Ep. 6 | Hooks, Software, Board Books, and ESPs

In this episode, Bethany Jett and Cyle Young discuss hooks for nonfiction writing, different types of writing software,  why the market is uber-popular for board books, and a jump into email service providers.

Transcript

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[00:00:00] Cyle Young: Welcome to the serious writer podcast. I'm Kyle Young here with everybody, and we're excited to continue to talk with you about all things writing and taking it seriously. Of course, because Bethany we're serious writers. And today we're talking about the things that we talk about. We're talking about fiction, writing, nonfiction, writing, writing for children, and then the dreaded platform marketing always.
[00:00:23] So why don't you jump off the podcast and take us into the realm of non-fiction. 
[00:00:30] Bethany Jett: Alrighty today, we're going to talk about the hook for a non-fiction. And interestingly enough, if you search how to write. Nonfiction book hook. You'll actually find two different things. Kyle you'll find how to write a book hook for a proposal, and then you have to dig a little deeper to find how to write a hook for the actual book and craft.
[00:00:53] So I thought that was interesting 
[00:00:56] Cyle Young: at the beginning. What is a hook? 
[00:00:58] Bethany Jett: The hook is the [00:01:00] pretty much the opening line line. For a book anyway of the chapter. It's what pulls your reader in. You want to hook them with the beginning so that they'll keep reading it. Can't be boring basically. 
[00:01:14] Cyle Young: Okay. So it's like the promise of the book, exciting thing that kind of draws you into wanting to know what the books about.
[00:01:19] What's saying about a certain topic point, whatever. 
[00:01:22] Bethany Jett: Yeah. Kind of like in fiction, which I know you're going to cover fiction. Um, you want that you want to start in the action with fiction. We hear that a lot as a tip. So for nonfiction, there may or may not be action happening, but you gotta, you gotta grab that reader, right?
[00:01:35] Yeah. Right. 
[00:01:36] Cyle Young: Like non-fiction might be like, it's a dieting book. I might be how the south beach diet helps you lose weight. So, and that's the hook. And so you want to learn, oh, how does that help? 
[00:01:46] Bethany Jett: And that actually what you just said would be a great hook for a book proposal, which is basically when you're pitching your book to an agent or to a publishing house, to an, we call them editors.
[00:01:57] They're not editing your work. You know, marking it with [00:02:00] red pen, but there at acquisitions editors at the house, um, it's basically, you're trying to hook their attention, letting them know what the book's about in a short amount of words that they're going to think, oh yeah, this is a book that we actually need for our readers right away.
[00:02:14] So it's really kind of two methods to this. You need a chapter in your book. You also need a hook for your proposals. I've got a couple of tips. Um, From books and such literary management on this we'll link that in the show notes, but just a couple of things that they suggested, which I thought were great.
[00:02:28] What does a con one thing was a common reminder? The first one was just using strong, um, active words, not using passive language, 
[00:02:35] Cyle Young: but then when I actually had that conversation yesterday, no Monday afternoon with two writers. So co-authoring, and I had to have a discussion about active versus passive writing.
[00:02:46] So this is very important, very pertinent. 
[00:02:49] Bethany Jett: So important. And then they, um, a couple of things that I thought were interesting in their list were not to use questions in the hook and the proposal they're suggesting to use that for the back cover [00:03:00] copy. So again, it kind of comes back to craft of knowing how to take your message, but then kind of restructure it and tweak it a little bit for the different areas.
[00:03:08] Agents 
[00:03:08] Cyle Young: and editors don't want your questions. They want, they know what they want to know what your answer to the question is. Readers wanting to know the question that you're going to answer in the book, agents and editors one, know the payoff. And just by 
[00:03:20] Bethany Jett: the book. And then my last tip, because again, we'll link this in the show notes.
[00:03:23] This one was really fascinating to me. So, um, there are a number eight on their list was unlike the synopsis for a novel where you do share everything that's going on in the book. I've heard you say several times, my mom's an author, a novelist. She says several times, don't tell the publisher or the age.
[00:03:39] They have to read the book to figure out the ending for fiction. They need to know. How it's going to end. Um, so their, their thing here is, yeah, we always 
[00:03:45] Cyle Young: wonder the ending, you know, don't, don't try to tell us, not tell us, do read the book and you'll find out no, I'm not going to read it. 
[00:03:51] Bethany Jett: Um, but you're saying for, for nonfiction it's opposite, you don't need to reveal the ending in the hook because you're grabbing them in order to get them to keep reading.
