Coaching KidLit Episode 39 – Ins and Outs of Indie Publishing with Guest Natalie Wright
In this episode of Coaching KidLit, host Sharon Skinner dives into the ins and outs of indie publishing with guest Natalie Wright. Natalie shares her journey from lawyer to successful indie author, discussing her writing process, character development, and the importance of a strong author platform. She offers valuable insights into creating emotionally resonant stories and building an engaged readership. Sharon and Natalie also emphasize the significance of authenticity and deep connection with target readers in both writing and marketing strategies.
Visit Natalie online at NatalieWrightAuthor.com
Key Topics Covered:
- Indie Author Realizations
- Choosing Indie Publishing Path
- Journey to Embrace Writing Passion
- “Richard Peck’s Writing Insight”
- Honest Editing Over Flattery
- Empowering Women in Fantasy Stories
- Authentic Engagement
- “Author Brand Beyond a Single Book”
- Building Your Author Platform
Books and Resources Mentioned:
Emily’s House by Natalie Wright
Season of the Dragon by Natalie Wright
Spring Dragon by Natalie Wright
The Healer’s Legacy by Sharon Skinner
Write Characters Your Readers Won’t Forget by Stant Litore
The Snowflake Method for Designing a Novel
Listen:
Transcript:
[00:00:00] Sharon Skinner: Welcome to Coaching KidLit, a podcast about writing and publishing good KidLit.
[00:00:06] Christy Yaros: We dig into various aspects of writing craft through a KidLit lens and provide inspiration and clear actionable items to help writers like you move forward on their KidLit writing journeys.
[00:00:17] Sharon Skinner: I’m Sharon Skinner, author accelerator, certified book coach, and author of speculative fiction and KidLit, including picture books, middle grade, and young adult.
[00:00:27] Christy Yaros: And I’m Christy Yaros, author accelerator certified book coach and story editor, focusing on KidLit, including middle grade and young adult.
[00:00:36] Sharon Skinner: Hello listeners, welcome back to another episode of Coaching Kid Lit. Our guest today is Natalie Wright. Her debut epic fantasy, Season of the Dragon, was named a Top 10 Indie Epic Fantasy Books by Bookshop. org and Ingram and was a medalist in the 2023 Reader’s Favorite Awards. Natalie’s intricate world building and unique characters stem from her lifelong love of fantastical fiction. When not writing, you’ll find Natalie studying medieval arms and armor at the Met or immersed in a sci fi or fantasy book, movie series, or open world RPG.
[00:01:11] Sharon Skinner: Gotta love that. She lives in Arizona with her husband and two cats and frequently visits her son in New York City. A regular at sci fi and fantasy conventions, book festivals, and signing events, you can find Natalie’s tour schedule and order special editions of her books at www.
[00:01:26] Sharon Skinner: NatalieWrightAuthor. com and that’s N A T A L I E. W R I G H T A U T H O R dot com. Hi, Natalie. How are you?
[00:01:38] Natalie Wright: Hi Sharon, good. It’s always good to talk to you.
[00:01:41] Sharon Skinner: So we know each other pretty well and I see you at a lot of events and I’d like to start by talking a little bit about your indie writing journey, if you would give us the rundown, about that.
[00:01:53] Natalie Wright: Yeah, well, I have been a writer and a reader, especially a fantasy and sci fi pretty much my entire life. And I took a little sojourn into the world of being a lawyer, but when I had the birth of my child in 2002, I held this like creative energy surge through me and I began painting and doing things and writing.
[00:02:13] Natalie Wright: And it was a release to begin with, just a really good, creative release. And then I, , had some children’s stories start to come to mind and I got involved in SCBWI, the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, your listeners probably very familiar with, and I did my first conference in LA in 2009, which I highly recommend if anyone is doing kidlit . Definitely try to go to one of the conferences. It was so eye opening. But Sharon, for me, as an indie author coming from a place of being an entrepreneur in my own right as a lawyer, having my own practice for quite a while at that point, when I heard editors and agents talk about the business.
[00:02:51] Natalie Wright: And the contracts and everything. This is what I took away from that. Well, we’re not going to edit your work because we don’t really have the money for that anymore because of budget. So you have to come with it fully edited, so pay someone to do that. And we’re not going to promote your work because we don’t really have budgets for that either.
[00:03:07] Natalie Wright: So you got to do that. And I came home and I said to my husband, why would anyone do it the other way? Now, that was 15 years ago. I now have a lot of reasons why you might want to do it another way. For me at the time, I thought, I can do this, and then there was that big energy in 2009, 10 and 11, of, what became indie superstars like Amanda Hawking, Joe Conrath, Barry Eisler, Hugh Howie.
[00:03:33] Natalie Wright: Right. And all of this was going on and it just made it feel like anything was possible. So I stepped into the world of indie publishing then, and there have been moments where I’ve traversed into the traditional realm or tried to, and then I keep coming back to. Being Indy, the nascence of it was back in that 2009 and 11 moment where I felt like I was going to either try to do it this 1 way or the other way. And I opted for. The non traditional path, which kind of is my M. O. in life anyway, so it fits.
[00:04:06] Natalie Wright: I did not realize that that’s how you decided because I don’t think we’ve Had that conversation before.
It was editors and agents. And as a lawyer looking at contracts, they were expecting people to sign it. And I think they frankly only gotten worse in the traditional publishing realm. As a lawyer, I thought I wouldn’t sign any of those. Like I wouldn’t tell my client to sign any of those.
[00:04:24] Natalie Wright: Now they’re what’s called adhesion contracts. You don’t really have a choice. You want to be published, by a big five or whatever, any publisher. And there’s so much competition. You don’t really have much of an option. You’re either going to sign this contract. That is by and large, really crappy for the creator.
