S01E19: When comps collide

In this week’s episode, Samantha and Matilda discuss author comps and how looking at how other authors are succeeding can help with their own blueprint for success!

Next week Sam and Matilda will deep dive into post-sales marketing.

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:

David Gaughran - How to Find Your Comp Authors: https://davidgaughran.com/comp-authors-advertising-marketing-titles/

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

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

If that sounds familiar, listen along 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 author comps, but before that, let's do our wins and whinges of the week.

Please share with me your wins and whinges.

Okay, my win, I've got multiple wins this week.

I've had, it's been such a week of wins.

First is that I am currently joined by two cats in my office right now.

So last week, I had got two cats, but they were living in a hole under the bath.

This week, they are in my office.

They keep me company.

They are so sweet and fun.

So I've got Poirot, who is sat on a pink flower on my rug, just looking at the world, and Miss Marple is doing her usual investigation.

Maybe you can hear her bell on her collar, as she's doing a bit of fawning about.

So yeah, absolutely lovely.

Really glad I got two cats.

They are very good company.

And it just makes writing and working from home feel more fun.

My other win is this week, I have really got on it with writing.

So I've had several months off, then I've had a few weeks of sort of easing my way into it with planning and having a bit of a slower start.

And normally I try to do 10,000 words a week, and this week, I've smashed it.

So 10,000 words, I've gone a little bit over.

I don't like to try and rush a week to be as big as possible.

If I had a really good week, I would keep writing more.

But I don't like to say, I've got another hour before bed, I could squeeze some more words in, just because I think I don't like to set up the feeling that it's, I don't know, a punishment, or like I'm forcing myself.

I wouldn't have had a big 10,000 words behind, but yeah, so I hit 10,000 words, and it feels like I want to celebrate that and lean into it.

So I had some ice cream in the park earlier while it's beautifully sunny.

And then my other big win is it's about a month out from when I started doing my promotion on my box set that was in Bookbob.

So Bookbob was on the 25th of last month, it's now the 12th.

And I started my promotion about 10 days in advance so I could try and dig this box out of the phone number ranks.

And I have just about paid off all of the money I put in.

And it's been so interesting to see the effect of a big push like that.

So I've done no follow up promotion because I really wanted to get a chance to see what's the organic effect of it and what would Amazon do following a big push like that.

So as we speak, I think it is still in the 30,000 to 40,000 ranks.

That's more than a couple of weeks out from the Bookbob.

And it's still sort of going up and down a bit.

There are clearly some people borrowing it.

The page reads are on the way.

So really interesting to see.

And I think I want to give it a couple more weeks just to see what happens and then see if I can maybe try advertising it a bit more as well.

But I don't know.

I think it is really useful to kind of...

I really said this quarter, I'm really focused on experimentation rather than necessarily trying to follow, you know, chase something.

I want to just see like, what happens if I do this?

What happens if I do that?

Where's worth the rest of my money?

Rather than sort of just try and see like a tiny improvement and then chase that and then, you know, lose money sort of without control.

So, fascinating.

Really, really interesting to see and interesting to watch the rank change and the impact on other books and the impacts on page reads and things.

So, fantastic week all round.

Which I'm getting a little tingling bell celebration from Ms Marple to celebrate that.

What are your wins and whinges of the week?

I didn't have as great a week as you.

I was just saying before we started recording the podcast that I've had one of those weeks where everything kind of feels like it's stopped.

I've had such a great productive year so far, and I've just hit a week where I didn't feel like I was being as productive, which probably isn't right.

I have done plenty of things.

I've done quite a lot of editing, had quite a good day yesterday in terms of admin stuff, but just feel like I have stalled.

But that's just a feeling.

So I'm not like...

Also, even if it's not, you get to have a bad week.

I will.

Yes, 100%.

Maybe one out of half a year, because it can be bad.

I think it's perfectly acceptable to have weeks that just don't go the way you want them to go.

I'm not upset about it.

I'm just...

Yeah, it's just nice to acknowledge this feeling.

But yeah, I'm not like...

I'm not gonna hold on to it.

Tomorrow is a new week.

I'm happy with the other things that I've done.

So my win of the week, apart from the fact that I had a great day yesterday watching Eurovision and cooking, I went to the allotment and planted some leeks.

Oh, it was just a great day overall.

I also started pulling together a...

What did I call it?

