The Urban Fantasy Author Podcast

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In this episode of The Urban Fantasy Author Podcast, hosts M.D. Massey and Paul Sating discuss writing to market as an urban fantasy author. Enjoy!

Show Highlights:

1. What does writing to market mean?
2. Lessons learned about missing the market and using that to redirect efforts.
3. Nuances of writing to market.
4. The struggles authors face when writing to market.
5. Tips, tools, and tactics to help you succeed.

Show Transcript:

(Note: This is a machine-generated transcript. Expect plenty of typos. ~MDM)

Announcer (00:00):

Welcome to the urban fantasy author podcast. From indie authors to trad pub, gritty, contemporary fantasy to lighthearted urban fantasy, masquerade to unmasked. Every episode, we’ll bring you new interviews and commentary regarding all things urban fantasy. Now, here are your hosts, M D Massey and Paul Sating,

Paul Sating (00:23):

Hey everybody, Paul Sating. Welcome to the urban fantasy author podcast. We’re going to be talking about writing to market specific to urban fantasy in this new episode. Now remember last episode, we announced the changing of the format. So we’re going away from that interview driven show, and we’re going to get together, Mike and myself, along with other authors on future episodes. And we’re going to be talking and delving deeper into writing indie, writing the new writing business and the craft and anything that you have of interests that you want to hear us chat about. So make sure you reach out. Of course, as always with me MD Massey, welcome to the show.

M.D. Massey (01:03):

Oh, hello everyone. So, so this week we were talking about writing to market, which is actually one of my favorites, one of my favorite topics. So let’s see here. Should we just jump right in?

Paul Sating (01:17):

With this topic? We better, cause I’m, you’re, I’m glad you’re liking it cause I could soap box for days about this.

M.D. Massey (01:23):

Topic. Yeah, for sure. And, and the reason why, you know, it’s funny because you know, the reason why I love this topic so much is because when I wrote my first series, my first series was cross-genre, the THEM series, the post-apocalyptic series I wrote which works in its shared shared universe with a column, a cool series. And you know, that the drivers, but it was across genres series because it was paranormal post-apocalyptic. And I know there is a small, but growing audience for that particular sub genre of urban fantasy right now. But it’s still a very, it’s still very small and it was much smaller back then. And what I thought was when I released those books is they were very hard to market because you know, I confuse readers. People would pick up the books and they were expecting, you know, hardcore military post-apocalyptic or hardcore Zampolli and, and people who read a zombie apocalypse novels.

M.D. Massey (02:18):

Typically what I’ve found is they don’t like paranormal zombies. They want scifi zombies, you know, they want these on Bizdom, whatever is graded the plague or, you know, whatever they call it in their, in their novels. They want it to be explained away by science, you know, and, and that’s just what I’ve found. There’s a very small group of readers, a very small percentage that, you know, like magic zombies. So that’s what I found was the books were very hard to market. And when I finished, I kept off at series. I planned seven books. I ended up capping it off at five and decided that I was going to pivot and create an urban fantasy series. And so I read Chris Box’s book, his right to market book is an excellent book that I would recommend to anyone. And that kind of created a paradigm shift within me and made me want to write a novel and write a series of novels that was narrowly very narrowly focused on the urban fantasy on the urban fantasy.

M.D. Massey (03:20):

John WRA and you know, targeted urban fantasy readers, specifically what they wanted. And because it’s a genre that I read a lot, I have read a lot of urban fantasy, continue to read a lot of urban fantasy. It’s been a favorite of mine for decades. You know, I find that very easy to do know, but I, I did quite a bit of research before I wrote the first book and, you know, lo and behold, when I dropped junkyard Druid that book outsold every single one of my them novels, scratch Silva novels, and almost immediately, I mean, it almost immediately took off. And you know, I, I credit it with writing the market. So

Paul Sating (04:00):

For me, it’s it’s always, it’s a struggle for me because I’m a contrarian by nature. So a lot of people like something that I automatically dislike it until I decide to like it, sons of anarchy is the a prime example in my personal life. I refuse to watch that show for eons until it was no longer talked about. And then I went and binged it and then binged it again. Cause I absolutely loved that show. But anyway, so for me I have a different situation. And one of the things I used to do in my old professional life was teach people. I was a an instructor, if you will. And one of the things I don’t know through my own interactions with newer writers, if they really focus on a lot, cause it is boring. It is not as fun as creating worlds and monsters and diseases and magic systems and all that stuff is your goals.

Paul Sating (04:51):

I feel I’m going to own this statement. The very first thing you need to do when you’re thinking about becoming an indie writer is determined. What is your goal? What is your one goal you want out of this thing? And none of them are wrong. None of them are taboo or bad. It’s all personal, it’s personal choice. I do want to make money. I do want to make a full-time income off of writing, but it is not my primary driver. So that influences and affects everything I do when it comes to writing to market. So we’re, Mike’s talking about that with column McCool, for my Zodiac stuff. I wanted to get into the urban fantasy because I am a dork about fantasy. I love the tropes. I love the adventures. I love how it can address real-world stuff in a very light way. But I wanted to do something fresh and I wanted to do something that keeps me interested.

Paul Sating (05:43):

I didn’t want to do something that I had read before and other places. So that’s why I’ve got this little different take on it, where it is an urban fantasy, but it’s also one of the primary locations is hell. And we spend a lot of time in hell, but I’ve also created urban settings or as well to make it that way. So I do get a lot of affirmation if you will, and complimentary negative ways. And in reader reviews, for example, one of the things I see very often in these books is, you know, Paul’s books have a fresh take on demons and hell and, and, and they mean it in a great way. These are four and five star reviews that they’re saying it. But when we’re talking about writing to market, I have to be the big boy and realize that when I do these fresh looks, I’m also deviating from what the market is setting for those people that, you know, tend to be higher up in those charts.

Paul Sating (06:40):

And I have to be okay with that. I don’t get to do this fresh take on demons and how, and then complained to my wife at night because I’m not in the top 10 in the full folklore category or something. I don’t get it both ways. So it’s, I think that’s one of the first lines in the sand. I draw for folks when they’re thinking about what does writing to market mean, and is this something I should pursue, well, I don’t know how you feel about that mic, but I feel like that’s an obligatory shot to put out there.

M.D. Massey (07:10):

Let’s well, let’s back up a minute and talk about what Wright’s market actually means. So typically from an author’s perspective, writing to market is simply writing writing fiction that is narrowly focused on reader, expectations, typical reader expectations and this specific job. Okay. So, you know, for example, if you’re writing cozy mysteries, you know, you want to write a cozy mystery that is cozy. You don’t want to write something that has a whole lot of gore. You want to also make sure that you maintain, you know, all the tropes and all the conventions of the typical mystery novel and that your main character, you know, was you know, in the story itself is somewhat lighthearted. The main character is somewhat witty, you know, typically characters in the main character. And it goes, the mystery novel was, is someone who is a little bit of a quirky individual, you know, that has quirks and so forth and so on.

M.D. Massey (08:01):

And so on writing urban fantasy, if you’re going to write a, you know, something that’s narrowly focused in the urban fantasy genre, which is different from paranormal romance, tell people this, but not urban fantasy, you know, they, the two overlap, but they’re not the same thing. You know, an urban fantasy novel, and I’ve had many, many readers tell me this, you know, urban fantasy novels are not heavy on romance. You know, the, the remittance aspects are very light. Typically are, but fantasy novels are written from first person perspective. You know, that’s the point of view that many urban fantasy novels are written and for whatever reason, I don’t know why maybe it might go all the way back to you know, I don’t know Jim pitcher novels, I guess, you know, but you know, typically there is a magic system, you know, and there are a fantastic creatures, supernatural creatures, mythology, or multiple mythologies play a huge role in the world.

