Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello authors.
[00:00:01] Speaker B: I'm Joanne Morell, children's and young adult fiction writer and author of short nonfiction for authors. Thanks for joining me for the Hybrid Author Podcast, sharing interviews from industry professionals to help you forge a career as a hybrid author both independently and traditionally publishing your books. You can get the show notes for each episode and sign up for your free Author pass over at the Hybrid Author website to discover your writing process, get tips on how to publish productively, and get comfortable promoting your books at ww.
[00:00:34] Speaker C: Let's crack on with the episode.
[00:00:43] Speaker D: Hello authors.
I hope you're all keeping well in whatever part of the world you reside and listen to the podcast in. Today's interview is with Ari Rosenstein on reusing skills from a music career in publishing and republishing a book from traditional to self published and WeChat Ari's music career and how he has utilized the skills from one industry and applied them to his publishing endeavors, republishing his traditional book to self publishing, Ari's tips for authors self publishing and looking to utilize skills they already possess and much more so in my Author Adventure this week. Well, if you're an avid listener of the podcast, you can tell that the podcast is kind of jumping around at the moment. So I must have apologize for this. I am making some plans to change up the day that I release and so I'm just having a bit of a play which is probably not good for people expecting it on the usual Friday these last three years. But I'm thinking that I'm gonna change the episode drop to a Sunday and this is gonna suit my schedule and some other things. So bear with me. I do apologize if my playfulness has annoyed you and stay tuned for when the episodes are going to recommence consecutively on the new date. So I have been busy. I have had a lot of new Author Adventure experiences. I had a stall at Perth Upmarket, which is based at a university here in Perth, Western Australia, at uwa, the University of Western Australia. And it's a pretty big market. They have it on, I think they have it in September. This one was obviously November. And I mean they had some, some of the stuff that people create by their is so beautiful and unique. Like I it was. It's an artisan market so you know, lots of food, lots of jewelry, lots of artwork, pottery stuff, clothes, there was tea, there was distilleries, there was so much. And yeah, it was the first time I'd done a market so I always said I wasn't going to do one And I just thought, well why not? I have these bundles left over from when I did the Kickstarter which didn't really take off mid year and I thought it's Christmas gifts and things. But yeah, it was a lot of work. Markets is a lot of work. Anybody will tell you that who has done them. I mean there was, it was early start. They have bump in, bump out times for people to be able to come and drop their stuff off and set up and you know, 6 o'clock was the earliest. Thankfully mine's was only 7:15. Had my children along to help me because it was on a weekend. Sunday, Sunday. I can't remember the date now but then it's a full day. The markets, by the time you get set up, they kick off VIP from 9 till 10 and then it's 10 to 4 o'clock in the afternoon and you're not allowed to say, even if you sold out, you're not allowed to just pack up and leave because people are obviously coming in. It is a free market so no one has to pay to attend. You can come and have a look around. And there was people who'd done really well and I sold some books. Sadly not much of my bundles. So I've still got that going and I'm hoping to get that stuff up onto an Etsy store soon. Probably maybe not even going to sell in bundles, maybe just separately and people can decide if they, they want, you know, the, the book and the stemless wine glass and the cheese knife together or maybe separately. We shall see. There is a market for this st and I'm damned if I'll find it.
