LA Jacob 00:00:25 Hello and welcome to Small Publishing in a Big Universe. I am your host, LA Jacob. Well, maybe not for the next two weeks. As Vanessa McLauren-Wray and Brian Buhl interviewed these authors live from BayCon in Santa Clara, California from July 1st to the 4th 2023. This week we're presenting half of the interviews we did with the authors. Check out the Small Publishing in a Big Universe marketplace where you will find books by these authors. For more information about the marketplace, please see their website, SPBU marketplace.com.
Brian Buhl 00:01:06 This is small publishing in a big universe that is live at BayCon 2023. So would you start with just maybe state your name and then tell us a little bit about what you write and maybe what you like to read.
Scott Coatsworth 00:01:17 Sure. I'm Jay Scott Coatsworth. I write sci-fi science fiction fantasy Sci fantasy, a little bit of scifi, hope punk, and also some magical realism. I like to read the same things I've been reading since I was about, I don't know, four years old reading sci-fi, read The Lord of the Rings when I was in high school. Or actually no wrote the Rings when I was in elementary school. And I really enjoy things that make you think, I love Peter Hamilton. I love Sherry Tepper. Stuff that like afterwards you just kind of sit there for days and just kind of cogitate about the concepts you just read.
Brian Buhl 00:01:46 Sounds like we have a lot of overlap in what we like to write and like what we like to read. Okay. I wanna ask a little bit about Hope Punk. What does Hope Punk mean to you? And then what draws you there?
Scott Coatsworth 00:01:54 So we just had a whole panel on this yesterday. We decided that there are basically two definitions. So at its core Hope Punk is about punk, which is basically people that are rebelling against something rebelling against the system, just like cyberpunk, right? I mean Hope Punk. It's basically people that are rebelling to try to make things better in a world. So that's kind of, if you really go down to the brass tacks, but also Hope Punk can be more of a general, where the arc of the story is a hopeful arc. It's not horror where at the end everybody gets consumed except for the one person who kills the monster. It's not grim arc, it's not any of the other things, but it can have the darkness because you have the darkness contrast with the hope. It's just that ultimately you're getting to a hopeful place by the end of the story.
Brian Buhl 00:02:32 So it really defines the arc of it. Yeah. Okay. I see that now. That's actually the best definition anyone's ever given me for hope on. Thank you very much for that. Oh, thank you. How many times have you attended BayCon?
Scott Coatsworth 00:02:42 This is my second. We came last year. The first time I had a couple friends that had been coming and it was a really scary thing because we had just been locked up with Covid and hadn't gone anywhere. We hadn't left like farther than two miles from our house for basically a year, year and a half, right? And so to make the trip all the way down here, at least it was in our car. But to spend the entire weekend with a bunch of other people was really frightening. But I'm so glad I did because I met Steven. Steven actually published The Dragon Eater, which is my first book collaborating with Water Dragon. And it was at a time, well I broke my arm the day before the con and ended up coming anyway, cuz the doctor said, Hey, if you can stand the pain, you can go. Which was just insane. I shouldn't have done it, but it brought me a lot of things. So this is our second year here. We're here with Liminal Fiction, our website, which is our discovery directory for Spec fic. And again, I'm really glad we came. I've made so many great contacts, met some people that are in my backyard that I didn't know like yours truly. Right, right. So yeah, and I think it's really worth it. We'll be back here next year.
Brian Buhl 00:03:37 That's excellent. What do you find are the biggest challenges facing independent authors today?
Scott Coatsworth 00:03:43 It's visibility. Yeah. There's so many times when you do all the work, you spend all the time and you're just feel like you're shouting into the Void, you're putting out stuff and you just, nothing happens. Or you sell a few copies in the first week and then it just dies off. You go on social media and you try to get attention. And it used to be you could have a post on Facebook and it would just go viral and a ton of people would see it. Now it's all been so clamped down on in most of the social media, it's just, it's really hard to get attention for what you do. I find self-publishing an amazing, very gratifying to do for me because I can control all the aspects. I'm a cover designer also for my stuff. I don't do my own editing cuz that's just insanity to try to edit your own stuff.
Scott Coatsworth 00:04:20 But you just have so much control. I think that's one of the things that poor Steven, um, at Water Dragon has had to deal with. Because I want all the things that I have as a self-publisher working with him as a publisher. So I'm always asking, can I do this? Can you do that for me? And, and usually he's very kind about it. It's just, it's trying to get your work out there and get people to see it and make the sales. It is really hard anymore. So the best way I've found is just to connect with as many people as possible and be as nice as possible and just hope something breaks.
Brian Buhl 00:04:49 So that actually I think is probably a part of the answer that I was gonna follow up with, which is tips and tricks for overcoming the visibility problems. So you would say it was the networking in person? Oh yeah.
Scott Coatsworth 00:05:00 Or, oh, coming to a con like this, I will never, ever make back the money that I put into the con in times of the hotel and the food and the travel in book sales. It's just, that's not gonna happen. But I have reaped so many things from cons. I've gone to some of my best friends in the writing world are people that I met at Rainbow Con, which is the first one I went to in 2014. They're still really close to me. We help each other, we promote each other's books. So yeah, that networking is super important. And I think just being a nice person to everybody and trying to help other people out, I will lend my knowledge such as it is to anybody who needs it. So if someone needs to know, how do you do audio books? I can tell 'em what my experience is. If they want someone to format their books or just even tell them how do I format books, I will help them out with that. Sometimes I get paid for the services that I do. Sometimes it's just information. But it's all about building that community and that network of folks around you.
Brian Buhl 00:05:49 What do you feel has been your greatest success as an author?
Scott Coatsworth 00:05:52 Okay, there's two things. Just having actually gotten past that barrier and pushing myself to write and get published, I tried a number of times kind of get going on it over my lifetime and I kept just kind of petering out. And then one time I was complaining to my husband that I am just keep trying, keep trying and I keep getting derailed. And then he said to me, the only thing that's stopping you is you. If you wanna do it, just do it. And so I did. And so I pushed ahead and I got my first publication and then my second, and then pretty soon I had some novels published. So that was the one side. The other side for me was a lifelong dream of being a member of the Science Fiction Fantasy Writers Association. Swa And I not only did that, but I'm now actually the um, indie author committee chair Wow. For them. So yeah, so it's, I mean it's not a huge amount of power, but it is representing folks like me and helping make change in the organization and also make opportunities for those authors. So yeah, so those two things were kind of my biggest successes. All right. And I think that's a good place to end it. <laugh>, uh,
Brian Buhl 00:06:47 Thank you so much. This has been Jay Scott Cosworth.
Scott Coatsworth 00:06:50 Thank you very much.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:06:54 Hi, it's Vanessa taking a turn doing our live at BayCon Interviews. And I have kind of a long time friend here, a person who's come to lots of my open mics and has a book that has the stories that I've heard at the open mics and then also reads really well. And I'm gonna let him introduce himself before I start gushing too much.
