Mark Leslie Lefebvre's Blog, page 26

Episode 198 – Multiple Prosperous Winners in Marketing & Publishing with Honorée Corder

Mark interviews Honorée Corder, an executive and strategic book and publishing coach, TEDx speaker, and the author of more than 50 books including You Must Write a Book.

Prior to the interview, Mark shares a personal update, some recent comments and a word from this episode’s sponsor.

This episode is sponsored by Findaway Voices.

You can learn more about how you can get your work distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

In their conversion Mark and Honorée talk about:

The way Honorée’s business got its start after a discussion with Mark Victor Hansen, co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul seriesCollaborating with businesses that want to use her books to promote/market their own business and how that has created a win/win/win situationPurposefully writing and marketing books to targeted potential clients with bulk discount rates in mindHow people will throw out business cards but are far less likely to throw out a bookResearching how to make the process of custom back covers for the same front, spine, and interior with a designer and a printerIdeas for how authors can leverage this type of marketing by offering a potential client a pile of books to give away to their clientsAdapting an abundance mindset versus a scarcity mindsetThe mental hurdles that writers have to overcome in order to face prosperityWhat makes the difference between a hobbyist and a professionalCommitment versus interestThe question of “whether or not the person I am tomorrow will be proud of the person I am today”The importance of having downtime, quiet time, and opportunities for recharging our creativityHow having a schedule can set you free from not worrying about something that’s on your plateThe basic principlee behind “The Miracle Morning” (Hal Elrod) and “The Miracle Morning for Writers” (Hal Elrod and Honorée)How, for the most part, you can find 15 minutes in different parts of your dayA few things she didn’t expect before beginning this journeyHow writing from a really raw place allowed Honorée to see that the more authentic she has been in her writing, the more readers have liked it and it has helped peopleAnd more

After the interview, Mark reflects on some of the things that this chat inspired in him, including an idea that sprung from the conversation.

Links of Interest:

Honorée Corder’s websiteBookBub Blog Post – Chirp Follow ButtonsEpisode 197 – The Darkness WithinEpisode 196 – Haunted Walks & Talks with Jim DeanThe Relaxed AuthorPlanes, Trains & AutomobilesMark Lip Sync Scene from Planes, Trains & AutomobilesPatreon for Stark ReflectionsWide for the WinMark’s Canadian Werewolf BooksThis Time Around (Short Story)A Canadian Werewolf in New YorkStowe Away (Novella)Fear and Longing in Los AngelesFright Nights, Big City

Honorée Corder is an executive and strategic book and publishing coach, TEDx speaker, and the author of more than 50 books including You Must Write a Book. Additionally, she is co-creator of The Miracle Morning book series with Hal Elrod. Honorée passionately helps business professionals and entrepreneurs write, publish, and monetize their books, boost their brands, and get much more business! She also runs the Empire Builders and The Collective Mastermind groups, does all sorts of other magical things, and her badassery is legendary. You can find out more at HonoreeCorder.com.

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Episode 197 – Rambling Reflections Through The Darkness Within

In this solo episode, Mark talks openly about the anxiety, frustration, and darkness that took over as he was trying to prepare for this week’s episode.

It’s an unscripted talk through the things circling his mind, and how he is trying to deal with them.

Prior to his introspective rambling, he pauses to share a word from this episode’s sponsor.

This episode is sponsored by Findaway Voices.

You can learn more about how you can get your work distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

It’s not uncommon for writers and creative people to feel a darkness begin to descend over their emotions, to dance and mingle with anxiety and an overwhelming sense of exhaustion.

Mark tries to talk through those feelings and how he is trying to face them.

He does talk about a book he is currently listening to as a re-read: Neil Peart’s Traveling Music: The Soundtrack to my Life and Times and the “end of day” treat that has become as part of a mental health/physical activity regimen.

Summer 2004 – Mark and his son Alexander afternoon nap. TRAVELING MUSIC on the night-stand

Links of Interest:

Mental Health Services CanadaDepression HotlineMental Help Dot NetSuicide Prevention HelplineThe Relaxed AuthorThe Relaxed Author Survey (Only Open until July 1, 2021)Best Book Ever PodcastSeason 1 Ep 9 – Mark talking about EARTH ABIDESNeil Peart – Traveling MusicPatreon for Stark ReflectionsWide for the WinMark’s Canadian Werewolf BooksThis Time Around (Short Story)A Canadian Werewolf in New YorkStowe Away (Novella)Fear and Longing in Los AngelesFright Nights, Big City

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Episode 196 – Haunted Walks and Talks with Jim Dean

Mark interviews Jim Dean, Creative Director of Haunted Walks, Inc.

Prior to the interview, Mark shares comments from recent episodes, a personal update, and a word from this episode’s sponsor . . .

This episode is sponsored by Findaway Voices.

You can learn more about how you can get your work distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

In their conversation, Jim and Mark talk about:

How Glen Shackleton came to found the company via the first haunted walks in Kingston, Ontario in 1995The early days of the haunted walks and how people reacted to the ideaExpanding out into Ottawa and Toronto as well as other nearby locationsHow ghost stories are a great way to share local history and the local experience in an entertaining format“We create and share extraordinary experiences”How in “normal” or “pre-pandemic” times, tens of thousands of students would come to Ottawa and go on the ghost walksThe level of improv that is often required of the tour guides who have to incorporate the scripts into real-life interactive experiencesDealing with the pandemic after just coming off their most successful year and the most trying day of having to lay off almost all of the company’s one hundred staff membersThe “home and bored” haunted packs that they started selling early in the pandemicAsking the question of what Halloween was going to look like in the fall of 2020The “Save Halloween” Kickstarter Project they launched, which didn’t succeed, but led to some other ideas that worked for them, such as the virtual haunted campfiresThe virtual DIY audio experience that is “The Haunting at Home”How virtual events have opened Haunted Walks, Inc. up to an international audience and customer baseHosting the Haunted Walks Podcast and the types of stories that Jim covers on itJim’s memories of how, in school, when the old movie projector got rolled out and the lights went down and the film came on, the room became an entirely different placeHow the stories are crafted for the tours and how they evolve over timeThe special “Fact or Fiction” tours that they sometimes doA couple of unexplainable things that happened on a few of the tours and that Jim experiencedAnd more…

After the interview, Mark reflects on his appreciate for Haunted Walks, Inc. and the ways they have helped him personally and as a writer. He then talks about the important of multiple product lines and revenue streams derived from a single source of passion.

Links of Interest:

The Haunted Walk WebsiteGhost ToursOnline ExperiencesHaunted Talks PodcastEpisode 195 – Help! I’m An Author With Mal CooperEpisode 194 – Eric Bryan Moore on Audiobook Narration and Pocket Pulp PodcastPatreon for Stark ReflectionsWide for the WinMark’s Canadian Werewolf BooksThis Time Around (Short Story)A Canadian Werewolf in New YorkStowe Away (Novella)Fear and Longing in Los AngelesFright Nights, Big City

For 18 years, Jim Dean has been the Creative Director of Haunted Walks, Inc, which runs ghost tours and other paranormal adventures in Kingston, Ottawa, and Toronto, Ontario. He is also the host of the company’s popular Haunted Talks podcast which explores dark history and ghost stories from around the world.

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Episode 195 – Help! I’m An Author with Mal Cooper

Mark interviews author Malorie Cooper about her writing and the “Help! I’m An Author” that Mal writes with her wife Jill Cooper.

Prior to the interview, Mark shares a personal update and a word from this episode’s sponsor.

This episode is sponsored by Findaway Voices.

You can learn more about how you can get your work distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

In their conversation, Mal and Mark talk about:

How long it has been since they saw one another at a conference (November 2019), and how long it has been since in person writer gatheringsThe fact that Malorie is an extrovert by nature and enjoys hanging out with other authors, whether in person (when possible) or via virtual hangoutsThe daily five hour springs that Malorie hosts (23 minute springs and 7 minute breaks) which usually involves about 15 authorsThe music playlist that Malorie has defaulted to most recentlyThe fact that your writing speed and process doesn’t necessarily follow a linear pathHow Malorie deals with continuity in different books/seriesTips for how to keep track of details when writing a long series – which includes NOT being too specific about many details, like eye color, etc.What inspired Malorie and her wife Jill to start writing the HELP! books for writersHow Facebook ad procedures have changed over the yearsSome of the other titles in the Help! I’m An Author seriesThe fact that Malorie was a CTO in a previous career and how that impacted the SEO involved in deciding the book titlesMultiple experiments Malorie did with various rapid-release modelsWhy consistency is far more important that a rapid release scheduleHow Malorie works on different co-authored projectsThe major burn-out and much needed break from writing back in 2019 that Malorie had to takeThat one month (August 2018) where Malorie wrote 200,000 words despite taking a week-long vacation at DisneyHow Malorie does her best work and fastest work at the last minuteDeciding to not release the Help! My Marketing Plan Sucks book at the beginning of the pandemic and how that ended up splitting off into multiple more specific platform marketing titlesHow Malorie invests her time when attending a writer’s conferenceThe video content that Mal and Jill are working on creatingAnd more…

After the interview Mark reflects on the powerful energy that Mal gives off, which he finds inspiring, as well as the mention of getting the best work done quickly and at the last minute.

Links of Interest:

The Writing Wives WebsiteM.D. Cooper’s Aeon 14Patreon for Stark ReflectionsWide for the WinMark’s Canadian Werewolf BooksThis Time Around (Short Story)A Canadian Werewolf in New YorkStowe Away (Novella)Fear and Longing in Los AngelesFright Nights, Big City

Malorie Cooper likes to think of herself as a dreamer and a wanderer, yet her feet are firmly grounded in reality. A ‘maker’ from an early age, Malorie loves to craft things, from furniture, to cosplay costumes, to a well-spun tale, she can’t help but to create new things every day.

A rare extrovert writer, she loves to hang out with readers and people in general. If you meet her at a convention, she just might be rocking a catsuit, cosplaying one of her own characters, or maybe her latest favorite from Overwatch!

She shares her home with a brilliant young girl, her wonderful wife (who also writes), a cat that chirps at birds, a never-ending list of things she would like to build, and ideas…

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Episode 194 – Eric Bryan Moore on Audiobook Narration & Pocket Pulp Podcast

In this episode, Mark interviews audiobook narrator Eric Bryan Moore about his work as a voice actor and his new podcast Pocket Pulp.

Prior to the interview, Mark shares a word from this episode’s sponsor…

This episode is sponsored by Findaway Voices.

