Writing Short Stories, Publishing Collaboration, And Podcasting, With Clay Vermulm

Summary

The Creative Penn Podcast for Writers

Episode 825: Writing Short Stories, Publishing Collaboration, And Podcasting, With Clay Vermulm
Host: Joanna Penn
Guest: Clay Vermulm
Date: August 25, 2025
Theme: Writing Craft and Creative Business for Short Stories, Collaborations, and Podcasting

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Joanna Penn interviews horror author and podcaster Clay Vermulm about collaborating on short story collections, the podcasting-editing-writing process, marketing localized fiction, and practical tips for effective critique partnerships. Clay and his co-author Tamara K. Selman’s unique journey culminated in their anthology, Rain Shadows: Dark Tales from Washington State, developed collaboratively and documented in real-time on their podcast Beneath the Rain Shadow. The discussion covers everything from breaking into creative careers and the reality of patchwork incomes, to the intricacies of indie-publishing, selling at local events, and building community via podcasting.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Clay Vermulm’s Creative Journey

• Early Inspiration & Education

  • Clay began writing as a child, driven by passion despite the “real job” narrative surrounding creative pursuits.
  • College was pivotal: An English professor “taught a class on actual publishing... our final for the class was to actually show him that you had submitted a short story to a professional market” ([23:06]).
  • The experience at a rural Montana upbringing limited access to creative communities until college, where theater and a switch from athletics to the arts were transformative.

• Portfolio Career Reality

  • Only recently has writing and editing become Clay’s full-time focus; prior years mosaicked together side gigs—teaching, kitchen jobs, film industry roles—emphasizing that “patching all that together... is really the reality” for most creatives ([26:08]).
  • “I don't know anyone who just writes one book and then that's it—they're done.” — Joanna ([26:38])

Love for Short Stories and Anthology Building

• Short Fiction as a Medium
  • Clay prefers short stories for their creative flexibility and enjoys curating and editing anthologies: “I love to showcase things that are really beautiful and strong works of fiction, especially in the short market” ([27:10]).
  • Recognizes that while “a lot of writers read short stories... they are harder to get out to an actual larger reader base,” horror has robust short fiction communities ([28:19]).

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Collaborative Creation: Rain Shadows and the Beneath the Rain Shadow Podcast

• Origin & Collaborative Spark

  • Clay met Tamara K. Selman in a local critique group; their shared taste for slow-burn, psychological horror led to collaboration ([29:14]).
  • “As soon as I read her stuff, I was like, this person is the person out of this group that I want to, like, really work with.” — Clay ([29:14])

• Podcast as Collaborative Writing Tool

  • Beneath the Rain Shadow podcast documents the writing-to-finished-anthology process. Each episode: one co-author creates a prompt (Pacific Northwest location + quirk + horror trope), the other writes a story in a month, and critiques are done on-air ([32:19]).
  • Playful and challenging: They assigned each other subgenres they didn’t like (slasher, zombies), adding fun and creative friction.

• Benefits of Podcasting the Process

  • The podcast demystifies editing and collaboration for listeners and holds the authors publicly accountable to finish drafts and edits.

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Tips for Collaboration & Being a Strong Critique Partner

• Building Collaborative Relationships

  • Start small: co-editing or anthology projects allow each author control, mitigating creative tension.
  • Essential: “Come into it with an open mind ... you're gonna have passages... you have to cut... and you have to get to that stage where you're able to take the feedback” ([34:56]).
  • “Not to look at how they're gonna change the story, but what they're going to bring to the story” ([36:08]).

• Finding and Sustaining Effective Critique Groups

  • Persevere through mismatched groups: “That is normal. But there are good groups out there” ([39:19]).
  • Adopt empathy: Remember what it's like to be vulnerable sharing work.
  • Practical Critiquing Tips:
    • Read every story twice; use an e-reader or printout to approach it as a reader, not an editor ([41:08]).
    • Focus feedback on amplifying the story’s essence and author’s intention: “Try to really look for what is the intentionality of the story... help... bring that essence... to the surface” ([41:33]).
    • Avoid imposing your preferences; frame critiques as subjective experiences.

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Publishing, Production, and Marketing the Collection

• Starting an Imprint & Division of Labor

  • Clay and Tamara split all production and marketing costs 50/50.
  • Tamara leveraged her 40 years’ experience for business logistics; Clay contributed his indie-publishing contacts for formatting and editing.
  • Used IngramSpark to publish wide, especially to reach libraries and indie bookstores ([43:56]).

• The Power of Localized Stories for Self-Marketing

  • The collection is rooted in Pacific Northwest settings - appealing directly to local readers at street fairs and markets.
  • “People love to read about where they're from. ... This book is perfect for that because people love to read that localized horror.” — Clay ([45:25])
  • In-person sales surpassed online; they've already sold nearly 200 print copies directly.

• In-Person Sales Tactics

  • Practical tip: “Get the book in people’s hands!” Open to the map in the book, show the story set near their hometown ([51:23]).
  • Use visual tools (story prompts, location maps, bookmarks with tropes) to engage potential readers.

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Business Mechanics of Collaboration

• Royalties and Contracts
  • For two-authors, 50/50 splits on sales and costs (including author copies).
  • For future anthologies: pay guest authors a pro-rate fee per story instead of ongoing royalties—simplifies accounting ([54:01]).
  • “If you have like 15 stories and 15 different writers, I mean, these kind of payments are an absolute nightmare.” — Joanna ([57:54])

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Podcasting as Creative Fuel and Community Building

• Personal Podcasting Experience

  • Clay also hosts Fermented Fiction: a panel show where guests debate the merits of movies/books/shows, sometimes taking positions contrary to their true opinions—an exercise in analytical empathy ([58:49]).
  • Benefits: “It's a fantastic exercise... you have to be prepared to debate it either way... it's a good way to learn how to look for things you love in maybe movies that you didn't ... or things you love ... nitpicking for the sake of finding, like, the nuts and bolts that hold all stories together. ... Even the best ones are just better at hiding it.” — Clay ([60:21])
  • Weekly regular content keeps creative muscles flexible, builds author brand, and continually engages the writing community.

• Advice for Aspiring Author-Podcasters

  • The bar to entry is lower than ever—basic equipment and commitment can launch a show.
  • Find a format you’ll enjoy sustaining; don’t expect financial ROI soon.
  • Podcasting is “great fuel” for creativity, community, platform building, and critical thinking ([62:44]).
  • “You will be shocked who will say yes if you ask them to come on a podcast. ... Writers are very generous people.” ([65:10])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Creative Career Reality:
  “Up until then I've worked lots of side jobs, kitchen jobs and a teaching job and all kinds of stuff like that... I don't know anyone who just writes one book and that's it, they're done.” — Clay & Joanna ([25:25]-[26:38])

• On Short Story Collaboration:
  “I love to showcase things that are really beautiful and strong works of fiction, especially in the short market.” — Clay ([27:10])

• On Critique Groups:
  “Writing is such a lonely game, and the critique group can be a beautiful place to... share the process, too. And that's the part that's so lonely. ... Your critique group is a chance to... share that whole experience with people who truly understand it.” — Clay ([39:34])

• On the Benefits of Local Writing:
  “People love to read about where they're from... This book is perfect for that because people love to read that localized horror.” — Clay ([45:25])

