SPEAKER_02: 0:04

It is the joy of writing the story. It is getting the story out of my head. It is challenging myself, you know, to how am I going to write an, you know, I have two book series going. And what am I going to have them do this time? And how am I going to make this book different? And the research involved. So uh disturbed tombs and those books happen in different countries and take place in, you know, with historical characters. So there is a lot of research. I like research. So I go in and do the research with it.

SPEAKER_01: 0:45

Hi friends, this is Read and Write with Natasha Podcast. My name is Natasha Tines and I'm an author and a journalist. In this channel, I talk about the writing life, review books, and interview authors. Hope you enjoy the journal. Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of Read and Write with Natasha. I have with me today author K.A. Oliver, who's an award-winning author and former Hollywood insider with over 30 years in the film industry. Her novels like Disturbed Tombs and Roads to Elysium are known for their cinematic style, strong characters, and thrilling plots. Named fiction author of the year in 2025, Kay continues to inspire readers with stories that blend adventure and mystery. Alright, so Kay, welcome uh to the show. So excited to have you here with me today. So you are a Hollywood insider. What does that mean? What did you do?

SPEAKER_02: 1:55

I worked in Hollywood for uh just over three decades. I um have a degree in radio, TV, film, and a master's in finance. So I fit right in. Universal Studios for 10 years. I worked at uh DreamWorks, which is Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg's place. And I worked on Power Rangers, you name it. And I helped uh work on shows. I did some of my own producing and directing and writing. So uh walk oh wow Yeah, quite a bit.

SPEAKER_01: 2:27

Wow. Okay, so that's that's exciting. Are you do you still live in in uh Los Angeles?

SPEAKER_02: 2:32

I still live in that area, yes.

SPEAKER_01: 2:34

Oh wow, fun. So you uh you basically mingle with the with the powerful and uh the the celebrities, I guess. I guess yeah, I call them well-knowns, but yes, yeah, I I I have friends, yes. Okay, fun. So what made you become an author? You know, you you had a great career or doing film and TV and you know, mingling with with the famous why bother with writing your books when you had this thriving career and you decide to because you know writing books is is not an easy feast and it's not that financially rewarding and all of that. So I'm I'm curious.

SPEAKER_02: 3:13

Um mainly because when I worked in Hollywood and I've been working there for 30 years, so you know when I started that it means uh, you know, there were no strong women films, really, you know, and there's still not that many of highly intelligent, strong women who solve things or or come up with things. And I wanted, you know, I've I've turned in script screenplays that would, you know, oh great screenplay, but not marketable because it's a strong leading lady. And I just decided that I'm gonna write those books instead. And my first book, which you mentioned, Disturbed Tombs, won four awards. So I knew I was on to something. And um we call them more like hard-boiled, cozy mysteries, meaning that they're just as active and just as strong as you know some of the male counterpart leads that are in movies, but they're female. And uh with the intelligence of you know, highly intelligent females. And I like writing those, and uh I've found a core audience that enjoys them as well.

SPEAKER_01: 4:21

So why books are not like uh screenplays?

SPEAKER_02: 4:26

For me, actually, books are easier to write than screenplays because there's so much formatting to a screenplay and so much uh you know different information that you have to put into a screenplay that kind of stops your writing flow. And writing the books, I can just write and write and write, and which is my passion. So I like I like the books because you can't get the strong female, intelligent female scripts made. So why write them?

SPEAKER_01: 4:56

How many books did you publish?

SPEAKER_02: 4:58

I have published 12 and I'm halfway through my 13th.

SPEAKER_01: 5:02

Oh wow. So okay, and do you still work uh uh uh in Hollywood? No, you retired. Okay. And all right, so how was the publishing journey? So uh, you know, um assuming that you have a lot of connections, so it was was it easier to find an agent or did you self-publish? What was the journey?

SPEAKER_02: 5:25

I did in the publishing. Um finding an agent, even with connections, you have to find somebody that really wants to um write or read and be part of you know your kind of novel. And I did it for a little bit trying to look, but I just got so antsy. I just got self-published. So they're all self-published, but however, my connections, people are looking at uh Road to Elysium to possibly turn into a movie. Um and so those connections are um still alive, and I've had several people ask for the scripts. So I can write the scripts, but I prefer not to. I prefer to just write.

