Kobo ReWriting Life Podcast – 10 – The Heroine's Journey with Gail Carriger

Episode Transcript

Transcription by www.speechpad.com

Tara: Hey, writers. You're listening to the "Kobo ReWriting Life Podcast," where we highlight an episode from our backlist that will bring you insights and inspiration for growing your self-publishing business. I'm your host, Tara Cremin, director of Kobo Writing Life.

For this episode, I've picked a conversation from 2020 with Gail Carriger about "The Heroine's Journey." Gail takes a look at the storytelling device by the same name, and how it appears throughout the literary canon and pop culture. She also talks to us about her writing process and just the publishing industry in general. I hope you enjoy.

Stephanie: Hey, writers, you are listening to the "Kobo Writing Life" podcast, where we bring you insights and inspiration for growing your self-publishing business. We're your hosts. I'm Stephanie.

Joni: And I'm Joni.

Stephanie: So, this week on the podcast, we talk to Gail Carriger. She has multiple New York Times bestsellers and over a million books in print in dozens of different languages. She writes comedies of manners mixed with urban fantasy and sexy queer joy as G.L. Carriger. Her best-known books include The Parasol Protectorate and The Finishing School series. She was once an archaeologist and is fond of shoes, octopuses, and tea. I learned a lot in this interview.

Joni: Gail Carriger was a really, really fun interviewee as well. She is super knowledgeable. She has a ton of experience across a breadth of trad publishing, self-publishing. She talks a lot about craft. Her latest book is called "The Heroine's Journey" and is a really, really interesting book at storytelling. She ties in a little bit of Greek mythology, which I personally love. So, we talked about that as well. She gave some really interesting insights in marketing as well.

Stephanie: Yeah, she talked about how she decided to stop ads for three months and kind of see what happened when she did that, so it was really interesting to hear about. And I'm just going to say, if anyone's doing NaNoWriMo, I would definitely recommend picking up her book if you're kind of struggling like myself on how to plot a novel.

Joni: But it was really good.

Stephanie: Yeah, it was great talking to her. We hope you enjoy the interview. Thank you, Gail, for joining us on the podcast today.

Gail: Thank you so much for having me. I'm super thrilled to be here.

Stephanie: So, before we get into it, can you tell our listeners a bit about yourself?

Gail: Okay. My name is Gail Carriger, and I have been writing professionally as a full-time author for almost 10 years now. I started out in traditional publishing, and I have moved to being a hybrid author, but I mostly self-publish at least right now. And the flexibility was one of the reasons that I made that move to be able to say, "Maybe I'll change in the future." Yeah, and I write basically comedies of manners but in various different forms. I've written steampunk, urban fantasy, science fiction, and yet adult. I have a manga. I have a graphic novel adaptation.

Stephanie: So, you do have everything basically.

Gail: I have a little bit of everything.

Stephanie: So, can you tell us about how you got your start in the industry and then why you transitioned into being a hybrid author?

Gail: So, I was actually just talking about this with a friend yesterday. When I was getting started in the industry, I came up in sci-fi fantasy fandom as a hardened geek girl. So, I would go to sci-fi fantasy conventions as a fan. And so a lot of what I learned about publishing came from, sort of, writers tracks at those events, and it was very traditionally focused back then. I would date myself by telling you how long ago that was, but we're talking like the '90s and early 2000s.

And self-publishing was, kind of, a dirty term back in those days. And so I really didn't even consider it when I was first starting out. There was like an accepted one track to publication, which was short stories. And then you would write a wonderful, fabulous novel and you would be discovered by a publishing house. Often, they were even reading slush back in those days. And then you would become a great and fabulous, famous science fiction fantasy author. That was the path that you were expected to take. And so I was like, "Okay, I'll give that a try."

I am not one of those people... I have lots of author friends who say, you know, "This is the only thing I'm really good at and I was supposed to be an author." I actually have lots of career paths that I enjoy. So, I did it as a hobby initially all the way up to when I submitted "Soulless," which was my breakout novel. And I never expected to be a full-time author. I always assumed it would be something I did on the side.

Being a writer was not something that you made money at in my experience. Yeah, so then I wrote many, many books and got many, many rejections. And then eventually I wrote "Soulless" in 2008, and submitted it to slush, and got picked up out of the slush pile, and then went and found myself an agent, and went into contract negotiations forever, and eventually had a book come out that I didn't think would sell because it was too many weird genres. And then it's old and suddenly I had a career.

Joni: Before you were a writer, you were an archaeologist, is that right?

Gail: That's right. I was about two years out from getting my PhD when "Soulless" sold and then when "Changeless" hit the New York Times and the sort of seed change happened at that juncture when that book basically broke out, which was the second book in the series. And then eventually I was just forced to pick between the two because in order to keep the momentum going writing wise, I couldn't also write a PhD thesis and teach university students. And so eventually I was like, "Okay, I guess we'll give the writing thing a try." And I went to my PhD professor and I was like, "Could I take a hiatus for a bit?" And 10 years later, she was like, "Are you ever... Your desk is still here."

Stephanie: She even left your desk.

Gail: Yeah, I actually went back and taught a couple of courses as an adjunct faculty member, because when you become a specialist and eventually, you're the only person qualified to teach things in the area or whatever, and I was like, "Sure, I'll come back and teach." And occasionally I still get a ping for a consult on areas of my expertise, so to speak, but I don't go to the field anymore or anything like that.

Stephanie: That's very cool. So, what novel did you decide to self-publish?

Gail: So, I self-published short stories first. So, I had a bunch of short stories published under a different name or unpublished that I reworked and stuff. And I actually recommend if you're an established author or even if you're just starting out, that you test the waters of self-publishing with short stories because they're more flexible and you can be forgiven for making mistakes in them and try different cover art and that sort of thing. And it's a low price of admission, basically.

And that just got me used to how to upload to the different platforms, how to format, the process of finding cover art, all of that sort of a thing and make mistakes along the way. So, I did, you know, four something short stories, which have since been taken back down, reworked, put back up, you know, that kind of thing.

