Suzy Vadori

Show don’t Tell Writing Podcast: Episode #103. The Self Publishing Learning Curve

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Suzy chats with Indie Author Rachel E Baird this week about the process behind her decision to independently publish her Romantasy novel, High Tide. She shares a behind-the-scenes look at what it really takes in terms of research, skills, time, and money to launch a book in 2026. 

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Podcast Episode Transcript (unedited)

103. Self Publishing Learning Curve

Suzy Vadori: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Show Don’t Tell writing podcast with me, Suzy Vadori, where I peel back the layers of how to wow your readers with your fiction, your nonfiction. Anybody can bang out a first draft, but it takes a little more work to make your book as amazing as it can be. Join me as I share the step-by-step writing techniques you could apply to your writing right away, as I host successful writers who share a behind-the-scenes look at their own [00:00:30] writing lives, and as I live coach writers on their pages, giving practical writing examples that will make your own writing stronger.

Nobody is born knowing how to write an engaging book. There are real and important skills that you need to learn. On this show, I cut through the noise and get you all the info you need. I can’t wait to see how this information is going to transform your writing Dear listeners, you are in for a treat today.

If you’ve ever [00:01:00] thought about independently publishing or you’ve done it yourself or you haven’t done it in a while, I’ve got a really special guest today, Rachel E. Baird, who is a freelance writer and editor and music teacher, and she is just about to launch. This episode will come out on the day of her first launch of her book.

I’ve been so impressed with Rachel, and the reason that I wanted to have this conversation with her, and she agreed to share it with you, is because she has done so much to learn the art of [00:01:30] independently or self-publishing, and she’s willing to share all the ups and downs, all the curve balls, all the things that you might want to think about.

So if you’ve been on the fence and you’re not sure whether traditional is for you or whether you might wanna do independent publishing, take a listen. Now, a caveat. You don’t need to do everything that Rachel has done. That’s a lot. But you can, and you can do other things, but I just want you to see what’s possible or what the work behind the curtain is because it’s not as simple as hitting publish and then [00:02:00] the readers flocking.

I’ve had the immense privilege of working with Rachel for a number of years. She was actually– One of her novels was my very first practicum back in 2020 when I got my book coaching certification, and then she went off and did other things with her family for a few years, and then she came back with a vengeance when she decided, early 2025, that she was going to independently publish these books that she’d been working on for a while.

So I have worked on her books as a developmental editor. She is also part of my inner circle membership, [00:02:30] where I have watched her grow and flourish, and we have supported her through these marketing efforts. Her heart lies in crafting fantasy romance stories full of magic, so we’re gonna talk a little bit about that, but it’s mostly about her self-publishing journey.

Rachel’s a graduate of Queen’s University and an active member of the Alberta Romance Writers Association, ARWA, and the Imaginative Fiction Writers Association, IFWA. High Tide is their debut novel. Rachel is an avid explorer, a mushroom enthusiast, [00:03:00] and a lover of musicals. She currently lives in Ontario with her husband, her daughter, and a few hairy beasts.

When she’s not trapped at her desk, you’ll find her in the garden, foraging for mushrooms, or at the beach. Welcome to the podcast, Rachel. It’s so good to be talking to you about this. Thank you, Kristy, so much for having me. Yeah, you bet. Okay. Firstly, let’s define independent publishing. What do we mean by that?

‘Cause some of our listeners are like, “What is this?” They, they’re brand spanking new. [00:03:30] So independent publishing is when you decide as the author to take on everything yourself. So from writing and editing, whether you can contract some of those parts out, but editing, marketing, formatting, everything to publication, as well as the cover art and everything that goes along with that.

Yeah, absolutely. It’s like becoming a publisher yourself, right? Which we can do today. There’s the tools and technology. We’re gonna talk about all of that. Um, but yeah, y- it’s definitely a valid [00:04:00] option. Um, why did you choose this path? Like, I mean, I know the answer, but let’s share with the listeners how you came to decide that you were going to publish independently.

Rachel B: Well, I’ve been writing for, uh, about five to six years, and I’ve written quite a few books. I’ve written about four books, maybe five if I had split one of them into, uh, into two books. And I was starting to look at what options there were, whether I wanted to go down the independent publishing or traditional publishing route.

So when I [00:04:30] decided whether I wanted to go down the independent or traditional publishing path, I did some research into traditional publishing, into the agents and publishers, did a query letter, and I submitted a couple query letters. I probably only did a dozen, so I didn’t even do that many, and I just found it to be a lot of work.

And I found the amount of hours and effort that I put into that, I could put into writing and editing and marketing my own book, basically, and, and publishing my own book. ‘Cause they require a lot of work from you on the marketing side, and [00:05:00] that, that’s the other thing. I think the thought process is that traditional publishing markets your book for you, and I don’t think that’s necessarily the case any longer.

Um, a lot of-

Suzy Vadori: It’s not. It’s not …

Rachel B: indep- and traditional publisher, you have to market your own book, and that can be a lot of work. And so I decided to go the independent publishing route so that I could handle everything myself as well. That was another big plus going that way, is that since I have so many, um, books in the repertoire, I’ve already got four or five book ready to go, I can publish those out a lot [00:05:30] quicker than I would if I went through the traditional publishing route and querying them all over a long period of time.

And then I also have that control over the cover art and who gets to edit it and how-

Suzy Vadori: Yeah, there’s so many valid reasons why independent publishing is the right choice for so many writers. And I gotta tell you though, querying seemed like a lot of work is not one that I’ve ever heard before, because you’ve taken on the work, right?

We’re gonna talk about that in a second. But, you know, also, you [00:06:00] are in this fantasy, um, genre and romantasy genre that is very competitive right now, and also has a huge following for independent writers, right? Like, there are groups built in online. There’s a few that it is a little bit easier to do, such as fantasy, such as romance, ones, such as mystery, that have sort of online communities that you can tap into.

