Episode 228 - Six Keys to Author Success Part 2 with Nick Thacker
March 5, 2024
"I don't think a long term author, somebody who's in it for the long term, will be successful long term if they're not teachable, willing to learn, willing to adapt, but also persevere in that. To go through change after change after change after change. Because if there's nothing else true about any of the stuff I've said, it's that change is coming. Change will happen." —Nick Thacker
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This week on The Indy Author Podcast, I have Part 2 of a wide-ranging conversation with Nick Thacker about SIX KEYS TO AUTHOR SUCCESS. In this episode we talk about BUILDING AN AUTHOR PLATFORM, including the importance of building on land that you own; NETWORKING AND COMMUNITY, and the options offered by in-person and virtual communities; and ADAPTABILITY AND PERSISTENCE, including whether persistence can ever be a disadvantage.
If one of those topics piques your interest, you can easily jump to that section on YouTube by clicking on the flagged timestamps in the description.
If one of those topics piques your interest, you can easily jump to that section on YouTube by clicking on the flagged timestamps in the description.
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Nick Thacker is a USA Today Bestselling Author of over 40 thrillers. He owns and operates Conundrum Publishing and Book Career in A Year and runs the write/repeat workshops and writing intensives. He is also the founder of Author.Email, the only email marketing platform for specifically for authors, and RadioWrite.com, the 24/7 writing inspiration radio platform, and he is the VP of Author Success with Draft2Digital. His passion is to help authors figure out what their plan is — not just the “what,” but the “how” and the “why."
Links
Nick's Links:
nickthacker.com
https://www.bookcareerinayear.com/
https://www.facebook.com/AuthorNickThacker
YouTube
https://twitter.com/NickThacker
Matty's Links:
Affiliate links
Events
nickthacker.com
https://www.bookcareerinayear.com/
https://www.facebook.com/AuthorNickThacker
YouTube
https://twitter.com/NickThacker
Matty's Links:
Affiliate links
Events
I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Nick! Do you think persistence is ever a problem? Was there a situation where you were persistent longer than you should have been? I’d love to hear what your experience was, and if you carried learnings from that experience forward into another situation.
Please post your comments on YouTube--and I'd love it if you would subscribe while you're there!
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AI-generated Summary
The transcript features a discussion between Matty and Nick Thacker on the keys to author success, with a focus on building an author platform, networking and community, and adaptability and persistence. Nick emphasizes the importance of authors having their own platforms, such as a website, to maintain control over their presence and not rely solely on social media, which can be unpredictable. They also discuss the technical aspects of website hosting and the transition between different hosting services.
Networking and community are highlighted as essential for authors, especially given the solitary nature of writing. The value of in-person and virtual interactions is discussed, with both being important for forming meaningful connections within the industry. Such networks can lead to opportunities, support, and shared experiences that are vital for personal and professional growth.
Lastly, adaptability and persistence are identified as crucial traits for long-term success in writing. The industry's dynamic nature requires authors to be open to change and continuous learning, while persistence is about maintaining focus on core activities like writing and marketing despite challenges.
Overall, the transcript underscores the multifaceted approach needed for authorial success, combining practical strategies with personal development and community engagement.
Networking and community are highlighted as essential for authors, especially given the solitary nature of writing. The value of in-person and virtual interactions is discussed, with both being important for forming meaningful connections within the industry. Such networks can lead to opportunities, support, and shared experiences that are vital for personal and professional growth.
Lastly, adaptability and persistence are identified as crucial traits for long-term success in writing. The industry's dynamic nature requires authors to be open to change and continuous learning, while persistence is about maintaining focus on core activities like writing and marketing despite challenges.
Overall, the transcript underscores the multifaceted approach needed for authorial success, combining practical strategies with personal development and community engagement.
Transcript
[00:00:00] Matty: So, we've now gone through three of the six keys to author success: quality writing, professional presentation, and strategic marketing.
BUILDING AN AUTHOR PLATFORM
[00:00:06] Matty: And we are on to the fourth, which is building an author platform. Talk a little bit about how building an author platform differs from strategic marketing.
[00:00:15] Nick: Sure. This doesn't have to be the fourth thing you tackle as an author. I mean, I had a web design company. I was building websites and hosting. So building platforms, which are effectively just a website, was sort of the first thing that I did. And I'm glad because I'm good at it.
It was a place I called my home base. Everything started and ended there. But it was also something I could do while I was waiting around for query letters to be sent out and rejected. And so it felt like taking proactive action. You don't need to wait until your marketing game is on point before you build a platform.
Build on land that you own
[00:00:51] Nick: Frankly, I might even put building a platform before marketing. Start building a platform when you've got a few books out, you know that this is something you want to do long term. They need a place to live online on land that you own, as we say. You don't want to build your empire on rented land. Having those social media profiles—Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, Twitter X, I don't know—those are great, and they're a great way to reach potential new readers and fans. But they can change the game, and they do change the game at any time. And so having your own author platform, also known as a website, is very important. At some point in your author career, you're going to want to focus on that.
It's the combined reach of your author's presence, both online and offline. It's not just a website, but this is your brand platform in some sense. It helps work for you 24/7. When you're not doing something, like being online or doing book signings, your website or your brand, whatever it is that you've built, will be working for you. And so it's important to be strategic about this. If you are building a brand, take the time to get a logo that you like, that's going to go on everything. Maybe two if you have different pen names. But get that website up so that no matter how people find you, they end up there and they see a whole world they can now get lost in.
You can find different series, and you can buy them from the website, or link out to Amazon or whatever. But now you control a platform online that cannot be changed by external forces unless you decide to change it. And that's the power of a platform—it's something you fully control. It's land that you own.
But think of the platform as everything. The website is what I call the home base, but all those outposts—putting your branded memes on Facebook, your branded images on Instagram, or your branded trailer videos on Twitter or YouTube—all of those things are part of your platform.
And the reason I have this broken out as a point is, it's not just about getting a pretty Wix, Squarespace, or WordPress website and calling it a day. It's about thinking through how people might find you. And once they do, what's the call to action that I've put?
[00:03:33] Matty: I'm going to use this opportunity to ask a completely self-serving question, which is that when I was getting ready to publish my first book in 2013, I got MaddyDalrymple.com. Later on, I got other ones like AnnKinnear.com for a character in one of my series who has a business and occasionally they refer to her website. I got them through GoDaddy because I didn't know anything. I am using Weebly as my website builder, which I don't mind, but they were bought by Stripe and they're not promising to support it after the middle of next year. So, I'm looking for options to replace Weebly, and based on my research, Wix seems like a good option. But I'm really confused about the hosting side of it. I don't love GoDaddy, but I have no idea what is involved in moving a website off its current hosting service. Can you give a primer for the non-technical people among us? If people are looking for that kind of change, how do they go about it? How extensive is the process?
