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Book Shop Chats:
Welcome to Book Shop Chats, your go to podcast for indie authors and learning insight into what it takes to write a book (HINT: You can do it too!!)
Join authors as they share their personal journeys, successes, and challenges, providing you with unique insights into the writing process. The discussions explore into various aspects of storytelling, from character development to plot structuring, ensuring you have a well-rounded understanding of the craft.
Whether you're just starting out or have published multiple works, this podcast is your companion in the pursuit of storytelling excellence. Tune in, gather inspiration, and let your passion for writing flourish alongside a community that celebrates the art of the written word.
Book Shop Chats:
Dragons, Romance, And Going Indie With J.M Frey
About the Author:
J.M. is an author, screenwriter, and lapsed academic. With an MA in Communications and Culture, she’s appeared in podcasts, documentaries, and on radio and television to discuss all things geeky through the lens of academia. She also has an addiction to scarves, Doctor Who, and tea, which may or may not all be related. Her life’s ambition is to have stepped foot on every continent (only 3 left!)
J.M.’s also a professionally trained actor who takes absolute delight in weird stories, over the top performances, and quirky characters. She’s played everything from Marmee to the Red Queen, Jane Eyre to Annie, and dozens of strange creatures and earnest heroines as a voice actor.
Her debut novel Triptych was nominated for two Lambda Literary Awards, won the San Francisco Book Festival award for SF/F, was nominated for a 2011 CBC Bookie, was named one of The Advocate’s Best Overlooked Books of 2011, and garnered both a starred review and a place among the Best Books of 2011 from Publishers Weekly.
Book Blurb:
Colin Levesque is at loose ends. He’s finished university, but has no career; he adores romance novels, but he’s crap at relationships; and his prickliness is a detriment at the café where he’s making ends meet. He also has a crush on his regular Dav, a homo draconis who comes in every morning to read his newspaper, sip his double-strong coffee, and stare longingly at Colin in return.
About Victoria:
Hey there, I’m Victoria! As a writer and developmental editor, I specialize in helping busy writers bring their publishing dreams to life without the overwhelm. Your story deserves to shine, let's make magic together.
Here’s how I can help:
📖 FREE 7 day Writing Reset: Daily support in your inbox for 7 days.
Grab it HERE
📝 Developmental Editing: Get expert feedback that elevates your manuscript, strengthens your story, and polishes your characters.
✍️ 1:1 monthly support: Revitalize your creativity, map out your novel, and unleash your authentic voice.
Your story deserves to shine, and I’m here to make it happen. Let’s turn your writing dreams into a reality!
📱 IG: @editsbyvictoria
🌐 LINKS: Victoria Jane Editorial
Welcome to Book Shop Chats, where we cozy up with books, creativity, and embrace the magical, messy process of writing a book. I'm Victoria Jane, a writer, developmental editor, and coach for sensitive busy writers, and I love to support you on your journey of bringing your story to life. So whether you're here for inspiration, behind the scenes peaks of what it what it means to actually write a book, or just some bookish conversations, you are definitely in the right place. And if you're looking for more personalized support, I also offer one-to-one writing support sessions to help bring your story to life because sometimes you need a little bit of support digging through the noise that is your brain because it's saying. And if you've got a finished draft, I would love to chat to you about developmental editing. It is my favorite thing. I love supporting authors and bringing their story to life. You can find all of the details in the show notes. So grab a coffee, grab a tea, plug in your headphones, go on a little walk, and let's dive into today's episode. Welcome back to Bookshop Chats. In today's episode, I am chatting with JM Fry. Welcome to the podcast.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you for having me back again.
SPEAKER_00:I am excited to chat with you. I feel like this is going to be the perfect like afternoon, like Kathleen, pick me up.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. Well, I really enjoyed it last time because by the end of the podcast, I was like, I feel like we're friends. Yes. But like when I booked this one again, um and you came on the screen, I was like, oh, there's my friend. Hello, I missed you.
SPEAKER_00:I love it. And I feel like it's just so nice. Uh, like the two Canadians. Uh, because I feel like sometimes we can get lost in the sea of like all of the um other authors. So it's always nice to connect with somebody who understands our little like funny language things and such.
SPEAKER_01:I said Gen Zed on a podcast recently because the the main character of my new book is a Gen Zedder. And I can see the faces of the of the other hosts going, what?