You can learn more about how you can get your work distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

In their conversation, Eric and Mark talk about:

The interesting nature of getting to talk to one another after having previously worked together as author and narratorHow listening to audiobooks while he was living in Brazil and wondering what he would do led back to his background in acting and a career in audiobooksThe original studio Eric used to have to use before having a home setup to record audiobooksHow a unique moment in reading aloud in an English class inspired the teacher to introduce Eric to the theater groupStudying writing as a way to help him better understand the work he was doing as a narratorAuditioning a lot and getting 12 rejections before landing his first narrating gigThe ratio of about 1 in every 10 books that a narrator works on under the ACX royalty share program that actually earns money for the narratorEric’s romance narrator pseudonym of D.C. ColeThe idea of how audiobook listeners might cross-over to discover new writers because of a narrator they enjoy listening toHow most of Eric’s work has been working with small publishers and indie authorsThe problem with being a narrator is that you don’t get to read for fun anymore (ie, no downtime for pleasure reading)How Eric’s work is a combination of repeat clients and doing the occasional auditionEric’s going rate of $250 / finished hour which is the minimum rate for SAG-AFTRAThe way that a program like Voices Share at Findaway Voices worksThe additional costs that Eric has to pay someone else to outsource as a narrator (which eats into his existing per/hour feesThe new podcast that Eric launched called POCKET PULPHow writers can submit stories to Eric’s podcast, and the fact they get the audio file in return which they can use however they wantThe potential things that this weekly podcast can lead toAnd more…

After the interview, Mark reflects on the opportunity that exists for writers as well as the unique way Eric is leveraging this new podcast to build up his brand within the specific community where he’s hoping to reach more people.

Links of Interest:

Eric Bryan Moore’s WebsitePocket Pulp PodcastPocket Pulp Podcast on YouTubeEpisode 7 – “Spirits” by Mark LeslieYouTube link for “Spirits”Mark’s Books Narrated by EricActive Reader: And Other Cautionary Tales from the Book WorldA Murder of ScarecrowsPatreon for Stark ReflectionsWide for the WinMark’s Canadian Werewolf BooksThis Time Around (Short Story)A Canadian Werewolf in New YorkStowe Away (Novella)Fear and Longing in Los AngelesFright Nights, Big City

Originally a stage actor and Shakespeare fanatic from California, Eric Bryan Moore bounced around the globe for a number of years, including having lived in Japan for six of them, before finally settling down in São Paulo, Brazil. After starting a family, he decided to put his acting degree back to use and kicked off a career in audiobook narration in 2016. He narrates from his home studio and enjoys reading Fantasy, Science Fiction, Thrillers, Mysteries, and Horror. When he’s not recording, Eric is busy playing with his daughter, trying to win his fantasy football league, playing chess online, reading for fun, and learning how to make the perfect caipirinha!

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Episode 193 – Showcasing Indie Authors in an Indie Bookstore with Susan Faw

In this episode Mark interviews author Susan Faw who is also the owner and founder of Dragon’s Lair Artist Emporium, a physical bookstore in Norther Ontario that showcases books from indie authors.

Prior to the interview, Mark shares a personal update, comments from recent episodes, and a word from this episode’s sponsor.

This episode is sponsored by Findaway Voices.

You can learn more about how you can get your work distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

In their conversation, Mark and Susan talk about:

Susan’s first meeting with group of authors at a library session with the Stratford Writer’s Group in about 2012How long it took Susan to write her first bookThe actual work-related impetus of Susan writing her first novelMaking the move to Northern Ontario from the Niagara region in Southern OntarioThe population of the community Susan is in, which is about 6000 peopleHow Susan is keeping busy on the writing side of things with a series she is writingThe back story of creating Dragon’s Lair EmporiumThe grant for Northern Ontario women that Susan used to create the store’s websiteOpening the bookstore and then having to shut it down after 6 days due to a Provincial enforced shutdown due to CovidJust how eager customers are to get into the storeCollaborative partnerships with the local high schoolHow, at this point in time, Susan is getting most of her stock from IngramPricing setup advice and Susan’s ability to see it from both the author and bookseller sideThe fact that Susan is not doing returns, which is typical modus operandi for a bookstoreComing up with creative ways to market books rather than just buying giant piles of books where half of them can be returnedA reminder that if an author sets a 55% discount via Ingram Spark, the bookstore actually sees 40%Realizing that specific people who are only interested in discounted prices might not actually be your customerThe forms where authors can submit their books for consideration to be carried in the bookstoreWhat authors can do to help support the bookstore that is supporting indie authored booksAnd more…

After the interview, Mark reflects on the unique customers for print books in local physical bookstores, as contrasted to online shoppers on Amazon. He also reminds authors to consider their own books from the bookstore owner’s perspective.

Links of Interest:

Susan Faw’s Author WebsiteDragon’s Lair Artist Emporium WebsiteEP 191 – Insights from the Immersive Media and Books 2020 Consumer SurveyThe Creative Penn Episode 551 – The Challenges of a First NovelThe Relaxed Author (Sept 2021 Release)Patreon for Stark ReflectionsMark’s Tavern YouTube EpisodesPilot Episode (6 Min 39 Seconds)Short: Dad Jokes Matter (1 Min 37 Seconds)Short: Tension (1 Min 31 Seconds)Short: Mister Bright Side (3 Mins 47 Seconds)Wide for the WinMark’s Canadian Werewolf BooksThis Time Around (Short Story)A Canadian Werewolf in New YorkStowe Away (Novella)Fear and Longing in Los AngelesFright Nights, Big City

Susan Faw is a Canadian author of young adult fantasy and dystopian fiction. Her debut novel, Seer of Souls was awarded first place for the best young adult mythology of 2016, Chanticleer Reviews, and the grand prize of the Dante Rossetti for best young adult fiction of 2016, Chanticleer Reviews.

Dragon’s Lair Artist Emporium is the brain child of owner Susan Faw. Frustrated with the lack of venues available to independent authors, she a book store dedicated to authors worldwide, who have chosen a self-publishing career.

Dragon’s Lair Artist Emporium knows that there are many wonderful books deserving to be seen, and to be read. Dragon’s Lair was born to give the independently published author what they have long been denied – space on a physical store shelf. Not only is this space for them, but their business model is built around showcasing the amazing, unrepresented talent that exists in the indie publishing sphere.

Episode 192 – Bold Business Strategies for Authors with James Kademan

In this episode, recorded from a live video chat, Mark interviews James Kademan, owner of Calls On Call, a shared receptionist service, Draw In Customers Business Coaching, and the author of The BOLD Business Book.

This episode is sponsored by Findaway Voices.

You can learn more about how you can get your work distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

In this live chat, Mark and James talk about:

James’ background as an entreupreneur, which started in 2006The multiple businesses that James has created, and the numerous mistakes he has made along the way in order to find successThe infinite number of ideas that you have compared to the actual implementationHow most entrepreneurs, like most authors, can be overly optimisticThe implementation of “Whatever Blooms” an automated online flower-ordering business to save people timeRiding the “hope train” and the comfort in complacencyJames’ decision to self-publish THE BOLD BUSINESS BOOKReleasing the book in hardcover, paperback, eBook, and AudiobookHow James never anticipated that you have to practically “claw your way” to get people to leave reviews for your bookThe way that people often don’t value timeThe importance of “done” and finishing somethingHow important “inbox zero” is for email managementAnd more…Live video chat from interview portion of this episode

After the interview, Mark reflects on the value of getting work done and how he is adapting the “Inbox Zero” strategy.

He also shares some info about a free workshop he is doing with James at When Words Collide in August 2021, as well as the full day workshop…

Authoring Boot Camp Basic Training (Full Day Workshop)

Want to take your author career to the next level?

Business Coach James Kademan and Author Consultant Mark Leslie Lefebvre team up to help authors define and achieve their goals, from shaping-up their writing practice and effective scheduling, to publishing and marketing strategies, Mark and James unpack Authoring and help authors understand how they can create their own plan.

Author Sarah Kades Graham joins as moderator, as well as prototype—hear how the Authoring Boot Camp has changed her career!

Links of Interest:

Draw in Customers Business CoachingCalls on CallJames’ Business Books“Inbox Zero” YouTube VideoWhen Words CollideFull Day Authoring Boot Camp WorkshopPatreon for Stark ReflectionsWide for the WinMark’s Canadian Werewolf BooksThis Time Around (Short Story)A Canadian Werewolf in New YorkStowe Away (Novella)Fear and Longing in Los AngelesFright Nights, Big City

James Kademan has been an entrepreneur since 2006. He owns several businesses, including Calls On Call Extraordinary Answering Service for those ready to outsource, and Draw In Customers Business Coaching where he helps entrepreneurs achieve more time, more money and more fun, while enjoying what they do. James is the author of The BOLD Business Book, A Strategy Guide to Start, Run, and Love Your Soon to Be BOLD Business. He is a Certified Business Coach and Professional Speaker and continues to release blogs, podcasts and videos at his website www.drawincustomers.com.

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Episode 191 – Insights from the Immersive Media & Books 2020 Consumer Survey

Mark interviews Dr. Rachel Noorda and Dr. Kathi Inman Berens about the Immersive Media & Books 2020 Consumer Survey conducted by the Panorama Project and Portland State University.

Prior to the interview, Mark shares a word from this episode’s sponsor (which includes a sample from the first narrator that Mark ever used through Findaway Voices).

You can learn more about how you can get your work distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

Mark then shares comments from recent episodes and also a personal update.

Immersive Media: Discovery Overview

In his discussion with Dr. Noorda and Dr. Berens, the three discuss:

Dr. Rachel Noorda’s background at Portland State University directing the Masters book publishing program there and her route into the academic worldThe student-run press that publishes several trade books every year, giving the students a hands-on experience in publishingDr. Kathi Inman Berens’ undergrad work within publishing and her later long-term academic experience within open access publishing, digital pedagogy and related projectsHow there isn’t a lot of book publishing research out there that’s not proprietary in natureThe origin and evolution of The Panorama ProjectBehaviors related to “engagement” with books that don’t necessarily include buying or reading themHow the survey was made up of people who “engaged with a book” at least once in the past 12 monthsAn OverDrive study and a 2019 PEW research study and that both estimate between 75% and 85% of people have engaged with a book in the previous yearHow books are a very durable 500-year success story, according to Dr. Berens, that people have incredibly powerful feelings and emotions aboutSome of the research that revealed surprising resultsHow the stats show that the suspected “show-rooming” of bricks and mortar stores that result in online (ie, Amazon) purchases is actually more of a 50/50 split. Sometimes people find books in bookstores and buy those same books online. Other times, people find the books online then buy them in bookstores. It’s a two-way streetHow, while the biggest single realm of book discoverability (20%) is from friends, that 80% of the time people are finding books from a multitude of other meansThe difficulty of measuring or finding the typical 6 touch points a person needs to have with a book before they decide to purchase/read itAll of the things that happen in purchasing behavior that we (as authors and publishers, and even as consumers) are not aware ofHow the Immersive Media report does have a specific section for authorsThe high relevance of “genre” and “favorite author” when it comes to deciding to buy a bookHow readers are often expecting some kind of “online access” to authorsThe “literary citizenship” that Jane Friedman talks about in her book THE BUSINESS OF BEING A WRITERAnd more…

After the interview Mark shares a couple of reflections about the conversation and then thanks Patrons.

