Fable & The Verbivore Fable & The Verbivore

Today on Fable and the Verbivore, we dig into indie publishing and talk about the ins and outs of prepping your work and putting it out there in the world.

This episode is a natural extension of our recent series on developing your author brand and last week’s conversation about traditional publishing (querying and agent contracts). Today, we talk about how your individual brand knowledge is useful when preparing your title, keywords, book categories, blurb, and elevator pitch.

We talk about some of the reasons you might prefer the indie publishing option. For instance, having full control over your publication time frame and how often your work comes out, being able to make changes and fix errors quickly by simply re-uploading a file, timely access to sales data and ability to use it in real time to adjust your sales and promotion strategies, and full transparency and control over all aspects of the process.

In this conversation, we talk about a variety of resources to research into if you plan to go the indie publishing route and what to be aware of.

Things like:
- Choosing whether to go only with eBooks at first or both eBooks and physical books
- Planning for up front costs if you decide to invest in professional Editing and Cover Design
- Design programs and/or buying illustrations if you decide to create the cover yourself
- Buying multiple rounds of proofs and reviewing them closely to fix errors and get your work as good as it can be 
- Awareness of process to purchase ISBN number and register work for copyright, if you decide to do so
- Use something like ProWritingAid.com to check your writing and learn about your sentence structures
- PublisherRocket.com can help you identify keyword and category trends and determine what combination could be most effective to try for your project
- Familiarize yourself with the royalty structures and pricing rules and make choices on initial price and any sales with those in mind
- Allow yourself to play around with and update your choices if something isn’t working. Like: price, categories, keywords, blurb, cover, etc.
- Understand how quickly work shows up on publishing platforms when you go to publish
- Kindle Unlimited rules and requirements
- Kindle Direct Publishing Rules
- IngramSparks Rules

Towards the end of this conversation, we talk a little about the psychology of pricing — especially if you’re in Kindle Unlimited — and making sure to consider how a lower priced eBook could be perceived and valued by a reader. Also, Fable mentions several learning experiences she had with the Amazon publishing system — like how it often takes 72 hrs for edits to show up and that pricing changes do not go into effect immediately.

We hope you enjoy listening to this episode and that you find it useful wherever you are at on your writing journey!

Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,
Fable & The Verbivore

Today on Fable and the Verbivore, we pull back the traditional publishing curtain and talk about the ins and outs of querying and agent contracts.

This episode is a natural extension of our recent series on developing your author brand. We talk about how your individual brand knowledge is useful when looking to find an agent — checking out their Manuscript Wishlist and their personal bio can help you identify who is a good fit for your book, strengthening your querying materials to ensure they reflect and communicate well your distinctive writing brand, and developing an elevator pitch to be able to quickly and easily distill the most compelling aspects of your idea down to something bitesize.

In this conversation, we use a variety of resources to unpack some of the things to research if you plan to go the traditional publishing route and what to be aware of.

Things like:
- Making sure your querying materials (for ex. Pitch, Query letter, Bio, and Synopsis) reflect your unique brand
- Agency specific submission guidelines
- Agent website, bio, and Manuscript Wishlist
- Vanity presses - making sure terms are not predatory and level of compensation make it viable
- Agent contract red flags — Reader fees, Editing fees
- Agent contract standard terms to be aware of: What they do and what you do, What specific part of your work they represent, Royalty %, Agreement Timeframe, Termination clause, Death clause
- Reviewing all contract terms and consider negotiating (redlining) where it feels necessary
- Seeking advice from other authors, researching the industry and agency standard, and consulting a contract lawyer if there are concerns
- Consider if an agent feels like a good fit, before accepting offer of representation
- Contracts protect both parties if good things or bad things happen
- Publishing contract terms and timelines: How long does the publisher have to publish before the rights revert back to you, Is there a standard of quality for subsequent work (like in a multi-book deal), Royalties
- Case studies of worst case scenarios - Poor royalty compensation, Publisher not releasing royalties in accordance with contract, Debut author’s leaving original agent

Towards the end of this conversation, we talk about treating searching for an agent as you would looking for a job — meaning you are wanting to make sure they are a good fit for you as well and fighting the urge to accept an offer of representation if it doesn’t feel right. We also talk about how bringing the idea of finding an agent down from a hypothetical dream to an imperfect reality can be helpful, as it allows you to prepare for possible bumps along the road.

We hope you enjoy listening to this episode and that you find it useful wherever you are at on your writing journey!

Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,
Fable & The Verbivore

Today on Fable and the Verbivore, we talk about the Verbivore’s brand using the same questions Fable used last week to help develop her own author brand.

This episode is part three of our new series on developing a distinctive brand as an author. In it, we dig into the Verbivore’s personal author mission statement and brand. Specifically, by looking at her stories and asking herself what her writing is and what it isn’t.

In this conversation, we use a method for brainstorming and workshopping your own personal author brand by reviewing the natural tendencies within your work and asking yourself some key introspective and fill-in-the-blank questions. 

Things like:
- What is consistent across my work?
- What are my strengths? 
- What are my weaknesses?
- My voice is…
- My reader wants…
- My reader needs…
- When they read my stories, they want to feel…
- They read my books, when they want (a consistent thread or experience)...
- My reader’s pain points are…
- What gaps in the market can I fill?
- What is the kind(s) of story readers can expect from me?
- My target audience is…
- My author competitors are…
- My ideal readers are…
- What font and colors best reflect the feeling of my brand?