Anyways, so that was, yeah, it was a good experience. I'm not sure if I'll continue those experiences because the, you know, you pay to be there as a vendor and for me personally I didn't really feel like it was worth it, which is a bit of a shame. But never mind. You've got to try these things and put yourself out there. As I'm always preaching on this podcast, to know what works and what doesn't work. You know, there's a couple of friends that were there that were selling children's books and they did well as well. So I was upstairs in the top part. People were kind of going around in a circle rather than sort of in and out and I found like I sold more books if I was more engaging with people. Obviously you want to buy from someone you like, you're not going to buy from someone who's just ignoring you, standing with your, you know, arms crossed. So, yeah, there's, there's lots of things to think about. So I think it is worth it. I think it is worth it for some people, but then I feel like you could just absolutely spend everything you made on all the stuff there. But, you know, whatever, it's special gifts. I would definitely go back to support people for unique gifts and to support local businesses as well. I have also conducted my Discovering Roadblocks on Writing session. I was at the Amherst Village Library in Canningvale through the City of Gosnells and did an author talk on Discovering Roadblocks on Writing, which is loosely based on my Author Fears and How to Overcome Them, short nonfiction book. And so that touches upon different, the three different categories of author fears. You know, things that sort of stop us progressing in our writing, you know, our craft fears, which is like you're writing your work. Things arise as you're working through to stop you from proceeding, your internal dialogue, all the sort of stuff that you tell yourself that very much stops you from going forward. And then your external, your external world, the things in your life, you know, your responsibilities, people in your life, things like that, that can also put roadblocks to stop you from progressing in your writing career. So that was a short, sharp session on that and met some lovely women and beautiful librarian shout out Elise Kelly. She is fantastic, Very, very passionate, is fantastic at what she does, loving. What I love about getting out there and meeting people and doing these talks and workshops and things is getting to meet new people, but also getting to meet these really passionate librarians and advocates for the writing industry and readers. So we're very, very blessed that we've got such amazing, amazing librarians and library services in Australia. And I hope wherever you're listening, you are benefiting the same. I have another session which is called Getting Published that is happening Friday, November 29th and that is at Lesser Halls Mills Park Library. And that's going to be run 3 till 4 o'clock. And these are free writing workshops, writing events, the written word workshops. And these are run by the City of Gosnell. So if you're down that way, come on over. It's going to be a very good talk about getting published. My experiences, I've gone through various different publishing houses, had my work traditionally published, not book form, but articles, things like that. So if you are interested in learning more, get yourself along there and I'll to see you. I also attended an ink and book collage and sketchbook making workshop run by the fabulous Jodie Davidson and through Joondalup Libraries. And it was my first kind of crafty workshop I've ever been to. I was really interested in the ink aspect so that's what got me and I went along and I absolutely loved it. And I'm really kicking myself that all these years I went to the Squibbie, you know, the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators writers retreat. It had all these gorgeous illustration workshops and I never went to, to any and I just really, really wish I had and because I think that when I was doing this, this and it was very much, you know, ink with your hands and your glue and the feeling of it, I have never felt so calm in my life. I really, really enjoyed myself. My what I made.
You know, I'm no artist, put it that way, but it's not what it was about. I mean the whole thing stuck together. So I'm happy but you know, I wouldn't, I just, it was fantastic. So lesson learned. Creative people don't just stick to one sort of area of expertise. Like for me writing and trying all different things like that and going to writing events and stuff honestly get your hand stuck into lots of different things because you never ever know what you're going to enjoy or what does it for you. So it was super, super impressed with those workshops and also check out your local library this season four really cool, you know, art making things and it's just quite cheap to go along. Years back I did, I don't know what you call it, like a book folding Christmas decorations workshop thing and it was, it was like old books unfolding the pages so it made like shapes and it was just. I loved it, absolutely loved it. So yeah, all these cool things, you know, making wreaths out of recyclable products and get yourself along for sure. Of course Christmas is on my mind. I'm starting to think about the books that I'm going to be giving to the children in my life and the people in my life and it's so hard because you know, there's so many good ones and I put it to who I think personality would suit and I want author signed copies and but it's all love to read local and generally that, you know, authors that I know that I want to support on, you know, from the podcast and all sorts. So I hope that you two are paying it forward by sharing the bookish love this Christmas. Yeah, I'd love to hear from any everyone what kind of books they're reading through social media reach out to me via email joannyybridauthor.com I'd really just like to get a conversation going about Christmas and book giving. So on the note of book giving you can get the Writer, the Hairdresser and the Nurse, which is my debut contemporary women's fiction written under pseudonym Zara Ellen. You can only buy it from my website this year. Next year you will be able to buy it from third party retailers, but as of this year it's only going to be from my website. Now the copies I have, they are limited special editions. I am not going to be printing these types of books in this size I don't think again, so what you buy from me is going to be one of a kind. It is also author signed, you can get it dedicated and they are 25 sorry $28 on the website plus postage. Unfortunately you cannot get out of postage costs and it's kind of annoying because postage is a bit expensive, especially in Australia. If you are in the northern suburbs of Perth, direct message me or email me to see if you're close enough to buy a copy and for me to pick up or drop off somewhere. Absolutely happy to do that, especially if you know me. Also the ebook is available and that is only $10 and there's no postage on that so you can just click and collect immediately onto your e reader. I've also got copies of my short non fiction books in ebook, audio and print formats.
