[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello authors. 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 www.hybridauthor.com au. Let's crack on with the episode.
[00:00:43] Speaker B: Hello authors.
[00:00:45] Speaker C: 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 returning guest psychological thriller and contemporary young adult author Sarah Epstein, and we're chatting about what one year as an indie author has looked like. For Sarah, whether entering self published books into awards is worth it foreign rights deals and foreign rights agents earning an author income through indie publishing compared to Trad Publishing, hybrid publishing, Sarah's tips, and so much more.
So in my author venture this week, I'm very aware that we are into the first week of November, which is scary, really. Goals I want to hit are looming and we're all about to get into the silly season, which for me is kids birthdays, festive season and school holidays. So I can't really allow myself to think too far forward at this stage of whether I'm going to achieve such goals or not. I just got to keep my head down and crack on with what I'm working on, which is still my women's fiction, and I'm going to be doing a title reveal next week's. Lonersode Lessons Learned of 100 episodes of podcasting, so stay tuned. It's almost like a process I've noticed that I get to this time of year and I'm almost manically trying to catch up on what I was trying to achieve that year. There's definitely a pattern I've noticed emerging over the last few years and as I do, probably the New Year's Lessons Learned in the past year. I'll talk more about that, but I'm also very busy batching the final episodes of the podcast for 2023 and conducting the opening podcast episodes for 2024. So I'm really excited about the lineup of guests I've got coming, all really different topics, all ones that are going to help on our hybrid author adventures.
[00:02:39] Speaker B: So what about you?
[00:02:41] Speaker C: Where are you at this week in your author adventure? Many people kicked off National Novel Writing Month NaNoWriMo and congrats to you. Good luck. Best of luck with your word counts if that is you. I have attempted Nanorimo and Camp Nanorimo in the past and I've just found this was before I recognized my writing processes and things like that. I probably start writing and then I'm someone who needs to have to stop because I haven't got enough story or there's this or there's that. But I think there's lots of different things to nano like researching maybe adds up to word count or something like that. I haven't looked into it in these recent last years. So I think if I was actually prepared ahead, like in October, put in the groundwork to build the story up first because I'm definitely someone who I've noticed has an idea, whatever that form that presents itself in. And then I will start to make characters first, always. And they change over time of the course of the story and things like that. I'm also starting to plot now before I write and get a whole backstory and stuff like that happening, whether that changes. So I think I'm that in between our start off as a plotter and then when I'm writing very much, sometimes I pants are although I stick to the plot. So who knows. So as always, I'm always looking up things for inspiration to keep me going and motivated during the week. And for me this week was reading about Nora Roberts. She is a prolific USA, author of romance thriller, suspense books, pumping out about four a year. And I read this article and her voice in it, she's just firm. Firm is the word and I'm looking forward to reading some of her titles. I was actually in the library looking for Holly Black, another Holly Black book over October there and came across Nora Roberts. And I just saw there was so many of her books on these shelves and I've heard of her before through other podcasts and stuff like that. But I've never actually read anything of hers. So I'm going to give that a go. She is listed on number four or something on a top earning authors. I think she's worth something like 360 or $390,000,000. And the article her tips are, her writing tips are this number one, stop making excuses and write. Number two, stop whining and write. And number three, stop effing around and write. So I just thought that was fabulous because it's absolutely true. Just stop. This week I've probably thought there's been a few things happening in the personal life and I've probably thought made excuses for certain things. But no, it's just stop it write. So. Thank you, Nora. Also in line with the upcoming episode in December, I will be coming up to one year myself of being an indie author. So I just wanted to have a look that up there because yeah, I felt like it was coming up. So my nonfiction title Freelance Writing Quick Tips for Fast Success was made available for sale on the 15 December on Ingram, Spark and probably Amazon at the same time. The author fears book was in December. But it certainly took me a few years to compile these books beforehand and actually get my shit together in the formatting and the editing process and oh gosh, that was fun.
So definitely different processes going forward.
[00:06:09] Speaker B: Hello.
[00:06:10] Speaker D: My name's Nicole Webb, and I'm the owner of Nicole Webb Book Publicity. I'm originally a journalist and a news reader with over 30 years experience in the media. My memoir, China Blonde was published in 2020 and I'm now working on a novel set in Singapore. In the past two years, I've completed more than 20 successful author book publicity campaigns. Promoting your book can feel like a daunting task, so if you want help planning your book publicity path, I'd love to help you. If you need a compelling media release and someone to pitch you and your book to the media, or perhaps you want some media training to ensure you're confident when discussing your book, then let's talk. From consultations through to full marketing campaigns, I design tailored strategies to suit your needs and to target your book to its specific audience. You can check out my website, www.nicolwebonline.com for more details.
[00:07:12] Speaker E: Sarah Epstein is an award winning Australian author who resides in Melbourne with her family. Her first two young adult novels, Small Spaces and Deep Water, have been translated into multiple languages and Small Spaces has also been optioned for film. Sarah's writing has been nominated for numerous literary awards and she has been the recipient of the Adelaide Festival young Adult Fiction award, the Davitt award for best Ya crime novel, an honour book from the Children's Book Council of Australia. Sarah's short fiction is featured in the Hometown Haunts anthology and she has launched a contemporary Ya series, Leftovers, and a new Ya thriller, Nightlights, under her own imprint. Welcome back to the hybrid author podcast, Sarah.
[00:07:57] Speaker B: Thanks, Joe. It's great to be back again.
