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Episode 13: Invaluable Websites for Authors
49 Plays1 month ago
From craft help to marketing advice to business boosters, we explore some of our favorite websites for authors. Listen in as we reveal our go-to resources for writing and publishing—a curated list worthy of prime real estate in your bookmarks.
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Transcript
Introduction to Author Resources
00:00:14
Paul Regnier
Hello and welcome to the show. I'm Paul Regner.
00:00:17
Lindsay Franklin
I'm Lindsay Franklin.
00:00:19
Paul Regnier
And today we're talking about invaluable websites for authors. We've collected some of our favorite websites, things that have helped us, things that continue to help us, good resources, good sources of information for the publishing world, for marketing, and everything in between.
00:00:38
Paul Regnier
um Lindsay, I'm gonna throw it to you to start it
Exploring K.M. Weiland's Writing Craft Techniques
00:00:41
Paul Regnier
off. Do you have a website in mind that you've considered very valuable for your writing journey?
00:00:48
Lindsay Franklin
I do. And this is one I recommend a lot um when I am teaching. I also will reference this site a lot when I am developing new content to teach about.
00:01:00
Lindsay Franklin
So when I'm writing workshops and and that sort of thing, um because I really like the way that she explains craft stuff. And she covers a lot of different craft things.
00:01:12
Lindsay Franklin
So that this website is helping writers become authors. And this is K.M. Weiland's site.
00:01:18
Paul Regnier
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:01:19
Lindsay Franklin
And she covers so many different craft aspects.
00:01:19
Paul Regnier
h
00:01:25
Lindsay Franklin
And it's it's a very helpful resource. I feel she lays stuff out in a way that is very accessible. It's easy to understand And yet these are complex topics that she's talking about.
00:01:38
Lindsay Franklin
And that's always the sweet spot for me. Like, don't make it too simple or dumb it down too much. Like, you know, we we want to tackle these things in a complex way, but make it accessible so that you don't feel like you need to have an MFA to understand, you know, what what's being talked about because that's just, you know, that makes it really difficult.
00:01:52
Paul Regnier
Right.
00:01:57
Lindsay Franklin
So I love the way that she approaches a purchase craft and several different different elements of it.
00:02:04
Paul Regnier
Yeah, that's a great
Marvel Movies: Story Structure Insights
00:02:05
Paul Regnier
website. they She did this series that I read on the Marvel Universe. So she did she sort of did an analysis of each like Marvel movie as it came out, because I think she was doing it at the time when they were being released.
00:02:18
Paul Regnier
But it was really interesting because she talks about the characters.
00:02:18
Lindsay Franklin
Oh, that's so fun. Yeah.
00:02:21
Paul Regnier
She's talking about like what movies stood out to her as a... stronger story structure overall and why. And so she really does a lot of sort of like deconstructing of how things worked and or or didn't work, right?
00:02:37
Paul Regnier
Or what made them more powerful than another
00:02:37
Lindsay Franklin
yeah
00:02:41
Paul Regnier
Yeah, she has she's definitely coming at um writing from the plotter side. You can tell because she's very into structure right and outlining and plotting.
00:02:50
Lindsay Franklin
Yeah. Yes.
00:02:51
Paul Regnier
And so you can definitely tell she's coming from that mindset, but like very helpful and very like good at decoding some of those things.
00:02:57
Lindsay Franklin
yes
00:03:00
Paul Regnier
Because you can come away and like, boy, why is that my favorite movie? I know because I like the character and this and that. And she' she'll sort of break it down structurally like, this is why it was so powerful.
00:03:10
Lindsay Franklin
Yes, and I really love that. I think that a lot of those those resources that do dive into that, the structure side of it and the the plotting side are very helpful to me because I think that's one of my weaker areas in craft and like weaker naturally. So that's something that I have to study up on a lot. And I have studied up on a lot to make sure that it doesn't, you can't tell that it doesn't come naturally to me the way that characters or theme or even world building, those things all come more naturally to me than
00:03:46
Lindsay Franklin
plotting and structure do. And so I'm definitely drawn to those resources and those people who talk about that a lot because it is a naturally weaker area for me. So I do need to do more studying. Whereas when it's something like, um you know, like I, there's, this is not on my list of of websites, but there are some really good, um,
00:04:08
Lindsay Franklin
personality typing websites out there where it goes into all the different either Myers-Briggs or Enneagram stuff or whatever, where it talks about all of these different, you know, kind of human psychology things and different temperaments and all of that.
00:04:22
Lindsay Franklin
Those are really fun for me to read, but I don't need to study those sites in the same way or study that information in the same way to build my characters because that part is organic for me.
00:04:25
Paul Regnier
Yeah. Yeah.
00:04:33
Lindsay Franklin
But I need somebody like K.M.
00:04:33
Paul Regnier
yeah
00:04:36
Lindsay Franklin
Weiland and I need like James Scott Bell to explain structure sure to me so that I can wrap my mind around it and really get that.
00:04:40
Paul Regnier
yeah
00:04:43
Lindsay Franklin
buried in my subconscious so that it is something that I can do at this point, you know, years and years into my writing journey, I do that organically. I don't need to go reread all of this every single time I'm i'm plotting a book.
00:04:54
Lindsay Franklin
But I'm definitely drawn to those resources where they are diving really deep in that because I need to learn those things.
00:04:58
Paul Regnier
Mm-hmm.
00:05:01
Lindsay Franklin
they They're not just living in there naturally for me.
00:05:03
Paul Regnier
Right. Yeah. And then the more you can see analysis, story analysis, the more it just sort of becomes innate, I think, you know, so that when you're writing, you know, you may not know exactly, you know, what you're doing wrong, but you know, like, ah, why is this not working?
00:05:11
Lindsay Franklin
yes
00:05:19
Paul Regnier
something Something's off, you know? And then if, you know, if you have a lot of that studying, you'll be like, oh, I know why I need to do this or the character needs to do this or whatever it is.
00:05:21
Lindsay Franklin
Mm-hmm.
00:05:29
Paul Regnier
So yeah, the more I think the more you study stuff like that, it just sort of becomes innate and natural. you know
00:05:37
Lindsay Franklin
Absolutely. And I actually really love when writing teachers will use movies as examples. And I know that seems like counterintuitive sometimes.
00:05:42
Paul Regnier
Mm-hmm.
00:05:45
Lindsay Franklin
And I do this when I teach as well. Like, why are you not using book examples? Well, I do use book examples, too.
