[Danikka]

Hey there, welcome to the Snailed It podcast with Danika and Erin, brought to you by Authors Own Publishing.

 

[Erin]

Hi everyone, welcome back to the Snailed It podcast with Danika and Erin. Today we’ve got a special guest, another in conversation episode. We are joined by the PR powerhouse, Lillian Sue. Welcome Lillian. 

 

[Lilian]

Hi Erin, hi Danikka, thanks for having me.

 

[Danikka]

We’re so excited to have Lillian join. We’ve been talking about having her join for ages. Lillian is the amazing PR genius who works with us at Authors Own and with our authors currently on their ARC campaigns. In the future, we hope to do more PR campaigns with our authors just for their like general PR needs. But we’re starting off with ARC campaigns in the early process and also with Authors Own PR as well. We’re kind of starting on putting together that stuff too.

 

So that’s all super exciting. But yeah, Lillian, I feel like I just want to pass the floor over to you because I feel like you can intro yourself like heaps better than I can. But I just wanted to show that there was a connection to like you and Authors Own. And then yeah, I’ll pass the floor to you and you can tell the listeners a bit more about your background and what led you to PR.

 

[Lilian]

Sure. So I am a PR coach and publicist. And what I do is I empower authors to do a couple of different things. To unlock the superpowers behind their own stories and to gain the confidence to push past their fear, their anxiety and their imposter syndrome to learn how to develop and launch successful PR campaigns for their books. So I do this in a wide variety of ways, but primarily through one-on-one coaching and webinars that I’ve put together. With my signature talks, it really helps to focus on helping authors demystify the world of public relations and giving them the confidence, the knowledge and the tools to make better informed decisions about what PR is, how they can use it for their books and also how to advocate for themselves in the event that they’re working with a marketing or PR agency.

 

[Erin]

How did you come to work with authors specifically?

 

[Lilian]

Well, it actually started in a bit of a roundabout way in the sense that when I started working in publicity, it was primarily on the campaign side. I had cut my teeth working with agencies and I was doing PR for health and beauty brands, sports and fitness. Food and beverage was one I really loved and I fell in love with doing it for indie film.

 

[Erin]

Oh, okay. 

 

[Lilian]

And as it so happened, I started thinking with the stories that a lot of filmmakers have, I’m wondering if what I’m doing for them could also translate to doing it for authors. And around that time, I actually had a couple of indie filmmakers in my network transition over to being an author.

 

[Erin]

Ah, so you had a little bridge. 

 

Yeah. And these filmmakers were folks that I had known for about four or five years by that point and we had never actually had an opportunity to work together yet. So one of them said, I’m working on a series right now for a bunch of horror graphic novels based on my film and the Sister Web series. 

 

[Erin]

Oh, okay. 

 

He’s like, do you want to come on and do publicity for the graphic novels? I said, yeah, let’s do it. And it was great because horror was actually a genre that I had already had some extensive experience in pitching my clients’ horror films. 

 

[Erin]

Okay.

 

So I sort of had built relationships already with media within that genre. So I could reach out to some of those guys and just go, hey, you know, I know you reviewed so-and-so’s film, you’re interested in doing that for a graphic novel as well.

 

[Danikka]

Yeah, that is so cool.

 

[Erin]

That is so cool.

 

[Danikka]

It’s so niche and so cool. Yeah. Like, I love that so much.

 

And like, you’ve also recently become an author yourself as well. So like to add to your coaching and your courses toolkit, you now also have your book, The Publicity Blueprint. Sorry, The Publicity. I’m trying to read the title.

 

[Erin]

There’s so many P’s. Yeah. The Powerful Publicity Prescription.

 

[Danikka]

Yeah, that’s right. You got it better. I’m like mixing up the title of like a course and everything all in my brain because I was reading your course stuff before we jumped on to like remind myself of everything that you do. But yeah, so how has your experience running publicity for like other authors, both in the fiction and nonfiction kind of areas, helped you kind of run the PR for your own campaign? Like, how is it? Because a big part of what we do at Authors’ Own is like, yes, we provide services for authors who can realistically work with us. But for people who, you know, that’s just not…

 

[Erin]

Just not on the cards yet.