Dave Rum 00:07:16 Hi, my name's Dave Rum. That's the name you'd find me on under Amazon. And I write, I've often called it Supers Heroine Slapstick. It's an adventure comedy starring Super Holly Hansen, a young woman who used to write comic books and then superpowers exploded in the world and she became the superman of that world. She used to write comic books. Now she feels like she lives in them.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:07:46 Poor Holly. But you too live in kind of a comic book world as an indie author. So you've come to Beon a few times. How many times have you brought yourself and or your book to Beon?
Dave Rum 00:08:00 Oh, many times. I've always been at the Silicon Valley authors table and I've sold books on occasion. I mean, it's just the one book so far. I've got a couple more that are gonna be coming out soon.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:08:13 So look for those. What would you say are the most difficult challenges you've faced as an indie author,
Dave Rum 00:08:21 I should say, I really don't know how to market yet. I'm still figuring that out. Also, my writing style, I tend to write stuff that could be read well at an open mic and I have to be sure that also translates well on the printed page. Haven't had much actual trouble as an indie author, it's just, I wish I knew how to market my books better.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:08:45 I think we're all with you on that. I've heard that time and again this weekend. The marketing is hard, finding your audience is hard, but not everything is hard. nSo how would you describe your biggest success as an author? Something specific or just kind of that moment where you kind of said to yourself, oh hey, wait a minute, I'm a writer.
Dave Rum 00:09:03 There was a story in Fault Zone in the most recent issue where the anthology won the indie press award or something like that. I was very proud to have my little story in there where I told the Infinity Gauntlet Saga in 3000 words. Story was called the God Glove. And at Worldcon I sold nine books and I'd say a few times a month I performed my stories at open mics. And it's always fun to get the audience response from that.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:09:36 If you ever want to hear Dave read in an open mic, you can go to my website, which has links to the open mics that I go to. And he's at some of them. So you can get to hear him read some of his stories. One thing else that you'd like to share about the experience of being an indie author that you would like to tell other indie authors out there.
Dave Rum 00:09:55 I'd say I'd like to bring this up is that when I've written my Holly character, sometimes it's wish fulfillment. She gets to punch out things I wish I could punch out. But I'm no good at fighting and I'm not particularly strong or brave, but you can, something happens out in the real world that really hacks you off, you know, oh, I wish that politician hadn't done that well. You could write a story where you can get a little revenge.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:10:21 Awesome. And I'm looking forward to seeing some in that in your upcoming books. Do you have a title yet for the next Work in Progress?
Dave Rum 00:10:28 Let's see, the next one, my character Kitty Girl, Holly's eight year old friend and bff, little eight year old girl with kitty Catt powers. And the story will be the shrinking superhero or Super Holly's reduced down to an eight year old girl without powers. But Holly's still quite the Spitfire at that age. And then I'm working on a novel called Super Civil War
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:10:55 And that one will be high drama with many exclamation points. Thank you so much, Dave, for coming and being with us at Beon and it's been really fun to be sharing the dealer's room with you. And I hope you have a few more sales before we close up the dealer's room.
Dave Rum 00:11:10 We'll find out.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:11:12 Okay, thank you.
Dave Rum 00:11:13 Thank you very much.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:11:15 This is Vanessa McLaren Ray again with another one of our authors at Beon 2023. Please introduce yourself.
Palmer Pickering 00:11:23 Hi, I'm Palmer Pickering and I'm an author of Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:11:29 Can you rattle off a couple of titles and just kind of what category of SF and fantasy are you in?
Palmer Pickering 00:11:36 My debut was called Moon Deeds and it's science fantasy and book two of that series is called Light Fighters and it's gonna be a long series, kind of a complex, epic type of space opera theme of one this year. And then I recently released Heliotrope, which is pure epic fantasy about a retired warrior with found family, ancient magic, animal companions, et cetera.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:12:04 Perfect. For BayCon 2023. How many times have you come to BayCon?
Palmer Pickering 00:12:11 So many times I've lost count.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:12:13 Perfect answer. <laugh>, being an indie author isn't easy. We all know this. So what would you say are the biggest challenges that you've faced?
Palmer Pickering 00:12:24 I think the biggest challenges for indie authors are awareness generation for people to know about your book. Getting into bookstores is very, very difficult. And not having access to the big contests is something that the trad publishing industry kind of dominates. So those are equal playing field, shall we say, where the traditional publishing industry has built up over time. Marketing and bookstore connections and the contest, the New York Times bestseller list, things like that are controlled for the traditional publishing industry.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:13:04 Okay. Keep that in mind. If you're stepping out into this field. So how would you define your success as a writer? The moment when you felt, okay, yes, I've got this thing.
Palmer Pickering 00:13:16 Well, one thing that's really interesting, speaking of conventions like this, is being on the other side of the room when you're in a panel. For so many years I was in the audience looking up at a table full of authors who have written and released books and I was listening to them and furiously taking notes. And now I'm the one at the table speaking about my experience. And that's kind of a milestone. And I also just really love the self-publishing process. I'm just loving the whole creative part of layout and working with cover artists and getting to know people. I hire editors and proofreaders and a lot of them are my friends now. It's just, there's a lot of community building that was an unexpected benefit. That's
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:13:59 Really great news because here we are in a community of writers. Is there anything else you want people to hear when we finally get this assembled and put it on the air?
Palmer Pickering 00:14:09 My latest release, Heliotrope is in a contest, is called the Self-Published Fantasy Blog off spiff bo, SPFBO. You can find it on Facebook or you can find it, just search for it. It's put on by Mark Lawrence, who's a published author out of Ace. And it's a fun thing to follow. And all the bloggers are posting reviews and we're in the semi people are getting cut now. There's 300 contestants and semi-finalists are being chosen. And then we'll have the finalists round and then the winner. So it's just kind of fun to be part of that community. So check it out.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:14:43 So keep that in mind. Thanks very much.
Palmer Pickering 00:14:46 Thanks.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:14:47 This is Vanessa live from BayCon and I'm here with an special guest. So would you introduce yourself and tell us uh, what you like to write?
Steven Radecki 00:14:57 Thank you so much. My name is Steven Radecki. I mostly write science fiction. My one currently published novel is Building Baby Brother, which is a novella that has been described as cyberpunk was a soft, squishy side.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:15:11 And are you working on a sequel?
Steven Radecki 00:15:13 I am working on a sequel. I actually anticipated it being actually a trilogy, but I am working on the sequel and I've actually written part of the third book.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:15:21 Excellent. So we have something to look forward to. Yes. Now the tough question. How many times have you come to BayCon?
Steven Radecki 00:15:28 Three.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:15:29 Three. Counting this one.
Steven Radecki 00:15:31 Counting this one.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:15:32 Okay. Well I have you beat there. Ha. Speaking as an indie author, not as a publisher, what was the some of the biggest challenges that you see facing indie authors in general and from your own experience?
