The Author Wheel Podcast
The Author Wheel Podcast
Turning Passion into Paychecks with Jim Wilbourne
Tired of the traditional 9 to 5 grind and yearn to ignite your creative spark?
You've heard today's guest before . . . on our intro! We're talking with our podcast producer, Jim Wilbourne about his journey into the writing and publishing world.
Fun fact: a lot of writers don't write full time. Arguably most. In fact, many "full-time authors" have multiple streams of income. Jim has taken his background in music into the author world to provide audio engineering and editing services for audiobooks and podcasts—like ours! This has allowed him to embrace his unique writing style and still fulfill his creative career dreams.
We talk about how he focuses on evergreen content that can be shared essentially forever, his multi-years' long email autoresponder, repackaging content into multiple media formats, and the power of niche-focused marketing.
Jim Wilbourne is a creative at heart. If he’s not writing a novel, he’s writing and recording a song, or once again trying to learn how to draw. When he’s not working on the next project, he spends his free time working on another project. He totally has a life. Jim lives in the deep south with his wife and son and doesn’t miss the snow at all.
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Jim Wilbourne
Fiction Website: www.jimwilbourne.com
Audio Services: www.emergentrealms.com
All the Stuff: https://linktr.ee/jimwilbourne
The Author Wheel:
Website: www.AuthorWheel.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorWheel
Greta Boris:
Website: www.GretaBoris.com
Facebook: @GretaBorisAuthor
Instagram: @GretaBoris
Megan Haskell:
Website: www.MeganHaskell.com
Facebook & Instagram: @MeganHaskellAuthor
TikTok: @AuthorMeganHaskell
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Hi everyone and welcome to the Author Wheel podcast. I'm Greta Boris, usa Today Bestselling Mystery Thriller. Author.
Speaker 2:And I'm Megan Haskell, award-winning fantasy adventure author, and together we are the Author Wheel. So we are very excited. Today we have a fantastic episode because we are talking with our podcast audio engineer editor. I don't know what the actual title is. We should probably ask him, oops.
Speaker 2:Podcast producer, our podcast producer yeah, that's probably right Podcast producer Jim Willward, and he was an amazing guest, because one of the things that we talked about and I can't wait for you to hear this section of the interview, but was the idea of the side hustle and that not every author is a full time author. But they're still working. They're still doing things in the industry. They're just doing it more as a side hustle with other streams of income. So really great conversation. So stay tuned for that. But first Greta, what's going on?
Speaker 1:Well, I am really into playing the Facebook ads these days, which is just like I'm laughing at myself, because it's something I've avoided for a very long time and been terrified of, but I'm really having fun with them, so I made a couple of images that look really Halloweeny which really works good for the.
Speaker 1:Mauritician series, because kind of a Halloweeny kind of a series anyway, and one of those images is actually doing pretty well. I'm going to double check on it today. But we had a conversation with a future guest about learning to like the marketing and see it as a creative outlet. So I feel like I'm kind of doing that. So that's really fun.
Speaker 2:I'm going to need you to teach me that stuff later. I mean, I know you take the class from Matthew Holmes, who we had on the show, so if you haven't listened to that episode, guys, go out and listen to it. It was fabulous and I've thought about signing up for his course. I just haven't had the time to dedicate to it yet. But, that's something I got to learn how to do.
Speaker 1:Well, he has a new one coming out that is all about selling your books direct. Yeah, yeah so that will probably be the one for you.
Speaker 2:For sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so yeah. And then on writing news, I'm still on the home stretch of splitting hairs. I was really hoping that today I'd be able to say I was done with my first draft, but no, but I'm going to get that done before a big family camping trip which is coming up and before our trip to 20 books, to 50K which is also coming up.
Speaker 2:Which I am so excited about. This is the first. I mean, I went to 20 books five years ago-ish, before COVID, and had a great time, and so I'm excited to be able to go back again this year. I'm starting to make more of an effort to get out and do more conferences and shows and things like that. So for all our listeners, we will be there, and I want to make sure that you join the AuthorWheel Group on Facebook, because we haven't figured out our schedule yet.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:We do not know.
Speaker 1:And honestly, folks, I cannot think about it until I'm actually in Vegas. We're going to be footloose in fancy phrase oh man, oh man, it's going to be a special week. Yes, well, it's going to be fun.
Speaker 2:But yeah, so make sure you join the group. I will put the link in the show notes and that's where we will, once we figure it out, post our schedule and where we're going to be, which bar or where we're going to meet up. So if you'd like to come meet up and chat, we'll be around and you can find out all that information there. And in the meantime, actually, if you are planning on going, go to the group, post in the notes, say, hey, I'm going. In fact, let's make a Greta, let's make a post for that, like a comment post, just so that we know who we should be looking for, and yeah, and then you can comment on there and say, hey, I'm going to be there, and then we'll make sure we get everything together.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because we'd love to meet you guys. Really really love to meet you.
Speaker 2:For sure. It's nice to know we're not talking into the void sometimes.
Speaker 1:I know.
Speaker 2:Well, in my news, I only really have one other thing to talk about, and that's that I have been getting ready for this week's special promo and I'm making Aetherbound free through Sunday, october 29th. So this is in advance of Halloween and in advance of the launch of book two titled Aether Cross, which comes out officially on all the platforms November 7th. So if you're into a slightly spooky contemporary fantasy, I think you'll like this book. It's actually it's got you know demons and it's got traveling to the underworld and and and it's fun, it's got Tiki drinks too. So in fact, I like Can't beat.
Speaker 1:you can't beat the Tiki drinks. I'm just saying Exactly exactly.
Speaker 2:And if you sign up for my list, I think well, there, if you read the book you get links, you can sign up for my list and you can download some of the recipes for the drinks. Little little little secret, little secret Easter egg in there. But I do want to give the little pitch real quick and I want to say that it's like Suki Stackhouse meets Coyote Ugly and a Laguna Beach Tiki Bar, but with ancient gods and demons instead of vampires. And if you don't understand those references, I don't know if I can talk to you.
