The Publishing Performance Show

Hannah Parry - The Hero's Journey: Building Historical Fiction with Classic Story Structure

• Teddy Smith • Episode 76

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Hannah Parry is an author of both adult and young adult fiction who came to writing later in life after initially training as a nurse. With a family background in writing (her parents were copywriters in advertising), Hannah discovered her passion for storytelling in her late twenties. After experiencing several personal losses, she found herself writing more frequently as both an emotional outlet and a form of escape. Her young adult historical fiction series follows the adventures of Isabella Rockwell, while her adult fiction explores darker psychological themes.


In this episode:

  • Hannah's journey from nursing to writing
  • How personal trauma can trigger creative writing
  • Using the Christopher Vogler story structure for fiction writing
  • The three-act structure and hero's journey framework
  • Challenges of writing historical fiction set in different countries
  • Self-publishing strategies using Amazon Kindle Select
  • Free book promotions to build readership
  • Differences between writing for adults vs. young adults
  • Working with editors and publishing professionals
  • The importance of writer networks and newsletters
  • Balancing historical accuracy with engaging storytelling
  • Managing writer's block and fixing plot problems


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[00:00:00] Teddy Smith: Hi everyone, and welcome to the Publishing Performance Show. Today I'm really happy to be joined by Hannah Parry, who is a writer of adults and young adults books. So welcome to the show, Hannah. 

[00:00:14] Hannah Parry: Hi Teddy, thank you very much for having me. 

[00:00:17] Teddy Smith: Great, thank you very much for joining me. It's a pleasure to have you here.

[00:00:19] Teddy Smith: So why don't you tell us a bit about your background and how you got into writing? Sure. 

[00:00:23] Hannah Parry: I came to it quite late. I trained as a nurse originally. I It's not entirely left field. Both my parents were writers. They were copywriters in advertising in the 1970s. So they were, you know, that mad men. I don't know if you've seen that TV show.

[00:00:43] Hannah Parry: Yeah. Generation. And my sister, but we all, we all read a lot. There's a lot of reading going on, kind of in an escapist way, to be honest, and in my twenties, I traveled a lot and I would find myself sitting writing in the back of filofaxes. In those days, we had filofaxes with things like note pages that you could write in and I'd go and sit with a bottle of wine.

[00:01:07] Hannah Parry: Right things down. And I think what I didn't realize what I was doing was I was trying to write down to find out how I felt about things. I wasn't writing stories or anything. And then suddenly in my late twenties. I wrote something for somebody's wedding book. Someone was making an album. And someone said to me, God, you know, that was really good.

[00:01:29] Hannah Parry: You should think about doing this properly. And I'd never thought about it until then. It was so nice of her to say that. And then a lot of things happened very quickly. My mother died. When I was 30, I had my daughter, my father got ill, and then he died, so these things that happen to you in life happened very quickly, but quite traumatically and I find, found myself writing more and more.

[00:01:54] Hannah Parry: I think it's quite a common thing with writers. You often find that, yes, they might have written short stories and they enjoyed all that when they were younger, but it takes something to kind of push them, push them over the edge, as it were. And I found myself I read a book and I thought it was rubbish and I sat down and my brain said, well, why don't you have a go?

[00:02:15] Hannah Parry: So I sat down and started trying to write a book and it was absolutely terrible, but that's where I started. So I was about 37 by that time. Yeah, about 37. So kind of late. 

[00:02:27] Teddy Smith: Right. Okay. Yeah, that, what you, that story you just said. said quite resonated me. I was just listening to a podcast with Jimmy Carr on the other day, the comedian.

[00:02:34] Teddy Smith: And he said, if you ever meet a comedian, ask them which one of their parents was ill. Because it's usually some past issue that's caused them to, you know, use humor as a, as a device for getting past it. And I think it's quite similar with writers, you know, often they've got this urge to write for a particular reason and they want to get something down on paper.

[00:02:56] Hannah Parry: Yes, yes, exactly. And to you know, that question, why do you write? I think, first of all, to find out what I think, and then secondly, the escapism of it, it allows you to go into a different world. I write historical children's fiction. I mean, couldn't be more different to my day to day life, but I can go into that world and I don't have to think about anything that's happening here.

