S01E12: When rebranding isn’t relaunching

In this week’s episode, Samantha and Matilda discuss rebranding and relaunching. Are they the same thing, or are they different beasts entirely? 

By next week, Sam and Matilda will have reviewed the first quarter of the year and come together to talk about their wins, their failures, and what they have planned for the next quarter. 

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:

Kate Pickford: https://www.youtube.com/@kathrynpickford4705

C.N. Rowan: https://www.facebook.com/cnrowan

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 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 Miss Steps Journey.

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

This week's topic is going to be rebranding versus relaunching.

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

Sam, what are yours?

I have some major wins from this weekend.

I strangely am on track with a lot of my goals, and I finished writing the book that I started in November for NaNoWriMo.

Tight to the end.

I think the total might have been 127,000 words.

I don't know how you do that.

Are you going to cut it down?

What will it end up as?

I'm going to aim for probably 90,000.

But I feel confident.

I also finished my read through of my next book in my Werewolf series.

So that was a fun thing to do to refresh my memory on the story.

And now I'm mulling over how I'm going to save it.

And I also had a meeting with my formatter friend who is formatting my next book that's coming out early next month.

So I had all these big checkbox things going on.

And I'm feeling kind of excited, but like, I also feel anxious.

But I think it's just like, I think it's excitement, but it feels like anxiety.

They're very similar things, yeah.

They're very similar.

Yes, I'm trying to reframe my mind so I'm not panicking.

How about, I'm not going to say any whinges, because I don't feel like I can whinge about anything because I'm winning.

So what are your whims slash whinges?

I think I also have excitement, anxiety.

Excite, anxiety.

Excitement.

Excitement.

Excitement, I think.

Yeah.

Which is something I've got all win on a whinge of the week.

So I think I was talking last week about, I've been talking a few weeks in fact, so I'm starting a new series, and I like to always start by a new book I do in the first, about 10,000 words and then walking away and reviewing it later and then kind of repacing it.

I often restart it completely and feel much more confident second I'm around, but I have never done what I have decided to do with this one at your encouragement, which I think is the right move, but feels anxiety, that I'm just going to throw away the whole thing and start again.

And I think what feels tricky about it is that it's good work.

It's good writing.

It's a good story.

It's like the same level as my previous stories.

But I think I have got enough of an idea of what I want to do to make it really great.

And I want to go into the series, feel like it's something different.

So I think I might have mentioned this last week, but that is definitely my win of the week, is that I've sort of sat with that feeling.

It's been my brother's wedding this weekend, so I really haven't had time for writing.

I've been doing a few odds and ends of like, you know, last minute wedding conversation things, and then prepped for that, took a whole weekend.

We had the whole family come stay at my dad's house, and I spent a lot of time with my unbelievably cool little cousins, who are both flower girls, and who are both like, independent, like, I don't think I want to get married, boys are gross, let's just hang out together.

Like, yeah, me too, guys.

So I had no time for writing, but it really let me sort of sit with the decision and wait and see kind of how that felt, and also decide if I had thoughts that are kind of inspiring new things with the series.

And I have, we will be talking a bit, and we're going to talk soon more about X meets Y branding, I've been thinking more about that.

And I've also been thinking about what could I, what would I add in Dreamworld to make the book even better?

And I think I've got an idea, so I'm going with that.

I have written maybe the first paragraph so far, but I am away for a little break.

I live fortunately very near Howarth, which is where the Brontës lived.

So it's a very, very literary little town.

It's like half an hour bus ride from my house.

It is fantastic where I live.

So the bus goes right past my house.

It's called the Brontë bus, and it takes you to Howarth.

And I will spend the weekend there, diving into my new series.

Whole Easter weekend, my entire family's on holiday, brothers on a honeymoon.

My parents are off for a trip for my mum's sixth year.

So I'm all by myself, diving into my work.

No distractions, no family being like, come and eat some meat and eggs, have some nice food.

No, just me and my work.

So that is a win, but an anxious win.

Yeah.

But I think if you're feeling excited, anxious, that's a good sign.

I know people think that's like floofy thinking, like to think like, oh, anxiety means that you're doing something that's supposed to help you grow.

But it really, that's how I have to interpret it.

Otherwise, I would just spiral into a pit of despair.