A pitch pack for book reviewers because I want to get in touch with some book reviewers to see if they want some free copies of some of my books, just to see if I can get some nice social media buzz going.

And that's one of my quarter two projects, is to kind of get in touch with some book reviewers and see if I can convince them, charm my way into their inboxes and see if they will take some book packages.

So I'm kind of happy with what I came up with for that.

Yeah, I feel that was a good task to tick off my list.

The next step is just getting in touch with, finding people and getting in touch with them.

And I think I'm going to say that is my entire good feeling.

My entire win was just that.

I did have a win this week, I've got to say.

I'm trying to make a new warm reader bonus material thing.

So I'm still working on it.

I've sent you a copy this week, and I think I'm not ready to talk about it yet, because I think it's still changing form.

One of the things I want to include in it, though, is a recipe from one of my books.

There's a sort of biscuit that one of the characters makes that I've never...

It's not a real biscuit, and I never intended to make it.

It's sort of described as tasting delicious and Christmassy, and just like the essence of wonderful Christmas.

And I thought, like, actually, the way I've described it, it is a makeable biscuit.

It's just a Christmas biscuit.

I'd have to make that and put that recipe in.

And I have made a lot of Christmas recipes in my life.

I even have, like, a specialist Laid Cook and Spice Mix.

So I thought, oh, I'll make one of those this weekend.

And also, like, I'll try making a recipe video because I want to do that.

I made myself a list of, like, new social media things I want to do in one of the most, like, cooking videos because I enjoy cooking and I do a lot of cooking for my books.

And I made these biscuits, and the cooking video went really well.

It was nice to do in sort of a trial.

And the biscuit was a bit fiddly, and I tasted it, and it just tastes not good enough.

It was disappointing.

I shall percieve it because nothing wrong with having more biscuits in life.

But I was so disappointed.

I've made a very similar recipe before in sort of a cakey thing, and the flavor was insanely delicious.

Turning it into a biscuit, nothing.

The flavor was really overpowered.

I think there's maybe too much...

I don't know.

There's definitely too much sugar in this recipe.

Like, if I compare it to other recipes I've made, it was very sweet, but also it tasted too buttery.

So I need to go back and have a think.

Which, I couldn't tell if that's going right, if I'm honest.

I know!

Yeah, exactly.

My problem is, how can I have too much sugar or butter in something?

That just seems like a problem.

So I need to have a think.

Yeah.

That's a fun problem to have, because it means you get to make more biscuits.

I think I went wrong.

Better try it again.

Yes, also love Christmas flavours, so I get to try out more Christmas flavours.

But yeah, so we have been doing other things this week, aside from gardening and cooking.

We have been thinking about author comps, that is the topic of this week.

So Sam, what are author comps, and how are they useful?

Author comps are, I guess, the easiest way to put it is comparisons of authors.

Just put it out there.

I'm going to be honest, I really struggle with the idea of author comps.

And I said this at the end of the last episode, is that I really struggle to find authors that I feel comparative to.

But I know that in order to find these authors that I'm similar to, it will help me kind of move into the right lane.

If I can just like...

I don't know.

The way that I picture it, I kind of picture it as in a swimming lane.

And if I know that that person over there is going the same speed as me, maybe I should be swimming in their lane too.

I don't know.

Terrible analogy.

I just really struggle with this.

What are you thinking by speed?

When we thought about the topic, I think we particularly wrote author comps rather than comp authors, because I think we were thinking also about people's publishing styles.

So have you had a think about different sorts of comps?

Yes.

I know, it's terrible.

So I instead have been trying to kind of shift my thinking into looking at what...

I mean, it's so terrible even verbalizing this.

What is it that I'm trying to achieve by doing author comps?

And how is it going to help me?

It's still a question that I don't know how to answer it.

I feel like I'm not at the right stage in what I'm doing to be finding the right information.

I don't know, I just really struggled.

I feel like I'm too small to really find author comps.

Because I'm either...

Tell me a bit more about that then.

What do you mean by too small?

It's probably more I'm too in the middle, maybe.

So whenever I see authors on social media, it's one of two types of authors.

You've got the people that do really well on socials, and they've only written one book, or they're still writing their first book.

I see a lot of those people.

And then I see the bigger people who have written 20, 30, 40 books, and are just killing it.

And I feel like I don't see a lot of people...

I mean, I know this is the whole point of this podcast, is I don't see a lot of people out there who are in our zone of having six or seven books and doing well in that situation.

