[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello authors. I'm Joanne Morel, 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.
[00:00:18] Speaker B: You can get the show notes for.
[00:00:20] Speaker A: 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 www.dothybridauthor.com dot au let's crack on with the episode.
[00:00:42] Speaker C: 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 author of travel memoir and hybrid publisher Jessica Muddit and we chat immersive writing and travel memoir. Her books hybrid publishing endeavors, tips and tricks for authors looking to publish this way and advice for authors looking to write in the travel memoir genre.
So in my author adventure this week, it has been eventful. Some things going, lots of things going on. Obviously in the writing world. I'm busy working on my young adult fiction book, which as you obviously are hearing as the deadlines come up next Tuesday, I have deadline to be putting in ten pages of the book to a critique that is taking place at a writing retreat I am going to in June with Squibbi, the Society of Children's Book Writers and illustrators. I have done a bit of work from them in terms of putting out information in regards to the retreat. I have also had another meeting with the business coach. I'm working with the small business coach mentor, Sonia, and we touched base about obviously my productivity in the last month and it's just really great to check in with somebody. But she gives such insightful information. So she agreed that I've got a lot of my plate at the moment. I'm swamped with work, so there was no tasks she assigned me. But she also gave me some really good advice on time management skills because always as a busy mum and you know, lots, lots on my plate, probably trying to run this business in all the aspects that are required. So creating, communicating, which is about my work and the things that I do, you know, and also what I call cash. So working in the business, the business managing side of it, how much income am I making that sort of thing so effectively? There's three things and there's loads of things that fall under these three things and only limited time in the day. And yeah, as I said, it's been school holidays. It's been this. It's been that she actually shouldn't reprimand me, but she did tell me off a little bit for going away to Lansillon. I could have utilized time there for working, but I think that was booked long before, like, we started this coaching anyway, and I understand what she's saying, and things are going well. So I'm glad, glad for this opportunity. And I had an interview with a virtual assistant agency, and it went really well. So the things that I need help with at the moment with my business is migrating my podcast across to YouTube and growing it further across the platforms and just some other admin tasks as well. And yeah, I find them really professional. I've got to provide more information to them to be going forward. But I'm really excited to have someone else on board that's going to help me grow. Yeah, just grow in the business. So it's all very exciting. It has been a week. I've had a lot of personal stuff going on, and that has. All I can say about that is that it stopped me from doing the work that I needed to do that day. And, you know, I didn't sit and feel guilty about it. It just felt like it pushed my dream further away. But the personal issues can't be helped. And when things like that happen, I think that you just need to remember that tomorrow's another day. There is another day, and you'll always catch up. What will be will be all the cliches, really, because it's true. I will make my deadline next week for what needs to be done. This work will get finished. It will all come together. It always does. And it does because I make it happen. You know, I've got all this weekend, everything. The personal issue had to be dealt with, and unfortunately, I could not focus for the rest of those days. I was also unwell for a couple of days, and that always freaks me out because it just comes sometimes, obviously, getting a well comes out of the blue, out of nowhere. And, you know, it's not so much the physical symptoms. You feel yucky and, you know, it was more like a head cold, but it was the energy that was gone for me. Not COVID or nothing like that, but just absolutely lifeless, no energy, stuck in bed. And that I hate because it's just so inconvenient and I don't know where it came from or whatever, but I just had to listen to the body, and you lie in bed and you don't move, and I just had to watch episodes of don't laugh but one tree hill I am writing ya. So I love my Ya series back from the nineties and I love ya books and all that sort of stuff. So it feels good to just be mindlessly watching stuff like that, you know, teen drama. Love it.
So yeah, listen to yourself. Listen to your body. And I'm not sure. Yeah, and I obviously attended the stagecraft workshop with Christy Byrne.
I think that was last Sunday at the state library. Unfortunately, I had to leave halfway through to attend a friend's book launch. Congratulations, Laura Holloway, on your day picture book. I do have an episode coming out with Laura in the coming weeks, and we're talking about, you know, the benefits of having a writing community behind you. But Christie's shout out, Christy Byrne, you're bloody amazing. Way back when I started the podcast, really early on, Christy and Dennis Knight came on for an episode and they were chatting about co writing a book. Christie's expertise, especially in stagecraft and presenting, are second to none. If you get a chance, go and see her. She's fantastic. She's so knowledgeable in that field. She presents to thousands of children and yeah, adults obviously as well. But she's just amazing. So really got a lot out there. And so this weekend I'm gonna be amongst, obviously children's sports and other commitments, head down, bum up and continuing on with my writing. I hope your writing projects are coming together. And again, if you're not feeling it or you've had stuff, other stuff going on in your life, just be kind to yourself. Don't be too hard on yourself. Tomorrow is another day and it will all come together and things will get done.