[00:04:39] Natalie Wright: They are not intended to help the writer. They’re intended to help the publisher. And there’s a lot of reasons why people want to do that. Again, if you want to have the big publishing company behind you, which has a huge amount of advantages, and anyone who’s been doing indie a long time, they’re a fool if they don’t admit that.
[00:04:55] Natalie Wright: There are things that they can do. behind the scenes that you don’t see that can really help a writer and it can open doors for you. So there is that, so that’s why people might be willing to sign these contracts that are not great, but that’s sort of like the mentality that was going on for me.
[00:05:10] Natalie Wright: Was I already was an entrepreneur. I only had a successful business. I sort of knew how to do that. And then it was like, okay, with these beginning books that I’m writing that probably aren’t going to get a publishing contract anyway, why don’t I try? And everyone was talking about platform. Well, how do you build a freaking platform when you don’t have a product?
[00:05:28] Natalie Wright: I found that difficult mentally for myself to bridge that, how was I gonna do that? so I thought, okay, well write things and publish them.
[00:05:36] Sharon Skinner: When I teach the paths to publishing to people and I talk about the journey and when I work with clients, we sit down and we decide what is it you want from your journey and what is it you’re willing to do and can do to further this journey. And that. is important to think about. So, You were already a solopreneur. You already knew how to do a lot of this business stuff. You understood that these contracts were not going to serve you personally. They didn’t feel good. They didn’t look good, but there were things that you knew you could do, and so, you embarked on this journey and moved in that direction. So, your first books were, Paranormal. and science fiction. And now you’re into epic fantasy. This is kind of a little bit new territory for you to get into epic fantasy. So that’s also part of your writing journey.
[00:06:26] Sharon Skinner: Do you want to talk a little bit about what it was that interested you to bring you along that route.
[00:06:31] Natalie Wright: Yeah, the first story that I wrote, the title is Emily’s House. And, actually Sharon, you and I were at, a retreat together, I can’t remember what year that was. Might be 2010. And that was the story I was working on.
[00:06:42] Natalie Wright: And that one literally came to me in a vision like a dream, and that was the beginning of the idea. And I wasn’t a writer at the time. I mean, I was writing, but I wouldn’t say I was a writer. And it was my desire to see that story through that. I began going to workshops and classes and like, I don’t have an MFA, but I’m a curious person and I like to study whatever I’m interested in.
[00:07:04] Natalie Wright: So I just took advantage of every free class I could find. Workshops. SCBWI things. Anything I could get my hands on to teach about craft I did. And it’s always for me just been about pursuing the thing that I’m curious about, the story that is. nagging at my brain, the characters that are chitter chattering away in there. And one of the things for me, when we talk about like why you might do traditional path or non traditional path of publishing self publishing or not, for me, it’s always about, I write because I’m a creative person.
[00:07:37] Natalie Wright: I’ve always been an artist and that’s what I’m interested in. The fact that anyone wants to read it is just a blessing. It’s like lovely and wonderful to have the interaction, but I’m going to write it anyway. I’m going to pursue the thing that’s in me to tell. And I have a vision of how I want it to look and feel and what I want to do.
[00:07:56] Natalie Wright: And so Indie works really well for me. For that reason too, because I have a vision. I know how I want the cover to look. I know how I want the inside to look, and I know the story I want to tell. But in the very beginning of it, it was just, I’ve always been interested in speculative fiction.
[00:08:11] Natalie Wright: You know, I was a Twilight Zone kid that read, a Wrinkle in time. I wore that book out. I carried around, , stories like that, science fiction, star wars, that was the kid I was. So stories just in that realm are interesting to me. And no matter what the story issue is, the problem, the theme, it always seems to come out.
[00:08:31] Natalie Wright: Where there’s some supernatural element, transitioning over time for more of a middle grade to high school to new adult to adult, because each book I write, it seems like my inner. Storytelling voice matures and that’s just, what’s happening as I tell more stories.
[00:08:50] Natalie Wright: I’m getting more older characters come in, that have, POV chapters. and now I’ve got dragons that are thousands of years old, so I guess they’re really ancient. But, just over time, like my beginning stories were told in first person, which I find to be a little bit easier to get a grip on because you’re inside the head, the mind of one character, and it’s all from their perspective.
[00:09:11] Natalie Wright: It’s easier to keep a grip on the story. But as my storytelling evolved. Then it was a close third person, POV, multiple viewpoints, older characters, and then it settle into your voice and realizing that even if I’m telling a coming of age story, like Season of the Dragon, it is a coming of age story, but it’s not necessarily written for children.
[00:09:31] Natalie Wright: I mean, it can be appropriate for younger readers, but It’s, not written for kids.
[00:09:34] Sharon Skinner: Right Its It’s more in arena more of in that crossover arena, right?
[00:09:39] Natalie Wright: Mean, A New Hope’s episode four of Star Wars, Luke’s story is a young adult story in some respects because it’s coming of age. It’s very much that point, and that’s like Quen in Season of Dragon. The point where here’s this young character stuck in their life, in their hometown, in their home village.
[00:09:56] Natalie Wright: It’s A Wheel of Time with Rand and Matt. It’s Lord of the Rings. A lot of stories, right? Where you have a young person that’s on the cusp. Of adulthood and then they get the call to action and they set on the adventure and there is a coming of age aspect to that, but those stories aren’t necessarily written for children. you can have a coming of age story that is Y. A., but you can have a coming of age story that is not Y. A.
[00:10:17] Sharon Skinner: Right. I like that you talked about how your voice matured and your writing style matured over time. And that’s the trajectory that your writing has taken because you did start with more of a middle grade, and moved into, YA, , so it’s interesting that we have, this trajectory for you.
