← The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers
The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers
Writing Action Adventure And Traveling For Book Research With Luke Richardson
01:05:31
What are the tropes and reader expectations for action adventure thrillers? Why publish into KU and what are some of the ways to market there? How can travel enrich your writing? Luke Richardson gives his tips. In the intro,
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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 797 of the podcast and it is Saturday the 1st of March 2025 as I record this, the first day of spring. In today's show I'm talking about writing, action adventure and travelling for book research with Luke Richardson. We cover author branding tropes, why we both love a prologue, writing characters different to you, why we love travelling for research, publishing in Kindle Unlimited books, book marketing, writing author's notes and more. So that's coming up in the interview section in Writing and Publishing Things. So first up, ProWritingAid has launched their manuscript analysis tool. So I've tested this and it is super useful. It's basically a developmental editing report. At the moment it is fiction, but they have mentioned maybe there'll be a non fiction later. For the first time you can get an analysis of the whole book. It dives deep into your story structure, plot, pacing, characterisation and more, giving you clear prioritised insights to strengthen your novel. So I did a demo of this with Chris from ProWritingAid with my Patreon last month and everyone was really keen to try it. So I'm really glad it's out now. And in my mind it is a cost effective way to get a developmental edit on your novel so you can improve things before sending to a human editor. Because I really think with developmental editing sometimes you need more than one pass, especially if you're new, newer to the writing process and there's only so much that can be done on each pass. So I think using this type of thing, and this is how I use ProWritingAid anyway, is using it before working with a human editor. Our books are for humans, so I think having a human in the loop is really important. And obviously I work with Kristen, my editor, but I think this manuscript analysis can help you make your book a lot better so the human can then focus on the more important aspects. So that is ProWritingAid's new manuscript analysis tool. On the Indie Author podcast this week or last week, lawyer Kathryn Goldman, who's been on the show several times, talks about navigating legal risk in memoir. Now this is a topic authors often worry about. I've had questions on this a lot over the years. Basically, if you write about real people and real places, will you get sued? So Mattie and Catherine talk about the delicate balance that memoir writers must strike to avoid defamation, invasion of privacy, infliction of emotional distress. They talk about the legal definitions and elements of these terms and offer advice on minimising risk, emphasizing the importance of factual accuracy and distinguishing between statements of fact and opinion. They also go into the complexities of protecting yourself when writing about identifiable real life figures and the considerations authors must take into account when deciding whether to fictionalise elements of their stories. Plus the implications of using real places and the the ever fun thing of song lyrics in memoirs. Basically don't use them and cautions against seeking input from real life subjects. They also go into the benefits of including disclaimers to manage reader expectation and reduce legal exposure. I also just wanted to point out these are two Americans talking and the UK has much more stringent libel laws, so you do have to be more careful in some ways over here. So that is the indie author podcast ind y author podcast wherever you're listening to this then. BookBub has an article on social media for authors in 2025. This is a really interesting topic and I've been talking to some friends about this this week, something everyone needs to make a decision on. I feel like we're a real tipping point with social media, as in which ones you use? Do you use them at all? Do they work for book sales? I think those of us, including myself, who've been on autopilot with social media for several years, I think it's time for us to have a bit of a reckoning. And I know a lot of people are going through this right now. Okay, so in the BookBub article, which I'll link in the show notes, they found that meta's platforms are by far the most popular choices, with more than half reporting using Facebook or Instagram at least weekly. Blue sky seems poised for a big jump in popularity in the upcoming year. 8% more authors plan to use Blue sky at least weekly this year, although that doesn't seem like a big number to me. Authors are also planning to spend more time on video focused platforms YouTube and TikTok, despite the latter's uncertain future in the US. And yet, just to remind you, the whole TikTok debacle has not gone away, it's just been put off. So that may come back. Maintaining a presence on social media always requires some level of time investment. More than 90% of authors reported spending at least a few hours a month. Creating posts for Social Media in the last few years, video content, particularly short form, has exploded. But authors don't seem to be making the transition to video content en masse. In fact, over half the authors surveyed spend no time creating videos for social media. I will be part of that. For authors who do produce video, the year they started publishing has a significant impact on their choice of platform. Authors who published their first book after 2020 were more than twice as likely to use TikTok regularly than those whose debuts were released before 2010. And this is not a surprise because that's just a demographic, right? So I did my debut, although that's not really what we called it. I put out my first book in 2007 and there was no TikTok. And what is just the way that most people work is you get used to a platform and that's what you continue using. So yes, younger people are more comfortable with video. The most common reasons authors cite for using social media is to connect with readers, either finding new ones or nurturing the relationships they have with fans. Authors noted they often use social media to announce and promote new releases, share writing updates, promote discounts, and interact directly. They also found a benefit in using social media to learn more about their niche in the publishing industry. But and this is why I think it's time for a reckoning, Visibility and discoverability are challenges across the publishing industry, and social media is no exception. Many authors cited obscure algorithms and shifting policies as sources of frustration, noting that it can often feel as if they're shouting into a void and unsure if anyone, even their followers, will hear them. So yeah, I wanted to go into this in more detail because things are so different. So I first got on Twitter as it was back then in 2008, and also onto Facebook, also onto YouTube. I was in the sort of final days of MySpace that was, you know, bigger back then. That was even like Friendster and Google plus. Some of you might remember Google. We really thought that was going to be something and it really wasn't. But yes, with the political shifts and changes in technology, AI, etc. It's a good time to take a step back and consider what you are doing with social media. Is it working for you, whatever that means to you, and what changes you want to make. So for example, I know people who've left the big platforms over political things only to find that blue sky or threads don't serve the same purpose. You can't just port over to a new platform and expect that Things will be the same. Some have given up on social media pretty much altogether. I know other people who are playing the game of social incredibly well and are laser focused on it to sell books and are just doing content for sales reasons. And this, it's so interesting because as I grew up in social in the early days and also blogging and all that, it was always about generosity in content. The 8020 rule in the 80% of your content should not be salesy. And then maybe sometimes you could say hey, buy my book. But that has changed with like TikTok particularly I think is it's like a sales platform, it's like TV shopping channel where people expect the content to be sales focused. So I was reflecting on my usage and my Instagram and my Facebook I consider to be evidence of being human. I post pictures on Instagram and they go automatically