287. How to Be an Authortunist with Angela Yuriko Smith

Award-winning poet, author, and publisher Angela Yuriko Smith discusses how to find unique opportunities writers might not have realized existed and how to use them to enhance your publishing journey.

We also want to congratulate Angela on being elected as the newest president of the Horror Writers Association!!!

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Visit Angela's Website:
https://angelaysmith.com/

Subscribe to Angela's Substack:
https://authortunities.substack.com/
https://substack.com/@angelayurikosmith

Follow Angela on her socials for more updates on her upcoming events:
https://www.facebook.com/Angela.Yuriko.Smiths/
https://www.instagram.com/angela_yuriko_smith/

Transcript

Jennia: Hello. I'm Jennia D'Lima. Welcome to Writing and Editing, the podcast that takes a whole person approach to everything related to both writing and editing. Angela Yuriko Smith is a multiple award-winning poet, author, and publisher, and she wrote the only self-published novel to be included on the Bram Stoker Awards finalist ballot. She's here to tell us about a concept that will enable authors to see opportunities where they might not have realized they existed before, and to help them figure out the why behind their writing. This is, "How to be an Authortunist.”

Jennia: Well, first, I am so excited to have you on the show!

Angela Yuriko Smith: Thank you! Thank you so much, Jennia. And it is a pleasure to be here and an honor. And, of course, you only have to look at me, and I will start talking to you about marketing, because it is one of my favorite topics. And I think one reason why it is such a passionate thing for me is because so many of us are afraid of it—

Jennia: Yeah. 

Angela Yuriko Smith:—as authors. And yet, it's the same as dating, I think. You know, you date, you try to put your best foot forward. You're, you know—and I don't know why we don't do these with our books as well, or why there's such an emotional reluctance. Like we're selling out somehow, if we succeed. You know, I want to sell out. I definitely want to succeed (laughs). 

Jennia: Yeah, it is interesting. There's almost these conflicting feelings behind it, exactly like you've just described. You know, we want to do well. People want to see their books enjoyed and loved by hundreds, thousands, even millions.

Angela Yuriko Smith: Yeah.

Jennia: But then there's almost this disconnect when it comes to the steps you have to take to get it that point.

Angela Yuriko Smith: Yeah! Yeah, exactly. I just read—and I thought this was so interesting—apparently, way, way, way back in the day, and I don't know the year, but before the Gutenberg printing press, writers wouldn't take money for writing. It was considered beneath us. And so when we wrote, it would, like—if we got money—like, the publishers owned the copyrights to our work, a) which I was really shocked by—

Jennia: Mhm.

Angela Yuriko Smith:—And then if you got money, you would give it away, or you would, “No, no, no. Piff, piff. I don't want that money. You know, I'm doing this for the art.” And then with the Gutenberg printing press, and, like, we developed. And then that was where we had our first commercial authors. So I almost wonder if that's part of the disconnect. On part of us, we want to be the artist that don't—you know, we live off air and I don’t know, family riches (laughs). But on the other hand, we're professionals and we need to make money and pay for our things like doctors and lawyers and mechanics. And, you know.

Jennia: I never thought about it like that before. But I've also never read an article like that. But that's really interesting. You can sort of see how that would have filtered into the cultural mindset that we have about being a creative and what it means to be a creative.

Angela Yuriko Smith: Mhm. Yeah, we're conflicted.

Jennia: Yes. Well, getting to your book that you wrote about this topic, can you explain how you developed the term Authortunist and what exactly it means?

Angela Yuriko Smith: Oh yes. Yes, and if my daughter listens to this, she'll be like, "Ugh." (Jennia laughs). Authortunist is a portmanteau. It just popped into my head. It was the name of a newsletter that I started—Authortunities at Substack—and I was trying to figure out what is a title that can convey what I'm trying to say, which is author opportunities. It's a newsletter calendar of author opportunities—(reenacting realization) "Ohh, Author-tunities. Oh wow. I love that." And just kind of took off, like, as a—as a word. And then it's—I think it's just such a dynamic word because, you know, being an Authortunist, it just rounds up what I feel like we should be or what we could be in this current market. The way things are now, not in the millions of 1800s ago.

Jennia: Yes. Well, going through your book, you do start off with a few questions for the reader, who in this case is clearly an author. And I just think it's interesting to look at why we start off with these questions and how it's going to help this Authortunist see which avenues are the best fits for them. So the very first question, or at least one of them, was looking into the why of someone writes. So why do you think this question serves as the foundation for everything else that follows?