[00:10:36] Sharon Skinner: Me, I keep backtracking, I’ll write YA, then I’ll write middle grade, then I’ll write adult, then I’ll write middle grade. I think that I keep coming back to where my own maturity is,
[00:10:46] Natalie Wright: I think the story that you want to tell probably dictates the age that you’re writing it for.
[00:10:51] Sharon Skinner: yeah
[00:10:51] Natalie Wright: But I tend to come into anything and I make it overly complicated
[00:10:56] Natalie Wright: it’s like I’m making up a 30 page glossary. It’s just that tends to be the way that I think. And the way I move through things, but I actually would really like to get back to writing for a much younger age, but I don’t think that I’m a strong enough writer yet to do that. I think your writing skills have to be really stellar to pull off successfully in my view, books for very young children, because it’s so much more of an abstraction.
[00:11:20] Sharon Skinner: I I love that you said that.
[00:11:22] Natalie Wright: Like poetry is an abstraction, right? It’s very profound things in very few words. And I’m like, I sometimes see a lyrics or song. Someone says something in 10 words that took me a hundred thousand to say. Oh, I wrote 160, 000 words to get to this one thing. Someone else is able to say in say 500 words.
[00:11:42] Natalie Wright: And that for me is much more difficult. I would love to be able to, , get to a point where I could write for younger people again and be able to, distill down these things that take me a long time
[00:11:52] Natalie Wright: to say into a that’s shorter time to say,
[00:11:54] Sharon Skinner: That’s interesting.. I love hearing you say that because think a lot of times people think writing for kids is easy because things are shorter , but it’s really not, and we talk about this a lot. On this podcast, actually, especially when it comes to picture books, because picture books are one of the hardest things to write because they are so compressed and so, abstracted so I love hearing you iterate that to our listeners because I think it’s an important point.
[00:12:19] Natalie Wright: I mean, I have poems in my epic fiction that separate out the parts. Generally, there’s some kind of a poem or there’s a piece of literature that’s just one page that’s short that sort of sets the tone for the next. thing. Sometimes they’re songs. They might be from an epic saga, right?
[00:12:36] Sharon Skinner: It’s like the idea is this is a piece of the lore. Those can take me a week, two weeks to write. Whereas if I’m writing prose, I can crank along at 2, 500 words a day, but to write 100 words, it takes weeks,
Right. But also you’re deep world building, too, when you’re crafting those smaller bits and pieces. That’s all part of the world building of the bigger picture and developing who those people are And who they were and where they’ve been and where they’ve come from. So, that takes a lot.
[00:13:05] Natalie Wright: And that’s what picture books are, right? You’re distilling this really big thing down into a very few words. And I find it very fulfilling to do, but really difficult . Other people may find that comes easier, but, I think through writing. So that’s why I have to write it all out to see what it is. And then I can go back and, cut, cut, cut,
[00:13:27] Sharon Skinner: so talk a little bit about your editorial process. You just said that you write it all out and then you go back and you edit and I’m a firm believer that you need to have the clay on the table in order to sculpt the thing that you really want from it as well. So do You want to talk a little bit about your editorial process and who else is involved in that. and how you work,
[00:13:47] Natalie Wright: It was actually in 2009 at the conference where I heard Richard Peck speak . I feel really honored to have been able to sit and hear him do a conversation about writing. And what he said is he always deletes the first three chapters without even reading them when he writes, because when He sits down to write, he doesn’t know what the story is about. yet. And it’s only through writing this story that He understands what it was about. And then now That he knows what, the story is about. He can go back and he can craft those first three chapters that stuck with me. That was like, what, 16 years ago I heard him say that and I’ve never forgotten it. I said that because it gives you permission to know when you sit down, no matter how much plotting and planning And character development you’ve done, no matter how much world building you’ve done, you haven’t written the story yet. And each book is new. So for if you’re a beginning writer and you think this all gets easier, it doesn’t. And it’s not just me saying that. I’ve heard Margaret Atwood say that and other, writers have been writing for 60, 70 years. Each book is new. You don’t know it yet. You have to get to know it. So my process is ugly. It’s not recommended, but in a nutshell, now that I have more command of my craft, what I generally do is spend most of my pre writing time working on character development. I do have concepts about the world, , my world is epic, it’s big, there’s a lot there, but I spend most of my time working on my character development.
[00:15:06] Natalie Wright: And there are a couple of things that I do that I’ve come to over the years that are very helpful for me. One tool that I use is Randy Ingram Manson’s. snowflake formula. I don’t do the whole entire thing, but I think I do the first four steps and I take it through character. So if you don’t know that and you’re looking for tools for writing, I highly recommend it to help you get, your handle on your story.
[00:15:31] Natalie Wright: Another thing that I work with is I really have found Abby Emmons. I don’t know if anyone on your, podcast has talked about her. She’s a young writer that I find her tools. She does YouTube videos. She has some templates. They’re very helpful, but there was this concept that came along that was about your character’s mistaken belief.
[00:15:50] Natalie Wright: So we talk about motivation. We talk about goal setting for your character. All of that’s highly important. I do all of that. But it was actually Jim Carrey. The actor and comedian, Jim Carrey, I heard him talk about his father’s mistaken belief and how that shaped his thinking about life. And then Abby Emmons was talking about character development, And I thought, that’s so fascinating, right?
[00:16:10] Natalie Wright: So in a nutshell, the idea is that your character has a mistaken belief about themselves or the world. And this mistaken belief. Almost becomes the theme or the dissertation, of your manuscript. You’re trying to prove or disprove that mistaken belief. then the plot kind of forms itself because it’s like they keep having to be butting up against this, butting up against this, butting up against this question and then proceeding further. And that helped me frame Quen’s story in Season of the Dragon so well. And then it takes me to my last thing that I want to tell people the tool I use, which is the idea of the theme. But Theme in terms of what the fudge are you trying to say? And I got that really honed into me by spending a week in a writing workshop with an author named James Bonnet. James was an actor And a writer and he wrote screenplays, I believe for Barney Miller, a show in the 70s.