Speaker 2:It might not be the series for you If you don't might not be the series for you I don't know, we'll see. But you can grab it on your favorite digital bookstore or direct from my website. This week only for free, otherwise it's 499.
Speaker 1:There you go, there you go. That's, that's wonderful. So I guess we're moving on with the show.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's get on with the show, and I am so excited to have him on the show. You guys are going to recognize his smooth, dulcet tones, as Greta says, because he is actually our sound engineer for the podcast. But I'll read his bio here real quick. First, jim Wilborn is a creative at heart. If he's not writing a novel, he's writing and recording a song, or once again trying to learn how to draw. When he's not working on the next project, he spends his free time working on another project. He totally has a life. Jim lives in the deep South with his wife and son and does not miss the snow at all. So, jim, thank you so much for coming on the show today. We're excited to have you and actually have a little chat and talk about all the things that you're doing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thank you for having me Of course, of course.
Speaker 2:So in your own words. Why don't you tell us a little bit more about yourself and how you got into writing and what your journey has been like thus far, thus far?
Speaker 3:So my journey is pretty generic. I think you know I started writing when I was a lot younger and stopped sometime in my late teens and did something else and then came back to it in adulthood and that's kind of the short version. The long version is more of like I actually tried to self publish my own book when I was 11 or 12.
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness, You're a prodigy.
Speaker 3:I wouldn't say prodigy, because that book was awful.
Speaker 1:But I'm always prodigy Right.
Speaker 3:I've always been a DIY person. You know, I've always wanted to be the person who, if I could, you know, do it myself, I would do it myself when it came to creative projects. So from there I moved into doing a lot of like RPG work, where I would email people back and forth, playing in a Star Trek world where we would operate a ship and we create stories on the fly, kind of like a, like a D&D kind of thing. But for Star Trek, which is really love.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love that, that's cool that's.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's unique, that's taking. Like you said, you're going to do it your own way, right? So?
Speaker 3:I got a lot of storytelling experience doing that. And after I finished that and I went to school, I went to school for music, actually, and from there I did some light touring and played in bands and as I got a little older I thought you know, that whole writing thing is still something I really want to do and I started researching it and trying to figure out how do I break in to the industry. And amongst all my research and figuring out how to write and everything at least well, this time around I found out about self publishing and it was game over from there, because as soon as I found out that people are just publishing stuff onto Kindle without a publisher, I was well, that's obviously what I'm going to do. I'm not going to submit to anything. I would never waste my time on that. Maybe that's the hubris in me, but that just seemed like a very natural fit for me. So that's why I ended up being an indie author instead of trying to push for a trad deal.
Speaker 1:So Gotcha Well you know, it's an interesting thing like listening to your bio. First of all, I just want to mention that you and I have like a surprising amount in common. You we both lived in Massachusetts. I'm also a musician. I was raised by musicians. It's like the thing I thought I was supposed to do. And then segueing into books and I also self published my first book. That was had a fabulous title and there were good things about it, but it's no longer available for purchase. It's the wine and chocolate workout.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I kind of want to read that.
Speaker 1:Well, I got a couple copies. I'll send you one, but but it's interesting how many creatives have similar stories and the the idea about indie publishing, like I like. When you said you're sort of a DIY kind of person, I just wonder, like, what is it that motivates us Like to do that, like? So Megan says it's because she's a control freak what she is a little bit. I will. I will go that For me. I think the reason I did it initially was because I'm just impatient. I don't want to wait for other people until I did such a bad job. Then I went oh, I think maybe I need a publisher. So then I did get a publisher. But so what do you think that core motivation was that made you go? Oh, I will obviously do it that way.
Speaker 3:Um, I just, I don't know, I really don't know what that is inside of me that makes me want to kind of I don't know, I'm not good at being an employee either Like I needed my day job. You know, I tried and plotted for years to figure out how to quit my day job and what can I do, like what skills I need to learn in order to Completely work from home. Like I just, I think, being stuck in a system that I can't turn or control, I mean, maybe that is it, it's, maybe it is control, maybe it's just that it's just your inner rebel.
Speaker 3:Right, I want to be flexible. I like to be able to turn on the dime and try something new and, you know, not be strictly beholden to a certain way.
Speaker 1:Can it be be have more agency in your life to more freedom? It's just interesting. I it's like I threw that question at you. I'm sorry it wasn't on the list of questions, but you guys got me thinking.
Speaker 1:It's like what is it that? Because now I'm really enjoying in the publishing too, um, and so it's just like interesting, what? What is it that motivates us all? But that's a maybe for a separate podcast, though. Um, so so. But do tell us this what do you think has been your greatest roadblock to success, and and how have you overcome it? Are you still in the process of overcoming it, or you know? Give us some wisdom on that.
Speaker 3:So my biggest robot block to success is probably speed. I'm just a slow rider, um, and it's something that I feel that.
Speaker 2:Yeah I, I'm just not very fast at all, Not at all, not even a little bit fast.
Speaker 3:Um, you know, I, I write maybe 200 to 500 words a day, maybe, um, and that's a good day for me. You know, I, I put the words exactly where I want them. I edit as I go and that's my day, um, and then I'm like wow, that was, that was a whole lot of sentence crafting, you know, because I don't, I do not write and then go back and edit. I mean, obviously I have to copy, edit, but I, I say exactly, I want to say it, exactly how I want to say it the first time around, because I kind of don't want to edit it beyond, like commas and periods and you know typos. Um, I kind of want to say it the way I want to say it, and I know that's not the most efficient way to do it, but it feels wrong to just leave something the way it is. Um, and my brain just does not allow me to move forward without having that in place. Um, so in order to overcome that, I've done several things.
Speaker 3:Um, I've done several things. First of all, I outline pretty extensively, because if I'm doing that much editing while I'm writing, I really need to know where I'm going. So I'm not also trying to figure that out. At the same time, I can kind of just craft each thing that I do like it's and know that whatever I'm crafting is going to fit in, and I don't have to go back and say, well, I have to throw this all out now and outside of that.