So if you love the podcast or any of the episodes has helped you further in your author career, you can now pay it forward by buying me a coffee.
[email protected] thehybridauthor let's all support each other.
[00:07:04] Speaker D: Jessica Muddit is the founder of Henbury Books. Her second book, Once around the Sun, has just released, which is all about her adventures and mishaps backpacking sola in Asia. Jessica is passionate about getting lesser told stories out into the world by bypassing the traditional gatekeepers via her disruptive business model as a hybrid publisher. Welcome to the Hybrid Author podcast, Jessica.
[00:07:28] Speaker B: Thanks, Joanne. I'm really excited to be here.
[00:07:31] Speaker D: We're so thrilled to have you. So we'll just jump straight in. Can you tell us, you know, how did you come to join the writing and publishing industry?
[00:07:38] Speaker B: Yes, with my first book, I was rejected so many times with our home in Myanmar. And I decided to self publish it. And it came out in 2021. And I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the back end of books, enjoying learning how to self publish and the technology around it that's ever improving and the community of people that you get to know. And so when it came and, you know, the book has. Has done well, I've had really great mainstream media coverage. It's been in Reader's Digest. Extracts have been printed in the Sydney Morning Herald. I was on breakfast tv in New Zealand, so I tried again to see if I could get a publisher just to kind of test whether, you know, people say once you've got one book out, you kind of demonstrate that you can finish a book, complete a book, and if it's well received, that helps as well. But I was still knocked back by the publishers and agents that I tried on the grounds that travel memoir just doesn't sell enough copies nowadays, and I'm not a celebrity. So I self published again and enjoyed it again. But in the, in the process of making that decision last year, I decided to set up Henry books, which is a hybrid publisher, to help other non fiction authors publish their books, because it was quite a steep learning curve for me. There were times when it was stressful. You know, ticking the wrong box can be. Can have long lasting consequences. So I thought, I can offer this to other nonfiction authors, and I just absolutely love it. I have a coach edit, publish package, and so I've got clients who, you know, I coach right from the beginning of refining their book idea through to printing those author copies to take to their launch. And it's just been, it's early days, but I thoroughly enjoy it.
[00:09:27] Speaker D: Amazing. Well, that's quite a journey you've had. And we're going to dive into the.
[00:09:32] Speaker C: Hybrid publishing as well.
[00:09:33] Speaker D: But we're going to start by talking about today's topic, which is, you know, how a book succeeds in making the reader the fourth character, which, you know, I've studied writing and things like that, and the fourth character, it's not really. Yeah. That. This sort of perspective, I feel like I haven't come across a lot as well. So I'm really intrigued to, you know, for you to share with us, you know, what that means and how you've kind of administered this viewpoint, you know, in your work.
[00:10:01] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I want my books, my non fiction books to read like fiction, to be page turners. That, for me, is the highest compliment. So with memoir, you know, it should have a narrative arc, and I want you know, my goal is for the reader to feel as though they're right there beside me. And you can employ a lot of different tactics to do that. I got some good advice from my book. My book editor, Lauren Finger, when she read our home in Myanmar, she said, I want to see more of Yangon, and I want to feel the sights and the smells and the sounds. She said, you're relying too much on visual cues.
[00:10:40] Speaker D: Right.
[00:10:41] Speaker B: That is so true. So much. You know, we have five senses, so use them all, you know, as a writer, because it's, you know, smell is a really interesting sense. It triggers memories stronger than any other sense. And so I do, which I can't recreate smells, but they certainly last with you, you know, the good and the bad. It really conjures up a place, whether it's like the beautiful, steaming street side momos that I had in Nepal or something like that. And so. But you're also. You don't want to overdo it, because I think too much description slows down the plot and the pace. So it's as much to me, you know, your writing skill is as much as what you leave out, as much as what you put in. And it's a really fine line between have I just. And I ask myself this every day as I work on my third book. Am I over describing? Have I given the reader enough to really feel where they are? And I found my second book even more challenging than the first book because the first book is set in Myanmar, and I do travel around Myanmar, but I'm in the one country, whereas with once around the sun from Cambodia to Tibet, I go through Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, China, and then into Tibet and Mount Everest. So I have to do a lot of work to bring the reader with me, because you just have to. Otherwise, you kind of. It's like not having a backdrop. It's like a backdrop.
