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#180 - Rachel McLean
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Award winning indie-published crime writer, Rachel McLean is on the podcast this week talking about her novels, how she cracked self-publishing and moving into a hybrid publishing approach with Hera.
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Transcript
Introduction and Patreon Promotion
00:00:00
Speaker
To listen without ads head over to patreon dot.com slash right and wrong Ooh, a spicy question. I love it. Because the writing is sort of everything, right? You kind of can fix plot holes, but if the writing... So some readers love that and some readers are like, but I wanted more of this. So it's kind of a gamble.
Meet Rachel McLean: Award-Winning Author
00:00:18
Speaker
Hello, and welcome back to the Right and Wrong podcast with me today is the winner of the 2021 Kindle Storyteller Award, a crime author who found incredible success self-publishing her work online. It's Rachel McLean. Hello.
00:00:32
Speaker
Hello, thank you for inviting me along. Thanks so much for joining me. um Let's start with the recent and exciting news that is ah the first of your novels getting a physical print run. I tried to tally up the total number of your novels. I counted 27, is that right?
From Digital to Print: Publishing Journey
00:00:52
Speaker
I think I'm on about 35 now. A few of those aren't crime novels though, so they don't really count in a way. They were the books that I wrote when I was learning my craft and sort of working out how how things all work. um And then I started writing crime in 2020. Oh, okay. Those were the teething books. Yeah, exactly.
00:01:14
Speaker
So all of those have been published digitally until now. How does it feel to have ah physical copies of your books? Yeah, I ah did have paperback copies because I use print on demand. So there are various companies where you can get print on demand books printed that are then available in bookshops and also on Amazon. So mean for example, which was really surprising, the Waterstones in Bournemouth my book, The Court of Castle Murders, in its print-on-demand edition, the edition that I published, was actually their top-selling book over Christmas last year, because I have a lot of fans in Bournemouth. But obviously, having this paperback deal with Hera means that I can get into shops that I can't get into myself because I don't have the kind of reach that they do.
00:02:02
Speaker
It means the print run, obviously, because it's offset printing instead of print on demand. They've done a much bigger print run than I would ever do. yeah um And it's you know it's given me the opportunity to reach new readers, which is great. Okay. is it Is it kind of been a bit of a learning experience as it's the first time you've done a sort of big print run? It has. I think the interesting thing, because I've started printing some of my own books um in the same way, so doing smaller print runs, um because bookshops much prefer books printed in that way, because they get better margins on them. and It's very, very hard for a bookshop to make a profit on a print on demand book, because printing one book costs a lot more than printing one book of a number of thousand.
00:02:46
Speaker
um So, I've learned a huge amount about the jargon. There's some really bizarre terms that are used to describe the parts of a book. a i mean For example, um I'm having some hardbacks done, and I learned the word wibbling, which is the the cover of the jack that the cover of the the case of the book, which is the book itself as against the jacket, which is the paper cover that wraps around the book. And I was like, what on earth is this wibbling? And it's some historical word. I'm not entirely sure exactly which bit it refers to, but you know I was just told to say, what with what colour do you want the wibbling?
00:03:29
Speaker
Once I know what it is, I can tell you what color I wanted.
Rachel's Writing Origins and First Novel
00:03:33
Speaker
But yeah, it's been really interesting and I'm learning more about how distribution works to bookshops and how bookshops work because my model um up to now has predominantly been about eBooks and selling through Amazon. and um you i I've learned how the Amazon ecosystem works and how the Amazon algorithm works and how I can work with that to reach more readers and sell books. um So yeah, I'm learning a whole new new side to the publishing industry, which is fascinating. um and And we're going to get onto the kind of your experiences with like self-publishing and acroid and things like that. But before we do, I thought it'd be fun just to go back and talk about your writing. ah When did you first start writing stories?