So it is a, a little bit easier to get distribution or [00:06:30] to find your people. So I think it was a really smart choice. And again, like you said, the ease of being able to, because you’ve got so far ahead of this, the ease of being able to publish when you want and time that differently because your, your books aren’t all

Some of them are in series, and some of them are in, you know, series adjacent or standalone. And so you can actually time all of that and handle your career much differently. So I think it’s the perfect choice for you. Okay, so you’re weeks [00:07:00] away from publishing the very first book in this long career that we’re about to launch.

Has it been what you’ve expected?

Rachel B: The, the launch period or Or just the whole process?

Suzy Vadori: We’re talking about the learning curve here of independent publishing. Has this whole process, is it what you thought it was going to be?

Rachel B: Yes and no. Like, a lot of the things have very much been what I was expecting.

Like, I have the control over the editing, the cover art, and putting it out there. But I [00:07:30] definitely ran into a lot of things that I wasn’t expecting and that I didn’t know I was gonna have to do, and I’ve had to learn along the way and research and, and adjust accordingly, so. Well, it’s kind of like starting your own business, right?

Like, it’s like, “Oh, I have these widgets that I wanna sell,” but then you gotta learn accounting, and you gotta learn manufacturing, and you gotta learn sales, and you gotta learn all the things that go into that pipeline, and that’s what you’re doing as your own publisher. So what are those things that you’ve [00:08:00] had to learn?

Well, I think one of the biggest things that I wasn’t expecting was how to work with other individuals that I’m hiring, contractors, whether that’s an editor or cover artist and, and what kind of information they might need and what information I need, um, and even what I’m looking for. And I think that was one of the biggest things that I didn’t know going into this, um, and I, and I faced this in particular with my, with my cover art, is that I didn’t know what I wanted it to look like.

I didn’t necessarily have a full picture of [00:08:30] even what my maybe characters would look like, as much as an artist might want, the information and detailed information that they might want. And so I didn’t even know, or what contracts or copyright information I would need, right? Or c- you know, what do I need to publish this legally, right?

I, I don’t know. So I had to, I had to research all of those things, and I, I found that was not what I was expecting. Yeah. I think, you know, when we think about independent publishing, the mis- the misconception out there is that, you know, with Amazon and IngramSpark and all the [00:09:00] different places, Draft2Digital, all the different places that give you the tools, that you can just, you know, make your Word document into a PDF and upload it, and Bob’s your uncle, you’re done.

That is a simpler path. You can kind of do that. I mean, not a PDF document, but you can kind of do that and do everything yourself. But when you’re taking this seriously as your own business, you do have the option to contract things or versus doing it yourself, right? So if you’re going traditional publishing, [00:09:30] you’re the writer, and that’s what you do, and the traditional publisher actually does everything else.

In this case, you’ve chosen to contract certain things out. So we mentioned a few, right? Obviously editing and a couple of different levels of editing, right? And then the cover art you contracted. Did you do everything else yourself, or did you contract out anything else? No, those are the main things, was the editing and the cover art.

I did a lot of the proofreading and the formatting of the book myself. Yeah, [00:10:00] talk about the formatting for a second, ’cause that’s one that, that’s kind of one of these sneaky things. And you can contract that out as well. You can. Um, but you can also learn it. So do you wanna talk about that? Because for those who are considering independent publishing, this is the one where I think I get the most questions about.

“Oh, wait. What do you mean? What format? What does that even mean?” Yes, and this is the one that I get excited about, because I have, like, an analytical brain, and so doing formatting of things, like, is fun to me, which is ridiculous. But anyways, so there’s two [00:10:30] main… This is the other cool thing. There’s only two main formatting softwares that you have to pick from, whereas everything else when I was doing research, there was, like, 100 different things to select from, and it was really overwhelming.

So there’s only two. There’s Vellum and there’s Atticus. And if you don’t have Mac, then you’re just going with Atticus. And if you have Mac, then you can go with Vellum. That’s generally the, the better one, but you have to have a, a Mac computer to be able to use that. So those are your two options, and so once you pick that, you just go ahead and, uh, purchase it.

It’s a one-time purchase. Not [00:11:00] super expensive. I think it’s like 100 or $200 depending on which system you go with, and it does all of the formatting for you. Now, of course you can format it yourself. I know many authors who format it in, like, Word or software systems like that, but that takes a lot more time.

I imagine it takes, like, hours of work. This is, like, very quick. You just kind of, like, upload your manuscript and you can select different fonts and formats and things. They have templates you can select from, and literally in, like, 10 minutes it populates out an e-book, a hardcover, a [00:11:30] paperback, a version exactly to your specifications, and then you just upload that everywhere that you want it, Amazon, Instagram Spark, if you wanna send it out on BookFunnel to your ARC readers, all of that.

So it’s super helpful. Yeah. Okay. So much to unpack. Thank you for being so open about this process, because like I said, this is one of the black hole moments where writers are surprised that they have to do this. Okay, so you said it’s not expensive, a few hundred bucks. Here’s the thing, you can actually hire somebody to do your formatting, and it usually [00:12:00] isn’t that expensive, ’cause if they already own the software, it’s usually only a few hundred dollars.

But if you are wanting something unusual, if you don’t want to just go with the templates and you want imagery or you want icons or you want a particular font, then that cost to get somebody else to format goes up and up because it’s more and more hours. How many hours, Rachel, do you know? Like, did … You went with templates and didn’t have anything super special, right?

Or did you? So I, I picked from one of their formats, [00:12:30] and then you can, uh, customize them, so I, I customized the format. And you can also customize your breaks- Yeah … scenes, the scene breaks. So you can customize those, and you can also customize the front page of the chapters to include art if you customize art from- or you do it yourself, you can upload them there.

So there are ways to customize it yourself within the, the system as well. I know Vellum is more detailed. I don’t have that one. I use Atticus ’cause I don’t have a Mac, but I know that you can do more, uh, fancy things in Vellum. Yeah, okay. So what do you [00:13:00] estimate was your … I mean, uh, you’re like, “I’m excited about it.

