How Kickstarter and Shopify Changed Tee Harlowe’s Author Career Plus Instagram Tips

314 / Tee Harlowe, a fantasy romance author, shares tips for successful Kickstarters as well as how she’s adapting to market shifts and why diversification is key to surviving income drops. 

✨ This week’s sponsor is Vellum: http://tryvellum.com/wish

• Rapid release publishing strategies
• Instagram tips for authors
• Fallacies in assumptions about genre size equating to sales  
• Challenges with Kickstarter fulfillment
• Diversifying author income streams, including through traditional publishing and direct sales
• Running a successful Shopify store

💙 Become a supporter of the podcast https://wishidknownforwriters.com/support or https://wishidknownthenpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

• Access to backlist of exclusive supporter episodes
• Shoutout on a future episode
• Thanks to new supporter: 🐱Katherine Dotterer

⚡Links:

•  http://tryvellum.com/wish
• www.teeharlowe.com
• Sara Rosett mystery and thriller tropes on the Indy Author Podcast: www.theindyauthor.com/show-notes/331-sara-rosett
• Kevin McLaughlin: context around Draft2Digital fee: https://www.facebook.com/kevins.studio
• PublisherChamp https://www.publisherchamp.com/
• ScribeCount: https://scribecount.com/
• CrowdControl: https://apps.shopify.com/crowd-control
• Ember Mae on Simple Kickstarters: 18702381-kickstarter-for-beginners-how-to-start-small-and-launch-successfully-with-ember-mae
• Rachel Hanna on Direct Sales: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2121723/episodes/13075849-rachel-hanna-on-direct-sales-success-and-writing-women-s-fiction

Transcript

A Fulfillment Reality Check

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So when it came time for fulfillment and I had to actually chip out all these books, it was chaos. Like I wasn't organized enough to handle this. And I had so many different add-on options. So each order was different. It was so disorganized for fulfillment. And I learned a lot from that first one.

Sara 0:23

Welcome to the Wish I Know Men podcast.

Jami 0:25

I'm Sarah Rosette. And I'm Jamie Albright. And this week on the show we have T Harlow. T Harlow. And it was a great interview.

Sara 0:35

It was, yes. We talked to her about rapid release and publishing strategies and how her author career has changed over time and how she's really leaning into Kickstarter and direct sales. And this one, there are a ton of helpful things in this episode. The links at the end is long because she mentioned services she's using, and I have a link to them. And then she mentions a couple episodes in the podcast. So all that's in there. So this one is like super, super helpful.

Jami 1:07

Chuck full of great information.

Finishing A Book And Launch Nerves

Sara 1:10

That's right. Yeah. So that's coming up. And don't forget our sponsor this week is Vellum. So we'll talk about them more in a minute. Yeah. What are you doing?

Jami 1:19

Today is the what 21st? Uh-huh. And I sent my book to the proofreader. So I'm through all my advocacy. Wow. I know. I got them on Saturday morning and I have worked non-stop. And I sent it this, I finished this morning. I have, y'all know, if anybody knows me and sees my TikToks, I am like all about my skincare. And for the last two nights, last two nights, I haven't washed my face before I went to bed because I was just working and then I realized, oh my gosh, it's like 11 30. I gotta go to bed. And so I just I didn't so if that tells you anything, but that is done. And I was gonna send the book to the influencers before I got it back from the proofreader because I didn't want to wait. I'd already waited for I was already a little bit later than I thought, but and I was just gonna put on there like a proof. This book has not been proofed or something like that. But the my proofreader feels like she can get it done in a couple of days. So I'm just gonna wait. And so I'll send out my copies to all the people who need to get them on Thursday or so. I'm very excited and a little nervous, but that's perfectly natural.

Sara 2:42

That's how we all feel when a book comes out. But this one probably more because it's different genre and the subject and everything is uh been four years.

Draft2Digital Fees And Community Backlash

Jami 2:51

Yeah, but it's very exciting. I know, yeah. When I would hear people when I was publishing, like often uh using quotes, because I never published often, but when I was right in there, yeah, yeah, we put a little asterisk at the end of often for you and me. It's like one to two books a year, maybe. And when I was doing that, and I would hear people saying, I haven't written in three years, or I haven't published a book, and I would think, Oh my gosh, how are like how do they function? How are like those poor people? And now I'm one of those poor people, and I can just tell you, I'm not sure how they function. But yeah, so it's done, and very excited. I started this book a year ago on the 19th, so it's been a year and two days since I started it, and it's done, and I'm very proud of it. I'm proud of myself, and yeah, so we'll see how it goes after that. Again, I can't control the outcome. Uh if the last four years have taught me anything, it's that there's that, and then one other thing I wanted to talk about just super quick is the whole drafted digital. Yes, let's talk about that. So here's the deal I don't use drafted digital right now, but I am going to with this book because it is a wide release. I actually have an appointment with Dan to talk or setting up an appointment with Dan to talk to him about the whole thing. But so I'm not gonna talk about whether this is a good idea or a bad idea. However, what I am gonna talk about is y'all, I do not understand how we as a community could turn on someone or a company in our community that has done so much for our community. Can't we give them the benefit of the doubt? I am a little blown away by the vitriol, it's just a lot, and I just feel like it's a sign of the times we're all a tad bit on edge. But I just feel like it'd be one thing if Drafted Digital had come at us repeatedly with stuff, like they were always trying to put us in our place in or one in one way or another. But the fact is, Drafted Digital has done nothing but try to elevate independent authors since their inception, and I just think that needs to be taken into account anytime they do something, and that's my soapbox, and I'll get off of it now. But that's how I feel. I have a soapbox too, so let me hop up there.