00:05:49
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:05:51
Lindsay Franklin
But there is something about the the film format that I think it's it's helpful because it's all kind of external. We're viewing it externally, right? Rather than reading it. I think there's something about reading a story where it's a little bit more subjective or something. So when you're holding something up as an illustration, there's something about using film where it's because we all watched the same movie, which is not to say that we pulled the same things out of it necessarily, but there is something more concrete about that medium. And I can't quite
00:06:22
Lindsay Franklin
um articulate this well, but it's like you can see some of the beats of the story a little more clearly in movie format for some reason.
00:06:28
Paul Regnier
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:06:30
Lindsay Franklin
So I think that's why a lot of writing teachers will do that and use you know use those as their examples. So I love that she did a whole series on Marvel movies. That's really cool and probably very worthwhile.
00:06:40
Paul Regnier
Yeah. Well, it's almost it's almost like taking like a really great song that you like and scaling it down to the singer and his acoustic guitar or her acoustic guitar, whichever.
00:06:42
Lindsay Franklin
Yeah.
00:06:51
Lindsay Franklin
Yes.
00:06:51
Paul Regnier
But you know what I mean? You get it down. A screenplay has to be so like, you know it's like 120 pages or less, but screenplay started out written too. So it is a written story that just got turned into like a media format.
00:07:02
Lindsay Franklin
Yes.
00:07:04
Paul Regnier
but um But I think it has to be so tight, tightly written, that sometimes those beats and those things, those story structure things are so crisp that make for an easier way to teach a point, I guess.
00:07:11
Lindsay Franklin
Yep.
00:07:17
Lindsay Franklin
Yes, yes.
00:07:22
Lindsay Franklin
Yes. And we have a little more wiggle room and leeway as novelists to kind of work with.
00:07:27
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:07:28
Lindsay Franklin
And there's, there are other layers when you're dealing with novels too. um Things like, and that this comes into play in film as well, but like narrator voice and, you know, there's just, there's just some different kind of abstract things about novels that, that don't exist in visual formats.
00:07:45
Lindsay Franklin
It's it's just not part of a visual format. And so I think that that's another reason why, too. It it removes some of that. is ah I think the stripping it down to acoustic guitar and the guy and just you know what that actual song is is a really good illustration of that.
00:07:59
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:08:02
Lindsay Franklin
It's kind of what what movies do.
00:08:02
Paul Regnier
Yeah, because it because if it's a good song, it's going to sound still good stripped down.
00:08:07
Lindsay Franklin
Yes. Exactly.
00:08:08
Paul Regnier
It's a good way to test, like, is this still working, like story-wise or music-wise or whatever.
00:08:08
Lindsay Franklin
Mm-hmm.
00:08:13
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:08:14
Lindsay Franklin
Right. And to hear the actual melody. And so it's like easier to see the story structure in the same way in a movie than it is to see it in a book.
00:08:16
Paul Regnier
Mm-hmm.
00:08:20
Paul Regnier
Yep.
00:08:22
Lindsay Franklin
So that's very cool.
00:08:24
Paul Regnier
Definitely.
Kindlepreneur and Amazon Algorithms
00:08:25
Paul Regnier
All right, cool. um I will start with my first one, which is kindlepreneur.com. um Kindle, the word Kindle, and then preneur, like entrepreneur.com. And this site is run by a guy named Dave Chesson. And his company has put out some great, helpful products as well. I know some people are probably already using like Publisher Rocket to do like,
00:08:52
Paul Regnier
you know, market research for books and finding the right keywords and like studying your category and seeing how you, you know, line up with different books and, you know, what selling and and what keywords they're using.
00:09:05
Paul Regnier
So that's a great tool that he puts out. He also um put out Atticus, which is a book formatting tool. And I think it's like one of two, it's like you're either using Atticus or you're using Vellum.
00:09:19
Paul Regnier
Um, so, but Atticus, I think works on both PC and Mac where I believe that Vellum only works on Mac.
00:09:19
Lindsay Franklin
I think so.
00:09:27
Paul Regnier
So, um, anyways, those are two big products that, um, he puts out with his company, but also on this website on kindlepreneur.com, there's a ton of articles all about the publishing industry.
00:09:28
Lindsay Franklin
so
00:09:41
Paul Regnier
Uh, you can learn about, you know, just, writing itself or marketing and advertising and just the process of publishing itself and just a lot of good free resources. He has videos, he has articles, um lots of great things. And then if you want to dig deeper, he's got like some paid training courses if you want to go into that stuff. But This is one of those sites that you know i've I'm like signed up for the newsletter. I'm constantly like going back and learning from him because he's he's always in the game. right He's always studying like Amazon algorithms and how they're changing and how that affects you and you know what you can do to kind of like stay on track so you don't get left behind with like different changes that happen within Amazon or the industry itself. so yeah That's sort of a constant great resources resource that I always go back to.
00:10:35
Lindsay Franklin
And that is one that I never do not see Kindlepreneur on the list of recommended websites.
00:10:41
Paul Regnier
It's everywhere.
00:10:43
Lindsay Franklin
It's everywhere in like indie communities, especially that this is like always on the list.
00:10:43
Paul Regnier
Yeah. Yeah.
00:10:49
Lindsay Franklin
And so, you know, when everybody is agreeing that this is an amazing resource, that it's it's going to be a great one.
00:10:50
Paul Regnier
Mm-hmm.
00:10:56
Lindsay Franklin
And I think that that's that is ah an important part, especially of being an an indie author, but just being in really any field, but especially publishing where it's finding voices of people who you trust and, you know, being able to use their resources, consume their content and trust them to have their finger on the pulse.
00:11:20
Lindsay Franklin
I think it's really important to find people like that because,
00:11:21
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:11:24
Lindsay Franklin
Every aspect of being a novelist, whether you are traditionally published or indie published, you could turn into a full-time job, you know meaning full-time hours, 40 hours a week. You could spend writing 40 hours a week.
00:11:36
Lindsay Franklin
You could spend studying the craft. You could spend studying marketing and figuring out what's going on on different publishing platforms, what's going on in the traditional world. But I mean, we don't have enough hours in our our days to do all of this.
00:11:48
Paul Regnier
yeah
00:11:51
Lindsay Franklin
And so you have to have people, people like him and, you know, sitting there where this is his job. This is his full-time gig that he is keeping his finger on the pulse and then creating resources and content for people who want that information.
00:12:06
Lindsay Franklin
And so it sounds like it's a great, right?