[00:12:09] Speaker D: They'll get left behind in the last country.
[00:12:13] Speaker B: Yeah. And so the percentage of descriptive of descriptive description in the second book is probably higher. And I look, I hope I've got the balance right. This is part of the intellectual challenge of writing memoir, isn't it?
[00:12:25] Speaker D: Yeah, absolutely. And it just comes to mind there that I've read, and I'm not sure if it's memoir or whatever, but I remember reading a work, and there was just one sentence, and for the life of me, I wouldn't remember what it was, but it just put me right there where the writer wanted me to be, whether it was a setting or something. And even just that one sentence was enough that I was. I felt like it was a mess. So I absolutely get what you're saying. And you don't have to fill up pages and pages of stuff if you can just grasp, you know, something that's quite strong.
[00:12:55] Speaker B: I mean, for example. So right now, in my third book, I'm in Nepal and I do a lot of desk research to kind of recreate. This is a journey that took place 18 years ago. So I do a lot of walking tours on YouTube. And so I'm in Tamil in the touristy part of Kathmandu. And so I see it and obviously there's a huge amount that I could describe, but it's what I choose to describe. So, like, you know, it will be the monkeys or the smoke of a cremation, balminess of the air, because that's a contrast to, you know, being freezing in Mount Everest. So it's. And then also, like a saddoo, sadhu, like, a wise man, comes and accosts me. So it's been like, how much of him to just. Should I describe? Because I could describe him head to toe. He was just incredible. Like, dreadlocks coiled on top of his head. His face, like, you know, that sort of ashen white. And then he's dabbing my forehead with, like, you know, the red powder. He's only got a robe. He's got a long, wispy beard. But it's how, you know, it's how much for each scene to keep the. To keep the movement going and you've got to, you know, also balance it with dialogue and, you know, what is actually happening. That's the thing, like, with travel. Travel is quite a challenging genre, I think, because there's two stories. There's my kind of internal journey and then there's the external one, and they're happening at the same time. And I like to kind of bounce them off each other. So what I choose to observe is also something about kind of what I. What I remember is having a really high emotional content for me, that really challenged me, confronted me, and ultimately kind of leads to that maturity, the growth that you have as a person when you, you know, you travel in some challenging places.
[00:14:42] Speaker D: Oh, yeah, absolutely. And did you have. Did you keep journals of that time that you drew back from or unfortunately. Oh, you did.
[00:14:49] Speaker B: I did, but tragically well, sadly, I had a flatmate in London who put all my belongings out on the street when I didn't come back from Bangladesh after six months as guaranteed, because I had my stuff in the attic with all his graffiti paint.
So that was heartbreaking. But what happened was that. So I gave up on the backpacking book idea and then eventually, after ten years, I got back home and my beautiful dad handed me a pen drive which had every email he and I and mum had exchanged.
[00:15:20] Speaker D: Oh, great. Yep.
[00:15:21] Speaker B: Being, you know, immature and like, oh, thanks, Dad. I didn't open it for another few more years. And when I did, it was 86,000 words. Right, the link. I couldn't believe it. So I then thought, okay, let's give this a crack. And then, of course, you know, you also have the other emails to other people. You have all the photos and things like that. So it is a process of reconstruction. I also bought secondhand all the Lonely Planet guides that I used in 2006. So it's the same edition. And I'm like, I remember thumbing through.
[00:15:52] Speaker D: This and even, like you said, even that will involve probably emotions and memories coming back.
[00:15:59] Speaker B: It's such a high to be, you know, it's like being young and rolling the dice. That's what I'm doing on this trip, like just getting a tip from another traveler. You should go to Mount Everest. Yeah, okay, I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go to Mount Everest. You know, it's stuff like that. Like that just. It's the ultimate of freedom, you know?