Sara 5:38

Let's let Sarah go. We'll be controversial this week. Yeah, but I am not surprised actually at the reaction because maybe a month ago, James Blatch had a Substack article and he suggested a$300 fee, I think, for Amazon. He was talking about if they charged a fee, it would cut off the scammers and less spots and stuff. And I skimmed some of the comments. And I understand$300 is not the same as$12.$12, a yearly fee of$12 plus a$20 account setup fee. That's not in the same range. So I can understand how people would be a little more upset about$300. But either case, my thought is they're doing this to protect us. There's a really good explanation of why and all the details around it from Kevin McLaughlin on Facebook. I'll link to that. But basically, they're doing it to protect the reputation of indie authors and of their company. People are uploading so many books and doing a single account and uploading a book, and then another single account and uploading a book across like 50 books. It just is not sustainable for them to allow it to go on. So, yes, the reaction of the author community is very disappointing. I'm and I feel like even though I'm not surprised they're doing it, and we're seeing it Arts and Noble has instituted some changes. I think their limit is going to be 100 books. An account can have 100 books. It's not just Draft Digital who's doing it. Other retailers are going to be making other changes too. It's just the world we live in now. And it's disheartening the reaction of a lot of authors. My bottom line thought is if you are not able to pay$12 a month, then is it$12 a month?

Jami 7:34

I mean, oh, I'm sorry,$12 a year.$12 a year.

Sara 7:37

If you're not able to pay$12 a year, you don't have a business, you have a hobby. That is the government when they look at your they want to see revenue, they want to see profit. And if you don't have that, then you have a hobby. And that's fine. It's okay to write books as a hobby. But then to expect people to run companies and allow you to upload your book for free when all this is going on, it's just it's not feasible.

Jami 8:06

Yeah.

Sara 8:07

It's not realistic. Thank you.

Jami 8:08

Yeah, yeah. And we've been able to do that for such a long time. Like I did so. Nobody likes change. I get it. But again, that just goes to show you that Draft to Digital has done everything they can. And I do think it's a sign of the times, though. We're all a little paranoid and we feel like everybody's out to get us. And the fact is, not everybody is. Yeah, I agree with you.

Sara 8:31

I've used Draft to Digital since the very beginning. I think I uploaded my first book 2014. And they have always been very supportive of authors and they've always done all these things to help us out. And we've met them many times, not just Dan, but we've met other people from their company, and they are trying to do the best thing that they can for authors. And I think that it's been blown way out of proportion. And you know, I'm disappointed for them because you know they're gonna keep doing what they're doing. I'm sure that they knew there would be some blowback for this.

Jami 9:05

Yeah, but I doubt they thought it would be as bad as this. I'm shocked. I'm just shocked. I am shocked. I wish I weren't, but I am, and yeah, so we've said what we need to say. Draft Digital is not even one of our sponsors. We just love them, we know their hearts, we we've worked with them in one way or the other. And the thing is, so have most of the community, right?

Sara 9:34

And the thing is, you do not have to use draft digital if you don't want to. You can upload to all the retailers individually, yeah. And and I do that too. I use all the retailers, but I use Draft Digital for library distribution and some other places that are harder to get to. So you don't have to use them if you don't want to. And the thing is, we know them and we trust them. And so I would not say that about everybody in the author space. Uh we neither indeed. No, they are one of the companies that I have a soft spot for because they've been around for so long, just been really good to authors.

Jami 10:10

So anyway, that's my so that's me down. If you if we're if you don't agree with us, tell us why. Send us an email. Tell us why we're wrong. Yes, we're we're okay, we're open to it. Yeah, we can talk more about it. Yeah, what's been going on with you?

Sara 10:25

Okay, let's see. Let me get my thoughts back on what we were talking about before. I'm still working on the manuscript and it's going slowly, but I'm seeing I do that thing where I have to figure out where I'm going next. So I've got about got it all sorted out in my head, and I started doing some more dictation today. So that's going good. Doing some promo stuff, and a couple of podcast episodes are coming out. I think that there's a new one out on the Indie Author podcast with Maddie. So talk to her about tropes and mystery tropes. So I'll put a link to that in the show notes. Okay, great. And yeah, I think that's about it. Doing oh, oh, I remember now. Went out of town last week. So personal update. Went out of town, went to Dallas, went to Glenrose and saw the dinosaur tracks. Have you ever been over there?

Jami 11:18

No, but I've always wanted to go and take the kids.

Sara 11:21

It's very cool. They would love it. There's all kinds of dinosaur stuff there. And the tracks are actually well, it was it, there was water. It was a riverbed. It's in a riverbed, so there was water. But you saw some of them you could just walk on the rocks and see, and others you had to get in the water to go see. And so we got in the water, it was fun. So that was good. Yeah, saw the kids, went to a cookout with some friends, and it was great. And it was like 50 degrees, and people were saying, Oh, it's so cold, and we were like, We love it, it feels so good.

Jami 11:53

I know. I've pulled out my sweaters because we've had a few cool days, and yeah, pulled out my sweatshirts again, and I really kind of like that. So yeah.

Supporter Thanks And Vellum Update

Sara 12:02

Yeah, me too. I think it's because we don't get as much cold weather, so we really enjoy it when we get it. Right. So, anyway, that was a good break. It's good to take a break and come back and get back at it.

Jami 12:13

And we have a new supporter.

Sara 12:15

We do. Thank you to Catherine Daughterer, I believe is how you say her last name. And she chose, I think it's the cat, the little cat emoji.

Jami 12:24

Yeah, I think it is too. I mean, I'll have to put on another pair of readers with this one just to make sure because mama can't see. But yeah, but yeah, thank you, Catherine.

Sara 12:35

We appreciate it so much. We do, yes. So if you want to support the podcast, you can go to wish I'd known in for writers.com/slash support, and you'll get access to the backlist with exclusive supporter episodes. I think we have around 20-ish of those now, and a shout out on a future episode.

Jami 12:53

So thanks for joining us. Corporate sponsor this month is Vellum. We love Vellum. We've talked about them, but Sarah, there you were gonna talk about something today with Vellum that you love.

Sara 13:05

Yeah, so Vellum, it's a Mac only software that you can use to format your ebooks and print books, and it's so easy to use. That's one of the main reasons we love it. But they have a couple of new features, and we talked about a couple of them last time. This time I was gonna talk about their heading image controls. So, like when you're doing your chapter headings, I've used those in the past. Like the most recent book, I put a flower that was a blue flower. Now they have even more controls. You can control images with position and size options and include in setting that you can say, I only want these in ebook. So you don't have to have them in your print book. You just more fine-grained controls. So we love it. Love Vellum. Yeah, but love vellum. They're always doing something.