00:04:21
Speaker
I probably can't remember when I wrote my first story because I've been writing stories since I was in primary school. I remember I wrote my first serialized stories, so effectively little little novels, um when I was about 10. um in in you know English classes in school. um and Then I went to secondary school, did a carried on doing creative writing for a year or two, and then they stopped getting you to write creatively. It's all about essays and that kind
The Indie Publishing Experience
00:04:52
Speaker
of thing. I had the the sort of fictional creativity knocked out of me.
00:04:57
Speaker
and then didn't write fiction for quite a long time, but was always writing. So every job I've ever had, I've always been the person on the team who does the writing. So I've written training materials, I've written speeches, I've written press releases, I've edited pamphlets and journal articles, all sorts of things. um so I always really enjoyed writing. and Then I was working for the Environment Agency um about 20 years ago now. and I was in charge of commissioning um companies to deliver um personal development skills and communication skills. and I had to go on a writing course in order to check it out and see if it was something that we wanted to deliver to a lot of our staff.
00:05:41
Speaker
And on this writing course, you had to think of a long piece of writing that you were intending to do for work and plan it. And I didn't have a long piece of writing I was intending to do for work. So I thought, you know what, I'll plan a novel. So I spent the day planning um my first novel, A House Divided, which was a political thriller. um And then at the end of it thought, right, I better to write it now. um And it's great because the guy who ran the course, Rob Ashton, I'm still in touch with him. And he was so pleased when I finally published it. It took me 15 years to publish it. I had two children in the meantime, and sort of life got in the way. um But yeah, that that was what got me started on writing novels again. um And as I say, the the first one took a long time. But now I'm significantly faster with my output.
00:06:28
Speaker
Yes. I mean, I would say so given that you've 30 plus novels is it's it's a hell of a lot of novels. So that original novel, self-published, I'm guessing. Yeah. I originally queried agents and I went to the festival of writing in York where you can do speed dating with agents. And there were also people there who were self-published who were talking about it. And I thought, you know what? I like the idea of this. i'm I've always run my own business. I've spent most of my career self-employed. So I'm quite comfortable with the the aspects of publishing that are about business management and about marketing. ah In fact, I really enjoy that.
00:07:10
Speaker
And I also like to have control over when I can release books because because I do write quite fast. And the traditional publishing model generally is to release a book a year here and I are working on um a book every six months for the for the rest of the series as it goes on. yeah um But I wanted to be able to write a book every six months or every three months. I mean, I've i've had years when I've been releasing a book every two months. And indie publishing gives you the option to do that. um And it keeps readers happy because readers want more books. um I get emails from readers the day after a new release saying, great, read it, loved it, when's the next one out? And I think, give me some time, give me some time. But I think there's a model in traditional publishing which is based around how many books can you physically print and get into bookshops, which yeah spreads out the release of and an author's books.
00:08:05
Speaker
And unless you're Stephen King or James Patterson, you can't just say to your publisher, well, I'm going to publish another, I'm going to write another one, um put it out there. um But as an indie, you can do that and you can you can develop the series in a way that that you you work on sort of by communication with your readers rather than having to go through the whole process of working with with the the editor and also the marketing team and the publishing company and all the rest of it. But having said that, to be successful, you do need to have quite a good head for
00:08:38
Speaker
how the publishing market works and what reader preferences are and that kind of thing because it's very easy to publish a book.
Marketing and Reader Engagement Strategies
00:08:45
Speaker
um Writing a book isn't so easy, but publishing is quite easy, but finding readers for it is much more challenging. Okay, so it's you were quite confident about sort of just general business etiquette and and and processes, but I assume there would have been then a learning curve of actually kind of getting into publishing and being like, okay, so how does this work? Yeah, there really was. So the first um three years that I was publishing was when I was writing books that were books that i that were in my heart and I wanted to write. And I hadn't really thought about what the readership would be for them. And they didn't they didn't really fit very well in any of the genres. But while I was writing those books and attempting to market those books, I learned a huge amount about how publishing works.