M.D. Massey (08:56):

And in the world building urban fantasy novels happen in a contemporary society. Although there might be time travel elements, you know, as in my books, you know, where they’re going back and forth between, you know, different worlds and realms and cultures and so forth. But typically you have a single hero or heroine who was fighting the big, bad either through the use of magic or in spite of the fact that they have no mansion. And so basically what you have is it’s low fantasy set in a contemporary set, simple as that. So, you know, when you’re riding the market, you have to understand, you know, what, you know, what are people looking for when they pick up an every fantasy novel? Well, you know, in, in my opinion one of the finest examples of that are Kevin Hart’s novels, you know, and I know that there’s some controversy about his last novel in the iron Druid series and whatnot, but he, you know, he wrote a fine series of novels.

M.D. Massey (09:53):

And as far as our fantasy goes, you know, I mean, you know, he was hitting on all eight cylinders with those books when he, when he dropped him. And it’s funny, I was walking through the bookstore today, you know, trying to help my son, you know, find a book for, you know, for a vacation, for a trip we’re gonna take and sure enough, we’re walking to the fancy house. And, you know, I still see Kevin’s books on the, on the the bookstore shelves. And there’s a reason for that. There’s a reason why, you know, that they, you know, they kind of have that stickiness with readers it’s because, you know, he really hit all those Jabra tropes. You know, you have a main character who is, you know, in, in his books were kind of in the vein of Jim butcher’s books where you have like a magician detective in a sense, you know even though his main character Atticus is not necessarily a detective, but he does kind of solve histories and whatnot.

M.D. Massey (10:39):

But you know, main character, who’s, you know, a magic user adept at magic or in some way has something unique about him that has to do with magic. You know, fighting, you know, various, you know, big bags that are out there that are in the supernatural world, you know, fighting supernatural creatures that are, you know, much more powerful and much scarier than he is, even though at-risk is, is a very powerful character. There are supernatural creatures that you would expect to see in an urban fantasy novel, you know, there are vampires they’re wearables. There are faith, there are mythological deities, you know, and so on and so forth, you know and you know, dogs that, you know, speak with telepathy too, which is, you know, the quirky thing at Heathrow, which I thought was great. And so those books, you know, they kind of don’t, as far as hitting all the urban fancy groups, they get on all eight cylinders and that’s why they were so popular and that, you know, is riding the market.

Paul Sating (11:30):

And it’s one of the things that I, it took me a long time to wrap my head around because I read Chris’s book as well. And I agree with you. One of the things that worried me coming over from a podcasting experience was that trends shift very quickly. You could spend months writing a 30,000 word script and by the, you get every, all the actors to voice it and you get it, all the production done, the trends have changed. And that story that you wrote it’ll get traction as long as it’s strong. But if those, if those trends change too much, or you just happen to be on the lagging end of the previous trend, you miss out one of the things, one of the pieces of comfort that I take when, as I was going through this and learning about writing the market was the long tail of writing, you know to market in general fiction.

Paul Sating (12:26):

It’s not something we necessarily have to rush to. There’s very, you know, there’s always those outliers. I go back to like I did in previous episode last year, because last year was such a benchmark for so many things in our worlds, but there were a lot of people and all sorts of genres who wrote to market specifically to address the pandemic. I, you know, I saw those storylines first and foremost, whether it was, you know, romance Saifai fantasy, whatever. I saw a lot of those topically chasing that trend, ironically, doing research for this episode, you don’t seem very many of those books out there where they were populating, you know, those front pages a year ago today. So flash in the pan trend versus, you know, that long, long tail of writing a specific market.

M.D. Massey (13:17):

Yeah. And I, you know, it’s funny because, you know, going back to entertaining readers, I think a lot of people want escapism. That’s why they, that’s why they buy fiction. You know, they buy it for escapism. And so when you’re talking about current events in your novels, you know, you’re reminding people of reality and a lot of readers don’t want that. So, you know, I think that’s, I think that’s kind of the flip side of riding the market is making sure that you’re delivering on reader expectations that aren’t necessarily you know, that aren’t, that are implied implied expectations, you know, and, and an implied expectation is that you’re entertaining, entertain the frequent reading. But you know, it’s interesting too, because, you know, when you look at urban fantasy tropes, you know, there are certain tropes that you can play with too, you know, for example the masquerade, you know, that’s a, that’s a huge element in every urban fantasy universe, you know, is magic.

M.D. Massey (14:07):

Is it known to the general public or is it hidden from the general public, are supernatural creatures known to the general public? You know, are they out in the open or vampires and werewolves and so forth out in the open, or are they living behind the masquerade, you know, are they keeping themselves hidden and so forth? And of course, you know, in some ways that goes back to vampire the masquerade, you know, the role-playing game and, and the book series and so forth, you know, I think that that is probably the the fiction work that, you know, popularize that, or like, I could be wrong about that. You know, it could even go back to Dracula because of course in, you know, in Dracula, you know, go back to Bram, Stoker’s novel, you know the local people in Transylvania, you know, they, they knew who Dracula was and they believed in Dracula, but you know, everybody else, the world, you know, in other areas of the world and so forth, you know, Jonathan, you know, so forth, you know, he didn’t believe in, you know, so there was a masquerade going on, but then, you know, there’s trucks like that, that you can play with, you know, and I know some urban fantasy authors that like write their series and like all that stuff’s out in the open and everybody knows about magic and magicians and so forth, you know in, in my novels, you know, it’s, it’s hidden and it’s supposed to be kept hidden and everybody wants to keep it hidden for various reasons.

M.D. Massey (15:15):

It’s interesting in Jim butcher’s novels, you know, he advertises himself as a, what is it? What is it? He puts on his business cards, wizard for hire or something like that. So he kind of plays with it being kind of, you know, kind of like some people are like skeptical and then other people accept it, you know? So it’s, it’s kind of like an open secret in the sense. And you know, I thought that was a very witty take on it. Oh, definitely.

Speaker 4 (15:40):

This episode of the urban fantasy author podcast was brought to you by the Zodiac series. All saving’s newest narky, urban fantasy about hell’s only demon without magic mythology and mayhem are the order of the day for Zeke Gilson stone convinced he will live the next 70,000 years bored out of his mind, ZQ Zeke to his friends, suddenly finds himself the center of hell’s political plots, ploys, and power plays. If you’re looking for your next fun, urban fantasy, wrong in the vein of butcher Massey Sanchez broker, nor miss Cece, hollows, and massive than the Zodiac is for you pick up literaries on Amazon or sign up for Paul’s newsletter@paul.com to receive books zero in the series, the fall of Aries free,

M.D. Massey (16:38):

But there are certain trips that you can play with. And then there are other things that you can’t, you know like you know, for example, you know, the controversy over sparkly vampires. Yes. You know, if there is, if there’s one thing that made Stephanie’s books hated over time, I would say that people kind of latched onto, you know, it as an excuse, I guess, to hate her books. It has to be the sparkly vampires.

Paul Sating (17:06):

It has to be, and it goes more than, than just those elements too. It’s something I didn’t think about until I really started thinking about making my shift to fantasy was the story structure itself. Since we do have listeners who are fans of fiction, and they’re not necessarily concerned with the craft of it, but we also do have a newer writers and even experienced writers who listen, one of the things that may sound like a no duh moment for some folks, but for me, and those like me, one of the things I had to really focus on, because I am an epic fantasy, Uber Oliss reader, if it’s fat and thick and can stop a vehicle, I’m going to read it. So as I was making my shift into this, I didn’t want to go into epic. I’m an indie author. I can’t write 900 page books, four times a year.

Paul Sating (17:55):

It’s not going to happen. And I love urban fantasy. But when I sit down at the keyboard, my writer brain goes into Brandon Sanderson, soliloquies, you know, and I can go, I can do that. It’s just how I’m wired. So I have to make a concerted effort in my outlines. I have to, I have to structure my all lines with little like memory joggers to remind dummy Paul, Hey, this is an urban fantasy. You can’t be talking about a feast for a page. You get one sentence about that feast. Cause you got to keep things moving. So that is another aspect of the writing to market that might not seem as obvious to those of you who are curious about this and maybe thinking about it. I would also encourage you. I agree with Mike, a thousand percent on this stuff is to look at those tropish things and those story elements, but also keep in mind your structure because some stuff you can get away with and some stuff’s going to kill you and you’ll, you’ve got to have the OnPoint cover. Your blurb could be the best blur, better of a written. But if you if somebody gets to chapter three and you’re like me and you’re slowing things down to really world build, you’re going to lose folks.