[00:03:20] Hannah Parry: You know, that was, that was it originally. It's not so much about that now, but that was the original thing. That's really interesting about Jimmy Carr. I'll go and look that up. 

[00:03:29] Teddy Smith: Oh, yeah. He's, um, he's unbelievable. He's a really interesting podcast guest. He's been on a couple of podcasts now. Um, one of them was with Chris Williamson and he was on Diary of a CEO, which are like the two of the big entrepreneurial type.

[00:03:42] Teddy Smith: Oh yes, I know that one. Yeah. Yeah. Very interesting guy. And his book's really good as well. Before and laughter. So I'd really recommend that book actually for people who are interested in learning about not just comedy, but about being more effective. I think it's a really good book. So your, your two books, the, the, let's start with your young adults books, the Isabel, Isabella Rockwell series.

[00:04:04] Teddy Smith: So there's two books in the series at the moment, you think tell us a bit about why you started writing those books. Cause as you mentioned there, there's historical elements to them.

[00:04:13] Hannah Parry: Yeah, I don't know why I started writing those books. in retrospect, I wish I'd had a bit more of an eye on the market, you know what I mean? But the idea was, well, yeah, children's historical fiction is a, it's a tough sell. It's, you know, I would have read it. Yeah, that's very sweet of you. It was a very big editor said to me one day, I was trying to submit it.

[00:04:39] Hannah Parry: She said to me she said, I love this book. She said, I'd buy this book. But she said, my boss won't touch it with a barge pole. So I thought it was at that point. I thought, okay. I'll go ahead and self publish it. I'll publish it myself. Just in terms of numbers, I think, you know, it's just harder to, they don't imagine people are going to buy that as much as they're going to buy fantasy or adventure.

[00:05:03] Hannah Parry: Well, it is adventure fiction, but anyway, that's, I, I started because the idea I had was about, I had a character who was There are a load of, I was reading a lot of literature, I've read a lot of older, Lucky Little Princess, and those kind of colonial, writers. There's a writer called M. M. K. who writes very knowledgably about India in the 1800s, around the time of the Indian Revolution when England, the Great Britain was, had India in control, and how the Indian People rose up against them.

[00:05:40] Hannah Parry: So she writes brilliantly about and I read all her books. I also came to this country when I was seven, and I didn't, did not like it one bit and I had a character, so he was a girl who was brought up, these English kids were brought up entirely in India, thinking themselves pretty much Indian. Okay, yeah, they knew they were English, but they'd never been to England.

[00:06:04] Hannah Parry: All their friends, people they interacted with were Indian. You know, their parents might be somewhere, but in the armies and stuff. Or in the civil service. So it was about a girl who that that's what happened to. She's brought up entirely in India and she ends up in London in winter and she's got no money and it develops from there.

[00:06:24] Hannah Parry: So it was a combination of having that character. And reflecting on, I don't know, it was just what came out, actually, it was just reflecting on the fact, how, and I suppose also about the, the British taking a lot from countries that weren't theirs, actually, and how kind the people, the Indian people were to the British, you know, they didn't have to be, but they were and, It was, so it was all those kind of things all coming together, I think.

[00:06:56] Teddy Smith: Yeah. 

[00:06:57] Hannah Parry: Did you grow up in India then? No, no, no, no. I grew up in the States. Sorry, I should have said, yeah. I was in the States until I was seven, but no, no, I mean, it's hard. No, not at all. But it's just the, when you get somewhere and you're a kid and everybody, the accent is different. The food was different.

[00:07:17] Hannah Parry: I didn't like the milk. I didn't like the grandmother that I had here. I didn't like the weather. You know, it was all. I, I remember it was so clear, uh, yeah, it was all a bit of a shock to the system. I need to really sort of grow up a bit about it, to be honest, but, but my dad's British, English, so, but my mother was Canadian, so it was, um, yeah, it was just a bit of a culture shock, really.

[00:07:41] Hannah Parry: So I couldn't have gone for that book, but it wasn't, it wasn't about me, it was just an adventure story and I like history, so it wasn't.