Speaker 3:The other thing is that I just create more content that is not directly the book and I think what it is is that I'm slow on one particular project. I kind of I need time and space to breathe on any individual thing. But if you give me three different projects I can do, you know, an hour on one thing, you know two hours on another and you know an hour or two on another thing and not feel exhausted at all. I think it's jumping to a different bring space that helps me stay. You know creative. So consequently, you know I do a lot of book reviews and I write a lot of essays now and that's kind of what keeps me, kind of my little hack of always having something to show my audience rather than just the next book. So that's.
Speaker 2:That's really interesting, and I think it's. It's what's interesting too and I think this is a topic that needs to be brought out more is that everybody's brain works differently, right.
Speaker 2:So, so, yeah, like for a long time it was, you got to write fast, you got to put out, you know, a book a month, or you got maybe not, maybe that's a little, even a little fast, but some people were.
Speaker 2:Or, you know, you got to, you got to do this, you got to do that thing, everybody's got to do the thing, but the got to do the thing is actually not always the right thing for that person and I so feel.
Speaker 2:Exactly you know where you're at as far as, like, I don't outline but I do write carefully and cleanly so that usually most of the time I don't have to go back and heavily edit the story, you know, and that's kind of part of my process. But but, yeah, being that slow writer, you do have to find other ways and switching things. I mean, that's why part of the reason why I do the author wheel as well, is because it's a different brain space than the creativity of the story, which is a different brain space than the creativity of, for example, designing merch or coming up with, you know, social media posts or other things too. So like breaking up your day into chunks that you can use to be moving lots of things forward at different times is such a great idea for some people. For some people it won't work, but I, you know, I love that it works for you and that you've kind of figured out a process to keep yourself rolling, as we say.
Speaker 1:You know, what I don't think we've mentioned yet is what genre do you?
Speaker 3:write Jim, I write epic fantasy, so I write epic fantasy. I dev edit epic fantasy for other writers and that's my writing. Portion of the day is either I'm writing for myself or I'm debiting for another author. I have a few other authors that I work with and a lot of times it's just, you know, getting on a call with them and just working through, like you know, the scene.
Speaker 3:It's missing some conflict. You got to, you got to instill some conflict in the scene, or, you know, I'm stuck, I don't know what to do with these characters. Blah, blah, blah. Well, let's go back and let's look at, okay, where, where are we in the last book? Okay, let's look at the character arc and where this is this character need to go. You know, and working through those things which actually I feel like is one of my big superpowers is even though I'm a slow writer. You know I do not run of ideas like ever I can. If somebody is like, oh, I don't know what to do, it's like well, have you tried this, have you tried this, have you tried this, have you tried this? And I can just rattle them off. Usually, sometimes I'm having a slow day and it doesn't work that way, but that's one of the things that I love doing and working with other people and figuring out, you know, how to move their story forward.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So, so sorry, Greta. Before before we move on or ask the next question, let's give a quick definition for the new writers, who maybe don't know what dev editing is.
Speaker 3:Yes, developmental editing, I said dev editing, like everybody is supposed to know my own little bit, well it just shows how cool you are right.
Speaker 1:Like, because you're just like cool phrases and stuff, right.
Speaker 3:I'm a dev editor.
Speaker 1:Oh, there you go.
Speaker 3:Yes, but developmental editing is also sometimes called content editing. It's basically an editor who looks at the story or the content of whatever is being written and edits for the content, rather than you know syntax or the actual copy of the story. So you know, you work on character arc, you work on the plot, plot holes, you know things like that. You know the flow, the, you know the. You know the drive pacing. So that is what the debt better spaces rather than oh, you know you spelt this wrong or that's not how you use a comma. That's not really what the editors do All right.
Speaker 2:So, greta, now you can ask your question.
Speaker 1:So actually, I was going to bring up this idea that you mentioned about how everybody's brains work differently, because you know we're all into the Megan and I are all into this clar, clarify, simplify, implement. And part of the clarify piece is really getting down into you, like who you are, because, yes, it's a business. Yes, writing novels is a business, but it's also creative. And I know there are people that say, well, I've never had writer's block. I mean, yeah, I've never asked a dentist to see having dental block, or a policeman if he's having ticket block. Yeah, yeah, I get that. In fact, I've said that.
Speaker 1:However, it's different. It is a different. There's like a dentist doesn't have to wake up in the morning and go how am I going to fill that tooth? You know there's many different ways I could do it and maybe if I was in Act One of the tooth filling process, I would just start to you know, like they don't do that, they like learn a way to fill a tooth. And maybe in every one of us, while there's a like, oh, that's a little bit of a unique problem, but otherwise it's pretty much you do the same thing.
Speaker 1:And, having said so, I do think writer's block is a thing, and I think a lot of the time, the reason that we have it is because we hear how somebody else does it and we think we have to do it that way and our brains just have this complete rebellion and don't want to do it. And it's sort of like what we were talking about earlier with you know what makes a person want to indie publish what you know. It's like we all have different motivations for things, and so I just think it's kind of brilliant that you figured out that you are a slow writer and that you've embraced that, and then we actually talked about this very briefly before we got on the call, which is what I'm segwaying into to help you maintain some semblance of paying the bills, because you're a slow writer. You've done a bunch of other things, so what do you tell listeners? Get them like motivated to know oh, I can do other things. Well, like developmental editing would be one, but share some more with us.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So this is the big secret, especially if you're a new writer, is that most of us have other gigs, like most of us don't just write fiction if you're a fiction writer or it's usually other things that we do to fill in the gaps of the money that we need to survive, because it's just not the easiest way to make a bunch of money writing fiction especially. But you know that doesn't mean you can't be fulfilled creatively. If you're not just writing fiction. You can find ways to take what you love doing and kind of move sideways.
Speaker 2:It also doesn't make you any less of a writer, just to interrupt for one second, because, exactly like doing it, you know as, and it can still be a business, it can still be something that you're you're doing for income and for a career, but Doing other stuff doesn't make you any less of a writer.
Speaker 3:Right, right, exactly and amen.