 

[Danikka]

On the cards yet. We do, you know, try to empower them to do things themselves. How has that kind of translated to you doing things for yourself that normally you would be doing for your clients?

 

[Lilian]

Well, I looked at this book basically as a proof of concept for my business, as well as for author clients and authors in my audience. This book is catered to not just authors, but your creative entrepreneurs, your small business owners, anybody who is basically running a business who doesn’t have Fortune 500 money and doesn’t have a team of, you know, upwards of 20 people. So the reason why I wrote this book is because I had a lot of authors coming to me and saying, would you consider writing a book? Because I love following you on social media. I get all these strategic tips. But what I’m not getting is the whole picture.

 

[Erin]

Yeah, right. 

 

[Lilian]

I don’t have a resource I can refer back to, and I can flip through. So I started thinking about it and I thought, you know, what are some of the major questions I keep getting over and over from authors and other entrepreneurs about the world of PR that I can build the framework around for this book? 

 

So with this book, I started with what is PR? This is the origin story of it. How is it different from email marketing, social media and advertising? And then diving into the components that authors and other entrepreneurs need to develop a successful PR campaign. And I really focused on not just the strategic parts, right? The strategic parts are almost easier because those are tangible in terms of the media kit, right? Like you need a kit that has your book images, your blurbs, your bio, images of you so that they get a better sense of who you are, like on a foundational level. You need to know what the story that you’re sharing with them is. And Danikka, you and I have had conversations about this in the past.

 

[Danikka]

Oh, God. 

 

[Erin]

The elevator pitch. 

[Lilian]

About just your book is a vehicle, but it’s not really about the book. It’s about the story behind the creation of it. And why does that matter, right? Because there’s thousands of people out there that write in the same genre you do.

 

[Erin]

Sure. 

 

[Lilian]

But if it’s important for you to, let’s say, incorporate the idea of healing from domestic violence in your romance, people are going to want to know why. Why is that a theme in your book? Similarly, if you’re writing fantasy and you are passionate about having representation in there, so you have characters that are BIPOC, you have characters that are on the spectrum, you know, LGBTQ+, maybe they’re autistic, maybe they have disabilities. Why is that important to you? That’s the story that people care about, right?

 

It’s almost the actual book is a vehicle for that and for your own story around what inspired you to write this and what kind of impact do you want this to have? And when you figure out that part of what you want to tell people, then it’s about who do I want to get it in front of, right? Where are readers of these particular genres and these particular themes, where are they getting their book news from?

 

Who are they following when it comes to the podcasters, the bloggers, the reviewers, the YouTube shows, whatever, that I can build relationships with and use these relationships as a springboard conduit, as a shortcut to get in front of these audiences and build trust with them. But none of that can take place unless you have a strong mindset. So many of the authors that I’ve worked with and that I speak to on a daily basis, they deal with such crippling fear, anxiety, imposter syndrome, surrounding, sharing this creative part of themselves with the world.

 

So what I do throughout the course of this book, and I do with my coaching clients and my campaign clients on a regular basis, is I sit with them and I ask them, okay, so you’re not comfortable getting out there and let’s say doing an interview with a podcaster because you feel like gross, it’s like selling to strangers. It doesn’t feel natural. It doesn’t feel right to me.

 

So let’s dig a little deeper and figure out where is that anxiety coming from? What are you so bound and determined to believe is going to be the negative outcome here if you do something like that? And how can we change your perspective to focus on a positive outcome? Because nothing is set in stone. So a positive outcome is just as likely as a negative one. 

 

So I work with them really giving them the tools like mindset mantras, affirmations. I talk to my clients about meditation and hypnosis that I use myself in my business on a daily basis to help them push past these feelings when they have them and help them to recognize what triggers them when it comes up. Things like when they see a fellow author land a fantastic book signing or a fellow author presenting a workshop at a festival they want to do the same thing at. Well, what sort of feelings is that triggering in you and why is that the case?