• On In-Person Sales:
  “If you can get stuff in to get people holding the book, they're a lot more likely to buy the book.” — Clay ([51:25])

• On Podcasting as a Creative Tool:
  “Podcasting for me is like my way of engaging with the writing community.” — Clay ([43:56])

• On Launching a Podcast:
  “Do it. You know, it doesn't hurt to do it. ... If you think that's your ticket to making money ... that's not a great way to make money on the short and quick for sure. However, I do think podcasting is really good at fueling a creative career.” — Clay ([62:44])

• On Inviting Guests:
  “You will be shocked who will say yes if you ask them to come on a podcast. ... Writers are very generous people a lot of the time.” — Clay ([65:10])

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Important Timestamps

• Clay Vermulm’s Background: [23:06]
• On Creative Portfolio Careers: [25:25]
• Short Stories & Editing: [27:10]
• Collaboration with Tamara & Podcast Origin: [29:14]
• How the Podcast Process Works: [32:19]
• Collaboration & Critique Best Practices: [34:56][39:19]
• Tips for Effective Critique: [41:08]
• Publishing and Marketing the Anthology: [43:56]
• In-Person Sales Tips: [51:23]
• Business Logistics of Royalties & Contracts: [54:01]
• Podcasting and Building Author Brand: [58:49][62:44]
• Advice for Aspiring Podcasters: [62:44]

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Where to Find Clay Vermulm

• Rain Shadows stories/book & podcast: rainshadowstories.com
• Fermented Fiction Podcast: YouTube | Substack: Claver Mullen Fiction Horror
• Newsletter & Updates: Join newsletter via Substack for regular writing and podcast news

Joanna wraps up by reflecting on the value of writing about one’s local area—as inspiration for a future project about Somerset—and how Clay’s example demonstrates the power of collaboration, local marketing, and community through critique groups and podcasting.

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Next Episode Teaser: Joanna and Orna Ross discuss the craft and business of poetry and short fiction.

Listener Engagement:
Joanna invites feedback, pictures of listeners' locations, cemeteries, or comments on the episode via her website, YouTube, or email: joannathecreativepenn.com

