SPEAKER_01 0:00

Education is a really important piece of the puzzle. I would also say the number one thing to think about is what are your goals? Just like in writings, with self-publishing, there's no one size fits all. There's no one right way to do anything. So you really have to think about what you're looking to get out of it and make decisions from there.

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Welcome to the Write It Scared podcast. I'm your host, Stacey Fraser, a formally repressed creative soul, turned fiction writer, story editor, and author accelerator certified fiction book coach. At Write It Scared, we tell the truth about why writing a novel is so hard by acknowledging that most writers grapple with two stories. The one they want to put on the page to the best of their ability, and the often subconscious internal story that prevents them from doing it. This show is designed to help you identify and rewrite the internal narrative holding you back while you discover and write the story you want to tell and learn all the tools to help you do that successfully. Join me each week for a new episode where we'll talk about writing to deepen our understanding of the craft and of ourselves as writers. Writing a novel is an inside job that we do not do alone. Welcome to Write It Scared. I'm glad you're here. Let's dive in. Hi, writer. Welcome back to the Write It Scared podcast. I'm your host, Stacey Fraser. This is where we talk about the brave and messy act of writing our novels so that we can do it with more clarity, more confidence, and not feel so alone. Today's guest episode tackles one of the biggest questions that almost every writer who wishes to publish faces. And that is the question of whether you should pursue traditional publishing or self-publish. And if you choose self-publishing, what is involved in that process? My guest today is Libby Waterford. She is a prolific romance author with more than 20 books published across pen names, as well as an experienced teacher and self-publishing educator. Libby has worked with small traditional presses and made the leap into independent publishing and has built a sustainable long-term writing career on her own terms. Today we break down the pros and cons of self-publishing from cost and control to overwhelm to marketing and long-term strategy. Libby is so generous with her knowledge and she shares what she wishes all writers understood before taking the plunge into independent publishing and how to think about goals and return on investment and why there is no single right path, only the one that fits you and your work. So if you're curious about indie publishing and what that would take, or if you're just feeling overwhelmed about your options and trying to decide what kind of a writing career you actually want to build, this episode will give you some clarity and a grounded place to start from. So let me give you Libby's bio and then we will jump into her interview. Libby Waterford is the author of Sawyer's Cove, The Reboot, and The Never Ubride Contemporary Romance series. Under her other pen name, Elle Waters, she writes Steamy Small Town Gay Romance, a former president of the Connecticut Chapter of Romance Writers of America, Libby is also a self-publishing coach and instructor at the Westport Writers Workshop in Westport, Connecticut, where she teaches classes on genre fiction and self-publishing. Libby, thank you so much for coming on the Write Up Geared Podcast. It is such a treat to have you here with us today. We are going to talk all about self-publishing, pros and cons, and you have quite a journey to share with us. But before we get into that, first, how are you doing?

SPEAKER_01 3:29

I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me, Stacy.

SPEAKER_00 3:33

Why don't you start off by sharing just how you got into writing in the first place?

SPEAKER_01 3:39

Sure. I was always one of those kids who was writing stories. So I started young and then I, you know, I was really into writing fan fiction before I knew that's what it was called, like way back in the 90s. When fan fiction existed, I just didn't know that's what it was. And then after college, I realized that romance writing was sort of where I was headed. And I was not really thinking about publishing until after I tried doing NanoRimo, National Novel Writing Month, which is every November a challenge writing 50,000 words in 30 days, which I am a big fan of that concept. We don't have NanoRimo anymore as an organization, but people are still going to do it this year, which makes me happy. And that really unlocked for me the idea of getting to the end of an entire novel length project. And then once I had done that, I thought, well, maybe I could publish something and kind of went from there. So that was around 2008. I went to my first writing conference in 2012. And that's where I pitched to an editor who gave me my first publishing contract.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

Wow, right on. And boy, you've just kept putting them out there. You've got over 20 titles, I think, between your name and your pen name. That's amazing. Yeah, wow. And now you're at this place where you teach genre fiction workshops and you also teach self-publishing. So we'll get into talking about that because you're a wealth of knowledge. So, what was that experience like working, being picked up by a publisher? And how how did that work out for you? And then how did you wind up turning to indie publishing?

