Intuitive Discovery Writing And Serial Fiction With KimBoo York

The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers

How can you lean into intuition and curiosity to embrace discovery writing? How might serial fiction fit into your business model? KimBoo York gives her tips and more in this interview.

In the intro, BookVault now has integration with PayHip; 7 lessons learned from 5 years writing full-time [Sacha Black, Rebel Author Podcast]; My author timeline; List of money books; Crowdfunding for Participation, Profit, and Payment [Self-Publishing Advice]

This podcast is sponsored by Kobo Writing Life, which helps authors self-publish and reach readers in global markets through the Kobo eco-system. You can also subscribe to the Kobo Writing Life podcast for interviews with successful indie authors.

This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn

KimBoo York is the author of romance, fantasy, and nonfiction, as well as a productivity coach, and a podcaster at The Author Alchemist and Around the Writer's Table. Her latest book for authors is By the Seat of Your Pants: Secrets of Discovery Writing.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.

Show Notes

• What is discovery writing and how does it differ from plotting and outlining?
• How trust and intuition guide discovery writing
• Where to begin the discovery writing process
• Adding layers during the writing and editing process
• The “penny drop” moment of discovery writing
• Embracing the process that works for you
• Differences between a serial, a series, and a novel
• Platforms and marketing for different genres of serials
• Building a business model based on ‘you'

You can find KimBoo at HouseofYork.info.

Transcript of Interview with KimBoo York

Joanna: KimBoo York is the author of romance, fantasy and nonfiction, as well as a productivity coach, and a podcaster at The Author Alchemist and Around the Writer's Table. Her latest book for authors is By the Seat of Your Pants: Secrets of Discovery Writing. So welcome, KimBoo.

KimBoo: Thank you so much, Joanna. You know I am thrilled to be here. I'm very excited.

Joanna: Oh, good. So first up—

Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and publishing.

KimBoo: I'm one of those bog standard, ‘I wanted to be a storyteller since I was a kid.' I loved reading as a kid. I loved telling stories. I think I got into fanfiction when I was like 10 years old, which was like after the original Star Wars. We're talking in the 70s, because I'm old, Joanna, so this was a long time ago.

In the modern era, let's say, I got back into writing original fiction, again, through fanfiction. I came into fanfiction during a very rough time of my life, in about 2007/2008. I wrote a lot, and doing that got me back into the habit of writing regularly. I had given up on it throughout the 90s because I just kind of decided nobody was ever going to publish what I wrote. The publishing industry was just too hidebound, didn't want people like me.

Eventually, some friends of mine got published, got their original fiction published, and they were like, you could do it too. So I did eventually get published by a small indie publisher in 2011.

I eventually went totally independent, self-published later. I got the rights back to my books and republished them, and I've kind of just been rolling on ever since.

In early 2023, I really rejuvenized my author career. I realized the way things were going. As you and I talked about before the recording started, serial fiction is a huge growth area right now, and because of my experiences in fanfiction, I love the serial format. So that really just got me back into the game. So that's where I am right now. I'm trying to make it all work, juggling a bunch of plates.

Joanna: Okay, wow. We're gonna come back to the serial side because I definitely want to talk about that.

I do just want to mention the fanfiction. I feel like this is something that doesn't get talked about very much. Given that you did quite a lot of it before writing your own stuff, just remind people what is the legal aspect of fan fiction. In terms of—

Can people publish what they write in fanfiction worlds?

KimBoo: So the straight legal answer is no. You can't make money off of fanfiction. There's a lot of people who are doing gray areas in that, I do not recommend it. Fanfiction is a hobby, fanfiction is a pastime.

There's been some legal contest of it. I'm in the US, so that's where the copyright laws I'm familiar with. It differs by country, as you well know, Joanna. So, no, you can't make money off of fanfiction. It's a hobby.

That said, there's lots of places where you can share your fanfiction. There's Archive of Our Own, quickly known as AO3, which is basically a repository where people can post their fanfiction that they're working on. That is huge. I think that's like the third biggest site in the world right now. It's massive.

