EPISODE 241I

Today's guest is Ricardo Fayet, one of the founders of Reedsy, a one-stop shop for writers. At Reedsy, authors can find editors, book cover designers, marketers and more to help with the business of publishing a great book. Writers can also use the Reedsy Book Editor, and learn a ton from the blog, Reedsy Live (live webinars), and Reedsy Learning -- all for free.

We talk about these things as well as Ricardo's first book, How to Market a Book: Overperforming in a Crowded Market. It just came out in January 2021, and is free as an ebook, and also available in print. Ricardo gives us so much valuable information in this episode, you'll need to take time to write it all down!

Be sure to sign up for Reedsy's email newsletter on their home page so you don't miss anything! You can also follow them on Twitter at https://twitter.com/ReedsyHQ, on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/wearereedsy, on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/reedsy_hq/, and on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpo0MkTAyEl73PmIVs8CQvQ.

TRANSCRIPTION

[00:00:07.740] - Kitty

Welcome to Write Now Workshop Podcast, where you can write a book and change the world, I'm your host, Kitty Bucholtz. And this is Episode 241 -Reedsy and your publishing needs an interview with Ricardo Fayette coming to you on Thursday, March 25th, 2021. So yesterday was my birthday. Oh, I love birthdays they are one of my favorite things in the whole world, but I can't tell you what I've done because of course, I have to record this before the day that you hear it.So it's a surprise to me as well. But I will tell you that I took the day off. My husband took the day off because what else is he going to do with his vacation time? We can't go anywhere. And and I'm not sure what we did because we probably would have watched some Marvel movies or something like that, except for that we gave to gave up TV for Lent Monday through Saturday. So, yeah, if it's not raining then probably, hopefully we took a walk. Otherwise I literally have no idea what we will have done, but I'm going to assume I had a really good time. So hopefully you are doing something interesting fun. The weather is medium for you. You're not buried in ice or burning up in the heat depending on which hemisphere you're in. And hopefully the weather is good enough that you can at least get some fresh air outside depending on where you are.My thoughts and prayers are with you because it has been a tough year, hasn't it? But I am completely convinced that we can be in control of our mindset to a much greater degree than we often do. So let me encourage you to when you have a negative thought to take a captive, ask yourself, is this really the thought that I want to have running through my head right now? If not, no, then I'm going to replace it with something else. It's helpful to have a something else positive in mind beforehand so that you can be like, nope, that's not true, but this is true. For instance, I'll be thinking things like, I am so tired of working all the time and I never go anywhere and this is just not fun anymore. And then I'm like, wait, no, no, my job is fun. I do like it. It will be great when I can go out and see more humans, when I can actually hug people. My husband will be glad when I don't ask him for 14 hugs a day. So I just have to tell myself that's not true, actually. I mean, sometimes, you know, you're in that place where you're just like, but I love my job. I love writing. There are things that you're like, no, this is a good part about life.

[00:02:55.980] - Kitty

And you just have to know that I'm going to replace it and replace the negative thoughts when they come up. So remember that. And these are the sorts of things that I talk about on the monthly encouraging words episodes. So be sure that you're listening to those on the first Sunday of each month so that you can get a little extra pep talk in your life. I have to say, this episode is totally awesome. I really think that you could stop and start it and write down a ton of very helpful information that even if you've never self published your book before, you can get a great deal of direction as to what to do next.

[00:03:32.310] - Kitty

This isn't the only thing that you can do and it's not the only way to go. But there is so much information here, you will definitely feel like, you know, in general what the path should be. So Ricardo is going to be talking to us about his pretty new book that recently came out, actually came out last month in February, and the fact that it is a free e-book download and chock full of more information than you can possibly digest in one reading it. Definitely. It's something that I've just been hitting bookmarks on, things where I need to come back to this. I want to come back to that. And he also explains a lot about the Reedsy marketplace, which is basically like going into a big city square where there's a whole bunch of booths and you're like, oh, I want OK, this is me at the International Food Fair and Malmö. Oh, I definitely want the British fudge. So I'm going to that one.And I remember that there is some sort of jerk chicken like Caribbean jerk or chicken. I know I'm going to go over there and then mostly I'm going to wander around and see what else there is to see. So in a similar way, you can say, I know for sure I need to cover designer. I'd like to look and see what kinds of things editors are doing and how much that cost so I can decide, do I want to make a change to the way that I'm editing my books so far? Or maybe haven't had any editing done on your books, in which case do you like? OK, editor first, then cover designer. There's all sorts of different things that are available to you there. And these are not people who work for Reedsy. But again, it's like the big city square where people bring in their booth and they're like, this is what I have available to you. So lots of great information that you can get on Reedsy.com, a lot of great free information as well. And yeah, also, I was thinking when Ricardo and I were talking that this may still sound overwhelming to some people or you might just think, OK, but I, I don't want to do it by myself without any kind of oversight. Like, what if I do something wrong or I just don't feel like I have time to make a lot of mistakes right now. So I wanted to let you know or remind you, depending on how often you've been listening to the podcast, that this is one of the things that I do.

