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Overview
Gin is an outdoor enthusiast and loves the hiking in California. She enjoys her Schipperke dog to join her during her excursions and will dictate while hiking.
Gin has written a unique historical time travel book for Young Adults called a Tangle of Time.
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You can find out about Gin on her website https://ginwestcott.com/
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Transcript
Stephen 0:49
Today, I have Jen Westcott. I’m talking her about her young adult time travel historical fiction book called a tangle a time. She loves the outdoors and has used a lot of her hiking time with her dogs to think about the book and dictate the book to write it. She’s got a lot of great lessons. So please welcome Jen. And I hope you try out the book in. If you’re enjoying this podcast, please go leave a review. It’ll help others discover us. So here’s Jim. Great. Well, Jen, thank you. I appreciate you taking some time to talk about your book a little bit about yourself. So first of all, let’s just start with a little bit about you. What you like to do outside of writing some of your hobbies, anything you’d care to share?
Gin 1:40
Okay, um, well, my hobbies, um, I, which is also when I do my writing as well, I I just love hiking, hiking in nature. I’m out there all the time hiking with my dogs, little dogs. That’s my hobby, too. I love my little dogs. What type of dogs do you have? I was Skipper key and then a chihuahua mix.
Stephen 2:11
What the skipper key I’ve not heard of that.
Gin 2:14
Skipper key. It’s a little tail lis black barge dog. And they kind of I never heard of them either. Until I took a quiz on the internet, what’s my perfect dog. And I’m like, Oh, I just because I usually only rescue animals. And, um, but I took a quiz. And that said, your perfect dog is a Skipper key. Because you put in what you like and don’t like about dogs, you know if they bite people or bark too much or, you know, guard or. And so I looked into it, and oh my gosh, it’s a cutest little thing. And there’s Skipper key rescues out there. And they’re these little black dogs have no tails. There are other colors and different countries like Belgium, but they’re real protective. They’re called the little mother. And they and they like my husband and I, they they don’t like when we’re apart. She runs back and forth between the two of us. She wants to make sure we’re always together. It’s adorable.
Stephen 3:21
I also like to get rescue dogs. So in fact, the two we have a couple we have right now are some of the best dogs we’ve ever had. So I agree with that. I wish more people would do that. Yeah, yeah, definitely. So you say you like to hike and write? Does that mean you like do dictation or you record into a microphone or something?
Gin 3:43
Yes, um, I find that’s where my brain is the freest when I’m out there in nature, and I’m hiking. And I have my headphones, my microphone. And then I just start, like, okay, now what happens between this scene and this scene, because I have basically my outline set that I’ve also set when I’m hiking. And then I fill in the scenes and I hold my press record on my phone, and then I just start and I’m just more it’s more natural. That way I get people’s dialogue more realistic and the action and sure I probably throw away like 80% of what I record, but it’s there otherwise I’m not going to remember my ideas. And and then sometimes I reread what I wrote and I’m like hey, that was pretty good. It was so natural because I’m just speaking as the my characters speak to each other bantering back and forth and and the details in Lego and later after I do my editing, and I pieced together and rearrange things cut things out and then I add in the the You know, like, the dialogue tags, the scenes with the details, and you know all that stuff. But my basic creativity is there. Already, I set the groundwork for it.
Stephen 5:14
So do you use Dragon Naturally Speaking to pull it in? Or do you have a service, you upload the files to?
Gin 5:20
No, I? Well, years ago, I did like the dragon thing. And I used to have all these different devices, because in the mountains, it’s really hard to get any. What’s it called to data, it would always cut me off or lose when I record it. But now that just things are so much better, I just go in my email, I just press a little microphone, and I just start recording, and I email it to myself. And that way, it’s not lost. And I can rearrange them easier and better, rather than I just lost so much when I would go into audio programs and record because then they’d, at the time, I don’t know, if they still do this, they get to a limit. And then if I went past the limit, it would just drop everything. Or if I had a bad connection, it was just drop everything that I find when I dictate into my email, it just types up the words right there, and it’s not gonna lose them, because they’re already typed. And so now I kind of just trust that now and it works great for me. There could be better programs out there now. But I’m just happy with that.