SPEAKER_01 5:35

Great question. It was nerve-wracking to pitch. That was something I had to learn how to do and sort of psych myself up to do. Writing is hard enough, but then trying to like explain your book to somebody in a controlled environment is kind of scary. So I got up the nerve to do it, and I was lucky to be really well supported by my writer community, kind of helping me hone my pitch and figure out what even is a pitch. So that was a great experience. And doing that, as I said at that writing writers' conference, was a great experience because I was able to kind of figure out what my story is about. I think that is a really key piece of the puzzle if you're looking to publish. So I pitched to an editor who didn't require agent to submissions at their house, a small indie publishing house. And that was an awesome experience. They loved my book and they provided editing services. And I worked with an editor for the first time, which I had never done. And wow, how eye-opening was that to get edited and see where my strengths and weaknesses were as a writer. It really improved my writing overall to work with an editor. It was amazing. And I published my first four titles with them. But then I had kids and I had to take a break from publishing. I kept writing, but I was just putting sort of the brakes on publishing because it's a lot of work, as we'll talk about. And while I was continuing to write, but not publishing, I did a lot of research and learned a lot about self-publishing. And it was around a time when more information was available to authors of how to self-publish and more tools were becoming available, like Vellum and just a software that makes it a lot easier to self-publish now than it was even 10 years ago. So doing all of that research, getting back into being able to think about publishing again, I decided to take the plunge into self-publishing also because I have an entrepreneurial background and I really like being my own boss and owning my own business. And I have owned my own businesses in the past. So I felt between those, like all the research I had done and my entrepreneurial experience, that it was something I could do. And I really have enjoyed the journey. And I self-published my first book in 2020. And as you said, since then I've published about 20 books. So it's been a you know, a learning curve, but a super fun experience overall.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

I think it's a question that most of us are facing right now is what's the best route for absolutely for our work? Yes. And as you said, self-publishing is not only just more accessible, but it's viable. I think it's just a topic worth exploring to help people figure out like what would be the best path for you.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

It's very it's really something that I think every author these days has to examine if it is the best path for them. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 8:47

Yeah. So let's get into that a little bit. The first thing that comes up to mind for me, the first question I want to ask is self-publishing used to, used to have a significant stigma around it. Right. And now, not so much. Or at least I don't perceive there to be one, but perhaps there is. So for yourself, did you have any mindset struggles around going into the self-publishing realm? Did it make you feel any less legitimate? Was there any piece of that?

SPEAKER_01 9:17

You know, that's a that's a super great question. I think that it's about timing. And when I entered into self-publishing in 2020, it really had lost a lot of that stigma that we used to associate with self-publishing because there were a lot of big names coming out of self-publishing, and there were people who were getting traditional publishing deals after having self-published. And also in my genre of romance, romance is a really good fit for self-publishing because readers usually don't care who publishes a romance book as long as it's serving to them the tropes and the characters that they're falling in love with in one reader and more. There are more. Yeah, exactly. So it's a great fit for self-publishing because romance readers are so voracious. If you can provide them with the content that they want and you can publish quickly and you're meeting their expectations, then you can actually perhaps make money doing this, which is another piece of the puzzle that is, you know, tough to do in publishing, no matter how you get published. So I didn't have any of that feeling of the stigma. I felt like we had moved enough beyond that that for me it didn't matter. But I do think it still does exist when it comes to things like getting your books in bookstores, for instance. There are independent bookstores that will carry indie authors, but you usually have to have a personal relationship with those stores and those buyers. They're definitely not going to automatically stock your book. So if having your book in bookstores is a goal of yours, then self-publishing may not be the way to go, at least to start off with. So it's not a level playing field in all areas yet. But as far as stigma goes, it's really changed a lot. And I think that, you know, from the author side, the things that you have to do to make a book a success are almost identical, whether you're traditionally published or you're indie published. So it really comes down to do you want to go the route of querying and the play the waiting game, or do you want to have more control and just go ahead, knowing that depending on what your goals are, you're still going to do a have to do a lot of hard work and heavy lifting, you know, to get where you want to go.

