← The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers
The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers
Expanding Audiobook Revenue Through YouTube And Podcasting With Derek Slaton
00:56:37
How can you shift your writing and publishing process to focus on YouTube and podcasting as a primary audiobook focus? How can you use AI tools to help you create, publish, and translate your books? Derek Slaton goes into his indie author process.
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- [00:01]
Joanna Penn
Welcome to the Creative Pen Podcast. I'm Joanna Penn, thriller author and creative entrepreneur, bringing you interviews, inspiration and information on writing, craft and creative business. You can find the episode show notes, your free author blueprint and lots more@thecreativepenn.com and that's Pen with a double N. And here's the show Hello Creatives, I'm Johanna Penn and this is episode number 805 of the podcast and it is Friday the 18th of April 2025. As I record this in today's show, I talk to Derek Slayton about expanding audiobook revenue with YouTube and podcasting as well as translation and an attitude of freedom towards writing. And I found Derek really changed my mind around some of this, so I hope he sparks some ideas for you too. And yes, my f audiobooks are now live @JFPenAuthor on YouTube and many of my books for writers are on the Creative Pen channel also on YouTube. And while this might not be the right choice for you, it's definitely worth having a listen to Derek, because it's always great to hear about different business models for authors. So that's coming up in the interview section. So in writing and publishing things, Spotify has expanded audiobooks talking of audiobooks into Germany, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Liechtenstein, which is good news for Europeans and good news for indie authors wide with audio in German language. Plus Publisher Rocket has just added new international markets so you can now research categories and keywords for Amazon stores in Canada, Australia, Italy, France and Spain. Plus of course Germany already UK and US stores with many more indie authors publishing internationally and in translation. This is really useful. I think when these tools expand it really helps us expand too. Now if you already have Publisher Rocket and you just open it, it will update and you'll have access. If you don't have it yet, you can always check it out through my affiliate link, thecreativepenn.com Rocket or of course Publisher Rocket. Just look for that. Also in writing and publishing things, publishing industry expert Jane Friedman has the second edition of her book the Business of Being a Writer out now. It is published through a university press and Jane's focus is often more on the traditionally published and freelance side of writing. But she is one of the people I trust and respect in the industry and while we definitely don't agree on everything, that is always a good reason for me to read her book and her writing and her newsletter is I'm a paid subscriber to so yes, I wanted to mention that Jane is quality information. The business of being A writer by Jane Friedman. Also Tee Thorne Coyle was on the Wish I'd Known Then podcast last week with Jamie and Sarah. And Thorne's episode on this show, around the Mid List indie author was so popular I wanted to let you know about this new interview. They discussed some great tips, including embrace experimentation and play in your writing. Don't get so caught up in being serious and in perfection that you never finish. Also, importantly for today's episode, as much as anything else, be discerning about marketing advice. Not all strategies work for every author at every stage of their career and not every book. What works for one person might not work for another. Or even if it works for one series, it might not work for another series. So please weigh up all advice based on your situation and I'll add that yes, please include me and anything my guests say in this advice as well. Don't just jump into YouTube today when you hear Derek, for example, you need a strategy, as with everything, and it needs to be right for you. And again, I think this has comes down to confidence and really sort of paying attention to what you want to achieve as an author. Thorne also says, trust your intuition, which I definitely agree with. And one way to tell this is to pay attention to the energy you feel around things. So let's just test this out with you. Facebook ads, TikTok videos. Do these things fill you with joy? Now, some authors do truly enjoy these things and some of you listening will be like, yeah, of course I love those things. Not me, but there you go. But my books and Travel podcast, I've always said I'm much more of a content marketer and I'm loving being back at it on books and travel. And it's also sparking ideas for books I want to write. So Thorne says, check in with your energy levels and structure your work in a modular way to accommodate fluctuating situations. And that might be in your health, in your life, whatever stage of life you're at. If you have young kids, I mean, obviously these things change. Or elderly parents or you have chronic health issues. Most writers don't actually write words every day. I think that's just some kind of myth. Or it's Stephen King's fault. The Stephen King does apparently write words every day. I certainly don't, but it's just not sustainable for most people's lives. So how can you incorporate writing and author business while still enjoying life and not burning out? So that is T. Thorne Coyle on the Wish I'd Known Then podcast with Jamie and Sarah Also, I had not even heard of Clare Taylor's what if podcast, but Jamie mentioned it in the introduction to Thorne's interview and so I went and had a look at it. Now the show is very mindset and psychology focused and Claire covers questions like what if I'm not consistent? What if I'm a private person? What if my ads stop working? As well as what if my country collapses? Which some might consider timely in many countries of the world. But the episode Jamie recommended is on what if AI replaces me. Now, regular listeners will know my stance on this, but I understand that many of you will still be coming to terms with AI. So go and have a listen as Claire discusses whether the original sin of AI training is still holding you back, focusing on your own actions before judging others, understanding the authors with different views to you are not the enemy. One could broaden that really to people with views other than you. Political views, for example, are not the enemy. And many other ways of reframing the situation. We definitely don't all need to agree with each other. This is not human. So I think Claire's podcast might be useful, especially if you experience a lot of fear or anxiety and go and have a listen, see what resonates. That's the what if podcast with Clare Taylor. And Claire was on this show around a year ago actually talking about the Enneagram, so you might enjoy that too. Hopefully that will give you some more things to have a listen to this week in personal news. Thanks to everyone who backed Death Valley on Kickstarter. The campaign is now closed. 