Stephen 6:30
Well, I think that’s cool. Because a lot of people have trouble with dictation, myself included. And there’s always debate what program to use. If you’re just using some of the natural abilities you have on your phone. I think that’s great. You know, why spend all the money and time and frustration with a program? You’ve got something that already works?
Gin 6:50
Yeah. And it doesn’t seem to be affected with the data being out in the wilderness somewhere. It just seems to be able to just record no matter where I am, I guess I remember having problems.
Stephen 7:05
So you’ve mentioned the mountains in the wilderness where we’re what area of the country do you live in?
Gin 7:11
I live in Northern California, in the heart of wine country, it’s like, we have this little tiny hamlet of a town and surrounded by trees and and it’s I just love it. It’s beautiful. It’s small, but it’s also the areas kind of big too. It’s a lot of little wine. We love wine. So it’s a perfect place to live. If you love
Stephen 7:38
wine. Yeah, I visited that area, I used to live in San Diego, we took a few trips up through the mountains. And it’s it’s interesting, because you go on these winding roads and come around a corner. And it’s like, suddenly there’s a town, you know, right in front of you. And it was almost discovery, you know, driving around like that it was fun. So you mentioned that you’d like to walk in the woods and the mountains. And that’s inspired you a lot. So tell us a bit about your book that I saw that tangled in time, correct? Well, tangle of time angle of times. I’m sorry. So tell us a bit about that. And, you know, how did it? How did the way you dictate and write? How do you think that affected the book?
Gin 8:27
Um, well, tangle of time is a it’s a mixed genre, it’s it, you can’t really put it in a category really, it’s time travel, but only to the sense that they end up in another time period, rather than it being science fiction where, you know, those the whole paradox and all that, but it’s very historical fiction as well. And these modern day kids, they’re in college, they’re not like high school or anything. So it’s not really a why a book, but these kids, you know, they’re just usual self centered. Kids, they get stuck in, taught that if they get stuck in a tunnel, they get buried alive, and they have to find their way out. And when they come out, they’re in a different time period. And they’re learning about life and what they face back then it’s it’s an 1840. And I carefully pick that time period out because I was looking at timeline of what happened in the world and who, but they, they learn, like the protagonist, she is so because when we come from here, we’re used to you know, women, you know, sure we’re not paid as much or whatever. But also we can speak our mind and we can run our own business and manner. But back then, you know, the husband is in charge of everything. And so our protagonist is not like this and because they meet with people And they have to live with people when they get back in time, so, and then they just all kind of grow as well. And then I’m trying to think of what I can say without giving away the right. Too much. But we, it’s exciting. Because they, oh, oh, yes, the one thing that does happen is they get separated from one of their friends who they have to find. And they can’t go back without this friend. But then they’re, they can’t get back, it’s too difficult, then they have to find a way to get back. Okay, we got to get some money so we can buy tools to figure out how to plow our way back home. And, you know, how do we get back we almost died a bunch of times trying to get out of this tunnel, and and they’re faced with a dilemma.
Do they?
I don’t want to give away.