[00:04:55] Nick: Well, depending on when this goes live, check out AuthorHosts.com. I've been hosting websites for probably 20 years at this point. I'm not new to the game, but I am finally making it more official and saying, "Hey, there's a way to do this in a process." I've got a team that I'm hoping to put in place so that we can scale. But the point is, this may be ready to go. So you can just go there and we can handle transferring it in and getting it hooked up with whatever hosting you need. Generally speaking, your domain name is like the address. If you own a trailer and that's where you live, that's your home, and you can move that home wherever you want, and the street address changes. That's the domain name, and that domain name can change or stay the same, but it's essentially a wholly separate thing from hosting the website. Your host can be on hosting company A, but you bought your domain from GoDaddy or Hostinger or HostGator. And all you have to do is connect those by way of what's called an A record, a DNS record. You can absolutely move to probably any other host depending on how your website's built. If it's modern, most of these places are, so you can pretty safely assume that, "Hey, I found hosting, I'm going to move my website over here."
Now, the complexity of the process of moving a website really depends on the site itself. Even with platforms like Weebly, there could be gigabytes of pictures and videos, or special code that was written for the website. It's important to realize that every website is different. Even the most basic ones can have different PHP configurations and so on. I'm hoping to help authors by saying, "Hey, okay, you want to do this, move it over to us. Great, we'll handle that. No worries. Or if you want to move somewhere else, understand you might have to upgrade your PHP installation, which could break your site."
I know this doesn't make things any easier for you, Matty, but the truth is, it can be complicated. There could be a lot more to it. Typically, what authors do when building a platform is get a WordPress website, a Weebly site, a Wix site, or Squarespace. Sometimes, with Squarespace and Shopify, they host the website for you, so you don't have to worry about it. That's a great option because you just pay them the money and they do the work. However, when you start moving things around, like a Shopify store, you can't self-host it. You pay them, and they host your store. If you want to move, you have to rebuild the website. It just depends on the configuration and what the website is built on.
Then there's the e-commerce component. For example, if you're using WooCommerce, which is a WordPress plugin, you can't easily move to Shopify because they're made to compete with each other. Anyway, I don't know if that helped you at all. But generally speaking, a WordPress website running on server A will work on server B that also hosts WordPress websites. There's usually not going to be any problem.
So, as long as you find that you can take your code and self-host it, which you can do with WordPress, and maybe some other cPanel stuff, but you can't do with Wix or Squarespace. By design, their model includes hosting the website for you. If you have your own code, your own files essentially, you can generally move those to a new server, and you're good to go.
And yes, it's involved. It can be an hour-long process or a 24-hour long process depending on how comfortable you are with all that stuff. But it's effectively just taking files on your computer and moving them into another folder, then just making sure that folder can still run the website. That's really what you're doing behind the scenes.
[00:08:18] Matty: I didn't realize that aspect of Wix being both a web builder and a web host. That's interesting.
[00:08:23] Nick: I think Wix is, I could be wrong, but like something like Squarespace, I know you pay them, it's like Medium. If you want to start a blog, you can blog on Medium all day long, but you can't take Medium's code with you to have another Medium website on your own server. You can take your content, you own that, depending on the terms. You can take your content and say, "I'm going to post this on a WordPress website," but now you're building a whole new website on WordPress.
[00:08:47] Matty: I back up my Weebly sites every month and always wondered if I could just take that backup and implement it somewhere else.
[00:09:00] Nick: Sure, that's the idea. That's how we move websites. So a WordPress website, which is what we host and recommend, can be backed up using a plugin like Duplicator Pro. It will create an archive file of all your files and folder structure, as well as the WordPress core installation. But it also includes your database, which holds the data, content, and all that on your website. Then it makes an installer file. You just load both of these onto a new server, and it will extract the stuff and set it all up for you. In a perfect world—though the world's not perfect, so hear me say this—there's always going to be an error or ten, but ideally, it'll be running right away.
However, even though it's WordPress, and every server on the planet can be configured to run a WordPress website, not all web servers are configured to run that exact website in the same way. There could be differences like Apache versus Nginx. There's a lot of stuff behind the scenes.
But my goal with AuthorHost is that you don't have to worry about that. You just say, "Hey, I want to pay you $15 a month to host my WordPress website." We'll get it, install it, make sure it works, and you never think about it again. It's just going to work and it's going to be the fastest website you've ever seen.
[00:10:09] Matty: Excellent. We talked a bit about building the author platform, which could be three or four pillars, depending on your perspective.
NETWORKING AND COMMUNITY
[00:10:16] Matty: Another one, and I love talking about this, is networking and community as one of the six keys to author success. So, what is your perspective on networking and community?
[00:10:24] Nick: My perspective is that you need it. Especially with a career like being an artist and being somewhat isolated, where you work by yourself. It's so much better to have these networking and community pieces in place. That's all I can say, really.
I started doing this over a decade ago when I began writing while still working a day job. When I decided to leave the day job and become a writer full time, I had panic attacks, major anxiety issues, depression—my world came crashing down because I was isolated. I got scared because I didn't have anybody in the trenches with me. I obviously had a wonderful loving wife, but she's not a writer, she doesn't get it, she's not in that world. So, I realized the hard way how important going to conferences, talking to other authors, and having interview-type situations like this is. Just having friends—that's your community. Being part of that community, being active, and talking to them, and just recognizing that we're both writing books, we're both experiencing the same Amazon woes or battling with Facebook ads together, whatever it is, is absolutely crucial for our mental health.
Period. End of story.
But, even if your mental health is great and you never need to see another human being, I still think building relationships with other authors, publishers, industry people, opens up so many more opportunities than you thought possible, whether it's collaborations, endorsement deals, traditional publishing contracts, or just insights.
[00:13:18] Matty: You know, there are people that I call—I don't know how to call; I'm a millennial, I don't call people—but like people that I might reach out to and say, "Hey, I hear you're moving over to ACX, which is Audible, Amazon, can you tell me this or that?" And if they can tell you, they'll tell you because they're your friend. You only get that by participating, by being part of that community, by being active. Usually, in person, it just works better. Yes, you can spend all your time on KBOR, which is a shithole, sorry, I never want to go to places like that because it just tends to be hostile. It's so much easier to just go in person and talk to these people who are normal human beings in real life, and shake their hand, give them a hug, and say, "Oh, what are you doing? What's going on?" And then you call them a friend. When you talk to them online, they have that relationship already. They know who you are, and you know who they are. But it's just—I mean, I don't need to really belabor this point either. I think we all understand how important it is—like, humans were made to commune. We were made to be together, not all the time, and certainly not if people are negative and all that. I want to cut them out of my life, sure. But generally speaking, we are made to be with other people. And so you have to, as an author, who has to do their job by themselves almost, it's that much more important to go make sure you have a community, a network to tap into, to be a part of, to plug into, just be around other humans. Simple as that.