to Facebook. There is this thing called the social graph. It's not like an actual thing, but it's sort of an idea. And I think this will be used more in the future where human connections and evidence of being human are important. So my pictures of my travels or my cats or random thoughts on X can be used to prove that yes, I am real and I am human. And I think especially in this age of AI, I mean with AI generated video, with these AI generated tools I've seen, you can essentially you can upload stuff or just tell it to create all this stuff. And with agents it will be able to auto post for you and it will be able to auto respond to comments. And my feelings like, well, I don't want to be part of that. I don't want to just be bots talking to bots kind of thing. So I want to use social to as proof of humanity essentially. But in terms of X, I mainly use it to find out all the AI news and bring it to you and bring it to my Patreon. So I use it mainly as a listening platform. It is, it is X now, it's not Twitter. So anyone who's still calling it Twitter, it is not the same platform. It's completely different. It integrates with Shopify. Now there will soon be a payment platform inside of it. And of course it has integration with Grok, which is a very open language model if you want help with marketing. Not safe for work content. Grok is the model for you since basically any other model is unlikely to do it. But Grok will do. Not safe for work. Now when I considered my social media usage, I really barely use it in an effective manner. I just have to be honest. It's not. My use of social media is not effective. How's that for a a realization? I do add campaigns sometimes, but not all the time. And this is another reason I'm rebooting my books and travel podcast which should be coming later in March, in a couple of weeks time. I'm just sort of setting it all up. I've always enjoyed long form content. That's what I listen to, that's what I create. Podcasting is my strength, so I'm leaning back into that as well. There are 90 episodes of the Backlist. Just search books and travel podcast wherever you're listening to this. So I'm not getting rid of my social media, I'm keeping it. But I'm focusing on email marketing, the books themselves with various price promotions first free in series and podcasting as my primary marketing channels. And so I wanted to bring this question to you this week. Are you using social media effectively? And this is a question we need to revisit. So if your gut reaction is to say well yes, I am, how are you measuring that? What is effective? Does it actually sell books for you? Is it just a hobby or is it for connection and which is great. So effective you get to decide what effective is. You get to decide what successful is. But if it doesn't sell books, then what are your primary methods for book marketing? Because I also spoke to someone recently who said, who started similar time to me and who said I'm just not able to shift books anymore, I'm not selling anything. And why is that? And when we talked about it, it was just like, well, she hasn't updated her marketing strategy or yeah, not just her strategy, her actual marketing tactics. She's not out there actually marketing. So this is the question, is social media still working for you? Something to think about this week. I would love to know what you think. Let me know in the comments or email me joannathecreativepenn.com so in AI things, the speed of AI changes this week has been ridiculous. So I'm not going to share everything, but a few things stood out this week that are relevant for authors in particular. The first thing is that Amazon relaunched Alexa, now Alexa plus, which is powered by Claude, which is one of the, I guess more characterful AI models. Powered by Generative AI. Alexa is your new personal AI assistant that gets things done. She's smarter, more conversational, more capable and free with prime, which is, I was like, oh my goodness, this is crazy. She keeps you entertained, helps you learn, keeps you organized, summarizes complex topics and can converse about virtually anything. Alexa can manage and protect your home, make reservations, and help you track, discover and enjoy new artists. She can also help you search, find or buy virtually any item online. Okay, note this Book discovery and book buying with Alexa powered by Claude. This is fascinating. She can also make useful suggestions based on your interests. Alexa does this, does all this and more. All you have to do is ask. So this is essentially voice mode for Claude. Now this is a big deal. Claude is excellent. If you haven't used the Claude model, it really is excellent. I use it a lot. It has a lovely, friendly personality and it's going free to prime members and anyone who has an Alexa device or the app they're used to talking to to it. And I, I think I'm kind of gobsmacked about this because my dad, who's in his mid-70s, uses an Alexa device and my nieces, who are, you know, under 10, they also have used Alexa for the last few years. They're really used to just talking to this device and now it's a whole lot smarter. I can just see how they're going to adapt really quickly to using it. The press release from Amazon also says Alexa plus also uses agentic capability which will enable Alexa to navig the Internet in a self directed way to complete tasks on your behalf behind the scenes. Let's say you need to get your oven fixed. Alexa will navigate the web, use thumbtack to discover the relevant service provider, authenticate, arrange the repair and come back to tell you when it's done. There's no need to supervise or intervene. I'm like, wow, this sounds amazing. I wonder whether it will actually work. But very interesting. So you can already ask Alexa to recommend books and audiobooks, but hopefully this will now get more granular. And I did an episode in December 2023 on how generative AI will impact search. And as ever I was early on that, but it's really now starting to become pretty true. It's also interesting because this is another step to invisible AI. Most users don't know anything about Claude and they don't need to. My nieces and my dad, they don't need to know that they're talking to an AI. They don't need to understand the model, they just use it. And I also heard someone say how much they love Apple Intelligence the other day. They think it's amazing. Whereas those of us who use a lot of AI are like, it's not very good. And this was someone my dad's age and he was like, this is the best thing ever. It's so useful. And this is how most people will use these models. They won't even know they're using it. So Alexa will start rolling out in the US in the next few weeks during an early access period and then subsequently in waves over the coming months. I would love to know if you get access to this if you use Alexa now, if you're going to use Alexa Plus, I would love to know what you think if you try it. Use a lot more granular search for things. So if you want a book, let's say, let's say you want an action adventure thriller written by an indie author set in Egypt with a female protagonist. You know, use a real granular search, not just give me the latest thriller or whatever. So that's Alexa. Then. For authors who dictate or podcasters or anyone who wants speech to text for transcription, ElevenLabs just released Scribe, the world's most accurate transcription model. Built to handle the unpredictability of real world audio. Scribe transcribes speech in 99 languages. And this is very interesting. I'm going to try this out because I often find even the best other services for transcription do amazing with American voices, but not other accents. So I'm hoping this does a better job. It is available in the ElevenLabs dashboard under Speech to Text, and that is scribe. Now, ElevenLabs is on fire at the moment as they also released this week publishing on their Reader app. So of course last week I talked about publishing to Findaway Voices and Spotify. This week you can publish to their Reader app. Now, essentially their ElevenLabs reader app, you can create an audiobook for free. So with the Studio. If you want to sell your audiobook on Spotify, you need to use the Studio, but you can use the 11 reader app for free. They say it's the fastest, zero cost way to create and distribute immersive audio for your book. And there will be a payment platform which is currently available to US residents only, but is going to roll out. What is interesting is you can see audience insights. So like when people stop listening, for example, you can as a reader now, I don't know if you've been listening a while. You might remember I talked about this in my 2020 book on AI and I said with