 

How can we work past that? And in doing the PR campaign for this book, I basically employ the techniques that I coach my clients on all the time because it’s like, okay, who’s my target audience for this? 

 

I want to get this in front of authors. So when I was getting ready to publish this book, I had several industry book coaches, bestselling authors, self-publishing mentors, people like that blurb the book. So I said, your clients, your members of your coaching program are going to want to know more about this and it means more to them if that endorsement comes from you. 

 

So I worked with people in the industry to get those endorsements and I’m still doing that by getting out there in front of different podcasts that relate to publishing, that relate to authors that talk about the business of entrepreneurship because these are the people that I believe this book can help them really transform their businesses and is really the first step in their educational journey to really understanding what is PR and if I’m looking to incorporate that into my marketing strategy, when should I be doing this? What are the things I should be considering and how can I develop the confidence to go up to a publicist and go, these are my goals. This is where I want to take it. I don’t know all the answers, but can you help me get to where it is I want to go?

 

[Erin]

Yeah, that’s probably the hardest bit, right? The confidence bit, like just come on, you can do it. I like that it’s PR with a side of psychology.

 

[Danikka]

Yeah, that’s literally what made me connect with Lillian when we had our first chat. It started off with a little bit of PR talk and then we just had this big long chat about imposter syndrome and stuff and I was like

 

[Erin]

Oh my god

 

[Danikka]

You talk my language, you’re my person, we’re working together, let’s go. My whole jam is imposter syndrome and mindset. That’s a huge part of the work that I do in editing and my big chunk of the Pathway to Published course. The main thing, the thing that took me the longest to develop was the mindset module of the course because it’s just so important and it’s when authors are publishing their first book especially. But I mean, what I’m noticing, the longer I’m in business and the more I have repeat clients, there’s different mindset bumps that they hit throughout.

 

Like, yes, the first book is a major, major mindset hurdle and they get through that and it’s awesome but then it’s like, yeah, you get to book three or book four and it’s like, there’s another kind of dip in the way and then it’s always an ebb and flow. So getting those mindset tools set up early on and applying them to different aspects of the journey as well and not just thinking about it just in regards to writer’s block, like having the right mindset around being able to finish a book because that’s what so much of the mindset work in the kind of writing world is focused on. It’s focused on how to get through writer’s block or how to get through creative block. It’s like, yes, that’s super important but like there’s not a lot talked about what to do once you’ve done that, if that makes sense.

 

[Erin]

Yeah. In the writing, there’s a lot of that, like getting past the writer’s block and then when you’re publishing, especially when you’re publishing book number one, but any of them, it’s like getting to launch day and then but there’s no talk. It’s like when you’re pregnant, you’re like, we need to get to the birthing of the baby and then after you have the baby, you’re like, what do I do now?

 

Or I’ve been preparing for this one day and now there’s all this stuff afterwards. And yet, I think people kind of assume or you feel like it’s all hinging on the launch day which PR can obviously help with but then after launch day, there’s all this stuff that you can continue to do.

 

[Danikka]

Yeah, yeah. And I think that’s something that you and I talk about a lot, Lillian, as well is that PR is a great strategy for that sustainability of continuing to have sales come through post launch as well because you’ll have those opportunities like podcasts that, you know, they’re there always, you know, that they’re going to continue to have listeners come and find your book more so than, you know, a social media post or a one-off kind of collab on getting one ad done and dusted or something like that, you know, they’re going to live on.

 

[Lilian]

It’s absolutely about how can you build this strategy incrementally in ways that prioritizes your energy and your mindset to make things consistent and sustainable for you. Like I talk with authors all the time who really struggle with the social media component of it because all these industry gurus say to them, you need to be on seven days a week and you need to be posting numerous times a day and this, that, and the other. And I said to them, I’m like, if you feel like that’s not sustainable for you because you are scrambling around trying to figure out what do I even have to say to people to tell them, to share with them.

 

[Erin]

Seven days a week. Exactly. 