[00:08:00] Speaker E: We're thrilled to have you back again. You appeared on the show as a guest a little over a year ago. It was episode 27 and you were chatting to us about young adult fiction writing, suspense and hybrid authorship. There was lots there in the episode. Going back, you were a little bit frustrated with the traditional publishing industry and you were semi, I think, starting out in your indie author adventure and you were starting to get some rights back, I think. Can you tell us how has the author indie author adventure been since you came on last?
[00:08:32] Speaker B: Well, it's been a bit of a roller coaster, long story short. Anyway, thanks for having me.
No, I will elaborate. So I had to have a little bit of a listen back to because I was trying to remember where we were up to and what we chatted about. And I had just released Sugarcoated, my first Ya contemporary, as far as I know, when I say just, I think it might have been out for about four or five months or something like that. So that was my first foray into self publishing. And then shortly after we chatted, I actually did end up getting some rights back for I believe it was Small Spaces at the time. I got some foreign rights back. So it was really good being able to learn the ropes of self publishing with my first book because it really came in handy when I received those rights back for Small Spaces. So that was basically for the English rights and the foreign rights for all the territories apart from Australia and New Zealand and the Polish territory, which it's still in print in Poland. So with those rights I was really keen, I had to wait out the period in my contract until I could officially ask for them back. It ended up being pretty easy to get them back because that had been pre negotiated in my contract. So I then went on to publish my own edition of Small Spaces. So I've got some notes here because I had to scribble down some dates because I sort of forget when everything happened, but I had my rights reverted to me in May 2022 and then I self published my own edition in October. So it was sort of a busy time actually, because I think it was in August I actually published my first it was September, actually. I self published my first Ya thriller, Nightlights. So I had all this action sort of going on around about the same time, but it was good because I really wanted to. When I uploaded them to places like Amazon and Apple, Google Play, all those different places, it was good having a couple of different books coming out quite close together because it did help me get some visibility on those platforms. So it's been an interesting time because I've been learning as I'm going and I had originally, I think I'd said to you that I was not going to look at advertising and things like that until I had more books out in that contemporary series. And do you know, I still don't have any other further books out in that contemporary series, so things didn't really go according to plan. So it's been a little bit challenging in places, a big learning curve in other places, but other things cropped up that I wasn't really expecting, and so I sort of took advantage of that and wanted to kind of get all my ducks in a row, I suppose, with my Ya thrillers. Just make sure that any rights that I had reverted and things like that, that I could get them back up onto platforms and get them available for readers and then figure out the marketing part afterwards.
[00:11:25] Speaker E: It's funny, isn't it, how things just don't go to plan and I am a big believer like what's for us won't go by and all that sort of thing. So it sounds like you've still been, even though it's not been to plan, super busy and prominent in the industry with all your works and getting them up there as well. In terms of what you've been doing with the traditional publishing as well, and your indie publishing, what's been the best and hardest parts you found against, say, traditional publishing? Putting them out yourself?
[00:11:56] Speaker B: Well, I think probably the best part obviously is having all the control so I can release things when I want to, I can have them looking how I want them to look, I can write the stories that I want to write, I can release as frequently or as infrequently as I want. There's no pressure of anyone hanging over me sort of with deadlines and things except for self imposed ones. But it's been what traditional publishing does so well that is always going to be a challenge for self publishers is the marketing side of things and trying to find new audience but also trying to still reach. I mean I had an established audience and a readership that found me through traditional publishing, so through libraries and through bookshops and things like that and teacher librarians in schools recommending my books, booksellers recommending my books. And so with self publishing that element became incredibly hard for me. So I had some very supportive librarians and booksellers who still did want to try and facilitate getting my books into the hands of readers and have. But unless you're with a distributor and it's a lot of work trying to do things the way traditional publishers do in that regard, a lot of other things that we can do as self publishers, you can. A lot of what traditional publishers do just in terms of how you release and getting advanced copies out there and reaching out to book bloggers and bookstagrammers and all that sort of thing, and even putting out digital arcs on some of these websites like BookSirens and things like that. NetGalley to get early reviews. So all of that sort of marketing thing you can do exactly the same as you would if you were with a traditional publisher. But the only thing is that I'm finding really difficult is the marketing to the people who bought my traditionally published books has been really hard, it's been really difficult to reach those readers. So a small number of that readership has followed me into self published books. They're happy to buy my paperback through my website, they buy the e books from the now one plus side is that I'm now reaching a lot of overseas readers. So the majority of my sales that I now get from Amazon, from these books that I have self published myself but also republished my own editions of books that I've had rights reverted for is that now I'm finally able to reach those readers. Now, I never sold the rights for instance, to the US for small spaces and now I've got all these US readers. And when I say all, I'll use that term loosely because it's definitely not a vast quantity of readers but definitely selling hundreds more copies to overseas readers as opposed to selling none.