AI audio in the future you'll be able to change the voice on the app as the listener, depending on what you want to listen to. So let's say you I narrate my book, but actually you'd rather listen to a male voice, then you'll be able choose that on the reader. This is what this app does, so I think that's pretty interesting. But the problem right now is of course this, you don't. You can't publish these files to the other platforms. So essentially you have to decide what you want to do. If you want to sell and distribute your book on Spotify or your own site through Book Funnel or on Kobo or YouTube or any of these other things, then you do have to use the studio and you do have to pay for that. However, if you just want your audiobook done for free and available on the 11Labs Reader app, you can do that. So yeah, I think it's really interesting. If you have paid for the studio version, you can also distribute to the reader app. So the point is that there are lots of opportunities to get audio out there and who knows where this will go. I think they're really going to invest in this reader app. It is another audiobook creation and distribution option. So in personal news, I finished the script of Ragnarok Rising, which is my adaptation and expansion of Day of the Vikings. I am looking to option it. It would definitely fit a Scandi film market since the extra scenes I've added are in Norway and Iceland as well as Scotland. And I am actually now considering novelising those extra scenes and expanding the book. The book is a novella and you can get it for free. Jfpenn.com free it is my free email list Reader Magne so but this would turn it into a novel length book if I decided to then novelise the scenes I've written. I am considering it. It is not a definite. I have too many things going on as ever more ideas turn into more ideas. That's just the way it works. But I am just working on the final beta reader edits on Death Valley, my next thriller and the proofreading. And I'm also prepping for Iceland this week. More on that once I get back. I'm also putting together the Kickstarter campaign, doing the book trailer which is really fun using midjourney and Runway as ever. I'm doing the formatting sales page, all of that. Amusingly talking about audio. I'm going to narrate the audiobook myself as a human. The reason is mainly because Audible still doesn't accept AI narration even with my voice clone and I get a substantial amount from Audible each month and I don't want to miss out on that. So all of that to say I'm in the, I guess finishing energy phase of Death Valley and I am hankering to write something new. I am going to do the script of Death Valley and I'm going to pitch that at London Screenwriters Festival in April as well as Ragnarok Rising, depending on what happens with that. So I have lots of things happening. I will probably also write a short story next because I do want to do my short story collection this year as well. Lots going on. But yes, as ever we have different phases of our writing and I'm mainly in finishing energy. So thanks for all your emails and comments and photos this week. Barbara left a comment on the show Notes I'm working on my first Kickstarter campaign for a non fiction travel memoir and this interview with Orianna was super helpful, especially the comments about doing the video Gulp. Yes, video is tough, but as we talked about with Orianna, it's a really good idea to do one. Even if it's just short. People can see you're real, you're a human, and you care about your project. Okay, Please leave a comment on the podcast show notes@thecreativepenn.com or on the YouTube channel or Spotify. Message me on X at the Creative Pen or email me. Send me pictures of where you're listening. JoannaTheCreativePenn.com I love to hear from you. It makes this more of a conversation so today's show is sponsored by prowritingaid because however you choose to publish, whether you go indie or you want a traditional deal, you need to make your book the best it can be. And this is also great timing given the launch of the Manuscript Analysis Developmental editing tool. So ProWritingAid is one of my absolute must use tools in my writing process for both fiction and non fiction and short story. Once I finished my first draft, I use prowritingaid to fix up any issues before printing and hand editing and then I use it again. So I do at least two passes on prowritingaid before sending to Kristen, my editor. And now I'm going to add in a pass through the manuscript analysis too to improve things as much as possible. I use ProWritingAid with Scrivener, but you can use it with other software or just online in your browser. ProWritingAid knows all the rules of editing and helps you apply them. And of course you can choose not to make the changes as you like. It helps with making your writing more active. Finding repeated words, finding words and sentences you could improve adding sensory detail, sentence structure, grammar and punctuation as well as typos, spacing, and more. So why use software to help? Why don't you just learn all the grammar and writing rules and apply them yourself? Well, we all use tools to improve our process and we are also often blind to our writing issues. It helps to have another pair of eyes, even if the eyes are software. So won't an editor do all this? Well, yes they can, but I'd rather pay my editor to fix the things the software can't and be the human in the loop because our readers are human. So it's good to use a human editor as well as prowriting aid. Check out the free edition or get 15% off the premium edition by using my link prowritingaid.com Joanna J-O-A-N N A that's prowritingaid.com Joanna so this type of corporate sponsorship pays for the hosting, transcription and editing, but my time in creating this show is sponsored by my community@patreon.com thecreativepenn thanks to the seven new patrons who've joined this week and 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 topics on writing, craft and author business, as well as tutorials and demos on AI tools and my patron Only Q and A solo episodes. The latest just went out last week. It's like a 45 minute extra solo show where I answer questions and also my live office hours. The next one is coming at the end of March. 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 and office hours which are recorded. So if you get value from this show and you want more, then come on over and join us at patreon.com P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com TheCreativePenn Right, let's get into the interview.
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Luke Richardson
Luke Richardson is the best selling author of the Eden Black archaeological thrillers and the international Detective thriller series.
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Joanna Penn
So welcome to the show.
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Luke Richardson
Luke hi Jo, thank you for having me. This is wonderful to be able to talk to you.
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Oh no, I'm excited about it. But first up, tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and self publishing.
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Oh yeah, it's been one of those sort of roundabout, roundabout ways that a lot of people talk about. But I often cite this is something I've written on my profiles and written emails about. I often cite my first arriving in India in 2011 as the reason I wanted to write. And it was just this transformational moment of being totally culture shocked in a completely different place in a way that I couldn't describe and couldn't really explain. We'd come out of the airport, we're into this taxi, going past the slum villages on the edges of this freeway that's sort of 16 lanes wide. There's donkeys and sports cars and track and all of this going on. And it was just so overwhelming. And although I didn't write for several years after that, it was that sort of excitement about stuff and the world and discovery and adventure. I think that sort of lodged in me. And when I started to write, those things started to come out of me. Do you know what I mean? They started to come out in my writing.
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That's so funny. And we're going to get into travel because you and I are travel geeks. But I also remember arriving in India. It would have been about five years before that, in the middle of the night, an airport in. It wasn't Delhi, but it was one of the biggest cities. And it was like, crazy, crazy. So that culture shock is. Is really interesting. But then how did you then get into indie publishing as opposed to maybe going traditional?