And then the first book I self-published was a novella that was set in my universe. So, I have a now Broadverse called the Parasolverse, which is my steampunk universe, which has about 30 odd books in it at this juncture, something like that. And I chose a possibly irredeemable character, so a really not popular character. And I wrote a novella-length work for her and then published that. So, it was in my universe, which was my popular universe, but it was a character who maybe people weren't sure about so that I could make mistakes and not upset too many readers. People really liked the book anyway. I managed to redeem her. Yay, I guess. And that's how I proceeded.

I wrote quite a few novella-length stuff, and that's for contract reasons, set in the Parasolverse, because if I write longer than novella-length, I have to submit it under my option clause to my publishing house. So, I just write under the length that keeps me under that cap, which is one of the great blessings of my career as it turned out. Very early on, I had a contract that fell through for that first book for "Soulless" because the option clause was too broad and because it was an academic at the time. And the publishing house wouldn't relax the option clause.

And for those who don't know, the option clause is the rights that the publisher has to the next thing you might write, and you as an author want that clause to be as tight and narrow as possible, so you have as much flexibility to write other things, either to self-publish or to go to a different publisher with them. And so this clause was super broad and I was... Under this clause, I have to offer my fiction publishing house my nonfiction, and I'm an academic, so I just can't sign that. I just can't. I would be violating my contract constantly because I was submitting academic articles and stuff like that for my career. And I was like, "I can't have this hobby impact my career as an archaeologist." So, I couldn't sign that contract.

And so when the book went back out on wide submission and my agent knew that I would walk away if the option clause wasn't super narrow. And so when I signed with my publisher, I had a really tight option clause, which basically said they only had rights to very specific things, which then allowed me to write in my own universe without having to offer it to my publisher so long as I kept to certain constraints. So, I was really lucky that that happened because I wasn't even thinking about self-publishing early on. So, yeah, watch your option clauses, everybody.

Joni: How did your readers respond to novellas? I think one of the reasons your publishing house is okay with that is that they don't necessarily want to be publishing shorter fiction. So, I'm interested to know if there's a reason for that or if you find that readers were really responsive.

Gail: And the readers love them. I don't write very long anyway. All of my stuff tends to be under 100,000 words, more like 90,000. And I'm really comfortable at something like 40,000 to 70,000. So, I knew writing novella length was already going to be comfortable for me, but my readers, they love it. I mean, I'm super, kind of, open and frank with my reader base if they're in touch with me. So, I have a pretty active group and I do lives really regularly, like live Q&As and stuff just with my readers. So, they know why I'm doing it. I'm honest with them like I'm being honest with you. But, I mean, sometimes they're like, "It's a little short." And I'm just like, "Yeah, but you get one or two of them a year. You get satisfaction on a... It's always a side character that I've picked up and given a new adventure or a happy ending or what have you."

So, basically, I'm, kind of, writing my own fanfiction, and they seem at least really happy with them. They're excited about it. They're just excited to get anything in this universe that they love with these characters that they love more regularly than the traditional publishing cycle permits. So, I think that they're just disposed to be pleased. Thank goodness.

Joni: That's awesome. Yes. What are some of the things that have surprised you about the transition to hybrid or to indie, I guess?

Gail: Oh, that's a hard question. I mean, I think there seem to be evangelists on both sides of the equation. And the more I do both, the more I'm like, "There are concerns and issues and problems and blessings on both sides of the equation." So, it really is a balancing act. I feel like I'm lucky because I come from a social science background and archaeology is very... I was very... I have an MS, so I'm a very science-heavy person and I really like spreadsheets and logistics and statistics and all that sort of stuff. And I think that personality trait really helps me with the self-publishing side because I do like to monitor my data and make sure the things I'm doing online are being effective. I'm not wasting my time on something like ad platforms or what have you.

So, I think that helps more than I thought it would. And even though I tend to think these days, self-publishing is definitely a better option for me and for a lot of people, especially depending on your genre, depending on specific genres, I think. But I think you as a writer need to be very aware of your own personality from the business side of the industry and whether you really can do it because self-publishing takes a lot of business acumen, which is just a lot of work. I mean, people are startled when I say more of my time is spent on the backend of the writing business now than actually ever writing anything. At least probably 60% of my time is spent on just business stuff, because it's always something. One of the platforms doesn't like a link that I put in and I have to redo the book. And that takes an afternoon. It's just always something like that.

Joni: So, you find a way to or you like that, being able to balance it because I guess, like you said, not all authors would. A lot of people got into this because they wanted to write, and so the business thing isn't necessarily a priority.

Gail: And I have author friends... Because I come on a trad... So, I have a lot of trad author friends. I have a lot of self-published as well because I'm a big podcast junkie, and so they're at the early days of the podcast revolution, which included in fiction, a lot of authors who would go on to self-publish. So, I have podcast author friends who were early self-published authors as well like Joanna Penn or Mur Lafferty. Mur transitioned from self to trad. So, everybody goes different directions.

I happen to like the business end, and I happened... And that just works in my favor so far as self-publishing is concerned. But I have author friends who are traditionally published and always have been who will sidle up to me at a party and be like, "So, this newsletter thing," and I'll just be like, "What year are we in? I know you're trad, but you might have wanted to think about a newsletter a little bit earlier." And they just want to sit in the ivory tower and type and just not think about anything. And in their cases, I'm like, "Yeah, self-publishing is just not going to be for you. You're going to have to sell a lot of your assets to the man in order to sit in the tower and type. But if that's the way you want to be, then traditional is the way to go, if you can make enough money out of it to survive."

Stephanie: What do you think has been the best thing that you've done for your writing business?

Gail: Oh, God, that's a really good question. Probably the newsletter. I often say this, but the greatest regret of my life is that when I was early on in my career and on book tour and stuff like that, that I didn't take a freaking manual sign-up with me and just get people on my newsletter as early as possible. And partly that's because I have a lot of older readers, like just demographic age wise, and they are on email more than anywhere else. So, the newsletter is probably the best thing I've done. But I think writer collectives and finding business-minded writers in my local area has also been really, really helpful.

