Rebuilding Your Writing Business After a Break: Jami on the Creative Penn Podcast

324 / This week we’re sharing Jami’s discussion with Joanna on The Creative Penn Podcast about rebuilding your writing business after a break.

✨ This week’s sponsor is Bookfunnel: https://bookfunnel.com

• Waiting to publish and business planning
• Impact of personal loss and grief
• Writing through and about grief
• Decision to fictionalize real experiences
• Balancing therapy and storytelling in writing
• Concerns over reader and family reactions
• Rebooting an indie author business
• Future writing plans and creative change

💙 Become a supporter of the podcast https://wishidknownforwriters.com/support or https://wishidknownthenpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

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⚡Links:

• Bookfunnel: https://bookfunnel.com
• The Creative Penn Podcast: https://www.thecreativepenn.com/the-creative-penn-podcast-for-authors/
• Jami on Bradley Charbonneau’s Repossible podcast: https://pod.link/1358802479/episode/aHR0cHM6Ly9wZXJtYWxpbmsuY2FzdG9zLmNvbS9wb2RjYXN0LzI3MS9lcGlzb2RlLzI0OTM4Njg
• Jami on Zen and the Art of Self-Publishing: https://pod.link/1896901898/episode/OThlMjBlNzAtY2I1Zi00OTQ3LWE3MWItMWU1Y2M4YWUwNjdi
• Jami on Seriously Sandra:
• https://www.youtube.com/@Sandrasvision

Transcript

Jami 0:04

Welcome to Witch I Know Men podcast. I'm Sarah Rodette. And I'm Jamie Albright. And this week on the show we have Jamie. It's Joanna Penn. Yes. Yeah. We decided to air this my interview with Joanna this week.

SPEAKER_02 0:22

I'm still, I mean, my last week of swimming lessons, y'all. Pray for me. I am not. I'm hanging on by the side.

Sara 0:28

It's been a long, long month of June, huh?

SPEAKER_02 0:31

It has.

Jami 0:32

Actually, last week of May, it was, it's been long.

SPEAKER_02 0:37

But we it was such a good interview, and she got a lot of responses on it. So we decided we would air it, and then we'll get back to doing our interviews next week.

Sara 0:50

Yeah, it was excellent. It was an excellent interview. Thank you. And it has some really good information about just rebooting your career after you've taken a break. It doesn't necessarily have to be something like what happened to you, but sometimes people take a break for a variety of reasons. Yeah. That's coming up. And we have two new supporters that we didn't get to back in May. So thank you to Karen Boyd, who chose the muscle arm emoji. I don't know what you'd call that strong arm emoji. And to Laura Bradbury, who chose the disco ball. Thank you guys. We appreciate it.

Jami 1:25

Yeah, we really do. And during June, besides Joanna's podcast, three other podcasts. So I know I've been busy. I will we'll put the links to those in the show notes. One is a YouTube interview that was really great. The other was Janet Margot's new podcast, The Zen and the Art of Self-Publishing. And the and that was a such great interview. I just felt like we talked about some really great things during that interview. The other is the Seriously Sandra chat, and it's on YouTube and a podcast. And that was with my friend Sandra Elaine. She's children's author. She's also now writing some other stuff. But yeah, so that I did that.

SPEAKER_02 2:11

And yeah, we talked a lot about the book.

Sara 2:15

So you've been doing podcast promotion for your new book. How does that go?

SPEAKER_02 2:20

It has sold books.

Jami 2:21

I every time a podcast comes out, I do find that I sell I sell books. But yeah. Yeah.

Sara 2:29

But those podcasts will be out there and they'll be discoverable and people will be able to find them. That's the good thing about podcast marketing or publicity, is that it lives longer than other like social media lives longer than social media.

SPEAKER_02 2:44

That's what I've been doing. That some lessons have been.

Sara 2:47

I have been working on my book. I'm so I've I've finally hit that point where I know the ending. Like I've crossed the midpoint into act three. Yeah. And I'm now it's all downhill and it's just gathering everything together that I need in my brain and getting it all down on paper. And then I'll get to go back and revise it, of course. But yeah, I feel like it's been really nice to have the month off and just focus on that. And I've done some other stuff. I'm having Claude do a lot of stuff for me to update things, and it's really it's helped me out a lot. You do have to manage it. It's like having a very good, enthusiastic assistant, but you do have to really follow up on it and check on it. It helped it will have lots of questions about how to do things. So it will point out all the gaps that I have not of the information I'm not given it when I ask it to do a task. So there's some prep time, but it has helped me to get a lot of stuff done. It's like website updates and some things like that. So we do have a sponsor for this month, corporate sponsor, Book Funnel. We love BookFunnels. So we love them. How do you use Book Funnel? What do you use it for the most?

