The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 58 – 10 Steps to Find a Writing Partner

Have you ever thought about sharing the writing on a book or short story with a collaboration partner?

Autumn and Jesper discuss not only tips on why authors team up but also layout steps on how to find someone to write with, including how they ended up as writing and business partners (which is quite a story!).

There are definitely some hurdles to navigate when and if you decide to write with someone, including just if a writing partner will fit your style and expectations.

Check out the FREE Ultimate Fantasy Writer's Starter Kit that Autumn mentioned in the episode at http://ultimatefantasywritersguide.com/starter-kit/.

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Read the full transcript below.

(Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion).

Narrator (2s): You're listening to the amwritingfantasy podcast. In today's publishing landscape, you can reach fans all over the world. Query letters are a thing of the past. You don't even need a literary agent. There is nothing standing in the way of making a living from writing join to best selling authors who have self published more than 20 books between them. Now onto the show with your hosts, Autumn Birt and Jesper Schmidt.

Jesper (30s): Hello, I am Jesper and I'm Autumn. This is episode 58 of the amwritingfantasy podcast and we're going to talk about collaboration with other authors today just like a autumn and I write books together and we're probably not going to touch much upon the actual ins and outs of how we write together, but the listener, if you want to know more about that, then just let us know and we can make that a future topic for another episode.

But today we keeping it, we sort of taking a step back and William steps investigate why you might want to consider collaborating with another author, but then also unpack the crucial question of how do you actually find someone to collaborate with. If that's what you want to do. So it's a, it's a pretty packed episode today, so hopefully that explanation sets things up correctly. But uh, yeah, I think that's it. Autumn isn't it?

Autumn (1m 29s): I think so. It's sort of the broad picture of you and if someone wants to know the ins and outs of what it's really like to collaborate closely with another author, especially one who's on the other side of an ocean, uh, we can touch on that one in the future. Yeah, indeed. So how have you been? Oh, you know, my life, it's always a bit of an adventure. I think that's just going to have to be like my slogan. Maybe they'll have it, put it on my toe. Tombstone, I always joke that I wanted am my obituary to say, um, where my tombstone to say to be continued.

I always seem to have something else going, but it looks like I love my apartment that way. I've been staying in since, uh, November, but I think the time here is coming to an end. It's a little expensive and it's in town, it's noisy. And we just got this lead on this little tiny cabin in the woods. So I'm kind of really hopeful that this ends up working for us. And then we'll have a chance to move into this great cabin.

Jesper (2m 31s): Yeah, you're used to not having too much space, so I guess it's not too bad.

Autumn (2m 36s): Yeah, it's am. It's tiny. It's like it's kind of a tiny house, tiny cabin. But I'm so looking forward to not hearing traffic and just as a stream running in front of it and there'll be birds and you can just hear the wind in the leaves and yeah, I'm keeping my fingers crossed. This all works out.

Jesper (2m 54s): Yeah. The, those parts that you mentioned there about not, not hearing traffic and birds and whatnot don't pop sounds quite good to be, but I think this, the size of the place would drive me bonkers. I have to admit, I've never, I've never had hopes of living in a tiny house or a tiny cabin. I even, the one Adam and I had built was, you know, it was like 450 square feet downstairs, 500 square feet. So two floors of that. That's a thousand square feet. That's a lot of room for two people. But this is more on the 100 to 150 square feet sits scale and it'll be, we keep talking, we can always write a book about our experience.

That is true. But on the other hand, of course you don't have to kids like we do it, I'll place you. So that helps a bit. Yeah. It's just a very small packable dog. We should be also been, how was your week? Um, I, I've, I've, I've been good or I'm, I'm starting to feel good again. So it's an injury. Yeah, it's about, about three weeks back. Uh, I was taking the tress out in the morning and the surface was slippery out there and of course I didn't notice, so I actually fail.

And then I landed right on top of my wrist. So am it's like three weeks back and it's only just now that it, it starts to feel normal again. So it, it, I, I guess as we get older it takes longer to heal. It is. And I know, is there anything more tragic to a writer than injuring your wrist, even though you do do dictation. So I guess, but yeah, a lot of typing that you do. I do a lot of typing as well. Yeah. And, and it was really annoying because the same day when I failed, we were going to host, uh, our youngest kid's birthday party at the swimming pool and I, well we, so we had a lot of kids coming in and what, I was not going to swim myself anyway, so, so that didn't matter.

But you know, we were small, like keeping an eye on them or whatnot. But when I fail, of course it did hurt, but it wasn't that bad, you know, it was just like, ow that hurts. And then you sort of keep going. So we went to the swimming pool and it was already hurting in the locker room a bit. But then after a while, wow. After we've been there, so I think probably a couple of hours had passed since I fail. I just couldn't move my, either my hand or my fingers anymore at that point.

So it was just like, yeah, it just hurt like crazy. So that was no good. Well, I'm glad it's getting better. That sounds horrible. And I'm trying to visualize trying not to visualize the idea of wrangling a whole bunch of young children who are old enough to be running around, but not old enough to be really responsible at a swimming party. Yeah. But it works. And you usually people listening to what I say, I know I'm, I'm a referee as well, so I'm used to, I'm used to telling people what I want them to do and usually they listen to the voice of am, you know,

Autumn (5m 58s): you better listen to me or else that could be useful.