Stephen 11:04
That’s fine. So yeah, don’t don’t give anything away. Definitely intriguing people, just to find out especially, there’s a lot of people that really like historical time travel adventures. My wife is one of them. She’s been reading some books, right along that same line. So it’s fairly popular thing right now, I think that’s great. Are the settings kind of reminiscent of where you live in California and you walk around? Or is it a completely different setting like the the outdoors and all that? A lot of it’s very outdoors. It’s in the same state. But it takes place in the Sierra foothills, which are, you know, they’re about three hours from me. So it’s a little different. But it’s, it’s, I’ve just spent a lot of time there. And, but I it is easier to write because when I am hiking, I’m in the woods. And I’m like, because they live in this cabin in the woods, and everything is better live off the earth, Smith have learned to do things without electricity without where’s all here, there. And then they’re trying to remember what can we what can we bring to this, this world to make life easier? And then they realize, well, I don’t know how to make that. I know it exists. But we always have like, batteries to make that run. Or it’s like they just don’t know, they’re just typical. Kids, they don’t know how to do anything, really. But they make things. They make things work, and they end up actually benefiting by the knowledge they have. Yeah, I think knowing my kids, I think they would find it very difficult to be transported like 150 years in the past, suddenly, that would be a quick, very stressful thing for them, I’m sure. So why did you want to write this book? Why did you start writing and say to yourself, you know, I’ve got to write this and get it out. I
Gin 13:09
always wanted to write like a time travel. I, the thing is, when I started reading, when I’ve been reading books, I personally have always loved books that I didn’t know, I was learning about something, because the book was so interesting. But I come away from that book, going, Wow, I learned so much about this time period, or this area or this culture. And I thought, I want to do that. The problem I had was I when I graduate high school or college, I was still baffled about so much of the world. And I’m like, God, why didn’t I, you know, pick up a lot of stuff. And I realized, I want to be able to, you know, show those people that have had the same education I have where they didn’t really, you know, they’re taking more art classes and more, you know, something where you’re not really learning about the world as much as you should. So maybe learn about it in your free time when you’re reading and don’t know you’re learning this stuff. And because in my book, you’re we’re dealing with a lot of the native populations of California back in 1840. I mean, this is, and when I would, when I started thinking about this book, and I was reading a lot of books, or listening to them, I do all my books and audio. They, I would come back and I talked to my husband about you know, I have these like this idea. I’m going to do this. And he is one of those people that did have a history background. And his father was professor at Santa Barbara and was a history professor. And so he would go well what about you know, look at all that the genocide of the indigenous populations and he would put these ideas In my head, I’m like, Oh, my God, and I would take these things, and I run with them in my book stuff I’d never thought of. And so he has been a huge help in my, my writing. And and I, I did that answer?
Stephen 15:18
Oh, yeah, definitely. And what you said about learning and not you know, strictly from the school, I had a book I read very similar to that experience, guns of the south by turtledove. It’s about the Civil War. But as if people from the future time travelled with machine guns, and gave them to the south, how it would have changed things. Oh, wow. That’s really yeah, it’s a great book. And I really liked it, because it explored a lot of details about the Civil War. And I learned a lot about the Civil War, that I really never understood from school, apart from the whole issue with slavery, and some of the things and I, you know, I understand it was a fictional book and some of the thoughts and words that people said were fictionalized, not exactly what they said. But it explored the different issues. So I think, for your type of book, the historical time travel, especially with the younger kids, I think that you’re right, they enjoy that they like to get into that type of thing.
Gin 16:25
My, my niece was one of my first beta readers, the poor girl, because this book was kind of going over a bit all over the place. And she’s she said to me, I go, do you think there’s too much history in there? Because I did, I cut out like half of it half the history. She knows, I liked it my age, because she was in her mid 20s. My age, I forgot so much of it. since high school, I didn’t learn it. I’m thrilled to learn this stuff. Now, when I’m more interested in the world rather than just myself. Oh, that’s,
Stephen 16:57
that’s pretty good to get someone to say something like that. And I liked the fact that your husband jumped in and was helping and suggesting things. Now, you just said that you cut some things out. And I find that interesting, too. Because a lot of new authors have a problem with, you know, I did you know, all this research, I’ve got a whole notebook of research, and I want to dump it all into here. And that’s what ends up killing their story, because they’re just trying to dump so much information. But you actually cut some of it out. Why did you choose to do that?
Gin 17:33
Well, a lot of two reasons. One is because I was constantly, constantly reading a lot of books about how to write a good book. And a lot of them say, the problem is, you learn so much stuff, and you tend to over, you want to tell it all, and that can ruin a good book. And then in and then I had, I went to through this company called intro to publishing and they have awesome beta readers. And I went through so many beta readers, and a lot of them were quite sounds like a history teacher, or is that so I was getting a lot of flack for too many historic details. So it was painful, but I had it because a lot of it was written and it worked into my story, I had to really cut a lot of stuff out to where it just had just enough. And then finally, the beta readers are going, Yeah, what would you cut out, nothing is perfect. And I kept getting back with nothing’s Perfect, perfect length, even though it’s a little long for a book. It’s for a young, like a new adult type of length. It but they’re all saying everything fits in the story, you you can’t cut anything out anymore. And so that’s when I finally stopped chopping.
