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bridget: [00:00:00] Well, hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Romance at a Glance, authors at a Glance. I'm your host, Bridgette, and with me is my Cohos Shawni. Hi Shawni
shani: Bridget.
bridget: How
shani: you doing girl?
bridget: I am doing so well. We have one of my favorite romance authors on Lucy Lennox for the second time, and I was so happy she wanted to come back and hang out with us again.
bridget: We love Lucy. We love Lucy. If you guys have not read Lucy Lennox or heard me talking about her on the podcast, you guys are sleeping. 'cause I've mentioned her many, many times over the years. She was one of my favorite and one of our earlier author interviews, uh, with May Archer, who she co-writes with.
bridget: And she is so interesting and I love how not only is she a phenomenal writer, but she also really approaches indie writing as a businesswoman and a badass businesswoman at that. And so we talked all about her finishing her latest series with Finding Lord Landry, which is the end of the Billionaire Brotherhood series about starting new series, about diversifying ways to make money so that you're not so reliant on Amazon as an [00:01:00] indie publisher.
bridget: And just like all the nitty gritty about publishing audio books, I mean, we covered so much stuff. It was, this is gonna be one of our longer author interviews that we've had in a while. Uh, and it's well worth to listen. She's amazing, uh, and her books are amazing. And Finding More Landry is out or wherever you like to listen to your books or read your books.
shani: Could I, when we did our first, when we did our first interview with her, it was one of the most informative and this was also one of the most informative interviews. Again,
bridget: yes, if you wanna know all about either because you are going to be a writer and you wanna know about kind of nitty gritty and things about learning about how to be a writer and make money.
bridget: Great episode about how to craft story and how to, you know, write from a place that you know and, and kind of get those arcs in all your books and create series that people will wanna come back and get. Great. If you're just like interested in it as a reader, like, Hey, how do these authors come up with these different series?
bridget: How do they balance their time? Great episode. Also, she's a [00:02:00] hoot. I wanna be her best friend. I've told her that many times. Lucy, if you're listening, still wanna be your best friend. You and me, Archer, wanna hang out and you're in Chicago sometime to sign books. Please call me so that we can all meet together in real life.
bridget: Wanna be when I grow up Shawnee, I think she doesn't even need further ado. I say we get this shit popping. Get it popping.
shani: Bridget,
bridget: let's do it.
shani: Romance at a glance. Uhhuh, romance At a glance. What? Say that romance at a glance. Go ahead girl.
lucy: Where have you gone? Good. It's, I've been traveling. It's been crazy.
lucy: Um, last week I was on a cruise, a virgin cruise, which I've never done before. And, um, I was with Stacey Stark, she writes romantic. And, um, Elena Johnson and Laura Weatherly. She, um. Publishes under Tanya Stone. I think that's Alien Romance. Okay. Uh, Laura Durham, that's [00:03:00] Cozy Mystery and she's debuting a new pen name that's Cozy Fantasy in April.
lucy: And who else was there? Uh, north Phoenix in my genre. Anna Ashley and my bestie May Archer. So yeah, so it was a Caribbean cruise last week. Um Okay. But in Virgin Cruise Line, it's all adults and it's like too cool for me. It's like a really hip, it's like a hip scene, you know, it's like a hip cruise brand if that's not an oxymoron.
lucy: And, um, it was definitely too cool for
bridget: me. Yeah, I feel frequently about that. So when I lived in la, the west side of LA I lived on the west side. Uh, and I had, you know, friends who like, why don't you move to the east side? And I was like, 'cause I don't fit in. I'm not cool enough. I'm not cool enough to live over there with you, my friends.
bridget: Um, and same with like in Chicago? Yeah. Like when I lived here, you know, like the cool neighborhoods, I was like, oh, I'll be like, why don't you live over here with us? And I was like, 'cause I'm, I don't feel comfortable with all of you cool kids. 'cause I am inherently a little nerd. Okay. [00:04:00] I
lucy: don't
bridget: have, yeah.
lucy: And like, I'm not a big drinker. Like I'll drink a couple glasses of wine, but like, I'm not a, like, let's pound the shot. Yeah. It's a very drinky cruise, you know. Okay. Did you guys
bridget: go to like write or just to celebrate?
lucy: No. Um, we went just to hang out and I, but two weeks before that I had taken my youngest daughter who's a senior in high school, I had taken her to Disney World.
lucy: Which was great, but when you're at Disney, you can't work because you're in the parks. Okay. Right. So I thought I would still get some work done and I didn't. And so I couldn't take two weeks of vacation in a three week period. So I was working. So I stayed on the ship most of the days when everyone else went and did port stuff.
lucy: Um, I stayed and worked and uh, but I don't, I'm not a hot weather person anyway, even though I live in Georgia. So
bridget: it was fine. Oh my God. I can't, yeah, imagine like [00:05:00] the wet, the wet heat. I mean, I go to Chicago, it's like the Chicago gets hot, but like, not like south hot. Yeah, because I went to a soccer camp in, uh, Virginia when I was young in August.
bridget: And my aunt lives in, in Virginia, in Richmond. And um, I had to call her on the second day 'cause I had already sweated through all of my clothes. And there was no air conditioning in the dorm that we were staying in, and there was no way to drive it. It was too damp. None of the clothes were drying. They were all hanging around the room, but all the socks were just damp.
bridget: And I was like, the socks, I can smell what? You're just fry. I was like, my sports bras are wet. Like everything was just damp. And I called her, I was like, you have to come and bring me more clothes, more t-shirts, more. And you have to take myself and put it in your dryer and bring it back. 'cause it won't.
bridget: Dry. Like it's, I'm, I hung it up overnight and it's all, yeah. Oh, our room smell terrible. I was like shaving. I was like, every day, you know, we'd be at like, you know, just [00:06:00] like, oh yeah, so you're like nine hours of playing soccer a day or whatever. And like, yeah. I would just be like, chugging wa You could tell the kids who were like, from Virginia, 'cause they were, I was bee red for the whole week.
bridget: They're like, are you sunburn? I was like, no. I am dying of heat exhaustion. How do you people live here? I'm breathing it.
lucy: I'm from South Carolina and I did a sports camp. I played field hockey and I, I remember I did a field hockey camp every year in high school. Every summer. Yeah. In high school, in Appalachian State, in Boone, North Carolina.
lucy: Which is in the mountains. Doesn't matter. Yes. And grassy. And it was that exact same experience. Everything was wet and grassy. Yes. And filthy. Sweaty and disgusting. Stink. Yeah. Everything. Yeah, everything smelled. Everything smelled. That's why I can smell that. It was just so gr and I'm, but I would be beet red and I'm from there, so it doesn't matter.
lucy: It's just, it's brutal no matter what. Oh my God. Okay, well you guys, I'm so
bridget: excited to have Lucy back on the podcast. I was listening to your episode that you guys did five years ago, if you can believe it with you and May Archer. And [00:07:00] I had a god delight listening to you guys. You were my favorite, favorite author interview of that year.
bridget: Um, and re-listening to it, I was like, well, of course I know why now, because I just, like, you're just a delight. And honestly, I feel like in a way that not all authors are because, you know, a either A is not their personality or they just don't want to reveal certain things. Um, so I appreciate your candor
lucy: and also for you coming back.
lucy: So I think this is really obviously a very timely topic. And the first thing that I always feel like saying is you, do you, whether you're an author or a reader, do what you need to do for you. Um, one of the things that I'm seeing a lot of out there is authors. Uh, really trying to change reader behavior or reader sentiment, or readers trying to change what authors are doing.
lucy: And it's just not that simple on, on either side. You know, it's, it's, you know, when you're talking about especially money, what people can afford, um, it's a [00:08:00] complex issue. So the first thing that I always wanna say is, everyone needs to make this decision for themselves. And I don't ever want to give prescriptive advice.
lucy: However, the way that I've been looking at this is in a more step back global perspective, which is we've been saying for years that as authors, we wanna be less reliant on having all of our eggs in the Amazon basket. Right? We've been saying that for years. So for years a lot of authors have been banging this drum to say.
lucy: There's a reason why you don't wanna have all of your eggs in one basket. And so right now we're seeing one of those reasons, right? But this is, this should not be coming as a surprise to anybody. There were going to be reasons. So companies go out of business, companies go through trouble. Companies massively change their pricing or the way they pay out to authors.
lucy: And we already knew the KU page rate, the way they pay authors has been trending down the entire time. I've been an [00:09:00] author for over eight years. That trend line goes down the whole time. There's not ups and downs and all this, like the trend line, boom down. So I already. New that I needed to get out of being a hundred percent reliant on Amazon, but it's really hard to do because of the KU exclusivity.