M.D. Massey (19:05):

Yeah. And incidentally, I, I, when I originally read them, I enjoyed Stephanie Meyers novels. I didn’t like the movies. I thought maybe they just got way too teeny bopper. I mean, because you know, when you’re reading a book, you can kind of skip over those parts, you know, you know, you know, Bella’s pining over so-and-so, you know, and it’s like, I’ll just skip over the and get to the action, but I didn’t hate those books at all. You know? So just wanted to put that out there. You know, it’s funny because you know, writing to market, isn’t often maligned practice among people who I would say people who are somewhat ivory tower types, you know, maybe your MFAs that were taught to write literary fiction, you know, and, and that kind of, you know you know, you kinda, you know, look down upon indie authors who write the market.

M.D. Massey (19:54):

And I think, I think there’s also a kind of that, that whole ivory tower crowd that just looks down on John or fiction in general, in general, it’s not real literature. You know, it doesn’t really matter, you know, it has no social, moral, historical significance, et cetera, et cetera, you know, no artistic significance whatsoever. And I think that’s a mistake for people to dismiss certain types of genres of, of art, you know, because it doesn’t meet their professional or personal standards. But you know, the thing is, is that, you know, the only people who read literary fiction novels or book reviewers and people who are going through MFA programs because they have to, you know, I mean most literary fiction does not make a whole lot of money. It’s usually John or fiction that makes a lot of money and what makes the most money romance novels.

M.D. Massey (20:41):

Right. You know, we all know that the romance genre is the biggest selling jammer out there. You know, it outsells the, the other three major John, I think all combined if I’m not. Yeah. So so, you know, you can’t, if you’re, if you want to be a professional writer, if you want to be a selling writer, a selling author, I don’t think you can avoid writing genre fiction. And that involves writing to market. In some sense, you know, it’s the rare author who can come up with a new, fresh concept. And it’s funny because one of the most common criticisms that were, you know, that were made against my books, you know, one of the most common things that people criticize is they said, well, you know, this is just ripping off Jim Butler. And it was kind of funny because sometimes they’d say I was ripping up Jim butcher, sometimes they’d say I was ripping off Kevin Hearn, you know, and I was like, okay, you know, pick, pick an author, pick one, who am I ripping off?

M.D. Massey (21:39):

You know, but the thing is, is I explain to people, you know, John or fiction is defined by tropes. You know, simple as that genre fiction is defined by tropes. And so if you’re gonna write John or fiction that readers, number one will buy a number two, enjoy reading. And number three, come back for more. The, you have to, your books have to get a little trophy. You know, you got to include those tropes because that’s what people are expecting. You know people aren’t expecting sparkly vampires, you know, most urban fantasy readers want their vampires to be dangerous. You know, they want them to be predators. They want them to be deadly. They want them to be scary in a sense, you know, if you’re internal romance and, you know, you’re, you’re a vampire probably has to be a little less scary, you know, but for writing urban fantasy, you know, we want our vampires to be scary as hell.

M.D. Massey (22:26):

You know same thing with werewolves, you know, werewolves are supposed to be a certain, you know, a certain type of greeter, you know, they’re supposed to have certain passions and instincts and so forth, and they’re supposed to have a predator drive, you know, that, that maybe overtakes them every so often. And, you know, the you know, the kind of alpha beta omega type, you know pat structure and so forth, you know, those types of things are very important, you know, in, in werewolf society and so forth. And these are, these are tropes that have been set, you know, long before us, because you know, those of us who started writing fantasy fiction and urban fantasy fiction, you know, over the last 10 years, you know, we, we stand on the shoulders of giants, right. You know, they were urban fantasy authors that came along before us that established a genre and they established these strokes.

M.D. Massey (23:08):

And in a certain sense, we’re honoring them by, you know, including those tropes and by carrying those tropes forward in our work, that doesn’t mean that you can’t write something original while writing the market. It, it doesn’t, you know, the two are not mutually exclusive. You can write something that’s highly original and still, that can be, you know, Troped, you know, like drove to the guilt. Right. So, so, you know, I, I think when people, when they when they level those criticisms at John or fiction and say, you know, it’s derivative, Michael, it’s supposed to be derivative, you know, I mean, seriously. So, you know, I don’t,

Paul Sating (23:46):

I don’t get the point. I think it’s an important take to have, because you are sitting here with, you know, nearly 20 years of writing and publishing and then all of your back catalog. And I’ve been doing this for a few years and have enough titles out to feel confident saying it is that those, those people, you know, with a megaphone at the top of the ivory tower are influencing people that don’t have your experience yet. They don’t even have my experience yet, and they may be swayed. So it’s a very important message to send out there because you know, we only, we have so much influence in the ivory tower, has there influenced in the classroom, whatnot, but there’s still that creative, the N nothing ticks me off more than having someone squash someone else’s creative drive their creative motivation. I mean, I’m sure it happened to you, Mike it’s.

Paul Sating (24:37):

It happened to me in my life, which is why I did not write for 20 something years, even though I had to drive to. So it’s very important to to make this bite sized, you know, like I did last episode, want us to think about tactically, what some folks can do to make this more manageable? I don’t think Mike or I are asking you to go read Chris’s book, consume it and pump out 300 pages of the choppiest thing you can come up with in the, in the next year, even. But some of the things you can do is to be jumping out there on those storefront and, and drilling down into those categories. Find something you like to read. You know, if you happen to be on the zone, scroll down to the middle of that page and look at where it’s ranking in, in those categories and start clicking around on hyperlinks and drilling down and see how far are you and how unique you can get in your search, the things that speak to you, and then start doing some cover investigation and blurb reading.

Paul Sating (25:34):

You don’t have to read an entire novel. One of the things I did and I did it to Mike, and I never told him this. So this will be an admission on air in the podcast. And I was talking to another or another urban fantasy author, but my blurbs sucked. They always have it’s just something I struggle with. One of the things I did is I went through Mike’s catalog on Amazon. I printed out, okay. So I may be showing my age, but I printed out his blurbs. And I went through with a highlighter and I started highlighting his, his tropish words, his repeat phrasing, you know, all these taboo things you’re not supposed to do. All I have to do is go look at where his book stand on the store to destroy that argument in my mind, because my mind is I’m writing because I love it.

Paul Sating (26:18):

But I also want to sell copies. And I saw trends in his blurbs that made me, it was an epiphany for me. It was a real seminal moment in how I started writing blurbs. And when I started tweaking my blurbs, after that, I started noticing that positive trend things started moving where as they hadn’t been before. And the only variable that I changed were the blurbs. So something to think about, look at those covers, look, blurbs, read the blurbs. What are they mentioning about the books and the blurbs and look at you and you can easily start over time, start identifying trends. I E one of the examples I wanted to bring up before we run out of time in the urban fantasy ish genre, because I don’t know about you, Mike, but I feel like a big fracture is coming at some point there’s way too much non urban fantasy in urban fantasy.