[00:13:18] Matty: This is great because it's giving me all the opportunities to repeat the things that I like to repeat over and over again, but I definitely agree about the power of the in-person event. But I think that people can capitalize on that by extending it to virtual get-togethers because, like, I wouldn't be able to chat with you if it weren't for Zoom.
[00:13:35] Nick: Oh, totally. Tapping into both in-person and virtual communities.
[00:13:36] Matty: And another good example is from 20 Books. I went to 20 Books and got to meet a bunch of people that I had met through—they had all been on the podcast or were imminently about to be on the podcast, or I'd met in some other way, I'd been on their podcast, what have you. And now we're having monthly Zoom get-togethers just to check in. So it's nice to be able to tap into both of those. Especially because conferences can be so expensive and the travel is both expensive and stressful. I think it's often uncomfortable for people who are maybe more tending to be introverts. So in the opportunities where people can do in-person, I think that's great. And if you can't, then don't think that those opportunities are missing for you.
[00:14:18] Nick: No, thanks for saying that, too. The last four years have taught us that we can do a lot of this stuff remotely, including being part of a network and part of a community. And you're absolutely right. You don't have to go to conferences. I like conferences, and I am extroverted, but I understand that not everyone is, and that's okay.
[00:15:06] Matty: Totally fair. I do think that being in real life with people can accelerate some of that process. Whereas it might take you and I five or six of these calls before we can call each other friends, and we're sharing stuff together, maybe, maybe not. But if I meet you in person, you're going to get a story, something that happened today that has nothing to do with writing, and we might have a drink together, whatever. It just tends to accelerate that relationship, I find. But it's not a requirement, by any means. Don't feel like you can't be a writer if you're not going to conferences. That's not true at all.
[00:15:06] Matty: I think there's also a nice tie-in between that idea of community building or networking. Networking feels a little creepy and LinkedIn-ish, but,
[00:15:13] Nick: Yes, the word 'networking' is not one I like to use, but it is the best way to describe this idea of being with other people in your industry who work in the same sort of field as you do.
[00:15:24] Matty: And I think that the pro, if you can get rid of the weird baggage that the word 'networking' has, the value of it is this idea of the web of connections. Many years ago, I started realizing the importance of building these kinds of networks, and I tried to do a visual representation of it. Oh, I met this person at a conference, they gave me a blurb on my book, then somebody read the book, and it immediately became so complicated that it didn't work well graphically. But I think back on all the opportunities I've had, and many of those I can trace back to a conversation I had with somebody at a conference or something like that.
So first of all, there's just the fun of it. There's the good karma of being a member of a community and both benefiting from that but also paying it back. And then there's a ton of concrete business, financial, career benefits you can get out of it that you miss if you don't participate in that way.
[00:16:25] Nick: Absolutely. Yeah, it's kind of a small story. I was just at the Superstars Writing Conference here in town. I went to get coffee with some industry people, friends of mine. One of them pulled out a credit card, paid for all our drinks, and I made a comment, "Oh, I have the same card because it's such a great card. You get three times the points on social media ad spend." You know, that's the kind of stuff, that natural in-person interaction, like you mentioned financial stuff. That's the sort of advice that you get. I didn't go to a class or an online course to learn that. I'm sure someone would sell that to me if I asked, but it's just those quick little interactions where, had I not known about that card, he would have told me, "Yeah, I use this one because I get three times the points on whatever." It's just little things like that, that you pick up. Taxes, whatever it is that authors have to deal with because we're also people in a society, those are really great networking opportunities. But like you said, it feels very corporate to say that's networking, even though that's technically what we were doing.
[00:17:58] Matty: We're just hanging out. We're just buddies. And the conversation that we had when we had our coffees led to all sorts of things that could become partnerships and fun and opportunities. You can do that online, but it is a little faster to do it in person. So I am a proponent of going to conferences and getting out of your comfort zone. You don't have to go to 20 a year like I do, but go to one. Pick a big one to go to and say, "I'm going to save my money, I'm going to do this, and I'm going to just go and be around." I highly recommend it because I think you will walk away with at least something you didn't have before that you couldn't get anywhere else.
[00:17:58] Matty: Well, it's funny that Superstars came up because I was recording an episode of a different video series I have called "What I Learned," where I interview authors about their latest book. And I was interviewing Todd Fahnestock. He mentioned that he had just been at Superstars. And I said, "Oh, I started listing all the people I knew that were going, including Joshua Esso, who had been a previous podcast guest who turned out to be with Todd, and then I had been... I mean, this is a perfect example. I had been introduced to Todd because I knew Mark LaFave, who I had met through being a patron of his, and then contacting him about wanting more information about short fiction, which led to us co-authoring a book, and then I stayed in touch with Mark, and when I met Todd at 20 Books, I wanted a virtual introduction, and I knew that I had seen a post, a social media post with Mark and Todd, so I asked Mark to give me a virtual, like, you know, I think that's a perfect example." But, that actually comments started out saying that it's also a great way to vet opportunities, because now I've met and spoken with so many people who go to Superstars, and I can learn more about it, and I can get the behind-the-scenes scoop and see if it's for me.
[00:19:06] Nick: You can ask them exactly how they felt about it. And if it's not a conference worth going to, you'll find out very quickly by talking to the people you trust.
[00:19:12] Matty: Exactly.
[00:19:13] Nick: And I, and we talked offline too, like, well, I want to get you in there. I think you should go speak. And we're, you know, trying to figure out how to make that happen and stuff. But it, cause it is a conference that is worth going to. It's a lot of fun. There's a lot of people there that, that are, you know, I would want to network with, you know.
[00:19:26] Matty: Yes. Yeah, there are a couple of ones where not only do the programs look great, but all the people that I wanted to catch up with are there, and Superstars is definitely one of them.
[00:19:35] Nick: Right. Right.
ADAPTABILITY AND PERSISTENCE
[00:19:37] Matty: So maybe this is a good segue to item number six, which is Adaptability and Persistence. So, I love that you included this as one of the six keys to author success. I think it's another one, just like quality reading, that can sometimes be overlooked. So, share some insights on the importance of adaptability and persistence.
[00:19:54] Nick: Yeah. So similar to the idea of quality and our craft being foundational to our success, I don't think a long term author, someone who's in it for the long term, will be successful long term if they're not teachable. You know, willing to learn, willing to adapt, but also persevering through that.
To go through change after change after change after change. Because if there's nothing else true about any of the stuff I've said, it's that change is coming. Change will happen. You will be forced to change something about what you do, big or small or in between, maybe both, and it's so important to recognize and acknowledge that.
