SPEAKER_00: 0:05

At the moment I'm working on experimenting with form and structure and delivering stories in different ways. So I've because I've been so focused on Patreon, I'm now uh working on a sort of ongoing web novel. So releasing chapters every week. And just seeing how that goes down because I've seen a lot of people find a lot of success with it on Patreon and online platforms. I like the idea of it. It's it's like writing and editing a novel as you go and sharing at the same time.

SPEAKER_01: 0:43

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 enjoyed the journal. Hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of Read and Write with Natasha. Today's guest is author Richie Billing. He is a fantasy author, editor, podcast host, and creative writing teacher based in Liverpool. After leaving his career in law to pursue storytelling full-time, Richie carved out a unique path in fantasy fiction, using his work to explore real-world issues through compelling characters. He's the author of Pariah's Lament and The Craft Guide, a Fantasy Writers Handbook, which has helped emerging writers land book deals. All right, Richie, I am so glad to have you here today as a guest on my podcast. And actually, this is the first time we do this live, so I'm really excited and thank you for being a good sport and for agreeing to experiment with me and try it live. So let's see, I'm not sure how this works, but we'll we'll take it from him. Anyways, Richie, I think my first question is you were a lawyer, which is a big deal, and then you leave it to become an author. What were you thinking? If you can let me know, what what made you make this kind of courageous and and bold move? I mean, it's it's more money, it's more prestige, I guess. So what made you decide to quit being a lawyer to become a a a full-time author?

SPEAKER_00: 2:35

Well, I just stopped enjoying it, and I do at the time, I always think I was about 23, 24, and you sort of faced with the prospect of having to do something for the rest of your life that you just hate.

SPEAKER_02: 2:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 2:49

And I was just really into reading books at the time. Like I never had any ideations of being a writer. Um but I remember reading uh Game of Well, it's one of the Game of Problems books, is the book with the red wen anyway, and I couldn't sleep one night. And I started reading this book at 1am. And the next time I checked the time, it was 7am. And I couldn't believe that that was like a spell. And the the writing was magical, and I it sort of at that moment in time I was I was at a crossroads, and this gave me direction. I was like, I why don't I want I want to be able to create this magic as well, um, and that's what sort of set me on a path of writing. And once I started trying to write my own stories, it was like I fell in love, and I just I've never looked back since.

SPEAKER_01: 3:44

And do you think it is possible and sustainable to be a full-time author? And uh, you know, during these times where uh you know people struggle and there's like you know, the economy is not in the greatest shape. And I I am doing it, uh, but I implemented I supplement it with other um you know client work. But how possible it is to live as a full-time author and raise a family and and have a sustainable income.

SPEAKER_00: 4:18

I think unless you're sort of on high street bookshelves and you're selling good few thousand copies of books a year, it's pretty impossible. Um I I I've been writing for 10 years. Um I have to work full-time. I do writing part-time. Uh I invest quite a lot of time in it. I'm like yourself, a lot of the money that I bring in to supplement my income comes from freelance work. Um, so it's tough. Like the actual money from sales is is limited. Um, unless you're selling volume. You're making like two or three pounds, if that, yeah, per book. And you're competing in a market where everyone's either giving the book away for free or selling it for 99 cents.

SPEAKER_02: 5:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 5:11

Um, and it is really difficult for writers to find the niche break through. But once you do break through, once you find your audience and you cultivate your audience, then there's nothing to stop you. And I think that's the main thing. I was interviewing a a an uh best-selling author now. Actually, she's um she started off self-publishing, she was called Calcade, and she just found her audience, and she got snapped up by Tor publishing them and got commission to write series and novels for them. So it just goes to show like you've just gotta find your people, and if you can do that, then it's easier than just thinking oh, I need to sort of create a book that's gonna have mass market appeal, and then you're up against everybody.

SPEAKER_01: 6:03

Um and how do you find your people?

SPEAKER_00: 6:06

That's hard, yeah, that's quite tricky. But you've gotta you've gotta sort of define based on the kind of writer you are, the kind of stories you like to tell. People compare you to certain things. Like I first brought out a book called Together We Rise, and people have compared me to like Michael R. Fletcher and like the book to Four of Crows and stuff like that. And that's really helpful for me because I can then narrow it down to say, oh well, people who like that kind of stuff will also like this.

SPEAKER_01: 6:38

Yeah. And so you have your podcast, you teach, uh, you uh appear on podcasts. In terms of marketing your work, what do you think what are you doing the most and what do you think has the highest ROI that worked for you?

SPEAKER_00: 6:56

So a lot of the when it comes to writing, I do a lot of email marketing.