[00:03:59] [00:04:00] So it's a flip. Fiction. So if you're writing in both genres, you need, it's important to know you don't always use the same guidelines for each one. 
[00:04:08] Cyle Young: Yeah. Let's cut. And people don't know that juxtaposition between the two. That's a good word. I like that. Good big words today. Any other non-fiction tips? 
[00:04:20] Bethany Jett: Yes.
[00:04:20] And so, so that's kind of for the proposal, but if you're writing, when you're writing your actual. Every chapter has to have a hook in the beginning and it needs to do two things. In my opinion, it needs to be part of the promise to the reader of the overall book. But then in nonfiction, every chapter also has its own sub premise, if you will.
[00:04:40] Um, and the hook needs to really kind of be targeting into what that chapter is going to be about. And so some of the things that you can do to make it interesting. Um, don't, here's a, don't, don't say, you know, in this bucket, we're going to cover this, this, this, and this. They already know what you're going to cover because they looked at the back, they looked at the table of contents.
[00:04:58] They're ready to kind of dig in. And so [00:05:00] just like in fiction, are you going to start the action? You want to grab them? And so it can be something shocking. It can be, um, something like a statistic. That's going to be like, oh my gosh, I didn't know that. Or it could even be, if you're writing in a very conversational tone, it might even be a personal confession.
[00:05:15] That might be a little juicy that you're, you're really kind of. Trying to reach them and with nonfiction, you really want them to, again, depending on the genre of non-fiction, but you want them to relate to you so that they're nodding yes. With you as a reading through. So there you have to build some trust, especially in that first chapter, so that they'll keep reading the whole book.
[00:05:34] And so getting that hook right is really important. 
[00:05:37] Cyle Young: Yes, I would agree. So that's very good. 
[00:05:40] Bethany Jett: Alright, are we going to fix in our children's next 
[00:05:42] Cyle Young: let's go to fiction. Um, and I've got some interesting quotes from some famous fiction authors that I think are very helpful for people to get to go through and really hear how the best writers write and think about writing.
[00:05:59] Um, let me give you some, [00:06:00] some quotes here and maybe we'll break down why these quotes are important and Pedago from there. Does that, does that make sense? I'll give you an example of one. Anton checkoff, famous author says this. Don't tell me the moon. Show me the Glint of light on broken glass. Now that is something we know and writing Bethany it's called show versus tell.
[00:06:27] And so, yes, this is really a practical thing. Don't tell me the moon's up and shine. The shining outside. Don't say like the moon is shining. No, show me like, look at the glass, see the limit, the light of the Glen. Have it on there. Um, like for me, I was just. In Miami. And we watched the sunrise, my wife and I one morning.
[00:06:44] And like I could say, well, the sunrise, the sun rose, or I could talk about how this bulb of yellow glistened off the ocean as it, you know, and this glowing, um, trail of light move closer to me creep across her or extra self [00:07:00] across the water. As it got closer to me as the sun got higher in the sky, like you can just, you can describe it in a beautiful way instead of just saying, well, the sun rose in the sky.
[00:07:10] Bethany Jett: Right. Yeah. Um, have you ever read Neil Gaiman? No. Okay. He's one of my favorites and he, in his masterclass, he was reading from some of his books. And it's kind of like you say about show, don't tell in one of his opening things, he says, I'm going to, I'm not I'm paraphrasing, but it was like, you know, the man, the house was dark.
[00:07:29] The man is in the house. The man has a knife and the knife is wet and you know, he's killed people, but he hasn't like even said that it's just like such simple language. Different you you're saying, but like, maybe that was a bad example, but as soon as you're talking, I'll show it on till I was like, oh my gosh, no, give him, he didn't say he killed the people he described the man had in his knife and he let you put it together, right?
[00:07:49] Yeah. That's 
[00:07:51] Cyle Young: going to show, not tell that's that's good. So Anton checkoff would agree. All right. So next rose Tremaine, famous [00:08:00] author said this. Listen to the criticisms and preferences of your trusted first readers.
[00:08:06] Bethany Jett: Yeah, because I'm here first. Well you're first readers are people you trust, but you 
[00:08:11] Cyle Young: wanna make sure that I'm gonna say this truck is in quotes in this quote, and I'm going to say, first Raiders is not your spouse, who will just 
[00:08:18] Bethany Jett: tell you it's great. Not your cheerleaders. 