lucy: And so what I have been telling authors, 'cause I run an author network group in, in the, the gay, uh, author space. Mm author space specifically. Is to look at ways that you can create other income streams, even if you're gonna keep your books in KU to a certain extent. And the way I do that is I started a Patreon last August and Patreon income is really, first of all, Patreon is super fun.
lucy: Um, it's probably not for everybody though, so I would never recommend somebody just jump into it without, I thought about it for two years before I pulled the trigger. But I love it. It's very fun. But I love engaging with my readers. Um, and [00:10:00] that comes easily to me, so I know it doesn't for every author.
lucy: Um, and if it keeps you from being able to write books 'cause you're so distracted, creating Patreon content is probably not for you. But what's great about Patreon from an income perspective for an author is that that income is stable. You've got this group of fans and that fan base usually in general sort of net grows over time, slower growth, but net grows over time.
lucy: And if you're continuing to provide value for money. That it doesn't have these spikes, like release month, huge spike, and then, you know, then it drops way off after 30 days 'cause of the algorithm or whatever that, that's not like that on Patreon. It, it, it goes up and down, but it's just, it's not gonna like, suddenly one month you can pay your car payment with it and the next month you can't.
lucy: It's not like that. So Patreon is a great example. The other thing that I'm doing that my readers love is I do direct first releases now. So I have a Shopify site, which I, I would really like to [00:11:00] change from Shopify, um, to another option, which I'm looking into right now. Um, but I have a direct shop and I release those.
lucy: Every book I release, I release first on that shop for a week. So I put pre-orders. When I put the pre-order on Amazon, I also put it on my Shopify and I give readers an incentive to buy it from me instead of Amazon. And so the whole time during that pre-order period, people can buy it from me. And then once the Amazon release date comes, I still put it in KU and I take it down from my shop.
lucy: So what that means is, and I share chapters of that book and arcs, depending on what tier you're on, on Patreon, also share it there. So what that means is for all of the readers who don't want to put money into the Amazon ecosystem, you can still get that book from me on Patreon. You can buy it from my shop.
lucy: And you can, if you, the challenge here for me is that you have to be on top of it, right? You can't get all of my books that way. So you have to get it like during this [00:12:00] pre-order period, right? Um, but it means that readers now have options from me. And I like that there are authors that are offering these options a bunch of different ways.
lucy: So some authors will rotate books in and out of ku. And give people who don't want to to buy into the Amazon ecosystem, give them opportunities to get those books other places. Another thing a lot of us are doing is selling other formats to other places. Maybe it's wide audio, maybe it's wide paperbacks or special editions.
lucy: Basically, to me, the key is the more options we have, the more income streams from the author perspective, income streams off of one retailer. It's not just Amazon. That could be potentially bad. Any of them could. And then the more options readers have to buy from the places they wanna buy from, or better yet, buy directly from the author so that there's not a middle person getting a share.
bridget: So you are [00:13:00] selling your ebook as the pre-order or they can do ebook or print?
lucy: I'm doing ebook and audio as a pre-order. I have not started doing a print pre-order, but print's not exclusive to Amazon or KU so they can buy the print anytime, anywhere, like, you know what I mean? That's not okay. It's just the ebook.
bridget: Got it. Okay. Cool. Okay. I wanted to talk to you about Patreon because I saw that you started one and I was very excited and also that you're releasing like chapters of the book early as one of your perks. And I've seen a few other authors do that, like two resounding success. Um, and I wanted to see like how you balance the.
bridget: I, I don't know, like secrecy of a release. I don't, I don't know another way to say that of like, Hey guys, like I'm trusting that you're a part of this community and you're not gonna go like post about this on Instagram or Yeah,
lucy: some, I think part of the draw for Patreon for [00:14:00] readers is it feels really fun to be in the inner circle and to have that special access.
lucy: And it's sort of like to be in the trust tree. What was that movie that, um, old school, I think where they talked about being in the trust tree and um, and I think like when you're a Patreon member, you're in the trust tree. And so I definitely have been having, so I have a big spoiler at the end of my release.
lucy: It just, the book went out to Patreon's yesterday. It goes out to my direct shop buyers on. Next, next Tuesday. Then it goes on Amazon the following Tuesday. Mm-hmm. So my KU readers don't get it for two more weeks, but my patrons got it yesterday. And when you, it's the last book in a series, and so when you get to the last sentence, it um, gives you an idea of what I'm writing next.
lucy: Right. And it is, um, it's information that people don't have yet. And so my Patreons have it two weeks before the gen pop is [00:15:00] getting it basically. And, um, and so, and it's, it is definitely a spoiler. So I. Have made a couple of posts in Patreon saying, Hey, no spoilers. Please, please remember what it was like for you to get to that part of the story and have that experience of reading it for the first time and let's help preserve that for everybody else.
lucy: And then I post in my Facebook reader groups same thing, like, please remember, do not post spoilers. Do not ruin this experience for others. And I think, and my PA is really good at managing, um, some of these spaces and helping manage some of these spaces. So usually Jody will, will turn my reader group on.
lucy: Facebook is not usually set up for post approval necessarily all the time, but like around releases, she puts it on post approval so that she makes sure people are not posting, um, spoiler alerts too. So that helps, I think. But um, I think people want to help. I think, I think Patreon, the thing about Patreon is it is such a special group.
lucy: It's such a [00:16:00] special when people are willing to pay you every single month. They're like, they're like super fans, you know? And they, they want, they're on your side, they're on your team. They wanna be part of the, the secret. They wanna be part of the, the excitement. Yeah. So they're, you just have to remind them, because like in two weeks this book is gonna be old news for them, and they're gonna forget that there are a lot of people who mm-hmm.
lucy: Don't even have access to it yet. So you just, you definitely have to remind them. Sure. Obviously they got it yesterday, so they all finished
bridget: writing.
lucy: Some of them have, some of them finished with within a few hours and we're already posting on there. So I had to start, so today I posted a spoiler post on there. I'm like, you can put your spoiler comments here. And that's 'cause even people on Patreon, I haven't had a, you know, it's like, it's the work week.
lucy: A lot of people can't start it until this weekend.
bridget: Well, I, you guys got it even earlier than the patrons and I crushed it, Lucy, in one afternoon. Oh my God. I feel like I said it before on the podcast, you [00:17:00] guys, I talked about Lucy for the last five years. I feel like you have a main line right into my romance Hardings, like you, the, the combination of comedy and the cast of characters and heat and, you know, the, the more like, you know, funny little moments between the two characters as they fall in love, like.
bridget: You for me be right? Yeah. I mean, I'll read it. I've read every, I mean, I've read every book that you've written, obviously. Thank you.
lucy: You know, that's the best thing you could ever tell an author. Like, that's just the best thing ever. It makes me feel so good. I feel like this is, that, that special sauce, I call this special sauce and an author, like whatever that author's thing is that that makes that connection with a reader.
lucy: Um, you know, other authors are always like, how do you, you know, how do you put together your magical sort of like collection of, you know, talents or traits or characteristics or your style or whatever. And I think for me, I [00:18:00] don't know if you have heard me say this before, if you know this about me. Hmm. Um, I pile drive, read like I'm a whale reader of pride and prejudice variations.
lucy: So before I became an author, I was already reading them 2014, 2015. And in fact, I quote unquote ran out of them in 2016 and asked a friend for some romance recommendations because I had run outta my favorite, which was Pride and Prejudice Variations. And she recommended Boss Man by Ray Keeland and try by Ella Frank.
lucy: And then like, then I became an author because I was so inspired. But in the last two years, I've gone back to reading Pride and Prejudice Variations because they're really popular. And so there's a huge supply of them right now. And I, there's just, I've probably read like a thousand of them. In, in the course of the last few years, and I read them all the time.
lucy: And when you read variations of the same romance story, the same central romance story with the same [00:19:00] characters, you really have the opportunity to isolate what is it about this? What is it that a variation has to do to still get me, you know, to still push all my romance loving buttons? What elements does this book have, have to have that makes me keep coming back to this story over and over and over again?
lucy: And I think when you do that and you basically like shrink it down to, you know, like, like you said, like what that does for you, what you're looking for, and how that kind of story matches with you. And it's just so interesting to see which ones are a hit and which ones are amiss. And then you try and think about why, why was this particular story like not great?
lucy: And this one over here really was, yeah.
