S02E15: What Hooks MY Readers

Sam and Matilda are figuring out the best bait to hook readers…

Next week, they will be taking sides as a discuss the merits (and pitfalls) of paid and organic social media.

Where to find Sam and Matilda:

SAM IG: @sammowrimo

Website: www.samantha-cummings.com

Book to start with:

Curse of the Wild (Moons & Magic Book 1) https://amzn.eu/d/3QHym3m

Most recent book:

Heart of the Wolf (Moons & Magic Book 2) https://amzn.eu/d/4HecH3a

MATILDA IG: @matildaswiftauthor

Website: www.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:

JOIN THE PEN TO PAYCHECK DISCORD: https://discord.gg/w7BjxmeXfF

Donate to the podcast: https://ko-fi.com/pentopaycheckauthorspodcast 

Adley Kinsman episode of the Social Media Examiner podcast: https://youtu.be/tcxfKwZwhsA?si=iKGz07L7KAjIaXoW

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, Samantha 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 hooks, but before that, what are your wins and whinges of the week?

Oh, I'm glad you asked.

I'll start with a whinge, because I feel like I should get this out of the way.

I am currently on like the worst internet and I don't have my mic cover for my microphone.

So if I look slash sound awful, apologies.

I'm gone back to the 90s apparently, and the internet's awful.

My win, which is kind of related to that, is because I'm not in my own home, and I'm not plugged into my own ethernet cable.

I'm currently on holiday in North Yorkshire and Harrogate, and I'm spending this week doing a read through of my novel that's coming out in September before I start my big edit.

So I'm just like reading my own book this week, and making notes, and absorbing like all of the vibes.

And it's been so nice just to like get away.

I love taking little trips away just to specifically work on a book that feels like I'm stepping into my dream author life.

Like this is what I would be doing if I was already living that life.

This is like me practising, and I love it.

I'm so like happy and like just living my best life is great.

I think that's probably all of my whims and whinges.

So yeah, over to you.

I am so unbelievably looking forward to, I've got a writing retreat in a few weeks.

And my plan this week, my thing I need to do in the coming week is to plan the book that I'm going to write when I'm there.

So it even feels exciting just to plan the book because I know where I'm going to write it and I can picture myself.

And it's on like a little Greek island and we have this little house just on the seafront.

There's four of us, four writers, and it's such a good group for really getting work done, but also not feeling stressed.

And everyone there is like a, I mean, people in writing retreats always like this one I go with.

They're just like, it's just a group of women who, if they see something that needs like doing, they get it done.

And it's so relaxing just to have everyone around, you kind of all working together and everyone all being productive and like a little beehive.

So I'm looking forward to coming up to this week of planning the book I'm going to write there.

And I'm just about to finish the draft one for the book I'm co-writing, which has been really lovely to write and just lovely to kind of see a different process and try something new.

I definitely need to, I was going to try and write that along with something else, but actually I just needed to focus on that.

And also I had to do like book launches and think while I was doing it.

So it's like, it's just not possible to add something else in, but I think now I'm going to go through the drafting of that, the redrafting, I will also be writing in the book.

So I'll try and do two things at once then, see how that goes.

So yeah, lots of sort of like wins, but also lots of hard work at the moment.

My whinges are just that like everything I'm doing, it's one of those times when everything is like 10 extra steps that needs to be.

So like my website hosting renewed, and they charged me twice.

Then I've had like lots of messages of being like, oh, I need to get the money back for this.

They've like, oh, do you want to cancel your account?

I was like, no, I just want this bit back.

And then in one of the many conversations, it was really like a thing that I actually pay for.

But I even checked when I renewed, I was like, do I really need this?

I don't think I use it.

She's like, oh, it's to back up your account.

And then when I was trying to get my charge back for my double charge, one person I spoke to was like, oh, do you want to upgrade that thing?

I was like, why would I upgrade it?

I just confirmed it's right.

And he was like, oh, you can't use it at your website.

So I was like, oh, can you just refund it then?

I'm not dealing with this.

So it was just like everything is tensed up more.

Today, I was like getting organized and buying some like cat food ahead of time.

And you know, getting sorted, then my credit card is blocked because last night I bought several promos for books, obviously like American websites.

Because I've got a book pub coming up, I was booking the promo to get before that.

It's obviously buying something from several mysterious American websites at the same time in the middle of the night, has a flag at the floor team, but it's a bank holiday here, so they're not on the phone.

So I'm just having one of those times it's like my current do list, even when it looks manageable, everything on it takes 10 times longer than it should, so I'm not getting through everything.

It feels very frustrating, and just makes me feel a bit defeated, deflated, I don't know.

But I am persisting and soon I will be like having my feet in the sea on a Greek island, being just in literal heaven.

So winds outweigh the wind, just by a long way.

And I've got a book club this week, so big win, very excited, kind of it.

Yeah, that's very exciting.

I am just so jealous that you're going away, and you're going to be actually having summer weather.

I'm assuming that the weather is going to be great.

Oh, I mean, at least you get to enjoy that.

The island is near Santorini, and they do currently have quite a big threat of a volcano.

So we're going to use that for that today.

They've had a lot of earthquakes recently, and last time our group met was when the pandemic started.

Like literally that week we started it.

So sorry, guys.

If the world ends, like I've said, it's our fault.

Are you guys secretly like the horsemen of the apocalypse?

Yeah, but not on purpose.

Yeah, because the universe like mostly keeps you apart, but every time we come together, something bad happens.

Okay, well, okay.

In a couple weeks, you know whose fault it is.

Yes, okay, that's fine.

Right, okay, so the topic of the week this week is that we're talking about hooks.

What do we mean by that?

That's a good question that I wrote myself.

So I felt slightly annoyed that I had to answer a question this week.

But actually, it's a good thing because I think the standard definition of hooks is kind of one thing, but I want to just say that I'm kind of thinking a bit more broadly.

So I think often when we think about hooks, we think about it maybe in two main ways.

So like hook in your book.

So what is the hook?

And if it's often Cozy Mysteries, people talk about the hook as in like, what's the craft that the sleuth does?