It might not sound like a lot, especially to big self publishers that can sell hundreds of copies per day, but for somebody that originally didn't have any way of getting to that market and that readership me having my rights reverted and then releasing my own edition has actually given me a way now to establish myself there and start building the foundations and hopefully grow on that in the future. And one big plus, something that has been a bonus and that's been lucrative for me has been when I got my foreign rights reverted. A French publisher actually approached me about publishing a French edition of Small Spaces which released, and so that's a traditional deal. I now deal with a French agent, literary agent, and that was a really decent advance. And the readership there is my first book that was published, deepwater the French edition through that French publishing house has actually done really well, so they were very happy to take another one and I really hope that the relationship will continue. But me having those rights meant that I was actually able to negotiate that deal myself and that was a deal that had never been negotiated. I mean, Small Spaces was released in Australia over five years ago now and in that entire time nobody had been able to sell French rights or German rights or anything other than Polish rights. So now that the rights are with me, I'm able to actually do some things with it and you'd sort of think, oh, but it's five or six years old, like, why bother? But that's the thing, it doesn't matter, not at all. Yeah, books can get a new lease on life at any point and especially with the film adaptation, it's still in the works. And so at some point, if that film is released I like to think that Small Spaces will get a new lease on life. Yet, you know, books never die as long as the rights aren't tied up and the publishers absolutely.
[00:16:19] Speaker E: Yeah. Well, it's not off topic at all but I don't know if you ever listened to Mark Dawson's and it was a recent episode that they done. I can't remember the name of it either, but it was about the daughter of an author had put a post on TikTok for her dad's book because he although he'd been picked up I think it was a traditional publisher but didn't really sell much or anything. And I don't know if they let that go and she just put this post up and then actually no, I think the rights were still with them and then the book went off in ages later, years later. So I don't think yeah, what you're saying is absolutely spot on and yeah, lots of questions coming up from what you're saying there. So with the contracts and things for overseas so you're such a go getter these things, have you got a lot of motivation to put yourself out there for foreign rights? How have you been educating yourself in this field if you've never kind of done it before?
[00:17:11] Speaker B: Well, to be honest, the foreign rights came to me. There was also another foreign publisher that came to me, but that one sort of fell through because once I read the contract, I wasn't really happy with it, so I actually declined that one. But for this one, the contract comes to you just looking incredibly similar to an English contract, an Australian contract. It's all written in English, so I can check all the terms and all that sort of thing. And so I was lucky in that basically I could cross check what some of the things they were proposing in that contract compared with the other Australian contracts that I've had before. And basically well, first of all, I must just preface this by saying some people listening might be thinking, hang on a minute. Last time Sarah was on here, she was talking about her agent. Why isn't her agent doing this with the contract? So I no longer have an agent. And it was only a short time after that podcast was released that I parted ways with my agent. So that came about mostly because, and this is also an interesting question and a little bit of a tangent, but originally in our other podcast you said to me, so is your agent okay with the self publishing thing? And I said, oh, yes, because she's got other hybrid authors on her books. She's got people who are traditionally published that also self publish and that's still true. But for whatever reason, former agent sort of decided that she no longer wanted to work with me. And I'm not really sure why, because she was absolutely fine with everything I was doing. But she sort of gave me the impression that she thought I didn't really need an agent, that I was good at negotiating all of this myself. And that sort of ties into what you were saying about being a go getter and chasing things. To be honest, I had an agent because I wanted the agent to do that. I wanted that person in my corner so that I can concentrate on writing, obviously building my career and marketing and things. And so in the end, I ended up negotiating. So she wasn't a part of that, the foreign deal anyway with the French publisher. So that French publisher then came directly to me, so I was able to talk through all of that. And to be honest, I'm not really chasing any other foreign rights deals because it is a tricky one. I would definitely chase this French agent and my current foreign publishers with future work. And at the moment, the Rerelease of Small Spaces is doing well. I've got a really good readership with the French readership. So I'm very lucky there because it makes me feel like even though I didn't release anything this year, I've released this French edition. So it's making me feel like I've still got one.
[00:19:47] Speaker E: Even Formats is a new product in my mind. It doesn't have to be a whole entire story or new book or anything like that as well. So no, that's fantastic. And also Nightlights has picked up awards as well, hasn't it?
[00:20:00] Speaker B: Yeah, well I wish it had won them, but it picked up a couple of shortlistings.
That was something that I really wanted to do. So Nightlights was fully self published. I never even showed that to any publishing houses. I just decided that, bearing in mind that I had in the back of my mind that I knew I was going to get some rights reverted. So for Small Spaces and Deep Water, and I thought, well, what I really would like to do is if I'm pushing these books myself with marketing, paying for marketing, putting them on all the platforms, I really would love to round it out with a third thriller, because Three always looks good.
Yeah, kind of, I guess, completely unrelated standalone stories, but you can encourage the read through if you find someone reads one of those books and they've got two more there from you to actually check out and so I sort of decided I was going to just do Nightlights on my own. But part of that marketing process was I really wanted to submit it to literary awards here in Australia. And so I actually looked up all the awards and they all take self published books. I don't think there was any that didn't take self published books. But however, normally, what happens is, a publishing house submits all of those on your behalf, they submit all the copies, they pay all the fees, and so when you do it yourself, it can be an incredibly expensive exercise. And I thought, you know what, I'm going to do it with this one book. I may not do it with any other books in future, but I would just like to see if it gets shortlisted for anything, because it's just probably more of a personal challenge for myself. But also I just wanted to see what would happen and see I guess it's interesting just to see how the industry works and see how accepting they are of self published titles and things like that from an established author that's had trad published books as well. So anyway, I did and it was shortlisted for two awards so I was really thrilled about that but I don't know if I would go through the whole thing again for future self published books. I feel like I ticked that bucket list item proved a point there and I achieved some short listings and that was great. But it is very expensive exercise. It did not move the pin at all in terms of sales. So that was the one I think it probably did with a few I think a few more libraries and things, sort of purchased it and purchased the ebook and things like that for their catalogs. But I personally didn't really see I mean, that's the thing. When you're self publishing, you're constantly, as you would know, you're constantly trying these things, and it's fantastic that you can see in real time if anything is moving. The pin, which is something that you can't do when you're traditionally published, you can market the hell out of something, and you won't find out for six to eight months whether it actually made any difference in sales in that period. And you still can't even pinpoint exactly where. But for me, I can see in real time what I'm doing with marketing and whether it's actually making any difference. And so it was a very, very expensive exercise. It was a little personal challenge, but I really didn't see it really make much difference in terms of sales.
