Lindsay - October 21, 2021For this week’s show, Jo and Andrea took the reins while Lindsay scowled at her broken internet. They interviewed six-figure romance novelist Theodora Taylor and talked about finding success through appealing to “universal fantasy,” Facebook ads that work, and selling books even when genre hopping and not writing to market.
In addition to being the author of more than forty novels, Theodora has written the popular book for writers: 7 Figure Fiction: How to Use Universal Fantasy to Sell Your Books to Anyone.
Here are the questions Jo and Andrea asked Theodora:
- Can you tell us how you got started with writing and indie publishing?
- Your (current) most popular book is one that was released back in 2013. How have you managed that? Basically, what keeps it selling so well?
- You write interracial romance and advertise on Facebook. Can you talk about about your ad experiments and what you learned about targeting a hard to find niche?
- When you’re preparing to write your next book, how much thought do you put into marketing? Is marketing something you don’t start working on until you’re finished writing? Do you tweak your ideas with the aim of being more marketable?
- How do you run your newsletter? How frequently do you message your list and how personal are you in your emails?
- Could you talk about some of the challenges and struggles that come with genre hopping and how you’ve dealt with and overcome them?
- One of the major differences between genres that new authors (or single-genre authors) might not think about is the comparative cost of marketing. On the subject of being a cross-genre author, do you find that your marketing budget and tactics are different for different genres?
- Would you give a quick explanation behind why you wanted to write 7 Figure Fiction: How to Use Universal Fantasy to Sell Your Books to Anyone and how you managed to drum up so much interest in something that hadn’t yet been published, especially with it being your first book for authors?
- Would you explain exactly what universal fantasy is for those who have never heard this term before? And why should authors use it?
- Building a story with all of the elements to satisfy an audience is, naturally, a crucial part to having enduring success. But having a perfectly constructed, wish-fulfilling story won’t mean much if no one discovers it. Word of mouth can keep a book selling, but do you have any insight in how to make it clear to prospective readers what sort of great story they’re in for, and how to find those readers?
- Do you plan the universal-fantasy element out in advance as part of the plotting process?
If you’d like to learn more about Theodora’s strategies, check out 7 Figure Fiction. You can also visit the Romance Author Mastermind on Facebook.
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