Speaker 3:No, I just say amen keep going, jim, there we go. So For me, I decided, okay. Once I realized that I was a slow writer, I thought, okay, well, there are other things that I learned how to do. How can I make those things intersect with the things that I love to do? So I started with editing podcasts for writers. You know, and you know I Think I got my first podcast editing job for writers Maybe back in 2017, and since then I've just taken on gigs here and there and that led me to doing audiobooks.
Speaker 3:I've done audiobooks for several authors where, instead of me actually doing the audiobook, I do the hard part, and by hard part I mean the tedious part of going in and editing for breaths, and you know cutting out all the mistakes and you know putting it all together and moving it around. Like the pacing of that is a little often I'm not just a little bit. That is incredibly time consuming and very tedious. But you know, coming from, you know a place where I had experience in audio engineering. It's not difficult for me, it's more of just you know you get into a flow and you just start doing it and just keep going and hopefully, if it's a really good story, it's actually a little bit enjoyable, so that that makes it fun too. Um, and then from there, I also went into Some video editing as well, as well as doing my own videos.
Speaker 2:So yeah, well, so I know you have done the audiobook Production. I'm gonna call it that. I don't know if that's actually the right term or not, but the audio production for Garrett Robinson, who is a great, phenomenal, epic fantasy author. I love him and so I know you've done his his audiobooks. Is this a bigger part of your audio engineering business or is it mostly the podcast or kind of? How do you break that down and what? What does that look like as far as like your production schedule?
Speaker 3:Right. So audiobooks are a little more random, like Garrett is, I think I I have. Garrett is one of my main customers, but I don't know when he's going to throw one at me. So it'll be like you'll say, oh, I have a audiobook coming out For you in three months and I'll be like, alright, well, I will make sure I have sometimes cleared for you, because I love working on this books.
Speaker 3:Um, I also work with a audiobook company Called AB audio services. I think that's the title of it. Hmm, I don't remember the exact name, but it's AB services, I think. Oh, this is embarrassing. Anyway, the point is is that they have a bunch of audio engineers and a bunch of narrators and I Put my name in the hat for hey, if you need somebody to hop in and clean up a bunch of stuff for you last minute, hit me up and I'll do that. And I basically Kind of get these things and it's usually a week or two out, but they're like, oh, we need it a few weeks from now and I say okay, and then I fit it into my schedule and clean it up for them and send it back.
Speaker 3:That and podcasts are kind of how I fill in my time outside of writing and that it's. It's a little chaotic Sometimes, not knowing exactly when a project will fall on my lap, um, but usually they don't all land at the same time and if they do, you know, most people are pretty understanding if I say, well, I already have this other project and it wait a few more weeks, or can I do this other thing first, because it's they kind of came to me first and often they're fine with that, and If they're not fine with that they will move on to the next person. You kind of have to be okay with that, because you can't do everything.
Speaker 1:So so I would guess that the podcast are a little bit more steady because most people are podcasting to a schedule.
Speaker 3:Right, right it's. It's a lot more regular.
Speaker 1:the podcast, yeah, and they're shorter too, so it's probably easier to fit them in the cracks.
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's by, by a very large mile, the audiobooks you know editing. Let's say it's a 15 hour audiobook. It takes me, you know, four times longer than that to do the audiobook. Sometimes I, if it's with someone I'm more familiar with, like Garrett, maybe it's a little bit less Because I know his voice very well in his setup and I know what he's going to do and what he isn't going to do, especially, especially, even with any narrator that I'm familiar with, not just Garrett.
Speaker 3:If I get another job and it's what that narrator I'm familiar with, I've gotten a little bit to the point where I can kind of just look at that sound waves and kind of tell what they're saying as far as the sounds. So I know what S's look like, I know what T's look like, I know what B's look. I knew I know these little nuances in the sound waves and I can kind of go through and just say, oh, that's a breath, I need to cut that out or that's a breath. You know, I'll move it into this track to make it a little bit quieter. You know, and you get into this a little bit of a flow state when you can work a little bit faster than normal with somebody that you're familiar with, but it takes a long time and it's very tedious Sounds like it.
Speaker 2:Yeah but that's why we hire you to do ours. I.
Speaker 1:Think Megan tried to do one or two. I didn't even try.
Speaker 2:She tried, no, no it was a requirement from day one. If we were gonna do this, I was not gonna do the yeah.
Speaker 1:Have you ever thought about narrating the audio? Because, as we mentioned when we got on the dulcet tones, you have a. You have a really, really nice speaking voice. Have you ever thought about narrating yourself?
Speaker 3:Um, I have thought about it, but I Don't know what. I would narrow a way, narrow it well see, I narrow. Wait, I can't even pronounce it correctly. I don't know exactly what I should do, but I thought about narrating my own books, but I don't think my voice is right for epic fantasy. So I mean, I really wish it was that make it very convenient. Maybe I could do like a YA thing, something like that. I don't know, but it's just never something that I've seriously considered.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, you know, what I'm really fascinated with and some day I hope to get involved with, is I love how some of the audio books are turning into almost like audio theater and that's becoming a thing where people are taking their, their stories and and Almost writing a screenplay scripty kind of thing for them and turning them into more of an audio theater where they've got More than one-way sector and they've got sound effects and maybe music coming in and out and all that. I just find that also fascinating and they love it. So if you ever get into that just like, let me know.
Speaker 3:I Mean it's something that I could pull off. It's man, it's a. It's a lot harder than just the audio book because of all the different elements and finding the right sound effects or creating them yourself and you know, managing a bunch of other talent, you know, with the different Voice actors, and I mean it can. It's a lot more moving pieces. So yeah. I can imagine the production for that would be very expensive. I wonder how much you know the, the companies that do that, Actually charge for that.
Speaker 1:Plenty.