SPEAKER_01: 6:08

Who do you think should play your characters?

SPEAKER_02: 6:11

Uh well, in that book, there's uh uh there is a uh the male lead would be um someone like a Matt Bomber, if you know who he is. He was in uh yeah, he he does a lot of uh great acting. He's about the right age. Um a Kevin Kevin Bacon would be good. Um and then um as for the female, I'm not sure. Okay, and what is the book about? The book is about redemption, love, and second chances. It is inspired by a true story, and uh the this opens up with uh um the le the male character Ken is sitting at home on his lounge chair staring at pictures of his family because he lost them in a tragic accident. And he's trying to remember every feature about them, and he is very, very depressed. He's only going through life, you know, doing um what he has to do, the movements of life, until two young kids uh break into his, try to break into his home thinking no one's home. And that triggers a set of events that happen in his life where he starts wondering why two young boys would break into his home, because his son, had he lived, would be about their age. So he starts wondering about that. And in doing so, goes over to see if he can, you know, help these two young boys, but he doesn't know what to do, how to do it. So he's finding himself sitting across the street a couple houses down, just looking at the house that the guys, the boys live in, when a uh neighbor who he's whose homie parked in front of a young boy knocks on his window, startles him, and says, Can you teach me how to throw a football? And Ken's knee-jerk reaction is to say yes. And in doing so, it sets off uh the chain of events of him mentoring the young boy. Um has his own issues about, you know, uh breaking through the barriers that we put in life where people you have expectations or lack of expectations on you that uh his dream to get an education, um, Ken helps with. And along the way, Ken meets a woman named Adele. And Adele is a charity organizer, she runs a company that sets up charities, and he asks for her help, and of course, you know, that blossoms into something more, but they create a charity. And uh if you think of Gran Torino meets uh a man called Otto, that is you know the movie put together. So I don't want to give more away.

SPEAKER_01: 8:55

Ah, that's fun. Do you write full-time now?

SPEAKER_02: 8:59

Yes, I do have a part-time teaching. I'm a professor at a university teaching marketing because I like marketing too, but uh, which is good because you have to do that with your books. But yeah, so I do, but most of the time I am writing, yes.

SPEAKER_01: 9:15

Speaking of marketing, I I think for many authors, marketing is is probably harder than writing the book. And how did you market their books? So you you publish them, so you self-publish them where? On Amazon? On like KDP? Okay. And how how did you market the books? How did you manage to reach the audience and win awards when you when you're an indie author?

SPEAKER_02: 9:40

It's uh well, um, it's a lot of work, yes. It's probably more more work than writing the book, I'm not sure. But um, especially when you have 12 of them, you have to market them all. But so I would start when I publish my books, uh, I tend to then um try to find some uh awards that they would fit into, you know, and I will apply for the awards. And I will do across all different kinds of um social media marketing, you know, Facebook, TikTok, you name it. Uh I would send out press releases when a brand new book published by, you know, uh by me. And uh I started winning awards, which helps you a lot to get noticed by other organizations, I mean even outside of publishing. I got noticed by Who's Who in America and inducted into their yeah, to that organization. And the same with the International Um uh Office of or Association of Top Professionals made fiction writer of the year. I've won over 30 awards, so every time you win an award, that goes out, and then you do your own PR, uh, your own press releases and publishing, and then um and you highlight those awards. So, you know, and I also I have a uh a background in uh video editing and writing. So I have book trailers for all my books, like a movie trailer. Okay. So I have actual book trailers, so I do that as well. Yes, time consuming.

SPEAKER_01: 11:16

Worked the best for you. So there's a lot of like social media channels, email marketing. What what do you think was the highest ROI?

SPEAKER_02: 11:24

ROI would be press releases, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 11:26

I get Oh really?

SPEAKER_02: 11:28

Yeah, I get um a minimum of 40,000 views in you know, in one press release across, you know, wherever you, you know, you can target your press releases. So um I target that, you know, definitely for books and publishing and then leisure, right? Because people in leisure read. So uh, you know, easy you know, 40 to 60,000 views uh on a press release. And it's a one-time thing. I mean, you just write the release and send it out, right? And it starts to uh you know, people start publishing it on their sites, and it's you know, it's easier than um, you know, reboosting and redoing on Facebook and this and that and getting, you know, uh uh, you know, maybe 11,000, 12,000 hits. But I you do both. So I have a mix, I have a marketing mix campaign, so strategy.