Jami 13:54

We'll take a Valium too, but Vellum is really what we're talking about here.

unknown 13:58

That's true.

Send Us Your Publishing Questions

Jami 13:59

So that's about how where we are this week. Shown up, showing up. But yeah, thank you, Vellum, so much. We appreciate it. You guys give them a try if you haven't already. And if you want to check out Vellum, go to tryvellum.com forward slash wish. So, one thing we wanted to have you guys do, we'd love it if you'd send us some questions. We're gonna do an episode just set where Sarah and I chat about some things. And if you have some questions, we'd love to answer them. It's not a supporter episode, it is on our made feed. So we would really appreciate if you'd send us some questions.

Sara 14:38

Yes, let us know. Do you have questions about ISBNs or special editions or branding or anything?

Jami 14:47

Just anything, anything in the industry, anything. I had someone about our last episode send me a question. I answered her, but because I was she was I was talking about sending the books to the influencers, and she wanted to know if she could do that if her book was already published. And before I answered, I looked it up just to make sure yes, she could, yeah. And because she's in KDP, yeah.

Sara 15:11

So okay, yeah, yeah, and that's good because Jamie has really specialized knowledge about KDP. Yeah. Well, I looked it up just to make sure. Yeah. Due diligence.

Jami 15:22

Yes, exactly. I don't want to give bad advice.

T Harlow’s Path To Indie Publishing

Sara 15:25

So send those to us. You can send an email or you can send us a text. There's a link in the show notes. If you just tap that, you can send us a text. That's probably the fastest way. So it is. All right. Well, let's get on with the episode. All right. Here is T. Today we were excited to have T Harlow here.

Jami 15:41

Hi, T, how are you?

SPEAKER_00 15:42

Hi, I'm good. How are you?

Jami 15:44

We are great, and we're so glad you're here. I should say, though, that I am looking at a very nasty radar. So if I have to drop off to go sit in the bathroom because we need a tornado warning, the listeners will just understand. So just stay tuned for the weather excitement here.

Sara 16:03

You never know. Let me read your bio so people can hear a little bit more about you. T Harlow writes fantasy romance full of heart, humor, and heat. After years of traveling, she settled down to start writing her own adventures and is now living out her dream. When not writing, she can be found wrangling her children, attempting to bake, and lose losing to her husband at pretty much every game they play.

SPEAKER_00 16:25

He always wins. I can never beat him.

Jami 16:29

I get it. I get it. Tell us how you get it got into writing.

SPEAKER_00 16:33

Yeah, so I'm like one of those cliche writers. I've been writing my whole life. And I've throughout school, I was trying all different types. I really didn't know what kind of writer I wanted to be. So I took journalism classes and I did creative writing. I did play writing. I ended up going to college and getting my BA and screenwriting. And then it was just like a long and winding journey. I became a teacher for a while and traveled. And then I settled back down after I met my husband in Kansas City. And I was on Twitter and I was actually trying to connect with other teachers on Twitter, but I ended up following a teacher who was also a writer. Oh gosh. It felt like an underground community. Like I was like, how has this existed? And I didn't ever know about it.

Jami 17:21

The first rule of Ryder Club. Don't talk about rider clubs.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

Yeah. Like I was just like, this is amazing. And I just discovered this whole writing community on Twitter. And I think that was in 2017, 2018, around then. And then at the same time, I had this screenplay that my husband was reading and he was encouraging me to turn it into a book. So I decided to give it a shot. And that's how it all started for me. The book was terrible, but I had because of the writer community I was in, I started getting a lot of beta readers and getting connected with editors and just learning my craft. And I was on the Trad, the traditional publishing route for a while, querying, getting an agent. And then I just had, I was six years in at that point. And I'd been querying forever. I had an agent, but I was just my manuscripts were piling up and I was just shelving manuscript after manuscript. And I just finally had this light bulb moment that I should go indie, and that was going to be the best way to take control of my career and do what I wanted. And so that was 2023. And that was when it all started.

Sara 18:29

That sounds fantastic. And my weather is also causing my internet to go in and out. So I'm hearing part of this and not. So I'm looking forward to listening to it over in editing. So I'll hear most of it, but I'll just pop in when I can. So we always like to ask everyone, what is your definition of success?

SPEAKER_00 18:49

I think it's always changing. In the beginning, when I started this, success was just publishing a book and just putting it out there. And then it was publishing a whole series. And then it became monetary. And so I feel and now success, I think is probably still monetary for me. I think it's just me wanting to maintain what I've done. Last year was a breakout year for me. And so I just want to be able to maintain that this year. And I want to last year was a six-figure year for me. So this year I want it to be another six-figure year and just maintain that. And I'm sure once I do, it'll change again.

Jami 19:27

The goalposts just always move. It's the nature of the beast, Stephanie. What do you wish you'd known about riding in craft when you started?

Rapid Release And Genre-Specific Marketing

SPEAKER_00 19:37

So I think just that developmental editors are amazing. And I wish I'd hired them sooner because I felt like I had a really good handle on craft, which I did. I was an editor for a while and I had my own editing business and I had certifications and I'd edited lots of manuscripts. And then I had an agent and I learned a lot through them. So I didn't really bother with hiring developmental editors in the beginning of my career, but then I finally decided to last year. And they really dove deep into just some things that I hadn't even thought of about my own writing and things that could use improvement. So it was really eye-opening. And now I hire, you know, an editor. It's expensive to do a developmental editor for every single book, especially because I like rapid release. But I do hire a developmental editor to at least do the first 20,000 words so I can make sure I'm going in the right direction and I have a strong beginning and world building and all that stuff.

Jami 20:41

How long are your books?

SPEAKER_00 20:43

So I write, I've niched down into cozy fantasy romance, and those are closer to like between 75,000 words and 80,000 words. So not terribly long for fantasy romance.

Jami 20:57

And when you say rapid release, how fast are you releasing?

SPEAKER_00 21:01

Yeah, this might not be rapid to some people. I guess it feels rapid for fantasy romance, but it's it's about one book a quarter. So four books.

unknown 21:10

Yeah.