It's like, if I'm feeling anxious, it's probably because I'm going to do something that's going to help.

I'm going to learn.

I'm going to come out of it the other end and think, I'm glad I did that.

Yeah.

I think if I just felt anxious this week, if it had grown on me just going towards just anxious, I would have thought, you know what, that was maybe an impulsive decision.

Let me go back and rethink about it and just make sure how I feel.

But I think that this week it has felt like, yeah, it feels like there's nerves at a big new thing.

And I think also I couldn't do this without having done all my previous books because it feels like I have thrown away books before completely and like completely written them.

And I've also started books regularly.

In fact, I'm not sure I ever know who the murderer is when I start the book.

I don't know what the plot is.

I just start and then see where it goes.

And then I kind of go back and re-plot it once I've started.

I really like to kind of open things up quite loosely.

So that feels good in the new series.

I'm just going to go in really loose and I can tighten up later.

I feel confident about that.

So, yeah, I feel ready to take a really big swing with this, which feels great.

That's really exciting.

I'm so excited about it.

So, our topic of the week this week is exploring rebranding versus relaunching.

Do you have like, well, what have you come up with?

What have you been thinking about this week?

I think my initial thought was, I can't remember why we called it rebranding versus relaunching.

I think it might just be in the list of we had a few versus things that were kind of similar.

Whereas I actually think, to me, the place that we're at now, having talked a lot about branding, I think rebranding and relaunching, they feel like two things that are not necessarily polar opposites.

Because I think when we originally thought about it, we were thinking of, oh, you could rebrand and tweak your work and your presentation and your brand, or you could completely start again.

But actually, I think really they're both just the same thing.

Because I think even though, yeah, and I think that, oh gosh, there's something flying around in my room, so apologies if there's a noise or something, it keeps flying into the lights.

Even though they both sound like really big things, I think they're actually both things I should be thinking about more consciously all the time.

Just like we were saying with the new series, I'm thinking about I want to be able to take a big swing with this series.

That's not really in my brand so far.

My brand is kind of like, hello, here's my book, I hope you like it.

And I don't want that.

I feel like I want to be up there with the people who are taking big, big swings, who are just like, you know, we were talking to before we got on about, an author that I think we'll come around to later, who has just launched really big this year, and he's written eight urban fantasy books in advance of releasing the first ones.

He'd written several, and he just had a huge amount of faith in himself, and came out big, had great taglines, got a great Facebook page, has done everything with full self-confidence, which I think I wasn't ready for when I first started.

And I think I would say the same, that you would agree with that about yourself.

It felt like I wasn't ready to come out and be like, I'm the world's best writer, I'm amazing.

And now I feel confident I can come out and say, I know what I'm writing, and if you like that, you will love this.

If I can find the right people who like what I'm writing, they'll really like it, and I feel confident about that.

So I think, I wish I had thought more about rebranding and relaunching, feeling like constant options, rather than you need to have a full stop and then start again.

Is that similar to what you've been thinking about for this topic?

No.

Okay, that's good.

Yes, but no.

So only because I'm coming at this differently to you.

So I have been publishing under the pen name of Frances June, and I really want to step away from that and start publishing under my own name.

So for me, rebranding, I know I do understand the difference between rebranding versus relaunching, but I also know that there is rebranding and relaunching.

So I think rebranding is like if you're just going to change your covers to maybe fit into a different, like to make sure you're within your genre expectations, I get that that's kind of like rebranding to make sure like everything ties in with what people expect.

And relaunching can be part of that marketing plan.

But for me, I'm rebranding and relaunching, but I really want to be doing it under a different name.

So mine feels like a lot bigger and a lot scarier, and like a lot more mind bending, because I've been looking into it on Amazon, and you can't change the title of the, you can't change the author name on an already published book.

Yeah.

Are you going to add a second author?

I will be adding a second author to my profile, but it means that one of my books is out at the moment, Curse of the Wild, not to plug my own work, but it's Young Adult Werewolf.

It's got a gorgeous cover as well, so worth just looking up for that.

I love that cover.

Yeah.

But obviously that's published under my pen name, Francis June, but that series is going to be going on for the next couple of years.

And within the next six to eight months, I want to change my publishing name.