SPEAKER_01: 7:02

Ah, okay.

SPEAKER_00: 7:04

I invest a lot of time and effort into just growing and cultivating an engaged audience. Um I've recently launched Patreon um because I wanted to create something more sustainable, a more sustainable platform than having to write books all the time, which take months and months, sometimes years, and then hoping that that book makes you a few thousand or whatever, or a few hundred if you're lucky. Um and then then having to do another one. And then rather than just getting these little lumps of money, it's not it's not sustainable, it's not a model that you can live on. So that's why I think subscription is better. And if you can develop an audience like through your mailing list, like people look it's just the same as people monetizing the Substack newsletter, but I'm doing it on Patreon and I've linked it with my website so I deliver the content in better ways so people can get ebooks, free ebooks that are like sent to the e-reader, they can read online using an immersive e-reader and to get like bonus content, like audiobook versions and stuff like that. And I think it's better for the reader personally. Um just trying to get them or align it with the way they like to consume books.

SPEAKER_01: 8:25

So you offer people who subscribe, you offer them free ebook versions of your book?

SPEAKER_00: 8:31

Yeah, so it's I have like two tiers, keep it quite simple. So I have a short fiction tier and a long fiction tier. The long fiction I'm not gonna put on Patreon, it's just too much faff and getting individual trappers on there. So you just literally get to download the e-book. And then short stories are put on Patreon, and then for each short story version, uh each short story has is an ebook version, and there's also a uh a version you can read online in an immersive e-reader, which is pretty cool. I've got that for free as well on your website, and you can just read it on Patreon too. It took a lot of time and effort, and I had to do a survey to find out how to get Patreon to work, and I do feel like it's what I've created now is better, but it's still tough getting people to subscribe.

SPEAKER_01: 9:21

Do you have any subscribers?

SPEAKER_00: 9:23

Yeah, I've probably been doing it for uh just about four or five months, and I've just hit over like a hundred, something like a hundred and six.

SPEAKER_01: 9:31

Oh wow, good for you.

SPEAKER_00: 9:33

Yeah, it's it's slow going, it takes it's gonna take time, but it is a long-term investment. It's I think it's the only it's the only way really that I could ever go full-time.

SPEAKER_01: 9:45

And how do you convince them? Because I launched it, maybe I did not do a good job promoting it, and I launched it and I sent it to my email audience, and no one subscribed. Uh and I was like, okay. I was like, okay, I yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 9:59

Well, a lot of a lot of people think that Patreon's more expensive and they don't look at it because they think that. And when I first launched it, it was working out like you're paying$36 a year. So I mean, that's for some people that's fine, but a lot of people said they didn't have money, and I don't want to exclude people. Like the last thing I want to do with my writing is like cut people off from enjoying it. So what I I've done with the pricing is like with the short fiction, it's a dollar a month. So it works out the same price as paying for a paperback, but you spread the cost over a year, but you also get about$40 worth of ebooks, plus ongoing content and bonus content as well. So you just make it a really good deal, it's like, well, why would you even buy that ebook when you can sign up for this and get all of this instead? It's like, yeah, so it's hard because people are used to buying books, but if you can show them a better option, and like one of the biggest challenges is marketing that in a better way.

SPEAKER_01: 11:11

Oh my god, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 11:12

Um, then yeah, that's that's all you can do. Just try it and hope.

SPEAKER_01: 11:17

Yeah, I'll I'll check out your Patreon and and see what's your secret because 100 bid subscribers, it's it's a big deal. Alright, so you mentioned that you do freelancing on the side. What kind of freelancing you do to supplement your income as an author?

SPEAKER_00: 11:33

So in my day job, I am an SEO specialist. So if anyone doesn't know what that is, that's search engines. And um I use that a lot. It's uh get visitors to my own sort of writing website. So that's that's a really good way to get people like to look at your books and to join your mailing list and stuff. So SEO is really good. Um and that's one of the main things to do, to be honest.

SPEAKER_01: 12:03

I'm actually curious about your your mailing list. So you said that you spend a lot of time on on email marketing, and some authors do that, but I don't think it's like I think you're one of the first people who told me that you spend a lot of time on email marketing. So I'm curious what platform do you use and how many subscribers do you have if if you can share this information?