SPEAKER_00 11:35

And I think it's worth seeing that, you know, your goals as you go along your author journey, they can change. So you may start out being interested in traditional publishing and later decide that indie publishing is a better fit for you and your life. And that doesn't take anything away from who you are as a writer.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

Yeah. Well, let's jump into talking about the pros and cons of self-publishing. So let's do the hard side first. So what's hard about it? What makes it tough?

SPEAKER_01 12:06

Ooh, well, it's tough because there's no there's no one holding your hand through the process the way there might be on the traditional side. Like if you have an agent or you have a good editor, they're going to sort of say, okay, this happens now, and I need you to do this next, and then this happens, and then this happens. When you're indie published, you're steering the ship. So you have to do everything yourself. Whether you're outsourcing some things or you're doing it all in-house, you are the boss. So you have to make every single decision, which I like about it. I'm terrible at delegating. So I enjoy having that kind of control over my career. But I also, but it's that no, that could be hard for people who've never done it before. It's it was a real learning curve for me, I know. It's the kind of thing you kind of have to learn by doing too, and making a lot of mistakes. So I would say that's that's pretty challenging.

SPEAKER_00 13:04

And mistakes that require you to invest in making them.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

I mean, you're spending money, you're making time and you're spending money. And again, I would say that people pursuing a traditionally published path also are going to invest money in their author careers. But when it comes down to things like paying for editors and covers and things like that, yes, you're on the hook for all of that money, which means you can spend as little or as much as you can afford. But I always remind people that you need to think about it in terms of how many books are you gonna have to sell to make the money back that you're spending on that, you know, expensive cover or whatever. So some people don't think about it like that. And they're like, oh yeah, they better do some math here. So yes, you definitely have to think of it as an investment in your career if that's what you're looking to do with your books.

SPEAKER_00 13:58

Yeah, absolutely. So some of the biggest cons that you pointed out were the level of responsibility, the multiple decision-making pieces, the fact that there are many, many moving pieces to self-publishing a book. I mean, beyond just writing it, right? Then it's getting it edited in one way, shape, or another, making sure that it's a reader-ready cover formatting. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 14:27

I mean, and and and and many, many more, I'm sure, you know, where you're gonna place uploading to the retailers, deciding where to make it available, what how much you're going to charge, you know, things like taxes and you know there's a lot of little things that you don't think of until you're on the screen and you're wondering, oh, how what am I how do I, you know, I wasn't expecting this.

SPEAKER_00 14:55

So it's not you're new into coming into self-publishing. And there's just a million things that you don't know. And you actually like, if if I were to do it, I would be in the boat of, I don't even know what I don't know. Right? Yeah. What would be the first things that you have them think about?

SPEAKER_01 15:12

Well, I would have them seek out education. So I would look for workshops or classes that you can take with self-published authors who can share their knowledge with you and give you kind of a head start. Or if you can afford it to do some kind of one-on-one coaching with somebody who does that. Ideally, this would be somebody who has experience and has self-published themselves. Yeah, and is not just setting themselves up as a self-publishing person who doesn't actually do it themselves. So education is really an important piece of the puzzle. I would also say the number one thing to think about is what are your goals? Because if your goal is just to have a paperback book in your hands of the book that you wrote, that maybe you can put on a bookshelf or you can give to somebody as a gift, or you can, you know, give to your grandchild or something like that. And that's what you really want is to see your book in print, then I would tell you to do a different things than the person who wants to grow like a multi-book, you know, multi-series 30-year writing career. That that would be a different path, a self-publishing path. Just like in writings, with self-publishing, there's no one size fits all. There's no one right way to do anything. So you really have to think about what you're looking to get out of it and make decisions from there.

