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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.
0:00: I wish I had that advice.
0:01: When I joined, I was watching videos by other writers, and they kept talking about this ATube community.
0:05: I was like, Oh, this is some secret organization.
0:07: I don't know how to get into it.
0:08: And so there was a fellow A tuber who joined about the same time as I did.
0:12: He was like, Hey, you should come over here and join this live stream.
0:14: I was like, OK.
0:14: And then I start meeting people in the community and realized, oh, there's all these live streams you can go to.
0:18: And I thought, I want you, so do not force yourself to do anything because you're not stick with it.
0:23: You don't have to have a YouTube channel where you're publishing content.
0:26: You can go and be part of any of these sprints, whether Booktubers or ATubers.
0:31: You can be in the chat and work alongside with other people and get to meet people in the community and not feel like you're writing alone.
0:36: Hey folks, welcome to the Book Funnel podcast where indie authors get real-world advice on writing, publishing, and growing a career on their own terms.
0:46: 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 connect with your audience.
0:55: Each episode, we aim to bring you insights from authors, experts, and industry insiders who have been there, done that, and then some.
1:01: My name is Jack.
1:02: I am our lead author support specialist here at Book Funnel, and I am joined today by my co-host, Emma Allison.
1:09: And our guest for this episode of the Book Funnel podcast, Shannon Houston, a romanticsy author and YouTuber.
1:18: Shannon, glad to have you here on the Book Funnel podcast.
1:22: Thanks for joining us.
1:22: Well, thank you for having me.
1:23: And I should say you also go by SD Houston.
1:27: Understood that's, that's your pen name.
1:29: So we might, might get interchanged use that interchangeably here.
1:33: But for folks who aren't familiar with you in the audience, tell us a little bit about, you can tell us about your books, but you can also tell us about your YouTuber stuff, just fill us in.
1:42: OK, yeah, so my name is Shannon.
1:44: I do go by the pen name.
1:45: of SC Houston and my YouTube channel is under the name of SC Houston.
1:48: And I'm a romanticy author who writes about, broken characters who face adversity to become better versions of themselves.
1:54: And there may or may not be dragons, but there's always love to find.
1:57: And I'm also the founder and chair of the Author Tube Writing Conference.
2:00: We're now in our 5th year in prepping for that.
2:03: I'm also part of the Self-publishing tips and tricks podcast with Ben Pick, who's also on YouTube.
2:07: We do publish that on YouTube and all major podcast platforms.
2:11: And, yeah, I think that kind of wraps up what I'm doing.
2:14: Yeah, awesome.
2:14: So we we've got a fun conversation today.
2:17: YouTube is, is one of my favorite.
2:19: I'm a YouTube junkie.
2:21: I've, I've mentioned this on the podcast before.
2:23: And so, I'm very familiar with the platform and have long thought about using it as an author myself and have dabbled in it.
2:32: But I, I think there's some of our authors who are probably in the same position and just not sure where to get started.
2:39: And there's, there's some things there to navigate, which I think We're gonna be talking about, I think before we even started recording, Emma, you were talking about your YouTube channel.
2:49: I think we're kind of in a similar situation.
2:51: You said like your new YouTube channel was an extension of your newsletter.
2:55: Right, and I feel kind of the same way.
2:56: I'm kind of, I'm excited about this conversation, I can kind of go down this road.
3:00: So, if somebody is starting a YouTube channel as an author, In 2026, right, there's, there's definitely a lot of things they have to consider, I'm guessing, right?
3:12: But if you were starting an author YouTube, brand new, let's just pretend you're starting from scratch.
3:18: How would you approach it?
3:19: So what would be the things you would look at?
3:21: Yeah, we talked about this, about how you really need to be intentional about your, your motivations for starting a YouTube channel and what you expect from your time on YouTube.
3:29: So do you want to Reach readers or do you want to reach writers?
3:32: And there are two separate communities on YouTube.
3:34: You have BookTube and you also have AuthorTube, which is where the Author Tube writing conference came in.
3:39: Now, Author Tube is a very small community compared to some of the other ones like the gamer community, the BookTube community, all of those.
3:45: The ones, the authors who tend to do the best as far as getting in a reader facing channel, are those who start off in the BookTube.
3:55: Space.
3:55: So they start off, and it's very important to, you know, if I was starting over, I would get very, you know, granular with my niche of talking about romanticy.
4:03: I do tend to write epic romanticy, so I'll probably go with more of those types of books and talk about them.
4:08: And so BookTube is all about, you know, reviewing books.
4:11: And, so I would do that.
4:13: And so a lot of, a lot of the major, authors who are making money with reader facing channels are from the BookTube community.
4:20: Initially, so, and many of them will start a good year or 2 years out just talking about books, and they grow their audience and then they put out their book and then now they have their audience already built in.
4:30: So yeah, that's what I would do if I was starting over.
4:32: it's not where I'm at with my channel, but that's what I would do, right, right.
4:36: And I, I've noticed, I've noted both on YouTube and on because the same kind of thing sort of happens on TikTok.
4:42: So for authors in the audience who are thinking about TikTok as opposed to YouTube.
4:46: There's book talk and author talk, and there's BookTube and author tube, they're the same kind of thing, these two different audiences.
4:54: I think that a lot of authors, what I've noticed anyway, is that they start a YouTube channel maybe with the intention of trying to find readers and build that platform, but they wind up talking about the life of being an author, and they make content about being an author and being a writer, maybe with the thought that, oh, Readers might find this interesting, but the type of person, the type of viewer who tends to relate to that kind of content are actually other authors.
5:21: Yeah, if you want to talk about your life as an author, you have to have an audience already.
5:26: You want someone, you have to have people who want to know about what's behind the scenes of this author.
5:30: So if you're brand new, that's not where you want to start.
5:33: Exactly.
5:34: It's like if you're Brandon Sanderson, you can get away with that.
5:37: I think.
5:37: Brandon Sanderson can just, I think we were talking about this.
5:41: Amongst ourselves at Book Funnel this week at one point, which is just like, you know, if Brandon Sanderson wanted to start a gaming channel, he could, he could do whatever he wants, right?
5:51: Because he's, he's well known enough that That whatever he wants to do.