This is the fun part.” How many hours did you spend, do you know? Is it, like, one hour, or is it, like, a week? As a new author trying to play around with it and have fun with it, I have spent probably maybe eight hours in total just, like, playing around with things- All right … figuring out what to do, and, and then pulling a million different drafts because, of course, I realized that, oh, I actually have to proofread this first, and then, you know, there’s errors and I need to fix it.

And so there’s been different [00:13:30] versions, ’cause you have to pull, like, ARC versions and then, like, your final versions and stuff, so that takes time. But I think long term it would be … You know, my next book, I imagine it would only take me an hour or so. Yeah. That’s amazing. That’s amazing. And so you said ARC, advance review copies.

We’re gonna talk about that in a second because you’ve done so much marketing. I’ve been so impressed watching you. That’s why I knew this was gonna be a super fun conversation. Okay, so you, you purchased the Atticus software. What about learning the rest of it? Like, what software did you [00:14:00] use to upload it?

What platforms did you decide on? I decided to go just with Amazon directly. There’s been a, a lot of controversy in the industry right now just around who to go with in general, and- Wow … that and everything. Anyways, I went with Amazon simply because it’s the simplest thing for me. I looked at Draft2Digital, and it’s just, for what I’m y- gonna be using it for, it’s just not useful right now.

But in, in long term it is helpful to get into, to libraries. That seems to be the main thing. But they’ve [00:14:30] implemented a new minimum charge as well, which is kind of turning off some new indie authors. So we’ll kind of see how that looks long term. But I- Yeah, and I think the biggest choice there is, you know, whether you’re going Amazon direct, which is just Amazon, right?

Or whether you’re gonna go wide and, and that’s a choice that you can do later. You can do both. So right now, okay, so right now you’ve chosen to upload and to use Amazon’s tools. Did you get your own ISBN, which is the barcode on the back of your book if you’re just new to this industry? [00:15:00] I did. Absolutely.

And if you’re a Canadian author, you should absolutely do that because it is free to do, and then you’re not locked into Amazon. So if at a later point I decide I want to go wide, I can absolutely pull my own books. I have all their own ISBNs and I own them. Yeah, and if you do live in a country, you’re right, it is free in Canada to get your own bank of ISBNs.

You need an individual barcode for every single format that you are releasing. So paperback, e-book, audiobook, large print [00:15:30] version, whatever you decide to do, you need a separate barcode, and that’s sort of, you know, just the universal-ness of it. You have to buy it from the bank because you can’t … You know, if you made up your own, maybe you would actually be the same barcode as a can of tomato soup, which wouldn’t work out.

Right. Because this is an international, um, standard. If you are in a country where you have to pay for it though, I would still highly recommend that you do. Even though Amazon will provide you with a barcode for free or an ISBN for [00:16:00] free if you go with them exclusively, if you were to go wide later and decide that you wanna be distributed outside of Amazon, you’d still have to buy it, and then you’ve got this weird thing where you’ve got two different ISBNs for the same product.

So anyways. And then if you ever do another edition of your book, which I’ve done with my books, then you would y- you know, depending on how different it is and how much cha- or how much change you’ve done, you may need a new ISBN for that as well for a second or third edition. Okay. So how was [00:16:30] it, like how did you learn those Amazon tools?

Did you find it easy? Was it hard? I was gonna say before, I am not a big fan of looking through all the tutorials and figuring … There’s, uh, so many tools now that I have to use, I just dive in, that’s my process, and just kind of learn it as I go. So I didn’t bother doing, like, a million YouTube videos to try to figure it out.

It was pretty straightforward, honestly, for Amazon. Just make sure you sign up with the right Amazon, because there’s so many scam websites out these days, and there are definitely some that are pretending to be Amazon [00:17:00] Direct that are not, so just- Yeah, there’s so many scams out there. Writer beware.

That’s why we’re having these conversations. It’s important to share information because it is easy to be duped. There are people out there as well that legitimately will assist you with self-publishing, right? Or independent publishing. Assisted self-publish sometimes it’s called. And, you know, sometimes they’ll call themselves hybrid, which is a different, a different vehicle.

Sometimes, you know, there are legitimate hybrids out there. I know that there are people [00:17:30] that will say that there aren’t, but there actually are that have all the best intentions and actually will support you and have proper distribution and provide lots of support. There’s also assisted self-publish, but there’s also people who will s- charge you 10,000 or $20,000, and I’m not even making this up, to do assisted self-publish, and all they’re doing is exactly what Rachel described, an hour in Atticus and uploading it to Amazon, and that is not something that you need to pay for.

So be aware. There are scams out there, a lot of scams, or [00:18:00] people that will take … I assume that the ones that you’re talking about, they’re pretending to be Amazon. They probably charge you a lot more. They may actually result in a published book. They may actually be putting your stuff on Amazon, but they’re a layer in between that you don’t need.

Yeah. Or they could be, I don’t know if you’re saying that they’re just outright not, and they’ll just take your money, which- No, no, no, no. There’s probably both. I know that there’s some that will request your Amazon login and all of that, and that’s not something you should ever give out to someone. You should be able to upload all of that information yourself.[00:18:30]

It’s pretty … Yeah, it’s pretty straightforward. There is that simpler path to just kind of upload it and call it a day, but you’ve done a lot more, and you talked about researching and sort of even just you saying, hey, there’s lots of controversy in the industry. What is that? Because you actually have gone down a lot of paths and gotten a lot of support.

Yeah, you’re not watching the Y- YouTube tutorials, but you’re doing your research in terms of what’s current, and this is changing all the time, which is why I do have an [00:19:00] episode, and we’ll link to it in the show notes, with, uh, Mark Leslie, who works with Jaf- Draft2Digital on all the, you know, things about self-publish, but it’s a little bit dated now, right?