Jesper (6m 1s): Yeah, of course. Yeah. I dunno. But also maybe on a different note, I wanted to mention that last night I finished the last episode of the witches.

Autumn (6m 13s): Oh, we just finished washing that too. What did you think the entire season, just this first season one? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I'm curious too. What do you think then? Um, it's funny, I read a review recently and they had only watched the first half and I highly agree with that review of the first half that I was not getting into Gerald's am character at all. I didn't like his deep voice where he was like always in a monitored, in the Husky distant character, especially compared to what I've learned since then about the story in the books.

But uh, Yetta for when she got involved and they finally linked up those two storylines. Oh, it was a blast. It was really fun and I enjoyed it. So I was, I didn't realize we were on the last episode and I went to play another one. I'm like, no. So it was good enough that I was like, wait, I'm not done with it yet. I was ready to continue. So I won't say it's my favorite episode or show ever, but I at least started getting engaged.

What did you think? Compounded.

Jesper (7m 22s): Okay. Now I'd say it's a bit funny because I feel like it was almost like a roller coaster ride in in the sense that the first three episode really did not help me at all. It almost had this kind of feeling of, okay, now we're going to a hundred new monster kind of thing. You know that, and I was a bit afraid, is this just going to be an entire season where each episode is just a new kind of monster that we are hunting because I don't feel like that's not what I want to. I like when there was a story arc that goes across every single episode, but not like each episode is just like a single entity almost like I, I don't, I don't like that.

So I was a bit concerned about that, but then when we got to episode for it became a lot better. And then I started like, okay, this is, this is really good. But then again, towards the end of it, I felt like maybe it was the last two episodes, but they started doing all these time jumps between the past and depressing. Yeah. And because you couldn't see any difference on the characters, whether we were in the past or in the present. It happened quite often that I got confused about where are we now in the story is just a pass or is a depressant.

And it took away some of the enjoyment for me to be on it.

Autumn (8m 32s): Yeah, I agree. When I think I sat up when they finally, when you finally realized that, Oh, all this other, there was this one actually two timelines, whether they're all past being put against this third character who is, I guess it's present or their future. And suddenly you realize that and you're like, Whoa, wait, you, they could have done a lot more, they could have something

Jesper (8m 56s): filmed it differently, different color, different lighting, I don't know, but just something. Yeah, just just make it clear that now we're on a different timeline. Right. There was something there and I think the books are a little bit different that they're based on am and then there's a huge role playing game that is spun off of it. And so I don't know if any of that carries through, but I am that was, I did get a little bit annoyed at that. I'm like, that was kind of, yeah. Not the best plotting that, not the best way of demonstrating that there's a different timeline going on.

Yeah. Yeah, indeed. And I, I think I would say I definitely recommend people giving it a try. And I don't know. I hope I'm not going to get an angry mob after me now, but I, but I, I picked up that the, uh, the Witcher was the most watched show on Netflix in all of 2019. And keep in mind, it was only released right before the end of the year. So it's been watched so much that you won't believe it. And, uh, I don't know, in my view, that speaks more about the, which your brand than it does about the quality of this TV show, to be honest.

So I hope not. So nobody's going to keep yourself. We're saying that, but, but that's, that's how I feel weak on the internet with the amwritingfantasy podcast. So there was a post on the amwritingfantasy Facebook group that really caught my attention. Yeah. I'm, I'm not going to share the name of the person posting it here because I haven't asked the person if they were okay with that. So I'm not gonna do that. But, uh, but I think that the post touched upon a concern that I believe that many Sharon, it, uh, that's why I wanted to bring it up here as well.

So it goes like this, the post that quote, is anyone disheartened by the over-saturation of the market? I find I get a little depressed when I see all those authors dropping book after book series after series and doing well too. No hate on their business. It's just makes me feel like when I finally finished one of my little projects, it's not going to have a chance in hell. So I shortened that post a bit, to be honest.

There was a bit more, but uh, but uh, I don't know. What are your thoughts about that? Autumn I think that's, that's something a lot of people feel probably or think, Oh, I think so. I can't imagine being a new author right now cause I'm uh, you know as a, I've been doing this since 2012 and so I've gotten a sh don't tell anyone. I actually just released a book 16, which was one with my husband that, and he and I had been working on for a year and a half. We finally just kind of snuck that one out the tour. But I make this as excited as I am about that.

It is a challenge to, to publish. When I first started, you know, there was, I don't think there's even 2 million eBooks on Amazon and I don't even know. You

Autumn (11m 54s): can't, it's hard to find out how many books are there now. And it's, it's just, it's beyond competitive. I keep saying eventually something will have to be done that Amazon's going to not be able to keep. I mean, can you imagine the servers to store all these books if nothing's ever pulled off? I don't know what's going to happen in the future and it's so tough and tight out there. So yeah, I feel, I feel that is a longstanding author is one with lots of books and with one that's still hard to be visible.