00:12:07
Paul Regnier
Yeah, because we have to write books.
00:12:10
Lindsay Franklin
We got it.
00:12:10
Paul Regnier
yeah
00:12:10
Lindsay Franklin
That's what we're supposed to be spending our time doing, telling stories.
00:12:12
Paul Regnier
Right, right.
00:12:13
Lindsay Franklin
That's why we're here. Yeah.
00:12:14
Paul Regnier
ah
00:12:14
Lindsay Franklin
So it's great to have a resource like that where he's like, you know, aggregating a lot of stuff and providing a lot of really valuable tools. It sounds like.
00:12:23
Paul Regnier
Yep, definitely.
00:12:25
Lindsay Franklin
Very
Jane Friedman's Publishing Insights
00:12:26
Lindsay Franklin
cool. Well, my second recommendation is Jane Friedman. I should spell spell her name to make sure we get this right.
00:12:34
Paul Regnier
h
00:12:36
Lindsay Franklin
So it's And i have been seeing Jane Friedman's articles for, I don't i mean, at least 10 years.
00:12:48
Lindsay Franklin
She's been in the publishing industry for a very long time and doing a bunch of
00:12:48
Paul Regnier
Right. yep
00:12:53
Lindsay Franklin
different things. She's been in a bunch of different roles. And so her knowledge base is very deep and wide. She has you know She has guest authors who come and talk about different things on her on her blog.
00:13:05
Lindsay Franklin
i didn I don't even know if we can call it a blog anymore. That feels like a little old school for me to like frame it that way.
00:13:10
Paul Regnier
ah Right. Yeah.
00:13:11
Lindsay Franklin
But like articles, she has them writing articles for her for her site.
00:13:13
Paul Regnier
Yes.
00:13:16
Lindsay Franklin
So she just covers so many different things. If you go to her site and hover over the topics menu, it's like Traditional publishing, literary agents, self-publishing, hybrid publishing, other publishing paths, working with editors, marketing promotion, author platform, creativity and writing life, improving your writing, publishing industry reports, ai legal issues.
00:13:38
Lindsay Franklin
And she, I mean, she covers in depth and well all of these topics.
00:13:40
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:13:44
Lindsay Franklin
And she's pulling in experts on some of things. If she doesn't have the expertise, she'll bring people in who do.
00:13:47
Paul Regnier
Yep. Mm-hmm.
00:13:49
Lindsay Franklin
So she just has so much valuable information about things. the industry. And so that is a very helpful site, I find.
00:13:58
Paul Regnier
Very comprehensive. Yeah. Lots of stuff.
00:14:00
Lindsay Franklin
Yes.
00:14:00
Paul Regnier
It's kind of like, yeah, she has her finger on the pulse of like all these different spider web lines of the publishing industry. Yeah. Very good. Yeah. I've been, I've been following her for quite some time as well.
00:14:13
Paul Regnier
um Awesome. So I've, my second one is authormedia.com. And that's run by Thomas Umstead Jr. And he runs a podcast that I listen to all the time. And that is the Novel Marketing Podcast.
00:14:31
Paul Regnier
And um he's kind of like a along the same lines, like really talks about a lot of different things in the publishing industry, but also like helpful tools for authors. um he's like ah He's more of like a numbers business guy. So I know for like a lot of authors we're focused, ah especially initially on the creative aspect of this endeavor. Um, but then we're like, Oh, now we have to promote and market and we have to think like a business. Like, how do we do that? So he's a really great guy to go to for that stuff because for him, that's like, that's like his world. That's where his mind kind of like, you know, he does all those stats and breaks down breakdowns of what's, what's working and what's not and and how to run, you know, um, your author business and, He also has a lot of great tools. like if you um
00:15:28
Paul Regnier
There's a paid portion on his website where you can join his patron, be like a patron, but he has created all these AI tools that you can use. like there's like up i'm going to go down just a couple like there's a blurb generator kind of for that back of the book thing um there's like a scanning tools for your author website to see if are you getting the most out of your website um as far as like you know is it showing up um on organic listings and and is it showing up where you want it to show up and um he's got like book cover generators for for freebies not for like your main stuff but if you're doing like a um
00:16:07
Lindsay Franklin
Mm-hmm.
00:16:09
Paul Regnier
like one of those reader magnets that you're giving away for free. You can do like a quick generator there. It's got um like a book title brainstormer, plot synopsis generator, like all these cool little things.
00:16:22
Paul Regnier
I mean, I could go on and on. He's got like a ton of them. But um just a lot of cool tools for authors. And i think even he has like sort of a, like a social media component on there where not really social media, what's a better word for almost like a message board where authors can join and, and um share resources.
00:16:45
Paul Regnier
and And someone could go up and say like, Hey, by the way, I'm an editor. If anyone needs editing and and like, Oh, I do cover art for books. And, this and that. so there's and Or they just talk about like recent things that they've experienced that others can like, oh, what happened?
00:17:00
Paul Regnier
I got this weird, funky email, and is this spam? And stuff like that. So anyways, community.
00:17:05
Lindsay Franklin
There's like a com community aspect to it. right there's a community Yeah, cool.
00:17:07
Paul Regnier
Yes, thank you. um Yeah, online community. Thank you. I couldn't think of the right words. But lots of good tools. Like I said, like a lot of these are free. He's got a lot of free articles. His podcast is free um and like some videos and stuff too.
00:17:24
Paul Regnier
And then, yeah, like I said, you could become a patron and get access to like some of his AI tools as well. But but yeah, overall, like very, very good resource for for any author, I think.
00:17:38
Lindsay Franklin
And I think that he maybe started, if I'm remembering correctly, kind of in the web development space.
00:17:45
Paul Regnier
Yeah, he did.
00:17:46
Lindsay Franklin
I feel like with, yes, with, um you know, building author websites and that sort of thing.
00:17:51
Paul Regnier
Uh-huh.
00:17:51
Lindsay Franklin
So it doesn't surprise me that he has the ability, like capability to build some of these tools, you know, that authors can can use.
00:17:58
Paul Regnier
Yes.
00:18:00
Lindsay Franklin
And he's been in the industry for quite a while. Okay.
Writer Camaraderie: Meeting Thomas Umstead
00:18:03
Lindsay Franklin
i have a funny Thomas story, funny Thomas story.
00:18:04
Paul Regnier
Ah, let's hear it.