Jami 21:10

Yeah, I would say that's rapid. I was gonna say, I'm gonna say it's hard.

SPEAKER_00 21:17

I know some writers are out there doing like a book a month. That's almost unheard of in fantasy romance, at least.

Sara 21:22

Well, what about marketing? What do you wish you meant about marketing?

SPEAKER_00 21:25

Gosh, so much. Probably that it's really dependent on the genre you're writing in. And just because something works in one genre doesn't mean it's gonna work in another genre. I started off indie publishing in 2023. I published a paranormal women's fiction series. And marketing that was just so different than marketing fantasy romance because the audience is different. When I then switched over to fantasy romance, I tried a lot of the things that had worked for me with paranormal women's fiction and it just didn't translate. It was not working as well for fantasy romance. So I think just like knowing that your audience is really important. And if you want to market, you need to know your audience really well and know where they are and what they respond to.

Jami 22:13

Yeah. I think that's really smart. Do you do social media marketing?

SPEAKER_00 22:18

Yeah, I do for fantasy romance. For paranormal women's fiction, that really wasn't really. No, like Facebook takeovers were really big for going in group author groups and things like that. Whereas for fantasy romance, Facebook does is doesn't really play a role in my social media marketing. It's mainly all like Instagram and a little bit of TikTok, but I don't know.

Jami 22:42

But Instagram, that's interesting. Yeah, that's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

Yeah.

Sara 22:45

That's what kind of post resume on Instagram for you?

SPEAKER_00 22:52

So art reveals are huge. I always get a ton of engagement when I do any kind of art reveal using like hooky or trendy sounds, because even on Instagram, there's hookier, like trendy sounds. So doing that over a reel works really well. Reels are harder to make go like viral, but posts in general, like any posts about characters and just using a lot of characters, even if it's not an art reveal, using character art with like maybe a bubble and it has like text from a scene, right? You switch off and have play out a scene with text or character art that goes really well. Yeah, I think just the big thing is character art, which is hard because that costs more money and you have to commission the art and things like that, but it works well.

Jami 23:41

Yeah, that's good. So what's the difference between a real and a post?

SPEAKER_00 23:45

So a reel is basically like TikTok, it's like a video. But then a post is just images, and but typically you want to do multiple images. Yeah, because just one, I don't know. I have no idea. This is just what like I hear from other people. I don't know why Instagram cares about a single image swiping, but they do.

Jami 24:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:08

So you can get more engagement if you can get people to swipe.

Jami 24:11

Okay. All right. Interesting. That's very interesting. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. What are you glad you know now?

SPEAKER_00 24:20

Ooh, so many things. I think that it's a slow build for most authors. That when you're on social media, what you tend to see are all the like instant successes and the authors who blew up after just one book. But when you really get into it and you start connecting with the community and talking to more and more authors, that for most of us it is a slow build, and that's okay, that it's okay to not have instant success. And I almost prefer it that way because I feel like I've learned so much more and I've been able to learn in little bits versus if you have instant success and blow up. I can't even imagine how much is thrown at you at once and how much you have to learn just all at once about the business.

Sara 25:11

So yeah, that's one of those things that you don't realize you can be thankful for that that it's a slow build because a lot of times we're anxious to see it build. But then if it is a slow build, you do gradually learn things and it's not so overwhelming. So that could be good.

SPEAKER_00 25:25

Exactly.

Sara 25:26

What do you still need to figure out?

SPEAKER_00 25:29

I think I'm always learning. I think the I think you still have to figure out everything that you already know because things are always changing. Facebook ads that are constantly changing. So it's like I still need to learn them and keep up on what's going on with the changes and on Meta and things like that. It's the same with Instagram, constantly keeping up with now. They have something called trial reels that I'm learning about, and that's like relatively new, and that's a new thing to learn. So I don't even necessarily think it's like learning new platforms, although I'm sure new platforms will pop up in the future, but just keeping on top of the strategies for the current platforms I'm using and what's gonna work best now versus what worked best a year ago.

Jami 26:16

I think that's true because there's always something. I have been doing trial trial reels.

SPEAKER_00 26:24

Oh, how have they done for you?

Thinking Like A Business With Data

Jami 26:26

I've had a few. I have one right now that's blowing up, but it's not book related. It's not really book related. It's sort of book it's related to the book I'm writing, but not my other books. But mostly it's about my sister when I when yeah, but it's blowing up on the trial reels, but it already did really well on just my normal reels. Like it has over a million views, which is it's starting, I don't know, 40,000 or something like that. And but I want to, I'm keeping it in the trial because it's going out to people that don't follow me, and I want that. I want it to go out, so I'm not really moving it over to my into my regular feed because I want to I want to reach new people.

SPEAKER_00 27:13

I don't know if that's right, but that's I don't see why it wouldn't be, but yeah, I am not a social media guru by any means or an Instagram guru, but that's what I would do if it's doing well on trial reels. I would keep it in trial reels.

Jami 27:28

That's kind of what I'm thinking. What's the most unhelpful advice you've received?

SPEAKER_00 27:33

Oh gosh, I'm trying to think. Hopefully, it's nothing that we said. No, it was probably when I was in that Twitter world, it was mostly it was pretty much all traditional publishing authors that I was connected to. I feel like they had a very negative view of being an indie author. It was if you're an indie author, it's because you couldn't make it going trad. And I kind of adopted that view for a while. I did not think indie authors made a lot of money. I didn't think there were, I was like, why wouldn't you want to go trad? That's the best way to make money, which is so silly. Now that I'm like at the point I am in my career, I'm just like, oh my gosh, what David thinking?

Sara 28:16

Like the blinders get taken off. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 28:19

And it was a light bulb moment for me because I had seen, I had one of my favorite authors who I think we would consider what would be a mid-list traditional publishing author. She had released at that point like eight or nine books, trad, all of them trad. She had an amazing agent, and she tweeted something about, and this was years ago, but she tweeted something about how she was gonna have to go back to working full-time, and because she wasn't making enough trad to maintain like living, and that was just shocking to me. And at that point, I had an agent, but I hadn't sold any books, and I was like, You're telling me I could sell eight books, and I still wouldn't be able to like what?