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Summary prepared for listeners seeking tactical and creative insights into short fiction writing, collaboration, indie publishing, and author podcasting—all with actionable tips and authentic experience from thriving indie authors.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to the Creative Penn 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 [e-mail] and that's Pen with a double n. And here's the show Hello Creatives, I'm Joanna Penn and this is episode number 825 of the podcast and it is Saturday 23rd August 2025. As I record this in today's show, I'm talking to Claver Mullem about collaborating on a short story collection while podcasting the editing process, writing locally based stories to make it easier to sell in person, and tips for being a positive part of a writing critique group. So that's coming up in the Interview in Writing and Publishing and Book Marketing Things Publishing Perspectives reports on Spotify's new follow along feature for some audiobooks offering an immersive experience that syncs time stamped illustrations, graphics and media with audio narration, which is available for culpability by Bruce Holsinger, one of Oprah's book club picks. It has original custom art from several designers that add a rich visual layer that deepens narrative immersion. More than a hundred visual assets, photos, illustrations and graphics were created exclusively for Spotify, graphics that appear as listeners make their way through the title. These timestamped materials are also available in the Extras section and allow users to pick and listen to corresponding chapters of a given book. So I think this is interesting because it reminds me of the Vook. I don't know if those of you have been around for a while, the video books from the mid 2000s and we've seen these sort of attempts at immersive audio, all of which fell away because people like me who listen to a lot of audio, the whole point is often that we can do other things, either that we're doing chores or we're exercising but or just generally having no screen time. So for example, listening for relaxation with your eyes shut or some way where you are not looking at a screen. So I think this is interesting. I personally will not be looking at a screen for any kind of audiobook, but perhaps people who watch podcasts on video or who are more used to screens will do this or it will just fall away as a interesting thing. But it did make me think and I've been wondering this in general over the last week, especially with the launch of Taylor Swift's new album the Life of a Showgirl, which of course Taylor Swift being A fantastic musician whether, but whether you like her music or not, she is a hell of a businesswoman. And she has this limited edition vinyl album made from Portofino orange glitter vinyl with a collectible double gate fold jacket and double sided fold out panel with a poem. Collectible album sleeves with never before seen photos. And that is just one of the products. There's also a CD and a cassette and the tape actually has orange glitter. There's also a blue sparkle vinyl edition or a bouquet golden vinyl edition. They're all beautiful vinyl products. Now most people are going to listen digitally. They're going to be streaming the songs or buying the songs or whatever digitally and listening on devices. So these vinyl records are collectibles really. You're not going to necessarily listen to the vinyl, although I suppose you might. But I was thinking, so why have audiobooks never been this beautiful? I mean even with incredibly famous narrators. Before digital audio we had those padded cases and I'm assuming that you know what I mean, these sort of padded cases, there might have been six tapes or 10 tapes. And of course a lot of things were abridged. They were cut down because of the amount of hours that the audio were. But they were always in a sort of padded case that looked like the book cover, the print book cover. And they were often hidden away in a back corner of the bookstore or the library and mainly aimed at blind people or partially sighted people or drivers. And I did hear that they sold a lot of tapes in truck stops. But essentially then we skipped straight to digital audio and including these sort of incredible productions of audio dramas with famous actors. So I was like, why do we not have beautiful audio editions of things as well as our beautiful prints? I can do the wonderful foiled edition and the sprayed edges and the end papers and ribbons and boxes and all this. Why can't I do that for audio? So I asked ChatGPT and it said basically, and I don't know why I didn't know this myself, but audiobooks are too long for vinyl. So a 12 inch LP at 33 and a third RPM sounds best at 20 minutes per side or 22 minutes max. So a 10 hour audiobook would need a lot of LPs and yeah, so that's one thing. Also it says the cassette and CD era was more utilitarian. It was around commuters libraries, cheap sturdy cassettes in plastic boxes and CDs that were not design led retail. Then by 2024, 99% of US audiobook revenue was was digital. So with physical essentially Gone. Publishers have little incentive to invest in elaborate packaging. But then I did kind of press it for examples of where has this been done? And it turns out that HarperCollins did a 5Lp edition, a limited edition of Neil Gaiman's the Monarch of the Glen and Black Dog. It has a numbered slip case, artwork, and of course a digital download. And it's interesting because these short works with premium art, it looks like also HarperCollins, a Shopify store and are selling direct, you can actually buy that vinyl edition on HarperCollins.com so that in itself was interesting to me. And there's also a long history of poetry and spoken word on vinyl. So Cadmon Records seems to be a popular one for collectors. And then I was like, okay, well what if we did want to do this? What if an indie or whoever wanted to do this? And you can do Print on Demand or short run vinyl records, also tapes and CDs. And because I was thinking about this just purely from my own perspective, right? So I have now on my shelf I do get obviously the beautiful print editions and I'm putting them on my shelf and they look cool, but I'm also an audiobook narrator, so where's the evidence of that, apart from digitally, which will all disappear. So what if I wanted some vinyl? And so I actually like this idea. Maybe if you like this and you're really keen on it, you could do it as part of a Kickstarter. Or you can do these Print on Demand, but I think they're probably more suited to special sales. But essentially you can use sites like diggersfactory.com or vinylfy.com which will even do one vinyl record. So some tips on what you could do. You could really just think a 15 to 40 minute piece. So it might be a short story, it might be poems or a themed essay with maybe some kind of sound design that would make a really nice product. Or one 60 to 90 minute cassette, so half an hour to 45 minutes per side, so that is a possibility. And then pair that with the beautiful printed products that go with it. So maybe a chapbook or a certificate or you can foil stamp or a fold out map or an art print and of course bundle the digital. So assume you're going to include, I don't know, a QR code to the full audiobook or some way to get the digital product as well. So the vinyl or the tape or the CD is just the keepsake for the experience of listening to the full thing. So yeah, I think this is really Fascinating. But I wanted to ask you, is this interesting to you? What do you think? Have you or would you buy limited edition vinyl or CD or tape, for fiction or non fiction? Would you do it for a poet? Would you do it for a short story? And if you are an narrator, like, how is there evidence of us creating stuff unless we do something like this? I often think about that. I mean, with books, we've got our physical books, so we're like, yeah, I made this, but with audio it's like, well, I made what? It just disappears. I guess it's more of an experience. And so again, why is this important? Well, you know, I harp on about all the time doubling down on being human, selling more human things, more beautiful things, rather than just digital files, downloads, plain print on demand, where the revenue, to be honest, is trending downwards because it's so easy to mass produce. Audiobook revenue is also in this trajectory. So how can we create wonderful things that readers and fans want and experience beyond just the digital download? And look, you might say, oh well, Taylor Swift is massive. But the point is, Taylor Swift is massive. She could just make money from digital downloads, but she does these beautiful products and that is part of her creativity and her creative business. And so we can certainly aim to offer more than just a digital product, which I think is very cool. Yes. So I obviously asked Chat about that and I'm expanding my usage of how I look at doing things and what I like about Chat. And you can use Gemini or Claude as well, although I find Chat and Gemini better at things like asking for help with specific software, because what it can do is give you a step by step of how to do that. So if I basically said to me, you want me to help you create a CD and the kind of design elements you need, that kind of thing. So on I on AI things, if you want to come to the last webinars I will be doing on AI in 2025, these are the last ones this year. There are lots of changes, lots of tools we can use in the business and marketing side as well as the creativity side. So I'm running those September 6th, coming up very soon and 21st of September. So Saturday September 6th, Sunday 20 of September, the [e-mail] live and if you're a patron, you get a discount. So come on over to the Patreon if you want the discount. That's thecreativepenn.com live for my AI webinars. So in personal news, I was away this week on the final research trips for the Gothic Cathedral book. So I was in Rochester and then I went back to Canterbury, which as ever is absolutely gorgeous. Gorgeous. Possibly the most beautiful Gothic nave in the world. It is perfect. And I went to Sung Evensong and sat in the choir and remembered back to when I attended Evensong, the night I finished my Pilgrim's Way pilgrimage, walking from London to Canterbury. That was in October 2020. Can you remember how things were back then in that first year of the pandemic? And this was in a break between lockdowns and within, I think about 48 hours of finishing was another lockdown. And that the first time I went to Evensong, there we sat on distance stairs, so everyone sat singly meters apart. The choir walked in masked. And it was just a kind of different time. And I was in a different place too, of course, we all were. But what hasn't changed is how much I still love being in that cathedral. And I stayed again at the Cathedral Lodge, which is inside the grounds now. Canterbury Cathedral has their own constabulary. Yes, their own little police force. And once they shut the gates, the police officer has to open it for you, which is kind of cool. If you're interested in more on the cathedral, my booksandtravel page, website and the podcast, I have lots of pictures and a podcast episode on it, as well as my thriller Tomb of Relics, which opens at the cathedral. And of course it's in pilgrimage and it will be eventually in my Gothic Cathedral book. And another little tip, when traveling for book research and using ChatGPT on your phone, make sure you have the official app because there's lots of fake ones. But if you're on the official app, the more personalised context you give, the better. And I have memory enabled and it knows what I like in terms of Gothic cathedrals and the themes I like. Or of course you can say in your prompt something like, I'm visiting Canterbury Cathedral today. If you want a time specific answer, give me 20 interesting things about it and things to see around my interests of memento mori and deep time and particularly Gothic elements, where will I find them in the building? And anything else that might be useful when I'm visiting. And I will also ask for book recommendations as well. So that was. And if you want to see pictures of Rochester and Canterbury. J.F. pen Author on Instagram or Facebook. I've also been working with a virtual assistant on updating my Shopify store for creativepennbooks.com so if you haven't been there for a while you can go have a look, it has been updated. It is now using the Impulse theme which is the same as J.F. pen books. I just think this is a a better theme. I haven't actually updated Creative Pen books since my minimum VI store which was like three years ago. So obviously I've added new products. But it was a good update and needed to be done and there are now reviews on the pages. It's more easily organized. And remember, you can still get successful self publishing the 4th edition ebook and audiobook. They are still free as this goes out. And it's interesting how many new people this free offer is bringing in. And the reason I mention it is because I've had tons of emails saying where are the books? And then I have to educate them on oh well you would have an email from Book Funnel and it might have gone to spam because this often happens the first time people get an email from Book Funnel. So then we say please check your spam folder and here's the link again just in case. So this educating readers and listeners on buying direct from us is so important. And every single reader that we educate on buying direct helps the next author trying to get people to buy direct. So yes, I think this is important. Also, I finished the editing and mastering for the audiobook for the Buried and the Drowned coming next week as this goes out on Kickstarter. JFPenn.com Buried it's human narrated, so I've been narrating my own short stories for years so I had to do the extra two and then a whole load of author's notes which I hadn't included on some of them. And just a reminder of Hindenburg Narrator. So if you don't know about this, it's fantastic software software. You can use it for everything for recording, editing and mastering. I just use it for mastering. But you import your edited files and with one click it masters to the ACX standards which then you can use on any audio platform. This one piece of software has saved me probably thousands of dollars now over the last few years because mastering is something that you generally have to pay for if you use human narration, unless it's included in your narration price if you're using a professional. So that is Hindenbur Narrator Hindenburg Narrator Excellent software for audiobooks if you are a human. So thanks for your emails and comments and photos this week. Danny's interview had so many positive comments on YouTube. Marshwood Vale said, thanks for this wonderful interview. It's a story that also feels very personal to me and also on YouTube, Miani Cole says thank you for this beautiful and truly inspiring interview. And Janet emailed and said thank you for the Danny James podcast. This is one of the best ones for me so far as I'm writing a biography. I also want to do a kind of translation. I want to rewrite a book that was published in 1932 and is in very old fashioned and difficult to understand language. The way Danny describes how she feels about the book is very close to my own thoughts. It was a bit like listening to myself out loud. Yes, wonderful interview and I love talking to Dani. I think she really reminded us about the pure joy and satisfaction of working on a book we love and we'll work on as a passion project regardless of any commercial outcome. And sometimes that might take years. And I have a friend who's working on a poetry translation and he's been doing it for years and it's going to take many more years. And I've often thought, wow, that, that really is a labour of love. So it is sometimes really good to think about, like, what do we care about that much? I mean, it's fantastic. Also, Nina sent pictures of the ruins of Whitby Abbey on the Yorkshire coast. If you haven't seen it, go check out pictures online. And also check out the Whitby Goth Festival, which every single year I'm like, I really need to go to the Whitby Goth Festival. But I'm one of those people who's kind of goth. Inside I say I'm a vanilla goth. So you'd never, you'd look at me and you'd never think I was a goth. But inside I pretty much am. I'm like Wednesday from the Addams Family, which of course is back on now, which is very cool. And Victoria sent two pictures of Big sky and Big Land. And she said, I always thought there was nothing to see between Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and Calgary, Alberta. Six and a half hours drive. Often when I take that drive, I listen to your podcast. Earlier this year I heard you ask us to send a picture of where we're listening. I stopped the car and took two pictures. It was a day with the brightest blue sky, miles of brown fields in all directions, some power lines, a road essentially devoid of traffic and lots of sunshine. My first thought was that Joanna wouldn't see much of anything because there's nothing to see. Then I remembered you sharing on your other podcast about how you love being a speck in the world. And as I reflected on that, I realized there is much to see. On this trip from Saskatoon to Calgary, you can see in all directions with nothing to impede your view. With wide open spaces there's room for creativity in dreaming without limitation. So thank you for giving me a new perspective. I love that. Thank you so much Victoria. I love that you sent those pictures and that you shared your thoughts and you're so right. There might be a lot more to see inside your wide open mind there. And I really do love to hear from you all and see your pictures. So send me a picture of where you're listening or your favourite cemetery or graveyard or just a comment on the episode on the show Notes at the creative pen.com or the YouTube channel or or email me joannathecreativepenn.com I love to hear from you. It makes this more of a conversation so today's show is sponsored by Publisher Rocket which helps you with keyword and category research on Amazon which you need for your metadata when self publishing, as well as generating lists of keywords for your Amazon ads. You can do it manually on Amazon but it takes a lot more time and you have to think of all the different permutations to search for. So I found that Publisher Rocket saves me time and frustration and I use it for every book in every genre I publish. You can use it to find keywords that readers actually type into Amazon search. You can also learn about other authors sales with the competitor analysis. You can use the reverse ASIN feature to see what keywords other books are benefiting from. Plus you can discover best selling book categories and niche categories which you can use to write to market if that's your thing. You can find profitable keywords for Amazon ads and easily export them. You can search separately for the us, UK and German stores as well as ebooks, audio or print and in English or German. Publisher Rocket is constantly adding new features and capabilities and it's always a free upgrade for owners. It's a one time payment with 30 days money back guarantee. You can start researching keywords, categories and competition right away. There are lots of handy tutorials but personally I think it's pretty intuitive to use. Publisher Rocket is one of my must use tools as part of my publishing process. It is very reasonably priced so check it [e-mail] that's publisherrocket.com so this type of corporate sponsorship pays for the hosting, transcription and editing, but my time in creating the show is sponsored by my community at patreon.com P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com TheCreativePay thanks to the six new patrons who've joined in the last 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 AI tutorials and tools. Last week I shared behind the scenes on my Kickstarter campaign and a blog post on what has changed for me since the first one and lessons learned as well as sharing the preview. So yes, I really just treat my Patreon more like the blog I used to have on the creative pen but don't anymore. So 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. And of course you can pop in and pop out as you like. So if you get value from the show and you want more, come on over and join us at patreon.com P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com TheCreativePen Right, let's get into the interview. You Claver Mollum is a horror novelist and short story author, the co author of Rain Shadows, Dark Tales from Washington State, along with Tamara K. Selman, and a podcaster at Fermented Fiction and Beneath the Rain Shadow. So welcome to the show.