Like, everyone seems to be struggling, so I don't really want to comp myself to somebody else who's struggling.

Does any of this make sense?

Oh, okay, yeah, that does really make sense.

I do know what you mean.

Yes.

That is interesting.

I would say one thing definitely worth thinking of for you and for everybody is that I think debuts are often not what they appear to be, particularly in the trad world, right?

So particularly in trad, debuts get so much hype around them that you often find people just publishing under a new name and saying, debut book from Swift Matilda.

Who was that Matilda Swift person?

Brand new author, Swift Matilda.

Yeah, you get that a lot.

And I think that is...

I don't know if it's particularly in crime, but I'm definitely aware of it significantly in crime.

A lot of people who are big, big authors that everyone would have heard of, they previously had another name they were publishing under.

And I think it's probably the same for indies.

One thing that I did when I was looking for comments, because I did quite a lot of research into...

I really wanted to make sure I knew whether people were indie or trad when I was looking for comments.

I really want only indie comps.

Or at least I only want indie comps for particular purposes.

I want to really know who is who.

So there's some people who you look on Amazon, you can see a publisher name, they're like, that's not a name I recognize.

It's not obviously their own name.

So I want to just double check, is that a publishing actual publishing company or is it just they've given themselves a press name?

So then you Google that name, and then you will often find what is clearly the same author with two different pen names, and they're just two versions of their name, like Matilda Swift and Swift Matilda.

And they often are in two different genres, and I would say quite a common pairing for cozy writers.

It's often cozy writers also write or have previously written romance of some sort.

They tend to, people tend to switch between the two.

I don't know what the reasoning is.

I don't know if it's just because people who are...

There's probably got lots of reasons.

I would often guess that a lot of people who think, I'm quite entrepreneurial.

I want to get into writing as a way to set business.

Romance is the obvious one to do.

That you think, I love reading romance.

I'll try writing them.

And people often just don't get on with writing them.

And then they think, okay, what's the next genre that I really enjoy?

And what do I, what am I drawn to?

Mysteries, I'll try those.

So I think it's often that people are drawn to try romance first, and then they move on to another genre that suits them maybe better.

So that was very interesting.

Like a lot of people who you might think of as a debut are not really a debut.

So I would maybe try and also like, if you're in the position that we are where you're thinking, oh, I feel like I'm not a debut, but most people haven't heard from me.

I think act like a debut.

I think, not like you're a debut, but you've actually got tons of knowledge.

Perfect.

And just tout your book as though it is, you know, amazing, wonderful.

Like, what are these debut authors doing that you couldn't do?

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it's a very good way to look at it.

Yeah, I guess debut authors do tend to really romanticize the publishing process.

Talk about how exciting it is.

I guess, like, being an old, old woman, maybe I'm just a bit jaded.

And that's the problem, is that I'm not acting like this is the first time I've fallen in love.

I'm acting like, oh, yeah, just on to the next relationship.

I guess that's a life thing.

But yeah, okay, yes, that's a very good, a very good point.

And I feel like, yes, maybe every single time I should be acting like I'm falling in love for the first time.

I do think, though, I think when you see these debut authors do it, and they are, you know, hopefully you've all seen them on social media, then they do, the ones that you see on social media a lot are doing a very good job of like celebrating every win.

So they will celebrate.

Oh my gosh, I just got a review.

I cannot believe I'm so grateful that someone's reviewed my book.

It just means so much to me.

It's my dream come true.

And they're like giving the Sally Field crying Oscar speech.

You love me.

You love me.

And as an author with experience, you know that a review is not an Oscar.

So you're not going to go all Sally Fields about it.

But we were looking this week at Brianne Randall's book marketing guide, and she is the poster child for debut social media success.

And her book marketing guide is really transparent and well put together.

And a very good look at someone would be very open about what they've done.

And she said, just celebrate every win.

Celebrate absolutely every win.

People won't get sick of it because they're only going to see a tenth of what you post.

People who are not us, who are not in the industry, don't know what is a big thing.

They might think, oh, I've got 10 reviews.

Oh my goodness, that's so exciting for you.

When I first started, I put out a book on BookFunnel, and I would put out a post to celebrate every 500 downloads.

I'd be like, oh, I can't believe it.

3,000 people downloaded this book.

It's so exciting.

That's a small number for a free BookFunnel book.

I know that, and other people in the industry know that, but it's a big number number.

And putting it out there, suggesting, oh gosh, this book is really in demand.