Jesper (12m 27s): Yeah. There was a, another person who posted a response, which I think sort of hit the nail on the head. It, it was a quote from Craig Martel am and Craig Martel said, eh, it's a rising tide lift. A rising tide lifts all boats. Readers read a book far faster than we can write them. If those books are successful than your books can be successful. So long as you have equal quality of cover blurb, story and marketing, you can't expect to compete unless you make the same effort as the successful authors.

It's a real job. That's what Craig, Marcelo said. Yeah, I think it is true. You know that there are far more far more readers out there, then we can write books for our sales. So, so that is certainly true. But on the other hand, it is also true what you just said in the days where you could just upload a book on Amazon and is expected to sell that. That's, that's, that's gone. It's not gonna happen. So I perfectly understand the concern raised by that initial question there. Um, but yeah, I don't know.

I do think it's, it is a matter of putting out professional work. Absolutely. And also you need to view your author Korea as a longterm plate. Yeah, yeah. I fully get the fact that one you, once you put out that what you're one, one little project as it was mentioned, that that's not going to move the needle much for you at all. Um, and yeah, as autumn just said, putting up 16 books that didn't happen in six months, Ida. Right. It takes years, lot of years and sometimes a lot of help.

You and I write together, I read my husband, Hey this, this sounds like a little bit about this episode maybe, but yes. Oh yeah, that's true. But just, no, and it's just building the audience. It takes time. Um, and it takes years and, and if, if you look at it long term, then I think maybe you will get less disheartened because if you look at it like, okay, I'm going to release this book and I wanted to compete and I want to earn, let's just say a lot of money for lack of better term of, of, of mentioning it, but I want to and a lot of money, uh, and I'm going read this one book and I'm going to compete against all these authors who have like six different series with three books into the meats and whatnot.

Then of course you're going to get this heart and, and, and, but I, I think it's important not to think about it like that, but more look at like, this is a longterm thing. And at some point I will also have six series with three books in them. Um, but while I'm working to get there, I'll make sure to put up professional work with professional covers. Uh, the best blurbs they can be. And I'll learn how to market the books and then I'll sort of do it one brick at a time. I think that's, that's how you need to look at it.

And we are going to talk a lot more about that in the self publishing success course that we have on our to do list for 2020.

Autumn (15m 23s): And I'm going to jump in with, cause you just did a fantastic segue into a comment I just received. It might've been late in December, but it was sort of about professional writing and uh, someone who from the amwritingfantasy fantasy Facebook group actually texted me, emailed me through Facebook messenger that said I wanted to thank you for the ultimatefantasywritersguide starter kit I've looked up hundreds of people who help new writers, but yours by far is the best. I'm going to have my daughter watch them. Thank you for an honest explanation on how to get started.

And so obviously they've just met snuck much because I love knowing that, you know, we've helped, this is going to give it to his daughter, but Hey, you know, you just mentioned, you know, write quality books and we actually have a starter kit that is 100% free. So edit it helps you get started on the right footing. So if anyone is out there, we can get you a link and you can go work on the starter kit and hopefully get you going on that first brick in your, your wonderful castle you're building.

Jesper (16m 30s): Yeah. Maybe you can make a note autumn to uh, to put the link in the show notes so people can just click through there. Um, and maybe, maybe I should mention as well that the self public success costs that we're going to put out, that's going to be free to, we're just too nice and we inserted, I think that's the right word. It's probably true too. But if you, if you don't want to miss that one, then I recommend going to a amwritingfantasy.com or use that link in the am in the show notes that uh, hopefully autumn we'll put in there because then you'll get onto our email list and then you will not miss it when we release this free course as well later this year.

And uh, that way also in the meantime we'll send you some writing and marketing tips on the emails. So that's nice and easy and uh, yeah, just uh, get on that list. There collaborations. So autumn I have a lot of notes on collaboration.

Autumn (17m 34s): That's fantastic. You are the note taker. I am the a pantser and so that's sort of why we're good at collaborating I think cause we put up, we accent each other, but let's, we'll start with yours and I will add in and continue to grow on your ideas.

Jesper (17m 53s): All right. Yeah. So I was actually thinking that maybe we could sort of take, take the conversation in three different steps. So step number one could be just to talk a bit about why you would even want to collaborate with somebody else. I think that's a, that's probably a good starting point is, um, and I have a few notes here and then of course you can add to it, uh, as well. Uh, but my first point about collaborating was basically, well, you're splitting your workload and you're also splitting the cost involved in publishing.

Obviously the downside is that you also have to split the rent years, but, but, but, but at least it eases off the workload. And especially like we, we know that a lot of authors are working day jobs as well. Um, so that, that's very common. Um, and in that case it is nice to have somebody else to share the workload with. Um, especially, and maybe, you know, if you're not as crazy as we are where we are both writing fiction books and doing nonfiction Ray to stuff like this podcast for the authors, then you can write books twice as fast.

In our case, we can't because we also have all this other stuff to do, but at least that's how it works. Yeah. Um, and also rather than actually writing together, when we were talking collaboration, we should also mention that it could also be that you just want an accountability partner or like a critique partner. Um, and we're not talking about using ghost writers yet, but, but more somebody like you work very closely with one person.

You might eat SPI writing your own books, but, but you just am hold each other accountable or help each other writing better books or whatever it may be that that is of course another option I did. I don't know, that's a bit of a, a side note, but I wanted to mention it anyway.

