back to the idea of authenticity again, but I was like, but how authentic?

That feels like it shouldn't be a question, because how authentic is like, there's no degrees to authenticity in a way, right?

You should be like, I'm myself, or I'm not myself.

But you don't want to give all of yourself away on the internet or to anyone.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

And also I want to...

I'm me, but as the brand of the author of these books, there's other versions of me, right?

There's like me that, for example, this week I spent a lot of time watching Love is Blind, which is not the author me and it's not my best self, but I have enjoyed it and got a lot out of it.

I liked having some brainless fun.

There's like me that spends several hours in a bubble bath.

That's not my best self, but it's part of me that I love, but I'm not going to post about it.

No, we could, next week is going to be insane if we talk about things like that, because I am one of those people who could have those really like high concept, universe pondering conversations about what it means to be authentic and what, like who you are as like the different...

I can't tell you how many personalities I have.

Yeah, I think that's the issue is we can say multitudes.

So next week is the week when we have our like face to face long meeting before the podcast.

So I think this will be actually a good conversation to have off mic because we don't want to have a seven hour podcast.

So we'll have like an off mic conversation trying to figure out some things like nail down some philosophical concepts of self.

And then we will, once we have covered all the philosophy, then we will come and record a podcast and explain to everybody how we have decided to present ourselves on screen as both an authentic and limited version of ourselves.

I'm optimistic.

I'm optimistic.

I think that's a very fun, a very fun topic that we will be covering.

Yeah, I can't wait.

But yeah, I will be thinking about it this week because obviously with my whole synergy situation, everything in my life is coming down to the same topics over and over again.

So I'm sure whatever I look at, listen to and read.

Everything everywhere, all at once.

Yes, something about hot dog fingers will come to me and also what they just do.

Yeah.

Yes, so next week will be a good one.

This has been a long one this week, but I think kind of a good one.

It's kind of touched backwards and forwards on lots of different topics in this series.

Yes.

So hopefully it is clearing some things up in people's minds.

Definitely clearing things in my mind.

I thought it was going to be a confusing one to say about, but actually I still feel more clarified, epiphany, trademark.

Every week, I feel like I am just pushing more trees and branches out the way.

The clearing is almost here.

Yeah, which is really good, actually.

Because I definitely have had a couple of months trying to figure some of this stuff out on my own, and I felt like, oh, I'm just digging down.

I was digging a deeper and deeper hole, which is like when I'm stuck in a hole, I don't want to be in a hole.

I want to be going through this forest.

Yeah, the podcast feels like a good metaphor.

Welcome to the forest, everyone.

Watch out for the holes.

Yeah, I'm so sorry.

I dug some big holes earlier that weren't helpful.

But they were maybe helpful.

Maybe they could have done like oil or water.

I don't know.

I feel like it's too late for this metaphor to continue.

It all felt useful, but this feels like a very fruitful way to discuss it.

Like two people trying to clear a path together, two heads in this case, is much better than one.

So really enjoyed this one today and looking forward next week to pen names and personas.

So we'll see everybody then.

Yes.

Goodbye.

You've been listening to Pen to Paycheck Authors.

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