Now, everybody I tell this to is like, "Yep, that's fine, I understand, I got it." And then something happens, like Amazon says, "We're changing the payout to this," and KU's going to be kind of this 2.0 thing, and everyone loses their mind. Or a new industry veteran pops up and says, "Hey, I'm doing this or that," and it's unethical, surprise. And everyone loses their mind. Or Amazon comes out and says, "We're going to ask you to check a box that says, is this AI-generated or not?" And people lose their mind. So the point is not that authors are always losing their mind—that's probably true, too—but the truth is, if we can't adapt, we're going to die, we're going to get left behind, we're going to just quit.
If you cannot adapt, and you can't be forced to change in some certain ways, you're going to get left behind. You're not going to get to call this a career for very long. It's an adolescent industry, you know, it's not a baby anymore, but it's certainly not grown up. It's certainly not the 200 plus year history of traditional publishing that you can go and find.
And it's a dynamic industry, right? It's subject to variables that we wouldn't think are related, and the point is just that things change, and if you aren't on board with that, you're going to have a hard time. And you might make it for a year, you might make it for two years, but five years into it, things change every single week. You're going to probably be exhausted if you didn't expect that.
So I put this in there because it's a reminder to myself that hey, change is coming, but it's also a reminder to people who think that they're ready, you know, think that, "Okay, well, I understand how this industry works right now." It's going to change, you know. Just because email marketing is important today, and Facebook advertising, and all that is important, and social media is important, pick one of those things. How many changes have we seen? It's February, and we just had two weeks ago, Google and Yahoo colluding and deciding how we're all going to send email from now on. And they just laid down the hammer. That wasn't expected, for the large part, it wasn't expected.
We're talking about TikTok, BookTok becoming so popular. I didn't even know what that stupid website was four years ago, three years ago, even. And it may not be around, you know, another... I mean, it'll probably be around, but it's not going to be as useful, right?
[00:24:41] Matty: And so, the point is that everything will change. A lot of things in the indie author community will change very quickly and can take us by surprise. So the second half of that is persistence. It's being able to say, "Okay, I know things are going to change, but I'm going to write my books, I'm going to study, I'm going to be teachable," which is such an important thing. "I'm going to network and commune with other people doing it, I'm going to share ideas and swap horror stories of advertising, figure out what I need to do, and I'm going to keep going, stay the course, write more books. At the end of the day, I'll figure out how to do the marketing thing."
I don't know how many times I've felt like the rug's been pulled out from under me when I figure out an advertising tactic. Personally, Maddie, I think I broke the ACX promo code thing. They used to give you free promo codes for every book—50 to you and 50 to the narrator. I reached out to my narrators and was like, "Give me your codes if you're not using them. I'm going to make us a bunch of money." And I set up a thing on my website called The Amazing Audiobook Giveaway Thingamajig. You'd have to be signed up to my mailing list, but I would give you a code for any book that you want. I had all my book covers on the page; you'd click it, put your email address in, and I would send you a code for that book. We all knew that promo code was just a generic code for any book in their store, but I would tell people, "Go get this book with this code."
They used to pay you a certain type of payout for a sale from that promo code. I made like $18,000 one month, and then $12,000 the next month. I was doing great, and I thought, "This is it, I've made it." And I talked to this girl named Hannah from ACX at Superstars four years ago. I was like, "Hey, what's the deal with this? I'm making a killing. I feel like I'm gaming the system." She said it was kind of what it was designed for, a loss leader to get people an Audible account set up. And I swear, within two weeks, they were like, "Hey, we're going to sunset this."
[00:24:42] Matty: Oh no!
[00:24:42] Nick: I was doing this, and I was like, "Damn it, I shouldn't have said anything." But the point is, things change. The point is, it's always going to change. If I didn't have a book to advertise, I wouldn't be able to continue working, right?
My point is, it all comes back down to what we're writing. It all comes back down to writing more books and building those relationships through email marketing, social media with our readers. It doesn't matter—the way to do that is going to change, and the way I communicate with people will change, and my quality will get better, hopefully, over time.
But, you know, if I'm just the Mickelson twins, teaching people to go steal an audiobook and sell it, and then this happens, those people are all out of business. They don't have their own books to use, they don't have their own audiobooks to rewrap in new content, new ways, and so on.
[00:25:47] Matty: So, and I do mean to bash on them because I think they're scammers and they should probably go to hell, but the point is, you can build a career in spite of all this change by being willing to persevere through it and write more books. And you'll be fine. Truthfully, you really will. Can persistence ever be a disadvantage?
[00:25:47] Matty: I wanted to probe the persistence a little bit because it's one of these things where persistence is a positive quality, but any quality taken to an extreme can be a bad thing. I'm trying to frame this question in a way that isn't impossible to answer. When I look at my own business practices, I think some people pop in and out of stuff, like Facebook ads or Amazon ads or book swaps, and I'm not a "pop in and out" kind of person; I'm a "stick with it-er." But I think sometimes I stick with it longer than I should. Obviously, the way you have to judge that is going to be very different than if you're thinking about whether to continue writing versus continuing a Facebook ad. They're quite different questions, but I think they both carry dangers if you stick with something for too long. So, are there any caveats you would add about persistence? Is there a point at which persistence in an author's career can hold someone back rather than helping them move forward?
[00:26:55] Nick: Well, I don't mean persistence in specific practical tactics like Facebook ads. I do believe that having ads running all the time is generally better than not, but if you are running a Facebook ad that isn't working, you should stop the ad. I mean more generally, you should always be using email marketing, generally doing social media, generally doing advertising. There's a lot of wiggle room within it. My definition is to generally do those things. Generally be persistent. I'm not saying that you have to post on social media at 12 p.m. every day. I'm saying pop in and out. Set up a bunch of content at the beginning of the month. I'm late this month because we had a dog die, and my parents are in town, and there was a conference, but I like the idea of not ever having to log into Facebook. But I also know that Facebook is important. So persistence in social media for me means letting me batch a bunch of content or have an assistant get a bunch of content together, schedule it at the beginning of the month, and that's my social media touch point for the month. If I don't log in, I'm still being persistent in using social media as a tool that can be a force for good for my career. And yes, I agree with you, there is a lot of benefit to popping in and out. Mental health is the first thing that comes to mind. If TikTok is driving you crazy every time you do it, and you're kind of going nuts, like a political wingnut or something, then stop! Don't be persistent in that. But generally be persistent in reaching out to your tribe, wherever they may be.
If it's TikTok, figure out a way that's healthy for you to schedule posts, respond, or whatever you need to do for TikTok. Does that make sense? Yeah, I definitely like your caveat. You don't have to be doing what I do every single day. I teach a lot of this stuff. I do live streams all the time and try to make it clear that, hey, I'm being descriptive here.
I'm telling you what I do. I'm not being prescriptive. I'm not telling you that you have to do this the exact same way. But persistence is in the long term. Like, over the last 20 years of my career, did I do social media well?
