Matty Dalrymple & Michael LaRonn on Platform Building for Your Personality

Episode 241 / Whether you're an introvert or extrovert you can develop a platform to grow your author brand. Learn how with authors of From Page to Platform: How to Succeed as an Author Speaker, suspense and thriller author Matty Dalrymple and  science fiction & fantasy author M.L. Ronn (Michael La Ronn).  

Topics:

• How to match your platform to your personality 
• Tips for effective public speaking
• Common mistakes authors make when it comes to platform as well as public speaking
• Why the time you spend behind the microphone or on stage is often the least important part of the event
• Simple steps you can use to get started building your author brand

💙 Become a supporter of the podcast https://wishidknownforwriters.com/support

• Access to backlist of exclusive supporter episodes
• Private slack group
• Shoutout on a future episode. 

⚡Links:

• https://www.theindyauthor.com/from-page-to-platform.html
• https://books2read.com/FromPageToPlatform
• https://authorlevelup.com
• https://MattyDalrymple.com
• https://www.theindyauthor.com
• Speaker’s Notes: https://www.theindyauthor.com/from-page-to-platform.html

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

There are going to be some people who like video, but maybe want to gravitate toward TikTok. There'll be other people that maybe they're more verbal and they just prefer podcasts. They don't necessarily want to be on a camera. Maybe they just prefer being in person. You know your personality. Just figure out what that is and then find the medium that matches your personality.

Sara 0:23

Welcome to the Wish I Know Myth podcast. I'm Sarah Rosette.

Jami 0:27

And I'm Jamie Albright.

Sara 0:28

And this week on the show we have Michael LaRon and Maddie Dalrymple.

Jami 0:33

Yes, we do. Another twofer.

Sara 0:35

Yes. Doing the pairs all of a sudden.

Jami 0:38

Yes.

Sara 0:40

This was a great interview. We they have a book out that they wrote together about creating a platform and speaking, their recommendations for building a platform. And we talked a lot about matching your platform to your personality. So, like if you're an introvert, there are a lot of tips and good information in this interview for introverts.

Jami 0:58

It's a really great interview. Michael's so knowledgeable, and he's been around for a long time. I remember when I started, I watched some of his YouTube stuff that had been, you know, he'd been doing it for a little while.

Sara 1:12

And Maddie's been doing a podcast for so long. She's interviewed so many people and has so much knowledge. And she speaks at conferences. They both do. So they've had it. Yeah, we get into that. And we talked to them a little bit about how they wrote the book, their collaboration process, too.

Jami 1:28

Yeah. I I would ask you what you've been doing this week, but I know because I was with you.

Sara 1:34

We did everything together. We did pretty much. We went to the strengths conference, the Better Faster Conference in Minnesota. We're back in that. And it was great. Yeah. And it was just, I learned a lot.

Jami 1:47

And I did too.

Sara 1:49

I was thinking about it. I don't know how I could summarize it actually.

Jami 1:52

I know. I've felt the same thing. I mean, the biggest thing I took away, I think, was I'm not broken. And I know everybody go, well, of course you're not broken, but I have felt broken. And like because of what my dominant strengths are, and because they are so dominant that I couldn't get unbroken. Yeah.

Sara 2:14

But I really but it's like you've changed your thinking a little bit, right?

Jami 2:19

Yes. Well, first of all, I'm not broken. Like I'm reacting exactly the way someone who has been through what I've been through in the last really four years, but two for sure, would act that had my strengths. But also I can get to the balcony of those strengths and kind of get past it. It's a process, but it is.

Sara 2:44

But I think you have some ideas on how to do that, and I have some ideas on how to just get better at the things that I'm good at. And I mean, we can talk about this more, but it it was really good. And there was, and it wasn't just about strengths. We also Claire Taylor was also there and talked about the Enneagram. Right. And then I had to come back early, but Crystal did a thing on branding, right?

Jami 3:08

Yeah, it was really good. Just kind of about leaning into your strengths and and knowing, you know, kind of what your strengths are. But but one thing she said, which kind of goes against uh what a lot of people say, including myself, but she made a very good point was waiting to to market to decide your brand. Oh, like if you write one book before you write, maybe don't write a couple of books, see where you really do land in the market, and then think about your brand. Oh, that's interesting. That was really interesting because I had I had not thought about that. But of course, she her strengths lean more towards waiting and being patient. I do not.

Sara 3:57

So well, I mean, you have to have something when you start out, you have to have some sort of idea, but maybe you can finalize it later because we have talked to so many people who say, I wrote this and I wrote this, and then I found my home, you know, in X genre. So yeah, I could see how there could be some truth to that.

Jami 4:16

It was so good. I mean, I just it was small, it was people I met new people, saw some people on Facebook, but it was great. It was great to see people who listen to the podcast, yes. And Willow. Thank you so much for listening.

Sara 4:40

And it was great to put faces to names and just talk about writing and strengths with everyone. It was a lot of fun.

Jami 4:46

It was great meeting these people in person and hanging out. We had lunch with them. That was awesome. And yeah, just really uh and Maria, she had lunch with us too. Yeah, yeah. So it was it was wonderful.

Sara 5:02

We had a great time, yeah. Highly recommend five stars.

Jami 5:05

Yeah, five stars for sure, for sure. And we got a little cooler weather.

Sara 5:10

That's right. It was cold for us, but people who live there were probably laughing at us as they wore their shorts.

SPEAKER_04 5:17

Yeah, shorts and t-shirts.

Sara 5:18

Yes, that is our basically our update. I don't have anything else besides that, except I did see the northern lights. You did from from Houston. I couldn't believe it.

SPEAKER_04 5:29

Oh my gosh.

Sara 5:30

Yeah, because we had I heard that they were visible, and I was like, well, I'll just go see. And I walked down the driveway and I was like, you know what? The sky, I found you used my compass app and my phone. I was like, the sky does look doesn't look as dark over here as it does to the south. And I thought, I took a picture, couldn't see anything because sometimes you know you can see it better on a picture. And I thought, I'll just drive into the neighborhood and get away from as many lights as I can. And there's a pond area way deep in the neighborhood. And I went down there, pitch black all around me. I get out of my car, and I could see it. It was just a little faint pink. I mean, it wasn't dramatic, like like some pictures that you saw online. It wasn't like that, but it did show up. I could tell it was there, it was wild.

Jami 6:16

Amazing, yeah. Okay, now we have to talk about the fact that you don't listen to true crime and what true crime junkie would go to a pond where it's pitch dark in at night. No, Sarah. No. I don't care how pretty the northern lights are.