Steven Radecki 00:15:46 Well, actually one of the largest challenges I face is the whole reason I started publishing was the fact that it was very difficult to find a market back 10 years ago when I finished writing Building Baby Brother. Because there were very, very few markets for something that was 24,000 words. No traditional publisher wanted anything that short and it was too long for most of the online magazines and I just couldn't bring myself to cut it down to under 10,000 words and I didn't wanna bloat it out to a novel. That story told itself in 24,000 words, and that's the way it's
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:16:24 So an excuse to start an entire publishing company was a major challenge in publishing your book. Yes. Okay. So now then, what do you think has been your greatest success as an author? And you can say something about being a publisher if you really must
Steven Radecki 00:16:40 Speaking strictly as an author, it's finding a home for that book because as I said, I didn't wanna cut it, I didn't wanna bloat it and I found a home for it exactly at the length that I wanted it to be told. I didn't have to do anything to it to meet some traditional publishers or some market places, word count restrictions,
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:17:00 It's abiding by the, every story has its length. Exactly. And it begins at a place and it ends at a place. And sometimes where it ends, it needs to, it has difficulty finding a home. And you made a home for your book and other books like it. Yes,
Steven Radecki 00:17:13 Exactly.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:17:14 Okay, one more thing that you want to say to indie authors everywhere when they listen to this,
Steven Radecki 00:17:20 There is a home for your work somewhere. It may not be the home that you think it's for the one you're trying for. And I know a lot of indie authors are, oh, I really wanna be published by this magazine or this press. And it could be that your work just is not quite the right fit, but there's almost certainly a home for your work somewhere. You just need to find it.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:17:43 Excellent. Well thank you for joining us at Macon and thank you for coming for a third time and I hope you come
Steven Radecki 00:17:48 Again. Oh, I will. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:17:51 I'm here with a very different author for Bay Con and I'm going to let her introduce herself.
Nancy Wood 00:18:01 Hello, my name is Nancy Wood and I am the author of the Shelby McDougall series, which is published by Paper Angel Press,
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:18:10 The Shelby McDougall series. That doesn't sound like science fiction. Tell me a little bit about what you write.
Nancy Wood 00:18:17 I write psychological thrillers. The books that I have written is a series of three books and they're called Due Date, the Stork and the Found Child. They're set in Santa Cruz County. They feature a young woman who's a surrogate mom, who over the course of the books becomes a private detective and she has fallen for a con in the first book. And the rest of the series explores how she navigates that and how she grows and transforms during her investigations.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:18:50 That sounds really intriguing and I think everybody wants to read these books, whether they're sci-fi fans or not. You've written these three books so you can speak to this. So what are the biggest challenges that you've run into as, as an indie author?
Nancy Wood 00:19:06 I would say the biggest challenges are finding readers. It, it's a challenge to connect with readers individually and as groups. I've been to several book clubs though, which was a lot of fun. I've done individual readings in Santa Cruz County, I've been to book fairs. But one of the most joyful things is when I do connect with a reader and are able to talk about different books and different mysteries and different authors. It's just very, very rewarding.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:19:35 Wow. You actually covered my next question as well because I love the contrast between what was difficult and what was hard because finding your audience is the trickiest part, isn't it? When you're trying to tell your story, you need to find the people who are, who want to hear your story. <laugh>
Nancy Wood 00:19:52 Absolutely
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:19:53 <laugh>. Well, on a simplest basis, how would you describe your success as a writer? What felt like, I've done it now.
Nancy Wood 00:20:03 My success came the first time I looked on Amazon, I looked online and I saw somebody had read and reviewed the book and I didn't know them. That for me was the benchmark of success. And ever since then, every time I find a review of somebody, I don't know, I think, wow, people I don't know are reading my books. It's so exciting.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:20:27 That's wonderful. And we're always reminding people, when you read a book, go and review it. And this is why, because then you can give that joy back to the author who wrote that book for you.
Nancy Wood 00:20:40 Thank you. Thank you. Vanessa <laugh>,
Brian Buhl 00:20:43 This is small publishing in a big universe. Would you please give us your name and a little bit about what you write?
Matt Maxwell 00:20:50 Uh, my name is Matt Maxwell. I'm currently writing the Haze Land series, which is a combination, uh, weird fantasy horror crime set in uh, eighties Los Angeles.
Brian Buhl 00:21:02 And what makes it weird?
Matt Maxwell 00:21:04 Weird as in inexplicable. Okay. As in things will happen and they will make sense within the story, but I'm not gonna sit there and explain to you the magic system or this giant cosmology. You'll have to figure it out for yourself if there even is one.
Brian Buhl 00:21:16 Okay, that sounds fascinating. How many times have you attended Beon?
Matt Maxwell 00:21:20 I think this is my third, but it's been a long time. I think the last time I was here was 20 17, 16. It's been a while.
Brian Buhl 00:21:30 Yeah, no, I, well we had a pandemic, so Yeah. Makes sense. And what do you find are the biggest challenges facing and the authors today?
Matt Maxwell 00:21:39 The visibility. Absolutely. Yeah. Getting connected to your reading audience or your potential reading audience. It's never been easier to be published. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it's never been harder to rise above the giant seething mass of every other indie author out there. Not that it's all elbows and knees and we're all fighting each other, but there's only so many eyeballs out there and you have to rise above to find a way to, to get connected with people who would be interested in your work. What
Brian Buhl 00:22:07 Do you feel has been your greatest success as an author?
Matt Maxwell 00:22:11 Wow. I mean I actually landed a publishing deal, which meant somebody thought the work was worth publishing in the first place. So that's now it's basically staying with it and continuing working. When you're the cheering section, basically you're the reason that it has to be finished and it has to get out there, that's more difficult.
Brian Buhl 00:22:29 What would you say is the greatest writing advice you've ever received?
Matt Maxwell 00:22:33 Probably to be true to the story and understand that when you finish with a story or a piece of work or whatever, that ultimately that piece of work its purpose is to be read by somebody else and then they will create something different out of that that maybe you didn't intend. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And that can be surprising, can be terrifying. You don't have control over how people are gonna read that work. You should take that as a call to, you know, freedom.
Brian Buhl 00:22:59 That's excellent. Thank you very, very much.
Matt Maxwell 00:23:01 Thanks for having me.
Brian Buhl 00:23:03 So let's start right off. Please gimme your name and real quick, uh, what you write and what you like to read.
Ryan Southwick 00:23:09 My name is Ryan Southwick. I write primarily science fiction with heart. I like to say cuz almost all of my work has, uh, some sort of romance theme to it. Relationships play a pretty big part in it. Reading, oh, I like to read everything. I like fantasy, I like science fiction, I like urban fantasy. Dabble in romance a little bit, but science fiction's really my jam these days.
Brian Buhl 00:23:31 And what's your latest book that you've written and the inspiration behind it?
Ryan Southwick 00:23:35 The latest book is called New Denver. It's a Timeless Keeper Saga Book two. The inspiration, honestly, I had this idea a while back, I really wanted to write a book about two people who were from the opposite side of the tracks, but like on a galactic level who were just made to be with each other. And so the entire series kind of focuses around this couple who basically the universe is out to separate them or get them in just this all kinds of stuff that gets in their way. But it started out from dystopian earth about 500 years in the future and that became a whole thing in itself coming, okay, well how did that happen? What is life like? All that stuff. So, uh, it was quite an adventure.
Brian Buhl 00:24:15 Wow. That sounds fantastic. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So we're at Beon Beon 2023. How many times have you attended Beon? Is this your first or I, I assume this is not, this
Ryan Southwick 00:24:24 Is my, I think it's my fourth. Yeah. The very first one I ever attended, that's when I met Water Dragon Publishing and signed my first book contract. So Beon has a special place in my heart.