[00:17:04] Natalie Wright: He wrote a book called Stealing Fire From the Gods. And I had an opportunity to spend a week with him. And the thing that I took away from that was yeah. Okay. You’ve got lasers and you’ve got bullets flying.
[00:17:15] Natalie Wright: You’ve got spaceships, Natalie, and you’ve got all these, dragons , but What’s it about?
[00:17:19] Natalie Wright: What’s it about? And he kept asking me that question,
[00:17:21] Sharon Skinner: one of the first things that I ask my clients is, what’s the point What’s the point of the story? And then when I dig into character, I dig into character misbelief as well , with people because it’s So critical. Lisa Cron, in one of her books, digs totally into that character misbelief and how it patterns everything we do.
[00:17:40] Sharon Skinner: That’s deep development for character that I also ascribe to. I think those are some really critical elements in determining how you even move forward with a story.
[00:17:50] Natalie Wright: These two pieces of information got planted in my brain, and it completely clicked and changed everything for me. And I’ve not had anyone have complaints about Quen as a character.
[00:18:00] Natalie Wright: I took many years developing that character. She had many iterations. But it was this point where someone said to me, the mistaken belief with the what’s it about? And then that what’s it about becomes my mantra. And I wrote that on post its. I wrote it on my notebooks. I mean, it was everywhere. and it was this idea of just always keeping in mind her mistaken belief and the what’s it about we’re in conversation with each other, So it’s constantly creating a tension for the character between the proof or disproof of The mistaken belief. And that changed everything and then the emotional resonance of the character doesn’t come from them crying on the page or having a fit or the tantrum or the outward expression. The emotional resonance, I think, of the character is when they’re relatable because their mistaken belief is probably one that a lot of people hold, or many people can relate to on some level. And then you’re showing it, you’re showing them having to confront it over and over and over. And I think that makes the character relatable.
[00:19:00] Sharon Skinner: I love the confrontation over and over because that’s really what it is. I call it pushing their buttons. You’re constantly pushing that button. Of their. Mistaken belief, but it’s that confrontation over And over where they have to either see it in the mirror or see it reflected in someone else, or they have to realize that they’re acting from that place and it’s not working for them anymore.
[00:19:20] Natalie Wright: Right.
[00:19:21] Sharon Skinner: So we’ve talked a bit about your writing journey and your writing process. And I know you have beta readers and you have an editor.
[00:19:28] Natalie Wright: So again, it’s all changed over time, but I have always worked with paid editors, freelance editors and most of my first in series books have had multiple. Season of the Dragon, I worked with three agents and five paid editors from the period of 2016 when I started developing that story till 2022 when it was finished. Some of them are involved in a piece. Some of them were involved. In much bigger sections of it or the whole thing. And then I would, change it and then seek more advice. One of the reasons why I do paid editors instead of beta readers is because my experience with beta readers, and again, this is just my experience.
[00:20:03] Natalie Wright: I’m looking for someone to tell me the truth. I want them to find all the warts. I want them to give me the real tea here, I can take it because I would much rather have an editor say, your character is incredibly unlikable or your character has no agency and is whiny and just sitting there and crying and is making me want to, throw this book across the room.
[00:20:24] Natalie Wright: Not that editors told me that, but I would rather have an editor. Point out where I’m really off the mark with something, then publish it and have readers tell me. And if you can get that from beta readers, fine. But a lot of times, beta readers, if it’s someone you know, if it’s someone that you haven’t paid, when I hire an editor, They’re not my best friend. They’re not my mom. They’re not my sister. They’re not my cousin, my dog, my spouse, my best friend, my writing buddies, they will tell me the truth. That’s what I want. I don’t want to just blow smoke
[00:20:54] Sharon Skinner: right. With beta readers, too, I always say that, first of all, you need to give them a list of what you, want them to tell you about, like, Do you like the character? Why don’t you like the character? Did you get lost? Things like that along the way, but also they’re giving you a reader reaction, a single reader reaction from somebody who maybe reads a lot, but does not necessarily understand deep craft or the components of story, like you’re talking about theme and misbeliefs and. plot and all of that. I have paid editors that work on my work, I don’t send anything to my publisher without having an editor look at it first. I do have beta readers. That’s early on. That’s like, am I even on track here? Did I miss the boat somewhere along the way?
[00:21:35] Sharon Skinner: What do I need to focus on to get it ready for my editor But then my editor is going to tell me people don’t do this, you have continuity issues.
[00:21:43] Natalie Wright: My husband he’s not a big reader, but he loves story. And over the years, He’s actually become my beta reader. He is my first, beta reader. He reads it and. He’ll look at me and go, really?
[00:21:52] Natalie Wright: He’ll write that in the margin. And I just know exactly the look on his face. Like, really? And , he was good at pointing out some of those things like a beta reader might of like, this is slow. This is boring me. You know, if I give him something, a hundred pages and it’s taken him three months to readHe doesn’t even need to give it back to me. I know I’m on the wrong track cause it’s so boring. He can’t even get through it. So he’s become helpful because he is. a very honest, truthful person. Like if he’s bored, he’ll tell me, So then once he’s gone through it and we feel confident that like, okay, he can read through it and then finds it interesting and he’s not a big reader. Okay, it’s, it’s concise enough. It’s driving forward, et cetera, and then paid editors. But you know what, for my most recent book that’s coming out in March, I had a paid like sort of like a beta read plus
[00:22:38] Sharon Skinner: More like an editorial assessment or a manuscript evaluation rather than a developmental edit.
