Substack for Fiction Authors: How Jolie Tunnell Serializes Mysteries and Builds Reader Community

315 / How can authors find their reader community on Substack while balancing life’s big changes? Jolie Tunnell shares her transition from years of blogging and waiting for permission to publish to indie success and serializing mysteries.

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

• Balancing writing with life changes
• Waiting for gatekeepers vs. giving yourself permission
• Using Substack for serialized fiction
• Creative marketing ideas, including membership drives and interactive reader experiences
• Incorporating graphics and interactivity
• Building community and engagement on Substack

💙 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
• Thank you to long-time supporter: KP Turner

⚡Links:

•  http://tryvellum.com/wish
• https://jolietunnell.com/
• https://jolietunnell.substack.com/
• Create Summit: Get your free ticket here: https://createsummit2026.heysummit.com/?ac=ScVPVkA8 (Affiliate link)

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I just came in assuming that there were gatekeepers and the people who know more than I do can have a look and tell me, okay, now you're ready. I'll tell you how you find out. You publish it, and your readers are gonna immediately tell you how you will know.

Jami 0:22

Welcome to the Worship Moment podcast. I'm Sarah Rosette. And I'm Jamie Albright. And this week on the show we have Jolie Tunnell. Yes, we do. It's so good. We talk a lot about Substack on this show.

Sara 0:34

Yes, yeah. Jolie's using it in an interesting way for fiction authors, not nonfiction. And so it was very interesting to talk to her about that. She's using it as a serialization model. That's hard to say. We talk about giving her yourself permission to write and to be a writer and to launch your book and also work life balance.

Jami 0:54

Yeah.

Sara 0:55

This week's sponsor is Vellum. Yes.

Jami 0:58

I have a lot to say about Vellum because I've been using it this week.

unknown 1:02

Okay.

Jami 1:03

What are you doing? Oh, y'all. I am just you forget how much work is involved in putting a book up to sell and get ready to sell. And so that's all I've been doing this week. I got it on I did, it's in draft on KDP so that I could put it on Goodreads, so that I could do a Goodreads giveaway. Then thank God for ask a library a Goodreads librarian on Facebook messed something up and they had to at first I didn't think they were gonna be able to fix it, but then they were able to go in and do it, so that was good. And then yeah, just doing that kind of thing, and then I got it on. I did the NetGalley co-op with Victory Publishing. And so that went up yesterday. It went live yesterday, and like it went live, and within 20 minutes I had probably 10 requests, but I'm doing the thing where I go in and I have to approve each one of them. I'm looking at the past books they've read, and it's a lot of work because you have to vet every one of them, right? Yeah, and it really is smart to do that. If you don't, you can get in some trouble. And it like it gives you a demographic of what like what drew them to this book, and the majority is the description, which is great because you want to have a great description to cover. But there were a good there were a good many people that it was the author's name, and so I just had to make sure that I wasn't getting somebody that just read romance, so I and I've had to not approve some of those people because I just want people that read this kind of book. So yeah, and looking at it, I'm like, man, I had heard this that people on NetGalle are stingy with their stars, and when you look at their average star rating and what they rate other books, you're like, yes, indeed, they are very stingy with their star rating.

Sara 3:11

Yeah, it's interesting that each platform has its own reputation. Like Goodreads has a different reputation, especially among authors than NetGalley.

Jami 3:21

Yeah, really is. And then I was at my mom's, like I went to my mom and dad's on Wednesday, and I had the book, I had it the arc ready, and so I loaded it onto my mom's phone and she read it while I was basically while I sat there for two days, and she loved it and she hated it, and yeah, and that's normal, and it's what I expected. It was hard watching her. It was nice when she laughed, and you could tell she was enjoying it, but then when she was crying, that was really hard. And she said afterwards he really honored her, and that was just the best thing she could have said. And everything else is gravy after that. Yeah. Your most important first reader, right? Yes, exactly. Exactly. So yeah, that's me. Nothing, and now I'm keeping my grandkids, which I don't it's a good thing. I got most of everything done before I came here because now I have no brain cells left. So multiple grandkids will wipe you out, right? Yeah, all at once. Yeah. We're keeping all the little, so the two seven-year-olds, the six-year-old, the five-year-old.

Sara 4:27

It's so I'm just glad you're here and awake to record this. Exactly.

Jami 4:34

A miracle.

Sara 4:35

Yeah.

Jami 4:35

So what's going on with you?

Sara 4:37

Last week our upstairs AC went out. Yeah. And yes, and then we had some other repair stuff going on too. So it was a week of waiting for the repair people, getting estimates and getting things coordinated. So we still don't have an AC upstairs, but it's okay because upstairs is not our main living area. So we're okay. But yeah, just juggling all that. And then I did get some writing done. So that was good. But I feel like it's like riding in the edges of all this other stuff is just feels slow. But every book feels slow when I'm doing it. I'm in the middle of it. It just seems like the long, sad middle, long, saggy middle. But yeah, so that's going okay. And then I try and remember to go in and go into the promotion tab, like in Cobo Books and submit my books. And then Draft to Digital has library promos that I submit to. And then Authors Republic also has a very nice promo tab. It's very easy. They have a list of Apple, Hoop Law, just all the different places that you can submit your book, LibreOFM if they're having a promo. And you just go and you check yours off at the top which one you want to join, and then which books you want to submit for it. And so I try and remember to do that too. Sometimes that kind of falls off my list, but got all my promo submitted in. And so yeah, that's just kind of basic stuff going on for me, along with juggling all the house repairs.