bridget: I agree. I also do the same thing. Like I have read so many Beauty on the Beast, so many Peter Pan like to an annoying degree where I'm like, like, and I agree with you, you, there are some that just spark and there are some that you're like, it [00:20:00] should have worked.
bridget: It's the same story. There's no reason why it couldn't have worked, but for whatever reason, maybe they're showing instead of telling. Yeah. I think like the, you know, you guys, like, even though these are coming out at different times, we talked to Eloise James today, it's no big deal, but we just talked to her.
bridget: Yeah. Uh, her interview comes out in like a month after this one. Um, but we were talking about how like the banter between characters is so important in building that romance and building that connection between the. And I feel like even though your books like arguably could never happen because like, could there be a town where there's just so many gay men falling in love?
bridget: Maybe not. I don't know if it's in the middle of rural Tennessee and there's only, you know, 2000 people and you know, there's 20 couples who are all gay men falling in love? Maybe not. Is there one family that has 10 gay brothers or whatever the Wilder sounds like, maybe not. I don't know. But like, I'm happy to read it, happy that they're there.
bridget: Um, but even though there's like weird little quirky things happening in each character is like [00:21:00] arguably so right. Different that like coming together of them chatting always really works. Exactly. Like when you're writing those characters, are you like talking out loud to try to get that voice? Are they, you know, are you revising it a bunch of times to sort of hone down on what they'd say?
bridget: Or is there one sort of like, oh, I know that he's gonna have. You know, a chicken palace and therefore he would say it like this,
lucy: some stuff for me because I'm more of a pants than a plotter. Whereas like May Archer, who I write with, she's definitely much more of a plotter, which is not to say she doesn't have stuff show up when she's writing 'cause she's, her humor is hilarious.
lucy: Um, and very unexpected sometimes when I read it. But for me, because I'm a Panther. Something will just turn up, you know? And it's just like a pleasant surprise. And so, you know, when you're, you, it's sort of like, you know, with comedy, you, you need something for a bit, so you're gonna do this bit and you need something funny.
lucy: And you're like, what would be funny? And you're like, [00:22:00] a chicken coop. And you're like, okay, but what would be funnier than a chicken coop? And you're like a chicken palace. And then like, it, you, you, you're so proud of yourself for that idea, right? And so you're like, oh, that is so fun. Like, what else could you do?
lucy: Well, if you've got a chicken palace, like you probably have like, like curtains or you, or little crowns for your chickens, or you probably name your chickens really funny names. And so it, like, usually with Connie especially, it leads to other bits. Which is how that sort of grows. And in the licking thicket series specifically, it's so over the top anyway, that we can just follow that as like, it doesn't, we're not going for believability with that series.
lucy: It's already too over the top. So, um, so that's really fun. But, so for me, this, this reminds me of a topic that I've, that I have, um, actually I did an author thoughts video on this in my Patreon, and it's this concept of specificity. I love this idea because I think it is, it, it makes, it really, it's a simple way of [00:23:00] explaining why we like some of the books that we like and why we forget some of the books that we read.
lucy: Specificity is basically putting in details in the characters and the settings and the situation and the hook, the setup, the meet cute that are so specifically detailed and unique that only I could have written it. Right. And so what that means is, if you read, like when I started writing Mm. In 2016, in 2015 and 16, there were what I call the cupcake.
lucy: Mm. Novels. There were a lot of, um, mm, uh, roommate to set in a bakery and they were good and I enjoyed them, but I didn't, there were some that just I would read and enjoy, but I didn't, wouldn't remember them enough to recommend them to people. They didn't stand out to me to remember, okay, I've gotta follow this author.
lucy: It wasn't like that. It didn't strike like that. Oh my gosh, I have to have more of this author so that, that I feel like I. If you [00:24:00] were, for instance, to prompt an AI engine, I want a great concept for a an mm romance and um, I want it to be a bestseller, whatever. And it would come back and it would be like the small town bakery guy meets the big city banker coming back to his hometown 'cause he inherited his aunt's farmhouse.
lucy: And it's like, okay, you know, that's, that definitely sells. It's usually not a breakout book unless somebody does something exciting with that and makes it specific and different and unique. And so to me, when I'm coming up with ideas which, like we all as authors, usually we start off with tropes, right?
lucy: Especially in romance. We start off with these beloved tropes because they're shorthand and they help us connect with the reader and they help us get the reader what they want. Mm-hmm. And they help us define what, what it is we're writing. So like for instance, I love Enemies to Lovers. Love it. It's not always easy to write, but I love it.
lucy: [00:25:00] And so when you think about an Enemies to lover, I wanna write an Enemies to lovers book. Well, we've got business rivals. And you're like, okay, so, and I've written that, I wrote a book called Hostile Takeover and it was like, big time enemies in the business world. But you, you, how are you gonna make that like memorable?
lucy: How are you gonna make it stand out? How are you gonna make it so that when somebody asks for an enemy's to lover's book, yours is the one they think of to recommend. And there are a lot of different ways you can do this. And I'm not saying, well, if you just name that business something quirky, that's gonna do it.
lucy: It's not that. It's, it's any number of things that are very specific and unique that give the reader that unique experience. I love that. I could talk about that topic forever. Specificity. Love it.
bridget: I literally, one of my questions was opposite attract. Why is that so delightful to read and write? Because you do write a lot of like opposites, enemies
lucy: because it's built in conflict.
lucy: So I really struggle with conflict. Um, and I, [00:26:00] I wanna get these two guys together on page one and I wanna see them in love and I wanna see them, you know, be sweet to each other. And I wanna see them be mindful and thoughtful and look out for each other and protect each other and defend each other. And I wanna see all of that.
lucy: And I'm like, and then we're on page five and nobody wants to turn the page 'cause it's already all settled. There's no conflict. And like I, whenever may Beta reads my books, she's like, I can see here that you did that thing where you wanna get them together on page one. I'm like, so when you, when you pick a trope that has built in conflict, anything I can do to pre insert conflict helps me with a particular area of writing weakness for me.
lucy: So opposites attract is definitely one. Enemies to lovers is a biggie. Uh, forbidden Romance is a biggie. Um, and, uh. But like one of my go-tos goes back to my very first book, borrowing Blue. In fact, for a long time this was like my [00:27:00] main, I thought I had a different conflict in my books, but when it came down to it, the conflict was, I live in San Francisco and he lives in New York.
lucy: And that would never work. Like, or, or one of us can move or we can both go to Chicago. You know,
shani: I'm curious like, okay, if enemies still, enemies still love. Like how, okay, so you know, like the enemy line, like what can't they go past? What's the line they can't cross that they can come back from to become lover?
shani: Is there like a mental, like in your head, like, okay, this, this is where I draw the launch.
lucy: So in that, I will tell you that depends on the brand of the author, right? So in Dark Romance, you, you might like, you might kill their sibling, you might, you know, sleep with their brother. You might, there's all kinds of stuff you might do and still be able to come back from that.
lucy: In my brand, certainly cheating. You cannot come back from. [00:28:00] Um, in my brand, I actually, I struggle, I struggle with this 'cause I think I'm gonna go for it and I think I'm gonna get a little edgy and I'm gonna have, you know, like, like let's say brother's best friend, like, you know, like he's gonna sleep. No, no, no.
lucy: Uh, brother's, brother's ex, let's say, or sister's ex. And then when I get down to it, I'm like, oh, but like, so he had sex with siblings. Ooh gosh. Like if he had sex with the sister and now he's, now he's dating the brother. I don't think so. So then I always get squishy and then I come up with a reason for like, but they didn't actually, that was a fake relationship and they never actually had sex.
lucy: He never actually slept with the woman, you know what I mean? So for me, um, I'll tell you about, there's something you have to do in every book, um, but especially enemies to lovers. So before. Your reader can hate a, a main character. They need to have empathy for them. And this is a concept that was taught by Michael Hague in the Hero's Journey with [00:29:00] Michael Voer.
lucy: Um, it's the two of them are co-authors on it. It's actually on Amazon as an audio called Hero's Journey. And it's really, really good if you're an author listening. And so I call this, I learned this from my sister and I call this Michael Haing a character. And Michael Hague talks about the character needs to do one of, I think it's like four things in the beginning, to give the reader empathy for that character first before you can make them do something squirrelly or questionable.
lucy: And so one of those is, um, being. Um, and oh, and this is also basically the premise behind Save the Cat, right? Um, so if the hero is, uh, kind to somebody, so if the hero saves the cat from a tree, if the hero is very good at what they do, they're competent. So in the beginning, the, the example they used is, um, the movie, the Firm with Tom Cruise.