5:55: So you can't look at somebody like Brandon Sanderson and try to emulate exactly what he's doing because he's in a totally different position from what most authors, you know, the position that they are in.
6:08: So I myself, as an author who, I might be weird, I'm an author who doesn't read a whole lot.
6:13: I know we exist.
6:16: We have a support community.
6:18: I know there's reason.
6:21: There's reasons.
6:21: It's like, yeah, I'd rather be writing a book than reading one, but that's another, you know, I consume stories in other ways too.
6:27: 300 books a year, man.
6:29: You gotta keep your fingers in the pie.
6:31: Yeah, well, at any rate, we can, we can, this doesn't have to turn into an intervention here, but But the, the, the idea for me of like starting a BookTube channel or something on TikTok where I'm like reviewing books, would, that sounds painful.
6:49: Are there other ways outside of reviewing books that I could engage in that type of community, or is that, is it pretty much just about And you don't have to sugarcoat it for me, right?
7:01: Is it pretty much just about talking about books and reviewing books?
7:04: I mean, there is another way that would take much longer if, like, say if you don't want to create content, If you go into my channel, I mostly do writing sprints.
7:13: In my writing sprints description box, you will see that there's two spreadsheets.
7:18: One is to an author tube spreadsheet and one is to a booktube spreadsheet.
7:21: And we help to facilitate between both communities, and those are all live streams.
7:26: So if you go to book live streams and You make sure you talk in the chat, you interact with people, and then one day you say, Hey, I have a book coming out now.
7:34: You've already made all these connections with people.
7:36: You might actually, the book, the person who owns the BookTube channel might say, Hey, I want to read that.
7:40: You're, you're, you wrote something that's up my, up my, and I do that.
7:44: My one of my biggest supporters on my Kickstarters was a Booktuber, so.
7:49: Yeah, right, right.
7:51: OK.
7:51: See, because so the live thing like I can do that.
7:54: I mean, I do our webinars.
7:56: I can entertain a crowd.
7:57: I have no problem.
7:57: And I've seen, I've seen folks doing that kind of thing.
8:01: So I'm glad I asked because, yeah, you, my, my, if I did a channel reviewing books, it might be kind of, I don't know, it would be.
8:09: They're like, OK, we're we're reviewing Dune for the 5th time, you know, in that many years, that sort of thing.
8:16: Booktuppers will do live streams that are for sprints that are for reading, and they're like, Hey, this is February.
8:21: We're gonna be reading, you know, romance this month or whatever.
8:24: And they, they have their own marathons that they do that are reading marathons where they, they read certain, you know, genres and stuff like that, right?
8:31: And so they'll like be sitting down and if I'm not mistaken, so the, the creator is actively reading on the live stream.
8:38: And you come back and you then about it.
8:41: Right.
8:41: And then the viewers may or may not be reading along, but they're there for like the conversation, almost like it's, it's kind of like a little bit of that book club type experience is, is the idea.
8:52: Which is, which is really neat.
8:54: So, so, yeah, OK, so there's, there's more ways to get into this thing other than just like reviewing books, but that's probably the most common is what it is the most common.
9:02: Yeah.
9:02: And there's no conflict of interest.
9:05: Say you're an author, you've been publishing for a long time.
9:07: I can't, the idea of reviewing other authors' books, I don't mind doing it, but the audience doesn't care that you're an author reviewing other people's books.
9:17: So most book.
9:18: Every start off only reviewing books with the idea that they're going to bring in their book later or they're writing a book that they're going to bring in later.
9:24: Most of the ones I've seen that have been successful, they're like 2 years into our channel, so they've built up a readership of people that are in their genre who are reading that genre, and they may not have actually made relationships with other authors.
9:36: Yeah, for sure, sure.
9:38: And I suppose it depends on how you approach it.
9:40: If you're open and honest with people about it.
9:43: I think that would be that there's a level of transparency, I guess it would probably be important, right, right, and there's, there's a couple of like marathons that I've done for the books.
9:51: I've always done the same ones, and it's going this year and I missed it, but it had, it didn't go last year, but I went two years in a row, which was the Black Author Tuber readathon during February, where we read black black authors who are on YouTube.
10:04: We read their books and we talked about it, and they would always know that we were reading their books and talking about it.
10:11: So could authors do a version like that where they're like cross promoting.
10:15: So say you get a bunch of authors together and we're all gonna read each other's books in a marathon.
10:20: It's basically another group promo, but yeah, I'm sure it could be done.
10:24: I, I've, I've not done it.
10:25: I do notice that, like the, the one who.
10:27: organizes the Black Author Tuberreathon is Margaret Pinnard, and she's more of a booktuber.
10:31: She's also an author, but she's more of a booktuber, and so they have themes.
10:34: There's like themes every month, and so that's one that she's brought back a couple of years.
10:38: So I'm trying to think.
10:39: I don't, I don't think they've ever done anything else without.
10:42: It could be done.
10:42: It could be.
10:44: Yeah.
10:45: Now, with, with writing sprints, I did have a question about this.
10:49: When you do those live writing sprints, this is something I've done like a while back, but is that, does that tend to attract other authors?
10:56: Or is that, or do readers sometimes get attracted to that as well?
11:01: I would say the majority of my audience are writers, but not all.
11:06: I have some booktubers who pop in.
11:08: There's also students because I do try to label my sprints as productivity sprints, and there's always students who are looking to find sprints to be part of.
11:15: And so, you know, they get to hear my all my books when I'm writing.
11:19: Yeah, and there's some people who just like to do housework to sprints as well, so you get kind of the whole gamut, yeah, yeah.
11:25: And so when you're, for those who have never heard of like what a writing sprint is like, like, can you, can you, you know, give a narrate the process, right?
11:33: So you're, you're sitting there, you're writing away.
11:36: Are you sharing your screen as you're writing?
11:38: Are you talking as you're going along?
11:40: Cause I know I myself, I don't.
11:41: I might talk to myself when I'm writing, but not a whole lot.
11:45: I don't share any of what I'm doing.
11:47: I actually dictate like drafts when I'm revising editing, and I'm not dictating, but there are some writers who do.
11:53: There's a writer who goes nearly every night, and he has on screen his document as he's writing it.