Jami 6:03

Also, I sent my narrator for this book now, has it. Anne Marie is gonna do it, and Marie Lewis, sorry. Anne Marie, we're all on first name basis. But but she's gonna do it, and I'm very excited that she's gonna do it. And so she has it. That's great. So that'll I that will probably be it'll probably be available towards the end of June. What she said. She will get it done fairly fast, but then there's the other the it's the rest of the stuff that takes a long time and stuff. Yeah, nice. That's exciting. Yeah, yeah.

Sara 6:43

I'm excited about it. So yeah. Anyway. All right. We should also mention that we did get some feedback after our last episode of the draft where we talked about the we have no news publishing news this week, but last week we talked about the changes with draft to digital, and we got some comments and feedback. So thank you for that. And it was very interesting to hear your perspectives and your thoughts.

Jami 7:04

Yeah. It was some things I hadn't thought about, things I'd thought about and still don't agree with, but it's fine because we can agree to disagree. And uh I hope you felt like you had a platform that you could voice your opinion and have us read it and respect it, whether we agree with it or not. So yeah.

Sara 7:26

Try and keep it all civil here here at the Wish I'd known in podcast. Unlike the rest of the internet, mostly. So we'll try and do that. But yeah, it was good to hear comments and thoughts. So we and we like it. The Substack is a good place to let us know what you feel about the episodes and if you have thoughts or questions. Oh, and we are gonna do a QA episode if you're interested in submitting a question for that. There's a link in the show notes that says, Got a question? Send us your questions. So just click that and you can send it, it'll send us a text right through your podcast app. So let us know on that. And let's see, we do have and we do have a new supporter this week from Substack, and that is it's SB has. So I we don't get an emoji with Substack, so I don't know what the emoji would be with this one. But thank you, SB. We appreciate it. If you want to support the podcast, you can find us on Substack, and you can also find us at wish Ident for Writers.com slash support. And if you become a supporter, you'll get access to the backlist of exclusive supporter episodes and a shout out in a future episode. And also thank you to our longtime supporter, KP Turner, who's been supporting us for three years.

Jami 8:44

Oh my gosh. Thank you.

Sara 8:46

Yeah, and we have I think 20-ish supporter episodes, and we'll have a new one coming out pretty soon. If you got any suggestions, supporters, let us know what you want us to talk about. We'd love to hear from you. Otherwise, we'll just pick a topic and talk about it.

unknown 9:00

Yeah.

Sara 9:01

Vellum is our sponsor this week. You want to talk about Vellum?

Jami 9:04

I would just say again, Vellum has saved my bacon in that it like I put my book together, I put it together and everything was fine. But then I realized I had forgotten something and or wanted to in the book it says that she thinks he's it and there ain't nothing it are. And people were like, What is it or? And I was my mom asked me what was it or and I was like, Mom, you know, that she thinks he's it and there ain't nothing in her, and she's I've never heard that. I'm like, What? Like, I've said it, and my editor had flagged it, but I decided not to go with what my editor said, so I put it on Facebook, and people were like, some people were like, No, I have no idea. And other people were like, Oh, yeah, I know what that means, but I had to read it a couple of times, so I went back in to change the way I had written it. I had written it I t-E-R, and so I went in and put a hyphen because I really wanted to keep it, it's very much in it's the flavor of the book, and but think little things like that, and it just is so stinking easy, and the book looks beautiful, it just looks so nice on an e-reader or on your phone, and it's so easy to get it to places, and yeah, so I I really enjoyed it, truly, it's just been so great. And I had a question, there was something I couldn't figure out. I sent an email, I literally got an email about two hours later back telling me what to do. It was just they're so responsive, it was great. Yeah, thank you, Donna.

Sara 10:48

Yeah, and yeah, we appreciate Vellum, and they do make that part of our life so much less stressful. There is a lot to do when you're getting ready to launch and stuff. If you have the ability just to put it in a software and have it produce what you want and have it be fast and easy, that for me is awesome. So if you're interested in Vellum, you can go to tryvellum.com/slash wish and find out more there. And we want to let y'all know about an online summit. It's called the Create Summit. It's being put together by Monica Leonel. It is going to run April 29th to May 2nd. And if you sign up, you can go to the sessions live and watch them for free. And then if you want to watch the replays, you can get a ticket. So, Jamie, tell us a little bit more about the summit itself.

Jami 11:36

Well, you know, things are just changing so fast in this industry, and platforms are changing, discoveries changing, everything's changing. Tools, new tools are showing up, and then better tools show up right after them. So the summit is just a chance to step back and think about how we create stronger work, reach audiences in new ways, and build creative businesses that actually support what we do. Sarah and I are doing a session on branding a series, but their other people speaking are Celeste Barclay, Inez Johnson, Cindy Prince Gunderson, and Cindy writes rom com she was on a panel I did moderated at Author Nation. She's really smart. Russell Nilty, Melissa Storm, Tanya Hale's Art, Amy Campbell, Cassie Alexander, and more.

Sara 12:32

Yeah. And one of those more is Jennifer Hilt and I also did a session on tropes for just how to use tropes in your writing and what to know about them and how to use them effectively. Yeah. So there's quite a bit going on in this first session. There will be two other sessions, but for the Create Summit, it is April 29th to May 2nd.

Jami 12:53

Yeah. And then there's another one like in July and one in the fall or something.

Sara 12:58

Yeah, there's one in July and one in November. Yeah. So you can either go to the you can sign up for one, or if you want to get a ticket for all three, you can also do that as well.

Jami 13:08

And the tickets, the link that we have is an affiliate link, just FYI on that. But yeah, it I'm excited to see what everybody has to say. And it should be great. Monica always does quality things, so this should be great. Yeah. So that link will be in the show notes.