I could not sell my work through my website without the help of Thorne Creative who have been with me from the start creating this beautiful hybrid author website that I have. I am so grateful to Kirsty and the team at Thorne Creative. My website is an absolute asset to me and I'm just absolutely in love with it and it's how I make money direct selling direct and it's functional and it's great, easy to manage. Kirsty just nailed it. Also excited. They are one of the sponsors of the Hybrid Author Podcast. Let's hear from them now.
[00:11:52] Speaker B: Thorn Creative where beautiful websites for authors are brought to life. No matter what stage you're at with your writing, your stories deserve a dedicated space to shine. Whether you're just starting out or have a bookshelf full of bestsellers, your website is the hub of your author business, binding everything you and your books offer together. Thorn Creative can nurture all aspects of redesigning your old site or start afresh from the initial design. They can provide ongoing hosting and maintenance to marketing your books online, saving you time, money and stress trying to wrangle your site yourself. An author website built by Thorn Creative can easily direct readers to your favorite retailers, your publisher, or simply set you up to sell to them Direct. The options are endless. Thorn Creative have worked with many authors across all genres and know what goes into good functional working author websites. To sell books. Head on over to thorncreative.comau websitesfor authors to read author and publisher testimonials and to see what they offer and some of the sites they've created.
[00:13:21] Speaker A: Ari Rosenshine is a Seattle based author. Books and records were a source of childhood solace, leading Ari to a teaching career and decades of writing, recording and performing music along the way. He earned a Grammy shortly spot, landed film and TV placements, and co wrote the 2006 John Lennon songwriting Contest Song of the Year. Ari holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch, Los Angeles, and his work appears in Short Beasts, Drunk Monkeys, Noisy Observer, Pop Matters, the Big Takeover, Heat, K E X P, and elsewhere. He is Global Editorial Content Manager for Roland Helming, the legendary musical instrument company's article platforms. Ari lives with his wife and dogs, enjoys the woods, rain and coffee of his region. Welcome to the Hybrid Author Podcast, Ari.
[00:14:11] Speaker C: Thank you Joanne. So happy to be here.
[00:14:13] Speaker A: Oh, we're absolutely honored and thrilled to have you. Thanks for joining us. Can you tell us how you came to be a writer?
[00:14:19] Speaker C: Sure. Well, you know, my mom would say that I've always been a writer because I did this report on Gang Amadeus Mozart in third grade that she always tells me about that I have really no memory of writing, but I definitely I always enjoyed writing stories and comics as a young person. And you know, it's sort of always been the area of school where I felt most comfortable was the humanities, reading and writing literature.
Eventually my my kind of path took me towards music where I was a singer, songwriter and band member for a long time, but I kind of kept writing through that. I wrote songs, but I also did the occasional concert review or album review or article. And eventually as I kind of turned the corner into my 40s, I felt like I wanted to take my writing more seriously and I sort of started a journey that has continued and brought me here to the hybrid author I started I went back to school, I got a a certificate from University of Washington in Creative Nonfiction and began doing journalism, mostly music journalism, but some other types of stuff too, and then went to Antioch, as you mentioned, for my mfa where I focused primarily on nonfiction. Also spent semester doing fiction, which really kind of surprised and lit a fire under me. And that kind of Spilled over into writing short stories. And those short stories became a collection. And from there I started experimenting with other genres like young adult fiction. And I write all day. I write for work at Roland, as you mentioned.
I do editorial work there. So I interview artists and write about the histories of products and musical cultures in different parts of the world. And then I write for my own storytelling as well.
[00:16:14] Speaker A: That's really, really cool. So. So Roland. What's that? That's. Is that like a musical.
[00:16:20] Speaker C: Yes. Roland is a musical instrument company. We are known for a lot of instruments like the TR808, the 808 drum machine you hear about in a lot of hip hop songs. And the TR 909 and Juno 106 and Jupiter 8 and all these different instruments that have really long historical. And we also make a lot of new instruments too, including, yeah, all kinds of stuff. So I. It's a musical instrument company.
[00:16:46] Speaker A: Oh, how fantastic. That's really, really interesting. So tell us about your music career. What kind of music were you in the band and things like that?
[00:16:54] Speaker C: Yeah, I was in lots of bands. I started playing in clubs at like 15. I was very young and I was in a band kind of. This was in the Bay area in the 19, late almost more like early 90s and like the Red Hot Chili Peppers and bands like that were popular and we were kind of in that. In that vein.