00:18:06
Lindsay Franklin
So I can't think of when I very first met him. I'm pretty sure that I met him at Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference a billion years ago. um But I have this like snippet of a memory that was and I don't think it was the first time we met maybe a couple of years later, but it was still pretty early days for both of us in our
00:18:16
Paul Regnier
Mm-hmm.
00:18:25
Lindsay Franklin
our careers. And at this particular writers conference, there's this like coffee shop space where people would stay up really late there. I listened to a lot of Steve Lobby stories, um you know, at one in the morning, he's just regaling us with all of his tales of, you know, ah publishing stuff.
00:18:42
Lindsay Franklin
And I have this very clear snippet of a memory sitting in that coffee shop with Thomas and some other people. And we were laughing about Farmville. Do you do you know this Yes, little game.
00:18:52
Paul Regnier
Oh, that little game? was like a little game, right? Phone game?
00:18:54
Lindsay Franklin
Yes. Yes. Where, yeah, it's on your phone or but in those days, it was probably like a Facebook game or something.
00:19:00
Paul Regnier
Hmm.
00:19:00
Lindsay Franklin
don't remember, but it was something like that. And it was late and we were punch drunk and everything was funny. And I just remember Thomas going, you know, making some joke about digital turnips.
00:19:12
Lindsay Franklin
Yeah. You know, it was like, like harvesting digital turnips. And we were just dying laughing because I think he was saying he couldn't quite understand the appeal. And I love these games. I love these like farm mill type games.
00:19:25
Lindsay Franklin
And he's like, I don't get it.
00:19:25
Paul Regnier
right
00:19:26
Lindsay Franklin
Like, can I harvest my digital turnips or whatever? And we just were laughing. And it was so funny. So I think for A couple of years after that, i haven't talked to Thomas in a really long time, but I'm pretty sure that every time I'd see him at conferences after that, it was like, harvest the digital turnips or hoe the digital turnips or something.
00:19:43
Lindsay Franklin
Anyway, that's my very random Thomas Umstead story.
00:19:46
Paul Regnier
That's funny.
00:19:47
Lindsay Franklin
So I love those games though. Those like, ah
00:19:49
Paul Regnier
Whenever you message him, you always end with hashtag digital turnips.
00:19:53
Lindsay Franklin
hashtag digital turnips anyway but yeah that he's he's a good resource
00:19:56
Paul Regnier
That's funny. But that's what's great about those conferences, right? Even just those those times of camaraderie, even if it's like silly at one in the morning, it's it's fun.
00:20:00
Lindsay Franklin
yes
00:20:06
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:20:07
Lindsay Franklin
Yes. So random, so many fun, just conversations and games and things that, that is the one thing that you can't, it's not quite the same being online with, with folks.
00:20:17
Paul Regnier
yeah
00:20:18
Lindsay Franklin
And there's a lot that we can do online these days that we couldn't do, um you know, back in the day, but there is just something about being there in person.
00:20:26
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:20:26
Lindsay Franklin
And, um,
00:20:27
Paul Regnier
Yep.
00:20:28
Lindsay Franklin
listening to Steve talk about his decades of experience and all these random crazy stories and, you know, talking about digital vegetables with, um you know, people you just met or whatever.
00:20:39
Lindsay Franklin
But yeah, it's good times, good memories. um I digress.
00:20:45
Paul Regnier
Yes.
00:20:46
Lindsay Franklin
ah Okay.
00:20:46
Paul Regnier
I think it is your, I think your turn.
00:20:48
Lindsay Franklin
Is it my turn? Okay.
00:20:49
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
Fantasy World-Building with Google Translate
00:20:50
Lindsay Franklin
I'm going to talk about my weird little, because we're talking about websites. And this is one of my weird little hacks. um This is a world building hack that I use. So I noticed in some of my early early manuscripts, you know, where you're building a fantasy world and there was a disconnect for me when I kind of finished this draft and i I took a step back from it and looked at all of my, the names and the like names of people and places and the names for the magic or just all of these words that I had made up, right?
00:21:24
Lindsay Franklin
And there was a disconnect because what I had been doing to build that, especially naming people and places was i would look on like baby name sites, which is still, ah that's a good way to look for names, especially, yeah, like especially sites where they allow you to search the meaning.
00:21:38
Paul Regnier
Yeah, I've done that.
00:21:42
Lindsay Franklin
If you're looking for a name that means a particular thing that can be you know, kind of cool. And so that's how I had sort of built all of that.
00:21:47
Paul Regnier
Mm-hmm.
00:21:49
Lindsay Franklin
But what I realized, looking back at it as like a finished product, is there was a disconnect between the different source languages. So it's like you've created this society where all of these people come from the same culture, but there's like different names.
00:22:05
Lindsay Franklin
And there's no reason for that culture to be quite a melting pot. Like that's not weird in the United States to have a ton of different, you know, languages being the the root of all of our names, right?
00:22:09
Paul Regnier
oh
00:22:16
Lindsay Franklin
Because we, that's, our culture has been built by ah on, you know, using a bunch of ah other, you know, cultures, if that makes sense.
00:22:23
Paul Regnier
Sure.
00:22:24
Lindsay Franklin
We are a melting pot. um But why would that be true in this like fantasy world where it's not a melting pot situation?
00:22:29
Paul Regnier
Right. I get it.
00:22:31
Lindsay Franklin
So, yeah. So yeah,
00:22:33
Paul Regnier
He's a German dwarf and here we have a Swedish elf.
00:22:36
Lindsay Franklin
Right, exactly. We needed a little bit of, you know, ah more cohesiveness there. But Tolkien, I am not. i am never going to be sitting here building my own language, right?
00:22:47
Lindsay Franklin
That just, man, if that's you, more power to you.
00:22:47
Paul Regnier
Right.
00:22:50
Paul Regnier
Right.
00:22:50
Lindsay Franklin
i know we all like, we all have our things where we're going to geek out about that, get really excited about it.
00:22:56
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:22:57
Lindsay Franklin
I totally understand. um That is not one of them for me. I just, that sounds like torture to me trying to create my own language. No, thank you. Um, so what I started doing, and this brings us back to the website.
00:23:11
Lindsay Franklin
I promise I have a point. Um, I use Google translate in a really specific way. So I do not recommend using Google translate to actually translate things. This is not a good idea, but, um, what I do use it for is when I am building a world, I will pick a source language for that culture.
00:23:31
Lindsay Franklin
So pick an existing language.
00:23:32
Paul Regnier
Hmm.