SPEAKER_00:Right? It's just things that you don't even think about that you're doing it. And then I think too, even just with where you are, like I'm on the West Coast, you're the East Coast. So I think even there we're gonna have different little like um subtle shifts in certain words and things that uh I'd be like, huh, what? What does that mean? Amazing. Well, we are gonna be chatting all about your new book, which I I you showed me the cover and I need to I need to know all of the details about this story. So please uh let's dive right in.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. Well, this book is called Nine Tenths. Uh, for those who listened to my previous interview on Bookshop Chats, it was uh the one where I was complaining that I couldn't find a publisher for it. So here's the update on that. I couldn't find a publisher for it, and I couldn't find an agent for it. And I decided that I would go it alone for the first time in my life. This is a completely independently published book. I typeset it myself. I designed the cover. I did not do the illustration. I hired an amazing artist off of Tumblr. Um, and she was phenomenal to work with. And uh I hired one of my friends who's a professional illustrator to give me a flyleaf map. And I did the whole thing by myself because I just realized that while the market didn't really know what it wanted to do with the books, and the agents and the publishers who reviewed it said they liked it. Um, they all liked different things, and they all said different aspects of the book uh would make it unpublishable or unsaleable or unmarketable, but they never said the same thing twice. And everybody I spoke to was saying, Well, that sounds really interesting. That sounds really interesting. I'd love to read that, I'd love to read that. And I just realized that the market wasn't ready for the book, but the readership was. And if I kept sitting around with my thumb in my mouth instead of on the keys, uh, the book would sort of not go stale, because books don't go stale, but it it would get to the point. It had already been almost six years. Um, it would get to the point where I just had it, it would be stale. Yeah, I would have to change too much of it to update it. So it was basically over the last holiday season, now or never. So I started working on it in February. I put it out in June on Amazon, and then after the 90-day exclusivity period on Amazon, I released it on my birthday on September 30th. I love it.
SPEAKER_00:That is amazing. That's so cool. Uh, well, I would love to hear a little bit more. I know we we chatted, I think, a little bit about the book um in the last episode, but uh, I feel like we could all use a little bit of a refresher.
SPEAKER_01:Um is the book actually about?
SPEAKER_00:Yes. What is the book about? Like, what is the teaser? Like, give me all of the magical things that uh, you know, make me want to pick it up.
SPEAKER_01:Well, it's called Nine Tenths from the idiom Nine Tenths of the Law, Possession is Nine Tenths of the Law. And it is a story about dragons. Um, if you're gonna talk about possession and hoarding, um, dragons, of course. And uh it is, on the surface, an adorable, queer, contemporary romanticy rom-com, uh, set in a world that's only very slightly different from ours. Um, the only magic that exists in the world is that there are dragons, there are shape-shifting dragons, so there's Homo sapiens and Homo Draconus, and they can shape shift into dragons. And I don't explain how, um, it's just biology. And I made a point that the dragons have equivalents of mass when they shapeshift, so it's not 200-pound guy to Smaug, it's 200-pound guy to a 200-pound dragon. So, like they're the size of a Saint Bernard, right? Yeah, or a great dame, something like that. Um, and in this world, dragons are on top, they are monarchs, they are emperors, they are the nobility, because of course, what is colonialism but hoarding? Um, so it's a story about a Welsh dragon named Dav, who lives in Canada, who lives in the Niagara, the Niagara region, and he is sweet and shy and very quiet, and he has got a massive crush on his barista, Colin. And Colin is newly graduated and he doesn't know what to do with his degree, and he uh is recovering from trauma because his father passed away very suddenly and very unexpectedly, and he's kind of floundering in life, so he's got this job as a barista, which he doesn't love. Um, and he's mouthy and he's opinionated and he's a bit of a disaster. Um, so he's me. And like if I had to point at a character that was the most like me, it would definitely be Colin Levesque. Um and and one day, and he's got a crush on the dragon bag, and it starts as like a cute little coffee shop romance, but of course, um Dav gets really nervous one day and he hiccups fire, and he almost burns down the cafe that Colin works at, and in in return, because he destroys the bean roaster, they can't they can't roast coffee beans. Um, Dav the Dragon is like, well, I could try doing it with my dragon breath, and they make dragon-roasted coffee, and then because it wouldn't be a JM Fry book if I didn't throw everybody off the deep end and completely change the genre halfway through, it turns out that dragon-roasted coffee actually cures people's genetic ailments. Wow, okay, I love it. And it turns out that humans and dragons were always meant to be not separate, but symbiotic species. And because of this colonialism and this hoarding and this selfishness on the part of Western European dragons, humans are not reaping the benefit of the symbiosis, and dragons are likewise being negatively affected in their mental health and their own biology. So then the story becomes sort of like this political analogy for settler accountability and mental health rep and positive mental health changes, and um, you know, can there be ethical billionaires?