Sara 6:35

There is nobody else there. I was totally safe.

Jami 6:38

Famous last word.

Sara 6:41

Well, I'm here to say them, so they weren't my last words. Just a bunch of other geeks out there looking at the sky if there's anyone.

Jami 6:50

That was cool. That's cool. Well, I'm so that was funny. Yeah, and I thought I haven't done much since I got home. I actually, you know, had just kind of it took me a couple of days to recover. So yeah, but I am going tonight to have dinner with Trudy J and Cheryl from the Spot Girls podcast. I'm super excited about that, and a couple of other Kiwis. And so I'm I'm very excited to see them. The last time Trudy came in to town for they're here for rant at the end of this week, which is romance author mastermind. Yes, Trudy stayed with me, and I I think Tug humped her so much she just is afraid to come.

Sara 7:34

She's like, I'll just stay in the hotel this time.

Jami 7:35

I'll just stay in the hotel, yeah.

Sara 7:37

So that's funny.

Jami 7:40

Welcome to Texas.

Sara 7:42

And if you haven't listened to the podcast for a long time, Tug is James Dog. Yes, yes, just clarify that.

Jami 7:49

Not my son or my husband, which would be another kind of podcast altogether. Yes. Anyway, and then of course, Trudy and Cheryl are on the spa girls podcast, so can listen to them too. But yeah, so we'll get on with the interview because it's great.

Sara 8:07

And we do have one other thing we need to talk about. Well, the writing sprints, we're gonna put them on hold because we have lots of travel for both of us coming up. So we're gonna put that on hold for now. Just wanted to let y'all know. And if you do want to support the podcast, you can go to wish I know the infrariders.com slash support, and you get all the back episodes and access to the Slap group. And we just appreciate everyone who has supported the podcast. So thank you. And we also have one other we have a text. We had asked what is your biggest struggle? And we got one from Raleigh, North Carolina, says, My biggest struggle is affording the professional services I need to finish and polish a book before publishing the different types of editing, book cover design, etc. I want to make my book as polished as possible before putting it out in the world, but paying for those services feels daunting. And I understand that. That is it can be a very expensive investment when you don't know what your return is going to be.

Jami 9:09

Right. But okay, so how do you eat an elephant one bite at a time? So let's start with a cover. You can get a pre-made cover for under $100 somewhere. It may not match the cover. I mean, it may not match of your dreams. Yeah. The cover of your dreams, or if you've got a second book coming out, you may that may be holding you up, like I need one that matches, but you don't have to worry about that right now. If you need a cover, you can get a pre-made cover for less than $100. And they're not terrible. They're not, they're they're good enough for right now. You can save and to get your editing. An edit is gonna cost, unless you write Epic Fantasy, three to five hundred dollars, depending on who you get. It can cost more than that. But I think you could get a decent edit for that, or you could barter with someone if you have uh you know expertise in something else, barter with somebody, or you could see about getting some beta, I mean alpha readers to read it, to uh you know, I would do three probably if you could get them and get them to correct things.

Sara 10:26

Uh so those are yeah, that can that can you could use uh people like friends, family for copy editing or for proofreading, especially. You probably want to get a copy editor. But if you want you could have that final pass or two done just by readers, and they can help you find all the typos and stuff, and that can save you some money. So yeah, and it is it can be expensive. And what you could do is start smaller, like you were saying, get a pre-made cover and find a economical copy editor, and then as you release the book and as you make money, you can go back and change the cover.

Jami 11:08

Absolutely, you know, it's not written in stone, it's not, and you know, I mean, you could get a you know, I don't know where you're at in the world, but if you live in the US, you can sell plasma. I did that. You can take a few shifts a week, even if with the day job with Uber Eats or something like that, delivering pizza or something for tips, yes, something deliver pizzas for tips. I mean, we gotta think outside the box, people. I mean, you know, if and I get it, we're tired, we have families, we don't have time, so that might not work for you.

Sara 11:46

But and it may be the answer is just save up and take some time. And that is hard to do, but sometimes that's yeah, if your life is already packed, sometimes that's the best way to do it.

Jami 11:59

Yep. Yep, and the opportunity to publish will will still be there. So, you know, if you need to wait six months and save up a little bit of money every week or every month, don't go out to eat. Yeah. You know, for lunch or whatever. Take your lunch and save that money, whatever to do that. And what's the other one? Copy edits, line edits, proofreading.

Sara 12:27

That's those are the big expenses, I think. Yeah.

Jami 12:29

Because you can format it on a free format uh platform like that. Draft a digital digital entrepreneur has. If you wanted to pay, if you have a Mac and you wanted to use Vellum, you can do it one book at a time. I don't remember how much it is.

Sara 12:47

Yeah, it's like a flat fee for just a phenomenal flat fee. Yeah, it's not too bad.

Jami 12:51

So but there are free resources for that. So yeah.

Sara 12:56

So hopefully that helps a little bit. And I would love to hear how people paid for their early drafts and copy or copy edits and covers. Let us know if you have a creative way of getting this done.

Jami 13:12

Yeah. Yeah.

Sara 13:13

All right.

Jami 13:13

There's always garage sales. Yeah.

Sara 13:15

Garage sales, yes. You can make some good money on garage sales. Facebook marketplace.

Jami 13:19

Facebook marketplace. Just be safe. All right.

Sara 13:23

Says the true crime listener. All right. Well, we should get on with the interview.

Jami 13:30

All right.

Sara 13:31

Really excited to have Maddie Dalrymple and Michael LaRon. Hi guys. How are y'all?

unknown 13:37

Hello.

Jami 13:37

Lovely to be here. Yeah. This is going to start being a thing, I guess. Two two guests and two hosts. The more the barrier.

Sara 13:46

Maddie Dalrymple writes suspense and thrillers. She also writes, speaks, consults, and podcasts on writing, craft, and publishing at the Indie Author Podcast. She serves as the campaign manager for the Alliance of Independent Authors. ML Ron, or Michael LaRon, writes science fiction and fantasy and self-help books for authors. He built a writing career publishing 10 to 12 books per year while raising a family, working full-time job, and attending law school. He serves as the outreach manager for Ally. So yes, I'm exhausted just repeating that.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

I'm exhausted too.

SPEAKER_01 14:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:22

I I function at like 10% uh brain power these days.