228 backers raised £10,773, which is around US$14,000. I have ordered the gorgeous hardback and we'll go up to Peterborough to the Book Vault factory to sign in mid May and I was thinking about this. This is a real privilege, so thank you for giving me the opportunity to do gorgeous print runs. Like it really feels like being a proper author when you hold a special gorgeous hardback with foil. I I don't know what that is. There's just something there that makes me feel like, oh, I'm I'm actually a proper author. Yes. So I'll be signing those, sending them all out. Also we have the thriller writing webinar coming up in a couple of weeks, so I' prepping that and and as always, when I prepare these kind of webinars, it makes me remember why I love certain things. I really do love thrillers. We are in the final proofing stages of the Death Valley audiobook with My voice clone that's on a couple of episodes ago, a couple of chapters if you want to have a listen. So fulfillment is underway. If you did back the campaign, you will have the survey now. So please fill that in, especially if you have a print book so I can ship everything once the money comes in. And here's a little tip for Kickstarter. If you're using it as a backer or as an author, the survey is super, super important. And one of the things that can happen is that the Kickstarter emails go astray somehow and some people end up just forgetting these things even exist. So if you don't get an email asking for a survey from something you backed, please go log in to Kickstarter and you should have a little pop up there that will say you need to do the survey. But yes, that is something please do for my campaigns. So also as happens after a novel, so this is a while back and I've said this so many times over the years, oh, I'm not going to do any more non fiction. It's not what I want to do. Anyway, finished Death Valley right? Coming out of that I do. I have been working on like a number of different things. I've got an idea for another memoir. I'm working on short stories but overall I just want to write some non fiction because it's. I don't want to say it's easier but it flow, it certainly flows quicker and you just go okay, I need to cover this, this, this and this and this. And then you write it and then you edit it and then it's done. So it's very satisfying. Anyway, a couple of years ago now I withdrew successful self publishing. Some of you might have read one of those versions, but I withdrew it in I guess it would have been the end of 23, maybe even before that. I felt it was out of date and it felt like way too much work to update it. I just was like, oh, it's too big a deal. But the new O3 model just dropped on chat GPT. So if you use ChatGPT, have a go with the O3 model. It's a reasoning or thinking model and it is excellent. I'm finding it super insightful. So I thought, oh, do you know what? I'm going to upload successful self publishing and again read the terms and conditions. But I'm happy uploading my work. So I uploaded the previous edition and asked it for a gap analysis. Now if you haven't. I was a management consultant so I'm Very used to gap analysis. But essentially it's like, here's what it is. Here's where I want to. Want to get to. I want to do a new edition. What needs updating, what's changed? What do I need to add to make it worthwhile? That was literally my prompt, was, here's my old edition, I want to update it to make it worthwhile, do a gap analysis. Give me a list on what I need to do. So I just wanted a list and boy was it a good gap analysis. You would pay lots of money for that kind of thing. And I was like, wow, okay, that actually makes it much more doable. So. And I also, this is the crazy thing. I learned some things and that's what was nice about like talking to Derek and thinking about different things. I've learned some stuff about what I need to include because a lot has changed and I always struggle with this idea of new editions. You know, I did the how to Write Non Fiction, the second edition. This is, I am out of control with the editions of this book because I did some digitally without doing the print. But this is going to be the fourth print edition. Now it is so important to me to be a trusted source of information, which is why I withdrew the book. But there are still copies floating around. I've started on the rewrite and the updates. I've booked Kristen, my editor. So my plan is to have successful self publishing the fourth print edition up by mid June, maybe early July. I'll have it up for pre order and it will have some big changes because the last edition was pre generative AI. And so there are lots of things I want to add now just to be clear, the font color. So the COVID will have purple, the word successful will be in purple. And I've changed that on every edition. So if you have an edition or you see an edition with a different color, then it's not the fourth. So the fourth with purple coming soon. And as I said, I'm actually learning a lot. So now I'm reinvigorated and just ignore me when I say I'm never going to do something because maybe I will. On my Books and travel podcast this week, Andy the Highlander talks about Scotland. And if you love the Scottish accent, you will love our chat about locks and legends on all the podcast feeds under Books and Travel podcast. Also on YouTube f penauthor. And I'm doing video interviews now on for books and travel. So yes, if you want to see me and Andy. Such a nice voice. There's also A transcript and notes and things at booksandtravel page. I have already scheduled in. Well, I've actually already scheduled the interview so that they're gonna just go live. I've done them, I've thought about it, and I'm so glad I restarted the show. I mentioned a memoir. I've been thinking about that again, and oh, so much inspiration.
- [13:20]
Derek Slayton
This is the thing, content marketing.