And so the next book that comes out towards the end of this year, I would want to publish under my new name with my new brand.

But that means having to figure out how to redo the first book in the series with my actual name.

And it seems just really overly complicated that Amazon are like, well, what you have to do is you have to publish it as a new book, but put in a caveat in one of the boxes when you're doing it, that this has already been published under this name with this title.

And it feels like a recipe for disaster because I see so many people on Facebook in the Facebook writing groups I'm in saying Amazon have shut down my account.

And I feel like that is something that would make Amazon shut down my account.

So I really like...

Yeah, that is a...

It just scares me.

It's a worry, right?

I don't know how feasible it is.

I think you do just see...

And I think the problem is with those people who are talking about it on Facebook is those are often, you know, they're rare in terms of like some people doing it, but they're scared.

They're so scary that they're loud and everyone jumps in to be like, Oh, my goodness, try these 17 things that maybe sometimes work.

So it gets a lot of attention and rightly so, right?

It's petrifying if that's your source of income for everything.

Yeah, I do know it's maybe worth looking at Mona Marple, the cozy author that I think I talked about last week, who is relaunching everything under her real name, but has done it by putting her real name, writing as Mona Marple.

So she has both names listed as the author for everything that she has previously written.

But that works for her because her pen name was very well known.

It's been around for a long time.

But I think for her, it maybe avoids the worry of having two books.

I don't know if that's why she did it.

I don't know.

But for me, that would be a positive incentive that you can just add a second author onto it, even if both of them are you.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think that's probably what I'll end up doing for the first book.

It's just because it feels like it feels messy.

And as much as I'm a messy person, that kind of like admin mess is what I don't like.

Like messy in real life, fine.

I've got stuff everywhere.

I leave cups all over the place.

I've got a junk drawer.

I've got a junk chair.

I've got a floor job.

You know, I'm doing all the messy stuff.

But in my admin life, there's not a thing out of line.

And it just stresses me out to think.

Do you feel that's because it feels like you will, you're minimising the option to get in trouble?

That if you do something slightly wrong, that you, I don't know, is it that you feel like you get in trouble?

Or I don't know, it's a bit psychologically deep, but like, or that you just think other people see you making a mistake?

I don't care if I make mistakes and if people see it, it's just more, I don't know, it just feels, it feels like being, like it makes me feel like it would be tangle-y, like I'd be tangled in something annoying.

That's like, I don't know, it's very hard to describe the feeling.

Did that impact your decision to change your pen name to your own name?

No, I think if I was just, if I was just stopping full stop on the books that I've got under my pen name, like drawing a line and starting a new series, it wouldn't bother me.

It's just having this one that's going to linger.

And I think I just need to do some like mega research into it and see if other people have done it.

And if I have a process, like a step by step, this is how you do it.

And I haven't got that right now, but if I can find a process of this is the best way to republish a book under a new name, then I will feel better for it.

I just need to know like what the steps are and how to like minimize the chance of Amazon deleting my account entirely.

Are you a member of Ally?

I'm not a member of Ally.

I know I do need to...

It's on my list of things to do, which I'll talk about when we do our quarterly reviews.

Yes, it's one of the things I have yet to take off my list.

And on my list is make more use of your Ally membership because I'm a member because I think it is a good organization and I am aware it is useful, but I do not have the time to look around the site and find out what's useful there for me.

I'm behind everything at the moment.

That's really how I feel right now.

I think next week's conversation will be very welcome.

But yeah, what we could do is next time we meet face to face is look on the Ally website.

I think they've got really good resources on there.

They also I think are good at, or like the only consistently recommended working solution to getting banned by Amazon.

Try everything else in Ask Ally.

Yeah, one of the big pluses is that you've got such good resources and such knowledge behind you when you partner with them.

So I definitely will be doing that before I make any changes because that just seems like the best bet.

But also with rebranding and relaunching, I'm trying to figure out when the best time to make the switches over to my new stuff because I've got my branding sorted out.

I've got my new logo, I've got all my taglines, and I really want to redesign my website with all the new stuff.

But I'm trying to figure out when the best time to do that is, how close to my next book coming out.

It's kind of all like the fun stuff.

It is the fun stuff because I love the creative side of it and having something to sink my teeth into that's not particularly just writing.

It's just another fun avenue of being a writer or a publisher.