And so RWA has a lot of problems. But when I first joined it, at least my local chapter, was really great because it was a lot of strong, powerful, independent women who were... Romance has always been on the cutting edge of the self-publishing world, and they just knew so much about everything, different platforms, different newsletter platforms, and I just learned so much from them. And now I've, kind of, transitioned to different forums and online groups and stuff. I just started using Vellum, for example, and there's a great Vellum, non-official Vellum Facebook group that I just joined and I can ask dumb questions. And they have the answers, and they're great, and they're helpful. And so that kind of thing has been super important and valuable as well—finding the right forums, whether in person or online, that can help with the questions that I don't know I need to ask.

Joni: I think the newsletter thing might be one of the most not overlooked but it's repeatedly something that authors say is one of their biggest marketing tools. And I think for a new author, that can be a little bit intimidating. So, is there any kind of advice you would give? You talked about how you wish you'd done it earlier. If an author is very, very new and doesn't really have a reader base yet, how do you go about building that newsletter? What do you even say in the early days?

Gail: I would say just hopefully you have a website. I do think all authors should have a website. I know there are people who don't agree with me on that one, but I just like a home on the Internet. And for me, at my stage is probably because I have so many FAQs that people ask me, so I'll just do blog posts for frequently asked questions. I don't have to repeat myself constantly, that sort of thing. But it also is the place to get people to sign up to my newsletter as well as online and social media forums. So, hopefully you have a website at least.

And then I would say you want to start a newsletter, even if you just have short stories or if you just have one book up or whatever, because you want to get yourself into the habit of doing a newsletter. And I would do it once a month, whether you have five sign ups and they're all family members or not just to get into the habit of being consistent with it. And the best thing you can do is poodle off and find your favorite authors or authors that you think are similar to what you write and follow and join their newsletters and see how they do it. And if they do it badly, because that's a lesson, too, or if they do it well and ask yourself as you read the newsletter why they're doing it the way they're doing it, why the layout is the way that it is or that sort of thing. And I think that just... It just helps you to learn and get better. I mean, one of my greatest tips for for new authors is always behave unto your readers as you would want your favorite author to behave unto you, right? Just behave to people as if they were super fans of yours and then be gentle and kind and all those sorts of things and practice thoughtful interactions online. But, yeah, so that's my piece of advice is see how other people do it.

Joni: Yeah, there's a lot of really good author newsletters out there. I've subscribed to a lot. And, yeah, there's some that are just really conversational and really friendly. And it does make a difference. I wanted to ask you also about "The Heroine's Journey," which is your book about craft and how your former careers and archaeologists played into that. Could you give us a little bit of a background on the book, I guess?

Gail: Sure. So, archaeology is multidisciplinary at the undergraduate level in particular. And so I ended up sort of accidentally or on purpose taking a lot of classical mythos, particularly gender studies under the umbrella of classical mythology when I was an undergraduate. And it's always fascinated me because I've always been a storyteller and been very, very interested in ancient myth from that perspective. And during the course of that degree, I learned about the heroine's journey as well as the hero's journey a la Joseph Campbell's "Hero's Journey." And I always found the beats, the breakdown of what actually happens in these very interesting from a writer perspective. I'm so excited about it. I am less interested in sort of Jungian psychological analysis based on mythos.

And so I went off into the world and started doing conventions and stuff as an as a professional author later on. And I would just casually constantly mention the heroine's journey as well as the hero's journey, because someone will always talk about the hero's journey because we all know about that. And then I'd be like, "Yes, and then the heroine's journey goes this way." And sort of silence would descend and someone in the audience would be like, "What's the the heroine's journey?" And I'd be like, "Well, that's a long, complicated answer."

And so kind of as a result of that... And I don't have a book I can point you to. I mean, there are books on "The Heroine's Journey," but they tend to not be kind of craft books. They tend to be Jungian or narrative analytical, kind of, dry PhD sort of works. And I was like, "I just want to write something that basically says here's some myths," just the way Campbell did with Gilgamesh. "Here's some myths for you to look at. Here's some pieces of pop culture that have successfully used the heroine's journey patterns and beats and plots. And here's how to identify it if you're out in the world and you want to see whether it's being activated or not just like the hero's journey. And here's how to write it or read for it or look for it."

And so I wrote this book because I had been waiting 10 years for someone else to write it. And she who sees the problem is responsible for the solution. And I was like, "Well, I guess it's me." I don't feel qualified. And I am hoping somebody with an actual degree in the subject comes along. But until then, you got me. You got this book.

Joni: No, it's great. And it's super accessible. And I really liked that you did relate it to stories that most people know or at least we can expect that most people know at least something about Harry Potter, Wonder Woman or...

Gail: Yeah, exactly.

Joni: Star Wars.

Gail: Yeah.

Joni: Yeah, but something that was interesting to me is that you make a point about how it doesn't really have to do with gender. Like Harry Potter has a heroine's journey.

Gail: Yes, exactly.

Joni: Wonder Woman has a hero's journey. Are you going to break that down for us here?

Gail: Sure. The terms we have hero and heroine are gendered because of Campbell's initial, kind of, use and breakdown of it. But for example, like you said, Wonder Woman in the recent movie is an absolutely perfectly prototypical hero's journey. She is a hero, which means that she undertakes the pattern of a hero's journey. She has the ending. She has the definitions of power and strength that are sort of inherent to a hero. Her iconography, everything associated with the look of that movie is very heroic. Whereas Harry Potter is a heroine in how he approaches strength, success, achievement and how he goes on his quests and patterns. So, even though he is a he, he is a heroine under the auspices of this journey if you're looking at the heroine's journey as a breakdown of narrative.

And that's different from how if you're a writer and you're writing a book with a gendered sexual male main character that you would call him a hero. So, I make that distinction in the book. It's subtle, but it has to do with the constructs of gender being social constructs. And these narratives are social narratives. So, therefore, yeah, there's a difference between what biological sex your character is and what journey they are on.

Stephanie: I guess I wonder, what would you classify a successful journey that a writer has completed when you're reading something or watching something where you're like "this is a successful portrayal of a character's journey," "this is a well done story" kind of thing?

Gail: Well, that's kind of part of what the book is talking about in a way. And I'll use the hero's journey as an example, because everybody knows it or most people know it. The point is, is that it gives you a structure. And so you can either satisfy that structure, which to a certain extent satisfies the reader. There's a reason readers read for the hero's journey and they enjoy the hero's journey. Suspense novels are often hero's journeys, and they like that. They like that sense of excitement. They like that sense of solitary individual fighting the good fight against possibly overwhelming odds. There are certain things that are really appealing psychologically about the journey. And so as a writer, you want to know and tap into those in order to provide a satisfying experience to your readers.