[00:22:59] Speaker E: Wow. Yeah, that's interesting, because I always wondered whether you get the sticker for the book and if it actually lists it or what. But yeah, like you said, I think for not traditional published places, but it might give it a bit more recognition amongst people in that kind of field.
[00:23:15] Speaker B: Probably with Trad published books, it does, because I think that's why Small Spaces did very well, because it had been nominated for ten or more awards or something. And so it was constantly on these short lists, the booksellers, the schools, everybody were able everyone was sort of able to talk about these shortlisted books, and so I think it made the difference there. But me as a self publisher, not having books on shelves in bookstores, not necessarily having those books in libraries, along with the rest of the shortlists and things like that, I don't know if it necessarily I think probably with Trad published books, shortlistings are still really great marketing, and that's why they do it. Unfortunately, as a self publisher, it didn't really do much. Maybe if Fed had won, it might have got more buz or it might have made some difference. But I think it was a good exercise. It was really interesting to see, and it's nice for me to be able to sort of have done it as an example for other self publishers thinking, well, okay, well, that was self published, and she managed to get on a couple of shortlists, so maybe I can. And that's good if you've got the funds, of course, to pay for the fees and to pay because some of them need like five or six paperback copies. So you not only pay for the paperbacks, you actually have to pay for the postage, and you pay for an entry fee. And this is all the stuff that's hidden from authors, normally. That's what the publishing house takes care of.
[00:24:36] Speaker E: Yeah, they're real eye opener, isn't it?
[00:24:38] Speaker B: Oh, gosh.
[00:24:39] Speaker E: But I think what you've done is fantastic. You've had those two books initially, and they've won awards and things like that, and then with Nightlights that's still proceeding that way. So I think in your mind it's a case of, oh yeah, not been there, done that. But with the following books, you might not need to. Just going back to something you'd said earlier about your first two books traditionally published, Small Spaces and Deep Water. How come you sort of mentioned that readership didn't kind of follow you over like the traditional publishing? If it's still sort of in the Nightlights is still in the thriller genre, how come?
[00:25:13] Speaker B: Well, yeah, if I knew that, I would definitely do something about it.
[00:25:19] Speaker E: Because you didn't have well, did you have that connection with them or you have more?
[00:25:23] Speaker B: Yeah, I think the readership that I have the most direct kind of connection with via social media, they all still went on to purchase both of my self published novels. So they purchased sugar coated and they purchased nightlights. But I think such a huge part of the readership and people who purchased originally the first two books were they found them in bookshops, they borrowed them from the library. They had them in their school library. And so libraries is a challenge. Libraries is a big challenge for me because it's a tricky one, trying to figure out how to market to libraries and librarians. It's a huge admin task that you really have to weigh up whether it's actually going to be a good way to spend time.
This is the thing with self publishing, is that it doesn't matter that Nightlights was published sort of this time last year. I am still doing things behind the scenes for these books all the time in terms of marketing and in terms of trying to get readerships. Because I see, unlike the difference between self publishing and traditional publishing is that trad pub, after sort of three to six months, your book's old news, maybe even shorter than that. Like, maybe that one month's window after it's been published. And unless you're very good at marketing, and unless it continues to pop up on awards lists, or unless you're doing lots of school visits and panels and things at writing festivals, you do sort of disappear. You can sort of disappear. Your books disappear, the authors disappear. And with self publishing, it's the same sort of thing. As soon as you stop doing your Amazon advertising, as soon as you stop turning up on social media, as soon as you stop doing school visits and panels and things like that, then your books just disappear along with the rest. As of, yeah, I would really love to figure out how to tap into that readership, because some of them find me and they say, oh, I didn't even know you had another thriller out. And it's like, well, how would you know? Because unless you follow me on social media directly, and unless you're shopping on Amazon and you see it pop up in sponsored ads or something, I can't. Possibly tap into all of the other avenues. I'm not on a bookshelf, I'm not in your school library.
But then I like to think that I'm still working on that. It's a very long to do list. And never say die. Never say die.
[00:27:47] Speaker E: Well, my marketing at the moment for my two nonfiction books is literally that one thing I am cold calling round libraries and I am an unknown, especially compared to yourself. But really for myself, the lucrative sales has been through direct sales and some of the purchase through me directly. So it's a very slow process and I'm spending at least about an hour a day on it, slowly working my way through the system like that and building a database for myself. But nobody knows me.
[00:28:15] Speaker B: So it's kind of like it's good.
[00:28:18] Speaker E: Making these contacts as well and learning about in the city, there's four libraries that come under that. So you would be sort of getting in touch with kind of one, my understanding, because my books are very slim for them to go into a bookshelf is just I'm not even going to bother with bookshops at the moment until I finish the series and put one big bulky five books in one or something. I think that would add more value. And then that way, and my sort of thoughts are, is if the libraries are taking them, then I'll get sort of the money that way. But also when it comes to ELR and PLR, the books will be circulating in the libraries and I might get a bit of payment that way.