Sara 29:05

Yeah, yeah. The math on it is interesting.

SPEAKER_00 29:09

So I definitely and I heard that advice a lot with in the trad circle, it was just don't go indie, stay on the trad path. That's like a legitimate way to be published, and of course, it's just not true at all.

Sara 29:21

One of the things that people think is that, or in the past, I don't think it's as bad as it used to be, but that if you go self-publishing or indie route, it's because you couldn't make it trad. But I know so many authors who were trad and have gone self-published, and it's I feel like it holds you back in a lot of ways because you can't do the things that you can do as an indie. So whole nother podcast there. But yeah, exactly. What's the biggest change you've had to make in your thinking?

SPEAKER_00 29:50

Probably that I'm not just an author or a writer, that I'm a business person as well, and having to really put on my business hat, having to look at data and numbers, which I hate, like I hate all of that so much. But it really did change things when I started. I got author helper suite, and I started really making myself look at the data. And it was a little uncomfortable at first because this was early in my career where I wasn't making a lot of money and I was spending money on ads, and I would see some negatives, and that's like you just want to hide from that. Yeah. But it was important to see it because then it was like, how do I turn this into net gains and not losses? And and then just seeing which series is making more. I was I had switched over to fantasy romance and wrote this my stolen crown series, and I expected because paranormal women's fiction is such a small niche, I was like, once I go to fantasy romance, I'm gonna be making so much more money because it's a huge pool of readers, and that was not the case at all. It was way harder to find my readers because it's so competitive in fantasy romance, and I was putting so much money into stolen crowns because I wanted it to be successful. But when I'm looking at the data, I'm making more with my paranormal women's fiction series. So it was like it makes more sense to put more money into the series I'm making more with than the one I'm making less. And that was hard because I really just wanted to keep putting money into stolen crowns to make it successful, but it just that wasn't a smart business move. Right. That you have to be a business person. That's the probably the biggest change in thinking I've had.

Sara 31:33

So you mentioned author helper suite. Is that a service you use, or what is that?

SPEAKER_00 31:38

Yeah, it's similar. So I used it for a while. I really liked it. Now I use Publisher Champ, which is I don't know if you've heard of that, but it's the same thing. But basically, what both platforms do is they make it so you can at least Publisher Champ integrates with everything. So it integrates with KDP, Ingram Spark, Draft to Digital, ACX, and it and your ads, like if you're running ads, Amazon ads, Facebook ads, Shopify, everything. And so you can go on there daily and just see your ROI. You can see how much you're making versus how much you're spending. And you can look at the whole picture, you can look at it by individual book, individual series, you can look at your page reads and see are they going up or are they going down. There's just so many things that you can do with it, so which is very helpful for data collection. And I'm not a person who would ever, I don't like spreadsheets, and also it takes so much time. Like to gather all that information on your own and put it on a spreadsheet would just take so much time that I would never do it. I like Publisher Champ because it's it's just automatically does it for you, and it's so I can just go on my dashboard and at a glance, you know, see this information and help me make informed business decisions.

Jami 33:00

Because it's hard, you know, when I was when I was doing really well and you have ads running, and I remember in the beginning, because my book first book took off, and I remember in the beginning asking David Gogren, like, how do I know it's the ads and it's not just Amazon, the only way to know is to turn the ads off. And I was like, turning my ads off because what if that's it? I don't want to lose momentum, so it's hard. You don't you really don't you don't know unless you look at the data. And even if I look at the data back then, you couldn't really tell.

SPEAKER_00 33:35

Yeah, and I just made the decision to turn ads off for my paranormal women's fiction series, which I haven't released a new book in that series in over two years, and it's done really well for me. But finally the ROI was getting to be negative, and I was spending more than I was bringing in, and I waited. I we tried to like refresh the ads and try a few different things, but that ROI just wasn't going up, and so I just turned off the ads completely, but I never would have even noticed because I'm still making money over all my series, but still making positive gains. So I've noticed that one of my series was no longer earning positive gains over the ads that I was spending. So it was just good to have that and be able to be like, oh no, this is not making this is losing me money. I need to do something. Are you bad or K U? I mean K U.

Sara 34:27

Okay, yeah. So sometimes one of your series is working a whole bunch harder than a lot harder than the other one. And it's good to know because if you're just looking at the bottom line, you may not realize that. So another place that does the kind of collating all the information is scribe count. They're around too. I wasn't aware of these other two, so it's good to know that there's plenty out there.

SPEAKER_00 34:48

Yeah, it's just good to be able to have options if they're looking as well and be able to switch around because they do, they all have different positives and negatives about them, and you just kind of have to pick which one works best for you.

Jami 35:01

Yeah, absolutely. If you were starting over today, what would you do differently?

SPEAKER_00 35:06

I don't know, honestly, if I would do anything differently. Possibly I would just have started with fantasy romance and not paranormal women's fiction because I did one series and then I just realized that wasn't where I wanted to be for my career. That might be the one change I would make, but I did enjoy releasing that series and it's done well for me. And I got to connect with a lot of really great readers and authors in that niche. So I can't say that I regret it. Maybe it just would be nice to have another fantasy romance series out so I can be like stay in my lane, so to speak, have more in my backlist that relates because all my fantasy romance readers, most I don't want to say all of them, but a lot of them are just not interested in my paranormal women's fiction series.

Jami 35:54

I was about to say, uh, do you have crossover or not really?

SPEAKER_00 35:58

And the paranormal women's fiction readers are not super interested in my fantasy romance because it's spicy. Yeah, and the focus is on romance, and women's fiction was not spicy. There was really the romance was really a subplot and not super heavy in the series, so there's just not a lot of crossover between the two.

Kickstarter Fulfillment And Smarter Rewards

Sara 36:20

And sometimes that happens, some genres they just don't cross over and just accept that and go on. Yeah, let's talk about Kickstarter because you've done a couple of Kickstarters and they did really well. Is there anything you wish you'd known about Kickstarter?

