Joanne Dannon
Duration: 52.00
Melinda: Welcome to another episode of Writer on the Road. Today I have with me a beautiful romance author Joanne Dannon. Joanne's website says some very nice things about her that she writes "sparkling sassy romances with sigh-worthy endings."
So in order to set the mood to talk with Joanne tonight I've lit my candle in the background so that we have the romance, I've got my glass of red wine sitting over here so cheers to you Joanne. The only I haven't got is a handsome hero, but Joanne's hubby has been helping us set up tonight. So we do have our handsome hero floating around in the background here. Welcome Joanne.
Joanne Dannon: Thank you, thanks Melinda. Nice to be chatting with you, I do like your podcast so thanks for inviting me to part of one.
Melinda: Well I couldn't resist, Joanne and I are members of some writing courses that we're doing online together one of those is called "Your first 10,000 Readers" with Mark Stephenson. Joanne has been experiencing quite a level of success although she'd be a little bit shy about that, with her promotion and marketing of her work.
Joanne and I, before we started tonight were discussing the concept of overnight success and we had a little bit of a chuckle because although Joanne is now an overnight success, there's been ten years of hard work going on behind the scenes. So Joanne the quote that I wanted to start with tonight, which I've lost in all the chaos that we've been experiencing, is she writes handsome, "She wrote a story about a handsome, mysterious Englishman, a feisty nanny, an exotic setting, what more can you ask for in a romance novel?" So welcome, would you like to introduce yourself for our listeners please?
Joanne Dannon: Okay, my name is Joanne Dannon, I'm an Australia romance author, I love romance, I like romance books and romance movies. So when I started writing it was pretty easy that I would go into the genre that I most liked which is romance.
I like to write contemporary romances and I like to make my heroes a little bit different, I've been a long time fan of Mills and Boone, to the presents or the sexy line as it's known in Australia. But most of the heroes are bankers or business man or tycoons and I just wanted to do something a little bit different, so my heroes a little bit different.
So with my book that's coming out in October for example he's a scientist looking for a cure for ovarian cancer. I've got the reporter which is obviously with the one that you're talking about with Falling for Mr. Wrong, I've got a lawyer, okay but he's a pretty sexy lawyer. I try to shake it up a little bit and make it a bit different, I just, I write the books that I love, that I want to read.
Melinda: I think one thing that we have to remember here is that writing romance is one of the biggest genres in novel writing all around the world. Second, I think coming second are thrillers and adventure novels but romance is right up there. So Joanne has, I guess, cracked it in a market that is considered to be the biggest and the best. Joanne the two novels that I found for you were Falling for Mr. Wrong and Wanting a Mr. Right. So I'm assuming there are going to be more novels in that series.
Joanne Dannon: So Falling for Mr. Wrong is actually a standalone book which is lots of fun, it's set in Israel, we have a nanny who's on the run from the London press and she goes and hides out in Israel thinking no one will find her and of course not only does the hero find her but the London press find her. So they're sort of on the run, running across the country. So that was, that's really fun.
Then I start off with a series and at the moment two books have released. The first one is Kisses Under the Spotlight and we have a superstar as the hero, again something a little bit different, so he sings, he tap dances, he can tap dance upside down, he's a superstar, he's got billions of fans, everyone loves him and I've put him up against a very feisty physio who looks after him. Then Wanting Mr. Right is the second book in the series. That one's set in Hong Kong, again lots of fun. I just, I really like doing what I do and I like to put the fun of what I like to read into my books. The third book in the series is the one that's out in October.
Melinda: I think the interesting thing as I'm sitting here chatting with Joanne and we had a bit of a chat as we were trying to get the technology working as usual, Joanne felt a bit bad that we couldn't get things working but what she doesn't know is that I've been in her position for the last 10 episodes. Nothing ever goes to plan Joanne, it's normal and we all push on and we all get there eventually. But what you said I'd like to pick up, you said everyone loves your stories because they're feel good and as I'm talking to Joanne you guys can't see it, but she's glowing, she's happy, she's vivacious, she's smiling. Writing romance is obviously something that suits your personality very well.
Joanne Dannon: I think so. If you see on my Instagram and my Facebook pages I have things that are romantic, I got to weddings dressed in '50s dresses with my hair done up. It's just,
I dress the way I like to dress, it suits me and I'm not trying to make a statement, I just wear things that I like so I like things with hearts on them, I like things with big skirts and petticoats. So the things that I love I put into my life, I put it into my writing as well. So this is me, I don't create an image to try and fit into this romance genre, this is me.
I am part of a romance, I love the [00:06:57] (unclear). Every time I go and get new shoes that have got hearts or something on them my friends will go oh that's so you because that's how I am. I mean people don't know me yet because as a public persona, but my friends who know me know exactly what I'm like, they know that I like these 50's style shoes and big skirts with the petticoats because that's who I am.