Autumn (19m 47s): Makes sense. I think unless you have more to add. But I think one of my big things for collaboration is one writing does tend to be very lonely, very isolating. It's something you spend a lot of time in your head. And by having someone to share that with, one gets you like, Oh there's more to life than you know, sitting there and thinking about stuff. But it gets you through the writer's blocks better. I think the inspiration and sometimes the ideas generated by talking to someone else, it gets your excitement going, your enthusiasm going you, you go over the levels, the little hurdles and stuff in your own writing career, um, cause someone's encouraging you or you're just getting both so excited about doing stuff that you know, someone else is there to make sure that you don't fall flat on your face.

So that's one of my things that, you know, collaboration, especially if you have a lot of self writer doubts, it's fantastic to join with someone else who can kind of talk you off the ledge and make sure you keep going and don't doubt yourself a corner where you're not writing as well as maybe like inspire. Like I said, sometimes bouncing ideas off of someone else, even if you end up in a completely different direction, they might've given you at least the idea of a completely different direction and your ideas can really grow and blossom.

Jesper (21m 5s): Yeah, I agree. And I, and I think also at least what we've seen is that am you are our ideas or be it world building our plot ideas or whatever it may be. It, I feel like it becomes better because compared to what I could just do on my own, because you have somebody to bounce ideas off and especially if you, if you compliment each other's weak spots, then it just becomes a lot better. Um, and I think that that is

Autumn (21m 36s): real big wind that you're going to get from, from collaboration. As you know, especially authors who use beta readers, this is sort of what they're using them for. For looking for those plot holes. This is doing it even sooner and in a different way. And the result, especially except you're working with like another professional, someone else who really knows the jargon, knows the plots, knows how to really build a story. Uh, what you end up with is it's not one plus one equals two. It's more like one plus one is equaling three to five. You getting a better game.

Jesper (22m 8s): Hmm. Yeah. And it's actually more common than, than, than you might think that too. Collaboration between authors. So I just looked up before recording just to give you some, some more, let's say famous famous examples. Uh, so I had a few I could mention here. So Neil Gaiman and Terry practice row together. Um, so did Steven King and Peter Straub. And in fantasy we have Anne McCaffrey wrote with the Mercedes Lackey and Marion Zimmer, Bradley and then the where we will known, uh, James Patterson, probably one of the world's best known authors.

He also collaborates, uh, he does all the plotting himself and then he delivers a very detailed outline at the maybe 60 to 80 pages as far as I could gather from the, uh, the research I did on the internet. But it looks like an outline of 60 to 80 pages is what he delivers to the people who, who write with him. And then he has a very intense back and forth conversations with the authors, uh, for writing the book. So if you look up James Patterson on, um, uh, on, on Amazon, you'll also see that a lot of his books says James Patterson on it.

And then it says with, and then there was another author named that's because he collaborates and has other people, um, writing his books as well. So it's not just some crazy stuff that we're talking about. A lot of the famous people do this as well. So before we get into how do we actually find someone to collaborate with, I was that maybe you could just share a bit about, uh, how, how does it feel to collaborate with somebody else, you know, uh, uh, either than what we just talked about, why you will want to do it.

But what are the upsides and downsides? Maybe we could, we have a few, few other things we could add here and what, what it's more like what should people be mindful about, I guess.

Autumn (24m 10s): Well that makes sense. Yeah, that's very true. So I, yeah, I guess you have to be well to play well with others. I mean am I think everyone has that experience. Maybe in high school where you had to collaborate with somebody on a am term paper or something or project partners on, maybe it didn't go well. So I think there's that interfere that you're gonna end up collaborating and it's going to be a huge issue. And um, I don't know.

I found, I guess if you find the right person, it's, that's not necessary at all. I always have introduced to you, yes. Part of people when I talk about, um, what we do together, that it's like, you know, ending up with am the perfect, uh, term partner pilot project partner because you always like do a 120%. So it's very, very useful. It's fantastic when someone's always making you feel like you're not doing enough and you were usually the person who was doing it all.

So those are the good things to the benefits that you can, you know, you're not going it alone, that you're going to actually be able to share a workload and share inspiration and yeah, it leads to maybe sharing the profits, but hopefully it's going to be a better situation than when you're struggling and doing it alone because, Hey, even if the book doesn't sell, you can talk to each other and maybe share the tasks of getting it to sell better. So it's not, it's a much friendlier and welcoming kind of feeling instead of always feeling like crap, now what do I do?

Yeah,

Jesper (25m 44s): yeah. I would also, I feel it intensely gratifying to, to, to work with us. We're a lot autumn because it's, it's, it's just a lot different than when you're doing all everything or all by yourself. You know you have also just the fact that, I mean if we go to the real bedrock of it, you know, you know you have somebody who understand the ins and outs of, of life as a writer, right. And and you have somebody who she has your calls and you can, you can work together to achieve them and that that's, I don't know, it's just, it's different than doing everything by yourself.

And of course you can go on to am what, what may be Facebook groups or whatever to build a network with other authors and that's all great. But, but it's still different compared to having somebody who she asked your specific goal and you're both working towards achieving those that that's, that's very different than, than talking to a more general author community, so to speak. No, that makes sense. That's very true. Yeah. I think the only downside I can think of it, it just plays off a bit of what you said as well, that you have to collaborate well with others.

