The Author Wheel Podcast
The Author Wheel Podcast
Playwright to Author with Lawrence Allen
Ready for a front seat on the roller coaster ride of the writing world?
Today's guest has pretty much done it all. From working in the theater, to writing Pakistani soap operas in New York, to moving to L.A. to pitch T.V. scripts, then transitioning to prose during the pandemic, there's barely a writing project that Lawrence hasn't tried.
He's applied that same can-do attitude to marketing. His number one question—which we can all learn from—is "can I make this fun for myself?" Don't fear failure. It can all be fixed in post.
We also touch on a bunch of tips and tools we each use nearly every day, including Canva, iMovie, and Matthew Holmes's Facebook Ads course.**
Lawrence Allan is an award winning mystery writer of the Jimmy Cooper Mysteries. His debut novel BIG F@!KING DEAL was a Shamus Award Finalist. He holds an MFA in Playwrighting from the University of Texas at Austin and lives in Los Angeles.
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Lawrence Allan
Website: http://lawrenceallanwrites.com
Book: Big Fat F Up
Facebook & Instagram: @WriteLarryWrite
Substack: https://lawrenceallanwrites.substack.com
The Author Wheel:
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Greta Boris:
Website: www.GretaBoris.com
Facebook: @GretaBorisAuthor
Instagram: @GretaBoris
Megan Haskell:
Website: www.MeganHaskell.com
Facebook & Instagram: @MeganHaskellAuthor
TikTok: @AuthorMeganHaskell
Substack: https://meganhaskellauthor.substack.com
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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. Together we are the Author Wheel and today we have an exciting interview with Lawrence Allen for you. He's a mystery author with a book title that's not exactly safe for work, but it was a Sheamus Award finalist and he has a background in screenwriting, so it's a really great book. It just has a difficult title to advertise. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, poor Lawrence.
Speaker 2:But we're going to get more into that in the interview, so stay tuned. First, greta, what's been going on?
Speaker 1:Well, we just got back from 20 Books, vegas, which we are going to be talking more about. We're going to be doing a full podcast on that, and which is great, because I really can't tell you a whole lot about it, because my big take home from 20 Books was COVID, so I know. Consequently, my brain has been in a fuzzy muddle, so I'm going to let Megan fill you guys in on her little teasers on our upcoming podcast on the conference. I do remember that it was great and I met some really amazing people.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure.
Speaker 1:I can tell you who they all were at this point, but I'm sure it'll all come back to me. The farther I get away from the fever, the more clarity I'm getting.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, yeah. But in personal news, very exciting news which I also will talk a little bit more about in the upcoming podcast. I just signed a contract with Tantor Audio for the first six books in the more petition series and they approached me, which is so, so exciting and it proves, at least I believe, that Facebook ads do work, because prior to doing Matt Holmes Facebook ads course, I didn't have enough traction to get anyone's attention. So, listeners, if you have not listened to that episode, I highly recommend it. It was season three, episode six, and I mean, if you're already a Facebook ads wizard, you don't need it. But I believe Matt has some really interesting takeaways. And speaking of taking it away, take it away, meg, and what's going on with you. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Well, I actually just signed up for it, literally just now, right before we got on this recording. Signed up for Matt Holmes' direct sales course, so I'm excited about that.
Speaker 1:We totally need to get an affiliate link for that guy. We do, we just keep.
Speaker 2:We're like everybody, matt Holmes, we're like such thing there are a few people that are like that that we really need to set up an affiliate.
Speaker 1:We look funnel Gosh. Thanks, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, anyway. So, matt, if you're listening to this, do you have an affiliate? Because I believe he does. We'll have to look into it.
Speaker 2:We'll have to reach out Anyway. So yeah, so Vegas, I mean, we are going to talk about this next week in the duo, but I'll just say this for now that these conferences always remind me of the power of the writing community, and it's a theme that has come up a lot recently in our interviews. I think authors need community. We need to reach out. It is such a lonely, or can be such a lonely job and you get stuck in your little bubble, but going to a conference like this, or like any writer's conference, can really just help you expand your own mindset and your ideas and get you inspired. I know I was again before we got on the recording here today. I was telling Greta my brain is just scattered, like I feel like it's exploding all over the place.
Speaker 1:I know, and she keeps hitting me with shrapnel.
Speaker 2:I just thought Greta's sick, I'm like. But what about this idea?
Speaker 1:I know she's creating a to-do list for me.
Speaker 2:And it's like go ahead, whatever.
Speaker 1:I can't even argue, I'm too tired yeah.
Speaker 2:My to-do list, I think, has doubled in the last four days, I think mine probably has too, I'm just not aware of that.
Speaker 2:You haven't processed it yet. Yeah, so, anyway. So that's good. We'll talk about that next week. However, the other thing that I was inspired to do and this is big news at the conference is to actually start a sub-stack newsletter with all my thoughts on writing and publishing and the writing industry and the writing life and all of that stuff. It's going to be a little bit stream of consciousness. It's going to be coming. I mean, it's in connection with the author wheel, so it feeds from our podcast and all the things that we're talking about here. But I'm going to be the primary writer on that, so it'll be my voice and I'm probably not going to edit it as heavily as I edit other things. I'm trying to do it fast, fast and dirty.
Speaker 1:I read the first article and I wouldn't have touched it. I know I'm off in the editor, but I wouldn't have touched it. I thought it was great and if I get excited, I might chime in once in a while too.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you. Thank you, yeah, I think it's going to be good. It's a lot of short articles and I've got some plans in the works for topic ideas and stuff like that. So I'm hoping to post probably two to three times a week, just short, few paragraphs, some more stream of consciousness. So if you're interested in that, please go check it out. I will put the link in the show notes, but I think you can just like search for me on sub stack Megan Haskell, or I'm calling it clarify, simplify, implement, because it will fit into that strategy framework that we have developed, and that's really kind of it for now. I think we should probably get on with the show here and talk with Lawrence about his awkward title.