[00:28:55] Speaker B: Yeah, actually, speaking of ELR and PLR, that's an interesting point because I just got contacted by somebody there in regards to my recent submissions. Know when you submit your books every year. And so I had to submit my editions of Well Deepwater, which is one that I have now issued my own edition within Australia New Zealand territory, which is a whole story in itself. But yeah, and so they actually contacted me and said, oh, who is the rights owner now for this book? And I said, oh, I am. And so it'll be interesting to see how that affects things because of course the original edition from the Australian publishing house is still in libraries and things like that. So I don't know if they'll still get their portion of the publishers, the publisher's portion of the royalty. Whether it all comes to me now that I'm the rights owner or the full or the publisher's royalty comes to me just for my own edition of which is probably not in many libraries at this point, that edition, but eventually it will be. So it's always good, that's the thing. It's always good to do all of these technical admin tasks that really suck as well. But again, it's that foundation thing and it's that old cliche again that we always say that it's a marathon and not a sprint. So for us when we're hybrid publishing and self publishing, you have to get all these things all set up and once you do it, it's good because you've done it right from the start, you don't have to worry about it later. But it's all that extra stuff that you have to worry about that the publishing houses take care of for you if you're traded, but you're not expected to know it all upfront at the same time. You just learn it all gradually. And getting into self publishing groups and chatting to other people is so incredibly helpful because they give you all these tips or someone mentions something and you think, what the hell is what are they talking about? You go away and Google it and you think, oh, I better get onto that because I've never heard of this before. It is a long learning curve.
[00:30:57] Speaker E: Yeah, it's eye opening. So you can get sort of respect for the traditional publishing that that's what they do, but they're also getting paid to do that and you're not doing business. But I like that by doing this, it's building relationships within the industry, which is really good and like you said, a database. And what I'm finding is librarians absolutely love them anyway, but they are so supportive, they really want to support local authors. Australia, I'm sure it's countries worldwide as well, their own talent and I don't think it matters too much which way you publish. It's really just how they purchase their books that obviously there has to be a standard that they will look at as well. But no, it's been really good so far. But I have found, obviously, the sales that I'm making direct, I'm obviously getting the most money for taking out postage costs and things like that. Whereas the sales that I'm making that are sort of trickling in from third parties such as IngramSpark and Amazon that I go through there is like a tiny patch on these direct sales. So for me, definitely doing the work where I'm selling direct, I find is probably more worthwhile at this point than going through the third parties. Is this what you found?
[00:32:12] Speaker B: I have, yeah. And I was just thinking about that this morning because I was you know, I look at my sales and things that I've had through Amazon and through drafted digital and all these types of places wherever the ebook and paperback money is coming in from Ingram Spark, and even through my own website. And you look at it and you think, oh, God.
It isn't lucrative compared to traditional publishing. However, you then get a bit of perspective and you think, well, hang on a minute. The royalty that I get, even through selling something through Amazon or through Ingram, Spark or something is at least double the royalty that I would get through selling that as a traditional published book through a bookstore.
And the ebooks, the royalties is a lot more, a huge amount more. And then of course, if I sell it directly through my own website, it's like five to six times the amount of royalty. So you can sell fewer books and make the same money and sort of have full control. And obviously the dream is that we would sell loads and loads of books at that higher royalty and then we'll be sitting pretty. But that's the thing we're all working towards. But the good thing is that you've got the control of that and you can scale up at your own pace. So Amazon Advertising, for instance, I have been dabbling with that over the past twelve months and just as soon as I thought I got something good going, then Amazon went and changed all the thing about categories and all sorts of things. So at the moment I have no ads running periodically. Every now and then I'll pop it on again and I can make the ads profitable, but not in a huge way, not in a meaningful way. But then every time I see those sales of the books going through to people in the US market, I'm really happy because that's a market I never reached.
Yeah, the amount of money that you throw into know, the only one that's really making any money out of this is Amazon's advertising, know? So I get a little bit but I am going to look at ads again. I'm glad about the flexibility, the fact that I think, okay, well look, I'm going to give it a go, I'm going to put up some keyword ads because I've got some spooky books and it's Spooky month coming up so I'll see what happens there, you never know. But you're always a victim of the algorithms, you're always trying things and they don't necessarily work out but again, it's just about trying things, trying new things. I'm still trying to get myself on TikTok. I literally have one video.
Oh, it's so hard, isn't it? To be everywhere and do everything sometimes and to write. The whole point is I'm supposed to be writing but the irony is that I'm doing as much now with marketing. Not necessarily, I'm probably doing more in terms of the business side of things, but I'm doing just as much now in marketing as what I was doing when I was traditionally published. So it's the same amount anyway. So the difference is I can control it, I can scale it, I can ditch something if it's not working and I can see the results straight away if anything is working or not. So that's bonus.
[00:35:11] Speaker E: Yeah, absolutely. I know heaps of traditional published authors and the marketing they do for themselves, but they do it for themselves as well, that they take control and they want their career to go, but they're not sort of sitting back just waiting for the traditional publishing house to do it for them. They get a little bit of support some more than others.
To think if you go down that way and you don't have to do these things is probably a bit naive.
[00:35:35] Speaker B: Especially, and some people do enjoy being on social media a lot. I personally don't. I've really pulled back over the past twelve months.