But it's more like, to me there was a, there's a big thing to consider in terms of if, if you have trouble compromising and taking other people's input to hot and maybe, except that what you find is an excellent idea. Somebody else might think, uh, that all your collaboration partner might think that, that that's not quite what I like and if some people are prefers to have a day away, let's put it like that.

And, uh, if you're one of the persons who prefer to have it your way, then it just becomes really difficult to collaborate with somebody else because you have to reach some compromises. That's, that's just, uh, the name of, of the collaboration game man, because we could, uh, we could call it that. So, um, let's move on to the next section here. And, uh, that was more about how do you find somebody to collaborate with and yeah, that I sort of have a whole list of things here in terms of, uh, how to find somebody.

I actually, I, I put it into 10 steps, so I thought that was the easiest way to do it.

Autumn (28m 10s): Okay. Well, I like 10 steps. Seems very fair to let's go ahead and see. I'll see what I can add to your steps.

Jesper (28m 20s): Yeah. But I was almost thinking be before I get into this, uh, into these 10 steps, because these 10 steps are sort of very, I don't, I don't think mechanical is the right way to put it, but it is very much like, okay, I want to find somebody to collaborate with, give me a checklist and then I start, I start building to watch that. Right? That's sort of the, that's how the 10 steps are built. So, but why I want to start at different places because there is a lot of ways organically to find somebody to collaborate with like am very true.

And maybe maybe you could share a bit autumn about how you and I started to collaborating because that was certainly not intentional and, and I just want to, I just want the listeners to understand first that, uh, before I go into these very mechanical steps that there are other ways than what I'm talking about here in a second.

Autumn (29m 14s): Yeah. You can be the crazy pantser. That's me. Um, but it's true. I think, well, I think the first thing is understanding the feeling that no matter what you do, if you're going to collaborate with someone, unless there's someone you've known for a very long time, it's always going to feel like a risk and almost like asking somebody out in the date. So that's okay. Just embraced that. But, uh, for us, I mean I have, I had known for a little while on Twitter and we had collaborated am on your fantasy map.

I book I believe, cause I'd done some world building. And so we kind of started talking about world building, but it was peripheral and I was also on your email list. So we emailed a bit once in a while. Yes, that's right. So we kind of knew what each other was doing. Um, and I had just released the ultimatefantasywritersguide as a course and I had the amwritingfantasy platform and it was starting to grow and I was honestly hiking and on this 10 mile hike, um, I was thinking, I need help.

I felt like this was growing and I couldn't do as much as I needed to. I couldn't be everywhere. And I was thinking about people I knew who seemed to have their stuff together. And I knew you had a YouTube channel and you were, you had books and you were promoting things. And I'm like, yeah, I'm going to reach out to you and see, um, if you wanted to help out on, basically it was just the website. It was with my idea was like, Hey, you want to co-run this website with me?

And so out of the blue I sent you an email and know what you're going to get. You kind of said, ah, can you clarify this a bit? I have some ideas. And I'm like, Oh, send me your ideas and you sent me like a business plan. They're like, well crap, that is, so here we are two years later running a podcast. Yeah, yeah. I think it's uh, yeah, I was just about to say three years, but actually I lost count.

I think that, yeah, it does it better. I think we're into our third year if you want to count those two plus years. Yeah, nevermind. So there is that way of creating collaborative collaboration where you can cold call somebody that you think is, you know, doing a good job and say, Hey, you want to try this out and see how it goes. And that's what we did. We started small, we started with little things and we've each year, each month and at this rate it seems like it's a tweet. Can we keep building on what we're doing?

Yes. Yeah. Now we, we sort of have a fully fledged company running here almost again. Yeah, it's really exciting. It's, it's 2020 is going to be groundbreaking or friendly, maybe finally getting above the ground. So it's really exciting. Yeah.

Jesper (32m 8s): Okay, good. So, so I just wanted to am that story to be out there as well because, so that people can hear that there are lots of ways to do this stuff. But I really tried in preparation of this episode to think hard about how would I go about it if I, let's say you listen to this podcast and I, I, and I am assuming here that your goal is to make a living from writing in my Tim steps. But let's just assume that that's your goal. And from listening to this podcast, you're thinking, actually, I think I would like to try that out, but how do I it?

So I thought I sat down and I really thought about how would I do it if I knew that that was what I wanted, but I didn't have any context to anybody. I didn't know how to get started. So, so that's what I laid out in, in 10 steps here. Okay. And, uh, I think, feel free to interrupt me on along the way he autumn because otherwise it's going to be a long monologue. I'll keep you paced. Alright, so step number one, uh, first step is, of course, you need to start building a list of, uh, author names that writes in the same shop as you.

And that's not too hot. Uh, you know, you can, you can go to Amazon. They, these authors will probably appear in your also bots or you can just find them by going to the category section on Amazon. You know, if you're writing Epic fantasy go to Epic fantasy and start writing down names of authors who are releasing books. Um, that will give you a long list of course. So you need to stop somewhere, try, try to try to uh, build quite a good list there.