[00:05:45.910] - Kitty

I do one on one coaching for people in the Self-Publish Your Book Checklist program, where over the course of three months we meet every week and on a recorded Zoom call and we go through this is the thing that has to be done this week. This has to be done next week, then a week after that, that sort of thing. And we get you all the way through the entire process. I've done this for several clients already and we've had some great celebrations, when we get to hit the publish your book button and see it finally go up on Amazon and other different marketplaces. And it's great because the Zoom calls are recorded,so you can feel free to hire me for every book, but you can just take the recordings and go back through and go, OK, that's right. First we did this then this, then this. These are the things that I'm going to do next for the next book and the book after that and that sort of thing.

[00:06:35.380] - Kitty

So if you're interested in more information and also you can get my self published your book Checklist, that's a download that you can fill out on your computer, which is awesome. So you don't have to print it out and lose the piece of paper on your desk. As you can see, if you're watching on YouTube. I have a lot of paper on my desk, a lot of paper books. So this is nice. You can actually fill it out on your computer.

[00:06:58.000] - Kitty

You can get these things and more information at Writenowworkshop.com/ writing coach. Also, there are transcripts for all the episodes and there's a lot of great information in there. All the transcripts are available at Podcast.writenowworkshop.com. And then you can either go to forward slash episodes and find the episode that you're looking for or just wander through. And remember, this is episode 241. And then lastly, just a reminder that we are doing seasons now starting in January of this year.

[00:07:31.660] - Kitty

So that means out of every three months we'll be doing 10 episodes with three weeks off. So this is the second to last episode of the season. Next week will be Irene Hannon as our guest and then they'll be three weeks off and then the next season will start. So just a reminder, in case you're here for the first time and wondering how does this all work? Also, feel free, if you'd prefer to watch on YouTube, you can just go over to YouTube and /Kitty Bucholtz. That's what the channel is or just type in the search bar Write Now Workshop Podcast. And you can watch it while you're doing other things. That's sometimes fun for me, but I have to say, if I'm ever watching the YouTube version of Mark Dawson's Self Publishing Formula podcast on one screen, while I'm trying to work on the other, I spend all the time going, oh, oh, wait, no, I want to wait. I'm supposed to be working and listening to it, but it's part of the reason why I listen to a lot of my podcasts instead of watch them. But it is super fun. So remember that you can do it either way. Whatever works for you. In the meantime, get out your notebook and pen or your phone app or whatever it is, or just remember to come back to this. There's a great deal of information here, not in an overwhelming way. I think we've done a pretty good job at keeping it organized, including writing the first nonfiction book, if that's something that you are in the middle of or interested in doing. Ricardo also talks about the process of actually writing the book, which is always fun for us writers to hear. So without further ado, here is Ricardo.

[00:09:09.280] - Kitty

Today's guest is Ricardo Fiete. Ricardo is one of the four founders of Reedsy, a marketplace connecting authors to the world's top publishing talent, from editors to cover designers, book marketers or literary translators. He's the author of several ReedsY e-learning courses on marketing and a regular presenter at several prestigious writers conferences, Nynke, RWA Australia and the Self Publishing Show Live, among others.He has also recently published his first book titled How to Market a Book over Perform in a Crowded Market. He oversees the marketing for all Reedsy products, Marketplace, Book Editor, Learning Discovery and is a big SEO and Facebook advertising enthusiast. Welcome, Ricardo.

[00:09:53.560] - Ricardo

Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

[00:09:55.630] - Kitty

Oh, this is great. You and I actually met last year at the Self Publishing Live show Self-Publish Show Life, right?Yeah, yeah. Sometimes I'm like, yeah, you know, SPF, I just want to call it SPF,

[00:10:11.600] - Ricardo

Yeah, it's easier.It's easier SPF, SPF life. Yeah, yeah.

[00:10:16.400] - Kitty

So that was totally great. I mean, the speakers were amazing. And I noticed in your book you actually mention some of the things that different speakers said at the presentation. I mean, these are people who are making more than a good living self publishing and learning to market.

[00:10:34.130] - Ricardo

Yeah, absolutely. It wasn't by far my first event.But but I still learn new things that every new event, you know, and the greatest thing is a lot of events are in the US, but this one was in the U.K. So closer to home for me. And also it brings different people. There were some very, very successful UK authors in there who had great things to say and perhaps a different perspective from from the usual US one. So it was really interesting to to learn from them and obviously to get to network with all these people afterwards.

[00:11:09.020] - Kitty

Yeah, yeah. That was really fun. I now have two new friends in London and a new friend in Austria from that walk in the rain, from the event to the pub where we had dinner afterwards. And we get together probably once a month for sure on Zoom or Facebook or whatever. And then we, you know, talk to each other on chat, probably three or four or five times a week. So it's fun, the friends that you can make at these events.

[00:11:36.600] - Ricardo

No, absolutely. I think it's a great way to to network, make friends, know other authors in your genre.Favorite part of my job is usually conferences. Right now, it's not it's not doing so well.But hopefully you will be able to go to conferences soon enough.

