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Write the Damn Book Already
Writing and publishing a phenomenal book doesn’t have to be ridiculously complicated or mind-numbingly overwhelming. From myths and misconceptions to practical tips and sound strategies, Elizabeth Lyons (author, book writing coach, book editor, and founder of Finn-Phyllis Press), helps writers feel more in control of and comfortable with the business of book publishing.
Her interviews with fellow authors discussing their writing processes and publishing journeys aim to help you untangle YOUR process so you can finally get your story into the world.
Write the Damn Book Already
Ep 126: Murder on the Page with N.L. Blandford
Click Here to ask your book writing and publishing questions!
Thriller author N.L. Blandford isn't afraid to go dark—like, murder scene dark—and she absolutely loves it.
In this episode, she talks about writing gritty thrillers with complex villains you’ll root for and recoil from. Natasha never planned to become an author. She just wanted to cross “write a book” off her bucket list. Now she’s five books in, spanning multiple series, and shows no signs of slowing down.
We talk about:
- Why she never plots in advance (hint: her characters have strong opinions)
- Her secret weapon for book sales (spoiler: it’s not bookstores)
- Why she chose to publish “wide” to support Canadian platforms like Kobo
- What she’s loving and learning while writing a new series about a fictional mob family in Nova Scotia
- Why “show vs. tell” trips up so many new writers (and how she works through it)
👉 CLICK HERE to get the first draft of your nonfiction or memoir written in 33 days!
...even if you don't have a cabin in the wilderness, 4 uninterrupted hours a day to write, or confidence that you're a "real" writer. No overwhelm, no confusion. Just simple, actionable steps.
Awesome Email Templates for Authors
From communicating with your launch team to building relationships with readers, my customizable templates take all the guesswork out of writing emails that turn email subscribers into loyal readers.
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Dreaming of seeing your book in print but dreading the process?
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Write the Damn Book Already is a weekly podcast featuring interviews with authors as well as updates and insights on writing craft and the publishing industry.
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Elizabeth Lyons than absolutely necessary Because, let's face it, some overthinking, second-guessing and overwhelm is going to come with the territory, if you're anything like me. In short, I love books and I believe that story and shared perspective are two of the most impactful ways we connect with one another. A few things I don't believe in Gimmicks, magic bullets and swoon-worthy results without context, as in be sure to reveal that a result took eight years or required a $30,000 investment in ads, because those details are just as important. What I believe in most as an author, the long game, is the shortcut For more book writing and publishing tips and solutions. Visit publishaprofitablebookcom or visit me over on Instagram at ElizabethLionsAuthor.
Speaker 1:Hi everybody and welcome to this episode of Write the Damn Book Already. This might be the first time I'm going to go back and look that I have spoken with a thriller author and I'm kind of into it. So, talking to Natasha Blanford about writing thrillers, I think the most fun aspect of it for me is how unabashedly unashamed she is of how much fun she has with murder scenes. That's the only way I know, and it's not you don't? I think there are instances when you could have. You could interview someone or chat with someone and listen to them talk about these things and feel concerned and wonder if maybe you were going to recognize the person at some point on Dateline or something like that. But it wasn't that sort of a conversation at all, it was just I didn't leave feeling concerned and like I needed to make a phone call. I think in so many ways the way that she thinks about it is so relatable that it made it fun and it made me kind of even think about whether or not I want to incorporate that into my own world the writing part, not the anything else world. The writing part, not anything else, just the writing part. I think you're going to love this interview and before I dive into it I want to let you know that I have a new free download available for those of you writing nonfiction or memoir who find yourself feeling stuck on chapter one.
Speaker 1:Maybe you haven't yet started writing or maybe you're at chapter six or seven or 20, but you're still like I just don't feel like chapter one is really nailing it, and you know how important it is for chapter one to be done very, very well, because that's where you either grab your reader or lose them forever. So I've put together a download called chapter one done, and it walks you through my slightly unorthodox process, which by no means, by the way, is the only process, nor is it the right process, nor is it the best process, but it is a process and it is one that I have honed over the last however many years writing my own nonfiction and helping so many other people write theirs. When it comes to what's really important to get clear about upfront and how we can sit down with that chapter one and feel like there are so many thousands of things that we want to say to our reader before we get going, to let them know you're in the right place and blah, blah, blah, but we just feel overwhelmed by it. It's like what goes in the intro, what do I save for later? What doesn't go anywhere at all? So I've got some questions that you can pose to yourself, questions that possibly you haven't been asked by anyone else and haven't thought to ask yourself. That can help you get incredibly clear about what goes in the intro and what doesn't.