It's probably the best way to say it.

Yeah, I think it's the right thing.

So I did rebrand a series last year.

And I'll talk a little bit more about the process of that because it was useful to kind of maybe go through the thought process behind the way they did it.

But I think one thing that I wish I'd done is made a bigger deal of it.

I really just like...

What I would say is I didn't rebrand.

I just recovered a bunch of books and I could have used it as a rebrand.

And that was a missed opportunity.

That is a rebrand, but because you didn't talk about it, you have treated it as though it's not.

But that is a rebrand.

But you were just too scared to say it.

Yeah, I think what I wish I had done is, imagine that you're James Patterson, who is my example, because I have literally just started listening to the audiobook of that Dolly Parton book.

I hear it with her.

I think it's called Run, Rose, Run.

I've just started it.

Dolly Parton records a voice in it.

I thought he had just got her to write some formal lyrics, but I love her voice so much.

So she's in my head.

Imagine you're James Patterson and you're about to rebound yourself as like Jonathan Taylor.

You know, that's quite a big rebound.

You change your name.

People need to know about this.

You've also dyed your hair blonde and you've had that weird, some weird plastic surgery, so you've just got no nose and you've grown a giant beard.

So like you've really done a lot to change yourself.

Like, I don't know why we do this, but he would treat it as big news.

He would be like, huge announcement.

There'd be countdowns on his Instagram.

There would be timed launches of everything around the world.

The news would go out, there'd be press releases.

And I do think, I really wish, and I don't think I could do it right now, but I would like you to do it.

So I really wish that, that indie authors would treat their own changes and reruns and relaunches as if people are waiting for a baited breath from them.

That's how I want to treat it.

I really want to be doing countdowns, maybe some giveaways, just treating myself like the celebrity I know I am deep down in my heart.

No photos, guys, no photos.

Yeah, no photos.

But also, you know when you see celebrities or singers, artists, and they are waiting to launch like a new album, like Taylor Swift, if we could just be a little bit more Taylor Swift announcing her millionth album, and then teasing the titles of the songs.

And so much goes into her marketing machine.

That's how I want to treat my rebrand, my relaunch and my books.

And I feel like when I've done that in the past, I haven't had a good reception.

I don't get a lot of pre-orders, and I just have always fizzled.

But I don't know if it's because I'm just like...

I feel like it's a mindset thing.

I feel like I'm just kind of missing the...

Just like that little bit that's missing that if I could just figure out what that bit is, it would work.

But I don't know what that is.

I think maybe that thing is just putting myself out there more on the internet.

Because at the moment, I'm just in a few places, and I feel okay in those places, but there's bigger steps that I could take.

I could put myself out more on Facebook groups that I'm in.

I don't really contribute to them, but I could.

I also really want to get more into using Bookbob and the other one, Bookfunnel, which is...

And Goodreads.

Bookfunnel is my next big thing, and it's starting that next month.

That's one of my big things.

The big difference between you and I and our first launches is I had put out a free book before I started, and had got...

I don't know if you've got my mailing list, but enough of my mailing list that I knew I wasn't talking to nobody, and it made me feel like I should keep writing my newsletter, which I actually feel terrible because I haven't done recently.

I need to get back on that.

That should be too busy.

But yeah, I felt like I keep writing this.

I can keep writing books out.

I had consistent small numbers, but growing of pre-orders, and that felt really worthwhile launching, worthwhile doing a launch thing at least a little bit.

I think that that in particular is my missing link, is growing an actual readership.

And I have got stuff that I can give away now because I've been working on some short stories.

So I do have those, what do we call them?

There's like a particular word people use.

Like reader magnets?

Reader magnets, yes, thank you.

So I have a reader magnet, and I thought I would get that done and get my account set up this month, but I think I'm going to start in April and have that be like my next quarter goal is to build that up.

So I'm getting there, and I think that if I can just work on that, like putting myself out, getting into mailing lists, like doing some swaps of people and working on building like my readers and interacting with people, that's something that I've missed.

So I'm excited to do that, but that's my thing.

But yeah, I think that is why I think I want to do more of.

That's why I want to restart this first book of the new series, is I want to feel confident launching in that way.

I want to be able to get an ARC team and put our call for ARCs in limited places, guys.