Speaker 2:I think. I think. I think most of them, and maybe I'm wrong, but I think most of them, or many of them. They're publishers, you're right. So they, they buy the rights and and do it that way, rather than having the authors Pay in advance or do a royalty share or whatever okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's a little different, little different model. I'm more like, more like, yeah, audio book publisher. Well, so let's transition then. Now I want to hear more about your YouTube channel because I know and I love it. I, your intro. You're like this is gonna be just what I want to do. When I want to do it is Basically, which I love. It's great Because I'm also actually starting a YouTube channel. I'm just reading chapters of aether bound, but I'm just getting started with that and you've been doing this for a while now. So why don't you tell us a little bit about how you got into doing YouTube videos, starting your channel, and what you've been doing and why?
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm, um, I think the reason I started Um Was a big kick in the butt for me was seeing Daniel Green. I don't know if you've ever heard of him. He's a big booktuber on booktube and he was talking about the Braden Sanderson Kickstarter that changed the world, um, and you this whole thing. He said something that really shook me. He said you know, a lot of authors are just not willing to do crazy things in order to get noticed, and he's he also writes now to Daniel Green and he has a huge YouTube audience. And he said you know, I gained this huge audience, you know, putting in the work every day on YouTube. And yeah, I mean a lot of people will say that I have an advantage by that, but it's not like I didn't work hard for this audience. So I thought, you know what a lot of authors are a little camera shy, you know, maybe I, maybe I'll just do it.
Speaker 3:And then I came To the realization that I kind of don't want to be a booktuber, at least in the conventional sense. I mean, I enjoy booktubers, watching them, I like knowing what they read and their thoughts about books and all of that, and I and I love book hauls and seeing book hauls, but it just didn't fill me creatively creating that content. So I kind of had to come to the realization that I want to do something different in that space. So I had a few correct, a little bit of criteria. A the channel needed to help build into my overall model, which is Really selling books. You know, if it didn't help me sell books, it didn't make sense. So I couldn't play video games. You know I couldn't do a makeup channel. You know it had to be about books. I mean, I'm sure there's clever ways to do that and get that. You know traffic, but I needed to attract epic fantasy fans.
Speaker 3:The second thing was it needed to be reader focused, because I could make a whole lot of content about writer focused things, but that's going to attract the wrong people and not that those people might not read my books. I kind of just want to attract readers Instead of writers, who are also readers, which hopefully I attract them to. So with those two things in mind and me not wanting to do the typical book to content, I thought, okay, what can I do? That basically leaves me with nothing, right? So I thought, well, there are not a whole lot of channels on YouTube that talk about.
Speaker 3:You know the stuff that writers kind of think about, but from a reader approachable way Um, like the history of the genre. You know how Certain things work inside of not like the themes of a story and how they interact. And you know all the stuff that you learned in your high school or maybe College lit class that you kind of didn't want to learn, maybe because they made you write a, read a boring book, and You're like, ah, I don't like this because I don't like reading this book, so this is not interesting to me. But when you start bringing it out from a fantasy novel that you really love or sci-fi novel that you really love or whatever genre genre you're really into, that stuff becomes interesting again and I wanted to Find ways to show fantasy fans that yeah, I mean, all that stuff applies here and it makes the books even richer if you appreciate them from this angle as well.
Speaker 1:I saw your one that was on the, I think, was like on how horror Intersects with fantasy or something, and I don't read. So I mean, I have, of course, everybody's read Lord of the Rings and Then all that. I've read some epic fantasy, but it's a really famous stuff, but it's not the genre that I gravitate to. But you know, yeah, if I have a guilty pleasure, it is horror, and not slash or horror, but the like, the true creepy, thoughtful type of horror, and so I saw your.
Speaker 1:Your post on that and how you were talking even about some fairy tales. I don't know I loved it. I was just I was really into it. I was like this is Because I think it is fun too for people to realize, nostalgic Lee, that a lot of the stuff they read when they were a kid really does have like horror overtones or fantasy overtones or Mystery over. You know what I mean, that the crossover from some of that nostalgia stuff and I don't know. I found it really fascinating. So I like your YouTube channel. I think it very interesting.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 2:I hope other readers like it as well well and I think it's a really good point and that that you can apply all that stuff that they applied to classic literature in high school or whatever. You can apply that to Well-written genre fiction, whatever genre. It is right. Like there are still themes in Pretty. You know most books like sure you get the. You get books that are just you know, plot, plot, plot, action, action, action and and maybe the character doesn't grow or change all that much over the book and they're still fun to read, right. But you can also get really just deep. You know thrillers or deep fantasy where they have layers of History from you know other literature as well as themes and then you get the character arcs and they're off.
Speaker 2:I mean, just because we write genre doesn't mean we're not literary. That's my point. Because we write genre doesn't mean we're not literary. You know it's, it's. So I love that your channel is bringing that out and bringing that to the forefront and, I think, legitimizing in readers minds that it's okay. It doesn't have to be a guilty pleasure to read this stuff, to read genre romance too, like it doesn't have to be a guilty pleasure. It can be actually very, you know, deep storytelling and very inspirational and motivational as well, so I love that you're doing that. I think it's a great space to be in the market.
Speaker 1:Genre fiction. I just read an article on this and I'm really bad with remembering dates so I was trying to Google it really quickly. But genre fiction wasn't even a thing, like nobody ever called it that. It was just fiction. There was fiction and there was nonfiction. And you know, nowadays we look back and we go, oh, you know, pride and prejudice, that's of this really a romance, but back then it was just a book, and you know so. Or Frankenstein now we look at that as horror, but when Mary Shelley wrote it it was just a book.
Speaker 1:And so I do think that some of the current prejudice against the idea of genre fiction is really kind of silly. And I also think that not tracing back the roots of what you love to some of its original, that everything did cross over back then. There's so many things crossed over back then and you know, like Gothic romance was kind of a crossover of Horror in romance, bet or thriller in romance. So I don't know today. I guess my whole point is I'm getting long winded here that we do, we forget the roots of things and we get, we start parsing things so much and then we get prejudice against oh, she's just a genre writer. Well, so are you. I don't know what you're right, but whatever it is, it is a genre. So there you go, and everybody listening. Go to Jim's YouTube channel and you will learn the roots of these things and be a better educated reader. That's my, that's my little soapbox. I'm getting off of it right now.
