Episode 80 is another Q&A extravaganza.

How do I find beta readers I can trust?

Question from Dave Smale: “I know it's never a good idea to get a friend, or a friend of a friend of a friend, with an English lit degree to be your editor. Does the same hold true for beta readers? If so, how do you find dependable beta readers?”

Thomas: It's okay to have a friend be a beta reader. What you're looking for in a beta reader is someone who knows what they like as a fan of the genre. That person does not have to be a good writer.

If you're writing a mystery, your beta readers should read a dozen mysteries a year. You don't want someone who's really into fantasy or romance and doesn't read mysteries, because they'll give you subpar advice.

A beta reader's job is to tell you what's working and what's not. They're not there to solve problems. If a character is boring or doesn't make sense, they don't tell you how to fix it, they just say, "This character doesn't make sense to me."

Jim: I agree with finding a beta reader who’s a fan of your genre, but you’ll also benefit from a beta reader who's well-read, someone who reads across genres, because they'll often give you insight from a perspective a hardcore genre reader can't.

Thomas: Fair enough. Although certain rules in one genre are broken in other genres, so if they're well-read, I guess they'd know what the different rules are.

Jim: You test out beta readers. I have three I've landed on at this point, and I trust everything they say because they're so spot on.

You can also compare notes. You're essentially asking for a layperson's macro edit, "This was working, this wasn't working." If that input matches what you're consistently getting from your editor, that person is gold. Treat them kindly.

Thomas: For my beta readers on Courtship in Crisis, I didn't pick only people who agreed with me. I picked people who were kind, but a few had very different perspectives, and their objections made it right into the book. It was great feedback that helped me make modifications in editing, to better explain myself and head off those objections.

Do I need a Wikipedia page as an author?

Question from Rick Barry, author of The Methuselah Project: “I see that many authors have their own Wikipedia page. Is that important? Is that a vital part of an author's arsenal, even in addition to the author's own website, Twitter page, and Facebook page? Is that Wikipedia listing crucial?”

Thomas: It had better not be, because most authors don't have a Wikipedia page, including James L. Rubart, co-host of this show. He’s a best-selling author and Christy Award winner. If you go to the Christy Award page, it links to James L. Rubart's page, but the page doesn't actually exist. That's not uncommon on Wikipedia.

Having a Wikipedia page is a huge deal, and it's not easy to get. It's against Wikipedia's rules to create a page for yourself, which you'd want to do because it helps your SEO and builds your notoriety and credibility. There's a lot of good that comes with a Wikipedia page, although beware, your enemies can edit it too, so it can become a thorn in your side.

Some people wish they didn't have one.

To get a Wikipedia page, you need to get news coverage that Wikipedia can source. The most common type of Wikipedia page to get taken down is what's called a vanity page, where people try to create a page for themselves. They do all the work of building a web page and get none of the benefit, because the page gets taken down. If you haven't gotten any press, if there are no articles about you from a mainstream media source, it's unlikely your page will stay up.

Jim: And remember, anyone can go in and edit that page.

Thomas: It can be fun, but risky. It does make you look like a big deal, though. One of our authors at Enclave Publishing, Kathy Tyers, wrote Star Wars books in her past life, and anything related to Star Wars will get you on Wikipedia. That's the other hack. If you touch a Star Wars film or game in any way, you're Wikipedia material. She has a very robust Wikipedia page because the Star Wars community is active there, and it's great for her marketing, because we can cross-promote her new science fiction books on it.

Should I quit my job to write full time?

Quesdtion: “Do I have the guts to quit my job?”

Jim: I love this question because it's a serious one. Writers and authors get to the point where they ask, "Am I making enough that I can step out on my own?" Usually, the answer is no. The real question is, "Am I making enough that I can quit my job and, in two or three years, get to the point where I'm making a living?"

I have a friend who's a talented photographer and videographer, and he's asking himself right now whether he should quit his full-time job to pursue that full-time. The advice I gave him is that you can do both.

You can build your photography or your writing on the side while keeping your regular full-time job. Thomas and I are doing multiple jobs ourselves; we have multiple careers going. When I was in broadcast school, one of my professors gave me a simple but profound piece of advice: diversify. Have a number of things going.

Our friend Randy Ingermanson is a great example. He's an extremely successful teacher of fiction, with something like 20,000 people subscribed to his site, advancedfictionwriting.com.. Randy still works part-time for Valis Sciences from home in San Diego. He has both things going. I'd encourage you to diversify. Pursue your writing, but keep some other things going too.

Thomas: It's not new advice. It's actually in the Bible. One of the Proverbs says to plant your fields in the morning and stay busy all afternoon, because you don't know whether your profit will come from the one, or the other, or both.

There could be a bumper crop, and you make lots of money planting your fields, or there could be a drought or flood, and what you did in the afternoon, blacksmithing or whatever your other job was, is what supports you. A little diversification can be quite helpful.

