Best selling Canadian independent fantasy romance novelist Demi Winters joins us in this episode of the show to talk about all things relating to being a self-published fiction author - including the release of her new book, her writing process, world building, Book Tok and building community around her work, seeking help to take her work to the next level, balancing a private life with a public author persona and how she's running her independent author business.... as a business! (she even has an Etsy shop centered around her work!).
And, as has been a bit of an accidental theme this season, we also talk about two major career pivots she's taken to arrive at author (she has a PhD in the sciences and is a former food blogger!)
This is a great episode for creatives who...
This episode is brought to you by our Premium Subscriber Community on Patreon and Buzzsprout
For a summary of this episode and all the links mentioned please visit:
Episode152: Creative Canadian: Author Demi Winters
You can find Demi at demiwinters.com and on Instagram and TikTok as @demiwinterwrites. You can also visit her Etsy Shop.
You can find Melissa at finelimedesigns.com, finelimeillustrations.com or on Instagram @finelimedesigns.
You can connect with the podcast on:
For a list of all available episodes, please visit:
And She Looked Up Creative Hour Podcast
Each week The And She Looked Up Podcast sits down with inspiring Canadian women who create for a living. We talk about their creative journeys and their best business tips, as well as the creative and business mindset issues all creative entrepreneurs struggle with. This podcast is for Canadian artists, makers and creators who want to find a way to make a living doing what they love.
Your host, Melissa Hartfiel (@finelimedesigns), left a 20 year career in corporate retail and has been happily self-employed as a working creative since 2010. She's a graphic designer, writer and illustrator as well as the co-founder of a multi-six figure a year business in the digital content space. She resides just outside of Vancouver, BC.
Best selling Canadian independent fantasy romance novelist Demi Winters joins us in this episode of the show to talk about all things relating to being a self-published fiction author - including the release of her new book, her writing process, world building, Book Tok and building community around her work, seeking help to take her work to the next level, balancing a private life with a public author persona and how she's running her independent author business.... as a business! (she even has an Etsy shop centered around her work!).
And, as has been a bit of an accidental theme this season, we also talk about two major career pivots she's taken to arrive at author (she has a PhD in the sciences and is a former food blogger!)
This is a great episode for creatives who...
This episode is brought to you by our Premium Subscriber Community on Patreon and Buzzsprout
For a summary of this episode and all the links mentioned please visit:
Episode152: Creative Canadian: Author Demi Winters
You can find Demi at demiwinters.com and on Instagram and TikTok as @demiwinterwrites. You can also visit her Etsy Shop.
You can find Melissa at finelimedesigns.com, finelimeillustrations.com or on Instagram @finelimedesigns.
You can connect with the podcast on:
For a list of all available episodes, please visit:
And She Looked Up Creative Hour Podcast
Each week The And She Looked Up Podcast sits down with inspiring Canadian women who create for a living. We talk about their creative journeys and their best business tips, as well as the creative and business mindset issues all creative entrepreneurs struggle with. This podcast is for Canadian artists, makers and creators who want to find a way to make a living doing what they love.
Your host, Melissa Hartfiel (@finelimedesigns), left a 20 year career in corporate retail and has been happily self-employed as a working creative since 2010. She's a graphic designer, writer and illustrator as well as the co-founder of a multi-six figure a year business in the digital content space. She resides just outside of Vancouver, BC.
This week's episode of the and she Looked Up podcast is brought to you by our premium subscriber community on Patreon and Buzzsprout. Their ongoing financial support of the show ensures I can continue to bring the podcast to you. Want to help out? Head over to patreoncom forward slash and she looked up. That's patreoncom, forward slash and she looked up. There. You can join the community for free or you can choose to be a premium supporter for $450 a month, and that's in Canadian dollars. Paid supporters get access to a monthly exclusive podcast episode only available to premium subscribers. You can also click the Support the Show link in the episode notes on your podcast player to support us via Buzzsprout, where you will also get access to each month's exclusive premium supporter episode. I can't tell you how much I appreciate all our monthly supporters. They are the engine that keeps the podcast running and they're a pretty cool bunch too. And now let's get on with the show.
Speaker 1:Welcome to the and she Looked Up podcast. Each week we sit down with inspiring Canadian women who create for a living. We talk about their creative journeys and their best business tips, as well as the creative and business mindset issues all creative entrepreneurs struggle with. I'm your host, melissa Hartfield and, after leaving a 20-year career in corporate retail, I've been happily self-employed for 12 years. I'm a graphic designer, an illustrator and a multi-six figure year entrepreneur in the digital content space. This podcast is for the artists, the makers and the creatives who want to find a way to make a living doing what they love.
Speaker 1:Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of the and she Looked Up podcast. As always, I am your host, melissa, and this week I am very excited because I am inviting our first fiction author onto the show. My guest this week is fantasy romance novelist Demi Winters. Welcome to the show, demi. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be talking to you today because, yeah, like I said, you're the first. We've had other writers on the show, but you are the first fiction novelist and so this is going to be interesting. You are also self-published, which I think a lot of people are very interested in, so this should be a great conversation.
Speaker 1:But for those of you who do not know Demi, she is the fantasy romance author behind the novel Road of Bones, and her upcoming book, kingdom of Claw, is coming out later this month. It will probably actually already be out by the time this podcast airs, but you can pre-order it now on Amazon. She's a lover of all things fairy tales, fantasy and romance and she lives in here in BC with her husband and two kids and, when she's not busy, brainstorming fantastical worlds and morally gray love interests. I love that line. Demi loves reading and cooking, so we are going to dive in, because she has a very interesting half that led her to be coming an author, so I think people are going to be interested in hearing about that. So, before we go too far, demi Winters is your pen name, so that's right. So your real name is Denise, and so I may slip up because I've known Denise for a while and so I might call her Denise here in there.