SPEAKER_00 16:39

So let's talk about the the advantages of being self-published. What what are your some of your favorite things about it? I hear control. Yeah. Yeah. Do I sound like a control freak? Not not at all. No, no, no, no, no. From from one control freak to another. You do not know. Just kidding. No. No, what what are the advantages? What do you love about it?

SPEAKER_01 17:06

There's a lot of things I love about it. I love being able to have an idea and then within maybe a few months see that book on my shelf because I'm the one who's greenlighting it. I'm the one who's making it happen on my timeline. So I can publish as fast or as slow as I want to. I don't have to wait for anybody. I mean, I might have to wait for my editor's calendar to have a spot for me or something like that. But it's not like waiting around for a publisher to first of all say yes to you and then get back to you with edits and then galleys. And it's a long, long process. I've done that. And it's it is what it is. And on the self-publishing side, you know, I can speed through things or I can slow things down as I want to. So I really like that part of it. You're on your own timeline for the most part. Yeah. And that's great because I have kids and I have other work that I do. And so to be able to go at my own pace is really great. Plus, if I want to speed up and I want to publish like four books in a year, no one's going to tell me, no, that's too fast. That's too many. So that's really great. Or if I want to switch around and do like a book in one series and then a book in a different series, and they come back to the first series, like that's all on me. And part of being a writer is being creative. And I like having that creative control over what I work on. I also really like being able to play on the business side with pricing and different ways to get my book out there. You just try things and see what happens and do a little bit of tracking. And then you can see, oh, this worked. This didn't work. I'm going to do this next time. And that's also kind of fun for me. Or I've had to, I've had to embrace it. I know that a lot of authors, especially who try self-publishing, they're like, oh my gosh, well, getting the book published, I thought was going to be the hard part, but actually selling the book is what is the hard part. And I do think that that is true. Finding readers, connecting with readers, selling, selling copies of your book is very difficult, especially depending on your genre and your willingness to engage with different marketing platforms. But if that does appeal to you at all, then there's a lot of fun stuff that you can do in that area as well. So I just, you know, I do actually think self-publishing is kind of fun. I wouldn't do it if it wasn't fun because it's hard. It's, you know, writing is really hard, but we do it because we love it and we have to do it. And I think the same thing with self-publishing, like it's also really hard, but I actually really think it's fun and I enjoy that part of it as well.

SPEAKER_00 19:53

Yeah. So it sounds like if you, if you like a challenge, yeah. Probably if you're a big picture person, like you like to see all the pieces of the wheel and how it fits together. Uh-huh. And you like to learn new things. Yes. Those sound like those are some some qualities that that would help you. I think I think you're right on, yeah. I'm a bit like that. I like a lot of things going on, but my plate can get really full. But then every once in a while I just like I want to dump the plate and I want to really like. Do you ever feel like it gets too much?

SPEAKER_01 20:26

I do get overwhelmed sometimes just thinking about the sheer number of things I could be doing. However, when I go back to my goals, that's what really centers me and helps me decide what actually needs to get done and what is just an idea of something that could be done, but isn't actually going to serve my goals. So I kind of deal with the overwhelm by going back to what my overall goals are with my career as a whole, but also, you know, what is my goal with this book or this launch or this sale, or, you know, if I know why I'm doing something, it makes it a lot easier and less stressful because I can say, well, this matters and this doesn't. And that helps me kind of prioritize. But it is overwhelming. I mean, there's when you have your own business, you could be working 24-7. It could be. And I have experienced that. And so it's about kind of looking for boundaries and and enforcing those boundaries. That's the hard part. So it is really a challenge. But again, I'm my own boss. If I want to take a break and I'm saying this is too much for me, I'm gonna take the day off. I can say that too. So uh, you know, you have to find that balance for sure.