Links of Interest:

The Panorama ProjectImmersive Media & Books 2020 Consumer SurveyThe March 2021 WebinarEP 187 – Business-Minded Creative Marketing with Diana WinkEP 188- A Gritty & Real Adoption and Publishing Story with Denise MassarEP 189 – From Stage to Page and Back to Stage with Rod CarleyEP 190 – The Episode Where Shit Went Down with Sweary Historian James FellThe Write Stuff Storybundle (Until May 25, 2021)Eric Bryan Moore’s WebsitePocket Pulp Episode 7 – Spirits by Mark LesliePatreon for Stark ReflectionsWide for the WinMark’s Canadian Werewolf BooksThis Time Around (Short Story)A Canadian Werewolf in New YorkStowe Away (Novella)Fear and Longing in Los AngelesFright Nights, Big City

Dr. Rachel Noorda is Director of Publishing and Assistant Professor of English at Portland State University. Dr. Noorda holds a PhD degree in Publishing Studies from the University of Stirling and has published peer-reviewed research on various book publishing projects including book subscription boxes, independent publisher mission statements, the Portland Book Festival, and online book blurbs. She is currently writing a book (contracted with Cambridge University Press) about entrepreneurship in twenty-first century US book publishing. She has been very involved with the industry, including analyzing data and writing industry reports for PubWest, the Independent Book Publishers Association, the Book Industry Study Group, Literary Arts, and Publishing Scotland.

Dr. Kathi Inman Berens, Associate Professor of English at Portland State University, has published peer-reviewed research about digital humanities, book publishing, and digital literature. A Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, Dr. Berens conducted grant-supported research for IBM when she was faculty and a Fellow of the Annenberg Innovation Lab at the University of Southern California. Dr. Berens studies immersive environments and transmedia experiences, consulting with Portland companies on VR medical therapies, immersive storytelling, and mobile web interface design. In her book publishing consulting and scholarship, two years of survey work provide foundational data for insights about consumer behavior at the Portland Book Festival. She is advisory council for arts non-profits Literary Arts, NW Film Center, and Oregon Storyboard.

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

This transcript of the interview portion of the episode was auto-generated and has not been human-verified

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: Dr. Noorda, Dr. Berens. Welcome to the Stark Reflections podcast.

Dr. Kathi Inman Berens: We’re so happy to be here with you, Mark.

Dr. Rachel Noorda: Thank you Mark.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: So I want, I’m so excited to share the research that you have been doing, but let’s start off with giving my listeners a bit of a background before we jump into the Panorama project.

A bit of a background on the two of you and your involvement in all things bookish.

Dr. Rachel Noorda: Sure I can jump in first if that’s okay. Cathy. So I have been at Portland state university directing the book publishing program for the last four years. And Portland state is very unique in that way.

There aren’t that many book publishing programs, master’s programs, especially in the U S but even worldwide. And so we’re really lucky to be working at one of the few. And one of the unique things about the program too, is that there’s a student run press that all of the students work in it’s called hooligan press and publishes for Trade books a year and fiction and nonfiction across various genres.

So it really gives that experiential learning hands-on experience. So that’s where I ended up. But I am originally from Utah and from Western us, but more from the desert rather than the rain. And did my masters and PhD work at the university of Sterling in Scotland. That’s where I.

Started into the academic world of publishing studies.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: Oh, wow. Cool. Thank you. And Dr. Barrons, how about

Dr. Kathi Inman Berens: you? Yeah, I came to Portland state in 2015. I was coming out of a Fulbright. I was the U S Fulbright scholar of digital culture in Norway. And prior to that, I taught at the university of Southern California.

I was part of the. Annenberg innovation lab. And so I’ve been thinking about the places where digital platforms and books meet for quite a long time. I’ve been working in some open access publishing in the digital humanities and I’ve been involved with the first publication of the modern languages association called.

Digital pedagogy in the humanities and it’s, it was a 10 year process of getting this mammoth work. Off the ground. There are four editors of that project and I was a contributor to it. So for me, part of my passion about books started when I was an undergraduate at Tufts and I was an intern at the Atlantic monthly with the fiction editor C Michael Curtis.

And then I got my PhD in English. Berkeley. So I’ve ambled around many different parts of literature and little forays into interactive games and things like that. That’s my background.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: Okay. So this is fascinating, cause I’m going to, I’m going to potentially draw some parallels or some connectivity.

 Press. Which was the press, the university press I was doing trade publications or academic trade

Dr. Rachel Noorda: publications. Yeah. So it’s based in the university, but not a university press in the same sense that others are.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: Okay. So it was actually a approachable texted. Didn’t have to be a scholarly leader.

And then I know I’m curious about the open access publications. Cause it almost sounds like there was this natural convergence of these two. Experiences that may have may have helped funnel you into the Panorama project. Am I on the right track here?

Dr. Kathi Inman Berens: They’re discreet. But I would say that the experience of hooligan being a lab where students are getting hands-on experience, working with digital tools is actually a feminist experience.

We have a lot of women and female identifying people who work at our press and. Digital humanities is typically associated with are ones that have a lot of external funding to support that research. And this is a place where people can roll up their sleeves and get lots of not just digital experience, but critique and interesting academic advantage on those things.

So that’s, I’m not sure that there’s a point of convergence so much as parallel play.

Dr. Rachel Noorda: Oh yeah. I would say that one of the ways that. Our work in our research with hooligan and teaching funnels, then into the project with Panorama. Has been that we are always equipping graduate students to write and think about research in book publishing.

And obviously we do book publishing research ourselves, but there isn’t a lot of book publishing research out there, especially data that isn’t proprietary that isn’t behind some sort of paywall, including BookScan and some of the big ones book net in Canada, it’s, that was one of the things that kind of had are the wheels in our heads turning and had us thinking about this type of project is that we have the skills and the interest to gather and analyze this data and think about, publishing and what’s happening pre and during COVID.

But. This sort of data, isn’t usually the thing that’s available to the industry and that causes all sorts of problems. That means that we’re never, we’re rarely talking from the same place, authors, publishers because everyone has maybe their own pieces of data that they’re using, but it’s caused huge tensions between publishers and libraries, for examples and authors and publishers and all sorts of things.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: Wow. So then, so what the Panorama project addresses quite a bit of that. How, and when did that start?

Dr. Rachel Noorda: Yeah Panorama has undergone some leadership changes at the time when we first started the project, he let Charles Gonzalez who is now with library pass, which Is a subscription service for libraries for digital comics.

And, but at the time he was the lead of Panorama project and he is the one who first began having conversations with us. We were able to meet him at the pub West conference, which was in Portland that year. Make some great connections and just start talking to him. Panorama very much is focused on research and on supporting research, particularly research that has some sort of touch point that.

That touches upon libraries in some way. So although libraries weren’t going to be the sole focus of our study, we wanted to make sure that they were included. And yeah, the great thing about Panorama is that they really helped to get the team together to assemble the committee that could help us really in doing peer review of the research questions and to offer that cross industry view because they came from all sorts of perspectives, from author perspectives, from publisher perspectives, distributor Supply chain.

Yeah, definitely. Some kind of hybrid publisher, author spaces, and all of their feedback was really useful to help create a balanced thing in the end.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: You talked about earlier, you had mentioned a lot of the data was proprietary. And so a couple of things I really liked about this project when I first was lucky enough to watch the presentation you did was that it was open.

It was available for everyone. It was free. So for consumption. But the other thing that I thought was really valuable was the perspective that you took was from the experience of the reader, interacting with the media, as opposed to it. Wasn’t about the logistics of publishing and all of that stuff.

It was about what is this really? Why is this whole industry? The

Dr. Kathi Inman Berens: key term that we implemented is engagement with books because we realized that if we focused. Only on sales or only on reading or checking books out then we were missing a lot of behaviors that people engage with books, including giving them as gifts or consulting them in a very partial way.

Like looking at one recipe in a book or one entry in a travel guide. So we wanted to be able to capture how people use books at work and at school as well. So not only for entertainment and leisure. So we were really casting a wide net. And when we had a screener question on our survey, which was how have you engaged with one book?

In the last 12 months and people who answered yes to that then went on to answer all the rest of our questions are the ones that were relevant to them. But people who said, no, didn’t enter, didn’t respond to our service.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: So I have to follow up with that because I’m always curious about how few people actually engage with books.

So do you have stats on how many people. Was it a one in four, but actually that actually did engage in a book in the last year, which is some of the stats I remember seeing previously.

Dr. Rachel Noorda: According to we, we looked at two pieces of data. One was a Pew research study from 2019. And another one was data that overdrive has about readers.

And so from OverDrive’s estimate, it’s about 80% of the U S that have read a book in the last year. And according to you. Have yes. And Pew study 75%.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: Yeah. Okay. So it’s a lot higher than I expected. I thought it would be closer to fewer people reading actual or engaging with books. Wow. So the future is more optimistic than sorry.

At this book

Dr. Kathi Inman Berens: I spend 500 year success story. This is a media form that endures that always operates. You don’t need to update the operating system. If you’re leasing it, you don’t suddenly lose access if the rights change or, it’s an incredibly durable format that people have lots of powerful feelings about.

And I think that, for example people. In the gift giving segment it’s about 61% of female who are buying books as gifts for others. And it’s a very transferable it’s it’s it’s. It’s not like a screwdriver or a plate. It’s a thing that’s vested with all kinds of emotion and even hope or aspiration for kids.

There’s just so many different feelings people have around books, which is one reason why people buy books and multiple formats that if they really love a book, they sometimes get that hard back to, and then maybe they want to listen to it on audio while they’re doing their chores. So people can get very passionate about books.