Or like, what's the kind of cute, unique thing about the village they live in?

Which I would say is not super hooky.

I don't know that much that defines like that fits quite in what the hook is.

People often use it for that.

And then the other way of a hook is like a social media hook, which is like the thing that absolutely grabs someone.

They're like, you must read this thing.

So it's like, you know, I don't want to think of one right now, because it's going to be a really cliché one.

No, five secrets, one victim, 17 killers, like that sort of like hook that you get in the front of a thriller.

And I think that doesn't really feel genre appropriate, so cozy.

So like, to me, hook feels like literally, you're hooking someone like they're a fish and you're dragging them towards you in quite a violent way.

And I just feel like I never quite get how that, that matches with like different genres.

I can see it in something like a thriller, where the whole concept of the book is like, like a gut churning anxiety to find out.

I can see it in a romance where it's like, there is a very clear, like, almost like I think of it like high concept, like a high concept movie like this, just this one thing that you can articulate, like, you know, he's a bad guy, but she's the devil, so you know, something like, oh, what a juxtaposition.

I just think in a genre where it's not urgent, how can I, I don't think I think about hooks in the right way.

So how do you think about hooks?

Similarly, I think, yeah, the hook is a thing that is the one part of something, the one part of the story.

So if we're talking about books, which obviously we should be, but I'm going to go wider.

So like the one part of the book where when you reach it, you are just instantly grabbed by the individuality, the uniqueness of that you've not seen in another book, which, like you say, you can come up with so many for such big genres, because they're so cliche.

If you were doing like a retelling of Beauty and the Beast, you would be like, she is the cursed one.

Just like that, like it's almost kind of like...

When you say uniqueness, and like that isn't unique, right?

Like flip fairy tales are not unique.

What do you mean by unique when we say hooks?

We often do use like, oh, it's, it feels like it's going to be something that's like absolutely pinnacle of human existence.

Like you must read this right now.

There's an urgency about hooks.

But like, I think that's not really what hooks are.

It's maybe like what they've got to in our minds.

Yes, it's-

Why do you think them as being like a unique thing?

It's like, it's, I guess like it's not, yeah, it's not really uniqueness per se.

It's what, what general interest are you grabbing people with?

Because I think like uniqueness, yeah, I'm just like completely backtracking on my own thing.

It's like the uniqueness to your story.

So it's the thing that makes your story, like your story.

But the hook has to be an instantly recognizable interest for somebody.

It's because it has to be the thing that, that dings their radar of knowing that that's what they like.

So it's a little bit, maybe a little bit like butter.

It's like a little bit like that, that kind of like juicy morsel that makes you think, oh, that might be the best thing I've ever tasted.

Or like, that looks like it will be so good.

I need it right now.

Like it's something that, something that makes it like, gives you like an urgency to purchase, maybe.

Yeah, I think urgency to purchase is a good way to think about it.

Cause I think there's a sense of urgency.

And often when I look at like hooks in other genres, there is the feeling of like the urgency of someone's going to die, which I always feel like, oh, then, you know, someone is going to die in a crazy mystery, but that's not the urgent thing.

And also like often there's a sense of, oh, the urgency of the sleuth has to figure out the solution or they're in trouble.

That's not really the urgency either.

Or at least like, I think the urgency to purchase is kind of where we want to be thinking.

So I gave some bad examples of like, taglines earlier.

But I in fact have found some recently because I was looking into could you could you figure out a tagline?

I think a tagline is like a form of a hook.

I was like, can you think of a tagline for Cozy Mysteries?

And so I looked at other genres of taglines, just to get a sense of like, kind of where my mind initially goes when I think about hooks.

So here are some others I don't know what books they're for.

They're just for like, I found a Pinterest, a really good Pinterest page of like good book hooks.

And so here's some that stood out for me.

One room, five suspects, three hours to find a killer.

So putting something on a clock.

Oh, I'm so excited by that.

Like I can tell that will be I love a ticking clock.

Yeah.

But also there's like, there's the mystery kind of ticking clock was like, you think you know her, think again, which is just like, that's almost nothing, right?

There's, there's just a sense of, there's going to be something, a twist here.

And then this is, these are all from real books.

Then one was like, family is duty, magic is power, honor is everything.

And like, why does that create an urgency to purchase?

There's no mystery there.

There's no ticking clock, but there's a sense of like magnitude.

So I think what I need to figure out is like, what is the ticking clock belongs in thriller, like conflict, emotional conflict belongs in romance, that magnitude sense belongs in like fantasy.

And I think I just don't have the thing for Cozy Mystery.

And I worked with AI a bit to try and get some put together.

And they just, they felt a bit thrillery.

I think that's that was the issue.

It did come up with one really good one that is just because it's hilarious.

Okay, it was Little Quillington, which is the name of the village that I'm writing about for new series.

Little Quillington, big trouble.

I sort of love it.

But like, you have to be so in the book to know that already.

I was like, oh, I love it.

But it had things like a sweet village, a bitter crime, which is like, kind of, I see it.

Like it ties me in culinary cozy.

But there's, it doesn't feel like to me, it ties in with the emotional sense of the genre.

And I think that the word bitter isn't really like, it's not a cozy word.

It's not a cozy mystery word.

I think bitter seems too like, it's kind of too soft.

You'd want it to be-

I was like, it's culinary, that's what I've gone to.

Yeah, it's culinary, but it's not quite like, you'd want something that's more like poisonous sounding.

You know, it's something that's like way more dramatic.

Yeah, but that's not the thing you get from a cozy.

So one that I saw recently, so I'd worked on a few and I got one that I kind of like, but it wasn't quite working.

And then I saw a similar one that is much better in, so there's a cozy author called Mona Marple, who she has got a book series coming out.

There's a fact set quite near me.

It's on the Yorkshire coast, which weirdly, I have got a Yorkshire coast mystery that I need to be writing.

And I was just talking to another author the other day, he's also got a Yorkshire coast mystery, so maybe it's a zeitgeist thing.