SPEAKER_01 14:25

Well, who knows what would happen if you functioned at a higher level? We would exactly be in the same room with you. Exactly.

Jami 14:33

So, Michael, tell us how did you get into writing?

SPEAKER_00 14:36

Yeah. So I I'm I'm one of those people that have have always been a writer. I've scribbled on things here and there, but I really got my start in 2012. I had a near-death experience, and it it really got me to prioritize and focus on what was important. And right around that time was when self-publishing was really becoming popular. So I found Ally, the Alliance of Benefit of Authors. I found Joanna Penn, and I just kind of jumped into it science fiction, fantasy, lots of other things, and did look back and fast forward, and here I am.

Jami 15:12

That's amazing. That's amazing. I love that. And I mean, I'm sorry you had a near-death experience, but I'm very glad that you channeled it in such a way that you share things with the world. That's amazing.

Sara 15:27

Maddie, you've been on the podcast before. Last time was last summer, 2023. So give us a quick update of what you've been doing, what's going on with you since the last time you were on. In your podcast.

SPEAKER_01 15:39

Yeah. Well, I've passed 250 episodes. So that was very exciting.

SPEAKER_04 15:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

I've had have, I think, all of you guys on, and uh lots of other of my heroes in the indie author space. So that has been super fun. It's been a super fun uh community-building effort and learning experience and so on. So I've been focusing a lot on that. I've been continuing to work on my uh Anne Caneer Suspense novels and Lizzie Balor thrillers. I have the fifth Lizzie Balor Thriller coming out later this year. And I have been also working on my nonfiction, as we'll probably be talking about, had my second co-authoring experience this time with Michael on being an author speaker. And I I can imagine that Michael and I might have things to say about the co-authoring experience in a future book. So that is what I've been working on in the last year or so.

Jami 16:24

That's wow.

SPEAKER_01 16:25

That's great.

Jami 16:26

I I love that. I love you've been so busy. And I see you're, you know, your podcast coming up all over the place. So you're oh good. Yeah, you're doing great. You're doing great. So this is a question for both of you. So you can answer. Michael Wyndrunch you answer first and then Maddie, you can answer. But is there anything you wish you'd known about indie publishing or working with indie authors?

SPEAKER_00 16:51

I I think the the first thing that I wish I had known a little bit more deeply is how much of a long game it is. So when I started, I I kind of knew, hey, I'm in this for life, but I didn't really know what in this for life means. I mean, I'm here having done this 11 years, and I look back on the last 10 and 11 years, and man, there's so many things I wish I would have done differently. Just like thinking ahead about having a big portfolio and how to get the right readers to the right book at the right time, or evolving my marketing. And there's just it really does mean something when you say that you're in this for the long haul. And 10 years from now, what does that look like? And I think that I guess I I don't think I truly understood what it would mean to be an author for that long. Right. It's something I wish I had known more deeply. I I would have made some different decisions for sure.

SPEAKER_01 17:53

Yeah. Well, that sounds like a podcast episode unto it.

Sara 17:57

I was gonna say it's what maybe just one or two things. If there get something comes to mind immediately, what would you do differently? Because I know people will be curious.

SPEAKER_00 18:06

Branding on my covers would be the big one. So I I used to release covers that had, you know, different designs. So sometimes my name would be at the top, sometimes my name would be at the bottom, sometimes it would be in different fonts. And that didn't quite work out because readers didn't really know what to look for when they searched for me. So that was an expensive project to go back and rebrand all of my covers. And then just also interiors, too, like having consistent interiors and making sure that you know you follow a certain process when you publish a book each time. Because I I was kind of a shoot from the hip kind of person. When a book was done, I just kind of get it out there. But I have had to learn to be a little bit more deliberate about how everything goes through the meat grinder. So just kind of slowing down a little bit and really focusing on the things that are important.

Sara 18:59

Yeah. I think you do have like you have when you're first starting, you're learning a lot and you're taking a lot in. And then as you get going in it, you realize, oh, I should make this a system. I should make this consistent. And sometimes you have to backtrack and redo. Yeah. That's very common. And painful.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

And expensive. Yeah. Which is painful. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:25

How about you, Maddie? I would say that what I wish I had learned and and continue to wish I learned, because I think this is something you just have to learn through your whole career. It's not something that you suddenly have an aha moment, is that balance between trying things but not spreading yourself too thin. And so I do feel as if it's sort of like that old culture, I think at Google, I don't think they do this anymore, but there was that culture where you'd have to do, you know, the business work of the company four days a week, and then on the fifth day you could work on whatever you wanted to. And I think there's a real lesson to be learned from authors there that you should not try to do everything while still reserving a little bit of time to try new things because it's this balance between you don't want to get stuck in a rut, but you don't want to make yourself crazy by doing too many things. And this was really brought home to me lately because I finally got tired of unsuccessfully trying to manage the finances of my company. And a friend of mine who's been a lifelong finance person finally retired. I finally talked her into becoming my business manager. And not only can she pull the levers on QuickBooks much more effectively than I can, but it forced me to talk through my business with someone. And it's kind of silly because it's not even like I was telling her things that I didn't know. It was just I was telling her things that I hadn't had to verbalize in a certain way. And it became really clear where the most profitable parts of my author business lay or the least profitable parts of my author business lay and my time allocation and money allocation was not reflecting that effectively. And yet I don't want to say, oh, I this is the one thing I see as profitable, or this is the one thing I see as whatever is measuring up to the measure of what I want to be achieving. I'm just going to do that. And so reserving some time to experiment with things, but just realizing that you always have to be stepping back and saying, what am I doing that's getting taking me forward? And how can I double down on that? And what are the things I'm doing that are just busy work and uh distracting me from my core, my core skills, my core experience, and find ways of jettisoning that. And I just think that's something I would be learning for the rest of my career. But the earlier you recognize that that's something you have to do, the better.

Jami 21:31

Yeah, exactly. I love that that you really have recognized that and you're taking that step, you know, you've taken those steps. That's I'm that's really great.

Sara 21:42

I think that's a lifelong balancing act that we're all trying to do. Tell us about your book, From Page to Platform, how to succeed as an author speaker. So first tell us how did it come about? So maybe Michael, you take this one to start off.