Dr. Rachel Noorda: And then if you take a wider approach to engagement that doesn’t just include reading from cover to cover. But that opens it wide up because surely there are even more people in the U S who have say consulted a cookbook, which is a book. And. Engagement with a book. So you know, it, it’s a very wide sort of net that engagement that we were throwing

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: there.

Oh, I love that. So I am, I’m curious to dig into some of the engagements that you discovered and I’d love to start with. Were there any particular engagements that you uncovered in your research that were a little bit surprising?

Dr. Kathi Inman Berens: Yes. Yes. I think one of the big headlines is that black and Latin X millennials are avid book consumers.

They are proportionally. Much less. There’s a much larger portion of non-weight people in the millennial age, demographic then is in the gen X or baby boomer demographic. So for example, in the general, our general survey population was around. Was it like 69% or 64% white, but only 39% of millennials are white.

And then for black, Latin, X and Asian-American the proportions of those millennials was double the general survey population. So that was a big finding that not only are there many black and Latin X book consumers in particular, but that they are keenly avid book readers and book engagers.

And people would do well to address those markets directly.

Dr. Rachel Noorda: Yeah. We. Also saw that people are not necessarily discovering a book in the same place that they’re buying a book. We asked questions about if you have. Ever bought a book on, or if you have in the last 12 months, but a book online that you first found in a bookstore or vice versa bought a book in a bookstore that you first found online and same thing with discovering books in libraries, and then that leading to purchasing either online or in a bookstore.

And so what’s interesting is for online to physical bookstore and bookstore to online, they’re actually about equivalent percentages about 44% for both. Yeah. So we all, we all talk about how independent bookstores are showrooms for Amazon and how this problem of people using the bookstore experience and going in, but then.

Going and finding it cheaper online and just buying it there after they’ve had that whole browsing thing, but there’s also discovery happening in the other direction. So that’s just an interesting thing, for authors, for publishers, for everyone really, to keep in mind is that discovery and purchasing aren’t necessarily happening in the same place.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: I love that having been an independent bookseller and being panicked about. So I love that idea because, so the idea then is that the discoverability and the purchase may be disconnected, that they’re not happy in the same place. So it’s okay to be discovered in as many places as possible because that will open up sales in as many places as possible,

Dr. Rachel Noorda: probably.

We’d love to have more research and more data about that in-between space of okay. In between the discovery and the buying, that network of stuff that is happening, that is going on, w what is that? But there’s obviously still more work to do, but yes you’ve characterized that just right.

Dr. Kathi Inman Berens: And 20% of the time. The largest category for discovery is recommendations from friends, but that’s only 20%. So that is to say 80% of the time people find are finding books. Not from their friends, but in other means, and I mean that, the challenge is that consumers, people are generally not aware of how many touch points they’ve engaged.

Like how many times? I know in marketing generally, the theory is a person needs six touch points in order to then complete a transaction. But. We can’t really capture data about that because people are largely unaware of their own. Discovery process. For example, only 3% of our population.

The general survey population indicated that algorithms were their preferred way of finding books, but we know that algorithms are much more involved in how we find books and how we engage online. In other words, Algorithms are far more agentic than people are aware of.

Dr. Rachel Noorda: That is both the beauty and the difficulty about a consumer behavior survey.

You had mentioned earlier, Mark, that it’s so great to hear it from the reader’s perspective and that’s what a consumer behaviors. Study offers is to be able to look at it from their perspective and to get more of the why behind the data, beyond just sales data. But the downside to that is that there is a lot that happens with purchasing behavior that we, as consumers are not aware of, that kind of goes on behind the scenes.

That’s still important like Kathy was talking about with algorithms, but that We are not as aware of is important as consumers. Yeah.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: Yeah. That’s always a tricky thing. I know. So when authors are doing marketing, for example they go back to that six or seven touch points, but you don’t, you can’t measure, you can’t measure that, Oh, this is the fifth time someone saw something because how do you measure and how do I know there were studies when I worked at Kobo where you could see where people’s eyeballs were going on that screen, but how do you know.

That they actually saw the ad or saw the book cover. It’s usually like the book cover. Is your, the billboard for your books kind of

Dr. Kathi Inman Berens: thing? And that’s where certain genre have advantages such as . So if my fantasy romance those genre all have. Active fan communities online where some of those touch points are just more visible because they’re published.

They’re published on TOK, they’re published in Twitter, Instagram, and those communities create enthusiasm. And. That enthusiasm can lead to, to purchase and further advocacy, even beyond point of purchase. So David Edelman is a well-known marketer who taught at Harvard for a while, and he’s the CEO of Aetna.

And he Conceived of how online marketing and social environments is different from old school broadcast, that wonderful marketing funnel where something’s in the consideration set. And finally it comes down to point of sale. Edelman was the one who invented the concept of the loyalty loop which is when.

A point of sale happens a really passionate advocate. We’ll go right back into that online community and talk about their use of that product, or talk about why they love that author or talk about what a cool event they attended. And that’s where publishers have advantages. That’s where self pub authors can really find traction by fishing, where the fish are, go jump in and find those readers who like what you like.

And as Mark has, you’ve done some cool work on this, getting folks to just find you and open your files and pay attention to your work. That’s the challenge for any offer.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: Wow. And this is so fascinating because so does the studies you have and that you’ve done are available for free for anyone to access, which is phenomenal.

Where would you recommend if an author was looking to try to understand. How do I get engagement? Where would they start with the summary report? Or how would they, because there’s a lot to digest

Dr. Rachel Noorda: the, the executive summary is a great place to start, but we actually did break the, because it is a longer report, 75 pages.

We did break it down by stakeholder. So there’s a section for publishers section for libraries. There is a section for authors. The place that we would suggest that people jump to because it has suggestions and data that are most relevant to authors, as you’re thinking about these things.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: And that kind of leads to a question that I had about author brand, because I think that was one of the important things that you uncovered in your research was just how critical that author brand was.

Right?

Dr. Rachel Noorda: Yeah. We saw that. When we were looking at some of the data points, such as the top. Choices, for example, for how people prefer to discover new books. The number two choice was favorite author. So after recommendations from friends, favorite author is the next one. We also asked a question about.

The most important factor in their purchasing decisions. So not just in discovering a book, but what makes you actually buy it? And genres was the first at almost 40%, but author was the second at about 23%. We just kept seeing these reoccurring themes similarly In person, author events was one of the top categories for where to find books, which was a very interesting piece given this was all happening and being collected during COVID.

But we did ask people for some of these questions about their general preferences. And one of the things we’re really excited to look at is longitudinal data. We’re anticipating doing this collecting data on an annual basis. So having an annual report, and that means annual data to compare, which means we’ll be able to sort out which of this is COVID specific and which of this is just.

You know how things are. So that’ll be really good to look at to see how much was maybe people being the Celtic for the in-person events that weren’t happening or that sort of thing. But but that was one of the top categories there too. So clearly in the how and the, where of discovery and also the important factors in book purchase.

Like. People are thinking about authors. That is what they are considering. So that’s what we mean by really think about your author brand is that’s what consumers are thinking about.

Dr. Kathi Inman Berens: And I think we’re at a completely fascinating inflection point because for the last 15 months people have attended virtual author events and.

On the one hand, I think people miss that physical proximity, they miss having their book actually signed right in front of them and handed to them, all of the kind of synergies that happen when we are co-present however, Like we’d are also excited about being able to attend a book event, thousands of miles from where you live, or even I’m not feeling great tonight.

I’m just going to attend this book event from home. So maybe if I were an author, I’d be thinking on the go forward. Any live event. I do. I want to see if I can have a pal live stream it through any of the social media services, because at this point I think people are expecting some kind of online access.

And I mean that, isn’t a super hard thing. That’s an easy technique that any author could incorporate into their practice.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: So glad you mentioned that when I was at the bookstore at McMaster university and we had done events through 2007, through 2009, and we were live streaming because we had limited space, there were only 30 seats, and we knew that some of the authors we brought in had fans around the world.

And again, we maybe only had 30, 50 people watching it online. Online and we have, the author would like, okay, if you order it, we’ll get them to sign it and they’ll ship it to you. But yeah, I’m so glad you mentioned that because it almost felt like it was ahead of its time. I think now the world’s ready because I got Michael Connolly.

I’ve seen him in person numerous events. Cause I’ve been lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. But. I just got to watch him and Titus Welliver who plays Bosch in, in, in the Amazon prime TV. It’s just a series in conversation at a UK based conference. Which I wouldn’t not be able to go to cause it was too far away, but I got to watch them live just between a meeting and lunch.

All I had to do was come sit here, maybe eat my sandwich and watch this beautiful event that I would not have had a chance to get to. So that’s interesting how it opens that up too.

Dr. Kathi Inman Berens: Absolutely. And what you need to think too, is that as millennials and gen Z age, these are people who are mobile first, they are going to expect that they can have access digitally and there, and they are, we know that they’re very avid book engagers.

So there’s an appetite. Like I think the more that the authorial practice can meet people where they live. Which is online and on their mobile phones. The more success they’re going to have both in terms of sales, but in terms of brand growth and recognition.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: It’s funny. When you were talking about author brand and genre, I kept thinking back to I like cozy mysteries.

Therefore, if you like cozy mysteries and we’re talking about cozy mysteries, I’m going to tell you my favorite author. You’re going to tell me your favorite author. And then all of a sudden, a swap is going to happen and we’re going to both discover new. So it’s this comment. It seems like a combination of author, brand and genre.

That really is powerful because as you said, those were the two highest reasons why people decided to get a book. I think, yes. Wow. So much for authors to unpack and make sure that, and that’s a newsletter swap thing. I think where, if I have an urban fantasy series and I know that people like, werewolf stories and I’m not my next, book’s not coming out until December, therefore.

Yeah. I’m going to recommend other ones that I think you might like in the meantime, and that community can probably be really help because my readers will then be sated because I can’t write enough to keep up with them

Dr. Kathi Inman Berens: a hundred percent, Jane Friedman in her book, the business of being a writer talks about literary citizenship.

And what you’re talking about is. Being a good citizen because it takes a while to write books, even for some of the incredibly prolific genre authors who pound out thousands of words a day still it takes time. And so when you have your pals shouting out, Yeah. When you shout out your pals books, when it comes your turn, you receive the shout out.

And so in a way it’s like you’re all collaborating in sustaining and feeding a fan community.

Dr. Rachel Noorda: Similarly, in being part of a community with authors, that it’s also a chance to one of the things that that our data shows is just how many ways and how Book engagers are connecting the Libraries fan fiction, free little libraries.