So what is it that you found or, or what kind of support did you get from that community, and what’d you learn? So the biggest controversy in the industry right now, and what I’ve been trying to navigate since January, and what basically determined what I would- path I was going, is the whole AI debate.

And so Amazon basically announced that they’re, they’re [00:19:30] integrating AI into their system so that anyone that downloads anything onto a Kindle can be run through their AI algorithm or whatever. Um, and- Yeah … a lot of people have decided to, maybe not a lot, but some people have decided to pull their books and, and, and there’s been a lot of questions from the industry as to what that means and, and how that’s gonna work and, and long term, right?

And so, um, and in addition to that, then there’s also been reports of Amazon book reads not reporting accurately and authors not getting paid potentially the, in [00:20:00] the correct amount, and that’s something that’s still up in debate. It sounds like Amazon is researching that and that they’ve had some problems with reporting and some things are not fluid in the industry.

So some people have been moving to Kobo and, and just deciding to go wide or just deciding what to do. And so I originally decided to go with Amazon, and I think I’ve still decided that’s where I’m, I’m going with, and a lot, lot of the majority of the authors are sticking with that. But that’s definitely been a, a big topic in the industry, and it’s affected other places like Draft2Digital and Barnes & Noble and, and [00:20:30] things as well Yeah, and I think this is part of the things that we don’t think about.

So yes, like some of the things, maybe formatting doesn’t take very long and uploading is simple, but it’s a fluid industry. And so the thing that I would say that successful authors do that are interested in independently publishing is they stay on top of it and they know that you can’t just upload it and then leave it forever because the industry is changing.

We’re gonna talk a little bit about the marketing after the fact once it’s done, but the industry is changing and you kind of got to [00:21:00] stay on it. And so for those who don’t want to learn that, potentially an assisted self-publish, a hybrid publisher, traditional publisher is a better choice because otherwise you do, you have to, and you know, Rachel, I have no doubt that you are gonna stay on top of this.

I’m not worried, but you also have five books in the works. You’re gonna be doing this for a while. You understand the work that you’re undertaking, so bring it on. But if you think it’s just upload it, set it, and forget it, it’s not really how it works. [00:21:30] Okay. So was there any other software? We talked about Amazon, we talked about, um, Atticus/Vellum.

Is there anything else that you had to learn? BookFunnel is a big one that, uh, a lot of authors use, and it’s kind of how you distribute your advance reader copies, and it’s also how you market a lot of your books, how you can build, you know, your newsletters and do book trades and that kind of thing long-term.

Although- Yeah. Let’s, let’s shift to marketing because you’ve done so many things. I’ve been so impressed, and thank you so much for being willing to come [00:22:00] on and share, because I know that there’s been a huge learning curve and we’ve talked about a lot of it, and picking and choosing and doing the things that make sense for you.

But yeah, so BookFunnel is a way to distribute copies of your book and to track it, right? It can be used for advance reader copies. Do you want to talk just a little bit about what that strategy is to be sending out advance reader copies? Because I think you’ve done a really smart job of this. Yeah. Oh, thank you.

So advance reader copies are super important, especially as a debut author [00:22:30] and especially as an indie author because it’s how you get reviews and people know to buy your book. And basically, if you have reviews on Amazon within the first couple weeks, that also helps with your algorithms, and so everyone hopefully buys it.

That’s, that’s the idea. So getting advance readers though can be a little tricky, and so there’s a couple different avenues you can go to do that. There’s NetGalley, which is kind of more the traditional route. Uh, it can be more expensive though to get in with that. The other ones are like BookSiren and BookSprout I think, and, and [00:23:00] those types of programs they, they find the readers for you, and so that makes it a little easier, but then you pay a little bit for that.

Whereas BookFunnel is your do it yourself option where you kind of find your own readers through social media or through begging and borrowing from your friends and that kind of thing, and then you can send it out through BookFunnel safely and so that y- your, hopefully your copy doesn’t get pirated.

That’s the idea Yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, you mentioned a lot of these things. Okay, well let’s back up a minute, because you’re doing something that is really important, and that [00:23:30] is the timing of your launch, right? So we talk about this a lot, talked about the simple path. Okay, I’ve got this document, maybe I throw it through Atticus, I take an hour, and then I upload it onto Amazon and I pray that people find it.

And I could tell you that they won’t. And, you know, even if you say, “I don’t care,” listeners out there, “I don’t care. I wrote it for me. If nobody likes it, oh well.” You know, we tell ourselves these stories, but you’ve spent a lot of time and energy on it, and one of the things [00:24:00] that I like to talk about with writers is the timing of their launch.

And I think that you’ve been very patient. And to give yourself a lot of runway, because the work that you’re doing now, that you’re working on even before your launch date, which is June the 2nd, and th- this episode will come out very close to that, but we’re recording it a few weeks before that. But you’re working on building readership before you launch, and that’s something that people don’t realize.

So the strategies that Rachel is talking about right now [00:24:30] are strategies that she’s doing to make sure that when it launches on June the 2nd, people have pre-ordered the book, people have reviewed the book, people have heard of it and are going to support that launch. And there are communities out there, like I said, there are some genres that lend themselves more than others.

Fantasy is one of them for sure, and especially romantasy, romance and mystery. But even if you’re writing a different genre, you can still find support there. NetGalley is a huge one. It’s been around for a long time. You’re right, it [00:25:00] is expensive, but I think you were able to find some of the– there are independent, independent groups that have sort of a group membership or a co-op membership, and I think you were able to access that as well, which would– can bring the cost of participating in NetGalley down, right?

It’s true. Yes. I did find a co-op, and they are quite a bit, uh, more cost-effective. If you go in by yourself, it’s something like $500, but then it’s for like a six-month period, which isn’t necessary. So you can get a, a month or two months for, you know, maybe $100 or $80 depending on which one you go with.

[00:25:30] So a lot. Yeah. So I really appreciate you sharing costs because we think about this, and again, you know, traditional publishing, they cover all of these costs. I mean, maybe not the promotional costs actually, depends on, on your deal with your publisher. But they cover a lot of the costs, and then you share in the profits.