Uh, then I would go and I would check if they have a decent social media following and if they are active, actively posting anything on their social media platforms. Uh, so this doesn't mean that you have to go in after any big names at all because often it's actually better to find somebody who's slightly smaller because then both of you will be equally motivated to building a career. Right? So if somebody is too big, then it's not, but try to find somebody who has, this has a decent following.

So did you know that they are actively doing stuff and they are, they active in the market and so that, that gives you a pretty good list of authors. Hopefully you will be able to delete some of the names off the list just based off that. But so you still have a pretty long list here at step number two. So the next thing to check is whether or not these candidates are able to finish any levels. So you want to find someone who's am yeah.

You know, productive. Yes. Because the worst thing is that a lot of people like to want, I want to write books, but they never finished anything. And that's not the partner you want to work with, especially in that, again, as I am assuming that you want to build a career from it. So you want somebody who can finish novels. So I'm not saying that you have to find somebody who have published 20 novels, uh, to be a good candidate. Not at all. But if they at least have a few books to their name, maybe you can find the let's say three at a minimum on, on Amazon to their name, right.

Then you know, okay, they know how to finish a book. Uh, and you also know by then that they have some experience writing, which is also a good thing. Yes, definitely. Um, yeah, and they also, of course, having published books, they will also know what's involved in publishing and uh, you're not also not accidentally ending up with a mentor instead of a collaboration partner because that's what you're looking for here. So, um, that I think that's important.

Uh, and then also here in step number two, I would also check if there is a decent number of reviews on those books. So again, I'm not saying that there has to be a ton. Let's just say, did you want these 10 reviews on those books? And the average rating should be fairly good as well. So let's say about for that gives you some starting evidence, at least at this author candidate on your list here. The person knows how to finish book. They know how to, they know how to market themselves at least a bit because they have a social media following, somewhat of a social media following, I should say.

Um, and uh, they, they are able to produce novelty that readers enjoy because of the, uh, uh, about for average on the reviews. Right too. So that's a pretty good starting point, isn't it? That's a good way of, you know, you're looking for someone who's productive, knows what they're doing, um, can get the job done, understands the marketing and is also writing, you know, something quality so that, you know, if kind of, you know, hit your horse, hit your car to a horse, you want to get one that's, you know, got to run the whole race.

Yeah. So next one is number three. So now you have, uh, still still probably a pretty long candidate list. Uh, that shouldn't be hundreds of people on this list, but, but let's say the, you've, let's say you, you're down at like 20 or something just to make up a number. So let's say you have 20 author names on the list now where all the step one and two criteria has been met. So you go to these 20 people's websites and then I would make sure that I find the websites looking professional.

Uh, and that's something that was just slapped together. Very good. Uh, because, um, if this author is looking to build a career, there should be a sign up form on their website indicating that the person is building an email list. So if you either find somebody whose website looks and amateurish or there is no signups to any email list and you delete those names off the list. No, I agree. That's a very good point. So they kind of have that am yeah. Professional level that hopefully if you're trying to do this professionally, you're looking for as well.

Yeah. So whatever you have left on the list, you now join these people's email lists and then you look down, well, yeah, kind of, but, but what you're looking for is one that you want to see if they are actually sending out emails. Uh, so do they have an autoresponder going that sends out emails, soda, so that they actually contacting people who sign up. And also the other part is of course you want to start getting impression of this person who, who are they? What are they writing about?

And you know, just like a general impression. So that's step number four. So number five is then building on, on that. So you need to start corresponding by replying to these emails. And just like we said early on, you and I did this a bit in the beginning as well. I did. Now I'm starting to wonder if, if you had this plan the whole time. I remember you were the one reaching out to me. And I can't even say that even if you hated me, it, it, it just popped in my head.

But I would, uh, I would start replying to the emails now, uh, at this stage, um, because this should allow you to reduce your list of candidates further because there will be some of them where you just feel like you connect better with this person. Then what? Then versus somebody else. Don't reply back, you know, they just ha, or an empty vaults over them. Yeah. So that's a very good indication. So see what kind of messages you can reply. And this is, it's really not meant as you're trying to manipulate them into doing anything.

You're just trying to have genuine conversation with them to get a feel about this person and that sort of understand this person. I sort of have a good chemistry with that, that that's what you're doing. And then you should look to reduce your, your list to like a shortlist. Now let's say you want to get down to five candidates at this point. So cross out all the names where you feel like this doesn't really work for me or eh, yeah. Yes. Autumn said if they're not replying at all.

So at this stage you have five left and uh, you can now just email them and say, uh, you know, Hey, I've replied to a few. Uh, you should not say email them. That's what I'm trying to stay. Just say, Hey, I apply, apply to fewer of your emails, so now let, let's collaborate. But that's not what you're not going to do, right, because that's not gonna work. Um, B, besides also at this stage, you don't even know if you like the story telling style or their writing style. So what I would do now, um, since now you have a more manageable list of only five people on it, step number six would be the that you go and read a novel that they've written.