There’s just a multitude of kind of spaces online and offline that they’re doing things in bookstores, and so all of those would also be good to be thinking about in this literary citizenship to be as an author, Having relationships with going back to the, if you do have an in-person event and you’re also streaming it, then you’re partnering with a bookstore or a library to do that.

And that’s connecting you within that community. All of that is very good.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: Oh my God. Oh, thank you both so much for such insightful. I’m just, I’m walking away from this even more excited to, to keep digging in the data and create calls to action where where can my listeners find out more about about, what you guys are doing and the Panorama project.

Dr. Kathi Inman Berens: It’s a very easy URL, Panorama project.org, and you will find a link to the immersive media report members versus media, medium books, 2020 report. And, you can go in and slice and dice that data. Let’s say you want to think about reaching local readers. We even have regional data. About how people prefer to learn about books.

Do they prefer librarian recommendations or bookseller recommendations? Like those things are very regionally inflected. So for example, the Northeast is the highest rank for bookseller recommendation. And the Midwest is the highest rank for librarian recommendation, yeah. And then, so like some regions are more inclined to being able to bring family to their events.

Like being friends and family in the Southwest, like that’s a bigger finding. Thinking about where you are and who your readers are locally you can find some data that will help you. Strategize

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: is amazing.

Dr. Rachel Noorda: There is also a short report. There’s so much great granular data in the big report.

So we most prefer that you go and dig into that, but if you want just a quick overview of some of the main points, there is a short version of the report. That’s only five pages and has a cool infographic and things like that. And has some of the points that, we’ve talked about. So regardless of how much time you have to spend on the report, there’s going to be something for

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: you.

Oh, awesome. And I trust that because you plan on doing like perennial, like updates that somebody could go and sign up to be notified when your next reports become official.

Dr. Kathi Inman Berens: Yeah. I believe that when you go to the Panorama website, you have the option to leave your email address so you can receive notifications.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: Awesome. Thank you again so much. This was such a fascinating conversation.

Dr. Kathi Inman Berens: Mark. Thank you for having us. What a pleasure to talk with you and think with you. Dr. Rachel Noorda: It was great to be here. Thanks Mark.

Episode 190 – The Episode When Shit Went Down With James Fell Sweary Historian

In this episode Mark interviews James Fell, Sweary Historian, about his latest book On This Day in History, Sh!t Went Down.

Warning to listeners: In this episode, adult language goes down. A lot. If you are offended by swearing and adult language, please do NOT listen to this episode.

Prior to the interview, Mark shares comments, from recent episodes, a personal update, and a word from this episode’s sponsor.

You can learn more about how you can get your work distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

During their conversation, Mark and James discuss:

His experience writing as a freelance investigative journalist within the diet and fitness industry for the LA Times and Chicago TribuneHow James’ literary agent compared his previous book The Holy Shit Moment as a combination of Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink with Jen Sincero’s You Are a BadassThe way that The Holy Shit Moment was a book with a bit of a scientific analysis on “how shit works” and learning that you can’t make those “holy shit” moments happen, but you can set up the groundwork for making it more likely to occurThe way that the book The Holy Shit Moment flopped and what that meant for James’ career despite all the media attention and supportBeing in a tough and tight headspace where he wasn’t sure what was going to happen with his career, with a book flop, Trump looking like he was going to be re-elected, a Covid-19 pandemic lockdownThe way that exercise can be an important part of paving the way for an epiphany momentThe long bike-ride James was on that led to the idea for this new book and shift to his writing focus over to historyThe idea of the “this day in history” posts to share to FacebookHow the 2nd post about May West “blew up” on social media (5 million views within a month) and prompted people to suggest he should convert these types of posts into a bookThe way James would decide on what to write for any specific dayThe more than 1000 variations of the word “Fuck” that appears in the On This Day in History Shit Went DownA future book that James has been working on called Greedy Sexist Religious Bigots Who Hate ScienceThe move James made to Patreon with his daily history post content and his weariness about whether or not it would work. But how, within a few hours, he was already well into a few thousand dollarsHow, within 3 months, James was in the top 30 of all writers on PatreonMoving over to Substack and how they encourage people to provide content for free to create an audience, while also having some content behind a paywallThe deep and meaningful connection that people can feel towards writers they respect and admireThe generosity shown to sci-fi author John Varley via a health crisis and GoFundMe campaignHow, even though people can read the entire content of the book for free, sales of On This Day In History Shit Went Down are explodingThe print book significantly outpacing the eBook sales on this title despite doing no advertising or marketing outside of sharing free content from the book on social mediaThe importance of a blatant and direct CALL TO ACTION to “get the bookAnd more…

After the interview Mark reflects on the change in writing focus James took as well as his fully embracing both traditional publishing and indie publishing options to fully leverage his IP to his greatest benefit, as well as his combination of nimble indie author marketing tactics combined with a progressive business-oriented approach.

Mark then thanks Patrons of the podcast offering them one of two opportunities to win one of two free download codes for an awesome new writing bundle from Storybundle called “The Write Stuff Storybundle” (which is only available until May 25, 2021.

Links of Interest:

James Fell’s WebsiteBody for Wife / BooksOn This Day in History Shit Went DownJames Fell Facebook PageJames Fell on SubstackEpisode 60 – The Holy Shit Moment and Other Sudden Insights with James FellEpisode 2 – Living the Healthy Writer Life with Joanna PennEpisode 138 – Cash Flow for Creators with Michael W LucasEpisode 148 – A Voice Double Conversation with Joanna PennThe Write Stuff Storybundle (Until May 25, 2021)Kevin Closs MusicPatreon for Stark ReflectionsWide for the WinMark’s Canadian Werewolf BooksThis Time Around (Short Story)A Canadian Werewolf in New YorkStowe Away (Novella)Fear and Longing in Los AngelesFright Nights, Big City

About James Fell

My name is James and I say “fuck” a lot.

It is possible for me to not swear. I was a columnist for the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune for many years. I think the LA Times let me get away with “hell” twice. I’ve also been a columnist for Chatelaine and AskMen, and written for TIME Magazine, the Guardian, NPR, Women’s Health, Men’s Health, and many others. You can see a sample of my published articles here. Additionally, I’ve had countless radio and TV appearances and never uttered a profane word a single time. Go me.

I began as a health and fitness writer and have published two books. The first is Lose it Right: A Brutally Honest 3-Stage Program to Help You Get Fit and Lose Weight Without Losing Your Mind published by Random House Canada in 2014. The second is about the science of the life-changing epiphany titled The Holy Sh!t Moment: How Lasting Change Can Happen in an Instant published by St. Martin’s Press in 2019. Yes, I wrote a book with a swearword in the title. Both are heavy on the science, containing no bullshit.

I also have a popular blog that has millions of readers where I have written on a wide variety of subjects that include fitness, diet, and motivation, but certainly isn’t limited to that. The blog is very sweary. Here is my recipe for “motherfucking lasagna.”

Covid-19 changed my career arc.

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

TRANSCRIPTION OF THE INTERVIEW

Please note that this automated transcription has not been human-verified.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: Hey, James, welcome back to the Stark Reflections podcast.

James Fell: It’s a pleasure. You’re the only podcast I’m doing right now because we’re pals.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: I really appreciate you coming on the first time when I reached out to you, and again, thank you so much for coming back because. I’m so fascinated by your author journey.

And just for anyone who wasn’t fortunate enough to catch the last episode you were on, where we were talking about the, The Holy Shit Moment. Um, your background is in journalism.

James Fell: Well, no, not really. I mean, I did a master’s degree in history and then an MBA. Um, so I was good at, uh, good at writing and researching.

And then, you know, I worked in, but I mean, I guess journalism in that. Yes, I did write for the Los Angeles times for almost a decade and the Chicago Tribune, but I was, I was a freelancer, you know, this was. Right. Investigative journalism into, you know, investigating the, the corruption in the fitness industry and, and the diet industry and stuff like that.

But I never went to journalism school or anything like that. I was just, I was a freelancer for a lot of different places that including the LA times in Chicago Tribune.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: And so the last time we had talked, you had just launched, The Holy Shit Moment, uh, which was, I thought it was a fascinating nonfiction, like Malcolm Gladwell in its approach to understanding that aha thing that can happen, which I think I still think is

James Fell: the life changing epiphany is.

The, uh, is what it is. And my, uh, my literary agent, uh, Peter Steinberg, he referred to it when he was selling it to publishing houses. He referred to it as a combination of, um, Malcolm Gladwell’s blink with, uh, Jen Sincero is you’re a bad-ass. Yeah. And Jason, Sarah was actually one of his clients at the time.

And, uh, and I thought that was actually pretty apt, but unfortunately it did not sell nearly as well as either a Gladwell or a Sincero apart,

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: which, and I bought two copies of it too. So I bought an hardcover and I also got the audio. Then you had your own epiphany or your own. Holy shit moment that led to this new book that we’re going to be talking a little bit more about today on this day in history.

Uh, can you talk a little bit about that at that apifany and how that happened?

James Fell: Well, I mean, when, when I wrote the, the Holy shit moment, it was a, uh, It was a scientific analysis. I really, you know, I wanted to know how did these things work? None of this fluff. And I was never a fluff and nonsense sense, motivational palbo guy.

I wanted to know the real science of how shit works. And so I went really deep into it and, um, I made it as much of a how to, as I could, when you consider it, like, how do you create, uh, how to book about a life-changing epiphany? And the answer is. Well, you only kind of, sort of can, and I did my very best and, and, uh, in the process, yeah.

I personally learned a lot about how they work and how to recognize them. And what happened was on April 17th of last year, 20, 20 psychologically. I was just not in a good place. Um, I was, I was concerned about a few different things. One was that the Holy shit moment had not sold that well, Um, I did like 50 podcasts and I was on national television a couple of times and a ton of radio.

And it was covered glowingly in the LA times and the Houston Chronicle. And I was blasting it out on my blog and social media and it still, it didn’t catch people. It was not one of those books that, that people just really want it. And in the publishing industry, there’s an adage. That is you’re only as good as your last book.

Right. And so we were really struggling to figure out, okay, well, what am I doing with my career now? Because I’d sort of evolved from fitness into motivation and, uh, and that wasn’t taking off. So career-wise, I’m like, it seems like my writing career is on life support here. So that was, that was just issue.

Number one. And, uh, I was also just really concerned about it was really, it was looking like Trump was going to be reelected and I was not at all happy about that. I mean, even being Canadian, it was just, I was, I was very, uh, very attuned to what was going on in the United States. And I, I didn’t think I’d be able to handle another four years of him being president.

