Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
The official podcast from the team at BookFunnel, hosted by Jack Shilkaitis, Kelli Tanzi, and Emma Alisyn, featuring guest interviews, self-publishing industry discussions, and tips for using BookFunnel to build an author business.
Introduction to Dakota Krout
0:00
8020 rule is awesome. If you guys have don't know what the 8020 rule is, basically just go look it up. Look it
0:05
up. It applies in a lot of different contexts. In this particular one, it is 80% of all interactions that you have
0:11
with fans or with other people should be a non sales event. It should be like, "Hey, here's an update on my life.
0:18
Here's this funny picture that I saw that made me laugh. What did you guys think?" Things that allow people to interact with you. And at most 20% of it
0:25
should be your like promoting your own stuff, your own content. And and if you can kind of get that right, then you you
0:32
tend to gain fans a lot faster than you otherwise would. Hey folks, welcome to the BookFunnel
0:37
podcast, where indie authors get real world advice on writing, publishing, and growing a career on their own terms.
0:44
Whether you're just starting out or you're deep into your author journey, we're here to help you build your readership, boost your book sales, and
0:50
connect with your audience. Each episode, we aim to bring you insights from authors, experts, and industry
0:56
insiders who have been there, done that, and then some. My name is Jack. I am our lead author support specialist here at
1:03
BookFunnel. And I am joined today as always by my co-hosts, Emma Allison and
1:08
Kelly Tanzy. And our guest for this episode of the Bookfunnel podcast, an
1:14
author and creator of Mountaindale Press, Dakota Kraut. Everyone, Dakota,
1:20
nice to meet you. Welcome to the podcast. Glad to have you here. Thanks so much for having me, man. It's so good to be here and have a chance to
1:26
chat with you all. Absolutely. We we got connected with you at Author Nation, which a lot of our
1:32
upcoming podcast guests, you're going to hear us saying this a lot. We just had a chance to connect with a lot of folks
1:37
there. But for for those in the audience who aren't familiar with you, they don't know Dakota Kraut, the man, the myth,
1:44
the legend, right? Fill us in. Who are you? What do you do? What are you all about? Absolutely. So, uh, my name is Dakota
1:50
Kraut. I'm a international best-selling author. Uh, so I I have, uh, let's see,
1:55
I've written about 58 books now and published. 58 books out and published. Uh, which is awesome. So, I have all of
2:01
those in ebooks, uh, hard covers, paperbacks, audio. So, I've done all the
2:06
whole gambit of, you know, production from start to finish. I I started a
2:12
publishing company back in, uh, 2018, and we publish other people within my own genre. So, I started in 2016, so
2:19
it's my 10 year anniversary of writing coming up. So, it's a lot of fun. I've been full-time most of that time, so
2:24
about nine years of that. And uh just living the dream, man. And uh so I write in the three genres, which are all kind
2:32
of sister genres like really closely tied together, which is lit RPG, game lit, and cultivation. Each of those is a
2:38
progression fantasy. So basically, you know, you start weak, you get strong, and then the audience is along for the ride, seeing the individual steps as
2:45
that happens. With with lit RPG and game lit, essentially what that is is fantasy
2:51
or in more rare cases, science fiction, which is then bound by the rules of a video game. So it's not like a choose
2:58
your own adventure, but it is more like uh kind of a D&D campaign where you get to see the status sheets or like the the
3:04
character. you see how they're gaining experience, how they're leveling up their skills, what is needed, like what's what is the economy of magic that
The Rise of LitRPG Genre
3:10
you need in order to make things happen. So, lots of lots of intricate details, lots of really fun storytelling, lots,
3:16
you know, great books, whole genre, right? And the lit RPG genre and some of
3:23
its sister genres are relatively new,
3:28
you know, and obviously being I I I believe we're fellow millennials here,
3:33
right? I have this this comes up with me regularly when I especially when I'm talking to other authors who might be
3:39
Gen X and and this is by the way Gen X I love you guys you're great but if we're talking about like what inspired us to
3:45
become an author they'll often talk about movies and maybe sometimes like a TV show or this that or the other or
3:52
obviously books that they've read and we'll usually have that in common but for myself it's like oh yeah I've never
3:57
seen that movie before and like I don't know what you're talking about but I've played video games all my life right
4:02
from the time I was kid. And so I think it's kind of a natural consequence of a generation of kids who grew up playing
4:10
video games, not just going to the arcade, but like at home and then and Dungeons and
4:15
Dragons to an extent, which isn't a video game, but still that that that type of gaming has influenced, you know,
4:21
writing and publishing, which is just awesome to see. We're going to we're going to talk more about that. We're also going to talk about some of the
4:26
stuff you do around branding. We can talk about we're we have no like set agenda. So, this is going to be a
4:33
nice casual episode of the podcast. So, everybody, you can buckle up and and we're going to we're going to sort of
4:38
chill together is is is what what we'll do for it's actually the day before Thanksgiving as we're recording this,
4:44
too. So, yeah. Just so everybody has it in mind. So, what got you into to Lit RPG? Like, how
4:51
how was that was that cuz you you would have started around the time when it was
4:56
a little bit more fresh. Oh, yeah. All right. What was it like back in that in that day? back in the day
5:02
it was, you know, it was was very interesting. So I wrote my first novel just to write a book and I don't know if
5:10
there was just something in the collective consciousness that said all of a sudden everyone should come in and
5:17
do this thing all together all at once. I was I think the fourth American author
5:22
to put out a lit RPG. So, uh, just a couple just a couple just a couple came
5:27
out before me. And as far as I'm aware, it hadn't really gone anywhere except
5:33
with those particular people. And so, I put out a book and people were like, "Hey, this kind of matches up with what
5:40
this author over here is writing and what this author over here is writing. Let's like just like you should come and
5:45
be a part of this community." And so, I came in and I was like, "Hey, this is really cool. There's like a couple other dudes here that are are doing what I'm
Dakota's Journey into Writing
5:51
doing." And so there is a lot of like conflict in in who was the first was it
5:58
uh Japanese authors to write light novels cuz it's similar to that in some certain respects. There were some
6:03
Russian authors who were doing something similar or in that genre in that space
6:09
as well. But you know like the for the American author sphere we were I was like number four which was really cool. So I've been around since the founding
6:16
of the genre basically which has been really cool. Um, so over that time, um,
6:21
you know, it's it's expanded, it's really grown. Uh, it's exploded in popularity, which has been really neat. Um, it was around the time that, um,
6:30
Ryan Reynolds put out like, oh man, uh, Blue Shirt Guy. Um, I'm trying to
6:35
remember exactly what it was, but he put out a movie that was really, really close to the really close to the genre.
6:42
Really close. and he even referenced it in like when he was doing interviews and stuff like that. He's like, "Yeah, I've been like reading like I was kind of
6:48
inspired by Lit RPG and and Gamelet and stuff like that." And so it was really cool to I think it was like Free Guy I
6:54
think was the name of Yeah. And so we were all just super jazzed about that. And then about 2
7:00
years ago we as a genre were able to essentially petition for getting a BICAC
7:06
code. So like a library system category code and got through in the library system. And so then because of that we
7:13
have now an official genre on Amazon, Audible, places like that that actually sell books. So it's only in the last 2
7:19
years, so 10 years for the genre basically to have existed maybe like there's a little wiggle room on that but
7:25
about 10 years and only in the last 2 years have we been officially a genre.
7:30
So, it's been really cool to be there from the very founding, the inception of the idea all the way through to now we
7:37
are getting closer and closer to mainstream, especially with people like uh Matt Deniman and uh dungeon crawler
7:42
Carl leading the way on that kind of tip of the spear into the mass media. Right. Right. Not everybody gets to say
7:48
that, right? Yeah. It's it's really So that's that's a that's definitely a feather in your cap. There's kind of two
7:55
major I guess Dungeons and Dragons seems to be like one of the biggest influences on the genre.
8:00
Absolutely. And all of the storytelling that goes on there. I know even our founder here at
8:05
Bookfunnel, Damon Courtney, got started telling stories by playing Dungeons and Dragons. And so then you have that and
8:11
then obviously you have video games where there's even RPG style video games and things like that that are analogous.
8:17
Like for you yourself, was it more the the video games that led you to Lit RPG
8:23
or did you go down that Dungeons and Dragons route? Cuz for me it was the video games. I've played Dungeons and
Crafting LitRPG Worlds and Systems
8:29
Dragons once in my life. I enjoyed it thoroughly, but I haven't had the opportunity to play it since. So
8:34
yeah. Um, no, it's really cool. I So I I played D and D with really really cool
8:40
people, which is really which is neat. Like my my current group includes Luke Gyax, who uh is the son of the creator
8:46
of D and D, Gary Gyax. So I get to see him at least at least once a year every
8:52
year at Gary Con, which is really neat. And uh we sit and play D and D for hours and hours, and it's it's really neat.