[00:22:43] Natalie Wright: Right. something between a beta read and a developmental edit, of the first two thirds of the book. I didn’t have the last third done when I had that appointment with her. This one I’ve used a lot, got her feedback back, my husband read it. once And that was it And it was a little scary because I usually have had a lot more feedback, but, I, felt confident that it was okay. And I think that it worked out fine.
[00:23:04] Natalie Wright: Um, but the other thing, but
[00:23:06] Sharon Skinner: Well, you’ve been writing for a lot of years, and you’ve developed your craft, and this is this the second book in the series that you’re talking about, so you’ve got some characters already developed, some world building, and some things in place, so I would think that, yes, that, doesn’t surprise me that, You were able to do that.
[00:23:23] Sharon Skinner: Although when I was writing the Healer’s Trilogy, the second book was a wreck for a long time and I had to go through beta readers and editors to get it into shape because I struggled with it. But then again, that was a book that I hadn’t planned writing at the outset.
[00:23:38] Sharon Skinner: So it matters, it makes a difference. And I was still a lot earlier in my writing career when that book came out.
[00:23:43] Natalie Wright: right. I mean,
[00:23:44] Natalie Wright: I would say, Spring Dragon, which comes out in March, is my eighth book. And I would say, I feel like now I feel much more confident that I like know what I’m doing. Some people might hit that earlier in the sequence of books, but for me, I would say it’s taken The journey of writing the Season of the Dragon and having a lot of input from a lot of different kinds of people, a lot of touches on that book to bring me to a point where I had the confidence to know. When I need advice And when I don’t, what advice to take and what to ignore, et cetera. And just feel confident that I know what I’m doing and I know the story I’m trying to tell.
[00:24:18] Sharon Skinner: So let’s circle back now and talk a little bit about the business and platform and all of that, because I really want to pick your brain about that aspect, because you are a very successful indie author. You’re one of my favorite people to talk to about marketing and things like that, because you’ve tried many things and you have found a successful path along the way.
[00:24:41] Sharon Skinner: Do you want to talk a little bit about some of the things that you’ve learned about the business of being an indie author that could maybe help our writers decide if that’s something they want to embark on?
[00:24:52] Natalie Wright: Wow this is such a rich topic, Sharon. We could talk for probably a week about this. ’cause I’ve got a lot to say and I’m happy to answer questions that anyone in your audience has about that. But, I think that definitely publishing in general. It’s not for the faint of heart. And if you want your stories to be read out there in this ever larger sea of vast amounts of information, getting anyone to spend any time with your book. And here’s the thing. It’s not about a sale. It’s about time. You’re asking for someone to spend their extremely valuable and very limited time with your work and they have to feel compelled to do that. And that is, in my view, having been published since 2011, this is becoming increasingly difficult. So, what really helps is that you, as the writer, are very clear about why you write, about why you’re writing what you write, about who it’s for. And very specifically who it’s for and know your book isn’t for everyone. No book ever written ever was for everyone. It’s not. It’s for a specific kind of person. And then be clear about how much time you want to spend, about what you enjoy doing. And it is very worthwhile to take time to think through these things. And to do it from time to time. So for example, let me just give you an example from my recent current life I had been out of the writing. I mean, I was writing, but I wasn’t out there with a publication for seven years when I came back in 2023 with Season of the Dragon the last two years has been a lot of , let’s try new things again. Kind of throwing everything against the wall, seeing what sticks, seeing what we like to do. And in this period of time from 2017 to 2023, the rise of Romantasy happened, right? So back in the 20 aughts having these romance conventions, book events for romance readers was not really a thing it’s very much like a comic con but for readers and romance genre. So I’ve stepped into going to some of these events. my book isn’t Romantasy and I’m not a romance writer and I’m like, I, don’t belong here. This isn’t for me. Sometimes you have to try things and then go, It’s not that there’s anything wrong with this thing. It’s just my book doesn’t fit in this group. And so it doesn’t feel good for me to be here. So sometimes you have to try things, and I have FOMO like everybody else. I’m like, Oh, I gotta do? this. And then no, no, you don’t. What do you want to do? I am extremely interested in the craft of writing and then making sure that each story that I’ve written from my perspective, the best story that I can tell, told in a way that I want it to be perceived And looks a certain way.
[00:27:24] Natalie Wright: And I have a vision. So indie publishing really works for me. I’m not afraid of talking to people. So like having a booth or a table or having something, Barnes and Noble, I go to Barnes and Noble. They expect me to sell two books. I’ll sell many more because I’m not afraid to literally talk to every single person that walks in the store and because I’m excited about what I’ve written.
[00:27:42] Natalie Wright: I want people to hear about it. And I love it. And I love writing. I love books. So I’ll talk to people about anything having to do with books. And so these kinds of things, if you have that passion for what you’ve written, if you have passion for writing, if you have passion for books, and you are willing to go out and talk to people about that, it will make being an indie author so much easier because it’s genuine.
[00:28:02] Natalie Wright: You know what I’m saying? Like I’m not fake. What I’m telling you about my story and I’m, and you see my excitement is because I really do love writing and I really do love the story. I have seen writers be very timid and they’re not sure they’re even worthy of being there and now it comes across and it can make it really difficult to sell your books.
[00:28:20] Sharon Skinner: It’s good that you’re giving us the high level of how to approach it and figure out where your book fits.
[00:28:26] Natalie Wright: Like for me, I was on the Comic Con circuit for a number of years and I kept talking to women who love fantasy, like me, who Star Wars fans were Lord of the Rings fans. But we didn’t have enough stories. As Gen Xers and boomers and even older millennials, we didn’t have a lot of stories like that with female characters that they were the main character that it was their journey. And so I developed the Dragos Primeri series. that whole thing was in conversation with this idea that I wanted to have female characters with agency that were heroes. in these kinds of stories and these epic quest storylines. since I began that in 2015, 2016, we see a lot more of those but those are the women when I said, know, your audience, I’m not writing for the fans of fourth wing and ACOTAR. They might find my book and like it, but they’re not the primary people that I’m writing for I’m writing for those women that I had conversations with at Bubonicon and Tuscon and, different comic cons around the country who we read the Lord of the Rings and all those, and we have longed for those kinds of stories.