00:09:29
Speaker
and how book marketing works. and i think and and you know ah I failed effectively with those books because they didn't sell well enough for me to be able to make a living from them. But it was a really, really useful experience because then in 2020, when I decided that I wanted to write in a genre where I knew there were lots of readers and I wanted to meet the expectations of those readers more effectively. i I already had that experience in learning how to advertise books, essentially. um So then when I started writing a series, the Zoe Finch series, which was something that readers could instantly say, Oh, yes, I like
00:10:09
Speaker
these are authors, so therefore I like this. um and I already had the advertising chops to get it out there and and know encourage people to buy it. so It took off really quickly that series and I haven't looked back since. the I think the thing that from the outside seems like the most daunting is, like you say, it's hard to find the readers. It's so it's that marketing aspect. what's you know What was the kind of first things you did where it was like, right this is how I'm going to market? Did you have like a marketing strategy?
00:10:40
Speaker
I did. and It was to train the Amazon algorithm to work for me. like so um Although advertising is really useful for selling books, you can't expect to get every sale from an advert. It's just too expensive because yeah the cost of getting a click on an advert gets higher and higher all the time. so What I did was um i I started by running Facebook ads because they're they're much more likely to actually deliver. um and I ran Facebook ads and tested different um targets and different content in my ads, found some ads that were working, and then really slowly you know started off on like a couple of quid a day, but then really slowly raised the budget so that there were people going to my book page on Amazon and buying the book. so Amazon could then see that people were buying this book and there was an interest in it.
00:11:31
Speaker
Then I started running Amazon ads, which are more expensive, so you need to know that you're going to get some traction with Amazon ads. What I did with those was I targeted the authors whose books were similar to mine, but who were selling no not the huge sellers, but the people who were selling just above where I wanted to be, or just around where I wanted to be. So, I targeted other indie authors, people who were with the digital first publishers like Bookature and Joffee, because they have a lot of readers in common with indie authors because they release fast and they focus on e-books. So, I targeted those authors and what that did was the more and more people who were buying my books who'd bought, for example, of Angela Marson's book, Amazon was learning that if somebody was a fan of Angela Marson's, they might be interested in my book.
00:12:23
Speaker
and therefore recommending my book to those people. and That worked really well for me. you know I could see from feedback I was getting from friends who were getting emails from Amazon recommending my books to them, the that it was picking up on that and it was it was encouraging people to buy my books for me. so I think that was what built the foundation um of my career. and My focus now, although I ah do still advertise, but my focus now is on nurturing existing readers, building a relationship with them, encouraging them to read through all the books, making them feel part of a story world. I do reader events where people argue about whether or not they like Leslie, my main character in the Dorset Grind books.
00:13:07
Speaker
And it's great because I just sit back and think you that you all think she's real, and she's real in my head. yeah um But clearly I've done my job um because people love her. um And so a lot of the ah lot of the work now is on on building relationships with readers, keeping in touch with them. And that's one of the beauties of being indie or hybrid as I am now with a mix of indie and traditional publishing is that you tend to have a closer relationship with your readers because that is the only way to get your books out there is to appeal directly to readers um and I think long term that's a really useful thing and it's also a really nice thing to have. It's lovely to talk to readers and get feedback from them on my books. Yeah. What's your main point of contact with your readers?
00:13:56
Speaker
It's my book club, which is um I have two aspects to that. So I have two newsletters, one for readers and one for audio book listeners. So at the end of each book, there will be um there'll be a link to a story or um some information about how I research the books or some character notes or something like that. And it'll be specific to that book, um They'll either click on that, or they'll go to it um in their browser. um And then they'll get some emails from me with some information about that book. um And then they'll get once they've sort of gone through that, they' they'll get weekly updates from me with news about my research trips, my writing pro process, what books are coming out, um anything that's really going on in my writing life, really.