Speaker 1:You can download that. I've put a link in the episode notes. You can also go to publishaprofitablebookcom. Forward slash chapter one. That's all one word and all spelled out. So not the number one, but the word one, c-h-a-p-t-e-r-o-n-e, and you can download that for free now. All right, so without further ado, let's hop into the conversation with Natasha Blandford. The conversation with Natasha Blandford so what excites you most about writing thrillers?
Speaker 2:Oh, the killing of the people Really.
Speaker 1:Yes, I uh when I was writing. I'm going to end up on an episode of Dateline or something. What's going to?
Speaker 2:happen here Like one of those memes. Oh, she's just the one the search engine meme what's gonna happen here?
Speaker 1:like one of those memes oh, she's just the one the search engine meme. As you, season five comes out and we're all going oh god, okay, anyway go on.
Speaker 2:Yes, so what? Even when I was writing my first novel, I go to my husband. Okay, I'm gonna go kill people now that's so.
Speaker 1:Do you like writing the killing scene? I'm like afraid to ask too much right now.
Speaker 2:Oh, don't be afraid to ask too much. I'll tell you if I can't talk about it. Yeah, I don't mind it, okay.
Speaker 1:Do you?
Speaker 2:enjoy. There are a few scenes where I'm like oh yeah, this guy's going to get it. Here it comes Really. So are you a plotter?
Speaker 1:or a pantser.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm a discovery writer for sure.
Speaker 1:So which are you? Sorry, I didn't get that. So, pantser, oh, I said discovery, you are a pantser.
Speaker 2:Okay, for the most part I have an idea. I know how a book's going to start, but where it's going to go I never, ever do I know, and even with my latest novel that just came out, I tried to tie up the ending really nicely. That was the advice I got, and then when I wrote the last words I was like, well, I guess that's how that's going to end. Yet another figure, sorry.
Speaker 1:That's like when I was talking to Jordan Roeder who wrote it's essentially well, it's not rom-com, that's not true, but it's called Moms Like Us and it's for women LA competition, over-schooling, all that kind of stuff, right. And so she did something similar. She started to where it wasn't tied up with a very. It ended up being tied up with a neater bow, but she didn't want to leave it that way because she's a TV writer and so she wanted she can see clearly where the end of season one is. Yep, right. So do you write in series or are they standalone? So far, so far series.
Speaker 2:Yep, okay, so I have. The first series centers around two sisters in human trafficking, so that one's really dark, like noir thriller. And then this next one that I'm just launching just launching, escaping victoria is like an organized crime thriller series. So in this book I wrapped up the issue that was happening in book one, but then alluded to what my what's going to be the main topic of conversation in book two with the with the last sentence. So that's what I did and instantly got a message. The day the book came I was like where's book two? Where I don't?
Speaker 1:like it. But they're completely separate, I mean they like it, but they want it yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, right, but they're completely separate, right. So, like the series are completely separate from one another. Okay, and this is something that I'm not terribly familiar with, like the world of sort of well series, to just be very right, like Mary Bell, who's a friend of mine, has a series, it's the Italy series. So there's, there are two books in that series and now she's moving on to the New Jersey series. It's, it's interesting, and like. So one thing I'm curious about with that is how do you decide when a book is going to be, especially as a pantser, it's going to be the final one in a series?
Speaker 2:That's a great question, because I thought I finished my series at three books and now I'm writing a prequel about the villain, so it's turning into a four book series. The series is never ending. No, it will end on book four. It has to end on book four doesn't, it could go to book nine.
Speaker 1:It's happened before.
Speaker 2:I mean I did leave my an opportunity for a spin-off series I don't know if I'm gonna explore that with, with a character that they could okay.
Speaker 1:Um, with this latest one, I don't know how many books it's gonna be yet well, and it makes me you said spin-ff, and it kind of makes me think about how many T? Not that, but there is some similarity, right. How many TV shows will end up being spinoffs from any law and orders are there, oh my God, right? Well, and of course, you would know that families, how many mom?