And the same holds true for the heroine's journey. If you're writing a romance or if you're writing a young adult novel that is about friendship and belonging and finding your place in the world, in the sort of build-it-from-one's-sense of it, then you are writing towards a networking situation. You are writing success is in groups, figuring out how to solve a problem together. You're writing different ideas of strength. And so it behooves you as a craftsperson to know what the foundation is in the form of the heroine's journey, so you know whether you can write that narrative in a way that satisfies your reader or watcher if you're doing a screenplay or what have you. And so, yes, it's just foundational knowledge base.

But you can also be satisfying a reader by breaking some of these rules or by twisting them or by subverting them or writing a tragic version of them or playing with ideas of what happens when you put a hero archetype into a heroine's journey. How does the heroine of your heroine's journey bounce off of a hero with his heroic agenda within her narrative and vice versa? So, knowing all of these things allows you to play with reader expectations in the reverse as well. And then you can activate surprise or comedy or tragedy. And again, what are we authors but Machiavellian manipulators of emotion? That's what we want to have access to.

So, if you know these mostly subconscious expectations that are essentially the foundations of all of these different genres, commercial genres in particular in fiction, then you can better break or satisfy your reader's expectations. And definitely there is native talent with writers where you just write this automatically without even realizing it. In fact, I hypothesize that Harry Potter... I don't think Rowling is familiar with "The Heroine's Journey." I'm not making that claim. I don't know. I haven't talked to her. But the fact that it satisfies all these beats, I think, is one of the reason that it's such a satisfying narrative to consumers of that particular journey, whether the consumers know that's what they're looking for and when the writers know that's what they're writing. But the reason to know it is to know... If you know the expectations and the beats of the different journeys, then you can get yourself out of writer's block and that sort of thing as well, because you can be like, "Well, the solution for a challenge in plot when you're writing a hero's journey is different from the solution when you're writing a heroine's journey. You have different toolkits in place depending on which journey you're approaching."

Joni: Do you have a favorite Greek mythology story or character?

Gail: I do. So, I do three heroine's journeys in the book. I do Inanna, Isis and Demeter. And Isis is my favorite without question. I love the Isis myth so much. I think it translates to my silly retelling of the myth in this book, because I just love it. It's just such a charming myth. Egyptology was one of my focuses as an undergraduate until I realized that my particular field probably wasn't going to work well. So, I ended up switching away from an area specialty to a material specialty, but I have always had a mad love of the ancient Egyptian mythological pantheon and the way they approach mythology. And the interweaving of myth and culture for ancient Egypt is really interesting to me. And I just love Isis. I love her so much.

Joni: Do you have plans to write about this in the future anymore?

Gail: I don't know. I don't really see myself as a nonfiction author. It's one of the reasons I don't teach craft very often. I don't even teach the business side of writing very often, even though I love my data and I collect lots of stuff about it. I don't know that I want to turn myself into an author that teaches other authors how to write. I don't think that's a career track for me. I mean, anything's possible. But yeah, I think I'd rather just write fiction. I just wrote this nonfiction one because it needed to be written. So, it's like, "Okay, I guess it's me."

Stephanie: Do you have a preference when you're writing? Do you like to subvert reader expectations or do you kind of like to play into it?

Gail: I like to subvert, but that's because I write comedy and that's a great vehicle for comedy is just to... You often set up tropes or I do it with archetypes since I write very character-heavy. So, I'll set up a foolish archetype, for example, who will suddenly pivot and have known everything all along. It's just so much fun. And if I'm having a really good time, I'll drop tiny little hints for three or four books. And then all of a sudden, the twist will happen and a careful reader will be like, "Oh, my God." And that's the line you want to tread as an author where you make readers surprised but also they, kind of, feel like they maybe saw that coming and so they also feel satisfied. And comedy is a great vehicle for that and parody, and I write both of those things. So, yeah.

But I also love me certain tropes and will satisfy them always. I am a happy ending girl, and I want my characters to have happily ever afters and I want them to have connection, whether that's a big friendship group or a partner or a group of friends like whatever it is. So, I always satisfy that part of us what would be a pretty standard heroine's journey, which is everybody... There's a together scene at the end. There's a sequence of connection at the end. So, I do play into it sometimes as well.

Joni: I think you make a really good point about the ending, any kind of twist needing to be satisfying. Do you remember... I just rewatched "Gossip Girl." Do you remember that whole thing where they reveal who Gossip Girl is and it doesn't make any sense if you were to go back and watch it? It's that kind of thing that drives me crazy. I assume from the way that you write, that you're a big plotter. Are you somebody that knows everything that's going to happen in advance?

Gail: Yeah, I would say I consider... I actually have a blog post out there, because authors are often asked whether they're plotters or discovery writers or pantsers. And I am 80% of the time a pretty strict outliner. I mean, because I write essentially comedies of manners, pacing is always going to be something that I have to think about. When you have things explode and then everybody runs around and then sits down and drinks tea and talks about it, that can seriously affect the pacing of a book. A suspense writer, I am not. So, I have to make sure that I use other tricks for pacing like comedy, like dialogue, things that give my readers a rest and a breathing room. Emotional underpinnings like highs and lows is also a pacing vehicle. And that requires pretty strict outlining.

My young adult stuff is way more plot-complicated because it's spies. And so it has that element. So, that was even more carefully... And with YA, you have to pay even closer attention to pace. And so that was even more diligently plotted. But occasionally with my novella-length stuff and with some of my more experimental stuff, I let myself just write and to see what happens. And partly that's because after about 30 books and 10 years, some of the outlining strictures are kind of ingrained into my psyche. So, I sort of write that way anyway. But I do that knowing that those books are probably going to require some serious editing later on, more editing than I really should... I really should have plotted. But most of the time I am an outliner, yeah. And it's definitely the case that the less I outline, the more serious the book is. So, mostly I try to write comedically, because I think that's what readers expect from me, but occasionally I write something that's a little bit more serious and that's usually when I've let myself not have as strict an outline.