SPEAKER_02 3:53

How do I not use BookFunnel? I have all my arcs up there.

Jami 3:57

I have I have all my books on there. Yeah, me too. I use it for arcs a lot. I use it for my back matter all the time. I've done their promos with varying degrees of success, but I think that's I think the promos are like you get in, you get out of it what you put into it.

SPEAKER_02 4:15

So if you really want a good promo, you need to be the one running the promo, is how I look at it.

Jami 4:22

I've done their swaps and that's been pretty good.

SPEAKER_02 4:26

I've had better luck with some people, and you know, and it's weird because it's like somebody with a bigger audience I might not have as good luck with, but a small, a smaller, more focused audience. Yeah, it's more, it's a lot of trial and error.

Jami 4:39

I do have one audiobook there.

Sara 4:44

Yeah, I do the same. I have all my ebooks there, I have all my audiobooks there, and I use them for reader magnet giveaways, sales. I have them hooked up to Shopify. And anytime somebody purchases something for me, BookFunnel delivers it. It's like a super essential part of my business. I've done promos with them, I've run my own promos and organized those and invited people, and then I've contributed, just participated in other ones that are running. Yeah. So and it's been really good. I feel like it is there are very few things I would say that you really need as an indie author that you have to do. But I think BookFunnel just makes it so easy that it's a no-brainer.

SPEAKER_02 5:25

Yep. So I agree. I agree. And that and everybody talks about this, and this is one of their big selling points, but it's they handle all the customer service.

Sara 5:34

You don't have to do any of it, which that is such a load off authors because if we get something, an email from somebody saying, Hey, I can't get this book, all you do is you just forward that email to BookFunnel and they take care of it. Yeah. And and they will follow up with the reader, and then they also usually let you know that it's been handled. Just peace of mind.

Jami 5:54

Yeah. So for people who have been sleeping under a rock or have just gotten into this business and found us, tell people what BookFunnel is.

Sara 6:05

Oh, well, basically, their main thing they do is they just handle the delivery of ebooks and audiobooks for authors because that's a huge hurdle because all the e-readers are very different, and all people read on their phones, and so everybody has different tech issues. And sideloading things onto your Kindle or whatever, if you're giving away something or delivering a purchase is a big pain. And they solved that. So that and I do remember when they first rolled this out, everyone was so excited. And now it's become just part of our business, and we just use it and we're so happy we have it, but I don't think we appreciate it enough sometimes. But anyway, so we will be talking more about BookFunnel, some of the special things they have, some of the unique things they have. And if you're interested and don't know BookFunnel or want to find out more, you can go to bookfunnel.com and we'll have a link in the show notes. Perfect. Yes. All right, so should we get on with the interview? But we're all caught up.

SPEAKER_00 7:03

Jamie Albright is the best-selling author of the Brides on the Run romances and the co-host of the Wish I'd Known Then podcast. Today we're talking about her new novel, The Summer That Changed Us. So welcome to the show, Jamie. Thank you, Joanna.

Jami 7:20

I I've made it. This is my first time on the creative pin. And so I am I can retire tomorrow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:28

Yeah, and we were saying before the show, I I really thought you had been on the show before because over the years we've connected a lot and we met like over a decade ago, didn't we, at the Smarter Artist. And yeah, and I was like, I'm sure you've been on the show and you haven't. So yes, welcome.

Jami 7:45

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, you've been on our show though. We did we did an interview with you a couple of years, a few years ago, I think. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:53

So yes. Well, anyway, for anyone who doesn't follow your show, tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and publishing.