SPEAKER_00 21:44

Yeah, definitely. And I think that any form of entrepreneurship, especially it's those interpersonal boundaries that are the hardest to hold. And we're probably very at high risk for burnout. That just because of, I should speak for myself. I am at a high risk for burnout if I don't put those boundaries in place.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

Yeah. I have not yet experienced burnout in my author career. And I think it's because I have enough other things kind of tethering me, like my kids and, you know, other things that I'm involved in. So if it was just me at my desk and there was no reason to get up from my desk, I would totally overdo it. But luckily, I haven't experienced that yet.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

Yeah. Well, and I love what you said. Like part of your process is how how you refocus is to remind yourself of what's the North Star for this particular season of my life or this particular book or this particular series. And then that helps you narrow your focus into the things that need to be done versus the things that could get done. Yes. Because that list is infinite. Oh yeah. That's just great life strategy, right? Okay. So speaking of strategy, how do you handle the business side of independent publishing? You mentioned that you advocate for writers thinking about what's this going to cost and how many books do I need to sell to earn it back? So do you have any suggestions on strategy of how writers can approach this and start thinking along those terms?

SPEAKER_01 23:26

Yeah. If if you're interested in indie publishing and you have a runway of time to think ahead about some of these costs, then you can start saving money for them now, even kind of budgeting now. I think that's a great idea.

SPEAKER_00 23:43

Oh, saving, budgeting. That's all those words.

SPEAKER_01 23:47

Because you it does cost money to bring a book to market.

SPEAKER_00 23:50

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 23:50

So these are the things you are going to have to spend money on at a minimum. You might spend money on a developmental editor. Those are the most expensive, usually. You definitely want to get a copy edit done, which costs money. And then you definitely, definitely want to get a proofread done by somebody else, a fresh pair of eyes. And that costs money, but it's, you know, copy editing and proofreading is not thousands of dollars usually, unless you have a really super long book. You're going to spend money on a cover, unless you're a graphic designer who can do your own cover. And I have made my own covers to save money, but they always turn out better when somebody else makes them. And you're probably going to want to buy an ISBN or two, depending on how many books you envision yourself publishing as part of your career. So that's the minimum that you need to spend money on. There are lots of other things you could spend money on, like classes, for instance. And then maybe some advertising. Oh yeah, formatting. I do my own formatting and I love the program Vellum. It's it's a one-time fee, it's not a subscription, and it, but it only works on Macs. But it's a fantastic program, and you can use it to format anything and everything. I use it every day. Other software that I think is great at Scrivener. I'm a huge Scrivener person, so that's what I use to write in. And you can hire people to do things for you when you're indie published. There's a whole economy sprung up around selling things to indie authors. So you have to be careful of scams too. But there's a lot that you can do yourself, and you can do for free or or very cheaply. So think about how much money it's going to take you to bring this book to market. And then you can do some math. If I charge $5.99 for the ebook, if I charge $15 for the paperback, how many copies am I going to have to sell to break even? So it's an interesting number to over time, right?

SPEAKER_00 26:02

And and what time frame am I looking at too?

SPEAKER_01 26:04

Yeah. So there is a lot to consider, but you can also just get the book edited, get a cover, put the book up and see what happens. And sometimes just doing that can expose sort of all the other things that you have to think about. And you could maybe do that with the next book. Like I'm a big proponent of learning by doing. So because you can't really learn until you've done it yourself, I think. So someone can tell you that pressing the buttons and seeing all the things like behind the scenes is also really valuable. And again, if you're gonna stay in it and do it over and over and over again, each time you do it, it gets easier and you kind of have a better idea of what you're doing and it grows on itself. So right.