Speaker 2:But I actually sometimes, when people call me Demi, I have a moment of oh, that's me, like I'm used to it online but on phone calls and whatever In person, yeah, it's kind of throws me so sometimes.
Speaker 1:So the first question I ask everyone who comes on the show is did you feel like you were creative as a kid growing up?
Speaker 2:Definitely. I spent many hours coloring and drawing and I actually used to write short stories when I was like barely able to write, basically, and so I had this like series growing up called Little Penguin. And Little Penguin would have all sorts of adventures, including climbing Mount Everest, which slid down on his backpack. I love it. The mind of like a six year old, yeah. So I was always into particularly the drawing part of things, but later on the storytelling was more interesting to me, although I was never able to finish anything. It was always just like these rambling starts and I would just like run out of ideas or like I had no idea where it was going, so I just stop. So I have lots of collections of like two to three chapter books.
Speaker 1:I feel like I was very similar as a kid I wrote a Mr man. Do you remember the Mr man and the Miss Books? I wrote a couple of those when I was six or seven and I illustrated them.
Speaker 2:I made up my own character.
Speaker 1:So I still have one of them somewhere, but I love the penguin. That's adorable Sliding on the bottom of Everest. But you actually went down a completely different path. When you first started your career, you went into the sciences, not the arts at all. So maybe tell us a little bit about because you've had a bit of a progression to get to where you are today. Maybe tell us a little bit about when did the writing kind of disappear? Or maybe it didn't disappear, maybe it's always been there and you decided to do something more serious as a grown-up.
Speaker 2:I guess when I went into university there was just no time, there was no extra mental space, it was just very, very filled with academic pursuits. I went into sciences, I think like it's so hard to remember. I think I was interested in medicine but I realized pretty quickly that I don't have the stomach to be a doctor. I don't think I could have that sort of responsibility on my shoulders. So I kind of meandering through the sciences and found my way to biology. I just got this appreciation for the intricacies of everything like nature and the human body and just how things have evolved. So I just kind of kept following my interests and that's how I went from the hobby of writing into science.
Speaker 1:Did you write at all while you were in university, just like as a stress relief, or did it get pushed?
Speaker 2:No, I never wrote in university. I didn't pick up writing until like two years ago. I didn't write anything, and I also wasn't like I didn't read very much either. I think I would read maybe five books a year. But then, three or four years ago, I got really into reading, and I think that's how, that's what led me into writing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense because you went on and did like post-grad work. You have your doctorate, if I remember right. Yeah, you have. So you did a lot.
Speaker 2:You were in school for a while. I was in school forever and yeah, so I went in and I finished my undergrad and I was like I need an advanced degree if I want to get a job in any field of biology. So I went in to do my masters and I was just pulled into the world of science. I just really there's actually a lot of creativity in science in terms of just coming up with experiments and thinking of ways to prove something or disprove something. And, yeah, I would say like the brightest minds in science are very creative. So I really loved that side of it and I decided to switch to do my PhD.
Speaker 2:I was young and like enthusiastic and possibly not like thinking through after graduating, because I knew I didn't want to stay in academics and there's not a whole lot of jobs in industry and anyway, you know, I think in some ways I was procrastinating and so, yeah, like halfway through I found myself kind of burnt out and a little bit jaded about it, like there's a lot of politics in science and the work ethic is intense, it's very, very intense, and so I was kind of like, oh, what have I? What have I got myself into here? And then I found food blogging kind of as like a creative outlet, because I found that I was missing that in the sciences at that point.
Speaker 1:That's right. So you went on to start a food blog. Did you do that while you were still working on your PhD, or was it like something you did after to kind of just decompress?
Speaker 2:No, I was. I was doing it like strictly as a hobby while I was in my PhD and kind of also like teaching myself how to cook, because I wasn't that good at cooking. So it was like experimenting with different cuisines and just like having fun and learning how to take photos. It was all very just hobby side project until I had my baby and I was like one of the lucky PhD students who had this scholarship that gave me a full year of paid maternity leave. Oh nice, that's unheard of. Yeah. So I took that year and I don't know if this is like bad to say, but I realized that being a stay at home mom wasn't really for me.
Speaker 1:I was bad to say.
Speaker 2:You know, go, go, go, go. And then I mean I loved, you know, being with my baby and spending time, but I needed something for me as well. So I started looking at food blogging more seriously because pinch of yam was coming out with their income reports and I was like, wow, people are making money, and like good money, at food blogging. So I started to think maybe I could do that as well and that could be like an alternate, like an escape route kind of from the sciences which I was. I was absolutely going to finish my PhD, no matter what. But I knew I, just I I was very wary of the career trajectory and so, yeah, I was looking for kind of like an escape route and that's what food blogging was for me. So I turned my hobby into my dog, which is like a friend for me.