SPEAKER_01: 12:21

What about social media? Does it is it worth our time? Uh because few people like and retweet or whatever, but those who actually buy from social media is is not that much. Do you agree?

SPEAKER_02: 12:34

Not that much, but when you have awards to go with it, then you know, and you find the right pages to post on. Yes, you most of your responses are coming from people who want to um market your book for you, right? You most of the responses you get. And it it kind of cracks me up because they ask questions like, is this your first book? Or, you know, what was your journey like in publishing? And and you know what they want to do is market your book. So I always think to myself, you know, if you just go and look at my webpage, you'd have all these answers, but you're not even taking time to look at my my yeah, my personal webpage, so I don't think you're the person to work for me.

SPEAKER_01: 13:16

Yeah, yeah. Right? So you mentioned TikTok and and you know, there is this there was a recent article saying that Barzanoble um is opening new stores and that's and they're attributing that to the the book talk movement. So how is how has your experience on TikTok been?

SPEAKER_02: 13:35

Uh my experience on TikTok right now I'm I'm not too happy with TikTok because I'm not sure what's going on there, but I have run a trailer several times on TikTok and I went to rerun it, you know, and um uh all of a sudden it came back and says it's a political, you know, video.

SPEAKER_01: 13:54

And I'm like, it's not political about it.

SPEAKER_02: 13:57

It's about a book. And uh, you know, I've been kind of arguing with them that all of a sudden, you know, something that I've you've approved several times before, all of a sudden you're not approving. So I don't know what's going on there with that. So um, but otherwise, you know, before that I I in you know I enjoyed it. It was, you know, I put money behind stuff and paid them, but now right now I'm not doing any of that because of, you know, them not uh you know looking at my appeal regarding my my book trailer. It makes no sense. I don't know if somebody, you know, somebody sent in a thing, you know, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01: 14:33

So if there was one platform that you think authors should be on, what what do where do you think they should be? They can't tell you I don't have the bandwidth, blah, blah, blah, give me one uh platform to focus on.

SPEAKER_02: 14:47

It's gonna it's going to depend on your target audience.

SPEAKER_01: 14:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 14:52

Okay, because if you are, you know, looking for uh someone older, that you know, a a leisure reader that has extra time is gonna and it's something that they go for, which is kind of mine, uh, Facebook on a Friday, Saturday, Sunday run for an ad is great. You know, so it's it's not only the format. Instagram is younger people, if you have a younger audience, you know, and you need to find that when are they there, you know, when is that target audience on that format? So it'll depend on your book content and then your target audience and when and then you find out which which particular um social media platform is the right one for you and what time to run it.

SPEAKER_01: 15:36

Do you think it's worth it to pay for ads on on Facebook and Instagram?

SPEAKER_02: 15:41

Well, you know that you don't have to put a lot into it. Um I do. I okay, I do more Facebook than I do Instagram because I know my audience is probably skews a little older.

SPEAKER_03: 15:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 15:52

Um so but you can put you know$20 and get a good run on it. You don't need to put a lot of money.

SPEAKER_01: 16:00

And do actually people buy from seeing the ad on Facebook?

SPEAKER_02: 16:04

I believe so, yes. I do.

SPEAKER_01: 16:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 16:07

Especially if you can say this book has won, you know, two or three awards, and people go, Oh, I want to buy this book. At least the comments I'm getting back from those kind of posts uh resonate with, you know, I'm gonna go purchase this or something, and then I do see a uh, you know, you go into Amazon and look at the numbers and there's you know purchases.

SPEAKER_01: 16:28

So yeah. I wanna talk about somehow of a controversial topic among authors these days, which is AI. I knew that was too. Uh I mean we have to, uh, because everyone's talking about it. How do you feel about using AI, not necessarily in fiction, but in any way, whether it's brainstorming, whether, or do you use AI, or what's your what's your position on AI?

SPEAKER_02: 16:53

My position on AI. It is pretty good for nonfiction how-to-do books, right?