SPEAKER_00:Oh wow, like I love I love that. Like it's it's you know, fiction is just full of so many amazing themes, right?
SPEAKER_01:I think that's such a great way of weaving it in, but it's it's also fun because there's dragons, and it's still a sweet romance, and there's still some open door scenes, and there's not quite monster fucking in this one, but they skirt pretty close to it. And uh you can imagine it. You can imagine all the scenes that I didn't explicitly write down. Go write the fanfiction because I I promise you there was oh my gosh, and they get there happily ever after because I do love me a sweet, historical inspired, historical flavored romance.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, there is something I feel like I just need that in my life, right? Like if I'm reading, I really want it to feel good at the end, and I just yeah, life is crazy, so having that is always always a lovely bonus.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. When you get to the end of the book and you go, Oh, it's like in Did you ever watch the movie Kate and Leopold? Yes, I did. I love the Natasha Duche. Is that how you say her name? The actress's character who is the receptionist for Kate. Yes, yes, who reads Harlequin's or Mills and Boone's books, and it's like a running gag in the in the movie that, like, if she's on the last couple pages, nobody can talk to her. She's she's at her desk sobbing. And the first time you're introduced to the character, she comes into Kate's office and she's like, Okay, this is what you have on your schedule today. And Kate's like, How did it end? She goes, He lost his leg to gang green, but they're together on the island now. And I was just like, Yes, that's the kind of happily ever after reader I am.
SPEAKER_00:That's me. I love it. It's so good. It just, yeah, you know what? It that's it just brings all the joy to my heart. I am so here for that. Amazing.
SPEAKER_01:Important to me that this book have a happily ever after.
SPEAKER_00:Right? I think, yeah, I I that's realistically, I just couldn't write a book without that. I don't think it's it's not in my my wheelhouse. Like, how do I do this? How do I destroy readers? Um, in in that kind of way. I feel like there's many other ways that you can uh destroy them, but it can still be happily ever after at the end.
SPEAKER_01:I'll destroy them on page 300.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, definitely. Uh well, I would love to hear a little bit about the you know, journey into self-publishing, having, you know, your other books been traditionally published. I feel like that's something that I always find really interesting. If if like hearing the differences between both of them, um, and obviously you having firsthand experience very recently of what that's like. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Well, so my my journey into self-publishing was actually quite slow because um I had published 11 books, 10 books previously, um, all of them with small presses, all of them through an agent. Um, and one by one, those small presses um and I parted ways for various different reasons. And I won't get into the dirty laundry, nitty-gritty thing here, but I eventually ended up with all of my titles back. If uh if the publisher is not publishing them, then they're just rotting on my hard drive. Right. So I reached out to a friend who does self-publish and I said, Can you help me just get these books back out into the world? They've been professionally edited. I'm not allowed to use the covers that the publishers created because they own those covers. So between me and a couple of friends, three, three different friends, um, I got all those books retypeset, recovered, put back out. They helped me set up my Ingram Spark account. They helped me set up everything that I would need to get those books out in a in a professional capacity. And the nice thing about having published traditionally before is that I know what a book should look like. Yes. I know what the interior should look like, I know what the front cover matter should be, I know what a half title is. I have done the whole process so I could look at what I had and turn it into a product that was just as good as a professional publisher had done. And then I did um, and then the lockdown happened and the um the workshop that I used to travel all over Ontario giving, uh um, they all became online, and most of the festivals closed or died, or you know, haven't come back. So I lost a big part of my income, um, which was giving this three-hour workshop at festivals. Right. Um, so I turned it into a textbook, and that was the first one that I did completely by myself. And I did it with Word, which I don't recommend. Um, and I I got some friends in to help me with the cover again, and it was just a very frustrating process because it was a workbook where you're meant to write in it. So like the lines had to be right, it was very finicky. Published with Penguin Random House, W by Wattpad Books. That's the book we spoke about in our last podcast, Time and Tide. And then I was I was trying to sell 910s. Um, and I think it ended up being 348 rejections or 28 rejections, something like that. I have to go back to my switch. Enough that I I I bought a blueberry cheesecake at for the 200th