[B]

Clay hey, thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited to be on here.

[A]

Oh, no, lots for us to talk about. But first up, tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and publishing.

[B]

Yeah, like a lot of people, I've been writing since I was a little kid, crayons and everything like that. So I think we can a lot of writers out there can relate to that story. But more specifically, I went to college for English and history. And like, again, like a lot of people, I think I was told through a good portion of my life this sort of narrative of I think it's ironic, right? We kind of tell people, oh, follow your dreams. And like, if people do something creative when they're a kid or when they're younger, we encourage that, right? And we parade that, we champion that. But as soon as you turn 18, we're like, okay, time to make money now. Do something that's a real job. And I always resented that. And once I got to college, I had a really good English professor who taught a class on actual publishing. Like his whole class was about how to submit a short story and how to go out there and try to get your Work published. And then you or final for the class was just to actually show him that you had submitted a short story to a professional market and written one, because we wrote and critiqued them throughout class. So that was kind of my. And I grew up in like rural Montana, so I hadn't had a lot of opportunities to do like critique groups or writing groups or theater or any of that until I went to college. And once I did and saw some of the avenues you could take to really pursue a life in creativity, I was totally hooked. And that's, I would say that's where it like officially began for me. Honestly, I owe it to, largely to theater. I got into theater and I went to college on a wrestling scholarship. I ended up dropping out of that and going into the community theater, doing some shows, learning to write stage plays and stand up comedy and music. And I tried writing everything and eventually landed on books because as you know, Joanna, you can, you can carve out your own path in indie publishing and books and you don't have to rely on like a million other people like you do in a play or a film. So that's kind of why I've sort of focused on writing novels and short stories in the recent years, just to get some of my stories finished and get them out there.

[A]

So did you ever get a real job, as college people like to call it, I guess, or have you managed a sort of portfolio career, as we call it now?

[B]

I guess I'm finally getting to where that, that is my full time job. For about the last three years I've been full time writer, freelance stuff, magazines, editing gigs, kind of patching all that together with what I publish and put out there and a bunch of other like groups I work with and such. So I'm there now, but it's only been about the last three years. You know, up until then I've. I've worked lots of side jobs, kitchen jobs and a teaching job and all kinds of stuff like that. I freelanced in the film industry here in Seattle for a solid five, six years as well. And when I was doing that, I was just taking a new job that would come my way. So I did a lot of production assistant stuff and grip and electric stuff.

[A]

Yeah, I think this is, so this is so important because I feel like a lot of people do think, oh well, you know, it's just the one book. Maybe they do a degree like yours in English and then they think, okay, I just need to write one book book, and that's it. But what you're talking about this sort of patchwork of all these different creative things, plus bits and bobs of jobs is, is really the reality, isn't it? That there isn't. I don't certainly, I don't know anyone who just writes one book and then that's, that's it, they're done.

[B]

Yes, that is certainly an illusion and a loosely held one at that these days. I, I don't know that anyone who's tried selling a of piece book still believes that.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, but perhaps if you haven't yet finished that first book, you know, you can still believe that. But it's great that your professor kind of encouraged you all to submit because I guess you also started getting rejections pretty early. Right. So are most of your works short stories? Because I saw from your website you do a lot of short stories.

[B]

Yeah, that's kind of become my favorite medium, my favorite form. I like editing too, because I really like to bring other, other artists, other authors together on projects and I love to showcase things that are really beautiful and strong works of fiction, especially in the short market because there's, there's just sort of a thing that happens with short stories. I, I think that a lot of writers read short stories. They are harder to get out to your. To an actual larger reader base. Luckily, in horror, I think there's been quite a movement towards reading short fiction. But even still, people primarily like to read novels or longer work for like the larger reader base, it seems. But I love taking every opportunity I can to collaborate with people and to bring awesome artists together on projects and to get these stories that even if they've been printed somewhere else like before, to get them back out there when I find them. And I'm like, these are this story's awesome. I see if I can get a reprint and make an anthology with it. And just doing those kind of projects, it's always been really rewarding to me. So I think I like writing short stories because it also allows me to explore that editing side of the work as well.