So there's a lot of community there, which I think is the most valuable aspect of fanfiction. In fact, I am now working on a book called Out From Fanfiction which chronicles my own journey, and also gives people advice on how to morph from writing fanfiction to original fiction. They're not the same, but fanfiction can be a great learning ground for you if that's your passion.

Joanna: I think that's great and really important to say. It's good for us to remember too, as we create our own original characters. It's like you kind of want to encourage people to love characters enough to write about them, but not to publish books about them.

I'd be really interested in that book when it comes out because I feel like a lot of people get started there. Let's get into the current book on discovery writing. So let's define that.

What is discovery writing? How does it differ from plotting or outlining?

KimBoo: So a lot of times people describe discovery writing as the absence of. Like you are not using an outline, you are not using a summary, you are not planning it out ahead of time.

I find discovery writing, in a more positive description, is that you're leaning into your curiosity. So you're not deciding ahead of time what happens to your character specifically.

You might know that your character's going on a trip. They're a pirate, and they're going to go pirating around the Caribbean.

You don't know specifically like where they're going to go, or how they're going to get there, and what they're going to encounter along the way. You don't know because that excites you as a writer.

So you get into it because you're like, “I want to know what happens next!” So that same rush that a lot of people get when they're reading a story is a foundational aspect of using discovery writing as a technique.

That's one of the things I really push in my book is that discovery writing is a technique. It is a technique you use with outlining, using story beats, without any of those things. It's a technique that you can hone and improve upon over time by practicing it. So that's kind of the short version of what I think discovery writing is and how it can be useful to writers.

Joanna: I love this. I do think your book is fantastic as a discovery writer. Well, as I was saying, I wrote a chapter on this in my How To Write a Novel book, but you've got a whole book on it.

At first, it was funny because I was like, how has she done a whole book on this? As you said, you actually do go through various levels of techniques and all that.

I do want to come back to this positive choice, as in it's not like the thing that's left over if you don't do plotting. I feel like almost that's the same as being an indie author. So many people have this sort of, “oh, I can't get traditionally published, so I will self-publish.”

In the same way, this is like a positive choice for a career, this is a positive choice— Well, although I say that, I often feel like I have tried to plot, but it just is not me. So perhaps—

Is there something more innate about being a discovery writer?

KimBoo: I think there is in some way. Joanna, we both know people who do outlines. Some people do like a one sentence outline for each chapter. Some people have 30-page outline treatments. That's per author, that's how their brain works.

I did work in disability services in higher education for about 10 years. One of the most valuable things I took away from that experience working with people and students in the college environment was everybody's brain works differently.

So I do think that there is a certain level of inclination for people like us, that that is how our brain works. We need that dopamine serotonin rush of curiosity to get us into the story.

I hear a lot of writers, and it was certainly my experience as well, that when they wrote an outline, and it was a great outline for a great story, their brain kind of felt like they could write the story because they had already thought that it was written. Like it was already over, there was nothing left.

I've tried, like you, I've tried using outlines. Every time I do, I either don't write the story at all because I'm just like, well, that's done. Or I try to write it according to the outline, and then I go off script completely because my curiosity takes me in a different direction.

So I think there is a certain level of inclination there. Then again, you know, I have used outlining and reverse outlining. So outlining is a tool that I use, it's a technique that has been helpful for me in writing my books, but I am more inclined to discovery writing.

Joanna: Yes, I agree. It's very interesting. We're all different, but actually, you and I are quite similar it sounds, in terms of our writing.

You mentioned “the rush” before. I was thinking about this —

That moment of synchronicity comes, and you didn't know where it was going to happen, but at some point, the story just makes sense.

I also write out of order, which makes it even more of a discovery process, I guess.

It's like I just don't know how these things are going to connect, but at some point, something happens, and it does connect. You have a whole section on intuition, so how do we trust this process? Like, can we learn more skills? Or do we just have to trust that we're going to make it?

KimBoo: So the answer to that question is yes, because you do have to lean into trusting the process. I think this is the hardest part for all writers, right? It's just sitting down and doing the writing and trusting that words are going to come. That is an important part of it.