Here you are spending upfront, but if and when your book is successful because your book is amazing and everybody’s gonna read it, then you actually get a big chunk of the [00:26:00] profits. You have to share with the platforms, but not very much. So you get essentially 100% of the profit. We started to talk about this a little bit, but I just wanna address ’cause there’s, there’s marketing and then there’s a lot of tactical stuff that you can also do and learn, right?

So marketing, I talk about marketing, not sales, right? So marketing is how are people becoming aware of your book? So what Rachel’s doing is sharing it for free beforehand, which seems counterintuitive because you’re like, “Well, people should pay the [00:26:30] 14.99 for my book,” and we feel like we shouldn’t share it.

But here’s the reality. If you put it out there and nobody’s seen it, nobody will continue to see it, and you won’t get those sales. If you put it out there to 1,000 people and they start telling two friends and they tell two friends and they tell two friends, this is not an unusual concept. And so there is some upfront sharing that is necessary.

There are ways to do it to sort of, you know, we worry about the book being pirated or we worry about somebody stealing our ideas or [00:27:00] doing something with it, right? You can’t. When it comes out for 14.99, they could buy that e-book or 1.99 or 99 cents or free. They could buy that e-book then and pirate it then.

So you just have to kind of let go and trust that, you know, we’re gonna be able to take it down if it happens, and that most people want to pay artists for their work. Um, I know it’s a hard thing, but we just have to kind of let it go. But there’s also technical stuff that you can do to raise awareness about your book.

Now, one of the [00:27:30] programs I think you’re, you’re doing, and which is why you were okay with Amazon anyway because it has to be exclusive, is Kindle Unlimited. You’re, you’re gonna put your book into Kindle Unlimited, yeah. Do you wanna talk a little bit about what that program is? ‘Cause that’s a strategy.

It’s a choice. You don’t have to do that. But it is a way when you launch a book to find a lot of readers quickly, to get a lot of feedback quickly, and then you could do something different later Yes. So Kindle Unlimited is basically a program where readers pay a certain [00:28:00] amount a month, I think it’s like 11.99 or 13.99, whatever it is now, depending on where you live, and you can read any book for free that’s on the library of Kindle Unlimited, whatever authors have decided to join in with the Kindle Unlimited.

And there’s like, I don’t even know, like thousands, millions, tons of, uh, different books that you can select from there. So if you choose to put your book in as an author, you are paid for page reads versus per book. So at the end of the month, based on how many people paid for Kindle [00:28:30] Unlimited and how many page reads have been read across the platform, you get a certain percentage of that, whatever your, your percentage is.

And that, and that’s where there’s a little bit of controversy right now with the, uh, the reporting on the Amazon side. But that’s a strategy that a lot of fantasy romance and romantasy authors go with in, in the romance stream. It’s very popular to have your books on Kindle Unlimited, and that’s where you get a lot of your readers because romance readers are very voracious read- like, they read a lot, right?

And so you don’t wanna be paying $14 for a book. You would go [00:29:00] broke. So- Yeah, and I think, you know, if you’re a voracious reader out there, dear listener, go get your own account and go read some stuff, right, and see how it works. But yeah, I think it’s a good strategy. It’s a strategy that might be a permanent strategy.

Or, so the deal is if you go in there, then it’s just your e-book, by the way. You can still sell books, physical copies of your books and your audiobook separately, and you can sell those at other places. But the agreement is that it’s free on Kindle [00:29:30] Unlimited, and you are not also having it on other platforms at that moment in time, and there is a three-month minimum.

So it’s a commitment, and then you can decide after that. So it’s a good strategy, especially if you’ve got a series. Sometimes if you haven’t done it yet, if you’ve got a book out there and you haven’t done it yet, you could put book one of your series into Kindle Unlimited, and if it gets readership, people will go and buy book two, book three, right?

They will go and buy that. And so that’s a strategy that actually makes a lot of [00:30:00] authors a lot of money I also have authors, especially in YA or middle grade, you know, you could have your e-book for free, but think about this for a moment, because kids don’t read e-books and they don’t have Amazon accounts, right?

Who’s buying those books? Their parents are buying those books, but they may have a Kindle Unlimited membership, and they go read that book. If you are also then advertising for the paper copy of the book, then that adult might be able to look at the book, decide that their kid’s gonna want it, and go [00:30:30] and buy that book.

And so there’s some interesting sort of play there between formats that if you’re interested, again, you don’t have to do all of these things, and certainly if you’re not interested in learning how to run your business or your book business, then don’t independently publish because it won’t– it’ll be really difficult to be successful, right?

And not just if you pick one or two strategies, but if you don’t wanna learn about it or you don’t wanna do this. But if you do, there’s a whole bunch of other things. [00:31:00] There’s ads and algorithms and tracking metrics. What are you gonna count, Rachel, and why? Out in terms of what I’m determining is successful for my book?

Yeah. Yeah. Like, are you counting, like do you have a target of number of reviews that you’d like? Do you have a target of, you know, are you going to run ads? Are you going to, you know, do you have a target for page reads? What are you gonna track? What do you think is gonna be helpful? I don’t know the answer what you’re planning to do, but, or are you gonna track?

I’m gonna be honest, I haven’t [00:31:30] thought a lot about this mainly because I’m not sure entirely what is a good metric. You know? Yeah. You see people posting on social media like, “Oh, I got like one million page views,” or, you know, all these different things. And it’s like, well, is that, is that good? Or what, you know, what timeline should I be expecting that?

And I don’t really wanna put any parameters on myself. I did give myself a goal. I wanted originally to have 25 advanced readers because I wanted to have at least like a good amount of reviews. [00:32:00] That was my biggest thing, right? And we, we had talked to make sure there’s reviews for launch day. And after I got 25, I realized that that number was not enough.