SPEAKER_00 26:56

And then you can start to see patterns emerge of what works and what doesn't, and have a ballpark of how long how long it's gonna take, how long it's gonna take, how much it's gonna cost. Exactly. I do want to talk about marketing and how you approach that. But before we go there, just what kind of a turnaround time would be appropriate to expect for a return on investment? Like if you're gonna set it up and you say, Okay, here's how much I'm willing to invest in this endeavor. And my goal is to earn it back by is there any way for an author to gauge that, to be able to say in a year is a good, is a good goal, or in six months I I wanna I want to break even?

SPEAKER_01 27:50

I think it depends on the marketability of your book in general. It's gonna vary, like if it's a children's book versus a romance versus a really niche like literary fiction subgenre. Like I do think that there is something about the market that is going to probably come into play. But in general, if you're writing like fiction for adults, I would say you could try to shoot for a year. Yeah, I mean, a year seems like a reasonable amount of time to try to recoup your investment. What's awesome about writing a book is that it can stay on sale forever, and you can make passive income from it forever as long as you keep it in the marketplace and maybe you're, you know, promoting it once in a while. So that's cool. It's like you wrote the book once, and then you can make money from it in a lot of different ways if you do translations or you make an audiobook or you bundle it with another book in a in a in a box. Uh, there's there's a lot of different ways you can make money from that one book.

SPEAKER_00 29:02

I was just listening to another podcast, and the author was in a group. They were they were all romance authors. They were in a group with 20 other authors, and they were all writing interconnected standalones in this world. But the 20 of them together had incredible marketing power. Yes. Of putting, I mean, there's a lot like I was blown away. I'd never heard of this before. I was like, wow, that's that's incredible. I mean, and so like all 20 of these books basically come out in a month. So readers, you know, if they like them, there's more and more and more and more. And then you have, you know, 20 people plus all their 20 friends sharing about it. And I was like, wow, that's really smart.

SPEAKER_01 29:50

I think one of the most valuable tools that authors have when it comes to promotion is cross-promotion. So that's where having friends who are authors is super helpful, not only because they know what you're going through and they can, you know, be critique partners or they can help you with figuring out your formatting and things like that. But also then when you have a book to promote, if they promote to their audience and you promote their book to your audience.

SPEAKER_00 30:17

Yeah. I don't think the world will ever need that we'll always need more books. Oh, yeah. Always, you know. Absolutely. Yeah. What that's part of what I love about the space is that it's so roomy and inclusive, and it's a pay it forward kind of place.

SPEAKER_01 30:34

And that's what I think some one of the best outcomes of self-publishing becoming more mainstream is that it just means that there are more books being published that would never be published under the old model, and it is much more inclusive. And yeah, it which is really great and positive.

SPEAKER_00 30:56

I think so too. More voices and from people that we may not have had an opportunity to hear from. And all are valid. Uh I absolutely 100% agree. Okay. So just backing up just really quick on the question that I asked you about, you know, thinking about the it was an impossible question, really, on my end. Not that I intended to like ask it for that purpose, but just just thinking about it, thinking it through, it's like there's so many variables to factor in. So every person's cost and risk assessment here is gonna be different depending on how long you are willing to just take advertising, for example. How long you're willing to budget and to to spend money on promoting it and running it that way. So how uh so it's gonna be different for everybody, how much div risk people are willing to take. So, but I I just wanted a ballpark idea of like, you know, if I if I bare bones invest all of this, yeah, I try to give myself a year to make the money back.

SPEAKER_01 32:10

I will say that it's easier to make money the more books you have out in the marketplace. So you might want to spend the least amount of money possible on your first few books. And then as you have more titles, then you can afford to spend more to bring each one to market and to advertise each one, because then there's a backlist from which that reader, that reader you capture with maybe book five, can then go back to book one and buy all of your books, and that math works out a lot better.

SPEAKER_00 32:45

I see what you're coming from because the you're saying that the the money to invest it comes from, I mean, it coming off the backlist. And the backlist is paying for what you're putting forward. Is that the idea?