Stephanie: You mentioned that you like to dig into statistics. I guess it could be sales or your books in general. What are the things you like to look into maybe that other people would, kind of, disregard?

Gail: Well, I think a lot of authors, either professional or hobbyists or what have you, need to get better at putting an actual value on our time. And so there's a, "Am I using my time in a way that makes up for the fact that I'm not actually writing?" because almost always I should actually be writing something, right? And so for me, that translates into like, "The time I spend on Twitter X number of hours, does tweeting out that I have a new book on Twitter actually have any effect on my sales?" So, I need to be able to track that and figure that out. So, I will then spend hours trying to figure out whether 20 minutes on Twitter is worth my time or not. So, in the end, it kind of maybe doesn't actually work out, but I feel better if I know.

And so I will often do things like kill all of my advertising for three months, for example, or back off from social media for several months just to see if my sales baseline is affected by that and in what way, so that I get a baseline and then I'll turn ads back on or start doing promos again and see. And that actually affects what I choose to do at the business end in terms of promos and things. If I can't track it, I'm not going to do it because I want to know if it's effective or not. And if there are too many firewalls or guards in place for me to know whether it's effective, then I'm not going to participate. So, that's the kind of approach I take. And that's because I am getting and trying to be more and more and more aware of valuing my own time because I don't want to waste it. I only have so much on this earth. And for me, that means I need to write as much as possible, put as many stories out into the world as possible.

Stephanie: Were you scared that when you turned off...?

Joni: Yeah, that's what I was going to ask.

Stephanie: Were you scared when you turned off your marketing for three months like what was going to happen?

Gail: No.

Stephanie: No?

Gail: No, no. And that's partly because this is a deep dive into the sort of business end of the spectrum, but I'm super fiscally conservative and I don't do anything or go any... I don't really have aside from my parents dependents or anything like that. So, I'll just take a financial hit to see something. I'll just test it because how can I speak with any kind of authority and how can I make any kind of conscious decisions if I don't see? And the other side is also true. If I turn off all of my marketing and my baseline is not that impacted, which is what happened, then I was wasting my money on the marketing. So, I learned something way more valuable because marketing not only takes money away from me, it takes time for me to set up ad campaigns and that sort of a thing. Yeah, so, I mean, out the other side can come a very, very valuable lesson.

I mean, that thing, which I don't mind talking about the nitty gritty end of things. So, I killed all of my marketing for three months and then I just changed all of my metadata. So, I went through and was super meticulous about changing my descriptions, my keywords, all of that sort of a thing. And I went in and surgically reassessed everything to see what basic categories I was in and that sort of thing. And we're getting very technical here but...

Stephanie: I love this.

Gail: I love this kind of thing. And I saw a 20% increase in sales from changing my metadata.

Stephanie: That's crazy.

Gail: And I knew it was not marketing, but that's because I had to... But I had to kill all my marketing first to get that assessment. And a metadata overhaul took an intensive couple of weeks to do when you have as many books out as I do, but now I can go forward to all of my author friends and be like, "Yeah, sure, you should take $900 dollar course on how to do Amazon advertising or you should just overhaul your metadata and see if that helps first." And I want to, kind of, be available to younger authors and new authors to be like, "Look, here's just a piece of advice that I learned and you can try it." And the cost of admission is lower in this arena than in others. So, stuff like that. And so the only career I have to play with because I am not an agent or anything like that is my own. And so I just play with it. And again, I think that comes from what we talked about very early on in the conversation, which is like, I'm still kind of an author rather surprisingly. I'm still sort of startled to be an author. And there's still a part of me that's like, "Well, I can always go back to archaeology. It's still there. Sure."

Joni: You can. That's the cool thing about it, right?

Gail: Yeah, exactly.

Stephanie: That's so interesting with metadata. And I guess it kind of showed you where readers are finding your books, I guess, based on Google searches.

Gail: Search terms. Yeah, yeah. Search terms are way more... Yeah. I mean, that's kind of... I was talking to a friend who's kind of career, number of books wise, similar to where I am but just having a hard time getting traction. And my first question was, "Do you own your SEO?" People need to type your name into Google and you need to own the top page before the fold because that's still... I mean, and of course, it does depend on the average age of your reader base and all that, where people are searching and all that sort of thing. But I am a believer in certain old school principles. And one of those is your website has to be the top of your SEO. And then after that, get that tight and clean and figured out. And then after that, everything else will follow. But it's all metadata these days. Everything is a search algorithm, so metadata is going to be queen.

Joni: Since transitioning to indie, how have you dealt with print? Do you do print on demand?

Gail: I hate print. And I have a blog post about this, too, which is basically me and those fans that I have lots of contact with, which is maybe 10% of my reader base. I've coached them into knowing that basically a print edition is a luxury good at this juncture. So, it's going to be more expensive than they're used to with books because it has to be when you're print on demand and it's going to take longer for me to do than it does for digital books.

But I have a pretty large number of readers now who will buy the digital and then read that and then wait and collect the print edition to have it on their shelves or similarly with audiobooks where they'll get a second edition as well as the audiobook, which is really flattering and very nice. But yeah, print editions are pretty much when you're self-publishing. Even for me, who I get quite a few orders, they're really not worth the money. They're such a hassle. And right now, they're taking forever to get proof copies out. And you have to look at a physical proof, which means you have to get the book. I have a lot of protocols in place for my business that come out of trad that most self-published authors don't bother to do, but I sold first and best in print because I am a traditionally published author. And so I have a lot of print readers. So, just to keep them happy, I have to do print editions. But that means that I have to have a finished, ready to send to production manuscript two months before the drop date and stuff like that, which most self-published authors don't bother with. But it just means I have to line up my developmental edits and my copy editor. I have to get all of these things well ahead of time. So, I kind of in that regard act still like a traditionally published author where... And my fans hate it because they know that a book is done a month or two months before I actually publish it. But I'm like, "Print editions." If I want to try and time the two as close as possible, then I have to get it off to Ingram really early on. But man, is it a pain.

Joni: I'd love to know, is there anything else that you've carried over from your beginning in trad and taken with you or thought that it works well, so why stop?