Speaker 1:You're not the first PhD who found solace in food blogging that we've had on the show. Actually, we had a, yeah, jan Lewandie from the big school. She has her PhD in chemistry and she went on.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's funny. I'm a baker. I feel baking and chemistry. That's like one of the big sets.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely yeah, she. She finished and for those of you want to go listen to that episode, you can. I'll put a link to it in the show notes. But she, she finished her PhD and then went to Le Cordon Bleu and Ottawa to do pastry, and I love that, yeah, so, but it's similar, similar story to yours in terms of just the career trajectory and feeling burnt out from academia and all of that, and it was a release. So I find that really fascinating. And then you had a very successful blog, Thank you, it did really well for you and it's still up and running, I think. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there have been conversations about selling it. I mean it's sweet peas and saffron. For those who are, yes, I don't, I, we can say it I'm. At first I was trying to keep like my pen name separate from my legal name, but now I'm just like it's impossible. So, yeah, so we have considered selling sweet peas and saffron, because I haven't updated it in over a year at this point and but my husband was like, you know, let's just keep it and you know it still gets page views and still gets Google traffic and it's been like an incredible kind of parachute or like cushion, or, you know, if this writing thing doesn't pan out, at least you know we still have the blog income. So it's a way to diversify, I suppose.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it's still. It's an income property still. So in that sense, which is which is really nice when you are trying to do something completely brand new, which is essentially what you decided to do Like what? So I think a lot of people were like where did she go? So what was what? What made you decide that? You know what? I think I've had enough of this for now and I really want to try this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it was like it was like a slow building burnout that happened. I'm still kind of like not 100% sure what happened, to be honest, and I think, like I have been working with like a therapist and I think I have undiagnosed ADHD, so I like hyper, hyper fixate on something, but then when something else catches my attention, it is like impossible to keep going with this. And on the blog side of things, for a long time I was focusing on search engine optimization, so like very basic how to recipes, and I was just totally losing all the creative spark. It just wasn't bringing, it wasn't filling my cup, it wasn't bringing me the joy that it used to. It was kind of just repetitive and and the real thing that killed me. And this will sound very privileged, but it didn't matter if I showed up to work. The blog was still earning income, so I could put in a 12 hour day or I could not show up at all and it wouldn't really feel like it made a difference and so it's kind of lost that excitement. You know, when you're building something and you're watching it grow and grow and grow, I just it was just it was staying the same for years and I'm extremely grateful it was. It was very successful, it allowed my family to move from Calgary to Victoria and my husband to quit his job and like it just gave us so much freedom. So I'm very grateful.
Speaker 2:But I just got to a point where I couldn't seem to reinvigorate myself. Like I tried different types of recipes and I tried, you know, going into like air fryer or instant pot and I tried different avenues to like reignite my passion, but then when I found writing, it was like oh, I couldn't think of anything else. And it was like the early days of food blogging again for me, where once I latched onto it, there was no going back. Unfortunately, and I do feel weird and kind of guilty about how I left food blogging, I did did think it was going to be hiatus and I would pop back in and be like surprise.
Speaker 2:And now at this point I just I don't know. I think about, you know, putting up a post. Being like this is what I'm doing now, but I also am just kind of the thought of interacting with everybody and stuff. It just makes me feel I'm not. It feels like it's a big thing going to be, a big thing which maybe this is all in my mind just building it up, but yeah, so I kind of just left, which is not probably out the best way to do things, but yeah, that's how.
Speaker 1:I, I totally get that and I think you said a lot of things in there that I think. Just you know, potentially being undiagnosed with ADHD which I do not think is uncommon for women over a certain age just because it wasn't a thing when we were younger. And it looks so different, all all neurodiverse I don't know what the right word to say is like conditions, that sounds weird, but you know all they all present so differently in women than they do in men and I think a lot of women just kind of slipped through the cracks, not necessarily knowing that there was. I don't want to say anything because I don't think I think things like being on the spectrum or having ADHD are in some ways just as much a benefit as potentially, you know, like see the world differently and there's, there's something really special about that, so it's what makes the world interesting. So yeah, that doesn't surprise me. I've had so many people on the show who have been late diagnosis of things like that.
Speaker 2:So I'm not officially diagnosed, but both of my kids are, and both boys, and it's so obvious in them.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it was, like you know, six, seven years old. We knew, I mean, we didn't know for our youngest but for our mean, for our oldest but for our youngest week, because we had been through it with our oldest we were like, oh yeah, clearly. So we got it with, they've been diagnosed, like no problem. And then my, because it's genetic, my husband and I start looking at each other. Is it you or is it me? I think both of us. But like my, I mean I haven't seen the specialist yet, I'm on the waitlist or whatever.
Speaker 2:But like I do not have scattered thoughts or lack of focus or hyperactivity or any of those classic symptoms, I do get the overwhelm. I get like I have problems with loud noises. They just exacerbate, exacerbate my like I have to just leave, I can't, and I get the hyper focus. So, yeah, like the hyper focus has given me a success in my life, exactly, yeah, yeah. But like I didn't want to leave blogging, it just became this thing that I was like this thing's in control, my brain is in control, I'm just following, yeah.
Speaker 1:Tell me, I'm very similar. When something else grabs my attention, the other, all the other things, no matter how much I love them just it's like, yeah, they, they're done. Yeah, so I get that for sure. Yeah, and I can see how, going back after such a long absence, I feel I think I would have some anxiety about posting something, just knowing what might come at me people having questions and wanting to talk and all of that can be a lot.
Speaker 2:So and I think it comes also to like how I used to run my food blog in terms of I really put myself out there on social media and I shared like personal things and there was a deep level of kind of like bonding with my readers in some ways, and I do think that contributed to my burnout like significantly. So like I've approached being an author in a completely different way and just having more of a barrier between myself and my readers, it's like a extra layer of protection and yeah. So, yeah, I think that going back to that, going back to the food blog, where I was like sharing deeply personal things, that's also probably contributing to my anxiety, because I haven't really been doing that lately. Yeah, it feels very much like you're exposing yourself and yeah, so when did you?
Speaker 1:start to feel the pull to write again. Like what was it that kind of made you be like? Oh yeah, I used to write. I think I'd like to do that again.