Sara 13:25

And we should probably get on with the podcast. Yeah, absolutely. All right, here is Jolie. Well, today we are really excited to have Jolie Tunnell here. Hi, Jolie. How are you?

SPEAKER_01 13:35

Hello, good morning. I'm well, thank you.

Sara 13:37

Good. We're very glad you're here. Award-winning author Jolie Tunnell brings the past to life with suspenseful historical mysteries. She brings a turn-of-the-century flair to the Wild West and the isolated mountain town of Idlewild and also Old San Francisco. Her books gallop to the last page.

Jami 13:54

I love that. A little play on words. Love that. Tell us how you got into writing.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

Oh my goodness, I've always been into writing. I can't think of a time when I was not writing, but I do as most of us do. We have our day job life that we do. I raised five kids. I was a stay-at-home mom forever and ever and eternity. And then I finally got to graduate. They finally grew up. So I started blogging just for fun. I blogged for 10 years, actually. That sort of launched me forward. But I I played with, I learned how to build a website. I learned how to build all of the parts, and it was just so much fun. I just kept going. So that's really my segue into it, where I am now.

Sara 14:37

So you transitioned from that into fiction?

SPEAKER_01 14:41

I yes, because I was already writing stories and plays, and I had the proverbial drawer full of manuscripts that nobody gets to read, but I get to play with. So it took COVID. It took locking me up and throwing away the key before I sat down and said, if ever there was a time to figure out how to publish a book, this was the time to do it. And after that, it's been nonstop kid in the candy store. How fast can I write? How much fun can I get into any day?

Jami 15:40

So you didn't actually publish anything until COVID? Is that was that your blogs?

SPEAKER_01 15:47

No, no books, none of the fiction. I had been working on a manuscript, a fiction manuscript for literally years. I had taken classes, local classes, trying to get all the rules taken care of. I finished the manuscript and then it was like, well, you need another year to be in reading critique groups. And it seemed to never end. I kept saying, okay, but when do I get to hold the book in my hand? Yeah. Yeah. And no one was excited to tell me that part. So I had to go rogue during COVID. I said, All right, I'm just gonna sit here until I figure it out.

Jami 16:19

Yeah. That really is how I think it is for everybody because you could hold on to a book forever. In fact, I know right now there are people listening that have had that book and they've been tinkering with it, piddling is what my grandmother would say. Piddling with it for years and years, and they are nobody's given them permission to publish it. So they're just sitting on it. And we sometimes just have to say, No, I'm gonna publish it, and then this is what I'm gonna do. You have to give yourself permission, yeah.

Sara 16:50

And that could be a hurdle. I get that.

SPEAKER_01 16:52

Or not, yeah, and they'll tell you how to fix it.

Sara 16:57

Yeah, yeah. And you do have to just put stuff out there. That's in the product world, they call it what shipping the product, minimum viable product. You want your book to be good and you want to be proud of it, but you can piddle with it forever. Sometimes you just have to be brave and go ahead and do it.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

Piddle it to death. Yeah, yeah.

Sara 17:16

What is your definition of success?

SPEAKER_01 17:18

Oh my goodness. And that's changed, mind you, over the years. It's constantly evolving with where I am in my life. And I'm finding out there are seasons to it. Know that. I did I just realized you you arrive. You're an author, and now you're here. But that's as flexible as your definition of success. So at the moment, my definition is to have all the time in the world. I was using money as the measurement for quite some time to decide if I'm successful or not. That's as fluid as all of my other resources. Money, lifestyle. All those things. The reason I'm at where I'm at the moment in my career is truly because of a time situation that I knew I was facing this year, very specific to the season of life I'm at, and trying to decide how to mold my career around that so that it's still where I need it to be on the other side.

Sara 18:16

Yeah, and we all hit points like that, right? No matter what where we are in our life. We all have things that come up that we have to deal with.

SPEAKER_01 18:23

But luckily, this was the year I could see it coming. We don't always get to know that. We can just be flung into crisis, but not so this year. We've got a new grandchild on the way in the spring. We've got a wedding in our backyard in the summer. My darling husband is going to retire in the fall. That's huge. These are all big life changes.

Sara 18:46

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

I would really prefer to be present for these things. And I'm used to being a full-time author. So it it was absolutely a change that was going to have to happen, whether I liked it or not. Success for me this year is going to be that. It's going to be I was able to be present and not distracted and still have my career waiting for me on the other side of these things.

Jami 19:13

And that's doable. I believe that's doable. So that's those are good goals. What do you wish you'd known about writing and craft?

SPEAKER_01 19:19

Oh my goodness. What I wish I knew about writing and craft is that it grows along with you as you grow in your career. I was waiting for an arrival. I have finally learned the rules. I have finally mastered this technique. I have that actually is does not exist. And the journey is going to go as long as you keep writing, you're going to always keep growing with that. I saw a graphic once. I cannot tell you where I saw it, but it was two lines, neither of which are straight. And one is your vision and one is your ability. And I find as I learn the next thing, my vision grows with it. And I'm suddenly, I just as I arrive at, oh, I've mastered, or my version of master, all of a sudden my vision changes. And now I'm totally hate what I'm doing. Now it's garbage again. I thought that was a real problem until someone explained to me, no, as you grow, it's normal to have that evolution over and over. So your vision, what you want to do, is never right where you are. And that's how you grow. I found that very helpful.