lucy: He is really, really good at baseball. Um, and it opens sort of at this baseball game. He's just very company. He's known [00:30:00] for being good at something. Um, and, uh, I, I can't remember what the other ones are, but basically I. You can't start off with a villain and expect us to fall again, unless you're writing dark romances might be different.
lucy: Right. But they're competent at kidnapping or at murdering people. Yeah. So their competency is just defined differently. Yeah. But for me, um, I really struggle with that. And so a lot of times for me, when I'm starting off and, and beginnings of books can be difficult and challenging. So when I'm starting off and the book just isn't starting right and something's off, something's off, something's off.
lucy: A lot of times I'll go back and say, okay, is it because I didn't Michael Hague this character properly? Um, but it's, it's a fine line because you also don't wanna make them like a total cinnamon roll if that's not what they are. So in like going back to using my book, hostile Takeover. Um, in that one, it, they're, they're like college kid, college age kids.
lucy: And, um, [00:31:00] and one guy is sort of involved in bullying another guy. And, um, and he, he's not, but, but you can see that he's not, it, the bullying wasn't his idea. And you can see the reason why he doesn't stand up for the other guy is because the stakes are really high for him. His, he could get kicked out of his future job opportunity.
lucy: He could get, uh, you know, kicked outta the family by his dad. He could lose his scholarship, like whatever. There's, you know, whatever it is. Like it could be different for different books, but so that even when he's involved in not standing up for this kid who was bullied, that he was involved in the bullying.
lucy: We see why, you know, we see that he's not just a bully. There were reasons why he didn't work. That's so interesting.
bridget: Right. So, and then that creates the conflict that that can address later. I read that book. You sent it to me. It was on Exactly. Um, yeah. Yeah. The, like you write a lot of books. Let's just start [00:32:00] there.
bridget: Okay. You write a lot of books. Yes. Like you and me when you were on, when I was listening, you were like, oh yeah, it takes us like five weeks to write a whole book together, going back and forth. Do you find that you write like at the same speed when you're writing by yourself? Or is there something about writing with someone and almost like having to send them a book, a chapter, or having, like, I find when it's just me.
bridget: If I can procrastinate productively, maybe I'll clean my house, maybe I'll hang out with my chickens, maybe I'll, you know, give my kids a haircut or whatever. Um, but if it's like, oh, but I need to send it to Shawnee tomorrow, like I'm more likely to do it, you know?
lucy: Um, I actually write faster on my own. Um, and.
lucy: I don't know that the total amount of time it takes to get from starting the book to publication is shorter when I am writing a solo. Right. The reason I write faster on my own is [00:33:00] that May and May's, the only person I co-write with these days, may is very much more meticulous and she's good at revising and so she'll write a chapter or I'll write a chapter and she will do, I call it franking.
lucy: She like tinkers. She goes back and she like weaves all these lines and she makes these mirror moments and she changes the detail 'cause it's gonna come back later and be really cool that it was this, this way. And she recognizes all these threads that can be pulled with the character arc and she does all of these technical things.
lucy: That's like magical mastermind stuff that I don't see it. I mean, I can't, I don't see those opportunities on my own. And um, now luckily I'm really lucky 'cause she's my beta reader. So even on my solo books, she'll go through and she'll be like, you could do this, you could do this, you could change this here.
lucy: And, you know, so I still get the magic on my solo books now, um, because she, you know, gives me great feedback. But, but I draft really fast and I also write, uh, a lot [00:34:00] tighter than she does. Our styles are very similar in terms of humor and the way we write characters, but our actual word styles are very different.
lucy: And we joke around because like my, my chapters might be 2,500 to 3 3500 words and her chapters are like five to 8,000 words. And those chapters might be covering the exact same scene. So if, if we both had in a detailed outline, chapter three is this scene, chapter three is this scene, and we both take a stab at it.
lucy: I'm gonna write that whole scene in 2,500 to 3 3500 words. She's gonna write that whole scene in like five to 8,000 words. She just has a much different style than I do. But you can imagine how that takes longer, right? Because it's a lot more words. So, um, so in that way we write very differently. And it's funny because then when we work together, I always wanna learn from her how to use [00:35:00] more, um, descriptive language or, or go deeper, especially into the emotions.
lucy: She's really good at going deeper into the emotions. Describe those, but, and she wants to learn how to tighten stuff up and not be so wordy, so like, and which is one of the joys of writing with somebody, right? But I will tell you what I think of when you, when you ask about that, it actually takes me longer to write a book now than it did a few years ago because I have so many more voices in my head stopping me at every sentence.
lucy: And it is so, it is such a different experience. And so I am very high if you guys have done like Becca Simones, Clifton strengths, I'm very high self-assurance, which isn't that common in women. And my, um, self-assurance means that I don't necessarily, um, sec, uh, not to say you don't second guess yourself.
lucy: Um. I am. I, I ha I know [00:36:00] that, that I feel confident that my way is that I'm on the right path and that I'm doing it the right way, the way that I'm meant to. Right. But sometimes that takes a conversation to remind myself, so this is what I'm, so this is what I mean. Stephen King calls this writing with the door closed, trying to keep all his voices out, and then revising with the door open.
lucy: When I write now, I might be writing a paragraph and I'll be like, oh gosh. Uh, I don't want I, that's a little bit homophobic. Yeah. For that character to experience, and I don't want. Like I write in sort of a, a little bit of a post homophobia world. Sure. Because I want the, the books to be a safe world to escape into, you know?
lucy: And so I'm like, I don't know that. I don't want my readers to have that experience. And so then I have to sort of go through this filter of like, but I also don't wanna represent a world that's so far out of reality that I'm like erasing and ignoring the fact that like, that would be a normal experience for this particular character.
lucy: And so I go through and have this conversation in my head and make a decision, right? And then I write a few more words and I come to he murmured well, [00:37:00] and then I stop. I'm like, come on, Lucy. Like, he murmured, he murmurs 20 times on this page alone. He murmured, come on, think of something else. And you shouldn't quote unquote, shouldn't you quote, unquote.
lucy: Shouldn't do that. What you should is just get it all out. It's a first draft, then go back and tinker with those dialogue tags later. Worry about those repeated words later. But it's hard because sometimes you catch 'em in the moment you're not sure there'll be notice later or you'll catch yourself writing a sentence that's like.
lucy: Um, to clarify my position, I cleared my throat and made this a little bit clearer so that it would be clearer for the students to have that clarification. And you're like, I can't just let this go. Right. For, for some editor to hopefully notice it later down the road. So that's what I mean. And like my process now is just so different because I have, I'll be writing something, I'll be like, oh no, okay, you can't use, like for me, I'm 51 years old and I grew up in [00:38:00] South Carolina, so I'm like, um, he's higher up on the totem pole and then I'll stop.
lucy: And I'm like, no, no, no, I'm not gonna say totem pole. So what do I need to say instead of totem pole? So I pivot and I redo that. I'm like, okay. And then I write and I'm like, um, is it accept or affect or effect. I'm just gonna write impact, you know what I mean? And so like, but like that, all of those conversations, because I've had feedback now for eight years in 70 novels, all of those reviews, all of those reader comments, all of those editor comments, all of those things now live in my head.
lucy: And I, I don't feel like authors talk about this very much, but it is, it makes my experience writing a book now so much different than it was in the early days. So much different.
bridget: The freedom. Yeah, I was gonna say the night, almost the naivete of like, yes, I'm just gonna do it. And, but now, you know, you've like taken a class, you've listened to a TED Talk, you've, you know, like you know better.
bridget: But also, yes, that.
lucy: I start [00:39:00] too many sentences with the word I. And I know that because I read a reader who posted about it one time.
bridget: Yeah. You
lucy: know what, or like one time I got an email from a reader that said, it's not lasso, it's Lariat. And I'm like, so here I am riding a cowboy and I've worked on a dude ranch right here I am writing a scene, A guy's riding a horse, and I'm second guessing myself and I've worked on a Dun ranch, but I'm second guessing because you don't wanna offend that one reader who knows the difference between Aria and Alaska.
bridget: Sure.
lucy: It's tricky. It is
bridget: tricky to like to turn off, like to just do it. To turn it all off and to just go for it. Yeah. And. Film, you know, revise it all later.
shani: That's the problem with being too self-aware
bridget: and also also too much knowledge. We have
shani: access to two, much knowledge. True. It's too much knowledge, but it's also self-awareness because True.