And so I now have 110 advanced readers. Wow. Yes. And I’m hoping to get a few more because really they tell you that only 10% sometimes of advanced readers will leave a review for your book. And so if I can get over 100, then hopefully I’ll get at least 10 reviews on, uh, you know, hopefully on Goodreads.

But that’s the thing, there’s so many review platforms they could be [00:32:30] spread out. But that was my goal. That was one goal I had, was to make sure I had at least 10 reviews, and hopefully I have more, but that would be great. Yeah. And- And Amazon’s a little bit, b- because you’re Amazon exclusive too, so let’s just talk about that for a second.

So we’re tracking number of reviews, and again, it builds trust with readers to see that somebody has already read the book and thought it was awesome. It makes it easier to buy the book or even, you know, even if you end up getting some that aren’t so strong, but they say, “I didn’t like this book ’cause it’s romantasy [00:33:00] and I don’t like romantasy.”

I mean, you’re gonna get reviews that don’t make sense, and then you’re like, well, and then I read that and go, “Well, I like that.” I can still read it. But yeah, there’s, there’s other platforms. Goodreads is a big one. Goodreads is where, uh, if you’ve never been on Goodreads before, it’s where you can … It’s like a social media platform where you can track your own reading and review books there, and it’s a big one in terms of tracking and where voracious readers find information with each other and share information.

There’s groups in [00:33:30] there. I think we’ve talked about this a little bit, Rachel. I don’t know if you’ve managed to get into any of the ARC review, like the advanced reader groups there. But there’s already communities there waiting for your book, and they will support you. So go find them. I’ll let you comment on that in a second.

Rachel’s nodding her head. You guys can’t see her. So there’s that. The issue with getting, I mean, the Holy Grail is to get your book tons of reviews on Amazon because especially if you’re Amazon exclusive, then you want those to start serving. [00:34:00] Amazon pays attention to books that are being bought, read, reviewed.

The issue is with advanced review copies it’s a little bit tricky because Amazon does not allow you to put a review on until the day of the launch. And so if Rachel’s sending her things out, it’s a bit of a catch-22. If she’s sending out advanced review copies three months in advance and the reader loves it and goes and does their Goodreads review and also writes about it on their blog and also, also, also puts it as many places as they can think of, but by the [00:34:30] time it launches, they’ve forgotten about Rachel’s book, and Rachel’s like, “Please, would you go and review it here?”

So there’s some hoops that they might have to jump through that they won’t. And so that’s why Rachel’s talking about, you know, if you get 100, maybe you’ll get 10, because it’s kind of a pain in their butt to go and do that after the fact, even if they’ve committed to doing it. It just, like, gets busy as we know.

Yeah. And I, BookFunnel’s really amazing for that because they have, and I’m sure other systems as- are as well, but they have automatic emails set up that [00:35:00] you can customize. And so I have it already set up to go to my advance readers on launch day, on June 2nd, reminding them that they can now go to Amazon and enter their review.

But the other thing with Amazon is that you need to have, like, purchased apparently, like, $20 or something like that of, of something from Amazon within, like, the last certain 30 days or 60 days or who knows what it is, in order to be able to even leave a review or have proof of copy of that item. So there are other barriers that can prevent people from leaving a [00:35:30] review on Amazon as well.

Yeah, exactly. And, and I’ll, I’ll just share with you, this is an embarrassing one. I think I’m still banned on Amazon for reviews, and the reason is because they also will cross-check your social media and other things to determine whether or not you know the person that you reviewed the books for. Well, I can tell you that on my social media, I’m connected to thousands of writers all over the world.

Obviously, I’m not reviewing books that I’ve worked on. That would not be ethical. But I [00:36:00] am reviewing books for people that I’ve met in real life or other authors that I have met personally or that I have been in the same room with personally, and they don’t think that’s okay, so I just gave up. I don’t review books anymore.

But if you don’t have the network of writers around the world that I have, um, you won’t have that issue. That’s really important to note because I have heard of quite a few authors getting their books, like, pulled from Amazon or getting their entire accounts canceled because their friend reviewed their book or their mom reviewed their book, and they had no idea [00:36:30] that they weren’t allowed to do that.

So you can review on places like Goodreads, but absolutely, like, don’t do that for your friends. Yeah. And it’s kind of, it’s kind of hard though because, you know, like I said, they determine that it’s my, quote-unquote, “friend” because I’m linked to them on Facebook or something. But whatever. I mean, I’m a professional.

If I read your book and I like it, I wanna tell you that I liked it, whether or not I’ve met you in person or heard you speak or we’re connected on social media because we have, you know, friends in common, doesn’t mean I’m reviewing my mother’s book, [00:37:00] right? Like, that’s … I don’t know. It’s a fine line, and, and they’re using AI to do a lot of that determination now.

So yeah, even if you get 10 reviews, they may get pared down to five at some point, which is really annoying. But I understand the need to keep it honest, which is why I just, “Okay, I guess I’m not reviewing books anymore,” so I don’t. But you can. You can. If you don’t have a network of thousands of writers around the world, you probably can review books.

Okay, so you’re getting some reviews out there. You’re getting … [00:37:30] You’re actually building readership. You’re doing a great job. You’ve got over 100 ARC readers. What’s the response been so far? It’s been positive so far, which is great. Everything that’s come back. It’s funny, it’s great. I know you’re not always supposed to read your reviews.

I, I, I have, for any readers that are out there listening to this, I’m sorry. I like, I, you know, I like hearing what other people have to say. I haven’t got any one or two star reviews yet, so thankfully I haven’t had to read anything like that yet, but, and that’ll come and, and that’s fine. But it’s fun hearing what, you know, [00:38:00] people say about your books or the things that resonated with them or area- you know, learning where maybe you didn’t market it to the right person based on the review, right?

Those are all things that you’ll, you’ll get back, and I, and I find, I find that really interesting reading them. So yes, I think they’ve been positive so far. Good. Good. And, and just share a little story here because I do have a one-star review on one of my books. I don’t know if it’s still up, but I did read it.

