Note: Thank you for trying out this new type of post! Let me know if you enjoy this more raw, unedited video style or if you prefer more editing and polish.
Please also let me know how you engaged with this post. Did you watch the video or read the transcript?
Video Transcript
Intro
Hi everyone! Welcome to a brand new journey with Jandalf the Green, also known as Jenny Gossell, also known as me. Thank you for being here!
You probably have noticed that things look a little bit different than they have in my previous videos. You will probably notice as I go on that several things are different from what they have been in the past. So this is basically just a video to update you on what I'm doing now and why I'm doing it, and also to give you something of a behind-the-scenes look into how authors actually approach things and why I'm approaching things a little bit differently from how some authors do. So there's quite a bit to talk about there that I think will be fun to update you guys on.
I also want to update you on my Big Cool Ideas that you might be familiar with, that some of you have even voted on to help me decide which Big Cool Idea to try first and what to do next. So I wanted to check in with you guys about that, because it's been a little bit since I posted that poll, and you might be wondering what's going on with that, which of the Big Cool Ideas won? Which am I doing first?
So I do have an update for you guys about that, but I wanted to kind of make that part of a larger discussion, and just let you guys know more of what I'm doing and why I've been changing some things recently.
(And some of you may not even know yet why I'm calling myself Jandalf the Green sometimes, and I'm actually not going to tell that story today, because I never explain that unless people directly ask me. So you can directly ask me if you want to, but usually I like to keep that a bit of a mystery! But in case you didn't know, my alter ego is Jandalf the Green.)
Housekeeping
So first, just to address the elephant in the room, I am making this video primarily as a Substack post, but some of you may be watching on YouTube. So that's why I say that. Some of you are watching this on Substack, and so it feels weird to hear me say it's on Substack because you knew that.
But just to address the obvious, I am cross-posting this video on two platforms at once. If you don't know what Substack is or what I'm doing there, I wrote a post about my move on to Substack, so I'll link to that in the description. If you're on Substack, I will still link to that, but you're probably a little bit more familiar with what's going on here.
So, Substack posts that also automatically post to YouTube. So it's both. And maybe it's really awkward for me to talk about that directly, but I just thought that it would be less confusing if I just explained upfront. Substack video, YouTube video, I am trying something new. I'm seeing if it works, to have a video that is made for both Substack and YouTube.
We'll see! Maybe you guys don't like this at all, but we're just experimenting with new things. And that's another thing that I'm going to explain a little bit more as I go on. But I just wanted to be very clear upfront about what is going on there.
So yeah, I have moved to Substack as my primary kind of online home. I do have my website that I can also link in the description. And in a sense, the website is the hub of everything. But I've actually not yet updated that to point to Substack. So things are very under construction here. Never a dull moment with Jandalf the Green! Stuff is always happening and changing. And I'm not always quite on top of the curve of everything that I'm working on all at once.
But Substack is kind of the primary place where I'm going to be interacting with readers moving forward. On Substack you can find the posts that I’ve made so far, just a few kind of introductory posts. You can comment on posts. So a lot more direct interaction. It's a little bit like YouTube in that sense, where we can talk directly in the comments and where you guys can talk to each other, unlike with an email list.
So I was primarily based on an email list, but I am now kind of treating my Substack as an email list, because that way we can just have a lot more interaction. There's more interaction among readers. It's a lot easier for other readers to come in and find what I'm doing. And it just offers a lot of opportunities for Big Cool Ideas, which hopefully a lot of you guys have seen my post about some of the Big Cool Ideas that I’d really like to do on Substack, that I'm excited to just give a try and see if you guys like them and see if that helps our reader community grow. So I will make sure it's also easy for you to find that post in the description, in the show notes, in the transcript, and in whatever you happen to be looking at.
I'm just going to embrace the clunkiness of this video and the new things that I'm trying to do with it!
So all of that, very practical, “what is even going on” stuff. Hopefully, that makes you less confused, not more confused!