This is so...

It's going to be able to subscribe because I'm so popular.

It feels uncomfortable, obviously, the idea of even considering that, but I think, you know, I don't have my own personal tree pain.

Like Taylor Swift has got the only tree pain there is, so I need someone else to be like my publicity whiz, and that person is also me, who believes that I'm worth all the effort and that everybody wants to read what I've written.

This is...

Well, this kind of circles back to what we started at the start of this year, which was our Orner Ross course and about viewing our working or our writer's life with different hats on.

So you need to develop, and me too.

I feel like I've really nailed my writing hat and my manager hat.

And the manager hat is probably the one that I thought I'd struggle with the most, but I feel great about what I've achieved.

And obviously, this is something we'll talk about next week, so make sure you tune in.

But my marketing hat is still the one where I'm kind of getting used to wearing it, and I am producing stuff that is kind of hitting the mark on socials, but it's like, it's the smart marketer that I need.

I have the fun marketer, but I need the shrewd one, the one that just has the answers and does things not on a whim.

Yeah, I think my marketing, at the moment, my marketing level feels like I've got an intern working for me, who's just like, you feel like, just try some things, try some stuff out.

Don't worry if it doesn't go well.

Here's a project, give it a try.

You're not getting paid anyway, so it's fine.

I feel like I am hiring myself as a marketing intern, where it's like, I have been in this game now for years, and I also, in my day job, we do a lot of things that overlap with self-publishing.

And in fact, next week in my day job, I'm running a Skillshare session on Facebook advertising.

And I think I actually don't know a lot about Facebook advertising, but I know infinitely more than anyone on the street, because most people have not ventured into Facebook advertising.

I have done it, I've run ads, I've made the break even.

I know where you put all the mysterious information that they need, or you said last time I logged in, but I can figure it out again.

I feel like this scenario has consistent issues with my life.

Everything that I can do, I take for granted, and I don't appreciate it enough, and I don't push it further.

I don't do enough with it.

I definitely feel like at the moment I am not doing well with any hat, because I'm trying to juggle all three higher than feels comfortable, but that's where I need to be right now.

So I think I'm maybe fine feeling uncomfortable with my hats right now, because I'm trying to find a way to make them juggled higher.

This is such a stretched metaphor.

I'm so sorry.

I get it.

I can visualise the hats in the air.

Yeah.

But I think because I'm constantly trying to juggle these hats in a way that I feel like I'm always moving too quickly between the different hats, like the manager, marketer, maker.

I feel like I'm never confident enough in any single one.

I'm always trying to just, you know, quickly zip them on and off as fast as I can.

I do feel like I'm not making enough of any of them.

I'm going to say this for you and for everybody who's listening or watching, if I ever get around to putting this one on YouTube.

It's so easy to get caught up in how fast you think things are supposed to be, because the internet makes it seem like everything's happening instantaneously.

But it doesn't.

Like, the people who are looking at your output will be thinking that what you're doing is fast.

They'll be like, oh, she seems like what she's doing, she does it so well.

How does she have the time to do this and stuff?

But they don't see all the stuff beforehand, so it's just all an illusion.

Nobody is doing anything fast.

So you have to try and just get comfortable with how much time some things take.

And don't feel like you need to rush to do stuff.

Because that's just you.

Nobody who's looking at you thinks that what you're doing is slow.

No, definitely.

And constantly, whenever I go to writing groups, people are like, how have you published any books that alone several books in a year?

I published a book in November, and I'm just still feeling like, gosh, it's been so long, what am I going to do?

I published a book literally in November, it's March now.

And I do feel like it's been forever since I've made any progress.

But yeah, anyone who's looking at it would think, just published a book in November, crikey, we should be having a sleep.

Yeah, I think, I think I'm now trying to get back into writing, and I'm still trying to juggle the manager marketer.

And obviously, I've had a really busy month with lots and lots of things going on.

But I think because of that, I'm kind of easily slipping back into the old sense of, I just need to get back on the hamster wheel.

And I'm finding it hard to start to like retain the idea of, I want to launch big, because I know I've also got to write big.

And now I've just thrown away basically all of March's work.

The March event wasn't a huge month, a huge month of time, but like a thrown away, not thrown away, but as in, it feels like that.