Paul Sating (27:06):

At some point, I don’t want to do that. But one of the things that you’ll see in the folklore store, the mythology store stuff like that, the word academy, I saw an example today when I was doing some research because I’ve just noticed how many academy books it doesn’t, you know, think of any way you could phrase academy in a turn of phrase and you’ve got on the store, but I noticed something today in my, or yesterday. I’m sorry. My research, there are books now where the word academy is the largest word on the cover, even when that’s not the name of the story. Yeah. The title of the story. I could not even make out in the thumbnail, but I could make out that at word academy,

M.D. Massey (27:47):

I have nothing against academy novels. I have nothing against paranormal romance novels. I have nothing against reverse harem novels and nothing against those, because those are all sub genres. You know, there are some very popular series that have been written that, you know, they all under urban fantasy, but there are very distinct sub genre of urban fantasy. Or the problem is, is that Amazon and the Kindle store hasn’t caught up yet with the market trends in creating new categories for these, for these books. One of the things that irks me to no end is that paranormal romance, you know, they have their, they have their own John or their own categories, you know, and their own rankings on Amazon. And yet, you know, they’ll do what I call category squatting, where they’ll, you know, certain authors and it’s usually newer authors, you know, cause they don’t understand that they’re not meeting greedier expectations when they do this, but they’ll just stop their books.

M.D. Massey (28:36):

And every single category they possibly can. So their books show up and all the different categories when they start selling on Amazon and it supposedly gives them more exposure and greater sales and so forth, you know, which maybe in the short run, it might do that. But in the long run, what you’re doing is, is, you know, you’re, you’re alienating readers. One of the, when I talked about this and a couple of author, author groups and an author fan group author reader group, what I, the feedback I got from readers was is that it annoys them to no end when they go to a category and they go to seek, you know, what, selling an urban fantasy, you know, what’s selling in, in you know, in say new adult, urban fantasy on Amazon. And then all they see like the first of the first, you know, page like, you know, 20 listings, 15 of them are paradigm rooms.

M.D. Massey (29:19):

The problem is, is that paranormal romance is always going to outsell urban fantasy except in rare exceptions. You know, when you’re talking about like Jim butcher, Neil Gaiman, Patricia Briggs, you know, authors like that you know, more or less paranormal romance is always going to have a seller advantage just because it’s a much larger market. It’s a much larger market, you know, so of course, you know, what they’re is, is when they’re coming in and they’re squatting other categories, they’re pushing all the books that are written by authors that are specific to that genre down in the rankings, or it’s making those books hard to find for readers. And it annoys the hell out of readers, you know, and on a personal level as an author, you know, I kind of, you know, kind of me off too, you know, I mean, I’m not over there putting my books, even though I have romance elements in my books, I’m not putting my books in paranormal romance because that’s not, you know, when, when somebody is looking for a paranormal romance novel on Amazon, if they grab one of my books, they’re going to be sorely disappointed because romance story, you know, it’s an advantage, they’re urban fantasy novels with light room itself, you know?

M.D. Massey (30:19):

So, so yeah, you got me on my soap box.

Paul Sating (30:26):

You did well with it. You did well with it, but it is, it’s very legitimate and it actually ties into what I just said. So let me caveat slash supplement that for those of you who haven’t thought about this, and you’re still trying to wrap your head around the concept is to actually take Mike’s soap box with a big message with it is, you know, that’s a caveat. If you’re going to write, you know, a cool Colin McCool type of story, don’t rip Mike off, please. But if you’re going to go that way, be very careful when you’re doing your research out there,

M.D. Massey (30:59):

Policy

Paul Sating (30:59):

That’s right. I forgot you already ripped everybody off. It is something for you all to think about as you’re doing this. And so I know we got to wrap things up here, but are there any last tidbits pieces of advice that you have for folks who are interested in writing the market specific urban fantasy?

M.D. Massey (31:20):

Yeah. I get a hell, a lot of advice. And I’m going to start with, you know, if you’re going to write to market, make sure you, you know, the genre you need to read like the top 20 books and I’m not talking about the top, just the top 20 books that are selling. You should probably read like the top 10 books that are selling in that genre that are actually, you know, don’t just go to the, the, the, the, the, it would just go to the bestseller listing as Amazon and pick the first 10 books because half of them are going to be paranormal romance fantasy, but read not only the top 10 best-selling books of the year in urban fantasy, but then also read the top 10 best-selling urban fantasy books of all time. So by the time you’re done, you should have read about 20 books in the genre, and you should be very familiar with the genre and you should have internalized by reading all those books, internalize what reader expectations are.

M.D. Massey (32:11):

Then what you want to do is, is you want to go back and, you know, I use TV tropes.com when I was researching, because I was already like a very dedicated or a fantasy reader. You know, I have, you know, certain authors that like, when they drop a book, I drop everything and I grab that book and I go binge it, you know, stay up late at night, stay up till three, four in the morning reading. And but I, so I already knew what my expectations were as a reader, but I wanted to also look and see, you know, how many trips out there, popular trucks that are in urban fantasy and paranormal fiction, you know, and see which ones I wanted to include in my books. And it turned out I wanted to include quite a bit because, you know, my take on writing a book is I’m writing not only to the market, I’m writing to myself, you know, and then, you know, I want all the cool in my books.

M.D. Massey (32:55):

So, you know, including the whole out of that, a lot of tropes in my books. So what you need to do is you need to go out there, you need to be aware of how these trips are organized, you know, and, and how, you know, people are looking at them as far as mass media goes, not just in, in you know, in fiction, but also, you know, in film and TV as well. So educate yourself on the different tropes that are out there that pertain to your genre. And then finally you need to talk to readers. You need to get out there and interact with readers. You need to get into like an urban fantasy reader group on Facebook and find out what readers are talking about most, what fiction novels are the talking about most, you know, what are people, you know, what’s the, what’s the chatter about, you know, what, what series are people really, you know, going Gaga over right now, you know, and you know, lastly understand the differences between your genre and genres that are parallel or closely related to, but that are not that okay, because, you know, if I write and let’s say, for example, I write an urban fantasy novel.

M.D. Massey (33:58):

And I somehow think that I have written a harem or reverse harem novel. And I have, have not that I have not met reader expectations. You know, people are gonna go, they’re gonna, they’re gonna react to it. Readers are gonna let you know, for example lit RPG. I love myself some liberal lit RPG novels, right? Love lit RPG, novels, if they’re written well. And one of the things that your hardcore lit RPG, readers enjoy is they want stats. You know, they want game mechanics and they want stats. And so if you write light lit RPG, it is very light on stats and game mechanics and so forth. You know, some of the hardcore readers there, they’re not going to like that, and they’re going to respond poorly to, to your writing, to the novel you’ve written. So, so it’s important to understand, you know, some of the nuances and, and John was and sub genres and make sure that you’re narrowly focused on, on that John or a sub genre that you’re writing.

Paul Sating (34:52):

Yeah. And I would only add to that. I agree with the TV tropes to Facebook Reddit. Right? Right. It’s got a great urban fantasy community. If you don’t do Facebook, that’s another one to check out, look for those threads where they do the recommendation. Hey, I got the summer vacation with a kid. Somebody throw, what are you reading? Now? Those are great threads. One thing I also will do, because I’m just a glutton for punishment is if you’re new to a genre, in addition to everything Mike just shared is go check out some of those very targeted books out on the zone and scroll past all the author stuff you’ve done in those reviews. Go look at those one. And two star reviews, ignore the trolls, right? The, add nothing to the conversation, maybe even three stars. And look at, actually, I let me reverse that. Start with a three stars, then work down, but look at those three stars. Cause that means they liked the book. It was just enough about the book that kind of just set them off. What are they saying about that fiction? Maybe the author did miss some of those right to market expectations. And you’re hearing right from the reader themselves, what it was and where this author went off course. So that’s a great place to also get supplemental information.

M.D. Massey (36:05):

Another thing you need to pay attention to as well you know, is a book length, the expectations reader expectations for book length vary from genre to genre. You know, like you mentioned previously, you know epic fantasy, you’re talking about 900,000 word novels, urban fantasy 300, you know, 400 is a stretch. So, you know, you gotta be aware of that as well. You know, and I know some authors that have gotten away with writing nothing but 50,000 word novels and you know, that’s, that’s what they do. They just write 50,000 word novels, you know, which a novel is anything longer than 40,000 words. So a 50,000 word novel is a novel. It’s not a novelette, it’s not a novella, but that’s what they do. They just, they, their target is 50,000 words and that’s what they hit every single time. And that’s what their audience expects and so forth. So, so understand what audience expectations are as well. Before you start writing in a particular genre or write to market. So anything else, is there anything else you can think of Paul before?