Gail: That is a great question. Well, I think I pay because I think wide is something that came out of trad, paying very close attention to the international market. So, not just the American market is something that I brought with me out of trad because I've done very well in translation and I've always sold really well overseas as well as in the United States. I always try to make sure, for example, that my price points are consistent for foreign markets, for example. So, I sell very well in Japan. So, I want to make sure... So, I take a look at what the price points for my traditional books are in Japan because they're still on sale there and then I try and match those.

I've always been very experimental for a trad author. And my publisher and I have a good relationship in this regard. So, I was one of the first authors that my publisher put into a BookBub, for example, and I was one of the first... And I fight really, really hard to make sure that my backlist first and series books are at a lower price point electronically. And occasionally I will be like, "Agent, remind my traditional publisher that my ebook prices should be lower please because that gets new readers pulled into the backlist for me anyway."

And maybe that's part of what I brought with me as well. I mean, traditional publishing can be very, very frustrating from an author end because they don't listen to us most of the time. But that, as far as I'm concerned, just means you get more stubborn and you just keep asking them. And that's kind of how I am when I'm dealing with vendors and stuff like that. Amazon's side is doing something crazy and I'm like, "All right, how much do I need to fight this? Every day, am I going to be on there sending a fix it ticket to Amazon or is it every other day?" And if that's what I need to do, that's what I need to do. So, maybe the stubbornness is also something that I brought with me from trad.

But I think similarly, I learned from being a traditional author how crazy the publishing industry is and how essentially illogical as a business it is. And so that has taught me things like, "Yeah, I'm not going to make pretty much anything on print editions," but I still have to do a print edition because people expect it and that's the business model that has been in place for hundreds and hundreds of years is that there should be a print book. So, I guess I'm doing a print book. So, it also has led to a certain amount of resignation with both sides of both traditionally published works and indie published works.

Stephanie: Where do you see publishing in the next 5 to 10 years?

Gail: Oh, my God. That's such an unfair question.

Stephanie: I know, I'm sorry.

Gail: Because I am totally one of those people who was like, "When is Barnes & Noble going to declare bankruptcy?" And then we are now in the time of the morbs, and I don't know what's going to... Who knows? I mean, at the beginning of COVID, I was like, "Oh, there goes publishing." Like, whew, where? And then I was like, "Oh, no. No, book sales are up." Right. I have no idea. I mean, I don't think I'm revealing any secrets when I say that traditional publishing makes most of its business decisions on Barnes & Noble's buyers and brick and mortar bookstore choices and desires in terms of...from everything from cover art and so on and so forth. And then Barnes and Noble's had this huge wave of layoffs recently, including a bunch of their buyers, which we were all used to working with. And I don't know if indie bookstores are going to...like, what or when or if indie bookstores are going to supply this.

But if brick and mortars go down, New York is going to have to materially change their approach to everything about the publishing industry. I don't know if they're nimble enough to do that. Then again, they've survived for hundreds of years. So, who knows? I mean, I was just talking to my agent recently. She's like, "They're still acquiring and things are still going on. And I'm as busy as I've ever been. So, maybe the publishing industry is going to keep going as the same as ever at the other end of this." But I honestly have no idea.

I mean, one of the reasons that I have been pretty public about the fact that I'm not entirely sure I want to write another series for trad right now because I don't know. And I don't want to get locked into a contract only to have that publisher go under and have that contract caught up in bankruptcy proceedings or something. So, I'm just so nervous about what's going on with traditional publishing right now that I kind of have backed way off to sort of sit on the sidelines and see. And I have the luxury of being able to do that because I self-publish as well. But, yeah, so that was a long way of saying I have no idea. And I don't even know if it's going to be that different. Earlier on, I would have said...

Joni: That's what's interesting.

Gail: Earlier on, I would have said everything is changing. But like right now, I'm like, nope, now they're doing fine. And publishing's instinct when they're doing fine is to be like, "Okay, go with the same patterns we've always had in place." So, who knows?

Joni: Yeah, no. That's interesting what you're saying, because you're right. Publishing hasn't changed in years and they have... The product... People still want to read and people still want to create books and that will never go away. But you're right. Publishing has been going like, "No, no, we're fine. We're fine. We're fine," decades.

Stephanie: The biggest innovation they had was ebooks.

Gail: Yeah, and they don't...

Joni: Oh, and they hate them.

Gail: And traditional publishing hasn't figured out how to do ebooks properly. They're terrible at it. And, yeah, ebook sales have gone up, including in traditional publishing recently, but the ebook divisions in traditional publishing houses are very small. They don't update metadata regularly.

Joni: Or at all.

Gail: I mean, if you're a traditionally published author, you can see this, right? The descriptions will go pear-shaped all of a sudden. And you're like, "Hi, would you put spaces back into my description?" I know the book is eight years old, but come on, you guys. Just something like that will happen. So, they don't even have maintenance personnel for all of your assets, which you need to do in these days of algorithms. One of the vendors will change how they display everything and everybody... All your descriptions go pear-shaped. And as a self-help author, we get a notification where we're like, "Okay," [vocalization] and we fix it. Trad just siphons it off down to an assistant level or something, and it never gets done.

Stephanie: It kills me that they never fill out their series information for a backlist series. I'm like, "Why would you not do that?"

Gail: Yeah, why don't you... You have access to series pages. You've been granted that privilege. Take a bit. No, I'm not going to... I'll give you the best example I have, which is in my back pocket right now, which is the final book in my Custard Protocol series, which came out two or three years ago. My UK publisher bought the audio rights to that. They paid me money. I have a contract. They have the audio assets. They have the recording. They have never uploaded it. And I get a complaint letter like two or three times a week from UK listeners who are like, "Where's the final audio book?" And I'm like, "Literally, they have everything they need to give it to you and make money off of it. And they just haven't crossed that hurdle." And I'm just kind of like, "Really? This is something that you just put up there and then you forget about it and people pay you for it." Come on, you guys.

Stephanie: I'm shocked by that.

Gail: And literally I send them... I or my agent sends them a complaint email every couple of weeks, and they just... I have no idea when I can get it done, but I can't get it done.

Stephanie: Here's what you do. You email the audiobooks team at Kobo and you say, "I am requesting this book." And someone will reach out to your publisher and be like, "Where's this book?" And I'm not lying. This might...