SPEAKER_00: 12:25

Yeah, of course. So I started using MailChimp, and it's okay MailChimp. I'll say that. I've not used anything else, so there could be worse ones. So at the moment, my relationship with MailChimp is better the devil you know. It's good because you can create your automations. So this is what I I struggle for ages with email marketing because there's a lot of psychology that goes into it, and I wasn't really thinking about that side. Yeah, it was actually um the way I sort of cracked the code was um by analysing what I was doing in my uh sort of few years as running an Irish pub. So I I was manager of this Irish pub and it was in a pretty rubbish part of Liverpool, so not many people would come in. So I was uh spending a lot of time and effort on cultivating relationships with people who did come in. So making them feel very welcome, maybe giving them a free drink, talking to them, asking them about the day, going a step further than basically customer and bartender or whatever. And then people would with more and more people came in, came back, word spread, place kind of turned around, and it worked really well for the pub. So I was like, how could they get that to work? The same principles for a mailing list.

SPEAKER_02: 13:49

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00: 13:50

So the way to think about it is someone has voluntarily given a bit of their personal information, so share it's sharing like you say, a phone number is probably a step beyond the email, like you can hide behind an email, a phone number's a little bit harder to hide behind, for example. So it's quite a personal thing to share. So it means they want to hear from you and they want to connect with you, and you've got to think about alright, how can I do that via an email? So being honest is really good because honesty makes you likable to other people, it makes you obviously you you open yourself up, you're a bit vulnerable, and people can relate more to that. So writing um emails about like this is one of my biggest struggles with writing. This is the hardest thing I've had to overcome in my life, this is the lowest point in my writing career, and people really respond to that. Uh I was getting like email open rates of like 60%, and then what you do is you sort of tie that in with this is my lowest point, and this is the story that I wrote to help me get out of that, and then feed that into how you can read this on Patreon and so doing things to cultivate a relationship, obviously asking them questions, uh prompting them to respond, having a community where people can go, like Discord. So Discord's a big thing for me. I've got like six or seven hundred members in my Discord communities.

SPEAKER_01: 15:26

It's your community.

SPEAKER_00: 15:28

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 15:28

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00: 15:30

Um, and it's brilliant because people can join, they can get help with beta reading, they can discuss ideas with people, they can just make friends, and it's worked out really well. People have been in like weekly critique groups that they've joined over a year ago through that Discord community, and they're still going now, meeting every week. So you can do these things, you can you can be the facilitator, create these spaces for people to join. Like I don't really do much, but I I create the space and make sure that there's no crazy people in there, and that's all you need to do, you need to offer value, offer something that is gonna like make a difference to people's lives, sort of not gonna people gonna be interested and intrigued and find value. And when you sort of tie this in with like a personal message, um making people feel welcome, uh valued, uh respected, then you've got the psychology along with the content, and then you build an automation. It's all about automations with email martin. So my automations last like three or four months when you join and I'll send emails will be sent like every few days at the start, maybe quite quite regularly.

SPEAKER_02: 16:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 16:45

Just to build that relationship, and then over time it'll be maybe every four, five, six, seven days and just drip feed things.

SPEAKER_01: 16:54

Wow, and is the community free, the Discord? Oh, it's free. Oh wow. So how many subscribers do you have on in your uh newsletter?

SPEAKER_00: 17:03

About seven and a half thousand at the moment.

SPEAKER_01: 17:06

And I'm just seven thousand, oh wow.

SPEAKER_00: 17:08

Yeah, I'm just trying to grow as much as possible, but if there's an expense that comes with it, that's the main thing. What's the expensive? So to big BMA, unless the Umainless more expensive is.

SPEAKER_01: 17:17

Yeah, that's that's true. Oh wow. So when you published your book, how was your publishing journey? Did you self-publish or did you use a publisher?

SPEAKER_00: 17:29

So in the past I've worked with publishers for the most recent book that I've done. I chose to do that myself just because I had a lot of creative ideas for this one.

SPEAKER_02: 17:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 17:39

And I just wanted to explore that. Um so for this one, I've actually integrated an original soundtrack that I've made. Um it's a novella, it's split into eight parts with eight characters. So each character has their own theme song which mirrors their emotional journey as they go through that chapter. And their little part of the story contributes to the greater story. So lot interesting structure, which I don't think many publishers would have gone for, and also wanted to elevate the experience for readers by adding this layer of music which has never been done before, I don't think. I think I may be the first author to ever do that.

SPEAKER_01: 18:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 18:20

Because it's like integrated with QR codes, and if you're so at the start of each chapter, you can scan a QR code if you've got the paperback, or you can tap a button if you've got the ebook, and that's how it's sort of integrated.

SPEAKER_01: 18:34

Oh, that's fascinating. And how how is it selling?

SPEAKER_00: 18:37

Well, it's hard to sell, obviously, breakthrough and things, but like I've sold a few copies, but I mean it's only in Novella, and for this one, it was more of a passion project. I'm just I'm just giving copies away and just want to get the word out and just having a lot of fun doing different marketing techniques, so like doing different like local marketing techniques, I call them.