You've got to be able to answer "yes" to that question, or you're just missing a lot of people you could have reached. But that doesn't mean you were persistent every single day in posting on Facebook, right?
[00:29:28] Matty: Yeah, I think that pairing that with adaptability is key because when those things happen in life, I'm very sorry to hear about your dog, when those things come up, then you have to take a step back and say, "Well, persistence might say I continue working on my book or I continue working on my email strategy or whatever, but adaptability says, sometimes not so much. Sometimes taking a break is what is needed." So yeah, I like pairing those two things.
[00:29:55] Nick: And that's why I did it. They sound like they might be contradictory, but they really need to go hand in hand. If all I did was be persistent in taking naps, I would never write another book, right? Definitions are important, and how we break this stuff down. But most reasonable authors will be able to hear that and say, "Alright. Okay. Being able to change and adapt and be willing to move forward and progress also goes hand in hand with being persistent to the things that are core to who I am as a writer, which is writing books, generally marketing, you know, and all the other things I said here."
Have that community of people. That doesn't mean you're persistent in going to conferences every single month, no matter what. It means I'm going to go, and when it feels like I'm not getting what I need out of it, or my mental health is struggling, or whatever, my family needs me here, take a break. No one's going to fault you for that.
You can still be persistent in being a networking and community individual, you just need to take a break.
[00:30:51] Matty: Well, that is all so great. Nick, thank you so much for joining me to talk about the six keys to author success, and please let everyone know where they can go to find out more about you and everything you do online.
[00:31:02] Nick: Sure. The easiest place is nickthacker.com. You'll see the homepage there has all the little links to the things that I'm involved in, which is, or as you mentioned at the beginning of the episode, gratuitous. But that, you know, you find my fiction there if you're interested in action-adventure thrillers, and I do a lot of non-fiction, you know, teaching, training, coaching, all that kind of stuff at bookcareerinayear.com. So those are the two big websites I would recommend.
[00:31:24] Matty: Perfect, thank you so much.
BUILDING AN AUTHOR PLATFORM
[00:00:06] Matty: And we are on to the fourth, which is building an author platform. Talk a little bit about how building an author platform differs from strategic marketing.
[00:00:15] Nick: Sure. This doesn't have to be the fourth thing you tackle as an author. I mean, I had a web design company. I was building websites and hosting. So building platforms, which are effectively just a website, was sort of the first thing that I did. And I'm glad because I'm good at it.
It was a place I called my home base. Everything started and ended there. But it was also something I could do while I was waiting around for query letters to be sent out and rejected. And so it felt like taking proactive action. You don't need to wait until your marketing game is on point before you build a platform.
Build on land that you own
[00:00:51] Nick: Frankly, I might even put building a platform before marketing. Start building a platform when you've got a few books out, you know that this is something you want to do long term. They need a place to live online on land that you own, as we say. You don't want to build your empire on rented land. Having those social media profiles—Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn, Twitter X, I don't know—those are great, and they're a great way to reach potential new readers and fans. But they can change the game, and they do change the game at any time. And so having your own author platform, also known as a website, is very important. At some point in your author career, you're going to want to focus on that.
It's the combined reach of your author's presence, both online and offline. It's not just a website, but this is your brand platform in some sense. It helps work for you 24/7. When you're not doing something, like being online or doing book signings, your website or your brand, whatever it is that you've built, will be working for you. And so it's important to be strategic about this. If you are building a brand, take the time to get a logo that you like, that's going to go on everything. Maybe two if you have different pen names. But get that website up so that no matter how people find you, they end up there and they see a whole world they can now get lost in.
You can find different series, and you can buy them from the website, or link out to Amazon or whatever. But now you control a platform online that cannot be changed by external forces unless you decide to change it. And that's the power of a platform—it's something you fully control. It's land that you own.
But think of the platform as everything. The website is what I call the home base, but all those outposts—putting your branded memes on Facebook, your branded images on Instagram, or your branded trailer videos on Twitter or YouTube—all of those things are part of your platform.
And the reason I have this broken out as a point is, it's not just about getting a pretty Wix, Squarespace, or WordPress website and calling it a day. It's about thinking through how people might find you. And once they do, what's the call to action that I've put?
[00:03:33] Matty: I'm going to use this opportunity to ask a completely self-serving question, which is that when I was getting ready to publish my first book in 2013, I got MaddyDalrymple.com. Later on, I got other ones like AnnKinnear.com for a character in one of my series who has a business and occasionally they refer to her website. I got them through GoDaddy because I didn't know anything. I am using Weebly as my website builder, which I don't mind, but they were bought by Stripe and they're not promising to support it after the middle of next year. So, I'm looking for options to replace Weebly, and based on my research, Wix seems like a good option. But I'm really confused about the hosting side of it. I don't love GoDaddy, but I have no idea what is involved in moving a website off its current hosting service. Can you give a primer for the non-technical people among us? If people are looking for that kind of change, how do they go about it? How extensive is the process?
[00:04:55] Nick: Well, depending on when this goes live, check out AuthorHosts.com. I've been hosting websites for probably 20 years at this point. I'm not new to the game, but I am finally making it more official and saying, "Hey, there's a way to do this in a process." I've got a team that I'm hoping to put in place so that we can scale. But the point is, this may be ready to go. So you can just go there and we can handle transferring it in and getting it hooked up with whatever hosting you need. Generally speaking, your domain name is like the address. If you own a trailer and that's where you live, that's your home, and you can move that home wherever you want, and the street address changes. That's the domain name, and that domain name can change or stay the same, but it's essentially a wholly separate thing from hosting the website. Your host can be on hosting company A, but you bought your domain from GoDaddy or Hostinger or HostGator. And all you have to do is connect those by way of what's called an A record, a DNS record. You can absolutely move to probably any other host depending on how your website's built. If it's modern, most of these places are, so you can pretty safely assume that, "Hey, I found hosting, I'm going to move my website over here."
Now, the complexity of the process of moving a website really depends on the site itself. Even with platforms like Weebly, there could be gigabytes of pictures and videos, or special code that was written for the website. It's important to realize that every website is different. Even the most basic ones can have different PHP configurations and so on. I'm hoping to help authors by saying, "Hey, okay, you want to do this, move it over to us. Great, we'll handle that. No worries. Or if you want to move somewhere else, understand you might have to upgrade your PHP installation, which could break your site."
I know this doesn't make things any easier for you, Matty, but the truth is, it can be complicated. There could be a lot more to it. Typically, what authors do when building a platform is get a WordPress website, a Weebly site, a Wix site, or Squarespace. Sometimes, with Squarespace and Shopify, they host the website for you, so you don't have to worry about it. That's a great option because you just pay them the money and they do the work. However, when you start moving things around, like a Shopify store, you can't self-host it. You pay them, and they host your store. If you want to move, you have to rebuild the website. It just depends on the configuration and what the website is built on.