Speaker 2:And it was like a light bulb moment, like a switch being flipped on that I couldn't flip back. So I remembered so clearly. I was walking with my mom and I can't remember if I was either, you know, gushing about the latest book that I had read, because at that point I was very deep into like reading and reading and I was struggling with the blog. At that point it could have been that I was complaining about the blog or something, but I can't quite remember. And she said you know, I always thought you would be a writer when you were grown up because you loved writing so much as a child. And I just was like bing light bulb.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I went home and I couldn't stop thinking about it and I was like I'm gonna write a book. It was kind of always on my bucket list. Yeah, all of a sudden, it was this thing that I couldn't shake. And so I started thinking about it more and more and investigating how one even writes a story, because, like I said, I never used to finish them before and it just kind of snowballed from there.
Speaker 1:And you are writing in the fantasy romance genre. There's some Viking themes that run through what you write and everything. What drew you to that? Was that something you were heavily reading at the time, or something you've always loved, or how did that?
Speaker 2:So I read a lot of fantasy as a kid but there was always something kind of like I was always never felt connected to the characters, for one thing, and they often kind of read as like a little dry the ones that I was reading, and so I loved the genre, I loved the like escape into another world, but I never really connected to them until when I was blogging. I used to listen to audiobooks while I did my food photography and I listened to Sarah J Mass A Court of Thorns and Roses and it kind of pulled me back into that world and it was just. It went from, it was just so easy to listen to and so fun and it still gave me that feeling of like being pulled into a different world. But I connected with her characters in a way that I never did with other fantasy books and so I love that. So that got me into like fantasy again, but I couldn't find anything that really gave me that same feeling as reading her book.
Speaker 2:I have since then like gone down the rabbit hole with book talk and I've read hundreds of books and so, like I have since found some like really great authors. But yeah, that was like the catalyst for me getting kind of pulled into romantic fantasy or romanticy. There's always debates about definitions, but I so, yeah, I wanted to. I knew I wanted to write something with like world building that had like the really good world building, like the fantasy books I loved as a kid and some of the newer ones that I had read, but also with those characters that you can relate to, that feel like I still yeah, I really wanted the character element to be there as well, but Vikings that came out of left field, yeah, I was gonna say, like, is that something that you're into or is it part of your heritage?
Speaker 2:Now, I'm into Vikings. They are cool, but I will tell you, when I started writing, I was like so what? Basically, what happened is I was reading Lee Bardugo, who she wrote Shadow and Bone, thank you. Okay, you know what all the fantasy book titles are often like, very like shadow and ash, and get them confused. Okay, so Lee Bardugo wrote Shadow and Bone and it was like she used Russia kind of as a blueprint and it just gave out a really rich feeling of using like cultural identifiers. That helped you kind of like imagine the world and just feel really immersed, and I thought Iceland was. I think what happened is I have a weird obsession with watching drone footage of volcanoes. I don't know if you've seen these. Yes, like, the footage they get is so crazy and I think Especially at night.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's so beautiful and scary at the same time. And so I think I was watching one of those drone videos and I was like someone needs to write a book using Iceland as like the setting, and so then I got obsessed with the idea of that and then it naturally went to Vikings, and I'm really glad that I did that, because it's a little bit different from what's out there. Like everybody does kind of a medieval setting with Faye and elves and things, and so like this book is just Vikings with magic essentially, but it stands out a little more, I think, just having that little twist.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I feel like Iceland is kind of on the verge of becoming something very popular. I watched a kind of a murder mystery but kind of a crime drama on Netflix that took place in Iceland kind of, and it was so good. I just was completely absorbed in it and the scenery was such a part of the story it became almost like a character and I just thought this is really cool.
Speaker 2:It is so cool and once I went after the decision, oh Iceland, that sounds pretty cool. And I started looking into it and it was like black sand beaches and these canyons with basalt columns and glaciers with ice caves and I'm like, oh yeah, it has to be this. The only thing is I ended up adding forests to my world because there's no trees in Iceland, because the Vikings cut them all down, apparently.
Speaker 1:So this is going to be part of one of the questions I was going to ask you your series. It's known as the Ashen series, if that's right, and it's five books. That's what you're aiming for. So which came first, the idea for the story, or did you start doing the research first and then build the story? Because I'm guessing you kind of have it planned out to build the five books?
Speaker 2:So I have the five books plotted out and I'm really thankful because I worked with a developmental editor and she's like, so how does it end? And she's like you need to know how it ends. I was like, hey, fine, I'll plot it out. And I'm so glad I did that because now I can drip little things into book one that will come into play in book five, which I think as a reader it just makes it more special. But I wrote the book before I knew anything was going to be about Vikings or anything. So the research and the writing went hand in hand, because I think I had to accomplish two things with the first book, which was learn how to write a book and actually write the book. So practice was essential in crafting my skill or perfecting my skill Not that it's perfected, but so I wrote it and it was very weak Viking presence.
Speaker 2:And I just realized that I needed to have a stronger Viking presence. So then that led to more research, because I kind of realized all the little details are what make you feel immersed what they're wearing, how they speak, little details like they don't have forks and they don't eat potatoes, and random things I had no idea about, yeah, so I did a lot of research to make it feel more real.
Speaker 1:And as you started to build the world. To me that seems like the most fun part about writing a fantasy series is the actual world building. So when you started that process, how do you because you're writing five books with this world do you have something to refer to, to kind of keep everything straight? I saw on your website you've got some maps that have been done of the world and things like that. So, yeah, how do you have like a reference book or something that you add to as you build the world and that you refer back to as your writing? Or how do you keep it all in your head?