Brian Buhl 00:24:33 Oh, that's fantastic. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. So what do you find are the biggest challenges facing the authors these days?
Ryan Southwick 00:24:39 It's eyeballs. Getting eyes on your work. It's the same boom I think with app development and things like that, right. It's so easy to publish your own book. The market is absolutely saturated and so getting people to get eyes on your work instead of the other million books that have been published that year is a real
Brian Buhl 00:24:54 Trick. I mean, just looking around Beon, the vast majority of the attendees are all writers, so we're all in that boat. Yeah. All trying for the same audience. Yeah, very much so. Yeah, I, I completely agree. Um, what do you feel has been your greatest success as an author?
Ryan Southwick 00:25:09 Finishing series?
Brian Buhl 00:25:11 Finishing?
Ryan Southwick 00:25:11 Yeah. A actually finishing the series. At first it was just, I don't have a literary background and so the first and biggest challenge was getting that first book out there and getting it to a place where it was, yes, this is not only readable but it's actually a good book that took a lot of work and a lot of revisions, a lot of feedback and a lot of patience from some really good friends.
Brian Buhl 00:25:32 I'm right there with you. Is there anything else you'd like to share with the audience before we close this up?
Ryan Southwick 00:25:39 Just my latest series is Timeless Keeper Saga. It's available from all your favorite retailers. Despite the fact that it's dystopian, it has a really warm heart to it. So check it out.
Brian Buhl 00:25:49 Thank you so much. This was Ryan Southwick.
Ryan Southwick 00:25:52 Thank you.
Brian Buhl 00:25:54 This is Small Publishing in a Big Universe and we are live at Beon 2023. Would you, uh, give us your name and then talk a little bit about what you write and maybe a little about what you like to read as well?
Clara Ward 00:26:06 My name is Clara Ward. I've written many flavors of speculative fiction. Most recently it tends to be science, fantasy with environmental themes and neurodivergent point of view. I like to read those too. But I like to read, I'll follow an author into all sorts of genres. So I start with speculative fiction and work outward.
Brian Buhl 00:26:27 So the environmental theme's a very topical and like what we're living with, climate change, whatnot. Is there any anything else that drives you to write with that particular theme?
Clara Ward 00:26:37 I think it's so much of our lives now with climate change and I live in the Bay Area and my house flooded 20 years ago. We have to make decisions about earthquake insurance have to plan for it's part of our lives. I also living between the ocean and San Francisco Bay, I spend a lot of time in those environments. Those have been showing up in my stories for as long as I've lived here. So
Brian Buhl 00:26:59 How many times have you attended Bay Con?
Clara Ward 00:27:01 I just realized yesterday that my first BayCon was 2003, so I've missed a few with the pandemic and there were years when I could only come for one day, but that was 20 years ago, which surprised me. Wow.
Brian Buhl 00:27:13 You've got me beat by about a decade. <laugh>. What do you find are the biggest challenges facing independent authors these days?
Clara Ward 00:27:21 For those like me who would rather be writing than networking or becoming social media influencers, I'd say the hardest is to get the story to the readers who will enjoy or value it. Finding
Brian Buhl 00:27:34 Your audience. Yeah. And getting that exposure, like
Clara Ward 00:27:37 Very specific audience for the the right people for the right book. It's not, to me, it's not as much about sales as I believe there are people who will enjoy the book, but it's not as simple as coming up with a sub-genre name. So really finding who would want this book.
Brian Buhl 00:27:51 Okay. You mentioned networking. What does it mean for you for networking and what are the pain points and what are the things about it that you enjoy
Clara Ward 00:27:59 Now? People tend to tell you that if you want to publish a novel you have to do social networking. And I was lucky enough to find a small press at this arts that was willing to take a more individual approach and I can bring to the table that I like going to conventions. I am more social at conventions than most places. I've been doing that most of my life now. And there are lots of other in-person groups or now online or Zoom groups where I have strong connections and my editor is more willing to do the big name social media. I do stuff on Discord and a bunch of forums, but we sort of compromised and we had a cover reveal recently where I spent 12 hours online and I can't imagine what I would've done without someone else covering the big name social media.
Brian Buhl 00:28:44 That's fantastic. And before I just leave that, would you say that uh, conventions are a, an important rung in your ladder for promoting your book and overcoming that problem that we have of finding the audience and finding the right people?
Clara Ward 00:28:56 For me, they are. I don't think it's the only solution or that it would work for everyone, but I found my people in fandom as a teenager, so it would make sense that some of the people who would like my book would be found here also.
Brian Buhl 00:29:08 No, that makes sense. And what do you feel has been your greatest success as an author?
Clara Ward 00:29:14 My greatest success has probably been finding a way to tell about the world and people as I see them. And it took me about 50 years. I was a slow learner. I've been writing novels since I was 13. But I think it took me that long to really know the world around me for the nature and environmental parts that are necessary to my writing and understand people well enough that I could show how I saw them, to people who don't see them that way, way, and then project it into the future 15 years, a hundred years and say something about I now really do believe that everyone has something to contribute and they can find a way to bring this together and if not solve, at least address some of the issues that I see in the world. And while I still love my younger self in the stories I wrote then, and I would love to support someone doing that sort of story to write what I did now. That was the strength I needed.
Brian Buhl 00:30:11 That's beautiful. I love that. So Joe, wrap this up. Is there anything else that you'd like to say? You know, talking about yourself, your books, anything else that you'd like to talk about?
Clara Ward 00:30:19 In recent years, most of the books that I've been very excited about have been either from indie authors or indie presses, which was what led me to the indie press that is now publishing my book, be the C. So while I find that at this arts has a lot of books I like, there are many other small presses. And I was excited at bay on this year to see so many indie authors and indie presses represented. And I would urge others readers or reviewers or people giving out prizes to look at those books because that's where a lot of the exciting things are happening now.
Brian Buhl 00:30:52 That's where the things are happening, that is breaking the norms, getting away from the things that have been treaded out. Perhaps the things that the bigger publishers see more as risky, as opposed to like the guaranteed sales or what they see as guaranteed sales.
Clara Ward 00:31:09 Right? Is that what way I say it? And yeah, there are more perspectives and more own voices of those things, whether it's neurodiversity or queer voices or non-binary voices or just a combination that hasn't been somewhere else. Or being able to tell a slower story or a story that isn't the traditional plot arc. There is so much out there in the small presses and the indie authors. And if you can find it, there are things that you never would've thought to look for that'll really fit with what you want to read.
Brian Buhl 00:31:40 Thank you so much. This has been Clara Ward. I wanna send a huge shout out and a big thanks to m Todd Gallas for donating this microphone for this event. If you like the sound of this microphone and you like the sound of this podcast and you wanna hear more of this specific microphone, you can find it being used by M Todd Gallas most Tuesday nights where he teaches writing at a Twitch tv slash m gallas.