The Yorkshire coast is unbelievably beautiful.

Like you couldn't believe it.

Like the places along there are just fantastic.

It's so ideal for a crazy mystery because it's got this real faded glory.

It used to be like where the rich and famous would go to take the waters.

And it was just phenomenally wealthy, huge hotels.

Like when you think like when you see those like adaptations of Poirot, where he goes to like the enormous seafront hotels, those are down south, but there's very similar ones up north.

Anyway, so just fantastic for crazy mysteries should be more there.

And this one, she's got a really good tagline.

He came home to heal, came home to heal, then he found another body and I go, Oh, hello.

And that the sense of home in there healing.

So you've got that that like feeling.

But then, then he found another body, which got a bit of tension, but not like, someone's gonna stab him in the back.

It's not crazy thrillery.

So that I like.

And so I think I want to keep looking at taglines for different genres, not I think I'm narrowing down too quickly to my own.

And I look at taglines for genres, how they represent the emotional requirements of a genre and how you build that.

Yeah, so like the kind of initial status quo meets the immediate, like rug pull that ruins it.

Yeah, it is difficult because Cozy Mystery is, you've talked about this before, how you find, how you find Cozy Mystery very difficult to find, like when we're talking about writing social media copy and stuff, like how it's difficult to find the right words to convey, like the excitement, like the exciting aspects, like the thing that, like the hooks, like the things that actually do draw people in, because thrillers are so easy, like wow, like it's like so easy to do a thriller, it's like so cliche.

But yeah, like you don't want to rely on.

So it's like a parade of like toddlers dressed as bees and a singing cheesemonger, versus like just the quirky things in the village, and then something like bad happening.

I just, I think that's part of the way there.

But I think it's not quite what I need.

Like I think there's something I'm missing that could be further in, or could kind of capture anymore.

What I've been trying to do is watch things like videos, like adverts for spas and perfume, and like things that they only rely on emotion, and like a feeling, you're trying to give people a feeling of relaxation, and you're trying to convey like what you'll get out of it.

And obviously spas and perfume, they both have a sensory aspect to them, and adverts will usually play up on that sense and how it's going to be feeling like, you know, especially spa ones, like there's a real sense that you can see someone being massaged or the aroma in the air.

That's like, how do you capture that for a book?

And I don't think there's something I need to fix, I can solve right away, but I think if I understood that, I would understand lots more things.

Yeah, I had a similar thing, like when I talked at the start of this about saying like I was going to go wider, what I've been really noticing or thinking about for the last couple of days is hooks in the real world that pull you in, that you don't really notice is happening, like very underhanded ones.

One of the ones that I really realized today, I was watching, like we're staying in an apartment that's looking over like a main street.

I love people watching.

And I watched so many people walk up to a restaurant with one of those menu boards outside.

And they were stood there clearly like trying to think, do we want to go in or not?

And I thought that menu is the hook.

And what makes people go into a restaurant?

Because restaurants, they all saw the same food.

It was just a cafe.

It wasn't even like a themed restaurant.

It wasn't like an Italian or a Chinese restaurant.

It was just a cafe selling breakfast food.

What makes people want to go into that particular cafe for stuff?

What is it about the menu that's putting people off?

Because people were walking away.

And I was thinking like they've obviously not got the right hook because it's just food.

We all eat food.

How are they selling their food?

I'm going to go look at the menu tomorrow when I go out for a little stroll, because I want to see what they've put on this menu.

It's making people turn away and like you try and use that as a way to start thinking about hooks in the real world, to start myself thinking about like what it actually means to, I'm going to say this is going to sound terrible, to emotionally manipulate people into wanting what you've got.

I was listening to a good podcast.

I'm watching a podcast these days.

It's like manipulation.

It's only manipulation if you're doing it for bad ends.

Okay.

Yeah, I think if you're doing it to like give them something that you think will give them what they want, that is a good thing.

So if you're trying to emotionally manipulate someone, it's like paying money for horrible food, that's bad.

If you're trying to emotionally guide people into a food experience they really enjoy, great.

Yeah, one thing I think I struggle with with hooks is like, with restaurants, I am never someone who's going to look at the menu and make a decision based on that.

Because like food is food.

And like the words on the page are not going to represent it at all.

It's just a way someone's chosen to describe it.

And like, I know you can trick people with words.

And also, I will find something that I will enjoy.

It's sort of irrelevant, like I'm going because I have food in my house.

So unless I've chosen like unless I'm specifically in the mood, like, Oh, I really want to go for Chinese food.

But I'm not going to get to the menu at that stage, because I can see from the outside of the restaurant if it's a Chinese restaurant or not.

And I just like I'm looking inside.

I want to see people's plates.

I want to see like how busy it is.

I want to see the service.

The waiters look like they're going to spit in your food.

That's what I care about.

And I might glance at the menu to get a sense of the price, but like I never understand why people are looking at menus.

What are they looking at?

Okay, well, personally, I'm looking to see if they've got vegan options.

So that is a specific requirement that I need.

So I'd eat meat and like a lot of places, I live somewhere where there's lots of vegetarian options.

I just assume like there'll be something, like it's not gonna be great, but like there'll be something.

Yeah.

And I'll just have to deal with that.

Yeah, I'm just very, I'm a very mood eater.

And see, I'm the person that needs to be hooked by a menu on the outside of a restaurant, because I need to look at like what vegan options there are.

I then think like, do I feel like I could, can I see myself eating that?

Have they described it in a way that makes me think, yeah, today I will have avocado on toast, but some days I look at it and I'm like, I don't want avocado on toast.

When do you not want avocado on toast?

Because whatever they've got on the menu hasn't sold it to me.

I think if the rest of the menu, this is like delving into probably stuff that doesn't relate, but if the rest of the menu doesn't sound good, even the non-vegan stuff, I'm like, oh, if the other stuff doesn't sound good, the thing that I like might also not be great.

So even though it's avocado on toast, if the other stuff on the menu that I wouldn't even eat sounds a bit mediocre, is the avocado going to be mediocre?

So I am the person that needs to look at the menu and be emotionally manipulated into going in.