Because I'm trying to write big, I'm taking time on that.

And then if I want to market big, that's going to take more time.

Right, but you don't have to do all the hats at once.

But there's only one of me.

I know.

But if you want to focus one week on writing and then the next week focus on marketing, it could be that the marketing stuff that you want to do only takes you a couple of days to figure out and that sees you through for three weeks.

I think it's one of those things where I have this in my day job as well.

Sometimes things get really built up in your head.

It's enormous.

I need maybe a solid month of no talking to anybody to think about it.

I will retreat into a monastery and put post-its everywhere.

It's probably just a few hours of thinking.

These things get built up so big that it feels more anxiety than excitement.

Yeah, it is really helpful to have these weekly chats and just be like...

I mean, without this, I think I would have spiralled long ago into the...

Or just go straight back into the hamster wheel, really.

I think it is really hard to keep working on the thing that you're not good at or not...

That you don't feel confident in.

So keep giving yourself time and mental energy to focus on that.

When it's like, I should have a lot of time and mental energy spare, so why am I spending it on things that are scary and I don't feel confident at?

Why am I not just sticking with the writing and write those books that I know are what people expect?

So it does, I think, without having you to talk to each week would feel like impossible to keep that pushing towards that.

Yeah, same.

I wouldn't have done anything.

That's it.

It feels impossible now.

Think about what it's going to be like at the end of this year when we look back at what we've covered and what we've done.

And this whole re-branding, re-launching, and everything that we've talked about will be like, oh, I can't believe we were so stressed about that because we've done it now.

Yeah, I think this is really good to kind of mark down.

And I'm really glad that we're at different stages of our re-brand and re-launch, that I had a cover re-brand last year and effectively did pretty much nothing with it.

I haven't even got the paperbacks to match because I haven't taken the, what must be at maximum half an hour to sort out the cover, the paperback files.

I know, with my design, if you're shaking your head, I'm going to look away from the screen.

That is your manager's job.

I've got a bad manager.

I know it's also me.

But I think it's actually quite good to have that to reflect back on and think.

I'm hoping that in six months' time, I'll think back, I'm like, gosh, I would never do that again.

I highly recommend, if I'm going to make a note of this, put it in the show notes.

I went to SPS Live for the last two years.

I'm going again this year.

Last year, a really good speaker was Kate Pickford, who talked just fantastically, really just full of energy and had this very essential feeling about her.

And she was talking about mostly safe self-belief and how to get yourself there and how to challenge yourself and push yourself to be a better version of yourself.

And she has got a YouTube channel.

I'm sure if you just search Kate Pickford, you can find it.

I'll put the link in the show notes.

But anytime you can find an interview with her, anytime you can watch her on YouTube, she has got a charming English accent, which always helps.

She's got a lot of lovely dogs.

And she's also just very laser focused on thinking about growth and improvement at all times.

So it's just really positive.

Anyway, where's the game with that?

She talked about...

Oh, so she talked about one way that she had really improved her own attitude was pick something physical.

Pick a physical skill that you are not good at and keep practising it.

And you can really clearly see yourself get better.

So I picked roller skating, and I'd got some roller skates in the summer, in fact, before I saw her talk.

And I tried once and I'd fallen over.

I'd be like, well, these are going in the cupboard for a while until I've got some magical time to improve.

And then a roller skating group opened up in the next little village along from me.

So I joined this roller skating group.

And you just go by yourself, you just skate in circles.

And I fell over the first week a couple of times, and the next week I fell over once.

And I've been going since December, it's now March now.

So I've been going for about four months, pretty solidly.

And I can now skate backwards.

I can do all sorts of like speeding around corners.

I joined a speed skating competition at a rink we went to with other people.

Yeah, I can do loads of things.

I feel really confident.

I look so cool when I'm skating, and we go both directions.

And it's just like, in four months, I have gone from I cannot really skate at all to I feel so confident in my skates.

Like, I'm ready to get some slightly slippier wheels, which is not a technical term.

I can't remember what the term is.

Slightly slippier wheels so that I can get faster and faster.

And I do think it really helps you to have something physical to benchmark improvement that you can see you're doing that.

And also try and then extend that to your writing or whatever creative life you've got.

I 100% agree.

Yeah.