Speaker 2:Well, I can't just keep it in my head because I don't forget it, I have a document that's kind of like a Bible of sorts and mostly it's actually mostly for me to keep straight how I spell things, because words like long house and long table always trip me up and precise spelling of my made up words and things the world building really came in layers for me. So up until the last draft I was still adding things in about the foliage and the creatures and stuff. So yeah, I'm trying to think I actually just keep the creatures and the foliage and stuff in my brain, but it's not the best way to do it because even just being on book two, I have to go back to book one and double check things. But for the magic system and the history and all of the little details that I plan to kind of unravel through the series, I have a full document written out of the different deities and what offerings are made to them and, yeah, all the different levels of control of the magic system and stuff is all written out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's got to be a lot to kind of keep straight, especially if you are going really deep and trying to make it really rich and immersive. So, yeah, I've always wondered how people do that, how they keep track of it all. Yeah, so you went through a considerable amount of research and then the writing, and you said you kind of you mentioned that you hired a developmental editor to help you with the plotting and everything. How did you know you needed to do that?
Speaker 2:Well, I looked at the book as like a business from the start. Ok, and have it OK. So this comes back to like a fundamental way of running this book business. And that is that and I learned this from food blogging because there was a point when I was putting out five posts a week and that makes about six Facebook DNS sender 내가. It was bringing traffic to the blog, but not I wasn't feeling like as happy with the quality, like I didn't get to put as much quality as I wanted to in each post.
Speaker 2:And so I, from the start, I looked at this book business as well as a business and that I was not going to put this book out until I was very happy with the quality. And so, because I'm an avid reader, like my taste level is here and I knew my skill level was like way down here, and so I wrote the book and it was terrible. And then I wrote it again and I revised and revised and I just got it to a point where I was like I can't make this any better on my own. I've hit my own limitation. But like I know there are problems with it, I knew the middle was very slow and there was some issues like that and so I went to a developmental editor and I kind of looked at it like taking a course. So I went for a more expensive one and I will say that it was a little rocky in the start but then, once I learned to work with her like, I learned that her value comes through her actual Zoom calls, not the report.
Speaker 2:She has become like invaluable in my process. She looks at the story structure from a completely outside perspective and she started asking me questions I didn't know how to answer Is this a romance book or is this a fantasy book? And I'm like it's fantasy romance and she says what comes first, what's the most important thing? And I had to really think about it and I eventually said fantasy comes first, the romance comes second. And then we went from there in terms of developing an antagonist and structuring the plot so that it's like building, and it just completely changed everything, like in the story. It changed how I thought about things like conflict and tension. And the homework book she gave me were super, super helpful. And she made me watch shows like a movie, like the Fugitive, because the book is like a chase and she's like watch the Fugitive and see how they show it and I realized they always show the chaser's point of view and it builds that tension. I was like, oh, so I realized.
Speaker 2:I was missing that perspective in my book.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so do you find yourself now, whenever you read or watch something, that you're kind of looking at it from a completely different perspective?
Speaker 2:Totally, totally. I'm always, you know. I'll feel like, why do I feel disconnected from this? And then I'll think, oh, their goal has an I don't even know what their goal is Like a little bit like I'm kind of floating around here, not anchored, and yeah, so this is my science brain.
Speaker 1:And it's.
Speaker 2:I think some of my writer friends look at me like you're way too analytical about this, but it's just how my brain works.
Speaker 1:Well, I think everyone's writing process is different. So you know, I think, and we all have different things that influence how we write. So you know you do it differently, that's fine. How did you feel when you finished the first book and put it out there Like what sort of went through your mind and your heart?
Speaker 2:when that happened? Well, first of all it was like surreal, because I worked on it for two years before I put it out, and so it was like the longest blog post ever. I've never worked two years on something. At least you don't have to photograph it.
Speaker 2:Like true, no, no, yeah, so or do a video of it, yeah, but there was a lot of uncertainty because I so I personally, like I said, I wasn't going to put it out until I felt really good about what I wrote. So I knew I personally felt good about what I was putting out there and I think that made all the difference for me. Just, I didn't rush it, I didn't cut corners. It was the best I could do with my skills at that point and so I felt good putting it out. But at the same time, I was completely untested. I hadn't really, like you, get feedback from beta readers, but you're never really sure because you know they might just tell you what you want to hear, and it's different from like actual readers.
Speaker 2:So I was. I was uncertain just because I was untested. And so yeah, uncertain, but also excited and ready, ready to put it out there after two years. Yeah, because the book, the first book, Road of Bones.
Speaker 1:It's an Amazon bestseller. It's got the orange flag on it when I was looking at it last week. You've got thousands of reviews and ratings, you know four stars plus and everything Like. That's pretty great for a debut novel. Like, was that what you were expecting or did that catch you off guard? Or how did you feel about all of that?
Speaker 2:I mean, I think I hoped, but by the time for my expectations that it would be like a slow build kind of thing, especially it being like debut. For one thing, people are like more hesitant to pick up a debut yeah, especially the book one in a long fantasy series. So yeah, no, I've been. It's been really, really, really cool to see people not only reading it but like loving it. It's been really cool.
Speaker 1:Yes, I saw a completely random TikTok in my for you feed For somebody talking about your book and I was just like that's so cool, I know her. So, yeah, that was really neat, because book talk is like huge and we'll talk about that in a minute. But book two in the series Kingdom of Claw is coming out, I think February 21st. This will probably go out. This episode will probably go out A week or two after that, so it's coming up soon. And how are you feeling about that? Do you feel like the expectations are pretty high now, given how successful the first one has been, or are you? Yeah?