[00:16:16] Speaker D: Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, it sounds amazing. I wish we could go back, but we can always sort of go forward, so, yeah, definitely fourth character bringing along in terms of description and five senses and stuff and really immersing the reader. So you've succeeded in obviously writing immersive description, putting the reader where you've been and bringing them along on the journey. And as you said, it's quite difficult because you're administering lots of different things in travel memoir sort of going forward. So do you have any advice for authors looking to write, you know, travel memoir or be more immersive in their.
[00:16:50] Speaker B: Writing with travel memoirs? I have a client. She wrote. Her book is called two Bugs on bikes, and she and her husband rode their bicycles across Europe and the Middle east and Europe and Africa and a bit of the Middle east. She began sort of doing it more kind of chronological and more. I would call it an encyclopedic approach, you know, which is a rundown of the most interesting things, but I think you have to be more selective than that and focus on themes. So, you know, again, it's looking for, you know, the main journey and the subplot, which is your own journey, and then there's her relationship with her husband and her husband. These are all separate things going on at the same time, and then the skill is kind of weaving them together. So, because with travel, it can be tempting to describe what's beautiful and interesting, but I think it has to have a higher emotional content than that. It has to have had quite a profound impact on you in order, like, to have a really high bar for inclusion. And so that's the way that a place made you feel, or, you know, how surprising it was, or the interactions with the people that are there, rather than simply, this is beautiful. Wow. It's amazing to be there, because I think from a psychological point of view, we. We. Our brains are wired for story, and it's really rewarding to see the character growth so that they are at the start is not the person that they are when they finish the book. Even in travel writing, I do believe that, well, in travel memoir, there needs to be insights that are internal as well as the external. And then it's how you're kind of processing that. You know, when or you know. I mean, I found that was confronting. I'd never seen a lot of poverty close up, and the journey actually made me want to be a journalist. And that's because I begin the journey having no idea what I'm going to do with the rest of my life. And by the very, very end, I resolved to work out how to become a journalist in the UK, because that's where I'm about to go and live. And it was because of the things I saw. So the things that I choose to describe are the things that really aroused my empathy and my perspective. Like, that trip gave me perspective, and it's the gift that keeps on giving. Once you get perspective, if you can hang on to it, I think that's a really valuable thing, to have a more content life and just a balanced life as well. It helps you get on with people as well, because you have the perspective to see your problems are not the worst problems by far in the world, most of the time.
[00:19:27] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:19:27] Speaker B: You know, so it. So it was, it was. It's got. It's got to have some psychological impact on you. I think sometimes it is just fun. Like, you know, when I was in Lao, you know, jumping along the river in a rubber ring and dancing in the jungle in bikinis and having shots like that, to me, is a quintessential Southeast Asia banana pancake trail backpacker moment. So that had to go in. But I was like, this is one of the coolest moments in my life, you know. You know, when you're traveling, you're just like, yeah, it's just. This is bliss, you know, so the highs and the lows.
[00:20:01] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, it sounds like the, you know, the human element, the emotional connection, oversight, just description of surroundings, but, yeah, evoking the feelings and emotions in there as well. So. Wow, it just sounds absolutely incredible. And great job there.
We'll move on to you. Obviously, we're starting to talk about the hybrid publishing at the start of the interview, so. Yeah, tell us again. You know, hybrid publishing obviously loved. Loved it so much that you've gone into business for yourself. Tell us more about your hybrid publishing endeavours.
[00:20:35] Speaker B: Yeah, so, I mean, I was a journalist for 15 years after that trip ended. And I loved it. I really loved it. I worked in London, Bangladesh and Myanmar, and then came back here. And I've been here six years writing, you know, for business and technology publications. But I just have always loved books. And I thought most journalists did have a passionate love of books, and probably many do. But my dad passed away last year, and I was trying to watch, and I just had this sudden realization, why am I not pursuing my dream? Like, life is short.