I have been fooled before into having just white bread with a sleight of avocado, and I was like, why?

Why have you done this to me?

Mm-hmm, yeah.

But the menu can just lie.

Yeah, so I think that is interesting, just thinking about what hooks you.

So I, and looking at it in different contexts, like what hooks you, so I'm always trying to think about, you know, when I see like a movie trailer, what in it is the point?

And it's not necessarily thinking about trailers as a whole, it's like thinking, what is the point where I thought, yes, that?

Yeah.

I'm trying to figure out what is that thing.

So one thing I did recently that's not connected to this was I really wanted to figure out why some books are really sticky in Cozy Mystery.

And you get authors who even they're big authors, but the books don't really stick.

And the books seem like they're the same as other books, they just don't stick.

And some books are like, that looks really generic and not that interesting.

And even books that I've read, that's like, to me, I know it's materially not any different to the books as a person who reads as a writer, but it's just really sticky.

And you can do things like look at, are they advertising somewhere?

Do I come across the adverts on Amazon?

Do I look at the Facebook ads library?

Nothing.

So you're like, I know it's something intrinsic in the book itself.

I'm pretty sure it's not the marketing.

So I took a few of those books, and I put the blurbs into Notebook Alarm.

And I was asking the question, I think I've talked about this on a previous podcast, but I was asking them some questions.

And it was really useful.

I'm just trying to delve deep into what aspects of them were different to other Cozy's.

And then I said, can you make me three other example blurbs that would have similar sticking power?

And the blurbs were, and I specifically asked for it in different subgenres of Cozy, just to get a sense of how are they being described.

And the one that really absolutely, I thought I'd love to read that.

I really paid attention to that one.

And the line that did it, I had that feeling of a line when you lean forward and think, oh, yeah, that.

And I paid attention to that.

And I think, for me, it was a line specifically about something book related.

So it was a bookish Cozy mystery.

And it was like an impossibility.

It was like a locked room type mystery.

And that sounded great.

And like, I instantly leaned forward.

And I think that's one thing I could do is just write books that to lend themselves more to that sort of hook.

Like, I always have accidental murders, or not always, but like often have accidental murders.

Like, people had some sort of beef, but a fight escalated and someone gets murdered rather than like, because it's hard in a small village to have like psychopathic murderers plotting out killings for a long time, at least have, you know, more than one or two of those.

So it was it was quite telling that this book had a very specific and like calculated sort of hook to be like, Oh, yes, that.

And there were a couple of other points that same blurb that really got me that were about kind of bookish, specific bookish mysteries, like a certain clue.

That's like, Oh, I know that poem or that story.

I wonder if my knowledge of that will play into this into the into the mystery.

So paying attention to that really helped.

But then I think maybe that's just me.

Maybe other people wouldn't find that hooky.

And I just don't have any confidence that like my own tastes reflect other people's.

I don't really quite know how to get to that stage.

Just like I don't choose food based on menus.

Like I don't choose food based on menus, but many people do.

You've just given me like an idea for a new TikTok account, which is just a TikTok account that I just do hooks, like just like one or two line hooks for stories and see which ones work.

And they don't have to be real books.

Literally just like, what can I come up with?

Just to practice making hooks and seeing what works.

Yeah.

Like that sounds fun.

That's like-

Or even trying to write hooks for real books.

So could you put books in your genre that you write hooks for?

That you're like, it's just a reader account almost.

Me and my ghost boyfriend have a game that we play where we like to come up with movie taglines.

So there's like, actually one of our favourite ones is very apt to this.

So one of my favourite movie taglines is for, I know what you did last summer.

The tagline is get hooked.

Even the title is great.

Like that's a hook.

Wait, is the tagline get hooked?

Is that the real tagline?

Yeah, that's the real tagline, get hooked.

It's because it's so-

Which gives away a lot of the plot.

It gives away so much.

And so we have this game where we like to kind of guess what film has which tagline, but we also like to come up with taglines for films.

And it's like a fun way to distill a story into a really quotable, silly line.

And I feel like if I did a social media account about that, that would really help me figure it out.

But for example, if you were thinking about it for Poirot, like the concept of Poirot as a TV show, what's the tagline for that?

Like, he's very fussy.

I don't like, I'm going to be honest.

Like, the only thing I really know about Poirot is that, like his mustache and he's like very cute.

But my sister's ex-husband, Amical, Amical these bit, used to say...

I've never mentioned sister's ex-husband before, there's a lot of it.

Yeah, this is backstory.

There's a lot of backstory that I'm going to drip feed into this podcast.

My narrative is ever expanding.

His, he used to just, he used to say, Huckyoo Poirot, and that's it.

That's all I know.

That's like, that's my, that's my connection.

So that's, to me, that's the tagline.

That's the hook.

It's just the way you say his name.

With an accent.

I, you won't be quite sure I do have an accent.

No, I know.

Like, can you think of anything cozy that you know?

I think friends, right?

Like, it's a friends TV show.

What's that about?

Nothing.

Yeah.

It's lovely.

It's quite funny.

Yeah.

Six friends.

They could fall in love, but two of them shouldn't.

Will they, won't they?

No.

No.

They shouldn't.

They could, but it's not that kind of show.

But like, okay, so Gilmore Girls is a good example, which is of a tagline that's something like Life Short Talk Fast.

Yeah.

Which is great.

And like, because it's the hook isn't anything that happens.

The hook is the like emotional connection.

Yeah, to an extent.

And like, one thing we're not talking about is like, what we're using these hooks for.

And I think to an extent, it doesn't really matter for me, what we're using hooks for.

It's for me, because I don't think necessarily like, I'm going to be using them in ads or social media.

What I'm really trying to get a sense of hooks about is like, understanding something about sales and advertising and marketing.

And like, if I can understand more about hooks, like it will feed into other things, but it's more just like the concept of how you, how you make people want to read something that isn't intrinsically gripping.

Yeah.

This isn't in any way really connected to that, but it kind of is just in that it's a good way to look at hooks, because hooks, obviously, we're talking about them in terms of writing.