00:14:45
Speaker
Okay. Okay. Okay. And there's, there is, you do have some come like back and forth there where they can talk to you. You can talk to them. Yeah. I get a lot of replies to those emails. I get a lot of people replying to me. Um, people telling me what they've been doing as well. People telling me about the books they've enjoyed people giving feedback on how much they look forward to getting my emails. Cause I deliberately make them really chatty. Um, so I. don't make them salesy, so most of the emails are not by this book. They're more, hello, you know this is me. I'm in Birmingham or Dorset or Scotland or wherever researching a book. This is what I've been up to, telling some funny stories about things I saw there and how it's inspired story ideas.
00:15:28
Speaker
um And I think readers love getting a glimpse into the the life of an author because I think a lot of readers one would like to be an author. um And so it's something that that you can share with people and sort of build that sense of a community around your readers. Absolutely. And I think it also, by kind of knowing the writer, engaging with them, like on a personal, personal level, it adds a a new depth to the story itself, to the because you you' kind of you know where this has come from, and you you'll kind of see inklings of the kind of the real writer in the the kind of turn of phrase and stuff.
00:16:05
Speaker
Yeah, I think so. And also in some of the character arcs and in the locations that I choose to write about, I've got a personal connection to a lot of those locations, which I talk about a lot. um I'm currently working on a coffee table book, which has got a chapter for each of my Dorset books. And in those chapters there are lots of beautiful photographs of Dorset and also sort of family snapshots of mine, pictures of me on the beach when I was two and that kind of thing. But also lots of personal anecdotes and stories about why I chose to write about that location and possibly an incident that inspired
00:16:41
Speaker
the crime in that location or something like that or um and an account of the day I went to research the book there and what I saw and what happened and you know the bits that didn't make it into the book. yeah um But at the same time also talking about Dorset and the locations and how much I love them and recommending that people go there and providing information on where you can walk and that kind of thing. So that's something that's going to be out in the autumn and I'm hoping that it's the kind of thing that fans will want to buy for Christmas or ask people to buy them for Christmas um because it's designed to be a beautiful book with lots of gorgeous photos. Yeah, no, it sounds sounds great. you should You should get a commission from the Dorset Tourism
The Growth of Acroid Publishing
00:17:23
Speaker
Board.
00:17:23
Speaker
Yes, I do occasionally have people who email me and say, i have I went to Dorset last week to do a tour of all your book locations. And they drive around in the different locations for the different books. And that's amazing to think that I've, you know, my writing has inspired somebody to to go and visit places, places that I love. Yeah, for sure. I'd love to, I'd love to get back onto a bit of publishing stuff here and ask about Acroid publishing is is your publisher, which is also the you created. yeah Did you create it before you published anything or had you already published some things and then decided that this was a good idea?
00:18:03
Speaker
i I already had a company because I'd been working as a freelance technical writer for quite a while. um And that was just in my name. um And then I decided quite early on that I needed an imprint. So I was using Acroid as an imprint. um And then I decided to change the company name to Acroid as well. um Because it's getting There's not just me in the company now, so I have other authors who I co-write with. um so A few of the series are me and another author writing together. and We're also starting to publish other authors as well, so we've got a couple of women's fiction authors on our books.
00:18:44
Speaker
um and I've got a team of people who run the publishing, marketing, all different aspects of of the process of getting the books out. I wanted to give it that sense of being a proper publisher because it effectively is now. um It's not not just not just for my books. It also helps because it makes you it gives you that sort of credibility as part of something that's bigger than just one person. um And particularly having a team means that I've got access to skills that I don't have. And also the time I don't have the time to do it all once when you get to 30 odd books, doing things like getting them all translated or producing large print versions of them all takes quite a lot of time. um And having a team who helped me do that is really, really helpful.