[00:07:49] Teddy Smith: Yes, history, that's my, as I say, history is like my, that's, that's sort of the books I like reading to as well when I'm not on duty. What's, when you're writing those books, the, um, the, with the Rockwell books, the Isabella Rockwell books. What was your process for getting the books written? Did you have a particular structure that you followed?

[00:08:10] Teddy Smith: And also, did you have a story in mind before you started writing? 

[00:08:13] Hannah Parry: Yes, I had the first book. And I did have a story in mind because my dad had died. So the book is basically is her searching for her dad's missing in the first book. And in the second book, it's more detailed about her search for him. I had, because I didn't, my formal education was sort of, I was really naughty and I stopped going to school when I was about 14.

[00:08:38] Hannah Parry: And so I wanted to learn how to write properly. I was very aware there were big gaps in my education. And so I went back and I did a master's in creative writing and I used the first book as my dissertation. So I had a kind of deadline for it. But the, the, I used the structure of The Writer's Journey by Christopher Vogler, which is V O G L E R, which is a kind of slightly simplified version of the Joseph Campbell, archetypes books.

[00:09:09] Hannah Parry: Joseph Campbell is a big, yeah, so he does a story structure too, but it's much more detailed. So I used that book and I followed that and that was a revelation to me that you could follow a structure and, and. If you read a lot, you've roughly got, you've kind of got a neural network that, of the shape of the story.

[00:09:29] Hannah Parry: So I got most of it right in the shape of the story I was trying to write. I got most of it. I was missing a few sort of points of tension in that middle bit. But, but I got, so that, that was really helpful. And then the second book, which I wrote, Was just really continuation of the first book, except the first book is in London in the UK, and the second book takes place in India, the north of India, which was really difficult because you've no idea how many words I needed to look up to it.

[00:10:01] Hannah Parry: Describe the word hot in case I did a word search and hot in it about 250 times, so, and also India is a really big place and I only had trains to get everybody from, or didn't even have trains actually had the horses and cars to get people from A to B. So that was. As a historian, you know, you'll know as a historian, those things are a really big problem when you're trying to write an adventure story and keep it going.

[00:10:34] Hannah Parry: And you're like, Oh my God, it's 250 miles to the next. 

[00:10:37] Teddy Smith: It's like that mistake they made in Game of Thrones when the books kind of described everything quite nicely. But when you watched it on TV, they were doing these 500 mile journeys and like the next day, you know. Did you pick that up 

[00:10:51] Hannah Parry: then? 

[00:10:52] Teddy Smith: A little bit.

[00:10:52] Teddy Smith: Yes. 

[00:10:53] Hannah Parry: I need to go back and watch it closely. I read the books first because I saw the TV show look really good. And I thought, Oh, this looks really good. I'm going to have to go. I think I better read the books first. Otherwise I won't ever read them. So I read them first. and then watch the show. I didn't.

[00:11:08] Hannah Parry: I must. I'll, I'll go back and have a look. 

[00:11:10] Teddy Smith: Yeah. I mean, the books are amazing, but I thought the the show was really good until like the ends. And I thought it was really. petered off and lost its way a bit, but I thought the books are incredible. I'm can't wait for the next ones to come out. I feel like this is what is happening with, 

[00:11:25] Hannah Parry: I, I can never find what is happening.

[00:11:29] Hannah Parry: Is there going to be another one? 

[00:11:30] Teddy Smith: There's another couple. It's, it's one of those sort of industry rumors about what's, what's going on. I don't think anyone he's, I think he's just being quite slow. So 

[00:11:39] Hannah Parry: yeah, I wondered if he'd written himself into a corner, you know, possibly. So, They're so brilliant, those books, but I could see how you can't imagine how he he's, but I'm, I'm, I'm there for it.

[00:11:55] Hannah Parry: I'm there for whatever he will be there. Have you ever written 

[00:11:59] Teddy Smith: yourself into a corner? 

[00:12:00] Hannah Parry: Yeah. Million times. 

[00:12:02] Teddy Smith: Yeah. 