Stephen 18:56
Well, that’s really good. Because I know it’s difficult to find people to want to read your whole book and to give you good feedback like that. It becomes the they read it and go, Oh, yeah, it was good. I liked it. You know, that’s not really helpful. So I think that’s great that you found some people willing to do that and give you that feedback. So the things you cut out, are you possibly going to use them for a sequel or in another book? Or do you have plans for a sequel or some Simone?
Gin 19:30
There are, there’s a total it’s all been written that I’ve written, well, that hasn’t all been written. There’s four books, I’m trying to cram it into three, but there’s, there’s different there’s a sequel and then another one and then the finish. And it’s, it’s kind of kind of all in outline form. So I have to plant the In the first book, I had to write a lot of the outlines of my further sequels because I had to plant things in the earlier books to make sure they’re there for when they find them in the in the other sequels. And
Stephen 20:19
so, the stuff you cut out, you’re already putting Oh, yeah. other books. I got off my mic. No, that’s great. I love to hear that.
Gin 20:29
Yeah, I a lot of the stuff I cut out, you know, I save I use Scrivener. And so I have a way of organizing all those. And I can pull from there. And no, I’ll say, you know, facts about plants, or, you know, facts about these, this the nissinen native population there. That is too much if I add it in, but I could add it in another book coming up. So a lot of those I can use and the other ones, I’m just like, Well, yeah, they didn’t, I was just kind of sharing too much of what I was excited about learning about this history. And I was just so excited. I wanted everyone to learn about it. But it could be boring for other people that aren’t, they’ll just want to have the action continue. So you kind of just have to slide things in and give them a little taste of stuff without overloading them on a whole history thing, and then it gets boring people.
Stephen 21:27
Did you think I thought about this for some of my books, but adding in a section at the end, like an appendix, where you talk about some of the other research you’ve done or things like that, or even maybe a companion guide to the world and the story that you could offer as a free reader magnet or something like that? Did you consider anything like that?
Gin 21:50
I did. And yeah, I wish I kept better notes of everything I I read and got history and ideas from you know, sometimes I’d visit places and speak to the people that have museums and or it’s the internet, I read a lot of books, I just, it just got kind of overwhelming trying to keep track of it. But I had one of my beta readers was actually is actually this Native American woman from the aloni tribe. And she, I found her by just renting her Airbnb and we started talking, I’m like, She’s like, yeah, we’ve, you know, we are our tribe are the aloni people that choose somebody, they didn’t get wiped out, because they were up in the mountains, and they just got to stay their tribe and, and we learned a lot about her people and their whole way of life. And so then after, like, six months later, right, I wrote her an email and I say, Hey, would you be to read my book? And so, and I barely paid her anything and she was happy. But she besides being this excellent editor, she was like, Well, you know, this wouldn’t happen before the meal or after the meal. You do this before the meal this certain praying and thinking and, and she was just so helpful on the native populations. And even though she didn’t know specifically, I mean, her tribe is from the coast in my tribe is more toward the Sierras. But she suggested in the back of the book putting a she does, I’d be happy to write you a you know, if you want more information, check out these these Nice, nice, yeah, and I just, I was thinking I would do that on the second book. Because I was just trying to hustle and get the first one out there. Because it took so long to do and I just wanted to get going on the second one. So I have to try to get a hold of her again and see if she’s still willing to do that. And then I have to go through and try to remember where I collected all my facts from the news.
Stephen 23:58
I think that’s great. Because I know when I was in scouts, we tried to learn a bit about Native American history and some of the ceremonies and various things. And I’ve always wanted to learn more. So I think if there’s a good book, that’s not just a dry textbook that people would like to read, I think that’s great. And you did the research you did the everything you needed to learn not just made it up. I think that’s wonderful.
Gin 24:28
Oh my god, there’s so much research. I think that’s what takes so long in my book is I start writing something I’m like, Wait a second. Did they have this back then? And I have to go research every little tiny thing. Like Did they say Did they sing songs like was that song written yet? Did they use that phrase yet?
Stephen 24:47
Did they? and constant researching and verifying all my facts is just so long? I’ve heard that from other people that they get so caught up in the research Want to do so much research that the book doesn’t get written at all?