rejection. Oh gosh. My friend's a professional baker, so I had her write on the cheesecake, happy 200th rejection. And then I saved a slice of it and put it in my freezer, and I ate that slice on my 300th rejection. And by then I had I mean I could read the room, right? And I'd had a couple of close calls, I'd had some full requests, I'd had some phone calls, I'd had some conversations with agents, but in the end, like I said earlier, um, in the end, the book they they just didn't really know what to do with it. Some said it was too long, some said it was just right, some said the tone was off, some said the tone was their favorite thing. Some people loved the voice, some people hated the voice, some people hated that it was single POV, some people loved that it was single POV. Like if more than one agent had pointed out the same flaw, I would have changed it, but none of them did. Um so yeah, I guess I was just having a conversation with my mother and she said, you know, you this is making you miserable. You used to be so happy when you were writing, especially when you were writing fanfiction. Why can't you just put it out there like you used to do with fanfiction? Yeah. And I was like, you know what? You're right. I it's I it's just become clear that this book is not going to be the next red, white, and royal blue. I want it to be, I still want it to be, but it's just not going to be. It's at least not through an agent, through a publisher. Um so I started looking into not typesetting with Word. I found Atticus, thank God. Um, so I typeset in Atticus, which I found very intuitive and very easy to use. This is not an ad for them, they have not paid me, but I recommend Atticus if you're going to try to typeset a book yourself. And what I really like about it is that there's template setup. So if I decide to write more books in this series, the template already exists. So all I have to do is drop the words into it and hit export. I like it shouldn't take me longer than an hour to typeset any sequels in in this series if I choose to write them. I mean, that that's kind of it. It was sort of like it was partially like, I think this book is really good. And if it doesn't come out now, I'm never gonna put it out. Because I think it's also hitting the readership zeitgeist.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And I want to try to like dragons are coming back. I need to publish this while Fourth Wing is still publishing, you know? Yeah. Um, and while romanticy is still a thing before romanticy becomes too oversaturated, and before cartoon covers become too oversaturated, and before it was like there's not a deadline on this, but there's a timeline for it. Um, and then yeah, at that point, I had started writing this book in November of 2019. It I was ready, it was ready. Yeah. So I went back a couple of drafts back to my favorite version of the book, which is perhaps a little more luxurious and meanders a little bit more. And there's a couple of B plots that I had cut out for the sake of word count, that I was just like, you can just exist, you can go back to existing. And I published my favorite version of the book. Um, and here it is. And I mean, the reviews seem to echo everything that I was thinking that this is the right time for this book to come out, that this is the right environment for the book to come out. Like when I first um was querying the book, the the term romanticy wasn't widespread. I'd never heard the term romantic. And um My Lady Jane, the books had come out, but the TV show hadn't. Yeah. And uh the nightmare, like Sarah Rack's books, The Nightmare Before Kissmas, Go Luck Yourself, Entanglement of Rival Wizards, which I think have a very similar tone and a very similar plot structure and a very similar voice to mine, had they they weren't out or they hadn't hit the New York Times bestseller list yet, or the USA Today bestseller list. So when I was first trying to query this book, I was having a really hard time with a metadata paragraph because I didn't, I didn't know what my comparables were, I didn't know the terms I needed. I was trying to figure out how to say magical realism without saying magical realism, because of course I'm not Latina, so I can't do like Lorca's magical realism. Yeah. Um fabulist fantasy. I don't know, I don't know. And then by the time I sent the last query letter in mid early 2024, I could say, oh, this is Meets in the Middle between Red, White, and Royal Blue and The Nightmare Before Kistmas with the fourth wall tapping um shenanigans of She Hulk. Is a queer contemporary romantic. Um and and it would just it's it's it is funny how the environment just adapted around the book. Yeah. Um so it was the perfect time. I knew that if I waited much longer than fall of 2025, it would get lost in more books like that, and the the fad or the trend or the moment would have passed. The lightning strike would be over.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, I do feel that that I think there is, especially with social media, book talk, bookstagram, it it moves so fast. So it can be hard sometimes to be like, oh, like I it's the time, right?
SPEAKER_01:And I think it's now the moment. Do I wait another month?
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_01:Should I have done it a month ago? Crap, you know.