Then there's the e-commerce component. For example, if you're using WooCommerce, which is a WordPress plugin, you can't easily move to Shopify because they're made to compete with each other. Anyway, I don't know if that helped you at all. But generally speaking, a WordPress website running on server A will work on server B that also hosts WordPress websites. There's usually not going to be any problem.
So, as long as you find that you can take your code and self-host it, which you can do with WordPress, and maybe some other cPanel stuff, but you can't do with Wix or Squarespace. By design, their model includes hosting the website for you. If you have your own code, your own files essentially, you can generally move those to a new server, and you're good to go.
And yes, it's involved. It can be an hour-long process or a 24-hour long process depending on how comfortable you are with all that stuff. But it's effectively just taking files on your computer and moving them into another folder, then just making sure that folder can still run the website. That's really what you're doing behind the scenes.
[00:08:18] Matty: I didn't realize that aspect of Wix being both a web builder and a web host. That's interesting.
[00:08:23] Nick: I think Wix is, I could be wrong, but like something like Squarespace, I know you pay them, it's like Medium. If you want to start a blog, you can blog on Medium all day long, but you can't take Medium's code with you to have another Medium website on your own server. You can take your content, you own that, depending on the terms. You can take your content and say, "I'm going to post this on a WordPress website," but now you're building a whole new website on WordPress.
[00:08:47] Matty: I back up my Weebly sites every month and always wondered if I could just take that backup and implement it somewhere else.
[00:09:00] Nick: Sure, that's the idea. That's how we move websites. So a WordPress website, which is what we host and recommend, can be backed up using a plugin like Duplicator Pro. It will create an archive file of all your files and folder structure, as well as the WordPress core installation. But it also includes your database, which holds the data, content, and all that on your website. Then it makes an installer file. You just load both of these onto a new server, and it will extract the stuff and set it all up for you. In a perfect world—though the world's not perfect, so hear me say this—there's always going to be an error or ten, but ideally, it'll be running right away.
However, even though it's WordPress, and every server on the planet can be configured to run a WordPress website, not all web servers are configured to run that exact website in the same way. There could be differences like Apache versus Nginx. There's a lot of stuff behind the scenes.
But my goal with AuthorHost is that you don't have to worry about that. You just say, "Hey, I want to pay you $15 a month to host my WordPress website." We'll get it, install it, make sure it works, and you never think about it again. It's just going to work and it's going to be the fastest website you've ever seen.
[00:10:09] Matty: Excellent. We talked a bit about building the author platform, which could be three or four pillars, depending on your perspective.
NETWORKING AND COMMUNITY
[00:10:16] Matty: Another one, and I love talking about this, is networking and community as one of the six keys to author success. So, what is your perspective on networking and community?
[00:10:24] Nick: My perspective is that you need it. Especially with a career like being an artist and being somewhat isolated, where you work by yourself. It's so much better to have these networking and community pieces in place. That's all I can say, really.
I started doing this over a decade ago when I began writing while still working a day job. When I decided to leave the day job and become a writer full time, I had panic attacks, major anxiety issues, depression—my world came crashing down because I was isolated. I got scared because I didn't have anybody in the trenches with me. I obviously had a wonderful loving wife, but she's not a writer, she doesn't get it, she's not in that world. So, I realized the hard way how important going to conferences, talking to other authors, and having interview-type situations like this is. Just having friends—that's your community. Being part of that community, being active, and talking to them, and just recognizing that we're both writing books, we're both experiencing the same Amazon woes or battling with Facebook ads together, whatever it is, is absolutely crucial for our mental health.
Period. End of story.
But, even if your mental health is great and you never need to see another human being, I still think building relationships with other authors, publishers, industry people, opens up so many more opportunities than you thought possible, whether it's collaborations, endorsement deals, traditional publishing contracts, or just insights.
[00:13:18] Matty: You know, there are people that I call—I don't know how to call; I'm a millennial, I don't call people—but like people that I might reach out to and say, "Hey, I hear you're moving over to ACX, which is Audible, Amazon, can you tell me this or that?" And if they can tell you, they'll tell you because they're your friend. You only get that by participating, by being part of that community, by being active. Usually, in person, it just works better. Yes, you can spend all your time on KBOR, which is a shithole, sorry, I never want to go to places like that because it just tends to be hostile. It's so much easier to just go in person and talk to these people who are normal human beings in real life, and shake their hand, give them a hug, and say, "Oh, what are you doing? What's going on?" And then you call them a friend. When you talk to them online, they have that relationship already. They know who you are, and you know who they are. But it's just—I mean, I don't need to really belabor this point either. I think we all understand how important it is—like, humans were made to commune. We were made to be together, not all the time, and certainly not if people are negative and all that. I want to cut them out of my life, sure. But generally speaking, we are made to be with other people. And so you have to, as an author, who has to do their job by themselves almost, it's that much more important to go make sure you have a community, a network to tap into, to be a part of, to plug into, just be around other humans. Simple as that.
[00:13:18] Matty: This is great because it's giving me all the opportunities to repeat the things that I like to repeat over and over again, but I definitely agree about the power of the in-person event. But I think that people can capitalize on that by extending it to virtual get-togethers because, like, I wouldn't be able to chat with you if it weren't for Zoom.
[00:13:35] Nick: Oh, totally. Tapping into both in-person and virtual communities.
[00:13:36] Matty: And another good example is from 20 Books. I went to 20 Books and got to meet a bunch of people that I had met through—they had all been on the podcast or were imminently about to be on the podcast, or I'd met in some other way, I'd been on their podcast, what have you. And now we're having monthly Zoom get-togethers just to check in. So it's nice to be able to tap into both of those. Especially because conferences can be so expensive and the travel is both expensive and stressful. I think it's often uncomfortable for people who are maybe more tending to be introverts. So in the opportunities where people can do in-person, I think that's great. And if you can't, then don't think that those opportunities are missing for you.
[00:14:18] Nick: No, thanks for saying that, too. The last four years have taught us that we can do a lot of this stuff remotely, including being part of a network and part of a community. And you're absolutely right. You don't have to go to conferences. I like conferences, and I am extroverted, but I understand that not everyone is, and that's okay.
[00:15:06] Matty: Totally fair. I do think that being in real life with people can accelerate some of that process. Whereas it might take you and I five or six of these calls before we can call each other friends, and we're sharing stuff together, maybe, maybe not. But if I meet you in person, you're going to get a story, something that happened today that has nothing to do with writing, and we might have a drink together, whatever. It just tends to accelerate that relationship, I find. But it's not a requirement, by any means. Don't feel like you can't be a writer if you're not going to conferences. That's not true at all.
[00:15:06] Matty: I think there's also a nice tie-in between that idea of community building or networking. Networking feels a little creepy and LinkedIn-ish, but,
[00:15:13] Nick: Yes, the word 'networking' is not one I like to use, but it is the best way to describe this idea of being with other people in your industry who work in the same sort of field as you do.