[00:12:02] Hannah Parry: And had to. You know, and it's always about three courses away through the manuscripts. And people say, you know, they say if there's something wrong in Act three, it's because there's something wrong in Act one.

[00:12:13] Hannah Parry: And it's so true. And to have to go back and unpick the thing that's in Act one, rejig everything. So I can get to the 75 percent and everything sort of falls into, you know, then it will hopefully falls into place. I've never been wrong. Blocked. Technically blocked. But I have really sat there and thought, I really don't want to do this because I'm lazy and I'm cross.

[00:12:40] Hannah Parry: I've written myself into a 

[00:12:41] Teddy Smith: corner. When you, when you have written yourself into a corner, is it you that's noticed it? Or have you been working with an editor on the way who's helped you out? 

[00:12:49] Hannah Parry: It'll be me 

[00:12:50] Teddy Smith: that's 

[00:12:51] Hannah Parry: noticed it. Yeah. Yeah. Which, which is nice. 

[00:12:54] Teddy Smith: Yeah. Have you got any techniques for, that you've used to try and get yourself out of it?

[00:12:58] Teddy Smith: Or is it just a case of rereading everything you've done? And 

[00:13:00] Hannah Parry: it is just, yeah, going to bed for three days and solving doesn't get much done. I no, there's the only way that I have ever managed to do is to go back and change the thing that's causing the problem. Yeah. And just, yeah. And then hope that I don't have to change it too much in the 50 percent of the manuscript between that bit and the bit that's giving me grief.

[00:13:27] Hannah Parry: Yeah. But sometimes it's been a lot. Sometimes it's been a lot. The book I just wrote, I think I wrote, it's coming out, it's about 80, 000 words. And I think I've got another 80, 000 words I've cut. Maybe, maybe 60. Maybe 60. Stuff I've written, taken out, and had to rewrite, taken out, put back in, you know. But that might just be that particular book the one before it wasn't quite so bad But sometimes it it's like that, but I don't think any of it's ever wasted Yes, I guess that's why it takes a long time to write a book.

[00:14:06] Hannah Parry: Mmm. Yes with a really nice Podcaster guy and he'd just written a book and he just said why did it take me a year to write? And I was like, well, because that's, because of stuff like that. Right. 

[00:14:23] Teddy Smith: Have you, have you written? I have yet written a few books under myself and also under pen names mostly nonfiction.

[00:14:29] Teddy Smith: So it's a bit of a different prospect, I think. That's why I find it quite interesting speaking to fiction writers because the books that I've written on nonfiction, it'd be more of a case of. Getting your idea out and there's usually a point to the book. So it might be a self help book. It might be about a particular topic.

[00:14:46] Teddy Smith: So what I'd be doing is leading the reader towards that point. rather there's, there's, there's still storytelling elements to it, but it's very much like, here's a short story to demonstrate this point onto the next point. Whereas with yours, it's much more like there's a narrative that needs to follow the whole way through.

[00:15:02] Teddy Smith: So it's slightly different. That's why I find it quite interesting talking about that. Yes. Writing technique with people, because it is, I think, a different approach in quite a big way. 

[00:15:11] Hannah Parry: Yes. Yes. It's nice to know. Yes. I suppose you're like, I've got to get that point across, then I've got to do that point, then that point.

[00:15:20] Hannah Parry: Yeah. In fiction, you're probably supposed to be doing that, you know, sort of solid point, but you've got points within the structure or beats that you've got to hit. 

[00:15:30] Teddy Smith: Yeah. interesting what you're, what you talked about before with that. the structure you followed, because it sounds almost a bit like not being rude, but you know, painting by numbers where you've got like a, this whole thing that creates that.

[00:15:41] Teddy Smith: And obviously there's much more to it than that, because obviously you've got to pick the colors, you have to pick the story, all those sort of things. So with the structure that you followed, what can you tell us a bit what that structure looks like and how it applies to your book? Yes. If Christopher 

[00:15:54] Hannah Parry: Vogler does a, he does a three act, that three act structure which Is if you started along, I wish I had a, if you started along a line it's basically the line goes gradually.