11:59: I don't think I could do that.
12:00: No, I would be way too nervous.
12:02: I feel like people are judging me.
12:03: They're judging me.
12:04: The sentence, no, it's terrible.
12:06: So yeah, there's different methods of doing it, but yeah, and I typically like silent writing sprints.
12:11: Most writing sprints are silent because it's just time for you to work on whatever it is you're working on, but there are some authors who like music and they put music to their sprints, so yeah, yeah, right, no, I, I, I did it.
12:23: This was quite a while ago that I did some of this, and, you know, I didn't find a whole lot of traction, but I was always curious to know like who was stopping by, like, who were the people who would see that and be like, oh, that looks interesting, you know, would, is that another potential way to to find those readers on those platforms, but, you know, I digress, it's It's, it's, it's still an option though, and I, I think for like, would you, I, I guess for, for most authors who are looking to, to get into YouTube, is it, is it probably better to just like do the type of content that sounds interesting to you or that you'd actually be like, well, that sounds like something I would wanna do.
13:01: I would want to make that kind of content as opposed to being like, OK, well, I gotta force myself to be a book reviewer now.
13:07: Yeah, YouTube is not easy, so do not force yourself to do anything because you're not stick with it.
13:11: So, no, exactly, but this is a good segue that if you just want to check out the community that you don't have to have a YouTube channel where you're publishing content.
13:21: You can go and be part of any of these sprints, whether Booktubers.
13:24: Or A tubers, you could be in the chat and work alongside with other people and get to meet people in the community and not feel like you're writing alone.
13:32: Anyone suggest that authors do that for a while before they start a YouTube channel, like, immerse yourself.
13:37: I mean, that's common.
13:38: That's common advice, like, hang out for a while, see what everybody's doing.
13:43: I wish I had that advice.
13:44: When I joined YouTube watching videos by other writers, and they kept talking about this author tube community.
13:49: I was like, Oh, this is some secret organization.
13:51: I don't know how to get into it.
13:52: I had no idea that there was live streams or live events or anything like that on YouTube until there was a fellow author tuber joined about the same time as I did.
14:00: He actually became my co-host on self-publishing tips and tricks on podcasts.
14:04: And he was like, hey, You should come over here and join this live stream.
14:07: They're, they're going to be critiquing live people, you know, people's works and stuff like that.
14:10: I was like, OK.
14:11: And then I start meeting people in the community and realize, oh, there's all these live streams you can go to.
14:15: And I thought, I want to do this.
14:16: And then I stopped making content after that.
14:17: I don't really make a lot of content anymore.
14:19: I just do the writing sprints.
14:20: Yeah, right, right, right.
14:22: So, and, and that was one thing I, I guess that we, we talked about briefly beforehand, which is that you don't even To be a part of the community, you don't even have to have a YouTube channel, right?
14:33: There's, there's a lot to get out of it as an author.
14:35: You do need the YouTube channel because that that gives you your handle to be able to go into sprints, but you don't have to have content, right, right.
14:42: And, and of course, YouTube, when people, when some people.
14:45: Think of a YouTube channel, they might think of like having published content, but technically your YouTube, like every Gmail account, I think has a YouTube channel connected with it.
14:56: So even if you have, like, if you just have Gmail and you've never logged into YouTube, you technically have a, a channel.
15:02: It just hasn't created any content.
15:04: But that's, that's, that's a good note.
15:06: That's a good note.
15:06: Where would you, are there some creators other than yourself?
15:10: Obviously, I think it would be a great place to start, but are there any other creators?
15:14: That you would suggest for somebody who's new to the author tube community depending on what they're looking for.
15:19: , my gosh, there's, there's quite a few.
15:21: I don't know if you've ever had Dale L.
15:22: Roberts on here.
15:25: He's, he's got a couple of YouTube channels.
15:27: He's got a couple more than just a couple, but he's only got two that are writing focused.
15:30: he is switching.
15:31: He's actually, he's a probably a good one to watch for this next year.
15:33: I told him I'd be watching him because he's switching over to fiction.
15:37: He's been doing nonfiction for sort of off the exercise and health space, and then for the last 10 years been writing books.
15:44: Authors, and so he used, he's a nonfiction author writing books to help authors in different spheres, indie authors, and so his YouTube channel is great, and he's got over 100,000 subscribers between his two channels.
15:55: And, and now he's gonna start a third channel that's gonna be fiction because he's switching over to fiction this year, right, right.
16:01: He'd be a great one to start with.
16:02: I recommend for sure.
16:03: Yeah, and I'm sure a lot of folks here on YouTube are probably familiar with his main channel talking about self-publishing.
16:10: Funny story, I actually saw him at the gym.
16:14: At Author Nation Vegas at Author Nation.
16:17: I know he went to the gym there quite often.
16:19: So, so yeah, I, I made it there the first day to the gym, and then the book funnel crew likes to stay up late and party.
16:28: So that's, that was, that was the extent of my gym going at Author Nation.
16:34: He actually did write a book, YouTube for Authors.
16:37: Yes, I, I own that book.
16:39: I have it like a couple of times, I think.
16:41: Yeah, no, he's, he's a great resource.
16:44: And Dale, if you're seeing this, reach out.
16:47: Let's, oh, I could connect you if you want.
16:49: He's a good friend of mine.
16:49: Oh, for sure.
16:50: We did speak at Author Nation.
16:52: In fact, I think it was, I think I was talking to you and he was right there.
16:55: And if I'm not mistaken, so.
16:58: But, but yeah, absolutely, we'd love to have him on.
17:02: There's, there's tons of talk about in this, this YouTube space, but the community is, the community is there for authors, authors to engage in.
17:11: And so even if it's not something like there's so much to get out of it, even if you're not planning to create content yourself, and, and, you know, maybe one day you will, maybe one day you won't, that's, you know, neither here nor there, maybe in some cases.
17:23: I mean, and then probably a bottom line for some people is it's a way to create it to create another revenue stream.
17:29: When I started YouTube, my idea was to reach readers, and then I realized I was not making content for readers.
17:34: My idea after that was create revenue.
17:37: Yeah, Yeah, but you really do have to be consistent with your video making to, to make, I make some money off my writing sprints.