LA Jacob 00:00:25 Hello and welcome to Small Publishing in a Big Universe. I am your host, LA Jacob. Well, maybe not for the next two weeks. As Vanessa McLauren-Wray and Brian Buhl interviewed these authors live from BayCon in Santa Clara, California from July 1st to the 4th 2023. This week we're presenting half of the interviews we did with the authors. Check out the Small Publishing in a Big Universe marketplace where you will find books by these authors. For more information about the marketplace, please see their website, SPBU marketplace.com.
Brian Buhl 00:01:06 This is small publishing in a big universe that is live at BayCon 2023. So would you start with just maybe state your name and then tell us a little bit about what you write and maybe what you like to read.
Scott Coatsworth 00:01:17 Sure. I'm Jay Scott Coatsworth. I write sci-fi science fiction fantasy Sci fantasy, a little bit of scifi, hope punk, and also some magical realism. I like to read the same things I've been reading since I was about, I don't know, four years old reading sci-fi, read The Lord of the Rings when I was in high school. Or actually no wrote the Rings when I was in elementary school. And I really enjoy things that make you think, I love Peter Hamilton. I love Sherry Tepper. Stuff that like afterwards you just kind of sit there for days and just kind of cogitate about the concepts you just read.
Brian Buhl 00:01:46 Sounds like we have a lot of overlap in what we like to write and like what we like to read. Okay. I wanna ask a little bit about Hope Punk. What does Hope Punk mean to you? And then what draws you there?
Scott Coatsworth 00:01:54 So we just had a whole panel on this yesterday. We decided that there are basically two definitions. So at its core Hope Punk is about punk, which is basically people that are rebelling against something rebelling against the system, just like cyberpunk, right? I mean Hope Punk. It's basically people that are rebelling to try to make things better in a world. So that's kind of, if you really go down to the brass tacks, but also Hope Punk can be more of a general, where the arc of the story is a hopeful arc. It's not horror where at the end everybody gets consumed except for the one person who kills the monster. It's not grim arc, it's not any of the other things, but it can have the darkness because you have the darkness contrast with the hope. It's just that ultimately you're getting to a hopeful place by the end of the story.
Brian Buhl 00:02:32 So it really defines the arc of it. Yeah. Okay. I see that now. That's actually the best definition anyone's ever given me for hope on. Thank you very much for that. Oh, thank you. How many times have you attended BayCon?
Scott Coatsworth 00:02:42 This is my second. We came last year. The first time I had a couple friends that had been coming and it was a really scary thing because we had just been locked up with Covid and hadn't gone anywhere. We hadn't left like farther than two miles from our house for basically a year, year and a half, right? And so to make the trip all the way down here, at least it was in our car. But to spend the entire weekend with a bunch of other people was really frightening. But I'm so glad I did because I met Steven. Steven actually published The Dragon Eater, which is my first book collaborating with Water Dragon. And it was at a time, well I broke my arm the day before the con and ended up coming anyway, cuz the doctor said, Hey, if you can stand the pain, you can go. Which was just insane. I shouldn't have done it, but it brought me a lot of things. So this is our second year here. We're here with Liminal Fiction, our website, which is our discovery directory for Spec fic. And again, I'm really glad we came. I've made so many great contacts, met some people that are in my backyard that I didn't know like yours truly. Right, right. So yeah, and I think it's really worth it. We'll be back here next year.
Brian Buhl 00:03:37 That's excellent. What do you find are the biggest challenges facing independent authors today?
Scott Coatsworth 00:03:43 It's visibility. Yeah. There's so many times when you do all the work, you spend all the time and you're just feel like you're shouting into the Void, you're putting out stuff and you just, nothing happens. Or you sell a few copies in the first week and then it just dies off. You go on social media and you try to get attention. And it used to be you could have a post on Facebook and it would just go viral and a ton of people would see it. Now it's all been so clamped down on in most of the social media, it's just, it's really hard to get attention for what you do. I find self-publishing an amazing, very gratifying to do for me because I can control all the aspects. I'm a cover designer also for my stuff. I don't do my own editing cuz that's just insanity to try to edit your own stuff.
Scott Coatsworth 00:04:20 But you just have so much control. I think that's one of the things that poor Steven, um, at Water Dragon has had to deal with. Because I want all the things that I have as a self-publisher working with him as a publisher. So I'm always asking, can I do this? Can you do that for me? And, and usually he's very kind about it. It's just, it's trying to get your work out there and get people to see it and make the sales. It is really hard anymore. So the best way I've found is just to connect with as many people as possible and be as nice as possible and just hope something breaks.
Brian Buhl 00:04:49 So that actually I think is probably a part of the answer that I was gonna follow up with, which is tips and tricks for overcoming the visibility problems. So you would say it was the networking in person? Oh yeah.
Scott Coatsworth 00:05:00 Or, oh, coming to a con like this, I will never, ever make back the money that I put into the con in times of the hotel and the food and the travel in book sales. It's just, that's not gonna happen. But I have reaped so many things from cons. I've gone to some of my best friends in the writing world are people that I met at Rainbow Con, which is the first one I went to in 2014. They're still really close to me. We help each other, we promote each other's books. So yeah, that networking is super important. And I think just being a nice person to everybody and trying to help other people out, I will lend my knowledge such as it is to anybody who needs it. So if someone needs to know, how do you do audio books? I can tell 'em what my experience is. If they want someone to format their books or just even tell them how do I format books, I will help them out with that. Sometimes I get paid for the services that I do. Sometimes it's just information. But it's all about building that community and that network of folks around you.
Brian Buhl 00:05:49 What do you feel has been your greatest success as an author?
Scott Coatsworth 00:05:52 Okay, there's two things. Just having actually gotten past that barrier and pushing myself to write and get published, I tried a number of times kind of get going on it over my lifetime and I kept just kind of petering out. And then one time I was complaining to my husband that I am just keep trying, keep trying and I keep getting derailed. And then he said to me, the only thing that's stopping you is you. If you wanna do it, just do it. And so I did. And so I pushed ahead and I got my first publication and then my second, and then pretty soon I had some novels published. So that was the one side. The other side for me was a lifelong dream of being a member of the Science Fiction Fantasy Writers Association. Swa And I not only did that, but I'm now actually the um, indie author committee chair Wow. For them. So yeah, so it's, I mean it's not a huge amount of power, but it is representing folks like me and helping make change in the organization and also make opportunities for those authors. So yeah, so those two things were kind of my biggest successes. All right. And I think that's a good place to end it. <laugh>, uh,
Brian Buhl 00:06:47 Thank you so much. This has been Jay Scott Cosworth.
Scott Coatsworth 00:06:50 Thank you very much.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:06:54 Hi, it's Vanessa taking a turn doing our live at BayCon Interviews. And I have kind of a long time friend here, a person who's come to lots of my open mics and has a book that has the stories that I've heard at the open mics and then also reads really well. And I'm gonna let him introduce himself before I start gushing too much.
Dave Rum 00:07:16 Hi, my name's Dave Rum. That's the name you'd find me on under Amazon. And I write, I've often called it Supers Heroine Slapstick. It's an adventure comedy starring Super Holly Hansen, a young woman who used to write comic books and then superpowers exploded in the world and she became the superman of that world. She used to write comic books. Now she feels like she lives in them.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:07:46 Poor Holly. But you too live in kind of a comic book world as an indie author. So you've come to Beon a few times. How many times have you brought yourself and or your book to Beon?
