How and When Authors Should Create an Author Brand with Shayla Raquel

A SELF-PUBLISHING mentor, best-selling author, and public speaker, Shayla Raquel works one-on-one with writers every day. A lifelong lover of books, she has been in the publishing industry for twelve years and teaches on author branding, indie publishing, book marketing, and the craft of writing. Her award-winning blog teaches new and established authors how to write, publish, and market their books. Listen in and read along as she and I discuss how and when authors should create an author brand.  

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Marion: Today my guest is author and self-publishing mentor, Shayla Raquel. Shayla teaches author branding, indie publishing, and book marketing, as well as the craft of writing. The author of several books, including The 10 Commandments of Author Branding, I asked her on to the podcast to give us some tips on how and when authors should create an author brand. Welcome, Shayla.

Shayla: Hi. Thank you so much for having me. This is great. I love it. I absolutely love the name, by the way. Very clever.

Marion: Thank you. Well, I love your voice, and as well as being an author, you are a mentor and teacher to writers on how to handle book marketing, author websites, email marketing, and book launches. And my audience is writers, many of whom are on the path to publishing, so let’s give them some help. You have a book called, The 10 Commandments of Author Branding. And while I absolutely recommend everyone getting a copy, I’d like to preview it here a little, since branding is one of those words that seems to make authors either curl up and stuff themselves under the couch, or just simply curl up their noses. First of all, why do you think that is? Why is branding such a heinous word for so many writers?

Shayla: Because we are creators, not salesmen. And here you are creating art, and you have just put your life into this, and now you’re supposed to sell it for money? It’s just nerve-wracking. And I can imagine that even now with how involved we are on the internet, it’s even more nerve-wracking than it’s ever been before. And I feel terrible for these incredible artists out there who are stuck thinking, “Oh my God, I wrote a book, now what?” And I wanted to be able to help them answer that question.

Marion: Yeah, good. Well, let’s help them. I have been known to say that writing a book is like giving birth, but promoting one is like handing that baby over for a nose job. Immediately in the delivery room. I understand. It’s sort of perfecting the message, which feels so non-arty. As a favor to all of the aspiring authors who are listening, let’s do this. I’m going to give you a bit of a profile of the writers I work with at the memoir project, and let’s meet them where they are. They have a great idea for a book. One, they have mapped out a bit. They have figured out what the book argues. They have some idea of its structure, and they’ve begun writing. Maybe they have 50 pages in, and they’re feeling kind of confident about their ability to complete this book. When do they start thinking about promotion?

Shayla: Yesterday. And this is the thing. We hear that term. We hear promotion, we hear advertising, we hear marketing. Sometimes they wind up being used interchangeably. But what is so incredible about starting a book, especially your first one, is the unique place you’re in to document the process. And I see so many authors skip out on this. How many times have you seen someone say, “I published my book today. Now how do I market it?” And you want to say, “Well, first you get a time machine, and you go back to when you first started working on it.” When you document the process of what it’s like to be a creative, what it’s like to write these scenes in your memoir, go back through these photos. These photo albums. Remember when we used to print photos? That was really cool by the way. Go show those things in your life.

I don’t care if we’re talking about social media, if we’re talking about an email newsletter. Whatever outlet you have, you should be documenting the process of you creating, of you writing this memoir. I never want authors to skip out on this, yet so many do because they fall into the trap of, “Well, does anybody care?” Unfortunately, that’s grounded in limiting beliefs. It’s something that maybe someone, or someones in your life made you believe about yourself. That you weren’t interesting, that you weren’t enough, that you weren’t cool, whatever it may be. And guess what? That flows into our writing, which eventually, finds its way into the marketing and branding side of things as well. I always encourage authors to please document the process of writing, because you wind up creating a community of people who are in love with this book, that hasn’t even been published yet.

Marion: That’s a gorgeous way of putting it. And we are, of course, entranced by the acts of creativity that various authors and writers and artists continue to produce in, and participate in. And I hadn’t thought about the phrase documenting it, and that’s a wonderful one to consider. In your book, The 10 Commandments, you open with a bold and wonderful list of things that too many authors do. And these include “publishing a book without an author brand, dismissing their local communities, creating appalling websites.” I love that. “Turn up their noses at social media, sending the same old boring emails. Avoid learning to find book ambassadors. Quit too soon at marketing. Act too salesy rather than authentically. Forgo an awesome book launch, and compare their tribes with other author tribes.” And I think you’ve got that covered. I think that would be the same list I would make, so let’s jump in with a couple of those. How does one define his or her author brand?