Speaker 1:Today we have Lawrence Allen. He's an award-winning mystery writer, finalist of the Jimmy Cooper mysteries, his debut novel and I'm going to have to modify the title, folks, to keep our non-explicit rating. It's big effing deal and it was a shameless award finalist. He holds an MFA in playwriting from the University of Texas at Austin and he lives in Los Angeles. Welcome to the show, lawrence.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 1:We are so happy to have you.
Speaker 2:It's great to have you here and we are very excited to talk about your title choice, my title choices.
Speaker 3:I'm going to have to go back to the title choices. The title choices F up and big effing deal.
Speaker 2:But first, before we get there, I'd love to hear more about kind of your journey from, I mean, you sounds like you went to screenwriting school or film school, playwriting, playwriting.
Speaker 3:And how did you end up writing novels instead? Well, I had a really good pandemic.
Speaker 2:If I like to say it was.
Speaker 3:You know it was a great pandemic and I think it was a great experience. And I think it was a great experience. Those origin stories, yeah, so my background is in theater and somewhat screenwriting. I've always been a theater kid. So my, my, all my degrees are in theater.
Speaker 3:Now that I think about it, so, yeah, the ambition had been to become a playwright and you know, I did the whole living in New York thing and when I was in New York I started my wife is Indian and an actress and she started doing Pakistani soap operas in New York and I started writing some of those and like, wow, that's a great way to make a living. And then, and then we moved to Los Angeles. I'm like great, I'm going to break into television. I got this great playwriting background, everyone's going to love me. And then ultimately they didn't. And the pandemic happened and I it. It took a pandemic to realize how kind of exhausted I was at pursuing breaking into television and film. So good pandemic. And so I had started, maybe about six months before the pandemic started, I had gone to the California crime writers conference and I had already kind of like started noodling around with writing prose Cause, like at that point, writing cause the.
Speaker 3:The job of breaking into television is to write original pilots over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. And so I've been doing that for gosh, six or seven, eight years of you know, every year writing a couple of pilots and sitting them out to my manager and having meetings, and you know, having good meetings, but no, no traction. And so I I remember when the last means I had so the first novel, big fat F up is the first Jimmy Kumbert book, and that one was based on a pilot. And I remember being in a meeting with somebody on the CBS studio lot and he was like, oh, this is great, it's as sure as you could do the job, and like he's gonna buy it. He's gonna buy it. He didn't buy it, nor hire me for anything else. And I told him I had distinct memory in that meeting. It's like, well, I'm going to turn this into a book, so someday you guys are going to have to pay a lot more for it than right now.
Speaker 2:Here's your opportunity to buy it cheap.
Speaker 3:And they did. They passed on buying it cheap. So I had already kind of started newling around with turning it into a novel. And at the California crime writer's conference I did one of those agent you know, meet an agent, they'll read the first page is kind of thing. And she did, and she's like this is going to be a short meeting. So I start spreading bullets and like oh my God, it's going to be terrible. She's like I love it, I want to see the whole book, which is like what you want, like from those never happened. So I was like giddy but I didn't have the whole book.
Speaker 3:So so I started writing it and then the pandemic hit and I was still working on the book, but I was still trying to write pilots and still having meetings and I just I just couldn't do it anymore. So I was like well, this, this novel, experience, just just the act of writing it and write. And at that point I was I guess I was writing for the potential agent and writing it for myself. That felt so good, Just just not writing on the book. I was like I'm going to write it, I'm going to be good, just just not writing it for any other ambition other than to write it. So that's how I kind of started doing it and, like I finished it, she ultimately passed on it.
Speaker 3:And then, because the pandemic was still going, I also started remembering kind of the happiest times of my life as an artist, which was when I was in my 20s, produced self self producing theater in when I was living in Minneapolis, putting up shows, and there was so much fun. So it's like, okay, well, I could do that with this book, I can kind of self produce this book, and so that's ultimately how I did it. And, like the the, the first book got so much, I'll say, praise, so much attention, so much. A lot of people really liked it. They had dug it.
Speaker 3:So I'm like, okay, so I'm onto something. This is, this feels great to write and it feels people are bonding to it. So I had to write a second one and then I'll eventually write the third one. So that's the journey. It's kind of like exhaustion pandemic, like what do I really want to do? Oh, I really want to be happy as an artist. So so I'll do, I'll do the things that make me happy rather than necessarily pursuing like how I should be entering into a career.
Speaker 1:You know, that story is really great because I think there's so many, so many of us do have that kind of we think we should do it this way or we think we should have this career, even if it's a non-artistic career, like Megan was a forensic accountant.
Speaker 2:Forensic accountant.
Speaker 3:That's riveting yeah.
Speaker 1:That's a darn sexy career.
Speaker 2:You know what the sad thing is? It sounds sexier than it actually is.
Speaker 1:Wow, I know right, but you know pouring our heart out on the page to and from on the train. You know what I mean. And it's just interesting. And I had always thought that I was going to pursue acting and or music because my mom was an opera singer and that was the direction I was going to go. And I have the thin well, not as much now, but I used to have the thinnest skin of anybody I ever met. So you take your thin skin and you go audition for a part, forget it.
Speaker 3:Like you're a suicidal, yeah, you can't have as an, because I used to be an actor too. Like, yeah, you can't. You can't go into an audition and have thin skin. You don't just be ruined because you're going to. You're going to go on way more auditions than you're going to get the job, and you won't know why you didn't get the job, which is the worst in the world. But yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, we actually had another conversation with a woman who had been trying to be on Broadway when she was younger, before becoming an editor and ultimately writer. But and she was saying like she was like, yeah, sometimes you walk out on stage and they just say Nope, nope, yeah, it's like they were rejecting me as a as just being like as an entity.
Speaker 3:And the thing is, I've been on the other side of the table as a playwright and auditioning people and, yes, I've been in my mind as soon as they walked in, like oh, no, no, no.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:They're just totally wrong and like, but you still got to like. You should still let them audition because you could. They might change your mind, but it's it's. It's a hard business.
Speaker 2:It, is it really really?