00:19:31
Speaker
And am I right in thinking you, Acroid is now publishing books by other authors, not just you? Yes, so we've got Hazel Ward, who writes women's fiction set in Birmingham. um She's got a series that's currently five books that we're re we're republishing, we're relaunching this summer. um And then we've got Sally Brooks, who writes Suffolk Women's Fiction. She's um written um she's written um sort of political romances in the past, but she's just written the first in her in a rom-com series um that that is out next week. um And she also happens to be my wife. So that that was how it started, because she and I had a conversation about whether, whether because she's been an indie publisher, she's been a self publisher herself for quite a long time, which is how we met. And then when she was getting this book to the point where it was ready, ready for publishing, we talked about whether Akroy could publish it. And then that, that then became, Oh, let's take on other authors as well. So I think with the with where we're publishing other authors, where it's not co written with me, we're going to focus on women's fiction. And then the crime fiction will either be books written by me or by me with somebody else.
00:20:45
Speaker
Okay, right. so you you're sort of you're not I wouldn't say you're actively looking for new authors to publish that. We're really not, no. um i' I want to work with authors who I already know are really good writers, but could benefit from working with us. So Hazel, for example, I've known Hazel for many years, and I've been a beta reader on a lot of her books. So I know that her books are really good. um And I knew that we could we could make something more of them with more of a marketing push. um But yeah, it's like it's not something where we're actually actively inviting submissions. It's more of a ah process of very slow steady growth of our list, as and when we come across authors who we think would be a good fit.
00:21:34
Speaker
Yeah, it sounds very organic the way you're doing it. yeah the Is the sort of goal to, if you are going to continue to add authors kind of slowly gradually, is the goal to sort of find authors who had a similar start to you? So like they've been self-published and you think that... Yeah, I think so. It's going to be largely authors who have been self-publishing for a while, so they understand how some of the commercial aspects of publishing work. um um But at the same time, it's not something that they're interested in pursuing long term, they're more interested in the writing. yeah um And people who have
00:22:11
Speaker
ah probably not necessarily already written enough that we know that they'll be writing good books. Because while we have editors on the team, ah we don't do a lot of editorial work with our writers because they're people who've already got experience. um So it's it it is, as you say, it's it's very organic, and it's something that I don't want to grow too fast because I i never really saw myself being um running a publishing company. um But I saw myself as a writer. But as it happens, I really enjoy running a publishing company. But I do need to make sure that I also maintain the time for writing my own books too.
00:22:51
Speaker
Yeah, the the dream that most people have is that I want to be a writer and I want to have my books published and then you are accidentally becoming a publisher. Yes, absolutely.
Publishing Industry Insights and Trends
00:23:02
Speaker
Accidental publisher. Yeah. um Before we head to the desert island, I just wanted to quickly ah talk about, bring it back to your writing a bit, which like we've talked about, mainly focused on crime and and thrillers. I always like to ask, are there any other genres that you've thought about maybe exploring one day?
00:23:23
Speaker
I quite like um i like um alternative history and high concept science fiction. um so I've written a bit of of near future dystopias. I did have a nasty habit of writing things that then came true. i kept I wrote a few political thrillers and then had to go back and rewrite them because Donald Trump would do what was in my books. um and um ah But so yeah, um to be honest, my writing group sort of banned me from writing those because they kept saying you got to write something happy. um So i really i I like writing that. I also quite fancy having a go at romance at some point, but I would definitely do it under a pen name.
00:24:09
Speaker
um But to be honest, I'm really busy with the crime. i've got we've got some Between me and my co-authors, we've got five series um that are either already in train or are um you know on the horizon, um each of which will have two books a year released. So that's that's plenty to be getting on with. And there's obviously, I've spoken to a few self-publishing authors and that you you see what kind of does really well, the people who are the really big successes in self-publishing. It does seem like crime is the kind of most successful genre within that space.
00:24:46
Speaker
In the UK, it definitely is. In the US, it's quite different. um Science fiction and fantasy does better in the US. And romance does incredibly well um across both the UK and the US. s And romanticy is the hot new thing. um So that's sort of merging of fantasy and romance. and there are some There are some authors who are selling in the millions and millions of copies in the US in particular, because it's such a big market there. Crime is becoming harder, I would say, to break into in the UK, because there are so many crime authors now. There are a lot of people who looked at people like me, JD Kirk, Mark Dawson, quite high profile crime authors who um who started indie publishing.