SPEAKER_00:I know it's so hard. But I think, yeah, getting it out there is key. And I think often with these sort of like different stories or the ones that sort of bend genres a little bit, the trad publishers kind of have to see it in the market and then be like, wait, there's a readership for this. And then I think you know that it's always a bit late. It's it's like there's always that that gap of time between like what's really blowing up in the in the self-publishing, and then you start to see it like go into the trad published space because it is a big business, and I think that's the thing is that like it needs to make money, and if they don't think it can make money, then yeah, and that's a big thing that all of these agents and publishers and the conversations I had was I they saying I don't know how to sell this.
SPEAKER_01:And in the beginning, I didn't know how to sell it either. I couldn't, I couldn't tell them how to sell it, but then the She-Hulk TV show came out, and I was like, Okay, so like how Jennifer turns to the camera and addresses people, Colin. This is the other thing with the book. Colin is such a huge romance novel fan that he actually stops the narrative and looks out at the reader and says, Are you paying attention? I love it. Um, this is the inciting incident. Are you paying attention? Okay, ready? Let's do it. That's so fun. Actually, if I can read it for you, the first paragraph is um there's this thing in stories called an inciting incident. And mine, it's a goddamn doozy. It's the part of the book right at the start where you pinch the pages between your fingers and whisper to yourself, here we go. It's the bit where the lovers have their meat cute, the farm boy leaves the family behind for the wider world, the chosen one is attacked by her first evil monster, blah blah blah, you know what I mean. It's my favorite part of the book. It's the place where everything opens up and you have no idea what you're in for. Only that it'll be exciting. I know all about inciting incidences because I was going oh, because I was going to be a writer. Um, and then there's a little bit more blah blah blah. And uh he says, all of this to say that I can, with complete and utter certainty, point to the exact moment when my life became a trash fire. It was my 24th birthday, and my big sister Gemma gave me the dumbest but most totally plot-inducing gift, a sunrise alarm clock. My inciting incident starts like this: in Mum's pokey kitchen with Gemma turning over the box that the wrapping paper reveals, trying to figure out where the English description is hidden.
SPEAKER_00:I love it. I love it. I find that that's so fun. Um, when like I kind of nerd out listening, like when I'm listening or reading books now of just like how the author structures it or the way in which it's written, maybe a little bit different for what we typically see in in a genre um and and stuff. And it's always a little refreshing when you're like, oh, I wouldn't have thought to to do it like this. This is really cool. And it's it's it's it makes it fun, I think.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And I don't know why I started that framing device. I don't remember at what draft the framing device came in or what chapter. But I think it's it's I really, really love metafiction. If you read the accidental turn series, you know that I love metafiction. I love stories about stories, I like movies about movies, I like books about books, like Cornelia Funke's Inkart is ingrained in my soul. I love Howell's Moving Castle because it it starts very similarly. In the land of Ingury, where such things as invisible cloaks and Seven League boots actually exist, it is quite the misfortune to be born the eldest of three. It's it's Diana Wynne Jones playing with fairy tale convention.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And the whole book is, and and I mean the movie's lovely, but it's a different story. Um, the book is about fairy tale convention and how Sophie Hatter assumes that her life has to go like this because she's the eldest daughter of three, and it goes like that instead. Um I love those kinds of stories. They're my favorite, so they're my favorite to write as well. And I think it was uh maybe two or three chapters in before Colin started stopping the narrative to talk to the reader, and I was like, ooh, ooh, ooh, I like that's so fun.
SPEAKER_00:I I when the yeah, just this I feel like sometimes the story just it just leads to where it's gonna go, and you're like, I okay, we're we're doing this here. Like, this is what he needs, this is what he wants. Okay. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And a reviewer pointed out, and and this wasn't intentional, but this is the result of the book. A reviewer pointed out Colin spends the entire book wanting to write a romance novel. And what you're reading is the product of that desire to write a romance novel. So the idea is that after his happily ever after, he sits down with a pen like Bilbo Baggins and he writes the red book. Um, he writes the book of his romance. And I was like, Well, that's not what I intended, but that's amazing. So I'm gonna take that now. Right. Nine tenths is the book that Colin wrote.