Sorry to interrupt.

Yeah.

No, I was going to say, I feel like I'm just saying the same thing actually.

Yeah.

Have you got a physical thing that you have seen you have improved up that's kind of helped you envisage that?

I have got one that I'm working on at the moment and one that I want to start working on again soon.

So the one that I'm doing right now is pottery and ceramics.

And oh my God, and it's just the best thing and it makes me feel so creative and sometimes I'm good, sometimes I'm bad.

But tomorrow in my class we're throwing again and I haven't thrown since last year.

For those not in the know, throwing is that scene in Ghost.

That's the main thing I do at Porto.

Someone sits suggestively behind you.

So yeah, I'm really excited tomorrow to see if I can just throw without thinking that I'm going to mess it up completely.

Because in my mind, I know how to do it.

So in your mind, you're doing more benchmark.

In my mind, yeah, I'm doing the whole thing.

I'm suggestively rubbing up against.

No, I can't rub against my teacher.

Like a white t-shirt with like, yes, don't wash blue jeans.

Yes.

Yeah.

And I've got that clay all over me.

And yeah, it's great.

So I can't wait to go and do that tomorrow and see how I've got on.

Because there's nothing makes me feel better than trying something like that.

And the other thing is kind of similar to you is that a couple of years ago, I got a skateboard or a longboard for my birthday, and I really wanted to get into longboarding.

And last year in the spring time, I was trying to do it and I couldn't really, like I was too scared.

So this year, I'm not going to be scared.

And I'm going to throw myself into it anyway.

Well, yeah, like I'm going to be scared and do it anyway.

And I'm really looking forward to that, because I do think that pushing yourself to do something that you don't know how to do and something that's really difficult and physically challenges you opens up your life so much.

Because I used to also do samurai training.

And we used to fight with weapons and do self-defense stuff.

And I remember when I first started that, I was so scared of fighting and so unsure about my body and how I could move.

And after a few years of doing that, it changed my life.

I got a samurai tattoo.

Yeah, that is stunning.

And yeah, it changed my life and changed, it changed who I am on the inside.

And I think that that really helped me be braver with loads of stuff.

And sometimes I do have to think to myself, what would my samurai version do?

Yeah, so I'm just a huge believer in that.

I love challenging myself with physical stuff.

Yeah, and I think it's so much easier to see your improvement than it is with things that are more related to internal growth.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, because I think it is really nice to have this benchmark, though, of like, I rebranded all my covers.

It was expensive, really, really expensive.

And like, I'm not saying it's expensive for what it was.

It was well worth it.

The cover designs are beautiful.

My designer is fantastic.

Yes.

It was a lot of money for me to then kind of do essentially nothing with it.

So yeah, I think I want to learn from that.

And then next time I do it, I'm improved.

I'm thinking, how am I doing this professionally?

And how is my manager and marketer really seeing this through?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, by the end of this year, we'll be able to look back and see that progress.

But yeah, so I think, sort of recap, and then I think I'm going to see Rebounding and Relaunching as somewhat similar because I am going to try and do it without changing my name, but I'm going to try and change the way I present myself and people's perception of me and the sort of author level status ability.

Like the way people are thinking about me and my books without necessarily changing anything wildly visible.

But I'm going to think of it as a relaunch, or not as a relaunch of my books, but as a relaunch of me when I have this new series out.

And the rebrand will almost be just a sort of sideways slant on that, whereas you're going to go 100% relaunch of new name, books on the new name.

Yeah, new name, new logo, new website, new genre, I guess.

Not a new genre, but just like drilling down on a particular genre rather than all the faffing that I've done.

So yeah, like a huge change.

Yeah, I'm going to start trying to plan at what point in the year.

I'm going to do that, and I'm going to set myself up a marketing plan like any brand would do for a brand launch.

I mean, I do do that.

I've done that at work for marketing stuff.

So I know the steps.

I just have to do it for myself.

Yeah, yeah.

I think it has been, this is kind of a distillation of everything we talked about for a while.

I'm aware that I mentioned at the beginning that there was an author we were looking at on Facebook early before we started that I then have made no reference back to.

So I will put it in the show notes as well.

It is CN Rowan, an urban fantasy author, who is someone who is just absolutely nailing the branding.