For instance, the Verbivore’s brand is creating amusing nerdgasmic romances with diverse casts that are scrumptious, sensual, and spicy. Her work is earnest with an edge, immersive, introspective, wry humored, wholehearted, instinctive, and nerdy af. Readers pick up her work when they want to decompress with a little laugh, fall into the rush of a romance, or take a break from a world that can sometimes be too much.

Towards the end of this conversation, we touch on the idea that by actively choosing areas and aspects that we want to lean into with our stories we help make our stories more distinctive. Also, by clearly communicating our specific flavor and brand in all author materials (for ex: author website, query letter, hook, and bio) we can more easily help readers who would like and connect with books like the ones we’re writing find us.

We hope you enjoy listening to this episode and that you find it useful wherever you are at on your writing journey! Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,
Fable & The Verbivore

Today on Fable and the Verbivore, we talk about the specific questions Fable used to help develop her own author brand.

This episode is part two of our new series on developing a distinctive brand as an author. In it, we dig into Fable’s personal author mission statement and brand and how she went about refining and building it over the last two years. Specifically, by looking at her books and asking herself what her writing is and what it isn’t.

In this conversation, we talk about a method for brainstorming and workshopping your own personal author brand by reviewing the natural tendencies within your work and asking yourself some key introspective and fill-in-the-blank questions. 

Things like:
- What is consistent across my work?
- What are my strengths? 
- What are my weaknesses?
- My voice is…
- My reader wants…
- My reader needs…
- When they read my stories, they want to feel…
- They read my books, when they want (a consistent thread or experience)...
- My reader’s pain points are…
- What gaps in the market can I fill?
- What is the kind(s) of story readers can expect from me?
- My target audience is…
- My author competitors are…
- My ideal readers are…
- What font and colors best reflect the feeling of my brand?

For instance, Fable’s brand is writing clean, crisp, exciting, fast-paced, and entertaining stories that will make you lose sleep, miss your bus stop, or burn dinner. She enjoys crafting and helping others craft stories that you can’t put down. Her books are speculative with magic, monsters, and aliens. 

Towards the end of this conversation, Fable talks about how part of this process for her was using concrete examples that encouraged readers to think of the last time they felt a certain way about a book (unable to put it down, pulled out of a reading slump, lost in a great story) and in that way tie her work to something that’s familiar by helping them to feel (not just know) what her books are like.

We hope you enjoy listening to this episode and that you find it useful wherever you are at on your writing journey!

We’ll be back next week with part three of this new series on author branding to discuss how The Verbivore answered these same questions. Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,
Fable & The Verbivore

This week, Fable and The Verbivore discuss creating an author brand name for your writing.

This episode is part one of our new series on developing a brand for your stories. And we open, by giving a broad definition from TechTarget.com that calls a brand “a product, service or concept that is publicly distinguished from other products, services or concepts so that it can be easily communicated and usually marketed. Branding is the process of creating and disseminating the brand name, its qualities and personality.”

But also, branding is:
- What people think of or associate with you
- Defined by a persona and specific attributes
- The feel/vibe/emotion connected with your work
- An aspect of your work that makes it distinctive from the work of others

In this conversation, we cover a lot of ground about branding and reasons why we feel every author should work on developing their own. 

Things like the following:
- Step back from your work and assess what is already part of your writing
- Get specific and intentional on the story of your brand
- Tap into the vibe/emotion behind your work and express it visually — through colors, fonts, and images
- Be willing to sit with, workshop, and play with different ideas as you begin to hone in on your brand
- Find the niche or distinctive white space in the market that you naturally fall into and enfold that USP (unique selling proposition) into the story of your author brand and marketing materials
- Once you have developed a brand, find ways of being consistent through the things you create — even websites, your bio, and social media posts

Towards the end of this conversation, we talk about the importance of tying all of this back to the specific feeling you want a reader to have with your work — using a concrete example to not just tell them how you hope your work will make them feel but show them. And, also, viscerally remind you as you write what feel you’re aiming towards.

We hope you enjoy listening to this episode and that you find it useful wherever you are at on your writing journey!

We’ll be back next week with part two of this new series on author branding to discuss some specific questions to consider. Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,
Fable & The Verbivore

This week, Fable and The Verbivore talk about the ins and outs of using pen names.

We open by discussing some of the reasons why people choose to use pen names. For instance: 
- Managing reader expectation across different genres, tones, or spice or violence levels of your stories
- Separating out your writing work from your personal life or other professional work
- Making it easier for readers to find you and your work in a search if you have a common name (like Johnson)
- Using a name that is more memorable, easier to spell/pronounce, or more directly reflects the feel of your stories

In this episode, we cover a lot of ground about both the personal side and the logistical side of working with a pen name. 

Things like the following:
- Googling the proposed name to see how easy or difficult it would be to find you and if there could be things associated with the name that you would not want to reflect on your work
- Remembering that this name will represent you and your writing for a period of time and choosing something that feels like a reflection of you or your brand and you wouldn’t mind directly being called or associated with
- Deciding whether or not setting up an LLC under the pen name is a right choice for you and some resources for how to go about it
- Copyrighting under a pen name and thinking what situations are worth defending and what ones aren’t worth the effort and financial outlay

Towards the end of this conversation, we note that there are no right answers if you decide to go this route, but that being informed of what some of the options are will help you make the most empowered decisions for you. And if you decide to use one or more pen names for your work, you’re in good company because many authors do. 

We hope you enjoy listening to this episode and that you find it useful wherever you are at on your writing journey!

Keep reading, writing, and putting your voice out there!

Into the woods,
Fable & The Verbivore