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Yeah. So I was an English teacher in a high school for several years, under the illusions that it would be a creative thing to do, because I've always been very creative, always loved that. And for the first couple of years, it actually was quite creative. And then I think as I'd done the same classes four or five or six times over and over again, it became less so. And then I started writing. I came up with this idea for a book and I was like, great. Someone in a. In. It was actually setting Kathmandu, and it's the first book in my international detective series. Someone who's like me in 2011, in the back of that taxi, totally overwhelmed, tasked with finding a missing person in this city that they've never been to. They don't speak the language, they don't know the culture, and they've got to go and find this person. And I came up with that idea based on my travels, based on the things that I've done, and it was really just a creative outlet. It was a passion. It was something I. I wanted to do outside of. Outside of work. And then I finished the book and I did that thing where. Which we've all done, I think, and You. You fold your arms and you go, ha. Half you is really impressed that you finished this thing and the other half's like, what do I do now? What do I do with it? You know, gave my mum a copy and a couple of other friends. And then I had went down at the rabbit hole of learning about publishing and how to get out in the world and your podcast and other podcasts and online courses and YouTube videos and all this sort of thing. And I never, never tried the traditional route. I was far too impetuous, wanted to get on with the next book, so. So I. I learned about indie publishing and published it in 20, I think. 19. 20. 19. It was so six years.
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And are you still a teacher?
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No, no, I left just before the pandemic. So I quit then needed to change and. Which was great, actually, because it meant I had the whole time of those few years to really focus on my writing and then sort of, it built up slowly as these things do. So the first year was quite tough. I had to do some freelance work on the side and do some other writing, sort of freelance writing and things. And then when was it, I think it was two years ago that it was. It became the job and now we've surpassed the teaching, the teaching, it's become more successful than the teaching was. So I'm really excited about that, that.
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I think this is a really good point. So you left your job in 2019 and it was what, 2024, when your income surpassed your old.
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Yeah, income from books. I mean, I was. We did the classic sort of. We couldn't travel anyway because travel was off the table at that time. It was a good time to not spend much money anyway. Sort of lived quite a frugal life whilst I was doing that and did some freelance work on the side and really just. Just started again, I suppose you'd say, in a professional capacity. Built up and built up the mailing list, built up the socials, learned about all these things. Give. I. What I decided, I think, is that I needed to give it a proper chance. I think if I wanted to do it as a hobby, writing in the evenings, at the weekends was fine. But if I wanted to do it as a job and I wanted to this to be my life, I needed to. To give it space and that was the decision. And I didn't love teaching at that point. I was ready for a change and so, yeah, I. I think that was a good decision. It's worked out well in the end, obviously too.
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Yeah. And so. Well, so you mentioned the word job there. And I feel like this is so important and I've talked about this before and having a hobby is amazing. And for most people, writing as a hobby is brilliant and probably what most people should do. But as you mentioned, the word job and that is how we make our living with books or word adjacent things. So what does that job entail for you? That perhaps when you wrote that first book when you were a teacher, you didn't even think about.
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Joanna Penn
Because I feel like a lot of.
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Luke Richardson
People coming in don't understand what the job of an author is, or let alone the job of an indie author.
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Yeah, that's true. And there's so much to it. There's the production side, which is obviously the writing, the researching, the actual making the book. And I don't just mean research in terms of what's in the book, I mean research of what is the market. What does the market need? Now I'm not saying you need to write to market necessarily, but you need to, I think, not need. That's a, that's the wrong way to say. It's not prescriptive. But it helps if you have an understanding of what the market likes, if that makes sense and so that you're not. You don't necessarily have to follow tropes. This is an issue, isn't it? I think with indie publishing you can do whatever you want, but with that comes great challenges as well, because whatever you want is massive. No one wants to read a book. That's everything, right? You know, it needs to be something, it needs to stand on, it needs to pin its colors to the mast, some colors to one master or another. It can't be everything to everyone. So you need to decide at some point where that is and who your reader is and what they like and, and those sorts of things. And it's easier if you go for. If you're writing in a, in a, a genre that is, that is popular, that is easy to communicate, that is easy for people to understand. I suppose that helps as well. So yeah, that's production. There's also sort of the business side of it. We're at the end of January now. I've had a really boring week of tax returns and these sorts of things. There's the marketing side of, there's running the newsletter and the social media and all of this sort of stuff which you've got to, I think needs to be done and should be enjoyed if possible.
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Yeah, I love that you said earlier that it took almost five years, I guess for the Money to get back up to where it was. And it was the same for me. When I left my original consulting job in 2011, I took up like a massive pay cut and it took until 2015 before I started making more than I used to make and have done ever since, by the way. So hopefully that encourages you.
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Thank you. Yeah, I hope so.
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But then I guess we should also say so within between those years. So how many books do you have now? I guess, like, when you talk about the job and the production, like, what's your schedule for putting books out? Because you are writing genre fiction, basically.
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Yeah, I have written around 20 now. A couple are out of print because I've. I've taken them. They didn't really match the brand that I was going for. So I've taken them out for now and perhaps we'll republish them later. So I've got six in my international detective series, six in the Eden Black series, and then there's obviously novellas and other such things. So it's probably less than 20, actually. It's always a hard question, and I wonder if you feel the same in that you don't know. Yeah. You don't know Exactly. Yeah. Almost 20, I'll say that.
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Yeah. Well, what's funny, I've got on my wall here 50 books by 50, and as we record this, I'm 50 in six weeks.
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Oh, congratulations.
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Well, there's the achievement of living to 50, I guess, is one of them. But I've actually started a blog post. I can't remember when this goes out, but I will be doing a blog post on my 50th birthday, which is calculating how many books I've actually written, including all the different editions, because I don't. Well, you said you've unpublished some of those and may republish them. So my first three novels I rewrote, so they're in second edition, some of them in third edition. A lot of my nonfiction is in multiple editions. So those ones you unpublish, so people know when you wrote them originally and published them, you must have thought they were fine and then you decided to take them down. So why did you decide to do that? And is that something people can prepare for in advance so that they don't have to unpublish things?