Make your life what you wish it to be. And so with that, I began putting the wheels in motion to set up a new business, Henry Books, which is named after my dad's furniture business and his house in the UK and our family home in park orchards in Victoria. And I just thought, I. I will throw it out there and see how the market responds. And my parameters are nonfiction books. And beyond that, I just want to help people move from, you know, the heartache that I experienced over so many, so many years and so many different rejections for a number of different books. And having. Having, you know, the gatekeepers say, this is not worthy for public consumption. That's what it. You know, what it feels like. And then to see how far I could go with self publishing, you know, when do the doors close? You know? Yes, the doors closed on some bookstores that were not, you know, keen on stocking a self published author. But for the most part, I just found it. It has created the most wonderful opportunities. I'm just back from the post office, by the way. I just posted our home in Myanmar to the former foreign minister, Julie Bishop, who's just been appointed the UN special envoy to Myanmar. Because, you know, once you have your book, you give it to the world, and then you just see how people respond. Like, the worst thing would be silence. Right? So what I want to do is help authors who have perhaps they don't want to traditionally publish and there's a lot of good reasons not to. They might, you know, be business owners and they want to retain the IP and more royalties, but for whatever reason, self publishing is the path that they're on. And let's create a really high quality book that is just so well set up for their success and their long term success as authors, so they can go on to write 2nd, 3rd, 4th books and they can also have the joy of getting an email from a reader and launching their book and selling copies of their book and actually impacting the conversation. Like, one of my clients has just published a book called no buts and it's the accounts of twelve men who were violent or abusive and they took part in a long term behaviour change program and they achieved some, some positive change. And that's such a fresh perspective. And the response to this has been incredible. With the interest from the police force, domestic violence centers, the mainstream media. Margaret Chipperfield has just done an interview with Mamma Mia. She's got the ABC lined up and when she came to me, she had very low confidence and I just thought this was a fantastic, refreshing, important perspective. And so I went and booked the editor and stuff and she said, jess, you've got to tell me, like, should this book be published? And I said, oh my gosh, of course it should be published and that. Or, you know, Holly's hell. So Holly was my first client. She spent seven years in a thai prison. It's probably since Bangkok Hilton, there's been no in depth account of the conditions for women prisoners in Thailand, and they are diabolical. Now, Holly as hell has been everywhere in the media, everywhere from women's Weekly to BBC to the project Mamma Mia. And just now the head of that prison in Bangkok is reading her book for reasons I can't yet go into, but hopefully very exciting reasons. And that they are going to, for once, have a mirror held up to the human rights abuses that they commit every day in those overcrowded cells. And that is very, a very satisfying line of work because Holly tried mainstream publishers and she got knocked back. And I was so excited to. We had a mutual contact at the australian embassy put us in touch and to publish her story. And Holly, she quit heroin when she was ten months into a 31 year sentence in prison. She can help a lot of people, you know, addiction and recovery. She also had awful PTSD that she, she manages, but, you know, you don't get over 17 years incarceration because that's what she did all up in Perth and Thailand. And so her story is really inspiring and it just, I love books, I think make the world a better place and knowledge makes the world a better place. It makes us feel less alone in our lives. And I just love my clients because they're such interesting, determined, intelligent people who want to share their knowledge with the world. And writing a book is a heck of a lot of work. And they, they're doing the work, do you know what I mean? They're not talkers and they're just, it's just really rewarding.
[00:25:50] Speaker D: Honestly, well said. And I agree with absolutely everything you said there. And your passion for what you're doing comes through. And as someone who, you know, has this podcast, because I genuinely love to connect with people and hear the stories that people are sharing and share other people's stories. Like, I get it completely. And it sounds like you're doing some really powerful work with other authors. And it is so, so destroying as someone who's been rejected as well. And what's horrible is like if people, it chips away at the confidence and like you said, then they take it personally, whether it's the work or as you said, you've had rejections for reasons that don't fall back on you really, or your work necessarily. It's more like the business or the market or whatever it is. But people can because writing is so personal and you're pouring your heart and your soul out on the page. You're really showing another side of yourself.
[00:26:41] Speaker B: I think, and memorize. So personal.
[00:26:43] Speaker D: Yes, yes, exactly.
And then for someone to be like, no, it's the end of the road for a lot of people. And it sounds like you're giving life to those stories, which, bravo. I absolutely love that. So people who, you know, authors, what's your advice to authors looking to publish your way? I mean, is there a certain, obviously, do they have to pitch to yourself and you, how does it work? And then you have an editorial team.