SPEAKER_00 21:57

Sure. So Maddie and I are. We both have traveled extensively for speaking because we both have independent platforms. Maddie's got her podcast, and I have a YouTube channel, and I've done podcasting as well. And so we happened to meet on the podcast, or not podcasts, but the speaking circuit. And we were in New York City and we were just, I think it was over dinner one night. We were trading war stories about things that we had seen as speakers. And I think I mentioned that, oh yeah, all this stuff would be really cool to put in a book. And Maddie was like, Yeah, we should write a book. And the rest was history. So we we got along famously, and we had we have very contrasting personalities. Like Maddie is really strong, where I'm not so strong. And so we we complement each other really well. And so we tried to write the most comprehensive book we could about being an author speaker and everything that is involved with turn turning your book into a platform for being a speaker to leverage your expertise.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

Maddie? The backstory that Michael told was I look back on fondly and I was super glad. I mean, I think it's a great illustration of one of the benefits of adding speaking to one's portfolio because he and I would never have had that particular conversation if we hadn't both been in New York for a writer's digest conference presenting and being speakers at that. And so it was a really nice illustration, both of, you know, it was kind of a meta-illustration of this is what you can gain from being an author speaker. You can create an environment where you can write a book about being an author speaker or all the other things that you might want to pursue. And so yeah, that has been a super fun process.

Sara 23:42

I love that. And I think it's interesting because we just did an interview with two people who collaborate on fiction, and that will come out the week before this comes out. And they also mentioned the complimentary roles, like where they're one person is strong, the other person is weak, and they kind of help each other out. Jamie and I are the same way. We have different things that we're good at and we like to do. And so I think that is maybe one of the secrets to a good collaboration is you find somebody who who compliments you, like you said.

SPEAKER_01 24:11

Yeah, I think it's it's sort of both because my other collaboration was with Mark LeFay and on taking the short tech. And that to me was much more of a very clearly different, different perspective. You know, Mark is like an idea guy and um and he's happy to let somebody else take care of the project management side of it. So the this collaboration with Michael felt more much more like Tinder Spirits, you know, both wonderful, but in slightly different ways. I think when you're working with someone who's who's quite different, then it's important for each person to be willing to let the other person take the lead on whatever their area of expertise is. And when you're working with someone who's very alike, then you have to have each person be willing to maybe give in an area that otherwise they would think of themselves as being the lead on. So I have I'm I can happily say that I've had both of those experiences and they've both been great. So, you know, you can make either one of those work if you paired up with the right person.

Sara 25:07

That's good. Tell us more about how the actual writing, how you did the actual writing. Did you have a Google Doc and and things like that?

SPEAKER_00 25:17

Oh, yes. So we started, we had a couple of different ways that we started writing. We we uh Matt and I both are not big fans of Google Docs. I there's just just some I I agree. Yeah, yeah. I I did a collaboration a couple of years ago with uh three books uh three novels with a friend of mine, and I just came away with such a distaste for Google Docs that I just could not fathom working Google Docs. So if you're not gonna do that, then why not try Microsoft? And now I have a distaste for Microsoft. It didn't work very well either. So we we started off using OneDrive and trying to like, you know, operate in inside of a single doc. And when I was working in the doc, I would tell Maddie, and so she'd stay out of it and and vice versa. And for some reason that quite didn't didn't work very well. So we ended up doing, I think, the the age-old tradition of trading Word docs back and forth until until the book was done. And that's that's ultimately how we how we got there. But we we we definitely had to flex a little bit on our writing writing methods just to make sure that that we were able to get there.

SPEAKER_01 26:28

Yeah, yeah. Whenever we talk about this, I always send the plea out to the industry that there's got to be some indie author developer out there. And can somebody please produce a writing that's both easy to use, attractive, and supports two people working at it at the same time. Because as far as we can tell, that just isn't out there right now.

Sara 26:46

Yeah. It's a problem that needs to be solved. You did it old school, like the trading. Did you email the documents back and forth? Is that how you did it, or just drop it in Dropbox or something? Oh we've generally emailed it. Yeah, and then that way you you always have a backup copy of all the drafts as well. So it has benefits too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:08

There was there was wild backing up going on, as you can imagine. And I also found like I'm a huge fan of nautical metaphors for the writing craft. And I always talk about a story frame that would certainly work on fiction and nonfiction, but I started developing more of sort of a sculptural uh metaphor because I think you need to have you need to have the armature. But you know, in a in a sculpture would be the armature, like the metal or the wooden uh frame that you're building on. And sometimes there's a tool that lends itself to that. Like I was okay with with dumping ideas into Google Docs because who cares what it looks like. But then you you have, you know, you're collecting the raw material, and that can kind of be done independently, but then you need one person who passed the raw material onto the armature, and then you have another person who's good at like shaping it so it starts kind of looking like a person on a horse or whatever you want it to be. And that really helped me think through like, oh, we're at this point, and we need this kind of tool to help us. And and this is the person who's best at at this. So yeah, as you can imagine, we learned a lot from that first, which is why we think we're gonna have a book on co-authoring uh nonfiction at some point, because we learned a ton of lessons from our experience. Jamie and I collaborate, but not on a book.

Sara 28:24

I think that could be really Yeah. It would stretch me, that's for sure.

Jami 28:28

Yesterday, when we were interviewing Alan and Ann, they were saying they doing Google Docs, and one will be they'll be working on at the same time. And like it moves and oh my gosh, absolutely. Yeah. I love that they can do that. I can I don't think I could. So yeah, that would be really stressful.

SPEAKER_01 28:49

I thought that one really interesting, uh like you get really sort of intimate insights into the creative process of the other person when you're doing this. And one I I think of the of the most like the maturing process of co-authoring is I think early on, it would be like, at least this with my perspective, I would put in like, or I read something that Michael had provided. He had used one word. And I was like, oh, is it okay if, you know, could we consider changing this one word to something else? I think you have to get to the point where, you know, track changes is beautiful because you can just go ahead and change it. And if the other person doesn't agree with it, you know, that you can talk about it then, but you can really get yourself bogged down if you get kind of too precious about like negotiating every single little thing. And I think a successful collaboration is one where that agreement emerges where you're both sort of comfortable with what the other person's going to do with your work when you turn it over to them.

SPEAKER_00 29:40

Yeah, there's something to be said about the just making sure directionally that everything is moving in the right step. So like when we when we started, it was okay, Maddie's gonna take these chapters, I'm gonna take these chapters. There's a group of chapters we're just gonna leave until the end because we don't know where we're gonna go, and we'll stitch them together at the end. And, you know, we talked about it. Okay, so for the travel chapter directionally, Maddie would give me her feedback on what she would want to put in the chapter, and then I would go in that direction. And then I would give it back to her and she would read it and say, okay, is this what we agreed on? I don't know if this this quite works. Maybe we could go a different, different path. And so really, I, you know, when we were trading things back and forth, I was always thinking about that. Like, what's the reader on the other end of the page going to be? How are they going to be perceiving what we're talking about? And really at the end of the day, yes, words are important, but it's also about how you put them together. Correct. Without, like Maddie said, being too precious about it. Because at the end of the day, as long as the message is there, then it's going to be received.