00:23:33
Lindsay Franklin
So for example, for the Weaver trilogy, the main culture in that story ah world is, at or in my story, not in the world, but um is the Tyrion, it's kind of the Tyrion empire.
00:23:47
Lindsay Franklin
So they are an empire with different cultures within there, but Tyr is where Tanwen, my main character, is from. And so I used Welsh as the base language there because that's part of my heritage. And so, and I had done the naming system sort of based on how the Welsh language did names, you know, back in, i don't know, centuries ago.
00:24:06
Lindsay Franklin
And so whenever I was going to name a city or name a body of water or name a person, I would look up a word in Google translate, you know, any word, like for my sea captain, I, you know, what is the word for ocean in Welsh or that sort of thing.
00:24:06
Paul Regnier
Mm-hmm.
00:24:23
Lindsay Franklin
And so then I would take that Welsh word and kind of anglicize it a little bit and make it something that was pronounceable or looked normal for an English speaker because my audience is gonna be mostly English speaking.
00:24:37
Lindsay Franklin
And sometimes, cause Welsh language, the pronunciation is is strange. And so sometimes, or unusual for us, I should say, um I would listen to the way that that word is properly pronounced in Welsh and then make the spelling I'm using match how an English speaker would spell that so that it's, you know, for example, the Welsh actor Ian Griffith, you would never think that his last name is pronounced Griffith because it's like G-R-U-F-F-U-D
00:24:56
Paul Regnier
h
00:25:07
Lindsay Franklin
or something like that. But in Welsh, that's Griffith. And so I would listen to how it is, you know, pronounced in Welsh and then anglicize it. Okay. So doing that
00:25:17
Paul Regnier
Interesting. Yeah. Didn't you have a character named Grafell or something like that?
00:25:21
Lindsay Franklin
Yes, yes.
00:25:22
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:25:22
Lindsay Franklin
And I would have to go back to see like what what was the source word that I was using to kind of create her name, but I absolutely did.
00:25:28
Paul Regnier
Ah, interesting.
00:25:29
Lindsay Franklin
Good memory you have to remember for that, but yeah.
00:25:31
Paul Regnier
Yeah, yeah Because it reminded me of Griffin, you know like a Griffin creature.
00:25:36
Lindsay Franklin
Yes.
00:25:37
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:25:38
Lindsay Franklin
Yep, Griffel. And so all of those characters, if they have Tyrion heritage, I used Welsh to create their names. And I think Tanwen's name is like,
00:25:48
Lindsay Franklin
maybe white light or white fire or something like that. um Yeah, so everybody has kind of the same base language being used to create those words so they all have that cohesive sound that language tends to.
00:25:51
Paul Regnier
Oh.
00:26:03
Lindsay Franklin
Then when my world expanded and these characters are traveling to kind of, you know, they're on a ship and they're going south into my more like almost Mediterranean type of world, I'm not going to use Welsh as the base language for that world.
00:26:18
Lindsay Franklin
I used mostly Italian for that, which is another part of my heritage. And so I kind of used that. And when I built that culture, it was an interesting blend of probably Italian and Mexican, which is very strange.
00:26:28
Lindsay Franklin
But, you know, I grew up near the U.S.-Mexico border. So those those things went together for me. But using those real-world languages as a base for naming things gives a cohesiveness.
00:26:41
Lindsay Franklin
And so that is kind of the odd, perhaps, way that I use Google Translate.
00:26:45
Paul Regnier
Wow.
00:26:47
Lindsay Franklin
to it it It's...
00:26:47
Paul Regnier
No, that's cool.
00:26:48
Lindsay Franklin
It's a little hack that if you're not linguistically inclined, as I am not, um then this helps to give that cohesion to your your languages.
00:26:59
Lindsay Franklin
And for the Rivenly sphere, my more recent duology, I used Latin as the base for um for my worlds there. So that's why Novums are named that, because there are nine members.
00:27:10
Lindsay Franklin
there. So, and November used to be the ninth month in, you know, whatever calendar. And so that's, you know, the, ba the root word there is nine with a nove.
00:27:20
Lindsay Franklin
So anyway,
00:27:21
Paul Regnier
Wow. That's really complicated. You spend so much more time on names than I do.
00:27:28
Lindsay Franklin
yeah if The funny part about this is it's so fast to do it. It's so much more complicated to explain it.
00:27:32
Paul Regnier
Oh, is it? Okay.
00:27:34
Lindsay Franklin
Oh my gosh, it takes me like three seconds to come up with a name because I'll just kind of like enter in the word that I'm thinking and, you know, then I'll tweak it a little bit or make it sound a little more fantasy or, you know, tweak the spelling a bit and like, boom, done.
00:27:36
Paul Regnier
Oh, okay.
00:27:48
Lindsay Franklin
It's actually way faster than when I used to use the baby name generators or the baby name sites to look up meanings and try to find kind of the right one or whatever.
00:27:52
Paul Regnier
Right.
00:27:57
Lindsay Franklin
This is so much faster. So it really is a hack. It's not one of these things that I do where I know I'm being extra.
00:28:02
Paul Regnier
Deep research, yeah.
00:28:03
Lindsay Franklin
Right.
00:28:04
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:28:04
Lindsay Franklin
Like it sounds really extra, but it is so fast. And I find it very easy compared to other, other things are certainly easier than building a language.
00:28:08
Paul Regnier
yeah
00:28:13
Lindsay Franklin
That is no, thank you. I know.
00:28:15
Paul Regnier
You just made me feel really lazy. i just i Mine i just might I just kind of come up with off the top of my head. And now I'm thinking, and i'm thinking are they all over the place?
00:28:21
Lindsay Franklin
That works too.
00:28:24
Paul Regnier
Like you know if I go back to Latin root or something like that?
00:28:27
Lindsay Franklin
ah Hey.
00:28:28
Paul Regnier
I think i think because because the majority of what I'm writing is fantasy now, I just try to think of names that sound medieval to me.
00:28:29
Lindsay Franklin
Yeah.
00:28:36
Lindsay Franklin
yeah
00:28:36
Paul Regnier
Like I'll be like, oh, this one's a sort of a like this this warrior. Flengard, yeah, that sounds like something... Like, oh, Fantasy Warrior. might you know i' say And sometimes they just come to me like that.
00:28:46
Lindsay Franklin
yeah that's awesome and that's that's
00:28:49
Paul Regnier
just like, oh, that that'd be a cool name. Yeah, that's good. As the personality is there, it's just like a name kind of fits the personality.