SPEAKER_01 33:02

Yeah, that's part of it, but also just in terms of what you're like, let's say you're going to advertise, you're paying, you're doing paid advertisements. It's really hard to make money on advertising a single book because you're basically eating into all of your profits with paying for that advertising on that one single book. But if you have 10 books for them to buy, you can advertise one book, take a loss on that book, and then make on the sell-through of the other books in your catalog, you know, more. That makes that makes sense absolutely. So again, it goes back to goals. Like if you're if money is part of your goals and you want to make money as an author, then you should be seriously prepared to write a lot of books because it's easier to make money on 10 or 20 or 30 books than it is to make it on one or two.

SPEAKER_00 34:00

Makes complete sense. So, how do you go about marketing and promoting your work? What has worked for you? And what do you see working for others?

SPEAKER_01 34:11

So I'm a wide author, which means my books are widely available on as many platforms as possible and in as many formats as possible. It's still a work in progress. I'm just starting the process of making my first audiobook. So that's something I'm still learning about and diving into. But I want my books to be available anywhere somebody could find a book for a lot of different reasons, but one of them is for market. It's easier to market if I can say, like literally, you can go anywhere and find my books. I find that because of that, offering the first book in a series free is a really great marketing tool for me. It took a little bit of getting over myself to say, okay, I can, I can give away an entire book that took me six months to write. But once I was able to be okay with that, it has been a great passive marketing tool where I don't have to really do anything and people will discover that book and download it, and then they'll read all the rest of the books. They'll pay for the rest of the books in the series. So that's something that really works for me. Just staying in the marketplace is a good marketing tool. Every new release is a chance to market your backlist as well. So for me, my goals are to keep putting books out, keep starting new series, and keep connecting with readers. And again, if I can, if this new release book connects with the reader, then they can see that I have all these other books out that they might love too. And so I'm still figuring out marketing. It's always going to be a work in progress. And there's definitely things that are things that that work for a while that then stop working. But uh publishing in general is my strategy, just like continuing to put books out and doing that free first in series and cross promotion. You mentioned cross-promotion is great. Also, I think uh paid newsletters are really wonderful. So, book bub is a really powerful force in for indie authors getting your book in front of readers.

SPEAKER_00 36:26

It distracts me all the time. I'm like, that's the let's do.

SPEAKER_01 36:31

Yeah, yeah. No, book bubs are great for the indie author. And I've done paid advertising as well, and I think the paid advertising can be effective. It again goes back to your goals. Social media, of course, is something people can do, and I do engage with it, but it's not my forte. Like I don't have the inclination to spend a lot of time on social media sites. So that's not something that I have found really works for me. The one thing that every author needs, and I'm sure that people have heard this before, is they need a newsletter list, and you need to communicate with your readers with your newsletter. And that is something that's like a foundational thing that you can't do if you want to sell books. So I write my newsletter every other week, and it's something I do with a lot of consistency and have found very effective.

SPEAKER_00 37:33

That's a whole could be a whole nother podcast episode is what to put in those newsletters.

SPEAKER_01 37:38

Oh, totally.

SPEAKER_00 37:39

I just I just taught a class on it a couple of weeks ago.

SPEAKER_01 37:42

Yeah. Do you do any direct sales? I sometimes do in-person signings and and book events and but not e-commerce. But I don't do, I don't have a direct store on my website. No.

SPEAKER_00 37:55

Yeah, that's all that's a whole nother ball of wax out there.

SPEAKER_01 37:59

I've looked into it. I've taken a lot of courses, so I I've educated myself on it. And what I found that for me, the overhead makes it not make sense for me right now, because you do have to invest in the software and you have to invest in like shipping, and there's a whole tax implications and all this stuff, especially with international. So it's it's definitely something that I'm interested in. But again, when you go back to your goals and like the bandwidth and not being able to do it all, that's something that I haven't been able to do yet.