SPEAKER_00 36:35

Yeah, I mainly what I wish I'd known happened like after the Kickstarter with fulfillment. I just was not prepared. My first Kickstarter did do really well, and I was not expecting it to do as well as it did, but I ended up having 700 and like something backers. So when it came time for fulfillment and I had to actually ship out all these books, it was chaos. Like I wasn't organized enough to handle this, and I had so many different add-on options. So each order was different. It was like someone would order the hardcover plus a novella, and then another person would order the hardcover plus a paperback, and then like the hardcover plus swag. And that just it was so disorganized for fulfillment. And I learned a lot from that first one to like this current one, which I actually had just finished fulfilling two days ago, but just doing everything in bulk, which seems like it's I don't know, it seems like common sense, but I didn't even think to do that. But packing all the orders that just have the special edition hardcover, packing all those first, and then going on and packing all the orders that have the hardcover and swag, things like that. I just didn't think about and I was just trying to do them like in order, and it yeah, it just took forever and it was a nightmare. So that's the biggest thing.

Jami 37:53

Do you think you have to have a lot of add-ons to do well in Kickstarter?

SPEAKER_00 37:59

Or no, I don't, and honestly, that's another thing I would probably change is not having so many options because it does make fulfillment so much harder, and it because and it's just a few backers that'll get this one or this one. So, like, really, you you can just do away with that, and it it will make fulfilling it and shipping it so much easier. So I definitely don't think I don't think you need stretch goals either. I know a lot of authors I did do stretch goals, but I don't necessarily think you need them, and I know authors who just don't do them because it does, it's more stuff you have to add on, and that's more stuff you have to pay for weigh the benefit and the cost.

Sara 38:36

Yeah, we had Ember May on recently, and she talked about the same thing that she thought she was setting up a really simple Kickstarter, but it got overcomplicated because she had so many options for people. And I remember when I did mine, the I it's probably me because I'm not good at this stuff, but the output that you got to show you what to send to different people, I felt like it, I didn't have enough control able to sort it and stuff. Yes. So I was afraid I was gonna forget somebody or do it wrong, and that really stressed me out. And I can't imagine if you had tons of tears, how much worse it would have been.

SPEAKER_00 39:12

Yes. And if you have Shopify, so for my first one, I didn't have my Shopify store yet, but for this one I did. They have something called Crowd Control, an app called Did you use Crowd Control?

Sara 39:23

Yeah, I did, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:24

I loved crowd control. I don't know, it made it so much easier because for my first one, I used a pledge manager, I think it was pledge backer, and then I used easy ship for shipping, and it's just you have to use so many different platforms, and then you have to learn them, and you have to, you're constantly so you're like moving everything from Kickstarter to pledge backer, then you're moving everything from pledge backer to easy ship, and it's you gotta redo it each time. Yes, yes, so much, and then I also, yeah, it made me so nervous that I was losing people along the way. You know, and I I would send a lot of updates, guys. I if I if you haven't received it, please let me know, or because I was so worried that I was missing things.

Sara 40:04

Yeah, yeah. I use crowd control with my last one I did on Kickstarter, and they had just implemented a new system or something, and I was trying to figure out how to use it. I kept emailing them and they helped me fix everything. And then one time they replied and said, We really appreciate you helping us troubleshoot this new system. Because I was like, Okay, well, thank you. I was like, I was bothering them quite a bit, I think, because I had so many questions about postage and mailing and weight and stuff. But anyway, we'll get it all figured out. But yeah, I recommend that one. That one's a good one to have to use.

SPEAKER_00 40:36

Yeah, I felt like it just made it a lot simpler than it was when you had to use so many different and I like that people can choose their own weights, shipping or not their own weights, their own shipping. Like they can choose if they want to use UPS or USPS or FedEx, and it calculates the exact weight, whereas like with Easy Ship, you can only put a range, and I just don't like that. Like I want it to be exact and let people choose what they want.

Jami 41:03

You've had success really successful Kickstarters. What's what do you think the key to that is?

SPEAKER_00 41:11

Honestly, I don't know if there I know that's like a frustrating answer, but I feel like for potions and prejudice, I just got I think I got lucky with timing, and it's it was when cozy fantasy romance was just becoming really popular. So I happen to have that, but also potions and prejudice is such an easy concept to get pride and prejudice, but with witches, and that's just easy for people to get. And now you make it into this popular genre that's I don't know if it's exploding, but it was becoming very popular because of shop and legends and lattes and things like that. So I think I got lucky with timing. I think I also just hired the designer I hired for the illustrated hardcover and my designer for the dust jacket. People just absolutely loved that art. That art has gone viral for me on Instagram, the illustrated hardcover art of the couple. It's just gorgeous and people love it. And so I think that helped a lot having really pretty art and being able to show people the mock-ups and they could see what it would look like. I also tried to use my Instagram because I was building a following at that point. And so I was posting teasers of each part of the Kickstarter every day and just getting people excited. So it would be like day one reveal here's the hardcover, day two reveal, here's the sprayed edges, and building up excitement that way too.

Sara 42:42

So, how did you find your artist to do this? And what was your timeline on the artwork? How long did that take?

SPEAKER_00 42:49

Yeah, it depended on the artist, but I think I started looking for artists in like September, October, and I needed all the finished art when I launched in March. So I had the mock-ups for the illustrated hardcover. I found that artist through another author, Tessanja Odette, had these hardcovers that I loved. And so I looked up the artist, and it was her name is Meow Lane Art. And I just loved her style. So yeah, I found her like on Instagram through another author. And so I reached out and asked if she could do that illustrated hardcover for me. And that's mostly how I found the other artists too, is just through Instagram. And then I'm also in an author Discord that's Pharaoh, the Pharaoh Feb or Pharaoh Discord, but it's a fantasy romance author. And we have an art channel, so people are constantly posting their art and then crediting the artist so that other authors can those are the two main ways that I found my artists. And yeah, I tried to book them at least five to six months in advance so that I gave them plenty of time in case there were delays or anything. I really Wanted to have all the art to put in my campaign.

Sara 44:02

And did you use multiple artists, or did the same artist do everything for one campaign?