17:43: It's not a lot, but it pays for my streaming platform, so I'm good with that.
17:46: Sure, sure.
17:48: No, yeah, and, and it's, I remember, actually this is kind of, I did, I forgot about this, because I had created my YouTube channel, boy, this is back in 2018, I think, and this is, I created it right before YouTube changed their requirements for monetization.
18:05: So I made like, I posted my first few videos, I think I made a penny.
18:11: Because back then you, you could be monetized immediately, and then they're like, we're changing it, and now you have to have this many subscribers and it was like, oh, it took the wind out of my sail.
18:21: I was actually doing, doing self narrated chapters of my book at the time.
18:29: And I know that.
18:30: So that was kind of my plan then.
18:32: I, I don't have the time to do that now.
18:34: I got too much going on.
18:35: But is that another angle like for authors like with whether they have their audiobook that's either they've had narrated, however, or narrating themselves.
18:44: I know I've found some authors that way and listen to their work.
18:48: Mike, is that kind of that the audiobook space kind of its own separate bubble, separate from book tube.
18:54: I have seen authors who are trying to have a reader facing platform on YouTube by having their audiobooks on there.
19:01: Some people do really great.
19:02: Willow Winters, she does awesome, I'm sure.
19:05: But you know, YouTube, just, like you said, YouTube changes.
19:07: It's gone back and forth.
19:08: At one point you couldn't monetize an audiobook that was sold anywhere else.
19:12: Now I think you can, so it could change.
19:15: So, I think you guys have had Katie Cross on here.
19:18: She's got her audiobooks on there and she's growing her channel.
19:21: So yeah, it works for some authors, but I've seen some, but there's a gentleman in the community that he's actually, he actually publishes his chapter by chapter, self-narrated of his books, and you know, but his goal is not really to grow his channel, it's to have a legacy for his children because he knows.
19:35: He's not got much luck longer in this world.
19:38: So he's trying to get everything up there for his, his children, but one day that channel will probably make some money for his, his children as well.
19:44: But you're you're tugging to my heartstrings there.
19:45: Oh dear.
19:46: Oh, but, there's, there's one creator in particular, I discovered his, his work, and I think he does kind of almost like YouTube first.
19:55: Like he writes it, and then he narrates it himself.
19:58: And that's the first thing that people see.
20:00: It is on like it goes to YouTube first before it goes anywhere else.
20:03: One of these days, I'm, his name is escaping me, but I know how production heavy is his narration?
20:08: Like, is he just talking into the microphone or is he like really like, like performing and I mean, he, he, he does a little bit of the voices.
20:16: It's not, it's nothing too, it's nothing.
20:18: So this is approachable for the average author, this type of channel then you think narrating your own book that narrating a book is actually a hurdle for a lot of authors in the community.
20:30: Cause they'll, they'll ask me, well, you do podcasts.
20:31: What's the best equipment to have?
20:33: What's the best, and I'm like, you know, if you just wanna get your chapters up there, you don't really need like expensive equipment.
20:38: Then it goes all into production and what program to use and things.
20:41: So for a lot of authors like, oh, that's a lot to think about.
20:43: never mind.
20:45: Yeah, yeah, we did a webinar on this self-narration topic.
20:50: I know when I, when I was narrating my own chapters, I was, it was back in the day when the, the Apple headphones were the, the wired ones with the microphone.
21:00: That was the microphone I used to record them, which did, it did OK.
21:05: I just recorded them in my apartment, and it, and it worked.
21:08: But yeah, that's that I could see that being, it's, it's not for everybody, I don't think, but, but you know, and the other thing too is that that channel that I'm, I'm talking about, he, because he's releasing he's releasing that audio content, but he's releasing it regularly, and each video is like an hour long at minimum, which, so there's like a time investment there.
21:29: And he's kind of dedicated to that platform.
21:32: So that's, that's maybe that's a totally different.
21:35: I didn't mean to take us down a bunny trail here, Shannon.
21:38: I mean, it's OK.
21:39: I mean, these are all things that the author community talks about, yeah, so, but, but it might not be as simple, I guess the little point to take from this is that it might not be as simple as just taking your audiobooks and uploading them to YouTube and snapping your fingers and success.
21:54: Right?
21:55: It's not that simple.
21:57: There's, if you're going to, there's things that YouTube wants you to do as a creator, and maybe we can talk about that, which is regardless of what kind of creator you want to be on YouTube, what are the things that YouTube kind of wants you to do?
22:12: How do you make it big on YouTube, Shannon?
22:14: , But, but, but no, you're familiar with the platform.
22:19: I'm not trying to be too tongue in cheek here, but like, you know.
22:23: In terms of like uploads and your content, what is YouTube generally looking for just in a general sense.
22:29: So, you know, there's, there's nothing strictly given out there, but they definitely want consistent content, you know, and again it, it changes like when shorts, when YouTube shorts first came out, I was doing, I started doing YouTube shorts.
22:40: I was just writing prompts, and they're anywhere from like 3 to 8 seconds long, and I was like putting them out every few days, and then, and I saw they were hitting big, so then I did.
22:49: Every day and then I took like a 3 month break and I came back and then I wasn't hardly getting any views.
22:53: So you have to be careful and they don't tell you what that break time is.
22:56: Can't do shorts and get hit those big numbers again.
22:59: Like it's very few people with hit those big numbers.
23:02: it's saturated it's more saturated now.
23:04: So, but YouTube doesn't like you to take breaks, but they don't say like how long of a break are you allowed to take.
23:08: So most assume you need to publish something at least once every week, to continue to stay in the algorithm.
23:15: That's not bad.
23:16: Yeah, and, so yeah, I, I can't really tell you what, what it takes to hit big.
23:20: My, my videos don't, when I did was making videos, I don't hit like that many views.
23:25: I have one that took off that I have like, I don't know, 28,000 views on.
23:28: I have no idea why.
23:31: I just go with it, but I'm not making videos anymore, so I don't break that down anymore to see what it, what works.
23:37: But at the time I was in, there are gurus on YouTube who teach you how to do YouTube.
23:42: They do YouTube videos to teach you how to do YouTube.
23:46: And they do live streams.