I've got to get on that.

Thousands of people downloading it.

Wow.

And people have got no sense of scale when it comes to book sales.

10,000 could be a lot.

A million could be a lot.

People do not know.

So I think that is a great thing to think of, is celebrating every single win.

I think a lot of it comes back to our mindset, thinking, I know better.

So I know it's not a great win.

But your read is the only reason you're part of the journey.

So I would say definitely picking some newer authors, and their tactics is a good thing.

But also pick the big authors.

Why not emulate someone that you want to be?

Why not pick the biggest name in your field?

And be like, okay, what do they do?

And what can I do that would give people the same experience?

I might have to do all of it and do it as big, but what could I do that is going to sort of make me feel as successful as them in some way?

I think that maybe my mindset thing just got the better of me this week, and I just wasn't working well.

My brain was just a little bit frazzled.

So even though I should have done this, obviously, beforehand, but this is what this podcast is all about.

We're talking about the real, actual, real process of how all this works.

But yeah, I need to really draw up a chart where I can put in different ideas that I've seen different sized authors posting and what kind of emails they're sending out, and just see what sticks.

Start throwing pasture against the wall, see what sticks.

Yeah, I think that's something you're really good at.

So I think why not pick somebody really big and then see what would...

I'll try everything and then what is working for someone at my level.

So I actually didn't do much work on this this week because I actually did it all last week.

I think part of the problem this week that we've had is we did a huge amount of work the week before for our just like enormous looking at books as products, like the Soda Can Strategies.

We both of us had just pages and pages of notes on like, what's a sales funnel?

How will we fundamentally overhaul the way that we consider our books as products?

So this week, I think, it didn't feel like a week I felt enthusiastic like, okay, now let me go and read a hundred books and dissect them all.

It didn't feel like a week.

Unfortunately for me, I had actually a lot of that work the week before as part of my Soda Crown Strategies work.

So I'll talk to you a bit of what I did for my comp author work and author comp work, because I think it was useful to think about those two things separately, to try and separate like, who is someone who's writing you would say you're comp against and who is someone who's publishing style you want to pinch from, model yourself against.

I mentioned this last week, actually, and one thing that I still don't feel confident about is like, when I'm thinking about comp authors, and I mean like writing style comps, what is the thing that really matters as a thing I'm supposed to be comparing to?

So am I looking for other writers who are writing cozy set in England?

Am I looking for other writers who have a slightly more sensible tone?

So not like the super lightweight, sort of soap opera-y, fuzzy, bright, illuminated feeling.

I'm writing more close to Agatha Christie, but not, right?

So I'm still writing cozies, and it's really hard to articulate, and I think, what actually, if I could distill myself there, I'm like, what is the key things about my work?

Or am I looking for someone who writes a similar length to me?

Do they have to be, yeah, and do they have to write a similar length series to me?

So like, what are the things that are comp enough, tend to be a comp?

I have ended up picking, and in fact, it's interesting, I've come down to three people, but two people who are really like, who I know are writing very similar things to me, and I know that I should be talking to an audience.

And they're both Cozy Authors who are writing Cozy Set in England, which there are not a lot, there are not a lot of Cozy Set in England that are just straight culinary cozies.

Often Cozy Set in England are the historical ones, or they are paranormal, or they're like royal aristocratic ones.

There's a lot of twists, and these two people have got series that are very similar to mine in terms of they're funny, but they're not exaggerated, they're not comedy, I would say.

And these two people also have protagonists that are kind of similar ages to mine, so not the older sleuth, and not someone who is always restarting life post-divorce, they're often on the younger side.

So to me, that feels like similar comps.

I think the tricky part is both of them have been publishing a long time, so that always puts me off.

I always think like, well, it's hard to think of them as author comps.

I can think of them as comp authors in terms of a writing style, but are they author comps in terms of I can emulate their career and their publishing style, because they have just been in the game long enough that they have built up a big audience.

So looking at what they do isn't necessarily what will work for me, because if they send a newsletter out, they might automatically get 500 pre-orders.

And if I send a newsletter out, I'm not getting that.

So I can't just run out of their strategies.

But I can dig down into their strategies more.

I think this is the issue that you were maybe hitting on.

It's like it's hard to emulate people who are really, really big, because they're doing things you can't do.

But I can do some of things, and it really helped me to drill down.

So one thing that I did was really focus on their also boards.