Speaker 2:All right, so yeah, so I guess. So for YouTube. I think that's we kind of covered everything there. I mean, do you have any tips for those of us who are just starting to try and explore YouTube for fiction?
Speaker 3:So, again, like I said, it's make sure you're tracking the right people. So make sure you. That means having kind of an intentional idea of who your ideal viewer is and how they intersect with your ideal reader, you know. So are they the same person or how much do they cross over if they're not the same person? And if they aren't the same person, you know, are you doing this just for fun, just a, you know, fulfill, a creative edge, which is totally valid? Or are you doing this to somehow funnel? You know it's part of your funnel, a funnel of your sales funnel? If it is, then you have to figure out how to make your reader and that person closer to being the same person.
Speaker 2:So you mean you have to clarify your purpose.
Speaker 3:Mm. Yeah, I think you do. I think you do yes.
Speaker 2:And a plan.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's kind of funny how that it always comes back to that, doesn't it? Another?
Speaker 3:big thing that I would say that a lot of people talk about is, you know the dreaded A word, the algorithm. And a big part of that is just understanding that, and YouTube says this themselves. And the more you start to think in this way, the more helpful it is is that the algorithm is just the audience. The algorithm suggests the audience. If they do not like what you're making, then YouTube won't show it to anybody. So if you make good content and you package it well with a thumbnail and a title that's attractive, it's going to do better than something that isn't well produced or isn't well put together or isn't well packaged. Same thing with books, same thing with YouTube.
Speaker 3:And it used to be that if your YouTube channel wasn't doing that good, it brought everything else down. Youtube kind of judges every video by its own merits, so it's not your channel. I mean. I'm sure there's a little bit of algorithmic, whatever juju in there that your channel history does affect the things. But for the most part you know one video can do very well because it's a really good video and people want to watch it and the next video could do nothing because people don't want that video.
Speaker 3:So it could be that if you find that when you're doing something and it's not getting a lot of views or a lot of watch time. It could be a number of things. You have to kind of learn the metrics and what's going on behind them a little bit to understand. Well, I understand what I did wrong here, but it's usually the same principle as with books is, if you're not making something somebody wants to watch, then it won't get watched and that's and it's kind of annoying to say that, because that means like your baby isn't doing well and it's all my fault, you know, but you know that's the way it is, unfortunately. So you either have to stick to that and say I'm just going to have a very small dedicated audience, or I will find or I'll create things for more people and try to funnel it down.
Speaker 1:So so I have a question Is there an element of you know, like how we started this by saying part of the reason you're doing the side hustles is because you don't write quickly? Well, the whole premise of writing quickly is that you get a bigger backlist more quickly and, of course, every time you release the book you get a boost and all that. But there is something about having more books that can help attract more readers, like I don't know if it's algorithms taking more seriously, readers taking more seriously. There's a higher SEO because there's more different ways to find you. I don't know what all the reasons are, but is that the same with YouTube? Like if you just make one or two videos that they're probably not going to do anything? Is there is like a tipping point, like when you get to 30 videos, all of a sudden you're starting to get a little more bump, or how does that work?
Speaker 3:So there's a lot of breakdowns from people a lot smarter than me who've looked at hundreds of channels to see what the patterns are, and it usually takes about 100 videos to break out to get monetized. That's like the golden thing of having it. And monetization means you have 1000 subscribers and within one 365 day period you've gotten 4000 watch hours of time. There's a little bit of leeway because they've also done the shorts, so that has a different metric. So if you focus on shorts then you know it's a different amount of views.
Speaker 3:I can't remember how much it is. I think it's like 3 million views within 90 days, which is crazy numbers, but I don't know how you would accomplish that. But some people can do it. And then you know they also have a lower standard of monetization, which is 500 subscribers and 300,000 watch hours, which I think the watch hours part is the harder part than the 500. But anyway, the point is is that it does take a lot of videos and part of it is just experience, because a lot of the videos you make at first are just not going to be as good as the videos you make later. So some of it is learning and some of it is just because sometimes it takes some time for people to get to know you and be familiar with you. But, just like with publishing, sometimes you can make one or two videos and explode with thousands of subscribers and views because the video is just that good or just that interesting or compelling or clickable.
Speaker 1:Or somebody with a huge platform found it interesting or compelling and shared it.
Speaker 2:And everybody.
Speaker 1:You know, that's the whole, that's the golden ticket, right you? Know if you can find that influencer who's got this huge audience.
Speaker 2:You get Reese Witherspoon to pick up your book, you're going to do pretty well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly, that's all it takes. That's all it takes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, used to be Oprah, now it's Reese. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:So, but a lot of what I do now is so. I have a big evergreen content philosophy and I've had it for years now is that most of the things that I make my fiction, you know my nonfiction, which usually comes in block form. I don't want it to be relevant, no matter when you see it. So most of my YouTube videos are all evergreen. It doesn't really matter when you see it, because they're evergreen. So it also builds into another strategy of what do I do now that I've made this thing? How do I keep reusing it?
Speaker 3:So after I make it you know I have a transcript of it. You know I make a blog post out of it and I embed the video in the blog post to just in case they want to watch it. But it becomes a blog post that's on my website. So I have the SEO from that. You know people. You know I look at my Google Analytics and see people coming through just from things like that and some of them subscribe to my mailing list and see my stories and you know, maybe they buy my book.
Speaker 3:You know I take those things and I have a really epic long right now it's three years long of an auto responder on Mailerlight, because I just make a bunch of content and I think, well, you know what this is evergreen. I'm going to build an email around it and say, hey, I made this thing, this is the thing I made, check it out, let's talk. Email me back and we'll talk about it. So my YouTube videos, which is a new thing, I've started inserting that in there. Just in case you know, I don't have an update for a month. They still get an email because this auto responder super long. So you know, I just kind of find ways to reuse content in a very efficient way and if you create a lot of evergreen content, that works really well for that.
Speaker 1:So you ever take little clips and have you started the TikTok craze.