Speaker 2:There's like a couple of twists at the end of book one, so people are like dying for book two and yeah, so the expectations thing is a little like I'm trying to navigate that currently. But I'm glad that I had to write book two while writing book one, because they're very intertwined and I had to know how to set a lot of things up in book two. I plant a lot of little seeds in book one, so I did have.
Speaker 2:I didn't write them around the same time and by the time the Road of Bones went out, kingdom of Claw was already in its like third or fourth draft and it had been through my developmental editor and all that. So the past like six months has been me like really refining it. I do and I'm doing my final read through which is funny because last week was my final read through but here I am doing the final, final read through, and that's a good thing I did because I found a chapter had gotten like swapped. Oh no, but my arc reader, my advanced readers, got the correct file, but like I was gonna hand this off to my audio book people and then I realized an entire chapter was missing.
Speaker 1:So anyways, good thing I'm paranoid Good thing to double check and triple check, and triple check. Anyway, yeah, I was reading it and I'm feeling.
Speaker 2:I'm feeling good about it, like I'm happy with it. I feel like inside, like this is what I had envisioned and that's gonna give me peace of mind, like if someone doesn't like it, then it's just not for them, because book readers are so subjective.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yes. Yes, just because one person doesn't like it doesn't mean somebody won't love it. It's yeah. You mentioned a little earlier in the interview that you started this to be a business from the get-go and I think, particularly as someone who's self-published, I feel like if you want to be self-published, you have to be ready to embrace being a business owner as well as a writer, because nobody else is helping you. It's all on you right to either hire the people you need to help you with certain pieces of it and to do your marketing, and you have to wear all the hats in what you're doing. How did you learn to do all this? Because, watching you from the outside, it looks like you've been doing this for years and I know you haven't. So how did you? When you decided you wanted to do this and you were like I'm going to make this business, where did you go to get help and to figure this out and learn how to become a self-published author?
Speaker 2:So I did take a course and that got me so far. But the real help has come from other authors. So like meeting other authors and interacting with them in discord groups, that has been huge for just teaching the technical side of things. In terms of marketing, I think I had a real leg up because of the food blog. I've been on social media for like 10 years. I know how to promote myself. It's a bit different with the book than with the food blog, because the food blog you're trying to get them to go to the blog versus the book you're trying to. I wouldn't say I'm pushing them to Amazon. I'm making them aware of the product more so than anything. But I think for marketing it really helped that I was on book talk for like two years before I even started writing the book. So by the time it went out I'd been on there for four years.
Speaker 2:I'd seen a lot of authors stick their foot in their mouths and get whatever and I saw people who made entire careers from a TikTok just like being successful in their marketing and getting people to be aware of their books. So a year before I published I started my social media accounts and I started playing around and sharing excerpts from my work in progress, and I think that helped me gain a following. But not only that, but gain readers as followers, not other authors, which is something that I did see. A lot of authors doing is just sharing their writing, updates, their writing process and, not to be harsh, but nobody cares about your work in progress when you're not published and you don't have word of mouth. So you have to get them to follow you for other reasons, and so I would post about books that I was reading and try out different hooks, different video styles, and so I felt like I had a pretty good handle on it by the time the book was published.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, because I think when I found you, book one hadn't quite come out yet, but you had a sizable Instagram following, which is where I found you first, and I was like how did you do that?
Speaker 2:I mean, I'll say it's like partly luck, but also like really paying attention to what performs and so real, really, really performing. For a while there We'll just like go viral. And I got a bunch of followers and I expected, like when I made that switch from posting about kind of like I always post a bit about my book, but I also sprinkled in you know other books that I was reading in the genre and like common tropes and you know more general book things, and I was like expecting that when I switched to being pretty well all about my book, that I was going to lose a lot of followers, but somehow I haven't. So thank you guys for sticking around. I'm surprised.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that kind of makes sense, though, because readers are book readers are a different crowd than food blog readers. I think you know they genuinely love not just reading, but just books, like they love hearing about whether it's your book or books you're reading, like I think. Like I love hearing what other people are reading, but I also love hearing the authors that I love talk about what they're working on, like I think it's just a yeah, and book.
Speaker 2:Readers are very voracious, like they have big appetites. People on talk are reading like like 20 books a month, which I'm not sure if they're how they're doing it. I mean that is amazing. I can manage up, you know, 12 a month, which is pretty it's still a lot a lot. It's a lot, and I'll tell you, I don't watch TV. I all my free time is spent reading. Essentially I mean moming as well, but like, yeah, I read for hours every night. I mean mostly audiobooks too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that audiobooks helps, because you can get chores and things done while you're listening or you can drive somewhere while you're listening, I could order one for you and cook dinner or whatever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I read four last month and that was a big number for me, but I did, I did. I read seven last year and that was just pathetic for me, like. So I tend to go through spurts like we're all read voraciously and then I kind of pull back for a bit. But you this is what I find so fascinating, because I am so interested in like building communities around what we do as creatives, because I think that's really the way to connect with. Whether you're a writer or an artist or a musician, like it's. It's those, that community that you build around you, and they, in some ways, they do a lot of your marketing for you, because they're the ones who talk about you and everything. So, was that really on your mind when you started? This was like growing more of it, because I feel like in food blogging, the emphasis isn't as much on community as maybe it could be.