But if you're making ads and like doing covers and stuff, the visual, like visual hooks are just as important.

And I was watching, we got like caught, me and Ghost Boyfriend got caught watching, got caught watching like we should be watching stuff.

No, we got caught in a loop, watching videos from this account on YouTube.

And it was so strange that we had to keep watching, because we didn't know if it was AI or not.

And I think like it just made me think that the curiosity really got us hooked on to watching more videos to see if we could figure out what was going on.

And the video was like, it's a girl, like a child singing.

She's like a pop star, a little child pop star person.

And her videos, this, it sounds like I'm watching really random stuff, and we do.

She's singing on one side of the screen.

Like she's stood in a park with a microphone.

And it seems like it's AI, because it just seems weird, like weirdly static.

Next to her, a boy, a young boy is dancing for the entirety of the song.

No brakes, no anything.

He's just going like an energizer bunny.

And then there's a cat in front of them.

I think I've actually seen this.

You probably have seen this, right?

So he's like, he's, he's just like going like freestyling.

And then there's a cat at the front of the video.

So you sit watching it because you feel you can't look away.

It's almost car crashy, but it's not, it's more like a visual puzzle that you're trying to like, you're trying to understand what it is and whether you're interested in it.

And like, what universe is coming from?

And I feel like that...

I think I sent you a link a while ago to a podcast, obviously, I say a lot of things to podcasts, to a podcast that was, I think, from social media marketing.

And it was a woman who's got a not very woman's name, so obviously I can't remember that either.

I'll put it in the show notes.

Basically, there was a woman talking and she was absolutely fascinating because she had just really focused and mastered like video content.

Yes.

And her name is something like Adeline, but I've got terrible memories of names, even when they make more sense than this one.

I'm just looking through my things I've sent you to try and figure it out, but I can't find what it is.

Oh, Adley.

Okay.

So her name is Adley Kinsman, and it's on a podcast called Social Media Marketing.

And she's absolutely fascinating, like not just her videos, but like her as a person, she was so interesting and articulate about this topic.

And also I felt like it explained a whole section of the Internet that I've been really frustrated by for ages.

And so she has spent years trying to figure out how to get people's attention online with video content.

And she was saying, if you've seen a video online in the past two years, that you couldn't figure out, you couldn't understand what the content is, why you couldn't stop watching, why someone would make it.

She was like, that was probably me, trying to test different things to see how long I could hook someone in absolute nonsense.

And the worst one for this is like five minute DIY crafts, which I don't think is necessarily one of hers.

I think it is just given what she said, because I hate it.

I watch those and it's so anger inducing.

And you know, like I just want to scroll away, but I've got to see how far they're going to take this.

Yeah.

And then they just keep taking it further and further.

And it's not a thing.

And you're like, why would anyone make this?

And the comments are all people being frustrated, like, why would you make this?

Who is doing this in five minutes?

And I'm annoyed.

And then you hate yourself for watching it.

And you get something as well.

Anyway, I'll put a link to that episode, that podcasting because it was absolutely fascinating.

And she has got really good socials, just to watch.

And she both makes like great gripping hook, like visually hooky videos.

And also she does a lot of explainers on it.

So I'll just make myself a note to share that podcast.

Because you think she has definitely really helped me figure out things about visual hooks.

And she's so articulate about it.

But also annoying, right?

Like the videos are annoying.

And she makes sense.

You know, she's being annoying.

And I kind of admire that.

I just think it's interesting to see how you can do that on purpose.

And I don't want to do that exact thing.

But something that I can learn from that is useful.

Yes, I think it ties in.

Like movement, right?

Like even basic like movement on making a TikTok.

Yes.

So there's like what people do is like tap things, or like they'll be opening stuff, stirring things.

Sometimes you'll see people do it.

Yeah, or they'll be talking to a camera and something, there's something weird in the background.

That's like the ones that I always think it's kind of less obvious that people don't really realize.

It's like there's someone weird in the background or just like a weird, like ornament or something that is like a conversation, like we're talking about last week, that conversation pieces.

Yeah, like, I like it kind of ties in with audacity because she's doing those things and not caring that the outcome is negative, because everything that she's doing, like even the negative outcome is like what she needs to do in order to figure something out.

And I feel like maybe we need to be more audacious with our hooks.

Maybe we're limiting ourselves because we think we can only write hooks that are within our genre.

But maybe we could try writing hooks that are outside our genre and, and just try to be a little bit more like, like brazen about it.

Yeah, I think I think I don't want to write hooks that are outside my genre.

I want to steal techniques from outside my genre and apply them to have the same like, apply them to different emotional consequence.

Yeah.

It's like a like a like a perfume video, right?

Perfume videos are insane.

Oh, God.

They I mean, even car videos, well, like car videos, they can't show you anything meaningful about the car because what do you care about with the car?

Like, all it does is it turns on and it goes and it stops, that there's nothing else to a car.

It's just a go and stop machine.

And in a video and the minutiae of it is like, how does it handle?

Like what's the suspension like?

How's the power steering?

Like those are things you care about from driving it.

But like the actual like advertising, all it can do is give you like an emotional resonance for a car, the same for perfume.

And I kind of think about how those capture something about emotional resonance is really interesting.

I think what's interesting about both those videos types is they don't tend to have words in.

Unless they're about like something very specific, like for car adverts, like they often have like, you know, green messaging, they'll have a conversation.

But often it's just like someone driving down a vast empty road, a woman leaping through flowery fields.

I think that you are missing two of the best perfume adverts that have come out recently, or not even recently, in the past like five to 10 years, is Charlize Theron for Dior, Gold is Cold, Diamonds are Dead.

Classic.

Those are meaningless.

Exactly, yes.

They're not gonna start a conversation.

No, meaningless.

And then Natalie Portman's What Would You...

And you, What Would You Do For Love?

Yeah, that is interesting.

To me, they're much like a good jingle, a good perfume advert gets me.

I don't know what it is.

Like that, and that's a, it's almost a hook, but it doesn't make sense.