Speaker 3:Mm. Hmm, I do have a TikTok and I went to it kicking and screaming, and it's only. I only did it because I started making YouTube videos, because that's what I really wanted to do. I wanted to try that and then I thought, well, I mean I could just cut the videos into a couple smaller pieces and then I can put them on YouTube shorts. And if I'm putting them on YouTube shorts, I may as well put them on TikTok and and reels or whatever. And, funny enough, I put at zero effort into my TikTok. I feel like saying this out loud makes makes me. I feel like I'm not trying, but I just get follows there and likes and whatnot and I'm not trying. That platform is so hyper focused on what they do well, which is short form content, that it kind of steers itself in a very strange way. It just knows how to find the people that are for you. I don't know how they're doing it, but you know.
Speaker 1:I think it's illegal, whatever they're doing. I don't think it's legal. I'm just romantic there, but you know.
Speaker 3:I don't spend time following people. I'm not doing all the things they say like, oh yeah, go comment on things and be involved in the community. No, I'm just putting it up there. That's all I'm doing. It's just finding its people. I don't know how they're doing that kind of magic without you doing. Maybe it's because it's young and you can still kind of get somewhere without that. But TikTok for shorts. It does better than YouTube shorts. It does better than Instagram Reels. It just does its thing. I don't even try there. So if you were to try, I'm sure you would do a lot better on TikTok than I am. And I'm not even trying. My videos get hundreds of views easy without even trying. I just put them on there, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I find that that's one of my big goals. I think is so smart that you're doing that. I'm trying to emulate or pick up and do better is the cross promotion I guess I'm going to call it that of your content, taking it and reusing it in multiple ways, Right? So I'm trying to start doing that with the YouTube videos, so like little clips of me reading the book and then putting that up on. I'm not on TikTok yet We'll be soon, but not yet but I put it up on Instagram, Reels and Facebook or whatever they call them now and trying to reuse that and find new ways of taking the same existing stuff on my imagery that I already have created and not recreate the wheel every single time.
Speaker 2:I want to do something new, but rather reuse all that. I think it's so smart and sometimes for some of us whose brain my brain just doesn't naturally make those connections, I have to really work at it and have to really say, okay, this can be used there and there and there and there and there, and let's do that. So I think that's a great tip for writers who want to be efficient with their marketing and promotion time and everything too. It's just making sure you like put it on the blog, you put it on the social media platforms. You reuse videos where you can. All that stuff is just so key.
Speaker 3:I think one easy strategy to help you start to see what you have is actually take an inventory of what you've made and put in a spreadsheet. I have a spreadsheet that shows all of my. I have spreadsheets for all of my YouTube videos and for all of my blog posts, or all my books and like where they've been licensed and whatnot. When you start to look at what you've actually created and it's like, oh man, oh, I've written 200 blog posts in the past five years. I don't know how I did that in five years. It's just kind of happened over time. But it's like oh well, what do I do with this? Like, maybe I can repackage this somehow.
Speaker 3:Maybe when you start taking inventory of what you've actually created and figuring out, oh well, you know what? I could actually go back five years and this is a month where I just need to stop everything and just write fiction for a long time. But people are waiting for something from me. Oh, I'll just start recycling this content. Like, oh, I wrote this five years ago, check this out, it's still good, still valid, especially if you're writing that evergreen content. And evergreen content is hard because it has to be of some substance that isn't temporary, but it's totally worth it, because you always have something new and it can be repackaged in so many different ways.
Speaker 1:My publisher with my first series was very this is something I'm very grateful to her for, because that was something that the editor, the publisher, everybody there were like no, take this out, this is going to date your book. Take that, change this, take this. At least there was this. Sometimes you want to get into what's new technology right now is going to make this thriller so cool. Well, you know what? It's not new technology half the time by the time the book is published and it's definitely not new technology by the time the book's been out for three years and it makes you sound antiquated because it's like, wow, ring Dorbell, stuff, new technology? No, it's not new, not anymore. So I was very grateful for that and I think your point about using your content and looking at your content that it's brilliant, because we were just talking about that, because moving our website is forcing us to look at all these blog posts and things we've been writing for years and like what are we going to do with them? And we actually are quick guides that we wrote started by us kind of taking groups of blog posts that all went together in a category and then saying these could make a quick guide if we just and then just kind of rewrite them, smooth them out, fill in the empty places. You know we didn't talk about this or that, so we had to write a little bit more, but that is kind of what we did. We turned blog posts into books because you know we had all this content and that is just very smart. You can also use them I'm not being a video person, but being a writer, obviously just even using even chapters or segments from books or old blog posts to reach out to other people who are looking for content of you can get published on you know a big site, somebody else's website, but that can be a great way to get people to your writing and to what you're doing.
Speaker 1:You know, right, in fact, alessandra Torre, she's a thriller. She just started writing thrillers but she was primarily in romance before. But she had been writing like short, steamy stories for Cosmo and when she launched her first but I you know I don't want to tell her story, we have to have her on someday but when she launched her first novel, I mean it went crazy because she had this whole Cosmo audience who'd been reading her short fiction and were perfectly primed to go buy a book from her, you know, and that's just a fabulous, a fabulous example of finding your audience someplace else, like you're doing with YouTube, like I think we get very funnel minded as writers. Sometimes it's like, well, my audience is on Amazon, barnes, noble and Kobo, and it's like, well, actually you probably have people who would love your fiction in all kinds of places.
Speaker 3:Right, exactly, and especially we have a very good niche that you know very well that it's very different. You know, if you are, you know a smart small town, you know a fiction mystery writer, you know there are probably discords and forums that talk about, you know, small town issues like restoration of buildings and stuff like that, and if you're, if you like that and you can be a part of the community there and you make content around that, and you also have fiction books that focus on the things that they love. I mean, you kind of have to start making a little bit out of the box sometimes to find your people, especially in genres of fiction that are just very saturated. You know, I write epic fantasy and it's hard to break out an epic fantasy because there's a, honestly, there's a lot of us who write it, a lot of us, and that makes it hard for anyone to be seen. It's also great because the readers never run out of stuff to read, which is, you know, I don't have a problem with this, I'm slow.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, go read somebody else and then come back. But you know it's it's just. You know you have to find your way in and if you're not, thinking creatively to find your way in. You know you're Kind of going to hit the. You know the glass ceiling as it works.