Shayla: Oh, it’s so unique to you, and my author brand will be drastically different from, let’s say, my best friend Janey Merry. She’s a children’s picture book author. And for her, she’s going to be branding herself totally different than I would because she is a unique individual. We all are, but this is where we trip up. We start thinking about words like advertising, and we start thinking about, oh goodness, keywords and categories. And yes, those things matter, but I want to know who you are. I want to know about your passions, and your hobbies, and the things that you totally geek out about. I want to be a part of that world that you’re so passionate about. Because it’s not just I am a writer, you have other things about you besides that. When you start talking about branding, the simplest idea is that you are the brand, and your product is a book, but that’s kind of boring.

It’s more fun to think about, who am I as an individual? And what makes me so awesome that people want to hear from me, and read my stuff to the point where if I were to write a grocery list, they would read it? That’s what you have to think about. People miss out on this so quickly because again, those limiting beliefs. And they start getting really nervous, or maybe they’re introverted and they think, “Oh, nobody wants to hear it from me.” And that is just not true. Don’t you think it’s kind of interesting that here we are in the year 2022, and reality TV is still a thing? It’s always going to be that humans are fascinated by other humans. So yes, I want to get to know you, the real you. The things that you geek out about. Absolutely.

Marion: One of the ways we can display that brand is on websites, so let’s talk about websites. In your book, commandment number three deals with author websites. You make the statement that your website is your business card. And I think of the website as a place to find you, a place to read your work, but I loved the phrase business card. How does it function as a business card?

Shayla: Recently, whether you’ve gone to concerts, bookstores, whatever, and someone says, “Hey, I’d love for you to contact me later, here’s my business card.” And then that business card gets thrown away, or it’s used as a bookmark. Interestingly, I do use them as bookmarks. And I hate that, because I know that there was a time when business cards were relevant, and now they get wasted. And to me, you have to ask yourself, well, if this little cute, adorable Vistaprint card is now obsolete, what is it that is most relevant? And that is going to be a website. People are going to be way more apt to find you on your website, or social media.

A lot of times when they find you on social media, they’re going to be redirected to your website. I also like to think of your website as the central hub for all things you. I’m going to get to know more about your books. I’m going to have the opportunity to subscribe to your newsletter. I’m going to read your bio. If you do podcasts, I’m going to find those there. If you do blogs, I’m going to read them there. So many things can happen on a website, so I love having a central place for an author to display everything about them.

Marion: I agree, and I wonder how ambitious a writer should get on that website. Do they need to start a blog as part of it? And if they do, do they need to post regularly? Give those people who are now lying on the floor, and trying to get under their sofas for fear of this, give them some sense of the size and scope of a good website at this point.

Shayla: Absolutely. And the same thing that I’ll say about a website, I’ll say about anything else. I don’t care if it’s social media, newsletter. Please do not do something that you are going to hate. And what I mean by that, is if you hate blogging, ironic, kind of funny if you’re a writer, but blogging is a different thing. So, if you hate writing blog posts, but some marketer was like, “Oh, you really have to do it,” please don’t do that because now you’re wasting your time and energy. You’re going to do two or three blog posts and you’re going to get tired of it. But if it just so happens that you are really loving video, and you’re having a lot of fun with it, then spend your time on that. If you want to have this website, but the idea of turning it into this big, huge, gigantic job makes you want to reach for the Excedrin bottle, why don’t you just start with a landing page? Just one page.

If having a website with all these other pages makes you want to cry, please don’t do that. Don’t stress yourself out. Just create a landing page, and keep it simple, and you can add onto it later. Websites do feel like this really, really big thing because it requires some level of techiness. And you get really nervous about it, and then you just don’t do it. And that’s not helpful. Instead, give yourself a smaller goal like a landing page. Easy. You can do that.

Marion: You really can. And you use the word gorgeous on your website. You say that if you want to run with the big dogs, writers need a gorgeous, mobile-friendly website tailored to show off their books. And gorgeous is a good word, but gorgeous might feel to some people, expensive. And I know it’s not.

Shayla: Yes.

Marion: I made my own. I know how to do this.

Shayla: Same.

Marion: But, just give me a sense of gorgeous. What do you mean by that?