8:58
But yeah, it was D and D for sure was the the big draw for me. I've always been good with the the storytelling
9:04
aspect of things. I've always been a really huge reader. Love to read. I've always I always knew I would do
9:09
something with books. I just didn't know what. like I thought maybe acquisitions because I read really fast or I might do
9:15
something. But being an author, it was always kind of surprising. So I I did like video games, but I was I was more
9:20
of a first-person shooter sort of guy. So like, you know, Halo way back in the day and Call of Duty and stuff like
9:27
that. I was in the army, so that was kind of the socially acceptable video games at the time and for for army guys,
9:33
right? And yeah, so it was it was cool. But when I when I was kind of coming out
9:38
of the army and and doing other things in college, I have a degree in computer science. So I I was hanging around with
9:44
uh my fellow nerds really constantly and we started a really large D&D group. From there I just kind of got into
9:50
running the campaign. So I was in charge of making them happen, getting people to attend, actually doing the DMing of it,
9:57
so the dungeon mastering of it. And uh just over time that breaks up, right? It's you can't get like 15 people to
10:03
show up on a consistent basis and and do that. But I had lots of ideas and I started writing them down. So for me, my
10:11
first book kind of came about because since I was the one in charge of making the monsters happen and and getting
10:17
people in and getting them like finding ways to kill them off creatively, I wrote a book called Dungeon Born, right,
10:23
with a B there. Born. Just sometimes I had to inunciate. Yep. Okay. Yeah. Fair enough. Fair
10:29
enough. Yeah. I get it. I get it. And so the uh so the divine dungeon is the series and and so
10:36
the the whole idea of that series is it is from the perspective of the dungeon
Reader Engagement in LitRPG
10:41
as it's trying to lure in adventurers with promises of experience and magical weapons and treasure all in an attempt
10:47
to eat them, right? And and so it's it's a eminently fair system, but if they
10:54
don't make it through the the dungeon profits greatly. And that was a ton of fun and and it really just let me do
11:00
more with that. So I I did five books in that series and then kind of at that point I was I was really in the genre. I
11:07
was really focused on what was popular at the time, what was like what people really wanted out of it and I started my
11:14
next series. Um and now um you know 53 books later. Yeah. So 50 books out, 58
11:20
books out and uh another one coming out next month with actually through with you guys coming out uh gonna be go
11:26
through my website through a book funnel. So that's be ebook audio book. That's great. That's great. So I had a question just about the the
11:32
technicality of like the writing of it since it has a lot of the powers of the characters move and shift and how is
11:40
that tracked? I'm I'm just trying to imagine like how how you guys are tracking that throughout a story because
11:46
I don't I've never read lit RPG. So, I'm just trying to like figure out like what what other things are in lit RPG that
11:52
probably isn't in other genres. Would you like me to show you? Absolutely. We're here for it. We're
11:59
here for it. So, uh this is this is kind of a fun one because let's see if I can share my
12:05
screen here. I get this question a lot and I'm actively writing this next story so I can I can show you this without too
12:10
much issue. But but the the short answer is spreadsheets, right? I bet. Yeah. Let's see if I can click just this
12:17
guy. share. Is that showing? Okay. So, um I track everything.
12:24
Yeah. So, I have the class, their specializations, their experience
12:29
levels. Um and my like my coding on this is like here's how I like here's how you
12:34
track the next level, right? Is um this uh so here's what the actual level is.
12:40
So, I I do actual serious math in order to like figure out how the level should
12:46
be acrewing, right? And so like we got like the floor of -1 / 2 plus square of 1/4 plus the right. And
12:52
so um it goes down. Um I keep track of all these. I keep track of uh skills and
12:58
how they level up. Um this looks more like if I zoom out a bit, it looks like
13:03
this where it says here's how to utilize it. Here's the description. Here's modifiers. Um cost. All these other fun
13:10
things. Um and that changes along how crafting works in different ways. Um, how damage is tracked and output. Quest
13:18
lines. I just cleaned this out cuz it was totally full and I just went through and and cleared all the ones that had been already completed. Oh, how like
13:25
areas are zoned for different people. Reputation gear. My debuffs table is
13:30
really fun. So, this is how like I'm like, hey, when something happens to this character, this is the effect that
13:35
happens to them, right? Uh, and it's basically based on a matricy. You just kind of figure out from there. And then
Magic Systems and Game Mechanics
13:41
other than that, it's uh just kind of personality modeling. And then I have like each of these is actually much larger than it looks like, but so it's a
13:48
it pulls that in. Uh so I track everything. Uh and uh reputation will be
13:55
like every character that shows up and the last time I saw them, the next time I'm going to see them, what their goal
14:01
is in in the intervening time. Um and and so I don't mind showing that because the actual utilization of it is
14:07
ridiculously hard to set up. Too easy. Like, hey, try and model this. Like this is how it looks for me. Feel free to use
14:13
it if you can, but I mean I'm not going to give someone my sheet because that Oh, yeah. That represents like six years of actual
14:20
like effort with tracking all that very carefully. So, so are you writing within so within
14:25
a series? All are all of your books connected and then all of these characters are just kind of coming back
14:31
and cycling through or this is just one of my series. So,
14:36
yeah. So, you have that same kind of setup for each of your series. Yes, kind of. So I actually have I
14:42
create a I try to create a unique system for each series that I write in so that
14:47
if nothing else that feels incredibly fresh, right? So this one is very close
14:53
to like the D and D style of how I used to play. So this was my first real like hard number crunching book series. My
15:00
other series tend to be much less necessary to do that sort of thing. So, I have one called Full Murder Hobo,
15:07
which is there's 10 different tiers of power. And I love that title. I just love that title,
15:12
right? Isn't it great? Yeah. So, that No, that's not even the title. That's the series name, right? So, no. Yes.
15:17
Yeah. So, the trilogy is something, anything, and everything. So, that I can say, hey, if you read something by
15:23
Dakota, book one, soon you'll be reading anything by Dakota book two, and then you'll read everything by Dakota. Right?
15:29
As though that's my whole marketing ploy for that for that series. And it's a lot of Let's put a pin in that for when we
15:34
talk about marketing and branding. It's a ton of fun. Yeah. Coming here for actionable steps,
15:40
guys. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for the thanks for coming to the podcast. So, I was just thinking about the reader experience then, too. As the reader is
15:47
reading your book, are they also keeping their own little tracks of what your characters are doing just to kind of
15:53
keep moving along with them or I mean, that's such a complex system that you have. Are they picking that up
16:00
and like moving with that? Yeah. So many people make their own version of what I do here. Like cuz I don't I don't have
16:06
my my actual like here's the direct data of how this works, but I have people
16:11
that correct me down to the hundth decimal like to the hundth hundth place on the decimal. So like yeah 01 like and
16:18
your calculations are off on your own stuff. It does happen and and a lot of times
16:24
it's just because of how like Excel will round stuff versus how they they think it's being rounded. And but it's really
16:29
cool because I have a lot of really intense fans that love that sort of stuff and and they come in and sometimes
16:35
they're right. Sometimes I had to adjust something which is really cool just to have that kind of dedicated fan base.
16:41
But otherwise I I kind of give a I give brief updates throughout the books on
16:46
like here's what's like changing as you go through. And like now with this this particular series, I just finished book
16:52
13 that's coming out um next month uh with BookFunnel and then uh a month
16:57
later for uh sale on other sites and uh I'm working on book 14. This particular
17:02
series is going to be 20 20 books long by the time it's done. Oh, lots of fun. Okay, this is really exciting cuz we
17:07
hardly ever get to talk craft on this podcast. What I want to know because I write epic fantasy and I love to geek
17:14
out over world building and magic systems and now I realize I'm a rank amateur because that's meticulous man.