Since then I. I went on to. To play in a lot of different bands. I played in some kind of more indie pop bands and then a punk band with Jennifer Finch, who is a member of L7. And then I, at a certain point I started doing more, I'll say singer, songwriter type music. And my wife and I have a project together called the Royal we that is a male female harm group. And then I also have a project now called Stav? S Tahv, which is more kind of. I'm not sure how to describe it. Kind of eclectic, dark, but also sort of layered, poppy kind of music.
[00:17:53] Speaker A: Fantastic. And so singing. Or were you playing guitar and stuff like that as well?
[00:17:57] Speaker C: Both. I am a guitarist drummer, so I do play drum too. I do play drums too. I play on recordings. I play all kinds of stuff. Drums, bass, guitar and keyboards to, you know, to. To a certain degree enough to record. I'm. I'm not, certainly not a super wild, technically impressive drummer, but I can definitely record drums and I've recorded drums for a bunch of records. But my own stuff, it's vocals and guitar is sort of at the heart of it.
[00:18:26] Speaker A: Yeah, that's Amazing. So can you tell us? You've obviously had this passion for music, this interest, and it sounds like as you've kind of grown through that and gotten older, this music's kind of spilled over into your writing. How have you utilized, utilized those skills in the, in that industry and applied them, you know, to future publishing endeavors?
[00:18:46] Speaker C: That is such a good question. And it's the most interesting thing because I feel like I should say uniquely prepared for publishing because of music and because of what it takes to promote and release music and learn new technologies. So I, you know, I'd always, I'd worked with record labels, but I'd also, I'd been a hybrid musician. I think I'd also self released stuff. So I kind of had the same experience of being in collaboration with, with people sometimes, but then also totally left to my own devices sometimes as a musician. And that is exactly what it's like in publishing. The idea of creating a piece of work, whether it's a record or a book or a short story collection or a pitch for a children's book, I know you've done a lot of those. And like any kind of thing, it's that same process of honing and refining and then sending it out to the world, getting lots of rejection, going back down inside yourself, trying to build yourself back up, going back out again, getting more rejection, then eventually finding sometimes a way through that to release the thing into the world. And that has been sort of the story of my life over and over and over again. I have a lot of friends in my life who are more famous than me or have had big, well, certainly a lot more famous than me. I'm not famous, but like people who have gone on and done big things but maybe aren't necessarily prolific or are known for one thing they did, but haven't done a lot since then. One thing that I'm very proud of is that I just keep making things and, and trying to, to put them out in the world in the best way that I can. And that's what I learned from music was just keep making it, refine it, polish it to an arctic flow, push it out there, see if you can get it into some people's world and then return to the creative cave, start working on new things and yeah, that's, that's the main lesson. Just keep going.
[00:20:38] Speaker A: Yeah, it sounds exactly. Well, yeah, you nailed it. Same as the publishing industry, I suppose. I have heard the music is music industry. Is that more brutal have you found than the publishing?
[00:20:49] Speaker C: It's so interesting. I have been involved in the music industry in all sorts of different ways. I was a songwriter in Los Angeles and I had a few publishing deals. So I wrote with lots of different artists, sometimes people for American Idol type shows. And we would collaborate with them and then those songs would get pitched and I would say there's a certain. There's a certain, I want to say crassness, but a certain kind of like, especially in the sort of upper rungs of the music business, it's very sort of overt. People are like, we're looking for this and it has to sound like this meets this. And that's what we're doing. And here we go. At least it was in the early aughts when I was doing that type of work. And as I've learned more about traditional publishing in particular, there's a certain directness there too, where they're like, you know, we're just not looking for dual POV books right now. It's just not the thing I've been. I bought. I acquired two of those last year and I can't do that. Like, it's just that same. Once you kind of get the lingo of an industry, it's the same challenges and gatekeepers and stuff like that. So I'd say that they are similar. It's funny, I've been working on.
I released a book in May of this year and some of the challenges that I face. My wife is also a singer songwriter and she's been through many record releases and stuff like that. And she's like, man, this book stuff looks hard.
[00:22:08] Speaker A: It really is the same.
[00:22:10] Speaker C: The rejection feels the same. And even for me, it was. Even when we got to the point in the process when the. I was getting the proofing copy and just sort of digging into it and, you know, trying those. Find those last little nits to comb out of it in terms of errors and things and checking the, you know, release dates and making sure this times with this and the Kindle stuff is formatting properly. And it's a lot to keep in your mind. And it's. It's similar in music in that there's, you know, there's aggregators that help you get your music into Spotify and Apple music and all these different places. And you have to sort of jump through certain hoops to make sure that your stuff is formatted correctly. And it can be stressful. And there's that feeling, the same feeling of pushing, go on something and okay, here it goes off into the world. I can't really do anything about it anymore. And I would say they're both wildly stressful. And I've been telling people, you have to really want to do this. This is not. None of this is for the faint of heart. It's very emotionally draining. It's also very revealing. You're kind of putting yourself out there to be judged. And I think that part of it is the same in all media, whether it's like art or music or books.