Shayla: When I say gorgeous, I make the joke in the book that if your website looks like something from the 1990s, it’s time for a rehaul. Right?

Marion: Yeah.

Shayla: And back in the nineties and the early two thousands, oh my goodness. Comic Sans and Papyrus were everywhere, and these big bold colors where you couldn’t actually read the text. And it was a really fun time, but it was a lawless land, and we don’t do that anymore. White space is your friend, and we want things to look beautiful in the sense that it looks put together and clean, and it makes you feel like, wow, this person is legit. Even if you aren’t, and you have no idea what you’re doing, that’s okay, because some beautiful graphics can make it look like you might know what you’re doing. Now, everybody should use whatever they want. I personally use Squarespace because I’m so bad at coding, and I just had a really fun time clicking buttons, and things popping up, and looking gorgeous by the time I was done. That was really easy for me as someone who cannot code.

Marion: Yeah, I used WordPress, and they’ve got these wonderful themes. It comes out of the box. Not literally, whatever the virtual box is, and there you have it. So, I agree that the white space is your friend, and the legitimacy is what’s really important. Goodness gracious, I’ve seen so many author’s websites that do not convey what they write. That do not convey-

Shayla: Not once.

Marion: … what the ask is.

Shayla: Yeah.

Marion: Yeah, important to get to the point.

Shayla: Yes, and it should follow the six-second rule. Think of it like a billboard. I should be on your website, and within six seconds I should be able to know who you are, what you do, and what you want me to do. Three questions and six seconds. And yes, it can be answered that quickly, yet I’ll get on websites and not see an author name. I won’t see what they write. And I’m kind of wondering, well, what do they want me to do? Do they want me to pre-order their book? Sign up for their newsletter? Become a beta reader? You have to tell people what to do.

Marion: Yeah, that’s exactly it. The six-second rule is perfect. Along with author branding, social media is another one of those phrases that makes authors drink gin straight out of the bottle. Let’s offer some help here. I’ve had marketing professionals on the podcast before who have advised various things, but they all seem to advise concentrating on a few platforms, and not trying to be everywhere. What do you think? Where would you advise writers who are just starting out on social media to go? And what guidelines can you give them on those platforms?

Shayla: I love this question because it depends on who you are as a person. It depends on what you wrote. It depends on your community. Who’s your ideal reader? It depends on those things. If someone hired me to coach them on social media, I would be telling Janey, the children’s book author, something very different from Pamela, the business leadership author. These are two very different types of communities they’re trying to build. What I will say is that if you come to me and you say… Let’s do Facebook. You say, “Listen, I know it has two billion active users. I know it’s the king pretty much. I know that it’s going to wind up being number one on all the social media app suggestions, but I hate it. But I know it’s going to be effective. What should I do?” And I’ll say, “Don’t do something you hate just because it’s effective for other authors.”

And you would think that I just gave them like the holy grail of advice. And what I’m really doing is giving them permission to say no to something. Because if something’s effective and you hate it, you’re wasting your time. And I don’t want you pulling out your hair. And I also don’t want you to have cirrhosis of the liver from drinking gin straight out of the bottle all the time. We do not want that. Instead, find platforms you love that are fun for you, that you actually enjoy. And by the way, I do think it’s great to be on as many platforms as you’re able to. If that’s two, great. If it’s three, awesome. But if you feel like, “Shayla, I’ve never even been on social media, I don’t know where to begin”, start with one. I’m not going to ask you to juggle two, three, four. Get used to just working on one platform, and see if you like it, but try to be consistent. Sometimes I’ll have authors who’ll try something for a month and quit. Consistency matters when it comes to social media.

Marion: It really does. I met a writer recently who made a lovely presentation, and I thought, “Wow, that is an interesting writer.” Asked where to find his work, went to the place, and he hasn’t posted anything in three years. And that was the first thing I noticed. Now, you can remove the dates from your posts on your website, first of all, if you’re not going to post all the time. That is one little trick I’ve taught some people. But on Instagram and things like that, we just don’t want to see you stall out. Better to take down the site than to just stall out completely. But you’re on Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn, Medium, you have a website.

Shayla: Mm-hmm.

Marion: Do you use certain platforms for your author brand? And others for your self-publish mentoring brand? Do you manage it that way? Just talk to me a little bit about how you distribute your time and talents among that group of social media platforms.