[00:08:21] Cyle Young: It's not your cheerleaders. It's your first Raiders.
[00:08:23] Your first-years are people that you should, that should give you fair critiques and good criticism because they care about your career. And you're right. But they may not always say the things that are easiest for you to process, right. Does that make sense? 
[00:08:38] Bethany Jett: It does. Like, I don't let my mom's a really good editor.
[00:08:40] I don't let her read my stuff first. I need a cheerleader or a yes person first to get me to the point where I'm ready to have someone look at it, who's going to like, 
[00:08:48] Cyle Young: right. Because your mom was just tell you like it is because your mom is a very good writer. So she would like definitely this garbage.
[00:08:53] No, I'm just kidding. Um, but like you want somebody, who's going to tell you like all the things that are wrong because they [00:09:00] want it to be great. Um, that's a trust. Fatigue and preferences from a trusted first reader. So it's really important in fiction. I have so many ties. People tell me. Well, you know, my spouse read this and I think it's great.
[00:09:11] Well, I read it and I don't agree. So, um, because like, if the person doesn't understand writing, they're really not going to give you a proper critique or a breakdown of what I'm saying. So you got to find those people. That's where I think critique groups can be really good. They also can be really bad if those people in your critique groups don't know how to write, but if you can get a good critique group, it is worth its weight in gold.
[00:09:32] Bethany Jett: It is. And I think too, it's a sign of I'm growing it in your craft as a writer to be able to take that kind of critique too. Cause it's never fun. 
[00:09:43] Cyle Young: No, it's never fun or easy to hear that you need to work on something, but it's, it's beneficial for us. Here's another one. This is from Jonathan Franz and I liked this one.
[00:09:54] I think this is a shipper. Good fiction advice point for people ready. It's [00:10:00] doubtful that anyone with an internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction. 
[00:10:05] Bethany Jett: I have to think about that one for a second. What 
[00:10:08] Cyle Young: it's doubtful that anyone with an internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction or Zadie Smith says work on a computer that is disconnected from the.
[00:10:17] Bethany Jett: Can you just give me a 
[00:10:18] Cyle Young: distraction, too many distractions, right? How many times have you tried to write something? And next thing you know, you're answering emails 
[00:10:25] Bethany Jett: well, all the time, or you go online to, you know, do something and then Facebook pops up, right. 
[00:10:29] Cyle Young: Or you go all got to research that word. Next thing you know, you're you're five, 10 and 20 Tik TOK videos deep.
[00:10:35] Right? That's the problem is if you've got internet. So when I'm, when I'm actually genuinely trying to write, I shut the internet off my computer. So there's no distraction. And you can like put your phone on wireless mode or airplane mode. That's good advice for really any type of writing non-fiction fiction, whatever.
[00:10:55] But this is particularly for fiction writers, but yeah, [00:11:00] I think that's a really good idea. 
[00:11:01] Bethany Jett: And there's some applications like Scribner and then even in word, sometimes I'll touch a button accidentally in word and it'll take over the whole screen. So you can't see anything else? 
[00:11:11] Cyle Young: Yeah. There's programs that'll like, shut your computer off while you're doing a word editing program and I'll turn it on and off.
[00:11:17] And then I'll turn it back on. When you leave the program. It's too easy. Like anything that has like a loop. It's not helpful, right? Like you're going to learn a loopholes. Like I can just get the internet if I just do this. And next thing you know, you had defeated the whole purpose patients turn 
[00:11:30] Bethany Jett: the internet off.
[00:11:31] My kid's favorite, supposed to be on YouTube. And they found out they could text each other YouTube links. And so they were watching it through their messages, like really 
[00:11:39] Cyle Young: right. That's we always find the loopholes. Don't worry.
[00:11:44] Kids definitely will. Um, so I do this one. This is from Helen Simpson. She says this, the, the nearest I have to a rule is a posted on the wall in front of my desk. Say it, I don't know how to say this is French Farrah say TIR. I don't [00:12:00] know which I translate from my self as shut up and get on with it. And the reason, the reason that she has this is basically we get lost in the details sometimes.
[00:12:14] And we don't actually get on with the writing. Right? Like we get stuck trying to think of what's the character's name. Well, I could spend an hour trying to decide what the character's name is, or I think your mom uses this. Name needed and move on or something, right. Leave it in brackets for later. And so that's kind of like a shut up and get on with it.