[00:27:15] Speaker B: Or a one stop shop or an end to end one stop shop. So I, you know, the services can all be completed internally. That's really important to me because I don't think it really solves the problem if you're sending, if they do a course with you or something, but then you're sending them back out into the world to navigate, like how to format their book and stuff like that. And because I, you know, I've done it myself a couple of times, I know the steps that people need to take it is it? And it's also, I want to grow. I want to. I want to become the leading hybrid publisher in Australia, because then I can help more people and we can produce more books. And I feel that the publishing landscape is in a period of disruption, and I want to seize on that because the traditional publishing model is broken. It is not benefiting authors. It's not really. Books are not really making anyone money. When you kind of break it down, like bookstores are going out of business, publishers are merging to the point that there's really only four left. Stories are not being told. Authors are feeling a bit disenchanted by the lack of control they have over their book and also their ability to make a living. We see that incomes are, you know, dropping from something already low to something even lower. Self publishing to me, offers a really good alternative. And there's pieces of the puzzle that haven't been solved, like distribution. I want to be part of sort of changing the landscape and giving people the ability to tell their stories, these lesser told stories that are still absolutely incredible stories. Because I've never really been a fan of anything commercial, mainstream, whether it's music, books, movies. I've always been a kind of documentary person, do you know what I mean? So I'm not looking for people to sell a bazillion, gazillion copies. They very well main dudes, but that is not my top priority. My top priority is the quality of the story and the voice and making that book accessible. So it's a really good experience for the reader. Like it, you know, it feels nice in their hands. The images are clear and they work well. Everything is where it should be, you know, beautiful formatting, just beautiful quality. Because I also feel books are really expensive for readers. I'm an ebook reader myself, but books creeping up to sort of $45, which is, I don't know. And then, and then even still the author's not taking home much of that, you know? So I feel I'm hybrid, and I would be interested to hear your thoughts that I know that there's, there's no firm definitions of what a hybrid publisher is. And in the United States, a hybrid publisher is seen more as that truly hybrid model where they do retain a small amount of royalties. I don't retain any royalties because I feel, again, I'm an author first. I feel that the author should retain the lifetime royalties of their book. They are the ones who did the most work. So they pay me upfront to help them create their book. And that's everything from, you know, refining the idea to editing their book and then to physically building their book and getting it out into the world. And then for the lifetime of their book, the royalties are theirs. I am just setting them up in their account. And I need to. As a business, what's really important is to be really transparent. So yesterday I just put the prices of the packages up on the website because there's a lot of, there's a lot of shady actors out there purporting to be traditional publishers when they're not having really, you know, overinflated prices, not delivering the value, that kind of thing. And there's also, you know, in writing communities. I see it on australian binders of writers. You know, there's quite a. Quite a dislike for vanity publishers, and I'm not a vanity publisher, but nor am I the gatekeeper on good taste. And do you know what I mean? What I believe will be commercially successful, because that kind of thinking to me belongs in the traditional sphere, like, so, you know, books have. Must be really high quality because they are the Hanbury books imprint. But, you know, so far the books that have come my way have just been incredible.
[00:31:36] Speaker D: Yeah, no, that's amazing. And I agree with what you're saying there. I think that vanity publishing, for me, I guess, is a term I feel is associated with hybrid publishing, because they make out that vanity publishing is where you're going to be paying for. You're paying money upfront and then they create the product, but they don't create a very well product, and it's just the red flag for a lot of authors going forward. But because of the tradition, sorry, the self publishing landscape coming, you know, avalanching into the industry, there's a lot of, like yourself and a lot of other businesses that are legit and they have professionals working there and they want to do a good job and there's good quality coming out. And I think hybrid publishing, when I started the hybrid podcast, it's hybrid to me, the term has coined off in so many different directions. So I say I'm a hybrid author because I do look for traditional representation for some of my work, because I want to write in so many different categories. I don't want to outsource, like, I don't want to self publish it all myself and have the undertaking. So it'd be nice if someone else could take some of the work. And I want to have the experience, I guess, as well. And unfortunately, I suppose in Australia and maybe across the world, this is a global podcast it opens a lot of doors to have that status. And I guess I still want that and just want to know if I can get it. I don't know, but that's still with me from the beginning. So hybrid in the sense is I self publish, but I publish different ways. Not so much that I work with a hybrid publisher, but that still. That still is the term coined as hybrid. But you know that since starting the podcast, there's been so many different things about what makes you a hybrid author. Not a hybrid publisher, but author in terms of mixing genres or writing cross genres or. I spoke to one gentleman who was inputting non fiction bits, but also making up stuff, and it was like a hybrid collage of his work. And I was just like, that's so cool. You know, it's so different. But like everything, I suppose there's always scammers out there, isn't there? But then you've got yourself and legitimate people who are actually making a difference and want to do good, and we need obviously, more of those. So do you know of any sort of, you know, if authors are going to come forward and they want to hybrid publish, do you have advice on where they. Obviously they should look for yourself, but to avoid these red flag sharks, is there something out there, like a directory or something like that? How can they protect themselves?