I do think that honing that skill is something that you can actively work on in practice. Like as much as I want people to read my book, my book can help you, but it's not going to write your books for you. So that's the catch 22 we are always in.

I know Becca Syme, you've talked to her before. [Check out the interview I did with Becca on intuition here.]

If anybody has not read her book on intuition, I do highly recommend it. Intuition is something that you can build on and improve and create a foundation of understanding that works with your discovery writing instincts to help you write better off the mark.

There's nothing that can't be fixed in editing, as they say.

The more you practice discovery writing consciously as a technique, and the more you build up your intuition by studying your craft, and fixing problems, and talking with other writers, and then getting critiques and editing, the stronger your discovery writing will be.

Somebody like Dean Wesley Smith who's famous for his discovery writing, the pantsing, whatever you want to call it, writing into the dark is what he calls it. He can sit down and write a short story, like front to back, without much editing at all, because he's just been doing it for so long.

So I do think it is a skill you can build up. The bad news is you have to do it by actually writing.

Joanna: Or the good news, because that's the fun of it. You mentioned Dean Wesley Smith, I love Dean. He's been a mentor for me for many years. It's funny, I still disagree with him on editing.

So he kind of says you don't need an editor, you just need like a proofreader. I've “only” written like between 40 and 50 books now, and Dean has written like 400 books over the last four decades. So I feel like they are tools, as you say. Editing is a tool, really, to improve our work.

Let's just go back to the beginning. You and I know what we mean by this, but you talk about practicing it as a technique. So just explain, like someone is staring at the blank page—

How does someone start with discovery writing?

KimBoo: So one of the easiest ways to do it is to ask yourself, “And then what? What next?” It's very improvisational in nature.

So if you know anything about theatre improvisation, the big thing for them is, “Yes, and.” My version of that is, “What next?”

So you're sitting there, you have a character in mind, and they're there at a coffee house, sitting down and drinking tea. You know there's got to be some kind of meet cute or inciting incident. Like you know that, but what is it? What is it going to be?

So you sit there and you think, well, what next? What would be the most dramatic thing that could happen?

Oh, well, maybe a dragon falls through the roof. Or maybe the tea shop gets held up at gunpoint. Or maybe somebody sits down and says, “Here's the secret code that we talked about earlier,” and your character doesn't know what's going on.

So trying to charge up that creativity and lean into it, rather than saying, “Okay, so now this person has to have this. This is what has to happen next.” Just ask yourself, what could happen next? What might happen next? Lean into that, and then write.

Sometimes you're going to end up going back and saying no, that wasn't what happened next, and something else needs to happen. You're not going to know that until you start the writing process.

Lean into the curiosity by asking yourself, what next?

What's most dramatic thing that can happen next? What's the saddest thing that can happen next? What's the happiest, most joyous thing that could happen next? Just kick those gears into motion, I think is the easiest way to go about it.

Joanna: Yes, and this is interesting too, because I feel like our author voice is related quite a lot to our sense of curiosity and who we are.

So you mentioned a dragon falling down from above or whatever. That is never, ever, ever going to happen in one of my books as J.F. Penn because I don't do dragons. What's more likely is the character is going to fall through the floor into a crypt full of bones underneath.

KimBoo: There you go.

Joanna: There you go, and there's an idea. That only kind of came to me through the person in the cafe.

Now I wondered, and I haven't prepped you with this question, but in my head, I see that person in the cafe, and I see them falling into the crypt, and I can see the crypt. Like I could physically describe that for you because I am a very visual person.

How is that for you? I feel like I hear from some people they hear voices, so they hear dialogue. I never, ever, ever hear dialogue. I struggle with dialogue, but I think I'm pretty good at visual description. So talk a bit about that and how—

These choices we make creatively are based on our voice and how our brains work.

KimBoo: That is such a great observation that you made. Like for me, dragon falling through the roof would totally be what happens. Whereas for you, it's they fall down into a crypt.

I would never have that falling into a crypt, like I would never do that. So our experience in what interests us is what comes to the fore when we start leaning into that curiosity.