[00:16:10] Hannah Parry: You start with your inciting incident. So something happens to which the main character. Has to react doesn't have, and then they've got to make a choice as to whether they accept the challenge. And then the, basically, the tension goes up incrementally throughout acts one and two, and then at the point between acts.

[00:16:34] Hannah Parry: At the sort of halfway through act three, there'll be a very high point, and then there'll be a massive dip. And it's pretty, if you apply this structure to any of the great stories, they'll always fit this structure. So that dip is the hero's darkest hour, they call it. Which is where, from the point at which there seems to be no return, and then suddenly the hero, so then it goes up again because the hero does find a way out of the terrible thing, the final terrible thing.

[00:17:04] Hannah Parry: But each of these dips, so there's a point of tension, and then there's a dip in the action, and it goes up a little bit, so the stakes are raised every single time, there's a point of tension. It's, it's very, but there will always be something like the midpoint crisis of any, If you watch a film, it's easier, I suppose it's easier to say with films because it's so, it's so easy to see it, I find it, that where somebody, you know, you think, you think it all is lost, it's not quite as bad as the hero's darkest hour, but you think all is lost, often somebody will die, you know, and it's a way of making the main character recommit to the second, second chance.

[00:17:47] Hannah Parry: So it's the se it's the middle of act two, so to, to recommit to the final act and a half of the story. it sounds very, it does sound really formulaic, doesn't it? But it makes me feel better that I think books written before anybody came up with this structure all follow it anyway, so I think while I'm in, I'm in good company.

[00:18:08] Teddy Smith: It's basically Lord of the Rings, isn't it? Yeah, totally. Yeah. Literally fits it fits it. Perfectly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The, the I mean, I don't think it, I think it helps a lot to have that structure beforehand because obviously you're, it's not like you have this structure and you say, okay, at this page of 100, I need to make a bit of tension.

[00:18:30] Teddy Smith: It's not like that formulaic. The story still flows from where you're writing it, but it just shows you the parts you need to hit in order to write a story that is generally quite compelling. People use this in like everyday life in their work, the. They use these different structures in their work and in everything.

[00:18:47] Teddy Smith: So there's no reason why you wouldn't want to use it for a book. And I think it makes it a much better story. When it came to marketing and publishing the book, did you, you've self published these, the children's books. And so they're obviously mostly for sale on Amazon, I'm guessing. What was, is it just Amazon that you use for distribution or did you have other ways of getting it out?

[00:19:06] Hannah Parry: Yeah, I've, I've always used Amazon. Amazon have a thing called Amazon Select, uh, Kindle Select, which is you can give the book away for five days every 90 days if you're enrolled in their select program. But to be enrolled in that program, you have to not have it on any other platforms like Kobo, Nook, all that lots.

[00:19:28] Hannah Parry: So that's what I use. And I. I am a hopeless self promoter on social media, I mean really. That's what I enjoy doing. I mean, really bad. I'm trying, trying hard. But anyway, I find it if I use take my five days every 90 days, I take my five days and I pay for promotions on a lot of really good. There's a lot of newsletters and things that go out with.

[00:19:57] Hannah Parry: free books digital book today. And a lot of these companies are American. And I get lots and lots of downloads from that. And then I hope that the bounce that those downloads gives me sells some books afterwards. It also gets reviews, gets me reviews and things that are really valuable for when people actually decide they want to purchase 

[00:20:19] Teddy Smith: a book.

[00:20:20] Teddy Smith: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And have you. Notice that once people so I guess you put the first book in the series on the free download and then people hopefully buy the second one. Have you noticed any of that? 

[00:20:32] Hannah Parry: Yeah, yeah, definitely. It definitely does help. And I know the aim people sort of say it would be brilliant to have a trilogy because then you can have your first book permanently free.

[00:20:45] Hannah Parry: I think or something like that. I haven't quite investigated that yet. But yes, I've noticed. It's the e book, not the paperback, obviously. Yeah, it's the e book. Absolutely. And so if Winter's Bite has gone really well, I'll often put Winter's Bite on for free, and I'll put Fever Quest, which is the second one, I'll put that on for 99 cents.

[00:21:02] Hannah Parry: and If I've done my job right, when people finish Winter's Bite, they'll click, they'll buy Fever Quest. 