And looking at on their author page, you can still see with the authors, their author level also boards, which you can still see very clearly on Amazon.

Sometimes you can see author boards, sometimes you can't.

Who knows what's going to be this week.

So looking at author level also boards is useful.

So I looked into all of those.

And then also, if you just Google, if you Google, like, authors similar to X, Goodreads has a page of that.

So Goodreads will turn you out authors similar to this.

And so I actually have three authors that I know I write quite similarly to, and who do similar subcategories, similar age groups.

There's nothing that I think we have in common.

And two of them are Indian.

One of them is Trad, but she markets like an Indie.

So I read into all of them and their also Reds, and tried to get to know them a bit better, and figured out, like, is there anybody in their lists that is maybe someone newer who I could try and emulate?

And I did struggle.

I didn't find a huge number of people, but I found a couple.

And obviously, it was really interesting in that, like, the Indies or the also Reds were Indies, and the Trad or the also Reds were Trad.

Gigantic thunderstorm outside.

Hopefully, you can't hear that too loudly.

So that was useful to see in that it's probably not worth targeting a Trad author.

You know, a lot more of their sales paperbacks than mine will be.

They are lower ranked in ebook than they really suggest their success, because they are selling a lot through bookshops.

They are often wide or just are selling more paperback in bookshops.

So I think it's much easier to focus on the Indie people.

So I looked into them.

Both of them, both the Indie comps, I have read lots of their books.

I have followed them on social media.

I went a little bit more closely and really dissected what they were doing.

I think because they both have relatively loyal readerships and they have been publishing for a while, there's less visible things or fewer visible things that they are doing that I can emulate.

So, for example, on social media, neither of them particularly do a huge amount.

They will post, but it doesn't get that many views.

One of them has posts that are very much like your aunt's, just like, post in my garden, and here's a picture of the beach that I went to today.

Not marketing, which is fine, but if I do that, I'll sell books.

Neither of them do Facebook ads, which is interesting, but one of them very clearly does Amazon ads, you can see them trailing you around.

So useful to know.

One of them I really think is something I'm missing.

I think there is another marketing website strategy that they are doing that I don't know.

But I started looking for blogs they've done, for other presence online they have, and I want to do more digging into that.

So it was useful to kind of do a bit more of a deep dive on it.

But the author who is Trangad, who really publishes like an indie, like she publishes very regularly, she's got a couple of series, she also has a new published a book.

She does a huge amount of marketing online.

This is Ellie Alexander, we've talked about many times.

She really does have a lot of social media success.

So literally what I did was just said, like I really want to just trial like you were saying, just trial which of her social media techniques would work for me.

And I just went through her last like a few dozen posts and wrote down like categorized them, wrote down what sort of post she's doing.

And I thought about what would work for me, what could I do just to see if I could get some engagement and not even necessarily use them on social media, if I'm not going to use them in my newsletter.

I think I do want to start sending out a more common, a more regular newsletter, just to again start testing how do I engage people more, how do I get people, you know, buying, reading and promoting my books themselves.

I need and like messaging once a month is not doing that.

And I want to be doing more.

Yeah, so it wasn't the magic bullet of like, oh, I found the person I can, I can come up against you and I'll just do what they did not be successful.

But I think one thing that was helpful was I have danced around these comports for a long time, and I have known that they are similar ish to me.

But both of them do a thing that I don't love about cozies, or the comp doesn't come naturally to me when I write it cozy, is that they both have in the first couple of pages an awful lot of exposition, an awful lot of backstory.

And I love finding that out in a book when I read.

I love finding out like the, oh, what's the secret feud and where she been and what's the mystery there?

And, you know, I like a slow unfurling at the beginning, but all the big cozy writers just have, you know, basically like a little mini two-page backstory, like here's their tragic backstory that you haven't necessarily missed because it might be the first book in the series, but just to catch up on like why you're going to care straight away.

So I've rewritten my first and both of them, I think, do that and I don't.

And that is a place there where we really diverge.

And I want to do that.

And I want to just trial, does that work?

And so even if I try writing it and it doesn't work for me, I was like, it's still worth doing that.

So I have rewritten my first chapter in more of that style, looking directly at my comps and thinking, okay, this works for them.

And I really like, you know, their style.

I think it doesn't feel like it's a hundred percent my style to have this sort of info at the beginning.

But how about if I see if I can make it work and like make it work in my way?

Yeah.