I've sort of spent this year once I got nightlights out, I think it was. Then, only a couple of months later, I found out there was a bit of a debacle with my Australian edition of Deepwater that I found out when they reverted some foreign rights to me, they actually thought there was some clerical error somewhere, somebody stuffed up because they thought they had reverted all rights to me. So they made my book out of print. So it sort of for the majority of probably about eight or nine months or something, it was not available, so even bookstores couldn't order it, even though the publishing house still had the rights. And I found it purely by accident because I was looking for teaching notes on their website and I went there and I couldn't find my book on their website. I couldn't find my profile, I couldn't find my teaching notes. And I had to question it. And they sort of scrambled because nobody had any idea where it had gone. So it was at that point they offered, oh well, maybe we should give your rights back. And I thought, well, yeah, because you're not actually doing anything with them anyway. They did tell me that it had gone to print on demand and there was some issue that there was a bit of a gap and this and that, and it all sounded a little bit made up. But in the end, I thought, well, if you're going to do print on demand, I can do print on demand and I can earn a higher royalty.
Yes, thanks, I'll have my rights back. So then I sort of scrambled to try and get a new edition of Deepwater Out, so I needed to design the COVID I was sort of doing it anyway because I received rights back and I wanted to release it in the UK and the US and places that it hadn't been before. So I was then able to then just release it across all the platforms, across all territories. So I now have the full rights to Deepwater, apart from French and German, so those rights are still in print in those territories. Anyway, it's nice to have it back. I'm sad though, because I still would have liked every now and then readers send me a photo of that book and it's still on bookshelves, because booksellers obviously still have stock of it, but it's going to be a bit of a rare creature now. It's a limited edition, that one, because it's not going to exist anymore. And when all this happened, it was only less than two years after it had actually been released, which was big surprise.
Whereas small spaces is still going strong. It's been released in a trade paperback edition. It's still out there, people still buying. It obviously not in the numbers that it was, but now it's had a new lease on life in the French edition anyway. So now I've got a whole French readership that's discovering the story for the first time.
[00:38:12] Speaker E: Yeah. That's incredible. Yeah, you have to look at the silver linings.
[00:38:15] Speaker B: Yeah. And I really think that authors if there's anything that anyone can learn from all of the not necessarily mistakes that I'm making, but the things I'm trying and the things that I talk about on social media and the upheavals that I've had and the ups and downs, it's just to just check your contracts and just to check negotiate upfront when you can get rights back. Because once that book is out of print, they'll switch it, or not necessarily out of print, but when they're not going to do any more print runs, they'll automatically switch it to print on demand without telling you. And that's a way that they can hang on to your rights. And so it doesn't matter then, if they're only selling, they can try and keep that threshold of selling sort of 100 copies per year or whatever it might be in your contract of when it's constituted as being out of print. If it's I think it's in my contracts, it's usually fewer than 100 copies over two royalty periods, which is basically a year. And so I watch my royalty statements like a hawk for when I can get rights back. And that's just me, because I just don't agree with publishing houses tying up rights. Some authors don't. They're not interested. They're like, no, if the book's dead, it's dead. It's done. Been there, done that, moved on. Whereas I'm like, no, I want these books around for as long as possible. So I'll take the rights back and put out my own editions. And look, five people buy them. Great. 500. Awesome. 500,000. That's what I'm aiming for. Yeah, because there's so many readers out there that have not read these books. Exactly. I just got to find them.
That's. What I would recommend to people is if you and I've seen a few other Australian Ya authors and things doing this now, where they've received their rights back and they've put out their own edition and they're busy bringing out new books and things like that with traditional publishing as well, I might be in that position myself. If I've got something that I'm going to pitch to Trad publishers, I'll still be doing that. But in the background, anytime I can get my rights back, I'll get them back, and then I usually lodge a US copyright on them. So that's not something anyone necessarily has to do, but I just like to do that because it saves a lot of hassle. Then if I'm uploading them to Amazon if they say, Hang on a minute, we've already got another edition of this book, I say, no, I'm the rights holder. Here's my reversion letter, and here's my US copyright notice. And that just makes it easy then, and I can continue to sell my own edition of those books.
[00:40:43] Speaker E: Yeah, no, that's really sound advice there, Sarah. And what keeps coming to mind as well, not just rights. I suppose what's frustrating about the traditional publishing industry is a friend of mine has recently, I think she signed a contract with a UK publisher, and this honestly felt like a year or a couple years ago, and it was supposed to be a series of books that was coming out. And I know things change, but however long it took her to write this and then sign this contract and wait and wait and wait, they've told her it's not going ahead after all. No held her work, whatever. And I just think that is so wrong.
I don't think she's interested in self publishing, but I just think sad, isn't it?
[00:41:22] Speaker B: I mean, it's they don't really do it anymore because no one really accepts this anymore, but when publishing houses used to say, oh, you need to send it to me, or agents would say, you need to send the manuscript to me exclusively, and it's like, no one has the right to ask that of anybody. And so anyone that does ask that is a big red flag. It's different if you've got a relationship, I suppose, with a publisher, and they would like to see it first, and you think, okay, that's fine, but you need to set a time limit of how long that they have it for. This is why I love email. I do everything via email. If anyone says, oh, I'd love to have a call, I say, no, let's just chat via email. I love to have everything in writing. And it's really saved my bacon so many times, just being able to refer back to things that were discussed. And I can say do the old as per my previous yes, which everybody hates, but it just clears everything up, everything's in black and white. Because what I found originally was with my first publisher, we would have these meetings and things would be said, and then afterwards, everybody's playing dumb, and it's like, well, no, I remember what was said, but it's so much easier to have it all in email so you can then refer to things. And that's why with the contracts, it's good just to don't let anyone rush you with contracts. I've always sort of felt that need, like, oh, I've got to quickly read the contract. I've got to quickly get somebody to consult on it, make decisions. You know what? You don't need to rush if someone sent you a contract. Just take your time when you've got a spare moment, when your brain switched on, when you're not pressured by work and family. Sit down, Google terms. If you don't know what they mean, ask around, ask some friends. Because for me, I think originally the boilerplate contract was about getting rights back, was things like, if we don't sell any these foreign rights within seven years, you can have them reverted to you. So I was like, seven years.