Paul Sating (37:03):

I think we hit everything and we actually kept them over time. So I think we’ve given them a lot to think about.

M.D. Massey (37:10):

Okay, well you know, I, I could talk about this for an hour or more, but we’re, we’re trying to keep these episodes down to about 30 minutes, you know, so they’re, they’re relatively bite-size so, so I guess we’ll close it out this week. Paul, how can people find out more about your work and your books

Paul Sating (37:27):

Just come on over to Paul sating.com and you can check out everything I’ve got for you there.

M.D. Massey (37:32):

That is S a T I N G Paul sating.com. My website is M D massey.com, M as in Michael, D as in David Massey, M a S S E y.com. And you’ll find everything you know about me and my books and what I have coming out you know, not coming up. So that’s about it. I want to thank everybody for tuning in this week to this episode of urban fantasy author podcast. And we’ll be back in a couple more weeks with another action packed fun-filled episode.

Announcer (38:05):

Thanks for joining us. Remember to subscribe to our show on iTunes and be sure to stop by our website@urbanfantasyauthor.com for new podcast episodes, interview transcripts articles, news, and more see you next week.

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In this episode, hosts M.D. Massey and Paul Sating bring the podcast back from the dead with a new show format and a discussion on building trust with urban fantasy readers. Enjoy!

Show Notes:

1. Show format change (00:33)
2. What does building trust entail? (03:21)
3. Real-life examples of broken trust. (06:13)
4. How being authentic can help. (16:05)
5. Tips, tools, tactics to building trust. (20:18)

Show Transcript:

Announcer (00:00):

Welcome to the urban fantasy author podcast from indie authors to tread pub gritty, contemporary fantasy to lighthearted urban fantasy masquerade to unmasked every episode, we’ll bring you new interviews and commentary regarding all things urban fantasy. Now, here are your hosts, M D Massey and Paul sating.

M.D. Massey (00:23):

All right, so welcome everyone to the urban fantasy author podcast. I might ask you, and I’m here with Paul Sating. Paul say hi.

Paul Sating (00:30):

Hey guys, how you all doing?

M.D. Massey (00:33):

And we are just to let you know, we’re transitioning to kind of a new format for the podcast. In the past, when I started this podcast my, my vision for the podcast was to interview urban fantasy authors and to introduce listeners to their work, through samples of their audio books. And that’s worked really well. But what we found is, is it’s often difficult to book urban fantasy authors on a regular basis, which has caused us to be a bit inconsistent with posting new episodes. So what we’re doing is we’re actually changing the format of the show a little bit. We’re still going to invite authors in to do interviews time to time from time to time, but we’re doing kind of the little author chats. So what I’ve discovered through listening to my readers and feedback from my newsletter list and so forth from my subscribers is that there aren’t a lot of I guess you could say aspiring authors that read our works and Paul, have you found that as well? All that

Paul Sating (01:33):

Absolutely. Absolutely. I would say I would even take it a stretch further with some sort of a data to back it up as with my Patreon stuff, about half of my population on Patreon, you know, your hardcore supporters, they’re actually aspiring authors. They come for the non-fiction advice that I give as part of like a patriotic exclusive. So yeah, definitely from my experience as well.

M.D. Massey (01:55):

Yeah. So, so what I find is my most popular blog posts are always, I’m almost always when I post about kind of like writer insights, you know, like what is it like being in a D author, you know, the life of an indie author a day in an indie author’s life, you know, et cetera, et cetera, talking about you know, w you know, how I became a successful indie author and kind of sharing tips about that. I think my, my subscribers appreciate it. You know, my followers on Facebook appreciate it. I get a lot of feedback and a lot of interaction when I post that stuff. So we decided, well, let’s just go ahead and change gears for the podcast a little bit and talk about these things and share that with our audience. So that’s what we’re doing. And Paul, what is today’s topic? What are we talking about for this, this inaugural edition of the semi relaunched urban fantasy author podcast?

Paul Sating (02:45):

Well, what does a great segue, right? It to shift the format of the show and also talk about something that’s important. So that listeners trust that what they get when they listen, when they download or stream the podcast is what they expect from this. So topically, it works in well with being indie, indie writer and figuring out how do you build trust with your reader base, your fans, those people who love your stories, what is building trust to maintain it? How do you repair it when you’ve gone astray, as we all do as being human. So I think it’s a great thing to kick the show off with, in this new format.

M.D. Massey (03:21):

Yeah. So we’re talking about building trust today, building trust with breeders. I think it’s a, I think it’s a good topic to just start with today. So you know, talking about building trust. So the first thing is, you know, we talk about building trust with your fan base. What exactly does that mean? What are we, you know, what are we getting at? Because, you know, trust can mean many things, but I think for myself, what that means is it means building a reader base. I don’t like to say that I have fans because I’ve, I’ve always said authors don’t have things. Your books have fans, your series have fans, your characters have fans, your stories have fans, but you do not have fans. You have readers nobody, unless you’re, you know, like, I don’t know about DACI or eating, or, you know, something like tag, you know, people, people aren’t gonna recognize you walking down the street, you know, and to me, that’s it, you know, it’s a different thing, but and perhaps that’s just me being unnecessarily humble. But but for me, building trust is about showing my readers that I can delivery, consistent product that they can count on, and then they can come back and purchase again and again, and receive or enjoy a similar experience. Each time they pick up one of my novels, whether it’s the first novel in a series or whether it’s the 12th. So that, to me, that’s what it means. And Paula, what would you say,

Paul Sating (04:47):

No, I don’t disagree with you at all on that. I think that’s a great succinct way to actually capture what it is. They, I, I don’t see what we do it any differently than any other product that’s out there. When I go you know, I was thinking about this morning as I was preparing for it. When I pull up my favorite show on Netflix or Hulu B, because they have a new season out, I have expectations and I have the trust, a trust in those creatives and those writers to deliver the same. I like stupid comedy, you know, so to deliver the same level of stupid comedy. And when I buy a certain type of car, I know what kind of performance I expect out of that. And it’s, and when that is delivered, when that, when that product meets that expectation, that helps me build trust in, in that product.

Paul Sating (05:35):

And it’s the same thing with us. We do that through, like you said, Mike, with the series, with the releases meeting, what those expectations, what we, as creators have set for folks. And then it goes all the way down into, you know, the stylistic aspects of it, the, the voice we use, the edginess or lack of edginess, you know, if we make it vanilla or really on the fringe, whatever, if we deliver on those expectations that we’ve already set for folks. And I’ll take that even a step further, if we do shift one day that we have prepared folks for that shift.

M.D. Massey (06:13):

Yeah. And, you know, a perfect example of that. We spoke about this in our last mastermind group. We’ve started a mastermind group where several of us, urban fantasy author stuff, rust meet you know, together, we have a secret top secret group on Facebook that, you know, we get together and talk shop about once a month. And I related a story about how, when I wrote my first series, my them series, the scratch Sullivan series, that series, you know, it’s, post-apocalyptic, even though it’s paranormal, post-apocalyptic, post-apocalyptic kind of military paranormal, apocalypse novel, and the main character is very much your you know, kind of typical, you know, military veteran, you know, kind of, you know I, I hate to get it, I can talk politics because we talked about that as well. How I, you know, I’m more of an entertainer I write for entertainment and, and not to not to pander to any audience whatsoever, but kind of your typical ex-military kind of libertarian doesn’t necessarily trust the government, you know, that, that type of thing, you know, just basically general, you know, good old boy.