00:28:54
Lindsay Franklin
Right.
00:28:56
Paul Regnier
That's usually how I go about it. Yeah.
00:28:58
Lindsay Franklin
And that's a great way to do it. I think mine felt so mismatched in a way that was, it was really not, it didn't feel intentional and it felt very patchwork, but in a bad way because I was using real world names because I was searching people.
00:29:14
Lindsay Franklin
meanings. And so it's, and it's been, so it's been like 20 years at this point, but I think that if I, if I'm remembering correctly, my list of kind of main characters had source languages, you know, some of it would have been English.
00:29:14
Paul Regnier
m
00:29:28
Lindsay Franklin
Some of it would have been like Polish. I know there was like Indian and Sanskrit stuff and just very like really different, different cultures.
00:29:30
Paul Regnier
You're right.
00:29:36
Paul Regnier
So if someone's like a world traveler, they're going to be like, what is this hodgepodge of...
00:29:38
Lindsay Franklin
Yes. ah Right. Yeah. there were Arabic rooted things. and And all of those are completely fine languages to use as a source language, but they don't, when all those people are supposed to be from the same small, you know, kind of like isolated culture, it just didn't make sense.
00:29:54
Paul Regnier
Right.
00:29:57
Lindsay Franklin
And so when you're creating them yourself, the way that you're talking about, that can totally work because there is that innate sense in the same way, my innate sense, I looked at that and thought,
00:29:58
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:30:07
Lindsay Franklin
those do not go together. There's that kind of innate sense we have with language, if it's working or not.
00:30:08
Paul Regnier
Hmm.
00:30:11
Lindsay Franklin
And so I think you can definitely do that intuitively. And you know the reason it did not work that way for me is because I wasn't doing it intuive intuitively. I was looking up real world names and then using those and they just, bad kind of patchwork.
00:30:24
Paul Regnier
Right. okay So Google Translate, that's good.
00:30:27
Lindsay Franklin
Didn't feel, ah yeah.
00:30:29
Paul Regnier
that's why You don't anger all the linguists out there.
00:30:32
Lindsay Franklin
Right.
00:30:33
Paul Regnier
um Okay, so my final ones, which are sort of like bonus ones, they're not like necessarily like big resource comprehensive resources, but just good tools I think that most authors should use.
00:30:46
Paul Regnier
One
Reader Magnets and Advertising Strategies
00:30:47
Paul Regnier
is Book Funnel, and that's just a great one if you're going to do like a reader magnet, which is just like a free ebook that you usually give to people to build up your newsletter, your mailing list.
00:30:53
Lindsay Franklin
Mm-hmm.
00:31:02
Paul Regnier
um And sometimes it can be used for like, let's say you're doing, you're introducing a new book or a new book series, and this could, you could write like a free, um either a short story or a novella, which is usually what um a reader magnet is.
00:31:16
Paul Regnier
But it could be in that world, set in that world, even with some of the characters, maybe even like a little prequel or something like that, or a side quest of one of the characters.
00:31:24
Lindsay Franklin
Mm-hmm.
00:31:27
Paul Regnier
That could be a great way to interest people in like buying your book that's actually out for sale um and building up your newsletter at the same time. But Book Funnel is the one that seems to be doing that the best.
00:31:40
Paul Regnier
Um, because basically you upload it and then it it just like creates all the different formats that people are going to want to download it, and download it in, depending on what, uh, reader, what ebook reader they're using.
00:31:52
Paul Regnier
Um, and it just kind of keeps track of how many downloads and, and it even has like, you can even team up to do some like, you know, giveaway or not giveaways, but, um,
00:32:03
Paul Regnier
like newsletter swaps kind of stuff. So it can be good for you know building your newsletter that way. But yeah, BookFunnels is a great one. And then the last one I'll mention is BookBub.
00:32:15
Paul Regnier
BookBub is great because it's like um it's a website for authors and readers. And they they, I know everyone's always trying to get the book bub featured author that they send their their newsletter out, which is usually like discounted or free books.
00:32:33
Paul Regnier
And you can usually do pretty well. it's It's hard to get. I've tried many, many times and still haven't been able to get my book bub featured.
00:32:37
Lindsay Franklin
Mm-hmm.
00:32:40
Paul Regnier
But you can also run like just regular ads too. And those have been pretty effective. Not as effective for me as Amazon ads, but like sort of second place. Is that your cat?
00:32:52
Paul Regnier
Okay.
00:32:52
Lindsay Franklin
Yes.
00:32:53
Paul Regnier
Lindsay's cat is like walking by the screen right now. This is funny for all the YouTube people.
00:32:56
Lindsay Franklin
That's Oliver. It's like his.
00:32:59
Paul Regnier
Oh, look at, there's a cat head. Oliver's like, I want to be on camera.
00:33:05
Lindsay Franklin
It's a little bonus for all the YouTube watchers.
00:33:07
Paul Regnier
Oh, that's funny.
00:33:08
Lindsay Franklin
Little orange head. Sorry.
00:33:11
Paul Regnier
We're trying to cash in on the cat video market.
00:33:13
Lindsay Franklin
Yes.
00:33:14
Paul Regnier
It's huge. um So yeah, book so BookBub, you can run ads. If you can get the featured ad, that's usually you can get pretty good traction. They're a little pricey, but you know you can usually earn your money back and then some um But then it's also just ah another great place to have all your books and to connect with readers, you know another window into your author world.
00:33:38
Paul Regnier
and yeah and it's And again, it's a website. It's all about books. So sometimes you'll do these sites like, I don't know, Facebook or something, and it's like, It's so, I mean, you're trying to find readers and it's like, who knows?
00:33:50
Paul Regnier
Like they could be there just talking about their breakfast or whatever.
00:33:53
Lindsay Franklin
right
00:33:53
Paul Regnier
But if you, but BookBub is great because it's so like narrowly focused on readers and authors. So that can be a great place to find new readers and promote your book and all that. So yeah, those are my those are my final author website resources.
00:34:11
Paul Regnier
You got any bonus ones up ah at the end here?
00:34:15
Lindsay Franklin
I
Goodreads: Pros, Cons, and Author Presence
00:34:16
Lindsay Franklin
do. I think that, you know, right on the heels of that, I would say Goodreads, although I do also joke that Goodreads is like the place that, you know, my soul goes to die um because it's just, you know, it's, yes, yes.