- [13:23]
Joanna Penn
It gives you both content, which brings people to your work, but also connections and ideas from conversations. So, yeah, I'm thrilled I restarted that, even though, again, I said I wouldn't. So thanks for your emails and comments and photos. This week we have a bumper crop of cemeteries, which, if you're new to the show, you might not understand this segment, why I ask for cemeteries and graveyards and ossuaries and all of this. Now, basically, as JF Penn, if you don't know, I write fiction and memoir and things as J.F. penn, I write more from that shadow side and it's really Memento Mori. Remember, you will die. And that gives us perspective to live today. It actually is a very positive, happy thing. It means, look, this is going to end at some point, so let's make the most of it while we are here, because our circle will indeed turn. So, yes, thanks to Tom, who sent a picture of a Russian cemetery in Sitka, Alaska. When the Russians occupied Alaska in 1799, they controlled the native Tlingit population. And we took these pictures. Neglect, vandalism, age, and being in a temperate rainforest all took their toll on the statuary and grounds. And to be fair, I didn't even know there was a temperate rainforest in Alaska. So that's interesting. Walden sent pictures from Copp's Hill Burying Ground in Boston's North End, one of America's oldest cemeteries laid out in 1659. And Vanessa sent pictures from a cemetery near her. She didn't say where, but somewhere in the USA with a sculpture of an book carved on a huge tree monument and open scrolls on the family graves, and also a sign that says no access for hunting, which triggered a story. And I totally get that. I can see, I can almost tell what kind of story that triggered. Now, actually, I'm working on a solo episode for books and travel on cemeteries, graveyards, ossuaries, crypts, why I like this kind of thing and giving you some of my favorites. So that will be coming up sometime. I'll tell you when it's out. But that's my books and travel show. Okay, so please leave a comment on the podcast Show Notes at the creative pen.com or on the YouTube channel, or message me on X at the Creative Pen or email me, send me pictures of where you're listening. JoannaTheCreativePen.com I love to hear from you. It makes this more of a conversation so today's episode is sponsored by Kobo Writing Life, Kobo's free, fast and easy self publishing platform favoured by independent authors all over the world. And hopefully last week Tara Cremin's interview. You learned a lot more about Kobo. So KWL was built by Authors for authors and their mission is to help you reach digital readers wherever they are, however they want to read or listen. Let's talk about audiobooks as that's the focus for today's interview. Audiobooks are one of the fastest growing segments in publishing and Kobo makes it easy for indie authors to get in on the action with their user friendly platform. You can upload your audiobook files, set your price and reach listeners around the world. Yes, you can use AI narrated files as well. So if Derek's interview inspires you today, keep that in mind. Plus, on Kobo you keep control of your rights and royalties. Don't miss out on the audiobook revolution. Join Kobo Writing Life and start sharing your stories in a whole new way. And you can find my landing page@thecreativepenn.com kwl so this type of corporate sponsorship pays for the hosting, transcription and editing, but my time in the show is sponsored by my community@patreon.com TheCreativePen thanks to the 6 new patrons who joined in the last week. Thanks to everyone who's been supporting for months and years. If you join the community you get access to all my backlist videos and audio covering writing, crafts, author business tutorials and demos on AI tools, my patron only Q and A and my live office hours. This week I shared an audio on content marketing, my favorite form of marketing, the Patreon is a monthly subscription, the equivalent of buying me a black coffee a month or a couple of coffees if you're feeling generous. You get access to everything, all the backlist content, Q&As, office hours, recordings, etc so if you get value from the show and you want more, come on over and join us at patreon.com thecreativepen P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com forward/thecreativepen Right, let's get into the interview.
- [17:58]
Derek Slayton
Derek Slayton is the author of the Dead America Epic Zombie series. With more than 100 books in the.
- [18:05]
Joanna Penn
Main series and many more spin off stories.
- [18:08]
Derek Slayton
So welcome to the show, Derek.
- [18:10]
Thank you. It's good to be here.
- [18:12]
Oh, yeah, I'm excited to talk to you. But first up, tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and why you love zombies so much.
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So I started writing many, many years ago when I was in high school, I rented dawn of the Dead on vhs and the movie itself didn't really scare me, but it was when I went to bed that night and started thinking about, hey, what would I do in a zombie apocalypse? And it was like a light switch was flipped. So it's like I had to start writing down what I would do and. And over the years and decades, it just sort of grew from there. So I used to be a photographer. I was a concert photographer, traveling the country with bands. And then I moved over to commercial real estate. And when I was on the road, I would have my laptop so I would just write. And over about four or five years, I built it up enough that I could go full time. And I went full time with it in January of 2014. So a little more than a year into it.
- [19:16]
Brilliant.
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Joanna Penn
And then I want to come back.
- [19:18]
Derek Slayton
On the zombie books, the tropes of the zombie book. So I, I read some zombie, like Jonathan Mayberry. I'm sure you've read some of Jonathan Mayberry's stuff, but he says it's not about the monsters, it's about the people who fight the monsters. So I wondered if you could maybe talk about the tropes of zombie books and why you just have an unending number of zombie stories in you.
- [19:43]
Yeah, I mean, the great thing about the zombie apocalypse is that it's happening to everybody, everywhere, and everybody has their own story. So, you know, there's a million stories that can be told in the zombie apocalypse. It's not just like, oh, you know, the strong military type fighting, it's the waitress having to deal with zombified customers and high school students having to deal with classmates and, and just on down the line. And there's just so many different scenarios that, I mean, I'm three and a half million words into my series and I still have another hundred stories plotted out that aren't really retreads of what I've already done.
- [20:24]
So you're writing about America, but obviously it's very, very big. So are you writing about places you've been to or, you know, yourself, or are you putting in different places and. Because place makes a difference, doesn't it? Like it's different whether you're in the Florida Everglades versus up in the mountains.