M.D. Massey (07:19):

And I, I, that series, you know, I mean that type of, of that genre attracts a certain type of reader and it’s a certain type of reader that reflects the main character. So when I shifted years and I decided to write the junkyard Druid series, well, you know, the main character is a young, you know not even 20 something, you know, 19 year old college student living in Austin, Texas, you know, so I figured, well, you know, this kid, you know, he’s probably, you know, kind of, he’s probably kind of liberal leaning, you know he probably has friends from all walks of life and, and not that scratch Sullivan is in any way a bigot, cause he’s not, you know, that’s not who the character is and characters was very much not, but you know, those elements weren’t very overt.

M.D. Massey (08:06):

And so, you know, one of the first scenes in the book is when Colin goes into he goes into LA creme, which is, you know, the coffee shop it’s run by the gay local coven leader, the vampire Kevin leader. And you know, I noticed that I got a lot of negative reviews and people actually went so far as to mention that in the reviews. And you know, I, in a way it really bothered me on a personal level because on a personal level, I’m like, this is just the type of people I meet every day in Austin, Texas, you know, it’s, it’s, you know, I’m like, come on, but on a professional level, as an author, you know, in hindsight, I realized that I had set certain expectations for my audience, and then I didn’t continue to maintain those expectations. Now, if I would have said, you know, in a newsletter or whatever, when I knocked the book and said, Hey, this is going to be a little bit different than last book.

M.D. Massey (08:54):

You know, the main characters are a little bit different because one of the mistakes that readers often make is that they mistake the main characters values for the authors values. And that’s not always necessarily the case. I want to write all different types of care. I don’t want to write just characters that just reflect my personal values. I want to write characters that reflect, you know, a plethora of values you know, it runs the gamut. So I think if I would’ve said at my newsletter, you know, well, you know, this, this character is, you know, going to be a little bit different, you know, these, this he’s, that, here’s how he’s different from scratch. So even if it’s not your cup of tea, you know, don’t buy the book, you know, but if it sounds interesting you to go buy it, I think that would have been a better way to pivot with my audience.

M.D. Massey (09:37):

And I think that, you know, I probably damaged some trust with the readership that I had developed after that point. Now, many of them stuck around like a lot of people, you know, I mean, you know, let’s face it, most people are, are, are, you know, pretty reasonable and I don’t care about stuff like that, you know? So that’s fine. In some sense, I, you know, I, I might say, well, you know, it’s easy to say, well, you know, I don’t want readers like that, but, you know, I don’t want to project my own personal values on my readers either. You know, I’m not here to preach to anybody I’m just here to entertain, you know? And I felt like I wrote a couple of very entertaining series, but, and in the same sentence, you know, you know, I’m sure that, you know, I could have pivoted a lot better. So, you know, that’s just a perfect example of how once you develop a certain type of trust and you, you, your readers trust you and they continue to buy your work because you are delivering, you know, a certain type of product that they’ve come to know and trust. And so then when you change that, when you pivot too much, sometimes that can damage that relationship.

Paul Sating (10:36):

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. You know, it’s, it’s part of that trust. It’s any kind of relationship. And I agree with you. I don’t think, except for the very elite we don’t have fans, we’ve got, you know, fans of a series fans of a character fans of a world, but we, you know, people, you know, people follow us because of that stuff. Not that they’re fans, but at the same time, it’s still a relationship it’s just like with any other type of relationship. And if we meet those expectations, if we meet them on that level, it doesn’t have to be intimate. You know, they can be a notional care, a person, not a notional character, a notional person. But if we meet them on that level, like when I write newsletters, I don’t write, you know, I, I, you know, my introductory welcome is, you know, hello to the army of immortals is it’s a little fantasy branding that I’m doing in my newsletters because I don’t, my plan is not to remain just restrict, restrict.

Paul Sating (11:34):

It’s got such a negative connotation, but I’m not going to just write urban fantasy. I will branch out into other low high fantasy, epic fantasy, dark fantasy type stuff. So I wanted a term that would kind of endear them on that level, but the content of the newsletters themselves is always written as if I’m talking to one person, you know, that notional newsletter subscriber. And I do that on purpose because I want to build that relationship with them. I do ask them you know, to respond to emails occasionally. And, you know, I have a question of the month type thing and get them to kind of build that, to also build out who my reader is out there. But at the same time, it is it’s, you know, part of that way of delivering those newsletters. And I noticed a far better response rate when I was consistent across all things.

Paul Sating (12:27):

I came over from the professional world, and then I did podcasting for roughly eight years before I started mutating my fiction scripts into novels. And then I said, I really dig this novel thing. I’m going to continue, but fantasy isn’t big in audio drama because it’s very difficult to pull off. You need big production dollars to do fantasy right in podcasting. So I had done things like thriller and horror, but that’s not where my love was. I wanted to get into fantasy. And as I transitioned, I was caught between the professional mindset. And I hadn’t, I didn’t understand who I was as an author, without throwing around the ugly, you know, the weird term of branding too much. And it wasn’t until I embraced that my newsletters need to sound just like the voice in the Zodiac series. You know, that same quirky, strange humor, just embrace who I am.

Paul Sating (13:25):

That’s when I started getting higher response rates, more open rates on emails and those higher response rates and more positive sales trends overall. And it’s because I believe one aspect of it was this thing we’re talking about here with building trust, the Paul and the newsletter, the new newsletter sounded a lot like the Paul author, the person behind the, the characters that you’re starting to fall in love with. It wasn’t always like that. And it was not until I actually said, you know, screw this Uber professionalism and this seriousness, let’s just have fun with the newsletters and use that same voice because that voice is, is the real me. I’m snarky I’m irreverent sometimes to a fault. And I struggled as a newer author to be okay with that. Once I did, I found that that positive reinforcement through that responsiveness that helped me embrace it and continue that and build on it. And I really feel like that was part of the building trust with those folks is they get to see more of the real me and that real me and the newsletter started sounding like the real me behind the stories in, you know, in the books that I write.

Speaker 4 (14:45):

Let’s all go to those lobby. Let’s all go to the lobby. Let’s all go to the lobby to get ourselves a treat.

Speaker 5 (14:59):

Dude is this thing on, I’m sorry to interrupt your urban fantasy podcast interview thingy. This is Colin McCool, and I’m breaking the fourth wall to encourage you to buy MD Massey’s books, because if you don’t, he’ll stop writing my stories. Chances are good. That’ll get me stuck in a temporal causality loop or left in the middle of a cliff hanger or some other crazy scenario that hack hasn’t thought up yet. So go to MD, massey.com now, and click on something that looks interesting, then buy the thing, please. Yeah, that’s all, I guess,

Speaker 6 (15:57):

[Inaudible]

Speaker 7 (15:59):

We used to meet your presentation.

M.D. Massey (16:05):

Well, you know, I think there’s been a trend in, in among consumers to be you know, more cynical and less trusting over the last three decades. And that, you know, the ability to project an authentic voice is so important when connecting with your audience and it doesn’t matter what you do, you know, in the in my past life, you know, I was a martial arts instructor, professional martial arts instructor for two decades. And then I segwayed into writing business Spaniels and doing consulting work for martial arts school owners. And what I found is, is that I gained traction very early on with my work, even though I didn’t have a huge platform because I had an authentic voice. I was at a point in my career where I was really just off with the martial arts industry and, you know, how commercialized, you know, martial arts instruction to become and so forth.

M.D. Massey (16:53):

And I let that, you know, kind of come through in my books and in my newsletters and in my blog posts. And, you know, a lot of people out there, I found out a lot of people felt the exact same way. They were like, yeah, commercialism, you know, ruining this industry. And, and so that helped me build an audience very early on. I have, you know, clients, customers, followers that have been with me for, you know 18 years since I wrote and released my first book, my first non-fiction book. So it’s interesting that people stick around when you have an authentic voice. And you know, I hope that I’m doing the same thing in, in writing fiction with my urban fantasy readers as well, you know you know, projecting that presenting an authentic voice and let people know who I really am, you know, and you know, sometimes it’s difficult to, because you know, in many ways in today’s business environment, you know, you, you kind of walk a fine line because, you know, you don’t want to pander to audiences.