Speaker 2:It's actually kind of like interesting that you say that. So, with my food blog, I was extremely focused on community building. You were, yes, my Facebook group, but I also think that it's a reason that I burned out, Because you go from feeling like energized from it. I went from being energized to feeling like I owed them my time constantly, and when I wasn't able to show up, there was a lot of guilt, and so I've actually kind of approached the authoring thing like with more of a veil between me and the readers. I created my Facebook group just so that they have a place if they want to talk about the book.
Speaker 2:I did consider making a Discord server. Well, I have one for my advanced readers, but I just I'm trying to do less but better. I have the essentialism book and so that their tagline is less but better, and that is how I'm trying to do this whole author thing, like compared to the food blog just less but better. And so I decided I'm just going to have the Facebook group, even though a lot of young people don't have Facebook at all, which still kind of blows my mind but at least if they want a place to talk about the book is there. Yeah, the thing that I'm doing is like I post when I'm feeling inspired and I'm not forcing it. Luckily, right now I'm feeling inspired to be posting on social media and interacting with people, but if I'm ever not feeling like it, I just don't beat myself up about it.
Speaker 1:So yeah, that's my very yeah, it's a very fine line to to walk. I completely get that. You've you just mentioned your Facebook group. You have Demi's crew and you've got on your website you've got character art and maps and things that have been drawn. Were those? Are those like fan art or were they things that you actually commissioned, or a bit of both their commissions? Okay, they're very cool.
Speaker 2:Work with a lot of artists to create portraits and scene art, and that is another thing I have to thank the food blog for, because it's given me, like, the financial means that I can't commission these artworks. So, yeah, like I know we were going to talk about finances, but maybe this is a good segue that I did have to invest quite a bit in terms of author editing and, you know, cover design, and I did pay for all of this art to be commissioned as well, and I just have to, like acknowledge that I'm extremely privileged that I have this blog that was generating income in the background and allowing me to write full time and pay for these things. But in the six months that the book has been published, it has, you know, more than broken. Even so, it was a. It definitely gave me a leg up over people who have to like what is it called?
Speaker 1:when they bootstrap or bootstrap, yeah, yeah, when you're starting from scratch. Basically.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. There's no way I could have pulled this off if I didn't have that like cushion from the food blog.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure. I mean the food blog gave you the means. But I mean you can't discredit the amount of work you put into building that food blog into something that could give you the means to do this. So you know it's still your hard work that went into being able to make this all happen. So, and that's really awesome that it's all that you've broken even at this point. So that's yeah, that's great.
Speaker 2:I think I think it took about three, maybe four months to break even, and then and then after that it's been on top, which is good. My husband has been so ridiculously supportive of all of that he's just he's just always along for the ride. I think I'm like losing my mind. And he's just like no, I know you're going to do it. And then my parents are all surprised when you know this happens. And then Ben's like I knew you were going to do it. That's awesome. I love it.
Speaker 1:I love hearing when somebody has a really supportive partner and is just like you know, just, they just assume you're going to do it because that's who you are and you're going to do it and they know you can. So they often have more faith than us, than we have in ourselves.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think like that was like two years of writing this book and like paying for commissions. She's like okay, we got to start generating some income soon.
Speaker 1:Yes, and you? You so, first of all because you're self-published, you are. You sell on Amazon, you sell through your website, I believe Do you? Are you? Are you in bookstore like can people, can libraries and bookstores order your books to sell if people request them?
Speaker 2:Are you, are you set up to do that, or yeah, so the main website that drives income is is Amazon, through their KDP I think it's called Kindle Direct Program. So you know, publishing through them is as simple as uploading a few files and like selecting all the right things. So yeah, I have. My book is in the Kindle Unlimited Program, so that means it's exclusive to Amazon, so you can only get it on Amazon. You can either purchase the Kindle book outright or you can read it through their Kindle Unlimited Program, which is, I think it's like $10 a month.
Speaker 1:And then like that yeah.
Speaker 2:Like all the books in the library. It's a really great way for people to take a chance on a new author because you can read, you know 10 pages and be like, oh, this writing style is not for me and you've invested nothing, but you know 10 pages worth of time and get a new book. It's yeah, it's great, it's like the library, but you know faster. So Amazon is like my primary, my primary source of income. But the book is also uploaded to IngramSpark, which means it can be carried in other retailers like Barnes, noble.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, indigo has not. It's not on their website, which I've talked to other authors, and it did just show up for them, so I don't know who. I got an email, but so, yeah, the limitation with being self-published is, unless you are huge, huge, huge, your book is never going to be physically carried in store. So they have the option to carry my book, but mostly people will just order it from their website. But I can say that I now have a literary agent, so I thought that, yeah, I might change soon. Hopefully we'll also be able to get it into foreign markets, and because I was starting to get emails from Germany and Spain and I was like I don't want to navigate this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, because then you get into translations and things like that, which is a whole other level, I would guess.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know exactly what the future will hold, but we will see.
Speaker 1:But you also have Merch, which I think this is another thing I find fascinating with self-published authors is a lot of them are going down the Merch Avenue as another revenue stream. So you have a net-sea shop where you sell stuff related to the books.
Speaker 2:What made you decide to start that, Like just I was getting a lot of requests for signed books, which is something I didn't really. From a reader's perspective, I feel like there's two types of readers. There's the people who just have all the books, and then there's the people who want the special editions and signed by the author and all that. And so if it hadn't been for people asking where can I get a signed book, we probably wouldn't have done it. But so, yeah, we have signed books in our Etsy store. And then I'll admit, this was purely me procrastinating. I got socks designed and enameled hands. This was purely me not wanting to write, just getting down, going down rabbit holes. That's all it was. But yeah, it was fun. And now, because I have new book covers, we are doing bundles and things like that and people are interested. Even though it's really expensive to ship through Etsy, people are going for them. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean books are heavy they are. And being in Canada compared to being in the US yeah, mailing in the US is so much cheaper, I know it's so hard for smaller businesses in Canada to compete just on the shipping alone.