SPEAKER_00: 17:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 17:00

And then you have to double check it anyway. But for a fiction author in particular, no, you I mean you can't really have it write a chapter or something because it doesn't have the humanity that we need. Fiction has to be very close to reality, and there's and humanity is part of that. And that but for ideas, you know, or you're having trouble, you know, stumbling over a certain sentence, and you can go in and say, you know, improve the sentence and it might give you a great idea. But as for writing the story, it is not at this time, not there yet. Um it it'll use repetitive words, it will uh not give you expression and emotion. It doesn't add that human element of the characters walking through the living room and trips. I mean, it's not going to think of, oh, yeah, humans trip, humans stutter, humans, you know, um react differently, or you know, so you know, turn and looks at the, you know, glances over at his spouse with that look of, oh, there she goes again. You know, it doesn't give you that feel.

SPEAKER_03: 18:06

So yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 18:08

Totally against it? No, not totally against it. It is uh a tool in our in our toolbox.

SPEAKER_01: 18:15

What if you use it for like an editor or like a developmental editor where you put your like chapter and you say, What do you think of this chapter?

SPEAKER_02: 18:24

I've not done that, so I don't know. But if it improves it, you have to be very careful because it'll change things on you. You can come up with characters you never had in the book or whatever. Uh yeah, I I use an actual human editor because you know I want that emotion. I want them to say, Oh, here's a spot where you could have said this, or you know, you could do this. Um, I don't think that AI can do that, especially in fiction. Yeah, so I wouldn't feel comfortable with that.

SPEAKER_01: 18:52

Uh interesting. So you mentioned you self-publish. Do you have a specific team you work with to self-publish your books? Or how is the self-publishing process for you?

SPEAKER_02: 19:52

Self-publishing process is pretty easy for me. And I've so I here's a little tip I'll give everybody. Um When I started writing books, I wrote novellas. And you know, a novella is 40,000 words or you know, right around there, a little less. Not a full, complete, fat novel. And I went through the process. I went through how do you make the covers, how does that fit, and I did about five of those uh originally, and then started combining, yeah. I combined those five and made my first novel out of it. And I'd gone through all the steps and learned how to format. Uh, I use the KDP formatting tool. Um, there are other tools. I've used Atticus as well. And um I I learned, you know, I went through the steps. Well, I didn't know when I started that, because that's just the way I decided to take off little bites and chews, is that many well known authors. You know, household name authors write novellas to flush out their stories. So I, you know, went in not knowing you know much about actually publishing and r and writing books other than I wanted to. And I found that out later. So I was like, wow, I'm in great company.

SPEAKER_01: 21:08

So well, what do what do you mean that they write novellas to flush out their stories? Can you elaborate on that?

SPEAKER_02: 21:15

Yeah, yeah. Like uh I I read that Stephen King will often write a small story, listen like a word, and then flush it out later, right? Like, okay, I never or keep it aside and come back to that and write a a full novel from it. So not necessarily publish it, but they do write, you know, uh write their ideas down in smaller books and then later on write a full novel.

SPEAKER_01: 21:43

And what's the benefit of it is just to get the momentum going, or what is why would they do a novella and then come back to it?

SPEAKER_02: 21:52

Well, for for me, it was getting the momentum in the story down, and you know, um I did a couple of them that way and then went back and flushed them out with more. Um I had to get it out of my head. Yeah, you don't want to be in my head. Uh that's the problem with writers, right? I I had the story idea, I wrote it, it was too short. You know, I I I wrote exactly, you know, without the fluff in the in any of the flower or any of the real emotion and put that story down and then go back and say, oh, here I can elaborate on what this house looks like. Here I can elaborate on what took place and what they were feeling, you know, and then flush it out to you know a 60,008, you know, word novel. So that's why I do it. I I can't speak for others, but I'm assuming it's the same kind of uh process for them.

SPEAKER_01: 22:42

Any any other tools you use, like do you Scrivener, do you use uh to to or you you just use like what Google Docs to or to write your novel?

SPEAKER_02: 22:54

I just use Microsoft Word.

SPEAKER_01: 22:56

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_02: 22:58

Um yeah, so uh mainly because I I keep that, you know, it's it's enclosed in your computer, it's not out there. Um so I do that, and um like I said, I use KDP publishing or uh Atticus to format, but it's pretty much formatted in very close to what it was going to be at the end anyway in Microsoft Word. You just I just set up my document and uh go from there.

SPEAKER_01: 23:26

Do you hire a typesetter or do you do it yourself?