Gin 25:04
Yeah, yeah. So it takes a while. And you know, I work. So, I mean, I can’t do this as a living right now. Because, you know, I don’t know how much money you can make off writing a book of love, but so I have to find time, where I, I, like on the weekends, and and so it’s like when everyone’s like, where do you find time to write? I’m like, Well, I, my poor husband, I have to abandon him a lot. And my children are grown. So you know, they don’t mind me. Not paying attention to them. But you know, you have to balance your life with. And that’s why I found, okay, I’ll exercise I’ll do my workout while I write. And then I got that’s two birds with that stone. And then so,
Stephen 25:48
right, yep. And I’ve run into the same thing, especially when you had several kids in high school, middle school, and then one in college that didn’t drive. So every day I was driving and driving and driving, and I’m like, Oh, my gosh, what am I doing with two and a half hours every day just sitting in my car? So I’d love to learn to dictate like you do and do it? Well, it doesn’t flow from me, though. Oh, it’s difficult. So it’s one of those things, I guess, maybe I just need to stop everyone.
Gin 26:22
I guess, well, I’m a creative person. I’m a graphic designer and that voice actress and I just, I a lot of this stuff is just, that’s just probably the way my brain works. I didn’t I never thought that not everyone could do that.
Stephen 26:37
I have, personally I find it difficult, I start stumbling more. And then my brain kind of locks up and I can’t figure out where it’s coming from. But I do computer developments on the keyboard all the time. So when I sit down at the keyboard, I actually can type or not quite as fast as my brain things, but fairly fast, and it keeps up and I get it out and things get done. And I can, you know, look up and say, Oh, look, I’ve got 1000 words already. So I find that interesting.
Gin 27:08
opposite of me see, I just something comes up and says, oh, there’s a squirrel that ran by outside
God.
Stephen 27:19
But that’s what’s great, because we have all these tools we can use and find what works for us. I mean, I know some people still that will grab a yellow legal pad and a pencil. And I cannot write anything down like that. I can’t even read what I write most of the time.
Gin 27:34
Oh, yeah. Well, I thought my biggest my biggest fine last year were my bosi. How do you pronounce that? bozi headphones. No, just block the world out. And like my husband be in the other room playing sports on the TV really loud. I just put on my headphones. I can’t hear a thing. And it just saved me. And instead of going please do.
Stephen 27:57
Right? Yeah, well, yeah, I have the same problem. Because our house is very busy with six kids with various schedules. So we’re always playing around when I can. I like to find time in the mornings when everyone’s still sleeping. Yeah. So Jen, um, what? What are some things that if you went back and started over again, what are some things you learn that you do different?
Gin 28:25
I wouldn’t, I would have made my outline more solid. Because I spent a whole summer writing something I cut out. And like, I spent a whole summer writing that and then I end up going, you know, what, if my books too long, and I just, I, I just cut, cut that whole time of that precious time. I don’t have, it’s all kind of so that’s it. Instead, I would do what I’m doing now that I’m writing Book Two right now. And I’m trying to follow my what I’ve learned, which is, I’m not filling in the artwork, like the painting the landscape, or the emotions and putting, you know, just velvety words to everything. I’m just writing the action. He said, she said, you know, and just having that, you know, and, and then I’m going to go through and polish it. Once I have the solid story down and it’s locked in. Then I’ll spend more time massaging everything and and i would I’ll get this book done a lot faster than the first one.
Stephen 29:31
I like that. And I’ve been wanting to follow up with people six months a year down the road. So when we talk again, I definitely want to ask you about that and see if you think that that method of writing help because I’ve heard a few other people lately saying the same thing that they write a first draft, and it’s just the speaking and basic action and then they go back and fill it all in later but they get the whole book written. Just the very basics. I’m interested To find out more of what how people think about that.
Gin 30:02
Well, I’m glad to hear that because I didn’t know what I was doing was correct. But I’m glad to hear other people finding that as well.
Stephen 30:09
Yeah. And do you think with this second book that you’re outlining, even though you outline and rip some parts out, do you think you learn from that and that your outlining is better this time. So the second book will be easier to write both with the outlining just because you’ve already done all that and learned.