So you download a one of their novels from Amazon, the first industries probably, uh, or whatever. If it's standalone, that's fine to download that and you am you read the novels and that will probably allow you to remove one or two more names off the list where it just feels like, I, I don't like this way of telling stories or this is not how I like to do. Right. So get rid of those. I would always get me, I'd probably end up with somebody who writes in first person and I just can't do that. So it's a really good indicator.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. So step number seven is then asking, so a lot depends on how much are and also how well your email correspondence has been going already. So, but in general, I wouldn't simply ask if they want to collaborate. That's not gonna work. And uh, I don't know who, who knows? Just because you like one of their books, that doesn't mean that you will be a good match to work together. Right.

So furthermore, I would say that this other author might not even have considered that they should be working with somebody else. So at direct ask, like that will probably either end in a decline or they will, they aren't they, let's say they accept and then you end up with a collaboration partner where you might like their light a writing style, but, but then when you get into it, you find out that their work mentality is just not matching yours.

So then you have an issue. So how do we get around? So I think, yeah, so, so how'd you get around that? Is that I think it's best to start small. So when you reach out to them, so mentioned which of their books it was that you just read and especially important mentioned why you like their book and also make sure that you left a review of the book on Amazon or any other platforms where it might be published on so that you can basically tell them, so I read you a book title, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I really liked it, uh, because of blah, blah, blah, blah. And I have left a review on all the different platforms for you. And then you can proceed from there in that email to basically the next section of the email. You can proceed to offer the person something valuable. Um, so it has to be something that is easy for them to say yes to. So it could be that you offer them to share their book to your email list because you really liked it.

So, even if you have a small list that that might work, or maybe you have a blog or something and you can offer the Dem an author interview, you know, anything that gets their author name, eh, some exposure that they wouldn't have gotten otherwise, that that's sort of the asset you're aiming for. So you can be creative about it. Uh, but, but that's what you're looking for. So that's the ask here in step number seven. So if we then move on to step number eight, now you basically got a foot in the door.

So where you might have shared that book with your own email list or maybe you did the author interview when you posted that on your blog or whatever it may be. So you have some sort of connection with this person by now, or these persons I should say, because you're probably doing it with several different people. So where you go from here becomes a question of how to build the relationship. So it all will depend on the email conversations you've had so far and perhaps you need to email back and forth a bit more before you go any further.

But where you want to get to is to slowly familiarize yourself, um, with this author's work, with the aim to work on something smaller, collaborating, something smaller together. I like that. Uh, so step number eight is basically just about trying to sort of expand upon the relationship a bit so that you feel comfortable that you could, uh, work together on something small. I like that. So sort of like a short story or just something small.

Yeah. So that, that's basically step number nine. So we're getting towards the end now. So step number nine is basically, um, to figure out if this person's Workman tality fits well with us. And the only way to do that is to work on something together. So as you said, a short story collection, for example, could be a good idea. But again, make sure that you make it really easy to say yes. So if you offer for example, to say, if you say, okay, I will handle all the publishing, I will handle all the splitting of the revenue and all that.

Eh, let's say troublesome stuff that you are the author might be thinking of, Oh my God, I don't have time to do all that. If you offer to do all of that, then it becomes an easy sale. And if it's only like a short story collection, I mean there's not much at at, at risk for the other author here anyway. So. So they probably won't mind trusting you with doing the revenue splitting even if it, because it's going to be minor anyway. Yeah. So you'll then, let's say you, you go with this, you couldn't be creative and think of other ways as well, but, but I think the short stories is a good way because it doesn't take too much time either.

Um, so you then work together on this and stuff and you will figure out whether or not you are actually working well together. Um, and if you do, then hopefully by this stage you will have narrowed down your list of candidates down to basically only one, right? So at this point you need to find out, okay, we are working well together and all the different steps be before this step was successful as well. So he is basically the point where you can then start saying a maybe would it be Ida for us to collaborate together on a for level or even a series if you want to pitch that, really want to take a bite out.

Yeah. If you're gonna play a dangerous like, like autumn does, then that's what he can do. Jumping into the fire from the frying pan and not knowing where I'm going. Yeah. But that then my step number 10 is basically, so of course, uh, at number nine there will be a yes or no. And then of course if you get a no, and that was one of the other people on the list that you also did a short story with that you really liked and you can move on to that person. Um, I know that sounds a bit horrible. It sounds like you're shopping for people, but uh, but if you really want to collaborate with somebody, did somebody, and it doesn't happen organically for you to find somebody, then this is a way to do it.

Um, but we are missing step 10. Yes. So what does top 10 yeah, so step 10, now you've already found somebody you want to collaborate with am but before you stopped any like large scale collaboration on full series or something like that, I would say at this step 10 if you have low got into the agreement to say, yeah, I could be interested in collaborating on a full novel, uh, oil, even that series, then I would make sure to have a meeting with that person.

Um, and there I would say it doesn't have to be a face to face meeting, but it should be a video quality so that you can see each other. You could be Skype or zoom or something like, uh, I think, uh, no, actually I think back in the day a autumn I think,

Autumn (48m 27s): yeah. Say we still have not been on the same continent. So am I was close, I was in London and you're over in Copenhagen but we didn't quite made up that time. So yeah, we still haven't met. So then we've been together doing this for two plus years.