23:47: Daniel Battal, Nick Nimmon, I mean, I followed these guys for so long when I was making my videos, and, and I went to one of, I, I would go to their live streams, and they would review channels that my channel was one they got, they reviewed once.
23:58: So it's really cool.
23:59: Yeah, so I could see like what they told me.
24:01: I mean, this is really good and this is what you should work on.
24:03: And so I was doing all the things and maybe I would get more views if I was more consistent, but I'm not consistent with content that I publish, you know, now, because I decided, bless Dale, because Dale's like, oh, I can get you sponsorships.
24:14: I'm like, Dale, I don't think I want to make videos anymore.
24:15: I just want to write.
24:17: Yeah, yeah, and it's fair, yeah, and I was like, I don't want to be in a deal with the sponsorship where I have to make a video to when I want to be writing.
24:26: And so that's why I decided, I decided that 2 years ago I was like, you know what, I grew my channel.
24:29: I'm good.
24:30: I'm where I'm at.
24:30: I'm in a community, but that's, it has to be an intention again.
24:33: That's what it goes back to when you start your, your channel, what is your intention, and it can change, but what's your intention when you start and can you get behind it.
24:41: Yeah, exactly, exactly.
24:43: No, that that's a good perspective to have.
24:45: That's kind of how I feel.
24:46: Like I, I want to do it, but I want to do it in a way that I can incorporate it naturally into my production process anyway, which is why the idea of narrating chapters as part of my final editing process, I mean, I could do that, but I'm only publishing a book every 4 months, so consistency, and then there's like, there's, there's maybe, and again, we're we're kind of talking theory here, and so I don't want to.
25:09: You know, because Shannon, I know your, your main focus is on live streams, but I know for some authors, it could be something as simple as having a YouTube channel where it's like an extension of their newsletter.
25:19: They have a weekly video that they upload, and that's in their newsletter, and they're not, you're not trying to necessarily build this big audience.
25:26: on YouTube, but it's a way for you to connect with your readers, with your readers.
25:31: Your live streams, I bet could be a part of that too, if you're, if you're keeping your readers on your newsletter in the loop, like, yep, I've got a, a live stream that I'm doing a writing sprint on, you come hang out with me, and that's a regular thing that you do.
25:44: Like this is this connecting with readers thing is a big thing we've been hitting on.
25:48: , because some of my Kickstarter backers have come over to my YouTube channel to hang out.
25:53: Yeah, yeah, exactly, and I bet, I bet that's cool to have those folks who like they, you know, because, because so much of it these days, because there are a lot of things happen online, there's like sending it out, out an email to your newsletter.
26:08: Maybe you get a reply from a reader every now and then.
26:11: I don't know about you guys.
26:12: My readers on my newsletter pretty much read what I have to say.
26:14: They click on the stuff, they do the things.
26:17: Not maybe your newsletters are better than mine.
26:19: That could probably, that's probably it.
26:21: But when you're on a live stream and you're engaging with them, even though it's in chat, you're engaging with them live, I bet, I bet there's something fulfilling about that.
26:29: Yes, right, yeah, you forming that connection and for them to, to be like, hey, I know this author in a way that you get that sort of parasocial relationship, right?
26:38: And I think now with the whole with AI and everything, it's nice for readers to know that they can see the author and see what they're working on and what they're doing.
26:48: Right, to know that you're like a real, a real human being.
26:51: Exactly, exactly.
26:53: That's, that's right.
26:54: Have you, have you dabbled at all?
26:55: I have to put this out there.
26:57: Have you dabbled at all with the book funnels digital e-book signing on live streams?
27:01: So I have not yet.
27:03: OK.
27:05: You're good.
27:05: Yeah, well, I, I think we talked about this because you, you brought it up.
27:08: You showed me, and I just got done with fulfilling my Kickstarter where I use B Fun delivery when I delivered my signature on some, and I was like that would have been great like two months ago.
27:17: Yes, well, and I, and I thought of, and I'm sorry, we, we should have, we should have considered your Kickstarter schedule when we were releasing the feature, but, shame on us.
27:27: But, no, I, I think it's, I'm just interested to see how it will work in that live stream space.
27:33: , cause I think that there's some potential benefit to it there, and I've been talking to lots of folks about it and, and, and kicking, kicking ideas around.
27:43: If you ever do experiment with it on a live stream, let me know, because I'd like to, you know, be a fly on the wall a little bit, but also just, you know, get your, get your thoughts on it.
27:52: I will, definitely because I'm, I just started, it's brand new this year.
27:55: I'm doing this because I don't do book marketing probably like I should.
27:58: I'm doing one live stream on Fridays now where it's book marketing and so I can bring that in to show, OK, this is what I'm gonna try today is doing this for, for book marketing.
28:05: Yeah, fun.
28:06: Yeah, I'll have to check out that, that live stream.
28:09: OK, I just had an idea.
28:11: Tell me if it's dumb.
28:12: This is what I do.
28:13: This is what I, this happens to this at Book Funnel.
28:15: This happens on a daily basis, Shannon.
28:17: So we're talking reader engagement, talking generating sales, newsletter, super fan engagement.
28:23: What if, what if in my newsletter I'm like you all, I'm giving away my print book.
28:29: Because I do that anyway.
28:30: And if you come to YouTube at this time, you can watch me wrap it and you can pick out your stickers and everything, and 3 people get it for free and then the rest of you all got to put some gold in my palm, but 3 people, so meet me because I'm like, Free stuff.
28:45: Who doesn't want free stuff?
28:46: And if you can get it personalized live, I'm like, that's good bait, isn't it?
28:50: You could also do the raffle right there online.
28:54: We do that.
28:54: Yeah, you do it live.
28:56: Decide who wins right there live.
28:58: Yeah, exactly.
28:59: Well, you know, the follow up question is, if nobody comes or if like 2 or 3 people come and you're, and this is for TikTok, anything live, what do you do as an author or a content creator when it's crickets?
29:11: You just, you roll with it and you make it the best that you can make it.
29:14: I mean, I, I have a street team that's doing, that have challenges and stuff.
29:19: I did my street team for my last book.
29:21: I had only 3 people, but they were really great.
29:23: This time I had 3 people sign up and only 1 person's doing stuff, but every week I say, Guess what?