Shayla: I’m in this really weird space where I’m a lot of things. I have a blast being a self-publishing mentor, an editor, a speaker, but I’m also an author. And to make things even more confusing, I couldn’t stick to just one genre. I had to go do thriller, horror, science fiction, poetry, because that’s how I am. How in the world… What, am I supposed to have a poetry Instagram? And a thriller Instagram? And a self-publishing mentor… No, that’s wild. Nobody should have to do that. But I am me. I am Shayla, and Shayla has many, many different facets to her, which means that if you follow me on any platform, I’m going to be talking about a variety of things. Again, this is another trap where sometimes authors, if they write in different genres, or if they are somewhat like me where they wear many hats, they might start feeling like they need a website for each thing. A social media platform for each thing.

And then I wonder, well, how many are you planning on managing? And that would to me, be very difficult. And I wouldn’t be able to do that, and I wouldn’t expect my other authors to be able to do that. As far as do I talk about certain things on different platforms? No. I talk about everything on any platform because I have a blast with it. Now, my blog is pretty much basically geared towards self-publishing, and writing, and marketing, but my social media is my life. Remember I was talking about documenting the process, that doesn’t stop.

I still document my life, which has all these different things, which is great because instead of the question of, oh, well if the people who only want to read your poetry aren’t interested in your horror, aren’t you losing them? Well, no, because I’m not going to stop talking about my poetry, but instead I’ve expanded my audience to horror as well. It’s just something that I’ve learned in the long road that be who you are, and talk about all the things that you love, because we aren’t in love with just one thing, and we don’t write just one thing for the rest of our lives. We’re going to venture out.

Marion: Yeah, and I think that’s what the website does a really nice job of. Yours is a great example of it, and we’ll obviously put a link in the transcript-

Shayla: Thank you.

Marion: … to this podcast. Because there is where you can aggregate all the things you are. And if someone isn’t interested in your poetry, but is interested in your horror writing, they can just click on that. And they might get interested in the poetry. Well, that’s fine. But they might not. It gives you a place to where everything lives. But you also give your audience just a sense of your breadth, and the sense that they can choose what they want to learn about.

Shayla: Absolutely, give them those choices.

Marion: Yeah, and I love that about a good website. Just click around and see what you want to see. These days authors have choices when it comes to getting published. And how does someone know that their best route is that of self-publishing, do you think?

Shayla: I am so glad you asked me this. I was on TikTok yesterday, and somebody had posed the question to one of my author friends, well, you seem like you’re a really talented writer, so why didn’t you traditionally publish? And I’m sitting there gritting my teeth thinking, “No, Shayla, don’t say anything.” And I was very good, and I didn’t say anything, but now I’m going to, because I was good yesterday.

Marion: Congratulations.

Shayla: The fact that, that question is posed, and is posed often kind of irritates me because self-publishing is not new.

The poet e e cummings self-published a book of poetry that was rejected by many publishers. This is nothing new, it’s just that some people still live in this idea world that, well, if you self-publish, it’s because you didn’t get an agent. I have never pitched to an agent, and I have no intentions of doing so. I love traditionally-published books, and I love self-published books. I personally choose to self-publish, and this is why other authors will do the same, because I am one, a control freak. I just can’t help myself. And I want to be in charge of choosing my own editor, of choosing my own proofreader, cover designer, and so on. I also want to be the one to choose where my books will be housed, whether that’s in brick and mortar, if I choose to be on Barnes & Noble Nook, those are my choices.

And I love that about self-publishing. The second reason for me, again, for other authors, is I honestly feel like the camaraderie in the self-publishing community is so wonderful, and it’s so close knit, and people are so helpful. And I love that. I love the community of self-published authors. Third, I believe with self-publishing, it’s kind of nice to own your characters for the fiction authors. It’s really nice to know that you still have the rights to the characters that you’ve created, the worlds that you’ve created. I love that. I love being able to be the sole owner of the things that I have created.

And as far as timelines, self-publishing definitely can happen a lot quicker than traditional publishing. It does take a lot of time. And then, finally for me, I get my rejections through reviews, not through agents. One of the biggest lies in the publishing world is that agents are the gatekeepers. And Margaret Atwood taught that the true gatekeepers are your readers, and no one specified where those readers came from. For me, if I’m going to have rejections, it’ll be from an Amazon review, but it won’t be because someone that I’ve never met before in New York didn’t read my query. And I feel really good about those choices. And the thing with self-publishing is that you should do it because you really are excited to do it, not because you settled for it.