Speaker 1:is Well and honestly, I think, then, anything to do with film. You know, every author thinks, and it's so. I'm sorry I'm talking fast, my brain is going faster than my mouth. Every but every author I know who who writes. You know, a reasonably good book has many, many people tell them oh, this will be a great TV series, this will be a great movie. I always say, from your lips to God's ears, because that's all of our dreams. Yeah, but it is so rare, it's so incredibly rare.
Speaker 3:It's incredibly rare. Like it's it's all rare and like because people said that about my book as well Well, I thought there's a pilot, but, like it is, it is so difficult to get those things across the finish line, like you know, even and we and we look at some of that stuff that does make it cross, well, that's crap. It's like you have no idea, like, how hard it was to get that there. So it's it's not everything's going to make it into TV and film. Like it's just it's the business isn't shaped for that. Like it's just not shaped for that, and so it's it's difficult.
Speaker 3:And so, like you know, writers, writers shouldn't write for the possibility of their show being turned into television, cause I think that that will just be heartbreaking. You're just, you have to write the best books that you're going to write and like that's that's the object, that's that's the, the artifact that you're creating. It's the best book. If you're, if you're lucky, someone might license it, then you get some free money. If, like, they're trying to, as they option it and try to sell it to somebody, you have some free money there, and if it gets made, that's even greater. But like, don't try to write your book to get turned into a television show. It's way hard. It's going to get harder now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and we, we actually say the same thing about traditional deals, although like traditional publishing deals, although I think that's somewhat becoming more common now. But still, it's like if you're going to write the book, write the best book, you can do the best you can for that product, because you have no idea how it's going to take off in the market or not. You know how long it's going to take, when, if ever, it's going to take off. So you just have to keep. If you want to be a writer, right, and if you really love that thing and just I think it's, you know, probably kind of the same in Hollywood too If you really love that thing, then you keep trying and trying until you just can't do it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, until someone pays you to write something, you write what you love. Yes, and because if you don't write what you love, you're just going to be miserable. If you're going to try to write something that gets sold, you're just aching to have your heart broken over and over and over. But until someone pays you to write something. Write what you love, like, just do that, because you'll be far happier than not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's what I was trying to say. You said it better, thank you.
Speaker 3:I'm away with words.
Speaker 1:I feel like we can go home now. I mean, that's the you know this was a quick podcast.
Speaker 1:I love it, it was so quick no, no, I mean that is it's yes good philosophy of life. So I think we've kind of like our big question we always ask people is about what would you say was your greatest roadblock to success, and I feel like in some regards we have covered that. But let's like switch it over to now that you've got some novels. What do you feel like is your biggest roadblock in getting those novels where you want to get them, in terms of sales and all of those things?
Speaker 3:I think it's. I mean two things. One I always want to write the best book that I can, and so you know, the the second book. It was funny writing the second book because I'd never written a sequel to anything before.
Speaker 1:You only written pilots.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'd only written like part ones of things, and so, like, just like, and I'd started the second book and like, and then it dawned on me, like, like a wave crashing over me. It's like I've never written a sequel. What do I? What do I do here? How much information do I give? How much like? Because I, you know, I didn't want it to be you have to read the first book to read the second book. They're not, I mean, they're, they're connected. It's the same characters, the same universe, that's all that. But, like you know, you don't have to. It's great if you do so that so there was. So there was that creative challenge that I, I think I overcome. But, like, when I start the third book, I'll probably like, I've never written a part three of anything before.
Speaker 3:So, there'll be that panic all over again. So so so there's the roadblock of always wanting to excel at the writing, make make the writing as good as I as I really can. And two, it's obviously the selling. I don't have a, you know, I'm not. I'm indie published, however we want to call it, I'm indie published and so I don't have, you know, I don't have Random House making ads for me and booking me on on different things.
Speaker 3:So it's it's getting the word out and it's educating myself how I can be in the driver's seat of that and and trying to make it fun for myself, like the advertising, like learning how to advertise, learning on how to get the word out, trying to and keeping that fun and creative for myself. And that makes it easier to do, because I know it's difficult for everybody to like talk about their book to. You know, get it out there and stuff like that. We're writers are generally people who don't want to talk about themselves unless across their screenwriters in Hollywood, and they will talk about themselves all the time. But been to those parties, so so that would. So that's been the biggest challenge, is just like taking every small win and celebrating that.
Speaker 2:So how have you made it fun for yourself? Because I think that I think that is a challenge for a lot of people I know it is for me too where it's like they're like tick tock, Don't enjoy it. I don't like, you know. So I ended up hiring someone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, why not?
Speaker 2:But like so, how have you? How have you chosen your avenues, if you will, and then made that fun.
Speaker 3:Well, I think several avenues presented themselves. One, like the covers and the titles. Like when I like I hired a great cover artist, she's fantastic and so like that that's one thing. So like in a stack of books, my book stand out, and I know, and I know we've been all we've been told like I started doing research on how to do that. So like make the covers look like all the other covers of books in your genre, and I kind of I can be sometimes a contrarian, so I'm like I don't want that. I want, like my book to stick out like so you know, at least have the vibe of the book and it sticks out like. That's in my mind.
Speaker 1:Your covers are. Your covers are great. I love it. Yeah, I think they're great.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and and they're, yeah, they're fabulous and I'm going to pet my stuff on the back. They're fabulous. I didn't design but I hired a great designer to do that and so that was fun. And then just kind of figuring out like certain programs, like I. For a while I did tick tock and I've kind of fallen out of the habit. So I only made like four or five tick tocks and then I fallen out of the habit of it.
Speaker 3:But like I got to know iMovie on my computer and just having fun, like oh, what can I do? Like I did it, I did like a promotional tick tock thing of the book and I intercut there was like a the French connection has one of like the most famous car chase scenes in cinema where like they're chasing like one of the elevated subway trains and Gene Hackman's driving a car beneath it and he's trying to catch because the bad guys in the subway train. And I intercut that with. So I took the, the, the scene and I cut out Gene Hackman and I put my book driving the car. Just this is what it's like to drive, to read big F thing deal, and like you know. So you see the book driving the wheel and pressing the brake and like so you know just kind of silly kind of things like that. So I got familiar with iMovie and there's there's a program called Canva, which we both use it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and so can't be straight, and so it's just kind of like well, how can I kind of create interesting images? Or with using the, you know, some of the images of the cover, like I can, I can cut out, you know, because Jimmy Cooper is featured on both of the covers, so I can kind of cut up Jimmy, and then I have Jimmy, I can put him in different backgrounds. I can, you know, have different phrases or what. I can kind of do that. So it's kind of like, well, how can I use these images in different ways, changing the background, using review lines from Instagram or something like that, so I can do motion in Canva. I'm going to start doing some animation in Canva, you know. So it's just kind of exploring.