 

[Lilian]

Right. So it’s like I say, look at what you can do to make it more sustainable and consistent for you. If you can only do three times a week, try that out. You know, see how you can get inspired from the content of other authors when it comes to themes or the different types of content.

 

See what works for you, not only to prioritize your energy, but to also allow you to have fun with it. And the thing that I think people overlook a lot with PR is when they do get an opportunity, just sharing the link and telling people to listen is not going to do anything. It’s not going to do anything because they have zero context on what it’s about, why that conversation matters, and what you’re trying to do with it.

 

It’s much better for you to take that time to take that opportunity, like whether it’s a podcast interview, a video interview, whatever, grab these key takeaways and start sharing with your audience in the form of clips. Maybe you have image quotes, you know, maybe you’ve written a blog post that features that very conversation because your audience absorbs things very differently, right? Some people are visual, some people are audio. Some people are more about the written word. 

 

And at the same time, audiences today need to see something 20 times before they will A, remember it, and B, take action on it. So the more that you share those pieces of content and allow people to hear directly from you, that’s a touch point, the more it’s going to stick in their mind and they’re going to go, hey, maybe I should sign up for their newsletter. Maybe I should go buy a copy of the book. Oh, hey, they’re in town for a book signing. Maybe I should go get my book signed, right?

 

This is really about utilizing the PR opportunities like the interviews, and if you’re doing speaking events or even book signings, taking the content from that, incorporating it into like a larger, big picture, long-term strategy, and keeping things consistent for you. Because the more you show up, six months from now, a year from now, you’re going to have new people coming in and discovering you instead of it going stagnant and you’re sitting there and going, why isn’t my book reaching people?

 

[Danikka]

Yeah, absolutely. It’s about setting up long-term strategies that will compound over time.

 

[Erin]

Yes, which is the benefit of being a self-published author. You can do that. It’s all up to you. 

 

[Danikka]

Yeah, and you’re not relying on somebody else to know what to do. Even though it is overwhelming to have to rely on yourself, it’s also empowering because you’re not waiting on someone and then finding out down the track that they haven’t done what needed to be done and then having to do it yourself anyway. 

 

[Erin]

That’s true. 

 

[Danikka]

Which isn’t always the case, but it has happened, especially if your book wasn’t one that they thought was going to be big or something like that.

 

[Erin]

A hyped one.

 

[Danikka]

A hyped one. Yeah, because that’s how big businesses work. It’s just how it is. But yeah, no, I just, I love, yeah, mindset can’t be separated from any kind of part of the process at all from when you’re writing through to just your overall career as an author. PR, the business side of it, all of it. It’s just a massive, massive part of it. And I just, yeah, I love that that’s just a big part of all the information.

 

[Erin]

Was there anything in the lead up to your launch that surprised you? Were you more nervous than you thought or that you needed to lean on more of the strategies that you use with your clients?

 

[Lilian]

I think what I needed to remind myself is that timetables are nebulous. They’re flexible and that I can always build on what I’m currently doing incrementally. Certain ideas have come up as I’ve gone along. For an example, I wasn’t originally going to do a live reading of my book for the book launch party last week, but I did it. And I did it because I had an acquaintance of mine in my network who is an audio book narrator say to me, hey, you know what? If you record that live reading, you can use that not only as content, but take that content and use it as market research to see whether or not there is a market for you to do an audio book. That was not originally in my plans. 

 

One of the other things that I’m looking at doing is also doing a monthly book club to allow people to come in, get the live reading from me, get their questions answered, and really have that be more of a touch point for them to really gain a better understanding of what the book’s about. And hopefully what that will also do is I’m also looking at how to incorporate things into more in-person events, incentives for that, things, you know, and, and looking at how can I partner with the media opportunities that I’ve had? Like one of them recently, I ended up doing a book giveaway. 

 

[Erin]

Oh yeah. Everyone loves a giveaway.

 

[Lilian]

Yeah. You know, that was not originally a part of the plan, but looking at making sure that everything that I’m doing is not only manageable for me, but also malleable, right?

 

[Erin]

Yeah.