Yes.

Yeah.

It doesn't make any sense.

But the phrasing of it sticks in my head.

Maybe I'm just like really easy to manipulate with adverts.

And I mean, I know that I am.

Give me a good jingle.

I remember your brand forever.

There's just, that will never go away.

But yeah, like just the right turn of phrase can get me.

That's what I want to get good at.

I want to get good at it, because I know obviously, as a writer, like I'm good at writing, but I don't spend time like really trying to do a good turn of phrase that's like hooking.

But it's not even objectively good, right?

And you, what would you do for that?

No, no, yeah.

And that like pairing that with like the feeling we get already from Natalie Portman.

It wouldn't work from anybody, right?

It has to be from a celebrity who already have a certain feeling about the way she styled in that video, the background.

You get 100% emotion from that.

And then that conveys to yes, I'm that sort of person.

I want to feel that way.

I want to spray something on me that's going to make me, Natalie Portman, falling in love in a romcom.

Which obviously it's not going to do, when it's irrelevant to what the actual smell is, right?

That's what the crazy thing is about, about her few madverts.

It's like, the smell is the only thing.

There's not even two things to it.

There's just the smell.

At least in the car, there's like, is it solid?

And does it stop and go?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I think I'm constantly trying to, I think that's my issue.

That's what I want to get to with Hooks.

I'm constantly trying to sell the content.

And I really want to get away from that because the content is post marketing.

The content is what gets someone to read book two, and I want to be able to read book one, and then the content sells book two.

That's it.

That's itself.

I think that's why I want to figure out Hooks is because that's what I'm really missing about, kind of promoting my books is I'm thinking of them too much as like, I don't know what's something really tedious to advertise, like a plumbing advert of like a plumbing advert, you have to advertise like how the plumbing thing works, like a drain snake or whatever.

Or like, you know, lots of like, antibacterial things, they're about like the numbers of bacterial kill, and how safe your family will be.

But I need to advertise something vibey because a book is only vibey.

It's only a feeling when you get in it.

And I need to, yeah, get better at selling it.

And maybe it's about being more audacious with the Hooks, and figuring out like, can I take, even just testing, I really like your idea of testing different hooks.

And take the styles of different genres, but try and reflect a different emotional sense.

And maybe Steve Natalie Portman will be an advert for it.

Yeah.

You just need like Charlize Theron or Natalie Portman to be an advert and deliver a line that makes no sense, has no context.

Yeah.

And that's it.

Yeah, that's it.

I think it's hooking book one.

And I know we do always, I feel like we always have this conversation, but it's always the hardest thing to distill your own story down into its most primal elements, that the most emotionally gripping part.

I know what my story is about.

I can write the blurb, I can write ad copy, but I can't like I have not yet grasped the essence.

This is like perfume words all over the place.

Have not yet grasped the essence of its true beauty.

So what you can ask like the real essence, right?

Like the basis essence is the same for everyone across your genre.

Like every book in your, that's what makes a genre is it has the same essence.

So how do you do like essence plus like, you know, essence.

And this is what we talked about last week.

I think Hooksworth has something to do with like personal narratives.

Because like this is the essence that like it's got the same, it's a bit like cake, right?

I think more than perfume because perfume can have tons of different things.

But like say we're thinking about like a Victoria sponge, like a very basic cake.

And say, and that's your genre, right?

Your genre is Victoria sponge.

But like the, I love Victoria sponge.

That's got like a sort of Earl Grey flavor to it.

And I actually don't like too much cream.

What I like is like a really, really light sponge.

Like the light but moist.

And so how is someone going to tell me?

And imagine I've got a whole cabinet of Victoria sponges.

How do I know which one to pick out?

Because I know what I like in my mouth.

I know that I like, oh gosh, that sort of sponge that is like light but not dry.

It's almost got a gift to it.

It's almost like you're biting into a sponge, like a dish sponge, but tasty.

And then not packed with cream, because I think that's cheapens it.

But maybe like a thick layer of strawberries, but not strawberry jam again.

I think you're trying to cover something.

I'm mostly about the sponge, but I like a little maybe Earl Grey Hinton sponge.

How is someone gonna sell in a row of cakes?

Like how is someone gonna tell me that sponge is the one?

And I don't know.

Well, other than packaging, the brand, like the brand is a big deal, which is obviously ties into us and our narratives and trying to get ourselves seen as the particular people within our genre that's trustworthy and know what to expect.

So I guess that's an element of it, is that it's easier to hook people if they already know, like who's holding the fishing, the fishing stick, what we call them that fishing rod.

Oh, the English language escapes me all the time.

So it's easier to be hooked when you know who's holding the rod, maybe.

Yeah.

It's like if you handed a fish, I think I could catch it more easily.

I'm like, just hop on that hook.

No worries.

I want you.

I will eat you.

Yeah, I'm going to eat you.

But yeah, come here.

Come here, little fish.

Just jump onto this plate.

So I think that has something to do with it.

I do think it's better to take that into account because say, like, if you went to look at Victoria's sponge cakes, you're probably more likely to be drawn to a nice logo, like a nice box, and if Mary Berry is on the cover, on the box, you might be like, oh, a Mary Berry cake, or even like, if you saw Nigella Lawson had released a cake.

Could be weird.

I'd be, I'd read it carefully.

But yeah, but you'd be intrigued, would you not?

So you'd be like, oh, what would Nigella put in that?

Um, so I think that, and yeah, and you have to eat it at midnight out of the box, if it's straight from the fridge, don't put it on a plate.

Yeah, well dressed in negligee.

I just, you know, I think that I, I don't want my Victoria's sponge to be too sexy, maybe.

I like it.

So you want the Mary Berry cake.

I'll go for the Nigella Lawson because it seems more fun.

Um, but yeah, I think that has a lot to do with it, is like how it's packaged.

And then obviously like the words, if you're, if you're looking for an Earl Grey cake and it says it's Earl Grey sponge, that's the hook, that's...

But then I might think, oh, is that going to be too Earl Grey-ish?

I just wanted a hint of it in there, so I think...