Sara 20:31

I think so. It's that you start out and you don't know what you don't know. And then as you go along, you look back and think, oh my goodness, did I really do that? You begin to see things that could have been improved. But yeah, I think that you're right. That's 100% normal. And it's a good thing, even though it can be painful to look back at that early work sometimes. It's cringe. What about marketing? What do you wish you'd known about marketing?

SPEAKER_01 20:57

Almost the same idea. I think perspective is everything. Honestly, I love the best. That's one of the best things of your podcast is that you get perspective as you move forward and you can now see things you didn't see. So I've done the Facebook ads, I've done the Amazon ads, I've tried all of the promos, the things. I love those things. Those are all fun. But over and over again, I would see conversations happening around why is my ad not working? Why is it working and now all of a sudden it's failing? Is anybody else getting sales this month? It's terrible. Right. Without taking into consideration there's a million reasons why someone is not buying a brook. And almost none of them have anything to do with you. You can be doing everything right, but there's a war on. There are extend external factors that are going to come into play with our readers. And some months they can afford it and some months they can't. And that's normal. It's like it's not working. Maybe you have all the analytics you need to know why, but maybe you don't.

Sara 22:00

And sometimes there's not a clear-cut answer. Sometimes you can look at everything and you look at all the stats, and there's not that's part of the issue with being an office. You have, especially if you're wide, you have all these platforms and all these things going on. And if something takes off, did I do something to cause that? Was it somebody posted about it? Did some algorithm change, boost it? Sometimes you just don't know. And it's hard to nail it down.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

And can I bottle that and repeat that?

Jami 22:30

Yeah, exactly. It's like catching lightning. Yeah. I remember when the my first book I put it up for pre-order and I had 10, 15 pre-orders. I was very excited because 10-15 pre-orders. And I probably had more like 30. And I was happy. And went to dinner one night. And when I came home, I had 99. And I was like, oh my gosh, like, I guess my little five-dollar Facebook Amazon ad is working and blah, blah, blah. In a group, and somebody said, Yeah, or this might have helped. And Julia Kent, who is a rom-com author, had posted about my book in her group, and they had gone and pre-ordered it because she had she'd blurbed it for me. So she had read it already. And that was the reason it was it had nothing to do with my ads. It was because someone with an audience said something about my book. And so you just don't know. You don't know. And you can't control those things because I hadn't asked her to do that and wouldn't have because I just wasn't I wasn't in that position. But anyway, yeah, you just never know. What are you glad you know now?

SPEAKER_01 23:46

Oh my goodness. I am glad I never quit. Yeah. I I started blogging and my writing was for me. Then fiction opened up a whole new world of readers. And every comment, every review, every little bit of feedback is what kept me going. If you do start in the middle of a place like COVID, you don't actually, nothing is normal. There is no normal. So you really just don't know what you're gonna get. I just didn't realize how many fantastic readers were out there that would say, oh yeah, no, I like that. You do that again. And it changes everything, really.

Sara 24:28

Yeah. Feedback can be so encouraging. What do you still need to figure out?

SPEAKER_01 24:32

I am always gonna figure out my balance, my my work-life balance. And maybe that's a funny thing to say because you I got into this industry specifically because it's flexible. And you can have all of the things. What I keep having to remember is I can have it all, just not all at once. And I'm constantly greedy trying to do everything at once.

Jami 24:54

And there is a cost, it just is a cost. You can't do everything at the level uh that you might want to. Some things will take the back burner because something has to be on the front burner. Everything cannot be on the front burner all the time.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

Exactly. Yeah, exactly for sure.

Sara 25:15

What's the most unhelpful advice you've gotten?

SPEAKER_01 25:19

First of all, to wait for a gatekeeper. I'm always waiting for permission or validation, expecting a straight line when this industry is more like a roller coaster and you have to enjoy that. The plot twist, you have to love a plot twist.

Sara 25:34

Fortunately, you're at the correct genre for that, to expect that.

Jami 25:38

Yes, so true. I was just thinking that yes, Susan, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:43

And also, you think you're you think you're you have a lot of reasons to not publish yet. It's not ready, it's not ready, but your insecurity and your perfectionism can kill your dreams. I think I'd still be spinning in that little cycle if I hadn't just decided to go for it.

Sara 26:03

Are you still writing the same series that you started out with, or do you have multiple series now?

SPEAKER_01 26:09

No, so my first series when I started is the Idaho Wild Mystery series. So I wrote about a place that I love, and the setting is as much a part of that series as the characters, and I indie published those books. So there's a dozen in that series. I fell in love with that series and kept going. And then so of course I learned a lot of things. I broke a lot of things along the way and learned how to fix them. It was a great education. I'm very hands-on learner, but I had a plan in mind because once we came out of back into the new normal, I guess, after COVID in the industry, I had my sight set on trad publishing. And I thought, I know how to indie publish, let's see what that fuss is all about. Let's do that. So my second series was very intentional, and I sold it to a small publisher right away. So I had a three-book contract with Thule Publishing and learned a whole new education there. Meanwhile, I was going to conferences and talking to a lot of authors. I loved I love talking to everybody else. What do you do? What do you do? How do you go about that? And at some point, it occurred to me that I, because you're an indie author, you know all the pieces. You know the whole machine, beginning to end, and then what comes after. A lot of trad authors are I just want to do the writing part and then send it off, and there you go. And I thought, oh, that sounds a little luxurious actually. If it works out. And they were fantasy fantastic to work with. I was allowed to feedback on the like choosing the covers and whatnot. And but it is a different way to work. I'm used to taking whatever book I want to promote and go out and promoting it. And I have the analytics and I have and I know what's happening and what's working. And you don't get that with a publisher. So it's a different way of working. So I have my first series is indie published, and my second series is with a publisher at the moment. And then it was time to pivot. I saw this year coming at the end of last year. I said, okay, I need a way to do my next series that's different than either of these two. And I had been looking at subscription models for a long time. I was actually on Substack for a couple of years with a whole different genre because I just wanted to see what that was behind the scenes. But it turned out to be the right vehicle for what I'm doing at the right time. That's how I landed here right now.