Jami 8:02

Okay. So I am the co-host of the Wish I'd known then for Writers podcast. And Sarah, Rosette, and I have been doing that podcast for since 2020. We started in January of 2020. Little did we know what was coming. And it really saved me just mentally, just being able to talk to people every week. But I got into writing, I never wrote a word of fiction until I was 47. I had never really written anything. I have really bad grammar. I tell a lot of stories and I would make up stories, but I'd never write them down because of the grammar thing. But my reading buddy, it was her birthday coming up in about three months, and I thought, you know what? I'm gonna write Jennifer a book for a birthday. She doesn't care if I have bad grammar. I just thought it would be on brand and uh all the it was so hard. And I wrote myself in a corner very fast. And so she, but when I told her, she was like, Well, now you have to. So I got writing romance for dummies, and I read that, and I started writing what is now running from a rock star, but then my computer crashed and I lost it, and I was like, Well, I'm not a writer, so it was fun, but and then I turned 50 and I told my family, I think the only thing I regret is not finishing that book. And of course, they were like, Well, you need to just do it again. And I was like, No, I had 30,000 words. And I a few weeks later, my daughter came in and said, Mom, I th I found this flash drive in my door my car. I think it has your book on it, and it was 20,000 of the 30,000 words, and I was like, Well, it's now or never. So I joined Romance Writers of America and got involved in a critique group, and they absolutely kicked my butt for a good six months, and it was, I think every week they were surprised I came back because it was so brutal, but I didn't know anything. I I knew I didn't know anything, and they taught me to write. And six months after I joined that first critique group, I won my first contest with that book, the first 10 pages of that book. Yeah, and then I just continued on, and then three years later I published Rockstar. I was gonna publish it two years later, but I went to the Smarter Artist where I met you, and the I was advised by Julia Kent and Sean Platt and some other people, but to wait, you know, preferably have more books written. I had the second book written when the first one came out, but it still needed to be edited and stuff. And yeah, and so I waited a year and learned this business and sold plasma to pay for my edits because I was poor. And but it was the best decision that I ever made. Going to that conference, first of all, was the best $500 I've ever spent. And then second of all, waiting that year really just helped me learn this business. And I mean, like when I published the book, I had an email list of 1,200 people before the book ever came out. You know, all of those things would not have been set up had I published because what I was gonna do is publish right after the Smarter Artists Summit, is what I had thought, like in the summer. And so waiting gave me time to get everything set up so that when I published that book, that book really took off from day one, you know, had 1,200 people on that newsletter list that wanted that book because I had done a like a preview promo like instead of putting out the whole book, we all we all only put out th I think I put out four chapters. And then people signed up. I don't know that that works anymore.

SPEAKER_00 11:58

I was gonna say that we should say to people, what was that around 2016?

Jami 12:02

17, yeah, 2017. Yeah, things have changed. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

Yeah, things have changed. And I think this is so important. I actually had a question about this, and what they were implying was things that, like you said, we learned a decade ago, and you know, things have changed. So we'll we'll come back to that and about how you're doing it now. But just in terms of just finishing off the sort of how you got started, because those books did really well, didn't they? You you have a couple of years there and you did how many books and and so how did that go? Because you did have a real success, didn't you?

Jami 12:33

Yeah, from 2017 until really the beginning of 2021. If you look at my my sales graph and and my money and everything, I mean it's just it it just increased, increased, increased. 2019 was my very best year, but 2020 was only slightly as far as book sales and and my income was just only slightly lower. And but I only put out a book a year after the second book. The second book came out like six months after the first one, and then after that, it was about every nine months to a year that I put a book out. And so everyone said you can't make money doing that, and but I did. And I I think those books are very tropey, they're very hooky. That helped. I also think the timing of those books was really good. You know, rom-com was really coming up, and my rom com is pretty wacky, but it's also really emotional too. I get, you know, if I get any critiques about them, it's usually that this book was way emotion more emotional than I expected, and I was looking for something a little lighter. But they're just really wacky, they're rom coms, they're wacky circumstances, they're small towns, so there's all these small town people, and I just think it was a good time to release those. But yeah, those I was, yeah, it was good. Those were good years, those were the good years. I was good years.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

Yeah, well, it's a good, it's a good lesson because it's not always up and to the right, is it? And again, we're gonna come back and revisit that. So then obviously pandemic hit, and then on a more personal level, over the last few years, you've had a sort of deeply difficult time that has led to the summer that changed us, your latest book. So talk a bit about what's happened and and why why this book and also why fictionalize it rather than memoir. I I had that question.