17:20
But like what are some principles in crafting the game lit world and lit RPG
17:27
magic systems that maybe some basic things tips you could give to like epic fantasy authors when they're crafting
17:34
their magic systems. Cool. Absolutely. So, uh, the So, the first one is I would look at, uh,
17:40
Brandon Sanderson's Rules of Magic. Yes. So, if you haven't seen that, that's
17:45
okay, but like I highly recommend it. So, the the Sanderson Rules of Magic have this this
17:52
great thing in them where it's like just kind of gives some simple stuff that is very helpful. I have some pretty
17:58
straightforward stuff, right? First, I would not recommend starting with as as intense of a system as that one is. With
18:04
the uh Sanderson rules of magic, one of the cool things that really helped shape my own vision for this stuff was
18:10
everything has to have a cost, right? And that cost can be time, talent, or treasure. Basically, if you want to cast
18:16
really cool highle magics, there should be a physical cost associated with that. Not just like, oh well, I'm tired now
18:22
for a little bit. No, it should be like, hey, I had to sacrifice big components or I need to like like I had to sell off
18:28
certain spells or I have to do certain things as a wizard in order to afford the bigger things that I want to do. And
18:33
it's kind of this cycle like anything else you want to do in life where if you want cool things, you have to work for
18:39
them. And when you when you do that, it it definitely does help to make the world feel more realistic. So, a lot of
18:45
fun there. Otherwise, when it comes to the actual skill system, like the crafting of a skill system, what I like
18:50
to do is tell people to create what I call open formula systems. And so, an open formula system is the idea that you
18:58
can give me any power, any power at all, and I can make it work with my system, right? And I do that because I have
19:05
skill tiers, so big jumps in power. I have 10 different tiers within certain
19:10
within the skill system. And I might have levels within a tier. So like you might get from level one to 10 in a tier
19:16
and then it moves to tier two. So anyone want to play a game? Yes. All right. Sure.
19:22
Give me any power. Any power at all and I can I can fit it into my open system that I have here for the 1 to 10.
19:28
Okay. My current FMC is a forger. So she can just by she has the ability she can
19:34
forge anything. It just comes to her. She puts pen to paper and she's very valuable in her world. Okay. So when you say forger, like are
19:42
you saying like she takes a like a dollar bill and makes a counterfeit or are you saying handwriting so she can forge documents?
19:49
Okay. Okay, cool. Cuz my head my head went straight to like blacksmithing, forging.
19:54
I was thinking g like gathering. That's what I thought it was like. Yes. No.
20:00
All right. So I can make that work very easily. All right. So we have so the first tier for so how it works is every
20:07
odd tier you get a new effect added to what you're doing. Okay every even tier
20:14
you get a bonus to the previous effects. Okay, so at tier one you have your first
20:20
effect and I what I would do with this one is I would say I can while touching a document sit there and copy it out
20:28
perfectly right so it is on touch right so cool so that would be the tier one I
20:33
can copy that out perfectly and then if I do like level 1 to 10 within that tier I can be like I can do it faster I can
20:39
do it more accurately I can do it like so that like people can't recognize that it's a forgery things like that so the
20:45
bonus so when we get to tier two I can now do that at range, right? Hey, there's a document over there. I kind of
20:51
either telepathically connect to it or I do something else. And now I can at range forge this perfectly exactly how I
20:59
did in the previous tier, but now I don't have to be touching it to make that happen. Okay, this book is supposed to be a 35,000word
21:05
novella. Darn you. All right. Wait a minute.
21:11
Yeah. But so then tier three tier tier three gives it a second effect, right? Second effect could be I would branch it
21:18
in one of two ways. It destroys the original after I forge it or so like now
21:23
cuz I can do this at range and perfectly. I can say, "Hey, look, I'm going to make the deed to that house
21:28
that that guy is holding and just like casually doing. I'll forge it out. Done. That one is destroyed. I have one that
Forging Magical Documents
21:34
is now the only copy and it's however I want it to be." So, boom. Mine. Right. Bro,
21:39
right. Or It sounds so simple. Yeah. Well, that's what I do. Um, I'm
21:45
I'm a system builder. That's my my whole deal. Or I could say like now it's so I have the at range. So I could say with
21:51
this second effect I could do magical documents, right? So I could forge a magical document, right? So which one
21:57
would you like me to branch with? Let's go with magical. Okay. So making magical documents. All right. So now I can forge magical
22:03
documents. That's cool. I can do it at range and I can do it perfectly. So that's my first three tiers. So then the
22:08
next is a multi-target. So I can do a multi-target where I can do multiple documents quickly or at once or I can
22:16
combine multiple documents into one or like like make that make all that happen. Or I could say like hey when I'm
22:22
forging this on one piece of paper now it goes out on multiple. So that would be really cool if you're doing something
22:28
where you're like forging banknotes or something like that and then you're like do that and then all of a sudden you
22:33
have like a big pile of $100 bills because you've been doing that, right? Um, or if you're like doing other magical documents, you could say like,
22:40
"Hey, I'm making these contracts that impact everyone in my world because these are really necessary." And so like
22:46
I can just make this and then everyone can have their own one to sign. And so now I have all these magical documents
22:51
that big stack of them done, paperwork. If everybody is in the throne room negotiating this worldwide treaty, my
22:58
gal can be in the corner like posing as a servant and as the treaty is being written, she could be like altering it
23:05
to put in her own cop, bro. So that's that's actually a that would be a different effect for me. So that
23:11
would be that would be the next tier up like if I can do like if I can do a bunch of stuff cuz I would say that
23:16
would be a a full effect on its own is altering a document that you're forging as it's being written. Okay. or or you
23:23
could even drop that down a lower to a lower tier where you're like at range I can alter documents higher range but
23:29
that's the cool thing is that all of these work you just have to put it within certain bounds because you can give it a new effect every other rank
23:35
right but then so like bonus is multi-target and then we have the third
23:40
effect which we're just saying is you know let's say let's say let's do that let's say we'll we'll alter we can alter
23:47
magical and regular documents on the fly as they're going on and then the follow-up follow-up tier. So now we're
23:53
at all the way down to tier six already would be an area of effect. So where I can go in there and I can do all of
23:59
those things and impact an area with that. So I could go into like a library
24:04
and forge books like a book at a time. Like I can do multiple pages like a whole book, not just one document. So
24:10
boom, whole book or I could do like this big stack of stuff and I can alter them on the fly. I now basically have control
24:16
of information for for individual books at range or you know I can do like create a bunch of books all at once. So
24:22
now instead of doing documents I'm doing a full book at a time like I have one I'm copying it down multiple books are
24:27
being made. So like basically you're a printing press at that point. Additional effect like I liked your idea of um like
24:34
we can we can add on to that. So now like hey we can alter we can change we can do all this other fun stuff. We can
24:40
hit magical documents. Now we can add on another thing which is like it could be anything really. So you add on an
24:46
additional effect and you say hey I can I can forge all this stuff perfectly and now it's like I can make it so that it
24:52
originally looks like mine or I can add new magical effects to it or I can um I
24:58
can like add in things like where someone reads it and now they gain skills because of it. Like they I I made
25:04
this magical like I copied a grim war and now like on use they just know how to use the spell perfectly. So, but then
25:11
the the skill burn like the book burns away, right? So, that's what I would probably do with it. Mhm.
25:16
And then uh bonus on that one is multi-target AOE. So, that would be the next tier. So, you can just like select
25:22
large areas and mess with stuff. Um so, you could maybe go in there and be like, "Hey, for every reference of this within
25:28
this area, I'm going to change that to this." So, now you can affect the entire kingdom's historical records all in one
25:34
go. Like, you can hit every library in an area, right? Hey, we stopped the podcast. I need to
25:40
go redcon my magic system right now. Well, the ninth tier is the fit effect
The Power of Document Alteration
25:45
and then the the 10th tier is a full domain. So, in this case, you have essentially total control of all written
25:52
information around you within a certain space. So, you can just be like boom, I know what it is and I can change it,
25:58
alter it, copy it as needed. Excellent. So, and the beauty of it is that whether or not you're actually
26:04
writing in lit RPG, having that system of progression allows you to then
26:09
whether or not you actually insert lit RPG elements into your story.
26:15
Just whirling with how this is going to Thank you, Dakota. Yeah. So, the really fun thing.