[00:34:06] Speaker B: I suppose Anna. Anna Featherstone just published it, put up yesterday, her directory of book coaches. And everyone has a slightly different offering, but Anna Featherstone's website does. She breaks down the terms as well, and she has all the book coaches. And often there is publishing support or referrals. So that would be a good place to start. Or, you know, start with a book coach and ask their advice because they will only recommend someone who's reputable. And I think also, you know, trust your instinct. Have a call with them. Look at the authors, you know, that they're publishing, and anyone you know worth their salt will have the other books that they've published. And then just be very clear about what you're paying for and what you will receive, because there's all different kinds of arrangements. Like, I know of a, you know, quite traditional publisher who you are required to pay for 1000 copies of your book to be printed, which works out to around $15,000. And they print a thousand or say, yeah, probably a thousand, and you must pay. And they're upfront about this, but that's what you must do. And that to me is so, because that's a. And plus you've got to pay them. You know, for all the. Oh, actually, no, you probably don't. But. So you wouldn't. But 15,000 is a lot of money. And to me, it's so interesting because that's kind of the old stereotype of what a self published author was, you know, oh, I've got 3000 of my own book in my garage, whereas I do not. I just have the copies I need for my events, you know, that I order in a jiffy, my author copies from Amazon. And it's so interesting that now traditional publishing is kind of lending some aspects from the old model of self publishing because obviously for them, their unit cost comes down with a higher print run, so they're asking their authors to take part in that with them.
[00:36:03] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:36:04] Speaker B: So it's, yeah, it's, it's tricky, but I think it's just really seeing what else they've done and whether, you know, the books are similar and whether the books are of a good quality. Testimonials are so important from other authors and they should be front and center of their social media. So really easy for you to access.
[00:36:26] Speaker D: No, absolutely. Good advice there. And we've had Anna Featherstone on the podcast recently, and she's fantastic. And, yeah, she's really good. So. No, that's amazing. Jessica, you shared some really great insights into, you know, writing and hybrid publishing. And we would love to know where we can find you your books. And, you know, everything you do on and offline.
[00:36:46] Speaker B: Henrybooks.com dot au is the website. And that has both my books and my clients books and the packages and some testimonials. And then you will find me on every social media platform, Henry books as well, except for Twitter, because, short story, I was hacked and never recovered my account, so you won't find me there. But everywhere else, LinkedIn threads, Instagram, Facebook, we have Henry books YouTube channel where we put the podcast episodes. And we, you know, we're just growing every day. So please get in touch.
[00:37:17] Speaker D: Amazing. Well, thanks again, Jessica. That was fantastic.
[00:37:19] Speaker B: Thanks, Joan.
[00:37:26] Speaker C: So there you have it, folks. The truly insightful, inspiring Jessica Muddit. Please go and check out all Jessica does and her amazing travel memoir books where she shared. Next time on the Happy Doctor podcast, we have Liz Long, who's the author of Navigating Shitstorms, how to find your true path when life gets rough. And Liz is from Canada. It was amazing to connect with her, honestly. Just some people you talk to, you feel like you've known them all your life. And the fact she's in Canada, which is where I, aspire to go for my 40th next year. I am definitely going to look you up, Liz. And we're chatting, navigating life's complexities and applying them in writing. So she was a late ADHD diagnosis at 58, so she shares that story. But there's also childhood trauma that she overcome. And this was where her book comes from, and it sounds sensitive. So another episode not to be missed. I wish you well in your author adventure this next week. That's it from me. Bye for now.
[00:38:24] Speaker D: That's the end for now.
[00:38:26] Speaker A: 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.hybridauthor.com dot au to get your free author pass. It's bye for now.