SPEAKER_00:Sure. Okay, sure. I love it. I love it when somebody else sees that thing that you're like, yeah, I totally meant to do that. I totally did. I totally did. 100% amazing. Well, I'd love to chat a little bit about the sort of marketing side of uh the self-publishing, which I feel like is often like what uh what? Uh there's just so much that goes into uh I feel like any author, whether you are traditionally published or self-published now, like marketing is such a huge part of it. And I think you are doing a lot of it. So I would love to hear how you kind of like make it work for you, maybe make it fun, or things maybe outside of the box that you're like, I'm gonna do that instead of make reels.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Oh, the TikTok. I mean, so you said I'm doing a lot of it. The truth is I'm doing all of it because I'm self-publishing. Yes. And even when you're with a smaller press, or if you're not the big hit bestseller at a big five, a lot of the marketing falls to you. You want cute stickers, you have to do that. You want bookmarks, you have to do that. You want a launch party, you have to do that. I think a lot of authors don't realize that unless you're like Stephen King, um, you have to do 90% of what you see out there. Um, every author who's ever done a book tour that I know personally has arranged the book tour themselves. Maybe the publisher has paid for some of the hotels and flights, but most of the time it's they have done all the hard work in the itinerary and setting up the speaking events and all of it themselves. Um, and then of course, when you're self-published, you have to haul the books with you because um not every independent bookstore is in the financial position to be able to purchase non-returnable books. I mean, if they're purchasing books from the big five, those books can be remaindered. Right. Um, and they can get their money back. But if you're self-published, you're publishing, you're printing your books through Lulu or Ingram or Amazon, and those are non-returnable. So mom and pop places, small indie places, can't afford to buy a hundred books, sell 20 of them, and then and do nothing with 80 of them because they they can't return those remaining 80. So um I have found as an indie author, hauling my books around in a wheeled suitcase is I mean, and then the shops buy them for me and then they sell them to the readers and at the event, and that's great. Um, so there's a lot of that sort of financial logistics that you have to keep in mind. If I'm gonna do this event, I think I'm probably gonna sell 20 books, so I should probably bring 30, so I need to buy 50. So, I mean, that's a huge expense out of pocket, just buying your books to begin with, buying the bookmarks, buying the stickers, buying the art prints, buying the tissue paper, the cute matching bubble wrap, the tea packets, whatever it is you're gonna put in your pre-order things. That all that money is you, all that logistics is you. Um, and then in here in Canada, we're having a postal strike. Yay! Um, and then cross-border tariffs with the United States, which is increasing the prices of so many things. Uh, I know a lot of indie bookshops that were just like, I'm sorry, we can't, we can no longer ship to the states. Sorry. Yeah. The prices are untenable. So there's all of that. There's like the and I was doing a lot of this myself before, anyway, because I was with a small press, but a lot of reaching out to bookstores, a lot of reaching out to podcasters, a lot of just sending emails so people know that the book exists. God bless romancing the data. That website, God bless it, and the Canadian Happily Ever After Network. Between those two websites, I have been able to email like 450 romance bookstores or small independent bookstores all over North America, but also all over the world. There are stores in Australia that are carrying time and tide and nine tenths simply because I emailed them and said, Hey, I exist. Um, and podcasts, reaching out to all the different podcasts, booking all the interviews. So for me, it's been a lot of sitting with a spreadsheet on a Saturday afternoon, emailing, emailing, emailing, emailing, researching, researching, research. And then you have to try to reach the readers. Um, because you can't just reach the bookstore and the podcasters. Um, you have to reach the readers, you have to try to reach the librarians. So um I paid for placement in a library magazine. Woohoo, boy, did I pay for placement in a library magazine. But it seemed to work out. I seem to have made that money back. Um, not easily, but I've made that money back. Yeah. Um and then it's what can I whip together on Canva? I spend a lot of time looking at what other independent authors are doing. And I'm like, oh, that's a cute trend. Oh, we're all doing like AO3 tags, describing our book as with AO3 tags. Okay, I'll spend 10 minutes on my lunch break making a cute graphic. Um, so it's a lot of spending a weekend making graphics and then three hours front loading them on TikTok and um Instagram and scheduling, scheduling, scheduling. Um and I really appreciate the authors who do little skits and who have characters. And the truth of the matter is, and I'm an actor, so of course I really appreciate that, and I would love to do that, but I hate video editing. I just like the idea of getting up at five o'clock in the morning on a Saturday to put on 10 pounds of makeup and goof around in front of a camera with no promise of a return in investment. It is a lot of time to sink into that. And if it's working for you, phenomenal. But anytime I've tried to do something like a skit or a video or anything like that, I haven't had enough of a return on sales to make it worthwhile. So I would much rather sleep in, um, save my skin, and maybe write instead of do a skit. And I'm not putting down any authors who do skits or do little talks because they're working, they're amazing. I I'm in awe and I'm impressed. It just doesn't work for me. And for reasons that I don't understand, it does not work for my audience. The people who read my books are just not, I just don't think they're TikTok people.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I feel a TikTok is a whole other beast. Like I'm just starting to get on it, and I don't I don't know how it works, number one. Um, and to the amount of unsolicited um message requests to be sugar babies is astronomical.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no, that and like the scamming emails, the ones that are going around now that they're all being written by Gen AI. And it's just like, oh, come on. Although I have to I have to say, some of those Gen AI scamming emails that are trying to like big you up before they're like, so what do you say? Should you give me a thousand dollars so I can scam you into thinking that you're gonna get a hundred Amazon reviews? Um, sometimes they they they have some really banger lines. So I steal some of the description, I steal some of those lines and I use them in my own marketing because um that wasn't written by a person anyway. So it's not like it's not like I'm plagiarizing anybody.