Jami 30:51

Right. Tell us what are the best ways for an author to develop a platform? Michael, you want to take this?

SPEAKER_00 31:01

Yeah, I would say the the best way to develop a platform, at least how I started, was to not be afraid to talk to a wall when no one was listening. So when I started podcasting and YouTubing, I didn't think anybody would watch my videos. So I I just had some fun. You know, I I would make the videos that I wanted to make and I would pretend like I had an audience of 100,000 and I put all the time and energy into it. And I would literally be in my basement staring at a camera, which was in front of a wall, and then I would, then I would, I would upload it. And I did the same thing with podcasting. And I was just never afraid to do that because I think ultimately when you're building a platform, you're building it in a way on your personality. And people engage with your content because they like your personality.

SPEAKER_04 31:52

Right.

SPEAKER_00 31:52

So if you could find ways to get your personality to shine through, that really boils down to creating content that you enjoy.

SPEAKER_04 32:00

Right.

SPEAKER_00 32:01

And if you can't build a platform on that, then it gets hard because then you have a golden handcuff problem. Because you can you can build a platform that is really successful and has a lot of listens and affiliate income and whatever. But if you don't enjoy it and you get out of bed every day and you don't want to do it, that's not really a problem you want to have, at least for me personally.

Sara 32:21

Yeah, that's like that's like a different kind of desk job. Like you just created another, like a lot of people go into writing because they don't want to do the nine to five. But if you create that for yourself in another way, then you're just moving from one thing to another that you don't like.

Jami 32:34

Exactly. It sounds that sounds a lot like what I'm doing with my social media. I just pretend people are watching. They they're not actually, you know, on TikTok, 250 people. That's about it. That's about all I can do.

SPEAKER_00 32:48

Make it make it.

Jami 32:49

That's right. That's right. Maddie, do you have anything to add to that? The best way for an author to develop a platform, platform.

SPEAKER_01 32:58

Yeah, I I agree with everything Michael said, and I'm also going to add a completely different perspective, which is that one of the strengths of becoming a speaker is that you can do platform building where you're not talking to a wall. And so I know as a podcast or even as a writer, you know, you you work on this content, you send it out. Everybody here can can sympathize with this. And and sometimes it's crickets, and you're thinking, did nobody listen to that episode? You look at the chat, you're like, some people listen to the, you know, it is kind of like screaming into the void. And so I think becoming a speaker is sort of the other end of the spectrum of that, that especially if you're doing in-person events, you know, you're standing up in front of a group of people and you can look out into the audience and you can see if they're, if they're engaged, you can see if they're sitting forward. If they're not, you can do something about it in the moment to get them involved. And it can be very therapeutic, I think. You know, a lot of I I hate to lean too heavily on the authors or introverts thing, but you know, there's a reason that many of us have chosen chosen this as a profession. And it's scary for, you know, everybody says that public speaking is like the number one phobia of of people. And there's a reason for it, but there's also a huge benefit in terms of being able to create a platform with that very personal, direct, interactive kind of community building that you can do from a stage.

unknown 34:16

Right.

SPEAKER_00 34:17

Yeah, that's that's great, Maddie. And and one of the other things too is that speaking in person or on podcasts and then speaking, you know, on your own platform, they kind of feed off of each other. So a lot of the speaking events that I got were because somebody happened to see a YouTube video that I did 10 years ago or eight years ago. So I put it out into the void, didn't think anything of it, and then all of a sudden that became the basis for a talk in person. Right. Right. So, so doing that, it it almost becomes this weird cycle. Like you do more on your platform, that leads to more speaking. You do more speaking, that feeds into your platform because as Maddie said, you know what works. You know when you're hitting the bullseye when you're in front of people. Right. So it becomes this really good feedback loop, but you got to start one way or the other in order to be able to build that loop.

Sara 35:11

Maddie, since you mentioned introverts, a lot of writers are introverts. So let's talk about that for a little bit because when I hear the word platform, I immediately think of speaking in front of people. But you're right, it can be like Michael was saying, like a YouTube channel or a podcast where you have that connection, but it's not in person. Like it's I feel like though that would be less intimidating or less stressful for introverts. So can you talk to us about just like the different types of platforms that people can have and maybe which would appeal like to people who don't want to do the speaking? Cause I know a lot of people are going to be like, no, I don't, I'm not interested in that right off the bat.

SPEAKER_01 35:50

Yeah, we cover a bunch of different things. You know, I think when people think about speaking engagements, they think of that traditional like I'm I'm standing in front of a group of people with uh PowerPoint and I'm standing on the lecture or standing on the podium. And and we cover that certainly, but we have we also cover not the usual suspects of things like author readings or uh panels and things like that. One of the areas that we dive into in a lot of detail because of our background is being a podcast guest. And I think that that's a really good entree for people because it's if if you have a skilled interviewer, then they can make it easy for you if you go into it with, you know, well prepared and with that idea that you have a responsibility to provide interesting fodder for the for the podcast host. But going in there and having it feel like a one-on-one conversation, you can kind of put it out of your mind. Again, it's one of those things that's it's sort of a dichotomy that you have to put it out of your mind that you might end up having dozens or hundreds or thousands of tens or thousands of people listening to you, but also realizing that eventually you're gonna have tens of thousands of people listening to you. And so you have to bring that same level of professionalism and focus and engagement, regardless of how many people you're talking to on a Zoom call. Um, but I think that that can be a really good way to get started there, maybe get over some butterflies, hone your message, and and have a friendly face on the other side of the of the camera to have that conversation. Great answer.

SPEAKER_00 37:18

I always encourage people to to match the the medium to your personality. So there are so first and foremost, the people who are listening to who are going to be receptive to what Maddie and I are saying are a smaller group in the subset of authors, right? Because as you said, Sarah, there are gonna be some people that just say, yeah, nope, hard pass. I'd rather blog, I'd rather do nothing, you know, totally fine.

SPEAKER_01 37:44

But for those rather lock myself in the basement for a moment, right, right, right.