[00:12:33] When you're stuck. Just keep going, make a note about what you need to fix and then go forward. Because if you do that, I mean, your mom puts out a ton of work as a fiction writer, but she doesn't get to do that because she gets lost in the details. She does it because she gets it done. She gets on with it, and then she goes back in.
[00:12:50] That's 
[00:12:51] Bethany Jett: exactly it. And she just stopped her contract. So she's, I mean, she's got, I don't know, like another four to six books to write and we're watching her process. That's exactly what she does. She always says, um, you [00:13:00] can't edit a word that's not written yet. So get it on the page and then rewriting and editing part.
[00:13:05] And that's what she does. She uses brackets and that's how she goes back. 
[00:13:08] Cyle Young: Right, right. You can't edit a word. That's not written yet. Johnny Alexander. That's the famous author there. I'm going to make that my new tip right there. So that's a good one to talk about. You can't edit a word that is not written.
[00:13:20] That's true. Get on with it, right. Shut up and get on with it versus probably a nicer way to say that. But, uh,
[00:13:26] Bethany Jett: What's up. I took French in high school and college, 
[00:13:28] Cyle Young: the ferrets 
[00:13:30] Bethany Jett: tear, and I, I can't see it. And I'm afraid that after telling you that I took French 
[00:13:33] Cyle Young: aisle, you're not going to get it right. This is not a French writing class. It's an English writing class. So we're okay that we didn't get it. 
[00:13:42] Bethany Jett: Right. I do like to put safe in the, at the end of my words, instead of our books instead of the end, but, you know,
[00:13:49] Cyle Young: Well, uh, there's lots more tips I could give. I think I've exhausted my time. So let me jump into children's. How's that? All right. So that was fiction for you. Fiction people. [00:14:00] I hope those were helpful. Um, there's always wonderful tips out there from some of the best writers. If you're studying writers, they'll give you great advice.
[00:14:06] Not everybody's advice applies equally across the board for everyone else, but there are some really good things that writers share that are our tips that we should, we should hold on to. Um, one of the things I'd like to talk about children's today is the different types of children's. Okay. And because this is often a, a question I get from people about children's is they don't really understand the categories and then they come up with like, they're writing the wrong thing.
[00:14:33] Right. 
[00:14:33] Bethany Jett: That makes sense. Absolutely. Makes 
[00:14:35] Cyle Young: sense. So for today, let's talk about the categories of children's books. Um, let's start with picture books. Work our way up, then I'm going to go back and go before picture books, to board books, concept books, those types of type of things, maybe, um, picture books.
[00:14:49] This is a category that goes from like zero to four genuinely. Um, You know, some people will say it goes a little higher. So the last dependent, the publisher, but these books usually have 500 words or less sometimes [00:15:00] a thousand words or less, depending on the age that they're targeted for. Um, you have baby books, which I've just done board books now, baby books or board books tend to have less.
[00:15:09] 250 300 words and have a, have a harder paper that board feel where we're babies can play with them. And they're less destructive destructible. Um, they can chew on them, gum them up and they're still readable. And so you start with the board books and you move into picture books. The thing about board books that people didn't understand.
[00:15:30] They're very popular right now, because there you can, you can basically, but it was a board book for the same price of a picture book, and you can sell them less and you can make, you can sell them that. I might have to sell a picture book for $17. I could sell the same board book for $9 cause there's less pages.
[00:15:48] And so for, for publishers, they can get more sales because people are willing to pay, uh, to buy more of something that's nine bucks in there or something that's 17 bucks. So just something to be aware of. Board books are great for [00:16:00] gifts. Whereas books, books are not necessarily. So, um, just be aware that if you're writing board books versus picture books, you need to know your audience.
[00:16:07] Do you know your word count? You know, the age and then it within like baby books, there's concept books. Which would be like numbers, letters, callers, um, touch and feel books, those types of things, which are usually generally going to be more in the board book format. But that's a big category as children are learning and developing.
[00:16:24] They're not able to reword, but they're able to touch and feel and see flip flops, like lift the flaps, that kind of stuff. So that's, that's picture book. Then what happens is we go from picture books to early readers. The difference is early readers are like targeted for like five to seven year olds genuinely.
[00:16:41] And when, uh, when this is this, this is for like a kindergarten, first grade, second grade child that's already starting to read. And so these might be in the form of a picture book, feel like 32 page picture book, but they also might be in a more illustrated. Concept like, like less, [00:17:00] less illustrations.