Dave Rum 00:08:00 Oh, many times. I've always been at the Silicon Valley authors table and I've sold books on occasion. I mean, it's just the one book so far. I've got a couple more that are gonna be coming out soon.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:08:13 So look for those. What would you say are the most difficult challenges you've faced as an indie author,
Dave Rum 00:08:21 I should say, I really don't know how to market yet. I'm still figuring that out. Also, my writing style, I tend to write stuff that could be read well at an open mic and I have to be sure that also translates well on the printed page. Haven't had much actual trouble as an indie author, it's just, I wish I knew how to market my books better.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:08:45 I think we're all with you on that. I've heard that time and again this weekend. The marketing is hard, finding your audience is hard, but not everything is hard. nSo how would you describe your biggest success as an author? Something specific or just kind of that moment where you kind of said to yourself, oh hey, wait a minute, I'm a writer.
Dave Rum 00:09:03 There was a story in Fault Zone in the most recent issue where the anthology won the indie press award or something like that. I was very proud to have my little story in there where I told the Infinity Gauntlet Saga in 3000 words. Story was called the God Glove. And at Worldcon I sold nine books and I'd say a few times a month I performed my stories at open mics. And it's always fun to get the audience response from that.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:09:36 If you ever want to hear Dave read in an open mic, you can go to my website, which has links to the open mics that I go to. And he's at some of them. So you can get to hear him read some of his stories. One thing else that you'd like to share about the experience of being an indie author that you would like to tell other indie authors out there.
Dave Rum 00:09:55 I'd say I'd like to bring this up is that when I've written my Holly character, sometimes it's wish fulfillment. She gets to punch out things I wish I could punch out. But I'm no good at fighting and I'm not particularly strong or brave, but you can, something happens out in the real world that really hacks you off, you know, oh, I wish that politician hadn't done that well. You could write a story where you can get a little revenge.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:10:21 Awesome. And I'm looking forward to seeing some in that in your upcoming books. Do you have a title yet for the next Work in Progress?
Dave Rum 00:10:28 Let's see, the next one, my character Kitty Girl, Holly's eight year old friend and bff, little eight year old girl with kitty Catt powers. And the story will be the shrinking superhero or Super Holly's reduced down to an eight year old girl without powers. But Holly's still quite the Spitfire at that age. And then I'm working on a novel called Super Civil War
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:10:55 And that one will be high drama with many exclamation points. Thank you so much, Dave, for coming and being with us at Beon and it's been really fun to be sharing the dealer's room with you. And I hope you have a few more sales before we close up the dealer's room.
Dave Rum 00:11:10 We'll find out.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:11:12 Okay, thank you.
Dave Rum 00:11:13 Thank you very much.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:11:15 This is Vanessa McLaren Ray again with another one of our authors at Beon 2023. Please introduce yourself.
Palmer Pickering 00:11:23 Hi, I'm Palmer Pickering and I'm an author of Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:11:29 Can you rattle off a couple of titles and just kind of what category of SF and fantasy are you in?
Palmer Pickering 00:11:36 My debut was called Moon Deeds and it's science fantasy and book two of that series is called Light Fighters and it's gonna be a long series, kind of a complex, epic type of space opera theme of one this year. And then I recently released Heliotrope, which is pure epic fantasy about a retired warrior with found family, ancient magic, animal companions, et cetera.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:12:04 Perfect. For BayCon 2023. How many times have you come to BayCon?
Palmer Pickering 00:12:11 So many times I've lost count.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:12:13 Perfect answer. <laugh>, being an indie author isn't easy. We all know this. So what would you say are the biggest challenges that you've faced?
Palmer Pickering 00:12:24 I think the biggest challenges for indie authors are awareness generation for people to know about your book. Getting into bookstores is very, very difficult. And not having access to the big contests is something that the trad publishing industry kind of dominates. So those are equal playing field, shall we say, where the traditional publishing industry has built up over time. Marketing and bookstore connections and the contest, the New York Times bestseller list, things like that are controlled for the traditional publishing industry.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:13:04 Okay. Keep that in mind. If you're stepping out into this field. So how would you define your success as a writer? The moment when you felt, okay, yes, I've got this thing.
Palmer Pickering 00:13:16 Well, one thing that's really interesting, speaking of conventions like this, is being on the other side of the room when you're in a panel. For so many years I was in the audience looking up at a table full of authors who have written and released books and I was listening to them and furiously taking notes. And now I'm the one at the table speaking about my experience. And that's kind of a milestone. And I also just really love the self-publishing process. I'm just loving the whole creative part of layout and working with cover artists and getting to know people. I hire editors and proofreaders and a lot of them are my friends now. It's just, there's a lot of community building that was an unexpected benefit. That's
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:13:59 Really great news because here we are in a community of writers. Is there anything else you want people to hear when we finally get this assembled and put it on the air?
Palmer Pickering 00:14:09 My latest release, Heliotrope is in a contest, is called the Self-Published Fantasy Blog off spiff bo, SPFBO. You can find it on Facebook or you can find it, just search for it. It's put on by Mark Lawrence, who's a published author out of Ace. And it's a fun thing to follow. And all the bloggers are posting reviews and we're in the semi people are getting cut now. There's 300 contestants and semi-finalists are being chosen. And then we'll have the finalists round and then the winner. So it's just kind of fun to be part of that community. So check it out.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:14:43 So keep that in mind. Thanks very much.
Palmer Pickering 00:14:46 Thanks.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:14:47 This is Vanessa live from BayCon and I'm here with an special guest. So would you introduce yourself and tell us uh, what you like to write?
Steven Radecki 00:14:57 Thank you so much. My name is Steven Radecki. I mostly write science fiction. My one currently published novel is Building Baby Brother, which is a novella that has been described as cyberpunk was a soft, squishy side.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:15:11 And are you working on a sequel?
Steven Radecki 00:15:13 I am working on a sequel. I actually anticipated it being actually a trilogy, but I am working on the sequel and I've actually written part of the third book.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:15:21 Excellent. So we have something to look forward to. Yes. Now the tough question. How many times have you come to BayCon?
Steven Radecki 00:15:28 Three.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:15:29 Three. Counting this one.
Steven Radecki 00:15:31 Counting this one.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:15:32 Okay. Well I have you beat there. Ha. Speaking as an indie author, not as a publisher, what was the some of the biggest challenges that you see facing indie authors in general and from your own experience?