- [20:41]
Yeah, it's a combination because I have been all over, but a lot of the places I haven't been. Google Maps, of all things, has really helped me out because I'll look at the town and then I'll drop myself into Street View and just kind of walk around the area and see what my characters would be seeing and write it from that perspective. But also it comes directly from places I've been. I had to make the drive from El Paso back to San Antonio, which is about nine straight hours of driving through nothing. And it spawned the idea for the El Paso Creeping Death series. Just a million zombies marching towards them. So it's been a nice mixture of both. And just about every single story has been set in America. I had have done one story set in London that's only on YouTube at the moment, but it'll eventually be released in print. And it's something I want to explore more as the series goes on is how it's impacting other, other countries around the world.
- [21:43]
And then I guess I have a question about world building because with that many words, I mean, I barely remember what I was writing last week. I mean, do you have a world document where you keep all the rules of your world or all the characters? Or, you know, is it just out of control?
- [22:01]
It's a combination. I remained very. Or I have the rules for my zombie universe. How the zombies are formed, what they do, their timeline and all that. And thankfully it's very simple. So if I drop in on a story a week into it, I know how the zombies are. So I'm able to just jump right into it. And I have a story bible for the main series. But all of these side stories that are mostly one offs I don't really worry about as much because half the time nobody lives through them anyway.
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The benefits of horror. Well, I think that's really interesting because when I was thinking about your different places, people in your position sometimes open up their world to other people to write in. Is that something you're thinking about?
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No, just because I have so many stories that are in the pipeline and just have stories I want to tell that. And because I produce them so fast, I mean, I'm releasing a story a week. Even if I had somebody else writing stories, I really wouldn't have a place to a place in the schedule to release them because hour and a half, two, three hour stories every week is. I think it's about as Much as my fans can handle.
- [23:27]
Joanna Penn
Yeah.
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Derek Slayton
So let's go into your process then. So you said a story a week or an hour and a half, which is funny because most people talk in terms of word count, but you talk in terms of time. So tell us about your story process for creation and also publishing.
- [23:44]
So it really changed about a year and a half ago when I started focusing more on YouTube. I changed how I write because it used to just be free flowing. The word counts, the word count, the chapters, or however long they need to be. But with YouTube being ad based, I had to change to almost a television mindset of okay, I need a break every 12 to 15 minutes, which turns out to be about 2,000 words. So I started writing 2,000 word chapters, which really, really helped with the speed of the writing because I knew the beginning and end of each chapter. So if I was short on the word count, I said I can go back and just add a little bit of banter. Bam, we're there. As far as the week to week process goes, half the time I'll know what I'm writing the next week on Friday, so I'll plot it out. Sometimes I'll have just a great idea for a story on Sunday nights and completely change track and wake up Monday and just dive right in and see where it goes. Generally speaking, I'll spend two to three days writing out the story, refining it a little bit, and then going straight into the audio, which is where I do the final edit. And I'll just, I'll edit it as I'm producing the audio and at the end of the day upload it to you, do the video, upload it to YouTube and move on to the next.
- [25:13]
Okay, well, we have to get into that in more detail. So I heard you on the Brave New Bookshelf podcast and you really inspired me about YouTube. But for people who might not understand the sort of AI audio piece, how are you doing those audiobooks so quickly?
- [25:28]
I use a software called Playht. It's the pretty much the direct rival with ElevenLabs, which is the big AI audio. The biggest difference is that Playht offers a unlimited plan, which if you're producing as much audio as I am, that's vital mainly because I need to keep a roof over my head. I'll produce it chapter by chapter. So I'll paste it into the their studio thing, render it and then listen to it, make whatever changes I need to make. Because you can re render by line. So if I don't like the inflection, I Don't even change a word. It's just a quick click and 30 seconds later that has a new audio generation. Once I have the finished audio, because I export it by chapter, pull it over in the final cut pro drop in motion background. So I know where the chapter breaks are when I'm putting it in the ads in YouTube and export it, and then it's just straight to YouTube and on the schedule.
- [26:27]
Okay, so a few questions there for people who haven't done audio with AI. I know what you mean by make some changes, but what are some of the most common issues that you found with using AI voices? I. I think we're calling it producing now. You know, when you produce the audio, what are you having to change specific things regularly or is it quite a quick process?
- [26:53]
Honestly, it's gotten, gotten better as time goes along. Like, I just produced eight chapters this morning, so it was a full hour and a half book. Nine times out of ten, it's when I have to redo a line, it's a glitch in the software, it mispronounces a name. But other than that, I mean, the instances are few and far between. So it took me three hours to produce an hour and a half worth of audio content today. So it goes really quickly.
- [27:26]
Yeah, well, that's good though, because that's still twice as long. I think some people think you just upload the file and you hit output and that's it. But like yourself, I also listen to the audio as I go through. So that, that is an important part of the process. But then, so you mentioned there. So let's say it's this hour and a half book. You then upload it to YouTube. I've been trying to model you, although my channel has lots of different things on, but when I upload it to YouTube, I've got a description field, I've got the tit field, I've got a thumbnail, I've got some other things. What are the most important things that you need to put into those YouTube fields?