00:34:29
Paul Regnier
Because of harsher critiques, you mean, or what? Oh, yeah.
00:34:32
Lindsay Franklin
Yep. That is, that is the place um where, you know, reviews can be a little, they can be a little dicey there, but, um and that's kind of the the trick of navigating some of these these book focused spaces, um because you're 100% right that Facebook, you know, can be a really great place to connect with readers or any social media platform can be, but you have to kind of wade through and do the work of finding the readers in that space.
00:34:35
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:34:58
Lindsay Franklin
Whereas a book focused platform, it's self selecting, it's already all filtered out for you, you just have to find your type of reader amongst a big pool of readers, right?
00:35:03
Paul Regnier
Yeah. Right.
00:35:09
Lindsay Franklin
So that's helpful. And Goodreads is, you know, one of, of course, the, the longest term and you know biggest of these kind of reader spaces and so there is definitely a way to navigate it and leverage it for yourself as an author we're staying out of the the spaces where we're not really supposed to hang out because you hear the the advice that we are not to engage with our reviews and that is good advice and that is good advice don't engage with your reviews um Although i will um I will sometimes, although I don't even do this anymore, but I did with my first series where when my street team, when I had asked them to, you know, whatever your honest review is, please go post it on Goodreads or post it wherever you're And then when I would see their review there, I would like it just so that they knew I saw it.
00:35:18
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:35:57
Lindsay Franklin
And that would be the the extent of my interaction with it.
00:36:01
Paul Regnier
right.
00:36:01
Lindsay Franklin
And really, you know, interacting with, you would think interacting with good good reviews, there's no reason why you shouldn't do that.
00:36:01
Paul Regnier
Hmm.
00:36:09
Lindsay Franklin
And in some ways that's true, but I think that due to some issues maybe with authors interacting with their bad reviews, it's kind of become the standard advice, like just don't engage with your reviews at all because it makes some readers feel uncomfortable, which I understand.
00:36:30
Lindsay Franklin
It's a little different when we're on socials and and somebody, a reader or a reviewer is tagging you in it. That kind of signals that they want you to see it, which is, so that's different. But In a reader-focused space like Goodreads, the wisdom here is that those reviews are really for other readers.
00:36:47
Lindsay Franklin
They are reviewing your book so that other readers can determine if that's going to be a good fit for them or if they might like that story or not. And so even reviewers, I've heard ah BookTubers and such talk about this a lot, where they will say that when If they don't tag an author, it freaks them out if the author shows up, even in a positive review, because it tells them that we as authors are lurking in our reviews.
00:37:13
Lindsay Franklin
And they're like, ah hi, I was talking to my fellow readers and like, whoa, the author is in here.
00:37:13
Paul Regnier
ah Lurking.
00:37:19
Lindsay Franklin
And that can be very uncomfortable for them. So I understand that. So how do we...
00:37:22
Paul Regnier
such a great word. I love lurking.
00:37:25
Lindsay Franklin
lurking. um So i I was talking to a really wonderful book club last night. It's like a local group and they read, um they read the restitching of Camille Dulane this month and asked me if I would come speak at their book club meeting, which was so much fun.
00:37:39
Lindsay Franklin
And ah we talked about this a little bit about, you know, reader spaces and author spaces. And I was like, just so you guys know, a lot of authors, even if they say nothing, are up in their reviews.
00:37:52
Lindsay Franklin
And we are reading what's being said.
00:37:54
Paul Regnier
uh,
00:37:54
Lindsay Franklin
A lot of ah lot of authors do that. And it's really hard for us sometimes to stay out of out of our reviews. But anyway, it's, yeah.
00:38:02
Paul Regnier
i I used to more. Now I don't even look, whether it's positive or negative, I just feel like ah what i ah the only thing I'll kind of pay attention to is kind of your overall, because it always does that overall rating.
00:38:04
Lindsay Franklin
Yeah.
00:38:07
Lindsay Franklin
Yeah.
00:38:14
Paul Regnier
But it's funny, Goodreads, it's funny that you mentioned like that there they tend to be a little more harsh, because ah now on Amazon, if you go, it'll show you at the top your Amazon rating, your overall.
00:38:14
Lindsay Franklin
Yes.
00:38:19
Lindsay Franklin
Yeah.
00:38:26
Paul Regnier
But then just underneath that, they'll say the Goodreads, and it's all almost always lower, right?
00:38:28
Lindsay Franklin
I know. Always, always.
00:38:32
Paul Regnier
And i'm like I'm like, Amazon, do you have to include that? Come on.
00:38:35
Lindsay Franklin
Like, why are you throwing that in our faces?
00:38:35
Paul Regnier
let'ss Let's leave that off. right
00:38:38
Lindsay Franklin
We're avoiding Goodreads so that we don't see it.
00:38:39
Paul Regnier
Right? We're avoiding it.
00:38:42
Lindsay Franklin
know. I died a little inside when I saw that that feature was added because Amazon at some point bought Goodreads a few years ago.
00:38:46
Paul Regnier
I know. They bought them, right?
00:38:49
Lindsay Franklin
yeah
00:38:49
Paul Regnier
You think they would have updated their website. It's like going back in time. That website, I don't think has been changed for like the last 15 years.
00:38:56
Lindsay Franklin
Right? Right? It's so old school.
00:38:58
Paul Regnier
let's same website
00:39:00
Lindsay Franklin
It feels like the old days of like message boards on the internet, like the, you know, forums, the days of forums.
00:39:04
Paul Regnier
right Right.
00:39:07
Lindsay Franklin
That's what it feels like a little bit, but I guess they figure it works for them.
00:39:09
Paul Regnier
Yep.
00:39:11
Lindsay Franklin
That's what everybody expects over at Goodreads and it's just, it's working for them.
00:39:13
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:39:14
Lindsay Franklin
So that's what they do, but it is still worthwhile, very worthwhile to create an author page on Goodreads to make sure that your books are listed correctly.
00:39:22
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:39:24
Lindsay Franklin
You do really weird.
00:39:24
Paul Regnier
Yep.
00:39:26
Lindsay Franklin
There are certain things we can update as authors, like in the metadata, if there are mistakes, but other things you have to like get a Goodreads librarian to fix for you. It's just kind of weird.
00:39:37
Lindsay Franklin
It's a little bit of a weird system, but yeah. you can you can do that and have them fix things if there are mistakes. Sometimes my books will show up first and like not have the cover attached because we've uploaded the metadata a while before we've pushed the cover out.