Speaker 2:families could there be, like there's five, there's five or six mom families that make up the family, the organization. So I, technically, in this new series I could, I could have a whole universe, will I probably?
Speaker 1:not. Are you a tv watcher? Oh, yes, okay. So now I'm curious what? What? What are you watching? What am I watching? Is it all I'm trying to get to? Is it all? Is it? Is it crime? Is it law and order? And I haven't watched law of order in forever, um I used to watch.
Speaker 2:Oh, I love the originals. Nancy is oh my god, I yeah, abby's my favorite. Um, what am I watching? We just finished white lotus, oh, yellow jackets, handmaid's tale, because you got to watch handmaid's tale when you live in canada I had to drop off.
Speaker 2:Um, so did my husband. It's too real for him so he can't watch it. Okay, but being canadian and realizing like the author and all things, just like oh yeah. So I've also tried to pick up some lighter shows. So before bed, like my husband and I will watch tv, but then we'll watch tv in bed for half an hour and snuggle yeah because we have to.
Speaker 2:I have to sleep separately, like, don't touch me while I'm sleeping, so we'll have our snuggle time. And so we're now. We've been making our way re-watching big bang theory, because you need a good laugh? Oh, you do. For real yeah, north of north, which is a canadian um production about. Oh, isn't that just? Come out on north of north.
Speaker 1:Is it good? I loved it, okay, loved. So. You're like me. You got through the whole thing in quickly. Yeah, it's only eight episodes. See, we are the same. Because that's what I'll say. It's only episodes, only eight episodes. And people will say that will take me eight months to get through, and I think what? That took us? Two nights, two nights, there you go. Two nights, that's all you need to get through. I mean two nights there you go. Two nights, that's all you need to get through. I mean I don't. Okay, that's fine, at least we understand each other. Now, what about? I'm you.
Speaker 2:I haven't watched that, so I haven't watched that, although nope um, I also have canceled my netflix subscription, so I don't have access to it anymore at first when it came out and I didn't read the books, but I got it in my head that I didn't want to support someone who's a stalker have I been living on and under a rock.
Speaker 1:I believe you, I just didn't know. I feel I'm not going to Google it.
Speaker 2:Please do.
Speaker 1:I feel very out of the loop on these things. Yep, it's a novel.
Speaker 2:Who wrote it? By Carolyn Kepnes. Yeah, I'm not into the stalker thing, that's just not. I mean I've been, obviously I've been to the human trafficker thing.
Speaker 1:So, because you do workshops on the craft of writing, I want to talk about this if you're up for it. So I was talking to Jane Friedman last week and she said something I thought was so interesting. She said I don't teach the craft of. First of all, she hasn't written fiction. Admittedly, she's written all nonfiction. But she's like, how do you teach someone how to write a book? Right, and I work with people on the and I'm using air quotes.
Speaker 1:But craft of nonfiction and memoir and moving into creative nonfiction, and what I'm recognizing is, or just outright fiction, what I'm recognizing is that teaching the craft of fiction is a totally different ballgame from teaching. I wouldn't even call it the craft of nonfiction. I'd kind of call it like the structure of nonfiction or the pieces of nonfiction that the reader needs to have, the full picture, the map of, like where's this going? But what's your experience with that? Like, how did you learn, how do you grow your own craft? How did you come to get to where you're at? I just ended a sentence with a preposition Nobody say anything.
Speaker 2:Well, this is why we have editors, because I don't don't ask me grammar questions.
Speaker 1:That's one of the do people say that to you when you're, you know, helping them out? They'll say to me all the time I have terrible grammar and I'm like I would prefer that you can tell a story. We can fix the grammar on the back end, exactly.
Speaker 2:That's why we have editors, correct, and that's why I tell people like I'm about to do a self-editing workshop in a couple weeks, but I will be highly emphasizing that you also need an editor. But here's the things you can do before you hire an editor. Ie control f all that I saw. As I said, I did all the act, all the things you're telling me that you did instead of showing me. But I've I've read quite a few craft books, like Sasha Black's craft novels are really good, so I base a lot of my stuff off her, and I know you're usually asked what are you reading?