SPEAKER_02: 23:29

Nope, I go through the publishing formats, yeah. No typesetter. I have an editor, she's great. She uh I also, when I get it back from her and make all the changes, then I sit down with natural reader and I let the natural reader read the book back to me. So that you know, if there's anything else I need to catch, I'll catch it in there, or I don't like how something is, I will, you know, change it and then go through the publ publishing process.

SPEAKER_01: 23:55

And not to read that is it an app or an what what's it up?

SPEAKER_02: 23:59

It's an app. It's an app. It's an app that you can just download.

SPEAKER_00: 24:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 24:03

And if uh if you want, uh it's normally for someone who you know has a hard time seeing and wants to hear a book. Um that's where it was from originally, but I use it just to you know sit back and listen to the book and go, wait, that doesn't sound you know, so um it sounds different when someone's reading it to you.

SPEAKER_01: 24:22

So how long does it take you from beginning to end? From concept of the book to publication, yeah. Probably six months. Oh, that's pretty fast.

SPEAKER_00: 24:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 24:34

What's what's what's your secret? Wow do you keep yourself motivated? Like for for I coach authors and many of them really struggle with motivation. So I'm I'm sure they'd like to hear as well from you is how do you do it and how do you keep yourself motivated?

SPEAKER_02: 24:51

So I normally in my head have a I'm not a plotter, I don't plot out everything. Okay, I um have in my head the beginning and the end pretty much, and I think I think because of my Hollywood experience, I'm not sure, but I see it, you know, as like I'm watching a film, so to speak.

SPEAKER_00: 25:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 25:08

And then, you know, and I have an idea of what I want in the middle, so I will just start writing.

SPEAKER_00: 25:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 25:14

And then I don't finish at the end of a chapter, never ever, finish at the end of the chapter for the day. I either leave it, you know, in the middle, you know, three-quarters of the way the chapter is done, or three-quarters of the last sentence, and I leave it and come back to it tomorrow because then you pick up where you were at last. So you don't have that writer's block. You start, oh, okay, yeah, that's right. I was thinking about this, and then you just start writing again. So thank God on 13 novels I haven't had a writer's block. But um I also like to sit back and think to myself, what could where could I put a twist in the story? Or uh, you know, or something will happen in my life that I go, oh, that would be great in that book, right? Our writers are notorious for that. If if you're my friend, there's a good chance you're gonna show up in my book. Um so uh, you know, I do those kind of things. And you can't worry about all the editing when you're writing the first drafts, right? Don't even worry about that. There's some people who like to actually perfect everything as they're moving along. That's not how good novels come out, they come out in the edit stage. So, um, yeah, so I tend to just write, just write. Don't worry about anything. I might do a spelling correction and this and that, but for the overall book, I get the idea out and uh not worry about perfection at the beginning. You it's not the place to worry about that. It's better to just write.

SPEAKER_01: 26:51

And how many hours do you write?

SPEAKER_02: 26:54

I probably write one to two hours a day.

SPEAKER_01: 26:57

Okay. Yeah, that's good. And you finish in six months. Wow, that's that's so one to two hours a day, and you then you have a a complete book in six months.

SPEAKER_03: 27:09

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 27:09

Wow, you must be really fast.

SPEAKER_02: 27:12

That's uh everybody says I'm a machine. Well, the other thing is I I overlap them. So once my book goes to an editor, my editor, I'm starting my next book. So so say another you know, four weeks are done for it with her editing, I've written probably uh six to seven chapters of the next book. So, you know, I over I do overlap them.

SPEAKER_01: 27:35

What keeps you going? Like for me, it's like uh I want to ask about your mindset and your motivation. What what makes you keep going and publishing? What is the the joy that you get? Is it the reader? Like what keeps you doing what you're doing?