- [34:48]
Now I would like to put them out again. And it's probably just me being too perfectionist, actually, because I know people have read them and enjoy them. They're a good series. I wrote them with Stephen Moore, who I know you know, as well. It was a collaboration project we had and. But my books now are very family friendly, they're very clean, they're sort of in the vein of Indiana Jones style. Whereas those books I wrote with Steve were a bit darker. They are a bit more sort of nefarious unless I do a rewrite, which I would like to do when time allows because I think they could be changed to bring them into the same sort of world as the books that I have. What I wouldn't want is someone, this is what I imagine and people ask me why I write the books in the way that I do. I want someone to have my book and put it on their coffee table proudly with the bookmark in it. And if their 12 year old daughter or niece comes up and picks it up and flicks through it and takes an interest in it, they are happy for that person to go and read it. Or their grandma comes in and picks it up and flicks through it, they are happy for that person to read. I don't want them to have any sort of oh, that's a bit for you. Or that's a bit this for you. Do you know what I mean by that? And, and I, I felt that those books, because of the way they were, they weren't quite, I wasn't quite happy for them to be in that situation. I didn't want someone to recommend me and then go, oh, oh, oh yeah, read looks books but don't read those.
- [36:12]
I do feel that is very much a personal decision though, as in I remember the stuff I was reading at age 12. I mean I, I do think that different people like different things, but I get what, I get exactly what you mean. So you've decided on family friendly action adventure basically?
- [36:28]
Yeah, that's right.
- [36:29]
That's, yeah, no, I, I love that. Okay, so, well, coming, let's come back to action adventure thrillers then because you know, you and I both write around, we use the word thriller, I think quite loosely and it is a very big genre. But as a sub genre, what are the hallmarks of your, your books and the genre that you try and write in and also how do you vary them in the books in the series? Because I feel like this can be a challenge for people.
- [36:55]
Yeah, it's a good question and something I only started to understand when I wrote my second series which has become much more successful than the first. And I think it's because I took time to understand this. Actually it's what I was saying a minute ago about it can help if you Do a bit of research in the market before actually sitting down to write. Right. So they need mine. There's certain ingredients that my books need. They're all based on an ancient legend. So I've done one about one set in the pyramids of Giza, one about Atlantis, one about a mummy on the Titanic. Yeah, that's a proper rumor. I'll have you know. That's a proper rumor. Whether it had anything to do with the sinking or not. They're not sure. One about the Templars. The one I'm working on at the moment, is it going to be set in the Sahara and all to do with a hidden city under the Sahara and this sort of thing. So those sorts of interesting settings, locations. Obviously there needs to be a race against time before something happens. The classic one is this thing can only happen on the summer solstice or when the planets are aligned or. I know this is one of your favourite because there's a storm.
- [37:58]
Joanna Penn
I love a good storm.
- [38:00]
Luke Richardson
Or the storm is coming in six hours and we need to solve this thing before the storm is, you know.
- [38:06]
Right now writing Death Valley, I am actually editing the big storm scene.
- [38:10]
Oh, I love it. I love it. Yeah. So they're generally set in the present day as well. But the present day can be quite loose because Clive Cussler wrote his in the present day, although that was the 80s. So it can be quite loose as to when the present day is. But they sort of track the events of prehistory. So quite often one of the tropes is you have this prologue that takes place in like 5000 BC, and then what happened there relates to the present day when that. That relic is uncovered. There are other strands too that are sort of happen sometimes. Romantic element. A relatable villain is another one, which I think is more of a modern trope, actually, in the thing and sort of a pinch of. And I like this in my books, a pinch of the supernatural. Think. Think like the. The Ark of the Covenant in the Raiders of the Lost Ark, the Indiana Jones film. You know, it's just there. We don't know quite what it is or why it had that strange effect on the people at the end, but it did it and it could be true. There's a tiny element that it could be true that I like to put in mine as well.
- [39:12]
Yeah. And we overlap in so many ways. I think I definitely have slightly more supernatural than you and more religious elements because I'm obsessed with religion, religious relics and stuff like that. But we do, you and I both Kind of COVID similar areas. And. And I mean, this is what's interesting, isn't it, in terms of what you love as a kid and then what you enjoy writing. But I do want to come back on the prologue, especially because you were an English teacher now. I love a prologue. I write prologues in my action adventure as well. But a lot of people have issues with prologues, so. So tell just. I mean, you explained a bit what a prologue was there. But what purpose does a prologue serve in a book and when should people use one and when is it not a good idea, do you think?
- [39:57]
It's a bit of the. I try and I had this conversation with a writer who I'm working with at the moment and they had put it as chapter one. And I said, this is not chapter one, this is a prologue. Because a prologue is clearly delineated from the book itself in my mind. I'm not asking Google this. This is just what I think. It's clearly delineated from the book itself. It isn't part of the story. So the story can be read without the prologue, should you want to. But it just adds some context, it puts some root in the history of the book that tells you a little bit about where that book is going to go, if. Where it's going to go based on sort of what happened before the event, if that makes sense.
- [40:37]
So I think it's like a foreshadowing. So often in my ones, the ancient relic is there or discovered by someone thousands of years earlier and something very bad happens, happens, which then kind of foreshadows the present day where obviously something very bad is about to happen and then they have to stop it. So it can be foreshadowing.
- [40:58]
Yeah. And I think it helps the reader know the passage of time as well, because they're clearly not at the same period. That's one thing that I like, that I find useful with it as a writing. Writing technique.
- [41:10]
Yeah, yeah. I've definitely written some that are only a couple of weeks earlier, but sometime like. Yeah, sometimes a thousand years ago.
- [41:19]
Yeah, but that's the convention, isn't it? The thousand years ago one?
- [41:22]
Yes.
- [41:23]
You know, the couple of weeks. I'm not saying that can't be a prologue, but I'm saying the convention in my mind, and I could be completely wrong, is, is that it's sort of someone putting the capstone on the Great Pyramid and then it cuts to black and then we see someone in the present day driving through the pyramids on a Jeep or whatever. Yeah, yeah.
- [41:43]
No, that's cool. I personally do like a prologue, actually. Just coming back to your English teacher sign. Many authors have to fight the sort of snobbery that some English teachers instilled in them, including myself. And I certainly look back and was told by my English teacher that I couldn't write such thing, that I should write something acceptable for a young woman. And that definitely stopped me writing for a long time. So if people do feel sort of hamstrung by this, by the comments from their English teachers in the past, is there anything that you say to people to help them get over that?