[00:17:01] Maybe they have an illustration, a page, but it's not full page illustrations and more focused on breaking the words out easily. So children can read and they have words that are very easy for children to read and process at that age. And so that's an early reader book. Whereas a picture book that might be targeted for the upper age level might be more written Bethany for a adult to read because the adults going to be reading it to the child.
[00:17:26] So there might be bigger words. Whereas an early reader book is not going to have big words. They're going to have words that children can read at the age level, which the book is designed for. Right? These books can usually range about a thousand words. I've seen some. All the way up to 5,000 words, depending on if it's get up in that first and second grade age, have you ever read an 
[00:17:46] Bethany Jett: early reader book?
[00:17:47] These are like the smaller, thinner books you can see, like 
[00:17:52] Cyle Young: they feel like a half page. Um, they usually have an illustration on each page, but it's use, it could be a black and white illustration and there's still illustration, which helps, which helps [00:18:00] children process. But, um, like what does it, Mr. Tab and putty, uh, or Mr.
[00:18:04] Mr. Putter and Tabby. I don't know what the name of the book is. It's real famous, the frog and frog and toad books. These would be those to salvage. I lot 
[00:18:13] Bethany Jett: of transformer books for the boys are like, 
[00:18:16] Cyle Young: I've seen some like star wars has books that are early reader. All the big brands, Marvel have early reader books, cause kids are fascinated, that kind of stuff.
[00:18:25] And you'll see that very simple. They're very simply written. Writing for children to rate. So that's early reader books. Not a lot of publishers are looking for those because they can get those done in house very, very easily. They could pay a packager and they don't have to pay a lot of advance and royalty just to an author.
[00:18:41] And they could spit these things out because they're really basic. And pretty much, I'll be honest with you. I think almost anybody can write early reader books. They're really, they're really basic, really simple. And so we don't, we don't sell early reader books because publishers just don't buy them. Um, so, uh, chat chapter books, but I get pitched them all the time, but I w we always have happened as the publisher [00:19:00] says, we can produce those in-house for cheaper.
[00:19:02] So we're, we're not interested. We quit sending them out, uh, chapter books. Uh, sometimes these are called young readers depending on the publisher. Uh, but there are chapter books that the difference with these they're going to be more subdivided into chapters. They're going to have a clear 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, um, frog and toad.
[00:19:18] My, my, some of those might fit in this category. Um, they usually have up to 10,000 words. Although I often see them down around 3000 words. Therefore a kids age six to nine. So the difference in early rears in chapter books is it's really the readability of the book and the, the ability of the child, because not all children, uh, develop equally between five and nine and so early readers and chapter books kind of split that.
[00:19:41] So as kids develop faster, they move to chapter books. As they develop slower, they stay in early readers longer and that's fine. Every child has its own develop. Range you probably you as a mother of three children, your children probably didn't all develop the same way or skill level with reading at the same time.
[00:19:57] They probably progressed it differently. 
[00:19:58] Bethany Jett: Nope. When these [00:20:00] books be considered, like I'm trying to think, uh, like encyclopedia brown or even Nancy drew Baby-Sitters club are those is that considered chapter books. Are those. 
[00:20:07] Cyle Young: Uh, I think if you, some of them, yes, this would be more like, um, the magical Treehouse magic magical Treehouse would be like a champion, the rating them before, like in that six to nine, this was first through fourth grade.
[00:20:21] I think my kids started reading magic Treehouse seventh or, or not second, third, fourth grade. And it's kind of. And then the middle grade books are the next category, which kind of goes beyond that. These are books for late elementary school, PE kids, early middle school, nine to 12 years old. They can be upwards of 60,000 words.
[00:20:40] Although I usually see it between 30 and 45, but they could be even shorter. These would be like, uh, wings of fire would be a big series. Here are the dragon books for, for, for kids. My kids love this. This would be like warriors. Um, which is that cat like animals. And so there's a lot of these style books.
[00:20:58] There's a spy series of [00:21:00] books. My kids are into that are middle grade books. So these have a lot of humor. If they have mysteries that thrills, I think Nancy drew and the Hardy boys would be really more concerned middle grade, um, maybe lower middle grade at times in those. So that's middle grade books.
[00:21:13] They have the feel of a young adult book, but they don't have, um, they're not. 
[00:21:17] Bethany Jett: Um, my little one is 11 and we, we just got a series of books, um, from it's by Chris Colfer. And it's a whole, it's a best series called the land of stories and it's the taking the fairytales and like, you know, recreating how they are.