26:20
Yeah. And and the cool thing is, like I said, I can do that with any system like any any magical like any magical thing
26:26
that you want to do. People have given me burnt toast before. They've been like, "Hey, here's a mushroom. Here's this. Here's this. Here's this." And
26:33
yeah. Now, now what if it's not a magical system? Kelly, did you want to take a turn here? We all get a we all get a
26:38
chance. We go round. I don't know about like what isn't a magical system? I don't know how to do
26:43
that for Well, do you have you seen like contemporary romances like real world
26:48
setting romance? Right. Yeah, sure. So, what what is what is your system in that? Well, the system is the legal
26:55
system. You literally have a system built in of reality like you have the real system that you can access and you
27:01
can be like hey here's this thing and here's the social consequences and here's these because these are in world
27:06
real effects right and so that's actually easier to be like hey if this happens there you go right
27:12
right I guess you don't think of it in the same way where you're talking about like burnt toast like how do you how do
27:18
you make burnt toast magic but then you know because you're you're spinning it into like actual ability but like you're
27:25
Hey, there's world building in every story. So, yeah, if you think about like just within, you
27:31
know, community or something like that, there has to be world building and setting. I was thinking about like a cozy like the cozy genre of like what is
27:39
the world building like in a cozy mystery or a cozy romance compared to say a contemporary romance which they're
27:47
both contemporary but there are some rules in which the world kind of you know alter like how that that works and
27:54
it's all just world building. Well, and forgive me because I'm coming at this as a as a guy who doesn't read or write
28:01
romance, but there are video games out there that involve romance and and like building a relationship with a character
28:07
and you say the right thing and then you you're like there's some points that are being tracked in the background that
28:13
shows like, you know, then the next time you talk to them, you'll have the option to, you know, lean in for a kiss or
28:19
something like that. You know what I mean? Exactly. Now, I mean, Kelly, you keep going, Kelly, if you want to if you want to, you know. Yeah. So, the really
28:26
cool thing about lit RPG and Gamellet is that it does make room for basically any subg genre within it. So, like Travis
28:33
Baldry put out a a cozy lit RPG, right? Like uh Legends and Lattes and that is
28:39
one of the a huge bestseller like worldwide international bestselling in bookstores. Travis Baldry like kicking
28:46
butt. and I put out a uh fantasy romance series recently, which was really fun.
28:51
And I get more physical book sales on that series than all of my other series
28:57
combined. Like not in aggregate, but like as it goes on, it's like way faster, way more physical sales. And you
29:05
know, just I can, you know, you just take take the same principles and and bring it across to those things.
29:11
Yeah. I wonder if it's like such a different experience because it's so interactive. really brings the reader into an
29:17
interaction so that it can like go across all genres. So having a contemporary romance would be an
29:24
interesting experiment to see if somebody could do a contemporary or I mean Yep. fantasy romance obviously it
29:31
lends itself right away. Yeah. But it'd be really interesting. And the cozy thing um my daughter has
29:37
read has read that book of the Legends and Lattes. Oh yeah. Loved it. Yeah.
29:42
Yeah. And and I'd say in contemporary what you could do is it's like hey you have you know you have your one person
29:48
so your first tier you're at you're at touch range so let's make it a hallmark movie right so we're at touch range so
29:55
you start with your fiance and you're on your way back to your hometown right everyone knows where this is going right
30:01
and so then you're you're tier two in your in your contemporary romance is like hey now you are at range from your
30:10
first uh from your fiance from this other and are you going to maintain that or are you going to add in an an additional
30:16
effect which would be now a love triangle, right? And so you have this sort of thing and it it it does work
30:23
with most stuff. And then eventually multi-target is like, hey, now they're all in town. He wants you to come back
30:29
to the big city. Uh third effect, it's like, well, now that guy has a a person
30:35
who's interested in him, and now he's wondering, you know, here's the area of effect. Like now we're down to tier six
30:41
or tier six already. Is what's happening with you know your high school
30:46
sweetheart, your current fiance, their love interest or the person who's love interesting with them. How is that
30:52
impacting the town around you, right? Is are you causing like big havoc or like is more people getting involved? And
30:58
then it can cascade out from there until you have like the whole town or a tier 10 domain like the whole town is
31:04
involved in your personal love life, right? And so it's just kind of shifting how you see it to be like does it fit
31:11
within the bounds of of that. Yeah. Fun, right? Yeah. It's interesting. That's very cool.
Integrating Lit RPG Elements into Various Genres
31:16
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Though there's the I think it's an element of it that I think helps a lot of authors.
31:23
It's like a creative restraint in some respects. It's like absolutely you're putting rules in place and that
31:29
helps you to it kind of helps helps you to understand not only what's supposed to come next or what's the natural
31:35
progression of this thing and as far as world building is concerned I think that's that's helpful. You mentioned you
31:41
mentioned Halo earlier and so I have to say this that my my current
31:46
series that I'm working on is actually heavily inspired by Halo. Now, if we're in that genre, we're leaning more game
31:53
lit at that point, right? Over lit RPG. For those who aren't like these are new
31:59
concepts to all of them, what's the what's the biggest difference there? Like lit RPG, if we're going to if you're just going to dumb it down and
32:05
summarize it, what's the difference? I would say that the difference is uh a hard magic system for lit RPG versus a
32:11
soft magic system for for game lit. And that doesn't mean no system. And that
32:17
doesn't mean nothing like the numbers don't matter, but it does mean more to the effect of, hey, you don't have to
32:24
track every little thing, right? So, if I wanted to do a Halo in a lit RPG style, I would track the stats of his
32:32
weapons, his armor, the enemies around him, like what's the power scaling between them, right? So, how many times
32:38
does this work? How many times do I need to do this to break that overshield? Right? versus game lit which is like hey
32:45
I found a shotgun you know uh yeah and this is great because now I can just like smash right through that and but I
32:52
have to keep track of my gear keep track of my armor still like and and do I have any personal abilities and but it's much
32:58
less hey I need x amount of of of uh bullets or uh just projectile impacts on
33:04
this guy and more of a hey I'm progressing through this in such a way that I get bigger more powerful guns and
33:11
weapons but I'm doing it in a progressive manner like you don't you don't start with like a beam cannon on
33:18
no worldwide. Yeah. Right. Right. Exactly. Exactly. So, but we were we wanted to get to
33:23
this. If anybody has any other questions to follow up, by the way, chime in. I don't want us to pivot too
33:29
soon. Jack, go ahead. Emma craft question. No, I do. I go for it. Go for it.
33:35
I'm in no rush. How do you feel about protagonists who have two completely
33:41
unrelated abilities? Because that's what I'm struggling with it right now. She's a forger, but she can also poison with a
33:48
touch. And in my mind, I'm like, "Come on, bro. That's random." Like, really? Like, think of the think the applications for
33:55
that, Emma. Like, like, so you have let's say you can let's say you can as
34:00
one of the the power sets swap the forge document with the real one. That'd be cool. Right now, what if you used
34:07
poisoned ink in the in the one that you swapped into their pocket and they reached in and they're looking at it and
34:13
they're or they're like going through a book and, you know, flipping pages and all of a sudden they just fall over dead, right? So, combinatory powers are
34:20
super cool. So, like, hey, I can poison this person. I can forge this stuff. Well, oh my goodness, where did they get
34:26
this? It's clearly poisoned. Well, I got it. I handed it to him. Well, then you're the one in trouble and she's just in the corner like
34:32
So, in a lit RPG, you're saying there's no real rules about how many abilities
34:37
you have, just like how you can use them. I would say kind of like how Jack said like the the restricting yourself makes
34:44
a lot of sense, right? Cuz if you can do anything endlessly, it it doesn't make a lot of sense. But if you have a limited
34:51
power set and you can expand on those by doing cool things or combine them in cool ways, go for it. Like that's that's
34:57
the way to go. Okay, I'll end it now, but if you ever teach a craft class on this, like lit RPG for dummies, please
35:04
like Sounds good. Go, go, go. I'll let you know. Absolutely. Well, I wanted to talk about
35:11
so we're going to kind of shift a little bit, but like in talking about your marketing for your books because you've
35:17
been obviously you've built your publishing company, you have other other authors that are under you under your
35:23
your press, but what sort of marketing like strategies do you guys use that you
35:29
can like share with other authors and no matter the genre, but like you know, what is it that you do that when you're
35:35
like, I got to brand this. What am I going to do to make that stand out? Sure. So that's really two different
35:41
questions, right? So the branding aspect of it and the the marketing aspect it and then there's also the third which is
35:47
the advertising aspect of it, right? So essentially how do I how do I make this a person that can be sold, right? Cuz we
35:55
we like to work with authors, not just series, right? So it's like how do I make this into this this author into
36:00
someone when they see when they see the name Dakota Kraut? How do I take it where they're like, "Wow, Dakota Kraut
Branding and Marketing Strategies for Authors
36:06
has a book out. I want that book." not hey this next book in my series or this series is out I want that book I have I
36:13
have like seven series going on so if completed in different stages so on and
36:18
I want all of my people to read all of my books not just this one right um and so a lot of it comes down to like if we
36:26
start with branding right if we can start with branding then we'll go into marketing then we'll go into advertising what I what I like to do is so my
36:33
company has a specific brand right and and Uh it is essentially what we're
36:40
looking for is the concepts that are bold, refined and enduring, right? So it's it's mountainale. So you have a
36:45
mountain that's very enduring. It's something that it changes the skyline. So it's very bold and you know like
36:51
going up there like walking the mountain, climbing the mountain is kind of a refined activity when you think of like hey that's a cool thing, right? So
36:57
that's kind of where my head goes. So when when that so we are always looking for ways to bring our authors in
37:05
alignment with our brand while also making them different enough that they stand out on their own. And so this is
37:11
something that is actively in the works. So it's it's something like we we literally hired people to help us make
37:18
this a more consistent thing across the board in progress. But it's really cool. And uh so what we do is we try to make
37:27
it 80% the same as something that has been around for a long time such as Mountain Press has been around for
37:32
almost 10 years now. So it's in my genre, a fairly well-known established thing. And then anyone with us, we try
37:40
to say 80% the same, so very similar concepts, colorations, aunts, grounds,
37:46
things like that. And then 20% different. So that is their unique spin on things. That could be their own logo.