Storytime
Now I'm going to back up a little bit, slow down a little bit, and I want to share with you guys a bit about why I'm changing some stuff up, why even my new Substack is kind of going this direction and that direction. And I just want to give you guys a little bit of perspective for what what I'm even doing.
A lot of you have been following my writing for quite a while, which is really cool. So I want to make sure that you guys are up on why some things are changing. And then also, if you're new or like, here's what the trajectory is. So just to be clear upfront.
In case you're very new and not that familiar with what I'm doing: I write fantasy books. I write young adult fantasy adventures. They are fun books for teens. They have a lot of the battle between good and evil. They have a lot of classic Hero's Journey elements. They also like to be really funny and just a good time, but with some deeper themes and lots of character development, lots of fun worldbuilding, but also balance with character development. That is the kind of story that I write.
I've been writing that kind of book for a very long time. I’ve wanted to be a writer pretty much my entire life. I wrote some novellas (so, shorter books) when I was a teenager. Some of you are here all the way from back in 2018 to 2020 when I was publishing those fantasy books that were kind of my my first attempt, my first published, or at least my first finished projects.
So that's what I do. I write fantasy adventure stories to encourage teens and young adults to live adventurous lives. And I'm all about real-life adventure and not just feeling like adventure and magic are only things that can happen in books, that real life can be an even better story than anything you've ever read in a book. So that's that's what I'm doing, that's what I'm about, that's what I'm working toward.
I currently have one published story. I'll grab the book right here. *grabs book* This is a short story collection, and it has my short story, “People of the Rain,” in it. So that's the published thing that I have. That's what I've got. And I have been working on writing and publishing that book for quite a few years now, the book has been published for about a year. So I've done some various really fun things with that. But I do not yet have a published novel, and so that is really the next big thing that I am working towards.
Chapter One
So kind of chapter one of this story, if you will, is back when I was working on those novellas that I mentioned a minute ago. And even before that, I knew that I wanted to be an author. Here I'm a teenager. I am really young, but I know that I want to be an author.
And so at this point in my mind, to be an author, what you do is you write books, and then you get the books published, and then people buy the books, and it's just that simple.
And getting a book published is as simple as, you send a letter to a publisher, and you say to your publisher, “Here is my book, would you like to publish it?” And then the publisher either says, “Yes, we would like to publish it,” or “No.” And then you try a different publisher, and eventually you try one that works.
That was my idea of how being an author worked. And I think a lot of people have that idea. The book publishing industry is not a very well-known industry in the general public. So I think that's a very common conception of how publishing works.
So I had these novellas, and I started releasing them, and I ended up kind of thinking that working with a publishing house just sounded too hard and like I was probably going to get a bunch of rejections, and I didn't really want to get a bunch of rejections.
And so I was like, “Okay, I will just list this on Amazon and people will just find it.” And what I learned through that process was that people do not just find it. If you just list a book on Amazon, if you just order some books to be printed, readers are not just magically going to find them. There are millions and millions of books to sort through, and readers are not just going to stumble upon your book if they've never heard of it before, if no one else is reading it and reviewing it and recommending it, people are not just going to magically stumble upon your book.
Chapter Two
And so kind of starting in 2018 and then over the course of the next few years, I started learning about this whole new concept of authors actually also have to be business people. In the 21st century, at least. It maybe used to be a little bit less that way, but at least in the 21st century, authors have to be business people.
And at first that sounds kind of disappointing, but the good thing is that means that authors have to connect with readers. Authors have to build community with readers. And in a sense, that's a really good thing. That's really good for us as authors, because that means that we are meeting our readers a lot of times in person. We're interacting directly with our readers. We're learning from our readers, and I think that gives us the opportunity to be very in touch with what our readers actually want, in ways that maybe…
You know, there are so many complaints about, “Hollywood is out of touch with what the viewers want,” and I think part of that is because these big companies are not interacting at all with the people that they're actually serving, whereas we as authors are kind of forced, in a sense, to be a lot more in touch with what our readers want, but then that ends up kind of being a good thing, even if we just set out to be writers.