Gail: The second book in my series has been down as well and again, in the UK market. The second book in my first series, which is the second book in a five-book series. All the rest of them are there. Second one just isn't available. It's not available on Audible and Apple, but it's on Google Play. And so anybody says to me, "Where's the second book?" And I'm like, "Actually, you can get it on Google Play." I'm just like, "I'm just going to send you guys there because it's there." Part of the problem is I don't have a VPN, so I can't check UK listings, but I should check and see if it's on Kobo because [crosstalk 00:47:36.461].

Stephanie: I can right now.

Gail: You guys have the best linking system. I get all of my links from Kobo because you guys have the cleanest links. Everyone else pollutes their links all the time and drives me nuts.

Joni: Oh, with the geo-specific links?

Gail: Yeah.

Stephanie: Universal link.

Gail: Yeah, exactly.

Stephanie: I'm looking it up right now. This is going to get cut from the podcast but I'm looking.

Gail: Yeah. So, I use Draft2Digital's Books2Read links all the time.

Stephanie: Yeah, those are great.

Gail: And I always put... The Kobo audiobook is always in there because it's so easy to grab that link and just slap it in and don't bother with anybody else's audiobook. It's just a Kobo one.

Stephanie: What series is it missing in?

Gail: "Changeless" is missing and "Reticence" is missing.

Stephanie: Oh, it's there on Kobo. "Changeless."

Gail: On Kobo UK?

Stephanie: Oh, good question. Let me double check.

Joni: Are you direct to Kobo with audio?

Gail: Those are trads, so I have no idea what they're doing.

Stephanie: Oh, okay.

Gail: Yeah.

Stephanie: It's showing me that it's in the UK store.

Gail: Is it? Great.

Stephanie: 20 euros.

Gail: Excellent. I'll send people to Kobo now.

Stephanie: Okay, back on track. Minor detour.

Gail: That's awesome to know. I'm very excited about that.

Stephanie: So, I guess our question is, what have you been loving lately? It can be a book, it can be a movie, it can be a TV show, anything.

Gail: I've been watching Thai dramas on YouTube, and that is what I have been loving recently.

Stephanie: I've started K-dramas, so I feel you.

Gail: Uh-huh. The thing about it is Thai dramas are campier and have happier endings so...

Stephanie: That's good to know.

Gail: Yeah, as a general rule. And I've also, kind of, fallen in love with the Thai language as a result of this. It's very structured and has really interesting approaches to, sort of, almost a linguistical caste system, juniors and seniors. They give all these modes of address just in casual talk when someone is older than you or younger than you or of a different generation from you. And I love, kind of, guidelines and strictures and social structures and linguistics and stuff. Obviously, I'm a writer and archaeologist type. And so I've been watching them and then also taking remedial lessons in the Thai language just so I can understand them slightly better. There's lots of nuances of humor in whether you're using formal or informal address that you don't get if you're just reading the captions. So, yeah, that's what I've been doing recently.

Stephanie: What's the title of the drama?

Gail: This is the problem. I hesitate to recommend them because the captioning is universally pretty bad, so there's a lot of me rewriting what I think they mean to say in my head as I'm reading the captioning and also the definition. They're not great, like high def. But one I really, really enjoy and would recommend is called Until We Meet Again, which is a gay romance about reincarnation, but it's really cute and really sweet and very interesting in terms of both the language and sort of the cultural mythology that's being used. They have the red thread. I don't know if you know that from Asian culture, but this idea that you could tie someone together for eternity with a red thread.

But I have to say trigger warning big time, so in the initial sense of the word trigger. So, just for you and everybody else out there, be aware that there's some triggering things. I'm not personally bothered by that kind of thing. But, yeah, it's cute. And I recommend that one because it also has a cohesive story structure because some of them get real soap opera. You're like, "Where are we going? What happened to that character?" It's very much like I'm watching the Thai version of Days of Our Lives or something.

Stephanie: I've only looked at K-dramas, so I need to expand.

Gail: It's really interesting. There's quite a sort of subdivision in fans of the two different kinds of dramas. And I have tried several K-dramas and just been like, "No, apparently this is not for me." I am into things that are coming out of Thailand and Taiwan apparently. Those are my... These are the storylines that I enjoy.

Stephanie: And I'm like, "Have I tried to watch one and didn't?" But I have to look into it.

Gail: Try that one. Try Until We Meet Again, which is... You want ENG sub, right? English subtitles. I'm pretty sure it's still up on YouTube. And if you can't take that one, you can't take any of them. The other one that's good that is actually on Netflix is called SOTUS. But it has codified bullying and hazing rituals. So, again, with the trigger warnings, there's lots of trigger warnings in Asian dramas, I'm learning. But that one's on Netflix, and the quality is substantially better because it's on Netflix. So, those are the two that I would recommend people check out. And if you don't like those two, because they have the least issues in terms of story structure but also...

Joni: Technical?

Gail: Explicitness and also there are certain things that the Western mindset finds a little puppety or pantoey like cartoon noises when there's a comedic moment or a slapstick moment or whatever. And there's a thing that Thai dramas in particular do, which is if it's an emotional moment, that music is going to swell. You are going to be beaten over the head with the audio that this is a very powerful and emotional moment. And if that kind of heavy handedness from our perspective doesn't work for you as a consumer, then you're probably not going to like them. But SOTUS in particular, if you try that one on Netflix, that's very light on those elements. And if you still can't take it, then Thai dramas are not for you.

Stephanie: Do they do a slow-mo? Do they employ the slow-mo's like the K-dramas do?

Gail: Sometimes. And they'll do the repeat thing, too, where this from four different angles and you're like, "Okay, fine."

Stephanie: In theory, I should not like this but I'm like, "I'm so into this."