SPEAKER_00:No, not at all. And I think really it comes down to just, yeah, you gotta figure out what works for you. And I mean, like you said, I love those amazing aesthetic like reels, but the reality is the ones that I spent the least amount of effort on seem to be the ones that turn out the best.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Well, and I found the thing that mostly sells my book is just a good conversation.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:It used to be on Twitter, now it's on threads. Just a nice conversation with someone. Yeah. Sells a book.
SPEAKER_00:Definitely. I think that's it's such a it's such a cool way of looking at it. And uh, I was chatting with another author, and she uh her book is in in the library, and she's like, she's realizing nobody's checking it out, and then she goes and starts like basically going to the library and like promoting her book. If somebody's like, hey, are you looking for a book? She'd be like, Here, read this. And it worked. And I'm like, huh, I would never have thought uh to do that, but you gotta hustle. And that's really the reality of like being a creative. Um, I think really in any industry, but uh especially as an author, it's just getting in front of people, and that's gonna pay off the more you do it.
SPEAKER_01:And but and I have to say, it does take so much time. And I have a day job, and uh so not this year, but I did have an acting agent. So I was auditioning, auditioning, auditioning, auditioning. So, and then writing, and then the promoting writing. So I used to tell people I have three jobs. I was an actor, a writer, and a receptionist, and now I I'm I'm taking a break from the acting, so I'm just doing the writing and the receptioning. Um, but putting out your own book like this, I I am desperate for it to not fail. Yeah, and I think by my metric, it has already succeeded because I paid back every cent that I've invested in it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So I would consider it's been what five months since the original Amazon ebook came out. I have earned back everything I spent on it. So to me, that is a success. Anything after this is just a bonus. Um, I mean, would I love it to be as like viral as C.S. Pasket's The Captive Prince? Heck yes, I would. Like, let's just get some Tumblr fan art and discourse going. But you can't buy that. You can't buy that. You can just hope for it.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um so if that happens, great. But at this point, the book has succeeded in my mind. And at some point, you have to draw a line under the marketing because I could very easily wake up and spend every free minute I have, not at my day job, just marketing this book. At some point, though, I have to write another one. At some point, I mean, the publisher of Time and Tide wants another book, and I don't have one done because I have spent, I mean, Time and Tide came out in November. I have literally spent every moment since January working on nine tens. So I haven't worked on the book for my publisher, which is due at the end of this year. Um, that's gotta happen at some point. At some point, you have to start marketing the book and start writing the next one.
SPEAKER_00:Definitely. I think that's such a great reminder of like there's a balance, right? Like, I it's it's okay not to be constantly marketing. Like your book is always there. Um, and the more that you're writing, the the bigger the backlist that you're creating, right? Which is also going to be an added bonus as well. So I think it's that balance of like just you just really have to kind of like focus on on your journey. And I think it can be easy to fall into that comparison trap when you see what other people are doing. Um, I'm like, no, that's not going to write my book. I need to actually write it. So like put your phone away and let's let's get on it.
SPEAKER_01:Close Canva, open scrivener, right?