SPEAKER_02: 27:50

It is the joy of writing the story. It is getting the story out of my head. It is challenging myself, you know, to how am I gonna write a you know, I have two book series going. And what am I gonna have them do this time? And how am I gonna make this book different? And the research involved. So uh Disturbed Tombs and those books happen in different countries and take place in, you know, with historical characters. So there is a lot of research. I like research, so I go in and do the research with it. Um, I even had the compliment because my first book, Disturbed Tombs, takes place in Sedan, mainly a little bit in Egypt, but more tombs and mummies are in Sedan. And um uh a guy go that was from that area wrote back and said, You've been there, haven't you? And I'm like, No. Right? Well, you got it all right. And I was like, that's very important to me. Um, I had published some Power Ranger graphic novels, not me as an author, but me as the project manager of it. And I would have arguments sometimes with the writers and the and the um graphic artists that Power Ranger wouldn't do that, Power Ranger wouldn't say that, this wouldn't happen. And they'd be like, ah, you know, and I'd say the fans are dedicated fans. You start coming up with stuff that they'll never do, and they're not going to you you screw up the first book, they're gonna not like the rest of them. So and it turned out to be true because even people wrote back and said, This is better than the show. So, you know, so it was you know, it's very important to, as you know, fiction writing is you know, to make it as real as possible and fiction at the same time. So a lot of people tell me they learn from my books. They'll be like, wait, that's gotta be a real thing the way she's mentioning it. And when you start reading my books, you'll you know, people start figuring out, I need to go look this up. I've never heard of this. And they go and try to find out, oh, here it is, you know. Um, so Boudicca from England is in one of my books, and people go, Who's Bouddhica? And they go look it up and find out she used to battle the Romans with chariots before the Romans ever had them. So, you know, they they just kind of go, What in the world? Yeah, so I I enjoy that. Um, I enjoy people discovering um history with me. So that's fun.

SPEAKER_01: 30:26

How do you do your research?

SPEAKER_02: 30:27

Oh, I do it. That's Google, that's uh friends that I have. So I just published my last book I published is called A Powerful Disturbance. And I told my girlfriend um that I needed two characters that not only I needed a character that had been buried and exhumed for the book. And the being exhumed is an important part of the Disturb Tomb series. And she gave me a character and I went, hmm, well, let me see, out of uh South America. And I started looking into that, and I was like, oh my gosh, he was exhumed. And not only that, his arch enemy, who turned uh the person who turned out to be his arch enemy over time, was also exhumed. So it made for like it just, you know, so I had to learn a lot about uh Colombia and Venezuela and history and why they became better enemies. And um it it was kind of uh it was a journey for me as well as writing the book. So you can come along with me on my journey by reading the book, yes.

SPEAKER_01: 31:38

You you mentioned then your editor a number of times. How do and the authors, how do you advise them to find like a good editor like the one you found?

SPEAKER_02: 31:47

You know, it's it's great, is if you if you know your book is kind of like someone else's, like you you know that like it's like I said for the movie Grand Torino is you know, Road to Elysium. You can, you know, let's say that was a book. It might have been, I don't know. But if let's say that was a book, then you can find out, you can write the author and ask, hey, who who's doing your editing? Um you can do it that way. You can post online and ask people for suggestions as well. There are writing groups, Facebook writing groups online. Um, but it it's kind of important to make sure. I've had a couple that are great, one out of the UK. Um, depending on my character, because he's a huge male and one of my books has a strong leading male in it. I wanted to make sure that I was writing in the way that men speak, talk, act. And you know, so I said, I need you to look at this, edit it, and look at this, because I want to make sure I'm that you know not putting too much of me into that character. And um uh so you know, it really depends on finding. You might you might have uh I I will tell you I hit a couple that didn't work out for me. So don't be surprised. I I you know I I um was surprised at how many errors were in it after I got it back and published it and caught it later, too late. But uh yeah, so you know, trial and error also, but what mainly ask. Ask other authors who's your you know who's your editor, how kind you know, especially if the book is similar to yours.

SPEAKER_01: 33:20

Well, so what when is your next book coming out?

SPEAKER_02: 33:24

I uh well I'm 13 chapters in. It's now April, May, probably June or July.

SPEAKER_01: 33:30

Uh soon.

SPEAKER_02: 33:31

Maybe July. Yeah. Oh, and the name of it is uh I I'm still working on the title. I normally I normally don't get the title until I write something. So it in the sense of saying someone makes this comment, and that comment becomes the title of the book. So my second book was Sisters in Cold Blood, and it's about uh somebody inheriting a house, and as they start to, you know, redecorate the house, this confession letter from 1909, years ago, century ago, falls out, and she finds out that it's a confession letter from a serial killer, and she decides she wants to follow up on these uh, you know, who he claims he's killed, and has to do research herself. So I'm doing research about her doing research. And in the long run, you know, they start to see all these missing women, because also police didn't have the technology they have today, were not really followed up on and never found. And she ends up, you know, um referring to them as all sisters in cold blood. And so that's where the title came from. Like, you know, oh my god, all these women are sisters in cold blood, uh, because they were killed in cold blood. So um, you know, that's how I come up with titles.