Gin 30:29
Yes, but it’s also easier to write because as I was running book one, I was writing book two, three and four as well. But they’re not organized. You know, there’s, I just throw them in a folder and they’re all at a placemat that goes through read in Scrivener, you get these little post it notes, you can re rearrange your whole outline really easy just by moving like you’re on a bulletin board moving things around. Yes. scuttle big learning curve, though that program, but it’s invaluable once you learn the basics.
Stephen 31:00
Yeah, a lot of people said all the time learning curves and stuff. And this is another thing, maybe it’s just because of the way my brain works. But I thought it was intuitive and simple to use, right from the start. I didn’t have any trouble and just started doing everything. So computer guy. Yeah. So I do like Scrivener for what you just said about rearranging things, I just wish the cork board that you could do things like you can’t hit enter B and get a new line you can’t put in like lists and things because it it jumps out of the one you’re at. So everything’s just a big long stream with commas. So I wish it did that.
Gin 31:42
Oh, I don’t, I don’t have that I use that. Set one thing called Word oops, another window and another window. And you can just have all these little windows in front and type a little bit. Oh, I haven’t run into that problem yet. I wish I had a huge monitor though. That way I can have this giant cork board or bulletin board. That’s the problem I have, I have to have the type so small, I can’t see it in order to have a lot of little post it notes or little folders in one place and rearrange them that it’s like, God, I just want a bigger
Stephen 32:15
screen, you work off of a laptop?
Gin 32:18
Well, I do because I refuse to work in my office. Oh, so that’s just my workplace. And when I write, I have to separate the two kind of basic careers. And when I write I only work on my laptop, because in my office, I can’t. It’s like my other job. It’s so and also I work I sit out by the pool and I you know, sit in the lounge chair and I with my laptop, I can go anywhere with it. And so that’s just, you know, so I am limiting myself on my little laptop screen.
Stephen 32:50
Oh, well, that’s nice. I’m I know a lot of people do stuff like that, where they, like turn off the internet or things to limit themselves. So how are you marketing it? And how’s things been going with the book? Is it been received as well as you thought? Anything you’ve learned from there?
Gin 33:12
That’s a hard question. Because part of me, um, I wasn’t planning on really marketing it and much until I got my second book written. So it would funnel you know, it’s better to have, I thought so people could buy the second one right after they read the first several one once your second. And then when I post it, then I someone got my book and left this real stupid review that was almost like they didn’t read my book. And I’m like, Is this why? So then I hit up all my friends and they were gonna leave a good review because some person left a stupid review. And I was like, so horrified by that. And because my book hadn’t really been the audio wasn’t in the audio book hadn’t even been recorded yet. And I wasn’t going to promote it until that and so and but Amazon limits people and I don’t know how they find out anytime. But I know someone. It’s almost like they went on my Facebook and saw my friends or something or, but nobody could post reviews. If I knew them. Somehow they knew I knew them. And so my friends God can’t post a review. I can’t post and then they limit they only let so many people post a review a day. And so I was a lot of people just didn’t get read their reviews posted so and with. So then I hired people to these promotion services. And the problem is, you know, everything just costs money and you don’t really want to Yeah, you can’t really spend a lot of money because you’re not going to make it back unless your book is a big seller. Yeah,
Stephen 34:57
and I know that Amazon actually does Check and crack down on reviews. If you know somebody, they seem to get those reviews ripped out pretty quickly, actually. So that is a problem. You know, it’s a chicken in the egg. You can sell some books if you have reviews, but you can’t get reviews because nobody’s buying your book. Yeah,
Gin 35:19
yeah. So I mean, I like the people. And the people really read them. And it’s their opinion, but if they know me, they don’t let them I guess they’ll know they’re not going to mash it and put a one star or something. But I’ve been really happy with the views I got except for a couple of real weird reviews.
Stephen 35:38
Well, if it makes you feel a better, I pulled your book up on Amazon. And I’m looking at it and this deny me not that gave you the three star review. It looks like every book that this person reviews, they give three, maybe four stars to it. So Oh, yeah. So they love to read, but obviously don’t like anything they do read.