[00:15:24] Matty: And I think that the pro, if you can get rid of the weird baggage that the word 'networking' has, the value of it is this idea of the web of connections. Many years ago, I started realizing the importance of building these kinds of networks, and I tried to do a visual representation of it. Oh, I met this person at a conference, they gave me a blurb on my book, then somebody read the book, and it immediately became so complicated that it didn't work well graphically. But I think back on all the opportunities I've had, and many of those I can trace back to a conversation I had with somebody at a conference or something like that.
So first of all, there's just the fun of it. There's the good karma of being a member of a community and both benefiting from that but also paying it back. And then there's a ton of concrete business, financial, career benefits you can get out of it that you miss if you don't participate in that way.
[00:16:25] Nick: Absolutely. Yeah, it's kind of a small story. I was just at the Superstars Writing Conference here in town. I went to get coffee with some industry people, friends of mine. One of them pulled out a credit card, paid for all our drinks, and I made a comment, "Oh, I have the same card because it's such a great card. You get three times the points on social media ad spend." You know, that's the kind of stuff, that natural in-person interaction, like you mentioned financial stuff. That's the sort of advice that you get. I didn't go to a class or an online course to learn that. I'm sure someone would sell that to me if I asked, but it's just those quick little interactions where, had I not known about that card, he would have told me, "Yeah, I use this one because I get three times the points on whatever." It's just little things like that, that you pick up. Taxes, whatever it is that authors have to deal with because we're also people in a society, those are really great networking opportunities. But like you said, it feels very corporate to say that's networking, even though that's technically what we were doing.
[00:17:58] Matty: We're just hanging out. We're just buddies. And the conversation that we had when we had our coffees led to all sorts of things that could become partnerships and fun and opportunities. You can do that online, but it is a little faster to do it in person. So I am a proponent of going to conferences and getting out of your comfort zone. You don't have to go to 20 a year like I do, but go to one. Pick a big one to go to and say, "I'm going to save my money, I'm going to do this, and I'm going to just go and be around." I highly recommend it because I think you will walk away with at least something you didn't have before that you couldn't get anywhere else.
[00:17:58] Matty: Well, it's funny that Superstars came up because I was recording an episode of a different video series I have called "What I Learned," where I interview authors about their latest book. And I was interviewing Todd Fahnestock. He mentioned that he had just been at Superstars. And I said, "Oh, I started listing all the people I knew that were going, including Joshua Esso, who had been a previous podcast guest who turned out to be with Todd, and then I had been... I mean, this is a perfect example. I had been introduced to Todd because I knew Mark LaFave, who I had met through being a patron of his, and then contacting him about wanting more information about short fiction, which led to us co-authoring a book, and then I stayed in touch with Mark, and when I met Todd at 20 Books, I wanted a virtual introduction, and I knew that I had seen a post, a social media post with Mark and Todd, so I asked Mark to give me a virtual, like, you know, I think that's a perfect example." But, that actually comments started out saying that it's also a great way to vet opportunities, because now I've met and spoken with so many people who go to Superstars, and I can learn more about it, and I can get the behind-the-scenes scoop and see if it's for me.
[00:19:06] Nick: You can ask them exactly how they felt about it. And if it's not a conference worth going to, you'll find out very quickly by talking to the people you trust.
[00:19:12] Matty: Exactly.
[00:19:13] Nick: And I, and we talked offline too, like, well, I want to get you in there. I think you should go speak. And we're, you know, trying to figure out how to make that happen and stuff. But it, cause it is a conference that is worth going to. It's a lot of fun. There's a lot of people there that, that are, you know, I would want to network with, you know.
[00:19:26] Matty: Yes. Yeah, there are a couple of ones where not only do the programs look great, but all the people that I wanted to catch up with are there, and Superstars is definitely one of them.
[00:19:35] Nick: Right. Right.
ADAPTABILITY AND PERSISTENCE
[00:19:37] Matty: So maybe this is a good segue to item number six, which is Adaptability and Persistence. So, I love that you included this as one of the six keys to author success. I think it's another one, just like quality reading, that can sometimes be overlooked. So, share some insights on the importance of adaptability and persistence.
[00:19:54] Nick: Yeah. So similar to the idea of quality and our craft being foundational to our success, I don't think a long term author, someone who's in it for the long term, will be successful long term if they're not teachable. You know, willing to learn, willing to adapt, but also persevering through that.
To go through change after change after change after change. Because if there's nothing else true about any of the stuff I've said, it's that change is coming. Change will happen. You will be forced to change something about what you do, big or small or in between, maybe both, and it's so important to recognize and acknowledge that.
Now, everybody I tell this to is like, "Yep, that's fine, I understand, I got it." And then something happens, like Amazon says, "We're changing the payout to this," and KU's going to be kind of this 2.0 thing, and everyone loses their mind. Or a new industry veteran pops up and says, "Hey, I'm doing this or that," and it's unethical, surprise. And everyone loses their mind. Or Amazon comes out and says, "We're going to ask you to check a box that says, is this AI-generated or not?" And people lose their mind. So the point is not that authors are always losing their mind—that's probably true, too—but the truth is, if we can't adapt, we're going to die, we're going to get left behind, we're going to just quit.
If you cannot adapt, and you can't be forced to change in some certain ways, you're going to get left behind. You're not going to get to call this a career for very long. It's an adolescent industry, you know, it's not a baby anymore, but it's certainly not grown up. It's certainly not the 200 plus year history of traditional publishing that you can go and find.
And it's a dynamic industry, right? It's subject to variables that we wouldn't think are related, and the point is just that things change, and if you aren't on board with that, you're going to have a hard time. And you might make it for a year, you might make it for two years, but five years into it, things change every single week. You're going to probably be exhausted if you didn't expect that.
So I put this in there because it's a reminder to myself that hey, change is coming, but it's also a reminder to people who think that they're ready, you know, think that, "Okay, well, I understand how this industry works right now." It's going to change, you know. Just because email marketing is important today, and Facebook advertising, and all that is important, and social media is important, pick one of those things. How many changes have we seen? It's February, and we just had two weeks ago, Google and Yahoo colluding and deciding how we're all going to send email from now on. And they just laid down the hammer. That wasn't expected, for the large part, it wasn't expected.
We're talking about TikTok, BookTok becoming so popular. I didn't even know what that stupid website was four years ago, three years ago, even. And it may not be around, you know, another... I mean, it'll probably be around, but it's not going to be as useful, right?