shani: There's lots of people who get more knowledge and don't feel obligated to update their programming in the process. Yes. To be [00:40:00] more considerate, to be more sensitive to situations. Right. I always say Lynn, man, I, I wish like one I didn't have so much ambition. Yeah, you're right. Or certain things. 'cause I'd be a lot happier.
shani: Yeah. And empathy, like, do you know what I mean? So, so it's beyond, it's, it's the fact that you also are self aware of the fact that when you have more knowledge, you have a responsibility to do to, to, you know, um, yeah. And that's just like, that's just like a thing. One, one of the things I think is very interesting is that you said, you stated earlier like, okay, I wanna, you know, when I'm writing the story, I don't want it to be like that homophobic, but I don't want it to be in a world that's, uh, an illusion and.
shani: And we were actually just talking about historicals a minute ago. We were talking, I was, we were talking about bridger's and one of the things I liked about Bridger's when it first, the, the show, when it first started, right, I'd read the whole series, but in the show was that they didn't talk about race for like the first half of the first season.
shani: So I thought that they were going the much do about nothing route where anybody could be cast as anything. [00:41:00] And we were just, it was just not gonna be a thing in the show. And I was happy with that because every day of my life, I'm black and I love being black, but every day of my life I'm black and have to talk about it, and have to unpack it and have to whatever.
shani: So I thought, oh man, this is great. We're not gonna have, we're not gonna unpack it here. We're just gonna live in a world where we just accept these things. And so I'm curious like, 'cause when you're stating that, I'm like, I wonder if there's like a, a type of book name that you could pick up where you know that you're gonna have two gay characters.
shani: But you know, we're not gonna talk about any of the social issues that go along with it. We're just gonna live in fantasy land.
lucy: It's almost like fantasy. You know what I mean? It's like modern con, contemporary fantasy.
shani: Yes.
lucy: Without fan
shani: fantasy elements. Fantasy where it's just Yeah. When it's just exactly normal and everybody's gonna treat it exactly like it's a normal situation that's happening.
shani: And I wish you could do that with books about race too, because I'm not, I'm not unaware of race and when I need to be aware of race, I will be. But I would love to pick up a book or watch a show and be [00:42:00] like, we have decided to disregard this and ca open cast this and then I can live in fantasy land.
shani: Look. Yeah.
lucy: That's what, when, when I, um, have optioned a couple of properties for film and when I met with the, the producer or the, you know, the, to talk about the film, um, one of the things he said that drew him to these properties is that they're written in a post coming out world. And, and how, like the exact same thing you're describing where, how refreshing it is to just.
lucy: Exist in this world where it's not, 'cause you know, coming out is something you just have to do over and over and over and over. A new job, you know, new coworkers, new boss, like new neighbors, whatever. You feel like you're coming out all the time. And so writing in a post coming out world where it's just okay that there's this tiny town in, you know, it's basically a fictional Cody mon, uh, Cody, Wyoming.
lucy: That that is like, not only are.[00:43:00]
lucy: So, um, yeah, and I feel like, um, you know, when I, when I first started this, and you mentioned too how many books I've written, I was just telling somebody this the other day when I first started, I could write a book so fast, um, so fast, and what a joy that would be to return to that. And it's just impossible.
lucy: For a long time I tried to return to it and then I just have to accept that it's not possible. And, um, and I'm lucky, like I said, when I brought up the self-assurance, I can have those conversations in my head really quickly because I'm confident in my decisions. Mm-hmm. And I imagine there are a lot of authors who aren't and who really struggle, who would make, who would be blocked basically by some of these decisions.
lucy: And I, my heart goes out to those authors because it would be debilitating. But in the beginning I saw success very quickly. And again, to refer back to Becca Simon, she talks about some of the aspects of success being luck and timing. And I had luck and timing were definitely on my side. And because of that, I had a lot of people who said, your star is high in the sky right now, but it won't be [00:44:00] forever.
lucy: So you need to take advantage of it and get as many books out as you can. And so I threw myself into this to take advantage of that thinking. It was just sort of an, an accident of timing and fate that had, you know, caused me to have success in this first series, but like, it wasn't gonna last. Right? And so I really worked hard to be incredibly prolific for the next few years until I burned out, because there's only so much, there's only so, so many years in a row.
lucy: You can put out like seven to however many books a year and, and also have a family and have, you know, aging parents and have, you know, house stuff and like every, the pandemic, you know, all this stuff that we were dealing with. And so, um, so I experienced burnout. And so one of the things that, that I learned is that.
lucy: You know, there are creatives out there who have had heydays and down days and heydays and down days. You know, we've [00:45:00] seen a lot of creatives out there have times where they're very popular and times where they need to rest, and times where they come back and are popular again and times where they need to rest.
lucy: And that is something that I have to remember now so that I don't get caught on this train of thinking. I have to release, have to release, have to release, and have to kill myself to get all of these books out as fast as I can. But it's tough. It is tough, you know, making those decisions because I'm, you know, motivated and ambitious, so
bridget: For sure.
bridget: And also, like you're a KU reader and you read a lot. Yes. So, you know, a, that you want your favorite author to release a new book. Yes. And also, b, you know that there's a lot of books for them to choose. Yes. And they haven't read one of your books in a while. It feels like they'll never come back to your books.
bridget: Definitely. Which is not true. Yeah. I'll tell you. Well, and
lucy: then you hear these stories about the algorithm and the longer you're away from releasing, the more your books are not gonna ever get found organically. And like, and like, we don't know, we don't know what that algorithm actually looks like, but like you, you hear [00:46:00] these stories and so you start making decisions out of fear, which is never good.
shani: No. And also like the, when you're just talking about that and, and I'm like somebody who's just coming out of burnout, you know, in the last year. Um, and, uh, you do make a lot of realizations at that time about like what you were spinning your wheels towards and what actually really was important and what, and what actually fed your soul, you know?
shani: And the, the weird thing about that too is that sometimes you completely change as a human being. Like fundamentally who you were Yeah. Like two years ago or three years ago. And the people that know you are coming in meeting a whole new you. And so like, even as an author that has to going, coming and going through burnout, which can last five years, like, has to really change the way you write.
shani: Mm-hmm. And change the, the what you're putting into your stories. And so I, I'm actually curious because, um, the, [00:47:00] the newer books that you're writing, are you noticing a difference in your readership or even in that feedback that's coming back to you? That's really interesting.
lucy: Um, I notice, um, I, well I was gonna say, I don't write as, um,
lucy: I definitely still write steamy. I don't write, I don't concern myself with making sure there's a certain amount of steam in a book anymore, the way I did before. I think that, um, I, and part of that is. There's only so many ways you can describe, you know, a steamy scene. Like, like I think that, um, of, of all the scenes we write in our books, you know, there are definitely scenes that you're gonna see in all of the books.
lucy: Like the I Love You, the Exchange of I Love Yous is a scene that you are hopefully gonna see in most of the romance books that you read. You're gonna see the meet Cute, but [00:48:00] that's different. The Meet Cute is very different. The I Love You. Uh, scene can be very different, wildly different from book to book, but sex scenes to a certain extent.
lucy: Uh, within a brand, right, are gonna be very similar. Um, and so they're not as challenging to me as a writer as some of these other story elements, which means I don't spend as much time on them. Um, and I'm more interested in, and I wouldn't even say, I should say plot. I'm more interested in plot. It's not even plot, it's that connection.
lucy: It's that main characters in a romance. To me it's the main character's connection and the, and the, I guess the RO romance arc. Not the book plot, but the romance plot, you know, the romance arc and that connection journey. Um, I was gonna say when you first asked that, that I write less. Slap sticky kind of humor, but that's not true.
lucy: 'cause I just released a book in February with May called Peacocks. So it's not true. [00:49:00] It's just that I think now that when I do that humor, it's, it's, it is what it says on the tin. Like, you know, that's what you're getting. It's not in my regular Lucy solos as much as it was like in the Made Marion series originally.
lucy: I, and, um, and also this book, finding Lord Landry, this book had a lot of angst, which really surprised me that, and that's not like me. Um, and I, I. I think that comes from a confidence in following the story that those particular characters needed to be told. That I hadn't realized I'd been setting up for the four books previous, but the setup that I did of those characters sort of demanded that their story end up being ANGs dear.
lucy: Um, and I, I'm, it took me a long time to get there with that book, but when I finally did, I'm so proud of it. I'm very proud of that book. Um, so yeah, that's a really good question. I definitely feel like my writing is different. It's just hard for me to put my finger on exactly how. When you're writing like a
bridget: series, do you feel like you, [00:50:00] I mean like if there's five friends, there's five books, obviously, but like, do you feel like when you sort of know that in advance, 'cause like obviously if it's like five friends, five books, but if it's like a town, like do you feel like you kind of have an idea, okay, like this town has kind of maybe like wrapped itself up or this company or this group of people?