[00:21:08] Teddy Smith: Yeah. And how, and what's your plan with the book? Have you got plans for, for, for, to make it into Trinity? 

[00:21:14] Hannah Parry: Yeah, I'm really excited. I'm going to, I'm going to India in November. Oh, wow. I know, I'm so, I've never been, I'm so excited.

[00:21:23] Hannah Parry: So, and I'm going to, um, I'm going all around Rajasthan. I have the idea for the third book fleshed out, and so that's, I hope to write it, finish the first draft by next spring and then crack on. Takes me slightly less time to write these books. I've written, I've got an adult, another adult book coming out just after Christmas.

[00:21:48] Hannah Parry: so when that's done and dusted, then I can crack on with this. Yeah. Yeah. Looking, really looking forward to it. Actually. What are you finding in the difference between writing an adult's book and writing a children's book?

[00:21:58] Hannah Parry: I think probably there's more freedom to write for the adults. There's more with the children's, I'm just, children's book feels like it has more responsibility. I feel like I've got to, I've it right. I've got to get it really right. I suppose maybe because that's, it's a historical fact as well, as well as children's sensibilities about things.

[00:22:21] Hannah Parry: it's aimed at readers of, probably advanced readers of nine plus. So I'm very aware that there might be some sort of 11 year olds in there reading it. And with the adult book, well, I just sort of, and I suppose because they're modern day books as well. I just cracked on, didn't think about anything like that.

[00:22:40] Hannah Parry: Whereas with children's books, I'm just, 

[00:22:42] Teddy Smith: I 

[00:22:42] Hannah Parry: feel like I've got 

[00:22:43] Teddy Smith: more of a responsibility. Yeah, you don't, obviously you can't, gotta avoid sex, but it's also, I guess, with a children's book, you've got to avoid. You also, you want to include, like, more moral stories, do you think? 

[00:22:54] Hannah Parry: Yeah, well, 

[00:22:56] Teddy Smith: I mean, there doesn't need to be, there doesn't need to be a moral point to an adult book, does it?

[00:22:59] Teddy Smith: It can just be, this is a story. Whereas, I guess, with kids books, there needs to be, like, good and bad and 

[00:23:03] Hannah Parry: Yes, yes, it's much more I suppose it's much more clear cut, isn't it? And But also, my protagonist is a teenager, so I don't, all the things that come with being an early teenager, I don't want to pretend that those things don't happen.

[00:23:20] Hannah Parry: You know what I mean? I want to, but it's like you say, it's presenting it. yes, I haven't really morally. Yeah. Morally. It's a lot. It's easier with the kids. Yeah, you're right. It's clear, clear, a good and bad. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. 

[00:23:34] Teddy Smith: Yeah. Yeah. Very interesting. Do you, do you work on both books at the same time or are you just, I'm just working on this book.

[00:23:40] Teddy Smith: Yeah. No, I wish I was that. 

[00:23:44] Hannah Parry: I had an editor who I really like. And she said, well, why don't you edit the adult book in the afternoon and work on the Indian one in the morning? And I was like, no, I just, I haven't got the brain space for that. Can you do that? Can you do two things at once? Or I have to just 

[00:24:01] Teddy Smith: do one thing and finish it and do something else.

[00:24:03] Teddy Smith: No, I'm pretty, I'm pretty one track minded. When, with the, uh, cause obviously you publish this, all your books. You just mentioned your editor there. So who, who do you have helping you to do the book and how, what was the process of working with an editor like? 

[00:24:17] Hannah Parry: Yeah, she, I got a she's, she's a writer.

[00:24:20] Hannah Parry: She would call herself, I think, a writer's assistant. 

[00:24:24] Teddy Smith: Yeah. 

[00:24:24] Hannah Parry: But she's the most fantastic editor. and so she, Copy edits. When I've done 8 million drafts, I'll send it to her and have her, she will then go through it with a fine tooth comb and send it back to me covered with red comments. Wow, 

[00:24:43] Teddy Smith: that's always red, isn't it?