29:27: She won the prize for this week, and you know, I'll just make it the best I can make it because that's what happens sometimes.
29:33: Just keep trucking, right?
29:35: You kind of.
29:36: You kind of get at that, this isn't a, we, we have some, I'm glad you're here, Shannon.
29:41: Sometimes we have guests on the podcast, like you, we mentioned Katie Cross, like, Katie Cross needs no introduction.
29:46: She's made it.
29:47: She's like, you know, she can just walk in the room and everybody goes, oh my gosh, it's Katie Cross.
29:52: But, hi, Katie.
29:54: But, you know, sometimes I feel like for a lot of authors, that's maybe a little bit harder to relate to.
29:59: And this isn't, this isn't anything that Katie did.
30:02: It's just that Katie's already there.
30:03: It's kind of like The Brandon Sanderson thing we were talking about, like, Brandon Sanderson has his own conference for Pete's sake.
30:09: Book Funnel was there, and that just seems, that's so lofty and far off.
30:15: And, but I like this conversation of, yes, sometimes, you know, you got 3 people in your street team and only 1 shows up to the live event, and you just got to roll with it.
30:23: And you got to let not let that discourage you because at the beginning, it can be very discouraging, a lot of that stuff because you're starting from scratch.
30:31: Right, yeah,, I did just think there's another way you could pivot from that though, if you did it as a live stream on YouTube, Emma, if no one shows up, you can say, you know what, I've got these great prizes, and, no one's here to claim them.
30:43: So if you watch this video, you can comment down below, and I will do a raffle from the people who leave a comment.
30:48: That's what I was gonna, that's what I was gonna, I was thinking about maybe go into it having a secondary plan mentally about, you know, OK, if it's, if nobody's there live, just treat it.
30:59: Like pre-recorded.
31:00: Yeah, you know me, you know, you connect to people, say, hey, Shannon, I'm doing this thing over here.
31:04: I'd love for it if you could show, you know, if you, if you can show up or tell your audience about it or whatever, and I would tell my audience.
31:10: And so it's that networking.
31:12: That's what, you know, maybe I'll do my first one.
31:15: Maybe I'll do my first one right after we record our, is it live?
31:19: I keep forgetting, is it live?
31:21: Or do you record it and then you post it.
31:24: OK, so maybe I'll do my first YouTube live.
31:26: Give away there on your, is there room for that, or should I do it after?
31:30: No, we can make room for it.
31:31: I think that's great.
31:32: People love it when you can give stuff away.
31:34: And the things I, I do it through Streamyard that is a streaming platform, and we can just tell them to put hashtag in a word that follows a hashtag in the chat.
31:42: And then I use a streamyard function that can do the raffle, and it shows going through all the names of everybody who does it.
31:47: It's right there.
31:47: And then it does the whole like rap, you know, confetti and everything.
31:51: So that's awesome, sweet.
31:53: OK, that's gonna be fun.
31:54: OK.
31:54: OK, you let me know when this is going on because I'm like, I will, OK, this is, I haven't actually checked what my date is yet.
32:00: I need to go do that.
32:01: You're the very first one.
32:02: You're, you're the first of February, which is, can I.
32:06: Am I disqualified from winning the raffle though is what I want to know when Emma's giving away her book.
32:11: If you want my high dark women's fiction fay, fantasy, you can join the rafflejack, Emma, and I will personalize it and you you can pick out your stickers and your pens and all of that.
32:26: But so, so there's, there's, there's a, I don't know if we've, we've discussed it here, but this event you guys are doing together.
32:34: This kind of, or this collaboration, whatever it is.
32:37: Tell us about that here, because I don't want folks in the audience to feel left out, like, what's this thing they're doing?
32:42: Well, because I knew that my channel is mostly writer facing, but this the first time I did it was a couple of years ago, and I thought, I want something that can bring in, you know, readers, and I get to also meet more people in the new genre that I was brand new writing in it's a romanticsy, and cause I didn't know anybody, and I had published already, but in fantasy only.
33:01: And so, and then I thought, and also include my community.
33:04: So I called it Charmed chats and happily Ever after sprints.
33:06: I contacted many authors.
33:07: I contacted Emma's.
33:09: I was reading one of her books.
33:10: I was like, I love this book.
33:11: And I was like, she's not gonna respond.
33:12: But I always say it's always a no until you ask.
33:14: So I asked lots of people, and Emma responded.
33:16: So she came on.
33:17: That's when I first met Emma.
33:18: It was a couple of years ago.
33:19: And she came on the Charm chats, and it was just, it's just me, you know, I read, I try to read the book ahead of time, ask some questions about the book, talk about the writing process, open it up for the chat to ask questions if there's readers.
33:28: In the, in the chat that went to talk with the author, then we play a game and then we do a writing sprint.
33:33: And so I'm doing it again this year and Emma's going, you're actually on the very first day of February 1st at 3:00 p.m. Central, sorry.
33:39: So you're gonna have to email me your address so I can send you a print because I, I did all kinds of fancy art in the print version this time.
33:46: It's beautiful.
33:47: I want to give it to people so they can have it.
33:51: I don't know if, do you think it'll get here before the because I'd love to show it on screen, but you can show it on screen too if you want to.
33:56: I'll just send it via Amazon.
33:58: OK, that'll go fast.
33:59: I'll just send it via Amazon because you'll then you'll get there in 2 days.
34:03: Right, fresh off the press.
34:05: Yeah, that's, that's something that I was doing on my YouTube channel to try to reach more of an audience of like readers and stuff, and that series from two years ago is still being watched by, I still get views on it, which is really interesting because my writing sprints, they don't get views on it after like a week is gone, then I get no more views.
34:21: Yeah, sure, sure, because it's happening right then, but yeah, that's interesting.
34:24: So you also have the author to, I want to make sure I get this right, the author ube writing conference.
34:31: Yes.
34:32: I was thinking, is it A tube or author tuber, but it's author tube writing conference and this you've been doing this for 5 years, so this is your, this is year 6.
34:41: No, this is our 5th year.
34:43: This is the 5th year.
34:44: OK, awesome.