SPEAKER_02: 18:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 19:00

So doing local events, QR code stickers, making cool stickers and then putting the QR code on them and sticking them up in places. I don't know, there's all different things you can do to mix up the marketing. It doesn't always have to be online. And I think people are obviously because there's more people online, but yeah, you can there's a lot of things you can do in your local communities which will get you a lot of benefits and like as well as the online stuff too.

SPEAKER_01: 19:27

Yeah, fascinating. I also noticed that you have a podcast, right? And I want to talk a bit about having a podcast. Yeah. Because I have a podcast, and one of the things that like I keep thinking about, I mean, I love the podcast, and I, you know, I pay from my own pockets to uh to run it, you know, for all the tools and all of that. But um the amount of con like the conversations that I have with people like yourself, it's like investing in a masterclass, you know. writing on publishing because of the conversation. And I wanted to hear a bit about your experience with podcasting, how often you publish it, you know, what why actually do you have a podcast?

SPEAKER_00: 20:13

Yeah, so I started the podcast called The Fantasy Writers Toolshed and I started it with a friend probably about four years ago.

SPEAKER_02: 20:21

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00: 20:21

Maybe a longer I can't remember. But he had to take a step away. So with the two of us we just did it because we like writing and we just wanted we we spoke about writing honestly and openly and he stepped away and I was like oh I don't think people are just going to want to listen to my Scouse accents. So I didn't know what to do. So I decided quite a few people listened to it. Yeah quite a few thousand subscribers and I was like oh it seems a shame just to spin it. So I decided to get experts on on any subject to do with writing. Obviously as well as authors best we've had a lot of best selling authors and getting their insights and experiences of the writing journey and working with agents and how to craft stories that's been amazing and like you the same reason you said you get so much value out of that.

SPEAKER_02: 21:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 21:14

Speaking to these amazing authors and like hearing how they deal with imposter syndrome and stuff like that it's amazing. And then speaking with just experts that you wouldn't really think you'd speak to in life so I interviewed a uh an expert in body language and who was a former FBI special agent. So he'd interviewed like thousands and thousands of people over the years and he was just a master at reading people and having that sort of insight it just empowers your writing then because when it comes to writing about like a conversation where someone's a bit edgy you can put in like the body language details and it makes it more engaging for readers that way because they're not being told how a person's feeling they have to work out from the clues that you give them to that body language. So it's really good. And yeah that's why I love it. I mean I don't make any money from the podcast. It doesn't cost me anything but time and I've time has become more and more precious to me over the last few years and I've had to step to cut back on the podcast. I used to do two episodes a month every two weeks and to be honest if you're going to do a podcast like and you really want to do it and you want to compete with people you probably need to be doing like two a week like that's what the best ones seem to do. There's just like two episodes a week and I can't do that. It's just time. I just I work full time I don't have the time or the the energy to do it. So I just do one a month now just to keep it going and I just do like just keep doing my own thing keep speaking to um really interesting people best selling writers um and people still like it people still listen I mean listenership has gone down I imagine it's because I'm not publishing as much algorithms don't push you up. So but it's still got like over 10,000 followers so I still value that a lot and a lot of people do listen to it so that's why I keep doing it. A lot of the stuff I do when it comes to writing is because I like helping people get a lot of satisfaction from that so if I learn something new I like to share it and that's the sort of that's how it all began and I'll sort of get into have conversations with more knowledgeable people than me. Yeah their insights for everyone else's benefits as well just probing their minds and getting information off them it's really good and satisfying for me.

SPEAKER_01: 24:31

Do you think uh all authors should have a podcast as as part of their like marketing strategy or like brand building?

SPEAKER_00: 24:39

Only if you're gonna really go for it like like I said two episodes a week. If you want to do it for money I think you need to be getting over five thousand downloads or listens an ep an episode. An episode oh wow it's crazy hard to monetize your podcast you could do it like I think ACAST for example you could pay in you pay like twenty dollars a month and then you might make like ten dollars a month back in ads like the ad the ad revenue is really poor on podcasting so if you if you're a writer I would say focus on your writing don't get sucked in by these things unless you have an idea to combine your writing with your podcast. So if you want to narrate some things and do like a fiction podcast that's a really cool idea. I would definitely do that. But if it when it comes this is a trap that I fell into when I was developing my website and obviously the podcast it's all about writing. Now I love creating stuff for writers but writers don't buy my fiction books generally. And I've I've kind of taken my eye off the ball and focused on cultivating an audience of writers and not readers. So that's why I'm sort of shifting away now and focusing on the reader and not the writer and if you produce content for writers then you're gonna get writers so just be wary of how much you produce for writers because they don't always buy you fiction books because they're writing their own stuff and they're not really that bothered. Interesting so think about that.