Melinda: If you look at Joanne's website, which I'll put in the transcript notes so that everyone can go and have a look, it's this beautiful bright pink color and it says that Joanne's interested in reading, writing, cooking which I thought yes give me some cooking, vintage inspired dresses and all things romantic. I'm guessing that brings us into why I've invited you on today and it's, or tonight because it's now 9 o'clock at night here. If you write and you write successfully, you have to write from the heart.
Joanne Dannon: I've said that. When I first started writing I tried to put my writing into a box. So because as I said before that I love these Mills and Boone books with these amazing alfa-heroes and I tried to replicate that, and every time I did I didn't get a good story because I was writing something that wasn't me. So I think, I can't remember exactly when it was, but it was a few years ago and I took six weeks off work, I did a Margie Lawson course and I sat down and I wrote the book that I wanted which was a superhero, basically someone like Michael Bubble mixed with Adam Garcia, so he can dance, he can sing, he's got millions of fans.
Everyone said to me no one will buy it, no publisher will buy a hero that dances (tap dances) and sings. They were right, no one bought it. It was rejected by every romance publisher but the thing is that I love that book, I poured my heart and soul into it, and because I love jazz and I love the tap dancing I but all the stuff that I loved into this book. So yes it never got published by a traditional publisher, but I was able to publish it myself. If you have a look at the reviews people love it. The thing is people also like bankers, but they also like something a little bit different and that's why I think that my readers really like that I'm writing things that are little bit quirky, a little bit different to what is out there for romance.
Melinda: I'm just picking up on what you're saying there. You talked about courses, you talked about reader reviews. So I want to pick up on both of those things because a lot of our listeners will be on their own writing journey. You mentioned a Margie Lawson course. Who is Margie Lawson?
Joanne Dannon: She's awesome. She's been out to Australia a few times and if you do her course she's amazing. I couldn't afford to do her courses when she comes out to Australia, but I know people have done them and she is really brilliant in what she does.
She helps you in editing, but not editing as in picking up words, but how to make things really good in your sentences and how to really lift it and make it a little bit interesting and exciting. So I did her course, which is an online course and I did it with a couple of friends and we worked together and I learned some amazing techniques from her.
I think that started me off, I'd done a lot, I've belonged to Romance Writers of Australia, so once a year I go to their conference and I learn and they've got amazing people who come out. But I think you still got to keep learning especially when you're a new writer, you've got to keep learning, you've got to keep doing courses and finding what suits you. So you got to keep reading your craft books, I mean if I spin you around you'll see my cupboard there and it's full of craft books and I've read a lot of them and I think it's really important to do courses and also to find the ones that work for you.
So Margie is amazing and when I became a self-published author I've been told oh it's really easy, you just stick a book on Amazon and the money just come in. I'm like yeah I wish, can I tell you how many people have got books on Amazon and they make no sales unless you do a course. Unless you know what you're doing you may as well just go and find a job working in a shop because seriously it's so hard, it's hard to write the book, it's also hard to sell the book as well.
There are a lot of courses out there, some are better than others. I've done a number of them, some are really good and the one that's been the best one is the one where I met Melinda, which has been great. Not only was the course amazing and you could do it at your own speed I should say, is that there's an online community so you can chat to other people and I've also met other romance writers, so also self-published that we can work together. So really what I always recommend to people who want to be self-published is that you need to work with someone. If you work on your own you won't do as well as if working with someone else.
Melinda: I've got to tell you Joanne your cheating here. I actually did a lot of research today and I read Joanne is a contributor to an online magazine called 'Savvy Authors' www.savvyauthors.com. A lot of what Joanne has just told us has just thrown my notes into the bin because all of the things that she just told us are the things that I was going to draw out of her tonight. So Joanne already is being very, very generous with us. Don't write alone, get support, prioritise your education. As Joanne said the course we're doing together is Nick Stephenson's First 10,000 -- or 'Your First 10,000 Readers.' The reason I brought Joanne on tonight is because she's having success with her marketing. Now a lot of us have novels finished some of us have novels up on Amazon, but not all of us are seeing that monetary success for our very hard work. I'd like to take you back to the beginning of your marketing journey and tell us some of the things that you've tried and what worked and what didn't.
Joanne Dannon: A lot of it was I became a self-published author and I had no idea what I doing to be honest. I belonged to Romance Writers of Australia as I mentioned before and most writeres are traditionally published, so that means with a publisher and the publisher does all of that marketing for them. Then you have those who are hybrid. So they're basically traditionally published and they may do one or two books on the side, self-publish but they have a name for themselves as well. That makes it easier to sell their books.