So I have rewritten my first chapter, which I really like, which I have written my first chapter a number of times this new book, because it's the new series, it's a new style that I really want to, I find for me, knowing the first chapter really gets you, gets me writing the rest of it correctly.

And so I'm prepared to rewrite the first chapter several times, even though to many people it would look like just fiddling, fiddling around, it does a huge amount for me, and it has a strong impact on the rest of the book.

So I have rewritten my first chapter again in this style, and I've rewritten it, and I'm going to leave it for a bit and come back to it.

And I'm going to send it to a friend of mine who hasn't read any versions of this book so far, and she is my friend Rachel, who I've mentioned before, who is just like a...

someone who'd be a fantastic dev editor in other life, who I just get to be friends with and send my books to and get fantastic feedback on.

She knows exactly what you've done wrong or right in your books and why.

So I'm going to send it to her, also I've had a bit of chance to mull over it and get her feedback on it.

And also I'm going to send her the comp.

She doesn't know this, but she might be listening.

I'm going to send her my comp authors first chapters, just one chapter for me to just say like, what is missing from mine that would make it feel like this?

Because they're all short chapters, they're cosy, so it shouldn't be too big of an ask.

And it is nice to get an impersonal view on it, because now I'm just so deep in it, I can't necessarily see what's missing between mine and the comp authors, but she will be able to.

I've talked a lot there, I'm aware, but I have been doing a lot of, and I've also been thinking about this for many years, like really trying to go round and round with the comp authors, and trying to figure out like, oh, I'm not like them because I'm writing slightly more subplots and like more complex mysteries.

I'm not like them because I don't have a romance in it, and I'm trying to differentiate myself too much.

Yeah, that's exactly what my problem has been, is that I can never see, because in fantasy, a huge trend in fantasy right now is, I mean, and for the longest time, is people going to other worlds, or they're not set in reality, they're set in dragon realms, or they're kind of medieval or sci-fi.

They're not here and now with magical creatures, which is my whole thing.

And I find it really difficult.

I can't really find those people.

Yeah, exactly.

I'm effectively just still living out my Buffy fandom, and will do for the rest of my life.

And I can't seem to find the other people who are like that.

But I did read a blog post that I had read earlier this year when I was doing comp stuff at the start of the year, which really did help me.

It helped me a bit too late because my brain was already frazzled from it.

But it was the blog post from David Goffrin.

Where is it?

Love David Goffrin.

What was it called?

Everything that he says.

It was a blog post called Comp Authors Advertising Marketing Titles.

A very SEO URL on that.

The blog post is How to Find Your Comp Authors.

And one of the things, well, basically, his overarching, and I'll put the link to this in the show notes, his overarching sentiment on this is, it doesn't matter if you're matching content or style, the only thing that matters is who do you share an audience with.

And that is, for me, helpful.

How would you know that?

That's the question.

Well, I guess it's just from my own personal reading.

I would know, like, the books that I read are the books that I like, or the types of books that I like to write.

So maybe, like, they're not so specific, like, I just read Night's House, and style-wise, obviously, like, Leigh Bardugo is a great writer, and I am no way near where she is.

But for me, I love that book, and that is the type of book that I am drawn to, and the type of book that I would like to write, and think that my books are slightly in that vein.

And that is set in the real world.

That is set in the real world.

So I think just if I am looking at it from a personal point of view, I know the books that I like to read, and they do influence and inspire the books that I write.

So I think I just need to think a bit more of that sometimes as well.

I can do the stuff where I am trying to look at style, or I can try and look at people's marketing style, people's writing style, but also what about my personal preferences.

And I think that doing a bit of personal preference, shopping for comps might make me feel a bit better.

And then those other things might filter through.

Do you have any examples of indie authors that you've come across that are some people you start with?

I do have a list of comps from earlier in the year when I was doing a comp list.

So I've got comps for comp authors, which is writing style and genre.

And I have those people already in a list, and I just haven't really done much with that list since I made it, other than see them on social media and everything.

Because I didn't really know what I was looking to gain from it.

This is my whole thing.

I don't feel like I'm really aligned with the actual task at hand just yet.

I know it's a job to be done, but I don't know yet how it fits into what I'm doing.

I mean, I have definitely picked up and dropped this task a number of times at looking at comp authors.

And really just felt like I haven't been able to find enough value in studying them because I think I haven't known enough what I was looking for.