- [28:07]
I mean, really the most important thing are the keywords for people to search and just having a thumbnail that grabs people's attention. And this went back to the winter of like December of 2023, when I was switching over to AI audio. I decided to throw up an AI thumbnail, just a random zombie scene, put it up there in place of my book cover, and my views doubled overnight. So just having that dynamic thumbnail is bigger than really anything else because that's the first thing people see they don't look at your title. They don't look at your description. If they don't click on the. If they don't click on the thumbnail, they're never going to see anything else.
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That is a really good point. And I. I put up my Map Walker series, my Matt Walker trilogy, which is three books, and I did actually make character thumbnails, and I put them up, but because the rest of my channel isn't the same, they just look really weird. So I've replaced them with the book covers again. Now, your channel, if people go to it, just tell people where your YouTube channel is.
- [29:21]
It's just type in my name in the YouTube search. Just Derek Slayton. It's the first channel that pops up. It's just Derek Slayton, horror book author, or something along those lines. Just below the channel will be about 40 different zombie story thumbnails you can click on.
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Yeah, and they're all. They're all very consistent. And I think that's what's interesting about your channel. It really is super consistent. So it's. I feel like there's two different authors who are listening, you know, well, more than that. But people like me, who've had a YouTube channel for ages, and it's full of a lot of different stuff, and then people who want to do something like you, where it's something very consistent, look and feel. So I feel like your thumbnails are clear, your genre is clear, like you've done all the things that you're meant to do, which is fantastic. But you did mention keywords there. Are you using any specific tool to find the keywords specifically for YouTube?
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Yes. I subscribe to something called TubeBuddy, which is all one word. It's actually integrated with YouTube, their official partner. And I think it's something like $3 a month. And it just provides all sorts of analytical stuff. It'll analyze your thumbnail, it'll provide keywords for your type of video, help you pick out shorts and a whole, whole host of other things. And for $3 a month, it's worth every penny.
- [30:52]
Oh, no, I'm definitely gonna get that. That's very helpful. Then you also mentioned putting ad breaks on. So my fiction channel at Jfpen Author is not monetized as we record this. I'm desperately trying to get it there, but my creative pen channel is monetized, and I just click box that says yes to ads. And I've never done anything manually, so what's the difference between just letting it do its own thing? And doing it manually.
- [31:19]
So it is very important to you and anybody who is listening make sure you manually put in ads where you want them and to turn off automated ad placement. Especially now, because they are updating their system to automatically analyze your video and put ads where they think it should go. And especially if you're using AI audio, because there will be occasional pauses in there between lines and YouTube will read that as, oh, it's a natural break. Let's throw an ad in there. Because I checked it on one of my ad or one of my videos and it went from eight ads that I had placed to about 75. Oh my goodness, that's not going to work.
- [32:04]
Okay. Yeah, that's a lot.
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Joanna Penn
Okay.
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Derek Slayton
So that's something to do for that longer form content. Okay. So in that one and a half hour book, coming back to this one that you've done today, you'd expect to have like seven ad breaks in that.
- [32:20]
Yes, this book was eight chapters and I do an ad between every chapter and one at the end. So be eight ads altogether.
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Okay. And then, I mean, obviously this is hard to know, but approximately how much revenue do you expect to make for that kind of length book?
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I mean. Well, generally speaking, you make your most money in the first two, three weeks because that's when it's popular and that's when you get the most views. The way I view a video being a success, an hour and a half video is if it makes $100 and gets an extra 25 to 35 subscribers in that first week. And that's about where it typically falls, which, I mean, I know $100 for a video doesn't sound like a lot, but it's just in that initial week and then it continues making money essentially forever and having that fresh content, bringing in new subscribers, new viewers to the channel. They'll click on the playlist like, oh, there's 350 hours of stuff here. Let's go listen to older stories. And after a while it just snowballs. So that just having that fresh baseline $100 and 25, 35 subscribers in a week, I mean, that's, that's what I deem to be a success.
- [33:45]
So is there anything else you do? So we're doing the tube, buddy, but do you do any other form of marketing for the channel? Do you do paid ads or anything else else?
- [33:56]
I do absolutely no advertising, period. Everything I have across every platform is just natural growth. I have done ads in the past. I stopped in January of last year because I wanted to Try it out to see how it would go. Because, I mean, I was releasing weekly content across everywhere. Kindle, podcasting, YouTube. And with just that constant stream of fresh content, it's like, okay. I know, because I write in a niche, I have a limited amount of fans that are out there. Sooner or later, if I keep putting content out there, they're going to discover me naturally. I was at a point financially where it's like, okay, I'm well above where I need to be to be comfortable. So rather than focusing hours upon hours each week on trying to tweak ads and spend a bunch on that, I'm just like, I'm just gonna let it build naturally. And so far, I mean, it's worked great. I mean, last year was my most profitable year, and I didn't spend a dime in advertising.
- [35:04]
And that's why I got excited when I heard you on the brave new Bookshelf. And people definitely have a listen to that, too. It covers a slightly different angle to this episode, but I've always been a fan of content marketing.
- [35:17]
Joanna Penn
Always.
- [35:17]
Derek Slayton
It's how I've built my business. Business. And this is another form of content marketing. But it's also revenue because people can listen for free. And I've. Obviously, I've heard before, and people listening are like, yeah, but indies have been talking about putting audiobooks on YouTube for years, so why now? And I was thinking about this, why I was so resistant to it. And I think it's that I thought that YouTube audiobooks would cannibalize my audiobook revenue elsewhere. So what do you think about that? Is it just an entirely different audience, or do you also put your stuff elsewhere?