Sara 28:42

Well, tell us a little bit about your Substack. Yeah. Because you're using it for fiction, which a lot of authors feel like Substack is just for nonfiction. So how are you using it?

Jami 28:51

Real quick, before you answer, I want to say that you were like, I was a stay-at-home mom, and that was my thing. I think you're brilliant and good. This just proves stay-at-home moms are brilliant.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

So I just are, Jamie. They truly are.

Jami 29:06

Because we're also really industrious and resourceful. Resourceful, there's the word. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:14

Creative problem solvers is what we do.

Sara 29:17

That is true too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:18

All right. Now you answered the substack. Yeah.

Sara 29:20

Now tell us about your substack.

SPEAKER_01 29:22

Throw something at me. We will figure this out.

Sara 29:24

Pretty much.

SPEAKER_01 29:25

You know, how can I have my cake and eat it too? I will find a way. So I needed something that would check. I had a very specific list. I'm going to make a new series, not a book, a series. I've already got it planned out in my head. I already know my characters, my setting, my time. I had, I already knew what I was going to make. But where, how do I want to make it? I don't want to pursue a trad publisher with this. I love my freedom and my autonomy. So I already know this. I already knew a lot of things. But what we do as authors is we're making decisions all day long. That's all we do, is decisions. They never stop. So the decision is what's the right vehicle for what I'm going to do? Substack is unique for a couple of reasons. Because I played with Patreon. I played with all the other places. Where can you serialize a book and monetize it that people actually will want a part of? Right. So Patreon felt a little closed, a little tight. I was going in there looking for my authors and I couldn't see anything they were doing. They're like, here's where you pay. And I was like, okay, but how do I know if I like it? How do I know what's back there? Substack was so much more open and friendly and welcoming. And it was a lot of, here's what I'm doing, and here's all of your choices. It felt approachable, which is what I'm looking for my readers. I want them to come in and pull up a couch cushion and let's get to it and have a good time. It was approachable. And also, I think for serializing your fiction in particular, if I indie publish my books, what I generally cannot do is include pictures, illustrations, graphics. Okay. If I'm giving you a chapter, I can in Substack put all of that. I can put a graphic and I'm writing historical murder mysteries. I can draw clues at the end of every chapter if I want to in a graphic. I can add a treasure map. I can put, and I have, I've already created my character cards. You can do all the visual things in the Sub Stack that I couldn't do in it in another vehicle as well as I could do in Slipstead. So that's part of that. Also, it's similar to blogging. I know blogging. If I give you a chapter and you get to the end, you're like, oh no, she did not. You can just drop that in that comment on the spot and say so. You're getting instant reader feedback that's going to shape the next chapter that's going to shape the book. I'm including you on the journey in creating this next series. So basically, Substack is a built-in beta reader feature that nobody really talks about.

Jami 32:09

Do you put the entire book up chapter by chapter? Or do you do so many chapters and then you publish the book?

SPEAKER_01 32:18

I'll tell you my plan. Okay. Because I'm I don't have any blueprints for this. I'm I knew what I wanted to do, and I'm pushing that into Substack instead of the other way around. I'm like, no, this is what you're doing for me. Yeah, good, good. Here's what I need you to do. So normally, back in the good old days, I would draft a book in one month. I would spend a month doing all the edit layers just and running it through the editor and getting the covers. And then I would three months maybe I would have it out for sale. Because I'm going to be so busy this year, I need the book to be spread out over the year. My schedule's already posted in my Substack. If you go to my Substack and you go to that page, you can see every single date that a chapter is going to drop. And once a month I'm going in with video to you about where we are. Yeah. So I'm going to have the draft ahead of time. I'm going to schedule out all of my chapters. The graphics are going to take longer because I don't really work well with graphics, but I will get there. And what I want to do is give you an experience as a reader that you can't get any other way. You can't get this experience with an ebook, a paperback, an audio book. This is visual. This is different. And if Arthur Conan Doyle can do it, originally that's what you did. You dropped your chapter in the magazine in the strand, and people couldn't wait for the next chapter. It's the anti-way everyone's reading right now. I think we we don't have that kind of patience. We are scrolling, and if we can't absorb your information in three seconds, right? I know what I'm up against. It is slow reading.

Sara 33:58

I think there's a value to that too. I mean, you think about like Wordle. Wordle has one puzzle a day. They could have set it up where you can just finish one and start another, but there's one a day. And because of that, it's an appointment. People are like, oh, I get up and have a morning coffee and do my Wordle.

SPEAKER_02 34:15

Right.

Sara 34:15

Or I do it at lunch after I eat or whatever. So there is a value in limiting content. And you can make, if you can make it an experience that people plan for in their lives, I think that's valuable. Yeah. That's something that's worth working towards.

Jami 34:33

Yeah, and that element of exclusivity too.

Sara 34:36

So do people they do they have to pay to read the chapters, or is it how is your payment set up, your monetization set up?