SPEAKER_00 38:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:36

Very cool. Well, you have just been a wealth of wisdom and can't thank you enough. I just have a few more questions before we wrap up. If you could give well, actually, I have two, and then we'll go into the wrap-up questions. What's the one thing that you wish you would have known about self-publishing before you started?

SPEAKER_01 38:59

So many things. But also, I'm glad I just kind of took the plunge with the amount of knowledge that I did have, because I think it's a little bit like I don't know, whitewater rafting or something where if you know in advance how bad it's going to be when you're going to be able to do that. This is why you say you need a guide. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:20

So I and a life preserver.

SPEAKER_01 39:23

I knew. Yeah. So there is any one thing I wish. I I I'm glad I I just did it because I knew it would be something that I would get a lot out of, even if I didn't know like every little thing that I now know along the way.

SPEAKER_00 39:39

Right on. That makes sense. Right. So what one piece of advice would you give to a writer just starting to explore possibly indie publishing?

SPEAKER_01 39:49

Think about and decide what your goals are. I know I've said it already today, but if you can clarify that, it will just make everything else so much easier.

SPEAKER_00 40:00

And why they are your goals?

SPEAKER_01 40:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:03

Like what's the motivation behind them?

SPEAKER_01 40:05

Yeah. Yeah. There. Like why why this book? Why now? You know, how do you want to see it on a shelf at a bookstore? Do you want to be able to st launch a series with this book? Do you only want to write one book and then never write another book? That is some people. Do you want to write 50 books? If you have sort of some ideas about those things, then you're going into it with a good perspective that will help guide you as you try to navigate all of the all the things.

SPEAKER_00 40:44

All right. So now we'll go into our wrap-up questions. I ask every guest, what is your wish for your fellow writers?

SPEAKER_01 40:50

Hmm. My wish for my fellow writers is that they are not afraid to write the book that they want to see on the shelves. Because there's certainly other people out there who want to read that same exact story.

SPEAKER_00 41:06

All right. And are there any new projects or anything that you would like to share either on the writer side or on the coach and educator side that are coming forward that you'd like writers to writers or readers to know about?

SPEAKER_01 41:20

I am always teaching classes through the Westport Writers Workshop that you can attend from anywhere via Zoom. Or if you happen to be in Fairville County, Connecticut, you can come in person. I teach upper level genre fiction, and I also teach self-publishing classes from time to time over there. And I'm right now prepping to launch a new series in 2026. So I'm giving myself more runway with that book so that I can get the audiobook done before I launch. So I can launch the ebook and the paperback and the audiobook all at once. So that's what I'm working on right now. So that'll be coming next year.

SPEAKER_00 41:57

And I think I don't know, but I think having that audiobook a long time as well as the ebook, because people switch I switch. I want both at the same time. Because I want to keep that story going like in the car. Right.

SPEAKER_01 42:14

I've heard that a lot of people get multiple formats of the same book so that they can switch back and forth, which I think is amazing.

SPEAKER_00 42:24

It's awesome and addictive and bad. All it's like it's good. It's really good. It's all good. It's all good. Fantastic. Libby, where can listeners find you and your work?

SPEAKER_01 42:37

You can go to my website, Libbywaterford.com, and I have a place where you can sign up for my newsletter and get free stories at the same time. And you can find my other pen name on Substack at lwatersbooks.substack.com.

SPEAKER_00 42:54

All right. Well, I will make sure to put those links into the show notes. Thank you so much for your time today. You were a lovely guest, and I could pick your brain for like two more hours, but I won't because we have places to go. Sounds good. Thanks for having me, Stacy. Thank you for listening to the Write It Scared podcast. If you enjoyed today's show, please make sure to hit the follow button so you never miss an episode. And please leave a review. Reviews help other writers like you find the voices and messages they need to hear to continue to write their stories. Let's lift each other up. Remember, you can be scared and still be unstoppable. I'll see you next week.