So my point in that is, that brought me into kind of chapter two of this story where I'm now like, “Oh, I have to be a business person. I have to connect with readers.” And that means that I felt like, now I need what is called, in author speak, a “platform.” And when we say “a platform” as authors, we basically mean you have a lot of followers. You have a lot of people who are waiting for your book. You have a lot of people who will buy your book as soon as it comes out. You have attention. You have people who know who you are.
So I felt like, “Okay, I need a platform.” And at the time, it seemed like the definition of platform is basically “social media followers.” And over the next few years, then, I started learning about how social media followers are not necessarily that effective for authors to have. It is a lot of work to get a lot of social media followers, and is not necessarily going to have a great return for authors. That's not necessarily the best use of your time, but a lot more effective metric is how many people you have on your email list.
So that's a reason that I've been investing a lot more in email list recently, putting time into that and making sure that I have a very quality, consistent way to update my readers and my friends and my supporters with how my writing is going and let you guys know what's going on.
And so email list is a whole lot more effective than social media, but I was still feeling pretty focused on the numbers and feeling like I need to have big numbers, A, so that I have people to sell books to, and B, because if you're going to get a traditional publisher, what I always hear is that publishers generally want their authors to already have a platform. It's not like the general strategy that authors take is: you get published and then you build a platform. It's: by the time you're releasing your book, you want to have a lot of readers to sell it to.
So I felt like, not only do I need to connect with readers for the reader's sake and for the sake of my writing being as good as possible, and just so that people can find my writing and benefit from it, but also like, I have to have some certain number in order to get published. So I went through this sort of period of time of feeling like it was almost more important to build my platform than to build my books. And developing this sort of feeling like I would almost be guilty for prioritizing my writing itself, because it feels like, “Oh, the little children authors who think that they can just write books and make money, you know, they're not being responsible and doing the business thing. So I'm going to be responsible and do the business things. And, you know, that's what is going to help me become a real author.”
Chapter Three
But over the last, I guess, year or so, I've kind of entered into a chapter three, I think, where I'm starting to work on balancing these things a little bit more, where you have the writing and you also have the connection with readers. And though it's building a platform, per se (as much as I don't love that term in some ways), but it is necessary to have both the connection with readers and the creation of the books.
But I've just had to realize, I've spent so much time trying to build up a following, and in some ways, that has actually caused me to de-prioritize my writing itself.
And how do you get better at writing? How do you get good enough at writing to get published? It's by writing, it's by practicing. It's by failing. It's by writing a draft that's not very good and then revising it so that it's a whole lot better.
And I am in the stage now where I am really working on moving towards publishing. Like I said earlier, publishing a novel is really my next big goal that I'm hoping to hit, because I really think that is how I can serve people best. I think that's how I can use my gifts best. Publishing a novel is kind of what I've been aiming toward for the last 10+ years. So that's really what I need to prioritize.
And I have been kind of falling into feeling like to get published, I need a platform. But more importantly, to get published, I need a book to publish. I need a book that is ready to publish. And I need to be the kind of writer who is ready to write a book that is ready to be published, and I can only get there by writing itself.
New Approach
So I say all of that to explain and give you some background behind the the new/shifted approach to online presence that I'm kind of moving into now. And the main hallmark of this kind of shifted approach is that I'm going to make growing in my craft and creating a publishable manuscript my number one priority in work.
That doesn't mean that I'm going to be sending out fewer emails. I don't think you're necessarily going to see a huge difference in the frequency of my posting or anything, because I'm not getting less frequent or less consistent with my posting.
The plan is just to be a lot more focused and a lot more purposeful, and even with the emails that I send out, the Substacks that I post, the videos that I post (which I plan to all be really one unified thing)—a big goal with that is to also grow in my craft through interacting with you guys, through interacting with the readers.
And I would really love it if you guys would help me do that by commenting on my posts and by giving me feedback and letting me know like, “This thing that you shared about your story, I'm actually not sure if that's going to work really well,” or, “You know, I'm a fantasy reader, and I would really love to see this kind of thing in fantasy books, and I just cannot find it. So would you write that please?” Like, I would really love that kind of feedback, because that's going to help me become a better writer.