[00:24:44] Hannah Parry: Yeah, it's so stressful. But, and then we, we go through it, but she's also really good at the tech side of things and she will make sure that the file is in the I'll get the cover done. I use the cover, a cover artist who I really like, and I'll do all of that. And then I'll send it all to Nicola and she will then upload it to where it needs to be uploaded and also put it on my website too.

[00:25:09] Hannah Parry: So she's, I can do those things, but it just takes, it takes me longer. She's, you know, she's young, she's all over it. So 

[00:25:22] Teddy Smith: in terms of marketing, once you've got that editing and process done, have you. You mentioned just before that you talked about some newsletters and things like that. So I'm guessing you use the free book promotion type newsletters.

[00:25:32] Teddy Smith: Have you ever considered doing more targeted newsletter swaps? So, for example, finding another author in the same niche as you, who's maybe Got a bit more of following and trying to get your book promoted on their newsletter. 

[00:25:49] Hannah Parry: I have never thought of that. Tell me 

[00:25:51] Teddy Smith: about that. It's something a lot of people do because, you know, especially with writers who are professionals, they are often just writing, you know, one book at a time.

[00:25:59] Teddy Smith: And so They have a newsletter and they want to write content to, to, uh, to share to their audience. You know, a lot of writers use newsletters to build a connection with their audience, but also to talk about things they're up to their writing process. You know, people get quite interested in them. And a newsletter is the only real way that you can talk directly to your customers, I think, because if you're on social media, it is a bit like, okay, here's my stuff.

[00:26:23] Teddy Smith: Let's everyone look at it. Whereas in a newsletter, people have signed up to follow you. So you've got quite a targeted audience there. And so if someone. recommended your book, there's a good chance that they would pick it up. So say, for example, your book is like historical. Young adults kind of book. I mean, obviously, if you could get someone like Philip Pullman to promote your book to his newsletter, that would obviously be amazing.

[00:26:47] Teddy Smith: But there's much more, there's not, there's lots of newsletters with people who are still within grasp to a smaller writer who might promote your book. And the good thing about it is. You're building up that network with other people. So ideally, you'd want to have your own newsletter that you can swap with them in future.

[00:27:04] Teddy Smith: So whilst you're writing your book, you might say, Oh, Hey, read this book by X, Y, Z. I think it's really good. You'll really like it. So I think it'd be worth doing that because you must know. 

[00:27:14] Hannah Parry: That's a brilliant idea. 

[00:27:15] Teddy Smith: Yeah. If you think about the, um. You must know some of the writers who are similar category to you.

[00:27:21] Teddy Smith: Yeah. Yes, absolutely. I've got, I've got quite a few writer friends. Yeah. Yeah. We've been working together for years. Yeah. There's yeah, great. I think that's, I think it's a really good thing to do. Get your newsletter uploaded. And one of the main things I've learned from doing this podcast is. Building your network is one of the best ways to promote your work as an author, because you've got people that are going to have your back.

[00:27:43] Teddy Smith: It's nice to have friends in the industry. And also that cross promotion of books, I think, especially if you're self published, that is basically your own distribution network. 

[00:27:53] Hannah Parry: Yes, absolutely. 

[00:27:54] Teddy Smith: And the second, the second thing, was

[00:27:57] Teddy Smith: We'll leave the second thing. So that was the main thing building that newsletter out is the, is the most important thing. Oh, sorry. Yeah. Newsletter. And I'll let this bit out. So along with the network, it's building out your own newsletter because that is a great way to speak directly to your customers so that you can you know, speak directly to them.

[00:28:14] Teddy Smith: You know, you can potentially even sell products in the future. Get ideas for your next book. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:28:23] Hannah Parry: It's the newsletter. I have actually tried really hard to get signups and I've found it. I probably not going about it. I haven't researched it as much as I should have. But I should, I should really get on that because you're absolutely right.

[00:28:37] Hannah Parry: It is a really good way, but I got friends who do it and I know that if I just asked nicely, they would probably do something like that for 

[00:28:46] Teddy Smith: me. Another good place to start would be StoryOrigin. It's a really good tool and it's quite good value. Um, 

[00:28:51] Hannah Parry: story origin. 