Speaker 2:And one of the books I just finished the other night is called Immersion and Emotion. It's by two Canadian authors, the two pillars of storytelling. So it's about emotional draw and what transports readers into the world. So it even goes into creating conflict. So how do you create conflict? Oh, mm-hmm, how do you create characters people will relate to and not just maybe be stereotypical villains. So make them personable, so that maybe you might actually cheer for the villain. And that's some of the feedback I get too is oh, my God, I love William, but I hate him, but I love him.
Speaker 1:But I think that's a. I mean, if you go back to have you ever read Superstructure by James Scott Bell? No, I have not. Okay, I really enjoy it. I mean there's a million and one. It's kind of his interpretation or his extrapolation of the hero's journey, but he talks about how he calls it, I think, petting the dog, where it's like if the character is the kind of person who would kick a dog and you would expect him to kick the dog, then we need a scene somewhere where he turns around and he pets the dog, because then we start to feel for him. If we just outright hate someone, it's hard to.
Speaker 2:it's a weird psychological thing and it's challenging to do and it's challenging to teach and sometimes it's challenging to understand, right, and I just I'm not sure that people are often prepared for all those different aspects yes, and so one of my character development workshops we talked about even the different types of villains or the cliched villains, to kind of avoid, or like the john wick story, like okay, you kill the dog, you've made him angry. Maybe don't kill the wife and make the guy angry, like things like that you could. You just need to have a really good reason and explain it, because readers are getting I feel readers are getting smarter and they're like I don't want to read the same Same. I think they're getting tired.
Speaker 2:Over and over again. Yeah, like my librarian friend has been like nobody wants no offense, james Patterson, nobody wants the same books all the time Right.
Speaker 1:They want something new, something that pulls them in, and they can't predict, I guess, as much. But also, if you're a James Patterson fan, same with who's the other law guy, john Grisham yes, if you like that, you just keep reading their books because you know it's kind of like if you like Hallmark movies, you know, or you like Danielle Steele, you just keep watching them or reading them because you know it has a happy ending. In the romance genre Specifically, I'm hearing that women are getting tired. First of all, women have no tolerance, and I won't I sound like I'm making a generalization and I am, but it's feels like it's kind of across the board, no tolerance for women who let a man save her. Yeah, I wouldn't read that book. Right, I wouldn't either. But there are certain like tropes within the romance category. I'm curious if there are any. I think you've mentioned a few, but in the thriller category that people have just grown tired of?
Speaker 2:That's a great question. Personally, I don't write in a mold so I don't know if I'm hitting a lot of the tropes. I think people are just they don't want the predictability like the formulaic writing anymore. They'll be like ooh, give me the twists that take me somewhere. I do not. I did not see coming compared to to the. I just watched two episodes of a tv show I shall not name and I predicted the bad guy in the first episode and I went to coffee with someone and we were talking about she's like oh, I won't tell you, just in case I finish. I'm like no, I'm not, it was this guy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was that guy it's like, then I'm definitely not watching it like well but is it maybe?
Speaker 1:maybe, natasha, it's just that you're getting smarter, or maybe, as a writer, well, that's what I would do. Well, that's what I keep telling myself. Like I almost never pick out who's the killer, who's the whatever. One of my sons is brilliant at it. Like within 10 minutes he'll go oh he's. And I think how did you do that? And then one time recently I did it. I was so proud. I thought my gosh. I think I'm getting smarter. I think I think this perimenopause thing, like I'm growing, I'm doing the opposite. I'm growing brain cells. Let's hope that I get to do that too.
Speaker 1:I'm really hopeful. It's only happened once, I don't, but you know, if it can happen once, it can happen thrice Right. I'm just curious when you so the formulaic thing is so interesting because the formula works. I mean, the formula is a formula because it works right. So there's kind of this oh, you have to hit this particular beat by 25% in, or you know you can't wait until so how do you balance that so that the formulas and I'm putting air quotes there that work, are there, but they're not obvious and you can still have fun with it as the writer without feeling like, oh God, I'm on page 97. So something has to happen here.
Speaker 2:Well, I don't follow a formula or even pay attention to those things that tell me something has to happen on page 25.
Speaker 2:No, I just write and I think honestly it's got a little bit intuitive, because I've got to the point where even my first drafts, which are mostly dialogue, are already 80,000 words. So then I'm just fleshing it out and filling in some content and taking out a bunch of stuff, and a lot of my beta readers or my critique group will be the one that says you know, you lost me here, maybe you need to pick up the action. So there are the ones that tell me I haven't necessarily hit the beat but I don't analyze it to the point where I'm at 25%.