00:25:32
Speaker
um and of yeah have started publishing their own. and Some of them are ah definitely up and coming and are doing really well and are are going to be overtaking us, um but others are finding it much harder to get traction because it's quite a crowded marketplace. but that there is a really hungry audience of readers. um So I don't think it's impossible. um But I think I think it's probably harder to launch in crime now than it was. um Because there is more competition and also because advertising just gets more expensive all the time. um So I think um there are lots of there's more variety of ways that you can reach readers now than there were four years ago when I started writing crime. And I think one of the interesting things for authors is
00:26:18
Speaker
deciding what interests you and what methods you'll use. so For example, direct selling is going to be huge for authors. um I've got my own website where I sell my books, and I'm finding now that the growth of direct sales, particularly of audiobooks, is really fast because people people aren't really prepared to pay what they have to pay on Audible for an audiobook. um Writers aren't at all happy with the royalties they get from Audible because we only get 25%. I can sell an audiobook to a reader for half the price than they'd pay on Audible, and I'm still making twice the money.
00:26:57
Speaker
um so it's something that's really going to grow. and It's getting easier and easier to sell paperbacks direct. There are companies like Book Vault who do print on demand and hook up to Shopify directly. so If somebody orders a paperback on your site, you don't have to keep boxes of them in your garage or anything like that. yeah it It'll go straight to Book Vault, they'll print it and send it out. um and If you're doing larger print runs, gardeners do that as well. um So there's some real opportunities. There's a lot of people using TikTok or BookTok and selling direct there because there's TikTok shop, TikTok shop. um So yes, there's there's a lot of opportunities and there's quite a lot sort of wade through and get your head around if you're starting as an indie author.
00:27:42
Speaker
um And I guess my advice would be to to do the things that you enjoy, because if you don't enjoy it, you might as well just go and get a job that's got a decent salary and holiday and a pension and that kind of thing, because it's much more secure. yeah Being a writer is very insecure. i was i I bought my house a couple of years ago, and the mortgage companies didn't like the fact that my income went up and down. and I tried to explain to them that when you have a book launch, your income goes up. That's how it works in publishing. and I said to them, if you average out my income, it's you know it's it's fine for what you need for multipliers. They didn't like the fact that it was you it was unstable. They said, well what if it just goes down and never goes up again? and I said, well I've got another book out. I know how many pre-orders I've got. so The you know the sort of traditional world out there doesn't finds it hard to understand how we how we operate, but it can feel quite risky at some times because you know you you can't guarantee that people are going to read your next book.
Diversifying Author Income
00:28:41
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's whether you're self published or like even being traditionally published, you are essentially freelancing. Like you have a book contract, which could be like one book, two books. In rare occasions, it's like more than that. But like you are essentially a freelance writer. And every time you finish your contract, you're looking for another yeah Yeah. And I think i think in in some ways, if you're traditionally published, it's more precarious than being indie because you have less control. yeah so And you also don't have direct access to your readers. So the the thing that scares us all the most as indie publishers is is if Amazon shut down our account.
00:29:23
Speaker
um So there's something called Kindle Direct Publishing, KDP, which is how you publish through Amazon. um And I have a friend, Mark Reclough, and his account was shut down. And he wasn't given a good reason for it. It was one of those things where the algorithm had picked up something that he hadn't broken the rules in the way they thought he had. And they they eventually reinstated his account. But in the meantime, his entire business was gone. yeah um and so I think that's one of the reasons that a lot of authors are looking more at direct sales, because certainly as a backup, if something happens to Amazon, you've got alternative ways of earning money. There are authors like Joanna Penn who's really influential in the indie space and runs a fantastic podcast called The Creative Penn.