Well, what if you said with a hint of Earl Grey?

Like that's, the hint is the tease.

Oh, maybe it's, maybe we're teasing.

Maybe a hook is more of a tease.

I think a good way to think about it is like a lot of identical cakes together, and how would you differentiate them?

Because yeah, things like if I knew I wanted a hint of Earl Grey, but not a lot of Earl Grey, you could put that in the language, but also, I'd want to see that it's not too dark.

It's not just like someone's poured a bunch of tea flakes in there, so I want to have something of a look.

Um, and some of it is like the packaging just of the cake, right?

The way it's presented.

So I want to be able to see that it's not like dusting loads of icing sugar.

Like that's a sign again of like fussiness.

Not for me, for someone, but it's not for me.

Um, yeah, so how do I?

I think one thing I really keep coming back to as well is I spent, I'm naturally leaning towards trying to figure out what other people want and make my cake like that, rather than saying this is my cake.

How am I going to tell people what this cake is?

Because some people love this cake.

We were talking about this before we started and they're like, I have just released book three in a series and the reviews for it are just like the best reviews I've ever had, like really, really, really positive in a way that I'm like 100% what I wanted.

And it's people being like, every book is better, you know, it's getting better book on book.

I've been waiting for this and it's exactly what I wanted.

And that's what I want for book three reviews, right?

For book one reviews, you're going to get a bigger mix.

But by the time someone gets to book three, I've weeded out people that don't like the books.

And these people are like 100% the right people.

So it's like, how could I have, how could I convey that my book one is exactly something that's going to find those people quicker and more more targeted, rather than saying this book is for everyone.

If you like Cozy Mysteries, you'll like this, you won't.

A lot of people will not like it because my books are quite short.

They're a bit more pacy than an often Cozy Mystery is.

And the writing style is not for everyone.

So I think I'm often tending towards being as inoffensive in general, like it's for everyone.

It's a Victoria sponge.

But like you can't sell Victoria sponge unless you're Mary Berry.

You can't sell Victoria sponge by just saying it's Victoria sponge.

You need to say it's Hint of Earl Grey, you know, bergamot in the in the cream, light airy sponge.

You need to get specific on it.

I would be hungry now.

I know I would love a slice of Victoria sponge.

Oh my god.

It's such a good cake.

Underrated, I think.

Very underrated.

Yeah.

It's a personal favourite.

I love Victoria sponge.

Vicky sponge, as we call it in my house.

I want it in my tropics international.

If it's just English, I'm so sorry, everybody.

Yeah.

Everyone probably has this cake.

So I'll just describe it for you.

It's a light airy vanilla sponge.

You could put Earl Grey in if you wanted.

I personally like a strawberry jam.

I know.

No.

I'm a heathen.

I love strawberry jam.

And I love fresh whipped cream.

Not sweetened cream.

I just want like that kind of, like a very, very heavy, very like creamy, no sugar cream in it to cut through the jam.

That's perfect.

But like you say, like everybody in the UK, I think has a very specific Victoria sponge that they like.

We all love Victoria sponge.

I've never heard anyone say they don't like it, but everyone has their own specific thing that they like about it.

What is that?

A lot of their things.

Yeah.

I saw me buying even like a really dense, dry one, because of the humidity or something.

Yeah.

But that's like the beauty of...

We're all selling books, and there's so many books in each genre, and everybody...

And there are people out there who are willing to buy.

You have to find the people that want to buy your beurre jamon cake, and the people that want to buy my strawberry jamon and very thick cream, like 90% cream.

So how...

Yeah, like that's the hook is...

Is it's like...

It's the cream.

Yeah.

Because that would really put me off.

I'd be like, no, that's not for me.

I'm glad you'd read that and leave a bad review.

Yeah.

But I want that.

I want the thickest cream you could possibly get on it.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think I'm going to take over the next few weeks, I'm going to try, maybe not setting up a separate account, but maybe interjecting hooks into my usual scheduling posts.

Just to see.

Just to see how wild I can get with them.

Like how far can I take it?

How tame?

Like I'll start, maybe I'll make a list of tame to wild, and then like to see like what kind of game I can make it.

Because I do love to gamify what I'm doing.

I was talking a lot about Breanne Randall, who is really big on that.

Like she does a lot of just big wild hooks and then see what responses.

I'm like, who's hurt by that?

What's the damage?

Nothing.

Yeah.

Yes.

I do feel like she does a lot of market research that way to see what really pulls people in.

And I've never, because I, and it's silly because not that many people are listening to what I have to say online.

So it's not like I'm going to spoil my chances.

I'm not going to turn anyone away.

But she has such a big audience that she could turn way more people away.

The chances of like the percentage of people who would unfollow obviously is a bigger percentage than me.

Cause I've like, no one sees my posts, very limited amount of people.

Whereas thousands of people see her posts and she's still throwing it out there.

It's like, it often doesn't go to your followers, it goes to new people.

So all you're doing is you're getting to market test ideas with a bunch, like a randomly assorted group of strangers.

Yeah.

That's the best thing for TikTok.

Yeah, I think that's...

I might do that.

Yeah.

I might see if I can figure out Cozy Mysteries.

Like I've got like, I've got several accounts just like trying different things.

And so I might just try, can I figure out like how to make a hook?

Which I've really just been like struggling, struggling with.

And I've talked to people about this, and I think like people have got some ideas for hooks, but whatever they've said is not, I've not had the epiphany.

I'm sure they're right, but it's just not hitting me in the right way.

So I'm going to try and get to epiphany stage with this because I'm just missing something for myself.

Yeah.

Yeah, because you need to figure out some things you just have to figure out for yourself.

Like somebody can tell you, this is what a hook is.

This is how hooks can work for you.

And you could do a workbook and listen to a podcast and watch a YouTube tutorial about the best way to find hooks.

But for me personally, I really have to learn something myself through doing.

That's the best way that I can learn.

It's like I have to absorb it into my entire being and I just know intrinsically in myself that I have the ability to do it.

This is so the peak difference between you and me.