Steven Radecki 00:15:46 Well, actually one of the largest challenges I face is the whole reason I started publishing was the fact that it was very difficult to find a market back 10 years ago when I finished writing Building Baby Brother. Because there were very, very few markets for something that was 24,000 words. No traditional publisher wanted anything that short and it was too long for most of the online magazines and I just couldn't bring myself to cut it down to under 10,000 words and I didn't wanna bloat it out to a novel. That story told itself in 24,000 words, and that's the way it's
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:16:24 So an excuse to start an entire publishing company was a major challenge in publishing your book. Yes. Okay. So now then, what do you think has been your greatest success as an author? And you can say something about being a publisher if you really must
Steven Radecki 00:16:40 Speaking strictly as an author, it's finding a home for that book because as I said, I didn't wanna cut it, I didn't wanna bloat it and I found a home for it exactly at the length that I wanted it to be told. I didn't have to do anything to it to meet some traditional publishers or some market places, word count restrictions,
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:17:00 It's abiding by the, every story has its length. Exactly. And it begins at a place and it ends at a place. And sometimes where it ends, it needs to, it has difficulty finding a home. And you made a home for your book and other books like it. Yes,
Steven Radecki 00:17:13 Exactly.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:17:14 Okay, one more thing that you want to say to indie authors everywhere when they listen to this,
Steven Radecki 00:17:20 There is a home for your work somewhere. It may not be the home that you think it's for the one you're trying for. And I know a lot of indie authors are, oh, I really wanna be published by this magazine or this press. And it could be that your work just is not quite the right fit, but there's almost certainly a home for your work somewhere. You just need to find it.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:17:43 Excellent. Well thank you for joining us at Macon and thank you for coming for a third time and I hope you come
Steven Radecki 00:17:48 Again. Oh, I will. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:17:51 I'm here with a very different author for Bay Con and I'm going to let her introduce herself.
Nancy Wood 00:18:01 Hello, my name is Nancy Wood and I am the author of the Shelby McDougall series, which is published by Paper Angel Press,
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:18:10 The Shelby McDougall series. That doesn't sound like science fiction. Tell me a little bit about what you write.
Nancy Wood 00:18:17 I write psychological thrillers. The books that I have written is a series of three books and they're called Due Date, the Stork and the Found Child. They're set in Santa Cruz County. They feature a young woman who's a surrogate mom, who over the course of the books becomes a private detective and she has fallen for a con in the first book. And the rest of the series explores how she navigates that and how she grows and transforms during her investigations.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:18:50 That sounds really intriguing and I think everybody wants to read these books, whether they're sci-fi fans or not. You've written these three books so you can speak to this. So what are the biggest challenges that you've run into as, as an indie author?
Nancy Wood 00:19:06 I would say the biggest challenges are finding readers. It, it's a challenge to connect with readers individually and as groups. I've been to several book clubs though, which was a lot of fun. I've done individual readings in Santa Cruz County, I've been to book fairs. But one of the most joyful things is when I do connect with a reader and are able to talk about different books and different mysteries and different authors. It's just very, very rewarding.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:19:35 Wow. You actually covered my next question as well because I love the contrast between what was difficult and what was hard because finding your audience is the trickiest part, isn't it? When you're trying to tell your story, you need to find the people who are, who want to hear your story. <laugh>
Nancy Wood 00:19:52 Absolutely
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:19:53 <laugh>. Well, on a simplest basis, how would you describe your success as a writer? What felt like, I've done it now.
Nancy Wood 00:20:03 My success came the first time I looked on Amazon, I looked online and I saw somebody had read and reviewed the book and I didn't know them. That for me was the benchmark of success. And ever since then, every time I find a review of somebody, I don't know, I think, wow, people I don't know are reading my books. It's so exciting.
Vanessa MacLauren-Wray 00:20:27 That's wonderful. And we're always reminding people, when you read a book, go and review it. And this is why, because then you can give that joy back to the author who wrote that book for you.
Nancy Wood 00:20:40 Thank you. Thank you. Vanessa <laugh>,
Brian Buhl 00:20:43 This is small publishing in a big universe. Would you please give us your name and a little bit about what you write?
Matt Maxwell 00:20:50 Uh, my name is Matt Maxwell. I'm currently writing the Haze Land series, which is a combination, uh, weird fantasy horror crime set in uh, eighties Los Angeles.
Brian Buhl 00:21:02 And what makes it weird?
Matt Maxwell 00:21:04 Weird as in inexplicable. Okay. As in things will happen and they will make sense within the story, but I'm not gonna sit there and explain to you the magic system or this giant cosmology. You'll have to figure it out for yourself if there even is one.
Brian Buhl 00:21:16 Okay, that sounds fascinating. How many times have you attended Beon?
Matt Maxwell 00:21:20 I think this is my third, but it's been a long time. I think the last time I was here was 20 17, 16. It's been a while.
Brian Buhl 00:21:30 Yeah, no, I, well we had a pandemic, so Yeah. Makes sense. And what do you find are the biggest challenges facing and the authors today?
Matt Maxwell 00:21:39 The visibility. Absolutely. Yeah. Getting connected to your reading audience or your potential reading audience. It's never been easier to be published. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it's never been harder to rise above the giant seething mass of every other indie author out there. Not that it's all elbows and knees and we're all fighting each other, but there's only so many eyeballs out there and you have to rise above to find a way to, to get connected with people who would be interested in your work. What
Brian Buhl 00:22:07 Do you feel has been your greatest success as an author?
Matt Maxwell 00:22:11 Wow. I mean I actually landed a publishing deal, which meant somebody thought the work was worth publishing in the first place. So that's now it's basically staying with it and continuing working. When you're the cheering section, basically you're the reason that it has to be finished and it has to get out there, that's more difficult.
Brian Buhl 00:22:29 What would you say is the greatest writing advice you've ever received?
Matt Maxwell 00:22:33 Probably to be true to the story and understand that when you finish with a story or a piece of work or whatever, that ultimately that piece of work its purpose is to be read by somebody else and then they will create something different out of that that maybe you didn't intend. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And that can be surprising, can be terrifying. You don't have control over how people are gonna read that work. You should take that as a call to, you know, freedom.
Brian Buhl 00:22:59 That's excellent. Thank you very, very much.
Matt Maxwell 00:23:01 Thanks for having me.
Brian Buhl 00:23:03 So let's start right off. Please gimme your name and real quick, uh, what you write and what you like to read.
Ryan Southwick 00:23:09 My name is Ryan Southwick. I write primarily science fiction with heart. I like to say cuz almost all of my work has, uh, some sort of romance theme to it. Relationships play a pretty big part in it. Reading, oh, I like to read everything. I like fantasy, I like science fiction, I like urban fantasy. Dabble in romance a little bit, but science fiction's really my jam these days.
Brian Buhl 00:23:31 And what's your latest book that you've written and the inspiration behind it?
Ryan Southwick 00:23:35 The latest book is called New Denver. It's a Timeless Keeper Saga Book two. The inspiration, honestly, I had this idea a while back, I really wanted to write a book about two people who were from the opposite side of the tracks, but like on a galactic level who were just made to be with each other. And so the entire series kind of focuses around this couple who basically the universe is out to separate them or get them in just this all kinds of stuff that gets in their way. But it started out from dystopian earth about 500 years in the future and that became a whole thing in itself coming, okay, well how did that happen? What is life like? All that stuff. So, uh, it was quite an adventure.
Brian Buhl 00:24:15 Wow. That sounds fantastic. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So we're at Beon Beon 2023. How many times have you attended Beon? Is this your first or I, I assume this is not, this
Ryan Southwick 00:24:24 Is my, I think it's my fourth. Yeah. The very first one I ever attended, that's when I met Water Dragon Publishing and signed my first book contract. So Beon has a special place in my heart.