Speaker 3:I guess it's to make this long monologue short. I guess it's just following my creative news and just like, how can I do something, how can I make it more interesting to me, and so that? So that's fun, like just kind of figuring out how to do something that I don't know how to do. I think that's probably the best way of doing it. And then it's also like taking, you know, online courses. There's a lot of people who are selling, you know, do Amazon ads, do Facebook ads, do bookblog ads ads? And so you know, taking one of those and learning how to do that, and sometimes there there's a lot of information, but you kind of like sort through the information that's going to be useful for you and and then make it your own voice. I guess that's how I'm.
Speaker 1:You know, I really like what you just said. I think that a lot of people get afraid they start if it's something they don't know how to do, they've never done before, I've done this. I get like a mental block, like oh, that's the kind of thing that somebody else does, it's not the kind of thing that I do. And I had decided this year that I was gonna learn how to run Facebook ads and I signed up for a course and I just said to myself this year is the year I'm gonna learn how to do Facebook ads and you know it's a great course. I tell everybody about it. One of these days we're gonna get an affiliate link. But we had Matt Holmes on the show.
Speaker 3:That's who I took us for mail.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, and we had him on the show. He's a great guy and yeah, I just it's just trying to approach it as fun, Just trying to approach it. As you know, how can I make unique and interesting images? I wasn't able to cut out my character. I drop out the background because the way that my cover designer made my character like her hair disappears. So weird stuff like that. It's like really Mariah. You know, but it's so layered that it didn't work for me, but I found a model.
Speaker 1:You know a deposit photos that kind of looks like her in someone. So I picked her up and put her in different backgrounds. I just do, but like not stressing out but, like you said, making it fun. I think that is. I think that's critical.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think if you're just having fun with it, like it takes off the stakes, you know, because we all want that right ad that's gonna suddenly sell 100 books a day or 500 books a day or whatever, and like and I think sure it's possible, but like I can't think in those terms like this is gonna be the ad. So it's just like can I make this fun for myself? Can I do this, Will this work? And like, being willing to mess up, being willing to it not work out and being comfortable with that because it's like. I remember there's a Neil Gaiman quote from years ago and I don't remember the context, but he basically said like anything you do can be fixed. You know anything you write can be fixed. So it's not like if you make a bad ad on Facebook or Amazon, like that you'll never recover from it. You know, unless you've done something really horrific like you're gonna. You know you're gonna live another day. It's just books, it's just selling books on, you know, on Facebook, and so being willing to put yourself out there and being willing to risk messing up and there's no risk come messing up, really like it's just oh okay, it didn't work out, like I put the wrong. Like my wife was so mad at me because I didn't fix it right away Cause I didn't know I had done it wrong.
Speaker 3:I blame Facebook. I'd put the wrong location on one of the ads. So it was an ad for the books for the UK Amazon, but I'd put the location for the US, so, like all these US people were doing the UK link you know what I'm saying. Oh no, I was like, what did I do? And I, for a while, I was blaming Facebook. It's like I don't know, it's their algorithm, but it's like, no, no, it was me. I messed up. Well, I'm living another day, so that's all right.
Speaker 2:Well, and I think we all learn from those mistakes. So if you don't put yourself out there and try and just go for it. You're never gonna make progress, Not so much. I mean, there's the one. If you can't win the lotto, if you never buy the ticket right, there's that aspect of it too, of course. But even beyond that, if you buy the ticket, okay, it doesn't work with the lotto anymore.
Speaker 1:But you and your analogies.
Speaker 3:You have to work on our metaphors.
Speaker 2:But if you don't put yourself out there, if you don't try and if you aren't willing to make those mistakes, then you'll never learn, so you'll never get better, so you'll never actually find that success that you're looking for Right.
Speaker 3:I mean, you wrote the book. That's a lot. I mean, if you can write a book, you can try to write a Facebook ad or you can do an ad on Amazon. It might not be initially fun, but if you find ways to make it creative for yourself, even if it's not like what someone's telling you how to make the ad, it might work. Because I sometimes see ads that just all look the same and I gloss over them. And you need Matthew talks about that scroll stopping image. So take a risk If you don't put yourself out there, if you don't do you wrote a book, you wrote a book. Tell everyone you wrote a book. That's an amazing. It's really hard to write a book. So why you shouldn't be like, sit on your heels and like, well, I can't do Facebook ads? You can. Or you can hire someone Like that's a very valid option as well.
Speaker 1:Or go a different direction. I mean, there's some people who are crushing it on TikTok. I'm not.
Speaker 2:Again, you have to buy the ticket.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, you have to get on the TikTok.
Speaker 1:I do. I follow a Somalia who tells you the best wines at Trader Joe's and then I look at funny, funny dog TikToks that's like it.
Speaker 1:But that isn't that what also TikTok is for Like drinking wine and watching dogs, and then I'm gonna watch what happens with Megan's person and if it goes good, then maybe I'll hire her too. But you know, it's interesting what you said about being not being afraid to make a mistake, and this is not about advertising. But when I first started writing, I was writing for magazines at first, when I first thought I was gonna write novels. I can remember having you know it's the one agent and when you're brand new you take what they say as gospel Right and it's like an agent. I mean she's 26. I was like whatever, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:You can just rent a car now, like that's where she is in her experience.