Speaker 2:I just know start with a bang.
Speaker 1:Oh, by the way, I've never looked at keep on, yeah, and I've never calculated anything. As an editor and I'm we don't want to talk about the, the novel I'm working on right now, because it's nothing's happening, but I've never calculated it and gone, oh, you're only at 22 percent, or oh, my god, we're almost it. It's just, sometimes it's painfully obvious because, to your point, as the reader, like, whether I'm editing or reading, i'm'm, like, I'm bored, exactly Right, like, when are we good? So do you always start it with something?
Speaker 2:Um, okay, Well, my first book not as much of a punch as my following. What number am I on? I'm on five now. Um, because, honestly, my first book was a bucket list item and I just did it, uh, uh, and I got feedback and things like that detailed feedback, but I didn't have that hook sentence that I now have in every other book. It's still, I would say, by the end of the first chapter. You're like, oh, what's going on with these two sisters. So I still have the hook.
Speaker 1:It's just not the first first sentence anymore well, what compelled you to do a second book if the first book was just a book? Because some people it is a bucket list item and they get to the end and they go check, we're done. It's like me building a triple bunk bed, which I did do once Like did it never? Ever doing that again, no desire to do it differently or better anything. What got you to the end and thought I think I want to do this again? Oh, ed four more times.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had nothing else to do in COVID, like a lot of people, and I don't have children, so I wasn't I and I could not spend that much time in front of a television. I worked from home, of course, and I had always kind of. I've always enjoyed writing, I paint, I sing, I do a lot of artsy stuff, but then, of course, I do the analytics for my day job. So this is my creative outlet and I feel like it's my therapy.
Speaker 2:So then I had the story in my head for like five, six years, so I knew that I had the story. And then, when I got to the end and I can't tell you what happens story and then, when I got to the end and I can't tell you what happens because spoiler my character said oh no, we're not done yet. And so I had to write book two, which I wrote in six months, I think, like it just played in a movie in my head and I got it out and done and then I said well, I can't have a two book series, I have to have a three book series.
Speaker 1:So then, I did 18 years later. Did you just?
Speaker 2:say 18 years later. Yeah, so book three takes place 18 years after the first two. I was like wait a minute.
Speaker 1:I know you're not telling me, but 18 years, okay, okay, no. I clarified that I started publishing in 2021. Right, I thought this doesn't make any sense. Okay, I would have been a child, exactly. Which would have been very impressive and cool as a story to tell, but would have made no sense.
Speaker 2:And so then I got to book three and my sister-in-law there's a very witty priest in book three and she's like you should try comedy and I said challenge accepted, let's write a quirky Canadian Christmas thriller where people die in unusually Canadian ways Although there's no Zambonis or hockey sticks in this first book of the series, but maybe in the next one and so I tried comedy. And then people out here in Nova Scotia, when I meet them at markets they're like oh, is it set in Nova Scotia? I'm like I've only lived here for two years.
Speaker 2:Where'd you move there from Alberta and then, before that, ontario. Okay, all right, yeah, and so now I have my new series is going to be set in Nova Scotia, about a fictional mob family in Nova Scotia. A fictional mob family in Nova Scotia, yes, so a young girl gets kidnapped, grows up in the mob and now we can see all the treachery that that happens. And you think you know, sweet Canadian little province, right, right.
Speaker 1:I can get my characters up too. Not so much. Let's bring in that Zamboni. So what have you always just thought I want to self-publish or whatever it's never occurred to you to not occurred to you? Obviously it's occurred to you, but you never had that thought of. I want to try to do. You mind saying why I'm just always so curious about people's decisions in this realm? Well, because the first book was bucket list.
Speaker 2:I'm like I'm just going to get this out here. I don't have five years. I could get hit by a bus tomorrow, it was. The big thing is like how much time it takes to get traditionally published and although the the agent and publishing space is growing in Canada, there's not a lot right, or yeah, there's not a lot of agents. So I said I'm just gonna do it and I don't like I also don't watch my sales, so I'm not in it for the money you don't at all.
Speaker 2:Not really Okay. I have a good day job that I love, so it funds my life and my hobby, and then I spend all my spare time writing I love that.