00:39:49
Paul Regnier
Mm-hmm.
00:39:53
Lindsay Franklin
And so it doesn't always connect. So I can ask a librarian to make sure that cover gets ah pushed all the way through over onto Goodreads and so that my listings are correct and All the editions are combined and all of that that stuff.
00:40:08
Lindsay Franklin
It's a good thing to do because it makes your books more discoverable for people who are perusing Goodreads, looking for their next ah favorite read, perhaps.
00:40:19
Lindsay Franklin
And so that's a very good thing to do. It is a place where if readers want to reach out to you, they can. they can like post things directly on your author page where they are in those cases, they are speaking directly to you.
00:40:32
Lindsay Franklin
It's okay to respond to that.
00:40:32
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:40:33
Lindsay Franklin
You should respond to that if they, you know, yes.
00:40:34
Paul Regnier
Yeah. I think there's like a way to ask, ask the author a question kind of section. Yeah.
00:40:39
Lindsay Franklin
Yes. It's like a little feature there, which is really cool. So for those readers who don't use socials or might not be signed up for your newsletter, like they can't email you directly. that's a place where they could reach out to you. So that's cool. They also have a giveaway feature, which is ah a paid feature. You pay to do this. And they do have a physical book option for that, but they have a really cool Kindle option because now that Amazon owns Goodreads, where you can set up this giveaway and
00:41:10
Lindsay Franklin
select the number of winners that you want for eBooks. And then when the giveaway is over, it just, they will automatically push it out to the, the winners Kindles. So that's really cool.
00:41:21
Lindsay Franklin
Very low maintenance.
00:41:22
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:41:22
Lindsay Franklin
We've kind of been experimenting with that a little bit at Enclave to, you know, kind of see how that all works.
00:41:22
Paul Regnier
Nice. Yeah.
00:41:28
Lindsay Franklin
So that's something to look into if you're interested in that. And it's a, um, Fairly reasonable cost ah to to do that and see if you can get some interest and get some.
00:41:38
Lindsay Franklin
It's a nice little visibility boost at the very least for books.
00:41:41
Paul Regnier
yeah
00:41:42
Lindsay Franklin
So Goodreads, it's a cool space as long as you use it wisely as an author.
00:41:46
Paul Regnier
okay
00:41:47
Paul Regnier
of
00:41:47
Lindsay Franklin
I will just go in and kind of poke at these little things then whoop I'm out.
00:41:51
Lindsay Franklin
And as soon as my street team has reviewed their eARCs, then I'm like really out of my individual book pages.
00:41:51
Paul Regnier
Right. Yeah. Yup.
00:41:58
Lindsay Franklin
Because at that point, I know the listing is set up properly. Things are rolling with reviews. And after that, it's not my space anymore. I go to just my author page or a giveaway page or whatever.
00:42:04
Paul Regnier
you know
00:42:08
Lindsay Franklin
And like, that's it. After that, it's this is for readers. And enjoy. That's your space.
00:42:12
Paul Regnier
ah Yeah, that's good. I do the same. It's probably healthier.
00:42:16
Lindsay Franklin
Yes. Yep.
00:42:17
Paul Regnier
Although the the last time I logged on, I noticed i I had a bunch of books added to me that aren't
Conclusion: The Importance of Author Tools
00:42:23
Paul Regnier
mine.
00:42:23
Lindsay Franklin
Oh,
00:42:23
Paul Regnier
They were like some that were like French paintings or something like because my last name has French origins, Renier, you know, but it got Americanized to Regner somewhere along the way.
00:42:27
Lindsay Franklin
oh my gosh. yeah Yes, yes.
00:42:34
Paul Regnier
But yeah, it's like there's, I guess there's some painter in France right now, Paul Renier, who's going, oh, why are my books really not? I can't do a French accent.
00:42:41
Lindsay Franklin
was pretty good.
00:42:44
Paul Regnier
ah but um But yeah, so I don't know.
00:42:46
Lindsay Franklin
Oh, so funny.
00:42:48
Paul Regnier
I guess I'm supposed to contact them and say, these aren't my books. But yeah, I don't know.
00:42:52
Lindsay Franklin
Yeah. And there are certain things you can do when you have an author page, which is this is another reason why it's worth it to get that set up um once you have books out there is there are things as the author that you can change in the metadata.
00:43:06
Lindsay Franklin
So you might even be able to do that um yourself and say there might be like a link or a button or something that says, this is not my book. And and that will signal somebody on the back end like, hey, but look into this.
00:43:18
Lindsay Franklin
But if not, there are these forums where you go and like say, hey, Goodreads librarians, I need help with this.
00:43:18
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:43:25
Lindsay Franklin
And those people have greater admin access where they can change more things on the back end.
00:43:25
Paul Regnier
Right.
00:43:30
Lindsay Franklin
So
00:43:30
Paul Regnier
Yeah. Especially if they get lower ratings, it's going to lower my overall rank ranking.
00:43:34
Lindsay Franklin
your overall, yes.
00:43:35
Paul Regnier
Yeah.
00:43:36
Lindsay Franklin
ah a
00:43:37
Paul Regnier
Cool. All right. Well, I think that's all I have. Is that is that all your final one?
00:43:40
Lindsay Franklin
Yeah, that is it for me.
00:43:43
Paul Regnier
All right. Well, hopefully these websites are helpful to everyone out there. That's always our goal to help ah all of our fellow authors and writers out there to just get the... I mean, and it's great that we even have all these resources at our disposal, right? Like what, 25 years ago, where any did any of these exist?
00:44:03
Paul Regnier
Even maybe 20 years ago? So it's really nice. We've we've got a lot of... And and that we haven't even talked about like you know book cover websites and things like that.
00:44:13
Paul Regnier
All those different resources. Readsy was another one that we didn't mention.
00:44:17
Lindsay Franklin
Mm-hmm.
00:44:18
Paul Regnier
That's a great resource for connecting with... like editors and and you know doing like little like, hey, I've got this you know chapter one, and i'm trying to find the right editor.
00:44:30
Paul Regnier
And then you can connect with different editors. Can you like get it give me a test edit or something like that? So I probably should have mentioned that too.
00:44:36
Lindsay Franklin
no
00:44:37
Paul Regnier
But Readsie, that's another good one to to take a look at. But other than that, I think that's all we have. And again, hope we hope you've found this helpful. And we'll see ah next time.
00:44:48
Lindsay Franklin
Bye.