SPEAKER_00 37:47

Yeah, I'd rather have a gerbil gnaw off my arm. I mean, there's all sorts of things that people would say. No, I don't I don't want to speak at all because it is a big fear. But for for those people who do have the ears to kind of hear what we're saying, there are different ways that you can get yourself out there. And I encourage people to match their personality to the media. So there are some people like me who are not afraid to get on camera. And for those people, YouTube could be a very effective way to get your message out there. There are going to be some people who like video, but maybe want to gravitate toward TikTok. There'll be other people that maybe they're more verbal and they just prefer podcasts. They don't necessarily want to be on a camera, or people that prefer maybe they just prefer being in person. You know your personality. Just figure out what that is and then find the medium that matches your personality because then when you do that, it makes it so much easier to be receptive or for people to receive what you're trying to say. Because I think we've all watched people that have tried to podcast because they thought podcasting was hot and it's kind of a dud. Or you've watched people that are on YouTube or TikTok because somebody told them they had to be there, and it's like fitting a square pick into a round hole. And so just match the medium to your personality, and it just makes it so much easier, it makes it more enjoyable.

Jami 39:08

I mean, I prefer public speaking to podcasting and or social media because you get the immediate feedback from the audience, where with social media and even podcasting, you don't get that immediate feedback. You don't, you know, you don't know who laughed, who didn't laugh, what joke landed, what joke didn't land, what point landed, what point didn't land. And sometimes you never know, you know, sometimes you they let you know those things. But as a so for me, I prefer public speaking to those things, even though I love podcasting.

SPEAKER_01 39:50

So and it's also a plea to all the listeners out there, if you if you really like something, just drop us a note and let us know. Yes.

Sara 39:58

What do you see authors doing that they do because they think they have to, but they aren't producing results when it comes to platform? So let's see. Maddie, do you want to go first?

SPEAKER_01 40:08

Yeah, well, sort of harking back to what I'd said earlier, social media. So just right before this conversation with my business manager, I went through the stats for all the platforms where it's possible to where I have a presence and it's possible to track stats. And I've been doing the, you know, I've been doing it for a while, but I, you know, I wasn't today was the day I said, you know what, I'm just never gonna bother going on Twitter or Instagram again.

unknown 40:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:36

Because, and I think it it ties in with what Michael was saying. It's because one, because I kind of want to limit the amount of time I spend on social media, but I just don't understand them. I just don't understand it. Like I don't know how many times I would go on Twitter and I would, you know, I'd say, oh, look, a notification. Oh, look, somebody said that they liked a podcast episode. I have no idea how to figure out what post they were responding to. Like it's just out there. And and I couldn't understand how to interact with people productively against, you know, against all the other problems with Twitter. So I think that people feel like they have to be on social media a lot, which I don't think is true. And I also think that fortunately, I think this is a trend that there used to be definitely a message you have to be everywhere. And I don't think that's true. I think that engagement and quality of interaction is much more important than quantity. And I've heard arguments on both sides, and I've heard some valid arguments for why you should at least have a presence of some sort on lots of different platforms. But for me, it just didn't feel right. And so I think that if you can step back and say, you know, I'm really not enjoying this, what is the price I'm gonna pay for just stopping doing it? And in some cases, you might say, Oh, you know what, I have pretty good engagement. I might lose some people, I might lose some book sales. Is it worth it? And you have to make that decision. And sometimes you step back and you're like, I'm getting nothing from this, and I'm spending hours and hours a week, you know, nurturing this little plant that has never given me any fruit. So again, take it, take the time to take a step back and look and see where you're getting results and where you're not getting results, and also factor in what's the emotional payment you're making in order to try to do something that you're just not enjoying doing.

Jami 42:18

All good points. What are the most common mistakes you see when it comes to author platform and speaking? Why don't we split those up? One, building a platform. What are the common mistakes in building a platform? And then what are the common mistakes in speaking? Michael.

SPEAKER_00 42:39

The the biggest mistake in building a platform is not understanding the basics of how people consume content on the internet. So I have a theory. Like whenever people want to do something for the first time, they they they have a lobotomy. So like when you want to become a writer, you have a lobotomy. And everything you ever read, everything, like all your opinions that you ever had as a reader, just completely, it's like it's like they never existed. So you do things that you as a reader would never put up with or tolerate. And that's just a right, it's a rite of passage. And it's the same thing when you when you become a speaker and you build a platform, you do things that you yourself as an audience member would never put up with. For example, when you're creating content that's going to be consumed, you got to remember people have the attention span of a goldfish. So when you're writing email content, you've got to be quick. You've got to get to the point. When you're creating a podcast, you've got to let people know the value of what they're going to get up front. It's the same thing with the video. And people just don't have the time or are going to be interested in watching a super duper long video where you don't get to the point and you don't give them actionable tips. So that would be my that would be my big thing is just really remembering. How you yourself as a consumer watch content and consume the very type of content that you're wanting to create because it's really easy to forget that.

Jami 44:09

Wow, that's such a good that's such good advice. And I am guilty of that, especially with my TikTok videos. I mean, I not always, but I have some that are super funny, but they're super long. They're too long. I know they're too long. And it's like when I'm editing them, I don't want to cut things out. So yeah. Good point.

SPEAKER_00 44:30

Yeah, we're all guilty of it. It happens.

Sara 44:32

Yeah. And newsletters that have section after section after section, you know, like in my newsletter when I send it out, I'm like, that's too many. I don't need, I don't need seven sections, maybe one or two at the most.

SPEAKER_04 44:47

Exactly.

Jami 44:48

Well, what uh Maddie, what are the biggest mistakes you or the most common mistakes you see people making when it comes to like their speaking engagements and stuff like that. Like when they're speaking.