SPEAKER_00 44:08

No, I hired a lot of different artists. So I hired Meow Lane to do the hardcover. And then I hired another artist to do some vellum, what was going to be vellum inserts for me. And then I hired a different artist to do some NSFW art. So I tried, oh, and then I hired a different artist to do the end papers for me. So yeah, I tried to spread it around, but I did send them all the same color palette and the same character descriptions, everything because I wanted it all to all look cohesive. So I made sure the color palette matched the cover.

Sara 44:43

So tell everyone what vellum inserts are in case they don't know.

SPEAKER_00 44:47

Vellum overlays are or inserts are basically transparent art that you can put over the page so that you can still see the scene underneath, but you have this over this really beautiful like overlay of art and it depicts the scene. So you can tell them what page it goes on. This vellum overlay should go on page 57 because it's depicting like that scene. So that's something that people really like on Kickstarter for sure.

Jami 45:15

The NFS NF NSFW, not safe for work. You saw me taking it off. Can you do it?

SPEAKER_00 45:25

Can you offer that on Kickstarter? You can. I just like I blurt, like I make it safe for work on Kickstarter.

Sara 45:32

So one other question about Kickstarter. I noticed on your store you have quite a few. Are your special editions also on your store in the Vellum inserts and all that? So are you putting them on your store even after the Kickstarter is over, right?

SPEAKER_00 45:45

Yes, that was just something I decided to invest. It was like my Kickstarter did really well, and I was lucky for that. And I was looking for ways to reinvest that money. And so I decided since it did so well, why not invest that money in 500 extra copies of my potions and prejudice books? So that's what I did. I did 500 extra for that one, and I'm down to like my last 50 copies that I need to sell. Yeah. So I'm excited. And then for my stolen crowns, my most recent one, I invested in about like a hundred extra sets of those.

Sara 46:20

So you're fulfilling those yourself.

SPEAKER_00 46:21

Yes. Yeah. So they all got shipped to me, but now and we actually recently converted our garage into a warehouse to Oh my goodness. Yes. Because I was like, I was panicking because Stolen Crowns was a whole series of five books that I did on Kickstarter. And I had about 2,000 copies, like 2,000 total books coming. So I was panicking. I was like, where are we going to put these books? So we decided to turn our garage into a warehouse so that I had somewhere to store them.

Jami 46:55

Well, you emailed us about being on the podcast, and you were talking about how you had done well, but that your income had dropped in October, I believe, of last year. And that you realized how important diversification was. So tell us other ways you've diversified your intem.

SPEAKER_00 47:12

One way that I've had less control over was I have gone trad for potions and prejudice. It got picked up by Berkeley. And so that's diversification right there. And that was a nice option. And I was when I got the offer, I wasn't sure that I wanted to do it because Potions and Prejudice was making me a lot of money in KDP. But ultimately I thought about my goal for 2025. And my big goal was diversification from the beginning of the year. I knew that was what I wanted. And so I knew that going Trad would help me with that goal. And it did for sure, because then my income dropped dramatically in October. So then I was really glad that I took that trad deal. And I don't know why. I still don't know why my income dropped. Potions and Prejudice just stopped like earning as much as it had been. And I don't know if that was just the natural, it had been out for six months, or not six months, about five months at that point. I hadn't released another book in the series because the series got picked up. So I that affects it too. I don't know why. Maybe the Facebook ads stopped working, but either way, yeah, I was no longer making the five figures a month just from this book. And so that that helped me a lot being able to go trad and get like foreign deals and things like that. But then also another big diversification for me has been Kickstarter. Kickstarter's been huge. And then my Shopify store. I decided to open a Shopify store. I actually listened to an interview that you guys did. Rachel Hannah. And she she did such a good interview about her Shopify store. Yeah. And I listened to it when I was early in my career. So I was a long ways away from being able to do that yet. But everything she said, it just tickled my brain. It made me feel I loved everything she was saying, and I knew that I wanted to do that one day. And yeah, I was at a point where I felt like I could open a Shopify store. And that's made a huge difference. It's more it's made up for my loss of KDP income, just me being able to release paperbacks on there. And then I decided to do exclusive pre-order campaigns through my Shopify store for ebook, audiobook, paperback, and then foiled paperback. And so I have a new release coming out March 26th, and I've just been going really hard on the pre-order campaign through my Shopify store. And I know Sasha Black, who also writes as Ruby Row, does amazing with her Shopify store, but like something she talks about is how you have to really show people why they need to order from you over their favorite retailer. I've just put in a lot of incentives and really made sure that people understand like what the incentives are of ordering through me. You'll get your pre-order a week early before it releases on retailers. You get a pre-gift with your pre-order, whether it's digital or physical, all paperbacks signed, just things like that. And it's done really well for me and it's made up for my dip in KDP income. It's definitely shown me how important diversification is. Because if I didn't have the Shopify store, I would just be like waiting on this new release, and then it's another two months until you even get the money.

Sara 50:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:28

Yeah. I'm really happy that I have this.

Sara 50:31

So that's a different series. Your new release is in a different series than the one that went that you sold to the Trad Publisher.

Jami 50:38

Yes. Did you sell all your rights to Berkeley or did you keep some?

SPEAKER_00 50:42

And I sold all my rights.

Jami 50:44

Yeah. You'd gotten your money out of that series. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:47

I also am a rapid releaser. I write, I draft quickly and I release quickly. If I wasn't, that might have been a different decision. But I just knew I'll be able to get another series out next year.

Sara 50:59

Do you have an elaborate autoresponder sequence going to keep the selling them new things, or are you just finding new people?

SPEAKER_00 51:07

So this is part of me realizing that I'm outgrowing my current store. But I got the recommendation from a lot of authors to use AA Creative to do my Shopify store. So they are actually going to start working on it at the end of March, but they're going to do all of that stuff. They're going to add in the automations and the upselling and the cross-selling and things like that because that's beyond what I have time for. Like I don't have time to research all of that and to understand it and to implement it. So I would rather just have a professional do that for me. So they're going to do that. And my new release is coming March 26th. And then we will start the pre-order campaign for the next book in the series. And so I'm hoping to see a difference in pre-orders because by that time the store will be redone by AA Creative. And so I'll be interested to see how all those automations and upsells and things like that.