[A]

Well, yeah, no, I like writing shorts as well. It's funny you said writers read short stories and I was just trying to question that in my mind, like, is that true? And I think, I mean, you're definitely right because many of us want to write them, so we read them. But I definitely remember reading the Roald Dahl Tales of the Unexpected back in the. Must have been the 80s when I first read those, and those kind of still shaped me. And then I was thinking about the ones that I buy now, and they are pretty much all horror. Horror, which is really interesting that you said that. Yes. So people listening. Definitely. Short story. So I guess let's talk about one of your collaborations then. So you have this unusual origin story for the new collection called Rain Shadows. So talk about how that started and the prompts and the podcast and why the hell you did it this way.

[B]

Yeah, it all ties together nicely. This story came out of a critique group where I met Tamra for the first time. So I was just. I found this critique group just randomly on meetup, and it's actually a fantasy sci fi critique group. It's still going in North Seattle right now. It's a great group of people. If you happen to be a writer of sci fi and fantasy. They're on meetup North Seattle Science fiction and fantasy writers. But I met Tamra there, and I was the only horror writer, which happens a lot in critique groups as well. We show up. Being the only horror writer is a common enough to thing. And Tamra came in with also some pretty dark stories that she was kind of. It was like a bunch of dream sequences from her novel that she was workshopping. And as soon as I read her stuff, I was like, this person is the person out of this group that I want to, like, really work with. And I hope she likes my stories because her writing's awesome. And we, yeah, we had a good chemistry. We. We have a similar kind of style. I wouldn't say writing style, but we have a similar flavor, maybe of, like, the kind of story we like to tell. We both like the slow burn, the more psychological angle on horror, and it was just kind of a good match. So from that moment on, I knew I wanted to work with Tamra at some time, in some. In some way. And then I was thinking of the story I sort of told you earlier about. Just, I think a lot of writers need that person. And for a lot of people, that might be you, Joanna, in this podcast, right. But that person to tell them that, like, no, you can't do this. There are, like, avenues forward into the publishing industry for the everyday writer. Like, and I wanted to show people that one of the biggest things you have to overcome is that first draft, right? And you have to overcome finishing it and then showing it to some people and getting some feedback and, like, starting to polish that thing and edit that thing. And you can't edit a blank page. So that's kind of like the twofold goal for this project was. Was to both show people how to finish a project and how to kickstart that creativity, which is kind of what we use the prompts for. And then also to show that early editing process and how far a story can come from a rough draft to a completed project, and how you just kind of have to get into it, find somebody you can trust who can give you good feedback and then work through it together. And once you get that thing finished and you start editing it, you are always be surprised, like, how much of the story is in there on the first draft, how much you can bring out and how much you can lift up and make it, whatever you really want to make it. So that was kind of the goal of Rain Shadows was to encourage finishing your stories and getting through that early editing process to start it, start the journey towards a finished draft and finishing projects. Because that really is the hardest thing for a lot of beginning writers, I think.

[A]

Okay, so you didn't really explain the podcast.

[B]

That's true.

[A]

So tell us, like, how is it a podcast with this process? Because I've co written with other people and there was some. Certainly no podcasting involved.

[B]

That's fair. So, yeah, the concept of the podcast, it's called Beneath the Rain Shadow and it is a craft centric podcast focused around writing and editing short stories into a collection. And then we have collected them into a book, which is called Rain Shadows. Every episode we go on and we alternate. So I would come in with a prompt that I created. I would give it to Tamara. She would write a story in a month's time time, and at the end of the month, we were. We would record an episode where we critique that rough draft live on the show. And every prompt was threefold. So they all had a Pacific Northwest location. And if you're not from America, the Pacific Northwest is like the Northwest Pacific coast corner of the country. Like Washington states, Oregon and Montana, Idaho, that kind of those kind of areas. We had a Pacific Northwest location, a Pacific Northwest quirk. So, like something that's funny about the area we live in, or eccentric, like beard grooming or driving a Subaru or something like that. And then we had a horror trope. So these are just everything from sex equals death to slashers or zombies or whatever you want to do. Those are largely just jumping off points for us. We, like, had a rule to include every part of the prompt in some way, but it could be as small as a character just driving a Subaru, or the story could be centered around a Subaru, but it didn't have to. So that was. That's kind of how the podcast worked. We would come with these fun prompts. We would use them to challenge each other. We would use them to mess with each other a little bit because we're good friends. For example, I did not want to have to write a slasher story, so I gave that to Tamara. And then for revenge, she gave me a zombie story because she knows I hate zombies.

[A]

So, yeah, I mean, to be fair, I do like horror, but I'm not into slasher at all. And I read very few zombies. I read Jonathan Mayberries zombies, but that's about it. But this is so interesting to me because, well, one, you mentioned this critique group, this meetup, and two, I think you're just very collaborative, clearly, as a person. And I. I feel like this is something. As I said, I have co written, but I definitely struggle with it. Do you think that you have had to learn techniques of collaboration and kind of, I guess, give us some tips, like, do you think it's part of your personality to be collaborative and how can we be better collaborators if we feel like, oh, my goodness, I am not sharing my writing with anyone?

[B]

No, that's a. That's a great question. I definitely learned a lot. And the nice thing about. So co writing, like a single narrative would be one thing too, right? And this isn't necessarily that, because we were alternating short stories. So we definitely, like, co edited this collection. But we also had the benefit of co writing individual stories, so we still kind of had final say over our own creative narratives, which I think helped. And I think that kind of collaboration could be a good way to work into it. If it's your first time, you could try collaborating something where you're more co editing than co writing everything. But regardless, I think the key to it is just you have to come into it with an open mind. You have to come into it feeling ready and malleable because as we all know, we have to kill our darlings in the writing game. That's just part of it. You're gonna have passages of interior monologue or a beautiful conversation that you have to cut from the story because it just doesn't. Doesn't serve the larger goal, doesn't serve the beam right. And. And you have to get to that stage of the editing process where you're able to take the feedback of your co writer effectively and conducively and apply it to the work in a meaningful way. And again, like, I find that I always discover that makes the story better. It always does. To get good feedback from a experienced collaborator who can bring an objective opinion to. To it and help you improve it from there. And then you have to make sure to hold on to the essence of the story. But I think the key to writing together is not to look at how they're gonna change the story, but looking at it as, like, what they're going to bring to the story. What about their work or their style of writing or who they are as a person makes them someone you want to collaborate with, with. And remember that as you're working with them, like, what are they bringing to the table that you couldn't? Because everybody is better than you at something. And I think that's what I love about collaborating the most, is everybody can bring something wholly unique. Everybody can tell a story that I could never tell. And that's what makes writing beautiful. Right. I want that involved in all of my work. If I can, like, if somebody else can bring their perspective, their vision, their creative power and energy to something I'm working on, it's always going to make my stuff better. And pick your. Pick your collaborators wisely, do your research, read their stuff, get to know them as a person before you jump on board is important too. Like, I knew very well that I was going to get along with Tamara on multiple levels. And like you've said, this is a podcast too, right? So it's extra tricky. Like, you can't just be a good writer for this project to work. You also have to be good on the podcast, which is an entirely different set of skills.