Speaker 1:Because I think well, I don't think. I know that for so many people, whether they're traditionally hybrid self, whatever publishing model they've chosen, sometimes the love of the creative pursuit gets lost amidst the pressure to be a certain thing, to hit a certain number of sales or whatever. The barometer is that someone's using at any given point in time, and it's really nice to find someone who doesn't feel like they have to do. I mean some people, we all have different lives and we all have different responsibilities and abilities to fund things on our own, and et cetera, et cetera, but and not but. It's it's nice to imagine a world where you're just doing what you love, without the commercial pressure or otherwise pressure to take it to a certain level and of course I would love it if I could retire tomorrow and just write like that.
Speaker 2:But that's the dream. But in reality 14 more years until I retire. If I could do it at 55, and then that would be the dream. And I'm still working hard to try to get people to notice my, my writing, like I've pitched podcasts and local newspapers. When I get back from Cuba I'm going to pitch some new stations out here. I do really well at the craft markets. Shockingly, I I sell lots at craft markets so I've seen my income steadily increasing. Expenses stay about the same, so I'm still not balanced. But again, in the end, to me it's just a hobby and I'm doing it for the love of it. And I appreciate that the readers keep begging for more, so I'll keep writing.
Speaker 1:So in Canada, do you print on demand? Do you print through Amazon and then just have a bunch sent to you and take them to the markets? Is that Okay? Okay, that's what most people I'm finding who are self-published are doing, because it's just the most cost-effective way. It's not necessarily the least expensive way, because we could get our books for less per, but we'd have to order 2,000. And I don't know about you. I currently have over 2,000 books under my steps, so I don't know about I currently have over 2000 books under my steps, so I don't have any more room. Like I'm from back in the day when we had to do offset print runs and I did a really big run for my third book. This is just an. This is an uh, an illustration of what not to do. Um, and it didn't work out as well as I had hoped, and so here we are, like it's, I don't have any more room and I'm in Arizona, where it's 120 degrees and so the glue will melt if I put them in the garage.
Speaker 2:Yes, you know what's the-. My closet is full right now, but I order about a hundred of each, a hundred copies of each book at a time, and then, when I get down, to like 25, 50, then I, then I re-up, but I've also limited myself to the three big markets that see between 3,000 and 7,000 people this year or an event, because I can't keep spending all my weekends at a market. So hopefully those will be the good sales years and people will pick it up on Amazon or Kobo or all those places.
Speaker 1:Are you not exclusive to Amazon? I'm interested in this when people write fiction because it's a common debate, not over which is better or worse, but some people are very loyal to being exclusive to Amazon for the page reads and other people feel like you know what? I don't get paid enough for page reads for that to make sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I haven't tried KU to, to be honest, I went right from the start.
Speaker 2:Okay, also because, like I wanted to support kobo, which is canadian and right, I I've just, and through listening to other podcasts, the benefits of going wide, like some genres work, really are really beneficial in ku. So go you romance authors, but that's it, and maybe one day I could possibly write thriller romances, because there are romances in my book. People are, even in the first one, a man. I really want William and Olivia to get together, even though he's the villain.
Speaker 1:But isn't it so funny? The genre of like bending and crossing and paralleling, that goes on, is starting to get interesting. It's like is this really a romance, is it really a thriller? Because sometimes people will say and I'm not here to say whether this is right or wrong If you don't have blank it's not a romance, or if you don't have fill in the blank it's not a. You know, I don't know, but romance does incredibly well, typically with page reads. I don't, I don't and I don't know why it is that it doesn't do well with page reads outside of Amazon, except that they don't sell, they don't pay based on page reads, right. But it's curious to me if you're getting so many page reads through Kindle that people, if they were purchasing the book, the e-book through, say, kobo, you'd think they'd. I don't. But maybe it's that lending library feature. I don't know, I don't know. Probably the lending library, probably the lending library.
Speaker 2:Kendall kicked it all off and started it off and, like you said, people tend to be loyal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what's the most fun thing that you do for promotion? That doesn't feel super like, oh.
Speaker 2:God, I have to go do that. That's a great question, because I launched in COVID, there wasn't a lot of promotion for my first three books. So I'd say, since moving out to Nova Scotia and getting into the local craft markets, those are fun because the readers come back and give you great feedback and I'm like, oh my God, I read it in two days or whatever they say, and you actually get to interact with the readers. Yeah, I mean, I don't like being a salesperson and be like, hey, if you like this, which is what you have to say, but just interacting with the people.