34:45: I, I, cause I wanted to talk about this, because obviously I was aware of this, but then right before we hopped on, I went and I, I scrolled through your, your channel, and I looked because you have archive, an archive playlist for each year, and these archives are huge.
35:02: There's a ton of stuff in there.
35:03: I'm like, oh my gosh, there's just so much for, for authors there to even go back to, even if like they.
35:10: So, so, let's talk about maybe just how that all started.
35:14: I'm sure just a natural evolution of your YouTube channel, and then what, what it's it doing today?
35:20: So, when I started it is when I realized, oh, my channel is writer facing.
35:24: I think I was about 5 months into my channel, and I was like, and I want to grow now and to monetize.
35:29: How can I do that?
35:30: And at the same time on a separate, separate end, I was like, COVID, I can't go to conferences.
35:36: And I don't know if I wanna pay for an online conference, and I don't even know what that's about, especially not making many, any money yet.
35:43: And, and I was like, what can I do?
35:45: I was like, oh, and I was just getting into the author tube community.
35:47: That's when I was just introduced to it, and I was like, oh, all these people have so many, you know, they have this knowledge, and we could just come together and just share it all.
35:55: And it started off as a 3-day weekend.
35:57: It's been a 3-day weekend for 4 years.
35:58: This year is the first year that we're going down to just 1 day because it is a lot of work.
36:02: So, but it was a 3 day weekend and we, you know, we brought on writers and publishers.
36:06: We try to hit, we try to be as inclusive as possible and bring out people in the chat space as well, but that's a little bit harder on YouTube.
36:12: Either you don't get a response or there's not, there's actually not as many on YouTube as well.
36:16: So, yeah, to talk about everything, writing and publishing for 3 days and just share our knowledge with each other.
36:22: And yeah, that's, that's where it kind of came from.
36:24: And it did grow my channel pretty fast.
36:25: I, I monetized in the 2nd years.
36:28: Yeah, no, that's, that's, that's awesome.
36:30: And you, you've had, you've had just like scrolling through there like there's some other author tubers in there, there's some other industry, folks in there from what I can tell you drafted digital on there a story origin, which I know is your competitor,, but, so, sorry, or, and then, you know, Julie Broad is actually one of our special guest speakers for this year, and she's been part of the conference, I think, every year, year except for the first year, but she's, she's with the, the book launch, what's it called?
36:58: I think I'm missing a word.
36:59: Book launchers is the name of the channel.
37:01: Yes, yes.
37:02: So, yeah, so she's me there, yeah, we've had some really great people on there, of course, Dale, Dale was the first person I pitched it to when it was just an idea in my head.
37:09: It was the first time I was meeting him on like a video chat, and I was like, I promised I'd come to this to pitch you, but I wanna pitch you.
37:15: He was like, write it up and I'll see.
37:17: And he was our first keynote speaker and, and, and he's been part of the, the conference every year.
37:21: Cool.
37:22: That's cool.
37:22: Would you ever consider doing a reader facing day, kind of like you have author nation, then you have the two days that are reader nation.
37:29: I, I had wanted to.
37:30: I'd brought it up to some of my chairs in the past.
37:32: My co-chairs have changed.
37:33: Changed quite a bit over the years, you know, I'm, I'm the Devin's been with me probably the longest.
37:37: And then, yeah, I brought it up like, couldn't we make like one day where, you know, we could do like, I was thinking about the online signing at that time.
37:43: This was like 2 years ago, and I brought it up to my chairs, but they weren't interested in doing anything like that.
37:47: And I was like, well, I don't want to do this by myself.
37:48: I'm already doing a lot of work.
37:50: But I had thought about it.
37:51: I even thought about because we have a website.
37:53: I even thought about how we can have like one page dedicated to all the authors who are speaking, have their books on that, on that page, but then that would mean more work of setting up that page and We're all volunteer based, and we rotate through the volunteers, so I don't have any way to pay anybody cause we, I don't get paid for the, the conference.
38:08: So there's only so much time I have that I can give to it.
38:11: And and we're dropping down to a day because it takes a lot of time.
38:15: Well, maybe one of the author team at Book Funnel can help do something, you know, sponsored by Book Funnel for our e-book digital signing thing.
38:22: I'll pitch it.
38:23: We'll pitch it.
38:25: We'll pitch it to the CEO.
38:27: No, Book Funnel would love to be a part of whatever way we can.
38:31: I know we would.
38:31: You guys want to spearhead something like that, we'll put it with all the two writing conference, and I just don't have the time myself to do it, even though I have a lot of good ideas about it.
38:40: For sure, for sure, but no, and even, and even if that's not a part of it, like what you're doing for authors and the like I'm looking at this all of the information that's in there, it's very information dense and even if you're reducing it down to one day still, like that's something we, we love to be a part of helping other authors in the community.
38:59: So yes, I guess we're inviting ourselves here on the podcast.
39:04: I think I said it before.
39:05: I, I had a meeting with my chairs a couple of days ago, and, one of, one of them, Devin, it was actually, she's like, why, why don't we think about trying to get book funnel on?
39:12: And, and I was like, Oh, I'm actually talking to Jack here in a couple of days.
39:15: Yeah, yeah, I'll do, I'll, I'll come on.
39:17: It'll be fun.
39:18: It'll be fun.
39:19: we can talk about book funnel.
39:20: We can tell who we could talk about ebook signing.
39:22: We could talk about all kinds of stuff.
39:23: So that, that'd be, that'd be a blast.
39:26: That'd be a blast.
39:26: We'd love to be a part of it because it's one thing that we're doing actually is we're, we're trying to get out there more.
39:32: Up until the last few years, book fun, we've kind of been like a turtle, we've just been like in our own little shell.
39:38: And then in 2023, I went to the last 20 books with Damon and Julie, Julie is Damon's wife.
39:45: And so that was the first time they'd taken anybody other than, than them.
39:49: Usually Damon's the only one who went to conferences, and there were probably some digital events that he did and that sort of thing.
39:54: And then I started doing our webinars and so then I've been, I've done webinars for other folks.
39:59: I was on Scrivener's webinars recently.
40:02: I've been, gosh, I've been a little bit all over the place.
40:05: Emma and Kelly went to, RWA, Niagara, and so, and then we're now we're going all over.