And I think it was really helpful to look at these authors and think I do want to target their audiences because I do think we are similar and I think people would read all three of us.

So these are the two indie authors and I.

I think people who like them would like me, but what would make them put down my book?

So if I did sell a book to them, what would make someone put down my book thinking, oh, it's not really what I was hoping for when I'm trying to find a book that was similar to this.

And I think a big thing that I am always missing is that that exposition in the beginning, because it doesn't come naturally to me.

So I think it has helped me, looking at comp authors, to just see if I can pick up on stuff that aligns me close with audience expectation.

I know I want to target these authors, and part of what maybe put me off doing that is because I don't feel like my writing is close enough to them.

And it's not that I want to fundamentally change my writing style, I want to keep my writing style, but I want to please readers who are diehard fans of this genre, and I want them to not feel like, oh, I'm struggling to get into this.

So I want them to be like, I know what this is, I love it, just these extra couple of paragraphs at the beginning have really pulled me in, I'm in the world, go.

Yeah, I think 20 little things like that, it's a big help.

Yeah, I think that phrase, meeting readers' expectations, is maybe the missing link to what my mind was trying to do.

I wasn't really sure how it all tied up, but thinking about it in that way makes it seem like a task I could do.

I just don't think I had that this week, I just didn't have that understanding of what was going on.

But that is the perfect phrase.

It's such a big topic though, because I think you could think of anything.

Yeah, I'm just trying to think about, especially at the beginning of a book, because I know people who read my books, love my books, right?

So I think that is a thing that I feel confident about.

I love mysteries, and I love really mission and writing mysteries.

And I think my mysteries get good reviews, and that is something that I want to feel positive about.

I have got reviews that are so nice, I put them on my wall, so they keep motivating me.

I've also, you know, with this book funnel process, I put the books in that has got almost no reviews.

And, you know, getting a lot of people reading a book in a short amount of time can be troublesome for your reviews, because you've got people who are not necessarily your audience, who don't love you as much as your regular readers.

And the first people who review it, obviously people who were like, DNF'd it, but one star, not for me, hated it.

And I got a few of those in a row, and I was like, oh my goodness, maybe I'm not a good writer.

Maybe I'm a terrible writer, and I've misunderstood everything.

And then I got tons of five stars, and so now it's at a 4.1, a 4.2, which is like, fantastic.

Yes, that is where I want it to be for having gained like 20 odd reviews over the last few days from a few strangers.

Perfect.

So I think because I feel confident that I feel confident in my writing and in my mysteries, what I'm struggling with is getting people to pick them up.

And that's not necessarily strong.

It's like I'm not putting people's hands, right, because I'm not reaching an audience.

But part of me is holding back from pushing out to the audience because I know my mysteries aren't, they're not closely aligned enough, or I don't know who they're close enough with.

And I know the beginning is going to be a bit of a, you know, not really a struggle, but it's going to be a bit of a thinker.

Like, oh, is this what I'm looking for?

Am I, is this a mystery I've wanted before?

And it's like I've given people a bit of an obstacle by not really examining comporters, beginning few pages and thinking, what are readers expecting the first few pages?

They are expecting, just like if you're writing a fantasy, right, and you know, one of the other world fancies, they're expecting world building.

If I did a huge amount of world building, trying to describe like every single house on a street, it's in huge amount of detail.

Mystery writers would put it down, because that is, for me, objectively quite boring.

And for other mystery writers, well, they want a bit of like, what's going on?

Whereas for a fantasy reader, they want to have like the mountains described and the color of the sky and the, you know, the shapes of the face of the creatures.

That's what they're there for.

So it's just, it's sort of like trying to narrow down your genre and reader expectations even narrower to a small, small subset of cozy authors for me.

And saying like, what, if I'm going to target these, if I were going to say to these two authors, like give my book to every one of your readers, just imagine that world exists where I could do that.

I want them to all be happy.

I want them to be like, yes, thank you.

It's exactly next to what I wanted to read.

And currently I'm not doing that.

And I'm studying these authors because I want to.

But I have now got two comp authors that I feel like I really want to close the line to and one author comp, who I think is publishing in a way that I find appeals to me and I think it would be effective for me.

So I'm going to try and follow that.

So that is what I've done this, not this week, I did it last week.

Hopefully it applies and I want to keep thinking about it because I think it is one where it's one of those big topics where we think it's one topic and it's like five topics.

So we'll keep thinking about this.