SPEAKER_01: 34:50

I like that. Well, yeah, this this has been uh great, uh Kay, and um, you know, very inspiring. Any final advice um or tips, especially for indie authors? And uh the majority of authors that I talk to actually choose the the indie author uh route. Even some of them had that agent or a publisher, then they went back to self-publishing. So, what what kind of tips or motivation tips would you give them?

SPEAKER_02: 35:20

Yeah, you know what? Make sure that your writing space is something you want. You know, so I I went out and bought a new desk, I put a nice little plan, it's facing a window. I need to see outside, I need to see the world go by. And make sure that you are disciplined enough to at least write 15, 20 minutes a day, and then it might grow from there. Um, another trick I use is you'll find characters in my books who are actually my girlfriends or or somebody I know. And I will say to them, I would like to put you in my book as a character. Give me your you know, a new last name. What last name would you like in the book? Well, why does that help me? Because I know all about them. I know they like blueberry muffins, I know they get mad at this or they love to do that. I have a full, flushed out character. Um, the only thing that sometimes, you know, I might be writing a scene and go, let me call my friend and see if she's okay if I write the scene, right? You know, like, oh, they're getting kissy mushy mushy, you know. And they're always like us, you know, no one's gonna know it's us. And then I turn around and say, and this is the character. This is my friend who's a character.

SPEAKER_01: 36:31

But um that's a good idea, actually. If you base it on somebody, you know, you already it's easier to describe it. Yeah, you know the character, yeah, yeah. I like this. Yeah, you gotta I mean if I wanna like summarize some of the tips that you gave us. One was never start writing an empty chapter. I think that's a very powerful one. Base it on somebody else, somebody you already know. What else?

SPEAKER_02: 36:59

Character. Make sure you write 10 to 15 times, you know, 15 minutes at eight and just starting. Novellas are okay to start with, and just get through the actions of the publishing and the editing and creating a book cover.

SPEAKER_01: 37:14

And you know, um and then and you sell it, but then when you sell it as a novel, do you increase the price or how do you what do you do? Oh, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 37:22

When you yes, yes, you can increase the absolutely increase the price to a novel.

SPEAKER_00: 37:26

Yes. Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_02: 37:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 37:29

Oh well, okay. I like that.

SPEAKER_02: 37:31

And then normally I delete the novella, right? You could remove the novella from being sold. So uh, you know, the novella, so yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 37:41

Do you change the name? Do you change the name?

SPEAKER_02: 37:46

Yes, absolutely did change the name.

SPEAKER_01: 37:48

So you publish it as a novella, you sell it, then remove it, and turn it into a novel.

SPEAKER_02: 37:53

Right. Turn it into a novel, then remove it.

SPEAKER_01: 37:57

Sell it until it's and then turn it into a movie.

SPEAKER_02: 38:02

The other thing you can do with it is give it away as a free. Here's chapter one, or here's chapters one through six, yeah, right, of this book. This is a freebie, you know, and get people drawn into the story, and then they might pick up your not your novel. So you can use it many different ways.

SPEAKER_01: 38:20

I'm doing that um on Substack, and I think I gave away four chapters so far for my new book. Do you think it's it's a good idea? Have you know, people they call it serializing a novel? Have you heard of that new trend?

SPEAKER_02: 38:37

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 38:37

On Substack, yeah. Yes.

SPEAKER_02: 38:40

Um I use BookFunnel. Uh you can do that too. But BookFunnel, you get into promos and promotions. People put up promotions, and you can join a promotion if you know your book fits the description of the promotion. Uh, there is a lot of Kindle unlimited promotions, which I love. And I know my readers in my newsletter, I do a newsletter too, I didn't mention that. But uh my readers of my newsletter love it when I send out, hey, here's another Kindle, which means technically a free book, and then you get the Kindle pages as they read. But you know, they come out, you you might be part of a group of 30 books in a book funnel. And my last book funnel uh KU promotion, I had over 3,000 links, clicks of my links.