SPEAKER_00:Stop making Pinterest boards. That's not going to write your book. Yes.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. Or just make one Pinterest board. That's yes. You just get you just get one aesthetic. Yeah. That's it. And you yeah, definitely. Yeah. So that's sort of the trap I'm finding with the marketing, especially when I see what other indie writers are doing. And I'm like, oh, that's a that's a cute meme. I'm gonna do that meme too. And suddenly two hours have passed, and I haven't had dinner, and the sun has gone down, and I haven't even opened script.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, right. It takes so long. And you're like, why is it even taking this long? Like it shouldn't be taking this long to do that thing. Um, but yeah, I still feel that. I'm like, this is not this is not a rabbit hole that I need to go down right now. Yeah.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I have revisions. Those have to right? Yeah. But that's not fun.
SPEAKER_01:That's not fun. No. Well, and I I keep thinking that if I didn't have to go to the day job, because that's eight and a half, nine hours of my day, right? Like eight hours working, one hour for a commute, half hour in the morning, half hour in the evening. Um, I could not only have finished the revisions that are due at the end of the year, I could have written a whole other book by now. Because historically, when I'm unemployed or when I'm between things or like during the lockdown. Um, I have banged out a book in four to six weeks. Um the problem is I just don't make enough money to do it full time. Buy my book, buy my book, buy my book. Um I would very much love to do it. Uh and because I have so many, I think I've got five five whip files on Scrivener right now. And each of them have like 30,000 words. It's not like I'm goofing around with them, but it's I I I would give anything for some solid time. No, actually, I take that back because the last time I thought that out loud was January of 2013. I was leaving my house, I was going to a job I hated for a company I despised, and I was thinking, I need to write a new book. If I could, I wish I could just get like six weeks off. I wish I could whoop and I hit some black ice and I tore my hip and I tore my knee and I herniated a disc and I got a concussion. Perfect. So I take that back, universe. I don't want that time, but I did write a book while I was recovering.
SPEAKER_00:That is amazing, but also no more concussions, no more concussions.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I wrote I wrote Triptych after I'd been hit by a car and my knee was crushed and I was laid up in a Japanese hospital. I wrote Triptych. And then I had this, and then I had this. Um, so that was in 2006, and then in 2013, I had this accident and I wrote the untold tale. Yeah, that is the universe. No more accidents, please.
SPEAKER_00:No, no, a nice we not we want to write your book in a nice, like cozy, chill. We're not, yeah, no broken bones. That is not what's happening here. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I my my cane is falling apart. I can't use it again. Except that, of course, like last February I broke my ankle.
SPEAKER_00:So well, it was so, so lovely chatting with you. Um, as we kind of wrap things up, I would love for you to share where can people find you and all of your books because obviously they need to buy them. So I stopped ending up in the hospital. Yes, please.
SPEAKER_01:Please, no more hospital visits. Yeah, okay. Um, so you can my website is www.jmfry f R E Y dot net. Um, and then my social medias is uh my handle is the same everywhere, j.m.fr e y. So tick tock, threads, instagram, uh blue sky. I'm no longer on Twitter. Um Tumblr is Sci Fry S-C-I-F-R-E-Y. Um and uh Facebook is Jm Fry FanPage. So if you just look for all of those, um please follow me, please chat with me, please show me pictures of your books. Ask me questions. I love I'm such a world building nerd. So if you have questions about the world building, please, please give me the opportunity to speak at length about it because boy, howdy will I.
SPEAKER_00:I love it. Amazing, awesome. Well, everything will be linked in the show notes, so it'll be super easy for people to click through and find you and follow along and obviously grab your books as well. And it was lovely chatting with you. I always feel like I learned so much in these little chats, so it's always a fun. Um, I just uh I I love it. So that's that's why I do it.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, well, thank you. I again it's it's really nice to see you again. And if I finish this book by the end of the year, maybe I'll book another chat to talk about that one.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. And if you really loved this author, I highly encourage you to go check out their links and comment and share their work because let's be real, as an indie author, all that stuff makes such a difference. And if you're feeling a little stuck on your draft and just want some gentle accountability, check out my one-to-one offers that are linked in the show notes as well. I'd love to support you with your writing or editing journey. And if that's not quite where you're at, I've also put together a really amazing free resource to help with taking your writing to the next level because there are so many amazing resources available without needing to spend a ton of money or get that MFA or all of the things that you may think that you need in order to write a book. Until next time, keep writing your way and trust yourself enough to tell your story. Because I promise, if it's coming to you, there's a reason and someone needs to hear it.