Jami 14:33

Okay. Well, what happened was so 2021, my income was dropping, but it was still okay. You know, I mean, I was still making I was still making enough, more than enough. Then, you know, I don't have to make all the money in our household, thank God. But there was a a level that I wanted to. But at the end of 2021, my sister, who I have four sisters, she was number four. She had lived with cancer, lung cancer, uh, non-smokers' lung cancer for 10 years. And had she had the kind that if you had this certain it was you had to have this certain medicine, and they had these medicines that worked amazingly well and until they didn't, and then they just put you on another class of that medication. And so for 10 years, that's what she did. She rarely, I think she missed work maybe three times in 10 years. She she people that met her never knew she had cancer unless they knew us and knew her well. She just never acted like she had cancer. We would have to say, remember, you have cancer. But at the end of 2021, they ran out of that class of drugs. There were some being tested, but none had been approved. Well, when she was diagnosed, she was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer. You don't survive very long having stage four lung cancer if with no medication. And so I saw the writing on the wall pretty much at the end of 2021. And but of course was very hopeful that something they could do something, but uh by May of 2022, it was clear that she things were not going well. And then in July of 2022, she got a six to twelve, six to twelve week diagnosis. Just went in one day thinking she was about to get radiation, like not knowing anything. And they were like, No, we can't do radiation, and you should get your affairs in order because you have six to twelve weeks to live. And it was I you know, I people that have been through it, you know this feeling. It's like being hit by a wrecking ball. I mean, you just it knocks everything off your off the your axis. Your whole world just it just implodes into this one moment, this these people, uh this person that you love. And I happen to be, I live four hours away from my family. They all still live in the same small town. And I was in Dallas at the time. They live about 30 miles outside of Dallas. And so I was at my daughter's, and so I just went to my mom's and I stayed there. I was there for almost six months because if you count the time I was in Dallas because I was back and forth, because she was not doing great, but she was still okay, you know. I mean, she had always rallied and come back, and but once she got the diagnosis, I stayed. She wanted to be she would go home, but she would come back to my mom's during the day because her husband worked and she was a teacher, so she was off during the summer. And so I was just there, and we all just took care of her. And then when she decided to go on hospice, she wanted to be at my mom's. She didn't want they lived out in the country and she didn't want to be out there. She wanted to be at my mom's, so we set her up in the living room. I mean, you know, we're we're we're redneck country people. We just we had we bring our crazy people and our sick people just out for everybody to see. And so she's just in the middle of the living room in her hospital bed, and people would we just the world just wrote revolved around that hospital bed. And so, but once that happened, once 2021, at the end of 2021, and I knew things were not gonna go well, or you know, I didn't I really did not believe she would die, but she died a month after she went on hospice in October of 2022. But that whole year I was useless. I could not write, I couldn't think of anything to write. I write funny. How do you write funny when your heart's broken? I mean, it just I couldn't do it. And after she died, I knew it would take a while. Like I knew that I knew it would maybe even be a year, but as the weeks turned into months and the months turned into years, I haven't written except for her obituary, I've not written a word since she died until I started writing this book a year ago. Uh I started it on April 19th. So yeah, it was really hard.

SPEAKER_00 19:14

Yeah, I mean, just on that, I mean the stories of grief, there seems to be no way of escaping whatever it ends up being. Like you didn't choose your response, your your deep grief just it it was there and you couldn't write. And I I feel like sometimes people just try and force it. It's more like you that's what you needed, and you have have done that. So, what then gave you the impetus to then finally write and choose fiction?

Jami 19:44

Well, I didn't write memoir. I did think about doing a memoir, but I don't read memoir and I don't know how to write it. And I was like, I'm already, I'm already behind the eight ball here with trying to write write a book, period, because it just had been forever. I don't need to have to learn how to write something completely different. Plus, I did think it would be it, it just felt too close to write the memoir. And but I had been in Mexico City with my daughter, who she has an event planning company, and we were there scouting locations for one of her events. And Janet Margot lives in Mexico City, and so I reached out and we had dinner, and we were talking, and she had had two big losses about the same time that my sister passed away. So we were just talking about how difficult uh it is afterwards and just getting your head back into a space, like right, being creative at all. And she was like, But you really should write this book, like you should tell this story. This story it hits everything. It's middle-aged women dealing with middle-aged things. You got your parents that you were dealing with, and then your sister, you should write this story. I was like, No, thank you. No, I lived it, I don't want to write it, but it just wouldn't go away. And and I couldn't really, I couldn't figure out how I would tell it, like whose point of view, I couldn't do it from the sister that was dying's point of view because I didn't, I I mean, and be authentic, I didn't think. Yeah, and I was afraid to tell it, you know, to have multiple, multiple POVs because the book has a lot of characters in it, because my family is gigantic. I mean, just my immediate family, my sisters, husbands, and nieces and nephews, and my kids, my mom and dad. There are 35 of us. So I mean, and almost all of those are in and out of my mom's house all the time. So I couldn't, I you know, I just knew that I couldn't do multiple points of view. And one day I was driving home to my mom's house, and it just hit me like the whole story just laid out in front of me what I could do to. Tell it and that's what I did. The first draft was pretty much just a retelling of what happened to us. I added some fiction elements in it, but I just wanted to get the story out, and it it was so hard. I but I would because I hadn't written and I had I started Adderall on April 19th of 2025. I know that because that's the day I started this book. And I would come to Starbucks and I would sit, and because of the Adderall, I do call this the book that Adderall wrote because it I could sit and focus for like three or four hours, which I'd never really been able to do. And I would come to Starbucks and I would sit and I would write this book and I would cry sitting in Starbucks. I mean, like a crazy person, just sitting there. And I mean, they just would walk by and slide a tissue onto the table, you know, a napkin onto the table and just keep walking because I'm sitting there crying like crazy. But I was so superstitious and things were working so well that I was afraid not to come write at Starbucks. So in staying at home, I think would have been really hard. I think I would have maybe sunk into a depression had I done this at home. So I just wrote the whole book at Starbucks. And then after I wrote the first draft, I went back in and made it more fictional. But a lot of the book is a lot of what, especially her stuff, is a lot of what happened. I mean, she's she was just crazy. I mean, I tell a story in the book that this is the absolute truth. This happened. She was in college and she had convinced my younger sister to go to this honky tonk club, and because they were having a Miss Honky Tonk contest, and before she could get up on stage to compete as Miss Honky Tonk, she got in a fight with some girl, and the girl hit her in the head with a bottle and split her head open. And she was bleeding. My youngest sister was like, We've got to go the ER. And she just refused because there was a $300 cash prize for this for winning, and she needed it to make rent. And so she borrowed a towel from the bartender, wrapped it around her head, competed with that bloody towel on her head, and won that stupid contest. So I mean that story and in that was my sister. I mean, that was just her. And that was everything about her is in that story. And so a lot of the almost all the stories that are in there happen to her in one way or the other, as far as you know, what happens to June in the book happened to my sister.