I do find it interesting because I am very visual, but I'm also audio. When I write, to me, and I know there are some writers out there like this, I'm watching a movie with audio, it's not just the scene.

So I'm very good at dialogue, and sadly, not quite as good as descriptions, which is ironic because I can see it in my head. For me, it's very much watching a scene unfold, and then like being in the movie theater in the dark, and eating popcorn, and seeing what's going to happen next.

I do know that there are some discovery writers who don't have that kind of visual cue. They usually do have, as you said, audio cues. They're listening to something, the characters talking, or they just have an idea that springboards into words on the page.

It's very unique for each author, and I think that forms your author voice and builds upon your intuition.

What you know works for you, and what works for you as a reader, is what will come into play as a discovery writer or somebody who's using discovery writing as a technique.

Joanna: We should acknowledge that some people do not see anything. I've had several people on the show who have no mind's eye, as such. There's nothing wrong with anyone. However you are experiencing the world is up to you.

I think what's fascinating as writers is that what we see is the end product. You would have absolutely no clue how that got from the person's head to the finished product.

It doesn't matter if you're a discovery writer or a plotter, or you dictate, or whatever you do, it literally doesn't matter. It's going to be the same in the future.

The other thing I was going to mention was layering, or Dean Wesley Smith uses circling. I think I kind of circle. So for example, I will circle back and add dialogue.

Even while I'm writing the scene, it will be like, okay, write, write, write, write, write all the stuff I can see, and then oh, yeah, I guess I better go back and put some dialogue in if there's two characters, or some emotion. I definitely have to go back and add emotion. So how do you do this?

How do you add these layers?

KimBoo: So a couple of things I talk about in my book are techniques, or approaches, rather, to discovery writing. There's the recursive style, which is what you're talking about with circling. So you're laying something down, and then you recursively go back, you reread it, you add elements to it as you go along.

Sometimes, for me, I get far enough into a story that when I go back, I realized that something that I put in there earlier actually is very important for this later scene. So my brain is laying down those layers as I go, sometimes without me even knowing it.

There's also the bridging technique, which I think is something you use as well. I don't use it as much because I do write out of order a little bit sometimes, but it's not a mainstay for me as a technique.

You do bridging. You have these out of order scenes, and then you bridge between them. The creativity and the curiosity comes into play for people who use that technique, by wondering how they're going to get from one thing to another.

It may seem like those two points are so disparate that they can never be connected, but you know they can. So you're curious yourself in building and weaving all those images together to create a story.

So a lot depends on what you're comfortable in writing and how you lay down those things. The more experience you get, I think a lot of times your subconscious is more engaged and layering down things for you.

The recursiveness of discovery writing is a feature, not a bug.

That's one thing I try to tell people. It's like going back and reading what you've already read, or going back and adding things to what you've already written, is you building up the foundations to continue with the creativity and the curiosity.

You may even go back and lay down things that you're not really sure you have an answer to yet. That's where the trust comes in.

You've got to be able to trust your intuition and your instincts as a discovery writer to know that, well, either I'll come back and cut that out, or that is something that I will come back to for some reason that I don't even know yet.

Joanna: Yes, that's happened a lot. I think the other thing for me is —

My first self-edit is very important, in that I know that there will be some problems.

That first draft which I print out and I do it by hand, there's often a lot of arrows, or move this to A, or move B to C.

Some of my hand edits

I write out of order, so that actually happens quite a lot. It's like, oh, I need to write another thing here, or why is this here? So there's a lot of moving things around and restructuring.

To me, that's part of my process. Again, it doesn't mean it's wrong. It's just the way I do it. So how do your edits go? Are you cleaner in the edit, like Dean?

How do you do that edit?

KimBoo: I'm a little bit cleaner in the edit, but that's because I'm a heavy recursive writer. So I go back, and I will re-read two chapters behind before I even start writing. So I do a lot of on-the-road editing, in a way. When I finally get to the end, I rarely have to move scenes around.

I would say the two-thirds mark is where I always end up with problems. That's where things start collapsing in on themselves, and I have to do a full edit of everything I've written so far.