Sara 52:03

You have pre-orders on your store and also on the retailer at the same time.

SPEAKER_00 52:08

Yes. And that's a lot because I'm not in KU yet. So once it releases, but that is why I also that was another part of my strategy of saying everyone will get their pre-order a week early. So I can just make sure it'll be off my site by the time it releases on Amazon.

Jami 52:25

And talk to people about, I think I understand it because I would probably do the same thing. A lot when you talk when people talk about release releasing on their store first and then going to the to Amazon, they're like, Well, it's gonna hurt your rank. All these people have bought for, but I'm like, but I have the money. And so was that part of your decision, or do you worry about that? Do you worry about rank?

SPEAKER_00 52:49

Uh no, I do for sure, because I think rank is as much as we don't like to talk about it and we want to be bank over rank, I think rank is important to making money in AU. I don't worry about it too much because I think about how many readers there are out there. And once I start running ads to Amazon, I'm gonna find those readers. And there are readers who will only buy through Amazon, or they have Kindle Unlimited, so they're not gonna pre-order from me, anyways, because they're just gonna wait for it to come out in Kindle Unlimited. I kind of feel like with this pre-order campaign, I was capturing a lot of my super fans and people who will buy my book and then they have Kindle Unlimited, so they'll support me by going and borrowing it anyway and getting me the page reads. So it is something I was a little concerned about. But like I said, I mean, it's just so nice having the money right away. This is my Shopify store, and I can get this money anytime I want. And it has bolstered that KDP drop. So it has made up for it, which has been so nice.

Jami 53:53

Well, it allows you, like I remember like when I first started, we I was broke. And so we I ran spent$130 the first month, and I was so afraid to tell my husband because I had taken it from some other places. So when I told him, he was like, How much do you make? And I told him he was like, I that sounds like a pretty good return on investment. It was a lot. Yeah, it was a lot, and but then to maintain or build, I still had two months that I where I didn't have any money until I got that money. And then with each release, the first three releases, I think, you're advertising three books and not two books. And right, so having that money would be nice so you could keep things even, and then when the drop comes, you don't have to worry about it as much.

SPEAKER_00 54:41

Yeah. And we'll see. This is the first time I've ever done this, and my book doesn't release until March 26th. So time will tell if doing this pre-order campaign through my store negatively affected rank, but I am hoping that won't be the case. I'm hoping that there will be like because we've only been running ads to my store, and I feel like that's a different audience.

Jami 55:04

Yeah. I think so too. I think so too. Yeah.

Sara 55:07

You'll have it's different products in a way. Then they probably can't get the foiled edition through Amazon, right? So, what how does that work out? What do you have on your store versus what do you have on retailers?

SPEAKER_00 55:20

Yeah, Amazon, I will put everything on there. So paperback, audio, and ebook will all go on Amazon in Audible and in KU, the ebook and audio will. But yeah, foiled paperback can only be through me.

Sara 55:34

They get it early and they get the bonus, or they get it signed or whatever, right?

Audiobooks Planning And Final Takeaways

Jami 55:39

Like for you releasing every quarter, how are you getting the audiobook done? Do you do a simultaneous release?

SPEAKER_00 55:47

This is my first audiobook, so I've never done it before. But I decided this was another like thing I decided to invest in to see how it went. So yeah, it was I had to have the book done quite a bit early. So I really had to, but I think that was like the nice thing about getting the Trad deal was it canceled all my plans for the rest of that series. So I pretty much started planning this new series like right away last you know, August. And I'm a fast drafter, so I was able to get it done pretty quickly and then get it to an audio company by November so that they had time to record everything. And then it's the same with this next release. It's already the next book is coming out in June, and it's already with the audiobook.

Jami 56:33

Oh, that's great. So you're ahead basically.

SPEAKER_00 56:36

Yes, I was able to get ahead because of that trad release and because it canceled plans for the rest of the series.

Sara 56:42

So you need several months, I feel like if you're doing all these special things, I think you need time to do the artwork and the and if you're doing the audiobook, you need the manuscript finalized before you send it. You can't, and you need some time in case somebody finds errors, which has happened to me, and then you have to go back to your audiobook narrator and say, guess what? Yeah, we really have to say what happened to Douglas because he's he got forgotten.

SPEAKER_00 57:09

Yeah, I and I it was against my like natural instincts because I like to just keep things going and releasing. So after potions got picked up, I was very tempted to just fast draft a novel and get it out there, but I really forced myself to slow down and I was like, okay, I'm gonna give myself like six months to really prepare for this release. So yeah.

Jami 57:31

That's just so great. I'm so glad. Thank you for being here. We love to have authors who've had success and who are doing what everybody else is doing, but they're maybe doing it a little differently. So we appreciate it. But we always like to ask our guests what's the best thing you think you've done to set yourself up for success.

SPEAKER_00 57:50

I think just learning. I'm like a learner that's in like my Clifton strengths. I like listening to podcasts like yours. I just devoured the episodes of your podcast and the spa girls podcast, and then joining like a Discord for the Pharaoh community, the fantasy romance community, and just learning as much as I can from other people set me up for success. Yeah.

Jami 58:15

I agree. Learning as much as you can. I feel sorry, I feel bad for authors who didn't know you needed to learn, and they just put their book out and nothing happens. I don't think it's too late, like to come back and learn, but uh it's so much easier if you kind of get the some of the knowledge on the front end because you just don't you don't make as many m mistakes.

SPEAKER_00 58:40

Yes.

Jami 58:40

Not that mistakes aren't you can't recover from them, but they're a little they're disheartening, you know.

Sara 58:46

Yeah. Well, where can f people find out more about you and your books?

SPEAKER_00 58:49

I am t Harlow everywhere. So you can just go to my website, which is tharlow.com, t-e-e-h-ar-r-l-o-w-e. And then on Instagram, on TikTok, I'm I'm at t Harlow. Instagram is where I'm most active.

Sara 59:02

We will have all those links in the show notes, and that will be at wish I'd known for writers.com. And if you want to support the podcast, you can go to that same link slash support. And don't forget, our sponsor this week is Vellum. But we'll see everybody next week. Bye, everyone. Bye.