There’s only one that’s ever happened, and the reason was because the woman took issue with, [00:38:30] it’s a, it’s a teen romance, and she’s with one guy at the beginning of the book, and then she kind of outgrows him, and which is part of the reason, part of my why for writing this book, by the way, was to show kids that it’s okay.

Like, even if you maybe love somebody, you can move on and, and grow and change. And there’s no cheating in it. There’s like whatever, there’s no overlap there. It just kind of happens naturally, and then she does break up with the other g- you know, like all the things; I made sure. But yeah, it was this [00:39:00] triggering topic for her where she was really mad, and she thought it was wrong that she didn’t stay with the original guy.

And honestly, sorry, any teens listening to my podcast, here’s my message for you and for my own children. Even if you have a great relationship at 16, you are not required to marry that person, so you can do whatever the hell you want. And I hope that’s a message that everybody understands. But yeah, so it was interesting, but I was laughing.

If it’s still up there, you can go and read it. It’s very, very long. [00:39:30] It’s clearly about her own trauma around the topic, and then she said at the end of it, if she had the paper copy, ’cause I think she got an ARC, if she had the paper copy, she would let her dog have diarrhea on it. And I was like, okay, well, that’s awesome because anybody who, uh, anybody who reads this review is gonna be just entertained, not take it too seriously.

What do you wish you’d known when you started on this independent path that you, you just wish you’d known that you didn’t, that you learned? [00:40:00] I wish I had known how much work marketing was gonna be and how much you have to, like, put yourself out there, like repeatedly until- Yeah … you’ve banged your head against a wall and you’ve screamed at everyone, but you haven’t.

Okay. So some people listening will just say, “Well, I just won’t do that part.” But here’s the thing, if you don’t do that part or, I mean, you don’t have to do exactly what Rachel’s doing, by the way. There are many, many things that you can do in terms of marketing. She’s doing a lot of them because she’s very [00:40:30] serious about her business.

She wants this to be a long-term strategy. She also has the capacity and, like, the interest. Like she said, she gets pretty jazzed about some of it, and so it can be difficult. There are other ways to market yourself if you don’t wanna be putting yourself out there. There are ways to write about your book.

There are ways to create community or support your book sales. Actually, we can pop the … I’ve got a 30 ways to promote your writing, and we’ll pop that into the show notes so that you can grab that and get some ideas. I just wanna say you wish you’d known how much it [00:41:00] would be. What would you do differently?

Would you give yourself more leeway, right? Would you give yourself a longer runway? Yeah, I think so, and I’m, and I’m really grateful that you told me to do at least four, I think four months, but six months definitely would’ve been ideal just in terms of starting marketing because I started off really shy and, like, nervous like most people do.

You know, just kind of like soft pitching their book and, like, doing posts kind of here and there, and that’s all really great. But if you don’t have, like, a solid, like, Bookstagram account or [00:41:30] BookTok account, like, ahead of time that you’ve been, like, nurturing for, like, the last five years and you’re starting from, like, square one as an author with new social media accounts, which I was, you definitely need some time to kind of get into the groove of, like, what you wanna talk about, what types of posts you wanna do.

Like, how does Canva work? How do you want your aesthetics to look like? It just, there was a lot of it that needed to come together, and that took time for me to kind of get into, to a groove that felt normal for me and to, you know, get traction on my book as well, so. [00:42:00] Yeah, and I think that’s really important, Rachel, and you’re right.

I usually recommend three to four months, but that’s only because, I mean, six months or a year is even better, but most, most writers are really impatient, but we wanna get it out there, and we think that we need to have the book out there. And I, you know, listeners, listen to Rachel because I think one of the biggest things that I can share is that the writers who are successful are patient.

There is something to be said about, I have a book coming [00:42:30] out in June 2nd, 2026. Even if you said that in November of 2025, I have a book coming out June 2nd, 2026 is powerful. And it’s much more powerful than, “I had a book, it launched June 2nd, 2026, now it’s November 2026. I don’t have any reviews, I don’t have anything on it,” and people are like, right?

There’s this weird cachet that happens with the algorithm with, yes, it’s possible to gain traction for your book, so if you’re like, [00:43:00] “Crap, I already launched and I didn’t do any of this,” it’s not too late. You can still recover. It’s just more work. But there’s something magical that happens with this secret algorithm that if you have pre-sales and if you have things happening and the momentum of something being shiny and new, that you can only get that first couple of weeks, right?

So it’s really difficult to manufacture that later So my advice is if you’re considering independently publishing [00:43:30] and you have control over the date, give yourself as much time as humanly possible. Number one, it’ll spread out your time and energy and g- and help you get up this learning curve that Rachel’s talking about.

But number two, it also spreads out the expenses that you might choose to spend. And again, the more things you do yourself, the less money it costs to do this. But as Rachel’s talking about contracting each thing out, it’s a decision. You know, I like to … I mean, I’m biased, but I [00:44:00] also think it’s true. Spend the money on the best editor that you can find because, or the best editor that you can afford.

It will make all the difference in the world to have somebody push you to make your book the best it can be. And if you are a terrible artist like me, I talk about writ- you know, making stick figures, don’t make your own cover art. There is an art to it, and it’s not just about making sure that it looks professional.

There are actually things in each genre that [00:44:30] will signal to people, and I’ll just run through a couple of them ’cause you probably don’t even know. If there is a teenager on the book, it is YA, and if there is not, it’s probably a book for adults, right? If you are writing a memoir and you are not a celebrity and you have your own face on it, it may not look super professional because we often go with a silhouette so that people can think about themselves as they’re reading your memoir.

There are things or norms that you don’t know that a professional cover designer can share with you, or unless you wanna go and learn them [00:45:00] all, which I don’t. Are you already planning for book two? You haven’t even launched book one yet. Are you planning for book two? What is your thought process there in terms of what you’re gonna do differently?