[00:23:26] Speaker A: Absolutely. I think we do it as well, though, because connection, I guess, once you get through all that sort of stuff, like, to have the positive reinforcements of connecting with somebody, be like that really. Even music or books, that really spoke to me. I get what you're saying. And yeah, you know, that's. That's made a difference in my life. I think that's.
[00:23:45] Speaker D: That's what we strive for.
[00:23:47] Speaker C: It's the. It's the best part. And it's like these little emails, because with books, it's so funny. I heard this other. I heard this author, Jeff Zentner, who was kind enough to blurb my book, and he. I read a post of his on. On In. I think it was on Instagram, and he was saying it was like that. One of those that feeling went kind of things. And he was like, that feeling when you give your book to somebody and then you haven't heard back from them.
[00:24:09] Speaker A: For a long time, and you're just.
[00:24:10] Speaker C: Like, I hope they liked it. But the revert. The flip side of that is that I get these nice messages on Facebook or texts that are like, I just finished your book, and let me tell you, I totally relate. I had this experience with my family member who was like this. And I felt like on every single page or. I grew up in the Bay Area and I actually went to the high school that you're talking about in your book, a school that I've actually never even set foot at, was like, you. You nailed it. It's amazing. Like. Or somebody else saying, hey, I really got so much out of this sort of story. It really reminded me of, you know, that stuff is priceless. It's totally worth all the hard parts.
[00:24:50] Speaker A: Yeah, no, that's amazing. So tell us. Tell us about your books.
[00:24:53] Speaker C: Sure. I have two books. I brought them here even though nobody can see them because they're listening, but I brought copies because it kind of makes me feel. It makes me. I like holding them in my hands. I'm very. Like, the physical experience of holding them is. It's kind of never gets old for me. I have one collection of short stories called Coasting. And they are connected short stories. And it is a. I would call it literary fiction. It in the vein of, you know, there's, there's a book called Visits from the Goon Squad that is sort of in this vein. There's sort of stories about music business aspirants and kind of 20 somethings and people finding their, their way in Los Angeles primarily though some of the characters are just in California, but it all takes place in California and it's, it' it's. You know, some of them were published before they became a collection, but it's kind of, to me it's sort of like the. One of those sort of Dark side of the Dream kind of collections. It's sort of a coming of age but you know, for 20 somethings and people kind of trying to make it in the various fields, whether it's music or film or all that kind of stuff. And then I have another book which came out in May which is very, very new and exciting to me and it's called Dr. Z and Maddie Take Telegraph. And it is a YA novel. It is a first person story of a young man who moves from Tempe, Arizona to the much more sort of politically aware and liberal city of Berkeley where it's hippies and skaters and punk rock and all this stuff. And he is kind of a. His parents are intellectuals, but he's sort of a wrestler, kind of a jock kid. And he makes a really, really unexpected friend with a skater in town and they develop this really close friendship even though they're so different on the outside. His skater friend Maddie is very rebellious and takes him to punk rock shows and kind of shows him some stuff that he hasn't really ever experienced. And then they, their, their relationship faces some challenges based on Zach kind of needing to find out who he is and his friend Maddie experiencing some mental health, all of that colliding and they're kind of forced to figure out what their, what their friendship is on the other side. And so that came out in May and it's something I've been working on since 2020, since the. I did the NaNoWriMo in November 2020. And since then this book has been written and rewritten. And you know, I really hammered at this at this manuscript and it was really exciting. A small publisher called Small, I should, I say, I shouldn't say small. A independent publisher called Fire and Ice, which is a little division of Melange Books, which also has a romance arm called Set, I believe. And then a young Adult arm and just sort of their contemporary fic arm, which is Melange. And so this is their YA arm and they put out some really, really, really cool books. They are a traditional publisher. It is not a hybrid publisher, though. It is very collaborative. It is not. It is not like a big five. Whatever. It's definitely a small publisher. You know, it's print on demand.
I did a lot of the promotion myself, you know, and continue to.