- [42:18]
It's a hard one, isn't it? And that teacher certainly, in your experience, did the wrong thing. And that was very. That's not an encouraging attitude to have. And I wouldn't have had that attitude with one of my students. It's a challenge because without getting too political, the school system is very sort of dictating in what you can teach and what you can't teach. I didn't want to teach certain students sort of 19th century literature. That's a very difficult thing to teach to students who would be better off with something more modern, with something more relatable to them. And that's a struggle for all English teachers and a lot of teachers generally, actually. So, yeah, I think. And I think that gives a perception to young people about what books should be. Right. That you're in this place and it is just books that are important and that are. That have sort of stood the test of time and it's. There's no fun in it, or there's certainly less fun in it, which was one of the reasons I ended up getting. Getting fed up of it and moving on at the end.
- [43:19]
Well, I love that you, as an English teacher writing genre fiction, I think that you must have had to put aside some of that snobbery yourself, I.
- [43:27]
Guess I don't think I ever had that snobbery, to be honest. I think. I think writing should be fun. I've always thought it should be fun. There's no reason to. There's no reason for it not to be right. That's the. That's why people open a book. That's why they get involved in this imaginary world for an escapist adventure. And it's our job to make that fun. And sometimes we put a bit of history and a bit of social commentary, perhaps, or one of our opinions, we slip that in there as well. And that's fine because we've honoured the reader, the contract with the reader to make them enjoy themselves as well.
- [44:00]
Yeah. Well, that's great then. Just coming to your books, like one of your best selling series is this Eden Black archaeological thrillers. And Eden Black is a woman female protagonist. And so some people will, some people will say, I don't. But some people say you shouldn't write a character that is not like yourself. People have said this to me, writing male characters or people of different persuasions in whichever direction. So how do you deal with this? Like, did it even come up in your mind that you shouldn't write a main character?
- [44:31]
No, of course it did.
- [44:32]
No. Exactly. What are your tips for authors who might be concerned about this?
- [44:36]
I know I had some people comment. Not people. I had a comment about this on a Facebook ad saying, who are you to write? And it was actually from a bloke. I was surprised that it was from a man. I don't know why I was surprised it's from a man. It just seemed to. And I replied. He said, he said, who are you to write strong female characters? And I said, I'm married to one, I was brought up by one. I have many friends. Who are them?
- [44:57]
And do you think the rest of it is true? I say to people, I'm like, seriously, do you think I'm. All my characters, like the villain and the murderer and, you know, whoever, it's crazy. So I'm so glad you did that. But. But. So it didn't come up in your mind before you started?
- [45:14]
No, not at all. Not at all. And I think actually when we think about it, this is one thing, isn't it? One thing to say is that every character in your book is you, right? In a weird sort of way, even the villain, even the. They're all parts of you that you're projecting into the page in some way. Also, you're inventing in some sort of way, way. So. And actually I feel that we as humans, right, without getting too meta about it, are more similar than we are different, right? Regardless of whatever, race, gender, age, anything. We're more similar than we are different. And, and we feel the same things. Of course there are differences, but they're. But my books are about things like we've talked about getting the relic and all of this. But beyond that, they're about fitting in and loss and grief and understanding each other and, and belief and hope and all these feelings which are quite generic to being human regardless of whether you're female, male, whatever, whatever, whatever. And so I believe that by writing them in that way that it really doesn't make a difference?
- [46:16]
No. And I love it because when I started writing my arcane series with Morgan Sierra, I mean, there really weren't many action adventure books with female main characters, which is why I got excited about the Lara Croft movies and stuff like that, because that was kind of the only option. And now what's great with Indy is there's so many. It's brilliant.
- [46:37]
Wasn't there an article saying that they're, they're a dying trend or something recently?
- [46:40]
Oh, everyone always said it's dying. Everything's always dying. But the thing is, there's always a group of people who still like that, right?
- [46:49]
Yeah, that's true.
- [46:50]
Including us. Well, let's also talk about your travels because. And you will be coming on my rebooted books and travel podcast. If people want to geek out with us on travel, come on over there. But let's just talk about it. As a writer, how do you turn your real life travels into the stories? What are your tips for authors on turning real stuff into story?
- [47:11]
That's true, isn't it? And generally the way I do it is go to a place without a preconceived idea and I just get immersed in the place and I walk around the place. And I don't worry about creating content particularly or anything about taking photos or taking that notes. I just sort of fall into it. I'm going to let you into the. To the secret behind my book that I haven't written yet. Actually, I'll do that because I think this is really exciting. So in, in the 70s, they created this pattern, right, called quasicrystalline tessellation. And it was created by scientists in, in the UK and in America. Now they realized that this pattern exists in two places in the world. It exists in meteors, the molecular structure of meteors that come from outer space, right. And it exists in the sand upon which a nuclear blast has happened. The heat has been so intense that it has formed the sand into a rock that has this molecular structure. And then they discovered it existed a third place. It's on the walls of 13th century mosques in Morocco and Iran and other countries in the Middle East. And I was walking around Marrakesh, where we were traveling about a month ago, and I read that and was like, this is amazing. It's nuts, isn't it, to think that they, that this thing, these cutting edge scientists were doing this thing in the 70s and yet it was there already in, in this mosque in Marrakech and there's one in Iran, I think, and Somewhere else, there's these three. This. This pattern on the wall of the thing. And of course, because I'm a writer, that gets me going. I'm like, whoa, maybe the Islamic scholars of the 13th century were trying to communicate something to us in the modern era.
- [49:00]
But let's. Before you go on, let's stop there. Because this, that exact point, I call this the seed. Because people always like, where do your ideas come from? You know? And I'm like, these seeds are everywhere. You just have to notice them.
- [49:13]
That's right. Yeah.
- [49:14]
And I feel like you and I, because we travel, that we find our seeds while we are traveling, and you may never have stump. You might have stumbled across that on a YouTube video somehow. But because you were in that place, I think it evoked story in your mind.
- [49:30]
Yes, exactly right. Exactly right.
- [49:32]
So how do you then. I know that this is a book you're going to write, but how do you get from there? And people are like, okay, yeah, but that's not a book, is it?