[00:29:33] Natalie Wright: But with female characters with agency where the female characters were more than just the motivation for the guy, the female characters were more than just the sex object, where they had agency. So that was the whole impetus for writing this. It’s something I believe in deeply. And then the people that. Need it are drawn to it. The other thing I would say that’s very important And I know that I’m not the only one saying this it really is important that you craft the best story that you can and that you not publish it until it is the absolute best way that you can and I highly recommend that you put your first three to five books in the shelf and Come back to it later and keep going.
[00:30:06] Natalie Wright: I didn’t do that It frankly, in a way, is a regret of mine because I have stories out there that don’t in any way match where I am now, and it can be difficult for me to talk about it. On the other hand, there are people out there that loved Emily’s House, and so I’m not going to take that away from them. But, if I had it to do over again, I would have written those, put them aside, kept going until I found my voice. And then started publishing and then go pull those back out and see if I could bring them back up to speed to where I feel that I am now. But the biggest thing that will build your platform is if you can write a story that resonates with people because season, the dragon is the first book that I had that I don’t need to do as much marketing on because people talk about it
[00:30:50] Natalie Wright: and I don’t have to pay them to do that. They’re just doing that. And I’m not saying I have a legion of fans here, I mean, this is not fourth wing level, you know I’m not George RR Martin level, but to have at least some people, you know what I’m saying, that are on their own without me having to pay them for an ad out there talking about the story, and I believe that’s because of the very hard work that I put into crafting the characters to have the emotional resonance. To emotionally connect to the reader and when you do that, you don’t have to put as much hard work into ads and marketing and all this because people will tell their librarians about it. Librarians and booksellers and avid fans will do more for you on your platform free. Because they love your book than any paid marketing can do.
[00:31:35] Natalie Wright: And that’s what happened with season of the dragon. And you can’t buy that. You can’t plan it. I can’t really tell you how to replicate it. Other than really spend your time crafting a book that has emotional resonance with readers.
[00:31:45] Natalie Wright: And knowing your target readers right? Knowing why you’re writing, what the theme is, and who your target readers are.
Yes, keeping them in mind and even if an agent or an editor tells you that this isn’t saleable, if you know that there are people out there that you’ve talked about, for me, literally thousands of people that I had talked to, and it’s like, I knew they wanted this.
[00:32:09] Sharon Skinner: Right. There’s an audience.
[00:32:10] Natalie Wright: It may not be millions of people that want this.
[00:32:13] Natalie Wright: I don’t know. But I knew that there were thousands of people that wanted this. So I just stayed true to what I believed and wrote it and put it out there. And those people are finding it.
[00:32:23] Sharon Skinner: So let’s talk a little bit about how they’re finding it and what you built to get yourself to a place where they could find you now I know you do events, you still do book festivals, and I know you’re going to be at the Ren Fest this year again. I am as well. That’s a lot of fun. for me, that’s one of the easiest events and also one of the hardest because I can get into character and it doesn’t have to be me talking to people.
[00:32:46] Sharon Skinner: It can be my Renfest character, which makes it a lot easier to engage for me because I am at heart, more of a stay at home introverted kind of person. But do you want to talk a little bit about some of the things you built along the way that got you to a place where now people can readily find your books.
[00:33:01] Natalie Wright: Yeah, so , I kind of regretted publishing my first story perhaps before it was ready. But I put Emily’s House on Wattpad back in 2011 or 12. And now it’s been read over 2 million times worldwide. And I don’t really know exactly how that happened other than it was featured back in the day. And why I bring this up is because sometimes there are people that pick up a book of mine or come to an event and they read that story. So they read it for free as a teenager. And they’ll come up to me and they’re like, Oh, I know you. I read this story free on Wattpad and here you are. So that’s just a, like, sometimes you don’t know. Another thing is it takes time. Sometimes I have, a less experienced writer. Maybe they have one book, they’ve just got their first book out and they see me and it can be demoralizing to stand next to someone like you or me, Sharon, selling an event when not only are we experienced at the selling part because we’ve done it so much, but you build your audience over time.
[00:33:57] Natalie Wright: So if you’re on your eighth book, ninth book, 10th book, and someone bought your first one back in 2011 they’re bought every one. And you have hundreds of those. Show up at an event over a weekend as opposed to all of these people are new to you, right?
[00:34:13] Natalie Wright: That’s building over time,
[00:34:14] Sharon Skinner: Well, I remember those first events where I was the new kid and people didn’t know And I had to hone my pitch And figure out how to talk to people about it and present it and get them to take a risk on me. And you’re absolutely right. It’s one reader at a time.
[00:34:29] Sharon Skinner: You’re building your, audience one reader at a time by engaging with them and being interested in what they read and who they are and whether or not they’re actually your target reader and not just saying, Hey, my book is for everybody because it’s, as you said. It’s not,
[00:34:41] Sharon Skinner: But if you have one reader that you know really intimately, and you know what they want, there will be hundreds of people like that. Thousands of people like that. It’s just not everybody.