Brian Buhl 00:24:33 Oh, that's fantastic. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. So what do you find are the biggest challenges facing the authors these days?
Ryan Southwick 00:24:39 It's eyeballs. Getting eyes on your work. It's the same boom I think with app development and things like that, right. It's so easy to publish your own book. The market is absolutely saturated and so getting people to get eyes on your work instead of the other million books that have been published that year is a real
Brian Buhl 00:24:54 Trick. I mean, just looking around Beon, the vast majority of the attendees are all writers, so we're all in that boat. Yeah. All trying for the same audience. Yeah, very much so. Yeah, I, I completely agree. Um, what do you feel has been your greatest success as an author?
Ryan Southwick 00:25:09 Finishing series?
Brian Buhl 00:25:11 Finishing?
Ryan Southwick 00:25:11 Yeah. A actually finishing the series. At first it was just, I don't have a literary background and so the first and biggest challenge was getting that first book out there and getting it to a place where it was, yes, this is not only readable but it's actually a good book that took a lot of work and a lot of revisions, a lot of feedback and a lot of patience from some really good friends.
Brian Buhl 00:25:32 I'm right there with you. Is there anything else you'd like to share with the audience before we close this up?
Ryan Southwick 00:25:39 Just my latest series is Timeless Keeper Saga. It's available from all your favorite retailers. Despite the fact that it's dystopian, it has a really warm heart to it. So check it out.
Brian Buhl 00:25:49 Thank you so much. This was Ryan Southwick.
Ryan Southwick 00:25:52 Thank you.
Brian Buhl 00:25:54 This is Small Publishing in a Big Universe and we are live at Beon 2023. Would you, uh, give us your name and then talk a little bit about what you write and maybe a little about what you like to read as well?
Clara Ward 00:26:06 My name is Clara Ward. I've written many flavors of speculative fiction. Most recently it tends to be science, fantasy with environmental themes and neurodivergent point of view. I like to read those too. But I like to read, I'll follow an author into all sorts of genres. So I start with speculative fiction and work outward.
Brian Buhl 00:26:27 So the environmental theme's a very topical and like what we're living with, climate change, whatnot. Is there any anything else that drives you to write with that particular theme?
Clara Ward 00:26:37 I think it's so much of our lives now with climate change and I live in the Bay Area and my house flooded 20 years ago. We have to make decisions about earthquake insurance have to plan for it's part of our lives. I also living between the ocean and San Francisco Bay, I spend a lot of time in those environments. Those have been showing up in my stories for as long as I've lived here. So
Brian Buhl 00:26:59 How many times have you attended Bay Con?
Clara Ward 00:27:01 I just realized yesterday that my first BayCon was 2003, so I've missed a few with the pandemic and there were years when I could only come for one day, but that was 20 years ago, which surprised me. Wow.
Brian Buhl 00:27:13 You've got me beat by about a decade. <laugh>. What do you find are the biggest challenges facing independent authors these days?
Clara Ward 00:27:21 For those like me who would rather be writing than networking or becoming social media influencers, I'd say the hardest is to get the story to the readers who will enjoy or value it. Finding
Brian Buhl 00:27:34 Your audience. Yeah. And getting that exposure, like
Clara Ward 00:27:37 Very specific audience for the the right people for the right book. It's not, to me, it's not as much about sales as I believe there are people who will enjoy the book, but it's not as simple as coming up with a sub-genre name. So really finding who would want this book.
Brian Buhl 00:27:51 Okay. You mentioned networking. What does it mean for you for networking and what are the pain points and what are the things about it that you enjoy
Clara Ward 00:27:59 Now? People tend to tell you that if you want to publish a novel you have to do social networking. And I was lucky enough to find a small press at this arts that was willing to take a more individual approach and I can bring to the table that I like going to conventions. I am more social at conventions than most places. I've been doing that most of my life now. And there are lots of other in-person groups or now online or Zoom groups where I have strong connections and my editor is more willing to do the big name social media. I do stuff on Discord and a bunch of forums, but we sort of compromised and we had a cover reveal recently where I spent 12 hours online and I can't imagine what I would've done without someone else covering the big name social media.
Brian Buhl 00:28:44 That's fantastic. And before I just leave that, would you say that uh, conventions are a, an important rung in your ladder for promoting your book and overcoming that problem that we have of finding the audience and finding the right people?
Clara Ward 00:28:56 For me, they are. I don't think it's the only solution or that it would work for everyone, but I found my people in fandom as a teenager, so it would make sense that some of the people who would like my book would be found here also.
Brian Buhl 00:29:08 No, that makes sense. And what do you feel has been your greatest success as an author?
Clara Ward 00:29:14 My greatest success has probably been finding a way to tell about the world and people as I see them. And it took me about 50 years. I was a slow learner. I've been writing novels since I was 13. But I think it took me that long to really know the world around me for the nature and environmental parts that are necessary to my writing and understand people well enough that I could show how I saw them, to people who don't see them that way, way, and then project it into the future 15 years, a hundred years and say something about I now really do believe that everyone has something to contribute and they can find a way to bring this together and if not solve, at least address some of the issues that I see in the world. And while I still love my younger self in the stories I wrote then, and I would love to support someone doing that sort of story to write what I did now. That was the strength I needed.
Brian Buhl 00:30:11 That's beautiful. I love that. So Joe, wrap this up. Is there anything else that you'd like to say? You know, talking about yourself, your books, anything else that you'd like to talk about?
Clara Ward 00:30:19 In recent years, most of the books that I've been very excited about have been either from indie authors or indie presses, which was what led me to the indie press that is now publishing my book, be the C. So while I find that at this arts has a lot of books I like, there are many other small presses. And I was excited at bay on this year to see so many indie authors and indie presses represented. And I would urge others readers or reviewers or people giving out prizes to look at those books because that's where a lot of the exciting things are happening now.
Brian Buhl 00:30:52 That's where the things are happening, that is breaking the norms, getting away from the things that have been treaded out. Perhaps the things that the bigger publishers see more as risky, as opposed to like the guaranteed sales or what they see as guaranteed sales.
Clara Ward 00:31:09 Right? Is that what way I say it? And yeah, there are more perspectives and more own voices of those things, whether it's neurodiversity or queer voices or non-binary voices or just a combination that hasn't been somewhere else. Or being able to tell a slower story or a story that isn't the traditional plot arc. There is so much out there in the small presses and the indie authors. And if you can find it, there are things that you never would've thought to look for that'll really fit with what you want to read.
Brian Buhl 00:31:40 Thank you so much. This has been Clara Ward. I wanna send a huge shout out and a big thanks to m Todd Gallas for donating this microphone for this event. If you like the sound of this microphone and you like the sound of this podcast and you wanna hear more of this specific microphone, you can find it being used by M Todd Gallas most Tuesday nights where he teaches writing at a Twitch tv slash m gallas.
LA Jacob 00:32:05 Thank you for tuning in to small publishing in a big universe. Check out the small publishing in a big universe marketplace where you will find books by these authors. Please go to their
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