[00:28:52] Teddy Smith: Yeah. You can do news swaps on there. And I actually interviewed the guy who founded it, Evan Gal.

[00:28:56] Teddy Smith: I interviewed him a couple weeks ago, so that's coming out soon. But the, but that's a really good piece of software. It's one of the best in the industry. 

[00:29:04] Hannah Parry: Oh, fantastic news. That's really helpful. 

[00:29:06] Teddy Smith: That's, that's alright. I, you know, I think the, I I tried to get these recommendations out as much as possible.

[00:29:11] Teddy Smith: 'cause the audience like them as well. . 

[00:29:14] Hannah Parry: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. But there's. You never know these things until somebody tells you. Do you? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. God, that's really helpful. I'll go straight there after this. 

[00:29:27] Teddy Smith: No, we're brilliant. I mean, this has been a really good conversation. I've really enjoyed chatting to you.

[00:29:31] Teddy Smith: Um, yeah. So tell us a bit more about your next projects before we go. 

[00:29:37] Hannah Parry: What the book that's coming out after Christmas or yeah, yeah, that that is a that's a women's commercial fiction I've written women's commercial fit So the last one that came out last Christmas was women's commercial fiction kind of dark psychological.

[00:29:50] Hannah Parry: That's pretty dark book this one I think having got all of my issues out of the way Finally, I've managed to write something That is lighter it's about a woman who has a cryptic pregnancy, which is one of those pregnancies you get when you don't know you're pregnant until very late on. And it's about what she decides to do with that baby.

[00:30:13] Hannah Parry: So it's a bit, it's a bit lighter. 

[00:30:16] Teddy Smith: Wow. When we were. in the hospital without having our baby. There was someone in there who was like 25 weeks or something and they only just found out they're pregnant. I was, I was, I was astounded. I couldn't believe it. I was, yeah, 

[00:30:28] Hannah Parry: I know, 

[00:30:29] Teddy Smith: but it does happen. 

[00:30:30] Hannah Parry: What it's one in 400 pregnancies, right?

[00:30:32] Teddy Smith: Yeah. 

[00:30:33] Hannah Parry: Cryptic isn't, I just find that amazing, extraordinary. And of course, the minute you find out you start listening, you hear people. I've got a friend whose niece was. One of my daughter's friends was, you know, it was eight months along she was. 

[00:30:49] Teddy Smith: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's been great chatting to you. Thank you so much for your time today.

[00:30:53] Teddy Smith: I really appreciate it. If people want to get in touch with you find your books follow you around the internet, where's the best place for them to do that? 

[00:30:59] Hannah Parry: Go to my website, which is hannahparry. com. 

[00:31:04] Teddy Smith: Easy. 

[00:31:05] Hannah Parry: Yeah. Easy. Got all my links are on there. Oh, you can go. I'm on Linktree as well. If you want Linktree too.

[00:31:11] Teddy Smith: Brilliant. Anyway. We'll add links to show notes, all that stuff anyway. Yeah, thank you very much. So just before we go, we've got one final question, and that is, what is one book you recommend everyone should read? 

[00:31:21] Hannah Parry: Yeah one, my one book is Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. Sorry, I know it's going to be round the wrong way, with a double T at the end.

[00:31:29] Hannah Parry: And it is, yeah, instructions on writing and life. And she just she's just a bit of a philosopher, but she's very good in those moments when you, Want to go to bed and think that actually you're never going to write another word because you're crap. So I, that's when I reached for this book. She's very, very, very kind and encouraging.

[00:31:51] Teddy Smith: Brilliant. Well, great recommendation. We haven't had that one before. So I'm really happy to get a new recommendation there. So thank you. Great. Well, thank you. I really enjoyed it. Good. Yeah. I'm looking forward to seeing your next books. Let me know when they go live and yeah, we'll speak soon. I will.

[00:32:06] Teddy Smith: Thanks Teddy. Thank you so much for tuning into the Publishing Performance Podcast. I really hope you found today's episode inspiring. I love chatting to authors, writers, and people in the publishing world. Now, just before we wrap up, let me tell you about. Publishingformance, the number one platform for authors who want to increase Amazon book sales, but I'm not really sure where to start.

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