SPEAKER_01 34:47

The first thing I did for the first quarter, so for the since January, February, and March, I dropped one of my novellas in there for free and dropped a chapter a week. I didn't push it out to the email, it just all went into the archives because I want you to have the experience before you pay. I want you to know what that's like. Do you enjoy this experience? How would you change it? And then chapter one drops in April for the behind the paywall. So the paywall is I've been advertising that with my regular readers this whole time. Everyone who's following me knows about the Dark Alley detectives. That's what I call our insider group. So if you're a Dark Alley detective, you're gonna get all of my fun things, all of the things that I've been saving up special for this new series. That's behind the paywall. You're gonna get a chapter every week. You're gonna get videos from me, the graphics, the clues, we're gonna have some fun things during the year. I've got some great things planned. I can't wait. I'm very excited. The best part of this, though, is that most of it can be scheduled ahead of time so that I can just jump in and have the fun things live and go back to whatever's happening outside of my door.

Jami 35:58

Yeah, exactly. Or in your living room or whatever. They're everywhere. They're everywhere. On my grandkids, they're everywhere.

Sara 36:06

Oh dear. So I was gonna say this is interesting because in my mind, a subscription or a like something that's coming out every week or every month, that to me could be a burdensome. Oh, I have the chapter that's due. But you have your setup where you're not gonna have to be that involved. It's it's going to run, you're gonna drop in, right? But it's going to it has a little motor on its own, it's gonna go, right? And give you the time you need.

SPEAKER_01 36:40

So there's that little bit of urgency, that motivation, but but also it's not my first rodeo. So I already know that I'm gonna finish the book. I already I don't have to worry about, oh, what if I get halfway and get stuck? That's not even an issue. And it's not just one book, it's going to be at the moment seven books, all interlocked. I'm doing a much bigger puzzle for my mystery than I've ever tried before. For me, this is a creative challenge, right? But certainly one that I can pull off. I think what I'm doing is buying myself time to pull it off.

Jami 37:12

Yeah. So once people go behind the paywall, once they pay, see just I there's something about Substack that I have a little block about. So once they pay, you have that's a different kind of branch. Like when you're sending messages or posting on Substack, there's a that's a separate thing. Is that right?

SPEAKER_01 37:35

So, how it works from my side of the dashboard, yeah, I will drop a chapter in, make it pretty, put my graphics, my clues, however I want it to be. And then I'll schedule it for a day and a time. And it will ask me, does this go to everybody? Does it go to just your free subscribers? Does it go to just your paid subscriber? I tell it where to go and who to send it to. But everything you post is going to land in your archive. So if you go to my front page, you'll see it's got four sections on it. The first section is my free newsletters, then you've got the puzzlers, and then you've got the dark alley detectives. You can see what I'm doing. Everyone can go on the archive, but some of them will have a little lock on it. And those went to the paid subscribers. You can see what I'm doing, but you can't access it unless you're one of those subscribers.

Sara 38:25

Got it, got it, got it. So it's like a little teaser. You can see a little bit of the post, but then it's locked. And then if you want access to it, yeah. So what about your puzzlers? Tell what that's what that is.

SPEAKER_01 38:37

I love my newsletter. It's one of my favorite, it's always been my very favorite thing to do. And I have a nice big readership. It got a little too big for its britches, and it wanted to break in half at some point because I couldn't fit. First of all, I have a rule. I could only send one a month. I have email overload. I and I subscribe to a lot of other authors' newsletters. I love seeing what everybody else is up to. But I always wanted to drop puzzles and games and all the fun things in there. And it just got bigger. And I thought I just, I gotta draw the line somewhere. So I went to Substack and I realized I can have my cake and eat it too. So I have my regular newsletter that goes out like it always has. And then I made a second newsletter called The Puzzler. And all the puzzles that I've been doing this, I everything from coloring pages to bookmarks to oh, the book plates that you can get your signature in, but you didn't sign it ahead of time. Everything like that, including vouchers for free audiobooks, all the fun things that you would put in a beauty bag, toss it into my monthly puzzler.

Sara 39:43

Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 39:44

So that's also what's come up.

Sara 39:47

Yeah. So people just sign like they sign up and that comes through steps. Can't say it, through Substack, they'll get the notification and then they can go look and see what's in there and download or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 40:00

Exactly. So I had I've always had my regular newsletter. If you go to my website, sign up for the newsletter, you get that monthly newsletter. If you go over to Substack and sign up, you'll get two. You'll get my regular newsletter, but you'll also get the puzzler once a month, and that'll have all your games and fun things in there.

Sara 40:18

So you're running both at the same time. You're doing, you still have your separate newsletter list that you that's separate from Substack.

SPEAKER_01 40:26

Correct. And I'm slowly encouraging people to move over. Substack is quote free at the moment, right? It's free for authors. So I'm paying a good price for where I'm at with my regular newsletter delivery. And you do get what you pay for. A lot of bells and whistles over here. Substack's pretty streamlined, but they're working on it. They have little features and upgrades all the time going on. So I'm quite content with that. I can get the newsletter to look almost identical in both places now. So my readers may or may not ever know the difference where it's coming from.

unknown 41:01

Yeah.

Sara 41:01

And do you send them out both at the same time?

SPEAKER_01 41:03

I do at the moment. I have some things running, like my birthday club at the moment. If you send for the birthday club, I cannot replicate that in Substack yet at the moment. So I will be keeping both, but I've moved slowly. I've moved some of my readership over to Substack to make it a little more manageable. But no one should, no one's getting duplicates. They're very much I'm tracking that very carefully because above all, I want my readers happy. I want them to have a good experience every month.

Jami 41:35

And I have heard that it can get tricky if you move too many people at one time from your newsletter to Substack. So doing it in increments is probably a good idea.