Speaker 1:Whereas.
Speaker 2:I definitely I've hired someone to do a lot of my social media. Like I write the blurb, but she does the images for me, because I don't have time for that with my day job and managing a household and writing Right Right.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think that is kind of for many people what the assessment has to be you can only put yourself into so many activities at one time, so if you have to let go of something in order to have more time writing or marketing, or what is it that you're going to let go of? I love what you said about picking the markets that are dense, meaning a lot of people, do you all? Have you also had to assess? Okay, just because there are a lot of people there, those people aren't all reading my style of book. Have you had that happen?
Speaker 2:Yes, and so when I first moved here, I signed up to for a quite a lot of of markets, not knowing what worked and what didn't. And there were some smaller ones where, yes, I'd sell between five and ten books but that doesn't equate to my time Whereas these ones, I've been selling between 60 and 70 books, which, even when you take out the $200 to $300 table fee, you still are pulling in a couple grand. So, uh, I've. I found that as much as 3 000 people walk through. I obviously only sold 60 to 70 books, but they're not a lot of authors there right now. So I think I've. I've hit a market that people like. It's a craft market, so people are selling woodworking or hats or things they've made right. Right, there aren't a lot of authors there yet, but I might have been kicking.
Speaker 2:I might have kicked something off, so I think I might have some competition this year. So we'll see. But there are some like book fairs that I've attended that had a lot of authors but not necessarily a lot of like a lot of purchases. So I've gotta I still have to learn my market area.
Speaker 1:Well, and that's tricky. We have a big book fair at University of Arizona every March and I can't think right now. It's called something very simple like the Tucson Festival. It might even be called the Tucson Festival of Books and I'm just blanking on it, but what I thought was interesting is I went last year and it was fabulous and I came home with so many books I wanted, but I wanted to buy everybody's book. So that's what's challenging is everyone who's attending is interested in books. That's why they're there, and yet you as the author are sort of to to a degree, competing with every other author, unless someone truly has the wherewithal financially to buy every single book that they come across. They've got to make decisions, and so I think that's a consideration for people when they go to events like that is, who's going to be there, how many people are going to be there, and then just kind of learning over time what percentage of those people actually are interested in reading and in reading this genre.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and where I live, we get a lot of tourists in the summer, so the summer market. I know a couple of my books went back to Germany because that's where they were. They were on a cruise, right. They're coming back home, right, they need something to read.
Speaker 1:You never know when you're working with people on the craft of it, of what they're writing, where do you find that people get really stuck? Oh my gosh, I mean one of them, me, right, or what's something that they thought. Oh, I didn't think. You know, I thought this would be easy.
Speaker 2:The showing versus telling is a big one. I'm part of a critique group as well as doing these workshops that I'm doing and definitely and I'm my first draft is definitely mostly telling. So then I have to go back and show For sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's the big one. And showing emotions. I find it with a couple people. I don't know if they're, as an author, afraid to show their emotions, because maybe they relate to the characters but actually like if you and I were in a relationship and showing the attraction and the things like that. Maybe it's a little harder to put on the page as much as they want to, or maybe they're a little timid to be like well, will anybody actually want to read this scene? I don't know. I do think that's challenging Pulling out those emotions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's challenging to take some. There's a reason why we say it's hard to put into words and I think taking those, taking feelings and even actions and translating them into words can feel very awkward for people, until I'm kind of curious about how you do that with killing.
Speaker 2:Well, I do that and I do have sex scenes in my books, so I do both. That is a great question, because I just have a lot of people get shot or like stab, like I like to. I can not just stabbing, I don't, I'm not just bang, you're dead, it's oh bang, there's your kneecap gone. Let's, let's, keep you in pain for a while. Are the? Is that?
Speaker 1:detail that you build out over time, like when you first write it is it like he shot him in the kneecap, and then when you go back, it's like then I'll describe, yeah, dangling or something shattered, okay, something like that, or I could see where that would be fun. I mean, I don't understand if maybe I'm to have some issues that might need to be assessed, but I feel like I can see where that would be kind of fun. I feel like a lot of us have a little bit of rage right now. Right, better to take it out on a fictional character, exactly.