M.D. Massey (17:47):

That’s something I’ve never wanted do. I’m like, you know, I, you know, I, when I read a book, when I pick up a fantasy novel and mostly read fantasy, although I would read some science fiction, but when I pick up a fantasy novel, you know, I don’t want to be preached to, and I don’t think my readers do either, in my opinion, you know, and once again, this might be, you know, somewhat false humility, but, you know, nobody gives a when my political views are, they don’t, they don’t need to hear that. And so, you know, I want to write a book that people can pick up and just escape, you know, and that’s, that’s what I’m trying to do. And hopefully, you know, that attitude is coming across as well in my communications and interactions with my readers. So,

Paul Sating (18:24):

Yeah, well, and it’s very important to do. And so boy, I, that’s a whole nother topic. Maybe we should tackle another day is I, there are like your comment just spurred this thought about I’ve had prominent authors. And we all know that the past year was a very turbulent trying year for everybody, but it really was, and it polarized us. It polarized us. And it was hard for me to see, and I’m not going to go, I swear, I’m not going to soap box, but it was hard for me to see because it did change. I lost trust in a few people that I looked up to because they were just as frustrated as us, but they’ve got a very large platform. And I’m talking about authors here, a very large platform, and they wanted to use that to voice, which is well within their right.

Paul Sating (19:15):

But at the same time, you have to understand the impact that it has on folks. And does that matter to you or not? Maybe these people I’m referring to probably have enough in the bank. They’re not going to ever worry about me not buying their books ever again. But I know we are trying to focus on shorter episodes. So one of the things I wanted to make sure that we covered is tactic tactically. Mike, I used to use a word when I did the horrible writing podcast, all the time tips, tools, and tactics is something I learned when I was a very young military guy. And I’ve kind of brought it over into the writing format because I, I, when you can anchor, when you give advice to folks and you can anchor it in something very specific, right. We can talk theory all day long, but sometimes folks just need something as concrete as we can make it. So what are Mike, what are some of the things that tactically you have done maybe tried and failed it or tried and succeeded, but what have you done that you feel has helped build and maintain trust over the years with your readers?

M.D. Massey (20:18):

Well, it’s funny, you mentioned your military background. I spent the whole weekend, 4th of July weekend with an old high school buddy of mine. My original DND buddy does the dragon buddy and he’s career military. He’s a major in the air force right now. He just got his first command. So it’ll probably be a light current soon, but it was funny because like he just communicates using like military lingo, you know, it’s like, you know, and he told him to text me when he get off the airplane. He’s like, we are officially in the AOR. You got it, man. It was a blast. So yeah, I get that. So, well, I think the first thing is being consistent in your app, like consistent publishing on a consistent schedule. And this last year I picked up my publishing schedule for the first half of the year. From December to June, I want to say that I wrote five or six books.

M.D. Massey (21:08):

I can’t remember. It’s close to that. Something like that, somewhere in the realm of five to six books, which is quite a bit more than it normally, normally I, I average four books a year, so trying to double that off, but this year, and what I found is is that right now, you know, I’m supposed to be on sabbatical, although I’m doing side hustle work, but I had to take some time off because I was pushing a little too hard and you know, it was starting to, you know, you know, kind of hinder my muse, you know, once your passion starts to feel like work, you know, it, it becomes hard to put out, you know, I would say a quality product put out a consistent product. You know, I have to enjoy the writing process. I have to make sure that I’ve maintained that balance between how hard I pushed myself working and, you know, and, and also, you know, the work rest balance and all that stuff.

M.D. Massey (21:53):

So, so that my books, the books that I’m writing are consistent quality. You know, if I don’t enjoy the writing, it comes through, you know, it shows in what I’m, what I’m putting out when I’m publishing. But I think despite that if your readers learn to expect the book from you every two months or every three months, you need to stick with that. You need to make sure that if you’re putting out four books a year, that, you know, you’re, you’re delivering four books a year, you know, and if you promise, read or something, you know, you promise them a book, you know, every four months or something like that, that you stick with that, you know, whatever it is. And I’ve heard many indie authors say that the minimum buy-in now as far as how often you publish frequency of publishing is about four books a year.

M.D. Massey (22:32):

You know, that’s pretty much the minimum buy in. If you want to be a full-time professional indie author. And you know, once you get your readers accustomed to that, boy, you better stick with it. Because as I said before, once you let your readers down, once you let them down. And, and instead of delivering a book, you know, in say three months, it takes you six months, you know, those a second, the second half of that six month period, you know, they’re not just gonna like turn to other authors, they’re going to forget about you, you know, because consumers have short memories now. And I, this is not saying anything bad about readers or whatever, but, you know, I mean, readers read to be entertained. And if you’re not entertaining the some other author womb. So I think that’s really important. I think that’s one of the tactics is just simply consistency.

Paul Sating (23:17):

Yeah, no, I absolutely agree. And it’s funny, you mentioned that because again, anybody who has looked at, I look at my website, you can see I’m all over the board. And I readily admit it. I jumped into this stuff because I tapped, I retired from the military and I realized I’ve, I’ve wanted to write, I want to be that eight year old again, who is writing in second grade and winning story contest. I want to be that person again. I’ve got that position in my life now where I can do it, I’m going to do it. But as is one of my failings or failures, I go after things, if I want something, I’m, I’m that dog that will not let go of your pant leg. So w that’s why when you go look at me on the Amazon page, you’ll see I’m all over the place.

Paul Sating (23:58):

But I have started dedicating a lot of time to businesses, positioning myself and fantasy, which is why I got those four Zodiac books out last year. And I’ll do two this year. And I don’t know how you feel about this, Mike, but one of the things I did, because I believe that you better you better hit those marks with those expectations that you set for releasing. And if you can’t, or if something changes to make sure you educate folks, folks, aren’t dumb. And if you respect, I feel if you are, you know, that reciprocity in terms of respect, if you let them know if something’s going to change, you do it. So, for example, I just released my fifth book in may and the sixth one doesn’t come out for a half year later, but in the series catalog in those books and now went even back into the back matter of the older ones, I made sure I updated that to let folks know, you know, book six, the title and bracket, you know, in parentheses coming fall 2021, just let folks know it’s a target I’m going to hit because it’s already done and I’m working on the audio book now.

Paul Sating (25:02):

So it’ll be ready well in advance of when it needs to drop, but at least I’ve done that for them. And then, like you’re saying, going forward, I’ve corrected course to where I can be releasing, you know, those books more regularly, and I’ve shifted in terms of series. So the Zodiac books will still come out twice a year and I’ll be doing a number of other books in between that. Because again, I’m going to try to tackle two branches of this fantasy tree, but with consistent releases, what about pricing? How do you feel about that? Because I know this can be a buyer genre thing, but this is an urban fantasy author podcast. So for urban fantasy and pricing and building trust with your fans, we’ve got the business gurus who tell us, you know, here’s a strategy and as the market shifts you shift, but I I’d love to know what you think about, how do you use pricing or the pricing element as a trust builder with fans or with readers?

M.D. Massey (26:01):

Honestly, I think a lot of any authors underprice their work. I think a lot of indie authors underestimate the amount of money that readers are willing to spend on a book. Now, I know there’s data out there that comes from various sources that we author see what indie authors see about, you know, what is the the sweet spot, you know, what’s the best price point now. And, and many times it’s said to be 4 99 or something like that. But you know, coming from my background as a small business consultant, one of the biggest hurdles that almost every client ever had, had to overcome was believing in, in their own product, the quality of their own product and charging what they were worth. You know, so Amazon makes us as indie authors. If we want to get that sweet 70% commission, Amazon makes us price our books between 2 99 and 9 99, if they’re in.