Then you get people like me who come along and have no support and don't even know what they're doing and have been told oh it's so easy, money's going to fall from the sky once you go and you put a book on Amazon, which couldn't be further from the truth. So I tried some paid advertising, which did quite well, not hugely well, but it did quite well. But the thing is it's expensive. You can run an ad with these companies and you pay $70 USD and you'll get some sales. But I found that sales didn't cover the cost of paying for the $70. So it's a way of getting you readership.
I was sort of doing this things and these companies promise you, then you find them on Fiverr and they promise you oh we'll do this and I can sell this and they promise you the world and I didn't see one sale from it. So I went through this whole, it was just really exhausting and I got to the point where I thought you know what I don't know if this is what I'm going to be able to do, maybe I do need a publisher because I can't sell my books. Anyway, then I found this promotion, I don't know how I found them. Anyway, I found this one called Loved Kissed and they've been amazing and the writers, we all work together and the other thing is that once you start working together then you hear about others that are working well.
For example with one of my friends that I met from the U.S., she was doing really well on another, with another organization, I guess it's an organization company doing marketing and promotions. So she invited me to hers, I invited her into mine, we're working together. We're doing boxed sets together. So by working with other writers in the genre you can do better that way then just paying for a marketing. So there's heaps of these companies out there. They take your money, but most of the time they don't really deliver.
Melinda: We've written our novels, we're looking at how to promote them, we're creating our networks, but really we're here for the long haul. Joanne is very young, compared to me, I'm 55 and I can give Joanne quite a few years. But, I should imagine Joanne that you'll be writing for many years to come.
Joanne Dannon: I hope so!
Melinda: I don't think it's the immediate sales that you're trying to build here, I think it's that you're trying to build a career.
Joanne Dannon: Correct, definitely trying to build a career. So at the moment I have three books, I have four more coming out. What I'm trying to do is build my subscriber list. So what that is when I send an email out I send it out to people who are interested in my writing and want to buy my books. It's sending out through paid advertising, where again you can pay 70, 100 U.S. dollars. You don't know if you're targeting the people who really want to read your books.
That's where Nick's course comes along and really does a great job. Nick, the reason why he is so good is because he's a writer. He started off like us not making any sales. He worked out a really good way of making sales and obviously now he sells that information to other writers but then he has a community so you can all work together.
As I've said so many times that if you don't work together you can't do well. You have to work together. The thing is I always said you had to work in your own genre, romance. However, I've actually just joined up with another group of non-romance writers and we've been working together and that's actually going really well.
For example I love thrillers, I like James Patterson, I like John Grisham, all of these big names I enjoy their books as well as romance. So there are also other readers out there who may like these thrillers, but may like a romance. So we're actually all working together. So I have to clarify that sometimes working with someone in a different genre, yeah for a different genre can still work as well as working in the same genre as yourself.
Melinda: I think all of us are starting to get the idea now that Joanne may have more energy than some of us, but she's not sitting flat-footed. She's out there, she's pushing, she's promoting, she's networking.
I'm a recent convert to social media. I fought against it for so very, very long. Now I have more best friends in the world that I could ever count, but I'm starting to make some genuine relationships and Joanne you, I'm hoping are one of those genuine friends that I'm connecting with. I'm guessing that a lot of your success is through your social network.
Joanne Dannon: Definitely. So obviously Facebook is really important. I went to, again going to courses learning from learning from experts is really good. My local council had this amazing speaker who spoke about social media. One of the things that she said is that you can do everything but not all of us have time to do it, so she said focus on two.
I chose Facebook and I chose Instagram. Firstly I love taking photos and Facebook is fun. So not only do I have my personal page, which is separate, that's for family and friends and pictures of my kids. I'm not going to put that on my Joanne Dannon page because my Joanne Dannon talks about my writing. It talks about what I love, which is vintage stuff, cooking, dresses, my books. I don't talk about my kids because that's my personal stuff, so that's pushed aside and I get surprised at how many people on their public persona will talk about politics and things because really that's not what people want to know about you, they want to know about your books in my opinion, maybe I'm wrong.
I think developing your social network is really important and people want to be, sorry to interrupt you, but they want to get to know you, they want to know what you're like. Do you like cats, do you like knitting, do you like coloring in? What do you like? Because they want to get to know you as a person, once that and they get to know your books as well.
Melinda: We were talking earlier about success and what it takes to be successful. Again we're hearing it in Joanne's voice, I'm just blown away by your enthusiasm. You were talking about some fellow writers who have written 15, 16, 20 books over several years and they're still writing. It reminds me of a quote that said "You will only fail if you stop."
Joanne Dannon: I agree. The thing is you've got to keep the momentum. Being a writer is actually really hard. I know people think it's just so easy, we're just sitting...