So I'm doing a lot of editing as I go, which is funny to me because people like you are like, “This is my third draft.” Then I'm just like, this is my first draft of the book, but it's like the 45th draft of this particular scene.

So as a recursive writer, I do a lot of editing as I go. That's not true for all recursive writers, as you point out, Joanna, everybody's process is valid. That's just how my brain works, I need to have the back end pretty well structured in order for me to keep going forward into the unknown.

Joanna: Yes, and actually, earlier you mentioned reverse outlining, which I also do. I also, like you —

Probably around 50%, I sometimes just lose the plot entirely. At that point, I will reverse outline.

I'll just write the chapters in a few lines as to what the hell's happening.

I do often have to reread the whole thing at around 50%. So I guess in a way, that's almost where you are, but I don't do much, and then I suddenly have to do a bunch of it.

Then the penny drops, and then I know how to move on.

So again, I think that's quite a normal part of the process, isn't it?

KimBoo: It is, and I love the phrase that you use, “the penny drops.” With so many discovery writers I talk to, there always does seem to be that moment somewhere along the process where the penny drops, where it all just comes together.

Joanna: That's the fun bit!

KimBoo: That's the part I love for. I'm like, “Oh, now I get it!” Sometimes it's frustrating because I'm not there yet. I'm like, I know the penny is going drop at some point, darn it, but I'm not there yet.

Joanna: Yes, and I love that you have that too. I call that synchronicity, what Carl Jung calls synchronicity. That is the moment when you realize your intuition has been right all along and that you were going to get there.

Probably that's the biggest lesson for people listening is, I mean, it takes time to trust this. I think it was probably only when Becca wrote that book on intuition that I finally accepted my writing process.

It was probably over a decade of trying to deny my process. How about you?

KimBoo: Same, exactly the same, Joanna. That's one of the reasons I wrote this book. I was talking to a good friend of mine Gina Hogan Edwards, she's a historical fiction writer. We were talking about process and she's very into outlining.

I encouraged her to use discovery writing techniques, and it really opened up her writing in a lot of ways.

I wanted to be able to take away that stigma. I wanted to be able to say, look, this is just another technique. This isn't bad.

You aren't a bad writer. You're not a terrible person for not having an outline at the start, like pre-planning.

It did take me so long, and I felt so broken. I would write these outlines, and then I wouldn't be able to write the story. That's just a terrible feeling. For anybody who's gone through that, I totally get that. It did take me a long time.

Coming back to fanfiction, one of the breakthroughs for me was when I was looking at my fanfiction at some point, this was 2018, 2019, 2020, I don't remember exactly when. But I realized that most of the fiction I wrote, and certainly the most popular stories I've written in fanfiction, were all written by the seat of the pants.

I started realizing maybe this is my technique. Maybe this is how I can get back to writing as a professional author who enjoys my work and enjoys the stories that I'm writing.

It's the penny drop moment. I was just like, oh, I'm already doing this. Maybe I should apply this to my own original fiction and see what happens, so it took a while.

Joanna: As we're talking, I am wondering if the reason plotting is considered so much more acceptable is that when you submit to a publisher or an agent, you generally submit three chapters and an outline of a book. Or if you already have a traditional deal, for the next book, they'll want an outline.

It's so funny, I talked to someone the other day about this, and she was like, “Oh, if you're going to submit, you do this.” I'm like, well, I couldn't do that because I have to finish the book before I can do an outline. So that's just crazy. So I mean, it just struck me as we were talking, what do you think? Do you think that's why it's become so much more acceptable?

The assumption is that you will do an outline.

KimBoo: I think that's part of it, but I would go back further than that. I think that a lot of times when you look at people who are teaching creative writing historically, in the 20th century and throughout those years, discovery writing tends to be the first thing that a lot of new writers do.

They have an idea, they sit down, they write a story. Oftentimes, it's not a very good story. Then they go to try to get education, they try to learn how to do the craft.

So all these teachers and educators are looking at these stories and go, “See, this is a bad technique. You need to outline first, and then you won't have these problems.”