00:30:08
Speaker
And she is evangelical about the idea of having multiple sources of income as an author so that you're not reliant on just Amazon or one other source. Yeah, I've heard that before. Yeah. Just to diversify that kind of income flow just in case you say something happens to whatever the platform is that you're doing. Yeah. yeah Awesome.
Desert Island Book Choice and Closing
00:30:31
Speaker
That's really useful stuff. Really good to know for anyone who's who's like thinking about getting into indie publishing, self-publishing. And that brings us to the desert island. So Rachel, if you were stranded on a desert island with a single book, which book do you hope that it would be?
00:30:48
Speaker
This is a hard question, I have to say. um Because ah any writer will tell you that they we all read very, very widely and we have lots of favourite books. um Readers find it really hard to understand the fact that I don't read crime all the time. I read all sorts. But the book I've chosen is Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, which is a good hefty tome. I've managed to find it on my shelf. It's 600 pages long, so I've been getting busy for a while. But it's also a fascinating book because
00:31:20
Speaker
it's got timey-wimey aspects to it. It's about a girl who was born in 1918, and she has she she keeps dying and coming back to life effectively. um and It's almost like she gets a do-over of her life. so Initially, she dies as a baby, and then she dies as a young child. and there are There are various um causes of her death, which are you know they linked with the history of the time. so um you know She dies from the flu in the the big flu pandemic after the First World War, for example. And then as time goes on, she obviously manages to live for longer. And then she she doesn't know that she's had another life. But she seems to subconsciously know because she manages to avoid the thing that killed her last time. But she ends up, there are two parallel lives towards the end, which take place around the Second World War.
00:32:14
Speaker
one In one of which, she's she's in part of Hitler's inner circle, and in another of which, she's serving in, I think, the Rens or something in the UK. So, very different lives in how her paths diverge. um She's also got a brother who features quite a lot, and he's got a spin-off book, which is a wonderful book, too. That's a much more straightforward book, structurally. It hasn't got the the sort of time and reliving and that kind of thing. But I love this book because it's it's about a period of history that's really interesting. It's told from me from the sort of deep third person, I think it is. I remember, is it first person? But anyway, so you really get into her point of view, and you really get to know what her life is like. um But it's also got that that sort of
00:33:03
Speaker
slightly. It's not really time because she's not traveling in time, but it's this alternate history, the idea that somebody can relive their life multiple times. and I love that sort of thing. i was I always find it really interesting when authors play with anything to do with time or with you know being able to live your life differently or anything that's sort of slightly not the standard um sort of passage of time in a book. So so yeah, that's that's my book I would take with me as life after life by Kate Atkinson. Yeah, it sounds like a really interesting twist on the sort of idea of reincarnation and the different paths that that can lead to. Yeah, yeah because she's instead of being reincarnated into another body at the time that she dies, she just starts again. So yeah.
00:33:52
Speaker
Yeah, interesting. It's like a sort of like a Groundhog Day thing, but like progressively moving forwards as opposed to being frozen. Yeah, absolutely. Look, I have some more questions about self-publishing as well as Rachel's writing process, but that will be in the extended episode exclusive to my lovely Patreon subscribers.
00:34:12
Speaker
His newsletters are really funny and he gets a lot of engagement from them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Awesome. um Well, that's that's all the time we have for this episode. So thank you so much, um Rachel, for coming on the podcast and telling us all about your your writing and publishing. It's been it's really, really fascinating hearing about your kind of journey in the industry. Thank you. I've enjoyed it. And if anyone listening wants to find out more about Rachel, you can, the best place to find her is is on the website, www.RachelMcLean.com. And to support this podcast, like, follow, and subscribe on your podcast platform of choice. Join the Patreon for ad-free extended episodes and check out my other podcasts, The Chosen Ones and Other Tropes. Thanks again, Rachel, and thanks to everyone listening. We will catch you on the next episode.