And also the COVID lockdowns had just started and I’m married to a physician who said, This is going to get bad and it’s going to last a long time. So buckle down. So I’m out for this bike ride on April 17th last year, with all this shit going through my head and bike rides are aware. I, I get my ideas mostly sometimes running, but, and this is actually one of the things that’s in the Holy shit moment is that the metabolic difficulty of the exercise is a great.

Time, especially exercising outdoors is a great time to have a Holy shit moment, but there’s two things that you have to understand when it comes to that. That one is that if it’s an incredibly complex exercise, like downhill skiing, where you’re going through moguls, you’re not going to have an epiphany because you’re focusing on, you know, where the moguls are, stayed alive and stuff.

Yeah, exactly. Whereas cross country skiing, just flat going through. Is less mentally taxing. So that’s when it’s more likely to happen. Um, also is the metabolic challenge running for me is a lot harder than it is to cycle. And if you’re pushing yourself hard and running, that’s taking up a bunch of brain power.

Whereas cycling is more of an autopilot. Thing for me. So sorry for all the preamble explanation. No, I love that.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: No, but that, that that’s valuable and I love how it ties back to the previous time I had you on the book.

James Fell: So, and this bike ride where, I mean, sometimes I have writing ideas and it’s why I carry my phone in the back of my Jersey.

Sometimes I’ll pull it out and I’ll start recording, voice recording, um, ideas. And, uh, and on this bike ride, when I’m in a shit mood and just, you know, not my writing careers on life support. And I, um, Oh, I left something out. I had been talking to my agent about my next book that he was saying that. You know, he wasn’t, he wasn’t super hopeful that we were going to be able to sell a book because my previous one had gone poorly, but we were going to try and he wanted me to come up with some ideas, more self-help type of ideas, like the Holy shit moment that could really grab a publishing house and I’d come up with this list of 10 ideas and it was on this bike ride that I realized.

I don’t want to write any of those. Like, I am just not, I am done with that shit. I’m, I’m done with writing about fitness. I’m done with self-help, you know, I I’ve done it for years and, and, um, I didn’t have, uh, I published two books and neither of them were great sellers. Uh, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s not being the rewarding career that, that I really want.

And, uh, And then it popped into my head on this bike ride. Just this very simple, specific idea that having a large Facebook following I had about 80,000 followers at that time, um, that I could, people knew that I was a history guy, that I’d had a history, a master’s degree, and I thought, fuck it. I’m going to write an on this day in history, post.

In my, you know, sweary, sarcastic, entertaining style and, uh, and I’m going to post it to Facebook. And that was it. That was the, the, the in Toto of the idea was just write this one and post it. And then I thought, yeah. Okay. That’s what I’m going to do. So, uh, so I went home. And I looked at, uh, for the next day, what, what type of thing happened on April 18th and start scrolling through?

And I found a thing about where Martin Luther told the Pope to fuck off, uh, in terms of, you know, he wouldn’t back down on his 95 thesis thing and, and that’s what I wrote about. And then I posted it to Facebook the next day and it did. Okay. It did all right. And I thought, well, that was fun. I’m going to do it again.

And so the next day I wrote another one, uh, that was about, uh, may West who, uh, was sentenced to 10 days in jail for, uh, her play sex, a Broadway play Broadway debut play in which she wrote star directed and produced. And, uh, and she was sent to 10, 10 days in jail for corrupting the morals of youth. And that one blew up that one.

It was the second one and it just blew up. It got a ton of shares across social media. And people were saying, you should turn these into a book. After two days, they were saying, we want a book. And I said, fuck, yeah, you’re going to get a book. So I blew off my agent. I said, you know what? It’s, uh, I’m I’m not going to do the self-help thing.

Just I’m going to work on something else for awhile. And in the first month there was a million views. And then by the fall it was averaging almost 5 million views a month. And I’m like, yeah, I’m doing the right thing here. And then, uh, after that was the, uh, the Patrion and it actually started making money.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: Okay, before we get to that. Cause I’m really intrigued to ask about that. How, I mean, I love the fact that you went back to your history roots, right? This is the thing that you were passionate about and the, and the sweary historian, of course, which I initially misread as the sweaty historian because I thought, well, cause the guy works out too.

So,

uh, so you know, so much about history and there’s so much material and obviously. More than one thing happens on the day. How did you decide, you know, Martin Luther on this day and may West on that day or whatever the, how, how does that fall together? Like, were there days when you went, Oh man, I got like five things I can write about for this day.

James Fell: Um, well more recently I’ve been taking, uh, suggestions, but at first. I would just scroll through a Wikipedia where you just go to Wikipedia and you look up that date. And that was how I first started to get ideas and I just scrolled through go boring, boring, boring, boring. Um, and I would just wait for something to grab my attention that, um, it, it was a combination of two things.

One was, well, no more than two things, but. Initially there had to be an ex, a spark of excitement where I want to write about that. Right. Uh, another was that, you know, feeling that I could do a good job, but I also would consider, is this going to be popular? Are people going to enjoy this? And that didn’t always rule the day, but sometimes it did other times I said, well, I know this isn’t going to be popular, but we need diversity.

Uh, and you know, the ones that are more Euro North American, Western European, North American centric are always more popular. That doesn’t mean that’s all I write about because people need to learn about stuff that’s happening in other parts of the world. Right. So, uh, and you know, it’s just, it’s, it’s a reality, that stuff that happens in places outside of Western Europe and North America.

Just aren’t as popular, but I don’t give a shit. I need to cover that anyway, because it needs to, needs to be a well-rounded education in this book throughout the year. Uh, and other times it’s, uh, or over time, what I’ve done is I’ve come to seek out ones that replicate some of the most popular ones in terms of, um, Uh, something that was little known, but that is makes for a cool, funny story that, that just, it really amps up people’s emotions and makes them want to share it.

Well,

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: it strikes me and I have only read a handful of, of them as I’m kind of working my way slowly, day by day history of the book. But what I love about it is once the pandemic’s over the next time I’m at a dinner party, I’m going to have some really cool tidbits. You that’s going to be, uh, I mean, fun, enlightening, like a combination of things I’m going to, I may be the life of the party because I bought,

James Fell: you know, what’s really.

Uh, startled and pleased me since the book came out nine days ago, it’s been nine days. Yeah. Nine days since it was first published, um, is that people are sending me photos and telling me stories of they’re sending me pictures of their teenagers, reading the book. Oh, my God. Uh, they said, and you know, there’s, uh, th the book is just shy of 160,000 words.

So it’s, it’s a, it’s a long book. And, uh, and it has, uh, variations on the word fuck. Over a thousand times in the book, you know, F uh, calling Nazis, like brainless, fuck puddles, and, uh, and, you know, motherfucker, this and that. And it’s just. Full of F bombs and people are letting their 13 and 14 year olds read it.

And I’m like, That’s cool.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: I don’t think it’ll get picked up by school curriculum for

James Fell: Scholastic. Isn’t going to be published yet. Yeah. Somebody sent me a message just, uh, just yesterday saying that my kid who never reads anything, except for, I think she said it was manga or graphic novels or something has been hiding.

In his room for the last two days with your book?

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: I talk about, I mean, let’s talk about the fact that history was always Trion boring. Hmm, uh, for me in school, because it wasn’t, it wasn’t until I discovered, uh, haunted ghost walks that I’m like, Oh, history can be fun. In this particular case, you’re taking history and you’re and you’re teaching.

Uh, I mean, you have to say, I can’t, I can’t believe that. I have to tell you that Nazis are bad. You have to start off with that. I can’t believe I have to say this, but you’ve made history fun for kids and adults alike. Um,

James Fell: I didn’t realize that the kids thing was going to happen. I didn’t not write this book for kids.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: No, no. Obviously you used a few, a few sweary words. So I’m curious when you talked about, um, uh, you, you released it on Facebook to your Facebook group and you’re just like writing and just checking out the feedback. When did you decide to move over or start releasing stuff on Patrion? How was that? How did that process work?

James Fell: So, um, a month after I started to call them, I was talking to my agent about, uh, I said, look, this has been going on for a month. That’s got a million views in the first month I’m done with self-help. What do you think? And he said, well, this is a brilliant pivot. I think that this is a smart idea for you self-help wasn’t working for you.

And then he said, but he said, he said, but, um, Publishers don’t want 365 things. They want. One thing had, my book actually has 366 because I of course had to include Lapier. Uh, but so he asked me to come on up with an idea that was a more big think history book and the Holy shit moment was a big think book.

You know, I, I knew what, what a big thing was. So. I really started, uh, considering that and, uh, and came up with an idea that I just, I, I made two pages. I wrote two pages of an outline to tell him what I thought it was about. And he loved it. He thought the idea was fantastic. And he said, write an introduction and we’ll, we’ll get a proposal going.

So I wrote a 9,500 word. Uh, introduction, um, plus all the additional proposal stuff for a book called green sexist, religious bigots who hate science and, uh, and it, what it is, it’s about six. Chronic failures that humans have committed again and again and again, across history. And the title kind of gives it away.

Greedy, sexist, religious bigots, who hate science. And, uh, and I was that, that long ass introduction, um, with some of the best writing I ever did. I was, I, I slaved over that for months while I was writing the daily column. And, uh, and so we started pitching that in October and we had a lot of really positive feedback about the writing and everything, but no tankers, nobody, nobody wanted it.

And, uh, and I think that, you know, I talked to my agent about it and we believe that, uh, you know, the, the publishing industry is very traditional and very sort of fearful and conservative and. What I think happened is that. First of all my last book hadn’t sell sold. So I wasn’t like this proven seller.

And it was only very recently, like five months previous. Um, had I switched John Aras seemingly out of the blue. I took this, you know, I, I suddenly became this history guy out of nowhere. And five months later, I’m pitching this really big idea for a book. And you know, I’m not a history professor. I don’t have a PhD.

So they’re like, nah, I think we’re going to pass.  And, uh, I had been counting on selling that book to make money and, uh, and that book is still going to happen one day. It’s just, it’s going to be delayed a bit. And so I went to Facebook and I said, you know, I’ve been hearing about various platforms for making money.

I’m thinking about launching something, right. And, uh, and two things came up. Uh, one was that, uh, I was overwhelmed with comments of people saying basically it’s about fucking time. I would love to give you money. And I was like, okay, thanks. That’s awesome. And, uh, and one of the ones that was often suggested, suggested was patriarch, uh, just launching a subscription service.

And so I, uh, I kept the column on Facebook, but started putting other stuff on Patrion that, uh, some of it was public, but a lot of it was behind a paywall and, and very quickly, like I was, I was leery about this because I’d seen so many other writers. Doing Patriana that made a few hundred bucks a month and almost nobody breaking a thousand and only three P fewer than 3% of Patrion creators.