[00:34:52] Natalie Wright: right? So when I write my first draft, I’m writing for me. I’m writing the story. I want to write but in revision I do think about what is going to jazz my reader and I do in the final crafting of the story I will pump some things up or take some things out or rearrange or Work to make sure that I feel like I’ve hit those notes that they’re going to love. That’s gonna really make them go. Yes, and be excited. So we’ve mentioned at the beginning that I play RPGs, role playing games on Xbox. And so my readers tend to be people who are into that sort of thing. Maybe they play D and D, maybe they play RPGs. So I know their world, so I’m thinking about what jazz is me. When I’m reading a story or when I’m playing a game, where’s the point where I’m like, yes. When Daenerys gets on the back of that dragon and lays waste to that whole freaking town. I’m like, yes. I mean, I’m literally like screaming, so I know that’s my kind of reader.
[00:35:46] Natalie Wright: So I got to give them a moment like that. I can’t drag them all the way through all the horrors that they’ve lived through with this character to at the end, have it be bleh. So that’s part of building your audience and your platform and keeping your readers engaged is knowing them, making sure that you’ve hit the notes that they want. I only do what I feel good and authentic doing. So all the marketing that I do. I only do things that I feel like I’m going to enjoy. That’s going to come across as authentic. I’m into visual. So there’s a lot of visual stuff that I do. I hire a lot of artists. commission art and do things in my own art and my son’s an artist and try to bring the visual picture in that works for me because I’m a visual person. It’s a piece of the video and the marketing I can do that feels good to me.
[00:36:28] Sharon Skinner: Yeah. I think it’s important because when you are an author, you are the brand. You are your voice and you are the brand. And your books are the product. So it’s important to be authentic and it’s important to engage with people in that manner and not try to be something that you’re not because people know when you’re trying to be something that you’re not.
[00:36:51] Sharon Skinner: And so I think that’s so important to iterate to our listeners that you are the brand. You are going to be the brand. You are the author, so you are the brand. There is no longer the authors up in the ivory tower writing and sending it to their publisher and the publisher selling the books.
[00:37:06] Sharon Skinner: That’s not how it works anymore.
[00:37:08] Natalie Wright: If only I could sit in my tower. No, I actually like talking to people. Honestly, I really do. I enjoy talking about writing and books and I’ll do it all day long and I won’t shut up unless someone makes me. So it works for me to go out to events, but that’s not for everybody, but you’re absolutely right.
[00:37:23] Natalie Wright: We are our brand. The intro that you read me ensconced in my dark academia office, It is a persona that I have developed over the last couple of years. And every four or five years, probably I, look at where am I and this is the persona that I am right now. It’s my writer persona and it’s sitting and looking at every single piece of what I’m doing and trying to make sure it’s consistent. Just like Coca cola or, an insurance company does,
[00:37:48] Sharon Skinner: I write speculative fiction, and I also know my why and the point that I’m trying to make with each story, but I also dress a specific way for every event, and it’s my author outfit, and Honestly, I would dress like that all the time if I could because it deeply expresses who I am at heart. But it is a specific look and it’s part of My brand. It’s part of who I am as an author. My website reflects that. the things that I put out in the world reflect that. My book coaching is co branded to my author page so that they’re similar enough in tone because it’s all about. Me.
[00:38:24] Sharon Skinner: And that sounds a little facetious and it sounds a little self centered, but when it comes to branding and platform, it really needs to be about who you are, who you want to be in the world as an author, as you said, there is a certain persona, because when I put on my author hat, I am a different person. I’m not the same person who’s necessarily talking to you right now here on this podcast. I mean, she’s in there, but the writer part of me is a very specific person.
[00:38:50] Natalie Wright: Absolutely. I mean, there are things about me that aren’t necessarily expressed. in the writer brand and there are things that are in the writer brand that are very specific but getting to a place where you’re real clear about how you want That to look and to feel. And the idea of ensconced in a dark academia writing den.
[00:39:07] Natalie Wright: That just came to me. and I’m like, that’s me. That’s where I am as a writer.
[00:39:11] Sharon Skinner: and you need that whether you’re indie or you are traditionally published you still need that branding as an author.
[00:39:19] Natalie Wright: It’s not about a specific book though either. I think one thing that some writers do that I’m not going to say it’s a mistake, but I would urge people not to do this. Unless you only want to write one book ever in your whole entire life, your brand is not your book. your brand is you as a writer, your voice and what you’re trying to say and what you’re bringing to the world. For me, I am very concerned about our world and the state of it, but my brand is about giving people an escape, an immersive experience that Sparks their imagination and takes them out of our ordinary world now in that story world where they’re immersed in this fantasy, they’re going to see themes express that very much relate to our world, and all of the problems in it, but it is still an escape from our world.
[00:40:04] Natalie Wright: So there’s politics. It’s just, not our politics. it’s problems. It’s just, there’s dragons involved. And so once I got very clear about no matter what I write, it’s all about that escape. Then the idea of the author being this. semi mystical lady who’s ensconced in her den, crafting this. They don’t have to see the reality of that. That is part of their escapist vision . So for me, that made a lot of sense to craft a persona that matches the immersive escape that I create for people and having all kind of roll back into itself.
[00:40:34] Sharon Skinner: that makes absolute sense. Well, as you said, we could talk for weeks about all of this and we could really dig in, deep into some of these aspects, but we only have so much time for an episode. So is there anything else that you want to cover before we get to our action items?
[00:40:49] Natalie Wright: I don’t think so, Sharon. just, write, write, write more, write, rinse, repeat. If people are fairly new at this, just keep writing and then finish it and write another one and just keep going.
[00:41:00] Sharon Skinner: Keep going. and keep leveling up and getting to where you wanna be and making sure that, you’re putting the best stories that you can out into the world. I think that’s great. So with that, what one actionable item would you like to offer to our audience? listeners to take away today.