Gail: It's like, "That's fine. Yeah." It's so funny. The little cartoon noises things I had a hard time with at first. And now I'm just like, "Yay, cartoon noises." I think my British side is used to panto, and so that's the part that, kind of, gets activated like I'm watching an old guard Punch and Judy or something, and I'm like, "Okay, the violence is not really that violent, right?" It's weird. But that's also part of the reason I enjoy it is I like to look at... I'm a big traveler, and I can't travel right now. And so I love to look at, sort of, different cultures' approach to humor and what's funny and romance and what's intimate. Definitions of intimacy across different cultures is super interesting to me. And also pacing. I watched the Chinese drama "Eternal Love," which is also on Netflix, which is like, I don't know, 56 episodes or something. You don't even meet the love interest until Episode 30. It takes forever. You are in it for 45 episodes for a hand touch or if you're really lucky, a forehead kiss, and yet I'm riveted. And I'm like, "Why? What is it?" And that's when the writer brain turns on and it's like, "What is it about this storytelling that is managing to keep my attention when by objective definitions, it's slow?" And so that's also part of what interests me and in terms of then turning that around and something like, "Could I write a long, pining romantic thread that just goes on for years? For my audience, would that even work?" That kind of thing. It's fascinating to me.

Stephanie: [inaudible 00:54:53].

Gail: The importance of the cheek kiss in Thai drama is so significant. And I was like...

Stephanie: Handholding also.

Gail: Handholding.

Stephanie: The most innocent thing and I'm like, "Oh, my God."

Gail: Yes, but once you're in it and you started watching them, you find yourself being like, "They almost held hands."

Stephanie: I squeal. Joni, you need to get on this because I'm...

Joni: You keep telling me to.

Gail: Oh, no, you got two Asian drama fans and we're going to just keep talking.

Stephanie: And this is a new, in the last, what, four months, that I dove in [inaudible 00:55:30] drama...

Joni: Yeah, it's a pandemic thing.

Gail: Yeah, me too. I did not... And one of my best writer friends in the whole world, Piper Drake, is Thai. And we have been talking about traveling to Thailand forever. One of the great things about Asian dramas, but Thai dramas in particular, is that food is hugely important. This kind of ties into "The Heroine's Journey," actually because it's an act of... It's often a family thing or a group of friends. It's often communal. So, it's this huge moment of intimacy. But gifts of food are a huge part of courting rituals like snacks and stuff. But also, if there's a couple and they're trying to hide it, they will accidentally put food on their relationship's plate and then everybody knows there's something going on with the two of them. There's little things that happen in group food settings. And I'm obsessed with food anyway, and I'm obsessed with Thai food. So, Piper and I have been planning this trip for ages. And now I'm just like, "We have to go. The moment we can, we have to go because the food."

Stephanie: I did notice food, too. And I kept feeling like, "Why is it so weird that I'm seeing them eat?" Because you never see them in a Western show.

Gail: Never. Yeah, it's really interesting, isn't it? Whereas if you're watching Asian dramas, any Asian dramas, you're going to see people eat at some point. There's going to be food, which is, as far as I'm concerned, fantastic.

Stephanie: I wonder [inaudible 00:57:00].

Gail: I'm obsessed with what people eat for breakfast in places where breakfast isn't this codified stricture of specific foods, because I've never understood that one. I mean, I like breakfast foods as much as the next person. But why not have savory porridge for breakfast? Why not have congee? Who says you can't do that? It's so much fun.

Joni: I love this talk. It's been long since I've had Thai food now. Remember when we could go out to places?

Gail: Please.

Stephanie: We're back on track again. So, when can readers expect your book, "The Heroine's Journey"? When does that come out?

Gail: It comes out on October 1st.

Joni: Oh, it's not out.

Gail: Yeah, October 1st. Soon. Very, very soon. And before you ask, I'm trying to get the print edition out at the same time, because it's the number one question I get. I'm also right now looking for a narrator for the audiobook, but that will probably be later than the print and the digital. But the digital is available for pre-order. If it's after October 1st, both the print and digital should be there. And the audio is coming.

Joni: Perfect.

Gail: It's hard to find a narrator that has the kind of voice that I really want but also is willing to do nonfiction. So, the narrator is... I have a back pocket full of regular narrators that I love to use, and I'm actually looking for somebody new. So, it's taking a little bit more time than normal.

Joni: You consider doing it? I'm assuming no, because you're talking about many narrators. But I feel like it's the kind of thing that an author narration would work really well.

Gail: Yeah, and talking of Joanna Penn again, she narrates her own nonfiction, which I think is good. And it's definitely me talking like the start of the...

Joni: Yeah, it's very conversational.

Gail: It's very conversational, and the start of this book was actually as a presentation, and then I basically dictated the presentation and turned it into a book essentially. Yeah, I could do it, but I just don't think I have the skillset. I think you need to... I like to hire professionals to do things, so that's... It's like I know I could change the oil in my car, but I'd rather get someone whose business it is to do that do it. Also, I kind of think...

Stephanie: When you put it like that, yeah.

Gail: Also, I, kind of, think it's my responsibility as an author to hire other freelancers to do stuff when possible when it's not in my skillset.

Joni: Where can readers find you online?

Gail: Yeah, you can find me at gailcarriger.com, but if you search Gail Carriger, all things neat, kind of, turn up. If you want to ask me a question or communicate with me directly, there's a calling card feature on my website, and that's the easiest, fastest way to do it. I am on social media but not very often. And so my response times are just slower on social media, but I'm pretty responsive to calling cards. So, you'll get a reply quickly that way. And that's also where you can find my newsletter, if you want to see how I do it in order to decide whether I do it well, whether you want to imitate my style or not, and all of my books and everything else is all there. And, also, there's a resources page that I have a tab on. So, if you are a new author or a more established author, there's links not only to stuff that I've written on the subject but also other people that I think are really good. So, you can check that out, too.

Stephanie: Awesome. Thank you so much for talking to us today.

Gail: Thank you so much for having me on. And I'm sorry we got sidelined.

Stephanie: No, I loved it.

Joni: No, this is great. Thank you.

Tara: Thank you for listening to the "Kobo ReWriting Life Podcast." If you're interested in Gail's books, we'll include links in our show notes. If you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to rate, review, and subscribe. And if you're looking for more tips on growing your self-publishing business, you can find us at kobowritinglife.com. Be sure to follow us on socials. We're @KoboWritingLife on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and Twitter.

This episode was hosted by Joni Di Placido and Stephanie McGrath with production by Terrence Abrahams. Editing is provided by Kelly Rowbotham and our theme music as always was composed by Tear Jerker. If you're ready to start your publishing journey, sign up today at kobo.com/writinglife. Until next time, happy writing.