Yes. I- Or the same? Book two, and that was one of my biggest strategies was having, like I kind of said earlier, the books ready to go one after another. Uh, because the more … The faster you can get out book two, then the more attention you can get around book one, and it kind of, it helps with getting the algorithm to get your books out there.

[00:45:30] So yes, your, uh, book two is already with you. It’s in developmental edit, so I’m excited. It is. And I have a plan this time. It’s, like, all lined up. I have the beta readers ready to go for July 1st or whenever I’m done the edits when they come back from you. And then after that, once it’s gone through those edits, then I’m going to get it out to the advance readers, and that’s something that I’m definitely gonna start earlier because I didn’t give myself enough time.

I gave myself about two months, I wanna say, before launch, which If I had pushed really [00:46:00] hard, I think would’ve been enough time, but I didn’t really push super hard. So this time I’m gonna open the advanced reader applications a little bit earlier to kind of get them out in advance. Yeah, and I, I just love to see you grow, and I see this a lot.

I see it whether, you know, I also see it in writers who are querying, where their first round of queries, they write a professional query. You know, I try to push them to make it wild and out there, and they’re like, “I’m just gonna stay in my safe zone,” and it doesn’t get the attention. And then they come back and they’re like, “All right.

I’m ready. Let’s do the wild thing [00:46:30] now.” Like, let’s do it, ’cause you gotta get attention. It’s the same thing here. You know, you kind of, once you’re in it and you realize that it’s hard, like you’re a drop in a big storm- Mm-hmm … right? And you’re gonna be, uh, you need to be a loud drop. You need to be a splash.

And so make a splash and, and the more confident you get and the more time that you have under your belt. So for those of you listening and you’re like, “Oh, my goodness. I gotta stop listening. This is, like, overwhelming,” the time to start your marketing is now, right? The [00:47:00] time to start your, and I’m not gonna say necessarily social media accounts, ’cause I feel differently than I did a few years ago about that.

I think it’s really hard to stand out there. There’s other options. But, you know, if that’s your jam, then go, go for it. It’s just, it’s changed a lot. But yeah, the time to start thinking about your marketing is now, even if you’ve not done your book. And if you’re somebody who’s like, “I’ll worry about it once the book launches,” you’re missing that momentum.

So I’m super proud of the work that you’re doing, Rachel. Okay. So how can our listeners best [00:47:30] support the launch of your book come June 2nd or right now? Going to Goodreads, adding High Tide by Rachel E. Baird to your want to reads, that would be fantastic. And it’s order f- it’s open for pre-orders right now.

The e-book is open, but by the time this’ll be, by the time it’s launching, it should be open for hardcovers and, and paperback as well. So, yeah. Yeah, and if you have a Kindle Unlimited account, by all means, go read this book. It is amazing. And if you don’t, then order the paperback copy. Support a fellow local indie [00:48:00] author.

She’s been so generous today sharing everything with us. Okay. We’ve reached the quick-fire portion of this episode. Are you ready? Okay. All right. How long did it take you to write your first book? And I’m gonna say it’s High Tide, ’cause it’s the first one coming out. How long from the time you had the idea until June 2nd, 2026, when it gets launched?

Five years. Five years. Okay. Yeah. That’s how long, right? Now, Rachel’s written other books that have taken different lengths of time, but it’s okay. If you’re still [00:48:30] working on a book for a very long time, it’s better when you get there. It’s gonna be a better book. Okay. What was your first big break where you were like, “All right.

I’m gonna be an indie author. I’m doing this. Let’s go”? It was, I don’t know if it was like a January resolution, but it was last January I decided that I was going to put as much effort into this writing as I did my nonfiction, and really just go for it. So, yeah. All right. So New Year’s resolution inspiration [00:49:00] moment, and you were like, “Let’s do this.”

All right. What’s your best advice for writers out there that are listening today that are considering becoming independent authors? Build a community. That would be my biggest piece of advice, is to build a community, and that the community is not gonna come to you necessarily. I mean, that would be amazing if it did, and if it does, like you’re a superstar, and uh, you’re just so amazing that everyone loves you, and they crowded around you, and that’s really good to be proud of as well.

But it’s not always gonna happen like that. And [00:49:30] especially with social media these days, everyone’s kind of like in their own little groups, their own little worlds, and it can be kind of hard to kind of step outside of that. But there’s a huge author community out there, and they are super supportive.

But you do kind of have to reach out and just kind of like get to know people, and not be afraid to drop into people’s DMs and say, “Hey, what’s going on? Do you wanna collaborate?” And that’s kind of how, how you make friends. So don’t be afraid to do that. That would be my advice. I love that. I absolutely love that.

Okay, so we are going to drop all of the links to go [00:50:00] and grab Rachel’s book and to go and support her on Goodreads like she asked in the show notes. And thanks so much for coming on the show today, Rachel. This has been an absolute pleasure to watch you just kill this thing. Thank you so much for having me, Suzy, and for all of your support, as well.

As a book coach and editor, this book would not be here if it wasn’t for you. Thank you.

Thanks for tuning in to the Show Don’t Tell writing podcast with me, Suzy Vadori. It [00:50:30] is my absolute honor to bring you the straight goods for that book you’re writing or the book that you’re planning to write. Please help me keep the podcast going by helping people find us. You can subscribe to the podcast and leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you’re listening to show how much you enjoy the show.

That’s how other listeners will find us. Also, visit suzyvadori.com/newsletter to hop on my weekly inspired writing newsletter list, where you’ll stay [00:51:00] inspired and be the first to know about all the upcoming training events and writing courses that happen in my community. Want my eyes on your writing?

Submit a page of your current draft for a chance to come on the podcast at the link in the show notes. I’d love to chat with you about your writing in my always positive, incredibly supportive way so that you can make great strides towards your writing goals. I’m here to cheer you on. Remember, that book you’re writing is gonna open doors that you haven’t even thought of [00:51:30] yet, and I can’t wait to help you make that it the absolute best it can be.

See you again right here next week

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