I would like to say, I'll just say this, I did actually find a trad author who absolutely kills it on social media and is a comp in terms of how well she does on socials, but she does a lot of what I would call book influencer, indie tactics of posting character art and vibe videos and things.

So I do have somebody who I'm looking at, just in case anybody listening thinks that I've been a terrible pod host this week.

Like I did find someone.

It's just that I just felt like I wasn't vibing with my own mission.

But also this is part of the process is the weeks that we think, I thought I was ready to do this and I wasn't, and I'm not quite sure why or here are the obstacles, here's what I want to go in and do instead.

That is like if we were both killing it and nailing it every week and be like, okay, set myself this goal, did it, tick, made a million dollars.

We wouldn't make this podcast because we're too busy rolling around like Scrooge McDuck in our pit full of money.

We would not have time to be the podcast hilarious geniuses that we are.

So you're welcome, everyone.

One day, one day I'm going to Scrooge McDuck into a pile of money.

So do you have any more to say on this topic?

No, I think I've talked more than enough for everyone.

So for next week's topic, we are continuing with the series of books as products.

And next episode is going to be on post sales marketing.

Oh!

Oh!

Hello, Ms.

Marple.

Gentle listeners, you're missing out on Ms.

Marple's first video appearance.

She is beautiful and elegant and also she looks very naughty.

Mm-hmm.

I'm trying to stay on my seat.

Yes, sorry, I actually talked over you.

What were you saying there?

What are we doing next week?

Yes.

Okay, so next week, we are continuing with our books as products.

Episode is going to be on post sales marketing.

So what are your thoughts on this right now before we delve into it?

Yeah, so this came out of kind of what we mentioned last week about, we have kind of been thinking about the sales funnel as marketing, then sales.

So you find readers, you tell them broadly about your book and that you sell them your book.

But actually, I think there is an extra section at the end which is making people read your book, because I am probably not alone in the fact I have got lots and lots of books on my Kindle that I have never read, that I have bought.

There are probably sequels to them.

I have got authors who I really like one series from and never read another one.

I don't know why.

I am busy.

Or I like one book from them and I have read the sequel.

Or I really love the idea of the book and then I bought it and never did anything with it.

So how do we get people to actually, I guess it's going from a purchaser to a fan.

How do we get people to do that?

I don't know.

I haven't thought of something yet.

I will do.

Bye next week.

How about you?

Yeah, I am excited.

I think that it's such a fun topic and something that I've never really thought about before because you do think the sale is the end point, but it really isn't because you do want to turn that reader into a repeat customer.

You want them to come and tell you that they loved reading it.

You want them to tell their friends.

So it's going to be fun to try and think about how you can continuously reach readers.

Whilst, you know, if they've read a few pages, this is my problem on KU, I see people reading a few pages and then my page reads drop off.

If I can try and somehow figure out a strategy to remind people to pick that book back up, or just if they brought the paper back to remind them to read it and get involved in all the fun.

Yeah, it seems like a big mission, but it doesn't seem impossible.

It just seems like I need to have a strategy in place.

Yeah, because I think it's very easy to say like, oh, it's just improve your writing quality.

It's like, it's not that because I know from my own experience, I have picked up books, loved them and just put them down.

And I think this is something that really big, big authors, you can see them have a better tactic for that and a better opportunity to have a better tactic.

They make reading groups.

They have a big hype around when this book is launched and everyone wants to be engaged with it.

And that builds momentum.

That builds like them recommending their friends.

Everyone wants to be in the club.

You know, we talk a lot about Taylor Swift from now because there's a whole new album launch, adding to the tour and everybody knows about it.

Everybody is very engaged in some way with it.

Everyone is aware that Taylor Swift is releasing a new album.

Even if they do not like Taylor Swift, they are aware of it because that is how much it is.

The momentum of it is around.

I love the posts about her, of her new songs being used in a tour and how many people comment that they hate it and they hate her.

And I think you're just feeding the algorithm.

I mean, even if somebody wants to hate me online, come on, mention my name.

Get me out there.

Yeah.

So I think it's very hard as a kind of not shiny new debut, not great big name brand author, someone in the middle, say like, how do I get people dying to read this book within launch week and like dying to tell their friends and like must read it before stories come out?

I don't know.

So yeah, let's have a think.

Yeah, I'm excited.

Well, thank you very much for joining us and make sure to follow along.

Rate this podcast if you would like to leave some sort of rating or review and tune in next week.

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.