So I think it was like kind of a problem solving method for a lot of creative writing teachers to really hone in technique onto newer writers. Then it just expanded.

Yes, I think the traditional publishing want those outlines because they're hedging their bets. For them, it's a business, they want to know what the full story is before they invest any money in it. So I think it's a lot of these elements at play.

As you were saying earlier with indie publishing and self-publishing, the times have changed. So now we can talk about these different techniques.

We can say that there are ways that a person like you, Joanna, can make a whole career writing a lot of books using this technique and be successful on your own terms, without having to conform to the way someone else wants you to present your work. That's certainly a privilege for us to be living in an era when that's true.

Joanna: I literally have not outlined or plotted any of my books!

KimBoo: That's awesome. I love it.

Joanna: I think it was Rachael Herron I talked to about this. I was having a private conversation, and I was like, “Oh, why can't I just change?” She was like, “Look, you've managed to write all these books. What is even the problem?”

KimBoo: Exactly. That was kind of my thought. Then I'm like, wait, hold on, I've written all these stories just doing it this way. Maybe I can keep doing it that way.

Joanna: Yes, like you're not broken. So I hope that this has really helped people listening. Of course, it might be interesting to people who do plot. There's nothing wrong with that either.

KimBoo: They're okay people too! You can't help yourselves, you just have to outline. We get it.

Joanna: Yes, fair enough.

I do want, while you're here, I'm also interested in your other book for authors which is Become an Unstoppable Storyteller: How to Craft Compelling Serials. Now, I don't read serials, so I don't even try to write serials, but I know many people are interested. So first up, tell us—

What is the difference between a serial, a series, and just a novel?

KimBoo: So the very basic rule of thumb, and I just want to start by saying that these categories are very flexible. You know, these are all modern categories, there's just so many different ways to tell a story. My rule of thumb is that a serial consists of a story with nested story arcs.

Now, you can have a novel series that has nested story arcs, but generally a novel itself has a story arc. It's either the three act structure, the seven act structure, save the cat, or the hero's journey. That is the main structure.

The individual character arcs in a novel will dip and turn, but they all adhere to that one main story structure. With some novel series, or what I would call a legitimate serial, there could be a very long story arc while there's smaller story arcs within it.

Of course, the best example that we can give for this these days is a television show. Like you have something, like Game of Thrones or some long running show, that has big story arcs that go across multiple seasons even. Then you have the smaller story arcs that are the monster of the week, or the dragon or the week, or the killer of the week, whatever that might be.

Those individual story arcs kind of exist not quite independently, but they do exist within the larger story arc and feed into it, but aren't necessarily the same as larger story arcs. So that's a very short and definitely incomplete description of how I would describe serials.

Some serials, for instance, One Piece, which is popular right now because the live action, that's a manga that has over 1000 volumes. These types of stories can go on, and they're just searching for the one piece.

They're searching for thing, that's the whole long story arc. But you have the shorter story arcs that are just absolutely brilliant that rest on that longer story arc.

Joanna: A lot of people hear about the success some people are having on serial platforms. I get this question all the time. Should I just post my chapters on serial platforms, like take my finished novel and just post chapter by chapter on a serial platform?

I generally say no, because most serial chapters are not the same as actual chapters in a book. As you say, you need to keep people reading through. So what do you think about that?

Can you take just any novel and post it on a platform for serial writing?

KimBoo: Absolutely, you can. A lot of romance writers do that, and I use romance writers because they're certainly the biggest ones who are taking advantage of that.

They treat it as a funnel to their books. So when you have a novel, and you're splitting it up, and you're posting the chapters, you're serializing it. It's not a serial, but it is being serialized. If people are comfortable with that, it can be a great way to funnel readers into your book ecosystem, into buying the books.

I would stress:

Know your own business model, know your own comfort zone, and know your readers. Serial readers and book readers don't always overlap.

So you can grab some serial readers with a serialized novel, and they may not buy the book. You may get some people who will look at a serial and go, I'll wait until it's done and buy the book. Then you're going to have some overlap.