Should I post the same content on my website and my Facebook page?

Question from Courage Knight, author of Do It Yourself Editing: A Guide for the eBook Author: “I'm confused. What's the difference between a webpage and a Facebook page? I know what a webpage is and I know what a Facebook page is, but what I mean is the content that I put on them. It sounds like I'm supposed to write the same content on both, telling a story, sharing information with my fans, but why should I duplicate content? Is there any difference in what I post to my blog and my website versus my Facebook page?”

Thomas: There's a principle of fishing that says you have to go where the fish are. Just because you sit on the porch and fish doesn't mean you'll catch anything if there are no fish where you're fishing.

That's one of the reasons you go to different social networks. People ask us “Do you have to be on both Facebook and Twitter, and what should you post on each?”

Each social network has its own culture and its own dialect. They talk in different ways. The message, what you're saying as an author, may be the same, but how you say it, if you want it to be effective, has to be different.

If you want to see this in real life, go to an African American Baptist church, then the next Sunday go to a white Baptist church. It's the same doctrine, but the experience will be very different because the cultures are different. One might feel boring compared to the other, but that's not because the content is boring, it's a different culture. If that's your culture, it's very meaningful to you because it's what you grew up with, and you may be uncomfortable in the other one because it's not what you're used to.

Social networks are the same way. You have to spend time in a network listening, understanding, and appreciating that culture.

When it comes to Facebook, that's where the fish are. People spend their time there, especially if you're targeting women between 35 and 55, the biggest demographic on Facebook. The downside of only being on Facebook is that every few years people say, "I don't need a website. I can just be on Facebook." Don't do it. It's a trap. You don't own anything on Facebook, and Facebook is a capricious master. It will turn off your access to your fans, and it does, frequently.

What works on Facebook is different too. Blogs and websites are text-centric and longer form. On Facebook, video works best, then images, then everything else. If you want to do Facebook well, you need to be making videos right now. The algorithm may change in six months and video may not be so dominant, but right now it's huge.

Jim: Think about your own use of Facebook. You probably scroll past text, but when you see a meme or a video, you stop and at least give it a glance. One image that helps people understand different social networks is to think of each one as a party. You'll dress differently at a bonfire on the beach than at a thousand-plate dinner fundraiser, and you'll act differently at each.

Thomas: Even if it's the exact same people. Imagine a fraternity that has a bonfire party and then a seven-course meal. It's the same folks, but they're wearing different clothes and have a totally different set of social norms because of the setting.

Jim: At the bonfire, you happen to have your guitar there, so you break it out and sing a Jack Johnson song, and people love that. But you wouldn't do that at the formal dinner.

Why do PR appearances sometimes fail to sell books?

Question from Brennan McPherson, author ofCain: “Greetings guys, fantastic podcast, such great content. Thanks for all your hard work and for sharing your expertise freely with us newbies. What are the most important ingredients that go into helping any PR opportunity successfully sell books? My publisher has gotten their authors on Good Morning America, Fox News, and other major outlets, yet sold fewer than 500 copies that week. When you have upward of a million people watching and yet you only sell 500 books, what is that author doing wrong?”

Thomas: Many PR people make the mistake of just booking the show without training the author to be good on the media.

The most classic mistake is not mentioning the name of your book. You use the phrase "my book" instead of saying, "As I was working on Courtship in Crisis," which is the title of my book.

That simple change can make a huge difference. I heard about a PR person who spent all this time getting their author onto Good Morning America, and the author never once mentioned the title of the book, and the host never mentioned it either. All that work, and no one knew what this person had written. It was a total failure.

That's just one of dozens of things you need to learn, along with practicing questions and learning to be entertaining. If you do a good job on media interviews, they'll turn into more media interviews.

Jim: Being entertaining is such a big component. You need to be provocative, encouraging, and do something that makes the person think, "Oh my gosh, I need to know more." Remember the breadcrumb idea from our bio episode? You're doling out little breadcrumbs.

You need that viewer or listener to think, "I've got to find out more about this." If you say, "You read my book and you're instantly going to lose those 30 pounds you've already wanted to lose, let me prove it to you," you give them a reason to go deeper.

An interview is a sales experience. You're marketing yourself and the benefit of reading your book.

Thomas: One of my jobs is guest hosting for a local talk radio station. I've learned never to promise an author more than one segment, because sometimes authors are incredibly boring to interview, and I can't wait to get them off because they're killing the ratings.

You have to put yourself in the other person's shoes. They don't care about you or your book, and if they're really good, they don't care about themselves either. They only care about their viewers or listeners, and they measure that in ratings. If you're good for ratings, they'll book you more often.