SPEAKER_01 45:04

Well, when when they're speaking, I have a whole list we could go over, but I also wanted to jump off on the platform building idea. Yeah, sure. My thought on that is uh I'm gonna use those a speaking specific example, but this is really generalizable to any environment where you're like interacting with other human beings. And that is that this is also true for podcast interviews, I believe. And you guys can confirm or deny my own experience, that people put a ton of time into putting together their pitch letter and then getting the contact information and sending it out and then following up, and then maybe they get the gig and they're preparing, let's say, their presentation, if they're doing a presentation at a conference, and uh they get there and you know, maybe there's some nerves involved, they go to the room, they get up on the stage, or they get in front of their virtual stage on their camera and give their presentation. You know, their presentation is from 1 to 2 p.m. And at 2.01, they think they're done. And I think that is in in any circumstance where you've done a lot of work to achieve something, and now you've like reached the pinnacle of Mount Everest, and then you forget that you actually still have to get down. That's not exactly the analogy I want here, but people so greatly underutilize the value of that kind of platform building opportunity. If they then, you know, they walk off the stage, they walk past all the people, they just listen to them talk and they go up to their hotel room and take a nap. No, no. Like you can keep, I think that the the beauty of a speaking engagement is not that you stand in front of people for an hour, not that you get, you know, get a check for however much for having done that, but um, all the opportunities that that builds. I mean, the fact that Michael and I ended up writing a book isn't is exactly that kind of thing. I look back at all the conferences I've been to where I've presented, and I think of all the things that came out of those conferences that were completely independent of the payoff I got for that particular talk or a sales spike for a particular book that was associated with a talk or whatever it is. And I think that people need to go into this saying, my goal of this of this effort is not to land the opportunity to give a talk at this conference, let's say. My goal is to form a set of relationships that is going to pay me back in creatively and business-wise and financially and personally. And I think that that part of it is really undervalued. And I think that is generalizable to almost any other interaction that people have. If you go into it saying, what is the bigger value I can get out of this? And what is the bigger value I can give back too? Because I also think back to all those interactions. And I can think of examples where I was able to support someone else financially or business-wise or creatively or personally or whatever. So uh looking at the big picture and not being so narrowly focused on the specific deliverable that you just happen to land.

SPEAKER_00 47:54

That's a great point, Maddie. And and I'll I'll piggyback off of that and say that the most important conversations you have at a speaking engagement are not when you're on stage. They're when you're in the hallway and when you're at lunch and dinner.

Jami 48:07

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 48:08

And everything that happens on stage is just window dressing. I mean, now don't get me wrong, you still need to do everything you need to do to prepare and deliver a great talk. But building a speaking career and getting to know people and being able to provide value, that's absolutely critical. And I just I love that you said that, Maddie. And really important and easy to forget.

Jami 48:30

I agree. And I mean, I'm not sure this is exactly what you're talking about, Maddie, but I hate it when I go to conferences and there's a speaker and they speak and they leave and they go there back to you never see them again. You never see them again. The end like I just hate that because one, you're not that important. And two, you know, you're there to give value. Well, some of the value comes when you're conversing with other people because they have questions or, you know, or they just want to share with you how much what you've said meant to them. And I think that's important. I think it's important as a speaker to be able to receive that. And sometimes it's not because they think they're so important, I think it's because they're they're uncomfortable. But as a speaker, you need to be able to receive that from other people because people have a need to express their gratitude for things you've said or the way it made them feel, or information you gave them that they didn't have. And it's just part of being gracious as a speaker, in my opinion. That's very well, very well put.

SPEAKER_00 49:40

Yeah. Yeah. I I'll add something else. I'll I can I tell a story. Yeah. So please there's a very, very so when I was in college, there's a there was a very famous author who they were trying to get to come to the college to do like a you know, like a talk. And I won't name names because this this would probably rock some people's world if they knew who I'm talking about. But this this author, you know, very famous, very household name, very well known. Yeah, sure. They they wanted to get them to come. And and in in order for this author to come to the to the campus, they had to send a black car limousine service to pick this person up at the airport. They could only stay at a five-star hotel.

SPEAKER_04 50:25

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 50:26

And they, of course, you know, we don't even talk about the money that they wanted. And and when the talk was over, there could only be a five-minute question and answer session. And they would eventu immediately get back into the black car, go back to the airport, and leave. Wow. Nobody wants, I mean, don't be that prima donna. No, you that that's not the kind of person you want to be. But you know, that's what's what you described, Jamie. People that they fly, they fly into the talk, then they fly out, right, and it's not a good experience. Right. And so, you know, you talk about common mistakes that people make. Just don't be a prima donna. Don't don't be that don't be that person because it it seems inevitably every conference I've been to, there's always that one person that, you know, just if you can avoid being that person, then you will do yourself.

Jami 51:22

And and I, you know, and I'm thinking about because I've spoken at really big conferences and I've spoken at very small conferences. And I've been an attendee at a small conference where the speaker was like that in a way, like didn't want to. I mean, you're at a small conference, there are a hundred people here, and you can't ask answer questions, or you don't want to like that linger. Yeah, you don't want to linger. You can't do that. You just can't do that. I mean, you know. So, anyway, that's one thing. So, what about like on stage? Like when you're given your presentation, are there things that we can do that we can think about as speakers or that can really get our message across in a better way?

SPEAKER_01 52:11

Well, I think that there are a lot of sort of mechanical things that people will probably remember from their, you know, their experience in high school speech class or whatever. And you know, don't read from the slides. Yeah, people wouldn't be paying their time and money to go uh watch you if they couldn't. They can all read the slides and I hate slides.

Jami 52:28

I hate making slides.

SPEAKER_01 52:30

Well, I always for myself, I usually have slides, but they are only sort of like a prompt to the audience to what the topic of that little period of time is going to be and a prompt to myself or what to say. So it's the kind of thing where I'll glance at a slide, it would have a couple of bullet points on it, or I might have a graphic that illustrates the point, and then I can speak to that, speaking to the audience, speaking to the audience. That's the important part. And I think that there are all sorts of ways, there's sort of nuances of that. And an example I saw recently was I was at a conference where there was the speaker was not on up on the podium. They were kind of standing on the floor where all the chairs were, and there was a center, a center aisleway through the chairs. And she was sort of walking around, which can be okay, you know, moving around can be an attractive and engaging kind of thing. But she kept walking further and further into the audience and staying there. And so that, you know, let's say there were 20 chairs of rows of chairs, and she was at like and all the people in rows one through 10 kind of you could tell they were starting to feel a little checked out. And so you could see the people on the front, you know, they tried to crane their neck around for a while so they could keep an eye on the speaker. Pretty soon they just started looking at their phones. And I think that, you know, that's that's unfortunate for them. But I think the even more the the even more dangerous place of speaking to a part of the audience or even an individual person in the audience, because I think what happened with the speaker was somebody in row 11 asked her a question. And so she kind of walked up to row 11. She was talking kind of directly to that person, which made the rest of the people in the room feel left out. And that's especially dangerous if you're dealing with somebody who's kind of a heckler, and you can never let the conversation become a conversation between you and the heckler. It has to be you like hearing a question and then stepping back and addressing a response to the whole room. And that's true whether you're, you know, whether you're responding to a heckler, you're responding to a friendly audience. You have to take care of the whole room. You can't take care of an individual person. And, you know, you can, you know, maybe afterwards, if you see someone who seems confused or whatever, you could you could use that lingering opportunity to say, hey, you know, you look like maybe you were having sex thoughts about what I was saying. But making it a conversation, but making it a conversation with the whole room, not with an individual person. Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 54:50