[00:28:12] Speaker A: Yeah, I think the same in Australia as well. The kind of smaller publishers, you. They do work more closer with the authors than, I guess the. The big five probably just take. They, you know, take the project and run with it. So did you. You wanted a traditional publisher for the second book rather than self publishing like the first one?
[00:28:29] Speaker C: Yeah, actually, you know, the first book, the first one was traditionally published as well, traditionally published by a.
A publisher called Pen Name Publishing, which actually transitioned and became another publisher called Magnolia Publishing. And it was this kind of tricky thing and some of the authors left and some didn't. But I really didn't know enough about self publishing and how to even kind of engage with IngramSpark and get my books on Amazon. I was terrified to leave the little bubble. Like they. They'd gotten the book out there in the world and it was in all the systems and I was like, well, if I press one button on my own, I'm going to wreck it all. So I was very scared. Scared about what would happen if I tried to take the book back, though I was kind of. I had the opportunity to. When they changed hands. Eventually I. Through listening to podcasts like yours and the self publishing show. Yeah, they're great. And so many other. So many others. I kind of started building my courage up and I began what took over a year of contacting them, getting the rights reversed through Ingram Spark them, you know, locked of customer service. A lot of really frustrating back and forth. It's hard. It. It was hard eventually.
And I didn't want to lose the reviews that I'd accumulated or any of the rankings or the stars. Like those are kind of what we fight so hard for.
[00:29:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:29:47] Speaker C: As writers. And I just kind of, you know, I. I felt very sad about the thought of starting completely from zero again. So in the end, there was sort of a moment when you sort of do all the stuff and then you put your new version back up and it sort of supersedes the other one. And then I saw the slight different but way better cover up on Amazon. I was like, whoa, I'm so happy this is like exactly what I wanted. I ended up. I reformatted the inside. I. I added a few blurbs that had come out since the. Since the original pressing a different bio, a little you can connect with me page on the end. It just feels like the book that I wanted it to be. And now. And it's funny, when I saw my first few sales as an independent version, they felt so good because I never really had had access to that. I couldn't see where the people were. It was just like, you know, they would sort of tell you after the fact but it was not, you know, it wasn't not like seeing the dashboard yourself. And now I'm in that experience again on the other end with, with Fire. Nice. Where they, you know, they, they are much more active than the other. The other publisher was sort of more just kind of holding on to a few titles in case somebody didn't want to take them off onto their own in their own hands. But these guys at Fire and Ice, it's a, it's a really, really nice group of people that work there. And they, you know, they're very, you know, they're, they're very encouraging. They'll say great job, we just got a couple of orders.
[00:31:13] Speaker A: Keep at it.
[00:31:15] Speaker C: They're like, keep going, keep.
[00:31:17] Speaker A: You need that in this industry.
[00:31:19] Speaker C: Yeah, they're like, keep at it. Keep going.
And they. Yeah, yeah, it's been, it's been a really good experience. They also have a nice, nice. I love the COVID that they had a really good artist involved and the layout person. The internal layout is really nice. Which. That stuff means a lot to me. We're not getting rich necessarily doing this.
[00:31:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:31:39] Speaker C: Or, you know, though it sounds like it. We listen to self publishing show these people are making a million dollars a year. Yeah, I know a lot of them.
[00:31:45] Speaker A: They'Ve got a lot of books though. Like you need to. And you've got to think about how long they've been doing it. Everybody who's making money from self publishing of got like 30 plus books.
[00:31:54] Speaker C: They've got a lot of backl is what I realized. These people have lots and lots of books. Many of them are series. And you know, for a writer like myself, I'm not. I have a lot of stuff in progress but I'm not prolific in that way. I, I'm not writing in a specific genre. I'm not writing sort of serialized stuff though. I think it's really cool. Like I'm reading a Bridgerton book right now and I'm.
[00:32:17] Speaker A: Yeah, I do like Bridgerton.
[00:32:19] Speaker C: I. Me too. Julia Quinn is like my new favorite. I like. I think she's absolutely brilliant, but I'm much more of like. I think I come from sort of a literary fiction where it's just like, it's. It's about getting those sentences just right. And if it takes. If it takes years and years and years to get it just right, that's okay.
[00:32:37] Speaker A: Yeah, no, fair enough. And then. And that's okay. Like, it's good to. Good to know lots of different ways. Yeah. Yeah, that's it. That's what we're all about here on the Hybrid Author podcast, that's for sure. So do you have any sort of burning tips you want to share with the audience in terms of writing or publishing or anything like that? And obviously you've used. You've drawn upon your skills. It's funny, I was going to say in your ya, none of the characters were musical or anything.