[A]

Yeah, it really is. And, well, I, and I, I'm. I still interested in this. So you met this critique group. I, I've never been in a writers group, so this is like something I'm like a super lone wolf kind of writer. So you talk there about, and obviously you do the feedback and the critique in the podcast, the Beneath the Rain Shadow. So if people listening, if they want to be a better critique partner. So somebody who is able to, like, they don't necessarily want to be an editor, but they want to be able to work with someone in the way that you are, where they're respecting that person's voice, they're respecting what the author wants to do with the story. So, like, both you and I, like, we don't like slasher stories, but if, like, a friend said, okay, I need your feedback on this, we can't just say, I don't like like that. So I guess I'm really asking how do we take our personal preference out in order to be more positive in feedback, but still Useful, because I feel like I get so many emails from people that say, I went to this critique group and I got absolutely slated. Like, I just got destroyed because people were so negative and horrible, and they just didn't. They just don't like my stuff. So how do we tell the difference, really, and help be better critique partners? Partners?

[B]

Yeah, that's a great question. And finding a critique group is difficult. So if you are one of those people out there that's looking for a good critique group and you've just ran into a bunch of bad situations, know that that's. That's part of the process. That is normal. But there are good groups out there, and when you find them, they really do help make your work better. I think the key to it, if you're going into it as a critique partner, go into it remembering who you are and why you brought your stuff to the critique group. Go in remembering what you're looking for from a group and remembering how hard it is to put a story together and to bring a final story to the page and then share it with the world. Put it out there. It's a very vulnerable thing. Writing is such a lonely game, and the critique group can be a beautiful place to not only share your story and your work, which we all end up sharing with the world eventually, but it's a place where you get to share the process, too. And that's the part that's so lonely. That's the part that the world doesn't know about. Right. Unless they're listening to interviews like this and getting that behind the scenes. But your critique group is a chance to go in there and share that whole experience with people who truly understand it. And I think that's always good for people. Whenever you're working through something difficult like writing, it can be a very difficult game. Right? So I would say start with that. And then once you go in, there's, like, some semantic, like, tips and tricks, too. Like, for example, I try to read every story twice when I critique. I try to, if not three times, depending on how, like, confusing the story is or whatever. But one technique I like to use, and Tamara will, will champion this technique as well, take the story off your computer and put it on an E reader or print it out or do something that makes it feel different than, like, a word document. E readers specifically are nice because they format it like a book. And I know it's kind of a dumb little thing, but it does make your. It, like, flicks a little switch in your brain, and then you Start reading it kind of differently. Like, you sort of have a different subconscious level of respect for it almost. And I don't know if you've experienced this at all, Joanna, but I find that's really useful for me to put it on a different device, take it off my computer and get the laptop. Laptop out from in front of me, because then I feel like I'm editing or like correcting a homework assignment kind of. So read it as a reader first and try to, like, really capture the essence of the story. Try to really look for what is the intentionality of the story, because every writer has that in every story. And if you can find that, then the goal is just to help and try to aid in whatever way you can to bring that essence of the story to the surface and make the story more powerful. And you can only offer your subjective opinion, so be like, conscious of that. Right? Everything you're offering is feedback or whatever. You never want to try to rewrite someone's story or tell them how to write. You want to share your experience as a subjective reader, a consumer of the story itself, and then as a peer and as a writer. And you can offer always, if you're going to give feedback, always offer something to go with it that helps bring the essence of the story to the surface. And I think if you can do those things, that's a good place to start on being a good critique partner. If you want to hear a really, really long rant about it, you can listen to episode one of Beneath the Rain Shadow.

[A]

Yeah, I was going to say. I mean, obviously you and Tamara do that on your show, but I also think those tips are pretty good for your own stories if you can get some. Some. Some distance from it. But also, I think short stories are great for this kind of critiquing, aren't they? Because if people come with novels, I mean, you can't read a whole novel in that way, and if you get a chapter, then things don't make sense. Like, there are open loops. You don't know all the. All the things. So short stories, I mean, but again, you said writers read them because we write them. They're so perfect for this kind of critiquing and. And getting outside the genre you might usually work in. But let's get into the business side. So you and Tamara have started a new imprint for this and the other projects. So talk about this. And also the publishing and production process and the marketing. Because being a co producer or whether you're describing yourselves as co writers or co Editors. This is difficult. It is difficult to do the business side just as much as the creative side. So tell us about, about that.

[B]

Yeah, and I mean, I'm still figuring out the business side, to be completely honest, when it comes to having an imprint, that is a new experience for me. I have worked for, I have worked for a couple, like small indie presses and helped out at a couple other magazines and things like that, so. And I've indie published my own anthologies in my own work, but I've always just done it under my own name and not, not really worried about that as much. So doing this joint business venture with Tamra is very interesting. And luckily she has like 40 years of experience in the publishing industry, so she's definitely got that skill set to put together the marketing playbook and put together the timeline and kind of like help us stay on track for everything. And my part of that has largely been finding the contacts and using some of utilizing a lot of the tools that I used when I have indie published my own work. So I have a good contact with like a guy who's really good at book formatting, copy editing and proofreading. So I usually go to him for my final stage stuff. That's JW Donnelly at Dark Forest Press. Definitely recommend him if you need like those kind of late stage publishing services or editing services. He's awesome. So I've had those contacts for a while and I helped connect some of those dots. But in terms of organizing everything and getting it all laid out out, Tamra was largely the instrument of success there. Then like, yeah, we're, we're trying a lot of things out because it's interesting you, you come from a podcast. And one of the reasons I got into podcasting in the first place was actually from, I know you know these guys, Johnny Beach Truitt and Sean Platt's book write publisher, Pete, but they talked about in there finding a way to create content that works for you and to be present in the writing community in a way that actually works for you instead of just like social media lurk or half heartedly doing something you know you're like supposed to do. So podcasting for me is like my way of engaging with the writing community. And Beneath the Rain Shadow is a great way to do that as well as create a book. And then kind of part of our marketing plan was always to have the creation of the book connected with the book itself as a product, and that going all the way back to the podcast. So they're kind of in this nice little Loop of you can, if you're out selling your books on the street, which we do a lot of that. So a big part of where we sell is street fairs and markets and stuff, which is why we chose to do a local, such a localized horror theme. Right. That's why we wanted it to be from Washington state and from where we both live because people love that. I mean when you're selling at these big events, conventions and street fairs and. And we do like night markets and all kinds of things like that. This book is perfect for that because people love to read about where they're from. They love to read that localized horror. So that's a really big part of our marketing plan as well is that kind of boots on the ground selling mentality. And then obviously we went wide too. We used IngramSpark to distribute. If you're an indie publisher, know you gotta learn about IngramSpark because that's if you want to get your book into libraries and you want to get your book to into smaller bookstores and you're not going to like go through a distribution network that's more established and do it yourself. Ingramspark will be a required publishing asset for you in a lot of places, especially for libraries and bookstores because they facilitate returns and stuff like that. So that's something to know as well. But we just kind of went wide on the Internet and we're very focused on in person sales with this book because it is so localized and. Yeah, I don't know if that answers the question.

[A]

Yeah, it's really, it's actually really interesting. Did you. Because you knew you were going to do a book from the podcast. So did you like set up a pre order from the beginning of the podcast?