Marion: I agree completely. I think of all the versions of publishing, the one that’s gotten the best facelift is self-publishing because it really says you’re an entrepreneur. You’re someone who is willing, ready, and able to get out there, and make something of your book. You get to make those choices like you just beautifully described. And you want some control over the distribution, promotion, and more. And you can learn how to do those things with you, for instance. We can learn how to do it. That’s what you do. And self-published writers need to be marketers. I can tell you from experience, having published four books with the big four, so too did I need to be a hell of a marketer? Because traditional publishing does very little to promote books. And in that list I opened with of the things too many authors do, one of them was quit too soon at marketing.

Shayla: Yes.

Marion: What do you mean by that? How long should we be looking at the marketing life that we give to each of our pieces of art?

Shayla: Well, it just depends on how long you want someone to read it. How long do you want to write? If I stop talking about my poetry, then I guess it would just die with me, if I just never brought it up again. I see that a lot with launches where authors will launch their books and then, they never talk about the book again. And you can use that in any way, whether this is through your website, Amazon ads, I don’t care. Whatever avenue. They do the launch and then all of a sudden the book’s just gone, and you never hear about it. Well, you made that thing, so you got put it out there still, even to this day, The 10 Commandments of Author Branding was published in October 2019. People know about it because I continue to push it.

When people think about how often should I continue to market something, the answer is as simple as how long are you going to continue to write? How long do you want to do this? And obviously most people, they want to be writers for the rest of their lives. And there will be times when you don’t have to put as much work into marketing, advertising certain books. That depends on if you’re a series writer. It depends on what you wrote, so many things. But you don’t ever stop marketing them, because if you did, then no one’s going to know they exist. You have to be able to get things out there.

Marion: Yeah, it’s like the sign I saw at my dentist office recently that says, “You only have to brush the teeth you want to keep.”

Shayla: Yes, it’s the same thing.

Marion: Yeah, that’s pretty simple.

Shayla: It’s exact same thinking. Don’t give up just because you already launched it. You still have to promote it, and put it out there. And you know what? I just want to say on this, why wouldn’t you? You made that. I don’t care if it is science fiction, if it’s a memoir, I don’t care what genre. You made that, you created that. Do you know how many people talk about writing books but never do, and you did? Then you should continue to do everything it takes to get it into the hands of voracious readers. Because think about what you can do to that reader. You could make their whole day. If they read a poem from me, and it really resonated with them, then that makes everything worth it to me. But, I have to be responsible to somehow get it into that reader’s hands.

Marion: You absolutely do. And you command us in your book not to forego what you refer to as an awesome book launch. How do you define such a thing? And what tips can you give us here about what an awesome book launch looks like? Or, guide people a little bit on beginning this process.

Shayla: Absolutely. I recently created and taught a class that’s available on my website called Best Book Launch Ever. It is my longest class at a whopping three and a half hours because there is so much to go over. One of the biggest things is you need time. If you want the best book launch ever, you need time. And know, figuring out your book launch the month of the release is not enough time. At a bare minimum, you need three months. I prefer six months. And that’s assuming that you’ve been documenting the process of writing it. You need a lot of time to put into an amazing book launch. Second, you need an incredible launch team. A long time ago, I used to use Facebook groups to help me form launch teams. I stopped doing that. Now, I use an email list in order to execute it in a lot cleaner method.

And you just have to have your people. Surely, by now you have a community of people, whether it’s through your normal email list, social media, podcast, whatever, and you can bring these people together to start getting the word out, way before your book is even launched. And then, another thing that I think about for a book launch that’s so important, is what’s going to happen after? Sometimes we’ll put all this effort into the release date, but do you have a plan for post-launch? Because you should. You absolutely need to be thinking about what’s going to happen when everybody kind of is done applauding me, and then it just kind of falls off? What am I going to do?

Are you going to invest in a book promotion newsletters? Are you going to invest your time into getting more reviews? You have to think future. Even if you’re planning months in advance for a book launch, you need to be thinking about what’s going to happen after the book launch. There’s a lot that goes into it. I will say one of my favorite tips for a book launch is what most people do, I assume, but ARCs. Our advanced reader copies. You have to get that out to people. Whether it’s the book talk community of TikTok, if it’s BookTube on YouTube, if it’s book bloggers, bookstagrammers, you need to be reaching out to those people and getting the book into their hands way before it’s published, so that you have buzz in the months leading up to your launch.