Angela Yuriko Smith: Well, it's because knowing why you write and what you're after changes your trajectory. So if you are writing for money—and I always stress there is nothing wrong with that. The same as, you know, a mechanic wanting to fix cars for money, even if he enjoys fixing cars, still shouldn't do it for free. But if you know the why, like, "I want to make money," or, "I want to be famous," or, "I'm trying to get my Earth-shattering message across." All of those are going to be different paths. So if you are, say, after money, you're going to be looking at keywords, you know, what is selling—

Jennia: Ahh, yeah.

Angela Yuriko Smith: —trends that are selling, investing money in that cover because people do judge a book by its cover. If you, say, want to share a message, you know, "I want to save the planet and my message I feel like would do that," then you're going to be on a completely different trajectory. You're going to be trying to give your book away as PDFs in schools. You're going to try to hit those young readers and make this connect with them or the people that need to know this message. And you're not going to be after the money necessarily. But I think the roots of imposter syndrome are us comparing our books or our work to other people's whys—

Jennia: Mhm.

Angela Yuriko Smith: —So I may be, you know—my message is the most important thing and I'm trying to get this message to—So I'm not really making any money at my book at all. And then my friend tells me about how they are making so much money, blah, blah, blah, because they're after the income, this is their job. And if I feel bad about that, I'm doing myself a disservice because that's not my why. And that by the same token, they might be like, "Oh, I'm just such a sellout. I have all these romances that are flying off the shelves and I have so much money, but I'm not making an impact. I'm not saying anything that really matters." Also, they shouldn't feel bad. There's no wrong reason for us to do this.

Jennia: That is an important distinction. And I'm so glad that you brought that up, especially with imposter syndrome too. And I think it's exactly like what you're saying, that we're looking at these criteria that don't really fit us, and they also aren't going to fit the steps that we've taken and the steps that we're continuing to take to reach our own version of success. So, yeah, so why are we comparing ourselves to these other people then?

Angela Yuriko Smith: Exactly. Exactly. And then we have a plan. And this is to say, one of the things I do stress, your why can change. Your why can be a blend of whys. You know, you might want to get your message through and make a difference, but knowing why you're writing, what your point is, will help everything beyond that. You know, if you're giving your book away for free, but your point is to make income, you're going to be unhappy. You know what I mean? (Jennia laughs). So you're going to look at different things. So it's the first question I think we need to ask ourselves...And regularly. I actually have on my Google Calendar to check in with myself twice a year to see, have my goals changed? And they could.

Jennia: That's a good point, too, because, you know, just like we talk about our characters changing and that they don't remain static, well, we as people don't remain static. So it only stands to reason that. Maybe some of our goals or our ideas of what we'd like to see are going to change over time too.

Angela Yuriko Smith: Exactly.

Jennia: Well, apart from looking at the why of something, you also begin with a lot about the writing itself and also how to do that. I mean, you have everything in there from how to write your elevator pitch to how to write an outline. So what about this, too, did you feel was necessary for including in this book?

Angela Yuriko Smith: It was the questions, because I'm an author... coach. I don’t know why that word was so stuck in my head to say. But I do a lot of coaching and I do a lot of volunteer coaching for the Horror Writers Association. And so it was more based on the questions that I get asked regularly. So a little bit of a 101 kind of thing. You know what I mean? We jump into this where we are a lot of times, and—there's so much that we can miss and if we are not lucky enough to get a good mentor, you know—So that's the point of all that is I'm trying to be a good mentor as we lead up into think outside the box with your marketing.

Jennia: Mmm.

Angela Yuriko Smith: So, covering all the, all the questions that I feel like I get asked all the time.

Jennia: I actually—So I phrased that question, but I had an answer in mind for you because (both laugh) you do talk later in the book about how you have to have a good product, and everything that you talk about ahead of time into make sure you have an elevator pitch, by the way, here's what it is, here's how to craft one that's compelling and is going to grab people and how to make your hook. It all goes into making a good product.

Angela Yuriko Smith: Yeah. And you are correct. And I applaud the author that said that in this book (both laugh). And then-—how we did not think about that. But, yeah, it is—that is—Besides your why, why are you writing the thing that you're writing? Our craft, our product is, is vitally important because you can have a beautiful cover and if you haven't edited the interior, and, shockingly, this is common, and I understand that. But when we're professionals, we need to try our very best to make that first book brilliant and the best book that it can be. And then let it go out into the universe and start the next one with that same mindset. And I won't go further into that necessarily, because then I'm going to get into the whole thing of, like, why we get mad when the book doesn't sell, but we didn't edit it. And, you know.