[00:24:41] Matty: And so, the point is that everything will change. A lot of things in the indie author community will change very quickly and can take us by surprise. So the second half of that is persistence. It's being able to say, "Okay, I know things are going to change, but I'm going to write my books, I'm going to study, I'm going to be teachable," which is such an important thing. "I'm going to network and commune with other people doing it, I'm going to share ideas and swap horror stories of advertising, figure out what I need to do, and I'm going to keep going, stay the course, write more books. At the end of the day, I'll figure out how to do the marketing thing."
I don't know how many times I've felt like the rug's been pulled out from under me when I figure out an advertising tactic. Personally, Maddie, I think I broke the ACX promo code thing. They used to give you free promo codes for every book—50 to you and 50 to the narrator. I reached out to my narrators and was like, "Give me your codes if you're not using them. I'm going to make us a bunch of money." And I set up a thing on my website called The Amazing Audiobook Giveaway Thingamajig. You'd have to be signed up to my mailing list, but I would give you a code for any book that you want. I had all my book covers on the page; you'd click it, put your email address in, and I would send you a code for that book. We all knew that promo code was just a generic code for any book in their store, but I would tell people, "Go get this book with this code."
They used to pay you a certain type of payout for a sale from that promo code. I made like $18,000 one month, and then $12,000 the next month. I was doing great, and I thought, "This is it, I've made it." And I talked to this girl named Hannah from ACX at Superstars four years ago. I was like, "Hey, what's the deal with this? I'm making a killing. I feel like I'm gaming the system." She said it was kind of what it was designed for, a loss leader to get people an Audible account set up. And I swear, within two weeks, they were like, "Hey, we're going to sunset this."
[00:24:42] Matty: Oh no!
[00:24:42] Nick: I was doing this, and I was like, "Damn it, I shouldn't have said anything." But the point is, things change. The point is, it's always going to change. If I didn't have a book to advertise, I wouldn't be able to continue working, right?
My point is, it all comes back down to what we're writing. It all comes back down to writing more books and building those relationships through email marketing, social media with our readers. It doesn't matter—the way to do that is going to change, and the way I communicate with people will change, and my quality will get better, hopefully, over time.
But, you know, if I'm just the Mickelson twins, teaching people to go steal an audiobook and sell it, and then this happens, those people are all out of business. They don't have their own books to use, they don't have their own audiobooks to rewrap in new content, new ways, and so on.
[00:25:47] Matty: So, and I do mean to bash on them because I think they're scammers and they should probably go to hell, but the point is, you can build a career in spite of all this change by being willing to persevere through it and write more books. And you'll be fine. Truthfully, you really will. Can persistence ever be a disadvantage?
[00:25:47] Matty: I wanted to probe the persistence a little bit because it's one of these things where persistence is a positive quality, but any quality taken to an extreme can be a bad thing. I'm trying to frame this question in a way that isn't impossible to answer. When I look at my own business practices, I think some people pop in and out of stuff, like Facebook ads or Amazon ads or book swaps, and I'm not a "pop in and out" kind of person; I'm a "stick with it-er." But I think sometimes I stick with it longer than I should. Obviously, the way you have to judge that is going to be very different than if you're thinking about whether to continue writing versus continuing a Facebook ad. They're quite different questions, but I think they both carry dangers if you stick with something for too long. So, are there any caveats you would add about persistence? Is there a point at which persistence in an author's career can hold someone back rather than helping them move forward?
[00:26:55] Nick: Well, I don't mean persistence in specific practical tactics like Facebook ads. I do believe that having ads running all the time is generally better than not, but if you are running a Facebook ad that isn't working, you should stop the ad. I mean more generally, you should always be using email marketing, generally doing social media, generally doing advertising. There's a lot of wiggle room within it. My definition is to generally do those things. Generally be persistent. I'm not saying that you have to post on social media at 12 p.m. every day. I'm saying pop in and out. Set up a bunch of content at the beginning of the month. I'm late this month because we had a dog die, and my parents are in town, and there was a conference, but I like the idea of not ever having to log into Facebook. But I also know that Facebook is important. So persistence in social media for me means letting me batch a bunch of content or have an assistant get a bunch of content together, schedule it at the beginning of the month, and that's my social media touch point for the month. If I don't log in, I'm still being persistent in using social media as a tool that can be a force for good for my career. And yes, I agree with you, there is a lot of benefit to popping in and out. Mental health is the first thing that comes to mind. If TikTok is driving you crazy every time you do it, and you're kind of going nuts, like a political wingnut or something, then stop! Don't be persistent in that. But generally be persistent in reaching out to your tribe, wherever they may be.
If it's TikTok, figure out a way that's healthy for you to schedule posts, respond, or whatever you need to do for TikTok. Does that make sense? Yeah, I definitely like your caveat. You don't have to be doing what I do every single day. I teach a lot of this stuff. I do live streams all the time and try to make it clear that, hey, I'm being descriptive here.
I'm telling you what I do. I'm not being prescriptive. I'm not telling you that you have to do this the exact same way. But persistence is in the long term. Like, over the last 20 years of my career, did I do social media well?
You've got to be able to answer "yes" to that question, or you're just missing a lot of people you could have reached. But that doesn't mean you were persistent every single day in posting on Facebook, right?
[00:29:28] Matty: Yeah, I think that pairing that with adaptability is key because when those things happen in life, I'm very sorry to hear about your dog, when those things come up, then you have to take a step back and say, "Well, persistence might say I continue working on my book or I continue working on my email strategy or whatever, but adaptability says, sometimes not so much. Sometimes taking a break is what is needed." So yeah, I like pairing those two things.
[00:29:55] Nick: And that's why I did it. They sound like they might be contradictory, but they really need to go hand in hand. If all I did was be persistent in taking naps, I would never write another book, right? Definitions are important, and how we break this stuff down. But most reasonable authors will be able to hear that and say, "Alright. Okay. Being able to change and adapt and be willing to move forward and progress also goes hand in hand with being persistent to the things that are core to who I am as a writer, which is writing books, generally marketing, you know, and all the other things I said here."
Have that community of people. That doesn't mean you're persistent in going to conferences every single month, no matter what. It means I'm going to go, and when it feels like I'm not getting what I need out of it, or my mental health is struggling, or whatever, my family needs me here, take a break. No one's going to fault you for that.
You can still be persistent in being a networking and community individual, you just need to take a break.
[00:30:51] Matty: Well, that is all so great. Nick, thank you so much for joining me to talk about the six keys to author success, and please let everyone know where they can go to find out more about you and everything you do online.
[00:31:02] Nick: Sure. The easiest place is nickthacker.com. You'll see the homepage there has all the little links to the things that I'm involved in, which is, or as you mentioned at the beginning of the episode, gratuitous. But that, you know, you find my fiction there if you're interested in action-adventure thrillers, and I do a lot of non-fiction, you know, teaching, training, coaching, all that kind of stuff at bookcareerinayear.com. So those are the two big websites I would recommend.
[00:31:24] Matty: Perfect, thank you so much.