[00:21:30] And my 11 year old is excited to read this huge middle grade book because, um, Goldilocks is like in prison or something. He thinks that's really funny. Um, and they they're pretty. Right. 
[00:21:40] Cyle Young: Um, yeah. And then, so that's, that's be middle grade ish and then young adult novels, these target teens and adults, they usually have a teenage protagonists and they bet they have adult characters.
[00:21:52] Whereas other books may not have very many adult characters. If you think Nancy drew the Hardy boys, you don't really think of your parents ever. Right. That's just not a thing. [00:22:00] Young adults are gonna have more interaction with adults, uh, through the book because they're. Uh, these can be upwards of a hundred thousand words, although genuinely 60 to maybe 50 to 75,000 could be normal.
[00:22:11] Um, but you can see these go up to a hundred thousand words. Um, think of like Harry Potter, Twilight, those would be some, they have edgier categories, they have edgier topics. Um, and with any of these children like to read about kids a little bit older than that, So genuinely middle-grade books are going to have the characters going to be at the oldest age level nine are not going to be nine years old.
[00:22:31] They're going to be generally more like 12, 11, maybe even 13 young adult novels. They're going to tend to be 16, 17, 18, genuinely. Um, that's what the people want to show them, want to read about kids who are older than they are, because they're growing up and then want to film, um, more mature. And so those are, those are the categories of children's writing.
[00:22:49] So when we talk about shelters, writing. And serious writer. We're talking about all those things and why a is in children's writing. Although I know a lot of white authors hate that. Um, it still is children's writing cause it's, that's the category. [00:23:00] 
[00:23:00] Bethany Jett: I hate that I'll be honest. I feel like it should have its own category because like new adult is a thing, but it's not really a thing either.
[00:23:07] It's that kind of like after 
[00:23:08] Cyle Young: college, it all was the thing. It kind of died out my thought about it more, but like, I think young adults should, young adult is a massive category. You're thinking Harry Potter, you're thinking Twilight and think of these huge frat franchises, divergent hunger games. Like it really, they just need to call it its own thing because there's so many sales.
[00:23:25] Um, I, one day, I think they're eventually going to break it out and won't be our children's anymore, but who knows? I think there's these people who are traditionalists, you know how 
[00:23:31] Bethany Jett: this, I know, but picture books are like such a big, there's so many books in the children's category for kids. Like why does that group have, and they're, they're so edgy, especially these days.
[00:23:41] Like there's a lot of adult things happening and those coming of age books, you know, and I don't have a lot 
[00:23:46] Cyle Young: of adult things in those beds.
[00:23:48] Well, I, I took enough time on my breakdown of children. So now 
[00:23:52] Bethany Jett: your turn. Okay. Well, I thought that was great because I think the confusing thing for me, as someone who, um, doesn't really write for younger than Y a [00:24:00] is where does that early? I understand early reader, but then chapter book versus middle grade tends sometimes to be a gray area.
[00:24:09] For some readers sometimes. I don't know. Anyway, that was really good. And I appreciated it and I think our readers will too. Okay. So let's talk about marketing and we spent a long time on marketing in a previous episode. Wanting to come in, but encouragement because we believe at serious writer that you need platform and marketing is a huge part of your book, no matter how you're publishing, really, if you're going traditional, you got to sell books with the publisher and, you know, they've invested a lot of money into the book.
[00:24:40] And then if you're indie publishing, you've invested a lot of money. And so you got to recoup that cost. And so we, we think it's important. So I thought that today we would talk about. Budget for the marketing and realistic expectations on what it's actually going to cost, because I think sometimes there might be this [00:25:00] misconception and I've even heard, um, uh, like a mega bestselling author say, you know, oh, don't worry.
[00:25:04] The publisher will handle the marketing for. Well, that's his experience because he sells millions of copies. All the marketing dollars go to a lot of marketing dollars, go to him. He probably doesn't have to do much on the marketing side. So that's his experience, but for the rest of everybody, you do. And there is a cost that comes to that time, but then also money.
[00:25:23] So I thought I would go through, I've got a list of six things that a writer should expect to need to pay them. Um, as part of marketing. So we'll just go through the list quickly. I'm going to kind of do an order of important and in the Bethany Jett opinion. And the first one, I think is the website 
[00:25:41] Cyle Young: order of importance sounds even 
[00:25:44] Bethany Jett: more official.