Marion: And that answers the question that many of the people listening to this would’ve thought I should have asked first, which is, if you have no presence, you have no mailing list, you have no access to people, there are online ways to access people. And as we wrap this up, it’s worth noting that the online world is chock-full of people who advertise, claiming to be able to market your book, podcast, whatever for you. But, you teach authors to do this themselves. And this is the point I want to make, because everybody’s saying, “Oh, I see. There’s tools for me to meet people, and then that’s how I build my mailing list. I see that.” So, tell me, why is it that you do this with this intent, that authors should do this themselves? And what advice have you got for busy writers who’ve got families maybe, or houses, or aging parents, or dogs, or horses or whatever.

Shayla: Sure. Life, you mean? Yes. Well, to answer, when life happens, we all have crazy things that are going on at any given moment. I really do not think I know anybody who does not lead a crazy life, but I sometimes will ask them, “What are you watching on Netflix right now? What are you watching on Hulu right now? Did you see that thing on Facebook? Did you see that thing on Twitter?” And if they answer me, I immediately know, ah, there’s some extra time. Because downtime is important, and we should have some time to just not think for a few minutes, but what would happen if you spent 15 minutes… That’s all I’m asking. 15 minutes a day. What if it wasn’t even every day? What if it was three days a week, 15 minutes a day, on whatever platform it is that you are trying to grow?

That’s a whole lot better than zero, isn’t it? One is always greater than zero. If you’re like me, some people feel, No, no, no, I need an hour. I need three hours. No. You won’t even do that right now because life is crazy, so why not keep it simple, and do 15 minutes? That’s my answer every time when people come to me and say, “Well, I don’t have time. I don’t have time.” I first want to find out, well, is it really true that you don’t have any time? Or are you already binging the latest Netflix series? And if you have a problem with that, ask your significant other, best friend, whomever to change the passwords for you. I have done that in the past in order to finish a book. Back to the original question, you had asked me, I believe, why do I teach them to do it on their own?

Is it okay to borrow other people’s platforms? Of course. That’s community, that’s fine. But you need to have your own community. At some point, you’re going to run out of people to talk about your book for you when you have no social media, or no newsletter. I don’t care. Whatever medium you like. But you need to have your own home, your own community that you can grow because people are going to be looking for it. That’s one of the easiest reasons because people look for you. Every social media platform at this point acts as a search engine. Let’s be real. And they’ll type in your author name. What are they going to find? If they find that you’re a ghost, I feel like you’re just missing out on the lifeline to your readers. And I did not coin that phrase. That’s the amazing Jane Friedman has taught that for years that social media is a lifeline to your readers, so you should absolutely be working to build your own lifeline to them.

Marion: Such good advice. I agree with you about Jane Friedman. I am a huge devote, but I’m also a huge devote of your work.

Shayla: Thank you.

Marion: And I really appreciate you sharing what you know. Your expertise is lovely, your voice is important, and thank you, Shayla. It’s been a joy spending this time with you, and you’re very helpful to all who work with you. Thank you.

Shayla: Well, thank you so much for having me. It means the world to me. I’m very, very, very grateful. And I do just want to finally say thank you for what you do for authors. They need a lending hand, they need a positive voice, and they need somebody to cheer them on when people in their life don’t. So, thank you for doing that.

Marion: Oh, you’re welcome. See more on Shayla at shayla raquel dot com. She is the author of the Pre-Publishing Checklist, “The Rotting” (in Shivers in the Night), The Suicide Tree, The 10 Commandments of Author Branding, All the Things I Should’ve Told You, and “Savage Indulgence.”  Find her on Medium, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok. I’m Marion Roach Smith and you’ve been listening to Qwerty. Qwerty is produced by over at Overit Studios in Albany, New York. Reach them at overit studios dot com. Our producer is Adam Clairmont, our assistant is Lorna Bailey. Want more on the art and work of writing? Visit marion roach dot com where I offer live online classes in how to write memoir. And thanks for listening. Don’t forget to follow Qwerty wherever you get your podcasts, and listen to it wherever you go. And if you like what you hear, leave us a review. It helps others to find their way to their writing lives.