Unless there is.
[00:33:04] Speaker C: It's so funny that you mentioned that. I really. The first book has a lot of. There's a lot of people in bands and a lot of stuff that takes place around the music industry. I really wanted to challenge myself. I am not a sports person. I didn't play any sports in high school. I never skateboarded. And I thought it would be really an interesting challenge to use sports. I will say there is a lot of music. There's actually a couple playlists that I put on Spotify of. There's a lot of music and a lot of punk bands and stuff and a lot of 90s music. Like the Macarenas in there. Oh, yeah. And like Spice Girls and like, a lot. There's a lot of, like, really, really specific to 1997 music in there. But the. But you're absolutely right. The characters themselves are kind of chalks, which is absolutely not. One is sort of a skater and kind of an alternative one, but he's still a sports person. And the other one, other one, Zach, is a total jock. And this was by design. I wanted to. To have to investigate and research and explore something I didn't know. So I had. I had a trusted expert on skating, my friend Eric, and then another trusted expert on water polo, which factors into the book a lot. And they both helped me with some of the minutia of sports lingo. Like there's all these water polo terms. Like my friend John Reddit. He's like, yeah, the coach wouldn't say that. He'd say, give me 1400 and then do that. Like, he kind of gave Me like this sort of. This stuff and like the same with the skating lingo. My friend Eric was like, yeah, I'd say nice shove it, T. Instead of like, I. I said something more like, you know, I don't know, like, it was almost like saying like a nerdy. A nerdy. Proper way to say it. Yeah, the trick. And he was like, yeah, we just call that a shove it.
[00:34:44] Speaker A: Oh, no, that's good.
[00:34:45] Speaker C: It was learning.
[00:34:46] Speaker D: Yeah, no, that's.
[00:34:47] Speaker A: That's. Yeah, that's what. That's a good way to look at it as well. Any burning tips to share on your. What you've just, you know, gone through with your books and obviously your music career and maybe thinking about authors utilizing skills that they have to. Yeah.
[00:35:02] Speaker C: Oh, man, that is such a. That. That I totally think that is a really good question, like, looking at the skills that you have in your life, whether you're. If you're, you know, if you're a teacher and you've already been in front of groups of people like your classroom and you might be really comfortable doing readings or something like that. If you're somebody who's worked in PR are or in any kind of. Any kind of corporate environment where a lot of email and kind of formal communication is required, that stuff translates so well to being a published writer or seeking a publisher for a book or trying to pitch to agents. All that. That work that we do, communicating through email during the day and being kind of like the best version of ourselves, all that totally applies. And I think that. That the more sort of. The more serious I've gotten in my. In my career, my. Outside of my books career, the better I've gotten at kind of professionally presenting myself and learning how to be just persistent but polite and know when you know what, this door is closed. We're not going to. We're not going to worry too much about this door. Don't have to bang on this one anymore. Maybe. Maybe we'll try another one. So that. That's been helpful for me and knowing that there's lots, Lots of. There's one podcast I listen to where they say it only takes one. Yes. And that's. That's sort of how I feel. It really only takes one. Yes. And it's worth continuing and trying to find that person who's going to believe in your project. And it can be very disguising at times out there. But I would say just keep finding your own. Your own way forward. There's going to be the special way that your book is going to come out and it might not look like anybody else's book, but there's that. That's the way for you. Doesn't matter what anybody else looks like.
[00:36:51] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I agree. That's that. No, that's really good advice there. And are you thinking what's. What's your next. What's in the future for you, Aria? Is there more books to come and are you looking at just sort of going down more independent routes than say, going to be doing the self publishing thing or.
[00:37:07] Speaker C: That's a really good question. I have a novel novella that began as a novel and I whittled it down to a novella and I've been trying to decide whether it should be a self published book or try to find an independent publisher for. I don't think. I think novellas in general are a more challenging sell for big publishers and I don't think it's the right thing to sort of put forward to an agent because of the length. Vive. I have other books that I. That I'm sort of. I'm musing on. I'd like to write, but this one is. This one's getting pretty close to presentable.
[00:37:46] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:37:47] Speaker C: So I. I think I'm going to try to see if there's a like minded independent publisher and maybe do this collaborative thing again. But I don't think I'll waste too much time if there isn't somebody that's interested. I think that I'm so pleased with the way that coasting look and feels now. Then I think I would just try to make a beautiful, really high quality independent book and just do everything as if it was on a regular publisher. That's my new thing. It's like whatever you do, just make it really, really good.