Speaker 1:Anyway, basically what she said and I'm not sure if she told me directly or I heard her in a talk, I can't remember now but basically what she said is that if you independently publish a crappy book, no publisher will ever look at you, ever. You've damned yourself for all literary eternity.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, and so I was terrified. I like terrified and so of course you know, my first series is traditionally published and it took me seven traditionally published books, with a very encouraging publisher, with a lovely editor, to get the Hutzpah to independently publish a series. You know, because I had that little voice in the back of my mind like, oh no, you publish a bad indie book and you are damned for all eternity.
Speaker 3:Wait, isn't that true if you publish a traditionally published book? That's terrible, oh it's worse.
Speaker 3:Like it's all like if you publish something that's terrible, traditional or indie, like it's not good for you. But but like, I mean, like I think my first book is really really good and no one was interested in it. So like, so what does that say? Like, maybe it was the title, maybe it was the most likely, it was the market. Like wasn't wanting. You know, what the market wants for success versus what I want for success are two dramatically different numbers. Like, you know, what will pay for my book is different than what if Random House puts in all this money, what their sales wants are very different. But it's just interesting to me of like, oh, you'll be damned if you publish a bad book. Well, lots of people have published bad books and have gone on. So it's, it's, it's putting that fear into you that you know. I'll say it this way.
Speaker 3:So I was trying to figure out when I was still writing pilots this is how this book series came about I was trying to figure out what was gonna be my next pilot. I was on an airplane coming back to LA and I was trying to think of a really good idea, because you need a really good idea. High concept, high concept and I just, and I couldn't think of anything, couldn't think of anything. And then I asked myself what's a really terrible idea? What is an idea that will get me a laugh down in the room if I pitch it? What is an idea that the executives will like over in the break room over lattes, will tell the other executive can you believe?
Speaker 3:This guy just pitched this thing to me and the idea of a former child star as a private detective sounded so terrible to me I just started laughing as like I was like, because I was imagining myself pitching it to some exact, you know, over at 100 brothers, like here. It is Well, just imagine Macaulay Culkin as a private detective. It writes itself. And it was just such a terrible.
Speaker 2:Now, if you could have actually gotten Macaulay Culkin to sign onto that, that would have been perfect.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, I would have crushed it. I would be, you know, doing this interview in my Lamborghini, but like, but I just kept thinking about that idea and just laughing and laughing and just stuck with me. It's like, oh, there actually might be like, if I kind of treat it seriously and not like a dumb idea, but if I kind of get this character some depth, oh, there's something here to it, so like, so it's just the idea of like a bad book I don't even know what that means like in a in an objective sense, like, because a lot of people like a lot of different books and like. So it's. It's Just too hard. It's just too hard. You got to write what you love and like and like. Like you said, it was one agent, it's one person's opinion, and like. You know how many, how many times have we heard like, oh, that book was passed over by like 150 Agents or 150 publishers and now it's like a Pulitzer Prize winning. Oh, yeah, I mean, you know, it's all the time King, yeah, right, a rowling.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all all the superstars have their stories. You know, and that that's definitely, that's definitely true. So is that the? Because, I'm so sorry, I haven't read one of your books yet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's still time.
Speaker 1:There's still time. I'm not planning to die tomorrow, although you never know. So, is that the premise for your book? Is it?
Speaker 3:He's a he's a former child star and recovering addict and he gets a second shot at fame as LA's most famous private detective. It's, it's a little bit. I was joking about Macaulay Culkin, but he was in my mind but, like also, robert Downey Jr Was in my mind when I started writing it. So, like you know, back in the 90s when he was having, when Robert Downey Jr or Robert as I like to come we're not friends Robert calling when Bobby, when Bobby was having his troubles in the 90s, it was very, it was a very public, you know disaster. You know like he was getting.
Speaker 3:You know he was constantly in court and and part of me is like, oh well, what was it? Instead of, like you know, becoming Iron man and able to buy islands and stuff like that, he became a private detective. So like that tone of how he kind of exists and and just the idea of I I Also put the character in recovery. You know, as you know, the character is addicted to pills and and booze, because I also kind of a little tired of private detectives always being having the drinking problem.
Speaker 3:They're always, they're always. Alcoholics are like borderline alcoholics. Every every night they're stewing over the case. Why, drinking their 20 year old Scotch or whatever? And so it's like, come on, you know, so, you know he's, he's, you know he's sober and he's, and you know it's still a struggle. It doesn't go away for him. But like, so, you know it's. It's a somebody Katrina McPherson called, called it the other day online and I thanked her so much because I've been trying to desperately because it's not a cozy, it's not a cozy mystery, because there's far too many curse words. It's not a cozy. But she called it a noir Z, which I appreciate you.
Speaker 3:Right right, like I'm so stealing that, and so it was a noir Z. So it's kind of like noir type Characters. You know we have a private detective, we have Los Angeles, but it also has kind of the the found family of cosies, you know, because he's kind of he has his Best friend, is kind of a neighbor and the bungalows he lives in and you know he's reconstructed his life, but so it's it's so, it's along those lines. So it's not like this noir, dark noir, so it's like noir Z is perfect.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that, I love how, right now, because even even well, greta, I'll let you tell you're telling the story, but my favorite story of you on you.
Speaker 3:I'm in suspense right.
Speaker 1:Cozy horror story.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, Cozy horror, right, but the fact is I actually saw that the other day, like somebody else had listed their book as cozy horror, and and I love that so much that we're in this, this era, where we can, okay, yes, make up terms, but people buy into it right, like, oh, yeah, no, I get that. That makes sense. First is Greta's story. Which Greta?
Speaker 1:let you tell it so the first time I ever met with an agent to pitch a book that I had written, and I thought that cozy horror was just like your reaction.
Speaker 2:You left everybody.
Speaker 1:It's I thought it was incredibly clever and I was kind of using it and I had a bit of a background in marketing and I didn't understand the Utsupotsunos of publishing that you had to, like, use their verbiage and do it yeah yeah, all that kind of thing. So in my cover letter for my 20 pages I called the book that I was pitching a cozy horror. Yeah, she told me, no, you don't do that. This is not appropriate. Yeah we don't use that language here, we get it.
Speaker 3:I mean, that's the thing, and I'm not gonna, and I'm gonna do my best to not to not slag on cozy writers Because it's a genre I, I I don't write because I'm a noir.