M.D. Massey (26:54):

And also if they’re Kindle unlimited, I think they have to be priced, you know, a certain amount I forget. But but anyway, that’s kind of where Amazon wants us to price eBooks. And so, you know, anywhere in that kind of range is pretty comfortable, that’s a pretty comfortable place where people that just spend money on books, right? Like if I see a book at an e-book by favorite author, it’s 8 99 or 9 99, you know, I’ll pull the trigger on that. Some people have tighter budgets, you know, so they might go for, you know, like 2 99 book or something like that. So you have to remember that, but you know, honestly, as far as pricing goes, what I think you have to do is, is you just have to be consistent. You know, if you’re, you know, if you’re pricing your books at 4 99, you know, and be consistent about that and make sure that every book that comes out is priced at 4 99.

M.D. Massey (27:37):

You know, if your price point is 2 99, and you’ve developed a readership for 2 99, you know, there’s nothing that says that you can’t raise your prices over time, but you should still drop some books that are 2 99 for those readers that started with you, you know, when you were, when your books were priced lower. And that’s why, if you look at my series on, are branching off and doing a spinoff series right now, but typically the first book in the series is usually priced at 2 99, you know, because, you know, I feel like, you know, that’s what I started at and I should still drop some books that are priced at 2 99. So, you know, people can pick them up at a reasonable price and then if they decide that they’re invested in it and they really want to keep reading, you know, then maybe will spend a little more 4 99 or 5 99.

M.D. Massey (28:16):

But once again, I think it’s just consistency, you know you know, don’t, don’t, you know, start dropping books at 2 99 and then all of a sudden raise the price to 9 99 because some book room tone, I don’t think anybody’s doing that. The only, the only place where I can sell an ebook for 9 99 consistently is a non-fiction, you know, cause the perceived value is a lot higher, but but still, yeah, I think, you know, consistency is good and nobody likes a bait and switch. No, no, no I, yeah. Yeah. Or, you know, in layman’s terms, you know, don’t on your readers. So, you know, I’ll, I’ll say this, I wanted to mention this earlier. I think a lot of authors do kind of crap on their readers. You know, because you know, let’s face it. A lot of us authors are introverts and we don’t people very well.

M.D. Massey (29:08):

So we don’t do people in very well. So you know, when readers start to, you know, clamor for the next book, when’s the audio book going to be at? You know, that’s what I always hear. And it doesn’t bother me. You know, some authors really get prickly about this stuff. When’s the next book coming out? When is the audio book coming out? What is this, what is that? And they feel like they’re being badgered by the readers. And in my mind, I’m looking at it like, you know, glass, half full I’m like, yay. You know, these people want the next thing that I’m creating. So I think it’s good, but I think oftentimes, you know I think authors and through having kind of a negative attitude in their minds that we used to develop an adversarial relationship with their readers. And I think that’s very harmful.

M.D. Massey (29:51):

It’s harmful for the author it’s harmful for their career. And then they end up letting that come out, you know, through their interactions with readers, you know, I’ll post a snarky post on their Facebook page and you know, or an email or whatever, to their newsletter subscribers about, you know, don’t, you know, stop asking this and that. And I’m like, wow, don’t do that to your readers. These people, you know, they’re, they’re, you know, they’re, you’re paying your mortgage man and your car payment or whatever, you know, this is the, these, these, these are the people that help you build your career, you know, so treat them right. And that’s, that’s another thing I think, you know, developing, you know, trust in every interaction with your readers, you know, shouldn’t be, it should be positive. Even when somebody, some dude, some dude gave me a backhand had gotten that compliment.

M.D. Massey (30:36):

It was so obvious, you know, that he was kinda like just being snarky. And I was like, okay, whatever, I’m ready. I’m not even going to acknowledge it. You know? And I just kept being polite and so forth because that’s professionalism, right. When, when somebody is, is unprofessional with you and your professional in return, that is the market that your profession. So, you know, I think making sure, and besides the fact that we want to treat people the way we want to be treated, you know, I was a reader and I have contacted authors in the past and have them be very short and very snarky with me, you know, when I was contacting them to compliment them or their work or whatever, you know, that sticks for the reader. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And I don’t think, I don’t think we can afford to deal with

Paul Sating (31:15):

So, no, I, I think that’s a great example. I’ll share anecdotally real quick, cause I know we’re getting ready to wrap up, but that, to your point right there at the end, you can’t see, cause it’s over behind my monitor, but I was a young, young military guy who was stationed overseas in Germany. And back in the day I was I had just discovered Pierce Anthony and I loved his stuff. So I, and I had learned that he had served as well. So I mean, God, I was 19. I think I wrote him and I was curious how somebody like Pierce Anthony. Cause at that time he had 20, 30 books already. By the time I found him how he balanced the military career, a family and being able to get published back in the day when you had to wait three years for your book to see the light of day kind of thing.

Paul Sating (32:03):

And, and it’s funny that you say that Mike, because I’m looking right over my computer monitor and I still got his letter framed because he didn’t reply shortly. The, the dude wrote me an entire single-spaced very full letter response. It’s got to be, I don’t know, 300, 350, 400 word response from him. He was already established at that time. And he took that much time for me and I never forgot it. I, you know, that’s still my example to this day, if you don’t, these people are your biggest cheerleaders. If you’re having a crappy day, put your phone where you can’t get to it and come back to that when you’re in a better mindset.

M.D. Massey (32:39):

Yep. Yeah. Just yeah. Yeah. You know, because if you’re having a day where you can’t say anything, nice, don’t say anything at all, you know, just like mommy’s to tell you. So you know, something do that. Yeah. Those are words to live by when you’re interacting with readers, you know, and the readers are listening to this podcast, you know you know, I hope you take it to heart. You know, I personally am. I’m very thankful every day. I, you know, I wake up some not necessarily wake up, but, but at some point during the day, every day, I remember to be thankful for the fact that I have an indie author career because it really is a dream job, you know? And there are, I realized there are many, many people out there who would kill to be in, in that position, the position I’ve been in. Yeah. And so you know, I I’m, I’m thankful for it. And I thank my readers for coming along in the journey with me.

Paul Sating (33:32):

They’re the ones who make it possible.

M.D. Massey (33:34):

Absolutely. All right, cool. So, you know, with that you know, campfire, kumbaya Fest, I think we can wrap up this this episode. So anyway, we’re going to be coming at you. How often are we going to be publishing this episode? Depaul,

Paul Sating (33:52):

We’re going to aim for folks. We’re going to try to do a bimonthly. So twice a month, you’re going to get new episodes, topically like this. So of course, if you have something specific, you want to hear us banter around and along with guest authors, we are working with a few authors to get them on and have them throw their opinions in as well. Let us know, reach out to us at our sites, which are all over on the urban fantasy author, pod website and we’ll work those in as well. But yeah, we’re going to try to do twice a month.

M.D. Massey (34:21):

Yeah. And if you are an indie author and your fantasy author and you have, you know, several, if you have at least one book published, but we would prefer for you to have at least a finished Revegy before we introduce them to our audience. But if you’d like to come on and you know let us host you for an interview, you know, feel free to reach out to us and we’ll be, we’ll be happy to speak with you about that. You know you know, personally, I enjoy speaking with other authors, which is why I started that Eric fantasy mastermind group that we’re at. So yeah, by all means, you know, feel free to reach out to us now. What do we have coming up in the next episode?

Paul Sating (34:57):

The next episode is going to be fun. We’re going to be talking about writing to market specific to urban fantasy. So that’ll be a fun conversation.

M.D. Massey (35:06):

Yeah, it is actually one of my favorite topics. So that, that should be a good one. So everybody tunes in for that. So for everybody out there listening, I want to thank you for tuning into the podcast and make sure you hit that subscribe button, subscribe to the podcast. You can be notified when we have new episodes dropping both on iTunes and on other platforms. And once again, thanks everyone. Remember let’s see here, Paul, where can people go to find out more about your work?

Paul Sating (35:35):

And if they just head over to Paul sating.com, they can find all they want.

M.D. Massey (35:40):

Okay. And my website is M D massey.com, M D as in David massey.com. And once again, you can find all my work there. Thanks everyone. And we’ll be back in a couple of weeks with another episode.

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