And I was thinking, literally I was like, oh, you know what I have to do is read some academic articles on this.

No, I can't.

No, that's not how I learn.

I learn by doing.

Somebody show me what to do.

I have researched on Google Scholar if I had to find something and I could not find it.

No, I have to do something that I can repeat multiple times.

And then it's like then it's ingrained.

Yeah, I'm like a robot.

Of course it's got to do with your main TikTok account, right?

Like you've got like thousands of views now on some posts, which is great.

And I just don't have the patience for that.

I think the issue I have with TikTok is not, it doesn't feel like it's reliable learning.

Like you could do the same thing, exact same thing twice and get different results.

I was like, well, that's not for me.

Yeah, that's what I found this week.

Yeah, I had a post that got like over 4,000 views.

And then I was like, well, like what part of that?

Yeah, what part of that worked there?

So I've tried each part of it separately and have not been able to replicate it.

I don't know.

I don't know.

But I got there once, so I'll get there again.

That's how I feel with hooks.

It's like, if I could just get one hook to work and I can do it again.

Like I just, I like to repeat and repeat until it just becomes easier.

And I'm sure that that's how it will work for me.

What I found fascinating was when I was trying to research like book taglines, was how variable they are.

So I would strongly recommend everyone just like Google book taglines.

Pinterest has got some really good collections of them.

Some of them really good, some of them absolutely awful.

And you think, is it because the book is bad?

Like, by awful, I mean, just incredibly generic, like things like one woman on an island, seven nights to find a difference.

You're like, what?

And it's like, is what is the is it dramatic?

Is it lovely?

Who knows?

And some are just like, you think you know someone, think again, it's like, yeah, kind of I see where you go, but like, it's not strong enough.

And it's like, is the book bad in that situation?

Or is the marketing person bad?

And I think this is someone who's done marketing professionally for books before, and they were terrible books.

They were academic science books, which is not terrible, but they're not easy to sell.

So I'm not blaming the marketing people here.

They were probably some marketing intern in their first week, and they were like told, make the tagline for this book.

Okay.

So I'm just saying it was, it's very interesting to look and see what's a good tagline and what's not.

And I feel like a book, like a thrillery book, you know, psychological thriller, I will buy it based on the tagline, a hundred percent.

And I've been burned that way, and yet I'll still fall for it.

Because sometimes they are so good.

They're like, I feel literally like a fish that has swallowed a hook and I cannot resist.

Yeah.

But I don't think, well, maybe a different word than hook for like Cozy Mysteries because it does feel like you're literally on a hook for like a psychological thriller.

But what is it for other genres?

Yeah.

I'm going to keep pondering.

Yeah, I'm going to-

Our pondering has helped others.

Yeah.

Like I feel like this is really like a fire under me.

It feels like this is like personal challenge week, even though it's not a personal challenge week.

I'm going to take this as personal challenge.

Every week is personal challenge week.

Yeah, it is.

It really is.

And we encourage you listeners to do personal challenges too.

Yes.

And I'm going to say for this week's question in the Discord, so everyone who is listening, do join our Discord.

The link in the show notes, it's Pen to Paycheck, maybe, or Pen to Paycheck Authors, I've forgotten again.

But the link is in the show notes.

Join us in the Discord and we have a question.

And normally it's something quite specific.

But this week, I just want to ask something quite general about like, what do you understand about hooks?

Like what do you think you know about hooks?

Or what are some...

Because I don't want to get specific as in what's a good example of a hook.

Yeah.

What do you understand about hooks in your genre?

And just leave it as open as that.

Because I think it's such a big topic.

And the word hooks, we said at the beginning, can be taken anyway.

So let me just make a quick note of that.

And hopefully we'll get some great answers.

Hooks in your genre.

Okay.

So, oh gosh, my writing is so terrible.

I'm so sorry to myself, for you yourself having to read that.

So I think we're at the end for today.

Next week, we're talking about social media.

So another great big topic, but we're kind of narrowing it down to really focusing on organic and paid use.

Because at the moment, Sam is doing lots of really good organic stuff, and I'm doing a Dumb and Curned and Ordinary episode to talk about both those two things together.

And see if we could find some useful crossover in which to talk about that.

So do you have any thoughts already on that?

Yes and no.

No, yeah, I definitely, and I'm obviously very open about this, talk about it a lot, that my whole game is based in social media.

I love trying to figure it out, and I love the idea of figuring out organic reach and trying to figure out organic sales because I'm such a skin flip with money that I don't want to pay.

But I know, I will, and I'm not averse to doing ads and things, but I really, my first love is really trying to trick the algorithm into sending me readers that will convert into sales and stuff.

So yeah, I'm looking forward to talking about what I'm doing.

I'm looking forward to hearing all about your ads because I know that you are way more involved in ads and you're so analytical about it, that I'm looking forward to hearing your breakdown of everything that you've been doing.

I've even this week, like gone further, we had our Easter meal at my family at the weekend.

And for part of it, it was just me and my dad sat away from everyone else on our laptops, looking at like the ad platform and Photoshop and like how to make images for ads as well.

So I feel like it's useful this year, we're both trying to think about strategy and kind of what strategy plays into your strength and building up the tactics that work for you into a strategy.

I do think for me, ads, if I can get them to really work consistently, it's ideal for me because I love data and I love replicable.

It's very late.

Sorry, everyone.

I love trying to get just like measurable information and respond to that.

I have been doing some organic things as well.

We had our six day challenge, which I'm still adhering to, of doing three posts a day on social objects, which again feels like to me, a sort of something that is meaningful and measurable.

So I quite like having that target that has felt doable.

So yes, we'll catch up on that.

And we'll kind of talk about quite a range of things.

And hopefully it will be useful to listen to, as today has been, I'm sure.

If you have got used to about a bit, please do go into our show notes, grab the link to the Coffey, Kofi, Kofi, I'm not going to pronounce it, but the Coffey.

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But yes, if you like to support us, go in the show notes, grab a coffee link and pop some money in there.

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Join in, have a chat, ask some stupid questions as we'd love to do in there.

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