Make more than a thousand bucks a month. Right. And I was like, do I want to put all this work into something if it’s not gonna make me money? And, uh, I was over a thousand bucks in a few hours after I announced it in a few hours. Yeah. A thousand bucks a month in monthly subscribers in just a few hours.

And, um, And I thought, okay, well this is obviously going to work. So I guess very creative in terms of promoting my Patrion, using social media, to promote Patrion, to get more subscribers. And I use the daily column to do it. But, um, not just that, I need specific posts to really encourage people, to subscribe to my Patrion.

And before long, I was like, Fuck the publishing industry, like this is, this is where it’s at. This is where the money is. And, and so I kept pushing that. And, uh, and then within three months I was in the top 30 of all writers on the platform. Wow. And which got the attention of another platform. So, this is where I pause.

And let you ask a question,

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: wait a second. You’re already doing well on Facebook. You’ve got the Patrion thing going. There’s another

James Fell: platform. Yeah. Well, I mean, there’s another platform. Um, yeah, so there was, uh, there there’s. We’re lots of different platforms that had been suggested. And Patrion was just sort of like the big boy that was the, it was well known and it seemed like, you know, okay.

There was a lot of comfort level there. And, uh, but the one thing was. That they weren’t doing much other than providing a platform and taking a cut and the cut is substantial. Like they take all of these platforms, take a pretty big chunk of your money. Right. And so then out of the blue, A representative from sub stack gets in touch after I’d been on patron for a few months and, uh, and starts spinning me up pretty convincing pitch about why I should move to sub stack.

Then they’re willing to, to help me go over there and be successful. And, uh, And I talked to her with my wife and I ran some numbers and I started looking at it and, uh, I’m looking at the platform. And the thing about Patrion is that it’s not super writer centric. We’re sub stack is very writer centric, and they have some really well-known big writers over there.

They’re number one. Um, Right. Creator on the platform is a historian. Uh, Heather Cox Richardson is who she’s very popular on Facebook as well, but, uh, and I follow her. I’m a big fan of hers and I thought, well, she’s there. Number one. And you know, that’s that sense speaks well, cause I really admired her work and it’s just, it’s much more writer oriented and they just seem to manage the whole, they, their model is.

Is seems to be different where they encourage people to subscribe for free and they encouraged their creators to give most of their stuff away for free, right. And to only put a portion behind the paywall and that people will, will subscribe for free and get used to getting all that free stuff. And then eventually they will become such fans that they’re like.

I want to see the other 10% I got to have it, or I liked this person so much. I want to give them money. Um, that kind of thing. Like yesterday, I had a massive, I had a post yesterday about the women’s March for our lives. That was based on, that was in reaction to the partial birth abortion ban. Um, and yeah, wasn’t a big post didn’t, didn’t go big on it, social media at all.

But all of a sudden I got a shit ton of news subscribers yesterday. And the only thing that I can imagine as to why is that, uh, that. I have a lot of free subscribers right now. And I also have a lot of paid subscribers, but suddenly a lot of those free ones converted to paid. And the only thing I can think is that they got that post, which was free.

Then they read it. And I thought I liked this guy. I want to give him money. That’s the only reference. Yeah. That’s the only thing I can imagine is that the, that post stuck struck a chord with them and they decided, okay, it’s time for me to subscribe. And it seems to make sense that yeah, I love it when people subscribe to the free stuff.

Everybody’s welcome to do that. And if you never give me a dime, that’s. That’s fine. Um, but, but that seems to be a good model that you’ve got lots of readers reading your free stuff, and over time, some of them are just going to convert and start giving you money and they make it easy to become a paying customer.

Well, I love

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: that because it almost sounds like so somebody who’s thinking of starting a newsletter, that sort of thing you can publish for free. You can, you can use the sub stack as, as a writer for free, right. It doesn’t cost you anything. Right. Listen to the platform.

James Fell: Yeah. It’s it’s when you decide to start accepting payments, they take their cut.

Right. And it works out to, um, they take 10%. And then there is, uh, the, uh, the processing fees on top of that, um, which are substantial, but it ends up being, you know, it’s pretty, pretty, uh, compatible to Patrion. Right.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: And I, and, but I love this model because you’ve mentioned it a couple times. You said the people were like, Oh, finally, I can give you some money because you’ve been entertaining me for free.

I remember I read one of your articles on medium. And the minute I saw the bio line, I’m like, Oh, he’s got a new book out. I’m going to go buy it because I like him. It’s because people tend to buy. Products from people they know like and admire. Right. And so that’s, that’s kind of a, it kind of, and I’ve seen industry studies that say that, yeah, that’s still the number one reason why people purchase things.

Right. Because, because of that personal recommendation, which is fairly powerful,

James Fell: I, I think that, that people develop an emotional attachment to authors, which me as an author, it kind of blows me away. Like I just think I’m just an ordinary guy. Right. I don’t understand why people have this.  It’s sort of affinity or affection for me that they would want to give me their money.

I, I didn’t really think that I deserved it. Um, and then recently, uh, one of my favorite favorite authors who, um, was, was a big influence on me. I’ve been reading him since I was a teen, uh, science fiction author named John barley. Um, he had a quadruple bypass surgery and was struggling financially. And another science fiction, author, spider Robinson set up a GoFundMe to, uh, to help you know him through this, this financial difficulty.

And I got the email about it and I didn’t hesitate. I gave him 200 bucks because I’m like, well, this guy has entertained me endlessly. I, I adore this man. Of course, I’m going to give him a bunch of money. Not only that, then I turned around an iPod. I used my social media to blast it out there. And a whole bunch of commenters were.

Don I’m giving them money because I love writing. And so it made me realize it’s like, you know, it’s not that I think I’m anywhere near as good a writer as John Harley is, but for some people, they kind of feel about me the way that I feel about John barley, which again is weird and I don’t get it. But, uh, yeah, the, it was originally set.

The GoFundMe was set at 25,000 and last time I looked, it was at almost 40,000. And so there was a lot of people that were like, yeah, John we’re we’re here for you. And it just did it, it amazed me that, uh, that, yeah, that’s great. Now I’m able to, uh, to make a living and, uh, and people are buying the book as well, which is also nice.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: Well, and, and that’s what I want to get to. So you’ve had the. Giving the content out on Facebook. You’re the Patrion. You’ve got the subset sub stack

James Fell: shut down. Now I just did patron, um, uh, just over a week ago.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: Right. And migrated

James Fell: over to if it’s all done, you announcements done. Patrons closed sub stack is the new place.

So

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: the idea to. Publish this book to actually release, uh, on this day in history, shit went down in, uh, ebook format in print book format, people already have the content. Why would, why would a book be a good idea?

James Fell: Because people are buying it.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: You’re giving away

James Fell: a lot. I, I think that, well, not only that, but when I launched sub stack three or four days before I launched the sub stack.

Yeah. Like. Three three days before the book came out and, uh, on that sub stack free for everyone is a page that has links to every single, uh, honesty and history. Shit went down post going back. The previous year, but had links to 363 of them. And then number three, six, four, five, and six were being published in fall on sub stack after that.

So they, there, there was no reason to buy my book. You, if you want to, I mean, it’s been edited, it’s been cleaned up. Um, so they’re, they’re improved. By about, you know, five or 10%, um, since then, but if you want to read them all, you just go to Jamesville dot sub stack.com and find that master document. You can read every single one.

Plus I’m working on year two. Now you can read year two for free as well. You don’t have to pay a dime. But people seem to want to anyway, because they want, um, they want it in book format and it, the, uh, it does seem like print is beating ebook by, uh, by a fair margin. Like what was it? Like six or seven to one or something like that.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: Yeah. Which is typical of nonfiction, especially. I mean, this is a book, this is a book that is going to sit on the back of my toilet. Because, um, because it’s kinda like, but yeah, shit, shit’s going down all the time, but it’s kinda like, Oh, I have time to read this one day. This one article is one page, that’s it?

Right? Like, it’s like an uncle John’s bathroom reader kind of right. With a small short,

James Fell: at my age, I can get through at least five of those stories by the time I’m finished.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: But, um, so how did you. Was this something you did with your agent? How did you go about the process of this book? Cause you didn’t, I don’t think you pitched it to a

James Fell: publisher.

I didn’t. Um, so my agent was, has been aware. I send him emails every couple of weeks, letting them know everything that’s going on because I am not. Necessarily done with the publishing industry. So that book, I mentioned greedy, sexist, religious bigots, who hate science. I might drop the who hates science or put it into a subtitle or something like that because greedy sexist, religious bigots just has a ring to it.

It does.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: Yeah. So I can see the movie being made too.

James Fell: So we, uh, we’re going to try to pitch that again. And, uh, we may pitch. Year or two as a traditionally published book. But the thing was that we needed to do a, uh, we needed to prove that I could make it as a, as a history writer and the, uh, the climb up the charts on Patrion, the move to sub stack and, uh, you know, getting, getting headhunted by a competitive organization and the great sales that have been coming in already.

For the shit went down, book. All of those things are things that will help us allow us to repitch greedy, sexist, religious, but I’m just going to call it GSRP. And, and the, uh, so that’s the goal. Is that probably early next year? Because what I want to do is, um, we’re, we’re still pushing out shit, went down right now as a self published book.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: That’s funny.

James Fell: Yeah. That’s a. Good Friday and slap or something. Um, we’re pushing it out as a mother’s day gift and then a father’s day gift. And then in the fall, I’m really going to hammer people as a holiday Christmas and, uh, or, or, you know, whatever it is that you celebrate and, uh, get it for a stocking stuffer, give it to your kids or friends or whatever.

Cause it’s, it’s kind of that perfect. You know, I need to buy this person something, but I don’t want to spend a ton of money. Yeah. 20 bucks. Sure. Why not? And, uh, and I think, I really do think a lot of people have said I bought four of them, one for me and three for gifts. And so we do get that with

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: non-fiction

James Fell: where people, you’re seeing a lot of gift purchases on this book.

So I’m going to wait until the new year when we’ve got almost a year’s full of sales and then. We may pitch year two of, you know, more shit went down, um, or we may pitch GSRP or we may pitch them both. I’m not sure, but the thing is that if it’s, if it’s year two of shit went down, that a publisher says, okay, we want to publish this book.

They’re going to have to give me a lot of money in an advance because of the amount of money that I’m making self publishing. This one. That’s what they’ve got to compete with. So, you know, why would I, I, I’m not, I’ve already traditionally published a book with a major publishing house. That part of my ego has been stroked.