That's great, Maddie. Yeah, that's that's absolutely a great tip. And the one one thing I'll share is I I always like to plan my talks starting at the end. So I always like to think about the perspective of the audience, put myself in their shoes. The talk is done, they're getting up and they're walking for the door, and they they feel like this is the best talk they they've been to. What would get them to that point? Right. What do they need to get to that point? And then you work your way back. So you okay, you so then you start at the QA, which Maddie talked about, and then you move a little bit back further. Okay, what am I trying to do? Am I trying to sell a book? Am I trying to get some information out there? Am I trying to help them take the next step? What do they need to do that? And then you back your you back yourself up all the way to the beginning of the talk, having started at the end. And that will help you one, clarify everything you're gonna say because that dictates what's gonna go on your slides. Right. It dictates what you're gonna do on stage, it dictates you know the final steps when you're at the end of the talk. And so that has always been helpful for me because I I I find that when I don't do that, sometimes I wander, and that's not good for me or good for the audience.

Sara 56:09

Yeah, those are great tips. Those are wonderful. So I wanted to ask if somebody is new and to this idea of speaking in particular, or maybe doing a different type of platform, like a podcast or YouTube channel, what would be your tips for getting started? Like where should somebody start? Michael, do you want to take this one?

SPEAKER_00 56:32

Yeah, I would start with two things that that immediately jump to mind. The first thing is make sure that you get a good audio and video presence. If you can if you have to spend money and you can only spend money on one, spend money on a decent entry-level podcasting microphone. A blue Yeti snowball. You can never go wrong when you sing that song because when people hear you, that's the first impression.

unknown 56:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 56:57

That's the first impression. And you only have that one impression, and nobody wants to be the person that you know you have crackly audio, it just sounds horrible in people's earbuds.

SPEAKER_04 57:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:05

Because that's when that's how people are going to listen to you. They're going to hear you in earbuds. So you you you want to invest just a little bit of money into a good audio microphone. And if cameras can be intimidating to people, and and what I just encourage people is if you have to use your phone, just use your phone. But you know, try not to use the built-in webcam on your computer or on your, you know, on your devices, but an entry-level podcasting webcam, you know, just find out what uh people are using for Zoom calls and things like that. And that will give you a good first impression when people see you and when they hear you. And that goes a long way. And then the second thing, just real quick, is don't be afraid to put together a press reel or a speaker's reel. So dress for the job you want. So what what's stopping you from putting together a talk, recording it with you know, recording app on your computer and pretending like it was a talk and then taking the best clips from that and slicing them together into a demo reel so that people know what it would be like to hire you. So dress for the job you want and you'd be surprised.

SPEAKER_01 58:16

The the advice I would have for people starting out, even backing up from that, is understanding what your goals for your speaker career are. And so, as an example, I mean, there we probably don't have time to get into how this would play out, but let's say that you have just written a book on fly fishing and you're very excited about getting word out about your fly phishing book to as many people as possible. Your approach there is gonna be different than if you are a member of a nonprofit organization that's supporting research into addressing an illness and you need to engage people to contribute money to that cause. You know, the the approach you take is gonna be different. If you're if you're looking to make an emotional connection with people, then you're probably gonna be favoring in-person events. If you're looking to spread information, then virtual events can be very good. You need to factor in things like how much money do you have to invest in this? Because early in your speaker career, it's gonna be more of an investment than it is gonna be a money earner. You have to consider things like what do you want, you know, just generally, what are your goals? Are you looking long term to earn money? Are you looking long-term as a learning experience? Because a lot of times if you're a speaker at a conference, you get to attend the conference for free. And so, you know, there there can be benefits that come along with that. Are you looking to expand your audience of fellow writers in addition to an audience of fellow readers? You know, the list goes on and on. Right. And so I would recommend that if if people are thinking through this for themselves, if they go to the indieauthor.com, and it's indie with a why, I-N D Y, the indieauthor.com forward slash platform, and then scroll all the way to the bottom. There's a document there called Speaker's Notes that summarizes the questions at the end of each of the chapters of the book. But you can answer the questions even without having the book, and it walks you through some of these questions, like early on, what are the questions you you need to be considering? And that is going to help point you in the direction of the type of presentation, the type of engagement that you want to pursue.

Jami 1:00:09

So good. Thank you. And just to put this out there, uh, I don't know about I doubt Sarah is part of this group, but Michael, Maddie, and I would love to speak at your next event. So thank you very much. Yes, please, thank you. I'll be on your podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:27

I was gonna say Sarah, not so much. See how one opportunity leads to another. Yes, exactly.

Jami 1:00:35

Exactly, exactly. Well, we have just appreciated you guys being here so much. Are there any final thoughts you would want to leave our audience with or anything from the that we haven't covered that you wanted to cover today?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:49

Yeah, we should mention the title of the book, Maddie. Uh, for those who are interested in in picking up the book that we co-authored, it it's From Page to Platform, How to Succeed as an Author Speaker. And wouldn't just give the books to read link. It's just bookstoread.com forward slash from page to platform all spelled out.

Jami 1:01:09

We'll have that in the show notes and people can grab it. And so we have appreciated y'all being here so much. And tell everybody where they can find out more about you and all that, and invite you to speak and all those things.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:24

Yes, you can you can contact me to invite me to speak if you go to the indieauthor.com, indiewithawhy, I-n d y, and you'll find information on all my writing, podcast, newsletter articles, other things. And if people are interested in my fiction work, they can go to maddydelerble.com and that's MaddiewithY, M-A-T-T-Y.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:42

Great.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:43

Michael?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:44

Yeah, and if you're interested in all of the uh YouTube and writing-y things I've got uh going on, you can find me at authorevelup.com. I've got links to all my books and speaking and all that stuff for writers. And if you're interested in my fiction, you can find me at michaeleron.com.

Jami 1:02:01

Very good, very good. Thank you guys for being here. We have appreciated it so much. Thank you. This is the super fun. Oh, we will have all those links in the show notes.

Sara 1:02:12

We'll see everybody next week. Bye.