[00:11:55.760] - Kitty

Yeah, yeah. You and I had talked about you coming to Sweden because you're only in Spain. So it's just a couple hours flight for the conference that the day after I got home, I was supposed to sign with the hotel that this would be the date and I'm renting out these rooms and then it was locked down. So we will do that conference later.

[00:12:17.030] - Ricardo

Yeah, it's good. It's good. You didn't sign.

[00:12:19.330] - Kitty

Yeah. Yeah. So there's a limit to how much of that you can get to know a new friend when you're having dinner because people are eating and there's lots of people talking and also the audience may not know you very well. So why don't you give us just kind of a little background like how did you get into publishing? What's your background? And. Yeah, how did you get to publishing?

[00:12:41.780] - Ricardo

Sure, I always like to say that I don't have much of a background because I started Reedsy right after right after university. So my my one and only background is in publishing since I started Reedsy.It's been six years now. So it's enough to call it a background, I guess. But yeah, I went into publishing because we had this idea for Reedsy and it was an exciting industry in that we were heavy readers. My co-founder, my co-founders and I were heavy readers. We'd been impacted by kind of the digital change in publishing as readers, we were reading very much. I was reading on my phone, almost always been reading on my phone since the Kindle came on on the smartphone. My cofounder Emmanuel was one of the first people in France to read on Kindle. He imported his first Kindle from across the pond. And so, yeah, the question we're thinking about, what does this change for authors? We learned about self publishing. And then the question was, you know, if if people are self publishing, who does all the things the traditional publishing company is going to do, the editing, production, design, typesetting, etc. And and we came up with this idea for a marketplace. And it's all been going very, very nicely since. So I can now see that I have a background in publishing, but before that I didn't have much of anything.

[00:14:05.720] - Kitty

Well, I have to say, you're probably the first person who's bio I've read that says Facebook advertising enthusiasts, those words you don't often see together. So marketing must be something that you just genuinely enjoy or you wouldn't be doing so much of it now.

[00:14:24.020] - Ricardo

Absolutely. I started as CMO Reedsy, so, yeah, we decided to split tasks and for me to do the marketing and I mostly enjoyed it.I don't enjoy all aspects of marketing, but as I mentioned, like conferences, I really enjoy going to conferences. I do most of our podcast interviews and Facebook advertising, and I particularly enjoy because it's very it's very analytical and and I enjoy that sort of things unless unless I could probably add writing or writing consistently.But when it comes to looking at Facebook ads, analyzing, doing some SEO that's really fun for me.

[00:15:09.670] - Kitty

Yeah, well, and you guys figured it out pretty quickly that that is not necessarily something a lot of authors would consider fun or easy for them. So you really found your niche?

[00:15:21.350] - Ricardo

No, absolutely. That's a big it's a big market right now. And it's growing system for authors on the marketing end of things. We definitely don't have enough marketers on Reedsy to service all the authors that that come knocking for them.But it's hard to find good marketers who are ready to work one on one with authors with reasonable rates. It's really tough. Yeah, we have some in the marketplace, but it's definitely a growing market and we're still trying to figure out exactly how to how that's going to look like in the future. You know, as every author is going to have a marketing expert or someone to run their odds, or is it something that also the author should really do themselves? Because paying with paying for someone to manage the ads on top of the cost of the ads is not profitable long term.

[00:16:03.970] - Kitty

Right.

[00:16:04.790] - Ricardo

So, yeah, still trying to figure that one out, but there's definitely already quite a bit of help available in our marketplace.

[00:16:11.480] - Kitty

That's awesome.OK, we're going to talk about that. But first, let's talk about, you have written your first ever book. You know, you're a marketer and you said not necessarily as good or as consistent at writing, but as of the time this interview goes out, your first book will have been out for about six or eight weeks. It's it's out right now. And you and I are talking and I've been able to read it, and I really like it. It is chock full of information.

[00:16:38.660] - Ricardo

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, it took me a while to write it and that's not something I necessarily enjoyed all the time. So it is the first one in a series. But the next few ones will be coming in the far future I think. Yeah, but yeah, I know it was definitely it was definitely important for us to release the book, at some point. I was getting tired of going to conferences and people asking me, so what do you write? Because that's the number one question you asked, you know, at a conference.And I yeah. I mean, I had a relatively good answer in that no, I don't write. I'm one of the founders of Reedsy. oh I really like Reedsy,thank you, etc.. But now I can say, yeah, I'm one of the founders of Reedsy and I've written a book, nonfiction book. So it's it's a better answer now. That was the main motivation for writing the book.

[00:17:23.480] - Kitty

Excellent. Well, and also it's something for people to keep in mind. You know, there's all kinds of listeners listening to this show and writing podcast in general. Some people have a main business that they're happy to keep on doing and they're writing additionally. And one of the things that works well and this is what you've done is you've written a book that will help people to find your business. And it's helpful in and of itself, but it also gives them a direction that kind of can funnel them into your business if they're your right customer, right?

[00:17:56.450] 

Yeah, absolutely.One of our philosophies...