That's why Trump does so well in interviews, he's good for ratings, and anyone who talks about him sees their ratings go up. I was watching a late-night show where the host wanted to book Cruz, but Cruz isn't good for ratings, so the host dressed up as Trump and pretended to be him to interview Cruz. I'm not endorsing Trump politically, but he has the kind of media training that makes him good for TV. If you want to be good for TV, you need to learn that skill, not just get booked.

Jim:. I do a lot of interviews, and one question that comes up often is how I come up with unique stories. It'd be easy to go into the depth of my process, but that's boring. So I'll just say, "Too many comic books as a kid." The hosts laugh, and we move on. In an interview, you're the entertainer.

How do I market an indie press with authors across different genres?

Question Holly Holliday of Holliday House Publishing: “I'm a big fan of the Novel Marketing Podcast, though I haven't caught every episode. I have a small press, eight titles available, seven more coming out this year. I was wondering if you have any advice on marketing the brand of an independent publisher with a variety of authors who write in different genres.”

Thomas: First, have your authors listen to Novel Marketing. Second, train your authors to market themselves. Indie publishers often don't spend much money on marketing, and when they do have money, they don't always know where to spend it. The cheapest thing to spend money on is training, so your authors can turn their own efforts into marketing.

Jim: I'm going to interpret this question a different way, in case Holly is asking how to market herself as an independent publisher.

If you're marketing to readers, the bad news is no one cares who the publisher is. Ask some of your non-publishing friends to name the last novel they read and tell you who published it. Ninety-nine out of a hundred won't know. So don't worry about marketing yourself to readers as a brand.

Thomas: I'm going to push back on this, because I think it can be done, and I've done it. With Enclave Publishing, we built a brand that readers became passionate fans of, and we built a huge email list. We did it by focusing on a niche and turning down lots of great books that didn't fit, because we had a niche inside a niche, fantasy and science fiction, and inside that, Christian fantasy and science fiction. That's a tiny niche, but we had passionate fans, and our email open rates were through the roof because of it. The key is to focus on that niche and thrill it, so your brand means something. But Jim is right that 99.9% of publishers don't mean anything to readers. A few do.

Tor means something. A couple of romance publishers mean something. If you're published by those, readers know what kind of book it is, and the brand itself has fans. Some nonfiction publishers have created brands that mean something too, like the Dummies brand. You see the yellow book on the shelf at Barnes & Noble, and that means something, even if you don't know or care about the author. You need to think about how to create a brand like that. In fiction, the only way I've seen it done is by focusing on a niche and staying consistent within it. If you're publishing whatever books you like, with no throughline, it won't work.

Jim: In a case like Tor, where you hear the name and know a book falls into fantasy or science fiction. But when you have a variety of authors writing in different genres, that's going to be a challenge.

Thomas: Another suggestion for marketing a publishing company in general is to only use measurable marketing tactics. Measure what you do and only repeat what measured well. That sounds simple, but almost no one measures, and almost no one repeats what worked, because they don't actually know what worked, they just feel like they know. Find ways to measure it, and if you can't measure something, don't do it, especially on a tight budget.

I'd also recommend listening to our episode about what I did with Enclave, though it'll be harder to reproduce those results with a broader brand. You may want to consider narrowing your focus over time and becoming known for one thing. That's the way to do publisher-based marketing where the publisher itself means something.

The other option is to be an invisible publisher, like most publishers, and just help your authors build their own brands. Some people say traditional publishers never spend money marketing their authors, but that's not true. They spend a lot on marketing, but they only market their best authors. If you spend $10 marketing your best author, that might bring back $30 in sales. If you spend $10 on your worst author, that might bring back $2. So you only want to invest in the best authors in your stable.

Is Wattpad worth it for new writers?

Question from Dave Small: “Is the Wattpad app/website a good avenue for new writers to gain exposure?”

Thomas: Wattpad.com is a website where you write your book chapter by chapter, and people can subscribe to get chapters as they come out and give you feedback. It's an interactive way to write, and it's kind of a platform for working with beta readers. It started in the fanfiction space and is still very much there, but it's grown into the indie publishing space too.

If you're trying to get exposure with traditional publishers, Wattpad isn't the place to be. People who think indie is poor quality haven't seen fanfiction. The best fanfiction is at the level of medium to low-end indie published work, and it goes down from there. Not that there isn't great fanfiction, but it's almost never edited at all.

That said, Wattpad can be great. I'm not against it altogether, because in terms of motivation, it can help you get feedback and build a base of readers.

Don't expect those readers to buy your book, though. The kind of people who use Wattpad are the kind who might think $4.99 is a lot to spend. But if you have a few hundred readers, that's not a lot of sales to sacrifice for potentially great feedback that helps you produce a better book, one you then hand to a professional editor. There's nothing keeping indie books from having the same quality as traditionally published ones. It's just a matter of hiring people who are good instead of hiring your friends.

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