SPEAKER_00 24:38

So well, I think I mean this is interesting though, because the same thing that memoir writers have is something perhaps you face, which is how much of the writing is therapy and how much is for the reader. So you said that you sat there crying, and absolutely writing for therapy is very important. But when you come to edit that, there might be things that your therapy side of you is like, I uh that's so important to me. But how do you kill your darlings when you're editing your sister's life?

Jami 25:13

Yeah, yeah, that was hard. I had to take out a lot uh of what was in the first uh just mostly the story, because once she came home out of hospice, it was just a steady stream of people coming in and everybody had a story about her. And what I found in editing, you know, I mean revising the book was J Hope, the main character, is mostly a spectator in were in those scenes, or she was a spectator in those scenes instead of being actively part of those scenes. So I had to take those out because I mean they didn't serve the purpose of the book, and I guess I committed early to while I wanted to tell the story, I did not want it to be self-indulgent, I did not want it to be a therapy session that I sold to people, you know, as a story. And because of that, I think that really helped. Like I really did think about that as I was revising. I did send it to a developmental editor, and she she came back, and I don't know how great she was, but she did give me some really good advice about a couple of things. And one was like, there's just not enough conflict in this book. Like you say that Hope and the father have this really contentious relationship, yet we don't see it. You know, I mean there's a little bit of it here and there, but you're not really digging into that. And it's hard because while the rest of the world doesn't know, my family knows that this is a lot of our story. And I just had to kind of let that go and not worry about what my family thought. They had all given me permit, like I had sort of said, I'm I want to do this. Are you guys okay with that? I talked to her husband, and everybody was okay with me doing it, but I couldn't worry about what they were gonna think. I mean, I would repeat to myself, if they want to tell this story, they can write their own book. I'm writing what I saw and telling a fictionalized story that will hopefully honor her, but also help let other people feel like they're being seen, but also be entertaining. I mean, if you're gonna write a book, it needs to be somewhat entertaining.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

So yeah, I don't think you you can't help yourself. You're just you're funny. Yeah.

Jami 27:31

The book is really funny. I mean, I I tell people that they're like, hmm, really? And I'm like, it is really funny, but it's also really sad.

SPEAKER_00 27:41

So well, I think that's the truth. I mean, there is a lot of humor in grief. I mean, there is death and dying, and it's a human condition. I mean, it is a human condition, yeah. There's comedy in all of the human condition, that's just the way it is, right? But I did I heard you mention on an interview, I can't remember where it was, that you feel very obviously very connected to this book, and you're worried that people judging it or giving it a bad review or anything might feel like an insult to your sister. So, how are you dealing with these kind of fears about you know, how do we separate ourselves from our books?

Jami 28:18

Been in therapy, like literal therapy for that, because I I did feel like that would be hard. So far, I mean, I've only gotten a few reviews back, they've all been good reviews. I haven't had one say they don't hate it, but I have had to separate myself. Like, it's just not about it's not personal. I mean, reviews are never personal. People not liking your book is never personal, and so I've that is it's just a mindset. I've had to change my mind about that, and knowing that's kind of a pitfall that I could fall into, I I've I really just keep it top of mind. My family knows that's an issue, so they know they have to pull me out of that hole if I drop, you know, if I go in. So yeah, that's really how I've handled it so far. We'll see.