I think it's possible, but again, I really caution people to know your own business model, what you're doing. Know your audience, are they people who read serials at all? For instance, like the thriller novel demographic, they're not big on serials.

Joanna: No, not at all.

KimBoo: Not at all. If you are writing like LitRPG, or you're writing romance, some form of romance, yes, you can get a big readership serializing your work. Just be aware of how that feeds into the whole ecosystem that you're building for your business.

Joanna: What are the main platforms for selling serials?

KimBoo: So Ream is a new up and coming one. I'm on Ream. I really like their approach, and I like what they're doing. A lot of people look at it and see there's a lot of romance authors there, but it is for all genres.

For instance, my friend Gina that I mentioned, she's actually serializing her historical fiction novel. It's not romance at all. She's doing that on Ream. So there's a lot of opportunity there on Ream, but there are other platforms.

Some authors are on Patreon, which has its own issues, depending on what you're writing. Some people self-host it, which you can do these days, of course with WordPress, you could do it on Wix, you can do it on Kajabi, you could do it on Squarespace.

There are a lot more options for writers these days to either self-host their own subscriptions or use other platforms to do it. There are a lot of different platforms out there.

I will say this, that these days, platforms like Wattpad, Royal Road, Inkitt, they have their own specific demographics. Like on Royal Road, it's very much fantasy and LitRPG. Wattpad is still heavily romance oriented.

If you're going to be giving away free chapters on those platforms, then look carefully at the demographics. There's so many options these days, and I do go into that in my book Become an Unstoppable Storyteller, different options for posting.

There's still Vella and Radish, which are ways to get money, but it's more like the Kindle Unlimited model. People are subscribing and you're just getting a piece of the pie in that model. So it just depends on what your tolerance level is for how much control you have over your property.

Joanna: Yes,

Definitely read those contracts! And when we say contracts, people, we mean the terms and conditions when you upload a file to a site. That is a contract.

KimBoo: Yes, absolutely yes.

Joanna: There are some difficult ones, let's say. We are recording June 2024, you could go to one of these sites now and it might be fine, and then you upload another book in a month's time and it might be different. So I think it's very important to look at this.

So you mentioned the demographics are different, you write different kinds of books and serials.

How are you marketing serials differently than you are marketing books?

KimBoo: So with books, I'm much more focused on—I'm not running a lot of advertisements right now, but I'm gearing up to do that for the last half of this year. I've been busy for this last year, putting all the pieces in place for my own business model.

So for books, I'm going to be using things like Facebook ads more. For instance, The Queen's Aerie, which is a love triad, fantasy romance novel, I did serialize that. I actually serialized it early access on Ream for paying followers.

I then, much later down the road, put chapters up for free on Wattpad, and Inkitt, and Archive of Our Own. So people can go read the whole book for free.

Then I will be doing advertisements for buying the book itself, and possibly doing a Kickstarter down the road for doing an audio version or a special bound edition for it. So there's a lot of different ways I'm trying to funnel people into my author ecosystem.

I know you've talked to Joe Solari, and he's somebody I really admire. Much bigger brain than I have. One thing I took away from a lot of his lessons is to be aware of all the different ways you could reach out and reach your audience.

So I do have a Substack, The Scriptorium, which is my blog. There I focus less on the fiction and more on the nonfiction, which is something else that I write, because nonfiction people aren't going to be on Ream.

I know that if I want to reach other authors to talk about my books on writing and my craft books, Ream is a bad place for that. I need to be doing it on my Scriptorium blog. There's just a lot of moving parts on something like that, but I think I will be using advertising for my books more than I would be doing for my serials so far.

Serials as a popular format subscription platform, particularly, are still very new. So I think there's still a lot of poking and prodding by authors who are using subscription models on what kind of advertisement actually works well. I haven't seen a lot of success on that yet.

So we're still relying heavily on organic growth, which is not ideal, but we're figuring it out.

Joanna: These are kind of a borrow model, aren't they, with a serial, or they pay a micro payment, or they get it as part of their subscription. So it is kind of difficult to get the return on investment with, say, a Facebook ad. Unless, I guess, it's a really long thing or, like you say, like a book one in a series.