SPEAKER_01 41:46

And that's the same no matter where you booth though. Yeah, it's not correct. Particular Substack, you want the deliverability to keep up with what you're putting in there for sure.

Sara 41:56

Yeah. So I wanted to go back and ask a question about the graphics that you mentioned. It it sounds like I've seen your character cards. Do you create those yourself? Do you outsource at the moment?

SPEAKER_01 42:08

I am playing in Canva.

Sara 42:10

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 42:11

And I am getting some base images through there. And then I'll take them out and I'll put them back in and put them into the character card, like that you were just, for example, the character card. I'm still trying to decide because I haven't chosen covers for my new series yet. And I could be taking graphics from covers to use those as like branding graphics. And I might do that later. But at the moment, that's where I am. I am actively searching for a cover designer. If you guys want to send me something on the side there for that, I'm available. I am shopping for that at the moment. But right now, Canva does what I need it to do. And I don't pay for it. It's the free version is still working for me.

Sara 42:53

Nice. And so as you're planning this, you've got your text. Because I know this from doing the letters that I've done. You need your text, you need your graphics, you need, and you're, it sounds like you're incorporating all that. So what are your timelines for this? If somebody thought, oh, I want to do this too, what would you recommend? Because I found out that I did not allow enough time.

SPEAKER_01 43:15

The graphics do take forever. We're a lot faster with our words than our pictures, for sure. It depends where you are with your product, though, how fast you're gonna write. I think once you have your mystery written out and where all the pieces you have all of your pieces, then arranging them is not such a big deal. I've already got it, let's you schedule three months out. So you only need to have three months of materials ready at a go. And the beauty there's so many good things about Substack. One of the I can go back and edit anything I've already sent you. It won't re it won't resend to you, but my archives are gonna get nicer and nicer because I will go back once I have a cover, once I know what the branding for this new series is gonna be, I can go back. To chapter one and upgrade that and update that. I don't mind putting rough draft chapters in. Um believe me, I'm gonna sweat bullets until they're almost perfect because that's how I roll. But if I want to change chapter one and I'm already in chapter 12, yeah, I'll just drop a note at the end of chapter 12 that hey, go check out chapter one. I just made some edits if you're interested. If you sign up now and you're with me from the beginning, you'll have perks. But if you wait and maybe in July when I have my next membership drive and people will be like, oh, I'm jumping in there, they can go to the archive and just start in chapter one and could catch up either. So yeah, this works now, it works later, it works at the end of the year. If it was a great experience and we all loved it, we'll do it again with book two. And if we need to change, because pivot is what we do best, then we will deal with it then. But I'll have a book finished with a lot of great feedback, and then we'll go publish it and sell it to whoever just wanted to buy a book.

Sara 44:59

I know that you don't want to do this right now, but I was thinking if you do this process, you could take all this stuff, someone could do this, and then you're almost set up for a Kickstarter because you need all those extra graphics and things and bonuses, and you could say, get the book, get the character cards. You could be actually that could be down the line.

SPEAKER_01 45:20

Oh, it's funny that you say that because I break out in hives when someone says Kickstarter for me. That's so much work, so much work. And then I would feel so obligated to the fulfillment. Yeah. Oh dear. But all I'm creating here is a Kickstarter that just drags it out. The long game Kickstarter. I'm like, it was still the same amount of work, probably at the end of the day, but yeah, I paced myself.

Sara 45:47

Yeah, exactly. I get that, yeah. Tell us about your membership drives. How do you do that? You do you just promote the substack to your current news list? What do you do?

SPEAKER_01 45:56

I do at the moment, that's what I'm doing. I'm working with the readers that I've got, but I did plan three membership drives because they don't like just nagging everybody round the clock. So I'm like, how can I make this fun? So I did a practice membership drive last month. There's no reason why anyone should pay right now. Everything is free. But I was like, I need to go through the motions. Like I said, I'm a hands-on learner. So it was 24 hours, here's the discount. And if you sign up for this special, then I'm gonna send you a secret ballot and you're gonna name all the characters in the book. That's why I made the character cards. So I set that ballot up with the cards, and then there was a poll under each one. I told you here's the picture, here's what this person's gonna do, this is their place in the plot. Here are the names, and everybody vote. And I had my first paid subscriber from that. And I just can't tell you how much I partied because I can see the value in it. It's explaining it to the next guy what it is and how it's going to work. So my next one will be in July. I've got a I've already got something planned in Idlewild for my Idlewild series in July. I'm going to have a physical, it's not a scavenger hunt, it's more like a treasure hunt, but I'm going to be hiding paperbacks all over town for the summer. And then you're going to get in my newsletter and in Substack, you're going to get clues to where I've hidden them. And if anyone's planning a day trip up there, Sarah, then they can go find them. And then I'll have prizes attached to those books. So if you I think the membership drive I'll tie into that and say, I'm going to give you the actual, maybe the geocache coordinates or something. You can go up and then collect all the prizes. And then I always have a scavenger hunt for my birthday in September. So I'm going to put together, it's interesting because we're circling back to the Kickstarter conversation. You usually get merch together, you get book bags and pens and all that. And I've always wanted to do that. I had merch for sale on my site for a long time and realized that's really not going to work for me. But now the merch is for prizes for my readers. So I think I want to do a big birthday box. That'll be fun. I really want to do a bunch of physical goodies. But yeah, we're back to Kickstarter level work. But that's okay. It's my birthday. I'm going to do what I want.

Sara 48:30

Yeah, I was going to say if it's just once a year, that's okay. I know, right? But that's the fun thing about being an author, too, is you can come up with these wild and crazy ideas and just try it and see if it works and if you enjoy it.