SPEAKER_00 29:10

But yeah, yeah, and I mean maybe it's time as well. Like, obviously, you're almost back to the sort of book is your baby situation. And the as the years pass, the book almost becomes separate, doesn't it? Like how you feel about your first bride book. It's probably like, yeah, it's not even me anymore.

Jami 29:28

Right. And and I learned early that your book isn't really your baby. Like, I mean, once you publish it, it's your product. And so I like that has never been really very hard for me. I mean, I still hate bad reviews, and I take them personally, like everybody else does, if I if I let myself, but this ultimately this is a book that I am putting out for entertainment. Yes, it's very personal. Yes, it means a lot to me, but if people don't like it, it's it isn't because they don't like my dead sister. They did they they just don't like my blessing.

SPEAKER_00 30:07

Yeah, I think I mean, and it's it's tough, but it's good. So it's to talk about it because I feel like this is something many people feel. I certainly my it's not the same at all, but my memoir Pilgrimage, I was just so scared of judgment, like the fear of judgment of what people would think of me, whereas I guess that's kind of different, but it's this how will it land? And the reality is like not many people read these books anyway.

Jami 30:35

Yeah. Well, and I mean, I have worried about how it would land, but mostly I worry about how it would land with the people I love. Like my mom read it last week. I was there while she was reading it, that was not fun. I mean, and she laughed, but it was devastating har to her, and she did love, I mean, she was like, it's great, and I hate it, you know. I mean, you know, kind of thing because it is so raw and real to her still, and well, to all of us, but I that's where I worry, and I worry about it how it's gonna land with them. But again, I've had to let that go. I had to let it go during the writing because if I worried about that, then I would not have told an honest story. And that was another thing, you know. I didn't want it to be self-indulgent, and I wanted it to be honest, just as honest as I could make it without even to the point of making people uncomfortable, but there's a line. There's a line that once you cross it, you you there's no get getting you back after that. So I walked that line really carefully because I did want it to be honest about how I felt, how how other people I know who've been through something like this feel. And then just relationships, because when you're in a big family, like my sisters and I, we adore each other, but we can also go toe-to-toe real fast. And it gets ugly, it can get ugly because we know each other really well. And again, we're also just a little bit rednecked, so we will we are not afraid to pull, we don't pull any punches, and so and your sisters are always the most honest people in your life, you know. But I wanted that to be true in this book too, both sides of that story, you know.

SPEAKER_00 32:29

Yeah. So let's circle back to the business stuff and some of the things we talked about, because obviously this has been a really difficult time. There was no way to deal with it in any other way, but your business has changed. Um, you had these a great few years, good sales, and then you had other priorities. So, how are you rebooting the business? Because lots of people end up taking a few years out for whatever reason. How are you rebooting the business to try and sell some books?

Jami 33:04

Yeah, I mean, to be honest, I mean, I have the remnants of a business. I have tried over the last four years to run some ads to get the brides book going, but here's something that's very interesting. And if somebody can tell me why this happened, I I would love to hear it. I these books that have sold so many books, I mean, so many books, I could not give away. I just I couldn't give them away. It didn't matter what I did. I changed covers, I changed blurbs, I put them on sale, I took them off sale, I ran ads, I couldn't, you know, ads wouldn't really they didn't move the needle. And I know at a certain point that when you have it published and your books get pushed down in the algorithm, that is an uphill battle. But it's just like one almost one day they just fell off. And once they started falling, I could not get them back. I just couldn't. So to so that I didn't make myself crazy because also during this time I'm trying to keep my head above water, and like when I would deal with my books or go into my dashboard and stuff, I just would feel horrible. Well, I was already feeling horrible, so I didn't need to feel more horrible. So I just sort of let them go after a certain point. But I've started running some Facebook, I have one Facebook ad that's working really well, knock on wood, right now for my first bride's book. But the problem is this book and my bride's book are I mean the voice and the tone are the same, but they're really they're different in a lot of ways. There's the same in a lot of ways, you know. This book doesn't have any sex, the other books don't have anybody dying. But uh some of the things are are really similar, and so I may have some crossover, but for whatever reason, this ad is working. My book one is ranked better than it's been ranked in forever, and I mean like really good, and I'm not spending a ton of money to do it, so I don't know what changed. I I don't know, and I don't know if I'll ever know, but I've revised my newsletter and that's worked well. I still have around 35 to 40 percent open rate on a newsletter that I didn't send out for almost two years. You know, I did I was sending it out, but then I kind of stopped and then I started again.