37:53
That could be um like however they want to do it. And like my logo is actually just my name, which is cool. Uh I just
38:00
put a a colon in front of it like you guys noticed earlier. Just put a colon in front of it. Now it's a smiley face. And and I say, "Hey, read any book with
38:07
a smile or read read every book with a smile." And not only is that a call to my brand, which is about good, clean
38:13
fun, which means like, "Hey, you can read this. You can read with your kids. You'll be happy. Like you'll you'll leave happier than you came in." is the
38:19
hope, but it's also a call to action of go and read those books because it has the smiley face on it. Read that book.
38:25
Right? So, it's kind of that that uh multiple layers of intent when when you're making it. And so, just kind of
38:31
going into any branding opportunity with the plan to be intentional about it and
38:36
like have a reason for why you choose things, have a reason for why you do do that stuff is is great. Um, one of the things that my company does now is when
38:43
we bring people on, we're going to be sitting with them and crafting them a brand, logo, colorations, fonts, all of
38:50
these other things, and helping them to then be able to take that and apply it
38:56
to like all of their social media posts. So now, now we're into the marketing aspect of
39:02
things. So marketing is any it's it's very similar to advertising, but it's
39:07
free, right? So this is social media. So it could be Facebook, Reddit, Tik Tok, Instagram, wherever posts are made,
39:15
right? Doesn't matter. Like wherever posts are made, taking that and and creating your established brand across
39:20
the board. And the idea behind this is when people are kind of endlessly doom scrolling and they're just going going,
39:27
you want to have in their mind in your mind that what you are doing is you are creating a tiny little billboard. And
39:34
when people are driving along theformational highway, you want them to see that billboard and be like, "Wait a
39:39
second. I recognize that." And they stop and go back and look at it and you say, "I do recognize that. I I recognize the
39:45
colors. I recognize the look of it. The kind of overall shape. It caught my eye because it is so recognizable and has
39:51
been going on for so long in association with this." And yeah, I mean, you can do that with you can do that with slogans,
39:58
you can do that with sounds, you can do that with colors, you know, like if if I were looking at like the Chiefs, right?
40:04
I mean, I would say, "Hey, what's their colors? What's their logo?" And then basically anything that's Kansas City
40:09
Chiefs, like you recognize anywhere you're looking for, like Vikings, same deal. Like other football teams that I'm
40:16
less interested in, stuff like that. and and you know just it works with sports, it works with
40:22
books, it works with you as a person. Like as an author, what you're trying to do always is make yourself the selling
40:30
point. And so what I always recommend is create your brand, figure out who you want to be online, figure out who who
40:37
you want people to recognize you as, right? And then solidify that and stick with it for the next 10 years. And by
40:44
then you'll have a really really good firm foundation that is enduring and is
40:50
bold hopefully and well refined because you're going to iterate a lot on that over the years. So you're going to
40:56
you're going to come out with what works really well. Like this my logo is actually there's another part under it
41:01
that just says mountain press but this is the part that people recognize. So this is the part that goes on merchandise, right? And if you can't see
41:06
it, it's my mountain, right? And that's the main part of my logo. So just just things like that where it doesn't have
41:12
to be in your face. It just has to be recognizable. So on that note, when you are going out there and you're doing
41:18
marketing and you're be being part of groups, you're going on social media, you are doing whatever it is and you're
41:23
building your initial audience, I always recommend people to start with marketing. So you you go out there and
41:29
you present yourself how you want to be seen. You interact with the communities that you want to be a part of and that
41:35
you want to draw readers from. You are participant more than you are here's my
41:40
thing, read my thing, do my thing, buy my stuff. You are there, you are talking, you are interacting, you're
41:46
making a relationship with the people that are there. And then this goes back to the 8020 thing. 8020 rule is awesome.
41:52
If you guys have don't know what the 8020 rule is, basically just go look it up. Look it up. It applies in a lot of
41:58
different contexts. In this particular one, it is 80% of all interactions that you have with fans or with other people
42:05
should be a nonsales event. It should be like, "Hey, here's an update on my life. Here's this funny picture that I saw
42:11
that made me laugh. What did you guys think?" Things that allow people to interact with you. And at most 20% of it
42:17
should be your like promoting your own stuff, your own content. And and if you can kind of get that right, then you you
42:24
tend to gain fans a lot faster than you otherwise would. Now then we get to the advertising part of things and that is
42:31
when you've really felt that you've reached your maximum capacity with natural growth in this particular let's
42:37
say Facebook in in Facebook you've you've really reached you haven't seen much growth in like audience or whatever
42:43
else Tik Tok wherever and now you're like okay well I've reached everyone I can naturally it's time to put some
42:48
money behind this and and so you might do like ads on that platform you might do you might do newsletter swaps with
42:56
other authors that are in similar areas that you want to be in or have a similar enough audience that you think they
43:02
would come over and read. I generally wouldn't go and put my stuff into like reach out to like space opera guys
43:09
because it's not similar enough, but I would go to like military sci-fi a lot
43:15
of the time and and talk with them about doing some cross promotion. However, there's going to be a subset of that
43:20
which is also reading space opera. And so then I'm going to get the people that are already crossing genres and get
43:27
access to them directly, which is great. So yeah, so advertising is anything you had to put money behind to make it
43:32
happen. Marketing is making the relationship between yourself or other people in your creative space so that
43:38
you can reach more people over time. So branding yourself is the number one step in all of that so that people know who
43:45
they are interacting with. And yeah, and then from there it all just kind of builds on top of that. It's your
43:50
foundation is what is your brand? Any questions? Because without that brand, without that brand,
43:56
I think the the main thing is that like if you switch up your brand constantly, people are going to see whatever message
44:03
you have to put out there inevitably, but they're not going to It's that guy. There's something about that. It's brand
44:09
recognition, right, is what it is. And it kind of it makes you an actual
44:14
neuron in their brain. Yeah. Right. And so when you come up again, they're familiar with you. And that a
44:20
lot of what you're what you're talking about here is is very basic stuff, but I think it's stuff that maybe a lot of authors kind of gloss over and kind of
44:27
skim over it is like, okay, I wrote the book, did all the things, you know, I
44:32
pushed the button, published it. Okay, I got to run ads and and now you are at the starting point.
44:38
Yeah. Right. So, I've done the book, I've written it, I've published it. All right. The starting point I have reached. That's
44:45
that's the thing that most authors forget is that is not the end state. Right. So putting out your book is the
44:51
beginning of like now people can find it. Now people can read it. Now you can
44:56
start building all of this other stuff, this career that you want, right? And and there's there's so much more to the
45:03
author career than writing a book that I had to start a company to handle it all.
45:08
And then and I realized, hey, this is working really effectively with my personal stuff. let's see if we can work
45:14
with some other authors and and offer the same services because once they get to the starting point, we have to build
45:19
that author career around them because most authors are really good at one thing and they really want to do one
45:25
thing and that is write books and the rest of it is just frustrating. And so I
Building a Supportive Author Community
45:30
I agree and that's why I have employees, right? And so that's that's where we are as a
45:37
as a small publisher is is we are really focused on author success because our
45:42
goal is to create so our mission statement actually is is to create create and champ I'm sorry cultivate and
45:48
champion authors so they have a generational readership. So we want career productive productive
45:54
career authors so that we can get a generational readership under them. So my customer in Mountaindale, like so my
46:02
Mountainale customers are all 100% my authors. Their customers are the ones that are buying the book. But our whole
46:08
deal is if we can get their brand right, if we can get their marketing right, if we can get their if we get the books
46:14
right, great great cover art, great narration, audio engineering, type setting, all the things that go into it,
46:20
then if we've done all that correctly, the profit will take care of itself. But so if we are taking care of our authors,
46:26
the profit is taking care of itself because they get paid, we get paid, everyone's happy, they get to write more
46:31
books, we get to do more work on their behalf while they're writing the next book and the next book and the next book and they don't have to worry about that,
46:38
which I will honestly say is a really frustrating part of, you know, of being
46:43
an author is selling the book. Yeah. Yeah. Well, because it's kind of antithetical in a lot of ways to the
46:50
creative process. Yes. It's it's a different set of skills. Yeah. Being an artist is already hard
46:56
enough, man. Right. Being a business mind on top of it is is way harder, right? And this is interesting because
47:03
my wife and I have been talking about this because I was I'm the author, you know, writing the books and trying to,
47:11
you know, do all this stuff while I've got a full-time job and the man is keeping me down. No, I'm kidding.