And I was planning, honestly, when I switched over to Substack, even just, you know, a few weeks ago, when I made that switch, I was planning to start some numerical growth initiatives like, “Okay, let's bring in more readers. Let's expand this group of fellow travelers that I've got here.” And I would still love to do that at some point, but not to the detriment of me being able to really focus on writing. I think trying to get more numbers of people following me right now is not the priority that I need to have first. I need to have the book, and the books plural that the people are going to follow me for, and then I can invite people to actually do that and follow me. Be like, “Okay, I have this book. I think you would like it. Do you want it?” And I can do that so much more effectively once I'm ready and once I have the book coming out.
So just to explain that even my first couple posts on Substack might have kind of sounded like I was going in a different direction than what I'm actually going in now.
I do want to keep inviting in more fellow travelers. If you know people who you think would like “People of the Rain” or who would like just the kind of thing I'm writing in general, then I would love for you to invite them to my Substack, invite them to my YouTube channel, invite them to whatever, where they can get to know me. That would be awesome.
But I just wanted you guys to know that my priority for right now is getting better at what I'm writing, and investing in the fellow travelers that I have right now—which is YOU—and listening to you and learning from you, and just becoming a better writer in that way, if that makes sense.
Big Cool Ideas Update
So about the big cool ideas: I definitely wanted to let you know what's going on with them. And you may be like, “Okay, is this Jenny's really long-winded way of saying, like, we're not doing the Big Cool Ideas right now?” And no, it's really not. I still really like the Big Cool Ideas and think that they could be really, really good experiences for you guys as readers and also helpful for me as a writer to, again, just get to know you guys better as readers.
The update on the Big Cool Ideas is just that I'm not going to have another update on them for a couple of weeks, basically.
Because here's the reason why: my novel that I'm working on is right now is with a professional editor. I wrote an email about that a couple of weeks ago that I can also link to make sure that you can see that.
I sent my book to a professional editor, and I'm not going to hear back from the editor for, as of the filming of this video, a couple more weeks. And once I hear back from the editor, then I will need to kind of assess where the book is at and make a plan and figure out how long is it probably realistically going to take me to get this book ready for publication, ready to at least ready to start pitching to agents, ready to take the next step toward publication.
And once I have that, then I will be able to update you about Big Cool Ideas, because I don't want to launch a Big Cool Idea that is going to make it take longer for me to get a book ready to publish, because I think that would be kind of counterproductive.
Because I think what you guys want—you guys are readers. You want a book from me. Like if you're following me for my writing, what you want to see is a book more than you want to see a Big Cool Idea on Substack, I think. If I'm wrong, tell me, but I really want to make sure that getting you that book that you're waiting for is the thing that I am working on first. And then if I also have time to do a Big Cool Idea in addition to that, then I think that would be really fun and really helpful. So that would be great.
And regardless, the Big Cool Ideas are not getting scrapped. At the worst, it might be like next summer instead of this summer that we do something like that. So I don't want you to think that is just going away, but it's possible that it will get delayed. And I just want you guys to know there may be a bit of a longer timeline, because the books are the priority.
The poll is complete. Interestingly enough, we had a tie for the winner, and the third place was not that far behind. I think the voting percentages were like 34% versus 34% versus, you know, whatever adds up to 100% with that. [Editorial note: 32%. I was just scared of saying the wrong number on camera.] So it was very close.
But I do have a Big Cool Idea picked out to do first, based on what you guys voted, based on what you guys commented. So, those plans still exist. We are probably moving forward with those, but only in such a way as complements the goal of actually getting you guys a book that you want to read, and not in a way that detracts from that main goal.
Clear as Mud?
So that's my update. I hope that makes sense. If anything doesn't make sense, let me know in the comments, and I will try to clarify things even more.
Thank you guys for listening to a rather long video that is rather different from anything that I've done before. I would love to hear your thoughts on this new approach!
I'd love to hear any other questions you have about how becoming an author actually works, and I'm looking forward to talking with you guys about all those things. I’ll see you in my next post/video.
Bye!
Share this post