bridget: Or is it more just like. I've, oh, but I have a good idea for another thing, and so I wanna pursue that.
lucy: Yeah, I usually have some idea, but like Astro Valley is a good example. Astro Valley has four main full-length novels in it. Um, and that series, because it was more centered around a town, I didn't know, and I actually have several more ideas for that series that I just was ready for something different and I wasn't ready to write [00:51:00] another, I had had this idea for what ended up becoming Prince Lies in the Billionaire Brotherhood series.
lucy: I had an idea, I had had that book idea since like 2018 or maybe even 2017. Um, it had an NSFW stand in title in my head. Um, and I. And so I, I have notes going back to, like I said, 2017, 2018. So I really wanted to write that book. So I thought, well, I'll take a break from Astro Valley. And write that. Well, then when I wrote it and I created those friends, I'm like, no, this is what I wanna write.
lucy: I wanna write the series. And there were a limited number of friends, so I knew it was gonna have that many books. I already knew at that time that that Landry and Kenji were gonna, by the time I finished writing that book, I knew that Landry and Kendrie were gonna end up together. So that would still be just five books.
lucy: And um, but this next series that I'm writing later this year, which I'm gonna try not to talk about too much, but that one is much more open-ended. So I'll go back to, I'll compare it to the Forever Wild [00:52:00] Series. The Forever. So the Made Mary, my very first series, the Mid Marion series, there was six gay brothers in that big family.
lucy: And when I got to the end of those brothers, it was like, dang, that series is so successful. I wish they'd had, that's funny. A lot of brothers, I wish they'd had cousins. I wish they'd had something. So instead, I spun off and created a new one. Not realizing at the time that those two families were blood related.
lucy: I did not realize that when I started for the Forever Wild Series until I was partway through book one of that series and all of a sudden these octogenarians were sort of in the room together and I'm like, oh, they're related, you know? And then I started like, then I had to figure it all out. So, but that Forever Wild Series, when I started that, that was definitely a big family, but it was a big enough family that I knew.
lucy: I put cousins, I put aunts and uncles and stuff so that there would be a much broader, and that's why I made book two a cousin, because I didn't want it to look like, well, it's just gonna be the brothers I wanted. Right off the bat. You were gonna know this series is about this big giant family. It could be a cousin, it could be a brother, it [00:53:00] could be, you know, anybody.
lucy: And so because of that, I have never said that that series is over officially, because to me there's still a couple more cousins I could write about. I like to leave them open-ended because I don't ever wanna say. I'm never going back to it. I can definitely say that about the Billionaire Brotherhood because it's just such a clean package.
lucy: Like it's just, it's done. Like I can still write in that world a lot of my books, if not all of them, are set in the same world. They exist in the same world, but I, they just might not be related.
bridget: I, I, well, coming to you live from my own mental thing about what I'm hoping for your day. She hasn't said anything, but this is what I think, um, I do feel like there's some characters in Majestic Wyoming who are gonna get their own books in the future.
bridget: You guys. Yeah, there definitely are. I feel, I feel. The subplots have been sprinkled Well, I've already told,
lucy: I, I have been asked in my reader group is Foster getting a story? [00:54:00] So I have already answered publicly. Yes. Foster will definitely, we definitely wanna see more of Foster. So Foster will definitely get his story.
lucy: I like that character. That's really fun too, when, when you just throw a side character in and you're like, oh wait, we like him enough to need his story.
bridget: Yeah. Well I think it's like me and Shawnee talk about this all the time, that there's like, you could do things two ways. You can either have a happily ever after every single book, but you get introduced to the other characters, which is what you do.
bridget: So you get a little taste, a little sprinkles throughout, and then by book 12 you're like, God damnit, if I don't get these two characters together there, like I'm gonna lose it. Uh, or you can obviously write like a trilogy or whatever, where it's the same two characters who go through so thing over multiple books.
bridget: And I only really like that if that's happening in some sort of like epic fantasy, like we're following this character for a trilogy or a duology or maybe four books or five books or whatever. Otherwise, like you better wrap that he up. I gonna be happy at the end of this book before we move on to our next happiness.
bridget: But I do, I do like interconnected books. 'cause you do [00:55:00] almost like, in the same way that, you know, when we were talking about earlier about going into some sort of retelling of pride and prejudice or, or whatever, Romeo and Julia doesn't really matter. You already have that framework. So like you drop me in there and I already have the framework of the town or the whatever group of people or, or whatever that sort of framework is.
bridget: Yeah. And so you could just drop me right in the plot. It's familiar. I know the town, I already know the side carriers. I know where they eat breakfast and I Oh, I know the lady who runs a breakfast joint. It's a familiar about X, Y, Z. Yeah. Um, yes. And so that, I feel like it feels very like, comfortable and like, like you're going back to talk to my friend kind thing.
bridget: Yeah.
lucy: Jennifer Lynn Barnes talks about the psychology of fiction and the psychology of fandom. And she calls that the theme park test, if you took all of the books themselves and the plots themselves out of it. Is there a place you would like to visit, like a theme park? You know what I mean? And so like, is there, you know, like the ranch, you know, you would want to go to the ranch, you would want to [00:56:00] go to the vineyard, you would want to go to like, whatever it is.
lucy: Like, like I, like I had a real world sort of version of this. I worked when I was in my young twenties and where I ended up meeting my husband, um, in this software company in, in my hometown, Greenville, South Carolina was the software company. And it was filled with 20 somethings and it was the nineties, right?
lucy: So it was like the tech boom and it was so fun. And it was like Melrose Place at work every single day. All the gossip, all the hookups, all the whatever. And we all thought we were hot shots, right? And all the stories in that building. That it was just, there was this whole feeling about the place, this whole environment, that regardless of which employee left to go to another job, that place itself had a vibe and it had like a, a feeling to it that was just fun and exciting and entertaining and welcoming.
lucy: And that's, that's what we as authors wanna create. If I can create a world that you love, that you wanna go back to, sort of like Gilmore Girls, you know, [00:57:00] the only way you can go back there is in my books. And so it's, it's super fun to create that. It's also just from a, just from a technical standpoint, talk about how fast it is to write a book.
lucy: It is much faster to write a book set in a world where the breakfast place already has a name. The woman who runs it already has a personality, you know, like, and I think it was Mal Cooper who I heard do a video talk on this a couple years ago. Explaining that, you know, she, she was talking about writing faster and one of the ways you can do it is to write in an established series.
lucy: And it was such an aha for me. 'cause when I'm starting a new series, like, like I am right now, I'm having to come up with everything. How big is this town exactly? Does it have a this, does it have a, that? Like is it big enough to have a hospital? Is it big enough to have an ambulance? Like, what's, what's there?
lucy: I don't know. So it's so much more for me to figure out
bridget: is there a landing strip for [00:58:00] the billionaires to land their private plane? These are the questions we wanna know. Exactly, exactly. What's the drive distance? Yeah. I wanna talk really quickly about Kindle Unlimited specifically. 'cause I feel like Kindle Unlimited readers are different than the traditionally published readers.
bridget: Um, people are always shocked by how many books I read. In general. And I feel like some KU readers will be like, well obviously she reads six books a week because there are six days and then maybe you have one day where you didn't quite finish or something like that, you know what I mean? Um, and I feel like people who read like traditionally published books or physical copies of books, like they might only read one book in a month or something like that.
bridget: And they're like, well, how do you read 20 books a month? And, and I wanna talk a little bit about your books versus like other trends I see on ku because I feel like a lot of KU authors, because you get paid by the page, tend to have longer books. And I feel like sometimes these series and books do not warrant the pages.
bridget: And then I get frustrated 'cause I'm like, I [00:59:00] would rather read your whole back catalog of 60 books and have them all be the right length than read an extra hundred pages. You could have cut out of this book. But I wanted to get to the end. So I did read them, but like, but then it doesn't make me wanna read the next book because.
bridget: It's too long. But also like I understand like you need to make money off of whatever reader is reading that book 'cause that's how you're getting paid. So like how, how does that sort of function in, you know, your mind slash your business model on ku?
lucy: Right. I think that's a really great question and it's something that we don't talk about very often is writing for KU is a very different proposition than writing for ebook buyers because we get paid by the page.