Jesper (48m 44s): Yeah, exactly. But yeah, you use Skype or zoom or whatever, but the key is that you get to talk with each other while you can see each other and then the purpose of that meeting will be that you need to align what it is that you want to achieve and basically sort of you lay out, okay these are my goals and the other person lays out the, these are my goals and you want to see that there was a match. I'd sorta the one person doesn't say, well I would actually like to collaborate on a series and uh, I don't really mind if it takes us 10 years because I have a lot of other stuff that I actually do.

But you are wanting to build a career. So you are saying, well I was hoping we could do it in one DMX album. Right. Then you have an issue. So it's much better to get that out of the way before you get started. And, uh, and I think that's 10 steps

Autumn (49m 31s): I like that. That's definitely very true. And I definitely thought the, where you're mentioning, you know, not just coming at blurting out, well you collaborate with me because I hadn't really thought of it too. You said that. But I've actually had two people prior to starting to collaborate with you who kind of came out of the blue and like, Hey, I like what you do when you do this with me. And I was like, uh, no. I think it gets a gut reaction. It's like, I don't know who you are and I don't know if I really want to share what I'm working on, but

Jesper (49m 59s): we've built this up gradually to where we're writing novels together. It's not, it wasn't our first step. No, no, indeed. It was not. Uh, we, we started out with the amwritingfantasy stuff. For we had a lot of plans from the get go with that. But like the, but the fiction collaboration was something that came later on in the process. But I, I, and I think I understand why the gut reaction is to say no if somebody just reaches out coat like that because honestly, I mean I, I would, I would do same thing because there are trainings in hopes that there is there some private, but yeah, but that's the one thing.

But I think the other thing that I was thinking about was more like it's a big, big time investment. Right? And you don't want to go in and say okay to something or yes to something that is a huge time investment. Unless you know that this is a person. That one I liked the person, no, I know that they are professional and three, I know that they, they, they have a good work, work ethic, that master's mind and we have the same kind of goals. I mean if you kind of tick all of those boxes, you're going to shoot, you have a huge time investment on your hand that you'll just end up figuring out later on that, okay, we don't have a medicine and you wasted that

Autumn (51m 14s): ton of time. Right. Yeah. Tell me, you could have been writing but I mean yeah, to give perspective, you and I meet every week for two hours plus we send each other a ton of emails through the week. Uh, we've gotten to the point where we can, you know, build stuff via email. But we also, we still have our time talking to each other every week. And of course we're doing that with a podcast, but that's if we added up those hours, the amount of time we spend talking to each other. Yeah, it's a very, this is a very serious relationship.

You've got to get along with your partner and also want to clarify like when we talk about, you know, work well together, sometimes that's everything from, you know, plotting character building. You have. Yeah, I'm a bit more of a pantser, but you know, to work together, you've got to be able to mold that into something that you collaborate with and build something together and figuring out how you're going to write, you know, it was one person writing first and the other one's adding things. Are you both, you know, swapping manuscripts back and forth so that you're building it as you go or one person has a character and one has the other character.

You've got to figure all that out for yourself. And if you can't, that's a pretty good indication that this might not work out.

Jesper (52m 27s): Yeah, I think that's true. And actually, I just thought of one more thing. Uh, I know we were running a bit long or does episode here, but uh, uh, but one thing not to forget, uh, maybe to finish off with here, but if you do want to collaborate with somebody else, you are going to have money between you. So you need to make sure that you create a contract that sets the terms and conditions for your cooperation. Because basically what you're doing is that you're running a company together and, and uh, a company cannot be run on the basis of trust.

Well it can, as long as you're good friends and everything is nice and dandy, but, uh, in a minute it's not nice and dandy. Yeah. But it just happens, you know, companies breaks up and people go into disagreements about this and that. And I just have to say that, you know, agreeing on the details about, for example, how to exit the contract, how to split money or whatever it be. It's a million times easier to agree on those details while you're good friends. Because once you're not anymore, it's going to be a nightmare to try to sort it out.

It is. Or even if it's not a friendship dissolving, but a health issue or a family issue or something,

Autumn (53m 39s): someone's got to step back cause they're not going to have the mental capacity, the mental time and energy to be able to say, you're right, let's figure this out for next three hours. So it gonna be like, no, I'm busy. This is why I'm leaving. So yes, figure that out beforehand. That way you know, who's, you know, holding the cart and hopefully whatever happens, you know, life does go on. You can't ever say it's going to be the same. And especially with, you know me is to your crazy partner so that's why we have a contract. But it's good because then we're always on the same page and we can just refer back to it and we know where we're going.

Jesper (54m 15s): Yeah. And the, and that, there was no reason to debate or discuss something because you did that upfront. So everything all is clear for both parties. There was no reason to end up in a misunderstandings and stuff like that. So it just keeps things nice and clean. And I know a bar, a contract sounds really boring, but you have to put it in place. I agree. So next Monday we have a topic which has come up over and over and over again. And that is about, uh, how to, to

Narrator (54m 44s): use dictation. If you like what you just heard, there's a few things you can do to support the amwritingfantasy podcast. Please tell a fellow author about the show and visit us at Apple podcast and leave a rating and review. You can also join Autumn and Jesper on patreon.com/amwritingfantasy for as little as a dollar a month. You'll get awesome rewards and keep the amwritingfantasy podcast going.

Stay safe out there and see you next Monday.