SPEAKER_00 35:34

Well, I was gonna ask you about that because I often get people emailing me. They're like, I have a really old newsletter from several years ago. I haven't emailed them for years. So what did you say in that first email? Like, hey, I'm back, like what I mean. I'm just like, remember me.

Jami 35:48

You know, I it it really was kind of like that. Just I'm back. You guys know life has happened. I'm sure you understand. If and if you're still here, thank you so much. And I have been writing, I have this book that I would love, you know, I think some of you will really love. And yeah, that's really how it was. And I mean, from the first e like that first email even had it had even a higher open rate. I think it was close to 45%, which I had not sent out a newsletter in two years, literally. And so I was very what happened.

SPEAKER_00 36:27

I mean, yeah.

Jami 36:29

Uh they're like, oh, she didn't die. That was her sister, not her. So yeah, it but it they I've just been really fortunate, and they've been really, you know, every time I send one out, I get just really encouraging uh emails back, and so I've sent out about the book. The majority of my readers are KU readers because my books are in KU, but this book is go, I'm why I'm going wide with it. So one of the things I'm doing, because I have been a little concerned about, I mean, Janet, you know, Janet Margot does a lot of Amazon ad stuff and she knows a lot about Amazon. And so we've talked a lot about whether I should use my real name, I mean my pin name or or my real name, or come up with another name. Should I worry about my readers buying the book and messing up my also bots, all of those things, because my readers are romance readers. I mean, some of them read women women's fiction, but for the most part, they're romance readers. And I've just decided to stick with Jamie Albright and to not worry about. I mean, they're just things you can't control. And so I've had to just hold everything with a really open hand with this book, but I am offering the book on my website for so I'm I'm selling it at $7.99. So I chose a high price point because I just feel like to sit with the other books that I want it to sit with, I need that price point. So I am offering it on my website starting at the end of this week for $5. So if they want to, if they're KU readers and they don't buy books, but they want the book, they can get it for $5 on my website, which I think is reasonable. If it's too much for them, that's it. I understand and and I get it. I get it. Time things are hard right now, and if they can't do that, it's gonna be in libraries, so they can request it at their library. But right now that's that's the plan. And so hopefully that helps with the also box a little bit too, even though again, I just can't worry about that those things, but as a gift to my readers, I I would I want to do this for them as well to give them a discount on that, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:57

And obviously, this is a standalone, right? This is not it is and so again, a bit like memoir. I mean, all the book marketing we talk about in fiction, of course, is write a series, it's much easier. So it is difficult to market a standalone in general. This and also this is something that happened and it is a standalone situation. So do you feel like you're back in terms of writing? Have you got plans for more books? Or do you feel like is this a business for you going forward? I guess do you do you feel like you want to re-enter this world?

Jami 39:34

I do. I'm not like I have an idea for a book similar to this one, not I mean, in the same kind of genre of women's fiction, kind of midlife fiction stuff. I have an idea. I've had it for like I had nothing for months and months and months. And a couple of months ago, this idea kind of came to me. I was like, oh, that's not bad. So I've I'm mulling, you know, I do a lot of mulling, so I'm mulling it over. And that's the next book I think I will write. I don't know that I'll write rom coms again, not because I don't love them, I do, and I love my uh my rom coms, but I feel like you know, I'm just different. You do not go through something like this and come out on the other side the same. And I don't know that I could carry an entire rom com through without it being even more emotional than mine are now. And so yeah, for right now, this I'm gonna write another one of these kinds of books where it's got a lot of emotion, got a lot of family dynamic or tension and dynamics and stuff like that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:45

Yeah. Oh, that's great. And I do feel like once you've written the book that was waiting, which is your your sister's book, then more things arrive. And it's great to hear that that is arriving for you. And again, of course, we change. You know, one of the nice things about writing for the long term and building more of a name brand is that you change and your readers either follow you or or they don't, but it's your it's your life, and so I think I think that's a good reason to have one pen name. I mean, I obviously have two, but my fiction pen name I've written all kinds of genres under. And wh why else would we keep doing this? I I don't want to write the same book over and over again, right?