Speaker 1:So here's another funny one. My dad follows this guy. My dad is older and he's got a little. Anyway, my dad follows this guy. He's a modern-day druid and he is got this blog that is been going on for years and years. He's fabulously Successful. He's got his niche of all these people who are like preppers. They're ready for the end of the world, they're thinking right stuff about how to get off the grid and how to fool the IRS and how to stockpile Food, and he's got all this stuff for those people. And guess what kind of fiction he writes? Apocalyptic fiction, guess who's?
Speaker 1:those his fiction to his blog readers. I mean it's like it's just kind of brilliant and I mean, who knows, maybe he really really is a modern-day druid, he really really does believe the world is coming to an end and all of that, or maybe he just kind of went. Hmm, I'm just gonna reach a whole bunch of people who think the way that this way that my characters think and you know, do this thing, but exploiting your niche in a A unique way is, I mean, then you got to give kudos to that guy.
Speaker 3:That is a unique way takes you know, yeah, a lot of it a lot of it kind of has to do with Figuring out you know what am I researching anyway? Like how can I turn whatever I have to do to create what I make into content, because you're doing it anyway? There's this one Guy he's very successful on YouTube and I was watching his little seminar and he said his motto was turn the camera on. So this doesn't have to be for YouTube, it's. It kind of kind of can be anything. But his whole thing was like just turn the camera on if you're reading a book, just turn the camera on and read it in front of the camera and then close the book and just see what you think.
Speaker 3:You know, if you, you can turn every part of your life into content if you so choose. You don't have to, and I actually strongly recommend that most people not do that. Some people can do that and that's your thing, do your thing, but most people probably should not. But you know, turning the camera on is kind of the concept of like you know what am I doing anyway. That's actually more compelling than I think it is and I'm just not taking advantage of it and a lot of the things that we research as authors that we think, oh, I mean it's going in the book, whatever. I mean, a lot of it is actually kind of interesting and if you can kind of present it in an interest, interesting way, it might actually attract people to you and they might want to read your book, if they know oh, this person is interesting and they just taught me something really cool in a really interesting way, and I kind of want to read their books now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah and and it's interesting to with that too. So, again going back to my, my baby YouTube channel here, I've actually started creating a playlist of the videos of other creators that I'm watching for research for the book that I'm writing right now. And yeah, I don't know if I've, I haven't even looked, I don't know if I've even had any views or anything on the playlist or anything like that. But my, I have challenged. My readers in my news are said yeah, I've got this playlist. Can you guess what the next, the theme of the next book, is gonna be? Because I don't actually know yet, you know, and so kind of drawing a little bit more interest and like, yeah, it's not even me creating content, it's just me sharing content that is relevant to my books. And I don't know, maybe it'll work, maybe it won't, but it's easy and it's something I can do. Maybe it'll share other, you know, maybe that'll get a little cross feed on the, the algorithm gods, maybe not, I have no idea, but it's something for people to go look at if they're interested and curious and then, using that down the road as I do, write those sections and figure out exactly how I'm using those mostly mythology, so how I'm using those myths or those historical stories.
Speaker 2:The other one that's a lot on that playlist is like the witch trials and stuff like that. So what I'm actually gonna pull from that and how I'm gonna use it in the novel. That's on my my plan for another video that I can do and just say, hey, look, yeah, here's the clip from this thing. Like, look, think about this. And then how I'm using that in the story, because I take that and twist it and turn it into something else. So, absolutely so for all you listeners out there, if you're interested in Go check out my YouTube channel. There you go, all right. Well, we are, I believe, coming up on the hour, or maybe even past the hour, I'm not sure.
Speaker 1:I forgot start timer, but Jim, just gonna have to edit it down now.
Speaker 2:So I guess any final words, any final top tips, last-minute things you want to tell the audience there's no one way to be successful as an author.
Speaker 3:You just have to find your own path, and Do you, because you don't want to be miserable doing this, because this is a marathon, so you have to find a way to do it in a way that makes you happy, even if that means that you don't make a ton of money at first. You know, define the kind of lifestyle you want and go for it.
Speaker 1:I. We could pay him to say that, couldn't we? That's perfect, jim. So why don't you tell people where they can find More about you your YouTube channel, your books and all the things that you do?
Speaker 3:Yeah, the easiest thing to do is just go to my main website. It connects to everything. Jim will born calm J. I am W I LB O. You are in E dot com and, and it has all my links to my YouTube. I have blog posts there which also have, you know, my YouTube videos embedded in them. So if you see anything in the blog post like, oh, that's an interesting topic, it might have a YouTube video attached to it. And, of course, you can get on my mailing list from there as well.
Speaker 1:I'll keep you updated and and get on his three-year auto-responder.
Speaker 3:No, right, right, I don't. They don't know they're on a three-year auto-responder because they know, they know, wow, that's, that's fabulous never let a good, evergreen email go to waste. Just put it on a three-year auto-responder. That's it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've got a rethink my whole auto-responder strategy after this conversation.
Speaker 1:That would be an actually an interesting topic to tackle one day is auto-responders. Maybe we have to do this again, jim. Absolutely, that would be fun. So, everybody listening. I hope you enjoyed this conversation. I sure did. My brain is kind of hurting now with all the ideas that are going around in it, but if you need clarity, don't forget to stop by the author wheel. Calm, it is still slash stuff. As to you, ff, but that will be changing. So hurry up over there and you can grab our Free course, our free email course seven days to clarity, uncover your author purpose. And that course will lead you through a lot of the things we were talking about today Understanding why you do what you do, your more motivations, what's gonna maybe scratch your author edge, and also will help you write a mission statement and tagline in just seven days. Meanwhile, everybody, keep your stories rolling.
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