SPEAKER_01: 26:18

That's all I'll say that's a good point but how can you like write stuff that is out of your niche that because if you write about writing and the publishing industry and that's what you know automatically you're gonna grab the writers.

SPEAKER_00: 26:35

Yeah it's just writing probably tailoring it more to people who like the kind of stories that you write. So that's why I focus on fantasy writing. If I create content about writing I focus on fancy elements um and at least then I'm narrowing the pool down.

SPEAKER_01: 26:56

Yeah yeah oh well that's that's fine what about YouTube?

SPEAKER_00: 27:01

I love YouTube. I'm just not very good at it. Um and I'd love to really get at it and and do more videos but again at the time I just don't have the time to learn how to make nice looking videos and and really create a lot of good content but I've always got the ideas there to make stuff. It's just time and if you've got the freedom I think we said before you said about errands and stuff like it's really tough for people at the moment like you said like I'm from a working class background and like it it's insane like to think that like people are gonna have the energy and the motivation after working a 12 hour shift or sometimes even doing two jobs to then go and write a novel.

SPEAKER_02: 27:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 27:47

So over time because as this persists and gets worse then less people like from working class backgrounds are gonna be able to publish anything.

SPEAKER_02: 27:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 27:58

It's just gonna completely dry up and it's just gonna be like really sort of like wishy washy middle class stuff that no one can really relate to. But it just sort of feeds the sort of formulas and the models that these publishing companies love because they think sell books. It's quite sad. It's very sad at the ta at the moment. Not a lot we can do.

SPEAKER_01: 28:23

So what is your writing routine like if you have a full-time job when do you write and how many hours a day?

SPEAKER_00: 28:30

So generally like if I'm working I'll um if I get a bit of time at lunchtime I'll do some stuff then. But when I come home I'll probably start work about seven and I'll work till maybe sometimes as late as midnight and just as as much of my sort of mental energy will allow really um but if I had a full day to myself I I write in sessions so I'll do like a morning session for a few hours have a break afternoon session break evening session. So maybe I'd write for 12 hours but over four sessions. You just gotta find what works for you haven't you I mean how how do you like to work you you've probably found over the years that you're quite effective in certain ways.

SPEAKER_01: 29:17

Yeah for me it's just the morning the early morning um and I do also like uh live writing sprints with with clients so that's also I write with them and that works well uh because uh and I need to market this it's been busy with other stuff but that's a really good idea yeah yeah it is a good idea actually um you you're welcome to join I can give you a complimentary one just to try it it'll be fun we can do it uh yeah that sounds fun yeah all right this so this this has been uh great and uh what what is the future hold for you uh Richie what do you what are you working on?

SPEAKER_00: 29:56

At the moment I'm working on experimenting with form and structure and delivering stories in different ways and so I've because I've been so focused on Patreon I'm now uh working on a a sort of ongoing web novel so releasing chapters every week and just seeing how that goes down because I've seen a lot of people find a lot of success with it on Patreon and online platforms and I like the idea of it it's it's like writing and editing a novel as you go and sharing at the same time and then once it's finished then you've got the novel already there to go and it's so it seems like quite a nice efficient way to do things. Yeah and then doing a lot of short stories as well because I do get a lot of satisfaction out of them and it's great just for obviously building your confidence and building your portfolio and your resume as a writer keeps you sharp as well and it's a lot easier to do these shorter quicker projects than commit years to a novel.

SPEAKER_01: 30:59

Yeah yeah that's true. Well uh Richie this has been amazing and uh thank you for uh being a good sport and entertaining me to go live I um I'd have to go check see how that works out. And um I wish you the best of luck and how can people reach you uh if they want to read your novels or uh work with you on um you know certain projects.

SPEAKER_00: 31:22

Yeah well thank you very much for having me on it was lovely chatting with you um best place to go is richie billing.com Patreon is just search for patreon.com forward slash richie billing and then if you just google my name because there's not many Richie Billings you'll probably track me down quite easy.

SPEAKER_01: 31:39

So yeah that's been great so thank you very much Richie and wish you the best of luck and for anyone who's listening or watching or for anyone who's live uh thank you for joining us today for another episode of Read and Write with Natasha and until we meet again. Ciao thank you for tuning in to Read and Write with Natasha I'm your host Natasha Tiny 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