Jennia: I do see that come up a lot, especially in the self-publishing author communities. And it's that feeling of frustration and anger. But also we talked a little bit about imposter syndrome earlier, and why is this person receiving this, this and this and I'm not? And sometimes it does have to go back to, well, did you follow these initial steps? Did you look at the elevator pitch? Did you know how to craft your blurb? Do you have a visually appealing inside of your book? Not just a strong story, but even that readability of it when we look at font choices and the like.

Angela Yuriko Smith: Mhm.

Jennia: Well, one of the lines in your book, and this just reminded me of it, was that mistakes are opportunities. So why do you think that that's an important message for authors to keep in mind and also to remind themselves of?

Angela Yuriko Smith: One of the main reasons I think, is I am, I want to say, an enemy of perfection, I guess (Jennia laughs). In a very—But perfection is what we don't remember when we think of perfection. It's us trying to be like everybody else. And that is this weird idea of perfection. But then how are we going to stand out? And I'm not talking about, obviously, doing market research. You don't want to be so standing out that everybody's like, "What the heck is this?"—

Jennia: Yes.

Angela Yuriko Smith: —You know what I mean? And then... That's all part of it, and it's a balance. I just feel like every mistake—like the mistakes that I've made. So, an example, I guess I'll say. An example is when I first took over the magazine, I had way too many stories in there. I had over purchased, and to this day, I still do this. So I haven't learned anything. But I had over purchased on stories, and we were trying to fit all of the stories and poetry within 109 pages, because that's the, the publishing sweet spot for that particular publication. Over that, then our wholesale price would go up significantly. So we're trying to stay in that 109 pages. And I had one illustration for each story. And before me, it was one image inset in all the text, and that's the way it was done and then all the white pages. But because I had overbought and I really needed to try to cram everything in, I started experimenting with, can I put that phone?—Can I put the image behind the text a little bit?—

Jennia: Ohh.

Angela Yuriko Smith: —Can I make better use of my room? And it looked fantastic. And so we've always published—since I've taken it over, it's had almost like a watermarked background of the art. Now we use the art is inset, and we also have the watermark background. So as well as just, it looks great, it gives a lot more appeal and texture to the work. You can also always tell what story you're reading because you can see the art very faintly behind the text. And we have a gorgeous layout person now. He does such a great job, Anthony R. Rhodes. And he's done, like, even more with that idea. And then later, we saw magazines also start doing that, like, that we knew. You know, magazines in our circle. So that would have never happened if I had said, "Oh my gosh, I've made an error. I bought way too much. So we're just hold some of this for the next time," or, "I'm sorry, guys. I know I said I'm taking your story, but I just can't right now," you know, or anything like that. So I feel like, embrace our mistakes and we learn things from them. And the only thing different is the perspective. And we're creative. We're writers, right?—

Jennia: Yeah, exactly!

Angela Yuriko Smith: —We are those creative people. We write the world. We are making our own paths with our writing.

Jennia: I love that. Because even if you might not see something come across in your work where a mistake has paid off, like, in this case, or I'm thinking even, you know, Silly Putty wasn't made to be Silly Putty. But even just that self growth and even maybe realizing, "I won't be doing this in the future. This didn't work for me," because that also helps you learn a better way to do something later on, so it still leads to progress in some way.

Angela Yuriko Smith: Yeah!

Jennia: Well, moving on to marketing, you have some fascinating and really novel ideas on how to market a book. And just so I don't spoil the material that's in the book for anyone who's interested in reading it, could you share a little bit about that?

Angela Yuriko Smith: Absolutely! And I do want to stress before I get into some of these—because some of these are a little bit stranger ideas—it's more about thinking outside the box and looking at every single thing as an opportunity, or an Authortunity!—

Jennia: There we go. Yes (laughs).

Angela Yuriko Smith: —Rather than having to do exactly as I have done. But one of the things is, any place you go—If you touch a person online or anywhere, that's a potential reader for you. And the easiest people to touch—which, maybe, actually sounds wrong. The easiest people to reach, we'll say, is online. And so if you go into a platform like Second Life, which a lot of us—it's a virtual world, and a lot of people think of it as just a really weird thing. And it is weird. There's so much weirdness in there. But you can also do a lot of things as an author, and there's—I can't actually remember the number, but I think it's, like, 450,000 people in there.

Jennia: Oh wow.