Jami 41:24

And and believe me, like me, I've had to eat a lot of crow over the last four years, and it's tasty with ketchup. And I have decided that a lot of the stuff I said is true about you write in one genre, you give the people exactly what they want, and you give it to them over and over again. I believe all of that. Like, I still believe those things. It's just that I don't know that I am capable of doing that right now. Also, I I'm older. I mean, I am about doing the things that bring me joy and are not a drudgery. And I I want to say this because I miss the success, I miss who I who I thought I was during that time. I miss the recognition. I I mean, I'll freely admit it, like I miss being the person doing the thing that everybody said couldn't be done. You can't make money with one book a year. Well, watch me. And I did. I miss that. But what I don't miss, and I've had to be really, really honest with myself, which has been difficult, I don't miss the anxiety that came with that. There was a lot of franticness, and I think that if you are in a lot of groups, you see that franticness, and because I've had to, is that even a word? I've just made it up. But if you step back, like I've had to step back, and then you go back into these groups and you hear authors and see authors, there's just this frantic sense that we're losing everything and we have to hold on with so tight to everything. And I was like that, you know. I checked my ads constantly, I checked my dashboard constantly. My mom used to say, This should be fine. I'm like, mom, it's a business, it's not fun. And but I I recognize that I love that so much that I did just held on to it so tight. And I don't want to go back to that. You know what I'm saying? I just I I don't have the energy for that. I mean, since this all happened, I've gained four more grandchildren than I had. And so I have six grandchildren now. I want to spend time with them, I want to spend time with my adult children, I want to spend time with my mom and dad. And so I I can't be frantic about my sales and is it are they going up? Are they dropping? You know, all of that, and give emotionally to the people that I love in my life. And if the last four years have taught me anything, is the one thing you can never get back is time. You can never never get it back and that is so important to me right now and so with this book and one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you when we were talking about when I would do it I wanted to do it before it came out because I've already won like writing this book writing a book that honors the bravest person I've ever known and doing the second hardest thing that I've ever had to do is the win. Like that's the win. And whatever happens with this book afterwards oh gosh sorry whatever happens with this book afterwards is just what happens with this book afterwards. And it's not going to change it doesn't change who I am and you told me that when we were in Vegas two years ago I mean that conversation really changed a lot for me because you said you are a successful author. Like I was still trying to come up with a plan to be a successful author again. And you're like you are a successful author you you've had success. That makes you a successful author. You don't have to chase that and that changed so much of my thinking and I guess if I could leave listeners with anything it is that we recog we need to recognize the things we can't control and just deal with the things we can control. And I mean that's kind of how my sister lived you know I mean that's that really is how she lived. She could not control her cancer but she could control how she responded to it and how she went forward. And I think a lot of times when bad things happen, we want to make sense of them we want to reason for them. And a lot of times there's just no reason there's no reason my sister died. There's no reason she left two kids and a husband devastated and a family that just has a giant hole in it. There's no reason for that but what defines us is not figuring out figuring out why that happened it's what we do with that going forward. And I think that's important for me to remember when I start getting caught up in all the franticness of this business.

SPEAKER_00 46:09

Yes or or not as the case may be you can just or not you know yeah just let let the book be what it is and also I yeah I do feel like these deeper books they're more slow burn you know you might you wrote books that kind of ran ran like the bride and you know now we're not running like the bride. I'm tired.

Jami 46:31

I don't run unless a wild animal's chasing me.

SPEAKER_00 46:34

Exactly well look we're out of time but just just tell people if they haven't listened a bit about your podcast about Wish I'd known then with Sarah Rosette. Tell people what they can find over on that podcast and why you're still doing it because you've been doing it throughout the whole time with not writing you've still been podcasting.

Jami 46:51

So and it's absolutely saved my life absolutely I mean it's kept me in this business so while I haven't been publishing I still I still know what's going on. Like I know about direct sales and I know about what's happening with behind the scenes with them with Facebook ads. I've kept in touch with those things because of our podcast. So we inter it's an interview podcast like yours but we talk to people about what they wish they had known about indie publishing and most people have some certain thing that they've been working on or doing and we talk to them a little bit about that too. But we ask the same questions every week to every guest and it's so interesting how different the answers are and yet how similar they are. And I think that helps when you're going through it and you're like I must be the only one feeling this way but you tune into a podcast and you hear week after week oh no there are other people feeling the same way I'm feeling or struggling with the same things I'm struggling with. And hopefully we give people also just things to shoot for and to aspire to we have some amazing guests and they've all been really gracious and really honest. I don't know if it's the questions or just because Sarah and I are our style but they're really honest with us when they answer the questions.

SPEAKER_00 48:11

So yeah it's a great show I I recommend it a lot. So where can people find you and your books online?

Jami 48:19

Okay you can find me at jamieallbright.com and it's j-a-m-iallbright.com and I'm on all the socials as Jamie Albright author and my books are on Amazon right now but this book is actually now on all the retailers and so yeah that's where you can find me.

SPEAKER_00 48:41

Brilliant well thanks so much for your time Jamie that was great welcome well it was an honor thank you so much