Speaker 2:You're at Noir Z's.
Speaker 3:Noir Z's, because I mean because it's, it's, it's.
Speaker 3:It can be Sometimes too narrowly, narrowly defined like a cozy, like there's the muffin shop and then there's the detective who, every you know, in between muffin Is solving a crime with, with the talking cat, don't forget with the talking cat, um and and so, which, which is great, but like I think you know the idea, I think one of the reasons why I laugh, like if I was that age and I'd be like I am so on board, because, like cozy horror is like such a great contradictory term, like it's such a great I had a Writing teacher use the word frisian like it's like I don't understand that, tell me more. Like because it's also like I also hear cozy horror and I think cosmic horror, so it's like the sounds so similar, something I have to know. Like what is a cozy horror?
Speaker 1:And actually I do think that's what I write now, my new series I really do. I don't call it that, I call it paranormal suspense, but it's got the small Community, you know, and it's in a mortuary, but it's a small community and you know, and and dirt my books don't have cussing or sex on the page or Extreme gore, but there's descriptions of embalming procedures and so I mean it's not a muffin shop.
Speaker 3:That's in the back of the mortuary yeah. Yeah, because what I, because what I think is interesting, like other other than, obviously, the language of the title and language that some of the characters use in the Book, like it's my book. I'm totally a very network television and that kind of sounds like what your book is as well, like it's not. We're not, you're not pushing like you're not doing HBO, paranormal, paranormal doing maybe like NBC or CBS you know.
Speaker 3:So it's like so it's, it's, it's it. There's a container for that, and so I just find it fascinating. Yeah, I just find that label.
Speaker 1:Did you ever watch I zombie? Yeah, yeah, I zombie is one of the inspirations for for my stories too, and that it's it like. To me, I zombie is cozy hover. I mean, you got zombies, so you kind of have to call it or but it's, it's it you?
Speaker 2:know you love the characters.
Speaker 1:It's light, it's funny, it's got yeah yeah, it's like funny zombies who do yeah, yeah. So I'm all on board with this.
Speaker 2:And your agent story was 10 years ago, whereas now, today, I feel like because of the rise of indie, quite honestly, and because of Amazon being able to Make niches, you know, super fine yeah, categories on their search terms and stuff, I think it's changing. So I love it, I love noir Z and I love cozy horror kind of kind of tying it.
Speaker 3:Kind of tying it back to what we're talking about selling the books Like which is a if you're, unless you got a machine behind you. That's the part of your job as a writer now. Like coming up with a phrase like cozy horror or noir Z, like those are great tools to tell people because, like it, it allows you to convey the tone Of your book really quickly. You know, like cozy horror is like okay, I get that. Or or I'm so intrigued like how does that work that I want to know. And so I think those are, I think those are Important things to consider. I mean, it's fine you can say paranormal, you know, paranormal romance, paranormal mystery, those are all very fine too. But I think something that's as ear-catching as cozy horror is really To me that speaks to like having fun.
Speaker 3:You know, having fun creatively, like I found this, this portmandeu of like putting these two things together and creating a new, a new word like that's. That's fabulous, that helps people find things and talk about.
Speaker 1:It's just gonna say can it can help you really to find your Audience because you know, with first bucks in a series, if you're writing a series, first bucks my experience is those are the books you get the one star or two star reviews on. By the time you're to book four, five and six, your reviews are getting better.
Speaker 1:You know, overall your yeah, you found your audience you found right and the people who are not, who are gunning not I had Everything about mine talks about the fact that my being character. She gets the final, final experience and sensations of the dead when she touches her hair and if they were murdered, they follow her home Basically. So it's, I know so it's like it's obviously there's ghosts right.
Speaker 1:Obviously. And so I did get one three star review on book three. Her whole thing was well, it was funny, but I did not like the fact that there were ghosts in this book. So I'm giving it a three star review. I'm like so seriously, but you get less of those you know as the series goes on, because you know, but books one and the first book is what we's, the one where people were Expecting something slightly different.
Speaker 1:Yeah and then they were unhappy. But that's too where I love what you were talking about about your cover, because getting the right cover is Critical yeah. Critical in that because it's set, it's that quick because a lot of people don't read your descriptions Right. I found that out the hard way with many books. But that cover, if that cover says what's in the book, if it gives them that impression.
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3:I mean that it's gold, it's the reality is we all judge books by their covers. Like, exactly, we don't judge we hopefully don't judge people by the covers, but we judge books by their covers. I wholeheartedly admit when I see a cool cover that's in the vibe that I like, I immediately will pick it up. But if it's an, if it's a cover like that's not my vibe, I'm not gonna like. Well, I should see what the back says, like I don't do that. I judge books by their covers. And I think you like, if you're indie publishing, you should spend the time and or the money to do it right, to do the cover Right and and that and that. So that means you as the writer, knowing what you want as a cover and Getting the right artist who will match that. You know, I the the one that I worked with. She most of her bread and butter for covers is actually romance and it's like kind of the whole vector drawing kind of stuff. But I the there's Joanna Penn who's a big indie.
Speaker 1:She's gonna be on our she's gonna be in our podcast next year. Hot tip everybody. You heard it here.
Speaker 3:But on her website she has a lot of resources and one of those resources is a list of cover artists and I just went through I don't know how many. There were like 100, 150, and I just went through every single one and narrowing it down, and so I hit upon the right artist for me in my book. Now, when I start another series, which I'll probably read a draft of that next year I don't know if she'll be the right artist for that series it's a little bit different in tone, but like I'm happy to spend the money, like I don't. I don't always think Going cheap is a good idea, don't you know? Don't you know, sell your mortgage or house for a cover. But like don't, don't go, don't go cheap, don't go like, well, I paid 20 bucks for this cover because you will get a 20 buck cover You'll.