 

[Lilian]

So if I’m looking at it from like a calendar standpoint, realistically, energy wise, how many events can I take on? How many podcasts can I do on a monthly basis or a weekly basis? And what does that look like when I’m also focusing on my client needs, when I’m also focusing on other aspects?

 

So it really kind of came down to putting what I talk to my clients about all the time into practice for myself in regards to acknowledging the flexibility, allowing myself to incorporate new ideas into it. And also looking at my particular genre, you know, because there’s a lot of things that I see work for fiction that I’ve never seen for nonfiction. 

 

[Erin]

Yeah, okay.

 

[Lilian]

Is there an opportunity, for an example, to do a charity auction for nonfiction business books? I haven’t seen one done, you know? 

 

[Erin]

Well, I don’t see why it wouldn’t work. Like people love a nonfiction. 

 

[Lilian]

It’s just, there hasn’t been a precedent for it, right? So then it’s like, okay, this entire time I’ve been researching and looking at what sort of opportunities I could join, when in reality it’s like, okay, maybe, maybe if this is what I want to do, it’s up to me to put it together.

 

[Erin]

Yeah, yeah. Gotta start somewhere. You could be the precedent.

 

[Danikka]

Exactly. And I guess like one other thing I wanted to talk to you about, because it’s a big part of what we work with you at Authors Own, is ARC campaigns. Because something that is, it’s kind of topical at the moment because, well, at the time of recording, not at the time of the podcast coming out, but at the time of recording, there’s a lot of kind of chatter in the book community about ARCs and how difficult it is for authors to kind of deal with piracy that can sometimes come from ARCs. But then also just like the relationship that indies have with their readers is sometimes because of that a little bit difficult.

 

But also another thing that I get feedback a lot from authors is that when they do their ARC campaigns, there’s difficulty in getting readers to sign up because majority of the time, the strategy I see most often employed is like some kind of Google form sign up and then like book funnel distribution usually, or something like NetGalley or something like that. So I guess with us doing ARC campaigns at Authors Own, what tips that you would have for authors who are running their own ARC campaigns, what kind of tips would you give them that are beyond just kind of doing up that form and sharing and trying to get people to sign up? But then also the other, just it’s kind of like a two-prong question.

 

The other thing that they find really difficult is getting readers to engage and come back to leave the reviews. So yeah, sometimes even if they do get lots of sign up, the difficulty is then getting those people to come back and leave reviews because as we know, authors can’t demand that they leave the reviews. So how do we get that kind of organic engagement?

 

[Lilian]

It is very much a delicate dance, basically. It’s really tempting if you’re doing this for the very first time, it’s like, oh, I need to get as many reviews as possible. And you send out 200, 300, 400 of these things and it becomes overwhelming just for you to manage. So for any authors that are looking to do this kind of thing, I would say, put a manageable cap on it. Can you do 50? Can you do 60? Maybe 75 if you really want to push it. 

 

And then when it comes to that, in addition to putting together the forum, like what we went through together for the first Authors Own ARC campaign, really looking at what are you looking for specifically for reviewers to do? How can you make it easier for them to A, want to sign up and B, want to leave their reviews, right?

 

So that’s things like being flexible on what platforms that you may want them to leave their reviews on. I just had a great conversation with an author friend of mine who is a horror author who says he has no idea how to incentivize reviewers to leave reviews on Amazon because people are so anti-Amazon. 

 

[Erin]

Hmm.

 

[Lilian]

So I had said to him, I’m like, maybe what you need there is some flexibility surrounding the platforms that you’re depending on, right? And also not only that, how you share the reviews when they come out is key too. Like, are you doing it on social media? Are you doing it on email, like through your newsletters? Are you doing it on your website? Because if you’re not, you should be. Because Amazon, as popular as it is, and as easily accessible as it is, is not the only place reviews can pop up. There’s a lot of other places to do that. 