Gin 36:01
Yeah, the one the one person said, though, this is a weird book, because they they had weird parents. And I’m like, Well, that was the point. Their parents are quirky and odd. Because I don’t know, I like odd and quirky things. And so that’s why they didn’t like it a lot. Some people are saying, oh, there, there was some gross parts. I’m like, Well, yeah, there’s got to be gross parts. And there’s got to be violence is there’s some violence, and there’s some horrible scenes, but there’s also some good things. And my book is fairly clean. There’s no like big sex scenes or anything. But some people complain because there was too much sex. And I’m like, snacks. And so it was those are like, I don’t know, I guess you can never please everyone.
Stephen 36:53
Yeah, I got a friend that writes military sci fi. And the cover shows a spaceship, shooting another spaceship with them, one of them exploding in outer space. And it’s called, you know, something like Star or something or other. And somebody left a one star review, because they said didn’t have enough romance. Okay, so yeah, don’t feel too bad. You know, the advice I’ve been hearing remember by is don’t worry about the bad reviews and move on and work on your next book. And you’re right. Writing the next book will help the first book move much better. So yeah, and then I’ll really
Gin 37:34
get going on the marketing and stuff. And I found Twitter’s, like, so useless with everyone’s like, No, you got to have a good platform, you got to get all that. Like, it doesn’t help me at all?
Stephen 37:47
Well, and that’s the other thing. If you’ve got a new adult book, or a young adult type book, then going to the social media that they go to, would probably be the best bet, which I’m not even sure what that is. You know, Facebook is for middle age people now. Not kids. Um, you know, I write middle grade fiction. So I’m not even sure where those kids hang outs. It’s something I guess we’ll have to figure out and talk about next time. See if we’ve nailed our audience’s social media habits.
Gin 38:26
Yes, they’ll be new ones. And with all this stuff going on hitting this platform hitting that social media thing? Who will who will survive and what new ones will come out?
Stephen 38:39
Right. And we’ll see. And I think it’s a great time to write a book because people are home, they want something to do. And eventually people really do get tired of staring at screens. So I think Yeah, they’re gonna want more books. So Jen, before we finish up here, tell us a bit about where to find you where the books available. And any other social media that you are on?
Gin 39:03
Well, um, you can find my book on of course, Amazon, and it’s Yeah, it’s kind of everywhere. Barnes and Noble, Nook, coke or whatever. It’s on chirp and bookbub. And let’s see on the on the audio is fairly inexpensive on you know, it’s cheap. And I think it’s audible is taking their time putting my book on their site, I guess they take like, six weeks or something, but it’s out on chirp and I
Stephen 39:38
heard they’ve been running way behind lately.
Gin 39:41
Yeah. And I mean, it took a while to to get it recorded because of the pandemic and but I had this I had this really great narrator she was able to because one of my characters is a Scandinavian man or his Norwegian and he’s graph and she was she pulled They’re off really good. So I’m really happy the way it turned out. Because I’m an audio book listener, I mean, who has time to read book with your eyes, I mean, I just don’t have time. And so I have to, like, when I’m not writing, hiking, I am listening. And which is, you know, half the time. And, you know, I’m like, Oh, I need to know more about, you know, this, this native group. And so I buy an audio book, and I listened about to it and it’s, or I need to learn how to write better and I, you know, I just listened to constant audiobooks. So that’s why audio was very important to me. And so I’m, my website is Jin Westcott that calm, and it’s w e, s, t, c. o TT. And that’s my website and has all the links, all the active links, where you can purchase it, there’s a bunch of them time, tons of places, and then we publish it to this company called biscuit Tuesday press. My husband, I opened our own publishing company. So because he’s going to be writing a bunch of books as well. So we’re like, hey, let’s just open our own publishing company.
Stephen 41:21
And there’s something more for us to talk about next time. I didn’t even realize that. Okay, well, okay. I appreciate it. I think your book looks great. It’s something even though you may have a little sex and stuff in it, I think it’s something that the newest, newest teenager in my house may enjoy. So May, let’s get it and see if he like does like it. So I appreciate you taking the time to talk with me today. It’s been really great learning about you and your book. I do hope that we can get together sometime in the future and talk about your publishing in your second book.
Gin 42:00
Great. I would like that. Thank you so much.
Stephen 42:02
And I hope you have a great rest of your summer and a great day. I really would love to come out hiking with you sometime out in California and I’ve done that so long. So Alright, Jim. It’s been great talking to you.