- [35:56]
I mean, it. Honestly, it's a completely different audience because I switched over to AI a year and a half ago. I haven't released anything on Audible or Findaway Voices because for the longest time they haven't accepted anything but their own AI voices. So, I mean, my Audible sales were kind of flatlined, like before I made the jump to YouTube, and they've remained at that level ever since. And what I'm finding is the people who buy audiobooks are one audience. The people who listen on YouTube is a completely different audience. And the people who listen to audiobooks via podcasts are yet another completely different audience.
- [36:38]
Yeah, this is what I. After hearing you, I was like, of course they're a different audience. I mean, even with my husband, My husband is. Does YouTube, and I don't watch YouTube myself. And yet he also watches videos. He doesn't listen to audiobooks on YouTube, but I know other people who do. So I was like, this is crazy.
- [36:55]
Joanna Penn
What.
- [36:55]
Derek Slayton
What was stopping me? So if people listening are feeling like, oh, but you know, nothing's happening, all I will say, so my channel, JF Pen author, is not monetized. So right now lots of people are listening to the audiobooks and I am not getting paid. So any tips for people who want to get into that monetized bracket?
- [37:15]
Honestly, it's just have consistent uploads, it'll keep you in the algorithm and it feeds back on itself. Because recently I think maybe within the last year, YouTube changed how they like promote their. Their videos, what they deem to be a good thing to promote. And it went from number of views to how long people listen and more importantly, how long your subscribers listen. So last week my story was three hours long and my average listen time was right at about an hour, which fed back to it being promoted to new people. So just having those long stories that your fans will listen to. And one thing that helps me is I release my stories every, every week at the same time, noon Eastern time on Saturdays. So within the first hour I have four or five hundred people tuning in and it boosts the algorithm, which is great.
- [38:20]
And you've become a habit. And I mean, this show is a habit for people and it goes out at 7:30am UK time on a Monday and the same thing happens. So I completely get the habit. Not something I can see happening for my fiction at the moment, although it's so funny because you've definitely inspired me around thinking about all this stuff. But I also wanted to ask you about the podcast thing because again, I have two podcasts. They're mainly interviews, solo shows, that kind of thing. They are not fiction or audiobooks. So tell us about how you do audiobooks for the fiction.
- [38:56]
It's really the same thing that I'm doing on YouTube, only just in pure audio form, so there's no video attached. I just take the MP3 file of the audiobook and because I write in novella format, most of the episodes are now and a half, two hours long. That seems to be the perfect length for audio or for a podcast. So I just released a book as an episode and I tried it on a whim and within a month I was monetized. And. And it's grown over the last. I think it's been out about a year and a half now. And it's grown to the point where financially it's just a slight step down from what I'm making on YouTube. And so it's just another revenue stream for the same content that I already have.
- [39:46]
What service are you using for that?
- [39:48]
I use a company called Red Circle. They're a podcast distributor. They distribute to Spotify and all these other places. But what's great about them is that they have a sales team that will go out and find the ads that will populate within your podcast. So just like YouTube, I go in, I set where I want the ads to go. And whenever somebody downloads it, if they download it for later, the ads are already inserted into the podcast. So I get credit for all those.
- [40:22]
Right. And easy. Is it one podcast with all the stories on like one podcast feed, or is it a separate feed per book?
- [40:33]
It's all one podcast feed. So there's just a new. New story every week.
- [40:38]
Okay, right. So that is also called Derek Slayton, is it? Or is it called, like, horror or Dead America or something?
- [40:44]
It's called Dead America.
- [40:45]
Okay, so it's called Dead America. So let's take my Matt Walker trilogy. So it's about, I don't know, 20 hours of audio in total across three books. I would make that a podcast feed for that series, for example.
- [41:01]
Right. You could break it up into two hour chunks and just. Or hour long stories, however you want to do it, and just have them as weekly releases. Let it build up. And I mean, and the great thing is once it's out there, once it's monetized and people will come across it, listen to it, and more income.
- [41:24]
Joanna Penn
Okay.
- [41:24]
Derek Slayton
And can you schedule them so you can. So if I did that, let's say I split them into two hour chunks or whatever, can I schedule them all at once? So it's almost like a piece of work to upload all the files, schedule it, do the ad breaks, and then I just let it go?
- [41:39]
Absolutely. I mean, I have the next three months worth of podcasts already scheduled. So it's like I sit down one day, a quarter and just upload 20, 30 books to it and place the ads and let the auto scheduler do its thing.
- [41:55]
That is cool. And again, it's so funny, the kind of blocks we have in our minds. Because of course, again, I'm very aware of fiction podcasting. I just didn't think about that from the case of putting an audiobook up, because I always feel like fiction podcasts have multicast and they're very full of actors and pro narrators and stuff like that. So I guess we should tackle that. Are you getting any kickback around the use of AI.
- [42:23]
I mean, when I started doing AI on YouTube, I had the initial, like, string of protests, and I was very open and honest with them with my fans. Like, here's why I'm using AI because if I use humans, I could release a story every three to four months using AI. I can keep doing it weekly, and almost immediately everybody bought in. And I've had a fraction of that. That level of kickback on podcasting. But I was honest with them, responded to their comments with what I just said, and for the most part, it's been smooth sailing. I even released two shorts back to back. One was human narrated, one was AI narrated. And despite having the negative AI comments on the AI episodes, I actually had 20% more views on the AI episode.