[B]

We. So yeah, we set up our pre order about halfway through I think, but. And as we were doing the podcast we were still, still kind of getting it all off the ground at the same time. But we'll hopefully we'll be a little ahead of the curve on the next book which is going to be very exciting as well in the next series season of the podcast.

[A]

Yeah, I love the local idea again, you kind of really baked some good marketing into the actual book itself saying that people like to buy local stories and of course it doesn't have to be horror. You know, people listening if they write romance or whatever, they write non fiction as well. Mark Leslie lefave, who's been on the show and he's written sort of local various books about places and so I think this is really interesting. So Any tips for selling in person at fairs and things like, how has that gone? And what about writers like me who are still worried about this?

[B]

Yeah, definitely could give you some tips. I do a lot of that. And we haven't sold a ton of Rain Shadows online, but we have sold like almost 200 copies like by hand already. And it's a lot of fun because you get to engage directly with your readership. And I think that goes a long way towards word of mouth, especially in this day and age of oversaturation out there. Right. There's so many writers, there's so many stories, there's so many books, so many algorithms to compete with. And word of mouth is still our most powerful ally as indie publishers. Like people going out there and reviewing our work and sharing it with their friends. And if they meet you in person, I think they're more likely to do all of those things as well as to read the actual book. Like I think a lot of people are trophy collectors too, right? Like just a good looking book for the shelf and you never read it. We all have like giant TBR piles. So that face to face interaction, I think in this day and age is exceptionally powerful and important for indie authors. So that's a good reason to do, do it all by itself. And for tips and tricks, like, you do have to learn kind of just the energy of selling books in person is definitely different than doing it online or through social media. Doing a podcast is helpful for that. Learning how to talk and kind of like raise your energy level soon. Appropriate on air personality, you do have to adjust all that. Right. Like we're always putting on a little bit of a performance even when we are, you know, we're just having a chat essentially, but engaging with your audience, being genuinely interested in people and letting them engage with the work. And then there's. There's a few tricks we have in this collection specifically. So something that's nice about it is at the start of every story you get to see the prompt that created the story originally. So the northwest location, the quirk and the horse trope are there. And then we also have a map of Washington with a little star on it so you can point right to where every story happens. This is nice for a couple of salesy reasons. It is a good way to get the book in people's hands, which is like a classic sales trick. Right. If you're selling at a street fair and you can get stuff in to get people holding the book, they're a lot more likely to buy the Book.

[A]

Ooh, nice tip.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So as in, you're opening it and showing them the map, and then their whole.

[B]

It goes a long way. People already have it in their hand, they're already thinking about it. And then you open it and you're like, oh, where are you from? And they go, oh, I'm from Granite Falls. And you're. Oh, okay. Well, we have a story that takes place. Boom, right here, kinda right, kind of right where you live. And then the other thing we have is a bookmark that lists all the horror tropes we did. So I will also be telling them about the one story with the one map picture that I'm showing them. And then I'll hand them the bookmark and be like. And if you like any of these other horror tropes, we also did these 12 tropes, so you might be into this book for all these reasons. And then they're holding two things, and those are some of the, I guess some of the, like, simple tips and tricks. I would say just have a good energy, engage with people, be interested in them, ask them a question or two and find out what they like to read. And then in the case of this book, we, we, we went wide on topics, we went wide all over the horror. So like, we, we wrote stories from aliens to zombies to technology, creepy technology, all kind of things. Mushrooms. So there's a wide swath of like, horror stuff that we included in this collection. And we did that knowing that, like, we want to capture as. As big of a horror audience as we can. Cause there's a lot of people that are into a certain sub genre. But then there's other aspects of horror they don't like, and largely those are based on. On misconceptions in a lot of cases. Anyway. So hopefully this collection that's dedicated almost wholly to subverting tropes and taking unique approaches at old tired ideas can sort of help with that and get some people reading horror.

[A]

Yeah, I think that's really cool. And I'm actually, I haven't really talked about this on the show, but I do have an idea for a book set in my county of Somerset here in the southwest of England. And as you're talking about this and the kind of the map and all of that, I'm thinking, yeah, I mean, I can see how baking in that marketing early on is just such a. A good idea that I think that will help a lot of people listening, actually. So let's just come back to some of the other considerations around podcasting. So when you set up the podcast with Tamara, is this a business thing? Like are you paying for hosting? You driving traffic to an email list? Your Patreon, is that under your new new imprint? Like is everything co owned now around this idea?

[B]

Yeah. When it comes to this project, Tamara and I just split everything 50, 50. We pay for a few hosting things and like your standard things you have to have like we have a domain name and we have a pretty basic website. We have Patreon that we're still kind of building out and we paid for all the publishing costs. 50, 50. We split royalties. 50, 50. So it's just all kind of right down the middle for us now for the next season, we're bringing on two more authors. And so for that we have a different. A couple strategies that we've talked through and thought about quite a bit. We've decided we're gonna pay them like a good rate for a short stories rather than do a royalty split. Yeah. Because I don't know if you've ever.

[A]

Had to track someone. It's a nightmare.

[B]

It's the worst. Worst. And that's another part of the strategy too, that, that you might be interested in is when we do in person sales, Tamara and I, so we split royalties just 50, 50. But then when we order author copies to sell in person, we also just split the cost of that down the middle. Then we split the books down the middle and then we, when we go out and sell in person, we don't really worry about royalties. We just like kind of like if you sold the book, you could keep the money for that book. Unless we're both at the event. So we're collaborating, collaborating on it on a lot of levels. And luckily we have a lot of trust for each other, which is requisite for this. But yeah, it's, it works for us. It wouldn't work in a lot of other situations, but for the next one, that's why we're keeping it. Like we're gonna pay both of you a good writing rate and then we are gonna keep all the royalties because we don't want to have to chase, chase our tails on that for the rest of eternity.

[A]

Yeah, I think that's a really good idea, especially for short stories. I mean, having co written with people for now a decade, some of those books, the monthly royalty is negligible.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And even if you do it once every six months, it's like, oh my goodness, the amount of time I have to spend doing reporting. Although to be fair, this is one place AI has just really started helping me because when you're wide, you get so many different reports from so many different vendors and I used to have to open everyone and go through and find the stuff and. And now I just upload them all to chat GPT agent and does it for me. So this is a good part of AI for business admin. But no, I think you're right there. I guess those with your contracts, with those people there are also rights reversion within a certain amount of time because short story contracts often have quicker rights reversion and then longer works.

[B]

Yeah, and we're just basing that on like a cents per word kind of situation. And we, we're trying to pay as high as we can, as close to the pro rates as we can and just I'll probably, we'll probably end up like averaging out that percent per word rate that everybody's happy with and then paying it as like a flat rate so that they can write, you know, if they write one story because it's all prompt based. Right. And it's all writing in a month's time and it's all like, there's all these other variables that someone might want to write longer or shorter. So if we want them to have the flexibility to do that but without like breaking our bank. So we're probably going to agree on a contract that's like we're going to pay 5 cents a word, which is like considered a pro rate. Right. Or I think it's 8 cents a word now, but 5 cents a word is a decent enough payment for an editor to pay you if you're a writer. And we'll probably like agree to that with a set word count for each story and then just pay a flat rate for all four stories. Since we rotate, every writer will have to write or three stories for the next book. I don't know if that made sense.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. I think it's all good to think about though, if people get enthusiastic about doing short story anthologies. As you say, if you have like 15 stories and 15 different writers, I mean, these kind of payments are an absolute nightmare. I think you're doing the right thing there. So let's just talk a little bit more about podcasting because you also have your own podcast, fermented Fiction, which I went over to have a little listen to before we started talking. And I was like, oh my goodness, this is a really long show. There's like multiple hosts and you talk about lots of culture stuff. Not culture, like pop culture. I mean books and Movies and stuff like that. So I'm very interested in this. How does podcasting, do you think, help you in on the fiction side? Because now I can see that it's part of your business and everything like that. But in, in your fiction side, talk about fermented fiction and how you think it's builds your. Your author brand.