I think it's so interesting, this kind of splintering effect. There's so many platforms for different types of readers and consumers, because you could also do audio serials, audio fiction. So let's just mention podcasting.

You've got two podcasts. How does this fit into your business and your marketing?

KimBoo: So here's the thing that I think when I get back to talking about knowing your own business model. So my business model is not niching down, my business model is not “I write dark romance, and that's all I do.”

My business model is me, as a person. Me as a writer and the voice that I bring to my stories.

I want people to read my stories because I wrote them, not because they're a love triad fantasy with dragon shifters. So for me, it's a lot about personal marketing.

The Author Alchemist Podcast I started a long time ago when I had a completely different business model. I've morphed it a little bit to talk more about mindset, process, and productivity, which is a new tagline for it.

Because I am a productivity coach, I talk to a lot have authors and creatives about what it takes to be productive and what kind of productivity tools you can use. So I'm focusing more on that on The Author Alchemist side.

The Around the Writer's Table, I'll be honest with you, that's a fun gig. That's me with two of my best friends. We all had great conversations around writing and creativity, and so we started that because we just wanted to share what we were talking about. So that's more of a vanity project, really.

I do love what we've talked about. I encourage people to go listen to that because we've covered some fascinating topics. That one doesn't quite fit into my model so much, it's just something that's fun and gets my voice out there. That's kind of how it is.

I really think that, and you've heard me mention this a lot in this conversation about business models, and I know in one of your earlier podcasts you were talking about Spear of Destiny and how you're doing Kickstarter, and then you're also doing preorder.

The preorder, of course, is available later. People who sign up for the Kickstarter are going to get the book earlier. To me, that really represents what we're talking about when we talk about splintering. It sounds like a negative term, but to me, it's like it's reaching readers where they are.

There's some people who aren't going to support your Kickstarter, they're just not. There's some people who love preorders, and so they're going to go and do the preorder. There's some people who just want the audiobook, they're just going to wait for the audiobook.

So you, of course, have multiple different versions of audiobooks and different ways people can access audiobooks.

It's all about reaching people where they are.

So when I look at my business model, which is selling me as an author and my voice, it's less, “Oh, here's a podcast on the side.” It's, “Here's something that people can get to know me.”

In fact, I've started doing a daily short on YouTube called Coffee with KimBoo, where I just talk about what I'm going to be doing that day. It's just to get people to know me as a writer and be interested in me. So that's my business model, and that's not the business model for other people.

Joanna: It's pretty much my business model!

KimBoo: Not everybody, but certainly the two people in this virtual room right now.

Joanna: I think it's interesting, I do feel this is more and more important. You know, I've said many times now to double down on being human, and kind of proving that you are a human.

We're all weird in our way, and some people like us, and some people don't. That's fine.

I was thinking about my use of social media the other day, and I was thinking, you know what, I am using social media now more as a proof that I am human. Posting photos and kind of things like that much more than I used to.

It used to be more about like marketing or whatever. Now it's sort of evidence that I'm human. So I love that Coffee with KimBoo idea. I don't want to do it myself, but I think that's really interesting. For people listening, doing more of that, more about you, I think is a really good idea. So we are out of time.

Where can people find you, and your books, and your podcasts online?

KimBoo: I do have an online hub. I call it a hub, but it's a website. It's HouseofYork.info. So that's House of York, all one word, dot i-n-f-o. You'll have links there to all my books, there's a section on my books. There's a link to all my podcasts, and also my podcast shows. So any interviews I've done are on that page as well.

Also to join my online membership club for writers called 1 Million Words Club. It's on Discord, and it's focused more on productivity and process than craft. So it's a little bit different, but we have a great group of people there. So you can find out all about that at HouseofYork.info.

Joanna: Fantastic. Well, thanks so much for your time, KimBoo. That was great.

KimBoo: It's been wonderful, Joanna. Thank you so much.

The post Intuitive Discovery Writing And Serial Fiction With KimBoo York first appeared on The Creative Penn.