- [43:18]
Are you using different voices? So do you use a variety of men and women and accents and stuff, or do you just use one narrator?
- [43:26]
I have one narrator for all of them. The only time I changed narrator with the AI was when I did the story in London. I used a narrator with a British accent just because it felt right. And I played around with doing multiple voices and even polled my subscribers on YouTube, and by 3 to 1 margin, people were like, no, we like the one voice. So it's almost like people care more about the story than having multiple voices talking to them.
- [43:59]
Yes. And this is another thing to me as well. When I listen to audiobooks, I want the content sense. It's not about the voice. In fact, I'd rather the voice disappeared.
- [44:09]
Joanna Penn
And I think the voice disappearing is.
- [44:11]
Derek Slayton
When people get used to the voice. So that, I think, is what your listeners are saying, which is, yet we're after the story. The fact that they're listening to it rather than reading it doesn't make any difference. So you're also publishing those as ebooks on Kindle only or elsewhere?
- [44:28]
Just Kindle. I'm in Kindle Unlimited because with the size of my series, nobody's gonna buy all the books.
- [44:37]
And do you use AI covers as well?
- [44:41]
Yes, I started using AI covers with releases. It started coming out, like, last summer. And for the most part, they've been well received.
- [44:49]
Yeah, I've been using a lot of AI imagery for the last couple of years. And again, a lot of people listening are just scared. You know, when you upload a book to Kindle, you have to click the box that says, how did you use AI? And I'm like, it's not a problem.
- [45:03]
Joanna Penn
You just click the box and you.
- [45:04]
Derek Slayton
Say you're using it.
- [45:05]
Joanna Penn
And so do you have any.
- [45:07]
Derek Slayton
Any issues at all about using any of the AI stuff?
- [45:11]
Oh, no. I mean I. It's been life changing for me. It was a big reason why I was able to go full time last year just because it cut my costs down by about 99%.
- [45:23]
I love that. I love that.
- [45:25]
Joanna Penn
And this is again why I encourage.
- [45:27]
Derek Slayton
People to listen to the Brave New Bookshelf podcast in general. Because I think everyone who goes on that show is also AI positive as you are and find it just amplifies their creativity. Right.
- [45:39]
Joanna Penn
You're a story machine.
- [45:41]
Derek Slayton
It's incredible.
- [45:43]
Well, and it's like one of the big things anti AI people say is like, oh, it's killing creativity. And it's actually the opposite. At least it has been for me because if I wanted to do a new story, a new plot line, new anything before AI I would have had to have risked thousands of dollars for the editing, the audio and advertising for it. But with AI, I essentially have no cost barriers so I can write whatever I want without fear, without worrying about, okay, if this fails, I'm going to lose thousands of dollars. And having a built in audience, as long as it's in the horror, sci fi action genre, I know I'm going to make money. It might not be a lot of money, but I know I'm going to make money and not lose money. So it has really opened up creativity and allowed me to tell stories I otherwise wouldn't have been able to tell.
- [46:39]
I totally agree. I find it, it's such a spark for me, like when I have a, I guess like a creative session with AI if I'm just thinking about a new book. Like yesterday I was thinking about something and I just get on chat or on Claude and I'm going backwards and forwards and it's like sparking ideas and yeah, like you, I feel like it makes me more creative and it just gives me bigger horizons for what's possible.
- [47:03]
Right, Absolutely. And especially with Claude with the new 3.7 projects, how like I can upload one of my previous stories and it's like, this is how I want the story to sound, this is what I want you to emulate. And I can go back and forth with it and it's like having a. It's like having a writing partner. Partner basically. And it's speeding up my process and I would bounce ideas off of it and the stuff. It's like talking to myself.
- [47:38]
Yeah, exactly. I was going to say.
- [47:39]
Joanna Penn
Yeah.
- [47:40]
Derek Slayton
I feel, I also feel like the word co writing is becoming more and more true because it is A sort of true collaborative creative process. Although I've worked with co writers before and I'm actually a terrible co writer because I'm so controlling. So with Claude actually works a lot better. How about you?
- [47:59]
Yeah, that's like, if it does something I don't like, I can, you know, like, no, don't do that. Okay, sorry.
- [48:05]
Yeah, and it's very helpful, I think. You're also using AI for translations, is that right? And what's your process?
- [48:11]
I am, I use Scribe Shadow, which is. It basically made it's AI translations tailored towards like fiction. And I was one of the early adopters of it. Like when it first came out. Let's give it a shot, see what happens. And so I translated, went straight from the software uploaded. They had like six languages, mostly European languages. It's okay, let's throw it up there and see what happens. And Italian and Spanish were kind of like, yeah, okay. But Germany, Germany just took off immediately. Just putting up, putting up a handful of stories, no advertising still. But like my first book even got a KDP all star bonus in German. It's like I've never had that in America.
- [49:02]
You didn't have any proofreading. You just went straight from Scribeshadow.
- [49:07]
I just went straight from Scribeshadow because at the time, that was before they had partnered with a human translation service that gives them a heavily discounted rate to check the up to check everything. And by the time that came along I had probably 40 books out in German. And I went and looked at my ratings and reviews and I think I had like a 4.3, 4.4 out of 5, like across all the books. And I went and look at my American versions and it's like, huh, the German versions are actually higher. So it's like whatever problem people have, it doesn't appear to be the translation. So yeah, I just kept that up because it seems to be, seems to be working okay.