47:16
Bookunn's great. Bookfunnels. Yes. No. Okay. It was a It was a joke. It was a
47:22
joke, but let me let me But still, no. And obviously, I'm I'm 100% committed
47:27
and devoted to Bookfunnel and uh not intending to leave at all.
47:32
No, no, no. I Yeah, this could seem like an overcorrection. Like, he he duff protests too much. No. Gosh, you you got
47:40
me backed into a corner now. What do I say? But but no, really, like it's it's a lot
47:46
to balance. And for a lot I think a lot of authors are in the same situation where they love writing and they've got
47:52
a full-time job that they also might love. It's the the general kind of trope is that right every author wants to quit
48:00
their day job and they hate their day job but not everybody's in that boat, right? Some people want to do that and
48:05
do the author thing and but you get past the creative part. Well, yeah. Yeah. Some people should like
48:12
in a in a creative sense, even if it's not about finances. Some people need
48:17
that time. I've actually had people that were like, I I just went and got a part-time even though I could afford to
48:23
not, but my creative my creative outlet was it was too much to be creative all the time, every day doing
48:30
the creativity. I needed that break. So, you know, everybody's different when it comes to that, but almost all of us are
48:36
like, I just want to write the book. Yeah. Right. To add to that, Kelly, because you make
48:42
a really good point to add to that is a lot of people are unprepared for how lonely the lifestyle actually is, right?
48:48
Like um this is my view about 50 hours a week
48:54
right right here. Um of just work time and then if I want to like play games on my computer ramps up to like 51, 52.
49:02
Just kidding. I I play more than that. Um, really a lot more
49:08
like 30 hours a day, please. No, but my Yeah. So, it it can be a extremely
49:14
lonely lifestyle. And that's one of the great things about conferences. That's one of the great things about a company
49:19
like like Mountaindale is we've we've built this specifically to be a community of peers, right? So, we we go
49:25
on we go to events together. So, like we we'll go to conferences, we'll go to we have our own individual things. So, we
49:31
do the Mountain the Mountain Summit cuz you know we're all on the mountain so we all when we all get together we're at Summit R. Cool. And so we do that every
49:37
year. Uh this year it's really cool. I'm not trying to like I'm really not trying to hire people like this is not a thing like come and apply for for Mount. But
49:44
like this year uh we're taking everyone on a cruise. So that's really cool. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Uh so like we're
49:49
taking all of our authors on a cruise and we're going to go there and we sit and talk for like three four hours a day about uh basically continuing education
49:56
stuff like things that we can do to to build our careers better. And then the rest of the time is just fun. And then the like six months later, we also do a
50:03
writing retreat where it's just entirely craft. We're working together in the same space. If there's any issues, you
50:09
can brainstorm with each other. And so like you can walk into a room and just know that all of these people are doing
50:15
the same thing. They're in the thick of it with you. They understand where you're coming from when you're like, "Man, this sucks." Or, "Man, this is
50:21
awesome." Or like, "Hey, I just made this really funny thing." Or, "Hey, I can't get past this part in the book. Please, someone help me." like and then
50:27
we have a community of people that can actually understand and and be a part of it. So, it's really cool,
50:32
right? And and Dakota, to follow up on on this conversation, like like I
50:37
mentioned, my wife and I have been having this discussion because like I'm the author, the creative side of things,
50:43
when when I have the time and I have no distractions and I'm devoted to it, it flows really well. But then like I've
50:48
got to write a newsletter or crap, I have to like format the interior of this
50:53
this book and there's a lot of stuff. And not that I would hand off everything to my wife all at once cuz she's new to
50:59
it, but if you had to give somebody in my position some advice, right? like what
51:04
what would be the first thing if you're starting to work with a spouse or a partner or even even on a business
51:11
partner level like you're hiring somebody like it could look a lot of different ways but where's the best
51:16
place to start? You're talking to the right guy because my my co-owner and CEO is my wife and my
51:22
my COO who runs the day-to-day of my company is my sister. So it is like
51:28
everyone everyone says nepotism. You're just telling me nepotism is super super anti- neepotism. So she had
51:34
to beat out every other candidate and like she started she started as a my my
51:40
sister, not my wife, started as a um operations intern. So she she worked for
51:45
three years like 10 hours a week and she she worked her way up and just one day was indispensable and we were like and
51:52
so she started getting promotions and uh but she had she had a ton of management experience before that as well.
51:58
Yeah. and she's super highly skilled, super highly skilled with with that stuff. So, it worked out really really
52:04
well. And then we were able to hire her away from her full-time career in in uh dentistry and and do just this with us.
52:11
My my lovely wife um is has a PhD in pharmarmacology, physiology, and
52:17
therapeutics. And so her previous job before I I managed to convince her to please please please don't make me do
52:23
all of this work myself was she was a molecular biologist for the USDA. And so
52:28
it was like we're not none of us are using our our uh our degrees anymore which is great like we're all very happy
The Importance of Supportive Relationships
52:34
works out that way. So I would say that first off the fact that your wife is supportive and like
52:40
likes your like is happy about your career and wants to be a part of it is a massive green flag. Like that is a
52:45
wonderful thing. So having having supportive people in your life that's already the biggest thing. Secondly because she is supportive because she
52:52
and if she I'm assuming she wants to be a part of it then I would say yes. just say yes that you are not going to find
52:58
someone more invested in your success and your family success than your spouse. Right? So, if she's supportive
53:04
of your if she's already supportive of your career, which is it is super sad to say that that is rare actually like with
53:11
with authors. Um especially if it's like not a profitable thing already or whatever it is, getting that like, hey,
53:17
all of your free time is going to this thing instead of like other things that Yeah, I I've I've been there and done
53:22
that before. Um, that's in a in a previous relationship. So, this is
53:27
this is much different than that, though. So, yeah, if she wants to be there and she has like if she's
53:33
able to do the skills or learn them, there there's going to be no one who's more invested in in making that success
53:39
happen. So, I would say teach like teach her uh like we like we
53:45
love to say is you delegate an outcome, not a process. So, you say, "Hey, um, I
53:51
would like my books formatted, and this is like I here's how I do it. I can show
53:56
you that step-by-step thing, but if you find a better way to do it, please do." Right? Like whether you're using Vellum or
54:03
Attekus or if you are some monster who is just formatting directly in Word doc.
54:09
I mean like whatever they are most comfortable with like if it if the end result is this looks as good or better
54:16
than I could have done it myself. Why would you ever say you must do it my way when that way is the thing that's
54:21
killing you? Right. Yeah. You're like I hate this so much now you have to do it exactly this way. No.
54:27
Terrible effort. Right. Yeah. Right. I I like that idea. You're delegating the outcome, not the process.
54:33
That's that's a good way to think about it. Everybody's going to do it differently. That's good. That's good. Yes. We we we've been it's something
54:39
we've talked about for a while because her her day job she's not the biggest fan of. She would like she would like it
54:45
if you know I were selling a bunch of books and so she's totally on board with that and then obviously totally
54:51
supportive of it just on the creative side. So for for folks who don't have that, I can't I can't imagine it's not a
55:00
I'm not here to give relationship advice and I don't know that you are here either, Dakota, but if for anybody
55:05
listening, you find Dakota crowd, relationship expert. We're
55:12
just making up titles for you as we go along. But it it it's it can be really tough when you're in that in a
Delegating Tasks for Success
55:17
relationship where your creative endeavors are not only not supported maybe but maybe like actively
55:23
sabotaged sabotaged. You know what I mean? I divorced my sabotur. So in case anybody in the listening audience is
55:30
like should I Yes. get rid of them. Right. Right. No. As soon as you start messing with my word count, bro, you got to go.
55:36
Well, yeah. Yeah. I mean there's there's obviously like raising kids together and that's we have three. He won from my
55:42
previous marriage, the two together, and then we're expecting number four. Congratulations in May. So like obviously there's still
55:50
a lot going on in that realm. Right. So in in your immense free time, you're also writing books. Very cool.