And it was someone mentioned by Lin that I mentioned a couple of weeks ago.

He's from the Cozy Mystery Clubhouse.

The details on the show notes from a couple of weeks ago.

Again, fantastic group, absolutely full of resources.

And maybe just another plug for, find people to be talking to, have a mastermind group, find a clubhouse, join Facebook groups.

You don't need to know all individually yourself.

It is great to get resources from other people.

Yes, 100%.

Having a, even just one person like this, like just having one person to talk to, is unbelievably beneficial.

Like unbelievably.

I can't even, I don't even know why.

Because I know that you've been in groups.

I wouldn't be this the whole time.

Yeah.

But you've been in groups before, and you like, you do know other writers and things.

Whereas I, I really kept myself for a long time.

But like, like us coming together is just the best thing in the world.

And I want everybody to find at least one person that they can just talk to about everything without being like scared to ask a stupid question or to show like how much money you're making or just anything.

Like you just need to have at least one person that is in your team.

Yeah.

That is an excellent way to end it on.

And as we have said, next week we are doing a great recap.

So for next week's topic reading, our first quarterly wrap up, we'll be talking about what's stuck, where we're stuck and where we go next on this Pen to Paycheck journey.

Do you have any thoughts already on that?

Yes, I'm excited to look back on the things that I've done already.

At the start of the year, I made a big list.

I put that list somewhere.

It's somewhere amid all of my stuff.

So I'm excited to look at the stuff that I've done already and then refocus on what I need to do next to achieve my goals of being known as the young adult writer of Magic, Myths and Monsters.

My thought on this is that when I saw you were coming out to his review, I felt horrible.

I felt all the things that I haven't done.

That's all I could think about.

There's that really negative instant thought of like, oh gosh, like I could list in a heartbeat all the things that I've said I would do that I haven't done or that I feel bad about.

And that's ludicrous.

And I don't want to do that.

So I'm going to make a concerted effort that next week's wrap up is not just me, self-flatulating over things I have missed, because I have done tons of things.

I'm going to try and focus on the positive.

And even take the negative things as an opportunity to say, like, why hasn't that worked?

Is it just something I'm not going to fit into my schedule?

I am not a failure.

It is maybe just not fitting for some reason.

So yeah, I want to take the positive side.

We've got a long way.

We gave ourselves so much to do.

At the start of this year, it was just like a mountain to climb.

And like it was just too much.

But we at least have, we've definitely, both of us have definitely ticked some things off the list.

And are a lot closer to where we want to be.

I think we're both a lot closer.

I do think that.

And I also think having to like articulate out loud makes me feel like I cannot just sit in my shame.

Like a little bubble of shame that I would normally sit in when I made myself an enormous list by myself.

I would just sort of hide away under the duvet covers and say like, I failed everything.

Never mind.

I'm terrible.

It's like your instant instinct.

You don't have to really articulate something.

Actually, I write morning pages in the morning when I get up because that really helps you articulate like, oh, you know what?

I'm fine.

I'm doing good.

I didn't know what I'm worried about.

So just having to get those things out of your head.

So I'm looking forward to keep one for you.

Even though my instant instinct is like, it's going to be terrible.

I have to admit all the things I didn't do.

I've done tons.

We're doing great.

We're fantastic.

Yes, we are fantastic.

Hello, us geniuses.

Hello, us.

And I will end this podcast with, as you did last week, if you are listening to this and you enjoy it, please don't forget to follow and leave a review.

If and where you can leave reviews on whatever app you're listening to this on.

I don't know how to do that.

You can also follow us on YouTube.

There are two videos up so far, and I promise more are on the way, but definitely go and follow, because you get to watch our beautiful faces whilst we're talking.

And just see how my concentration of face changes and then when I realise that, oh, I need to not look like a complete idiot.

Quick, like, smile.

I mean, more exactly, see how your hair changes.

It is new hairstyle this week, new hair colour, which you don't find out if you go on YouTube.

Exactly.

Never and anywhere else don't look on my Instagram.

Yeah, this is a secret.

YouTube only.

But yes, we will see everyone next week for Q1 review, our exciting, positive wrap up of all the things we've done.

Yes, we certainly will.

Right, goodbye.

Bye.

You've been listening to Pen to Paycheck Authors.

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