Really long time to hang up. Like, I'll be dead by the time.
So I negotiated that down to three years for my first book, and then with my second book, I negotiated that to two years. And because that gives the book a chance to come out, it gives it a chance to gain a bit of momentum, to gain sales, to possibly be on awards shortlists or anything like that, to try and get the numbers up there. So it still looks attractive to foreign publishers that are looking to buy, to purchase their own edition, offer a contract. But it's really important just to check things like that and the reversion clauses in the contract because it's so hard to go. You can't retcon those things later and if you want to try and get out of a contract earlier, your publishing house will make it very hard. Which is case in point for me with my film rights for my first book. They definitely were even though they had done absolutely nothing with the film rights, they'd sat on them, they'd done nothing. And I wanted to get the rights back about probably six months earlier than what was in my contract and they made it incredibly hard. And so now I have to pay them a portion of whatever money I make on my option and things like that. We were able to negotiate that amount because they sort of knew that I was very close to actually getting those rights back. So they were sort of reasonable in that way. But they still take a cut and for having done absolutely nothing to that deal. So that does irk me every time I get the film option renewed that I do have to pay some money to, but I should have never probably not let them have the film rights in the first place. So that's on, you know, you don't know these things when you're starting out, but more, you know, it's always good to research and chat to other authors and figure this stuff out up front, if you can.
[00:45:07] Speaker E: Yeah, absolutely. Well, you've shared so much amazing tips, Sarah, with us, but is there anything you want to share? Final words to say? New authors out there looking to follow in your footsteps in this last year from your experience in some things, or just really about the rights?
[00:45:23] Speaker B: Well, I wouldn't say at this point, yeah, we're definitely about the rights. If you traditionally published, if you're going all into self publishing, I'm no expert. I'm still learning. It's still learning as I go. All I can recommend is that you just connect with other self publishers because everybody's incredibly generous with their information and tips and no one's secretive like they are in traditional publishing. People talk about their numbers, their figures, what worked in terms of marketing, that sort of thing. One big tip that's just a personal thing for me, but a lot of people say, oh, it's too hard, I don't have time to learn all this stuff. But of course I do all my learning when I walk the dog for an hour, hour and a half every day and listen to podcasts about self publishing. Definitely yours. And some like you mentioned. Like Mark Dawson's podcast, joanna Penn. I have a little stable of probably about seven or eight that I scroll through and the tips that I've learned and just hearing other authors talking about it really, really helps and it makes it much less daunting. I understand that self publishing is not for everybody. Sometimes I think, is it even for me? Because it's just so much hard work as you know, and you just feel like, oh God, it would have been easier to just keep doing what I was doing. But at the end of the day, I do love having a foot in both and I would really encourage people to just look at publishing, both sides of publishing. And when I say both sides, there's also other sides. Like there is certain people do all sorts of different ways of publishing and I feel like we I'm waffling on a bit now, but I feel like the landscape is changing is probably what I'm trying to say, and that it's good to be open to things. And I was at a panel recently and I was talking to a male author of adult fiction and he was telling me that his first book was now out of print and it's only a few years old, but I said, oh, have you ever considered self publishing? And he looked at me and he sort of said, well, no, I haven't. And I got the vibe straight away. He was just not interested in this conversation. He may have had a little bit of snobbery about self publishing, I'm not sure, but he was polite enough to say, oh, well, how are you finding it? And I said, oh, you know, it's really challenging and everything else, but I was just genuinely asking. I wasn't trying to convert anybody to anything. There's still that kind of bias and there's still that little bit of snobbery and people feel all at sea when it comes to self publishing. They think, I can't learn, it's too hard, too expensive, it's not for me. But my recommendation is just start listening to some of those podcasts and things and it really is interesting when you get learning about this stuff and you think, well, hang on a minute, I could do that.
[00:48:04] Speaker E: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:48:06] Speaker B: In terms of the future, I'm working on something at the moment now that would be much better suited for Trad Publishing. So it's not even a question. I'm not even thinking. But of course, if I can't get anything going with Trad Publishing, I'll probably self publish it. But it's just the age group. It's just going to be a lot easier to get it into schools, school libraries, get it into children's hands and things if it's Trad published. And so this has been a big writing year for me, where I've just been working on inching Forward, lots of different projects. It's a bit frustrating that I haven't actually released a book this year, mostly because I have been wavering about what to work on, but having a foot in both, I don't want to step too far out of traditional publishing to the point where when I step back in, people go, who are you?
But I'm just making choices on a project by project basis. And it sort of scares me a bit to think about querying in traditional publishing again. But I know you do it too. You're querying and as well as self publishing, and it's almost like you have to switch your brain back into that mode. And I'm just sort of finding I mean, how are you finding it? Do you find it weird to go back into trap mindset?