 

And when it comes to holding reviewers accountable, sometimes it depends a little bit on the reviewer. If you’re just going for readers, then there may be, you have to jump through. You could just send them a follow-up email a couple weeks before your book comes out, then a couple weeks after it comes out, and remind them. Ask them if they have any issues, you know, posting to certain places, or ask them if their reviews have gone live and could they send you the link, right?

 

If you’re just dealing with readers. When I work with clients on getting reviews, a lot of the reviewers we look at are more of the micro to macro-influencer type. So these are the folks that have anywhere from a thousand to, you know, five to maybe even 10,000 followers.

 

And these are folks that have built their content strategies, and in some cases, a bit of a budding business on doing book reviews. In cases like that, you have to have more of an open mind with their schedules, because most of these folks have reading lists a mile long, and they tell you, you know, hey, whether they can take it on or not, and if they can, you have to work with them on what scheduling looks like. To sort of incentivize and grease the wheels a little bit, maybe you give them some content, right? You give them templates with your book. You give them some social media copy. Anything that makes it easier for them to put out that review. You want to ease the way for them. 

 

And in some cases, some of those reviewers, although it is a cost to the author, it’s more beneficial to send them copies of your book. I’ve done that for my book as well, with industry folks in book publishing, because it means it goes farther for them to physically hold up a copy of your book, optics matter as well, to show their followers that, hey, I love this book. Look at how gorgeous it is. This is why I read it. This is what I think about it, right?

 

So a lot of it comes down to tapping it at a certain number that you find manageable and then being flexible surrounding scheduling and also with following up. Oftentimes, a lot of these reviewers will not tell you whether they’ve posted, right? So then it’s a matter of you keeping on top of the platforms that you have reviews on and just seeing who’s posted where. I know that can kind of butt up against the wisdom that says, hey, you shouldn’t be reading reviews, because if you get a bad one like that, that can really do a number on your psyche. I understand that completely, but it’s also about being responsible to track the distribution path of your book, right? And that also includes doing what you can to prevent piracy.

 

So in using platforms like BookFunnel, they have watermarks and things like that on there that will help prevent that. But it’s really up to you to be a staunch advocate for your own book so that you can trace where it’s going and who you sent it to. It’s just like anything else where it’s your responsibility to have a grasp on how many copies do I have out there? Who am I still waiting on and who can I follow up with?

 

[Danikka]

Yeah, absolutely. And piracy is definitely, you know, nobody wants their book pirated, but it’s a bigger issue for authors who are in KU.

 

[Erin]

Well, and it also just feels, if you know that it’s come from an ARC reader, it just feels a bit easy, doesn’t it? Like you asked, I gave you a free copy of my book and you’ve gone and put it on a piracy site.

 

[Danikka]

Yeah, yeah. I think those are all really helpful things. I think it just goes back to the mindset thing, too, and just kind of lifting yourself above those kind of, yes, it hurts. But I think thinking about the fact that you’re an author, not just as your personal creative pursuit, but also as an overall career, as a business, as a long term thing. 

 

And that’s also with working with, you know, book influencers and other people in the book industry when you are working with their schedules. There’s so much pressure around, especially with Amazon still being, you know, the monolith of where indies are able to sell their books, even if they aren’t in KU. It’s still the main place that, especially in the US, people tend to buy books. It’s getting that magic number of 50 reviews so that then you can come up in suggested titles or like others you may like. 

 

So there’s so much pressure around getting that kind of magic number. So there is a lot of pressure on that, but I think it’s still better to work on it longer term and you might not hit 50 straight away, but I think it’s better to think on it long term rather than kind of drive yourself nuts. And same with the piracy thing. Yes, be active and do your best, but don’t fixate and drive yourself crazy on it. Just do your best because that’s all you can do because there’s lots of things that aren’t within your control.

 

[Lilian]

And to your point about really focusing back on what you can control, there are best-selling books out there from authors that have been doing this for decades that I love dearly and I do respect, but there are a lot of one-star reviews for them. 

 

[Danikka]

Absolutely. 