Jami 48:42

Absolutely.

Sara 48:43

I love the real world scavenger hunt, especially if you write about a real location.

Jami 48:48

Like Kat Johnson, she wrote about a town in Oklahoma and a diner that had bologna sandwiches, and people were going to that diner to have bologna sandwiches. Yeah. Maybe it was fraud bologna.

Sara 49:00

I think it was something unique like that, yeah. But if you have something like that, this real world, and you can like you were saying you're creating an experience. That's an experience that people are not going to get with a lot of authors. And that is very memorable.

SPEAKER_01 49:16

I think that's what I love most of all is playing with my readers. Like I really want to do the interactive. Substack feels a little closer. I can actually they you they have chat and they have notes, things that, and it's still a wall garden. There's no ads in there, all very customizable.

Sara 49:33

So what's the difference between the the chats is just like a chat feature. You can start threads and have a conversation. But notes, what do you use notes for? Do you use notes there?

SPEAKER_01 49:42

So notes are a little bit more like their social media feed, and you can set it to show you only the people that you're following, the sub stacks that you've subscribed to, and it'll all feed directly there. And you can go in and out and see who's doing what today. Your chat is a private community, more of a private community chat with your actual subscribers. So it's more personal. So notes are a little more public. Everybody can see that. You can get organic growth through that through Substack. Other people are searching for, you know, show me the next mystery writers, who's writing fiction in here. That's I found a lot of people doing that.

Sara 50:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:18

I was able to follow them. And then that's actually, I want to, that's where the app comes in because it occurred to me that my inbox is blowing up all of a sudden. Because I kept, oh, I'm gonna follow them, and oh, I'm gonna follow them. There's a little toggle that you can turn on to your your settings and Substack, and it will send all of those posts into the app instead of your inbox.

Sara 50:40

Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_01 50:41

Your inbox is stays calm over here, and you can go into the app and everybody's waiting for you, and you can just go in there and play. And no ads and nobody else coming in. I'm almost out of social media entirely. I really think between the algorithms that you're trying to fight and the ads and all the nonsense, honestly. It's a breath of fresh air. You're just not distracted and bombarded. You just you're there for what you came for and you can actually enjoy it.

Sara 51:08

Yeah, we're very new to both of us are very new to Substack. But one thing I noticed, I did have, I was reading through the feed that you get, and I there was a post, and it was not something I was interested in. I can't remember, I think maybe it was political content. I was like, that's not why I'm coming over here. And I think that it had a place that you could say, I don't want to see posts like this. And it said we'll show you. I think it said we'll show you less of these in the future, or less posts like this from this creator or something.

SPEAKER_01 51:39

Go in and you scroll to the top, which I'm not doing any of this on my phone, mind you. I hate using my phone for anything, but I'm always on my laptop. But at the top, you can toggle back and forth between following and chosen for you. So if it if you keep it on following, you're only gonna see who you subscribe to.

unknown 51:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 51:59

Nobody else is gonna be in your feed ever.

SPEAKER_02 52:01

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 52:01

But if you're open to finding new things and you want them to look for new things for you, then you toggle it over and it'll mix it up like that. But you do have total control in Stubstack, what you're gonna see, what you don't want to see.

Sara 52:13

That's good. One more question quickly about Substack is about other authors that are on the other fiction authors. Is there a fiction author community? Do you have collaborations with people? Have you connected with people that are also authors on Substack?

SPEAKER_01 52:28

Yeah, a little bit. I haven't really applied myself to that. I know it's completely possible, and a lot of authors are already doing that. And there are groups in there that are collaborating over fiction writing and mystery. I go in there and just hit that search bar with what you're looking for, what you're interested in. And you're probably gonna find somebody already there doing it. Are they the majority? I'm not sure. There's a lot of nonfiction in there. Like you said, I think that's where this all began. But what a perfect place to be creative, though. They may change down the road. And that's another thing I've learned. Wish I'd know men, honestly. You get to a place, you get comfortable, you're all set up and you're good to go. And then they changed it, and there's nothing you can do about it. So I'm a strong advocate for having your own website no matter what.

Jami 53:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:15

No matter what. Substack feels like setting up your own website a little bit, does feel that way, but just know going in that you don't own that property. Belongs to Substat. I love that you can export everything. I as part of my regular routine to download things, I take my entire Substack and export it. It takes your subscriber list, it brings over all of your posts, it brings over all of your graphics, and that's just in case. If Substat goes away, you can import your subscriber looks right back into Mailchimp, MailOite, whoever you want. It's very easy to move things around. So they don't make it hard for you. They make it very easy for you to do that and own your things. I love that. I did not know all that. There are a lot of great resources in there too. I think you actually just had Russell Nolte on. So he's one of the gurus of Substack. So I've learned an awfully lot from him and some other places.

Jami 54:11

This has been great. Thank you so much. And we always like to ask our guests, what's the best thing you think you've done to set yourself up for success?

SPEAKER_01 54:20

I had to learn patience. I had, I always keep learning from day one. I think that's one of the joys of the job is learning something new all the time. Yeah. And trust that you will grow and that it's not going anywhere. I'll be doing this for the rest of my life. I know that already.

Sara 54:37

Thank you so much. Tell everybody where they can find you and your books and your Substack.

SPEAKER_01 54:43

Substack's pretty obvious, but I've got a website at jollytunnel.com. I'm at a substack Jolly Tunnel. It's very easy, just spell it correctly. Get there faster.

Sara 54:56

Okay, perfect. Thanks for being here, and it's been great to talk to you. You can find those links at wish I knew 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, and we will see everybody next week. Bye bye.