Or is it just me? I finally conquered idea overload, tamed my creativity beast, and actually finished a whole manuscript… Living the dream, right? Yeah! So… I might have accidentally started something new. Oops. Here’s what happened when I turned my mind to self-publishing and marketing…
First up, I got all excited about cover designs and layout (as you do), and I thoroughly enjoyed the process of planning out the steps to get the book on the market. But when I thought about who the book would appeal to, and how I would reach them, I realized that this particular book would involve an approach that’s quite different to everything I’d busied myself learning about for my novels-in-progress. Oh, man!
Why my book is Weird
The book I accidentally binge-wrote during my most recent annual leave is about Romance Scams. It was not something I specifically planned to do, but I was fed up with being targeted a lot on social media, and thought it would be good use of my anti-fraud skills to poke around in the topic. The way I saw it, the more time scammers spent chatting with me, the less they would have to scam actual targets. And it was interesting to see all the theory I’d read play out in real life.
Anyway, I participated in online ‘relationships’ with some of the scammers who approached me and wrote it all down: How it happened, what it felt like to be so blatantly lied to, and what I did about it. After adding in some research and other information, the manuscript is certainly long enough – and hopefully it also has enough humor to make people like it.
When I realized it was publishable, I wanted to see how it would fit into the genre in terms of cover design and what Amazon categories I might use. I poked around Amazon for hours, looking for a similar book – and found nothing that was really the same. In fact, there weren’t many books on the topic at all! So… there’s either a huge hole in the market, or it’s just not a popular topic. Hmmm.
Taking a New Approach to Publishing
I think it’s a really popular topic for conversation, but not a popular topic for reading. When I bring it up in conversation, everybody engages, but nobody I know has ever read anything about it, or actively looked for things to read about it. It stands to reason. Everybody has something to say about tax too, but it’s not something people choose to read about.
In summary: On the one hand, I have written a potentially important but hard to market book, and I have no established audience who would be willing to read it, even if just to humor me. But on the other hand, there are potentially millions of people who will talk about scams because we all experience them in one way or another – and it is the one topic I really enjoy talking about. So why not just talk about what’s in the book? … And isn’t that exactly what YouTube is for?
I’m not sure that it’s normal for writers to have YouTube channels,
but lots of YouTubers have written books. So that’s a thing.
And so that’s what I’m doing. The initial idea was to build a body of work on YouTube to publicly establish my credibility (and hopefully an audience) among all the people who have never heard of me, and then publish the book. But now I just want to make videos about scams – all of them!
Having thought it through, I feel a responsibility to do this thing: To pass on everything I have learned about my field of research and (dare I say) ‘expertise’, because otherwise it dies with me. After all, everybody needs to know about scams, and the increasing stats tell us that the news just isn’t getting out there where it’s needed. I can fill the gap between what the profession knows and those who need to make use of that information.
This means putting myself out there – and showing my face.
The interesting self-realization is that I never wanted to be a public person. Despite having worked in entertainment for more than a decade, and having a couple more decades’ experience at public speaking, I am an embodiment of the hermit writer trope; committed to avoiding any type of public presence or ‘fame’ since seeing the challenges my friends had in those early years. But with that attitude, how on earth did I expect anyone to want to buy my book? Besides, everyone is an Insta-someone these days, so publicity doesn’t seem to be such a big deal any more. And perhaps jumping in the deep end this way will bring the mindset change I’ll need in the future if I’m to ever sell any of my fiction books?
Anyway, I’m committed to it now, and may as well give it 100% and find out what, if anything, happens. My channel is called That Scam Show, and will include videos about all the types of scams I’ve already done so much work to understand in my ordinary work-life: What they are, how they work, and what people can do to protect themselves and people they care about.
The channel will launch on 6th June with a Live-to-Air session.
Perhaps the choice to launch that way was unwise, because it’s an open invitation to anyone (scammers) who would want to see me made a fool of. I think about that every time I publish something to promote it (I must promote it, or nobody will watch it) – but I’m doing it anyway. Baptism by fire should make everything that comes after it a little easier. I hope.
Of course the last couple of months have been a whirlwind of planning and learning how to do everything that must be done. I knew nothing at all about video equipment, editing, and the complexities that go into designing thumbnails, end-screens and cards and myriad other YouTube techniques that can make or break a channel. But since when have I been afraid of learning something new? I’ll figure it out eventually.
In much the same way that joining in online writer communities has been wonderfully educational and entertaining, I am now enjoying the benefits of watching YouTube gurus share their how-to knowledge. They say that:
- It will take years to build a successful channel, so be patient;
- The first videos will inevitably suck;
- The key is to stick with it and consistently upload videos, even if nobody is watching; and
- Keep learning.
So it seems this new adventure is not really very different to writing books.
Another thing in common with being a writer is that it involves having related social media accounts. Sigh. And a website. Sigh. Overall, it’s a lot more work than I anticipated, and every part of it involves graphic design skills (which I really am terrible at), which takes me right back to the original problem of the book’s cover design. But I will figure it out. This last couple of years’ fluffing around to find my writer-feet have taught me much about social media and mysteries such as SEO, so eventually I’ll learn the other things too.
The work will no doubt become easier and faster as I learn more and become more efficient. For now, the gurus have helped me make a workflow plan, which I’ve converted to a timetable, so I will just continue to plod my way through it.
It’s actually fun. It actually feels like an adventure. And the best part is that it feels good because it’s a community service that’s a constructive use of everything I’ve learned about scams/fraud – yet is still directly relevant to one of my books; the writing of which has not been a waste of time, but a path to something I genuinely want to do now that the surprise has worn off.
Altogether, it seems YouTube is a perfect idea.
In practice, it could take me further away from fiction writing, even though I have deliberately timetabled myself more time to write than before. We will see. Perhaps that really is meant to be my retirement hobby: A thing I have not earned yet.
In the meantime, I’m keen to know if you have taken an unusual route to publication? If so, please let me know what it was, and what your thoughts are about it.
Kerri
Kerri O'Donnell 