[00:25:45] Here we go. I think the website is the first thing, because you need to have that establish. They don't need to pay 
[00:25:51] Cyle Young: a lot for it. Cody and I did a, an episode of this podcast. We talked about all the free options to do that. And I think that that's, if you don't want to, if you don't have the money to pay for it, [00:26:00] just go get a free website.
[00:26:00] It's gives you a website, go back and listen to the episode. That'd be great information for you. 
[00:26:05] Bethany Jett: It is. And then if you're ready at once, we're ready to upgrade. Uh, just to get it on the record, we, we recommend a WordPress self hosted WordPress that will. And there's lots of sites to look upon and do that.
[00:26:15] So I won't take the time to do that, but a website, the second one, which also has free versions to get you started is you need to sign up for an email service provider. It's shortened to ESP. If you're going to be Googling things and some examples are. Uh, we love convert kit, but a Weber, constant contact, MailChimp mailer light, which is the one my mom uses and loves for her newsletters.
[00:26:39] And I don't like 
[00:26:40] Cyle Young: MailChimp anymore. I have matchup. I loved it. I would not ever recommend it now. 
[00:26:46] Bethany Jett: I don't like them either. And the reason is because they did not grandfather one reason for me anyway. Oh, they didn't do well when they were shifting to a new payment [00:27:00] platform. I don't think they grandfathered in a lot of people could have been paying for a long time for things.
[00:27:03] But if you had more than I did, I had a very small list in there at the time. 
[00:27:07] Cyle Young: Yeah, no, they, they raked me over the coals with some fees after they made the switch, basically just threw money out at like, cause like, yeah. So I would never recommend milk. 
[00:27:16] Bethany Jett: But MailChimp is, is, um, is an ESP or an email service provider.
[00:27:19] So you need this to collect your email subscribers for your newsletter, because you cannot by law. Use your Gmail, your AOL, your Hotmail, whatever you're using for your regular email to send those kinds of things. Maybe we need to do a whole episode on this. We've got trainings on this in our serious writer academy, too.
[00:27:36] We can link below, but, um, so you're gonna need that in there. Free versions. And you want to find one that's going to grow with you so that maybe you start for free up to a certain amount of subscribers. And then as you gain subscribers to your email list, you pay more. That's how most of them are anyway.
[00:27:51] Um, so we, we definitely recommend that. Any other thoughts before we jump to the next one? Right? Um, the next one is [00:28:00] graphics. I used to pick monkey for a long time. I don't have any qualms with them. They've really stepped up their game over the several last several years. I love Canva. That's why I personally use and pay for it because of the folders, the magic resize, you can have multiple brand kits.
[00:28:15] There's so many options in the, in the pay, uh, paid version Canva for work or canvas pro, whatever it's called now. And then along with that is a company that we love, which is called BookBub. And it's sort of like Canva for writers and authors. And so it isn't the same category in the terms that you're making graphics.
[00:28:33] But book brush is more geared towards writers. Meaning you can do more things with book covers. You can turn them into 3d spiral bound, put your book cover on Kindle as an audio book. And they have instant mock-ups, which is why I love it so much. So you can basically upload your book cover in there, and then you can get with just some clicks, get a bunch of graphics.
[00:28:53] Already done for you that you can download and the news. And I've got a, um, a secret tip, one thing, one way that I use them. [00:29:00] But, um, anything about Canberra fresh before I give my like bonus 
[00:29:03] Cyle Young: tip on that? No, I think we've said it well, book brushes definitely more geared towards writers and authors more so than the general public, but, um, yeah, I think they're both 
[00:29:11] Bethany Jett: good.
[00:29:12] You know, you can make creator sets in there too. So if you've got a series, you can make the spines look like they're in a box. If you're selling a set, they've got lots of things that you can do. We love them. And, um, so here's my secret thing. One thing that I like to do is if you're creating a lead magnet or basically usually a PDF that you're going to give away for free to collect emails for your newsletter, I will take a screenshot of.
[00:29:35] Lead magnet so that it turns it from a PDF into a dot JPG or a dot PNG. And then I upload that picture of the lead magnet into book brush, treating it like a book cover. And so then if I'm trying to get, um, email subscribers is something that I've created. I can use that instant up just like I would do for my books.
[00:29:55] And I can get a lot of graphics that show the lead magnet that they're going to get. And that was a great [00:30:00] 
[00:30:00] Cyle Young: pack. Right? 