- [49:53]
Yeah. And I realize some people listening and are just going, no, no, don't do it. And I have used Scribe Shadow but then I also paid for the proofreading and all of that kind of stuff. But I've only done it for some non fiction. Oh, I did a short story as well, but I haven't jumped in because of course when you pay for all of the other stuff, the costs add up. As you were saying, you wouldn't be able to release at the pace you release like in German if you were paying for all of that.
- [50:20]
Right. And yeah, I grew up in, you know, Loving B horror movies. So low budget. They had the creativity, but they didn't have the budget to pull off everything they wanted. But it was. I latched on to that mentality. So releasing in German, with the way that I am not paying for the extra translation or editing, like, just embracing that B movie mindset, like, get it out there. As long as it's entertaining, you'll find an audience. And I know full well I'm leaving 15, 20% of my potential audience on the table who are like, I don't like the AI translations, but it's not worth the extra time and money that I would have to spend in order to potentially get them. And it's like, I have a. A. I seem to have a regular audience that tunes into my books every week in German because, I mean, I'm profitable, like, within seconds of releasing. So it's like, they're happy, I'm happy.
- [51:20]
I love that. And you mentioned there, the 20 you're leaving on the table, I literally wrote down before you said that 8020 rule, because that is what you're doing. You're doing the 8020 rule pretty much for everything. That attitude of, like, the. The B movie, which, of course, people love. And I think this is what's so interesting. And listening to you, I. I feel the freedom. I feel the sort of indie vibe in you, which I just love. And I was saying to my husband, listening to you, I caught almost like a flame. I. I feel. That's why I wanted to talk to you and just say thank you, because I feel like sometimes I get bogged down by so many expectations. I've been doing this a long time. I've been doing this sort of since 2007, 2008. And I lose track of that flame. And so I wanted to say thank you to you for kind of lighting that again. And. And, yeah, I mean, you're. You're like a proper indie.
- [52:20]
Joanna Penn
Derek.
- [52:22]
Derek Slayton
Well, I'm a huge Iron Maiden fan, and one of the things that struck me, interviewing Bruce Dickinson, the lead singer, years ago, he's like, we've never gone for radio play. We play music that we like to listen to. This is what we. We do what we like. And we found an audience, and they're one of the biggest bands in the world. And, like, that B movie mindset. Like them, it's like, you know what? I'm gonna write something that I would want to read. And I just kept pushing it out, and it's taken a little while, but I. I have an audience, and I'm enjoying every moment of it.
- [53:02]
Well, great. And I think maybe there's some more of your audience coming over, so tell people where they can find you and your Dead America books online.
- [53:11]
The best place to find me is on YouTube and on Spotify as well. The Dead America Zombie podcast. And my books are available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited, not only in America, but Germany, Italy and Spain.
- [53:28]
Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Derek. That was great.
- [53:32]
Oh, it's my pleasure. Thank you for having me.
- [53:37]
Joanna Penn
So I hope you found Derek's process interesting and that his perspective gives you a little touch of the creative flame I felt when I talked to him. And it is too easy to get stuck in our ways. So what can we question? What might we have to unlearn? What could we change in our business? And in fact, talking I mentioned the ChatGPT03 earlier this week. Specifically, I asked it about being an indie author and what might I have to unlearn. I explained where I am in my career, my age, my experience, and asked what might I need to unlearn in order to be successful in the years ahead. And it was pretty insightful. So this is so important for those of us who've been doing things for more than a year or two. People coming new into the industry pick up the new things from new voices and those of us who've been doing this a while, and especially if we are older because we are hamstrung by the things we took on from an industry that basically doesn't exist anymore. I was talking to someone the other day and they were like, yeah, you know, my first book deal, I got like a seven figure deal and that was in the 90s and since then it's just got less and less and less and less every year. So yeah, I feel like we all need to unlearn things in order to be successful in the years ahead. It might not even be in your author business. You could ask about that in other ways. But yes. Anyway, I found the interview very interesting and I hope you did too. So if you would like to listen to my audiobooks on YouTube, you can find my fiction @jf pen author. It also has my memoir and many of my books for writers on the creative pen on YouTube. I hope you find them useful and interesting. So let me know what you think of today's episode. Please leave a comment on the podcast Show Notes atthecreative pen.com or on the YouTube channel. You can comment on X at the Creative Pen or email me. Joannathecreativepenn.com Send me pictures of where you're listening or your favourite cemetery or churchyard. So next week I'm talking to Dr. Rebecca White about the practice of entrepreneurship and also how she's shifted from academic writing, which is very specific way of writing, to more of a mainstream kind of book. In the meantime, happy writing and I'll see you next time. Thanks for listening today.
- [56:02]
Derek Slayton
I hope you found it helpful.
- [56:05]
Joanna Penn
You can find the backlist episodes and show notes at the Creative page.
- [56:11]
Derek Slayton
And.
- [56:11]
Joanna Penn
You can get your free Author blueprint@thecreativepen.com Blueprint if you'd like to connect, you can find me on Facebook and x hecreative pen or on Instagram and Facebook Fpenauthor Happy writing and I'll see you next time.