Speaker 2:And, unfortunately, some not so innocent ones. I do get the text messages. Oh my god, I can't believe you killed. Insert name here.
Speaker 1:Really. It had to happen in the story, yeah, and people get upset. It's kind of like when you Well not really.
Speaker 2:It's more of oh my gosh, like you just did that, I did not see that coming, not-.
Speaker 1:Oh well, that's good.
Speaker 2:Why did you kill them? Yeah, okay, that's good, it's the good feedback.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I think it's always good when you don't see something coming.
Speaker 2:That's what I try to do this book like great, I've done something right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I did something right. That's delightful. I'm just picturing some woman I in a bathtub, like just yeah, and then snuggled in. But I mean, stories like that stand the test of time. People just love. I don't think you have to be, you know, violent, adjacent to like stuff like that. I think it's just an escape.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and if you write good characters and the overall story arc works and everything's connected Right, then overall you have a good story. Then that's the big thing Onward.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, so you know, I always end with what you're reading. You already mentioned one thing that you're reading, but what else are you reading? And we've talked about what you're watching on tv. So did.
Speaker 2:Uh, I am also reading. It's called the girls who stepped out of the line. Untold stories of the women who changed the course of world war ii now, that surprises me, natasha.
Speaker 1:I did not expect.
Speaker 2:I did not expect that I know so I generally read a biography, World War II nonfiction I have a lot of World War II nonfiction that I read and then a fiction book, whether it be a thriller or romance.
Speaker 1:Oh.
Speaker 2:I'm just getting into offbeat romance. What's offbeat romance? Well, to me, offbeat, like the thriller romance.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, for.
Speaker 2:Ann Weaver's of the world. She's also Canadian and she writes serial killer romances um yeah, and the rabbit hole of categories.
Speaker 1:I know like I can just see people going out onto their bookstore of choice and looking up like serial killer romance but yeah, this.
Speaker 2:So that book, the girls who stepped out of line. It just talks about women in world war ii and their stories and maybe, maybe things you haven't heard, like they were spies or they were reporters, or are you a big history person and I I feel I've been thinking about this lately. I feel like I read world war ii non-fiction just to learn how it happened, like to look for the signs, but um, it's also to remember how we've gotten where we are and why we have the freedoms, because so much was sacrificed, and I family connections to it, of course. Okay, bring it to around to me too. So I think that's. I don't know.
Speaker 1:I've always enjoyed it, but people are often shocked that I am very shocked and I've never been a history person ever until recently, because suddenly, given the state of this world, I want to better understand how did we get here? Where are we, what does that term mean? And I find myself really interested in it. And to that point I really enjoy reading books that give me a little bit of a history lesson and or that introduce me to something in history where I think, well, now I want to learn more about that. So maybe it doesn't go into it in depth in the book, but it introduces it to the point that I get intrigued and then I go find more actual, non-fiction type writing on it yeah, and that's what I've tried to do, even with my my first series about human trafficking I have.
Speaker 2:There are a few things that I embellish, but I have resources in the back too, because, yeah, it was a social issue people in Canada weren't really talking about and it's our number one growing crime, is it really? Yes, and it's really big in Nova Scotia that was part of my goal was shed some light on that, and I'm sure my mob series will talk on political and other corruptions.
Speaker 1:Excited for that one, I don't know why, like I wasn't, a big when, I when anyone says the mob, I hear two things godfather and sopranos. I really wasn't into either. Sopranos, I I just never it's either. Sopranos I just never. It's great, I'm sure it's great, I just never got into it. I may not have even had whatever it was, wasn't it on HBO or something right? I don't think I had HBO or like some crazy thing. But when I hear mob, that's what I think of and I don't know why. But now suddenly it intrigues me, and that it intrigues me that it intrigues me because I didn't watch it. Maybe I need to go back and watch it, I don't know.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you so much for coming on and chatting and I'll put all the links to your books and et cetera in the episode notes. Thank you for having me. This is great. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you enjoyed this episode, this is your friendly reminder to follow or subscribe, leave a quick review and share it with someone you know has a great story or message but isn't sure what to do next. Also, remember to check out publishaprofitablebookcom for book writing resources and tips and to see all the ways we can work together to get your book out into the world. Again, thanks so much for listening, and I'll talk with you again soon.