55:56
Right. Right. Right. Exactly. It's I I I don't get enough sleep. That's that's
56:02
what it comes down to. I got to tell you, that's that's the best way to write to get started because then you know that's how you know you
56:08
really love it, you know, like Yeah. When I was when I was first writing my first book, I was interning at NASA JPL.
56:15
I was a programmer at a company. I was in the army. I was going to college. And
56:21
I had just gotten married. And so, and then I was like, man, I have so much free time. I don't know what to do with myself. I'm going to write this book
56:27
instead of anything else. And that's how I knew I loved it. You know, cuz if you can think of anything else you'd rather
56:32
be doing, you should be doing that thing, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. Yep. So, good stuff, dude.
Balancing Family and Writing
56:38
I'm waiting for Emma. She was supposed to go, Emma. My news. Okay. Yes. Yes, I did
56:43
because when you were and I was taking notes, too. I got distracted cuz I started revamping my newsletter
56:48
marketing strategy again. I did implement the Michael Evans advice. I implemented it. I started a Patreon. I
56:55
implemented the chapter system, but now I'm tweaking it, you know, as our conversation. So, I I am half listening,
57:03
but I'm like making a plan based off of the conversation. I do this. Emma goes, she just her brain goes go. You gave her
57:10
a bunch of information that week. I feel like the podcasts are free consulting. Like take advantage, man.
57:16
Like that's why we do it. Actually, that's the secret to it. Like it's it's it's actually really rare
57:22
to meet someone who's like, "Hey, I'm hearing something. I'm going to implement it now." Right? That's awesome. Like I love that. If I tell
57:28
someone something and they're like, "I'll think about it maybe." And then they never come back to it. I'm way annoyed by that. But when someone's
57:34
like, "Hey, I love what you're saying. I'm trying to do it as you talk about it. I'm like, that's cool as heck, man.
Implementing Marketing Strategies
57:39
That is and one of the things we really wish more authors, especially beginning authors, would implement is a newsletter
57:47
strategy and you were talking about marketing and that's where my mind went and for me that seems like lowhanging
57:53
fruit because no CPC other than your elbow grease. You can get started with links in the back of your book, but how
57:59
do you handle that aspect of being an entrepreneur? What's your newsletter strategy for yourself and your authors?
58:05
Yeah. So, that's a great question. And so, it's it's hilarious that you look at that and you say that's low hanging
58:10
fruit because because so many authors refuse to do a newsletter. They're like,
58:17
I'm already writing enough. I'm already doing enough with the words. Why would I do this as well? And they forget that
58:23
people like people. Like, they like it's cool to see a series. It's cool to see a book, but they want like when you're
58:29
when you're being an author, you're also a minor public figure at the minimum, right? And if you give people a book,
58:35
they might read it and then they'll move on. And then if you want to recapture them, you're going to have to advertise to them and be like, "Hey, for people
58:40
that have read my book previously, come check out the next book." But if you're like, "Hey, look, I'm I'm this dude. I'm
58:45
not perfect. I got all these things going on." Like there's a lot of cool stuff. But also like, "Hey, look at
58:50
this. My house exploded. Like the windows all busted for me." Like for me
58:56
it was like, "Hey, I'm moving out of Minnesota because the tree in my yard exploded because it got to -70 and the
59:03
sap expanded too quickly. So then the tree popped like a popcorn kernel." And so I'm leaving and moving to somewhere
59:09
warm and people were like, "Oh my gosh." And there was a whole debate and there was like links to YouTube videos and it
59:15
was a whole big thing and that was cool. I And then I moved to Kansas City. I live in Kansas City, Kansas. It's great.
59:21
Um, and I got here and I unintentionally started a massive debate over the best kind of barbecue. And I mean, twothirds
59:29
of them were wrong. As one does. As one does. Yeah. Like, you know, onethird of them
59:34
were correct. You know, they're like, they can't say barbecue. Best stuff, obviously. And Yeah. And so, it's just one of those things where like, hey, when you when you go out there and you
59:41
give things people can relate to and you show them part of your life, you let them into to to your life, thousands
59:46
more will let you into theirs. and and typically that appears in the way of comments or buying your books or or
59:52
whatever else. And so do that. Like let yourself be a little more open than your introverted self would otherwise
59:58
typically allow is kind of what I say. And it's not even Sorry, go ahead. Oh, no. I was just going to say and it's
1:00:04
not even like you're exploiting anybody here. This is you're just building a relationship with you're being your
1:00:10
genuine self. I think if you go into that like with the wrong intentions, it's probably not going to bear any
1:00:16
fruit for you anyway. But yeah, if you're just Yeah, like my tree exploded or Yeah. starting, you know, debate over
1:00:23
barbecue. Yeah, it was brilliant. Cuz you mentioned the 8020 rule and we see a lot of newsletters where it's
1:00:29
literally a block of promotions, the entire newsletter, and then I have to be like, how shall I say this?
1:00:37
Yeah. Yeah. It's not a sales report. It's a newsletter. It's like, hey, what's what's new? Here's things that are
1:00:42
happening. Right. Yeah. So, if you don't have anything exciting happening, what do you talk
Building an Engaging Newsletter
1:00:47
about then? Because a lot of authors are like, I'm just, you know, a gal or a dude at home in my pajamas if I wear
1:00:54
them. Like, what do I talk about? Cool, man. So, first off, if I talk about my pajamas, people are less
1:00:59
interested than if like a, you know, pretty lady's talking about her pajamas. Yeah. But if I'm like, I'm writing and only a
1:01:05
robe today, then I get some comments.
1:01:10
literally my robe right here. You can't quite see it, but it's I'm sitting on it because it's very comfortable.
1:01:16
But it's one of those things where it's like, yeah. Um, so what I like to say is, hey, I don't really have that much
1:01:22
to say cuz guys, I just I love to write books. And so here's what I've written today. Here's here's maybe a little bit
1:01:28
of a cool here's a cool part of a scene, but not the best part of this scene so that you can come in and experience the
1:01:34
best part when you get here. Typically, mine is like, hey, here's a book that I check it out. like this this is a book
1:01:39
that I had come out a while ago or or a cool thing that's going on. Like it's doing this thing. It's hitting this
1:01:44
benchmark. It's whatever it is. Um and it's not like buy this book. It's like hey check it out. This book that I put
1:01:50
out a long time ago is doing super well. It's still in this bestseller rank. It's
1:01:55
got this many reviews, this many hours read. If you're on Audible, they started that feature now. Um which is cool. Like
1:02:01
you can see how many hours people have listened to it. And then you can be like, I'm writing this this next book. I'm super excited to work now on book
1:02:07
14. And in this last week, I wrote 25,000 words. So, you guys can be expecting that I'll be done with this.
1:02:14
It'll be going to my Patreon account cuz you were talking about Patreon. Like, hey, you'll see like these chapters are
1:02:19
coming up on Patreon now. So, if you want to read it ahead of time, check it out there. No, no worries if you don't. I love that you want to wait for it.
1:02:25
Otherwise, like, hey, I'm just being at home, being a dad. Like, I went swimming. Like, it literally is just a
1:02:30
lot of it is just, hey, here's here's things that I am actively doing. That's that's a newsletter, right? For a
1:02:36
it's not like you have to say buy my book. You don't have to say buy my book. Your writing speak. These are readers.
1:02:43
They join the newsletter because they want to read. If you have a juicy quote in there or a sample of your work in
1:02:49
progress, they're going to naturally be like, I want more. And they go hunt you down. I mean, and I and I like the idea
1:02:56
and I like the idea of still talking about what you're writing and like talk still talking about your books because a
1:03:02
lot of authors when I've talked about newsletters before like in webinars and things like that and like what what
1:03:08
should you put in there? What should go in your newsletter? I think a lot of the advice or or at least the way that authors have taken the advice is like
1:03:15
okay I should only talk about my books 20% of the time and the other 80% should
1:03:20
be other stuff about like that's not related to my books and I think that it's more like like 20% of the time
1:03:27
you're pitching them on so like hey this book's up for pre-order right but the other that 80% you can still be
1:03:33
talking about your books you're talking about them but you're not it's not a sales pitch exactly and a lot of authors I think get hung up
1:03:40
on that and think that okay I I can't even talk about my books for 80% of the time I have to talk about something else but you can you just do it in a way
1:03:47
that's that's like it's not the hard cell right you're trying to be like like I this is the the coolest line I wrote
1:03:55
this week what do you think about it right that sort of thing and here's zero context enjoy what do I
1:04:01
look at yeah right like exactly like what do you think this means if you you haven't read it yet so you know add the context to
1:04:08
this line yeah like that. Exactly. Put questions in there. Be like, "Hey, uh, I love seeing people respond to
1:04:15
this. Why don't you guys pop in here and um, let me know you're interested and I
1:04:20
might send you a free book." I'll I'll choose someone that responds to this newsletter and like send them a signed
1:04:26
copy of of this previous book that I was just talking about. Something like that. Something fun. Yeah. Just to make it more interu uh
1:04:31
interactive. That brings up a really good point though. What? Cuz at the beginning, if
1:04:37
you're not getting a lot of engagement and it feels like, and Jack has asked this before, but we're going to ask you,
1:04:42
if you feel like you're talking or marketing into a black hole, you just keep on fighting the good black
1:04:49
hole fight, like what do you do? What's the mindset around there? I like that. Or like what should your expectations
1:04:56
be? I mean, cuz you're not going to have this bubbling platform right away. It's going to feel like crickets for a while,
The Long Game of Building a Brand
1:05:02
I would say. So any any brand is 10 years of work before it is a on-site
1:05:10
recognizable thing, right? That's why you hear those 10 years to overnight success, right? We've all heard that,
1:05:16
right? All of us have heard that. And it is way more true than people think. But like if I were like,
1:05:23
what were the next words you would say? Have it your way. Right. Right. I'm loving it. Exactly.