[B]

How much time do you got, Joanna?

[A]

Well, you've got about five minutes left.

[B]

Yeah, I love fermented fiction for so many reasons. It's become one of my favorite things I do do. And as I kind of said earlier, I was Johnny and Sean and David are huge inspirations to the beginning of my indie career and still huge inspirations to this day. They're also just such lovely people. They came on the show like season one, when we had like three listeners because they're just willing to do that for people. So shout out to them, by the way. But initially that was the goal, right? Was just to create a engine for engagement with the author community that felt meaningful and that felt productive instead of like social media. And it became something much more. And like, you're asking specifically about how it affects my fiction and how it helps with my writing. And fermented fiction has been fantastic for that because it helps me analyze fiction through a new lens, through a critical lens, because the. So for those of you who don't know, the premise of fermented fiction is we invite on guests from the creative industries, so we will bring on filmmakers or writers or whoever else we can get. We mostly bring on writers just because that's where we have connections. But we are open to bringing any creative people on, really. We brought on some podcasters as well, and we choose a movie booker show show and then we roll two D20. So if you roll high, you have to defend the movie booker show. If you roll low, you have to attack it no matter what you actually think. And then we do a 10 minute debate. And after the debate, we do like a hour, hour and a half long panel on the chosen movie booker show and everything else that kind of comes up along the way. So this has been a fantastic exercise, Joanna, for analyzing work. I love work I don't love from a totally different lens because everything you go into the show, if you're watching or reading for fermented fiction, you have to be prepared to debate it either way. So it's a good way to learn how to look for things you love in maybe movies that you didn't used to appreciate or that you didn't like on first watch. Or books. The same thing, right? Like, maybe you read it and it wasn't your cup of. Of tea, but if you're going in for the show, you got to reread it and you got to find something to love about it. And then. Same thing with things you love. I had to debate against Pan's Labyrinth recently. Oh, it was so. It was so hard, Joanna. I had to watch that movie like three times, literally in a row to be like, how is this not a perfect movie? And my conclusion was, it is. It is a perfect movie. But you can still find, like, little things to nitpick. And it's a fun exercise, especially almost more so with the things you love, right? Because then you can kind of humanize those creators too by like, oh, yeah, this is still, like, it's still writing, it's still a story. It's still following a lot of the same rules I have to follow. And that's a good. A good way to look at the stories you love is like, not. It's not like nitpicking for the sake of finding something that doesn't work. It's just nitpicking for finding, like, the. The nuts and bolts that hold all stories together. They're in all the stories. Even the best ones. The best ones are just better at hiding it.

[A]

Yeah, for sure. And I mean, any thoughts for fiction authors or anyone listening who thinks, oh, well, yeah, I kind of want to do a podcast, because that would be awesome. But it feels like it's over subscribed now, like that. Like we said, books. There's a lot of books. I mean, there's a lot of podcasts out there, right? It is hard to find an audience. So what are your thoughts on people who are. Who are new to podcasting who might want to start a podcast?

[B]

I will just give the answer I've heard from a lot of people. But I would say do it. You know, it doesn't hurt. It doesn't hurt to do it. There's a low bar for entry when it comes to commitment in terms of money and stuff. Like these days, you can get a pretty good mic for affordable costs. You can get a good webcam, and that's all you need. Then you can get some started. And I would say just think of why you want to do a podcast and what about it excites you? Because it's a lot of work and you're not like, going to make money on it. Not for a very long time anyway. You might eventually. But like, if that's your. If you think that's your ticket to making money and then that's going to fund your writing career. Neither of those is a great way to make money on the short and quick for sure. So, like, you're gonna have to work really hard to pull off either of those career choices. However, I do think podcasting is really good at fueling a creative career. It's really good at helping you promote yourself. It's a great way to put out good content out there without making your writing. If you don't want your writing to be like the content that you feel you have lots of deadlines around or lots of obligations. Like, for example, I don't want to write a short story story every. Every month necessarily forever. Right. I like doing it for Rain Shadows, but that's like a self contained project that has an end date. And I don't feel like I have this looming obligation to my readership for all time to like produce a story a week or something. I would rather be able to take my time with my writing and release the stories I want to tell when they have become the stories I want to tell and not before. I like to have more control over that. So for me, having a podcast is a great way for me to release something every single week that is directly connected to the work, that is connected to the craft, that is connected to the community in some way. And that keeps you out there. It keeps your voice active, it keeps you thinking, it keeps you creative. So I think podcasts can be great fuel for that. They can help you prop up your writing and vice versa. And they could be a great way to engage with the community in a meaningful way. And you will be shocked who will say yes if you ask them to come on a podcast. It's awesome. I mean, writers are very generous people a lot of the time. Most of the time we've had all kinds of awesome guests on the show and you can just ask. The worst thing people can say is no. And it's a great way to engage the community.

[A]

Brilliant. So where can people find you and your books and your podcasts on the.

[B]

Yeah. So you can find everything about [e-mail] that is rainshadowsstories.com that will have the Beneath the Rain Shadow podcast and it will have all the info on that book. And I have a substack Claver Mullen Fiction Horror there. You can join my newsletter and that will also get fermented fiction delivered right to your inbox, as well as a monthly letter from me with all the writing updates from Claver Mullen Fiction and Beneath the Rain Shadows Books. And Fermented Fiction is a weekly show, so we go live usually on Tuesdays and Wednesdays on YouTube and we're just Fermented fiction on there. We're easy to find.

[A]

Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Clay. That was great.

[B]

Thank you. It was a true joy to be on the show. I've been listening a long time and yeah, thank you so much for taking a punt on me here.

[A]

So I hope you found the interview with Clay interesting and I loved that tip about writing something based locally that will resonate if you sell direct at local events. And as I mentioned briefly, I do have this idea about a book about Somerset where I live, something about the idea of home, which I talk about a lot on my books and travel podcast since I was born here in Somerset, obviously 50 years ago, but I left and then have lived in all over the world and now I find myself here again and I feel very English and Somerset has so many wonderful things and places to share. So I was thinking it would be a memoir or some kind of travel guide, or it could be short stories with extended author's notes and a map as Clay suggested, but I certainly found that a great idea. But let me know what you think. Please leave a comment on the podcast Show Notes at the creative pen.com or on the YouTube channel, or email me joannathecreativepenn.com Send me pictures of where you'll listening or your favourite cemetery or churchyard. Next Monday I'm sharing a discussion between me and my friend Orna Ross about the craft and business of writing poetry and short fiction. 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 [e-mail] pop and you can get your free author [e-mail] blueprint. If you'd like to connect, you can find me on Facebook and x hecreative Pen or on Instagram and Facebook jfpenauthor Happy writing and I'll see you next time.