lucy: So first of all, I write the story the way the story wants to be based on my style of writing. So for me, when I first started, my target word length for a book was like 72,000 words. Right now I'm [01:00:00] more writing books that are 85 to 95,000 words. 'cause I've just gotten longer, um, over the years and I'm not exactly sure why, but to me, like my definition of a full length novel includes.
lucy: This sort of like vague amount of customer, customer, character, description, subplots, town, town and setting descriptions like the number of romance beats and whatever. And also I've gotten more, um, a little, like these days I'm a little bit more likely sometimes to do a second epilogue, which obviously adds a few thousand words.
lucy: So, um, so I just over time have naturally gotten longer, not because I'll get paid more. Because here's the thing about how we get paid in ku. We only get paid for those words if you read them. So if, if I'm a big D neffer, I, you've [01:01:00] gotta keep me riveted. There are too many good books out there for me to waste my time finishing a book that's just not doing it for me.
lucy: I know not everybody's like that. A lot of people are completionist, but my feeling is if I'm not keeping you turning the pages, you're not gonna get to the end because there's always something shinier out there to start. So when I, you know, when I, so I have a book releasing, um, this month on Amazon and a few days later a very popular, uh, pair of authors in my genre is releasing a much anticipated mm-hmm.
lucy: Very trendy new release. And they're mega bestselling authors. Right. The chances are a lot of my readers wanna read that book and it's so hot and exciting and it's coming out just a few days after mine does. So if I'm not keeping them entertained enough, they're gonna get super excited to go read that other book and they're gonna put mine down.
lucy: Once they put mine down, boom. Like they're not coming. Like chances are they're not coming back now. They may come back years from now or a year from now, or when they're doing a reread and get to [01:02:00] it. That's different. So I have to grab you in KU and I have to keep you turning the pages. So one of the ways that, that it has changed my writing is that I use many cliffhangers at the end of chapters because I don't want you putting the book down one single time while you're reading the book.
lucy: It is in my best interest because life is too full of distractions right now. It's in my best interest if you absolutely cannot put that book down until you finish. So I'm gonna do whatever it takes to keep you turning the page. And my biggest risk time is at the end of a chapter when you're like, oh, it's 2:00 AM I better get some sleep for work tomorrow.
lucy: I don't care about your work tomorrow. Like, no offense, but like you need to get to shit. You're the devil. You're the devil. Yeah. And so I, the best thing that happens to me during release week is when people are like, I'm just dying today. I stayed up until 4:00 AM My husband was you [01:03:00] elbowing me. 'cause I kept laughing and like, it's year to blame.
lucy: Yes. I will take that all day long. That's the biggest compliment ever to me. So, um, so, and some authors I think would probably be pretty squirrelly about admitting that out loud. Like, but that is the only quote unquote trick that I use that's very much KU based is, um, I don't want you to be all happy at the end of a chapter and say, I'm gonna stop here for the night.
lucy: No, I don't want you to stop at all. Um, but I don't add words for the purpose of making more money. Because if you're adding words that are making it a less pleasant read. If we're gonna look at it from purely mercenary, from a purely mercenary income perspective, you are worth way more to me as a reader, if I keep you dedicated as a fan for the rest of your life.
lucy: I am much more interested in the lifetime customer value than whether I get an additional a hundred pages out of you on this book, [01:04:00] because a hundred pages is nothing. What's that gonna give me? 42 cents. I don't need your extra 42 cents. I need you to want the next book. You know? So that's, I know that not every author is like that though.
lucy: And so I'll give you an example of things that have gone through my mind that are sort of under the same umbrella. If I am line editing the book is, is is getting ready to go to editors and I'm doing my final pass and I've got a sentence where I could tighten it up a little bit by taking out three words and you know, reconfiguring it a little bit.
lucy: There have been times where I'm like, I, is this gonna make a difference? 'cause like those three extra words won't make me more money basically. You know what I mean? So there have been a few times where little stuff where it's like, should I spend the time tightening this up? Is it really gonna mean I'm gonna lose a reader?
lucy: Because otherwise, so, so I do think that there are authors out there who are probably leaving [01:05:00] junk in wordy junk or adding it, like adding much more flowery setting description. For instance, I'm a very tight writer, like I said earlier in the podcast, like I, I use fewer words to say things than some authors do.
lucy: So for me that would change my style too much. Um, I think if, if you were writing extra words for mercenary reasons, you would be more likely to add an entire subplot.
bridget: Mm-hmm. That for sure. You know
lucy: what I mean? Rather than just, I, I find not, not cutting a scene that should be cut.
bridget: Yeah. I mean, like we, I, I, again read a lot of KU and read a lot of books in general, and like, I, I don't mind, like there's a couple extra words and I'm like, all right, that was a little flowery for me, but whatever, let's move on.
bridget: Totally fine. But like, there are some parts where I'm like, this book should be over in about 30 pages and I still have 250. And I'm like,
lucy: what? I think you're giving people mastermind credit for that [01:06:00] when really they're just not that they didn't have a good edit. Well, that's, or they won't great of an offer.
lucy: Yeah. And I
bridget: wonder a, they could just like, maybe just like feel like their book is too precious so they don't wanna cut any out. I mean, there could be a many, many reasons, but some that's a big be like, okay, well. The book is a like too long, but I don't know. 'cause I feel like some of it's like you restate the same thing and I'm like, I already reading the book.
bridget: I know what's happening. You don't need to tell me again what's happening. I am already reading it. I've been reading it for the last two hours. Um, anyways, that bothers me. And I like that your books do not do that because. I wanna just read it and then I wanna be happy. See, and then I wanna get to the next
lucy: one.
lucy: Oh, thank you. At the, at first I couldn't figure out if you were trying to like subtly tell me, no, my books have gotten longer over the last couple of years and I'm like, no, but they're not, that's why they've
bridget: gotten longer. No, your books have gotten like 10 pages longer. Not like a hundred pages longer.
bridget: It's not like, oh, I read your wanna making money right now, and [01:07:00] it took me six and a half hours to read it instead of three and a half. Like, they're basically the same.
lucy: No, I'm with you. I, I want, I, in fact, I remember listening to Alexa, Riley talk at Ram years ago and they, you know, they were writing so short at the time and.
lucy: And they were talking about why they wrote short and what they liked about that. And they were in ku, which I could never understand. But they liked it because when you, when you finish a book at like 10:00 PM and you still wanna read for a little while, you just want like a bite. I like that too. I actually wish that there was another one of me who could write those in.
lucy: Mm. Because I think that N mm
bridget: yeah. Is an novel opportunity. Toing missed right now. Novella Lang, those of you authors. Yeah, I agree with that. 'cause sometimes I, like when I am looking for that last book to read, when I should go to bed, um, I will look and see how long it thinks it'll take me. And then same I'm like, Ooh, same.
bridget: I'm not ready to commit to five hours. Like.
bridget: Exactly,
lucy: or [01:08:00] audios for me. People think that people only buy the longest audios because they get the most bang for their credit buck. I actually buy short audios because I drive from here to visit my sister in Charlotte. And so I look for like a three hour audio 'cause it's perfect for the length of the drive that I'm doing.
lucy: Or I go to visit my mom three hours, my sister four hours. So I'm, I love that, that I can get the whole story in my drive. 'cause then I'm gonna be at their house for, let's say five days. And when I go to listen to a book again on the way home, I'm not gonna remember the first half of that story. So I don't wanna take a six hour one and, you know, cut it in
shani: half.
shani: So I call those my cookies, which are like 30 minutes, uh, stories, two, three hours. And I have like a range that goes between those. So depending on how much time I have and what I need. Yeah, I, I'll pick, I'll pick it. I wish that there were more, I think it's, you know, again, it doesn't work for KU as much to have these like little quickie like stories.
shani: Yeah. Yeah. But for audio it does because if there's a 30 minute book, it's like 4 95. If there's a three hour book, it's [01:09:00] 4 95. Mm-hmm. So like, they still making their like a good amount of money mm-hmm. For those audio books. And I don't mind partying with 4 95. Yeah.
lucy: What I tell authors who are afraid of making short audio, I'm like, it's cheaper to make and it's, that's easier to buy with, like when you're an audio audible subscriber, you use up your credits.
lucy: Right. And but you still want another audio. Those are the ones you can afford. Yeah. It's like the cost, it's like the cost of like a grabbing a McDonald's FRA or whatever, you know?
shani: Yeah. Also, I have like five credits sitting there, but I'm not gonna spend a credit on a 4 95 book
lucy: Exactly. Because that credit
shani: cost me 13 something.
shani: Exactly. So I'm still gonna buy that. Yep. And I'm way less likely to return a book that's 4 95 if I, if I don't like it. Exactly.