Angela Yuriko Smith: And each of them could be a reader worldwide. I published my first book, and I was kind of thinking, "Hmm, there's radio stations in this platform, you know, virtual radio stations. There's virtual news stations. There are 450,000+ potential readers. And all of them are, like, right there in my keyboard, in my mouse." You know, that is how close they are to me. So I went in, and the very first book I did was called, End of May. And so I rebuilt the castle from End of May in the virtual world—

Jennia: Oh!

Angela Yuriko Smith: —And then I built scenes. Like, so the wine was spilt at one point across the tablecloth. And so I had that scene built in Second Life. And then I did a press release, which is also in How to Be an Authortunist, how to build a press release, because they're very valuable. So I did a press release, but I did it in Second Life. And I messaged all of the news outlets in Second Life. And anybody who's anybody, including the Lindens, who are probably, like, "Who is this person?" (Jennia laughs). The Lindens are who own it. And I told them about my book, and it wound up going as a number one hotspot on, like, the editor's choice of Second Life Destinations. And I wound up doing, like, little virtual TV shows where my little character—so I didn't have to do my hair and makeup—

Jennia: Nice!

Angela Yuriko Smith: —My virtual character sat there and talked about my book, just like we're doing right now. At the time, I'd come from newspaper worlds to books, fiction. And I was making $50 a month in royalties, solidly, from that. Now, I'm, like, "Wow, that was great." But at the time, I was, like, "Pff! This is nothing. Like, ugh!" (Jennia laughs). Now I know differently. Now I would be very grateful for that and happy. But then I decided to write a second book, but about the first book and how I had done that. But, yeah, so it did wonderfully. It did wonderfully. And I still go into Second Life sometimes. I don't really do a lot like I did then because it is time consuming. But I still have a virtual shop that is for the newsletter now so people can wander around in this place called Book Island, and it is all book-related, author-related storefronts—

Jennia: Oh, that's so neat! that's nice.

Angela Yuriko Smith: —And they can—yeah, they can click any of my things in there. And it takes them—because it's all online, right? It takes them to my actual newsletter offline in Substack. So it's just another way to get people in there that we don't think of, you know, that is pretty big. I mean, that's 450,000 people that you could click and reach them.

Jennia: That reminds me a little bit of something we were talking about before we started working—or (mocks herself) "working." Before we started recording and how we sometimes compartmentalize these people in different audiences. Like, this person really only enjoys video games, so I won't market to them. This person just enjoys going to the zoo, I won't market to them. But we're just eliminating all this potential without even pursuing it when we could be reaching our biggest audience yet.

Angela Yuriko Smith: Yeah, exactly. And they're already pre-vetted in a way. So if you—So say, like, the game—a game player on Twitch, and maybe they play a lot of darker games or vampire games—And you can tell what people are playing. I mean, they usually advertise it. All of their, their people are not—like, we tend to be, like, "I'm going to sell my book at a convention of writers. Oh look, everybody has a book. You know, why are we not—We can only buy so many books and we're all trying to sell our own books." It's the least successful place, I think. But that's where we usually are trying to sell our books—

Jennia: That's a good point.

Angela Yuriko Smith: —So even though it's great to get your name out there. But then if you go to, say, a Twitch streamer and they're doing this game, you know that the people in there probably buy games. They're a fan of the genre. They have credit cards and internet (Jennia laughs). They, you know. But by not thinking of them, we are losing a whole potential market that's not flooded—

Jennia: Mhm.

Angela Yuriko Smith: —You know, there's probably not any other authors in there, even if you just come in and chat. Not come in and chat about, like, "Hey, I see you like vampire games. I have a vampire novel," you know, (Jennia laughs) because we all know what happens with that as well—

Jennia: Yes, exactly.

Angela Yuriko Smith: —But just to get in and be a part of the community, you know. And they're often very happy to share your book. Or you can ask them, "Can I sponsor your stream?" and send them a book. And they need content, and we are the content providers, so we benefit each other.

Jennia: Yeah! Well, especially if you can do this in a way where you're doing something else that you enjoy. It just really feels like such a natural fit when you really start thinking about it. And this is something I've seen a lot with children's books. So, for instance, they might have a book where a barnyard animal is the main character, and they go to, like, a Tractor Supply store, or event, or something like that. And so, you know, a lot of these families are wandering around—

Angela Yuriko Smith: Yeah!