[00:30:03] Bethany Jett: And we can link to book brush and all these places in our show notes too, for quick access. All right. So I got two more. Okay, great. Uh, shots, the InShot app. So basically 
[00:30:13] Cyle Young: you're going with 
[00:30:15] Bethany Jett: video.
[00:30:16] So switching from graphics to video. Uh, internet has a free version, but I think it's like 1499 right now for the year or something, but it's, it's pretty inexpensive. It takes the watermark off and you get unlimited access to all the stuff they have. It's one of the best, most intuitive. Editing apps for pictures, really?
[00:30:33] Um, cause you can do both or a video that I've ever found. And I heard about it from you several years before I started using it. Cause you've been 
[00:30:39] Cyle Young: shot cab cut. There's a, there's a lot of them in those categories. Anytime on Tik TOK, you'll see all their ads,
[00:30:45] ads on there, but I've seen a lot kept that video leap, whatever it is.
[00:30:50] Bethany Jett: Um, I like in shot. I'll tell you what it was for me that made me purchase on the spot. Well, number one, there's a lot of YouTube tutorials, so I didn't know how to do some [00:31:00] things. So I just went to YouTube and I searched, it found very quickly. It was such an easy fix, but I didn't know what I was doing, but here's what it is.
[00:31:07] The, the, at the bottom of your menu, there's a button that says campus. And so whatever you're working on, it will change the size for you to Instagram. Picture real, a Tik TOK size, Facebook, or customer, even YouTube. So you can create one video and then change it for all the different places you want to put it.
[00:31:24] And for me, that was, I was like, that just saved me so much. Yeah. It's kind of 
[00:31:28] Cyle Young: like a magic resize. The kava has ever pictures and shots. Got it from videos. So. 
[00:31:33] Bethany Jett: So I love that. And then the last one is a lot of people who spend money on schedulers to get their social media content created. I spent hundreds over the years on different schedulers.
[00:31:43] Um, but when Twitter and. Facebook Twitter really stopped being able to, to send the same tweet out multiple times. So once upon a time you could say like our quote from the podcast today, we can put that into our scheduler and set it the every six weeks that quote would go out. So it's [00:32:00] like a set it and forget it, but then they stopped letting you do that.
[00:32:02] They're trying to cut down on spam and bots and things like that. So it didn't make sense to me paying for scheduler for Twitter anymore, but I was going to have to recreate it all the time. So I didn't do that. But then Facebook, which is now a meta, uh, business suite, you can schedule right through there for free to Instagram and Facebook.
[00:32:21] So I'm not paying for a scheduler anymore. The only ones I would say, if you, if you really need one for Twitter, there are some out there. And then if Pinterest is something that you're really wanting to work on, I know a lot of people really like tailwind and I think they might have a free version as well.
[00:32:35] So really the categories here are website. Graphics video and then scheduling those posts out. Other than that, I don't know that there's any be on PR or hiring people to do things for you. I'm not really sure there's a lot else that you, yeah. I 
[00:32:48] Cyle Young: think the scheduling has been replaced by virtual assistants.
[00:32:51] There's, there's no real good schedulers anymore because of all the problems you really need to put live person to do it. And so I think virtual assistant would be the next 
[00:32:59] Bethany Jett: for people. [00:33:00] Well, we were having so much trouble with when, um, I mean, Facebook wants you to use their stuff too. So we, we would be having.
[00:33:05] The center scheduler, but it would have, there'd be a problem getting it out on time, or if Facebook didn't prioritize it or for whatever reason, which is why we ended up grabbing. So I felt bad for all those scheduling systems out there. I know there are people who still use them and love them. There's a lot of great ones out there.
[00:33:19] So if that works for you, that works for you. They were trying to cut back on cost. You know, that might be one way to do it. So those are, those are some things to think about. When budgeting, so PR stuff to do publicity, but you know, I 
[00:33:35] Cyle Young: think that that's great. That's some great things for people to be aware of as they are looking to plan their life.
[00:33:41] If you don't know in shot or Canva or PicMonkey is good. And I just use Canva, but those are some things to be aware of. So, well, thank you for listening to this episode of the serious rider podcast. I hope that you've learned some things and fiction some advice points, some non-fiction children's and.
[00:33:58] Kind of your marketing platform [00:34:00] side of what you do to help you in your journey to become a serious writer. We look forward to being with you on the next episode of the serious writer podcast. See then.