[00:38:19] Speaker A: Yeah, that's good standards.
Just quick question before we wrap up.
Does the music industry move as slow as publishing? Like publishing is like a snail's pace for traditional.
[00:38:30] Speaker D: Anyway.
[00:38:31] Speaker A: Obviously self publishing is different. But is the music industry like that.
[00:38:34] Speaker C: Too or is it quite the music with. In terms of the big music industry where people are putting your records out, I think other people's money and other people's timelines, I think it can be slow. I think that the. Just like with self publishing, the independent arm of music, is it's actually frighteningly fast. You could record a song right now, like right after this podcast. You could do everything yourself in an hour. And then you could go to Spotify or to go to an aggregator like DistroKid or CD. Baby, put your song on one of those and it could be up on Spotify in like a day.
[00:39:11] Speaker A: That's great.
[00:39:11] Speaker C: So that's really crazy. The problem is though, people do that and kind of spontaneously put things out. It's almost like making an AI book and just say, I'm putting it out tomorrow. It's like not.
You know, I think that anything good takes time. And I think, you know, there was a really nice pace for Dr. Z. I signed a contract with Fire and Ice in July of last year and they said, well, we can put it out in May. And there was a really nice. From July to May there were many stops. There was the. When I gave them the final draft and then in January there was. I started meeting with copy editor. And then March, I started meeting with the, with the COVID person. So it was not like as long as traditional publishing. I mean as like the big five would be where it could be two years out until your book comes. But there was a little bit of like there was nine months of kind of thinking about it and getting all my assets in order. I think a little time is okay. And I think it's really a question to how desperate desperate are you to get that thing out? How important is it to get it out tomorrow? And often when we really think about it, it's us that want to get it out fast because we're. Because we're sick of it or because we're dying to other people to hear it or see it or read it. When the truth is might be better served if we spent a little more time kind of getting our social media stuff together, like figuring out how we're going to launch it. Are we going to do a special online event or like we're. Whereas like, you know what I mean? Like, I think it's easy to jump the gun.
[00:40:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:40:35] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:40:36] Speaker C: So. So for me, yeah, like make, make, make people. Make there be a reason for people to. You know, it takes a lot to get people to do anything.
[00:40:45] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Click on anything 10 times or something until they see something before they buy it.
[00:40:51] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly.
[00:40:52] Speaker A: Same.
[00:40:53] Speaker C: Yeah, it's so. Yeah, so I think they're both. I think they're really similar. I would say say no. I, I think that the music industry is faster than publishing traditional publishing. From what I've heard, you're hanging in there for a long time. I have a friend who put out a really beautiful YA book and it was two. It was a two year out thing. So. No, publishing is slower.
[00:41:13] Speaker A: Yeah, sounds about the same. Oh, well, thank you so much, Ari, for your time and expertise. It's been amazing to talk to you about music publishing and all your work as well. Can you tell our listeners where they can discover everything you do on and off offline?
[00:41:25] Speaker C: Absolutely. My website is just arosenshine.com A R I R O S E N S C h e I n.com and my books are both available there. They're also on Amazon and Barnes and Noble and all the other places that books are found.
You can find out about my music also on my website. There's links to the various bands that I've played in in the past and currently play in.
And yeah, that's, that's basically those are the easiest places to find me. I'm also on Instagram and Facebook, always under my own name, Ari Rosenshine.
[00:42:04] Speaker A: Amazing. Well, thanks so much Ari. That was fantastic.
[00:42:07] Speaker C: Thanks, Jaman.
[00:42:14] Speaker D: So there you have it, folks. The super smooth and knowledgeable Ari Rosenshine. Ari's amazing. His books are fantastic. Check him out if you haven't done so already. Loads to learn from him. Next time on the Hybrid Author podcast we have fantasy author Lee Lehner on creative storytelling as an experience.
I wish you well on your Hybrid Author adventure this next week. That's it for me.
[00:42:36] Speaker C: Bye for now.
[00:42:37] Speaker B: That's the end for now, authors. I hope you're further forward in your author adventure after listening and I hope you'll listen next time. Remember to head on over to the Hybrid Author website at www.hhybridauthor.comau to get your free offer pass.
[00:42:52] Speaker A: It's bye for now.