- [49:41]
Yeah. So now I. This is the stage I'm at with this book. And so I'm just sitting on the idea, really. I'm not putting too much pressure on it. I've got a few ideas now about how it will fit into the. How what will happen, and also fit it into the series as well, because it needs. I know the characters that are coming into this. I obviously don't know the villain and some of the other villains, sort of henchmen that are going to come in, but I know my character, characters. And, yeah, I'm sort of jiggling it together. I want part of it to take place in the United States as well, because my characters haven't been there for a while, for a few books, so that's important. And it's going to. It's a case of picking it together, but I've got a couple of scenes, and for me, that's how it starts. I write sort of. Stephen King writes about writing, like discovering a dinosaur skeleton. And I love that idea. I've discovered a bit, and I'm now there with my brush, brushing off this, this. This part. But I don't know whether it's the face or the back or the leg or the tail. You know, I've just got this one bit and slowly I'll work in one direction and maybe that will lead me to another part, or I'll go, no, it's not over there. Come back and go over the other section. And the. The story will emerge in that way.
- [50:50]
So do you write in order or out of order?
- [50:53]
I've got better at writing in order. But still, it's still. There's still nothing sort of totally chronologically.
- [51:01]
I feel like this is also because we use multiple places. Because sometimes you're like, I know it. Like for my last. For Spear of Destiny, I'd been in Washington D.C. like a couple of years before, and I was like, I have to use it because I expensed that trip. And then I was like, I need to put it in a book. How on earth am I going to tie it to Vienna and Nuremberg and all of this? And so we. But I knew I had those scenes somewhere. I didn't know what was gonna happen. But it's almost like when, you know, you want to set things different places. Like you said, I need some scenes in America. You almost can write different things and then figure out what on earth links them.
- [51:40]
Yeah, What I tend to do is write the. Is write the heroes part first and then put the villain in afterwards. And if you do the same, because I think your books are similar where you have two or three scenes from the hero and then like a cutscene from the villain where they're scheming in a dark lair somewhere or whatever. Bad things or do it. Yeah, whatever. And they sort of offset each other. And so I'll quite often come back and put those in afterwards.
- [52:06]
Okay, well, that's good. I think it's important for people to know that you don't have to write everything in order and you can just figure it out. But also, some authors are worried about using real places in their books. Where is your line between using real places and then fictionalizing things?
- [52:22]
Oh, it's totally. The place is almost completely real. In my books, I. I tend to be as real as I possibly can. Not down to like the building though, because I think you'll understand this as well. It winds people up. If you say they walked for five minutes down the street and then they were outside the coffee shop. I won't say that because someone will email and say, there's not a coffee shop on the street of Da da Da. You know, that closed in. In 2004. So I don't get that specific. But in terms of the place, and I try to get things specific, like what sort of public transport it is. I wrote a book in Riga, and in Riga they've got these wonderful old school Soviet esque trams that clang and rumble around the city. So they had to feature in the book there. If there's sort of what the air's like. Is it a sea? Sea sort of air. Is it cold? Is it warm? Is it sandy? Deserty? What's the sensation? You'll get to set that book apart. I want the reader to know if they're interested that I've been there. They see something more than is just than I could have gleamed from a cookie cutter explanation of. This is a description of such and such. Exactly right.
- [53:32]
Yeah.
- [53:32]
I suppose that's going to become ever more important, isn't it? That we've been to this place and you write great author's notes as well. And that's something that's really important to me is delving behind the story.
- [53:43]
Yes, I think that's important because actually I do think ChatGPT and some of these other models can write very good descriptions of places. But the author's note, as you say, and our connection with our readers is when we're kind of, look, here's me in, which is why selfies are important. Here is me with the pyramids of Egypt.
- [54:04]
Exactly right. Exactly right. Yeah.
- [54:06]
So this was me. Okay, well, talking of audiences, let's get into the publishing and marketing side. So on publishing. So I'm really interested in this because you are in KU for your ebooks and this is something I still find difficult after all these years. So why make that decision? And how does that work for you, I guess. And what is your main marketing in KU?
- [54:30]
Yeah, so why make that decision? It's an 8020 decision for me. I have got X number of hours a day. Not very many. The same as everyone else, I suppose. And I want to do other things too, with my time. And actually the best use of my time is to write the best book possible and let Amazon do what they are really good at, which is distributing the book to people. They do a great job at that. They've proven it for years and years and years with thousands of data sets and all this sort of stuff. I would love to not be exclusive, of course, and that would be fun to go on the other platforms. And yes, it does bother me that my book isn't available in every. Available in every single country and these sorts of things. But I believe that in terms of getting my book into as many hands as possible and as such sustaining this as a career, etc. Etc. For now, that's the best way, if that makes sense.
- [55:20]
And I will tell people that your books have a lot of reviews. And this is something I say to people. If you want a lot of reviews on Amazon, then being in KU is one of the ways to do this. And you will see, I see obviously that all the books that are action adventure, that are in ku, which is most of them have a ton of reviews use. So there are pros and cons. Right. But you do have print books, you have audio and you do have your own store for these other formats. Right, so tell us about that.
- [55:52]
Yeah, so I sell print books on the store. I don't sell particularly many and I try. I sell most of them in the uk. I think just because when people outside of the UK see the printing, it, it's. It's the printing like the. What's it. The delivery cost, it puts them off. I like the idea of having a stunt more than actually make any money from it or make anything from it at the moment. The moment. I don't feel like I've completely cracked it yet actually. That's probably the reason. And there are frustrations from it, which I'm sure you have as well. Customer service is one that people. How do I get my book? Why haven't I got this? Sales duty is another. My friend bought a book in Spain.
- [56:28]
Oh, Europe is the worst.
- [56:30]
Ah, this book, it's cost him €70 in total, including the. The duty. He says it. He says he hope it's a really good one. I said, yeah, well, sorry mate, you bought it now.
- [56:44]
Joanna Penn
It is.
- [56:44]
Luke Richardson
And that's actually something for people to keep in mind. Like there are some countries where duty. Like for example, I had someone in Canada and there was a problem with something and their duty, they paid was ridiculous. So in the end I paid that back from then them and then did. But exactly what you said is there are problems and well, let's say challenges with it, but clearly you wanted to do something and is it that you're not doing any marketing to your store, which means it's not. Not getting much traction.