Speaker 3:You'll get a 20 buck cover and everyone and you'll look like everyone else. So it's so you're gonna scroll Through a list or like if you're at a book conference, in the book room and you walk around and you see everybody's covered, like I Highly recommend it if you're thinking of and you publishing, go to a book conference, go to the book room and you you will definitely see which covers are done cheaply and not very good. You'll see what everyone else is doing and you will your what. What catches your eye. That's what you want to happen. What's gonna catch your eye because that's what someone else is gonna do. So Take the time, do the best job you can at this, because it's your baby, it's your book, like you want it out there and I could be entirely wrong. I could be doing this all the way wrong. Like having my book with the covers that they have and the titles that they have could be absolutely wrong and terrible advice. But I know my books catch people's eyes. I know that that is a good fact.
Speaker 2:Let's transition off the cover and talk about the title.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Right yeah there is a hot spot, yeah.
Speaker 3:Which makes for interesting conversations at around dinner with my 11-year-old.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I can imagine.
Speaker 2:I can imagine. But so I mean your title has a curse word in it. So how do you deal with that? And for marketing purposes. And how has that affected your sales and so forth, because it does get attention.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it does get attention. And that's a good question about how to what I need to do as far as affecting sales, like who knows because? Like are my sales what they are Because of the title, or they are where they are because I'm still relatively new to this community, but it has a definitely affected ads. So my first impulse was to do Amazon ads to try to get out there. I have good reviews on Amazon and stuff like that. So it's like, ok, let's start investing in that. So I took the class. I took my first class on Amazon ads, like diligently taking all the notes, and then I start setting up my ads and they start getting rejected one after another. Oh no, it's like what's going on? So the title so big fat F up, big F in deal, and because Amazon has you can't Now how they're spelled out, the titles of the book, how they're spelled out, it's F. Is that the ampersand? That's not the ampersand, the app.
Speaker 1:The app symbol.
Speaker 2:The app symbol and exclamation point.
Speaker 3:Ok, so I'm not spelling the word out on the cover. However, amazon has a specific like you can't cover things up, you can't get your way around a curse word in the ad system, so it wasn't even so. Basically, the book title was too vulgar for Amazon ads and my wife was like, well, there's all these other books that have that in the title. I'm like, yeah, but I don't think they're doing Amazon ads. I think they're, you know. Anyway. So Amazon ads was a problem, and so I spent about a day maybe three hours, I don't know of the day feeling really terrible, kicking myself for making a titling choice for the series, however many years ago, two years ago, and now it's hurting me. But then I pivoted. It's like, ok, well, I didn't want to change the title, I didn't want to change the book, like the book covers, and when I have the third book out I'll probably make a big volume of all three novels and then I can call it Jimmy Cooper Mysteries and sell it on Amazon. But there's other avenues of advertising. So that I went into the Facebook ads and Facebook isn't as concerned. I occasionally have had one when in the primary text they're like you're using the book a ton, but they haven't said anything about the covers yet. Of course, as soon as this goes out, facebook will be like oh no, so it's definitely an issue.
Speaker 3:But I like the titles and I kind of like the conversation, like when I meet somebody and they hear the title, if it resonates for them, it really resonates for them. And I've said that I kind of use it as a bouncer, that if you're not amused by the kind of slight transgression of the title, then you're not going to be amused by the book. And the books are varied network, except for the curse words, some curse words in there, but it's not gory, it's not bloody, even though there's murder. I mean, literally it's based on a pilot that was for a network. So it's not like that.
Speaker 3:So it definitely challenged me and I knew when I made the decision to title it and the cover that I got, I knew at some point it would bite me in the butt. I will say it that way. It will bite me in the butt and my expectation is like well, walmart will never sell the book. That's what I was expecting my consequences to be. So I knew consequences were coming. It's not the consequences that I thought it would be. So that's a choice, so I've just rolled with it. I'll have other series, I'll have other books, so it's not the end of the world, like we were talking about earlier. Like, yes, maybe this was a mistake. I'm sure there'll be lots of people out there who are saying, well, you would be selling 10,000 books a year or whatever, if you had titled it differently, and maybe. But who's to say, like, you can't unravel that, you can't unring that bell, so you have to accept the consequences of your decision? I guess, ultimately, what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:And also I would say that it's a little bit hard for you to tell, because in my experience most indie series don't take off until you have maybe four or five books in the series, at least three and so you've only got two books in this series and it looks like you're doing well, and so you find your fan base. And some people are definitely not going to read books that have cuss words in them, and you don't have to get one star refused from those people.
Speaker 2:Because they're going to look at your book and they're going to go not read that?
Speaker 3:Not for me. I did. I did this year's Bachelorette Con in San Diego. I was, I had done a panel and then after the panel we do book signings and this guy came up and he was very much a cozy fan and he was like. He was kind of like I don't know, can you tell me how many cuss words are in the book? Because he was curious about the book, he was tempted about the book and I'm like, well you know not 27.
Speaker 3:27.5 per page, no, and it's like well, I don't know, like. I mean, I kind of said listen, there might be the occasional cuss word here and there. I keep saying, oh, there's cuss words in the book and I don't actually think it's all that much. But I think I said it's PG-13. There's going to be some, but it's not going to be terrible and I think it's safe for you to read, I think. But I wanted to give him as many caveats as possible. I will be totally cool if you choose not to buy it. I'm not going to be mad at you for choosing not to read this book. But he was curious and eventually he decided to buy it and he's like well, I'll try it. I'm like OK, great, thank you. If you don't like it, that's cool. But yeah, there are people who are very. I don't want any cursing, so right up front, you know. So it's a very successful bouncer.
Speaker 2:But I also think there are probably people that are absolutely drawn to it as well. You're going to get both sides of that coin and it's a very distinct dichotomy. So you are. You're automatically filtering, just with your title, the kind of audience you want to reach. I mean, the unfortunate side effect is the advertising, I suppose. Yeah, but if you go to cons I guarantee Any con that you go to you say you got this book, this title, like that's a huge. Either they're going to go oh my god, that's so cool, or they're like dude and get automatic filter.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I met somebody recently at Noir at the Bar in Los Angeles and she had been at Boucher and she and I were chatting in prison and she found out who I was. She's like, oh my god, I saw your book Everywhere at Boucher, which I went really everywhere, but she saw it everywhere. And so I'm like, well, that's successful. Like she saw it and she bought it a copy at Noir that night.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, it's definitely there's going to be some who will be turned off and there's going to be some who will be turned on by it, and that's isn't that what it's supposed to do? Isn't that what a title is supposed to do? Because I think sometimes we talk about have the titles look like everyone else's title, so everyone knows it's the right genre. Have the covers look like everything else, so it's the right genre, and I think that can be successful. But I think at the same time, I think then you're just kind of swimming in the same pond as everyone else and it's just you forget. Like you just don't know who's is who's or what is what, and I think you wrote a book. Why not stand out? Yeah?