Speaker 1:I deal with it every day in my business and I try to keep. I'm always thinking about weight whenever I create anything new. It's like how heavy is this going to be?
Speaker 2:I can see Washington State from my living room window. So I'm like, oh you know, I just Crazy, crazy, just that distance makes such a difference.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, no, that's really cool that you've gone down that road. And I listened to I've mentioned her on the show before I listened to the Creative Pen podcast with Joanna Penn. She's a self-published author of fiction and nonfiction and she's been podcasting for I think she's got like 700 and something episodes. She's been around forever and she talks about the craft of writing but also the business of being a self-published author, and she's going through the whole Kickstarter thing right now creating these beautiful hand-bound or guilt-edged special editions of her books and she's been so sort of flabbergasted by the results of how receptive people are to this and it's kind of a whole new stream for her Because she's been around. She has lots of books and quite a following at this point. But, yeah, I just find it really interesting to see how everybody is, how people manage the business of writing. So, before we wrap up, where do you want to take this? Where do you see yourself going with this? You've got three more books to do.
Speaker 2:I guess that's kind of my goal for now is just to finish the books. I don't have other ideas like rattling around up there. I just seem to have the capacity for one thing at a time. Yeah, I don't really have any huge goals beyond finishing the series. Like I said, I was running this as a business but I'm also just kind of seeing where it takes me being really open to the opportunities that present themselves. So yeah, I mean, I hope after five books I still have the passion to keep, maybe start a new series or who knows? It's really hard to say.
Speaker 1:I find the more you create, the more ideas come to you. Yeah.
Speaker 2:One thing I noticed is, as soon as I started writing, ideas don't just come to me. Normally I have to sit down and brainstorm scenes and characters and storylines, but as soon as you open your mind to ideas as soon as I decided I wanted to write a book then ideas didn't start randomly coming to me. They won't amount to anything until I actually sit down and plan them out, but yeah, it's almost like being open to ideas is important too.
Speaker 1:No, I totally agree, and there's just something about and I'm very similar it's not until I sit down and physically start to do the thing whether it's sketching or writing something or just that's when all the things start percolating in my brain and it comes to me. But if I don't sit down and make the time to do that, then I never have any ideas.
Speaker 2:I feel like I'm creatively dried up, so I have to hear that you're not alone, because I have other friends who are like this story idea just won't leave me alone and I'm like how do I get that? Can I have?
Speaker 1:so much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's when you have to sit down and make any ideas and then be paralyzed with indecision, so maybe it's not always a good thing. Yeah that's true too.
Speaker 1:So book three is probably net. Have you started writing it already, or are you on the path or taking a break?
Speaker 2:My next book will be actually not one of the main five, it'll be a novella between book two and three, so I hope to have that ready to put out in the fall. The reason it is these books ended up being really long and really complicated and I just needed to write something short. And not only that, but I anticipate book three will take a while to write, so it's like I want to have something out there for readers in the meantime. But yeah, so I haven't started writing book three, but I do have it mapped out, and I haven't mapped out in pretty good detail, although I have a tendency to think I can fit more in a book than is feasible. So I think I'm going to have to cut an entire point of view because I'm like, yeah, kingdom of Claw ended up being like 700 pages, and then I thought I could add another point of view on top of that. I don't know what I was thinking. So, yeah, it's going to require some you know Snipping, yeah.
Speaker 1:So Kingdom of Claw is out very shortly, if it's not already out when this goes. Where can people find it Amazon, I'm assuming and where can they find you online and where can they find your shop? Tell us where we can find you out there in the world of the internet.
Speaker 2:All right, all the books are. You know the digital books are exclusive to Amazon and hopefully I can get them in Canadian bookstores this year. But yeah, so the main place is Amazon and I'm mainly on Instagram, but I also am on TikTok. I just have to be careful, because TikTok can just suck you in and then like four hours have gone by. I'm very mindful of how much time I spend on TikTok and I've also kind of been on threads Like I can't figure out how I feel about threads.
Speaker 1:I'm like sometimes I get sucked in and sometimes I'm just like this is worse than Twitter and I get irritated and I go away, and I just can't figure out how I feel about it.
Speaker 2:There was like a few golden months when it was just fun and there was like memes and it was humor and happiness, and then all the controversy sneaked in. I'm pretty, you know, I got to mute some Mute, mute yes.
Speaker 1:I've been very generous with the mute button on threads. Yeah, it was. It was great in the first few months. It was just like oh, this is like Twitter back in 2009, when it was fun For the toxic. Yeah, exactly, oh, that's great. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show today. This was such an interesting interview. I really wanted to pick your brain for selfish reasons as well, but that's one of the perks of having a podcast is that I can do that sometimes.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, it was great to have you on the show and for those of you who have not discovered Denise or Demi yet, you can find her on her website. We'll put links to all of this in the show notes, but it is demiwinterzcom where you can go to learn more, and she's got links to everywhere that you can purchase and also get socks and enamel pins if you want.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much and all in Raven socks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, or you want to get a signed book, and if fantasy romance is your genre that you love to read, then you definitely need to check her out. So, yes, thanks again for coming on the show. It has been great having you here. It was great to catch up and for all of you listening. Thank you so much for being here and we will be back in another two weeks with another brand new episode, so we will talk to you all then. Thank you so much for joining us for the and she Looked Up creative hour.
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