bridget: Yeah. You know, one last thing I wanna talk to you about before we let you go, it is audiobook. So Coin Keating that we're here, um, not all indie authors [01:10:00] make their own audio books or have their audio books produced.
bridget: Um, but you, do you typically, or do you always use the same narrative or you typically use the same narrative? Almost
lucy: always. I have used different ones for
bridget: one, for hostile
lucy: takeover action
bridget: and like I. I imagine that like you wouldn't keep doing it if you weren't making money on audiobooks. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and I know that it's like a big sort of upfront cost for a Yep.
bridget: Author. Um, but what would you say to like indie authors who are like hesitant about it? Uh, because from our point of view, Shawnee listens exclusively to books. Yes. So we don't cover books that don't have audio books.
lucy: Yeah. So I would say this, the good rule of thumb, as far as I'm concerned, and again, this is just one author's opinion, but what I usually tell newer authors is until your ebook.
lucy: Has earned enough to pay for the production of the audio book, I would not consider it. And that doesn't mean you can't have audio. So reach out to the audio publishers like Tan Tour and Podium and ask [01:11:00] them if they would like to give you an offer to license your audio rights and have them produce it and pay you a royalty for it.
lucy: Um, that's not my ideal way. Like if you're, if you have a bestselling book out there that's a bestseller in your category and it's making plenty of money, I definitely recommend doing it yourself because then you're not splitting the money with anybody. And it's, it can be very lucrative. I've made a lot of money on audio during my career and I started putting my books in audio the second month.
lucy: I was a published author. I knew right away 'cause I was an audio listener, so I knew right away I wanted do audio and I still didn't let myself until that book had earned enough to pay for its audio production, so I wouldn't go into debt. To produce audio. That's the biggest thing.
Mm-hmm.
lucy: Um, and you need to know that you aren't guaranteed to make that money back.
lucy: And if you do make it back, sometimes it may take a long time. Same way with translations. But, um, there are other options too. There's some royalty share options on Audible. But I will say this, [01:12:00] I think one of the reasons I do really, really well in Audible or on audio, I shouldn't say Audible, they're not always on Audible, is for a couple of reasons.
lucy: One is the books. The books are good. They're bestselling books. They are very popular. They sell very well. People really like them. That's important. It needs to be a good book in order for people to want to read it or listen to it. The second thing is narrator selection. Now, you, there are plenty of people out there who don't like my narrator.
lucy: Just like there are plenty of people out there who don't like every nar, every narrator has a list of listeners who don't like that narrator. There's not a single narrator that appeals to everybody that I'm aware of. I mean, maybe like. James Earl Jones or Morgan Freeman, or like, there are, you know, those, those men who have that, like Dick Hill who did the, um, I think the Jack Reer books maybe, or the Tom Clancy books.
lucy: Like, there are a few, like big deal ones where most of us would probably love to listen to them. But for all of the rest of us, a lot of these narrators have a list of readers who just aren't gonna listen to them no matter what. [01:13:00] So, um, if you're not an audio listener, also be mindful of making audio decisions based on not being familiar with what listeners want.
lucy: Um, but I think narrator selection is a really critical. Piece to whether an Audi, whether an author does well in audio or not. Mm-hmm. So I think a lot of baby authors get into trouble when they enter into maybe a royalty share agreement with an unknown narrator who isn't, uh, as loved or doesn't have a following, or doesn't have the kind of voice that's gonna appeal to a broad audience and they don't do well and they say, well, my books can't sell in audio.
lucy: That's not necessarily true. It's like, maybe your books aren't selling in audio because of the, your narrator selection.
bridget: Yeah.
lucy: Um, so that's very frustrating for me 'cause I've seen a lot of people in my genre who are like, audio don't do well for me. And I'm like, also, and I mean, have you tried some different narrators?
lucy: That's not to say and maybe audio isn't for you. Yeah. I, I just, like I said, I don't ever wanna make somebody feel like [01:14:00] audio is any kind of slam dunk.
shani: Um, well, one of the things that I always looked for when I was. Deciding if I was gonna produce an audio for an author was, was that author promoting themselves?
shani: So if they, they, yes. I only, I only ever did royalty share. And the thing about it is, is if you wanna get a new good narrator and you're on there trying to do royalty share and you don't have a bunch of money or whatever else, but you wanna incentivize, uh, a narrator to come on board for your project, then show them that you're active on social media.
shani: Show them that you're active about promoting your book. Because the first thing I would go look is to see where that book is ranking. Yes. Where's that book ranking? Because is this gonna be worth my time for royalty share? Yep. Is that author promoting? I would go to their Instagram, I would stock all their, their, you know, whatever they're doing, if are they putting themselves out there?
shani: Um, and so I think that that is a thing that can happen. Like if, if there's a narrator that you wanna work with, even if it's like not on royalty share or whatever else, but you don't have a lot of money and you wanna, you know, try to work with them, show them that [01:15:00] you are so active. Yes. Yes. At promoting.
shani: Yes. And then there's a good better chance that they'll come on board.
lucy: I love that. I think that's a really, really critical point. And the other thing is, 'cause the other thing, 'cause I, like I said, I hear people say, I tried audio didn't work for me. And I'm like, well, what marketing did you do? Well, I just sort of put them up there and expected that they would sell.
lucy: I'm like, did you mention them in your newsletter? You know, have you segmented your newsletter for audio listeners? Did you mention it in your reader group? Did you put it on Instagram? Did you maybe put a preview clip on YouTube? Did you put a preview clip on Instagram? Did you put a preview clip in your Facebook's reels?
lucy: Like, you know what, what are you doing? Are you, did you join an audio promo, you know, group promo with some other authors in your genre? And a lot of times, especially if you're not an audio listener yourself, this is what I find the most is authors who aren't listeners themselves. It's almost like they don't speak the language of the community, so they don't know how to market it, which is, makes total sense, but they don't market it.
lucy: [01:16:00] And then they wonder why it's not selling. It's like, well, you are doing all of these launch things for your ebook and then when your audio comes out, you're not doing anything at all. Now I do simultaneous audio release. Yes. Super, super, super lucrative for me. Yes. I have a lot of listeners. And so like you, like if, if there's somebody who prefers the audio format.
lucy: They get all excited when they see the new release marketing, oh, the new book is out, the new book is out, and then they can't get it for three months or six months. Then I forget about it. I'm like, that's old news. You know? So when I started simultaneously, uh, releasing the audio, which I'm really lucky because the relationship I have with my narrator, and I know it's not that easy to do when you have to book a book really far out, but, um, it made a huge difference.
lucy: And also, um, I can, it's a win-win for selling direct because I can offer, um, the audio and I give the ebook free to anybody who buys the, the audio, um, on my shop, and I can give it to them for [01:17:00] less than the cost of an audible credit. And I earn twice as much like royalty on it, win for that. It's cheaper for listeners, and it's more lucrative for me.
lucy: It's like the one biggest win-win scenario. Of all of this. It's just the best thing ever. And Book Funnel delivers it so clean and they have an app. You can listen to it with all the same bells and whistles that the Audible app has.
bridget: Okay, everyone, we could talk to Lucy forever and you guys must buy her latest book.
bridget: Uh, it is phenomenal. It comes out for everyone on Tuesday the 25th. But if you get it early and pre-order it early, what do they get? Lucy?
lucy: They get the ebook. If you buy it directly from lucy lennox shop.com, you get the, the ebook has the free bonus story in the back already, so you don't have to go download it separately and sign up for my newsletter or any of that.
lucy: And if you get the audio, it comes with the ebook free, and the audio has the audio [01:18:00] bonus. It has the narrated version of the bonus story in the, in the back of the audio. I think it's in the back. It might be a separate file. And so, and that's a bundle deal. And so it's cheaper than an audible credit for that.
lucy: You get the audio, the audio bundle. You get the ebook. And the ebook, uh, sorry. The audio and the audio bonus. The ebook. And the ebook bonus, all of that.
bridget: Well, there you go. You guys can go to lucy lennox shop.com. Yep. And we'll drop a link of course, in the listening app of your choice. You guys can check that out.
bridget: And you know, until next time, dear listeners, mayor books, be your lover
shani: and your hand, your best friend. Thanks for hanging in with those romance readers. Head over to Instagram to continue chatting with us. We're super friendly. We wanna cackle with you. We wanna know what your favorite sex scene was, and we need more book recommendations.
shani: If you wanna read along with us, go to our website, romance@aglance.com to see what we're reading next, and we'll see you next podcast.