1:05:31
Breie of that Kit Kat bar. right nationwide is on your side. Okay, I got that one.
1:05:37
Like these are out there in the Z guys, but it's only because they hammer us with them over and over and over and
1:05:43
over. Again, it's consistency in in posting, consistency in writing. Nothing sells your last book like your next
1:05:50
book. So like as an author, it is your job to write book that is thing right.
1:05:55
And so you got to go and do the words most of the time and you should have a
1:06:01
little bit of your personal time devoted to these other things like social media and whatever. If you can have someone
1:06:06
else do that for you, do like if if they can act like you set up your brand, you
1:06:12
put down in writing how you want to be perceived and interacted at like with online
1:06:17
as quickly as you can manage to make yourself um removable from that position and
1:06:24
someone else can act like you do and do what you want it to do and say what you would want to say to the point where you
1:06:29
look at it, you're like, did I post that? I might have posted that. Oh, was it her? I don't know. Was it him? Could
1:06:34
have been. If you can get to that point, step away and let them do that while you write your books as much as possible.
1:06:39
Like go in there, you know, talk to your fans, do your thing. Like you don't want to like abdicate that entirely, but you
1:06:45
want to like in general like, hey, I don't need to be writing the newsletter. I can just check it and make sure it's
1:06:51
what I would say. I don't need to be doing this blog post. I don't need to be doing this, but I will spot check it and
1:06:56
make sure it's what I want it to be like, right? As quickly as you can, that's the way to do that for sure. In
1:07:01
terms of getting people there in the first place, I would say there are always ways to do that. There are
1:07:07
giveaways, are loss leaders, there are reader magnets. So, you can be like, "Hey, um, join my newsletter list and
1:07:14
get a short story about this thing that no one else has read. You can't get anywhere else delivered through
1:07:19
BookFunnel." And it comes comes right to you and and it's fantastic. Come and check it out.
1:07:25
Or you could even be like, "Hey, uh, you know, I saw that you came to my website and you didn't buy anything. Why don't
1:07:30
you take the first book for free on me and uh while you're here, you know, while you're looking that at the end of
1:07:35
the book, join my newsletter, get the next books in series, do all these other things. I mean, any of that works. And
1:07:42
obviously going out there and talking to other people and being like, "Hey, you're in my genre. Could I hop on and
1:07:48
do a live stream with you somewhere on like your Facebook socials or on your socials like whatever it is live stream
1:07:54
YouTube channel and just have a conversation with you about like yeah you've been here a while can I talk
1:08:00
about what my experience has been and we can compare notes and then hopefully your fans like me my fans like you
1:08:06
hopefully you know stuff like that and so it's it is all about who you know but it's not about like it's not about
1:08:12
having gone out there and like being like throwing money at things and whatever else. It's like going out there
1:08:18
and and making friendships and and genuine relationships. And um I have a whole talk on this called relational
1:08:24
marketing. It's great. Awesome. Where can that be found? Can't unless you sign up for your newsletter.
1:08:30
Unless I sign up for your newsletter. Right. So that's a good one. I do I do have a YouTube channel. Um so you can you can
1:08:37
find some of my moreformational stuff there. Because of this I might make some of those more public. Yeah. But
1:08:43
typically I think you should typically I do do keep those for people in my own company. Um but I at like
Final Thoughts and Resources
1:08:50
conferences and stuff they they take them and put them on YouTube. So if you look up relational marketing Dakota crowd it's probably on YouTube somewhere. So So that's a thing or
1:08:57
system for series uh building that was that was another one that would kind of work with the previous thing that you
1:09:03
had talked about. So those will probably be on YouTube somewhere. I should put them live on my own channel because my
1:09:08
channel Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if they're already out there, you might as well. Yeah. Yeah. Might as well. Yeah. I'll
1:09:14
I'll try and get those up. I'll shoot you I'll shoot at least Jack cuz I have I have Jack's number. I'll shoot him a link and he can give it to you.
1:09:21
Other everyone else can just follow me directly and then, you know, I'll keep it for myself. Yeah. Otherwise, just find me on on um I
1:09:27
think let me check YouTube. I think am I I think my account Dakota crowd author I think is what I
1:09:33
found when I did a quick search. Yes. Dakota crowd author. Yep. So, I subscribed. I subscribed.
1:09:38
Yeah. Yeah, it was it was crazy how fast I started building up sub uh like followers and and such on uh YouTube. I
1:09:43
had no idea that it was quite as important as it as it actually is. Yeah, absolutely. All right, Dakota,
1:09:50
this has been a great episode of the podcast. Thank you for coming on here for for this this nice conversation. It
1:09:58
was a little a little more casual. Sometimes we've got like a really set agenda, but it was nice to just kind of
1:10:04
be able to ask whatever was off, you know, the top of our head and that sort of thing. Before we go, I want to give you the opportunity to shout anything
1:10:10
out, uh, your books, your publishing company, wherever that might be. For sure. Well, thanks so much, guys.
1:10:16
And it's been really fun to be here and thanks for the opportunity cuz I love this stuff. It's it's super fun. I I
1:10:21
love the idea that there might be someone out there who takes some of this information and does cool, successful
1:10:27
things with it. So, hopefully that's you. And uh if you want to tell me about how awesome that experience was for you, you can always reach out to me at uh
1:10:34
Mount Press. Mountress.com is my website. mandopress.store. You can find me on Facebook, any social media
1:10:41
actually, including YouTube, Instagram, Tik Tok, all all those places. You can find me on any of those. So, wherever
1:10:47
you like to be, I'm also there. If you're looking for a cool new series, if you are uh a big fan of like epic fantasy and things like that, I would
1:10:53
recommend coming into my Completionist Chronicles series. It's 13 books out as of this December, 14 books out by early
1:10:59
next year, 2026. And if you are more a fantasy romance person, I have a new
1:11:04
series called Damsels of Distress. It's uh five five books. They're all standalone, so you can read one, fall in
1:11:10
love with it, and then read all the other ones immediately because of course you will. And otherwise, if you are
1:11:15
looking for advice on Lit RPG, Cultivation Gamelet, we have great communities on Facebook, especially
1:11:20
Discord. Uh you can find us there. Just type those in as search terms. you'll find us very quickly. If you are looking
1:11:27
for a publisher and you are a specifically cultivation lit rpg a game lit, you can definitely reach out to us
1:11:33
at moundpress.com. We have FAQ for actually like contacting us. So that's a thing. We're we're a small company and
1:11:39
we we like to keep it that way, which is is cool. Like we have a set amount of authors, so we don't usually take submissions, but never to try, right?
1:11:46
That's that's the whole point of this uh whole point of this conversation is never to try. Just get out there and try new things. It's awesome.
1:11:51
Absolutely. Well, thank you, Dakota. Absolutely. It was a pleasure and thank you as always to my co-hosts, Kelly
1:11:57
Tanzy and Emma Allison. I couldn't run the show without you. So, thank you for
1:12:03
everything that you do. And thank you to you, our viewers. If you're here on
1:12:08
YouTube, make sure you subscribe to the channel, like this video, and if there is one takeaway you had from it, go
1:12:15
ahead and leave that in the comments so that other people might find it there as well. If you're listening to the podcast
1:12:21
on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or anywhere else, please follow us there and leave a
1:12:26
review. It really does help. From all of us here at Bookfunnel, I want to thank you for listening. We will see you all
1:12:32
in the next one. Thank you for watching. Check out these other videos from BookFunnel and don't forget to subscribe
Outro
1:12:38
to the channel. [Music]