[00:49:23] Speaker E: It's hard because, yeah, you sort of switch over when the deadlines roll around, when I know there's a publishing house that's open for like this week, there's a lot of places open and then they shut again. They're all really strange, actually, for when they open. It seems to be more towards the end of the year, say for the children's side. And then, yeah, just so kind of used to it. But it is definitely a switch, like you said, and to write out the submissions and then just send them off and have that nice hopeful hope.
[00:49:54] Speaker B: Because it is validating. And that's the thing that when you're self publishing, you get the validation from the readers and from the reviews at the end of it. But when you're traditionally publishing, you're getting the validation from whether somebody thinks it's worth going to acquisitions or showing to another editor or just getting any kind of feedback on it. And it's so funny how you sort of revert back into that headspace of like, oh, am I good enough? Am I good enough? When you've got other books that you're self publishing and people are reading them and saying, yes, you are good enough, this is great. But it's going to be a little bit of a weird shift for me to go back into that. I don't know how it's going to go.
I still have hope that I'm going to find the right publishing house for me that I can have a long term relationship with, so that I can just enjoy the books that I traditionally publish with that publishing house. And I can enjoy what I'm self publishing. That is my goal, that's what I'm working towards and I still have that hope. So I'm definitely not anti Trad Publishing.
[00:50:57] Speaker E: No at all.
[00:50:58] Speaker B: And I've met way too many lovely people in the industry to not want to continue trying to give Trad Publishing a go.
[00:51:06] Speaker E: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:51:06] Speaker B: And also some projects just lend itself much better to Trad Publishing.
[00:51:12] Speaker E: No, I know how you feel. I have a list in my mind of different projects and there is just some that you feel would be better suited that way. And also, like you said, as parents and things like that, and family commitments, so we can't do it all for every single book. That's what I find. So some are suited to them and we're quite happy to push that over to them, but then in the meantime, we've got ones that we want to put ourselves exactly what you said. They don't control if the work comes out or not. If they pass on it and it's been a length of time and you feel you want to put it out, then it's definitely worth doing it as no. No. That's incredible. Sarah, you've shared so much, and I know that everyone's going to have picked up some lots of tips from yourself. And I know you're saying you feel like not behind because you haven't put anything out this year, but I think you're going to find probably more than one is going to come out for you next year whenever you start putting it out. And you'll probably just sail back into traditional publishing.
[00:52:05] Speaker B: I don't think so. But I suppose the one thing that and I think we discussed this last time we chatted and it's a good thing to sort of end on, but I really feel though, that hybrid publishing and doing self publishing has really put me in a much better headspace about publishing in general and about my writing career. Because last time I was chatting to you, I mentioned that there'd been a few times where I had thought about walking away and sometimes I still do, because obviously with finances and things like that, you want to be contributing more to your family's finances, you don't want to be stressful. But I still feel like I'm growing my writing career. I'm five years in now and I know that a lot of self publishers and things like that talk about like it's only when they've got to ten years in it that they're actually finding that it's working like a well oiled machine and they're actually earning a decent living and things like that. So I'm just trying to I think just having the just knowing that we can write whatever we want to write and it will get published in some form or another, I think for me, that has really made my creativity explode. So I'm having trouble pinning down all of my ideas and following something through at the moment. Because the ideas are coming so thick and fast, because I think, yeah, I can do this, and I'll send that maybe Trad pub, and then I'm going to do this, and then I could write for an adult audience and I can do this, I could do this under a know the possibilities are endless. And when you compare that to somebody who might have been TRAB published, their first book didn't do so well. Their second book was barely visible and they disappeared and they've just gone back to their day job and they're not going to write anymore. That, to me is pretty heartbreaking. So I feel that self publishing has really worked for me and my mindset in that way, in that I feel as creative now as I ever have, probably more so and excited about still, about all of the different things and the possibilities, different things I can publish different readerships, different ways, different methods of publishing. It's all good. Yeah.
[00:54:13] Speaker E: Well, that's amazing. And we're so happy to hear that you're just not flying by the seat of your pants because I think you plot, don you? But that things are going so well and looking up and you're still motivated to keep on keeping on checking in.
[00:54:29] Speaker B: One year, and I might be digging ditches, but you never know.
[00:54:31] Speaker E: Yeah, this will be a yearly episode every year.
Yeah.
[00:54:35] Speaker B: I can be your case.
[00:54:38] Speaker E: Yeah, I'd like, well, Sarah, thank you so much for your time and expertise. Can you tell our listeners where they can discover all your new works and you online?
[00:54:48] Speaker B: Yeah, everyone can find
[email protected]. You can sign up for my newsletter there, which I have been incredibly lax about sending any out recently, but I will get back into that. And then my handle is Sarah Epstein books on Instagram, on threads and on TikTok and Facebook.
[00:55:08] Speaker E: Amazing. Yeah. All right. Well, thanks, Sarah.
[00:55:11] Speaker B: Thanks so much, Joe.
[00:55:19] Speaker C: So there you have it, folks, the super Sarah Epstein on what has been a successful indie author adventure this year for her many lessons learned, but she's taking them all on her stride and sharing them with us. So we thank her next time on the Hybrid Author Podcast. We hit 100 episodes of the Hybrid Author Podcast and it's a loner sold from me, chatting about lessons learned and hitting 100, and that has been a span over two and a half years. I wish you well on your author adventure this next week. That's it for me.
[00:55:49] Speaker B: Bye for now.
[00:55:50] Speaker A: That's the end for now, authors. I hope you are 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.
[00:56:05] Speaker E: It's bye for now.