So, um, I’m, I’m not going to do it again, just to say that I got published by a big, big publishing house. No fucking painting. You’re good. You’re going to have to, um, make it financially worth my ma my while and give me an advance that is at least as much as what I think I would make self publish.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: Right.

And, and self publishing in all its guises. Right. Releasing the book, releasing the print book, um, making it available through subscription services where people are like, yeah, of course, I’ll give you this much money a month because I love your stuff. I love that. So the, the, the freedom that, that probably empowers you and your agent with a lot more, uh, uh, ability to, to, to come to the table and go, Hey, look what we got here.

Like we have a guy with an audience proven track record.

James Fell: I like the arrogant part of me after having been rejected last time in a post COVID world where I can actually. Cause when we pitched Holy shit moment, I traveled to New York and met face to face with all the big publishing companies. I’m really looking forward to hopefully being able to go back to New York into those boardrooms.

And say, I don’t fucking meet you,

make it worth my while. Right. So. Yeah, I’m not coming here with my hat and my hat please. Well, uh, I have another book deal

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: set. See, I’m I’m imagining the ad at Christmas time using a double over of cousin Eddie from Christmas vacation saying Clark, that’s the gift that keeps on giving.

I can see that I can see that as one of the potentials of memes that get shared, he’s holding a

James Fell: copy of, and I thought about. Doing advertising for this book, but. I, and I, I could, I think if I was willing to get creative and I might still, but the thing is that we tried advertising Holy shit moment. And it just got bald because of the word shit, even though it had, yes, that’s right.

Even though it had the exclamation Mark in place of the letter, I, it, we couldn’t get Facebook approval. And from what I understand, Amazon’s the same way. So. I, I, part of me thinks, fuck it. I, you know, I I’m doing this podcast. I did, uh, John scowls. He’s big idea. And that’s it. That is the only PR and no advertising, strictly social media and word of mouth and

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: content.

No, no. You’ve been sharing content from the book and that has served as the best advertising.

James Fell: Well, and I write stories, uh, you know, what’s interesting is that for both driving, um, things like Patrion and sub stack subscriptions, as well as driving book sales, because I’ll look at the Amazon rankings after I do something, what is fascinating is that, so there’s the daily history column.

That appears, um, you know, in fall on Facebook every day, not need more. Now it’s in full on sub stack and you just get the teaser on Facebook, but for a full year, the full thing was there. And when I launched the patriarch in November, at the end of every Facebook posts at the end of every history story was subscribed to my Patriots.

And the, even if it was a really popular story that was seen by like half a million people, the number of new patron subscribers was not huge. It wasn’t that big. And. But it was when I did a post that was specifically designed that that was not a history post, but, uh, but a social media, Facebook post that was specifically yet creatively designed to encourage people to subscribe to Patrion.

That was what the whole post was about. And sometimes it didn’t look like that was where it was going. It would, it was meandering. And they would have to click to see more and read and then boom. But yeah, I described my Patriot motherfucker and that those posts are what drove subscribers, same thing with book sales.

So once the book became available, there were. Popular posts right at the end, get the fucking book like this is this, this post that you just read that you’d liked, that you thought was cool. You could buy the book that this post is in and it’s still Salesforce. Okay. We would see a really popular one. And then we would see a jump in the Amazon ratings, but not a huge one, but when I got creative and made a separate post, because I think people get blind to by-lines.

They read the post. And once the post is done their own, they see the same byline, get the book, get the book, subscribe, patrons, jibes, sub stack. They see that over and over again. And they just, they learn to ignore it. Whereas if they read a post where the entire purpose of that post, even if it takes them on a weird journey is about driving them to buy.

They say, okay. And they do it. And that is I I’ve done this dozens of times. I’ve I’ve this is all personal metrics, but I’ve looked at it so many times. I can’t deny that you have to make the decision that a byline on content by itself, isn’t going to sell very much. You have to creatively tell people to buy something or to subscribe to something.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: Blatantly too. I mean, and again, you’re like writing your face as like, Hey, F like that that’s exactly what, uh, what works and, and authors are not good at that. And it’s like, well, I kind of have, if you feel like it, maybe you can consider looking at

James Fell: it. Yeah. This is where the, uh, the, the MBA came in handy.

For sure. I would say it was a pretty good marketing and sales guy for awhile. Yeah.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: Yeah. I was like, it feels like, uh, Samuel Jackson’s like, get the book motherfucker. Like that’s what he was like. Okay. Okay. Okay. I got it. I’m gonna put the gun away, but that is fantastic. Thank you so much for sharing, uh, this journey, James, where can people find out more about you?

Where can they subscribe to you on sub stock? Where can they check you out? Where can they buy the book?

James Fell: So, uh, yeah, lots of links. So by, since we’re mostly talking about the book book is easiest thing is type in James fel.com. And if you go, Oh, there you’re going to get redirected because I don’t have a website there.

It’s just a, I bought the URL just a while ago because some other asshole was holding onto it forever and doing nothing with it. But it’s mine. Now. Anyway, you go to James fel.com. You’re going to get redirected to my old fitness. Cite, uh, body for wife.com/books. And so it’s going to take you to my books page, which has a shit ton of links, uh, from, uh, myriad buyers that you can choose, whichever one you want, whichever country you’re in and, and buy it there.

And sub stack strongly encourage you to subscribe even just for free. You don’t need to give me money yet. I’ll convince you to give me money later. Uh, uh, James fel dot sub stack.com. And, uh, I’m also a lot of people like my, uh, my Facebook page, which is slash body for wife. Because again, like I said, I used to be a fitness guy.

So body B O D Y F O R w I F E is both my, my Facebook and my Twitter. Although I don’t like Twitter as much. And I share, I share my, uh, My teasers to my daily history posts there. But if you want to read the whole thing, they’re just on sub stack and you get them right into your email inbox every morning.

You don’t even have to go to sub stack. You can just read them in your email. And there’s also a link to the audio. I’ve been doing audio versions as well. I started for year two and a and people seem to like that. And that’s only on sub stack. Oh God. Yeah. The.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: Sorry, they can listen to your daily, uh, all that stuff.

Yes.

James Fell: I, I just started with, uh, the, the day the book came out, I started reading year two, uh, and, and, you know, they’d take like three, three and a half minutes to read. And, uh, and people seem to be enjoying those as well. But yeah, the Facebook page is where I just, you know, all post memes and dumb shit and funny things.

So if you, if you are a fan of Facebook, I’ve got, I think it’s almost 150,000 followers there now. And actually that’s one thing that I liked to, uh, to bring up in terms of the reinforcement that this really was the right move for me, was that when I started this a year ago, I had taken nine years to build my Facebook page up to 80,000 followers.

And then a year later it’s almost 150,000. Wow. So, you know, climbed by almost 70,000 in a year. I think that that says something, but the move to history was a smart one.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you for sharing all those smart moves with me today, James. Thanks again for coming on the podcast.

James Fell: Thanks. Anytime. And I’ll, I’ll do it again next year for year two of shit went down. If you like.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre: I’d love that. Thanks.

Episode 189 – From Stage to Page and Back to Stage with Rod Carley

Mark interviews writer, director, playwright and actor, Rod Carley and they talk about his new novel Kinmount.

Prior to the interview, Mark shares a personal update as well as a word from this episode’s sponsor.

You can learn more about how you can get your work distributed to retailers and library systems around the world at starkreflections.ca/Findaway.

During their conversation, Mark and Rod talk about:

How, when he was young, Rod would come home from school every day and work on a picture bookJoining a musical as part of the chorus in grade 9Theater offering a sense of collaboration and inclusionHaving Canadian poet bpNichol as a creative writing instructor in university, and how this legendary writer was a huge influenceThe work Rod did adapting and editing Shakespearean scripts into modern settings by finding more recent historic parallels to moments, themes, and events from the original playsWriting musicals based on the history of Northern OntarioAn overview of the premise and setup for Rod’s first novel, A Matter of WillRod’s latest novel, Kinmount, which is about a theater director trying to put on a Shakespeare play (Romeo & Juliet) in a small townThe common mis-perception of Romeo & Juliet as a romantic story rather than a tragedyHow Romeo & Juliet is, in many ways, a tragedy of toxic masculinityBalancing humanity with hilarity in the writing of this bookThe subtle elements of magic realism in Kinmount and A Matter of Will and how it has to come from an organic place in the storyOne of the things Rod has done when directing MacBeth (“the Scottish play”) to break the curse/spell associated with that playHow the first week of July in North Bay there is a massive shadfly infestationLaunching a novel during the 2020 PandemicPivoting to a virtual book launch, and hiring a small local marketing firm to assist with thatOne of the pros of having a virtual book launch, which allowed for attendees from afarGetting onto the long-list for the Stephen Leacock Medal and the support Rod received from Terry FallisSome of Rod’s influences that include Robertson Davies, Mordecai Richler, David Sedaris, Kurt Vonnegut, and moreHow Rod prepares for doing a live (or virtual) reading of his workThe way Rod’s work in theater has informed his ability to compose dialogueModern adaptation (what Rod calls “responsible adaption”) of Shakespeare’s society and how, back in Shakespeare’s day, people were used to speaking and listening a lot more rapidly, so a typical Shakespeare play wasn’t as long in duration as a modern versionAnd more…

After the interview, Mark reflects on the adaptations that can happen with creative work and how authors might consider their own work re-adapted to different formats.

Links of Interest:

Rod Carley’s WebsiteInstagramTwitterFacebookKevin Closs MusicEpisode 29 – Terry Fallis on Writing with Authenticity, Humor, & PassionStephen Leacock Medal for HumourPatreon for Stark ReflectionsWide for the WinMark’s Canadian Werewolf BooksThis Time Around (Short Story)A Canadian Werewolf in New YorkStowe Away (Novella)Fear and Longing in Los AngelesFright Nights, Big City

Rod’s first novel, A Matter of Will, was a finalist for the 2018 Northern Lit Award for Fiction. His non-fiction short story, A Farewell to Steam, was featured in the anthology, 150 Years Up North and More. His literary fiction short story, Botox and the Brontosaurus, is featured in Cloud Lake Literary’s inaugural online review. Rod is also an award-winning director, playwright and actor, having directed and produced over 100 theatrical productions to date including fifteen adaptations of Shakespeare. He is the Artistic Director of the Acting for Stage and Screen Program for Canadore College and a part-time English professor with Nipissing University. Rod was the 2009 winner of TVO’s Big Ideas/Best Lecturer competition. KINMOUNT is his second novel.

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0