 

[Lilian]

I think it really helps to divorce yourself from the intention or the perspective of the reviewer. And the reason why I say that is with my book, with the nonfiction book and the fact that it’s a PR book, it’s a little bit easier because for me, having a great review is great. But for me, what I really want somebody who reads this book to do is actually take action on what they’re learning throughout the book. You thinking that the book is great is not going to help move the needle forward when you’re building your business as an author.

 

But you taking the lessons that you’ve learned in the book, whether you choose to work with me or not, it’s my goal that this book helps to bring you more confidence to be able to advocate for yourself and your goals, no matter who you’re working with. Right? That was more my goal in getting the book out there, in focusing on the particular book publishing and marketing industry of the people that I work with, why I’m doing webinars on PR and mindset. And that is what I was really looking for. 

 

So in that way, I can sort of divorce myself from the perspective of the reviewer. And I know that in fiction, it can be a lot harder to deal with that because they are critiquing your themes, your world building, your characters, whatever it is.

 

[Erin]

Yeah. Although if they’re critiquing things like that, though, sometimes those kind of reviews are actually quite helpful. Because you’re like, oh, well, that’s good for me to know as a writer that that didn’t hit for you. Like it wasn’t landing right. But some of them are really helpful. 

 

[Danikka]

It’s the ones that forget that you’re human and are just mean. They’re the ones that are the worst.

 

[Erin]

Like this is a flaming vial of damage, those ones.

 

[Lilian]

Or the ones where I think being caught up in your own perspective too much can be detrimental because they come at it from a standpoint of I wouldn’t have done what your character did. And it’s like, well, that’s great. Right. I respect your perspective. However, that’s like saying you are talking to somebody and you’re saying I wouldn’t have done what you did. Well, you were not living that person’s lived experience.

 

You weren’t looking at it from their perspective. And I think it’s really important for authors to remember that even if they are expanding on the review process and, you know, giving copies to podcasters to read and review before they do an interview. Right.

 

Because that really informs and shapes the conversations that they’re going to have. It’s important to remember that everyone that you are asking to review your book is bringing in their own perspectives, their own biases, and perhaps, yes, their own mindset blocks too surrounding storytelling, surrounding your particular genre and surrounding particular themes that you put in your book too. And when you look at it that way, it becomes much easier to divorce yourself from looking at it as a personal attack on your creativity and more so a respectful, agree to disagree kind of situation on what their perspective is.

 

[Erin]

Yeah, that’s true. 

 

[Danikka]

Yeah. And once again, we see that mindset is the key. It’s flipping that perspective. I’m just so happy with how this episode went. I feel like if I don’t cut it off now, I’m just going to be picking Lillian’s brain all day.

 

So to wrap up, thank you so much Lillian for coming on and continuing to work with Authors Own and with our authors. I just think that you’re brilliant and I’m just so grateful to have found all these amazing people that can now just make everything amazing. And yeah, if you want to get Lillian’s book, I’ll pass it over to Lillian to say all of the things about where you can get everything.

 

[Lilian]

You can find my book at all of the major online retailers. So Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Smashwords, Kobo. And the easiest way to find all of that is to go to my website, InRetrospectWritingServices.com slash book dash retailers. So I have all of the retailers listed on that page. And you can also buy the book direct from me as well and get signed copies as well from my online store. 

[Danikka]

Amazing. And Lillian will also have a profile on the Authors Own website too. So we’ll have all of her links in the podcast episode blog on our podcast page on the website. But also if you go to the team page on the Authors Own page, there’ll be a link to Lillian’s website there too. That will also take you there. Thank you so much for coming on today, Lillian. And yeah, I just loved this episode. I’m so excited for it to come out. 

 

[Erin]

Yeah, me too. Yeah.

 

[Danikka]

And I hope the listeners loved it as much as we did. And we’ll see you guys. We’ll talk to you guys in the next episode.

 

[Erin]

Bye. 

 

[Danikka]

Thank you for listening to The Snailed It Podcast, brought to you by Authors Own Publishing, the home of indie publishing. Don’t forget to subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts and follow us on Instagram at Authors Own Publishing. Music brought to you by Mikkel, with more details in the show notes.