40:12: I'm going to San Francisco here in February right before we, my wife and I close on a new house.
40:18: So it's, it's like we've been doing reader cons too, so we're trying to be a bit more, we just went to, we did, Reader Nation, of course, and then we went to Dragon Still, Brandon Sanderson.
40:28: So and there are a few more reader cons.
40:30: Jack, you, you and Kelly are gonna be in San Francisco in San Francisco Writers Conference.
40:36: It's in February over Valentine's Day weekend, and my wife is thrilled about that.
40:41: Well, actually, it's more because my wife is also very pregnant right now and will still be very pregnant at that time, but that's really more than the Valentine's Day thing.
40:50: But, but, but I imagine something like that's content too.
40:53: If you're at, I mean, Jack, you were recording at, Reader Nation.
40:57: How did that go?
40:58: Did you upload it to you?
41:00: Yeah, it is.
41:01: It's actually here on the YouTube channel and it was so much fun.
41:04: I think next year we'll have to expand it a little bit on how we do it.
41:08: And Shannon, if you're there at Author Nation this year, I said next year.
41:11: It is this year already.
41:13: It's, it's already 2026 because it was fun.
41:16: What was that?
41:16: I won't be there this year, but, oh, OK.
41:18: Well, well, in either case, it was fun to like be at a conference and then we were like interviewing people live.
41:23: It was kind of like a TV show there for a second.
41:26: Anyway, we've gotten off the topic here.
41:29: So the Author Tube Writers conference, if somebody is interested, In participating in any way, where should they go?
41:36: Is it, it's just there on the YouTube channel?
41:38: What, what do they need to know?
41:39: So if they want to participate as a speaker, they would need to have a YouTube channel that is either about writing and or publishing, and, we will be opening applications March 30th.
41:48: We do, we will be doing a live stream that day to say applications are open.
41:53: That's what we usually do.
41:54: We do have another live stream coming up on the 13th.
41:57: Of February in which we're going to talk about what that one-day conference looks like because our audience knows that we're going down to one day, but we didn't know.
42:03: We spent a couple of different meetings talking about what that would look like and how it's gonna be set up and so we'll have that.
42:08: We also do a volunteer call during our live streams and so that if people want to volunteer, they can.
42:13: And so it's a forum where you see all the positions that we have available and that are open if you want to, you know, mostly what we look for are moderators.
42:20: We try to connect.
42:21: Each speaker who wants a moderator with someone who will be in their chat who has a wrench basically where they can kick out bots, but we also put our moderators through training on how to basically fan the flames of whoever's speaking.
42:32: So they drop the links for like, here it's their new book, or check out this video that they just talked about or whatever.
42:37: We do the moderator training, so our moderators and a lot of the speakers really enjoy getting a moderator because that's the one's dedicated in the chat who's gonna talk about them the whole time.
42:46: Yeah, no, that that's, it's invaluable.
42:50: In our webinars, that's Emma and Kelly for me.
42:53: And I know how much work is involved in that.
42:57: They, that can make or break the whole live stream.
43:01: Because they get the conversation going and keep it going and yeah, so that's mostly what we look for our moderators and that that's our biggest team is our moderators.
43:09: We also have a street team, and that's, you know, between us three chairs we do different things.
43:13: So you know we, we've got one, Rita.
43:16: She's our new chair for our volunteers and she's the one that works with moderators.
43:19: Evan does the social media, so she does the street team.
43:21: So yeah, but yeah, we're always looking for volunteers.
43:25: Kudos to, to those, to all those folks.
43:27: OK, I think I might apply because that's free training and whenever you can get free training in any type of social media, like you gotta take it.
43:35: I write, I wrote up the form where I said this is a, a non-paid event, but if you're doing any volunteer work for this conference, depending on which position you take, you can put this in your resume that you worked for a conference and this is what you did.
43:46: Yeah.
43:47: Yeah, that'd be, that'd be awesome.
43:48: And for those who are like interested, maybe not in participating as a speaker, but want to get all that content on the day of the conference, I'm sure it'll be there available for them afterwards.
44:00: Where's, where's the best place for them to go?
44:02: Just to your YouTube channel?
44:03: Yeah, to my YouTube.
44:04: There, there is the website Authortube Writing conference.com.
44:07: It's not updated with the one-day conference yet because we haven't announced what that looks like yet, so we'll be updating it right now.
44:13: Has, the last conference information on there, but all the playlists are connected on the, on the website.
44:18: there's archives on the website.
44:19: You can also to see the live streams, you'll need to go to my channel to see what, what live streams are coming up.
44:25: , because we don't put the live streams on the, on the website, that's just more work.
44:29: We don't have the time to do that, right, right, right.
44:31: No, no, that's fair.
44:32: That's fair.
44:33: Awesome.
44:33: All right, Shannon, I wanna thank you for joining us here on the Book Funnel podcast.
44:38: Before we go, I wanna give you the chance to just shout out anything.
44:41: I don't, we've already mentioned your YouTube channel here a few times, but anything else you wanna shout out before we go?
44:46: Well, if you like reading epic romanticy, I am publishing quite a bit this year, so you can find that.
44:53: SC Houston is my pen name with that and otherwise I really live on YouTube.
44:56: I live there.
44:57: So, well, thank you again for joining us.
44:58: Thank you for having me.
44:59: And yes, and we'll have to have you back sometime, maybe around the time of your wedding conference, the conference.
45:04: Yes, exactly.
45:05: It'd be good.
45:05: That'd be great.
45:06: right before just to kind of hype it up a little bit.
45:08: Thank you, of course, to my co-host today, Emma Allison, could not do this without you and to the Kelly.
45:15: My other normal co-hosts, we missed you today.
45:18: And thank you to you, our viewers.
45:21: If you are watching here on YouTube, make sure you subscribe to the channel and like this video.
45:26: Also, leave a comment here on this video with maybe your top insight from today.
45:33: For those of you listening on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform, please follow us there.
45:39: And leave a review, it really does help.
45:41: From all of us here at Book Funnel, I want to thank you for watching and listening, and we will see you all in the next one.
45:47: Thank you for watching.
45:49: Check out these other videos from Book Funnel, and don't forget to subscribe to the channel.