SPEAKER_01: 39:30

So what's book funnel? I I heard about it, I'm not sure how it works. What what is it exactly?

SPEAKER_02: 39:34

Yeah, book funnel, you set up you you you set up your books, you have uh pages for your books.

SPEAKER_00: 39:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 39:40

Yeah, you know, and it will send you can have them send it to Amazon. So if someone clicks on it to learn more about your book, it'll take them to your your page on Amazon where they can buy it. Um and then then you know there's different things you can do with it, but the promotion part that I'm speaking about, you go over to the book funnels promotions, you know, active promotion uh promotions that are happening, and you go through, you scroll through and find, you know, whatever promotion you want to do, a horror film, a romance, whatever the promotion is for. And then you go in and say, I want to add my book to your promotion, and then you get a personal link, and then you advertise that link. And it takes them to the entire promotion. So there's 30 people doing this, or how many books are in there? All those authors are sharing that link. So not only are you sharing it and people are going in and looking at all the books there, the other 30 people are looking at you know, all their readers are looking at those other 30 link, you know, that that link and all those books there. So it's like authors working together.

SPEAKER_01: 40:45

So you but you pay for the promotion, right? No. So how do you make how and do you give away your book for free in the promotion or what do you do?

SPEAKER_02: 40:53

Well, there's different promotions, but if it's a Kindle unlimited, you know, uh that's you know that's for free. Um otherwise your price is on there. So if you know there are some that are for sales, there are promotions for newsletters, there are Kindle promotions. There's lots of different promotions for different types of books.

SPEAKER_00: 41:14

Interesting, interesting. That's that's another tip.

SPEAKER_02: 41:17

And you can do your own promotion if you want. You don't see what you need there. You can create your own promotion and get other authors to join with you.

SPEAKER_01: 41:25

Hmm. Wow, that's that's good to know. Wow. Well, okay, uh, this has been uh amazing and lots lots of great tips, and I'm sure it's gonna be very useful to many people who are listening or watching. So, how can people get in touch with you, sign up to your newsletter, buy your books? How can they reach you?

SPEAKER_02: 41:41

Yes, they can go to uh my name actually, kaolliver.com, k-a-ya oliver.com. And I do have writing tips for free. You don't even need to give me your email address. Writing tips on my on my website. Um I probably have got about 30 uh blogs now about different writing tips, developing characters, finding your voice. When should you end a novel? Because there are some people who write way beyond where they should and should stop. They don't know how to, you know, to wrap up the novel, um, you know, to editing, to copywriting. Um it's important that before you send it out to anybody, editor included, that you, you know, online you copyright it. I don't, I've seen other people say, well, it's in my computer, it has a date and time. That's not really an official copyright, and and that's challengeable. So you know it costs you$65 in the US to protect your material. It's worth it. So you know, you can do it all online too. So uh I always recommend before you send it out anywhere that you officially copyright it. And uh unless you're making huge changes to your books, you don't have to re-copyright it. Okay, so as long as the general idea is there anyway. So um that is where I would say I am on and on there are my links to all my social media on kaolliver.com. You'll find my links to social media. I'm on Blue Sky as well, one that most people don't haven't been really talking about, but there's a lot of authors there.

SPEAKER_01: 43:13

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_02: 43:14

Uh and we sub and we support each other.

SPEAKER_01: 43:16

So I didn't know that. I've seen a lot of authors on threads.

SPEAKER_02: 43:20

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01: 43:22

Because you can set up your Facebook to automatically, yeah. Or one of them, I guess.

SPEAKER_02: 43:29

One of those somebody owns both, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 43:33

It's it's hard to keep up. I mean, I've I've been mostly active on Substack and um LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_02: 43:41

Uh but I'm on LinkedIn as well, yes.

SPEAKER_01: 43:45

Uh yeah, uh but yeah, this is great. Um so thank you very much, uh Kay, for for your time. And uh thank you everyone for staying here with us and for joining us for another episode of Read and Write with Natasha, and until we meet again.

SPEAKER_02: 44:01

Thank you very much. I've enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_01: 44:03

Me too. Thank you for tuning in to Read and Write with Natasha. I'm your host, Natasha Tines. If today's episode inspired you in any way, please take the time to review the podcast. Remember to subscribe and share this podcast with fellow book lovers. Until next time. Happy reading, happy writing!