Jennia: —Maybe the kids got carried along with them, whether they wanted to be there or not. They're bored. They're antsy. They don't want to keep looking at all these different pieces of machinery. Oh look, here's a book about a pig. Yes, I'll buy it for $10 to keep you happy. You know, and it's one of those things, too, where it's so easy. Like you were saying, we see these expected areas for marketing or these expected places where we would show up, but it's also so limiting.

Angela Yuriko Smith: Exactly. And by going into the other places, we're doing a service as well. The Tractor Supply wants people to come in, and you will prob—you'll be advertising that Tractor Supply to people who may not know about it that are your readers. And then they come in, and they're like, "Oh, I didn't know there's a Tractor Supply here." You know, so it's a win-win for both sides.

Jennia: Yeah, I agree with you. I mean, I just—I really think it's such a win-win. But, like we were talking about both on the show and then beforehand, yeah, we just get this idea of, like, here's our checklist for, here's where I should market my book. But then we don't ever look beyond that. And that's exactly what you talk about in your book. It was so eye opening, because I had never heard anyone suggest anything like what you're suggesting in your book before. And yet it is all so reasonable.

Angela Yuriko Smith: Thank you! Thank you. Because sometimes I felt like, "Oh, what are people going to think?" (Jennia laughs) You know, "Go into Second Life and talk about your book." What? (laughs) You know, like, what are you talking about? But so, like, say we have a historical fiction novel, and we also sew.

Jennia: Mhm.

Angela Yuriko Smith: —Putting ourselves into this is such a good idea, like, for marketing. Because if I, say, was a sewer—I'm not—and I had a historical fiction novel, I would create a pattern from my novel of say, something that somebody wore. And then I would go to, like, say, JoAnn's Fabrics, and teach, and give my pattern away for free. Because that's not my point. My point is the book. (laughs) They probably would be very excited to read the book then, because there are probably also readers among these sewers, so. It's less about, like, one thing, like, definitely go into Second Life to market your book. But more, where do you have a connection? And there's probably readers there that are not—that would be very excited to see you.

Jennia: Mhm. One of my authors did something like that. Embroidery was a key part of her book, and so she had an embroidery pattern that she had created as one of the marketing things, but also just because she enjoys it. And speaking of that and the free resources, that was something else you talked about, is having that free resource, having that magnet that gets the reader drawn in. But just like the book and going through all those steps into making a good product, that your free item also has to be a good product. It cannot just be, "Here's something I threw together in three minutes. Enjoy."

Angela Yuriko Smith: Exactly. Exactly. And something—I feel like the best are things that connect and build a relationship. The point of all marketing is building a relationship with somebody. It's not just, "Here's my bookmark. Goodbye. I will never see you again. Hope you come back! The website's on the bookmark." You know? But less of the, "Here it is. Here's the website. Goodbye," and more finding a way to give it to somebody, in an engaging way. So, like, a business card, which is cool, but I just feel like we need more connectivity with people now. And then also stand out a little bit.

Jennia: Also, too, think it makes it harder to stand out just because you receive so many of the same products and it becomes difficult to match even that author name or face to whatever it is that you've just received. And again, it's just because you've received so many of them.

Angela Yuriko Smith: Mhm.

Jennia: Well, where can people find out more about you? And do you have any scheduled events coming up?

Angela Yuriko Smith: I do. We have Like-A-Con coming up for the magazine. And that's a five-day convention online, so that everybody can access it very easily.

Jennia: Love that.

Angela Yuriko Smith: I will be at Stoker Con next June, and I cannot think of those days right now. I'm gonna—I'm trying to be at Daniel David Wallace's "Escape the Plot Forest Summit" coming October 19. And otherwise, I'm always on Substack, which is Authortunities.substack.com. And my website, which is my name, you know, dot com. Angelayurikosmith.com or angelaysmith.com. And you can find me in the Horror Association—Horror Writers Association because, I can talk about it now, I will be the new president coming up starting November 1.

Jennia: Congratulations! It's almost like I got to interview a celebrity before you were as much of a celebrity as you will be in the near future (laughs).

Angela Yuriko Smith: Exactly! And now you can say you have—yes, the president of the Horror Writers Association as of November 1. But...(laughs)

Jennia: We will have to put that in the show notes. I think that should be there.

Angela Yuriko Smith: Yeah! (laughs)

Jennia: Well, speaking of, thank you so much.

Jennia: And thank you for listening. And be sure to check out this show notes for additional information, including that wealth of links that was just provided for us. And then please join me next week when Kate Brandes is going to be visiting. And we're going to be talking about environmental themes in literature and how to create them. Thanks again!