[00:41:17] Natalie Wright: I had several, but I’m going to go with this one. This is something that really helped me. It came from a writing craft assignment from a book by Stant Litore, and his name is S T A N T, last name L I T O R E. It’s a very short, small book called Write Characters Your Readers Won’t Forget I don’t know much about stant, but I picked this book up. I don’t even know where I found it or why, but the one action item that I love from this book was if you have something you’re working on right now, take your main character and ask yourself, what is the most unusual, bizarre unexpected full of huzzah thing you can have this character do as an introduction to the character the very first moment you see this character on the page what is something that’s just like maybe you have them eating breakfast maybe you have them waking up i’m listing things that i’ve read many times from stories that i edit maybe you have them in a conversation but what is the most outrageous thing they could be doing and write that scene. For me with Quen I did this exercise and suddenly she was facing a herd of stampeding buffalo like creatures. And she was like oil and water with them just going all around her and none of them running into her. That’s the beginning of season of the dragon and I had written that beginning six or seven times. So just thinking In her world, in her story world, what’s like the craziest thing that she could be doing? What’s the wildest thing she could be doing? And that gave me this entree into writing, a really riveting scene where it was like, What’s going on there and why are these buffalo going around her?
[00:42:57] Natalie Wright: What’s going on with this? and it was fun. I had another one. I wrote a character at a funeral playing a violin. It’s like, what is the craziest thing? She’s got to go to this funeral. What’s the craziest thing she could do? She could get up in the middle of it and go play violin at St. Paul’s Cathedral. It’s like, that’s like an Irish jig. I mean, what is the craziest thing? And then what does that tell you about your character?
[00:43:21] Sharon Skinner: Yeah.
[00:43:21] Natalie Wright: And what does it reveal? And you may not use it, but is it something that can reveal something about your character that you didn’t know that now you can work into the story?
[00:43:30] Sharon Skinner: love that. And again, you don’t have to use it. Sometimes this is just for you. It’s not always for the reader. Writing your way in is something that I find really helpful, especially when I’m figuring out who my characters are, because they don’t really know them. Their voice is in my head and they nag at me, but I don’t necessarily know them as a full fledged person until I’ve spent some time with them.
[00:43:50] Sharon Skinner: So I think that’s a great way to get to know them. That’s absolutely fabulous. So my action item for our listeners this month is based on the idea of platform because we’ve talked a little bit about platform and, branding and who you are, as an author. And I recommend that you start thinking about your platform and who you want to be in the world now, even though you are maybe just starting out writing, or maybe you’ve written a book or two and you are in the querying trenches and you want traditionally published, or maybe you’re thinking, I might want to go this as an Indie as Natalie has done, it’s important for you to start thinking about who you are as an author early on and start building that platform. I recommend getting yourself a website, even if it’s just a single page and starting to think about what goes on that website to express who you are in the world as an author. How do you want the world.
[00:44:46] Sharon Skinner: to see you And come to you And your books and the creative things that you put into the world. what does that look like? So knowing your audience is important in this. Knowing your audience and who’s going to be reading your books, but knowing your why and, your themes and how you approach your writing. Those are also things that you’re going to need to think deeply about in order to do this.
[00:45:07] Sharon Skinner: So it’s kind of a big action item, but it’s something I want listeners to start thinking about now.
[00:45:12] Natalie Wright: It’s a really good idea
[00:45:13] Sharon Skinner: Natalie, where else can we find you?
[00:45:16] Natalie Wright: On social. I’m mainly active on Instagram, so that’s a really good place to reach out to me. and I do try to follow all writers back, and then my website, www.nataliewrightauthor.com. So those are probably the two main places. and I’m always happy to answer questions that people have. And my newsletter is very much oriented to my author branding. Some people have a newsletter that’s like more writerly oriented, but mine is definitely more oriented to my readers and talking directly to them. But you can always subscribe to that and also get a look at what I’m doing.
[00:45:54] Natalie Wright: I have built my email list. and although it’s not millions, it’s in several thousand and it has taken me a lot of years to build that many people, but I do try to engage with them at least once a month, usually twice.
[00:46:08] Natalie Wright: And if I have a new release coming out, it’s weekly. And I think some authors feel like that’s too much, but you do actually need to engage with them to keep them informed. And remind them that you’re there, even when you don’t have a new release that’s coming out. so keep them entertained, and keep it geared towards your author brand and your platform, but that is extremely important.
[00:46:29] Natalie Wright: And in the world of ever changing social media, we don’t know what’s going on with platforms Having your newsletter is, so important. Because no one can take that away from you. Whether people open it up or not, that’s a whole other thing. That’s between you and your readers. But at least no one can take the platform away from you.
[00:46:45] Sharon Skinner: Right because those are your people and they’ve signed up and they’ve opened the door to you and that is so much better than some algorithm trying to ping people or not ping people because it doesn’t think you’re important enough for them to see your information. I absolutely agree. and it does take time building a newsletter subscriber base takes time.
[00:47:04] Sharon Skinner: There are a lot of ways to do that but having an option on your author website is also a very good way to get people to sign up for your newsletter.
[00:47:12] Natalie Wright: I have that on every page.
[00:47:14] Sharon Skinner: Well, this has been very informational. Thank you so much, Natalie, for being here. I appreciate you.
[00:47:20] Natalie Wright: Always good talking to you, Sharon.
[00:47:21] Sharon Skinner: Bye for now.
[00:47:22] Christy Yaros: We hope you enjoyed this episode of Coaching KidLit, a writing and book coaching podcast for writers who want to level up their KidLit writing game.
[00:47:29] Sharon Skinner: For more about us and to discover what a book coach can do for you, check out coachingkidlit. com and follow us on social media.
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For more information about Sharon Skinner, visit bookcoachingbysharon.com or follow her on Instagram @sharon_skinner_author_bookcoach and Twitter @SharonSkinner56.
For more information about Christy Yaros, visit christyyaros.com or follow her on Instagram and Twitter @ChristyYaros.
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