Speaker 1:And again I could be doing this all wrong, no, no, but I think that we have said in some of our books for writers and in courses and things like that, and I think that this is really true. The thing that I learned is that what readers want is something familiar with a twist. They don't want. I should, I mean, I'd say, make a caveat on this. There are some readers who just want, like the whale readers who read three romance novels a day. They just love what they love and that's what they love and they want more and more and more of that. But a lot of readers putting those kind of readers aside a lot of readers just they want something familiar with a twist and like, oh, come on, I'm trying to think of the author's name. He's kind of a he's with a big publisher, but he wrote the Southern Women's Guide Book Club Guide to Killing Vampires and.
Speaker 1:How to Sell a Haunted House.
Speaker 2:It's not Reddus Seger.
Speaker 1:It's. I just read him and I feel like he's made his career on that. Now there's going to be a lot of people who are not going to read the Southern Women's Book Club Guide to Sling Vampires because it's too strange of a combo for them. Like teenage boys who might love Goopy Horror are not going to read about women's book clubs. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:And some of these Southern Women's Book Clubs are not going to be reading about killing no vampires, so you know it's. But there are those of us weirdos who like cozy, horror and worthy, who are going to go to go to log straight to that. I found my tribe. Yeah, it's so quirky fun and he, you know I wish I was doing as good as he's doing.
Speaker 3:So there was some right. Like there's, there was some I can't remember who it was, but it was some blog post I read about. Like that this person was like I think they were a musician. Like I would rather have 1,000 really rabid fans than 10,000 people who were kind of interested, like 10,000 people who might buy the albums. Like oh great, I've sold 10,000 albums. But like if you have a thousand fans who will buy everything you put out, that's a better.
Speaker 1:And tell all their friends.
Speaker 3:And tell their friends who might dip in and out, but like if you have a quarter group of a thousand people who are totally on your side, like that's fabulous, like that's your tribe and like you know, and because I guess I I'm going, I guess what I'm trying to articulate is that I think it's better to be uniquely you and uniquely what you love to write than try to write for a mass market. You know, I mean and I'm not saying don't write for a mass market but I feel like ultimately you're going to be a lot happier if you're writing exactly what you want to write. And then you find your tribe and you just have to accept those consequences. Your tribe might be a thousand people or it might be a million people and hopefully everyone gets the million people audience. But like I know I'd be a lot.
Speaker 3:I'm sure I'm a talented enough writer. I could probably write something that's a little bit more mainstream, something that's a little lighter in titles, something that you know might work for everybody, but I don't know if that's a sustainable thing for me as a as a writer. Like I don't know if if that's something I really would want to do for 10, 15, 20 years of my life. You know that I would rather write. I mean again, until someone's paying me a lot of money to write something. I'm going to write what I want to write and I will suffer the consequences and also the plighters of that at the same time.
Speaker 1:That's great. Yeah, that was a really good.
Speaker 2:I mean I nailed it, that's the quote for the show.
Speaker 1:We're done.
Speaker 2:I think we came out back around Nice.
Speaker 1:No, that's really good. Before we move toward wrap up things, is there any final words of wisdom or tips or anything that you would love to give listeners?
Speaker 3:I feel like I've been giving so many tips.
Speaker 1:You don't have to give anymore. You can say I'm done.
Speaker 3:And putting the caveat of like I could be totally wrong. No, I mean, I guess risk being wrong. I guess this you know, like it's OK to do what you want to do, like this isn't it's an art. Like express how you want to express. You know, like, if it's right or wrong, whatever, but like what is what is wrong in art? Like again, unless you're like doing something really horrific, you're going to recover from the stake. You know absolutely so.
Speaker 2:Well, why don't you tell everybody where they can find more about you and your books and find you online and all the linky link links?
Speaker 3:The linky links you can find my books. My books are available on Amazon. You can search for Lawrence Allen and you can find Big Effing Deal the second book and Big Fat F up the first book on Amazon. You can also have your favorite bookshop order them. They're available to order for bookstores. You can find them as ebooks. The first book is wide now, so kind of almost any place you buy ebooks you can get the first one. The second one's still a Kindle, exclusive for Amazon. The audiobook actually for the second book is now available just today, so there wasn't a book as well. Thank you, that is also something I would recommend. Spend the money and do it right. So both are available as audiobooks. So Audible, amazon and Apple. You can find me on my website, laurencelanritescom, my newsletter. I'm always happy to take new subscribers LawrenceAllenRightssubstackcom. You can find me on most of social media. You know instagramcom slash writelarryright, facebookcom writelarryright. So if you have a favorite social media, try writelarryright, and that might be me. Yeah, those are the places to find me.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. This has been an amazing conversation, and so you know we really appreciate you coming on the show to our listeners. Don't forget to make sure you subscribe to the channel on your show, or whatever you want to call it on your favorite podcast player. Sorry, I've got a little YouTube on the brain. Subscribe to our channel. Click the link, you know. Bring the bell so that you get like and subscribe, like and subscribe All that stuff.
Speaker 2:Yes, no, but we are doing this is a very professional podcast. Oh yeah, yeah, we're, we're killing it.
Speaker 2:I learned something from you guys, but we are posting what we're calling betweeny soads, which I guess we stole from Joanna Penn as far as the name. But every Thursday we are putting out tips and tricks for productivity to help you win nano RIMO this year, gosh. So we started with prep and then we're getting into productivity and we'll see where we go from there. So make sure you subscribe so that you don't miss a single episode. And then, until next time, keep your stories rolling.
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