- [57:13]
I'm not doing any paid marketing to my store. I do paid marketing to the first in series on Amazon and I try and keep that as simple as possible so that I can see what the return on investment is very clearly. But I still sell. I sell a fair number of audiobooks. I sell the other series, which I do know the international detective series has no direct marketing to it. I sell quite a lot through IngramSpark as well. And that is probably. I can only think that is because people see the advert on Facebook, they don't want to shop on Amazon so they take it into Waterstones or they look on Barnes and Noble or whatever and they Buy it there. Which is great, which is a good way to do it really. But with regard to the store, I, I'm sort of looking at the moment at people outside the author space and trying stuff. I want to see what YouTubers, podcasters, influencers are selling on their stores and thinking, I'm thinking not books, if that makes sense. Like bespoke unique experiences, stuff, things. I don't know, a few ideas, nothing yet. I'm going to test a few things this year and see, see what, what comes out.
- [58:20]
I think that's great. I also have had this on my list for a while which is instead of trying to sell books because the crazy thing is Pete and I just bought a necklace, they got me on Instagram as a really nice necklace and I'm like, and it's not, it wasn't expensive but it was still more than the price of a book, right? And I just bought it. It was a one click purchase from a store. I didn't know them, they had good reviews. So I was like okay, I'll, I'll buy that. It came and everything. And I was like what makes people buy something that costs 50 pounds from something somebody they don't know and then resist paying £20 for a book from some, an author they like?
- [59:02]
Joanna Penn
Like, it's crazy.
- [59:03]
Luke Richardson
So is it easier to sell non books to people and then upsell them on a book?
- [59:08]
That is what I'm thinking. I'm trying to look at it in the way that a YouTuber was, would. Now a YouTuber puts all their content on YouTube and they don't bemoan the fact that they're exclusive to YouTube, they just put their content on there and they get their payment from their ad clicks or whatever it is every month and that's fine. But what they do have is underneath the video they have this bar and I'm, I've got, I'm part of the, this various people and they're selling coffee, tin openers, hats, all sorts of things. And I'm like this is cool, this is great. You know, I like this, I like this coffee that's.
- [59:40]
Do you like the idea of selling coffee? Because I drink a lot of coffee.
- [59:44]
Yeah. So at the moment I've got this idea of potentially some, some of the sort of stuff you might find in one of the markets, in one of the places, the cool bespoke jewelry and funky textile small things that you can post or whatever, a few things like that. I'm going to try and see, see how it goes. Really? That's that's the testing phase.
- [60:02]
Yeah, And I like that. And I think we do need to think differently because, I mean, one of the basic things, I mean with ku, for example, and in fact, page reads and sales. So with sales, Amazon hasn't changed the 9.99 cap ever. We've had a 9.99 cap on ebooks for. Since the beginning. So even with inflation, we can't charge more for a book. And then the page reads, obviously, generally trend downwards. And then you think, well, look, with inflation, just the cost of living, we should be able to put prices up. But because of all the reasons books remain the price they are. So therefore, as you're looking at it is about, well, what else can we offer people that's interesting, where the price isn't so fixed? I guess.
- [60:49]
Yeah, that's exactly right. And you might only get 0.1% of people want that thing. And that's fine. That's. That's great because they're the person who's really interested in whatever that thing happens to be. It could be, I don't know, an event, an online event or something. There's a few ideas. I haven't pinned them down yet, but we'll. Shall we. Many ideas.
- [61:09]
I get that. Well, talking about marketing as well. So obviously, as I mentioned, you're coming on my books and travel podcast, but you also have a new podcast, so.
- [61:19]
Joanna Penn
Tell us about that, why you started.
- [61:21]
Luke Richardson
It and what you're hoping to achieve.
- [61:23]
Yes. Called the Adventure Story podcast. And it's basically, if you like that idea that I told you about the crystalline tiles in Morocco and how they preempted the. The breaking of the atom or whatever. Whatever you think it might be, the splitting of the atom, then. Then this is the podcast that you will like. It's all about the stories behind my stories. So episodes in series one, which will start in March, are on things like. And this is a true story, Jo, the cursed Egyptian ghost on the London Underground. That's one. The Legend of the Crystal Skulls. The truth behind the Legend of the Crystal Skulls. There's an episode on Cambodia from a guy who grew up there. In fact, it's really excited about that. There's one about lava tubes. The Truth behind lava tubes. Oh, there's a few I've planned this week, a couple on the Templars as well. So it's all the sort of history behind. It's like an extended author's novel note in podcast form. That's what I'm. What I'm going for.
- [62:16]
And so why Are you doing that as in you said you do paid marketing to your first in series on Amazon. You have a business, you're doing well. Why podcast?
- [62:26]
I think it's trying to be more authentic is important to me. I want people to know me as the person behind the stories. I want them to because it's important for me to say me to tell people. And I do this in my emails quite a lot that by buying my book, by by reviewing my book, by sharing my book, you're not just having the story, you're supporting me and my family and this house I'm standing in now. And that still blows my mind that the, that the mortgage is paid by people buying books. It's wonderful. It's an, it's an incredible thing. And I want to, I want the people who read my books to be able to see that and see that the real human me behind the story and share on the adventures. Because this podcast will just some of the travels my wife and I go on. We'll share some of the adventures we've had. We'll share the inspirations behind the books and we'll have other authors on as well to talk about the inspirations behind their books too.
- [63:21]
Fantastic. So where can people find you and your books and the podcast online?
- [63:26]
So by the time this goes out, the Adventure Story podcast will be live as well. It will be on wherever you listen to podcasts, but also the Adventure Story podcast and my website, lukerichardsonauthor.com Brilliant.
- [63:39]
Well, thanks so much for your time, Luke. That was great.
- [63:42]
Thank you.
- [63:46]
Joanna Penn
So I hope you found this discussion interesting. And Luke's podcast is also live now. So if you enjoy action adventure, check out his books and his show and also my arcane thriller series. The First Stone of Fire is free on all the ebook platforms and my store, jfpenbooks.com also in audio and print. And you can check out my next pure thriller, no supernatural@jfpen.com Death Valley, which will redirect to the Kickstarter pre launch page as this goes out and then to the book on launch. Let me know what you think of today's episode. Please leave a comment on the podcast show notes@thecreativepenn.com or on the YouTube channel. Comment on X at the Creative Pen or email me joannathecreativepen.com and send me pictures of where you're listening or your favourite cemetery or churchyard. So next week I'm talking about the Creative Cure with Jacob Nordby and we both found it a revealing discussion that went into things we didn't expect to discuss when we first got on the line, so I think you'll find it interesting. In the meantime, happy writing and I'll see you next time. Thanks for listening today. I hope you found it helpful. You can find the backlist episodes and show notes at the Creative Page podcast, and 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.